|
Showing 1 - 11 of
11 matches in All Departments
The aim of Ethics and Self-Cultivation is to establish and explore
a new ‘cultivation of the self’ strand within contemporary
moral philosophy. Although the revival of virtue ethics has helped
reintroduce the eudaimonic tradition into mainstream philosophical
debates, it has by and large been a revival of Aristotelian ethics
combined with a modern preoccupation with standards for the moral
rightness of actions. The essays comprising this volume offer a
fresh approach to the eudaimonic tradition: instead of conditions
for rightness of actions, it focuses on conceptions of human life
that are best for the one living it. The first section of essays
looks at the Hellenistic schools and the way they influenced modern
thinkers like Spinoza, Kant, Nietzsche, Hadot, and Foucault in
their thinking about self-cultivation. The second section offers
contemporary perspectives on ethical self-cultivation by drawing on
work in moral psychology, epistemology of self-knowledge,
philosophy of mind, and meta-ethics.
The aim of Ethics and Self-Cultivation is to establish and explore
a new 'cultivation of the self' strand within contemporary moral
philosophy. Although the revival of virtue ethics has helped
reintroduce the eudaimonic tradition into mainstream philosophical
debates, it has by and large been a revival of Aristotelian ethics
combined with a modern preoccupation with standards for the moral
rightness of actions. The essays comprising this volume offer a
fresh approach to the eudaimonic tradition: instead of conditions
for rightness of actions, it focuses on conceptions of human life
that are best for the one living it. The first section of essays
looks at the Hellenistic schools and the way they influenced modern
thinkers like Spinoza, Kant, Nietzsche, Hadot, and Foucault in
their thinking about self-cultivation. The second section offers
contemporary perspectives on ethical self-cultivation by drawing on
work in moral psychology, epistemology of self-knowledge,
philosophy of mind, and meta-ethics.
The gold epaulettes that George Washington wore into battle. A
Union soldier’s bloody shirt in the wake of the Civil War. A
crushed wristwatch after the 9/11 attacks. The bullet-riddled door
of the Pulse nightclub. Volatile and shape-shifting, relics have
long played a role in memorializing the American past, acting as
physical reminders of hard-won battles, mass tragedies, and
political triumphs. Surveying the expanse of U.S. history, American
Relics and the Politics of Public Memory shows how these objects
have articulated glory, courage, and national greatness as well as
horror, defeat, and oppression. While relics mostly signified
heroism in the nation’s early years, increasingly, they have
acquired a new purpose—commemorating victimhood. The atrocious
artifacts of lynching and the looted remains of Native American
graves were later transformed into shameful things, exposing
ongoing racial violence and advancing calls for equality and civil
rights. Matthew Dennis pursues this history of fraught public
objects and assesses the emergence of new venues of
memorialization, such as virtual and digital spaces. Through it
all, relics continue to fundamentally ground and shape U.S. public
memory in its uncertain present and future.
"Seneca Possessed" examines the ordeal of a Native people in the
wake of the American Revolution. As part of the once-formidable
Iroquois Six Nations in western New York, Senecas occupied a
significant if ambivalent place within the newly established United
States. They found themselves the object of missionaries'
conversion efforts while also confronting land speculators,
poachers, squatters, timber-cutters, and officials from state and
federal governments.In response, Seneca communities sought to
preserve their territories and culture amid a maelstrom of
economic, social, religious, and political change. They succeeded
through a remarkable course of cultural innovation and
conservation, skillful calculation and luck, and the guidance of
both a Native prophet and unusual Quakers. Through the prophecies
of Handsome Lake and the message of Quaker missionaries, this
process advanced fitfully, incorporating elements of Christianity
and white society and economy, along with older Seneca ideas and
practices.But cultural reinvention did not come easily. Episodes of
Seneca witch-hunting reflected the wider crises the Senecas were
experiencing. Ironically, as with so much of their experience in
this period, such episodes also allowed for the preservation of
Seneca sovereignty, as in the case of Tommy Jemmy, a Seneca chief
tried by New York in 1821 for executing a Seneca "witch." Here
Senecas improbably but successfully defended their right to
self-government. Through the stories of Tommy Jemmy, Handsome Lake,
and others, "Seneca Possessed" explores how the Seneca people and
their homeland were "possessed"--culturally, spiritually,
materially, and legally--in the era of early American
independence.
