Telos 165 (Winter 2013) is now available for purchase in our store.
To choose Herbert Marcuse and religion as the topic for a special issue might seem strikingly anachronistic. Formed by the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism, Marcuse worked in the OSS during the Second World War, and later, in his mature theoretical works, such as Eros and Civilization and One-Dimensional Man, he grew into the cultural critic who would become a prominent mentor of the student revolt of the 1960s, especially in the United States and Germany. This is a stirring narrative, no doubt, but does it not simply belong to another era? To be sure, historical distance is hardly an argument against intellectual inquiry, and one could certainly dedicate an issue to filling out a detailed account of how this philosopher became a public intellectual in the context of the upheavals of his age. Yet every historical study of the past also bears the marks of the present, including the question marks that punctuate our own, current queries in this issue of the journal. What does Marcuse have to say to us today? That consideration is always germane, but especially in Telos, which has set for itself the task of developing a critique of the contemporary.
The twentieth century was witness to no shortage of political violence and mass death perpetrated by the state. The two most well-known genocides of the century—those that occurred under the rule of Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union—did not occur because the state broke down and lawlessness prevailed. Quite the contrary: both regimes had complete control over their citizenry, and the apparatus of government was used to make the butchery as efficient and as inescapable as possible. Both regimes were characterized by extreme violence and terror, key elements of the totalitarian system as defined by Hannah Arendt, so it seems only logical that totalitarianism increases the potential for genocide. 
The Telos-Paul Piccone Institute is pleased to announce its second biennial colloquium in L’Aquila, Italy. The theme of the conference will be 
In his last book, Political Theology II, Carl Schmitt wrote that some books are fated to become academic legends, but contrary to the etymological meaning of the word Legende, they are not read, only cited. He knew that his persona was surrounded by many mythologies and that after his death an even greater complex of mythologies would develop around his personality and works. Today there seems to be no end to the multiplication of legends about Schmitt. Joseph Bendersky’s essay “Carl Schmitt and the Conservative Revolution” is a meticulous attempt to understand if there is any truth in the popular legend, according to which Schmitt belonged to a diverse group of intellectuals who were labeled as conservative revolutionaries. 
Telos Press is pleased to announce the publication of Ernst Jünger’s The Forest Passage, now available for purchase in our 
