• Considers a fascinating mix of thinkers and writers to present an intriguing and timely argument about ’literarity’ (a term coined by Derrida) • Emphasises the value of literary studies as an institution of aesthetic education • Accessible to undergraduates and others who are unfamiliar with literary theory and philosophical aesthetics

• Considers a fascinating mix of thinkers and writers to present an intriguing and timely argument about ’literarity’ (a term coined by Derrida) • Emphasises the value of literary studies as an institution of aesthetic education • Accessible to undergraduates and others who are unfamiliar with literary theory and philosophical aesthetics

This book describes a novel and unique approach to the treatment of human diseases based on the study of natural animal models. A natural animal model is defined as an animal group or species that possesses a set of biochemical/physiological characteristics which are natural and adaptive for that animal, but are quite abnormal for humans. For example, how is it that birds can tolerate blood glucose concentrations which in humans are associated with diabetes. The natural animal model is living proof that a biological answer to this question is available. By studying natural animal models, we can gain valuable insights into the treatment of various human clinical disorders. Covering a wide range of disorders, this book describes in detail how medical scientists can take advantage of all the "research" that nature has already performed over billions of years in biological problem solving through extensive animal design testing and selection.

Human Ageing: A Unique Experience explores the biology of human ageing focusing on the individual. The book begins with the premature ageing disorder Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome and spins a web of interconnected biological domains involving lamins, telomeres, alternative splicing, genetics, epigenetics, and molecular clocks. The profound influence of culture is explored since cultural inheritance and genetic inheritance are the two intertwined processes driving human evolution. An empirical framework is developed to describe human ageing at the individual level and the implications of this framework on the whole concept of diseases are discussed.

A highly-illustrated monograph on the life and work of Arthur Singer, an American wildlife artist specializing in birds. His work in reference books and U.S. stamps is internationally acclaimed. Arthur B. Singer was an American wildlife artist specializing in bird illustration. In a career spanning five decades, he illustrated more than 20 books, including his masterpiece, Birds of the World, as well as classic bird guides: Birds of North America, Birds of Europe, and The Hamlyn Guide to Birds of Britain and Europe. Singer joined the U.S. Army in 1942 and was assigned to Company C of the 603rd Camouflage Engineers.As a member of unit, known as the "Ghost Army," Singer along with other artists, created camouflage and other forms of deception on the battlefields of Europe. Upon his return to the U.S., he worked briefly in an advertising agency and became a full-time illustrator and artist in 1955. During the 1980s, assisted by his son, Alan, Singer's paintings of state birds were seen by millions when the U.S. Postal Service issued the State Birds & Flowerspostage stamps. The stamps became one of the largest selling commemoratives in U.S. Postal history. He received the Hal Borland Award in 1985 from the National Audubon Society. His paintings are represented in several public and private collections in the United States and Europe. Since his death in 1990, retrospectives of Singer's artwork have been presented in several museums and art galleries across the U.S. PAUL SINGER has focused on designs for zoos, museums, and botanic gardens. He has worked as an interpretive sign designer for the National Park Service and his illustrations are included inThe Knopf Nature Guide series for Audubon, The Audubon MasterGuides to Birding, The Knopf Collector Guides to American Antiques and other publications. ALAN SINGER is a graduate of The Cooper Union School of Art and worked with his father, Arthur, on painting revisions to both of Singer's field guides to birds, and helped illustrate the State Bird & Flower Stamps for the U.S. Postal Service. Since 1989, he has been a tenured professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. A prolific printmaker, painter, andauthor, he has had 27 solo exhibits.

Posing Sex: Toward a Perceptual Ethics for Literary and Visual Art views the long and provocative tradition of representing the sexual act in Western art as an occasion for challenging assumptions about personhood. It is uncontroversial that what Singer dubs the "sex image," the artist's posing of human figures in the act of coitus, is an enduring compositional armature for artists from antiquity to the present. Singer, however, makes the quite controversial claim that this aesthetic practice, in literature and painting especially, serves as a powerful metier for exploring how the mind is continuous with the sensuously lively body rather than its rationalistic antagonist. Singer draws upon a rich philosophical tradition-from the Greek Stoics, Descartes, Spinoza, and Hegel to contemporary theorists of perception and aesthetic agency-to show how the stakes of aesthetic experience epitomized in the sex image are essentially ethical. Referencing a broad range of image-based artworks-literary, painterly, and cinematic-Singer illustrates the proposition that "posing sex" broadens the scope of our knowledge about how feeling reciprocates with reason-giving.

Posing Sex: Toward a Perceptual Ethics for Literary and Visual Art views the long and provocative tradition of representing the sexual act in Western art as an occasion for challenging assumptions about personhood. It is uncontroversial that what Singer dubs the "sex image," the artist's posing of human figures in the act of coitus, is an enduring compositional armature for artists from antiquity to the present. Singer, however, makes the quite controversial claim that this aesthetic practice, in literature and painting especially, serves as a powerful metier for exploring how the mind is continuous with the sensuously lively body rather than its rationalistic antagonist. Singer draws upon a rich philosophical tradition-from the Greek Stoics, Descartes, Spinoza, and Hegel to contemporary theorists of perception and aesthetic agency-to show how the stakes of aesthetic experience epitomized in the sex image are essentially ethical. Referencing a broad range of image-based artworks-literary, painterly, and cinematic-Singer illustrates the proposition that "posing sex" broadens the scope of our knowledge about how feeling reciprocates with reason-giving.

In Three Parts. Part 1, The Biblical Period; Part 2, The Middle Ages; Part 3, The Modern Era.

A miracle is defined as a highly improbable or extraordinary accomplishment. The story of the Algebra program at JEB Stuart High School in Fairfax, Virginia, qualifies for such a designation. Over a period of fifteen years, a series of ambitious, no-cost innovations which challenged the prevailing status quo in math education led to a set of academic accomplishments that were indeed improbable and extraordinary. This miracle was achieved by a high-poverty, ethnically diverse student body that was unique at the time but is now representative of schools found throughout the U.S. For everyone touched by education from parents and students to teachers and administrators, "The Algebra Miracle" will provide insights into the complexity of finding a low-cost formula for academic success in the tight budgetary times of the 21st century. This story serves as a model of what can be accomplished when a dedicated school staff commits its time, energy and creativity to the needs of their students.

This book about the complicated meaning of left and right in politics carries the optimistic message that rational truth seeking can lead people towards the center and away from extreme positions. There is of course a major argument to the contrary, which is that political activities are very substantially determined by narrow interests, vague intuitions and strong emotions. Although rationality has indeed been diluted in contemporary politics, it is likely that much remains below the surface. Accordingly, there still might be time for therapeutic interventions aimed at nudging millions of minds towards a balanced political center. The book intervenes in a disarming and calming way. Throughout the 32 short chapters, a wide variety of politically-loaded thoughts are attributed to a pair of cartoon dogs. Left-dog and right-dog are duly introduced in the first chapter, where readers will immediately see that they are friendly and not fighting. Indeed, there is no such thing as dog-eat-dog in the community of truth-seekers. There are a few diagrams in each chapter that readers (or their students or children) are invited to color-in to represent the two political sides. Each chapter sets out some distinctive divide-bridging insights into basic issues such as truth, ethics, passions, hopes, intentions, genders, orientations, abortions, boundaries, identities, language, leaders, inequalities and ecologies to mention just a few. Any one of the 32 chapters can be contemplated in private, discussed between family members or taught as a stand-alone exercise. Prudently selected chapters would fit with ease into just about every course in business schools, but also in college level courses across the entire spectrum of the social sciences, including philosophy. This might seem like a ludicrously-hyped marketing claim for any serious book, but readers are urged to try it out for themselves and their relatives, colleagues or students and see what happens.

In recent years the category of the aesthetic has been judged inadequate to the tasks of literary criticism. It has been attacked for promoting class-based ideologies of distinction, for cultivating political apathy, and for indulging irrational sensuous decadence. Aesthetic Reason reexamines the history of aesthetic theorizing that has led to this critical alienation from works of art and proposes an alternative view. The book is a defense of the relevance and usefulness of the aesthetic as a cognitive resource of human experience. It challenges the contemporary critical tendency to treat aesthetic value as separate from the realms of human agency and sociopolitical change.

The argument unfolds through a review of the cognitivist traditions in post-Enlightenment aesthetic theory and through Singer's own articulation of a model of ethical subjectivity that is derived from the Greek concept of akrasia, which recognizes the intrinsic fallibility of human action. His focus on akratic subjectivity is aimed at revealing how the artwork has the potential to enhance human development by cultivating habits of self-transformation. Along these lines, he shows that the aesthetic has affinities with the logic of reversal/recognition in Greek tragedy and with theories of subject formation based on intersubjective recognition. The marking of these affinities sets up a discussion of how the aesthetic can serve protocols of rational choice-making. Within this perspective, aesthetic practice is revealed to be a meaningful social enterprise rather than an effete refuge from the conflicts of social existence.

The theoretical scope of the book encompasses arguments by Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Kant, Hegel, Adorno, Lyotard, Bourdieu, Derrida, Althusser, and Nancy. Singer's exposition of "akratic subjectivity" is advanced through readings of literary texts by Sophocles, Melville, Beckett, Joyce, and Faulkner as well as visual texts by Caravaggio, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, and Gerhard Richter.

Current philosophical discussions of self-deception remain steeped in disagreement and controversy. In The Self-Deceiving Muse, Alan Singer proposes a radical revision of our commonplace understanding of self-deception. Singer asserts that self-deception, far from being irrational, is critical to our capacity to be acute "noticers" of our experience. The book demonstrates how self-deception can be both a resource for rational activity generally and, more specifically, a prompt to aesthetic innovation. It thereby provides new insights into the ways in which our imaginative powers bear on art and life. The implications--philosophical, aesthetic, and ethical--of such a proposition indicate the broadly interdisciplinary thrust of this work, which incorporates "readings" of novels, paintings, films, and video art.

Current philosophical discussions of self-deception remain steeped in disagreement and controversy. In The Self-Deceiving Muse, Alan Singer proposes a radical revision of our commonplace understanding of self-deception. Singer asserts that self-deception, far from being irrational, is critical to our capacity to be acute "noticers" of our experience. The book demonstrates how self-deception can be both a resource for rational activity generally and, more specifically, a prompt to aesthetic innovation. It thereby provides new insights into the ways in which our imaginative powers bear on art and life. The implications--philosophical, aesthetic, and ethical--of such a proposition indicate the broadly interdisciplinary thrust of this work, which incorporates "readings" of novels, paintings, films, and video art.