This book examines the peculiar new worlds of the Five Nations of
the Iroquois, the Dutch, and the French, who shared cultural
frontiers in seventeenth century North America. Matthew Dennis
employs methods and materials from a range of disciplines,
including archaeology, ethnology, folklore, literary criticism, and
history, to reconstruct those worlds and analyze the consequences
of their mingling with one another. Dennis likens his book to a
cubist painting that describes and orders multiple elements on
canvas but consciously avoids dissolving them into a single angle
of vision. Viewing early America from the different perspectives of
the diverse people who coexisted uneasily during the colonial
encounter between Europeans and Indians, he explains a
long-standing paradox: the apparent belligerence of the Five
Nations, a people who saw themselves as promoters of universal
peace. In a radically new interpretation of the Iroquois, Dennis
argues that the Five Nations sought to incorporate their new
European neighbors as kinspeople into their Longhouse, the physical
and symbolic embodiment of Iroquois domesticity and peace. He
offers a close, original reading of the fundamental political myth
of the Five Nations, the Deganawidah Epic and situates it
historically and ideologically in Iroquois life. Detailing the
particular nature of Iroquois peace, he describes the Five Nations'
diligent efforts to establish peace on their own terms and the
frustrations and hostilities that stemmed from the fundamental
contrast between Iroquois and European goals, expectations, and
perceptions of human relationships.
SAVE 20% on our new and recent titles in American History. Enter
the promotional code CCHO at checkout. Discounts are applied to the
price of the book, not to shipping or sales tax (if applicable).The
Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day,
Columbus Day, Labor Day, Martin Luther King's Birthday, and other
celebrations matter to Americans and reflect the state of American
local and national politics. Commemorations of cataclysmic events
and light, apparently trivial observances mirror American political
and cultural life. Both reveal much about the material conditions
of the United States and its citizens' identities, historical
consciousness, and political attitudes. Lying dormant within these
festivals is the potential for political consequence, controversy,
even transformation. American political fetes remain works in
progress, as Americans use historical celebrations as occasions to
reinvent themselves and their nation, often with surprising
results. In six engaging chapters-assaying particular political
holidays over the course of their histories, Red, White, and Blue
Letter Days examines how Americans have shaped and been shaped by
their calendar.Matthew Dennis explores this vast political and
cultural terrain, charting how Americans defined their identities
through celebration. Independence Day invited African Americans to
demand the equality promised in the Declaration of Independence,
for example, just as Columbus Day-celebrating the Italian, Catholic
explorer-helped immigrants proclaim their legitimacy as Americans.
Native Americans too could use public holidays, such as
Thanksgiving or Veterans Day, to express dissent or demonstrate
their claims tocitizenship. Merchants and advertisers colonized the
American calendar, moving in to sell their products by linking
them, often tenuously, with holiday occasions or casting
consumption as a patriotic act.
The Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Washington's Birthday, Memorial
Day, Columbus Day, Labor Day, Martin Luther King's Birthday, and
other celebrations matter to Americans and reflect the state of
American local and national politics. Commemorations of cataclysmic
events and light, apparently trivial observances mirror American
political and cultural life. Both reveal much about the material
conditions of the United States and its citizens' identities,
historical consciousness, and political attitudes. Lying dormant
within these festivals is the potential for political consequence,
controversy, even transformation. American political fetes remain
works in progress, as Americans use historical celebrations as
occasions to reinvent themselves and their nation, often with
surprising results. In six engaging chapters -- assaying particular
political holidays over the course of their histories, Red, White,
and Blue Letter Days examines how Americans have shaped and been
shaped by their calendar.
Matthew Dennis explores this vast political and cultural
terrain, charting how Americans defined their identities through
celebration. Independence Day invited African Americans to demand
the equality promised in the Declaration of Independence, for
example, just as Columbus Day -- celebrating the Italian, Catholic
explorer -- helped immigrants proclaim their legitimacy as
Americans. Native Americans too could use public holidays, such as
Thanksgiving or Veterans Day, to express dissent or demonstrate
their claims to citizenship. Merchants and advertisers colonized
the American calendar, moving in to sell their products by linking
them, often tenuously, with holiday occasions or casting
consumptionas a patriotic act.
This book examines the peculiar new worlds of the Five Nations of
the Iroquois, the Dutch, and the French, who shared cultural
frontiers in seventeenth century North America. Matthew Dennis
employs methods and materials from a range of disciplines,
including archaeology, ethnology, folklore, literary criticism, and
history, to reconstruct those worlds and analyze the consequences
of their mingling with one another. Dennis likens his book to a
cubist painting that describes and orders multiple elements on
canvas but consciously avoids dissolving them into a single angle
of vision. Viewing early America from the different perspectives of
the diverse people who coexisted uneasily during the colonial
encounter between Europeans and Indians, he explains a
long-standing paradox: the apparent belligerence of the Five
Nations, a people who saw themselves as promoters of universal
peace. In a radically new interpretation of the Iroquois, Dennis
argues that the Five Nations sought to incorporate their new
European neighbors as kinspeople into their Longhouse, the physical
and symbolic embodiment of Iroquois domesticity and peace. He
offers a close, original reading of the fundamental political myth
of the Five Nations, the Deganawidah Epic and situates it
historically and ideologically in Iroquois life. Detailing the
particular nature of Iroquois peace, he describes the Five Nations'
diligent efforts to establish peace on their own terms and the
frustrations and hostilities that stemmed from the fundamental
contrast between Iroquois and European goals, expectations, and
perceptions of human relationships.
|
You may like...
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
Morbius
Jared Leto, Matt Smith, …
DVD
R179
Discovery Miles 1 790
|