Flesh to Metal

Flesh to Metal PDF Author: Rolf Hellebust
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501725580
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
"That science-fiction future in which technology would make everything very good—or very bad—has not yet arrived. From our vantage point at least, no age appears to have had a deeper faith in the inevitability and imminence of such a total technological transformation than the early twentieth century. Russia was no exception."—from the introduction In the Soviet Union, it seems, armoring oneself against the world did not suffice—it was best to become metal itself. In his engaging and accessible book, Rolf Hellebust explores the aesthetic and ideological function of the metallization of the revolutionary body as revealed in Soviet literature, art, and politics. His book shows how the significance of this modern myth goes far beyond the immediate issue of the enthusiasm with which the Bolsheviks welcomed such a symbolic transfiguration and that of our own uneasy attraction to the images of metal flesh and machine-men. Hellebust's literary examples range from the famous (Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago) to the forgotten (early Soviet proletarian poets). To these he adds a mix of non-Russian references, from creation myths to comic book superheroes, medieval alchemy to Moby-Dick. He includes readings of posters, sculpture, and political discourse as well as cross-cultural comparisons to revolutionary France, industrial-age America, and Nazi Germany. The result is a fascinating portrait of the ultimate symbols of dehumanizing modernity, as refracted through the prism of utopian humanism.

Flesh to Metal

Flesh to Metal PDF Author: Rolf Hellebust
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501725580
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
"That science-fiction future in which technology would make everything very good—or very bad—has not yet arrived. From our vantage point at least, no age appears to have had a deeper faith in the inevitability and imminence of such a total technological transformation than the early twentieth century. Russia was no exception."—from the introduction In the Soviet Union, it seems, armoring oneself against the world did not suffice—it was best to become metal itself. In his engaging and accessible book, Rolf Hellebust explores the aesthetic and ideological function of the metallization of the revolutionary body as revealed in Soviet literature, art, and politics. His book shows how the significance of this modern myth goes far beyond the immediate issue of the enthusiasm with which the Bolsheviks welcomed such a symbolic transfiguration and that of our own uneasy attraction to the images of metal flesh and machine-men. Hellebust's literary examples range from the famous (Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago) to the forgotten (early Soviet proletarian poets). To these he adds a mix of non-Russian references, from creation myths to comic book superheroes, medieval alchemy to Moby-Dick. He includes readings of posters, sculpture, and political discourse as well as cross-cultural comparisons to revolutionary France, industrial-age America, and Nazi Germany. The result is a fascinating portrait of the ultimate symbols of dehumanizing modernity, as refracted through the prism of utopian humanism.

The Alchemy of Revolution

The Alchemy of Revolution PDF Author: David W. Mulder
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
This pioneering study in the history of revolutionary thought presents a reinterpretation of the development of communism among the lower classes during the English Revolution of the 1640s. The subject of the study is the revolutionary ideology of Gerrard Winstanley, the leader of the Diggers, a group of rural laborers who in 1649 founded a communistic colony and challenged conservative revolutionary leaders like Oliver Cromwell. The main principle of reinterpretation is what the author terms «chronological realism», a method that seeks to analyze Winstanley's ideology on its own terms without reference to modern socialism. Primary among the conclusions of this study is that hermeticism, or the theory of alchemy, formed the basis of what was genuinely revolutionary in Digger ideology.

Alchemy & Artistry

Alchemy & Artistry PDF Author: Ellie Canty
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In "Artistry & Alchemy: The Revolution Retold," readers between the ages of 12 and 17 are taken on a vivid journey through the struggles, victories, and innovations of ground-breaking Black pioneers. This workbook includes interactive experiments, stimulating journal prompts, and immersive exercises in addition to historical accounts, allowing young minds to engage with these luminaries on a deeply personal level. This is more than simply a book; it's an invitation to see how artistry and scientific magic may coexist, and to find one's own place in the unfolding story of genius and tenacity.

Distilling Knowledge

Distilling Knowledge PDF Author: Bruce T. Moran
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674014954
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Alchemy can't be science--common sense tells us as much. But perhaps common sense is not the best measure of what science is, or was. In this book, Bruce Moran looks past contemporary assumptions and prejudices to determine what alchemists were actually doing in the context of early modern science. Examining the ways alchemy and chemistry were studied and practiced between 1400 and 1700, he shows how these approaches influenced their respective practitioners' ideas about nature and shaped their inquiries into the workings of the natural world. His work sets up a dialogue between what historians have usually presented as separate spheres; here we see how alchemists and early chemists exchanged ideas and methods and in fact shared a territory between their two disciplines. Distilling Knowledge suggests that scientific revolution may wear a different appearance in different cultural contexts. The metaphor of the Scientific Revolution, Moran argues, can be expanded to make sense of alchemy and other so-called pseudo-sciences--by including a new framework in which "process can count as an object, in which making leads to learning, and in which the messiness of conflict leads to discernment." Seen on its own terms, alchemy can stand within the bounds of demonstrative science.

