|
Showing 1 - 5 of
5 matches in All Departments
Mimesis, the notion that art imitates reality, has long been
recognized as one of the central ideas of Western aesthetics and
has been most frequently associated with Aristotle. Less well
documented is the great importance of mimetic theories of
literature, theater, and the visual arts during the Renaissance and
the Enlightenment. In this book, the most comprehensive overview of
the theory of mimesis since Auerbach's monumental study, Gunter
Gebauer and Christoph Wulf provide a thorough introduction to the
complex and shifting meanings of the term. Beginning with the
Platonic doctrine of imitation, they chart the concept's
appropriation and significance in the aesthetic theories of
Aristotle, Moliere, Shakespeare, Racine, Diderot, Lessing, and
Rousseau. They examine the status of mimesis in the
nineteenth-century novel and its reworking by such modern thinkers
as Benjamin, Adorno, and Derrida. Widening the traditional
understanding of mimesis to encompass the body and cultural
practices of everyday life, their work suggests the continuing
value of mimetic theory and will prove essential reading for
scholars and students of literature, theater, and the visual arts.
In his cultural analysis of the motor car in Germany, Wolfgang
Sachs starts from the assumption that the automobile is more than a
means of transportation and that its history cannot be understood
merely as a triumphant march of technological innovation. Instead,
Sachs examines the history of the automobile from the late 1880s
until today for evidence on the nature of dreams and desires
embedded in modern culture. Written in a lively style and
illustrated by a wealth of cartoons, advertisements, newspaper
stories, and propaganda, this book explores the nature of Germany's
love affair with the automobile. A "history of our desires" for
speed, wealth, violence, glamour, progress, and power--as refracted
through images of the automobile--it is at once fascinating and
provocative.
Sachs recounts the development of the automobile industry and the
impact on German society of the marketing and promotion of the
motor car. As cars became more affordable and more common after
World War II, advertisers fanned the competition for status,
refining their techniques as ownership became ever more
widespread.
Sachs concludes by demonstrating that the triumphal procession of
private motorization has in fact become an intrusion. The grand
dreams once attached to the automobile have aged. Sachs appeals for
the cultivation of new dreams born of the futility of the old ones,
dreams of "a society liberated from progress," in which location,
distance, and speed are reconceived in more appropriately humane
dimensions.
Martin Riesebrodt's unconventional study provides an extraordinary
look at religious fundamentalism. Comparing two seemingly disparate
movements--in early twentieth-century United States and 1960s and
1970s Iran--he examines why these movements arose and developed. He
sees them not simply as protests against "modernity" per se, but as
a social and moral community's mobilization against its own
marginalization and threats to its way of life. These movements
protested against the hallmarks of industrialization and sought to
transmit conservative cultural models to the next generation.
Fundamentalists desired a return to an "authentic" social order
governed by God's law, one bound by patriarchal structures of
authority and morality. Both movements advocated a strict gender
dualism and were preoccupied with controlling the female body,
which was viewed as the major threat to public morality.
"Lethen brilliantly interprets New Objectivity as a tactical
response to the need for a 'code of conduct' in an age of anxiety
about values and normative judgments. Moving effortlessly between
analysis of philosophical texts and literary works, he charts an
increasingly popular field of cultural studies: how cultural
discourses shape behavior. One of the most original and daring
contributions to Weimar scholarship and to the study of modernity
in general in a decade."--Anton Kaes, University of California,
Berkeley
"Lethen is probably the most original and outstanding scholar
writing in German today about Weimar literature and culture. He
traces the figure of the 'cold persona' as part of a broader
discourse of anthropological, ethical, and aesthetic dimensions.
The book is written in a personal voice, witty, lucid, and
unpretentious."--Miriam Hansen, University of Chicago
|
|