Author: Christine Hoffmann
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319637517
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
This book frames the undeniably copious 21st-century performances of stupidity that occur within social media as echoes of rhetorical experiments conducted by humanist writers of the Renaissance. Any historical overview of humanism will associate it with copia—abundance of expression—and the rhetorical practices essential to managing it. This book argues that stupidity was and is a synonym for copia, making the humanism of which copia is a central element an inherently stupid philosophy. A transhistorical exploration of stupidity demonstrates that not only is excess still the surest way to eloquence, but it is also just the kind of spammy, speculative undertaking to generate a more generous and inventive comprehension of human and nonhuman relationships. In chapters exploring the rhetorics of memes, attack ads, public shaming blogs, clickbait and gifs, Stupid Humanism outlines the possibilities for a humanism less invested in the normative logics that enshrine knowledge, eloquence and linear development as the chief indicators of an active, articulated selfhood and more supportive of a program for queer knowledge, trivial pursuits, anti-social ethics and the curious relationships that form around and in response to abundance of expression.
Stupid Humanism
Author: Christine Hoffmann
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319637517
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
This book frames the undeniably copious 21st-century performances of stupidity that occur within social media as echoes of rhetorical experiments conducted by humanist writers of the Renaissance. Any historical overview of humanism will associate it with copia—abundance of expression—and the rhetorical practices essential to managing it. This book argues that stupidity was and is a synonym for copia, making the humanism of which copia is a central element an inherently stupid philosophy. A transhistorical exploration of stupidity demonstrates that not only is excess still the surest way to eloquence, but it is also just the kind of spammy, speculative undertaking to generate a more generous and inventive comprehension of human and nonhuman relationships. In chapters exploring the rhetorics of memes, attack ads, public shaming blogs, clickbait and gifs, Stupid Humanism outlines the possibilities for a humanism less invested in the normative logics that enshrine knowledge, eloquence and linear development as the chief indicators of an active, articulated selfhood and more supportive of a program for queer knowledge, trivial pursuits, anti-social ethics and the curious relationships that form around and in response to abundance of expression.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319637517
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
This book frames the undeniably copious 21st-century performances of stupidity that occur within social media as echoes of rhetorical experiments conducted by humanist writers of the Renaissance. Any historical overview of humanism will associate it with copia—abundance of expression—and the rhetorical practices essential to managing it. This book argues that stupidity was and is a synonym for copia, making the humanism of which copia is a central element an inherently stupid philosophy. A transhistorical exploration of stupidity demonstrates that not only is excess still the surest way to eloquence, but it is also just the kind of spammy, speculative undertaking to generate a more generous and inventive comprehension of human and nonhuman relationships. In chapters exploring the rhetorics of memes, attack ads, public shaming blogs, clickbait and gifs, Stupid Humanism outlines the possibilities for a humanism less invested in the normative logics that enshrine knowledge, eloquence and linear development as the chief indicators of an active, articulated selfhood and more supportive of a program for queer knowledge, trivial pursuits, anti-social ethics and the curious relationships that form around and in response to abundance of expression.
