Author: Walter Benn Michaels
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691126180
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
The Shape of the Signifier is a critique of recent theory--primarily literary but also cultural and political. Bringing together previously unconnected strands of Michaels's thought--from "Against Theory" to Our America--it anatomizes what's fundamentally at stake when we think of literature in terms of the experience of the reader rather than the intention of the author, and when we substitute the question of who people are for the question of what they believe. With signature virtuosity, Michaels shows how the replacement of ideological difference (we believe different things) with identitarian difference (we speak different languages, we have different bodies and different histories) organizes the thinking of writers from Richard Rorty to Octavia Butler to Samuel Huntington to Kathy Acker. He then examines how this shift produces the narrative logic of texts ranging from Toni Morrison's Beloved to Michael Hardt and Toni Negri's Empire. As with everything Michaels writes, The Shape of the Signifier is sure to leave controversy and debate in its wake.
The Shape of the Signifier
Author: Walter Benn Michaels
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691126180
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
The Shape of the Signifier is a critique of recent theory--primarily literary but also cultural and political. Bringing together previously unconnected strands of Michaels's thought--from "Against Theory" to Our America--it anatomizes what's fundamentally at stake when we think of literature in terms of the experience of the reader rather than the intention of the author, and when we substitute the question of who people are for the question of what they believe. With signature virtuosity, Michaels shows how the replacement of ideological difference (we believe different things) with identitarian difference (we speak different languages, we have different bodies and different histories) organizes the thinking of writers from Richard Rorty to Octavia Butler to Samuel Huntington to Kathy Acker. He then examines how this shift produces the narrative logic of texts ranging from Toni Morrison's Beloved to Michael Hardt and Toni Negri's Empire. As with everything Michaels writes, The Shape of the Signifier is sure to leave controversy and debate in its wake.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691126180
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
The Shape of the Signifier is a critique of recent theory--primarily literary but also cultural and political. Bringing together previously unconnected strands of Michaels's thought--from "Against Theory" to Our America--it anatomizes what's fundamentally at stake when we think of literature in terms of the experience of the reader rather than the intention of the author, and when we substitute the question of who people are for the question of what they believe. With signature virtuosity, Michaels shows how the replacement of ideological difference (we believe different things) with identitarian difference (we speak different languages, we have different bodies and different histories) organizes the thinking of writers from Richard Rorty to Octavia Butler to Samuel Huntington to Kathy Acker. He then examines how this shift produces the narrative logic of texts ranging from Toni Morrison's Beloved to Michael Hardt and Toni Negri's Empire. As with everything Michaels writes, The Shape of the Signifier is sure to leave controversy and debate in its wake.
The Shape of the Signifier
Author: Walter Benn Michaels
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400849594
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
The Shape of the Signifier is a critique of recent theory--primarily literary but also cultural and political. Bringing together previously unconnected strands of Michaels's thought--from "Against Theory" to Our America--it anatomizes what's fundamentally at stake when we think of literature in terms of the experience of the reader rather than the intention of the author, and when we substitute the question of who people are for the question of what they believe. With signature virtuosity, Michaels shows how the replacement of ideological difference (we believe different things) with identitarian difference (we speak different languages, we have different bodies and different histories) organizes the thinking of writers from Richard Rorty to Octavia Butler to Samuel Huntington to Kathy Acker. He then examines how this shift produces the narrative logic of texts ranging from Toni Morrison's Beloved to Michael Hardt and Toni Negri's Empire. As with everything Michaels writes, The Shape of the Signifier is sure to leave controversy and debate in its wake.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400849594
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
The Shape of the Signifier is a critique of recent theory--primarily literary but also cultural and political. Bringing together previously unconnected strands of Michaels's thought--from "Against Theory" to Our America--it anatomizes what's fundamentally at stake when we think of literature in terms of the experience of the reader rather than the intention of the author, and when we substitute the question of who people are for the question of what they believe. With signature virtuosity, Michaels shows how the replacement of ideological difference (we believe different things) with identitarian difference (we speak different languages, we have different bodies and different histories) organizes the thinking of writers from Richard Rorty to Octavia Butler to Samuel Huntington to Kathy Acker. He then examines how this shift produces the narrative logic of texts ranging from Toni Morrison's Beloved to Michael Hardt and Toni Negri's Empire. As with everything Michaels writes, The Shape of the Signifier is sure to leave controversy and debate in its wake.
