The Senses of Nonsense

The Senses of Nonsense PDF Author: Alison Rieke
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
"Joyce, Stein, Stevens, and Zukofsky might easily be considered the most intractable and obscure of our Modernist writers; they are widely recognized (if not widely lauded) for their startling disruptions of grammar, syntax, semantic coherence - in short, all the conventional sense-making functions of language. In this absorbing, perceptive study Alison Rieke addresses the problem of defining and characterizing the experimental uses of language that emerge out of this shared tradition of literary nonsense and enigmatic writing." "Here the difficult linguistic ventures of the four are examined, compared, and contrasted, from Joyce's daring monument to comic nonsense, Finnegans Wake, and Stein's secretive autobiography, Stanzas in Meditation, to Stevens' enigmatic poems in quest of the "supreme fiction" and Zukofsky's radically experimental long poem, "A." Rieke shows how "nonsense" usefully accounts for the various disruptions upon which many of their most impenetrable writings depend and how each author's motives of disruption are bound up with motives of secrecy, how each hides sense in riddle and enigma, wordplay, and verbal sleight of hand. Throughout, Rieke offers detailed treatment of each individual author, making clear distinctions among them through close textual analysis." "Ultimately Rieke adroitly illustrates that these authors' experimental disruptions tend less toward denying the sensible than toward accepting and absorbing it as a tool advantageously manipulated, inverted, and twisted in the production of an enigmatic art. Students of Modernism, readers of Joyce, Stein, Stevens, and Zukofsky, and all those interested in wordplay and semantics will want to read this book."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Senses of Nonsense

The Senses of Nonsense PDF Author: Alison Rieke
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Joyce, Stein, Stevens, and Zukofsky might easily be considered the most intractable and obscure of our Modernist writers; they are widely recognized (if not widely lauded) for their startling disruptions of grammar, syntax, semantic coherence - in short, all the conventional sense-making functions of language. In this absorbing, perceptive study Alison Rieke addresses the problem of defining and characterizing the experimental uses of language that emerge out of this shared tradition of literary nonsense and enigmatic writing." "Here the difficult linguistic ventures of the four are examined, compared, and contrasted, from Joyce's daring monument to comic nonsense, Finnegans Wake, and Stein's secretive autobiography, Stanzas in Meditation, to Stevens' enigmatic poems in quest of the "supreme fiction" and Zukofsky's radically experimental long poem, "A." Rieke shows how "nonsense" usefully accounts for the various disruptions upon which many of their most impenetrable writings depend and how each author's motives of disruption are bound up with motives of secrecy, how each hides sense in riddle and enigma, wordplay, and verbal sleight of hand. Throughout, Rieke offers detailed treatment of each individual author, making clear distinctions among them through close textual analysis." "Ultimately Rieke adroitly illustrates that these authors' experimental disruptions tend less toward denying the sensible than toward accepting and absorbing it as a tool advantageously manipulated, inverted, and twisted in the production of an enigmatic art. Students of Modernism, readers of Joyce, Stein, Stevens, and Zukofsky, and all those interested in wordplay and semantics will want to read this book."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Making Sense of Nonsense

Making Sense of Nonsense PDF Author: Raymond Moody
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
ISBN: 0738763373
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
What do the whimsical writings of Dr. Seuss have in common with near-death experiences? The answer is that nonsense writing and spiritual experiences seem to defy all logic and yet they both can make a powerful personal impact. In this book, New York Times bestselling author Dr. Raymond Moody shares the groundbreaking results of five decades of research into the philosophy of nonsense, revealing dynamic new perspectives on language, logic, and the mystical side of life. Explore the meaningful feelings that accompany nonsense language and learn how engaging with nonsense can help you on your own spiritual path. Discover how nonsense transcends classical logic, opening the doorway to new spiritual and philosophical breakthroughs. With dozens of examples from literature, comedy, music, and the history of religion, this book presents a unique new approach to the mysteries of the human spirit.

The Sense and Non-Sense of Revolt

The Sense and Non-Sense of Revolt PDF Author: Julia Kristeva
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231562292
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Freud and psychoanalysis taught us that rebellion is what guarantees our independence and our creative abilities. But in the contemporary "entertainment" culture, is rebellion still a viable option? Is it still possible to build and embrace a counterculture? For whom—and against what? Julia Kristeva illustrates the advances and impasses of rebel culture through the experiences of three twentieth-century writers: the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, the surrealist Louis Aragon, and the theorist Roland Barthes. These figures, according to Kristeva, took part in a revolution against accepted notions of identity—of one’s relation to others. She places their accomplishments in the context of other revolutionary movements in art, literature, and politics, also offering an illuminating discussion of Freud’s groundbreaking work on rebellion.

