Author: Andrew Strathern
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Publisher Description
imagining the unimaginable
Author: Ladina Bezzola Lambert
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004484884
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192
Book Description
How is it possible to imagine what is unknown and therefore unimaginable? How can the unimaginable be represented? On what materials do such representations rely? These questions lie at the heart of this book. Copernican theory redefined the role and importance of the imagination even as it implied the moment of its crisis. Based on this claim, Ladina Bezzola Lambert analyzes seventeenth-century astronomical texts – particularly descriptions of the moon and treatises written in support of the theory of the plurality of worlds – to show how early modern astronomers questioned the role of the imagination as a tool to visualize the unknown, but also how, pressed by the need to support their theories with convincing descriptions of other potential worlds, they sought to overcome the limitations of the imagination with a sophisticated rhetoric and techniques more commonly associated with poetic writing. The limitations of the imagination are at once a problem that all of the texts discussed struggle with and their recurrent theme. In the first and last chapter, the focus shifts to a more explicitly literary context: Ariosto’s Orlando furioso and the work of Italo Calvino. The change of focus from science to literature and from the narratives of the past to contemporary ones serves to emphasize that the issues relating to the imagination, its limitations and creative means, are basically the same both in science and literature and that they are still relevant today.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004484884
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192
Book Description
How is it possible to imagine what is unknown and therefore unimaginable? How can the unimaginable be represented? On what materials do such representations rely? These questions lie at the heart of this book. Copernican theory redefined the role and importance of the imagination even as it implied the moment of its crisis. Based on this claim, Ladina Bezzola Lambert analyzes seventeenth-century astronomical texts – particularly descriptions of the moon and treatises written in support of the theory of the plurality of worlds – to show how early modern astronomers questioned the role of the imagination as a tool to visualize the unknown, but also how, pressed by the need to support their theories with convincing descriptions of other potential worlds, they sought to overcome the limitations of the imagination with a sophisticated rhetoric and techniques more commonly associated with poetic writing. The limitations of the imagination are at once a problem that all of the texts discussed struggle with and their recurrent theme. In the first and last chapter, the focus shifts to a more explicitly literary context: Ariosto’s Orlando furioso and the work of Italo Calvino. The change of focus from science to literature and from the narratives of the past to contemporary ones serves to emphasize that the issues relating to the imagination, its limitations and creative means, are basically the same both in science and literature and that they are still relevant today.
Terror and Violence
Author: Andrew Strathern
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Publisher Description
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Publisher Description
Theological Aesthetics
Author: Richard Viladesau
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195344103
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 311
Book Description
This book explores the role of aesthetic experience in our perception and understanding of the holy. Richard Viladesau's goal is to articulate a theology of revelation, examined in relation to three principal dimensions of the aesthetic realm: feeling and imagination; beauty (or taste); and the arts. After briefly considering ways in which theology itself can be imaginative or beautiful, Viladesau concentrates on the theological significance of aesthetic data provided by each of the three major spheres of aesthetic perception and response. Throughout the work, the underlying question is how each of these spheres serves as a source (however ambiguous) of revelation. Although he frames much of his argument in terms of Catholic theology--from the Church Fathers to Karl Rahner, Hans urs von Balthasar, Bernard Lonergan, and David Tracy--Viladesau also makes extensive use of ideas from the Protestant theologian of the arts Gerardus van der Leeuw, and draws insights from such diverse thinkers as Hans Goerg Gadamer, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Iris Murdoch. His analysis is enlivened by the artistic examples he selects: the music of Mozart as contemplated by Karl Barth, Schoenbergs opera Moses und Aron, the sculptures of Chartres Cathedral, poems by Rilke and Michelangelo, and many others. What emerges from this study is what Viladeseau terms a transcendental theology of aesthetics. In Thomistic terms, he finds that beauty is not only a perfection but a transcendental. That is, any instance of beauty, rightly perceived and rightly understood, can be seen to imply divinely beautiful things as well. In other words, Viladesau argues, God is the absolute and necessary condition for the possibility of beauty.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195344103
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 311
Book Description