The Routledge Companion to Semiotics and Linguistics
Author: Paul Cobley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134545487
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
The Routledge Companion to Semiotics and Linguistics opens up the world of semiotics and linguistics for newcomers to the discipline, and provides a useful ready-reference for the more advanced student.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134545487
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
The Routledge Companion to Semiotics and Linguistics opens up the world of semiotics and linguistics for newcomers to the discipline, and provides a useful ready-reference for the more advanced student.
The Interpretation of Material Shapes in Puritanism
Author: Ann Kibbey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521265096
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Book Description
Examines the variety of ways in which early Protestants responded to material shapes: icons, acoustic shapes of speech, material objects and the physical shapes of humans. Reveals how reactions to material shapes took violent forms as evidenced in the development of prejudice from Calvin and Luther to the Puritan immigrants of Massachusetts Bay.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521265096
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Book Description
Examines the variety of ways in which early Protestants responded to material shapes: icons, acoustic shapes of speech, material objects and the physical shapes of humans. Reveals how reactions to material shapes took violent forms as evidenced in the development of prejudice from Calvin and Luther to the Puritan immigrants of Massachusetts Bay.
Theory and Methods in Social Research
Author: Bridget Somekh
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1849200157
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
Previous ed.: Research methods in the social sciences, 2005.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1849200157
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
Previous ed.: Research methods in the social sciences, 2005.
Catastrophe and Survival: Walter Benjamin and Psychoanalysis
Author: Elizabeth Stewart
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1441109374
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 339
Book Description
Shows how Benjamin's thoughts regarding the individual's experience of the material world make significant contact with post-Freudian psychoanalytic theory. Elizabeth Stewart is Associate Professor of English, Yeshiva University, New York, USA. She teaches courses in European modernism, post-colonial literature, literature and philosophy, and literary and cultural theory. She is the translator and editor of Lacan in the German-Speaking World (SUNY 2004).
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1441109374
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 339
Book Description
Shows how Benjamin's thoughts regarding the individual's experience of the material world make significant contact with post-Freudian psychoanalytic theory. Elizabeth Stewart is Associate Professor of English, Yeshiva University, New York, USA. She teaches courses in European modernism, post-colonial literature, literature and philosophy, and literary and cultural theory. She is the translator and editor of Lacan in the German-Speaking World (SUNY 2004).
Biocivilisations
Author: Predrag Slijepcevic
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1645021386
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Biocivilisations is a fascinating, original and important exploration into how complex civilisations existed on Earth long before humans. What is life? This is arguably the most important question in all of science. Many scientists believe life can be reduced to ‘mechanistic’ factors, such as genes and information codes. Everything can be sequenced and explained. But in a world as rich and complex as this one, can such an assertion really be true? A growing army of scientists, philosophers and artists do not share this mechanistic vision for the science of life. The gene metaphor is not only too simplistic but also misleading. If there is a way to reduce life to a single principle, how does that principle acknowledge the creativity of life that turns both genetic and information determinism on their heads? Biocivilisations is a groundbreaking book exploring the mysteries of life and its deep uncertainty. Dr Predrag Slijepčević turns anthropocentric scientific thinking on its head, showing how the humble bacteria created the equivalent of cities and connected them with information highways, bringing our planet to life three thousand million years ago. He explains how bacteria, amoebas, plants, insects, birds, whales, elephants and countless other species not only preceded human beings but also demonstrate elements of complex civilisation – communication, agriculture, science, art, medicine and more – that we associate with human achievement. More than 99.99 percent of life on Earth has existed without humanity, and life will continue without humans long into the future. Biocivilisations is an important rethinking of the current scientific paradigm. It challenges us to reconsider the limited scope and time-window of our current ‘scientific revolution’ and to fundamentally reimagine what we call ‘life on Earth’.
