Kaufman-Osborn has offered a lively and provocative reading of pragmatism in light of everyday example and ordinary life, bringing philosophy to bear on questions of the body, sex, sexual difference, and some of the more urgent matters in modernity. His is a wonderfully readable book, witty, astute, insightful, and erudite. -- Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot Professor of Comparative Literature and Critical Theory, University of California, Berkeley
An unsettling and original book, one that thoroughly reorients the reader's relationship to artifacts by confronting the Descartes in each of us...The book is important and readable, and it should find its way onto the shelves of anyone concerned with technology and human agency, sexual difference, poststructural and postmodern theory. -- Barbara Cruikshank * The Journal of Politics *
Kaufman-Osborn has managed to take postmodernism to another turn, making it turn back upon itself by showing it to be itself its own discursive (artifactual) creation. -- Curtis Johnson, Lewis and Clark College
Offers a stimulating and persuasive reorientation to entrenched patterns of thinking and feeling about agents and artifacts. This is an exciting and timely new work of major significance for political theory, feminist theory, and ecological theory. -- Christine Di Stefano, University of Washington, Seattle
. . . a varied and enjoyable collection. . . . For anyone who is unfamiliar with the theory and practice of the environmental justice movement, this collection offers a stimulating introduction to the territory. -- Graham Smith, University of Strathclyde * Environmental Politics *
Tim Kaufman-Osborn has shown that political theory, from ancient to contemporary, is an exciting and relevant approach to questions about gender and technology. The book will be important for feminist and queer theorists hoping to be conversant with what is likely to be a key set of issues in the 21st century. -- Judith Grant, University of Southern California
Kaufman-Osborn constantly shows the reader how well-read he is in his book. He explores human relations to artisanal facts (and vice versa) throughout literature, philosophy, history of technology, and gender. -- W. K. Bauchspies, associate professor, sociology of science, Georgia Institute of Technology * CHOICE *
A richly textured work that engages thoughtfully with texts fromThe Iliad toFrankenstein, to the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. The book's critical responses to recent debates in the body, agency, and experience are important contribution to feminist theory. * Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy *
