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Problems of Form (Paperback)
Dirk Baecker; Translated by Michael Irmscher, Leah Edwards
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R903
R843
Discovery Miles 8 430
Save R60 (7%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Sociology has long sought to find out how acting in a situation and
observing that situation may differ and nevertheless belong to a
single kind of social operation. George Spencer-Brown's "Laws of
Form" (1969) provides one way to conceive of such an operation. The
present book is the first to make sociological use of his
mathematical calculus of form, which has been extensively applied
to cybernetics, systems theory, cognitive science, and mathematics.
Spencer-Brown's theory states that any action or communication is
always an operation that makes a distinction. Not only does this
operation take place, but it can be observed as indicating what it
is interested in, and as leaving unmarked what it is not.
Distinctions thereby entail a logic of inclusion and exclusion that
is subject to social debate and conflict. In social situations
there is no action that does not at the same time execute,
maintain, or cross a distinction.
Thus the observer is part of the situation he or she observes. The
essays in this volume use this idea to describe different social
"forms" as consisting of action observed by further action. A
"form" here is understood to be the two sides of a distinction and
its dividing line, taken together. All social action, therefore,
consists of three values: marked side, unmarked side, and an
operation separating the two. If one watches the third value, one
ends up observing the observer drawing the distinction--an observer
who, of course, may be oneself.
In this collection, more general essays study the consequences of
such an understanding of form for our conceptions of literature,
paradox, sign, play, and language. Other essays focus on the
observations necessary to construct such forms as money, the
university, the state, a career, or sickness. All the essays share
an interest in problems ensuing from the fact that though one can
observe the form of a distinction and become aware of its
arbitrary, contingent, and discriminatory nature, one nevertheless,
when trying to act or communicate, must choose a distinction. The
essays show how social situations deftly veil the arbitrariness of
the distinctions that constitute their forms.
The rapid, recent, and international growth of interest in problems
of translation has scarcely registered in literature departments in
the United States. Here translation is still largely seen as a
didactic exercise, and translation studies is regarded as groping
toward rules about how to carry an utterance from one language into
another. In Europe and Israel, however, university centers have
been established to further the "science of translation" and the
training of professional translators, resulting in an outpouring of
practical and theoretical literature on the domain of translation.
This volume has a dual purpose: to acquaint American readers and
academic communities with some of the most important trends in
European and Israeli translation studies, and to bring together
this work with that of American scholars who have begun to
participate in this field.
Four of the eleven essays in this volume are by participants in the
Center for Literary Translation Studies at the University of
Gottingen, which has conducted research into Anglo-German cultural
and literary transfer over the last three centuries. These essays
summarize the Gottingen approach, propose a typology of translated
literature, discuss translations for the theater, and examine the
relation between translation and literary history. Three other
essays deal with aspects of the interaction between German and
American culture: the role of translations from German literature
in the formation of New England Transcendentalism, the entrance of
German Idealism into the American philosophical tradition, and the
problems of creating a newly translated American edition of
Nietzsche's complete works.
Other essays discuss the effects of metaphor and poetic language on
our understanding of language and the process of translation; the
translations by the German poet Paul Celan of Russian, English,
American, and French poets; the effects of translation studies on
interpretation in the arts and the humanities; and the complex
procedures that trace a translation of a poem to its multimedia
stage adaptation.
The rapid, recent, and international growth of interest in problems
of translation has scarcely registered in literature departments in
the United States. Here translation is still largely seen as a
didactic exercise, and translation studies is regarded as groping
toward rules about how to carry an utterance from one language into
another. In Europe and Israel, however, university centers have
been established to further the "science of translation" and the
training of professional translators, resulting in an outpouring of
practical and theoretical literature on the domain of translation.
This volume has a dual purpose: to acquaint American readers and
academic communities with some of the most important trends in
European and Israeli translation studies, and to bring together
this work with that of American scholars who have begun to
participate in this field.
Four of the eleven essays in this volume are by participants in the
Center for Literary Translation Studies at the University of
Gottingen, which has conducted research into Anglo-German cultural
and literary transfer over the last three centuries. These essays
summarize the Gottingen approach, propose a typology of translated
literature, discuss translations for the theater, and examine the
relation between translation and literary history. Three other
essays deal with aspects of the interaction between German and
American culture: the role of translations from German literature
in the formation of New England Transcendentalism, the entrance of
German Idealism into the American philosophical tradition, and the
problems of creating a newly translated American edition of
Nietzsche's complete works.
Other essays discuss the effects of metaphor and poetic language on
our understanding of language and the process of translation; the
translations by the German poet Paul Celan of Russian, English,
American, and French poets; the effects of translation studies on
interpretation in the arts and the humanities; and the complex
procedures that trace a translation of a poem to its multimedia
stage adaptation.
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Problems of Form (Hardcover)
Dirk Baecker; Translated by Michael Irmscher, Leah Edwards
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R4,004
Discovery Miles 40 040
|
Ships in 10 - 15 working days
|
Sociology has long sought to find out how acting in a situation and
observing that situation may differ and nevertheless belong to a
single kind of social operation. George Spencer-Brown's "Laws of
Form" (1969) provides one way to conceive of such an operation. The
present book is the first to make sociological use of his
mathematical calculus of form, which has been extensively applied
to cybernetics, systems theory, cognitive science, and mathematics.
Spencer-Brown's theory states that any action or communication is
always an operation that makes a distinction. Not only does this
operation take place, but it can be observed as indicating what it
is interested in, and as leaving unmarked what it is not.
Distinctions thereby entail a logic of inclusion and exclusion that
is subject to social debate and conflict. In social situations
there is no action that does not at the same time execute,
maintain, or cross a distinction.
Thus the observer is part of the situation he or she observes. The
essays in this volume use this idea to describe different social
"forms" as consisting of action observed by further action. A
"form" here is understood to be the two sides of a distinction and
its dividing line, taken together. All social action, therefore,
consists of three values: marked side, unmarked side, and an
operation separating the two. If one watches the third value, one
ends up observing the observer drawing the distinction--an observer
who, of course, may be oneself.
In this collection, more general essays study the consequences of
such an understanding of form for our conceptions of literature,
paradox, sign, play, and language. Other essays focus on the
observations necessary to construct such forms as money, the
university, the state, a career, or sickness. All the essays share
an interest in problems ensuing from the fact that though one can
observe the form of a distinction and become aware of its
arbitrary, contingent, and discriminatory nature, one nevertheless,
when trying to act or communicate, must choose a distinction. The
essays show how social situations deftly veil the arbitrariness of
the distinctions that constitute their forms.
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