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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > History of ideas, intellectual history

Scatter 2 - Politics in Deconstruction (Paperback): Geoffrey Bennington Scatter 2 - Politics in Deconstruction (Paperback)
Geoffrey Bennington
R1,171 R878 Discovery Miles 8 780 Save R293 (25%) Ships in 12 - 19 working days

This book deconstructs the whole lineage of political philosophy, showing the ways democracy abuts and regularly undermines the sovereignist tradition across a range of texts from the Iliad to contemporary philosophy. Politics is an object of perennial difficulty for philosophy-as recalcitrant to philosophical mastery as is philosophy's traditional adversary, poetry. That difficulty makes it an attractive topic for any deconstructive approach to the tradition from which we inherit our language and our concepts. Scatter 2 pursues that deconstruction, often starting with, and sometimes departing from, the work of Jacques Derrida by attending to the concepts of sovereignty on the one hand and democracy on the other. The book begins by following the fate of a line from Homer's Iliad, where Odysseus asserts that "the rule of many is no good thing, let there be one ruler, one king." The line, Bennington shows, is quoted, misquoted, and progressively Christianized by Aristotle, Philo Judaeus, Suetonius, the early Church Fathers, Aquinas, Dante, Ockham, Marsilius of Padua, Jean Bodin, Etienne de la Boetie, up to Carl Schmitt and Erik Peterson, and even one of the defendants at the Nuremberg trials, before being discussed by Derrida himself. In the book's second half, Bennington begins again with Plato and Aristotle and tracks the concept of democracy as it regularly abuts and undermines that sovereignist tradition. In detailed readings of Hobbes and Rousseau, Bennington develops a notion of "proto-democracy" as a possible name for the scatter that underlies and drives the political as such and that will always prevent politics from achieving its aim of bringing itself to an end.

Women's Influence on Classical Civilization (Paperback, New): Eireann Marshall, Fiona McHardy Women's Influence on Classical Civilization (Paperback, New)
Eireann Marshall, Fiona McHardy
R1,304 Discovery Miles 13 040 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

This volume explores how women in antiquity influenced cultural spheres usually thought of as male, such as politics, economics, science, law, and the arts.
The contributors look at examples from around the ancient world, asking how far traditional definitions of culture describe male spheres of activity, and examining to what extent these spheres were actually created and perpetuated by women. It is shown that women, through marriage and motherhood, tended to perpetuate traditional male values, yet also made significant contributions of their own.
Written by an international range of renowned academics, "Women's Influence on Classical Civilization" provides a valuable wider perspective on the roles and influence on women in the societies of the Greek and Roman worlds.

Japanese Modernisation and Mingei Theory - Cultural Nationalism and Oriental Orientalism (Hardcover, annotated edition): Yuko... Japanese Modernisation and Mingei Theory - Cultural Nationalism and Oriental Orientalism (Hardcover, annotated edition)
Yuko Kikuchi
R4,644 Discovery Miles 46 440 Ships in 12 - 19 working days


Conceptualised in 1920s Japan by Yanagi Sôetsu, the Mingei movement has spread world wide since the 1950s, creating phenomena as diverse as Mingei museums, Mingei connoisseurs and collectors, Mingei shops and Mingei restaurants. The theory, at its core and its adaptation by Bernard Leach, has long been an influential 'Oriental' aesthetic for studio craft artists in the West. But why did Mingei become so particularly influential to a western audience? And could the 'Orientalness' perceived in Mingei theory be nothing more than a myth?

This richly illustrated work offers controversial new evidence through its cross-cultural examination of a wide range of materials in Japanese, English, Korean and Chinese, bringing about startling new conclusions concerning Japanese modernization and cultural authenticity. This new interpretation of the Mingei movement will appeal to scholars of Japanese art history as well as those with interests in cultural identity in non-Western cultures.