This book explores the role of aesthetic experience in our perception and understanding of the holy. Richard Viladesau's goal is to articulate a theology of revelation, examined in relation to three principal dimensions of the aesthetic realm: feeling and imagination; beauty (or taste); and the arts. After briefly considering ways in which theology itself can be imaginative or beautiful, Viladesau concentrates on the theological significance of aesthetic data provided by each of the three major spheres of aesthetic perception and response. Throughout the work, the underlying question is how each of these spheres serves as a source (however ambiguous) of revelation. Although he frames much of his argument in terms of Catholic theology--from the Church Fathers to Karl Rahner, Hans urs von Balthasar, Bernard Lonergan, and David Tracy--Viladesau also makes extensive use of ideas from the Protestant theologian of the arts Gerardus van der Leeuw, and draws insights from such diverse thinkers as Hans Goerg Gadamer, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Iris Murdoch. His analysis is enlivened by the artistic examples he selects: the music of Mozart as contemplated by Karl Barth, Schoenbergs opera Moses und Aron, the sculptures of Chartres Cathedral, poems by Rilke and Michelangelo, and many others. What emerges from this study is what Viladeseau terms a transcendental theology of aesthetics. In Thomistic terms, he finds that beauty is not only a perfection but a transcendental. That is, any instance of beauty, rightly perceived and rightly understood, can be seen to imply divinely beautiful things as well. In other words, Viladesau argues, God is the absolute and necessary condition for the possibility of beauty.
Representing Middle-earth
Author: Robert T. Tally Jr.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786470372
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
In such classic works as The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, J. R. R. Tolkien depicts a vast, complex world-system. Tolkien's Middle-earth comes to life with intensely detailed historical, geographical, and multicultural content, which is presented through different poetic forms that combine elements of epic, romance, myth, history, and the modern novel. This book analyzes Tolkien's project, paying attention to narrative form and its relation to social contexts, while also exploring his broader philosophical conception of history and the role of individual and collective subjects within it. Tolkien's published and posthumous writings, the film adaptations, and recent scholarship are all examined to provide an enlarged and refined critical perspective of these major works. Drawing upon Marxist literary theory and criticism, Robert T. Tally Jr. calls into question traditional views of race, class, morality, escapism, and fantasy more generally. Through close readings mixed with theoretical speculation, Representing Middle-earth allows readers see Tolkien's world, as well as our own, in a new light.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786470372
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
In such classic works as The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, J. R. R. Tolkien depicts a vast, complex world-system. Tolkien's Middle-earth comes to life with intensely detailed historical, geographical, and multicultural content, which is presented through different poetic forms that combine elements of epic, romance, myth, history, and the modern novel. This book analyzes Tolkien's project, paying attention to narrative form and its relation to social contexts, while also exploring his broader philosophical conception of history and the role of individual and collective subjects within it. Tolkien's published and posthumous writings, the film adaptations, and recent scholarship are all examined to provide an enlarged and refined critical perspective of these major works. Drawing upon Marxist literary theory and criticism, Robert T. Tally Jr. calls into question traditional views of race, class, morality, escapism, and fantasy more generally. Through close readings mixed with theoretical speculation, Representing Middle-earth allows readers see Tolkien's world, as well as our own, in a new light.
Un-representing the Great War
Author: Mariavita Cambria
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527524086
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
This collection of essays investigates the multifarious meanings of the Great War considered from a multifaceted perspective as the event that opens up the cultural history of the 20th century. After an introduction delineating ‘unrepresentability’, the core methodological issue of the book, the volume brings together many different strands of analysis and is divided into two main sections: the first provides a cultural and philosophical framework while the second explores specific linguistic and literary issues. Given the variety of perspectives and methodological approaches adopted by the contributors, the volume offers original and useful insights into WWI. The underlying rationale of the book, remaining faithful to the catastrophe of the war, without transforming it into a mere object of scientific investigation or ideological interpretation, helps to shed light on contemporary scenarios.
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527524086
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
This collection of essays investigates the multifarious meanings of the Great War considered from a multifaceted perspective as the event that opens up the cultural history of the 20th century. After an introduction delineating ‘unrepresentability’, the core methodological issue of the book, the volume brings together many different strands of analysis and is divided into two main sections: the first provides a cultural and philosophical framework while the second explores specific linguistic and literary issues. Given the variety of perspectives and methodological approaches adopted by the contributors, the volume offers original and useful insights into WWI. The underlying rationale of the book, remaining faithful to the catastrophe of the war, without transforming it into a mere object of scientific investigation or ideological interpretation, helps to shed light on contemporary scenarios.
