Monstrosity in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and Philosophy

Monstrosity in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and Philosophy PDF Author: Gerhard Unterthurner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783851326703
Category : Abnormalities, Human
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Monstrosity in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and Philosophy

Monstrosity in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and Philosophy PDF Author: Gerhard Unterthurner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783851326703
Category : Abnormalities, Human
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description


Monsters and Monstrosity in Jewish History

Monsters and Monstrosity in Jewish History PDF Author: Iris Idelson-Shein
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350052159
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
This is the first study of monstrosity in Jewish history from the Middle Ages to modernity. Drawing on Jewish history, literary studies, folklore, art history and the history of science, it examines both the historical depiction of Jews as monsters and the creative use of monstrous beings in Jewish culture. Jews have occupied a liminal position within European society and culture, being deeply immersed yet outsiders to it. For this reason, they were perceived in terms of otherness and were often represented as monstrous beings. However, at the same time, European Jews invoked, with tantalizing ubiquity, images of magical, terrifying and hybrid beings in their texts, art and folktales. These images were used by Jewish authors and artists to push back against their own identification as monstrous or diabolical and to tackle concerns about religious persecution, assimilation and acculturation, gender and sexuality, science and technology and the rise of antisemitism. Bringing together an impressive cast of contributors from around the world, this fascinating volume is an invaluable resource for academics, postgraduates and advanced undergraduates interested in Jewish studies, as well as the history of monsters.

Classical Literature and Posthumanism

Classical Literature and Posthumanism PDF Author: Giulia Maria Chesi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350069523
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
The subject of the posthuman, of what it means to be or to cease to be human, is emerging as a shared point of debate at large in the natural and social sciences and the humanities. This volume asks what classical learning can bring to the table of posthuman studies, assembling chapters that explore how exactly the human self of Greek and Latin literature understands its own relation to animals, monsters, objects, cyborgs and robotic devices. With its widely diverse habitat of heterogeneous bodies, minds, and selves, classical literature again and again blurs the boundaries between the human and the non-human; not to equate and confound the human with its other, but playfully to highlight difference and hybridity, as an invitation to appraise the animal, monstrous or mechanical/machinic parts lodged within humans. This comprehensive collection unites contributors from across the globe, each delving into a different classical text or narrative and its configuration of human subjectivity-how human selves relate to other entities around them. For students and scholars of classical literature and the posthuman, this book is a first point of reference.

Monsters in Greek Literature

Monsters in Greek Literature PDF Author: Fiona Mitchell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000392597
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Monsters in Greek literature are often thought of as creatures which exist in mythological narratives, however, as this book shows, they appear in a much broader range of ancient sources and are used in creation narratives, ethnographic texts, and biology to explore the limits of the human body and of the human world. This book provides an in-depth examination of the role of monstrosity in ancient Greek literature. In the past, monsters in this context have largely been treated as unimportant or analysed on an individual basis. By focusing on genres rather than single creatures, the book provides a greater understanding of how monstrosity and abnormal bodies are used in ancient sources. Very often ideas about monstrosity are used as a contrast against which to examine the nature of what it is to be human, both physically and behaviourally. This book focuses on creation narratives, ethnographic writing, and biological texts. These three genres address the origins of the human world, its spatial limits, and the nature of the human body; by examining monstrosity in these genres we can see the ways in which Greek texts construct the space and time in which people exist and the nature of our bodies. This book is aimed primarily at scholars and students undertaking research, not only those with an interest in monstrosity, but also scholars exploring cultural representations of time (especially the primordial and mythological past), ancient geography and ethnography, and ancient philosophy and science. As the representation of monsters in antiquity was strongly influential on medieval, renaissance, and early modern images and texts, this book will also be relevant to people researching these areas.

