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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > History of ideas, intellectual history
In a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the relationship between sociology and cultural studies, Gregor McLennan lucidly guides us from central philosophical questions in the social sciences to new interpretations of such urgent contemporary questions as Eurocentrism, multiculturalism, and reflexivity. The author offers a range of closely linked arguments concerning the viability of the 'idea of sociology', the development of cultural studies, and the balance between positivity and reflexivity in setting the right kind of 'mood music' for progressive intellectual work.
This introductory guide to Louis Althusser provides the first major overview of his work since the publication in French of thousands of pages of essays, books, and letters unknown before 1990. Focusing on Althusser's writing on art, theater, and literature, Warren Montag traces the contradictory development of Althusser's thought from the early 60s to his autobiography, The Future Lasts Forever. Montag also explores how Althusser's reflections on reading can shed new light on well-known texts such as Heart of Darkness and Robinson Crusoe.
A collection of essays based on an international conference in 1989. The essays examine both the historical dimension of the European idea and the problems of national and transnational identity confronting European integration in the 1990s. Chapters discuss post-modern Europe, Europe and Japan, the European identity, political parties, contemporary feminist movements, socialism, Austrian identity and an essay on Mitterand.
This volume explores 'unknown time' as a cultural phenomenon, approaching past futures, unknown presents, and future pasts through a broad range of different disciplines, media, and contexts. As a phenomenon that is both elusive and fundamentally inaccessible, time is a key object of fascination. Throughout the ages, different cultures have been deeply engaged in various attempts to fill or make time by developing strategies to familiarize unknown time and to materialize and control past, present, or future time. Arguing for the perennial interest in time, especially in the unknown and unattainable dimension of the future, the contributions explore premodern ideas about eschatology and secular future, historical configurations of the perception of time and acceleration in fin-de-siecle Germany and contemporary Lagos, the formation of 'deep time' and 'timelessness' in paleontology and ethnographic museums, and the representation of time-past, present, and future alike-in music, film, and science fiction.
This book explores the history of the international order in the eighteenth and nineteenth century through a new study of Emer de Vattel's Droit des gens (1758). Drawing on unpublished sources from European archives and libraries, the book offers an in-depth account of the reception of Vattel's chief work. Vattel's focus on the myth of good government became a strong argument for republicanism, the survival of small states, drafting constitutions and reform projects and fighting everyday battles for freedom in different geographical, linguistic and social contexts. The book complicates the picture of Vattel's enduring success and usefulness, showing too how the work was published and translated to criticize and denounce the dangerousness of these ideas. In doing so, it opens up new avenues of research beyond histories of international law, political and economic thought.
This book examines why several American literary and intellectual icons found themselves to be pioneering scholars and lifelong students of the Hispanic world. The author asserts that these gifted Americans focused on the Hispanic world that they might shape their own country's identity after Independence and the War of 1812, a crucial time for the young republic, and that they found inspiration in a most unlikely place: the seat of the collapsing Spanish empire.
One of the most vital questions of our time is how the new electronically based information technology can be used to its best advantage. We are now entering an era of multi-media communication which can bring benefit or dangers in its train. This volume offers a comprehensive, up-to-date survey of the present and future impact of these modern technologies (including word processors, videotex and video and digital optical discs) on professional, business and scholarly research information, as well as on information to the general public. The contributors are all experts in their fields, and include practitioners as well as scholars. The volume is intended for anyone who has a professional interest in information transfer, and those who wish to keep abreast of matters of important current concern. It provides a balanced and detailed, but easily readable introduction to the topic.
The relations between science and philosophy in the early nineteenth century remain one of the most misunderstood topics in modern European intellectual history. By taking the brilliant career of Danish physicist-philosopher Hans Christian A~rsted as their organizing theme, leading international philosophers and historians of science reveal illuminating new perspectives on the intellectual map of Europe in the age of revolution and romanticism. They show how A~rsted, an intrepid traveller and cosmopolitan from the periphery of enlightened Europe, mediated between the great scientists of Germany, France, and Britain and profoundly shaped post-kantian philosophy and the emerging new energy physics of the nineteenth-century.