Intellectuals and the American Presidency - Philosophers, Jesters, or Technicians? (Paperback, New Ed): Tevi Troy Intellectuals and the American Presidency - Philosophers, Jesters, or Technicians? (Paperback, New Ed)
Tevi Troy
R919 Discovery Miles 9 190 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Intellectuals and the American Presidency examines the complex relationships between Presidents and America's intellectuals since 1960. From Arthur Schlesinger's work in John Kennedy's campaign and administration to Daniel Patrick Moynihan's role as the Democrat in the Nixon White House, through Sidney Blumenthal's efforts to secure intellectual support for a scandal-plagued Bill Clinton, every president since 1960 has had to address the question of intellectual support. Using both popular sources and some never before used archived material, Intellectuals and the American Presidency looks at the advisers who served as liaisons to the academic community, the presidents' views of those intellectuals and how they fit in with the presidents' plans. In this bipartisan study, political insider Tevi Troy analyzes how American presidents have used intellectuals to shape their images and advance their agendas.

Revolt from the Heartland - The Struggle for an Authentic Conservatism (Paperback, New Ed): Joseph A. Scotchie Revolt from the Heartland - The Struggle for an Authentic Conservatism (Paperback, New Ed)
Joseph A. Scotchie
R1,482 Discovery Miles 14 820 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

"Joseph Scotchie wishes to tell the story of what he terms an "underfunded, mostly unknown movement" known as the "paleoconservative" or "Old Right" which, he argues, has "provided the intellectual firepower behind the troubled populism of the 1990's." And Scotchie is not afraid to ask hard questions." --"The Review of Politics"
"An essential and valuable contribution to American intellectual history in the last decade of the last century." -- "The American Conservative"
The dominant forces of American conservatism remain wedded, at all costs, to the Republican Party, but another movement, one with its roots in the pre-World War II era, has stepped forth to fill an intellectual vacuum on the right. This Old Right first rose in opposition to the New Deal, fighting both statism at home and the emergence of an American empire abroad. More recently this movement, sometimes called paleoconservatism, has provided the ideological backbone of modern populism and the opposition to globalization, with decisive effects on presidential politics. In "Revolt from the Heartland," Joseph Scotchie provides an intellectual history of the Old Right, treating its main figures and defining its conflict with the traditional left-right political mainstream.
As Scotchie's account makes clear, the Old Right and its descendents have articulated an arresting and powerful worldview. They include an array of learned and provocative writers, including M.E. Bradford, Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver, and Murray Rothbard, and more recently, Clyde Wilson, Thomas Fleming, Samuel Francis, and Chilton Williamson, Jr. Beginning with the movement's anti-Federalist forerunners, Scotchie traces its developments over two centuries of American history. In the realm of politics and economics, he examines the anti-imperialist stance against the Spanish-American War and the League of Nations, the split among conservatives on Cold War foreign policy, and the hostility to the socialist orientation of the New Deal. Identifying a number of social and cultural attitudes that define the Old Right, Scotchie finds the most important to be the importance of the classics, a recognition of regional cultures, the primacy of family over state, the moral case against immigration. In general, too, a Tenth Amendment approach to such recurring issues as education, abortion, and school prayer characterizes the group.
As Scotchie makes clear, the Old Right and its grass-roots supporters have, and continue to be, a powerful force in modern American politics in spite of a lack of institutional support and media recognition. "Revolt from the Heartland" is an important study of a persisting current in American political life.
Joseph Scotchie is the author of "Barbarians in the Saddle: An Intellectual Biography of Richard M. Weaver" and the editor of "The Paleoconservatives: New Voices of the Old Right" and "The Vision of Richard Weaver," all available from Transaction. He is also the author of a biography on the novelist Thomas Wolfe.
""Joe Scotchie's terrific new book solves a Great American Mystery. Why do our conservative intellectuals attack one another more viciously than they do liberals? Why does the splintered movement-Old Right, Neoconservative, New Right, and Beltway Right-behave like old communists who would rather purge each other than carry out the revolution? Why, if a member has some success, as when Pat Buchanan won in New Hampshire in 1996, do the rest attack him until they have assured his defeat? It's an incredible story and you have to read the book to find the answer""-William J. Quirk, Professor of Law, "University of South Carolina"
""As an immigrant, I have always regarded the American conserative movement as the flower of democracy, the real reason for the Free World's victory in the Cold War. But flowers do not grow to the sky and the historic conservative movement is clearly now dead. In this remarkable and erudite account, Joseph Scothie investigates the new shoots that are coming up, traces their roots, and analyzes their future-and America's.""
-Peter Brimelow, author of "Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster"
""With truly masterful precision, Joe Scotchie illuminates the myriad dissident strains of American Conservatism which knocked at the doors of power at the end of the Cold War before meeting a fateful rebuff. He tells the story of those distinctive Right wing intellectuals who said "no" to an imperial foreign policy, mass immigration, and a globalized economy. While this band lost the key internecine battles of the 1990s to Newt Gingrich the neoconvervatives, and the politics of Clinton-bashing, in Scotchie' eloquent account their struggle for a conservatism rooted a sense of measure and respect for the American past retains all its piquancy for the decade to come.""-Scott McConnell

