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Sense, Nonsense, and Subjectivity
by Markus GabrielA leading German philosopher offers his most ambitious work yet on the nature of knowledge, arguing that being wrong about things defines the human condition.For millennia, philosophers have dedicated themselves to advancing understanding of the nature of truth and reality. In the process they have amassed a great deal of epistemological theory—knowledge about knowledge. But negative epistemological phenomena, such as ignorance, falsity, illusion, and delusion, are persistently overlooked. This is surprising given that we all know how fallible humans are.Sense, Nonsense, and Subjectivity replies with a theory of false thought, demonstrating that being wrong about things is part and parcel of subjectivity itself. For this reason, knowledge can never be secured without our making claims that can always, in principle, be wrong. Even in successful cases, where we get something right and thereby gain knowledge, the possibility of failure lingers with us. Markus Gabriel grounds this argument in a novel account of the relationship between sense, nonsense, and subjectivity—phenomena that hang together in the temporal unfolding of our cognitive lives.While most philosophers continue to theorize subjectivity in terms of conscious self-representation and the supposedly infallible grip we have on ourselves as thinkers, Sense, Nonsense, and Subjectivity addresses the age-old Platonic challenge to understand situations in which we do not get reality right. Adding a stimulating perspective on epistemic failures to the work of New Realism, Gabriel addresses long-standing ontological questions in an age where the line between the real and the fake is increasingly blurred.
Serge Gainsbourg: An International Perspective
by Olivier Julien and Olivier BourderionnetSerge Gainsbourg is arguably the Francophone songwriter whose contribution to the international appeal of French popular music has been the most significant in the post-war era. Sampled by Beck, De La Soul, Massive Attack and Fatboy Slim, remixed by Howie B. and David Holmes, translated by Mick Harvey, and covered by Iggy Pop, Donna Summer, Portishead, Madeleine Peyroux, the Pet Shop Boys and Franz Ferdinand, his music has crossed borders in a way no other modern French-language singer-songwriter's has.The interdisciplinary approach of Serge Gainsbourg: An International Perspective engages in a dialogue between musicology, film and media studies, literature, cultural studies, gender studies, and more, revealing the broad scope of Gainsbourg's impact in and outside of France, from the late 1950s through today. Bringing together a large selection of scholars from across the world, this collection of 26 chapters emphasizes his unique position in French culture, covering issues such as his musical influences and collaborations, esthetics and form, his experimentations with disciplines other than music (mainly film and literature), not to mention the conversation at play between high art and mass culture in this artist's multifaceted body of work.
Shaping Tomorrow's World: A Twentieth-Century History of West German, Cold War, and Global Futures Studies
by Elke SeefriedShaping Tomorrow’s World tells the crucial story of how futures studies developed in West Germany, Europe, the US and within global futures networks from the 1940s to the 1980s. It charts the emergence of different approaches and thought styles within the field ranging from Cold War defense intellectuals such as Herman Kahn to critical peace activists like Robert Jungk. Engaging with the challenges of the looming nuclear war, the changing phases of the Cold War, ‘1968’, and the growing importance of both the Global South and environmentalism, this book argues that futures scholars actively contributed to these processes of change. This multiple award-winning study combines national and transnational perspectives to present a unique history of envisioning, forecasting, and shaping the future.
Share the Universe: A Guide to Outreach Astronomy (The Patrick Moore Practical Astronomy Series)
by Richard StemberAs every astronomer knows, astronomy is one of the most approachable and inspiring of the natural sciences. It appeals to both children and adults while drawing in curious minds with its immense distances and unimaginably powerful natural phenomena. In this book, you will find out how to be a part of the journey in sharing scientific knowledge and inspiring minds of all ages. By using the affordable tools and techniques provided in this book – you will learn about how astronomers can easily engage people with views of our solar system’s planets, moons, and even more distant objects like nebulas, stellar nurseries, and remnants of exploded stars. Perhaps most importantly, the natural appeal of this science is helpful when explaining to non-scientists how science “works." What is science and scientific methodology? How is it used to give mankind knowledge and solutions to problems that we face in many scientific fields including medicine? How does it differ from other sources of information? This book, sprinkled with the author’s 24 plus years of personal experience in public outreach, offers practical techniques to engage, educate, and inspire all who are interested in the field of astronomy.
Sharing Freedom: Republicanism and Exclusion in Revolutionary France
by null Geneviève RousselièreThe French have long self-identified as champions of universal emancipation, yet the republicanism they adopted has often been faulted for being exclusionary – of women, foreigners, and religious and ethnic minorities. Can republicanism be an attractive alternative to liberalism, communism, and communitarianism, or is it fundamentally flawed? Sharing Freedom traces the development of republicanism from an older elitist theory of freedom into an inclusive theory of emancipation during the French Revolution. It uncovers the theoretical innovations of Rousseau and of revolutionaries such as Sieyès, Robespierre, Condorcet, and Grouchy. We learn how they struggled to adapt republicanism to the new circumstances of a large and diverse France, full of poor and dependent individuals with little education or experience of freedom. Analysing the argumentative logic that led republicans to justify the exclusion of many, this book renews the republican tradition and connects it with the enduring issues of colonialism, immigration, slavery, poverty and gender.
Should You Choose to Live Forever?: A Debate (Little Debates about Big Questions)
by Stephen Cave John Martin FischerIn this book, Stephen Cave and John Martin Fischer debate whether or not we should choose to live forever. This ancient question is as topical as ever: while billions of people believe they will live forever in an otherworldly realm, billions of dollars are currently being poured into anti-ageing research in the hope that we will be able to radically extend our lives on earth. But are we wise to wish for immortality? What would it mean for each of us as individuals, for society, and for the planet? In this lively and accessible debate, the authors introduce the main arguments for and against living forever, along with some new ones. They draw on examples from myth and literature as well as new thought experiments in order to bring the arguments to life. Cave contends that the aspiring immortalist is stuck on the horns of a series of dilemmas, such as boredom and meaninglessness, or overpopulation and social injustice. Fischer argues that there is a vision of radically longer lives that is both recognizably human and desirable. This book offers both students and experienced philosophers a provocative new guide to a topic of perennial importance. Key Features: Gives a comprehensive overview of the main arguments for and against living forever. Uses lively examples from myth, literature, and novel thought experiments. Highly accessible—avoiding jargon and assuming no prior knowledge—without sacrificing intellectual rigour. Includes helpful pedagogical features, including chapter summaries, an annotated reading list, a glossary, and clear examples.
Should You Choose to Live Forever?: A Debate (Little Debates about Big Questions)
by Stephen Cave John Martin FischerIn this book, Stephen Cave and John Martin Fischer debate whether or not we should choose to live forever. This ancient question is as topical as ever: while billions of people believe they will live forever in an otherworldly realm, billions of dollars are currently being poured into anti-ageing research in the hope that we will be able to radically extend our lives on earth. But are we wise to wish for immortality? What would it mean for each of us as individuals, for society, and for the planet? In this lively and accessible debate, the authors introduce the main arguments for and against living forever, along with some new ones. They draw on examples from myth and literature as well as new thought experiments in order to bring the arguments to life. Cave contends that the aspiring immortalist is stuck on the horns of a series of dilemmas, such as boredom and meaninglessness, or overpopulation and social injustice. Fischer argues that there is a vision of radically longer lives that is both recognizably human and desirable. This book offers both students and experienced philosophers a provocative new guide to a topic of perennial importance. Key Features: Gives a comprehensive overview of the main arguments for and against living forever. Uses lively examples from myth, literature, and novel thought experiments. Highly accessible—avoiding jargon and assuming no prior knowledge—without sacrificing intellectual rigour. Includes helpful pedagogical features, including chapter summaries, an annotated reading list, a glossary, and clear examples.
Simone Weil: Basic Writings
by Simone WeilSimone Weil is one of the most profound and thought-provoking thinkers of the 20th century. A teacher, factory and farm labourer, a political activist at home and abroad, a loving friend, daughter and sister—all these manifest a life devoted to the good in its many forms. Her writings explore the good open to us and the various routes to it, spanning philosophy, politics, science and spirituality. While she saw her vocation primarily as a philosopher—examining questions concerning human faculties, action and thought, the limits of language and our need of mediation, suffering and beauty for contact with reality—her startlingly original thought is often obscured by her having been too readily categorized as a Christian mystic. Simone Weil: Basic Writings is an expertly edited anthology of Weil’s most important writings, presenting her philosophy as it relates to the architecture of human nature, politics, work, necessity, beauty, goodness and God. Working from the definitive French edition of Weil’s complete writings, D. K. Levy and Marina Barabas have translated the essays anew or for the first time, adding important notes and references absent from existing English language editions of Weil’s work. Following an extensive introduction that gives an overview of Weil's life and thought, each part opens with a short preface situating the selected essays within Weil’s oeuvre. Simone Weil: Basic Writings provides an excellent entry point to Weil’s philosophy, as well as a reference for students and scholars of Weil's thought in philosophy and related disciplines.
Simplex Society: How to Humanize
by Koen StroekenThis open access book provides thought-provoking anthropology grounded in comparative ethnography. The theory captures the current historical moment, the long-term trends that led us here, and the prospects for a humane future. The experience of complexity characterizing a globalized information society triggers simplexes. These unidimensional responses instrumental in bringing about a predictable effect are altering our ways of communicating and the technologies we design. In Part I, a ‘speciated’ history, injected with the anthropology of Bateson and Gluckman, describes the semantic and experiential impoverishment of the lifeworld. After going through the affects of distrust (the neolithic lifeway), of futility (industrial lifeway) and disconnection (post-knowledge), the human species today depends for its survival on installing a new lifeway, which manages to wed (eco-social) inclusion to the already difficult first pair of the French Revolution. The species needs to rehumanize. Part II illustrates the remedies currently developed: to reframe, re-sphere and re-source. What do critical street art, international football matches, presidential elections, hip-hop dissing performances, charismatic church services, intuition stimulation, and ‘pre-ceptive’ experiences of consciousness have in common? They are moments of the real. Rooted in ‘life sensing’, they are tensors organizing frameshift. As multiplex measures tackling the simplex, these tensors overcome the cultural relativism of the postmodern matrix.
Sites of Learning and Practical Knowledge: Against Normativity (Critical Humanities Across Cultures)
by Vivek DhareshwarThis book examines the relationship between cultural difference and practical knowledge and its implications for the study of humanities and the social sciences. It sketches a meta-theory of Western thought to grasp the conceptual distortions that result when a normatively structured theoretical way of understanding the world seeks to displace practical forms of understanding. The book draws on both Western thinkers such as Nietzsche, Marx, Wittgenstein and Foucault and Indian thinkers such as Gandhi, Tagore and Balagangadhara to formulate a practical epistemology that delimits theoretical knowledge by regenerating experiential knowledge that was the hallmark of Indian intellectual traditions and provides the intellectual resources for rejecting normativity. By thus preparing the ground for a radical reconceptualization of the human sciences it seeks to overcome the loss of concepts and the violence generated by the grafting of ill–understood and experience-occluding normative conceptual structures on the fabric of practical life. Finally, the author offers an alternative conceptualization of Indian sociality through the idea of a practitional matrix, which explains both why the West necessarily misunderstood or misdescribed India and how that misdescription enables us to theorize the West. Part of Critical Humanities across Cultures series, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, religious studies, post-colonial studies, cultural studies, Indian studies and literature.
Sites of Learning and Practical Knowledge: Against Normativity (Critical Humanities Across Cultures)
by Vivek DhareshwarThis book examines the relationship between cultural difference and practical knowledge and its implications for the study of humanities and the social sciences. It sketches a meta-theory of Western thought to grasp the conceptual distortions that result when a normatively structured theoretical way of understanding the world seeks to displace practical forms of understanding. The book draws on both Western thinkers such as Nietzsche, Marx, Wittgenstein and Foucault and Indian thinkers such as Gandhi, Tagore and Balagangadhara to formulate a practical epistemology that delimits theoretical knowledge by regenerating experiential knowledge that was the hallmark of Indian intellectual traditions and provides the intellectual resources for rejecting normativity. By thus preparing the ground for a radical reconceptualization of the human sciences it seeks to overcome the loss of concepts and the violence generated by the grafting of ill–understood and experience-occluding normative conceptual structures on the fabric of practical life. Finally, the author offers an alternative conceptualization of Indian sociality through the idea of a practitional matrix, which explains both why the West necessarily misunderstood or misdescribed India and how that misdescription enables us to theorize the West. Part of Critical Humanities across Cultures series, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, religious studies, post-colonial studies, cultural studies, Indian studies and literature.
Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America
by Beth LinkerThe strange and surprising history of the so-called epidemic of bad posture in modern America—from eugenics and posture pageants to today&’s promoters of &“paleo posture&”In 1995, a scandal erupted when the New York Times revealed that the Smithsonian possessed a century&’s worth of nude &“posture&” photos of college students. In this riveting history, Beth Linker tells why these photos were only a small part of the incredible story of twentieth-century America&’s largely forgotten posture panic—a decades-long episode in which it was widely accepted as scientific fact that Americans were suffering from an epidemic of bad posture, with potentially catastrophic health consequences. Tracing the rise and fall of this socially manufactured epidemic, Slouch also tells how this period continues to feed today&’s widespread anxieties about posture.In the early twentieth century, the eugenics movement and fears of disability gave slouching a new scientific relevance. Bad posture came to be seen as an individual health threat, an affront to conventional race hierarchies, and a sign of American decline. What followed were massive efforts to measure, track, and prevent slouching and, later, back pain—campaigns that reached schools, workplaces, and beyond, from the creation of the American Posture League to posture pageants. The popularity of posture-enhancing products, such as girdles and lumbar supports, exploded, as did new fitness programs focused on postural muscles, such as Pilates and modern yoga. By 1970, student protests largely brought an end to school posture exams and photos, but many efforts to fight bad posture continued, despite a lack of scientific evidence.A compelling history that mixes seriousness and humor, Slouch is a unique and provocative account of the unexpected origins of our largely unquestioned ideas about bad posture.
Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America
by Beth LinkerThe strange and surprising history of the so-called epidemic of bad posture in modern America—from eugenics and posture pageants to today&’s promoters of &“paleo posture&”In 1995, a scandal erupted when the New York Times revealed that the Smithsonian possessed a century&’s worth of nude &“posture&” photos of college students. In this riveting history, Beth Linker tells why these photos were only a small part of the incredible story of twentieth-century America&’s largely forgotten posture panic—a decades-long episode in which it was widely accepted as scientific fact that Americans were suffering from an epidemic of bad posture, with potentially catastrophic health consequences. Tracing the rise and fall of this socially manufactured epidemic, Slouch also tells how this period continues to feed today&’s widespread anxieties about posture.In the early twentieth century, the eugenics movement and fears of disability gave slouching a new scientific relevance. Bad posture came to be seen as an individual health threat, an affront to conventional race hierarchies, and a sign of American decline. What followed were massive efforts to measure, track, and prevent slouching and, later, back pain—campaigns that reached schools, workplaces, and beyond, from the creation of the American Posture League to posture pageants. The popularity of posture-enhancing products, such as girdles and lumbar supports, exploded, as did new fitness programs focused on postural muscles, such as Pilates and modern yoga. By 1970, student protests largely brought an end to school posture exams and photos, but many efforts to fight bad posture continued, despite a lack of scientific evidence.A compelling history that mixes seriousness and humor, Slouch is a unique and provocative account of the unexpected origins of our largely unquestioned ideas about bad posture.
A Smarter Toronto: Some Reassembly Required
by Bob HankeThis book bridges media, technocultural, urban, and journalism studies to examine the role of journalism in relation to a smart city project on Toronto’s waterfront. From the announcement of the public-private partnership called Sidewalk Toronto to the project’s termination, a mediatized controversy unfolded. Through an assemblage approach to this project and a case study of The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star, it follows the actors and chronicles the Quayside project story as a conversation about the promise and perils of a future “smart” neighbourhood. In the news of Waterfront Toronto, Sidewalk Labs, other actors, events, and developments, there were multiple voices and views, interpretations and arguments, that manifested conflicting interests and values. As a locally situated actor, journalism produced a porous discourse that expressed a proposeand- public pushback movement. This work of articulating mediation conditioned the project’s alteration and dissolution within asymmetrical relations of power. In addition to a wave of opposition that inflected the project’s enactment, a time lag between project time and governmental policymaking made the controversy over this future urban space intractable. With their residual symbolic power, quality journalism contributed to dialogical urban learning.
Socialism: A Logical Introduction
by Scott R. SehonTackling perhaps the most contentious and socially urgent political movement of the last century, Scott R. Sehon lays bare the arguments for and against socialism, investigating their logical scaffolding and revealing exactly what is assumed in charged and often vital discussions of labor conditions and human well-being. Sehon provides a straightforward presentation and logical analysis of the arguments to make very clear which arguments work, and which do not. While the book aims to be fair to the arguments from both sides, Sehon ultimately sides with socialism and maintains that the arguments indicate that we should move in a strongly democratic socialist direction. Nearly every contemporary counterclaim to socialism is addressed and interrogated, and even the more dubious arguments in favor of socialism are taken up. Naturally, the defender of capitalism will deny these premises and claim that capitalism better promotes human well-being; many capitalists also claim that socialism does violate individual rights, particularly property rights. The bulk of the book sorts through the data and arguments on both sides, considering arguments from philosophers such as G.A. Cohen, Ronald Dworkin, David Schweickart, John Tomasi, and Jonathan Wolff, as well as prominent economists such as Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek. The reader of Socialism will find a clear introduction to one of the most crucial social movements of our time.
Socio-political Ideas of Aurobindo Ghose
by Bidyut ChakrabartyBy focusing on the socio-political ideas of the nationalist Aurobindo Ghosh (1872-1950), the book is an analytical dissection of his ideational vision which is still a relatively under-studied area of nationalist thoughts. During the perod, 1893-1910, Ghosh radically altered the texture of Indian nationalism by dwelling on how nationalism flourished in different parts of India, particularly, Japan, Italy and Ireland. conceptually different from the prevalent form of nationalist voice, it was he who clearly charted out a new course for anti-British campaign that fully unfolded with the appearance of Gandhi (1869-1948) on the Indian political scene. So, Aurobindo's politico-ideological vision ushered in a new era in the nationalist battle for India's political emancipation. Not only is the book therefore an intervention in the nationalist thought, but also devised new conceptual parameters for comprehending the radicalization of politico-ideological voices while simultaneously mobilizing those who were ready to make supreme sacrifices for the cause.
Socio-political Ideas of Aurobindo Ghose
by Bidyut ChakrabartyBy focusing on the socio-political ideas of the nationalist Aurobindo Ghosh (1872-1950), the book is an analytical dissection of his ideational vision which is still a relatively under-studied area of nationalist thoughts. During the perod, 1893-1910, Ghosh radically altered the texture of Indian nationalism by dwelling on how nationalism flourished in different parts of India, particularly, Japan, Italy and Ireland. conceptually different from the prevalent form of nationalist voice, it was he who clearly charted out a new course for anti-British campaign that fully unfolded with the appearance of Gandhi (1869-1948) on the Indian political scene. So, Aurobindo's politico-ideological vision ushered in a new era in the nationalist battle for India's political emancipation. Not only is the book therefore an intervention in the nationalist thought, but also devised new conceptual parameters for comprehending the radicalization of politico-ideological voices while simultaneously mobilizing those who were ready to make supreme sacrifices for the cause.
Sociological Theory: From Comte to Postcolonialism
by Alessandro OrsiniThis textbook analyses the work of classical and contemporary sociological theorists. The first part is dedicated to Comte, Spencer, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Pareto, and Simmel. The second part covers the major contemporary sociological perspectives: Functionalism, Marxism, Conflict Theory, Symbolic Interactionism, Phenomenological Sociology, and Rational Choice Theory. The third part is devoted to Postmodern Theory, Feminist Theory, Postcolonial Theory, and Race Theory. The author combines academic rigour with clear and accessible language, offering students an in-depth and extensive overview of the main, recurring problems that have troubled sociological theory from its origins to the present day. The textbook uses contemporary examples, analysing how sociological theory can explain the most tragic phenomena of our time, including the war in Ukraine, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, US-China competition over Taiwan, nuclear proliferation, radicalization, neofascism, white suprematism, jihadism, and terrorism. With pedagogic features aiding learning, this book helps navigate the various approaches, methods, and research that divide sociologists into distinct schools. This textbook is therefore an invaluable tool to any sociology student looking to gain a comprehensive understanding of the foundational thinkers that have shaped the discipline.
Sociology in Mexico: An Intellectual and Institutional History (Sociology Transformed)
by Gina ZabludovskyThis open access book presents a condensed history of Sociology in Mexico from its origins, through to the middle of the 19th century and up to the present day. The book analyses the interaction between sociology and the main economic, political and social change in the country, including the 1910 Mexican Revolution, the main social movements, the role of the intellectual exiles from Spain and Latin America, and the participation of women, who have often remained invisible in the history of sociology. The book explores how sociological discourse played a fundamental role in the separation of secular and public education and the search for a ‘national project’ from 1868 onwards, despite the lack of an institute of social research until 1930; how sociology became an autonomous social science, led by a few intellectuals and public figures, as it became institutionalized in universities, and the effect this had on the development of the discipline; the influence of Marxism during the 1970s; and the progression from a process of specialization after the fall of the Berlin Wall to a new trend of working in collective projects with an increasing interdisciplinary perspective in the first decades of the 21st century.
Sociology of Corruption: Patterns of Illegal Association in Hungary
by David JancsicsIn Sociology of Corruption, David Jancsics provides a fresh approach to the study of corruption in Hungary, which once seemed to be the most likely of the ex-communist bloc nations to catch up to the West and is, according to many experts and scholars, a country with a highly corrupt dynamic.Based on data from 2022, Hungary is now the most corrupt member state of the European Union. There is also a consensus among experts that a small clique of corrupt political actors has captured most Hungarian state institutions and a significant portion of the business sector. What fostered corruption in Hungary? What are the most typical forms of corruption in this country? What do Hungarians think about it? What is the role of prime minister Viktor Orbán in this? Sociology of Corruption proposes a novel sociological theory of corruption focusing on social status and relationships, network structures, and power dynamics as important explanatory factors of corrupt behavior. Although his focus is on Hungary, Jancsics's findings are applicable to other nations and cultural contexts.
Solidarity with Animals: Promises, Pitfalls, and Potential
by Alasdair Cochrane'Solidarity' has received considerable scholarly attention and is central in many social justice movements. It is striking, then, that solidarity's relevance, meaning and practical implications in the context of animal protection have not been systematically explored. This is particularly surprising given the recent so-called 'political turn' in animal ethics. Work in the political turn accepts claims about the moral status of animals and people's personal obligations towards them, but advances the field in at least two ways. First, thinkers emphasize that mutually beneficial human-animal relations cannot rely solely on personal transformation, but also require institutional transformation. Secondly, scholars claim that to meaningfully improve the lives of animals, we must not only change our political systems, but better understand various animals' own perspectives and political agency to feed into 'more-than-human politics'. But while much work in this political turn has been done on concepts like 'justice', 'agency', 'representation', etc., only very few animal scholars have talked about 'solidarity'. And those that have, have done so only in very specific contexts and frameworks. This lack of attention is also mirrored also within animal activism, where those few campaigners who have employed the term have done so only in a very loose way. This edited collection brings together the leading thinkers in the fields of animal ethics, politics, social philosophy, world religions, and the law to explore this lacuna and thus provide the first book length treatment of solidarity between the species.
