Apocalypse and/or Metamorphosis

Apocalypse and/or Metamorphosis PDF Author: Norman O. Brown
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520912557
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Here is the final volume of Norman O. Brown's trilogy on civilization and its discontents, on humanity's long struggle to master its instincts and the perils that attend that denial of human nature. Following on his famous books Life Against Death and Love's Body, this collection of eleven essays brings Brown's thinking up to 1990 and the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. Brown writes that "the prophetic tradition is an attempt to give direction to the social structure precipitated by the urban revolution; to resolve its inherent contradictions; to put an end to its injustice, inequality, anomie, the state of war . . . that has been its history from start to finish." Affiliating himself with prophets from Muhammad to Blake and Emerson, Brown offers further meditations on what's wrong with Western civilization and what we might do about it. Thus the duality in his title: crisis and the hope for change. In pieces both poetic and philosophical, Brown's attention ranges over Greek mythology, Islam, Spinoza, and Finnegan's Wake. The collection includes an autobiographical essay musing on Brown's own intellectual development. The final piece, "Dionysus in 1990," draws on Freud and the work of Georges Bataille to link the recent changes in the world's economies with mankind's primordial drive to accumulation, waste, and death.

Apocalypse and/or Metamorphosis

Apocalypse and/or Metamorphosis PDF Author: Norman O. Brown
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520912557
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Get Book Here

Book Description
Here is the final volume of Norman O. Brown's trilogy on civilization and its discontents, on humanity's long struggle to master its instincts and the perils that attend that denial of human nature. Following on his famous books Life Against Death and Love's Body, this collection of eleven essays brings Brown's thinking up to 1990 and the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. Brown writes that "the prophetic tradition is an attempt to give direction to the social structure precipitated by the urban revolution; to resolve its inherent contradictions; to put an end to its injustice, inequality, anomie, the state of war . . . that has been its history from start to finish." Affiliating himself with prophets from Muhammad to Blake and Emerson, Brown offers further meditations on what's wrong with Western civilization and what we might do about it. Thus the duality in his title: crisis and the hope for change. In pieces both poetic and philosophical, Brown's attention ranges over Greek mythology, Islam, Spinoza, and Finnegan's Wake. The collection includes an autobiographical essay musing on Brown's own intellectual development. The final piece, "Dionysus in 1990," draws on Freud and the work of Georges Bataille to link the recent changes in the world's economies with mankind's primordial drive to accumulation, waste, and death.

Apocalypse and/or Metamorphosis

Apocalypse and/or Metamorphosis PDF Author: Norman O. Brown
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520912551
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
Here is the final volume of Norman O. Brown's trilogy on civilization and its discontents, on humanity's long struggle to master its instincts and the perils that attend that denial of human nature. Following on his famous books Life Against Death and Love's Body, this collection of eleven essays brings Brown's thinking up to 1990 and the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. Brown writes that "the prophetic tradition is an attempt to give direction to the social structure precipitated by the urban revolution; to resolve its inherent contradictions; to put an end to its injustice, inequality, anomie, the state of war . . . that has been its history from start to finish." Affiliating himself with prophets from Muhammad to Blake and Emerson, Brown offers further meditations on what's wrong with Western civilization and what we might do about it. Thus the duality in his title: crisis and the hope for change. In pieces both poetic and philosophical, Brown's attention ranges over Greek mythology, Islam, Spinoza, and Finnegan's Wake. The collection includes an autobiographical essay musing on Brown's own intellectual development. The final piece, "Dionysus in 1990," draws on Freud and the work of Georges Bataille to link the recent changes in the world's economies with mankind's primordial drive to accumulation, waste, and death.

Life Against Death

Life Against Death PDF Author: Norman Oliver Brown
Publisher: Middletown, Conn. : Wesleyan University Press
ISBN:
Category : Anus (Psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
A shocking and extreme interpretation of the father of psychoanalysis.

The Metamorphosis of the World

The Metamorphosis of the World PDF Author: Ulrich Beck
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745690254
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
We live in a world that is increasingly difficult to understand. It is not just changing: it is metamorphosing. Change implies that some things change but other things remain the same capitalism changes, but some aspects of capitalism remain as they always were. Metamorphosis implies a much more radical transformation in which the old certainties of modern society are falling away and something quite new is emerging. To grasp this metamorphosis of the world it is necessary to explore the new beginnings, to focus on what is emerging from the old and seek to grasp future structures and norms in the turmoil of the present. Take climate change: much of the debate about climate change has focused on whether or not it is really happening, and if it is, what we can do to stop or contain it. But this emphasis on solutions blinds us to the fact that climate change is an agent of metamorphosis. It has already altered our way of being in the world the way we live in the world, think about the world and seek to act upon the world through our actions and politics. Rising sea levels are creating new landscapes of inequality drawing new world maps whose key lines are not traditional boundaries between nation-states but elevations above sea level. It is creating an entirely different way of conceptualizing the world and our chances of survival within it. The theory of metamorphosis goes beyond theory of world risk society: it is not about the negative side effects of goods but the positive side effects of bads. They produce normative horizons of common goods and propel us beyond the national frame towards a cosmopolitan outlook.

