This running account of the fighting shows the complex circumstances that surrounded the Warsaw Uprising and its tragic finale. The author recounts the frontline atmosphere, the fighting frequently taking place between two floors—even two rooms—of one house, the scant living space and the terrible air-raids on hospitals and clinics. A look back at sixty-three days in which superhuman courage and sacrifice walked hand in hand with fear and dejection.

The introductory chapter, entitled 'The Subject, Method and Scope of this Enquiry,' details how anthropology is to be pursued as a science and advocates the method of participant observation.

In this article I argue that an adequate response to climate change requires an overcoming of the metaphysics of presence that is structuring our relationship with the weather. I trace the links between this metaphysics and the dominant way that the topic of climate change is being narrated, which is structured around the transition from diagnosis to cure, from the scientific reading to the technological writing of the weather. Against this narrative I develop a rather different account of the current (...) ecopolitical moment. I first argue that an understanding of anthropogenic climate change must be grounded in a biosemiotic analysis of the evolving metabolism between society and nature, one that is alert to the way that metabolism involves a folded relation between inside and outside, and that recognizes the constant deferral of biosemiotic meaning in ecological systems. I then use a deconstructive reading of climate technics to problematize the distinction between the diagnosis and solution of climate change, and expose modern scientific practices of reading the climate as already containing within themselves a notion of weather’s technological writability. Exploring the notion that previous transformations of the metabolic regime of society have always involved transformations of notions of the human, I conclude by sketching out a different way of reading and writing the weather, one that takes place in the ‘opening’ of climate change, that problematizes the idea of the human as the end of nature, and that thereby implies a more radical version of climate responsibility. (shrink)

In this article the author argues that we need not just to ‘decolonize’ the Anthropocene but also to ‘desecularize’ it – to be aware that in the new age of the Earth we may be coeval with gods and spirits. Drawing particularly on the work of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and Georges Bataille, and using concepts from both thermodynamics and fluid dynamics, the author starts to develop an interdisciplinary theory of planetary spirit and use this to speak of both the (...) ‘laminar’ high gods of time that are being invoked to summon the story of Earth’s ongoing transformation into a canonical mythos, and the turbulent lower spirits of place which manifest particular, situated dynamics on an Earth crossed by interlocking gradients and flows of energy, value, power and entropy. He suggests that what might once have been distinct territorialized ‘cultures’ or ‘natures’ in which humans engaged in particular situated patterns of interaction with animals, spirits and other beings are increasingly being convened into a global multinatural system. (shrink)

In the Parthenon frieze, the time of mortals and the time of gods seem to merge. Dipesh Chakrabarty has argued that with the advent of the Anthropocene the times of human history and of the Earth are similarly coming together. Are humans entering the ‘monumental time’ of the Earth, to stand alongside the Olympian gods of the other geological forces? This article first looks at the cultural shifts leading to the modern idea of separate human and Earth histories. It examines (...) the changing use of monuments to mediate between human and other temporalities. It explores the use of ‘stratigraphic sections’ as natural monuments to mark transitions between the major time units of Earth history, and the erection of intentional monuments nearby. It suggests that the Anthropocene, as a geological epoch-in-the-making, may challenge the whole system of monumental semiotics used to stabilize our way of thinking about deep time. (shrink)

Contemporary tensions between science and religion cannot simply be seen as a manifestation of an eternal tension between reason and revelation. Instead, the modern secular, including science and technology, needs to be seen as a distinctive historical phenomenon, produced and still radically conditioned by the religious history of the West. Clashes between religion and science thus ought to be seen fundamentally as part of a dialogue that is internal to Western religious history. While largely agreeing with Caiazza's account of the (...) “magical” understanding of technology, I suggest that this needs to be seen as part of a more fundamental drift in religion and culture away from canonical meanings to more “indexical,” pragmatic ones—but also that technology is still inflected by soteriological meanings that were coded into modern technology at its very inception in the early modern period. I conclude by arguing that a recognition of science and technology's grounding in Western religious history can make possible a more fundamental encounter with religion. (shrink)

Phenomenology of management seeks to grasp the essence of manager's work – its core is the analysis of leadership. Phenomenology of leadership is an approach that makes the idea “to be someone – to do something” becomes the guiding principle of of management. Max Scheler’s “moral flight” phenomenology is one of the most important inspiration in the analysis of leadership. His anthropology reveals that being a man is in fact a continuing task that is impossible to take, and the result (...) depends on the man himself. Scheler’s phenomenology is a good way to discover the essence of leadership (eidos) in the process of culture change. This article presents a case study: Ricardo Semler’s inner transformation, who might overcome the technocratic attitude and make the “moral flight”. The main inspiration for him was a metaphor “builder of cathedrals”. As a result of his own inner transformation has become a “builder of cathedrals”, such as a leader, who serves – it was a condition for conversion of others in the “cathedral builders”. As a result of the Semler's “moral flight” their company was transformed in “cathedral builders” guild – community of work. (shrink)