Zizek Now

Zizek Now PDF Author: Jamil Khader
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745664377
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Arguably the most prolific and most widely read philosopher of our time, Slavoj Žižek has made indelible interventions into many disciplines of the so-called human sciences that have transformed the terms of discussion in these fields. Although his work has been the subject of many volumes of searching criticism and commentary, there is no assessment to date of the value of his work for the development of these disciplines. Žižek Now brings together distinguished critics to explore the utility and far-ranging implications of Žižek's thought and provide an evaluation of the difference his work makes or promises to make in their chosen fields. As such, the volume offers chapters on quantum physics and Žižek's transcendentalist materialist theory of the subject, Hegel's absolute, materialist Christianity, postcolonial violence, eco-politics, ceremonial acts, and the postcolonial revolutionary subject. Contributors to the volume include Adrian Johnston, Ian Parker, Todd McGowan, Bruno Bosteels, Erik Vogt, Verena Conley, Joshua Ramey, Jamil Khader, and Žižek himself.

Diseases of the Head

Diseases of the Head PDF Author: Matt Rosen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781953035103
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 522

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Book Description
Diseases of the Head is an anthology of essays from contemporary philosophers, artists, and writers working at the crossroads of speculative philosophy and speculative horror. At once a compendium of multivocal endeavors, a breviary of supposedly illicit ponderings, and a travelogue of philosophical exploration, this collection centers itself on the place at which philosophy and horror meet. Employing rigorous analysis, incisive experimentation, and novel invention, this anthology asks about the use that speculation can make of horror and horror of speculation, about whether philosophy is fictional or fiction philosophical, and about the relationship between horror, the exigencies of our world and time, and the future developments that may await us in philosophy itself. From philosophers working on horrific themes, to horror writers influenced by heresies in the wake of post-Kantianism, to artists engaged in projects that address monstrosity and alienation, Diseases of the Head aims at nothing less than a speculative coup d'état.Refusing both total negation and absolute affirmation, refusing to deny everything or account for everything, refusing the posture of critique and the posture of all-encompassing unification, this collection of essays aims at exposition and construction, analysis and creation - it desires to fight for some thing, but not everything, and not nothing. And it desires, most of all, to speak from the position of its own insufficiency, its own partiality, its own under-determinacy, which is always indicative of the practice of thinking, of speculation. Considering themes of anonymity, otherness and alterity, the gothic, extinction and the world without us, the end times, the apocalypse, the ancient and the world before us, and the uncanny or unheimlich, among other motifs, this anthology seeks to articulate the cutting edge which can be found at the intersection of speculative philosophy and speculative horror.Matt Rosen is a philosopher. He is the author of numerous books and pamphlets, including Speculative Annihilationism (Zero Books, 2019) and the forthcoming treatise Angst and Abnegation. His theoretical writings have also appeared in journals and anthologies. His work centers on radical ethics and alterity, and his interests range across a variety of areas, including moral philosophy, metaphysics, literature, mysticism, psychoanalysis, theology, politics, and aesthetics.

The Monstrosity of Christ

The Monstrosity of Christ PDF Author: Slavoj Zizek
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262265818
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
A militant Marxist atheist and a “Radical Orthodox” Christian theologian square off on everything from the meaning of theology and Christ to the war machine of corporate mafia. “What matters is not so much that Žižek is endorsing a demythologized, disenchanted Christianity without transcendence, as that he is offering in the end (despite what he sometimes claims) a heterodox version of Christian belief.”—John Milbank “To put it even more bluntly, my claim is that it is Milbank who is effectively guilty of heterodoxy, ultimately of a regression to paganism: in my atheism, I am more Christian than Milbank.”—Slavoj Žižek In this corner, philosopher Slavoj Žižek, a militant atheist who represents the critical-materialist stance against religion's illusions; in the other corner, “Radical Orthodox” theologian John Milbank, an influential and provocative thinker who argues that theology is the only foundation upon which knowledge, politics, and ethics can stand. In The Monstrosity of Christ, Žižek and Milbank go head to head for three rounds, employing an impressive arsenal of moves to advance their positions and press their respective advantages. By the closing bell, they have not only proven themselves worthy adversaries, they have shown that faith and reason are not simply and intractably opposed. Žižek has long been interested in the emancipatory potential offered by Christian theology. And Milbank, seeing global capitalism as the new century's greatest ethical challenge, has pushed his own ontology in more political and materialist directions. Their debate in The Monstrosity of Christ concerns the future of religion, secularity, and political hope in light of a monsterful event—God becoming human. For the first time since Žižek's turn toward theology, we have a true debate between an atheist and a theologian about the very meaning of theology, Christ, the Church, the Holy Ghost, Universality, and the foundations of logic. The result goes far beyond the popularized atheist/theist point/counterpoint of recent books by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and others. Žižek begins, and Milbank answers, countering dialectics with “paradox.” The debate centers on the nature of and relation between paradox and parallax, between analogy and dialectics, between transcendent glory and liberation. Slavoj Žižek is a philosopher and cultural critic. He has published over thirty books, including Looking Awry, The Puppet and the Dwarf, and The Parallax View (these three published by the MIT Press). John Milbank is an influential Christian theologian and the author of Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason and other books. Creston Davis, who conceived of this encounter, studied under both Žižek and Milbank.