Fool
Author: Johanna Skibsrud
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000965759
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 169
Book Description
Combining personal narrative, interviews, and literary analysis, Fool elaborates the potential for fool figures from throughout literary history to reconfigure subject-object relations and point towards new possibilities in creative and critical thought. Drawing on Johanna Skibsrud’s experience in clown classes in France and the US, Fool challenges and extends the correlation Theodor Adorno suggests between thinking and clowning. It considers a diverse range of literary and theoretical sources from Richard Wagner’s Parsifal to Karen Barad’s Meeting the Universe Halfway. The book also refers to a varied cast of literary and historical clowns and fools, including the early Shakespearean actor Richard Tarlton, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, and Cirque du Soleil’s Shannan Calcutt. Skibsrud elaborates on the role of the ‘fool’ and ‘foolishness’ in literature, not as an element of a particular work’s content, plot, or style but instead as a creative mode of thought activated through the reading and writing of literary texts. This innovative book charts new ground in literature, philosophy, and performance studies, and is an invaluable resource for specialists in all three fields.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000965759
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 169
Book Description
Combining personal narrative, interviews, and literary analysis, Fool elaborates the potential for fool figures from throughout literary history to reconfigure subject-object relations and point towards new possibilities in creative and critical thought. Drawing on Johanna Skibsrud’s experience in clown classes in France and the US, Fool challenges and extends the correlation Theodor Adorno suggests between thinking and clowning. It considers a diverse range of literary and theoretical sources from Richard Wagner’s Parsifal to Karen Barad’s Meeting the Universe Halfway. The book also refers to a varied cast of literary and historical clowns and fools, including the early Shakespearean actor Richard Tarlton, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, and Cirque du Soleil’s Shannan Calcutt. Skibsrud elaborates on the role of the ‘fool’ and ‘foolishness’ in literature, not as an element of a particular work’s content, plot, or style but instead as a creative mode of thought activated through the reading and writing of literary texts. This innovative book charts new ground in literature, philosophy, and performance studies, and is an invaluable resource for specialists in all three fields.
Humanism
Author: Tony Davies
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134836112
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 170
Book Description
Definitions of humanism as educational movement, philosophical concept or existential ‘life stance’ have evolved over the centuries as the term has been adopted for a variety of cultural and political purposes and contexts, and reactions against humanism have contributed to movements such as structuralism, postmodernism and postcolonialism. Tony Davies offers a clear introduction to the many uses of this influential yet complex concept, and this second edition extends his discussion to include: a wide-ranging history of the development of the term and its influences the implications of debates around humanism and post-humanism for political, religious and environmental activism discussion of the key figures in humanist debate from Erasmus and Milton to Heidegger, Foucault and Chomsky
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134836112
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 170
Book Description
Definitions of humanism as educational movement, philosophical concept or existential ‘life stance’ have evolved over the centuries as the term has been adopted for a variety of cultural and political purposes and contexts, and reactions against humanism have contributed to movements such as structuralism, postmodernism and postcolonialism. Tony Davies offers a clear introduction to the many uses of this influential yet complex concept, and this second edition extends his discussion to include: a wide-ranging history of the development of the term and its influences the implications of debates around humanism and post-humanism for political, religious and environmental activism discussion of the key figures in humanist debate from Erasmus and Milton to Heidegger, Foucault and Chomsky
Shakespeare Unlearned
Author: Adam Zucker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198906781
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
Shakespeare Unlearned dances along the borderline of sense and nonsense in early modern texts, revealing overlooked opportunities for understanding and shared community in words and ideas that might in the past have been considered too silly to matter much for serious scholarship. Each chapter pursues a self-knowing, gently ironic study of the lexicon and scripting of words and acts related to what has been called 'stupidity' in work by Shakespeare and other authors. Each centers significant, often comic situations that emerge -- on stage, in print, and in the critical and editorial tradition pertaining to the period -- when rigorous scholars and teachers meet language, characters, or plotlines that exceed, and at times entirely undermine, the goals and premises of scholarly rigor. Each suggests that a framing of putative 'stupidity' pursued through lexicography, editorial glossing, literary criticism, and pedagogical practice can help us put Shakespeare and semantically obscure historical literature more generally to new communal ends. Words such as 'baffle' in Twelfth Night or 'twangling' and 'jingling' in The Tempest, and characters such as Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Holofernes the pedant, might in the past have been considered unworthy of critical attention -- too light or obvious to matter much for our understanding of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Adam Zucker's meditation on the limits of learnedness and the opportunities presented by a philology of stupidity argues otherwise.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198906781
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
Shakespeare Unlearned dances along the borderline of sense and nonsense in early modern texts, revealing overlooked opportunities for understanding and shared community in words and ideas that might in the past have been considered too silly to matter much for serious scholarship. Each chapter pursues a self-knowing, gently ironic study of the lexicon and scripting of words and acts related to what has been called 'stupidity' in work by Shakespeare and other authors. Each centers significant, often comic situations that emerge -- on stage, in print, and in the critical and editorial tradition pertaining to the period -- when rigorous scholars and teachers meet language, characters, or plotlines that exceed, and at times entirely undermine, the goals and premises of scholarly rigor. Each suggests that a framing of putative 'stupidity' pursued through lexicography, editorial glossing, literary criticism, and pedagogical practice can help us put Shakespeare and semantically obscure historical literature more generally to new communal ends. Words such as 'baffle' in Twelfth Night or 'twangling' and 'jingling' in The Tempest, and characters such as Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Holofernes the pedant, might in the past have been considered unworthy of critical attention -- too light or obvious to matter much for our understanding of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Adam Zucker's meditation on the limits of learnedness and the opportunities presented by a philology of stupidity argues otherwise.
