The pandemic has brought into sharp relief the fundamental relationship between institution and human life: at the very moment when the virus was threatening to destroy life, human beings called upon institutions – on governments, on health systems, on new norms of behavior – to combat the virus and preserve life. Drawing on this and other examples, Roberto Esposito argues that institutions and human life are not opposed to one another but rather two sides of a single figure that, together, delineate the vital character of institutions and the instituting power of life. What else is life, after all, if not a continuous institution, a capacity for self-regeneration along new and unexplored paths? No human life is reducible to pure survival, to “bare life.” There is always a point at which life reaches out beyond primary needs, entering into the realm of desires and choices, passions and projects, and at that point human life becomes instituted: it becomes part of the web of relations that constitute social, political, and cultural life.

This Book tells an exciting, and intriguing story of my training, experiences, and relationships, as a U S Army Ranger in the Vietnam War during 1969 to 1971 while performing recon-missions Behind Enemy Lines. The story takes you on a journey from the physical war in Vietnam to the spiritual warfare that goes on daily for your soul. The spiritual uplifting message within its pages ignites your faith into a blazing fire. You come alive. To survive in Vietnam and come home alive required elite training, strong belief in our training, mental and physical repetition of the training, and real true relationships. If we got distracted, failed to pay attention, disobeyed, ignored, or forgot what we were there to do; our percentage of surviving was greatly reduce. There were many things to distract us. Our minds and bodies got hooked up to drugs, alcohol, sex, and the thrill of living on the edge. These are but a few of the distractions available to us, before we even went on a mission to face what our enemies had for us, or the snakes, diseases, and animals of the jungle. This book tells a very interesting and intriguing story of my experiences and relationships performing reconnaissance missions Behind Enemy Lines in the mountainous jungle region of South Vietnam and near the Cambodian border. When I arrived, in Vietnam the first thing I needed to do was de-program myself of most of the training I had received from the Army while being trained in the Sates, prior to arriving in Vietnam. For example; I had been taught to always ambush from the high ground; that high ground determined the actual site selection for an ambush. It sounded good and worked in World War II and Korea, but this was guerilla warfare. My mentor, Tad taught us first to monitor a trail by observing how the enemy was traveling on the trail and when we had determined the direction of travel, then always set our ambush on the right hand side of the trail according to the enemy's route of March, regardless of the height of the terrain. The reason is that most people, over 90 %, are right handed and the enemy's weapons would be pointed away from you as you set off the ambush. After a few hours, any soldier running missions in the hot jungles of Southeast Asia would have their attention span, focus, alertness, and weapons positions drop off measurably, especially while they traveled through what they perceived as their own safe territory. When you ambush to the right of the trail, five Rangers would fire a full 20 round magazine from an M-16 rifle in 2.3 seconds. That's 100 bullets into a kill zone while the enemy freezes up for a second in shock from all the firing. Once they realize what is happening, they fall to the ground turning their weapons from the left to the right and try to locate where the firing is coming from. That just took 2.8 seconds and our hands are on the detonators of five claymore mines. Each mine has hundreds of shrapnel like bee bees packed into them and about a pound of C-4 explosive. The enemy's rifle hasn't even gotten to their shoulder yet to fire before we detonate the claymore mines, if needed, and the enemy; well that's why it's called an ambush. The sixth person, a Ranger radio operator, was behind us guarding our back with the radio and already our choppers and support were coming. This story takes you from physical warfare to Spiritual warfare in such a way that your faith will be renewed. My prayer is that it sheds light on the battle between good (God) and evil (Satan) that goes on daily for our souls. Sit back and enjoy this short, powerful story. This books mission is; when you reach the end of this book you will have an understanding of why Jesus did what He did and why you need a relationship with Him. He loves you and wants to have a relationship with you, one that will change you from who you are, to a brand new person. You are the Soul, purpose of this book. Author Danny Clifford

Around the globe, contemporary protest movements are contesting the oligarchic appropriation of natural resources, public services, and shared networks of knowledge and communication. These struggles raise the same fundamental demand and rest on the same irreducible principle: the common. In this exhaustive account, Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval show how the common has become the defining principle of alternative political movements in the 21st century. In societies deeply shaped by neoliberal rationality, the common is increasingly invoked as the operative concept of practical struggles creating new forms of democratic governance. In a feat of analytic clarity, Dardot and Laval dissect and synthesize a vast repository on the concept of the commons, from the fields of philosophy, political theory, economics, legal theory, history, theology, and sociology. Instead of conceptualizing the common as an essence of man or as inherent in nature, the thread developed by Dardot and Laval traces the active lives of human beings: only a practical activity of commoning can decide what will be shared in common and what rules will govern the common's citizen-subjects. This re-articulation of the common calls for nothing less than the institutional transformation of society by society: it calls for a revolution.

