Author: Arthur Flannigan Saint-Aubin
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807174696
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 270
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Book Description
The year 2019 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Kurt Cobain, an artist whose music, words, and images continue to move millions of fans worldwide. As the first academic study that provides a literary analysis of Cobain’s creative writings, Arthur Flannigan Saint-Aubin’s The Pleasures of Death: Kurt Cobain’s Masochistic and Melancholic Persona approaches the journals and songs crafted by Nirvana’s iconic front man from the perspective of cultural theory and psychoanalytic aesthetics. Drawing on critiques and reformulations of psychoanalytic theory by feminist, queer, and antiracist scholars, Saint-Aubin considers the literary means by which Cobain creates the persona of a young, white, heterosexual man who expresses masochistic and melancholic behaviors. On the one hand, this individual welcomes pain and humiliation as atonement for unpardonable sins; on the other, he experiences a profound sense of loss and grief, seeking death as the ultimate act of pleasure. The first-person narrators and characters that populate Cobain’s texts underscore the political and aesthetic repercussions of his art. Cobain’s distinctive version of grunge, understood as a subculture, a literary genre, and a cultural practice, represents a specific performance of race and gender, one that facilitates an understanding of the self as part of a larger social order. Saint-Aubin approaches Cobain’s writings independently of the artist’s biography, positioning these texts within the tradition of postmodern representations of masculinity in twentieth-century American fiction, while also suggesting connections to European Romantic traditions from the nineteenth century that postulate a relation between melancholy (or depression) and creativity. In turn, through Saint-Aubin’s elegant analysis, Cobain’s creative writings illuminate contradictions and inconsistencies within psychoanalytic theory itself concerning the intersection of masculinity, masochism, melancholy, and the death drive. By foregrounding Cobain’s ability to challenge coextensive links between gender, sexuality, and race, The Pleasures of Death reveals how the cultural politics and aesthetics of this tragic icon’s works align with feminist strategies, invite queer readings, and perform antiracist critiques of American culture.
Author: Ellie Ragland
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113664797X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 219
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Book Description
In Essays on the Pleasure of Death, Ellie Ragland discusses the interconnection of Freud and Lacan's theories, while maintaining that crucial differences between them still exist. Ragland argues, however, that Lacan's "return to Freud" gave coherence to concepts which Freud could never explain: psychosis, narcissism, the body and the death drive. Drawing upon Lacan's untranslated seminars through 1981, Ragland analyzes his theories of the death drive and the concept of jouissance, the driving force behind language and libido. Along with her examination of Lacanian theories about the body, meaning systems, and how they shape reality, Ragland also discusses the ethical problems of psychoanalysis and the ways in which Lacan's work points to the inadequacies of terms like "sexuality" and "gender."
Author: Archibald D. Hart
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 1418574791
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 287
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Book Description
A fascinating exploration of the profound loss of pleasure in our daily lives and the seven steps for restoring it. Pleasure. We know what it feels like and many of us spend our days trying to experience it. But can too much pleasure actually be bad for us? Yes, says Dr. Archibald Hart, clinical psychologist and expert in behavorial psychology. Backed by recent brain-imaging research, Dr. Hart shares that to some extent, our pursuit of extreme and overstimulating thrills hijacks our pleasure system and robs us of our ability to experience pleasure in simple things. We are literally being thrilled to death. In this insightful book, Dr. Hart explores the stark rise in a phenomenon known as anhedonia, an inability to experience pleasure or happiness. Previously linked only to serious emotional disorders, anhedonia is now seen as a contributing factor in depression (specifically nonsadness depression) and in the growing number of people who complain of profound boredom. This emotional numbness and loss of joy are results of the overuse of our brain's pleasure circuits. In Thrilled to Death, Dr. Hart explains the processes of the brain's pleasure center, the damaging trends of overindulgence and overstimulation, the signs and problems of anhedonia, and the seven important steps we must take to recover our wonderful joy in living.