Women's Influence on Classical Civilization (Hardcover): Eireann Marshall, Fiona McHardy Women's Influence on Classical Civilization (Hardcover)
Eireann Marshall, Fiona McHardy
R4,476 Discovery Miles 44 760 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

This volume explores how women in antiquity influenced cultural spheres usually thought of as male, such as politics, economics, science, law, and the arts.
The contributors look at examples from around the ancient world, asking how far traditional definitions of culture describe male spheres of activity, and examining to what extent these spheres were actually created and perpetuated by women. It is shown that women, through marriage and motherhood, tended to perpetuate traditional male values, yet also made significant contributions of their own.
Written by an international range of renowned academics, "Women's Influence on Classical Civilization" provides a valuable wider perspective on the roles and influence on women in the societies of the Greek and Roman worlds.

Archaeology and Modernity (Hardcover, New Ed): Julian Thomas Archaeology and Modernity (Hardcover, New Ed)
Julian Thomas
R4,481 Discovery Miles 44 810 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Archaeologists have long recognised that they study past worlds which may be quite unlike our own. But how are we to cope with the difference of the past if our own circumstances are unique within human history? What if archaeology itself depends on ways of thinking that are specific to the modern western world? This is the first book-length study to explore the relationship between archaeology and modern thought, showing how philosophical ideas that developed in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries still dominate our approach to the material remains of ancient societies. It discusses the modern emphasis on method rather than ethics or meaning, our understanding of change in history and nature, the role of the nation-state in forming our views of the past, and contemporary notions of human individuality, the mind, and materiality.

Archaeology and Modernity (Paperback, New): Julian Thomas Archaeology and Modernity (Paperback, New)
Julian Thomas
R1,312 Discovery Miles 13 120 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

This is the first book-length study to explore the relationship between archaeology and modern thought, showing how philosophical ideas that developed in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries still dominate our approach to the material remains of ancient societies. It discusses the modern emphasis on method rather than ethics or meaning, our understanding of change in history and nature, the role of the nation-state in forming our views of the past, and contemporary notions of human individuality, the mind, and materiality. Julian Thomas also addresses the modern preoccupation with depth, which enables archaeology to be used as a metaphor in other disciplines. The book concludes by advocating a "counter-modern" archaeology that refuses to separate material evidence from political, moral, rhetorical, and aesthetic concerns, as well as meaning.

The Protestant Ethic Debate - Weber's Replies to His Critics, 1907-1910 (Paperback): David Chalcraft, Austin Harrington The Protestant Ethic Debate - Weber's Replies to His Critics, 1907-1910 (Paperback)
David Chalcraft, Austin Harrington
R761 Discovery Miles 7 610 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism continues to be one of the most influential texts in the sociology of modern Western societies. Although Weber never produced the further essays with which he intended to extend the study, he did complete four lengthy Replies to reviews of the text by two German historians. Written between 1907 and 1910, the Replies offer a fascinating insight into Weber's intentions in the original study, and the present volume is the first complete translation of all four Replies in English.

American Communism and Soviet Russia - With a new introduction by the author (Paperback): Theodore Draper American Communism and Soviet Russia - With a new introduction by the author (Paperback)
Theodore Draper
R1,582 Discovery Miles 15 820 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

This companion volume to "The Roots of American Communism" brings to completion what the author describes as the essence of the relationship of American Communism to Soviet Russia in the first decade after the Bolsheviks seized power. The outpouring of new archive materials makes it plain that Draper's premise is direct and to the point: The communist movement "was transformed from a new expression of American radicalism to the American appendage of a Russian revolutionary power." Each generation must find this out for itself, and no better guide exists than the work of master historian Theodore Draper. "American Communism and Soviet Russia" is acknowledged to be the classic, authoritative history of the critical formative period of the American Communist Party. Based on confidential minutes of the top party committees, interviews with party leaders, and public records, this book carefully documents the influence of the Soviet Union on the fundamental nature of American Communism. Draper's reflections on that period in this edition are a fitting capstone to this pioneering effort.