After Lockdown

After Lockdown PDF Author: Bruno Latour
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509550038
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
After the harrowing experience of the pandemic and lockdown, both states and individuals have been searching for ways to exit the crisis, many hoping to return as soon as possible to ‘the world as it was before the pandemic’. But there is another way to learn the lessons of this ordeal: as inhabitants of the earth, we may not be able to exit lockdown so easily after all, since the global health crisis is embedded in another larger and more serious crisis – that brought about by the New Climate Regime. Learning to live in lockdown might be an opportunity to be seized: a dress-rehearsal for the climate mutation, an opportunity to understand at last where we – inhabitants of the earth – live, what kind of place ‘earth’ is and how we will be able to orient ourselves and exist in this world in the years to come. We might finally be able to explore the land in which we live, together with all other living beings, begin to understand the true nature of the climate mutation we are living through and discover what kind of freedom is possible – a freedom differently situated and differently understood. In this sequel to his bestselling book Down to Earth, Bruno Latour provides a compass for this necessary re-orientation of our lives, outlining the metaphysics of confinement and deconfinement with which we will all be obliged to come to terms by the strange times in which we are living.

The Challenge of Islam

The Challenge of Islam PDF Author: Norman O. Brown
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1556438028
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Book Description
The Prophetic Tradition: The Challenge of Islam is an enlightening set of lectures given by Norman O. Brown during the 1980s, exploring a wide-ranging array of topics concerning Islam. Brown reveals the overlooked relationship between Islam and early Christianity, exploring Islam’s relation to, and revision of, the Christian tradition, the literary innovation of the Qu’ran, the nature of revolutionary and political Islam, and the vision of a world civilization. Throughout these lectures, which are remarkably pertinent today, Brown seeks to educate the reader on misunderstood areas of Islam, including the split between the Sunni and Shi’ite sects and Islam’s exemplification of the broad themes of art and imagination in human life. The author’s world-historical perspective of religion and tradition gives readers a crucial alternative to the divisive “clash of civilizations” view that paints Islam as at odds with the West. He exposes the unifying strands between Islam and early Judeo-Christian doctrine, showing that Islam is in fact a genuine part of “Western” tradition, and more importantly, part of a global tradition that embraces us all.

Hermes the Thief

Hermes the Thief PDF Author: Norman Oliver Brown
Publisher: SteinerBooks
ISBN: 9780940262263
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
A classic, prescient work dealing with myth and cult which traces the evolution of Hermes from sacred stoneheap and phallus to Homeric Hymn to Hermes and the Hesiodic poems.

Apocalyptic Time

Apocalyptic Time PDF Author: Albert I. Baumgartner
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047400569
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Millennial movements are characterized by their nature and perception of time, and the ways in which these groups confront inevitable disappointment and then return to “normal” time. This is the theme for the book Apocalyptic Time. The volume consists of revised essays based on presentations made at an international conference devoted to that theme. Authors adopt a number of disciplinary approaches to the topic, analyzing millennial movements from the three Abrahamic faiths, as well as from the East. This book will be of particular interest to students of millennial movements, who wish to benefit from the comprehensive and comparative view it gives of the phenomenon, based on a wide variety of cases. This work greatly contributes to the theory of millennialism, by supplying specific data and theoretical reflection.

After the Apocalypse

After the Apocalypse PDF Author: Srećko Horvat
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509540091
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 107

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Book Description
In this post-apocalyptic rollercoaster ride, philosopher Srećko Horvat invites us to explore the Apocalypse in terms of ‘revelation’ (rather than as the ‘end’ itself). He argues that the only way to prevent the end – i.e., extinction – is to engage in a close reading of various interconnected threats, such as climate crisis, the nuclear age and the ongoing pandemic. Drawing on the work of neglected philosopher Günther Anders, this book outlines a philosophical approach to deal with what Horvat, borrowing a term from climate science and giving it a theological twist, calls ‘eschatological tipping points’. These are no longer just the nuclear age or climate crisis, but their collision, conjoined with various other major threats – not only pandemics, but also the viruses of capitalism and fascism. In his investigation of the future of places such as Chernobyl, the Mediterranean and the Marshall Islands, as well as many others affected by COVID-19, Horvat contends that the ‘revelation’ appears simple and unprecedented: the alternatives are no longer socialism or barbarism – our only alternatives today are a radical reinvention of the world, or mass extinction. After the Apocalypse is an urgent call not only to mourn tomorrow’s dead today but to struggle for our future while we can.

An Introduction to Feminist Philosophy

An Introduction to Feminist Philosophy PDF Author: Alison Stone
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745638821
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
This is the first book to offer a systematic account of feminist philosophy as a distinctive field of philosophy. The book introduces key issues and debates in feminist philosophy including: the nature of sex, gender, and the body; the relation between gender, sexuality, and sexual difference; whether there is anything that all women have in common; and the nature of birth and its centrality to human existence. An Introduction to Feminist Philosophy shows how feminist thinking on these and related topics has developed since the 1960s. The book also explains how feminist philosophy relates to the many forms of feminist politics. The book provides clear, succinct and readable accounts of key feminist thinkers including de Beauvoir, Butler, Gilligan, Irigaray, and MacKinnon. The book also introduces other thinkers who have influenced feminist philosophy including Arendt, Foucault, Freud, and Lacan. Accessible in approach, this book is ideal for students and researchers interested in feminist philosophy, feminist theory, women's studies, and political theory. It will also appeal to the general reader.