{"product_id":"9780691257983-disarming-intelligence","title":"Disarming Intelligence","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eProust, Valéry, and Modern French Criticism\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA critical account of the idea of intelligence in modern French literature and thought\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the late nineteenth century, psychologists and philosophers became intensely interested in the possibility of quantifying, measuring, and evaluating “intelligence,” and using it to separate and compare individuals. \u003ci\u003eDisarming Intelligence\u003c\/i\u003e analyzes how this polyvalent term was consolidated and contested in competing discourses, from fin de siècle psychology and philosophy to literature, criticism, and cultural polemics around the First World War.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eZakir Paul examines how Marcel Proust, Henri Bergson, Paul Valéry, and the critics of the influential \u003ci\u003eNouvelle revue française\u003c\/i\u003e registered, negotiated, and subtly countered the ways intelligence was invoked across the political and aesthetic spectrum. For these writers, intelligence fluctuates between an individual, sovereign faculty for analyzing the world and something collective, accidental, and contingent. \u003ci\u003eDisarming Intelligence\u003c\/i\u003e shows how literary and critical styles questioned, suspended, and reimagined what intelligence could be by bringing elements of uncertainty and potentiality into its horizon. The book also explores interwar political tensions—from the extreme right to Walter Benjamin’s engaged essays on contemporary French writers. Finally, a brief coda recasts current debates about artificial intelligence by comparing them to these earlier crises of intelligence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy drawing together and untangling competing conceptions of intelligence, \u003ci\u003eDisarming Intelligence\u003c\/i\u003e exposes its mercurial but influential and urgent role in literary and cultural politics.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41767317209185,"sku":"9780691257983","price":36.7,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/orig_12649541_16453_20241125115626.jpg?v=1732542992","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9780691257983-disarming-intelligence","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}