The Parasite

by Michel Serres

Overview

Influential philosopher Michel Serres’s foundational work uses fable to explore how human relations are identical to that of the parasite to the host body. Among Serres’s arguments is that by being pests, minor groups can become major players in public dialogue—creating diversity and complexity vital to human life and thought.

Michel Serres is professor in history of science at the Sorbonne, professor of Romance languages at Stanford University, and author of several books, including Genesis.

Lawrence R. Schehr is professor of French at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Cary Wolfe is Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Professor of English at Rice University. His books include Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal (Minnesota, 2003).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780816648818
Publisher:	University of Minnesota Press
Publication date:	05/25/2007
Series:	Posthumanities , #1
Edition description:	First edition
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	877,681
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

Table of Contents

Translator's Preface     vii
Translator's Introduction     ix
Introduction to the New Edition Bring the Noise: The Parasite and the Multiple Genealogies of Posthumanism   Cary Wolfe     xi
Interrupted Meals
Logics
Rats' Meals
Cascades     3
Satyrs' Meals
Host/Guest     15
Diminishing Returns
The Obscure and the Confused     17
Decisions, Indecisions
The Excluded Third, Included     22
The Lion's Share
The Simple Arrow     26
Athlete's Meals
Difference and the Construction of the Real     28
Picaresques and Cybernetics
The New Balance     34
Pentecost     40
More Interrupted Meals
Technique, Work
Rats' Dinner
Diode, Triode     51
Logic of the Fuzzy     56
The Master and the Counter-Master     58
More Rats' Meals
Machines and Engines     61
The Means, the Milieu     66
Spaces of Transformation     71
Lunar Meals     74
Meals of the Lord in Paradise     77
Work     86
Insects' Meals     91
Energy, Information     94
The Gods, the Perpetual Host     98
Interlude Full-Length Portrait of theParasite
Confessed Meals     103
Jean-Jacques, Lawmaker's Judge     116
Noises     121
Music     129
Fat Cows and Lean Cows
Economy
Salad Meals
Stercoral Origin of Property Rights     139
Meals of Satire
Exchange of Money, the Exact and the Fuzzy     147
Meals among Brothers
Theory of the Joker     155
Meals of Chestnuts
The Sun and the Sign     165
The Cows Come out of the River
Stocks     175
Cows Eat Cows
Theory of the Line     182
The Best Definition     190
Of Sickness in General     197
Midnight Suppers
Society
Impostors' Meals
Analyze, Paralyze, Catalyze     201
The Proper Name of the Host
Masters and Slaves     209
Theory of the Quasi-Object 224
The Empty Table
On Love     235
The Devil
On Love     246
The Worst Definition     252
Stories, Animals     255