Ephemeral Coast: Visualizing Coastal Climate Change

Ephemeral Coast: Visualizing Coastal Climate Change PDF Author: Celina Jeffery
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN: 1648894348
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
"Ephemeral Coast - Visualizing Coastal Climate Change" considers the ways that art can offer a means through which to discover, analyze, re-imagine and re-frame emotive discourses about the ecological and cultural transformations of the coastline. This edited anthology takes ephemerality as its central conceptual and methodological framework and presents a series of essays that create interconnections between environmental and social considerations of the coast, a succession of embodied creative practices, and shifting regional geographic identities. The book presents a series of specific case studies of artistic practices and strategies that seek to capture the rewriting of cartographic maps that are being reshaped by rising seas, coastal flooding and catastrophic weather. The essays in this edited volume engender creative strategies for understanding new and uncertain coastal ecologies and the loss, expulsion or destruction of their associated cultures, habitats, species and ecosystems. The anthology also looks at the historical, mnemonic and contemporary transitional conditions of ‘conflicted’ coastal spaces in which empire, modernity and globalization press on coastal erosion and incursions, proliferate it with trivial plastics, pollution and disposable attitudes, and bring vulnerable communities into uncertain futures."

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society

Monsters, Monstrosities, and the Monstrous in Culture and Society PDF Author: Diego Compagna
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN: 1622738934
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
Existing research on monsters acknowledges the deep impact monsters have especially on Politics, Gender, Life Sciences, Aesthetics and Philosophy. From Sigmund Freud’s essay ‘The Uncanny’ to Scott Poole’s ‘Monsters in America’, previous studies offer detailed insights about uncanny and immoral monsters. However, our anthology wants to overcome these restrictions by bringing together multidisciplinary authors with very different approaches to monsters and setting up variety and increasing diversification of thought as ‘guiding patterns’. Existing research hints that monsters are embedded in social and scientific exclusionary relationships but very seldom copes with them in detail. Erving Goffman’s doesn’t explicitly talk about monsters in his book ‘Stigma’, but his study is an exceptional case which shows that monsters are stigmatized by society because of their deviations from norms, but they can form groups with fellow monsters and develop techniques for handling their stigma. Our book is to be understood as a complement and a ‘further development’ of previous studies: The essays of our anthology pay attention to mechanisms of inequality and exclusion concerning specific historical and present monsters, based on their research materials within their specific frameworks, in order to ‘create’ engaging, constructive, critical and diverse approaches to monsters, even utopian visions of a future of societies shared by monsters. Our book proposes the usual view, that humans look in a horrified way at monsters, but adds that monsters can look in a critical and even likewise frightened way at the very societies which stigmatize them.

Monstrosity and Philosophy

Monstrosity and Philosophy PDF Author: Filippo Del Lucchese
Publisher: EUP
ISBN: 9781474456210
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
Amazons and giants, snakes and gorgons, centaurs and gryphons: monsters abounded in the ancient world. Del Lucchese grapples with the concept of monstrosity, showing how ancient philosophers explored metaphysics, ontology, theology and politics to respond to the challenge of radical otherness in nature and in thought.