Author: Ingemar Patrick Linden
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262543168
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
A philosopher refutes our culturally embedded acceptance of death, arguing instead for the desirability of anti-aging science and radical life extension. Ingemar Patrick Linden’s central claim is that death is evil. In this first comprehensive refutation of the most common arguments in favor of human mortality, he writes passionately in favor of antiaging science and radical life extension. We may be on the cusp of a new human condition where scientists seek to break through the arbitrarily set age limit of human existence to address aging as an illness that can be cured. The book, however, is not about the science and technology of life extension but whether we should want more life. For Linden, the answer is a loud and clear “yes.” The acceptance of death is deeply embedded in our culture. Linden examines the views of major philosophical voices of the past, whom he calls “death’s ardent advocates.” These include the Buddha, Socrates, Plato, Lucretius, and Montaigne. All have taught what he calls “the Wise View,” namely, that we should not fear death. After setting out his case against death, Linden systematically examines each of the accepted arguments for death—that aging and death are natural, that death is harmless, that life is overrated, that living longer would be boring, and that death saves us from overpopulation. He concludes with a “dialogue concerning the badness of human mortality.” Though Linden acknowledges that The Case Against Death is a negative polemic, he also defends it as optimistic, in that the badness of death is a function of the goodness of life.
The Case against Death
Author: Ingemar Patrick Linden
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262543168
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
A philosopher refutes our culturally embedded acceptance of death, arguing instead for the desirability of anti-aging science and radical life extension. Ingemar Patrick Linden’s central claim is that death is evil. In this first comprehensive refutation of the most common arguments in favor of human mortality, he writes passionately in favor of antiaging science and radical life extension. We may be on the cusp of a new human condition where scientists seek to break through the arbitrarily set age limit of human existence to address aging as an illness that can be cured. The book, however, is not about the science and technology of life extension but whether we should want more life. For Linden, the answer is a loud and clear “yes.” The acceptance of death is deeply embedded in our culture. Linden examines the views of major philosophical voices of the past, whom he calls “death’s ardent advocates.” These include the Buddha, Socrates, Plato, Lucretius, and Montaigne. All have taught what he calls “the Wise View,” namely, that we should not fear death. After setting out his case against death, Linden systematically examines each of the accepted arguments for death—that aging and death are natural, that death is harmless, that life is overrated, that living longer would be boring, and that death saves us from overpopulation. He concludes with a “dialogue concerning the badness of human mortality.” Though Linden acknowledges that The Case Against Death is a negative polemic, he also defends it as optimistic, in that the badness of death is a function of the goodness of life.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262543168
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271
Book Description
A philosopher refutes our culturally embedded acceptance of death, arguing instead for the desirability of anti-aging science and radical life extension. Ingemar Patrick Linden’s central claim is that death is evil. In this first comprehensive refutation of the most common arguments in favor of human mortality, he writes passionately in favor of antiaging science and radical life extension. We may be on the cusp of a new human condition where scientists seek to break through the arbitrarily set age limit of human existence to address aging as an illness that can be cured. The book, however, is not about the science and technology of life extension but whether we should want more life. For Linden, the answer is a loud and clear “yes.” The acceptance of death is deeply embedded in our culture. Linden examines the views of major philosophical voices of the past, whom he calls “death’s ardent advocates.” These include the Buddha, Socrates, Plato, Lucretius, and Montaigne. All have taught what he calls “the Wise View,” namely, that we should not fear death. After setting out his case against death, Linden systematically examines each of the accepted arguments for death—that aging and death are natural, that death is harmless, that life is overrated, that living longer would be boring, and that death saves us from overpopulation. He concludes with a “dialogue concerning the badness of human mortality.” Though Linden acknowledges that The Case Against Death is a negative polemic, he also defends it as optimistic, in that the badness of death is a function of the goodness of life.
Writing Against Death
Author: Susan Bainbrigge
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9042018453
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 247
Book Description
Aims to re-evaluate Simone de Beauvoir's extensive autobiographical ouvre, exploring its place in relation to the French autobiographical canon. This study presents readings, which engage critically with existentialism, feminist theory, and autobiographystudies generally, in particular focusing on the question of 'autothanatography'.