Author: John Piper
Publisher: Multnomah
ISBN: 1601422911
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 401
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Book Description
The author of Desiring God reveals the biblical evidence to help us see and savor what the pleasures of God show us about Him. Includes a study guide for individual and small-group use. Isn’t it true—we really don’t know someone until we understand what makes that person happy? And so it is with God! What does bring delight to the happiest Being in the universe? John Piper writes, that it’s only when we know what makes God glad that we’ll know the greatness of His glory. Therefore, we must comprehend “the pleasures of God.” Unlike so much of what is written today, this is not a book about us. It is about the One we were made for—God Himself. In this theological masterpiece—chosen by World Magazine as one of the 20th Century’s top 100 books, John Piper reveals the biblical evidence to help us see and savor what the pleasures of God show us about Him. Then we will be able to drink deeply—and satisfyingly—from the only well that offers living water. What followers of Jesus need now, more than anything else, is to know and love—behold and embrace—the great, glorious, sovereign, happy God of the Bible. “This is a unique and precious book that everybody should read more than once.” —J.I. PACKER, Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia
Author: Paul Fleming
Publisher: Königshausen & Neumann
ISBN: 9783826032479
Category : Humor in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 176
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Book Description
Author: John Platts
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Conduct of life
Languages : en
Pages : 844
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Book Description
Author: Michelle Phillipov
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739164619
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 182
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Book Description
Death metal is one of popular music's most extreme variants, and is typically viewed as almost monolithically nihilistic, misogynistic, and reactionary. Studies tend to view the music as a reflection of these listeners' social conditions and are concerned with metal's pleasures so long as these can be seen within that context: as responses to cultural and economic circumstances. Michelle Phillipov's Death Metal and Music Criticism: Analysis at the Limits, in contract, offers an account of listening pleasure on its own terms. Through an analysis of death metal's sonic and lyrical extremity, Phillipov shows how violence and aggression can be configured as sites for pleasure and play in death metal music, with little relation to the 'real' lives of listeners. In some cases, gruesome lyrical themes and fractured song forms invite listeners to imagine new experiences of the body and of the self. In others, the speed and complexity of the music foster a 'technical' or distanced appreciation akin to the viewing experiences of graphic horror film fans. These aspects of death metal listening are often neglected by scholarly accounts concerned with evaluating music as either 'progressive' or 'reactionary.' By contextualizing the discussion of death metal via substantial overviews of popular music studies as a field, Phillipov's Death Metal and Music Criticism highlights how the premium placed on political engagement in popular music studies not only circumscribes our understanding of the complexity and specificity of death metal, but of other musical styles as well. Exploring death metal at the limits of conventional music criticism helps not only to develop a more nuanced account of death metal listening—it also offers some important starting points for a rethinking of popular music scholarship as a whole.
Author: Louis P. Pojman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780847686339
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 198
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Book Description
Contains two essays in which the authors present their cases for and against the death penalty, followed by two additional essays in which each author responds to what the other has written.
Author: William E. Engel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108800394
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 408
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Book Description
The first-ever critical anthology of the death arts in Renaissance England, this book draws together over 60 extracts and 20 illustrations to establish and analyse how people grappled with mortality in the 16th and 17th centuries. As well as providing a comprehensive resource of annotated and modernized excerpts, this engaging study includes commentary on authors and overall texts, discussions of how each excerpt is constitutive and expressive of the death arts, and suggestions for further reading. The extended Introduction takes into account death's intersections with print, gender, sex, and race, surveying the period's far-reaching preoccupation with, and anticipatory reflection upon, the cessation of life. For researchers, instructors, and students interested in medieval and early modern history and literature, the Reformation, memory studies, book history, and print culture, this indispensable resource provides at once an entry point into the field of early modern death studies and a springboard for further research.
Author: Daniel Greenleaf Thompson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 634
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Book Description