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1645021386
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
Book Description
Biocivilisations is a fascinating, original and important exploration into how complex civilisations existed on Earth long before humans. What is life? This is arguably the most important question in all of science. Many scientists believe life can be reduced to ‘mechanistic’ factors, such as genes and information codes. Everything can be sequenced and explained. But in a world as rich and complex as this one, can such an assertion really be true? A growing army of scientists, philosophers and artists do not share this mechanistic vision for the science of life. The gene metaphor is not only too simplistic but also misleading. If there is a way to reduce life to a single principle, how does that principle acknowledge the creativity of life that turns both genetic and information determinism on their heads? Biocivilisations is a groundbreaking book exploring the mysteries of life and its deep uncertainty. Dr Predrag Slijepčević turns anthropocentric scientific thinking on its head, showing how the humble bacteria created the equivalent of cities and connected them with information highways, bringing our planet to life three thousand million years ago. He explains how bacteria, amoebas, plants, insects, birds, whales, elephants and countless other species not only preceded human beings but also demonstrate elements of complex civilisation – communication, agriculture, science, art, medicine and more – that we associate with human achievement. More than 99.99 percent of life on Earth has existed without humanity, and life will continue without humans long into the future. Biocivilisations is an important rethinking of the current scientific paradigm. It challenges us to reconsider the limited scope and time-window of our current ‘scientific revolution’ and to fundamentally reimagine what we call ‘life on Earth’.
Imagination of Science in Education
Author: Michiel van Eijck
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400753918
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 259
Book Description
Researchers agree that schools construct a particular image of science, in which some characteristics are featured while others end up in oblivion. The result is that although most children are likely to be familiar with images of heroic scientists such as Einstein and Darwin, they rarely learn about the messy, day-to-day practice of science in which scientists are ordinary humans. Surprisingly, the process by which this imagination of science in education occurs has rarely been theorized. This is all the more remarkable since great thinkers tend to agree that the formation of images — imagination — is at the root of how human beings modify their material world. Hence this process in school science is fundamental to the way in which scientists, being the successful agents in/of science education, actually create their own scientific enterprise once they take up their professional life. One of the first to examine the topic, this book takes a theoretical approach to understanding the process of imagining science in education. The authors utilize a number of interpretive studies in both science and science education to describe and contrast two opposing forces in the imagination of science in education: epicization and novelization. Currently, they argue, the imagination of science in education is dominated by epicization, which provides an absolute past of scientific heroes and peak discoveries. This opens a distance between students and today’s scientific enterprises, and contrasts sharply with the wider aim of science education to bring the actual world of science closer to students. To better understand how to reach this aim, the authors offer a detailed look at novelization, which is a continuous renewal of narratives that derives from dialogical interaction. The book brings together two hitherto separate fields of research in science education: psychologically informed research on students’ images of science and semiotically informed research on images of science in textbooks. Drawing on a series of studies in which children participate in the imagination of science in and out of the classroom, the authors show how the process of novelization actually occurs in the practice of education and outline the various images of science this process ultimately yields.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400753918
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 259
Book Description
Researchers agree that schools construct a particular image of science, in which some characteristics are featured while others end up in oblivion. The result is that although most children are likely to be familiar with images of heroic scientists such as Einstein and Darwin, they rarely learn about the messy, day-to-day practice of science in which scientists are ordinary humans. Surprisingly, the process by which this imagination of science in education occurs has rarely been theorized. This is all the more remarkable since great thinkers tend to agree that the formation of images — imagination — is at the root of how human beings modify their material world. Hence this process in school science is fundamental to the way in which scientists, being the successful agents in/of science education, actually create their own scientific enterprise once they take up their professional life. One of the first to examine the topic, this book takes a theoretical approach to understanding the process of imagining science in education. The authors utilize a number of interpretive studies in both science and science education to describe and contrast two opposing forces in the imagination of science in education: epicization and novelization. Currently, they argue, the imagination of science in education is dominated by epicization, which provides an absolute past of scientific heroes and peak discoveries. This opens a distance between students and today’s scientific enterprises, and contrasts sharply with the wider aim of science education to bring the actual world of science closer to students. To better understand how to reach this aim, the authors offer a detailed look at novelization, which is a continuous renewal of narratives that derives from dialogical interaction. The book brings together two hitherto separate fields of research in science education: psychologically informed research on students’ images of science and semiotically informed research on images of science in textbooks. Drawing on a series of studies in which children participate in the imagination of science in and out of the classroom, the authors show how the process of novelization actually occurs in the practice of education and outline the various images of science this process ultimately yields.