"Based on impressive research in a wide variety of sources,
including popular literature, advertisements, true confession and
physique magazines, advice columns, sex surveys, vice investigation
reports, and personal letters, "The First Sexual Revolution" offers
a provocative interpretation of the impact of the sexual revolution
on men. White's boldly-stated criticism of sexual liberalism is
sure to arouse controversy. Yet his view of men confused by new
expectations of attractiveness and sexiness, threatened by women's
demands for sexual satisfaction, yet essentially still in control,
is compelling." In the early 1900s, a sexual revolution took place that was to define social relations between the sexes in America for generations. As Victorian values gradually faded, and a commercialized consumer culture emerged, the female figure of the flapper came to embody early-twentieth century femininity. Simultaneously, masculine ideals were also undergoing radical change. Who then was this New Man to accompany the New Woman? Who was the flapper's boyfriend? In this remarkable book, Kevin White draws on a vast array of sources to examine the ideology--spread through movies, advertisements, sex confession magazines, social hygienists, sex manuals, and Freudian popularizers --that has defined modern American manhood. Examining attitudes toward masturbation, homosexuality, violence against women, feminism, free love, and the emerging dating system, "The First Sexual Revolution" shows how American men in the Jazz Age were subjected to a barrage ofinformation and advice about their sexuality that stressed not character but personality and sex appeal. Repression was out; sexual expression--performance--was in. This New Man was more egalitarian and more sexual than the Victorian patriarch. But the diffusion to the middle class of the Victorian underworld ethos of primitivism and violence against women, and the flight from commitment to relationships, heralded instability and tensions that continues to define American sexual relations. To illustrate this point, Dr. White takes a close look--through letters and diaries--at the successes and failures of nine marriages involving actively feminist women, demonstrating the pressures that this revolution in values caused. Dr. White concludes that the return to primitivism characterized by the men's movement marks the most recent aftershock of the revolution that has shaped us all.
Although there are many pamphlets and monographs that cover specific aspects of the European Community, the literature seems to lack a single, scholarly reader that gives a complete account of the many dimensions of European integration. This volume, written by a distinguished group of international specialists, seeks to fill this void by pulling together a broad collection of papers focusing on the political, sociological, and economic issues surrounding the European Union. Beginning with a historical look at the genesis, evolution, and theoretical interpretation of the historical process of European integration, the book goes on to analyze the socio-economic structure of the European community and the social forces operating within it. Students and scholars will find this a valuable, flexible, and versatile text for manifold courses in the social sciences; policymakers and general readers will find this a highly informative and readable evaluation of the current state of the European Union.
At the start of the third Christian millennium we are aware of massive political, economic, and ideological changes which condition the chances of liberty, wealth, and equality. Yet it is surprisingly difficult to understand these forces, because we cannot see what surrounds us so closely. This book analyzes our condition by looking at the work of two great thinkers; F.W. Maitland provides a deep historical perspective, while Yukichi Fukuzawa lays down a wide comparative analysis.
An intellectual and cultural history of mid-twentieth century plans for European integration, this book calls into question the usual pre- and post-war periodizations that have structured approaches to twentieth-century European history. It focuses not simply on the ideas of leading politicians but analyses debates about Europe in "civil society" and the party-political sphere in Germany, asking if, and how, a "permissive consensus" was formed around the issue of integration. Taking Germany as its case study, the book offers context to the post-war debates, analysing the continuities that existed between interwar and post-war plans for European integration. It draws attention to the abiding scepticism of democracy displayed by many advocates of integration, indeed suggesting that groups across the ideological spectrum converged around support for European integration as a way of constraining the practice of democracy within nation-states.
Lost Souls examines the origins and consequences of the philosophic idea that mind and body are distinct. The author traces mind-body dualism from Plato, Plotinus, Augustine, and Proclus through Descartes and Kant to Nietzsche, Heidegger, Carnap, and Quine. Mind's separation from body has dominated philosophic thinking for millennia, yet most mental activities are now explained in physical terms. What are the implications if mind is material and mortal? Considering both philosophic and scientific ideas about mind, David Weissman explores our options. Rejecting the claim that the character and existence of other things are an effect of the ways we think about or perceive them, he reexamines such topics as meaning and truth, human significance, self, and society. He argues that philosophers have the rare opportunity to renew inquiry by invoking the questions that once directed them: What are we? What is our place in the world? What concerns are appropriate to being here?
