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Catastrophes and crises are exceptions. They are disruptions of
order. In various ways and to different degrees, they change and
subvert what we regard as normal. They may occur on a personal
level in the form of traumatic or stressful situations, on a social
level in the form of unstable political, financial or religious
situations, or on a global level in the form of environmental
states of emergency. The main assumption in this book is that, in
contrast to the directness of any given catastrophe and its obvious
physical, economical and psychological consequences our
understanding of catastrophes and crises is shaped by our cultural
imagination. No matter in which eruptive and traumatizing form we
encounter them, our collective repertoire of symbolic forms,
historical sensibilities, modes of representation, and patterns of
imagination determine how we identify, analyze and deal with
catastrophes and crises.This book presents a series of articles
investigating how we address and interpret catastrophes and crises
in film, literature, art and theory, ranging from Voltaire's
eighteenth-century Europe, haunted by revolutions and earthquakes,
to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda to the bleak, prophetic landscapes
of Cormac McCarthy.
Mutating Idylls examines the surprising presence of the antique
literary topos of the idyllic landscape, the locus amoenus, in
European literature from the latter half of the nineteenth century.
The book sets out to identify how this topos, which generally has
no place in politically and socially realistic and naturalist
literature, actually does have a role to play. Chapters on central
nineteenth-century authors such as Flaubert, Zola, Fontane, Verga,
Hamsun, Austen, Eliot, Wilde, Jimenez, Cernuda, and Galdos
demonstrate both the presence and the multiple refunctionalizations
of the locus amoenus. The theoretical aim of Mutating Idylls is to
rehabilitate the notion of literary topos. This feature is present
in the introduction as a possibility in literary studies today. The
chapters all argue in the direction of a notion of topos, which is
more flexible than the one Curtius defines along the lines of
formula or cliche. In this way, the book intervenes in at least
three major fields of study: nineteenth-century studies, classical
philology, and literary theory. Through empirical analyses covering
diverse authors who all, more or less unconsciously, use the locus
amoenus, Mutating Idylls offers a new understanding of the culture
of writing in the nineteenth century and contributes to literary
theory a rehabilitation of the important notion of the topos.
This collection features leading literary critics and explores the
role of language in thinking about the ways in which the world
might be otherwise, and the history of contingency as a
longstanding literary concept. The defining feature of contingency
lies in the suggestion that things that have already happened might
have been otherwise. Central to late twentieth century European
critical and sociological thinking, that argument is at the centre
of this volume. The contributors to this volume explore subjects
including how literature, philosophy and history all cope with
contingency; the existence of contingency in genres as diverse as
enlightenment fables, Aristotle, Hardy, Jane Austen, and post-war
American literature; the contingency of old age and the poetics of
contingency. As the chapters here illustrate, our efforts to
understand each other involve a constant opening onto being
otherwise; an enterprise in which the role of the literary critic
remains key. Of interest to scholars across a range of literary
genres, this volume would also have applications for philosophy
researchers exploring the metaphysics of contingency. This book was
originally published as a special issue of Textual Practice.
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Catastrophe and Philosophy (Hardcover)
David J. Rosner; Contributions by Jeidong Ryu, Sarah K Corrigan, Kwon Jong Yoo, John Ross, …
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R2,519
Discovery Miles 25 190
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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This book takes a different approach to the history of philosophy,
exploring a neglected theme, the relationship between catastrophe
and philosophy. The book analyzes this theme within texts from
ancient times to the present, from a global perspective. The book's
focus is timely and relevant today, as the planet is certainly
facing a number of impending catastrophes right now, e.g.,
environmental degradation, overpopulation, the threat of nuclear
war, etc.
This collection features leading literary critics and explores the
role of language in thinking about the ways in which the world
might be otherwise, and the history of contingency as a
longstanding literary concept. The defining feature of contingency
lies in the suggestion that things that have already happened might
have been otherwise. Central to late twentieth century European
critical and sociological thinking, that argument is at the centre
of this volume. The contributors to this volume explore subjects
including how literature, philosophy and history all cope with
contingency; the existence of contingency in genres as diverse as
enlightenment fables, Aristotle, Hardy, Jane Austen, and post-war
American literature; the contingency of old age and the poetics of
contingency. As the chapters here illustrate, our efforts to
understand each other involve a constant opening onto being
otherwise; an enterprise in which the role of the literary critic
remains key. Of interest to scholars across a range of literary
genres, this volume would also have applications for philosophy
researchers exploring the metaphysics of contingency. This book was
originally published as a special issue of Textual Practice.
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