The Social Life of Kimono
Author: Sheila Cliffe
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472585550
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 511
Book Description
The kimono is an iconic garment with a history as rich and colourful as the textiles from which it is crafted. Deeply associated with Japanese culture both past and present, it has often been thought of as a highly gendered, rigidly traditional and unchanging national costume. This book challenges that perception, revealing the nuanced meanings and messages behind the kimono from the point of view of its wearers and producers, many of whom – both men and women – see the garment as a vehicle for self-expression. Taking a material culture approach, The Social Life of Kimono is the first study to combine the history of the kimono as a fashionable garment with an in-depth exploration of its multifaceted role today on both the street and the catwalk. Through case studies covering historical advertising campaigns, fashion magazines, interviews with contemporary kimono designers, large scale and small craft producers, and consumers who choose to wear them, The Social Life of Kimono gives a unique insight into making and meaning of this complex garment.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472585550
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 511
Book Description
The kimono is an iconic garment with a history as rich and colourful as the textiles from which it is crafted. Deeply associated with Japanese culture both past and present, it has often been thought of as a highly gendered, rigidly traditional and unchanging national costume. This book challenges that perception, revealing the nuanced meanings and messages behind the kimono from the point of view of its wearers and producers, many of whom – both men and women – see the garment as a vehicle for self-expression. Taking a material culture approach, The Social Life of Kimono is the first study to combine the history of the kimono as a fashionable garment with an in-depth exploration of its multifaceted role today on both the street and the catwalk. Through case studies covering historical advertising campaigns, fashion magazines, interviews with contemporary kimono designers, large scale and small craft producers, and consumers who choose to wear them, The Social Life of Kimono gives a unique insight into making and meaning of this complex garment.
The Order of Forms
Author: Anna Kornbluh
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022665334X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
In literary studies today, debates about the purpose of literary criticism and about the place of formalism within it continue to simmer across periods and approaches. Anna Kornbluh contributes to—and substantially shifts—that conversation in The Order of Forms by offering an exciting new category, political formalism, which she articulates through the co-emergence of aesthetic and mathematical formalisms in the nineteenth century. Within this framework, criticism can be understood as more affirmative and constructive, articulating commitments to aesthetic expression and social collectivity. Kornbluh offers a powerful argument that political formalism, by valuing forms of sociability like the city and the state in and of themselves, provides a better understanding of literary form and its political possibilities than approaches that view form as a constraint. To make this argument, she takes up the case of literary realism, showing how novels by Dickens, Brontë, Hardy, and Carroll engage mathematical formalism as part of their political imagining. Realism, she shows, is best understood as an exercise in social modeling—more like formalist mathematics than social documentation. By modeling society, the realist novel focuses on what it considers the most elementary features of social relations and generates unique political insights. Proposing both this new theory of realism and the idea of political formalism, this inspired, eye-opening book will have far-reaching implications in literary studies.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022665334X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
In literary studies today, debates about the purpose of literary criticism and about the place of formalism within it continue to simmer across periods and approaches. Anna Kornbluh contributes to—and substantially shifts—that conversation in The Order of Forms by offering an exciting new category, political formalism, which she articulates through the co-emergence of aesthetic and mathematical formalisms in the nineteenth century. Within this framework, criticism can be understood as more affirmative and constructive, articulating commitments to aesthetic expression and social collectivity. Kornbluh offers a powerful argument that political formalism, by valuing forms of sociability like the city and the state in and of themselves, provides a better understanding of literary form and its political possibilities than approaches that view form as a constraint. To make this argument, she takes up the case of literary realism, showing how novels by Dickens, Brontë, Hardy, and Carroll engage mathematical formalism as part of their political imagining. Realism, she shows, is best understood as an exercise in social modeling—more like formalist mathematics than social documentation. By modeling society, the realist novel focuses on what it considers the most elementary features of social relations and generates unique political insights. Proposing both this new theory of realism and the idea of political formalism, this inspired, eye-opening book will have far-reaching implications in literary studies.