Time and Idea - The Theory of History in Giambattista Vico (Paperback): A. Caponigri Time and Idea - The Theory of History in Giambattista Vico (Paperback)
A. Caponigri
R1,526 Discovery Miles 15 260 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Long a shadowy figure in the history of philosophy, it was only in the twentieth century that Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) achieved renown as a major and original thinker. There has been a steadily widening interest in this figure who, had he been known in his own day, might have altered the course of European thought. Much has been written in an attempt to clarify his historical stature, but in "Time and Idea" A. Robert Caponigri approaches Vico's thought in terms of its relevance to problems of modern philosophy. Viewing the essential problem of twentieth-century philosophy as the elimination of human subjectivity from nature, Caponigri shows how Vico offers us a principle for the vindication of our own spirituality through history.
In Caponigri's reading, Vico establishes an absolute dichotomy between nature and history. The latter is seen as the sum of the active, fully realized human spirit and thus the context for the true understanding of human nature. Although Vico's major work, "The New Science," incorporates vast amounts of concrete historical research and contruction, Caponigri's focus is on Vico's theoretical apparatus. Following an introductory biographical chapter, the author turns to Vico's theory of history, emphasizing its importance as a genuine philosophical undertaking rather than mere methodology. Caponigri shows how the speculative problem of history first presented itself to Vico in matters of jurisprudence and natural law from which he derived the concepts of time and idea as the terms in which the historical process of culture becomes comprehensible. He then introduces the human subject as the principle of the synthesis of time and idea, and discusses the Vichian concept of the "modification of the human mind," and his idea of "providence" as the rectifying principle of human history.
First published in 1953, "Time and Idea" remains an essential contribution to the ongoing dialog on Vico's work.

The New Nationalism (Paperback): Louis Snyder The New Nationalism (Paperback)
Louis Snyder; Preface by John D Montgomery
R1,520 Discovery Miles 15 200 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Nationalism, the state of mind in which the individual's supreme loyalty is owed to the nation-state, remains the strongest of political emotions. As a historical phenomenon, it is always in flux, changing according to no preconceived pattern. In "The New Nationalism," Louis Snyder sees various forms of nationalism, and categorizes them as a force for unity; a force for the status quo; a force for independence; a force for fraternity; a force for colonial expansion; a force for aggression; a force for economic expansion; and a force for anti-colonialism.
In Snyder's opinion, nationalism should be differentiated from Theodore Roosevelt's "New Nationalism," a phrase he borrowed from Herbert D. Croly's "The Promise of American Life." Croly warned that giving too much power to big industry and finance would lead to the degradation of the masses, and that state and federal intervention must be pursued on all economic fronts. Roosevelt expanded upon this concept, and saw the flourishing of democratic government as a means of reviving the old pioneer sense of individualism and opportunity. Snyder, in contrast, extends the work of the two major pioneers in the study of modern nationalism, Carlton J. H. Hayes and Hans Kohn, in exploring this most powerful sentiment of modern times, and showing how it relates to the political, economic, and psychological tendencies of historical development.
"The book is the mature fruit of much research and much thought. It] will be an indispensable guide not only for the student of contemporary history and international relations but also for the statesman who has to deal with these problems and to learn that they are of an importance far beyond all divisions of ideology or civilization."--Hans Kohn

Romain Rolland and the Politics of the Intellectual Engagement (Paperback): David Fisher Romain Rolland and the Politics of the Intellectual Engagement (Paperback)
David Fisher
R1,522 Discovery Miles 15 220 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

This intellectual portrait of Romain Rolland (1866-1944)--French novelist, musicologist, dramatist, and Nobel prizewinner in 1915--focuses on his experiments with political commitment against the backdrop of European history between the two world wars. Best known as a biographer of Beethoven and for his novel, Jean-Christophe, Rolland was one of those nonconforming writers who perceived a crisis of bourgeois society in Europe before the Great War, and who consciously worked to discredit and reshape that society in the interwar period. Analyzing Rolland's itinerary of engaged stands, David James Fisher clarifies aspects of European cultural history and helps decipher the ambiguities at the heart of all forms of intellectual engagement.

