This essay describes Amos Oz’s encounter in the desert with a Bedouin woman in his Tale of Love and Darkness (2004). The encounter transforms the politics of the land by reminding readers that a Jewish home is also homelessness and the desert is a nomadic space that represents both home and exile. The desert allows Oz to transform a Joshua-like conquest story to a place where Levinas’ responsib...

Plato’s attitude toward the poets and poetry has always been a fl ashpoint of debate, controversy and notoriety, but most scholars have failed to see their central role in the ideal cities of the Republic and the Laws, that is, Callipolis and Magnesia. In this paper, I argue that in neither dialogue does Plato “exile” the poets, but, instead, believes they must, like all citizens, KRITERION, Be...

This article describes an emergent logic of accumulation in the networked sphere, ‘surveillance capitalism,’ and considers its implications for ‘information civilization.’ The institutionalizing practices and operational assumptions of Google Inc. are the primary lens for this analysis as they are rendered in two recent articles authored by Google Chief Economist Hal Varian. Varian asserts four...