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9042018453
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 247
Book Description
Aims to re-evaluate Simone de Beauvoir's extensive autobiographical ouvre, exploring its place in relation to the French autobiographical canon. This study presents readings, which engage critically with existentialism, feminist theory, and autobiographystudies generally, in particular focusing on the question of 'autothanatography'.
Living Your Dying
Author: Stanley Keleman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780394487878
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
"This book is about dying, not about death. We are always dying a big, always giving things up, always having things taken away. Is there a person alive who isn't really curious about what dying is for them? Is there a person alive who wouldn't like to go to their dying full of excitement, without fear and without morbidity? This books tells you how." -- Front cover.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780394487878
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Book Description
"This book is about dying, not about death. We are always dying a big, always giving things up, always having things taken away. Is there a person alive who isn't really curious about what dying is for them? Is there a person alive who wouldn't like to go to their dying full of excitement, without fear and without morbidity? This books tells you how." -- Front cover.
Against Death and Time
Author: Brock Yates
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 9781560257707
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
An account of the 1955 car-racing season, noted as one of the sport's most violent years, profiles the dispossessed young men who competed against themselves and each other from the perspective of a fictional narrator, in a volume that draws on the author's interviews with surviving racers, mechanics, and historians. Reprint.
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 9781560257707
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
An account of the 1955 car-racing season, noted as one of the sport's most violent years, profiles the dispossessed young men who competed against themselves and each other from the perspective of a fictional narrator, in a volume that draws on the author's interviews with surviving racers, mechanics, and historians. Reprint.
Life Against Death
Author: Norman Oliver Brown
Publisher: Middletown, Conn. : Wesleyan University Press
ISBN:
Category : Anus (Psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
A shocking and extreme interpretation of the father of psychoanalysis.
Publisher: Middletown, Conn. : Wesleyan University Press
ISBN:
Category : Anus (Psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 392
Book Description
A shocking and extreme interpretation of the father of psychoanalysis.
Against the Death Penalty
Author: Cesare Beccaria
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069121137X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
The first known abolitionist critique of the death penalty—here for the first time in English In 1764, a Milanese aristocrat named Cesare Beccaria created a sensation when he published On Crimes and Punishments. At its centre is a rejection of the death penalty as excessive, unnecessary, and pointless. Beccaria is deservedly regarded as the founding father of modern criminal-law reform, yet he was not the first to argue for the abolition of the death penalty. Against the Death Penalty presents the first English translation of the Florentine aristocrat Giuseppe Pelli's critique of capital punishment, written three years before Beccaria's treatise, but lost for more than two centuries in the Pelli family archives. Peter Garnsey examines the contrasting arguments of the two abolitionists, who drew from different intellectual traditions. Pelli was a devout Catholic influenced by the writings of natural jurists such as Hugo Grotius, whereas Beccaria was inspired by the French Enlightenment philosophers. While Beccaria attacked the criminal justice system as a whole, Pelli focused on the death penalty, composing a critique of considerable depth and sophistication. Garnsey explores how Beccaria's alternative penalty of forced labour, and its conceptualisation as servitude, were embraced in Britain and America, and delves into Pelli's voluminous diaries, shedding light on Pelli's intellectual development and painting a vivid portrait of an Enlightenment man of letters and of conscience. With translations of letters exchanged by the two abolitionists and selections from Beccaria's writings, Against the Death Penalty provides new insights into eighteenth-century debates about capital punishment and offers vital historical perspectives on one of the most pressing questions of our own time.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069121137X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232
Book Description
The first known abolitionist critique of the death penalty—here for the first time in English In 1764, a Milanese aristocrat named Cesare Beccaria created a sensation when he published On Crimes and Punishments. At its centre is a rejection of the death penalty as excessive, unnecessary, and pointless. Beccaria is deservedly regarded as the founding father of modern criminal-law reform, yet he was not the first to argue for the abolition of the death penalty. Against the Death Penalty presents the first English translation of the Florentine aristocrat Giuseppe Pelli's critique of capital punishment, written three years before Beccaria's treatise, but lost for more than two centuries in the Pelli family archives. Peter Garnsey examines the contrasting arguments of the two abolitionists, who drew from different intellectual traditions. Pelli was a devout Catholic influenced by the writings of natural jurists such as Hugo Grotius, whereas Beccaria was inspired by the French Enlightenment philosophers. While Beccaria attacked the criminal justice system as a whole, Pelli focused on the death penalty, composing a critique of considerable depth and sophistication. Garnsey explores how Beccaria's alternative penalty of forced labour, and its conceptualisation as servitude, were embraced in Britain and America, and delves into Pelli's voluminous diaries, shedding light on Pelli's intellectual development and painting a vivid portrait of an Enlightenment man of letters and of conscience. With translations of letters exchanged by the two abolitionists and selections from Beccaria's writings, Against the Death Penalty provides new insights into eighteenth-century debates about capital punishment and offers vital historical perspectives on one of the most pressing questions of our own time.