This collection of essays delineates the history of the rather disparate intellectual tradition usually labeled as "Platonic" or "Neoplatonic." In chronological order, the book covers the most eminent philosophic schools of thought within that tradition. The most important terms of the Platonic tradition are studied together with a discussion of their semantic implications, the philosophical and theological claims associated with the terms, the sources that furnish the terms, and the intellectual traditions aligned with or opposed to them. The contributors thereby provide a vivid intellectual map of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Contributions are written in English or German.
A wonderfully written and entertaining book which places Britain under the microscope and asks who we are today and how we've changed as a nation. 'Entertaining and absorbing' - The Sunday Times In 1841 there were 734 female midwives working in Britain, along with 9 artificial eye makers, 20 peg makers, 6 stamp makers and 1 bee dealer. Fast forward nearly two centuries and there are 51,000 midwives working in the UK and not an eye maker in sight! For the past two centuries, the National Census has been monitoring the behaviour of the British: our work-lives, homes lives and strange cultural habits. With questions on occupation, housing, religion, travel and family, the Census is a snapshot of a country at any given epoch, and its findings have informed the economy, politics and every other national matter for decades that followed. Now, for the first time ever, the Census findings of the past two centuries are collected in to a wonderfully written and entertaining book which places Britain under the microscope and asks who we are and how we've changed as a nation. On our occupations, our working lives, relationships; our quirks, habits, weird interests and cultural beliefs - this book takes the reader on a journey through the statistical findings of one of the most valuable pieces of ongoing historical research of modern times, and asks us what these fascinating numbers tells us about the Britain in the 21st century.
Mark Nash's "Screen Theory Culture" demonstrates the influence of Screen magazine on structuralist and post-structuralist film studies. More current articles make connections between this body of work and the art of the contemporary moving image art work.
This Palgrave Pivot offers a comprehensive portrayal of the development of sociology in Argentina from the mid-1950s to the present day. This first long-term account in English maps the discipline's troubled trajectory and its close relation to the broader (and turbulent) Argentinian political and economic context, and provides a dramatic exemplification of the politicization and polarization of an academic field and its consequences. Divided in seven chapters, this book examines the sharply different phases that the discipline went through: from the pioneering 1950s, in which sociology was presented as a "science", to the activist revolt in the 1960s, led by the student movement, to the traumatic experience of the 1970s, when a cruel dictatorship was established and many sociologists were persecuted, and from its progressive recovery from the 1980s to its current growing (yet unstable) presence within academia, and within state agencies, corporations and consulting agencies, and NGOs. This work will appeal to social scientists and students interested in the relations between academia and politics, and to a general readership interested in the recent history of Argentina and Latin-America.
This work on microeconomics offers interpretations of both its strengths and its weaknesses. It shows how the general equilibrium ideas of Walras and Marshall were gradually transformed after 1930 into formalized accounts of imaginary economies where trading never occurs.
This book examines how China has been portrayed in European and North American social and political thought. Such a question immediately evokes the spectre of orientalism and subsequent chapters explore whether the identification of an orientalist project invalidates the knowledge claims of European and North American social and political thought as it evolved from the 18th to the 20th century.
Confronting the issue of the unacceptable as a social category, this collection of international essays provides distinctive perspectives on the theme of what is deemed socially acceptable. The book reveals the ways category of the unacceptable reflects sexual, racial and political fault-lines of a society.
Southgate draws on ideas within history, philosophy, literature, psychology, and theology to explore two traditions: contentment with our situation as it is, and the aspiration to transcend it. He discusses the possibility of escape from intellectual constraints, and advocates a positive 'duty of discontent', and its implications.
This unique book deals with the most serious macroeconomic failure experienced in the US in the post-war period and the great inflation of the late 1960s and 1970s. It is the first detailed analysis, using Federal Reserve documents, of the thinking behind the inflationary monetary policy during this period. The book examines documentary evidence, including minutes, memos and reports and interviews with people who were closely involved in making policy decisions, to explain the monetary policy that led to this inflation. Thomas Mayer considers forecasting errors and wage and price controls in his attempt to explain why the inflation occurred and places some of the blame on ineffective operating procedures, institutional inefficiencies, and political pressures on the Federal Reserve. The author concludes that much of the responsibility for the mistaken policies lies with academic economists who underestimated the dangers of inflation and encouraged the Federal Reserve to focus on an unattainable employment goal. Monetary Policy and the Great Inflation in the United States will be welcomed by economists, political scientists and economic historians interested in monetary policy.
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