Moving from text to context, Fisher organizes the book around a series of debates--Rolland's public and private collisions over specific committed stands--introducing the reader to the polemical style of French intellectual discourse and offering insight into what it means to be a responsible intellectual. Fisher presents Rolland's private ruminations, extensive research, and reexamination of the function and style of the French man of letters. He observes that Rolland experimented with five styles of commitment: oceanic mysticism linked to progressive, democratic politics; free thinking linked to antiwar dissent; pacifism and, ultimately, Gandhism; antifacism linked to anti-imperialism, antiracism, and all-out political resistance to fascism; and, most controversially, fellow traveling as a form of socialist humanism and the positive side of antifascism. Fisher views Rolland's engagement historically and critically, showing that engaged intellectuals of that time were neither naive propagandists nor dupes of political parties.

David James Fisher makes a case for the committed writer and hopes to re-ignite the debate about commitment. For him, Romain Rolland sums up engagement in a striking, dialectical formula: "Pessimism of the Intelligence, Optimism of the Will." His story presents a powerful challenge to modern intellectuals.

Gandhi and the Stoics - Modern Experiments on Ancient Values (Hardcover): Richard Sorabji Gandhi and the Stoics - Modern Experiments on Ancient Values (Hardcover)
Richard Sorabji
R1,271 Discovery Miles 12 710 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Richard Sorabji presents a fascinating study of Gandhi's philosophy in comparison with Christian and Stoic thought. Sorabji shows that Gandhi was a true philosopher. He not only aimed to give a consistent self-critical rationale for his views, but also thought himself obliged to live by what he taught-something that he had in common with the ancient Greek and Christian ethical traditions. Understanding his philosophy helps with re-assessing the consistency of his positions and life. Gandhi was less influenced by the Stoics than by Socrates, Christ, Christian writers, and Indian thought. But whereas he re-interpreted those, he discovered the congeniality of the Stoics too late to re-process them. They could supply even more of the consistency he sought. He could show them the effect of putting their unrealised ideals into actual practice. They from the Cynics, he from the Bhagavadgita, learnt the indifference of most objectives. But both had to square that with their love for all humans and their political engagement. Indifference was to both a source of freedom. Gandhi was converted to non-violence by Tolstoy's picture of Christ. But he addressed the sacrifice it called for, and called even protective killing violent. He was nonetheless not a pacifist, because he recognized the double-bind of rival duties, and the different duties of different individuals, which was a Stoic theme. For both Gandhi and the Stoics it accompanied doubts about universal rules. Sorabji's expert understanding of these ethical traditions allows him to offer illuminating new perspectives on a key intellectual figure of the modern world, and to show the continuing resonance of ancient philosophical ideas.

Antonin Artaud - A Critical Reader (Hardcover): Edward Scheer Antonin Artaud - A Critical Reader (Hardcover)
Edward Scheer
R4,471 Discovery Miles 44 710 Ships in 12 - 19 working days


Contents:
Acknowledgements Note on the Text Introduction. On Antonin Artaud: A Beginner's Guide to Cruelty
Part 1. On Biography: Madness and Language I) André Breton, with André Parinaud from Conversations: the Autobiography of Surrealism ii) André Breton, 'Homage to Antonin Artaud' iii) Georges Bataille, from 'Surrealism from Day to Day' iv) Sylvère Lotringer, a selection from an interview with Jacques Latrémolière v) Gilles Deleuze, 'Thirteenth Series of the Schizophrenic and the Little Girl'
Part 2. Theatre: Acts and Representations i) Jacques Derrida, from 'The Theatre of Cruelty and The Closure of Representation' ii) Helga Finter, from 'Antonin Artaud and the Impossible Theatre. The Legacy of the Theatre of Cruelty' iii) Jerzy Grotowski, 'He Wasn't Entirely Himself' iv) Jane Goodall, 'The Plague and its Powers in Artaudian Theatre' v) Herbert Blau, from 'The Dubious Spectacle of Collective Identity' vi) Susan Sontag, from 'Approaching Artaud' vii) Leo Bersani, 'Artaud, Defecation and Birth'
Part 3. On Writing and Fine Arts i) Maurice Blanchot, 'Artaud' ii) Julia Kristeva, from 'The Subject in Process' iii) Jacques Derrida, from 'Forcener le subjectile' ('To unsense the subjectile') iv) Umberto Artioli, from 'Production of Reality or Hunger for the Impossible?'
Part 4. Beyond Words: On Film and Radio I) Allen S. Weiss, 'K' ii) Denis Hollier, 'The Death of Paper, Part Two: Artaud's Sound System' iii) Mikhail Yampolsky, from 'Voice Devoured: Artaud and Borges on Dubbing' iv) Francis Vanoye 'Cinemas of Cruelty?' Bibliography Index