Atoms and Alchemy

Atoms and Alchemy PDF Author: William R. Newman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226576973
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
In 'Atoms and Alchemy', William R. Newman provides a spirited defence of alchemy, awarding this ancient and much maligned field of endeavour an important place in the history of the Scientific Revolution.

Gehennical Fire

Gehennical Fire PDF Author: William R. Newman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226577142
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Both the quest for natural knowledge and the aspiration to alchemical wisdom played crucial roles in the Scientific Revolution, as William R. Newman demonstrates in this fascinating book about George Starkey (1628-1665), America's first famous scientist. Beginning with Starkey's unusual education in colonial New England, Newman traces out his many interconnected careers—natural philosopher, alchemist, chemist, medical practitioner, economic projector, and creator of the fabulous adept, "Eirenaeus Philalethes." Newman reveals the profound impact Starkey had on the work of Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Samuel Hartlib, and other key thinkers in the realm of early modern science.

Creations of Fire

Creations of Fire PDF Author: Cathy Cobb
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1489927700
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 475

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Book Description
he history of chemistry is a story of human endeavor-and as er T ratic as human nature itself. Progress has been made in fits and starts, and it has come from all parts of the globe. Because the scope of this history is considerable (some 100,000 years), it is necessary to impose some order, and we have organized the text around three dis cemible-albeit gross--divisions of time: Part 1 (Chaps. 1-7) covers 100,000 BeE (Before Common Era) to the late 1700s and presents the background of the Chemical Revolution; Part 2 (Chaps. 8-14) covers the late 1700s to World War land presents the Chemical Revolution and its consequences; Part 3 (Chaps. 15-20) covers World War I to 1950 and presents the Quantum Revolution and its consequences and hints at revolutions to come. There have always been two tributaries to the chemical stream: experiment and theory. But systematic experimental methods were not routinely employed until the 1600s-and quantitative theories did not evolve until the 1700s-and it can be argued that modem chernistry as a science did not begin until the Chemical Revolution in the 1700s. xi xii PREFACE We argue however that the first experiments were performed by arti sans and the first theories proposed by philosophers-and that a rev olution can be understood only in terms of what is being revolted against.

Isaac Newton and the Transmutation of Alchemy

Isaac Newton and the Transmutation of Alchemy PDF Author: Philip Ashley Fanning
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1556437722
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Isaac Newton was a dedicated alchemist, a fact usually obscured as unsuited to his stature as a leader of the scientific revolution. Author Philip Ashley Fanning has diligently examined the evidence and concludes that the two major aspects of Newton’s research—conventional science and alchemy—were actually inseparable. In Isaac Newton and the Transmutation of Alchemy, Fanning reveals the surprisingly profound influence that Newton’s study of this hermetic art had in shaping his widely adopted scientific concepts. Alchemy was an ancient tradition of speculative philosophy that promised miraculous powers, such as the ability to change base metals into gold and the possibility of a universal solvent or elixir of life. Fanning compellingly describes this carefully tended esoteric institution, which may have found its greatest advocate in the career of the father of modern science. Relegated to the fringes of discourse until its twentieth-century revival by innovative thinkers such as psychiatrist Carl Jung, alchemy offers a key to understanding both the foundations of modern knowledge and important avenues in which we may yet discover wisdom.

Flesh to Metal

Flesh to Metal PDF Author: Rolf Hellebust
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801488924
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
A special material : the meaning of metal imagery -- Forging the future : proletarian poetry and revolutionary transformation -- Anvil to blast furnace : metal imagery in socialist realism -- The Metaphor realized : fellow travelers and thereafter -- The Beginning and end of history : metallization and myth.

The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy

The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy PDF Author: B. J. T. Dobbs
Publisher: CUP Archive
ISBN: 9780521273817
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
This book sets the foundations of Newton's alchemy in their historical context in Restoration England. It is shown that alchemical modes of thought were quite strong in many of those who provided the dynamism for the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and that these modes of thought had important relationships with general movements for reform in the same period.