Ward Against Death
Author: Melanie Card
Publisher: Entangled: Teen
ISBN: 1633750337
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
Twenty-year-old Ward de'Ath expected this to be a simple job-bring a nobleman's daughter back from the dead for fifteen minutes, let her family say good-bye, and launch his fledgling career as a necromancer. Goddess knows he can't be a surgeon-the Quayestri already branded him a criminal for trying-so bringing people back from the dead it is. But when Ward wakes the beautiful Celia Carlyle, he gets more than he bargained for. Insistent that she's been murdered, Celia begs Ward to keep her alive and help her find justice. By the time she drags him out her bedroom window and into the sewers, Ward can't bring himself to break his damned physician's Oath and desert her. However, nothing is as it seems-including Celia. One second, she's treating Ward like sewage, the next she's kissing him. And for a nobleman's daughter, she sure has a lot of enemies. If he could just convince his heart to give up on the infuriating beauty, he might get out of this alive... The Chronicles of a Reluctant Necromancer series is is best enjoyed in order. Series Order: Book #1 Ward Against Death Book #2 Ward Against Darkness Book #3 Ward Against Disaster Book #4 Ward Against Destruction
Publisher: Entangled: Teen
ISBN: 1633750337
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
Twenty-year-old Ward de'Ath expected this to be a simple job-bring a nobleman's daughter back from the dead for fifteen minutes, let her family say good-bye, and launch his fledgling career as a necromancer. Goddess knows he can't be a surgeon-the Quayestri already branded him a criminal for trying-so bringing people back from the dead it is. But when Ward wakes the beautiful Celia Carlyle, he gets more than he bargained for. Insistent that she's been murdered, Celia begs Ward to keep her alive and help her find justice. By the time she drags him out her bedroom window and into the sewers, Ward can't bring himself to break his damned physician's Oath and desert her. However, nothing is as it seems-including Celia. One second, she's treating Ward like sewage, the next she's kissing him. And for a nobleman's daughter, she sure has a lot of enemies. If he could just convince his heart to give up on the infuriating beauty, he might get out of this alive... The Chronicles of a Reluctant Necromancer series is is best enjoyed in order. Series Order: Book #1 Ward Against Death Book #2 Ward Against Darkness Book #3 Ward Against Disaster Book #4 Ward Against Destruction
Zabor, or The Psalms
Author: Kamel Daoud
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1635420148
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Library Journal: Best World Literature of the Year A fable, parable, and confession, the second novel from the acclaimed author of The Meursault Investigation pays homage to the essential need for fiction and to the freedom from tradition afforded by an adopted language. Having lost his mother and been shunned by his father, Zabor grows up in the company of books, which teach him a new language. Ever since he can remember, he has been convinced that he has a gift: if he writes, he will stave off death; those captured in the sentences of his notebooks will live longer. Like a kind of inverted Scheherazade saving his fellow men, he experiments night after night with the delirious power of the imagination. Then, one night, his estranged half brother and the other relatives who would disown him come knocking at the door: his father is going to die and perhaps only Zabor is capable of delaying that fateful moment. Sitting next to the father who has ostracized him, the son writes compulsively, retracing an existence characterized by strangeness, abandonment, and humiliation, but also by wondrous encounters with fictional worlds that he alone in the entire village can access.