Religious Conversion and Identity - The Semiotic Analysis of Texts (Hardcover, New): Massimo Leone Religious Conversion and Identity - The Semiotic Analysis of Texts (Hardcover, New)
Massimo Leone
R4,483 Discovery Miles 44 830 Ships in 12 - 19 working days


The way in which people change and represent their spiritual evolution is often determined by recurrent language structures. Through the analysis of ancient and modern stories and their words and images, this book describes the nature of conversion through explorations of the encounter with the religious message, the discomfort of spiritual uncertainty, the loss of personal and social identity, the anxiety of destabilization, the reconstitution of the self and the discovery of a new language of the soul.

Antonin Artaud - A Critical Reader (Paperback, New): Edward Scheer Antonin Artaud - A Critical Reader (Paperback, New)
Edward Scheer
R1,249 Discovery Miles 12 490 Ships in 12 - 19 working days


Addicted to drugs from an early age and incarcerated in mental asylums throughout his adult life, Antonin Artaud was nevertheless one of the most brilliant artists of the twentieth century. His writing influenced entire generations, from the French post-structuralists to the American beatniks. He was a key figure in the European cinema of the 1920s and '30s, and his drawings and sketches have been displayed in some of the major art galleries of the Western world. Possibly best known for his concept of a 'theatre of cruelty', his legacy has been to re-define the possibilities of live performance.
This resource collects for the first time some of the best criticism on his life and work from writers such as Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Maurice Blanchot, Herbert Blau, Leo Bersani and Susan Sontag.
Containing some of the most intellectually adventurous and emotionally passionate writings on Artaud, this book is essential reading for Artaud scholars working in arts disciplines including theatre, film, philosophy, literature and fine art.

A Philosophical History of Rights (Paperback, Revised Ed.): Gary Herbert A Philosophical History of Rights (Paperback, Revised Ed.)
Gary Herbert
R1,547 Discovery Miles 15 470 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Since the seventeenth century, concern in the Western world for the welfare of the individual has been articulated philosophically most often as a concern for his rights. The modern conception of individual rights resulted from abandonment of ancient, value-laced ideas of nature and their replacement by the modern, mathematically transparent idea of nature that has room only for individuals, often in conflict. In "A Philosophical History of Rights," Gary B. Herbert traces the historical evolution of the concept and the transformation of the problems through which the concept is defined. The volume examines the early history of rights as they existed in ancient Greece, and locates the first philosophical inquiry into the nature of rights in Platonic and Aristotelian accounts. He traces Roman jurisprudence to the advent of Christianity, to the divine right of kings. Herbert follows the historical evolution of modern subjective rights, the attempts by Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel to mediate rights, to make them sociable. He then turns to nineteenth-century condemnation of rights in the theories of the historical school of law, Benthamite utilitarianism, and Marxist socialism. Following World War II, a newly revived language of rights had to be constructed, to express universal moral outrage over what came to be called crimes against humanity. The contemporary Western concern for rights is today a concern for the individual and a recognition of the limits beyond which a society must not go in sacrificing the individual's welfare for its own conception of the common good. In his conclusion, Herbert addresses the postmodern critique of rights as a form of moral imperialism legitimizing relations of dominance and subjection. In addition to his historical analysis of the evolution of theories of rights, Herbert exposes the philosophical confusions that arise when we exchange one concept of rights for another and continue to cite historical antecedents for contemporary attitudes that are in fact their philosophical antithesis. "A Philosophical History of Rights" will be of interest to philosophers, historians, and political scientists.