The Family Idiot
Author: Jean-Paul Sartre
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226822001
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 630
Book Description
With this volume, the University of Chicago Press completes its translation of a work that is indispensable not only to serious readers of Flaubert but to anyone interested in the last major contribution by one of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers. That Sartre's study of Flaubert, The Family Idiot, is a towering achievement in intellectual history has never been disputed. Yet critics have argued about the precise nature of this novel or biography or "criticism-fiction" which is the summation of Sartre's philosophical, social, and literary thought. In the preface, Sartre writes: "The Family Idiot is the sequel to Search for a Method. The subject: what, at this point in time, can we know about a man? It seemed to me that this question could only be answered by studying a specific case." Sartre discusses Flaubert's personal development, his relationship to his family, his decision to become a writer, and the psychosomatic crisis or "conversion" from his father's domination to the freedom of his art. Sartre blends psychoanalysis with a sociological study of the ideology of the period, the crisis in literature, and Flaubert's influence on the future of literature. While Sartre never wrote the final volume he envisioned for this vast project, the existing volumes constitute in themselves a unified work—one that John Sturrock, writing in the Observer, called "a shatteringly fertile, digressive and ruthless interpretation of these few cardinal years in Flaubert's life." "A virtuoso perfomance. . . . For all that this book does to make one reconsider his life, The Family Idiot is less a case study of Flaubert than it is a final installment of Sartre's mythology. . . . The translator, Carol Cosman, has acquitted herself brilliantly."—Frederick Brown, New York Review of Books "A splendid translation by Carol Cosman. . . . Sartre called The Family Idiot a 'true novel,' and it does tell a story and eventually reach a shattering climax. The work can be described most simply as a dialectic, which shifts between two seemingly alternative interpretations of Flaubert's destiny: a psychoanalytic one, centered on his family and on his childhood, and a Marxist one, whose guiding themes are the status of the artist in Flaubert's period and the historical and ideological contradictions faced by his social class, the bourgeoisie."—Fredric Jameson, New York Times Book Review Jean-Paul Sartre (1906-1980) was offered, but declined, the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964. His many works of fiction, drama, and philosophy include the monumental study of Flaubert, The Family Idiot, and The Freud Scenario, both published in translation by the University of Chicago Press.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226822001
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 630
Book Description
With this volume, the University of Chicago Press completes its translation of a work that is indispensable not only to serious readers of Flaubert but to anyone interested in the last major contribution by one of the twentieth century's greatest thinkers. That Sartre's study of Flaubert, The Family Idiot, is a towering achievement in intellectual history has never been disputed. Yet critics have argued about the precise nature of this novel or biography or "criticism-fiction" which is the summation of Sartre's philosophical, social, and literary thought. In the preface, Sartre writes: "The Family Idiot is the sequel to Search for a Method. The subject: what, at this point in time, can we know about a man? It seemed to me that this question could only be answered by studying a specific case." Sartre discusses Flaubert's personal development, his relationship to his family, his decision to become a writer, and the psychosomatic crisis or "conversion" from his father's domination to the freedom of his art. Sartre blends psychoanalysis with a sociological study of the ideology of the period, the crisis in literature, and Flaubert's influence on the future of literature. While Sartre never wrote the final volume he envisioned for this vast project, the existing volumes constitute in themselves a unified work—one that John Sturrock, writing in the Observer, called "a shatteringly fertile, digressive and ruthless interpretation of these few cardinal years in Flaubert's life." "A virtuoso perfomance. . . . For all that this book does to make one reconsider his life, The Family Idiot is less a case study of Flaubert than it is a final installment of Sartre's mythology. . . . The translator, Carol Cosman, has acquitted herself brilliantly."