Colonies, Cults and Evolution

Colonies, Cults and Evolution PDF Author: David Amigoni
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139469096
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 12

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Book Description
The concept of culture, now such an important term within both the arts and the sciences, is a legacy of the nineteenth century. By closely analyzing writings by evolutionary scientists such as Charles Darwin, Alfred Russell Wallace, and Herbert Spencer, alongside those of literary figures including Wordsworth, Coleridge, Arnold, Butler, and Gosse, David Amigoni shows how the modern concept of 'culture' developed out of the interdisciplinary interactions between literature, philosophy, anthropology, colonialism, and, in particular, Darwin's theories of evolution. He goes on to explore the relationship between literature and evolutionary science by arguing that culture was seen less as a singular idea or concept, and more as a field of debate and conflict. This fascinating book includes much material on the history of evolutionary thought and its cultural impact, and will be of interest to scholars of intellectual and scientific history as well as of literature.

Colonies, Cults and Evolution

Colonies, Cults and Evolution PDF Author: David Amigoni
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139469096
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 12

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Book Description
The concept of culture, now such an important term within both the arts and the sciences, is a legacy of the nineteenth century. By closely analyzing writings by evolutionary scientists such as Charles Darwin, Alfred Russell Wallace, and Herbert Spencer, alongside those of literary figures including Wordsworth, Coleridge, Arnold, Butler, and Gosse, David Amigoni shows how the modern concept of 'culture' developed out of the interdisciplinary interactions between literature, philosophy, anthropology, colonialism, and, in particular, Darwin's theories of evolution. He goes on to explore the relationship between literature and evolutionary science by arguing that culture was seen less as a singular idea or concept, and more as a field of debate and conflict. This fascinating book includes much material on the history of evolutionary thought and its cultural impact, and will be of interest to scholars of intellectual and scientific history as well as of literature.

The Imperial Cult in the Latin West, Volume III: Provincial Cult. Part 1: Institution and Evolution

The Imperial Cult in the Latin West, Volume III: Provincial Cult. Part 1: Institution and Evolution PDF Author: Duncan Fishwick
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004295968
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This volume deals with the institution and evolution of imperial cult at the provincial level from the earliest foundations under Augustus down to the mid-third century A.D. On the basis of detailed examination of evidence from the different regions or provinces of the Latin west the emphasis of provincial cults can be seen to move first from the living emperor and Roma to the deified emperor, then from a composite cult of living and deified dead emperors to a renewed emphasis on the reigning emperor in the late second and early third centuries. Analysis is based primarily on the study of epigraphical, numismatic and iconographic evidence, generously illuminated by plates. The volume concludes with a series of essays summarizing the main lines of development in the light of various related issues.

Darwin's Cathedral

Darwin's Cathedral PDF Author: David Sloan Wilson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226901378
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
One of the great intellectual battles of modern times is between evolution and religion. Until now, they have been considered completely irreconcilable theories of origin and existence. David Sloan Wilson's Darwin's Cathedral takes the radical step of joining the two, in the process proposing an evolutionary theory of religion that shakes both evolutionary biology and social theory at their foundations. The key, argues Wilson, is to think of society as an organism, an old idea that has received new life based on recent developments in evolutionary biology. If society is an organism, can we then think of morality and religion as biologically and culturally evolved adaptations that enable human groups to function as single units rather than mere collections of individuals? Wilson brings a variety of evidence to bear on this question, from both the biological and social sciences. From Calvinism in sixteenth-century Geneva to Balinese water temples, from hunter-gatherer societies to urban America, Wilson demonstrates how religions have enabled people to achieve by collective action what they never could do alone. He also includes a chapter considering forgiveness from an evolutionary perspective and concludes by discussing how all social organizations, including science, could benefit by incorporating elements of religion. Religious believers often compare their communities to single organisms and even to insect colonies. Astoundingly, Wilson shows that they might be literally correct. Intended for any educated reader, Darwin's Cathedral will change forever the way we view the relations among evolution, religion, and human society.

The Cult of Evolution

The Cult of Evolution PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art and revolutions
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Voodoo and Politics in Haiti

Voodoo and Politics in Haiti PDF Author: Michel S. Laguerre
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349199206
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
Not only does this book give a well-researched account of the politicization of Haitian Voodoo and the Voodooization of Haitian politics, it also lays the ground for the development of creative policies by the state vis-a-vis the cult. It is an indispensable research tool for the students of Afro-American, Caribbean and African societies in particular, and for religionists and political scientists in general.

British Narratives of Exploration

British Narratives of Exploration PDF Author: Frédéric Regard
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317316304
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Features a collection of essays that focus on British travel narratives from the seventeenth through to the nineteenth centuries. This work investigates how the early explorers' sense of self was destabilised by encounters with the Other.

The Routledge Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century British Literature and Science

The Routledge Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century British Literature and Science PDF Author: John Holmes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317042336
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 645

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Book Description
Tracing the continuities and trends in the complex relationship between literature and science in the long nineteenth century, this companion provides scholars with a comprehensive, authoritative and up-to-date foundation for research in this field. In intellectual, material and social terms, the transformation undergone by Western culture over the period was unprecedented. Many of these changes were grounded in the growth of science. Yet science was not a cultural monolith then any more than it is now, and its development was shaped by competing world views. To cover the full range of literary engagements with science in the nineteenth century, this companion consists of twenty-seven chapters by experts in the field, which explore crucial social and intellectual contexts for the interactions between literature and science, how science affected different genres of writing, and the importance of individual scientific disciplines and concepts within literary culture. Each chapter has its own extensive bibliography. The volume as a whole is rounded out with a synoptic introduction by the editors and an afterword by the eminent historian of nineteenth-century science Bernard Lightman.

Picturing Reform in Victorian Britain

Picturing Reform in Victorian Britain PDF Author: Janice Carlisle
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 052186836X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
An innovative exploration of Victorian art and politics that examines how paintings and newspaper illustrations visualized franchise reform.

Virtual Play and the Victorian Novel

Virtual Play and the Victorian Novel PDF Author: Timothy Gao
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108837166
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Virtual, paracosmic, fictional -- Authorship, omnipotence, and Charlotte Bronte -- Plotting, improvisation, and Anthony Trollope -- Continuation, attachment, and William Makepeace Thackeray -- Description, projection, and Charles.

Popular Literature, Authorship and the Occult in Late Victorian Britain

Popular Literature, Authorship and the Occult in Late Victorian Britain PDF Author: Andrew McCann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316061736
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
With the increasing commercialization of publishing at the end of the nineteenth century, the polarization of serious literature and popular fiction became a commonplace of literary criticism. Andrew McCann cautions against this opposition by arguing that popular fiction's engagement with heterodox conceptions of authorship and creativity complicates its status as mere distraction or entertainment. Popular writers such as George Du Maurier, Marie Corelli, Rosa Praed and Arthur Machen drew upon a contemporary fascination with occult practices to construct texts that had an intensely ambiguous relationship to the proprietary notions of authorship that were so central to commercial publishing. Through trance-induced or automatic writing, dream states, dual personality and the retrieval of past lives channeled through mediums, they imagined forms of authorship that reinvested popular texts with claims to aesthetic and political value that cut against the homogenizing pressures of an emerging culture industry.