“The tragedy,” James Baldwin observed, “is that most of the people who say they care about it do not care. What they care about is their safety and their profits.” Against this backdrop of complicity and disinterest, the Pensées soignées series emerges as a response to our imperiled times. This new initiative from K. Verlag brings together works-in-translation from intellectuals and activists in the non-Anglophone world, offering radical insights into care as both a philosophical pursuit and an ethical imperative.
Edited by Stuart Kendall and Etienne Turpin, and designed in the publishing atelier with Wolfgang Hückel and Katharina Tauer, the series relays how thinkers across disciplines are grappling with the intertwined crises of environmental collapse, technological disruption, and social inequality. Through rigorous critique and imaginative propositions, Pensées soignées aims to proliferate new tools, concepts, and models of thought capable of confronting these urgent realities.
The first two books in the series—Bernard Stiegler’s The Immense Regression and Anne Alombert’s Digital Schizophrenia & Other Essays—both debut in January 2025 and are available for pre-order now.
Bernard Stiegler’s The Immense Regression
What happens when thought itself ceases to care? This question animates Bernard Stiegler’s The Immense Regression, the first volume of his two-part magnum opus What Is Called Caring?. With urgency and lucidity, Stiegler diagnoses the “Anthropocene event” as a moment of intellectual and ecological despair, while also offering a pathway toward healing. As he weaves together existential philosophy, media critique, and ecological thought, Stiegler reclaims care—thought as bandaging—as a mode of resistance against the structures of domination that have led us to this precipice.
Masterfully translated by Daniel Ross, Stiegler’s work demands that we reconsider what it means to think in an era of planetary collapse and systemic regression. The second volume, The Lesson of Greta Thunberg, will follow in Spring 2025, deepening this inquiry into care as both a philosophical and ecological necessity.
Anne Alombert’s Digital Schizophrenia & Other Essays
In Digital Schizophrenia & Other Essays, Anne Alombert confronts the technological upheavals of the digital age, exposing the psychosocial and cognitive fractures caused by pervasive datafication and attention capture. Yet Alombert does not simply critique the digital condition—she argues for a nuanced engagement with technology, rejecting transhumanist fantasies while advocating for practices that reorient technological systems toward collective flourishing.
Deftly translated by Daniel Ross, this volume introduces English readers to one of France’s most incisive contemporary philosophers. Alombert’s work speaks to the critical need to rethink our relationships with machines, intelligence, and care in a digital landscape increasingly dominated by exploitation and control.
The Pensées soignées series is a testament to the vitality of thought in times of crisis. By amplifying voices from beyond the Anglophone mainstream, it seeks to foster a global dialogue on care—thoughtful, attentive, and radical care—as a counterforce to the apathy and destructiveness of dominant systems.
As the series grows, with forthcoming titles from Fatima Ouassak (For a Pirate Ecology: And We Will Be Free) and Bernard Stiegler (The Lesson of Greta Thunberg), amongst others, it will continue to challenge, inspire, and provoke new ways of thinking about the futures we must collectively build.
We invite you to explore Pensées soignées and join us in this project of care and transformation.