—Frederick Brown, New York Review of Books "A splendid translation by Carol Cosman. . . . Sartre called The Family Idiot a 'true novel,' and it does tell a story and eventually reach a shattering climax. The work can be described most simply as a dialectic, which shifts between two seemingly alternative interpretations of Flaubert's destiny: a psychoanalytic one, centered on his family and on his childhood, and a Marxist one, whose guiding themes are the status of the artist in Flaubert's period and the historical and ideological contradictions faced by his social class, the bourgeoisie."—Fredric Jameson, New York Times Book Review Jean-Paul Sartre (1906-1980) was offered, but declined, the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964. His many works of fiction, drama, and philosophy include the monumental study of Flaubert, The Family Idiot, and The Freud Scenario, both published in translation by the University of Chicago Press.
Humanism and Technology
Author: Anthony B. Pinn
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319317148
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Book Description
This book interrogates the ways in which new technological advances impact the thought and practices of humanism. Chapters investigate the social, political, and cultural implications of the creation and use of advanced forms of technology, examining both defining benefits and potential dangers. Contributors also discuss technology’s relationship to and impact on the shifting definitions we hold for humankind. International and multi-disciplinary in nature and scope, the volume presents an exploration of humanism and technology that is both racially diverse and gender sensitive. With great depth and self-awareness, contributors offer suggestions for how humanists and humanist organizations might think about and relate to technology in a rapidly changing world. More broadly, the book offers a critical humanistic interrogation of the concept of “progress” especially as it relates to technological advancement.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319317148
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Book Description
This book interrogates the ways in which new technological advances impact the thought and practices of humanism. Chapters investigate the social, political, and cultural implications of the creation and use of advanced forms of technology, examining both defining benefits and potential dangers. Contributors also discuss technology’s relationship to and impact on the shifting definitions we hold for humankind. International and multi-disciplinary in nature and scope, the volume presents an exploration of humanism and technology that is both racially diverse and gender sensitive. With great depth and self-awareness, contributors offer suggestions for how humanists and humanist organizations might think about and relate to technology in a rapidly changing world. More broadly, the book offers a critical humanistic interrogation of the concept of “progress” especially as it relates to technological advancement.
Christian Humanism and the Puritan Social Order
Author: Margo Todd
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521892285
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308
Book Description
The author contends that the traditional views of puritan social thought have done a great injustice to the intellectual history of the 16th-century. Margo Todd reveals the puritans to be the heirs to a complex intellectual legacy.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521892285
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308
Book Description
The author contends that the traditional views of puritan social thought have done a great injustice to the intellectual history of the 16th-century. Margo Todd reveals the puritans to be the heirs to a complex intellectual legacy.
The Complete Pratt
Author: David Nobbs
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473519454
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1090
Book Description
THE COMPLETE PRATT compiles the first three volumes of the misadventures of Henry Pratt, beginning with a brilliantly funny evocation of a Yorkshire boyhood in SECOND FROM LAST IN THE SACK RACE; Henry's first job is as a cub reporter on the Thurmarsh Evening Argus, told in PRATT OF THE ARGUS, hailed by Sue Townsend as 'very funny'. Finally, in THE CUCUMBER MAN, Henry decides to take on a new role and a new challenge - working for the Cucumber Marketing Board in Leeds. Stumbling through the fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties, Henry accumulates marriages and children along the way and THE COMPLETE PRATT is a touching and hilarious ride through a divided Britain...