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1635420148
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Library Journal: Best World Literature of the Year A fable, parable, and confession, the second novel from the acclaimed author of The Meursault Investigation pays homage to the essential need for fiction and to the freedom from tradition afforded by an adopted language. Having lost his mother and been shunned by his father, Zabor grows up in the company of books, which teach him a new language. Ever since he can remember, he has been convinced that he has a gift: if he writes, he will stave off death; those captured in the sentences of his notebooks will live longer. Like a kind of inverted Scheherazade saving his fellow men, he experiments night after night with the delirious power of the imagination. Then, one night, his estranged half brother and the other relatives who would disown him come knocking at the door: his father is going to die and perhaps only Zabor is capable of delaying that fateful moment. Sitting next to the father who has ostracized him, the son writes compulsively, retracing an existence characterized by strangeness, abandonment, and humiliation, but also by wondrous encounters with fictional worlds that he alone in the entire village can access.
Blood, Bone, and Marrow
Author: Ted Geltner
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820349232
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 453
Book Description
The first full-length biography of one of the most unlikely figures in twentieth-century American literature, a writer who emerged from a dirt-poor South Georgia tenant farm and went on to create a singularly unique voice of fiction.
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820349232
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 453
Book Description
The first full-length biography of one of the most unlikely figures in twentieth-century American literature, a writer who emerged from a dirt-poor South Georgia tenant farm and went on to create a singularly unique voice of fiction.
The City of Good Death
Author: Priyanka Champaneri
Publisher: Restless Books
ISBN: 1632062542
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 448
Book Description
Winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, Priyanka Champaneri’s transcendent debut novel brings us inside India’s holy city of Banaras, where the manager of a death hostel shepherds the dying who seek the release of a good death, while his own past refuses to let him go. Banaras, Varanasi, Kashi: India’s holy city on the banks of the Ganges has many names but holds one ultimate promise for Hindus. It is the place where pilgrims come for a good death, to be released from the cycle of reincarnation by purifying fire. As the dutiful manager of a death hostel in Kashi, Pramesh welcomes the dying and assists families bound for the funeral pyres that burn constantly on the ghats. The soul is gone, the body is burnt, the time is past, he tells them. Detach. After ten years in the timeless city, Pramesh can nearly persuade himself that here, there is no past or future. He lives contentedly at the death hostel with his wife, Shobha, their young daughter, Rani, the hostel priests, his hapless but winning assistant, and the constant flow of families with their dying. But one day the past arrives in the lifeless form of a man pulled from the river—a man with an uncanny resemblance to Pramesh. Called “twins” in their childhood village, he and his cousin Sagar are inseparable until Pramesh leaves to see the outside world and Sagar stays to tend the land. After Pramesh marries Shobha, defying his family’s wishes, a rift opens up between the cousins that he has long since tried to forget. Do not look back. Detach. But for Shobha, Sagar’s reemergence casts a shadow over the life she’s built for her family. Soon, an unwelcome guest takes up residence in the death hostel, the dying mysteriously continue to live, and Pramesh is forced to confront his own ideas about death, rebirth, and redemption. Told in lush, vivid detail and with an unforgettable cast of characters, The City of Good Death is a remarkable debut novel of family and love, memory and ritual, and the ways in which we honor the living and the dead. PRAISE FOR THE CITY OF GOOD DEATH “In Champaneri’s ambitious, vivid debut, the dying come to the holy city of Kashi to die a good death that frees them from the burden of reincarnation…. In sharp prose, Champaneri explores the power of stories—those the characters tell themselves, those told about them, and those they believe. . . . This epic, magical story of death teems with life.” —Publishers Weekly “Brimming with characters whose lives overlap and whose stories interweave, Champaneri’s exquisite debut delves into the consequences of the past, and how stories that are told can become reality even when they contain barely a shred of truth. As Pramesh discovers, the bitterness of past wounds can bring hope for redemption and life.” —Bridget Thoreson, Booklist “Lush prose evokes the thick, close atmosphere of Kashi and the intricate religious practices upon which life and death depend. Rumor and superstition hold sway over even the most level-headed people, twisting what’s explainable into something extraordinary—with tragic consequences. . . . The City of Good Death is a breathtaking, unforgettable novel about how remembering the past is just as important as moving on.” —Eileen Gonzalez, Foreword Reviews, Starred Review "Champaneri’s Kashi is teeming and vivid . . . the book frequently charms, and it's as full of humor, warmth, and mystery as Kashi’s own marketplace." —Kirkus Reviews “The City of Good Death is the debut novel of Priyanka Champaneri but it has the confidence of a master storyteller. Drawing on the rich literary traditions of Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy, Champaneri’s epic saga will satisfy armchair travelers thirsty for adventure, and sick of looking out their windows.” —Chicago Review of Books "In intricate detail and with remarkable skill, Champaneri writes a powerful tale about the pull of the past and our aching need to understand the mysteries and misunderstandings that thwart our relationships. An atmospheric and immersive debut with a rich cast of characters you won’t soon forget." —Marjan Kamali, author of The Stationery Shop
Publisher: Restless Books
ISBN: 1632062542
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 448
Book Description
Winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, Priyanka Champaneri’s transcendent debut novel brings us inside India’s holy city of Banaras, where the manager of a death hostel shepherds the dying who seek the release of a good death, while his own past refuses to let him go. Banaras, Varanasi, Kashi: India’s holy city on the banks of the Ganges has many names but holds one ultimate promise for Hindus. It is the place where pilgrims come for a good death, to be released from the cycle of reincarnation by purifying fire. As the dutiful manager of a death hostel in Kashi, Pramesh welcomes the dying and assists families bound for the funeral pyres that burn constantly on the ghats. The soul is gone, the body is burnt, the time is past, he tells them. Detach. After ten years in the timeless city, Pramesh can nearly persuade himself that here, there is no past or future. He lives contentedly at the death hostel with his wife, Shobha, their young daughter, Rani, the hostel priests, his hapless but winning assistant, and the constant flow of families with their dying. But one day the past arrives in the lifeless form of a man pulled from the river—a man with an uncanny resemblance to Pramesh. Called “twins” in their childhood village, he and his cousin Sagar are inseparable until Pramesh leaves to see the outside world and Sagar stays to tend the land. After Pramesh marries Shobha, defying his family’s wishes, a rift opens up between the cousins that he has long since tried to forget. Do not look back. Detach. But for Shobha, Sagar’s reemergence casts a shadow over the life she’s built for her family. Soon, an unwelcome guest takes up residence in the death hostel, the dying mysteriously continue to live, and Pramesh is forced to confront his own ideas about death, rebirth, and redemption. Told in lush, vivid detail and with an unforgettable cast of characters, The City of Good Death is a remarkable debut novel of family and love, memory and ritual, and the ways in which we honor the living and the dead. PRAISE FOR THE CITY OF GOOD DEATH “In Champaneri’s ambitious, vivid debut, the dying come to the holy city of Kashi to die a good death that frees them from the burden of reincarnation…. In sharp prose, Champaneri explores the power of stories—those the characters tell themselves, those told about them, and those they believe. . . . This epic, magical story of death teems with life.” —Publishers Weekly “Brimming with characters whose lives overlap and whose stories interweave, Champaneri’s exquisite debut delves into the consequences of the past, and how stories that are told can become reality even when they contain barely a shred of truth. As Pramesh discovers, the bitterness of past wounds can bring hope for redemption and life.” —Bridget Thoreson, Booklist “Lush prose evokes the thick, close atmosphere of Kashi and the intricate religious practices upon which life and death depend. Rumor and superstition hold sway over even the most level-headed people, twisting what’s explainable into something extraordinary—with tragic consequences. . . . The City of Good Death is a breathtaking, unforgettable novel about how remembering the past is just as important as moving on.” —Eileen Gonzalez, Foreword Reviews, Starred Review "Champaneri’s Kashi is teeming and vivid . . . the book frequently charms, and it's as full of humor, warmth, and mystery as Kashi’s own marketplace." —Kirkus Reviews “The City of Good Death is the debut novel of Priyanka Champaneri but it has the confidence of a master storyteller. Drawing on the rich literary traditions of Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy, Champaneri’s epic saga will satisfy armchair travelers thirsty for adventure, and sick of looking out their windows.” —Chicago Review of Books "In intricate detail and with remarkable skill, Champaneri writes a powerful tale about the pull of the past and our aching need to understand the mysteries and misunderstandings that thwart our relationships. An atmospheric and immersive debut with a rich cast of characters you won’t soon forget." —Marjan Kamali, author of The Stationery Shop