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A sweeping history of Athens, telling the three-thousand-year story
of the birthplace of Western civilization, from Runciman Award
winner Bruce Clark 'A stunning retrospect and beautifully written
overview of one of the world's greatest cities' Paul Cartledge
'Courageously grand in scale yet sensitive to the details that make
Athens' extraordinary history come alive' Sofka Zinovieff 'Bruce
Clark brings an eye for the quirky, human detail, a pithy turn of
phrase, and an affection for his subject honed over many decades'
Roderick Beaton 'Bruce Clark's enchantingly readable history
revealed how little I knew' Literary Review Dominated by the
pillars and pediments of the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to
Athena, goddess of wisdom, the ancient Greek city of Athens is for
many synonymous with civilization itself. Athens: City of Wisdom
tells the tale of a city that occupies a unique place in the
cultural memory of the West. Each of the book's twenty-one chapters
focuses on a critical 'moment' in the city's long history, from the
reforms of the lawmaker Solon in the sixth century BCE to the
travails of early twenty-first-century Athens, as a rapidly
expanding city struggles with the legacy of a global economic
crisis. Bruce Clark has a rich and revealing sequence of stories to
tell - not only of the familiar golden age of Classical Athens, of
the removal from the Acropolis of the Parthenon marbles by agents
of the 7th Earl of Elgin in the early nineteenth century, or of the
holding of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896; but also of the
less feted later years of antiquity, when St Paul preached on the
Areopagus and neo Platonists refounded the Academy that Sulla's
legions had desecrated. He also delves into Athens' forgotten
medieval centuries, unearthing jewels gleaming in the Byzantine
twilight, and tales of Christian fortitude and erratic Turkish
governance from the four centuries of Ottoman rule that followed.
Few places have enjoyed a history so rich in artistic creativity
and the making of ideas as Athens; or one so curiously patterned by
alternating cycles of turbulence and quietness. Writing with
scholarly rigour and undisguised affection, Bruce Clark brings
three thousand years of Athenian history vividly to life.
With forty-four newly commissioned articles from an international
cast of leading scholars, The Routledge Companion to Literature and
Science traces the network of connections among literature,
science, technology, mathematics, and medicine. Divided into three
main sections, this volume: links diverse literatures to scientific
disciplines from Artificial Intelligence to Thermodynamics surveys
current theoretical and disciplinary approaches from Animal Studies
to Semiotics traces the history and culture of literature and
science from Greece and Rome to Postmodernism. Ranging from
classical origins and modern revolutions to current developments in
cultural science studies and the posthumanities, this indispensible
volume offers a comprehensive resource for undergraduates,
postgraduates, and researchers. With authoritative, accessible, and
succinct treatments of the sciences in their literary dimensions
and cultural frameworks, here is the essential guide to this
vibrant area of study.
In 1972, James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis began collaborating on
the Gaia hypothesis. They suggested that over geological time, life
on Earth has had a major role in both producing and regulating its
own environment. Gaia is now an ecological and environmental
worldview underpinning vital scientific and cultural debates over
environmental issues. Their ideas have transformed the Earth and
life sciences, as well as contemporary conceptions of nature. Their
correspondence describes these crucial developments from the
inside, showing how their partnership proved decisive for the
development of the Gaia hypothesis. Clarke and Dutreuil provide
historical background and explain the concepts and references
introduced throughout the Lovelock-Margulis correspondence, while
highlighting the major landmarks of their collaboration within the
sequence of almost 300 letters written between 1970 and 2007. This
book will be of interest to researchers in ecology, history of
science, environmental history and climate change, and cultural
science studies.
The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Posthuman is the
first work of its kind to gather diverse critical treatments of the
posthuman and posthumanism together in a single volume. Fifteen
scholars from six different countries address the historical and
aesthetic dimensions of posthuman figures alongside posthumanism as
a new paradigm in the critical humanities. The three parts and
their chapters trace the history of the posthuman in literature and
other media, including film and video games, and identify major
political, philosophical, and techno-scientific issues raised in
the literary and cinematic narratives of the posthuman and
posthumanist discourses. The volume surveys the key works, primary
modes, and critical theories engaged by depictions of the posthuman
and discussions about posthumanism.
The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Posthuman is the
first work of its kind to gather diverse critical treatments of the
posthuman and posthumanism together in a single volume. Fifteen
scholars from six different countries address the historical and
aesthetic dimensions of posthuman figures alongside posthumanism as
a new paradigm in the critical humanities. The three parts and
their chapters trace the history of the posthuman in literature and
other media, including film and video games, and identify major
political, philosophical, and techno-scientific issues raised in
the literary and cinematic narratives of the posthuman and
posthumanist discourses. The volume surveys the key works, primary
modes, and critical theories engaged by depictions of the posthuman
and discussions about posthumanism.
With forty-four newly commissioned articles from an international
cast of leading scholars, The Routledge Companion to Literature and
Science traces the network of connections among literature,
science, technology, mathematics, and medicine. Divided into three
main sections, this volume: links diverse literatures to scientific
disciplines from Artificial Intelligence to Thermodynamics surveys
current theoretical and disciplinary approaches from Animal Studies
to Semiotics traces the history and culture of literature and
science from Greece and Rome to Postmodernism. Ranging from
classical origins and modern revolutions to current developments in
cultural science studies and the posthumanities, this indispensible
volume offers a comprehensive resource for undergraduates,
postgraduates, and researchers. With authoritative, accessible, and
succinct treatments of the sciences in their literary dimensions
and cultural frameworks, here is the essential guide to this
vibrant area of study.