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473519454
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1090
Book Description
THE COMPLETE PRATT compiles the first three volumes of the misadventures of Henry Pratt, beginning with a brilliantly funny evocation of a Yorkshire boyhood in SECOND FROM LAST IN THE SACK RACE; Henry's first job is as a cub reporter on the Thurmarsh Evening Argus, told in PRATT OF THE ARGUS, hailed by Sue Townsend as 'very funny'. Finally, in THE CUCUMBER MAN, Henry decides to take on a new role and a new challenge - working for the Cucumber Marketing Board in Leeds. Stumbling through the fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties, Henry accumulates marriages and children along the way and THE COMPLETE PRATT is a touching and hilarious ride through a divided Britain...
The Humanism of Doctor Who
Author: David Layton
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786489448
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
From 1963 to 1989, the BBC television program Doctor Who followed a time-traveling human-like alien called "The Doctor" as he sought to help people, save civilizations and right wrongs. Since its 2005 revival, Doctor Who has become a pop culture phenomenon surpassing its "classic" period popularity and reaching a larger, more diverse audience. Though created as a family program, the series has dramatized serious themes in philosophy, science, religion, and politics. Doctor Who's thoughtful presentation of a secular humanist view of the universe stands in stark contrast to the flashy special effects central to most science fiction on television. This examination of Doctor Who from the perspective of philosophical humanism assesses the show's careful exploration of such topics as justice, ethics, good and evil, mythology and knowledge.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786489448
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
From 1963 to 1989, the BBC television program Doctor Who followed a time-traveling human-like alien called "The Doctor" as he sought to help people, save civilizations and right wrongs. Since its 2005 revival, Doctor Who has become a pop culture phenomenon surpassing its "classic" period popularity and reaching a larger, more diverse audience. Though created as a family program, the series has dramatized serious themes in philosophy, science, religion, and politics. Doctor Who's thoughtful presentation of a secular humanist view of the universe stands in stark contrast to the flashy special effects central to most science fiction on television. This examination of Doctor Who from the perspective of philosophical humanism assesses the show's careful exploration of such topics as justice, ethics, good and evil, mythology and knowledge.
What is Humanism and Why Does it Matter?
Author: Anthony B. Pinn
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131547543X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 215
Book Description
We live in a world of social, political, economic, and religious rupture. Ideologies polarise to fuel confrontation within communities, nations and regions of the world. At this point in the twenty-first century, humanism's focus on reason, ethics and justice offers the potential to rethink and re-engage in new ways. "What Is Humanism, and Why Does It Matter?" brings together leading humanist thinkers and activists to examine humanism and how it can work in the world. Humanism is often misunderstood. The movement includes both atheists and agnostics, who seek to make ethical sense of the world based on shared human values and a concern for human welfare, happiness and fulfillment. "What Is Humanism, and Why Does It Matter?" presents an overview and exploration of the meaning and nature of humanism, both as a philosophy and as a way of engaging with the challenges of the world.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131547543X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 215
Book Description
We live in a world of social, political, economic, and religious rupture. Ideologies polarise to fuel confrontation within communities, nations and regions of the world. At this point in the twenty-first century, humanism's focus on reason, ethics and justice offers the potential to rethink and re-engage in new ways. "What Is Humanism, and Why Does It Matter?" brings together leading humanist thinkers and activists to examine humanism and how it can work in the world. Humanism is often misunderstood. The movement includes both atheists and agnostics, who seek to make ethical sense of the world based on shared human values and a concern for human welfare, happiness and fulfillment. "What Is Humanism, and Why Does It Matter?" presents an overview and exploration of the meaning and nature of humanism, both as a philosophy and as a way of engaging with the challenges of the world.