Deface the Currency

Deface the Currency PDF Author: Samuel Alexander
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780994160621
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
"This is a creative re-enactment of the life, death and ideas of the most influential Cynic of antiquity, Diogenes of Sinope. Lost after 2500 years, the dialogues attributed to him are here recovered through informed historical re-imagination, and in a series of six "acts" Alexander takes his protagonist from his market-place teachings through to the final condemnation of his works, and execution of his person. In this quasi-Socratic tragedy, Diogenes' ideas of simplicity, moderation and natural living are too revolutionary for an oligarchical system to tolerate, and yet prove too resilient to be permanently silenced. Alexander is faithful to the spirit of ancient authors and deftly works in subtle allusions to ancient sources - yet writes ever with an eye to present problems. His Diogenes becomes an essential voice for the revolutionary and potentially apocalyptic transitions of our own time." - William Desmond, author of "The Greek Praise of Poverty"

Deface the Currency

Deface the Currency PDF Author: Samuel Alexander
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780994160621
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
"This is a creative re-enactment of the life, death and ideas of the most influential Cynic of antiquity, Diogenes of Sinope. Lost after 2500 years, the dialogues attributed to him are here recovered through informed historical re-imagination, and in a series of six "acts" Alexander takes his protagonist from his market-place teachings through to the final condemnation of his works, and execution of his person. In this quasi-Socratic tragedy, Diogenes' ideas of simplicity, moderation and natural living are too revolutionary for an oligarchical system to tolerate, and yet prove too resilient to be permanently silenced. Alexander is faithful to the spirit of ancient authors and deftly works in subtle allusions to ancient sources - yet writes ever with an eye to present problems. His Diogenes becomes an essential voice for the revolutionary and potentially apocalyptic transitions of our own time." - William Desmond, author of "The Greek Praise of Poverty"

The Cynics

The Cynics PDF Author: R. Bracht Branham
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520921984
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
This collection of essays—the first of its kind in English—brings together the work of an international group of scholars examining the entire tradition associated with the ancient Cynics. The essays give a history of the movement as well as a state-of-the-art account of the literary, philosophical and cultural significance of Cynicism from antiquity to the present. Arguably the most original and influential branch of the Socratic tradition, Cynicism has become the focus of renewed scholarly interest in recent years, thanks to the work of Sloterdijk, Foucault, and Bakhtin, among others. The contributors to this volume—classicists, comparatists, and philosophers—draw on a variety of methodologies to explore the ethical, social and cultural practices inspired by the Cynics. The volume also includes an introduction, appendices, and an annotated bibliography, making it a valuable resource for a broad audience.

Keep the Change

Keep the Change PDF Author: Harley J. Spiller
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1616894199
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
Harley J. Spiller began collecting money at the age of five when, home sick from school, his father tossed him a sack of pennies and a Whitman coin folder. In the five decades since, author Spiller has amassed one of America's most extensive collections of unusual financial artifacts as well as a wealth of anecdotes and quirky historical details about U.S. currency. In Keep the Change, Spiller takes an irreverent look at our most uncommon coins and bills. Readers learn why greenbacks are green; what happens to worn-out bills (compost is involved); how artists navigate the fine line between art and mutilation; whether it's ever acceptable to burn money (short answer: maybe); and how coin clippers and counterfeiters through the ages have profited by manipulating money. This highly selective tour through currency legends and lore will inspire readers to look with a new sense of wonder at the bills that pass through our hands every day.

Literary Cynics

Literary Cynics PDF Author: Arthur Rose
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474258662
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Focusing on work by Jorge Luis Borges, Samuel Beckett and J.M. Coetzee, Literary Cynics explores the relationship between literature and cynicism to consider what happens when authors write themselves into their art, against the rhetoric of authority. Rose takes as his starting point three moments of aesthetic crisis in the careers of these literary cynics: Borges's parables of the 1950s, Beckett's plays of the 1980s, and Coetzee's pedagogic novels of the 2000s. In their transition to 'late style', the works reflect their writers' abiding concern with particular conceptions of rhetoric and aesthetic form. Literary Cynics combines accounts of these 'late' works with classic, lesser known, and archival texts by the three writers, from Coetzee's Disgrace to Beckett's letters, as well as detailed analysis of cynicism, both ancient and modern, as a philosophical and political movement.

The Power of Negative Thinking

The Power of Negative Thinking PDF Author: Benjamin Schreier
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813928206
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Benjamin Schreier is suspicious of a simple equation of cynicism with quietism, nihilism, selfishness, or false consciousness, and he rejects the notion that modern cynicism represents something categorically different from the classical outlook of Diogenes. He proposes, instead, that cynicism names the difficult position of not being able to recognize the relevance of democratic social norms in the future and yet being nonetheless invested in the power of these norms to determine cultural identity and to regulate social practices. In his readings of Henry Adams’s Education, Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts, the author affirms that cynicism is an important and under-appreciated current in mainstream modern American literature. He finds that, far from the simple selfishness or apathy for which it is so often dismissed, the cynicism in these texts is suffused by a desire for the certainty promised by norms such as national teleology, ethnic identity, and civic participation. But without faith in the relevance of these regulating terms, cynics lack ready accounts of America and of their place in it. Schreier’s focus is not only on the cynical characters in the texts but also on the textual and epistemological strategies used to render normative narratives recognizably legitimate in the first place. In his refusal to historicize cynicism away with generalized claims about American society, Schreier argues instead that cynicism stages an unanswerable challenge to the specific expectations through which normative accounts of history become visible. The Power of Negative Thinking makes a vital and wide-ranging contribution to our understanding of American literature, intellectual and cultural history, philosophy, ethics, and politics. Schreier’s close reading and his vigorous theoretical examination of analytical first principles combine to make a book that is valuable not only to the study of methodology but also to the scrutiny of the very assumptions the humanities bring to the exploration of the way we think.

Making Trouble

Making Trouble PDF Author: Otto Von Busch
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350162566
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Making hacks into reality. It engages matter in ways that trespass the boundaries between the civic realm and the state-assigned laws. Even with primitive tools and skills, designing and making can break open and repurpose arrangements of power. The proof is that some crafts are so controversial-lock-picking, moonshining, shoplifting, smuggling, sabotage-that they need to be controlled or even outlawed. When designers and makers touch on these contested realms, they run into trouble. This highly original book explores how the material power of design and making can challenge arrangements of agency and domination. Unpacking a series of conflicting cases-from illegal making to the strategic and civic use of crafts to manifest radical alternatives to the current order-it shows how designers and makers can use even basic tools to work towards more.

Cynicism

Cynicism PDF Author: Ansgar Allen
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262537885
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
A short history of cynicism, from the fearless speech of the ancient Greeks to the jaded negativity of the present. Everyone's a cynic, yet few will admit it. Today's cynics excuse themselves half-heartedly—“I hate to be a cynic, but..."—before making their pronouncements. Narrowly opportunistic, always on the take, contemporary cynicism has nothing positive to contribute. The Cynicism of the ancient Greeks, however, was very different. This Cynicism was a marginal philosophy practiced by a small band of eccentrics. Bold and shameless, it was committed to transforming the values on which civilization depends. In this volume of the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Ansgar Allen charts the long history of cynicism, from the “fearless speech” of Greek Cynics in the fourth century BCE to the contemporary cynic's lack of social and political convictions. Allen describes ancient Cynicism as an improvised philosophy and a way of life disposed to scandalize contemporaries, subjecting their cultural commitments to derision. He chronicles the subsequent “purification” of Cynicism by the Stoics; Renaissance and Enlightenment appropriations of Cynicism, drawing on the writings of Shakespeare, Rabelais, Rousseau, de Sade, and others; and the transition from Cynicism (the philosophy) to cynicism (the modern attitude), exploring contemporary cynicism from the perspectives of its leftist, liberal, and conservative critics. Finally, he considers the possibility of a radical cynicism that admits and affirms the danger it poses to contemporary society.

