Pirate Philosophy

It is difficult to imagine a more comprehensive account of contemporary academic publishing, and indeed to imagine a critic better suited to guiding us through the murky terrain of copyright agreements, open access initiatives, and piratical practices. But Hall provides more than a deeply engaging analysis—this is a pirate manifesto showing the way forward to the transformation of the very mode and distribution of humanities scholarship itself.

Rita Raley, Department of English, University of California, Santa Barbara

On the uncharted waters of the digital sphere, pirates easily slip by the tectonic plates of knowledge production and intellectual property. Gary Hall, himself a brilliant pirate, troubles the liquid boundaries between the human and the nonhuman, and between the humanities, digital humanities, and posthumanities. Through testing, teasing, and even attacking, he encounters unexpected and pseudo-pirates. The bold tacks of his pirate philosophy reveal a new world, while transforming it as well.

Jean-Claude Guédon, Professor of Comparative Literature, Université de Montréal

Pirate Philosophy is a handbook of clarification for all those adrift in theory, for those who want a graceful, expert navigation of the changing relations of knowledge and power. Pirate Philosophy keelhauls, one by one, theories of the commons, new materialism, posthumanism, and Internet piracy, testing and teasing simultaneously a host of uniformed agents ranging from digital humanities to intellectual property law to the bound book itself. It rejects all forms of patterned radicalism to give us a clear picture of the challenges facing academic practice today.

Christopher M. Kelty, Professor of Information Studies and Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles