{"product_id":"troubled-pleasures-writings-on-politics-gender-and-hedonism-9780860915362","title":"Troubled Pleasures: Writings on Politics, Gender and Hedonism","description":"What happens when 'life's simple joys' become complicated? When pleasure is transformed as a function of consumption, the innocent comforts of food, nature and place are embedded in complex practices of distribution and exploitation. Exotic and diverse objects of pleasure are made available only at the price of a heightened awareness of their origins, genealogies and possible effects; 'authenticity' recedes behind objects produced as pleasures. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eTroubled Pleasures\u003c\/i\u003e considers the ways in which modern pleasure is fraught with unhappy implications, at the same time as contemporary critical arguments put into question the touchstones of identity, morality, subjectivity and desire. It brings together writings which explore the sources of pleasure's 'loss of innocence', and which argue the case for a scrupulous 'alternative hedonism'. Including essays on human needs, socialism and gender, a feminist response to Joyce's \u003ci\u003eUlysses\u003c\/i\u003e, and a fictional reflection on appetite and excess, \u003ci\u003eTroubled Pleasures\u003c\/i\u003e plots an Epicurean path between righteous asceticism and conspicuous consumption.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eKate Soper\u003c\/b\u003e teaches philosophy and cultural theory at the University of North London. Her previous works include \u003ci\u003eOn Human Needs\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWhat is Nature?\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eCulture, Politics and the Non-Human\u003c\/i\u003e and, with Verso, \u003ci\u003eTroubled Pleasures\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Verso","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52196530159890,"sku":"9780860915362","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_31d95656-1153-443d-9886-c156da4469db.jpg?v=1776152326","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/troubled-pleasures-writings-on-politics-gender-and-hedonism-9780860915362","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}