The Organs of Sense

The Organs of Sense PDF Author: Adam Ehrlich Sachs
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374719969
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
"This book is only for people who like joy, absurdity, passion, genius, dry wit, youthful folly, amusing historical arcana, or telescopes." —Rivka Galchen, author of Little Labors and American Innovations In 1666, an astronomer makes a prediction shared by no one else in the world: at the stroke of noon on June 30 of that year, a solar eclipse will cast all of Europe into total darkness for four seconds. This astronomer is rumored to be using the longest telescope ever built, but he is also known to be blind—and not only blind, but incapable of sight, both his eyes having been plucked out some time before under mysterious circumstances. Is he mad? Or does he, despite this impairment, have an insight denied the other scholars of his day? These questions intrigue the young Gottfried Leibniz—not yet the world-renowned polymath who would go on to discover calculus, but a nineteen-year-old whose faith in reason is shaky at best. Leibniz sets off to investigate the astronomer’s claim, and over the three hours remaining before the eclipse occurs—or fails to occur—the astronomer tells the scholar the haunting and hilarious story behind his strange prediction: a tale that ends up encompassing kings and princes, family squabbles, obsessive pursuits, insanity, philosophy, art, loss, and the horrors of war. Written with a tip of the hat to the works of Thomas Bernhard and Franz Kafka, The Organs of Sense stands as a towering comic fable: a story about the nature of perception, and the ways the heart of a loved one can prove as unfathomable as the stars.

The Cinematography of Roger Corman

The Cinematography of Roger Corman PDF Author: Pawel Aleksandrowicz
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443810061
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Roger Corman is an ambiguous artistic figure. On the one hand, he is notorious for shooting and producing his films quickly, cheaply and with blatant disregard for safety measures, which, together with his ability to issue a dozen new films every year and his impressive filmography, have earned him the titles of “shlockmeister” and “the King of the B’s” among film journalists. On the other hand, he became the youngest American director to be given a film retrospective at the prestigious Cinématèque Française in Paris, one of his directorial efforts – House of Usher – was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him with an Academy Honorary Award “for his rich engendering of films and filmmakers.” This book investigates this duality and explores whether Corman is indeed a shlockmeister or an artist whose works are worthy of the highest cinema awards. The scope of analysis is limited to his directorial efforts “only” – still encompassing 50 features – excluding the 400 films he produced. The methodology adopted here is based on the auteur theory in its structuralist version by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and Peter Wollen, and focuses on three areas of interest: work ethic – personal elements in the films, personal control over and commitment to the production process outside direction; themes – topics and concerns common for many of the films regardless of the genre; and style – recurring stylistic motifs and elements in the camerawork, editing, and framing.

The Sense of Nonsense

The Sense of Nonsense PDF Author: Leda Black
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Fashionable Nonsense

Fashionable Nonsense PDF Author: Alan Sokal
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 1466862408
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
In 1996 physicist Alan Sokal published an essay in Social Text--an influential academic journal of cultural studies--touting the deep similarities between quantum gravitational theory and postmodern philosophy. Soon thereafter, the essay was revealed as a brilliant parody, a catalog of nonsense written in the cutting-edge but impenetrable lingo of postmodern theorists. The event sparked a furious debate in academic circles and made the headlines of newspapers in the U.S. and abroad. In Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science, Sokal and his fellow physicist Jean Bricmont expand from where the hoax left off. In a delightfully witty and clear voice, the two thoughtfully and thoroughly dismantle the pseudo-scientific writings of some of the most fashionable French and American intellectuals. More generally, they challenge the widespread notion that scientific theories are mere "narrations" or social constructions.

A Theology of Nonsense

A Theology of Nonsense PDF Author: Josephine Gabelman
Publisher: Lutterworth Press
ISBN: 0718847342
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
There is within all theological utterances something of the ridiculous, perhaps more so in Christianity, given its proclivity for the paradoxical and the childlike. Few theologians are willing to discuss how consent to the Christian doctrine often requires a faith that goes beyond reason. There seems to be a fear that the association of theology with the absurd will give fuel to the sceptic's refrain: 'You can't seriously believe in all that nonsense.' Josephine Gabelman considers the legitimacy of the sceptic's objection and explores the possibility that an idea can be contrary to rationality and also true and meaningful using the systematic analysis of central stylistic features of literary non sense such as Lewis Carroll's Alice stories. Gabelman sets up a nonsense theology by considering the practical and evangelical ramifications of associating Christian faith with nonsense literature and, conversely, the value of relating theological principles to the study of literary nonsense.Ultimately, Gabelman says, faith is always a risk and a strictly rational apologetic misrepresents the nature of Christian truth.

Nonsense and Meaning in Ancient Greek Comedy

Nonsense and Meaning in Ancient Greek Comedy PDF Author: Stephen E. Kidd
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107050154
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
This book employs the concept of 'nonsense' to explore those parts of Greek comedy perceived as 'just silly' and therefore 'not meaningful'.

The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes's Leviathan

The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes's Leviathan PDF Author: Patricia Springborg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139827286
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This Companion makes a new departure in Hobbes scholarship, addressing a philosopher whose impact was as great on Continental European theories of state and legal systems as it was at home. This volume is a systematic attempt to incorporate work from both the Anglophone and Continental traditions, bringing together newly commissioned work by scholars from ten different countries in a topic-by-topic sequence of essays that follows the structure of Leviathan, re-examining the relationship among Hobbes's physics, metaphysics, politics, psychology, and religion. Collectively they showcase important revisionist scholarship that re-examines both the context for Leviathan and its reception, demonstrating the degree to which Hobbes was indebted to the long tradition of European humanist thought. This Cambridge Companion shows that Hobbes's legacy was never lost and that he belongs to a tradition of reflection on political theory and governance that is still alive, both in Europe and in the diaspora.