This book offers an innovative examination of the interactions of
science and technology, art, and literature in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. Scholars in the history of art, literature,
architecture, computer science, and media studies focus on five
historical themes in the transition from energy to information:
thermodynamics, electromagnetism, inscription, information theory,
and virtuality. Different disciplines are grouped around specific
moments in the history of science and technology in order to sample
the modes of representation invented or adapted by each field in
response to newly developed scientific concepts and models. By
placing literary fictions and the plastic arts in relation to the
transition from the era of energy to the information age, this
collection of essays discovers unexpected resonances among concepts
and materials not previously brought into juxtaposition. In
particular, it demonstrates the crucial centrality of the theme of
energy in modernist discourse. Overall, the volume develops the
scientific and technological side of the shift from modernism to
postmodernism in terms of the conceptual crossover from energy to
information. The contributors are Christoph Asendorf, Ian F. A.
Bell, Robert Brain, Bruce Clarke, Charlotte Douglas, N. Katherine
Hayes, Linda Dalrymple Henderson, Bruce J. Hunt, Douglas Kahn,
Timothy Lenoir, W. J. T. Mitchell, Marcos Novak, Edward Shanken,
Richard Shiff, David Tomas, Sha Xin Wei, and Norton Wise.
A groundbreaking look at Gaia theory’s intersections with
neocybernetic systems theory  Often seen as an outlier in
science, Gaia has run a long and varied course since its
formulation in the 1970s by atmospheric chemist James Lovelock and
microbiologist Lynn Margulis. Gaian Systems is a pioneering
exploration of the dynamic and complex evolution of Gaia’s many
variants, with special attention to Margulis’s foundational role
in these developments. Bruce Clarke assesses the different dialects
of systems theory brought to bear on Gaia discourse. Focusing in
particular on Margulis’s work—including multiple pieces of her
unpublished Gaia correspondence—he shows how her research and
that of Lovelock was concurrent and conceptually parallel with the
new discourse of self-referential systems that emerged within
neocybernetic systems theory. The recent Gaia writings of Donna
Haraway, Isabelle Stengers, and Bruno Latour contest its cybernetic
status. Clarke engages Latour on the issue of Gaia’s systems
description and extends his own systems-theoretical synthesis under
what he terms “metabiotic Gaia.†This study illuminates current
issues in neighboring theoretical conversations—from biopolitics
and the immunitary paradigm to NASA astrobiology and the
Anthropocene. Along the way, he points to science fiction as a
vehicle of Gaian thought. Delving into many issues not
previously treated in accounts of Gaia, Gaian Systems describes the
history of a theory that has the potential to help us survive an
environmental crisis of our own making.
A sweeping history of Athens, telling the three-thousand-year story
of the birthplace of Western civilization. Even on the most
smog-bound of days, the rocky outcrop on which the Acropolis stands
is visible above the sprawling roofscape of the Greek capital.
Athens presents one of the most recognizable and symbolically
freighted panoramas of any of the world's cities: the pillars and
pediments of the Parthenon - the temple dedicated to Athena,
goddess of wisdom, that crowns the Acropolis - dominate a city
whose name is synonymous for many with civilization itself. It is
hard not to feel the hand of history in such a place. The
birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy and theatre, Athens'
importance cannot be understated. Few cities have enjoyed a history
so rich in artistic creativity and the making of ideas; or one so
curiously patterned by alternating cycles of turbulence and
quietness. From the legal reforms of the lawmaker Solon in the
sixth century BCE to the travails of early twenty-first century
Athens, as it struggles with the legacy of the economic crises of
the 2000s, Clark brings the city's history to life, evoking its
cultural richness and political resonance in this epic,
kaleidoscopic history.
This volume presents the first collection of essays dedicated to
the science fiction of microbiologist Joan Slonczewski. Posthuman
Biopolitics consolidates the scholarly literature on Slonczewski's
fiction and demonstrates fruitful lines of engagement for the
critical, cultural, and theoretical treatment of her characters,
plots, and storyworlds. Her novels treat feminism in relation to
scientific practice, resistance to domination, pacifism versus
militarism, the extension of human rights to nonhuman and posthuman
actors, biopolitics and posthuman ethics, and symbiosis and
communication across planetary scales. Posthuman Biopolitics
explores the breadth and depth of Joan Slonczewski's vision,
uncovering the reflective ethical practice that informs her science
fiction.
This volume presents the first collection of essays dedicated to
the science fiction of microbiologist Joan Slonczewski. Posthuman
Biopolitics consolidates the scholarly literature on Slonczewski's
fiction and demonstrates fruitful lines of engagement for the
critical, cultural, and theoretical treatment of her characters,
plots, and storyworlds. Her novels treat feminism in relation to
scientific practice, resistance to domination, pacifism versus
militarism, the extension of human rights to nonhuman and posthuman
actors, biopolitics and posthuman ethics, and symbiosis and
communication across planetary scales. Posthuman Biopolitics
explores the breadth and depth of Joan Slonczewski's vision,
uncovering the reflective ethical practice that informs her science
fiction.
A Personal Handbook, Making Changes is about the 'how' of achieving
your life goals. You already know that when you are motivated,
committed and focused on your goals you can achieve almost anything
despite the obstacles. Yet how precisely do you motivate yourself?
What do you do to get energy and commitment to tackle challenges
and overcome obstacles? This handbook is for ordinary people,
leading ordinary lives. People facing daily challenges, with hopes
and desires and who strive to overcome the small stuff. Well here's
your handbook. So if you make a million, great! In the meantime,
let's make a difference. Bruce Clarke is a social entrepreneur,
chair of trustee of several charities, founder of the Third Age
movement on age discrimination, and a radio presenter for Swindon
105.5 Bruce is a Master Practitioner, and an accredited trainer, in
Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). He's also an ESOL teacher and a
student of Integral Theory and the Enneagram.
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