Organ Grinder

Organ Grinder PDF Author: Alan Fishbone
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374713685
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 83

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Book Description
A freewheeling essay on mortality and freedom at the intersection of ancient philosophy and biker culture After my accident, I thought I was done with bikes. Until a few years ago—I was lying in bed having trouble sleeping when I heard a voice say to me, “Alan, get a Harley and ride to Death Valley.” I didn’t even like Harleys. And I didn’t believe that God had called down and told me to get one. It seemed unlikely that the monotheistic God we’re stuck with would endorse a brand of motorcycle—maybe the pagan gods of antiquity would. Zeus might have ridden a Harley, or Apollo a BMW; you can imagine Aphrodite on the back of Ares’ Ninja, zooming around the planets with a golden thong sticking up over the back of her toga. Even that twerp Hermes on a Vespa. Those gods liked to drink, and screw, and run around like bikers, but not Yawheh—strictly black limousines and heavy security for that guy. Thou shalt not ride. Thou shalt not be free. Thou shalt pay off the debt of thy sins to eternity. So begins one of the salty, sharp-eyed anecdotes that fill the pages of Organ Grinder, a book-length essay written by Alan Fishbone, a motorcycle-riding scholar of ancient Greek and Latin. In a series of short pieces inspired by Horatian satire, Fishbone bounces from gonzo fever-dream to philosophical treatise, investigating the conflicts between idealism and cynicism, love and sex, body and soul. One part Plato, one part Aristophanes, two parts Easy Rider, Organ Grinder is a heady cocktail of lewd wisdom—Zenand the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for our own, irreverent age.

The Cynic Philosophers

The Cynic Philosophers PDF Author: Diogenes of Sinope
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141939303
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
'Poverty does not consist in the want of money,' I answered, 'nor is begging to be deplored. Poverty consists in the desire to have everything, and through violent means if necessary' From their founding in the fifth century BC and for over 800 years, the Cynic philosophers sought to cure humanity of greed and vice with their proposal of living simply. They guaranteed happiness to their adherents through freedom of speech, poverty, self-sufficiency and physical hardiness. In this fascinating and completely new collection of Cynic writing through the centuries, from Diogenes and Hipparchia, to Lucian and the Roman emperor Julian, the history and experiences of the Cynic philosophers are explored to the full. Robert Dobbin's introduction examines the public image of the Cynics through the ages, as well as the philosophy's contradictions and how their views on women were centuries ahead of their time. This edition also includes notes on the text, chronology, glossary and suggested further reading. Translated, edited and with an introduction by Robert Dobbin

Classical Cynicism

Classical Cynicism PDF Author: Luis Navia
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313029709
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
More than a school of philosophy with a defined set of beliefs and convictions, classical Cynicism represents an unconventional sect of philosophers and a way of life. This is a complete account of classical Cynicism from its beginnings in the Socratic circle to its extinction in late Roman times. In this thoroughly documented study, Navia explores various issues related to the sources of information about the Cynics, the development of Cynicism, and the principal representatives of classical Cynicism. Exploring the relationship between classical Cynicism and cynicism as understood in its ordinary modern sense, the author argues that despite their common designation, they represent significantly different philosophical attitudes. This book explicates the main ideas associated with classical Cynicism and argues that, its shortcomings notwithstanding, classical Cynicism furnishes us with a wealthy source of philosophical enlightenment. Individual chapters are devoted to Antisthenes, Diogenes, and Crates, the three principal classical Cynics. Attention is given to the development and application of certain fundamental Cynic ideas and to the transformation of these ideas throughout the eight centuries during which Cynicism was an influential philosophical movement. The book provides abundant references to primary and secondary sources and includes a bibliography of over five hundred entries.