Gothic Things - Dark Enchantment and Anthropocene Anxiety (Paperback): Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock Gothic Things - Dark Enchantment and Anthropocene Anxiety (Paperback)
Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock
R768 R717 Discovery Miles 7 170 Save R51 (7%) Ships in 12 - 19 working days

Offering an innovative approach to the Gothic, Gothic Things: Dark Enchantment and Anthropocene Anxiety breaks ground with a new materialist analysis of the genre, highlighting the ways that, since its origins in the eighteenth century, the Gothic has been intensely focused on "ominous matter" and "thing power." In chapters attending to gothic bodies, spaces, books, and other objects, Gothic Things argues that the Gothic has always been about what happens when objects assume mysterious animacy or potency and when human beings are reduced to the status of just one thing among many - more powerful - others. In exploring how the Gothic insistently decenters the human, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock reveals human beings to be enmeshed in networks of human and nonhuman forces mostly outside of their control. Gothic Things thus resituates the Gothic as the uncanny doppelganger of twenty-first century critical and cultural theory, lurking just beneath the surface (and sometimes explicitly surfacing) as it haunts considerations of how human beings interact with objects and their environment. In these pages the Gothic offers a dark reflection of the contemporary "nonhuman turn," expressing a twenty-first-century structure of feeling undergirded by anxiety over the fate of the human: spectrality, monstrosity, and apocalypse. Substituting horror for hope, the Gothic, Weinstock explains, has been a philosophical meditation on human relations to the nonhuman since its inception, raising significant questions about how we can counter anthropocentric thought in our quest to live more harmoniously with the world around us.

Language, Desire and Theology - A Genealogy of the Will to Speak (Hardcover): Noelle Vahanian Language, Desire and Theology - A Genealogy of the Will to Speak (Hardcover)
Noelle Vahanian
R4,473 Discovery Miles 44 730 Ships in 12 - 19 working days


This interesting and provocative work develops a new theological approach to language in the light of contemporary critical theory.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203380797

Reflections on a Politically Skeptical Era (Hardcover, New): Dennis Wrong Reflections on a Politically Skeptical Era (Hardcover, New)
Dennis Wrong
R2,829 Discovery Miles 28 290 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

..". a welcome and scholarly contribution to Political Science reference collections and reading lists."--"The Bookwatch"
All of the essays included in the present volume were written between 1995 and 2001. This attests to the timeliness and relevance of Dennis H. Wrong's writings. He notes that the mid-twentieth-century disposition to believe that politics fundamentally consisted of clashes between totalistic worldviews, such as communism, socialism, capitalism, fascism, nationalism, internationalism, and a cluster of "isms," may have been historically transitional. But politics now appears more nuanced, if no less troubled, following the collapse of the Soviet bloc between 1989 and 1991. Multiculturalism and identity politics, as well as communitarianism flourished in the 1990s.
The volume is divided into five parts: "Capitalism--Inequalities and Alternatives," "Multiculturalism and Identity Politics," "Communitarianism," "Theory and Theorists," and "Autobiographical Reminiscences." This concluding part indicates how Wrong's work includes self-reflections as well as reflections--an examination of how figures such as C. Wright Mills and Raymond Aron, Amitai Etzioni, and Digby Baltzell, played a role in shaping his own thought, and how these changed over the course of the past century.
This is the third collection of the essays and articles of Dennis H. Wrong published by Transaction. As was the case with his earlier volumes, "Reflections on a Politically Skeptical Era" is characterized by a deep attention to the actual social history of our times, and how this plays out in academic pursuits--especially within sociology. Whether the works were published in academic journals or more popular media, they reflect a quality of literary manners that is rare among social science writings, but a reflection that never sacrifices a sense of principle and probity in the process.
Dennis H. Wrong is the author of several books, including two essay collections containing articles first published in cultural intellectual, political and scholarly journals in the United States, Canada, and Britain--several of which he has served as an editor or editor-in-chief. He has taught sociology at Princeton, Rutgers, Brown, the University of Toronto, the New School for Social Research Graduate Faculty, and for most of his career at New York University. He is currently retired and lives in Princeton.