This is one of the most original and important works of contemporaryEuropean thought. First published in France in 1975, it is the major theoretical work of one of the foremost thinkers in Europe today. This is one of the most original and important works of contemporary European thought. First published in France in 1975, it is the major theoretical work of one of the foremost thinkers in Europe today. Castoriadis offers a brilliant and far-reaching analysis of the unique character of the social-historical world and its relations to the individual, to language, and to nature. He argues that most traditional conceptions of society and history overlook the essential feature of the social-historical world, namely that this world is not articulated once and for all but is in each case the creation of the society concerned. In emphasizing the element of creativity, Castoriadis opens the way for rethinking political theory and practice in terms of the autonomous and explicit self-institution of society.

The Jamaican writer and cultural theorist Sylvia Wynter is best known for her diverse writings that pull together insights from theories in history, literature, science, and black studies, to explore race, the legacy of colonialism, and representations of humanness. Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis is a critical genealogy of Wynter’s work, highlighting her insights on how race, location, and time together inform what it means to be human. The contributors explore Wynter’s stunning reconceptualization of the human in relation to concepts of blackness, modernity, urban space, the Caribbean, science studies, migratory politics, and the interconnectedness of creative and theoretical resistances. The collection includes an extensive conversation between Sylvia Wynter and Katherine McKittrick that delineates Wynter’s engagement with writers such as Frantz Fanon, W. E. B. DuBois, and Aimé Césaire, among others; the interview also reveals the ever-extending range and power of Wynter’s intellectual project, and elucidates her attempts to rehistoricize humanness as praxis.

From the Introduction: This inquiry is concerned with the themes of praxis and action in four philosophic movements: Marxism, existentialism, pragmatism, and analytic philosophy. It is rare that these four movements are considered in a single inquiry, for there are profound differences of emphasis, focus, terminology, and approach represented by these styles of thought. Many philosophers believe that similarities among these movements are superficial and that a close examination of them will reveal only hopelessly unbridgeable cleavages. While respecting the genuine fundamental differences of these movements, this inquiry is undertaken in the spirit of showing that there are important common themes and motifs in what first appears to be a chaotic babble of voices. I intend to show that the concern with man as an agent has been a primary focal point of each of these movements and further that each contributes something permanent and important to our understanding of the nature and context of human activity.

In Radical Writing Center Praxis Laura Greenfield calls for a paradigm change in writing centers, imagining a field whose very reason for being is to facilitate justice and peace. The book calls on readers to more critically examine power and agency in writing centers and to imagine new possibilities for the field’s theories and practices. Large, intersecting systems of oppression manifest in the everyday practices of institutions, classrooms, and writing centers. Local practices in turn influence the surrounding world. Radical Writing Center Praxis therefore challenges the writing center field to resist assumptions of political neutrality and instead to redefine itself in terms of more explicit ethical commitments. In this paradigm it is clear that to engage in anti-oppression work is not merely a special interest but rather a vital interest to all. Introducing the concepts and vocabulary of radical politics, Radical Writing Center Praxis examines the tensions between the field’s professed beliefs and everyday practices and offers a process by which the writing center discipline as a whole might rebuild itself anew. It will be invaluable to writing center directors, tutors, scholars, and students as well as to administrators and compositionists.

Unitary Caring Science: The Philosophy and Praxis of Nursing takes a profound look at conscious, intentional, reverential caring-healing as sacred practice/praxis and as a necessary turn for survival. Jean Watson posits Unitary Caring Science for the evolved Caritas-conscious practitioner and scholar. A detailed historical discussion of the evolution from Caring Science toward Unitary Caring Science reflects the maturing of the discipline, locating the nursing phenomena of wholeness within the unitary field paradigm. An exploration of praxis as informed moral practice results in an expanded development of the ten Caritas processes, resulting in a comprehensive value-guide to critical Caritas literacy and ontological Caritas praxis. Watson writes for the Caritas Conscious NurseTM or the Caritas Conscious Scholar/Practitioner/Educator on the journey toward the deeper caring-healing dimensions of life. Unitary Caring Science offers a personal-professional path of authenticity, bringing universals of Love, Energy, Spirit, Infinity of Purpose, and Meaning back into nurses lives and their life’s work. Unitary Caring Science serves as a continuing, evolving message to the next generation of nurse scholars and healing-health practitioners committed to a praxis informed by mature disciplinary consciousness. Individual customers will also receive a secure link to select copyrighted teaching videos and meditations on www.watsoncaringscience.org.