Combining literary criticism and theory with anthropology and cognitive science, this highly relevant book argues that we are fundamentally shaped by dialogue. Patrick Grant looks at the manner in which dialogue informs and connects the personal, political, and religious dimensions of human experience and how literacy is being eroded through many factors, including advances in digital technology. The book begins by tracing the history of evolved communication skills and looks at ways in which interconnections among tragedy, the limits of language, and the silence of abjection contribute to an adequate understanding of dialogue. Looking at examples such as “truth decay” in journalism and falling literacy levels in school, alongside literary texts from Malory and Shakespeare, Grant shows how literature and criticism embody the essential values of dialogue. The maintenance of complex reading and interpretive skills is recommended for the recuperation of dialogue and for a better understanding of its fundamental significance in the shaping of our personal and social lives. Tapping into debates about the value of literature and the humanities, and the challenges posed by digitalization, this book will be of interest and significance to people working in a wide range of subjects, including literary studies, communication studies, digital humanities, social policy, and anthropology.

Combining literary criticism and theory with anthropology and cognitive science, this highly relevant book argues that we are fundamentally shaped by dialogue. Patrick Grant looks at the manner in which dialogue informs and connects the personal, political, and religious dimensions of human experience and how literacy is being eroded through many factors, including advances in digital technology. The book begins by tracing the history of evolved communication skills and looks at ways in which interconnections among tragedy, the limits of language, and the silence of abjection contribute to an adequate understanding of dialogue. Looking at examples such as "truth decay" in journalism and falling literacy levels in school, alongside literary texts from Malory and Shakespeare, Grant shows how literature and criticism embody the essential values of dialogue. The maintenance of complex reading and interpretive skills is recommended for the recuperation of dialogue and for a better understanding of its fundamental significance in the shaping of our personal and social lives. Tapping into debates about the value of literature and the humanities, and the challenges posed by digitalization, this book will be of interest and significance to people working in a wide range of subjects, including literary studies, communication studies, digital humanities, social policy, and anthropology.

The Art of the Personal offers a strikingly original, meticulously researched interpretation of what it means to be a person, and is highly relevant for the times in which we live. The 238 excerpts are selected from 21 books published by Patrick Grant during the past 50 years. The excerpts reach across a wide range of topics, including psychology, aesthetics, literary theory, Biblical criticism, political theory, the Northern Ireland Troubles, Sri Lanka, the place of religion in ethnic conflict, the perennial philosophy and the history of spirituality, among others. The excerpts are arranged under general headings, which are introduced and interpreted by brief essays. This format invites an interactive, dialogical response, as the book makes a case for an understanding of the person as situated within the complex networks of discourse by which its threshold status is constituted but not defined, and to which the art of dialogue is indispensable.

This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

This is a book that exposes silenced and invisible voices in Colleges/Schools of Education. These voices of African immigrants are seldom heard in serious educational quarters since most foreign-born teacher educators try their very best to play by the rules as immigrant minorities. However, they find themselves between cultural continuity and cultural discontinuity. They are pressured to do well by their families in their native countries; but these pressures force them to forget home and think about survival strategies in their new found home. Very often, they do well and at tremendous costs! Additionally, they are expected to be happy and endure all kinds of mistreatments with a smile because they seem to have fewer survival options. On the one hand, they are generally treated as Blacks; and as Blacks, they encounter racist behaviours. On the other hand, they are treated as invisible, primitive, and inferior Blacks who have nothing to share and who are supposed to be seen and not heard. As a consequence, they endure discrimination from both native born African Americans and Whites in America. Interestingly, when they are confident, they are labelled as arrogant, troublemaker, foreigner, chauvinistic, and so on. When they are quiet, they are labelled as incompetent, timid, naive, unprepared, and so on. The tendency is to forget that they are human-beings with aspirations to do well and contribute to their "new" society, that is, America. The critical question then is, how can they do well or contribute to the advancement of their new society if they are not given opportunities to learn, teach, serve, or grow?

Soon after his death, Vincent van Gogh's reputation grew and developed through the remarkably symbiotic relationship evident between his paintings and letters. However, the sheer bulk and complexity of Van Gogh's complete surviving correspondence presents a formidable challenge to those who wish to read and analyze the whole text as a literary work. Reading Vincent van Gogh is at once an interpretive guide to Van Gogh's letters and a distillation of the key themes that reoccur throughout his collected letters - foremost among them the motifs of suffering, love, imagination, and the ineffable. In this indispensable, synoptic view of the letters, Patrick Grant makes the main lines of Vincent van Gogh's thinking accessible and displays the arresting vividness of the well-known artist's writing.