Somehow: Thoughts on Love
by Anne LamottLove is our only hope. It is not always the easiest choice, but it is always the right one, the noble path, the way home to safety, no matter how bleak the future looks. In Somehow: Thoughts on Love, Anne Lamott explores the transformative power that love has in our lives: how it surprises us, forces us to confront uncomfortable truths, reminds us of our humanity and guides us forward. In each chapter, Lamott refracts all the colours of the spectrum. She explores the unexpected love for a partner later in life. The bruised (and bruising) love for a child who disappoints, even frightens. Drawing from her own life and experience to delineate the intimate and elemental ways that love buttresses us in the face of despair, she galvanises us to believe that tomorrow will be better than today. The lessons she underscores are that love enlightens as it educates, comforts as it energises, sustains as it surprises. Full of the compassion and humanity that have made Lamott beloved by millions of readers, Somehow is classic Anne Lamott: funny, warm and wise.
The Sound of the English Picturesque: Georgian Vocal Music, Haydn, and Landscape Aesthetics (Music and Visual Culture)
by Stephen GrovesRevealing the connections between the veneration of national landscape and eighteenth- century English vocal music, this study restores English music’s relationship with the picturesque. In the eighteenth century, the emerging taste for the picturesque was central to British aesthetics, as poets and painters gained popularity by glorifying the local landscape in works concurrent with the emergence of native countryside tourism. Yet English music was seldom discussed as a medium for conveying national scenic beauty. Stephen Groves explores this gap, and shows how secular song, the glee, and national theatre music expressed a uniquely English engagement with landscape. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Groves addresses the apparent ‘silence’ of the English picturesque. The book draws on analysis of the visualisations present in the texts of English vocal music, and their musical treatment, to demonstrate how local composers incorporated celebrations of landscape into their works. The final chapter shows that the English picturesque was a crucial influence on Joseph Haydn’s oratorio The Seasons. Suitable for anyone with an interest in eighteenth- century music, aesthetics, and the natural environment, this book will appeal to a wide range of specialists and non- specialists alike.
The Sound of the English Picturesque: Georgian Vocal Music, Haydn, and Landscape Aesthetics (Music and Visual Culture)
by Stephen GrovesRevealing the connections between the veneration of national landscape and eighteenth- century English vocal music, this study restores English music’s relationship with the picturesque. In the eighteenth century, the emerging taste for the picturesque was central to British aesthetics, as poets and painters gained popularity by glorifying the local landscape in works concurrent with the emergence of native countryside tourism. Yet English music was seldom discussed as a medium for conveying national scenic beauty. Stephen Groves explores this gap, and shows how secular song, the glee, and national theatre music expressed a uniquely English engagement with landscape. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Groves addresses the apparent ‘silence’ of the English picturesque. The book draws on analysis of the visualisations present in the texts of English vocal music, and their musical treatment, to demonstrate how local composers incorporated celebrations of landscape into their works. The final chapter shows that the English picturesque was a crucial influence on Joseph Haydn’s oratorio The Seasons. Suitable for anyone with an interest in eighteenth- century music, aesthetics, and the natural environment, this book will appeal to a wide range of specialists and non- specialists alike.
A Sound Word Almanac
by Bernd HerzogenrathThis almanac of sound words important to artists and scholars highlights words that expand the way we speak (and write) about sonic experiences.Why write about sound, and how? If sonic philosophy is the attempt "to think about sound by philosophical means," then a metaphilosophical debate appears almost immediately on the horizon: What is called for is an understanding about sound and language, but also about the preconditions of musical understanding. What is at stake is the question of language and sound, as well as expanding how we speak about sonic experience.This almanac tackles these questions from artistic, experimental and personal perspectives. An assemblage of nearly 70 practitioners and theoreticians, artists and scholars offer their favorite 'sound word.' These sound words are onomatopoetical, mythological, practical; words of personal importance to the artists and their craft; words from their memory, related to sound. Many entries are not in English – some are untranslatable – and all are accompanied by a personal, explanatory, poetic entry. These are words that have the potential to change our perspective on listening-musicking-thinking.