The Epistemology of Ibn Khaldun (Hardcover): Zaid Ahmad The Epistemology of Ibn Khaldun (Hardcover)
Zaid Ahmad
R4,626 Discovery Miles 46 260 Ships in 12 - 19 working days


This is an analytical examination of Ibn Khaldun's epistemology, centred on Chapter Six of the Muqaddima. In this chapter, entitled The Book of Knowledge (Kitab al'Ilm), Ibn Khaldun sketched his general ideas about knowledge and science and its relationship with human social organisation and the establishment of a civilisation.

Medieval Worlds - A Sourcebook (Hardcover): Robert A. Anderson, Dominic Bellenger Medieval Worlds - A Sourcebook (Hardcover)
Robert A. Anderson, Dominic Bellenger
R4,499 Discovery Miles 44 990 Ships in 12 - 19 working days


Medieval Worlds is a comprehensive sourcebook for the study of western Europe from the 5th to the 15th century. The era was one of immense diversity and openness to new ideas and outreach in areas ranging from technology to natural philosophy.
The texts collected in this volume cover a wide range of documentation, including chronicles, legal and official state and church documents, biographies, poems and letters. Covering the whole of Europe, the range of texts offered illustrates the complexity as well as the unity of the medieval world. Subjects range from the diverse worlds of monasteries, the papacy, the crusades, women, to the roles of the town and the countryside.

Music on Demand - Composers and Careers in the Hollywood Film Industry (Paperback, New Ed): Shmuel N. Eisenstadt Music on Demand - Composers and Careers in the Hollywood Film Industry (Paperback, New Ed)
Shmuel N. Eisenstadt
R1,503 Discovery Miles 15 030 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

In this remarkable study, Robert R. Faulkner shows that the Hollywood film industry, like most work communities, is dominated by a highly productive and visible elite who exercise major influence on the control of available resources, career chances, and access to opportunity. Faulkner traces a network of connections that bind together filmmakers (employers) and composers (employees) and reveals how work is allocated among composers and the division of labor within the Hollywood film community, using statistical analysis and highly revealing personal interviews. One of the very first empirical studies in the "new economic sociology," "Music on Demand" shows the dynamics of markets constituted by the interaction between buyers and artistic talent (the producers and directors of feature films) and the sellers of artistic talent (the composers of film scores).

Faulkner's interviews with those composers considered to be elite and those on the industry's periphery reveal how they perceive their careers, how they define commercial artistic success, and how they establish, or try to establish, those vital connections with filmmakers. Now available in paperback, this pioneering study will be of compelling interest to researchers in culture studies as well as readers interested in learning more about this little-known world.

Metapolitics - From Wagner and the German Romantics to Hitler (Paperback, 2nd edition): Peter Viereck Metapolitics - From Wagner and the German Romantics to Hitler (Paperback, 2nd edition)
Peter Viereck
R1,717 Discovery Miles 17 170 Ships in 12 - 19 working days

More than half a century after the fall of the Third Reich, Nazism, its roots and its essential nature, remain a central and unresolved enigma of the twentieth century. During the period of Hitler's ascendancy, most attempts at explaining this unprecedented phenomenon were framed in "economic, " often Marxist, sociological terms and concepts. Peter Viereck's Metapolitics, initially published in 1941, broke with this convention by indicting Hitler in terms of the Judaic-Christian ethical tradition and locating certain elements of the Nazi worldview in German romantic poetry, music, and social thought. Newly expanded, Metapolitics remains a key work in the cultural interpretation of Nazism and totalitarianism and in the psychological interpretation of Hitler as a Wagnerite and failed artist.

The term "metapolitics, " a coinage from Richard Wagner's nationalist circle, signifies an ideology resulting from five distinct strands: romanticism (embodied chiefly in the Wagnerian ethos), the pseudo-science of race, Fuehrer worship, vague economic socialism, and the alleged supernatural and unconscious force of the Volk collectivity. Together, those elements engendered an emphasis on irrationalism and hysteria and belief in a special German mission to direct the course of the world's history.

Viereck analyzes nineteenth-century German thought's conflicting attitudes toward political procedures and social arrangements rooted in classical, rational, legalistic, and Christian traditions. This edition includes an appreciation by Thomas Mann and an exchange with Jacques Barzun debating Viereck's criticism of German romanticism. Viereck's essays on the case of Albert Speer, on Claus von Stauffenberg(the German officer who led the army conspiracy to assassinate Hitler), and on the poets Stefan George and Georg Heym appear here for the first time in book form.

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