Dynamics and Performativity of Imagination
Author: Bernd Huppauf
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136603603
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 374
Book Description
In this interdisciplinary anthology, essays study the relationship between the imagination and images both material and mental. Through case studies on a diverse array of topics including photography, film, sports, theater, and anthropology, contributors focus on the role of the creative imagination in seeing and producing images and the imaginary.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136603603
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 374
Book Description
In this interdisciplinary anthology, essays study the relationship between the imagination and images both material and mental. Through case studies on a diverse array of topics including photography, film, sports, theater, and anthropology, contributors focus on the role of the creative imagination in seeing and producing images and the imaginary.
Monatshefte
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic journals
Languages : en
Pages : 678
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic journals
Languages : en
Pages : 678
Book Description
Remembering and Representing the Experience of War in Twentieth-century France
Author: Debra Kelly
Publisher: Edwin Mellen Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
This work analyzes the representation of the experience of war in 20th-century France. It focuses on aspects of cultural history and memory as manifested in public ceremonies, oral history and literary production. It examines World War I and II, the Occupation, collaboration, and Resistance.
Publisher: Edwin Mellen Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
This work analyzes the representation of the experience of war in 20th-century France. It focuses on aspects of cultural history and memory as manifested in public ceremonies, oral history and literary production. It examines World War I and II, the Occupation, collaboration, and Resistance.
Modernism and Mass Politics
Author:
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804764697
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
Examining in detail the surprising similarities between modernist literature and contemporary theories of the crowd, this work shows that many modernist literary forms emerged out of efforts to write in the idiom of the crowd mind.
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804764697
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
Examining in detail the surprising similarities between modernist literature and contemporary theories of the crowd, this work shows that many modernist literary forms emerged out of efforts to write in the idiom of the crowd mind.
Violence Without God
Author: Joyce Wexler
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501325280
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Book Description
As twentieth-century writers confronted the political violence of their time, they were overcome by rhetorical despair. Unspeakable acts left writers speechless. They knew that the atrocities of the century had to be recorded, but how? A dead body does not explain itself, and the narrative of the suicide bomber is not the story of the child killed in the blast. In the past, communal beliefs had justified or condemned the most horrific acts, but the late nineteenth-century crisis of belief made it more difficult to come to terms with the meaning of violence. In this major new study, Joyce Wexler argues that this situation produced an aesthetic dilemma that writers solved by inventing new forms. Although Symbolism, Expressionism, Modernism, Magic Realism, and Postmodernism have been criticized for turning away from public events, these forms allowed writers to represent violence without imposing a specific meaning on events or claiming to explain them. Wexler's investigation of the way we think and write about violence takes her across national and period boundaries and into the work of some of the greatest writers of the century, among them Joseph Conrad, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Alfred Döblin, Günter Grass, Gabriel García Márquez, Salman Rushdie, and W. G. Sebald.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501325280
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Book Description
As twentieth-century writers confronted the political violence of their time, they were overcome by rhetorical despair. Unspeakable acts left writers speechless. They knew that the atrocities of the century had to be recorded, but how? A dead body does not explain itself, and the narrative of the suicide bomber is not the story of the child killed in the blast. In the past, communal beliefs had justified or condemned the most horrific acts, but the late nineteenth-century crisis of belief made it more difficult to come to terms with the meaning of violence. In this major new study, Joyce Wexler argues that this situation produced an aesthetic dilemma that writers solved by inventing new forms. Although Symbolism, Expressionism, Modernism, Magic Realism, and Postmodernism have been criticized for turning away from public events, these forms allowed writers to represent violence without imposing a specific meaning on events or claiming to explain them. Wexler's investigation of the way we think and write about violence takes her across national and period boundaries and into the work of some of the greatest writers of the century, among them Joseph Conrad, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Alfred Döblin, Günter Grass, Gabriel García Márquez, Salman Rushdie, and W. G. Sebald.