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A Sound Word Almanac
This 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.
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.
The Ethics of Immediacy: Dangerous Experience in Freud, Woolf, and Merleau-Ponty (Psychoanalytic Horizons)
by Dr. Jeffrey McCurryDrawing connections between Freudian psychoanalysis, Virginia Woolf's criticism and fiction, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, The Ethics of Immediacy recounts the far-reaching consequences of the modern turn towards a new ethics of immediacy. During the first half of the 20th century, a profound transformation – an existential revolution – took place in European culture in how human beings conceived of themselves. Inspired by Freud's psychoanalysis, a newfound appreciation for the realm of immediate experience in human life emerged. With Freud himself making a signal contribution to this existential revolution, and with Woolf and Merleau-Ponty taking up Freud's ideas in their own unique ways, all three figures began to regard first-order, spontaneous, direct, unselfconscious, concrete experience of self and world as standing at the heart of what it means to be human.Jeffrey McCurry describes how this new state of affairs stood in contrast to how immediate experience had been historically dismissed, devalued, repressed, and even negated in the fields of psychology, literature, and philosophy. This experience posed dangers to psychological stability, social order, and philosophical certainty. McCurry examines how Freud's psychoanalytic theory, Woolf's modernist criticism and fiction, and Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, psychology, literature, and philosophy in turns embraced the risks and dangers of putting immediate experience as the center of humanity, of respecting, understanding, appreciating, and following the lead of immediate, spontaneous, pre-reflective, pre-evaluative, concrete experience in human life.
The Ethics of Immediacy: Dangerous Experience in Freud, Woolf, and Merleau-Ponty (Psychoanalytic Horizons)
by Dr. Jeffrey McCurryDrawing connections between Freudian psychoanalysis, Virginia Woolf's criticism and fiction, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, The Ethics of Immediacy recounts the far-reaching consequences of the modern turn towards a new ethics of immediacy. During the first half of the 20th century, a profound transformation – an existential revolution – took place in European culture in how human beings conceived of themselves. Inspired by Freud's psychoanalysis, a newfound appreciation for the realm of immediate experience in human life emerged. With Freud himself making a signal contribution to this existential revolution, and with Woolf and Merleau-Ponty taking up Freud's ideas in their own unique ways, all three figures began to regard first-order, spontaneous, direct, unselfconscious, concrete experience of self and world as standing at the heart of what it means to be human.Jeffrey McCurry describes how this new state of affairs stood in contrast to how immediate experience had been historically dismissed, devalued, repressed, and even negated in the fields of psychology, literature, and philosophy. This experience posed dangers to psychological stability, social order, and philosophical certainty. McCurry examines how Freud's psychoanalytic theory, Woolf's modernist criticism and fiction, and Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, psychology, literature, and philosophy in turns embraced the risks and dangers of putting immediate experience as the center of humanity, of respecting, understanding, appreciating, and following the lead of immediate, spontaneous, pre-reflective, pre-evaluative, concrete experience in human life.
Certainty and Ambiguity in Global Mystery Fiction: Essays on the Moral Imagination
Mystery fiction as a genre renders moral judgments not only about detectives and criminals but also concerning the cultural structures within which these mysteries unfold.In contrast to other volumes which examine morality in crime fiction through the lenses of personal guilt and personal justice, Certainty and Ambiguity in Global Mystery Fiction analyzes the effect of moral imagination on the moral structures implicit in the genre. In recent years, public awareness has attended to the relationship between social structures and justice, and this collection centers on how personal ethics and social ethics are bound together amidst the shifting moral landscapes of mystery fiction.Contributors discuss the interplay between personal guilt and social guilt – considering morality and justice on an individual level and at a societal level – using frameworks of certainty and ambiguity. They show how individual characters in works by Agatha Christie, Gabriel García Márquez, Natsuo Kirino, F.H. Batacan, and Stephen King, among others, may view their moral standing with certainty but clash with the established mores of their culture. Featuring essays on Japanese, Filipino, Indian, and Colombian mystery fiction, as well as American and British fiction, this volume analyzes social guilt and justice across cultures, showing how individuals grapple with the certainty, and, at times, the moral ambiguity, of their respective cultures.
Certainty and Ambiguity in Global Mystery Fiction: Essays on the Moral Imagination
by John J. Han, C. Clark Triplett, and Matthew BardowellMystery fiction as a genre renders moral judgments not only about detectives and criminals but also concerning the cultural structures within which these mysteries unfold.In contrast to other volumes which examine morality in crime fiction through the lenses of personal guilt and personal justice, Certainty and Ambiguity in Global Mystery Fiction analyzes the effect of moral imagination on the moral structures implicit in the genre. In recent years, public awareness has attended to the relationship between social structures and justice, and this collection centers on how personal ethics and social ethics are bound together amidst the shifting moral landscapes of mystery fiction.Contributors discuss the interplay between personal guilt and social guilt – considering morality and justice on an individual level and at a societal level – using frameworks of certainty and ambiguity. They show how individual characters in works by Agatha Christie, Gabriel García Márquez, Natsuo Kirino, F.H. Batacan, and Stephen King, among others, may view their moral standing with certainty but clash with the established mores of their culture. Featuring essays on Japanese, Filipino, Indian, and Colombian mystery fiction, as well as American and British fiction, this volume analyzes social guilt and justice across cultures, showing how individuals grapple with the certainty, and, at times, the moral ambiguity, of their respective cultures.
Imaginary Worlds and Real Ethics in Japanese Fiction: Case Studies in Novel Reflexivity
by Professor or Dr. Christopher WeinbergerCan novels contribute to the ethical lives of readers? What responsibilities might they bear in representing others? Are we ethically accountable for how we read fiction? This study takes up modern Japanese fiction and metafiction, subjects overwhelmingly ignored by Anglophone scholarship on novel ethics, to discover pioneering answers to these and other questions. Each chapter offers new readings of major works of modern Japanese literature (1880s through 1920s) that experiment with the capacity of novel narration to involve readers in ethically freighted encounters. Christopher Weinberger shows that Mori Ogai and Akutagawa Ryunosuke help to address key issues in new ethical theories today: debates about the roles that identification and empathy play in novel ethics; concerns about the representation of “otherness” and alterity in novels; divergence between cognitive and affective theories of ethics; widespread disagreement about what novel ethics obtain in the experience of reading, the effects of reading, or the form or content of novel representation; and, finally, concerns with bias and appropriation in the study of world literature. Concluding with a jump to the present, Imaginary Worlds and Real Ethics in Japanese Fiction puts on display a startling continuity between the methods of Japan's modern novel progenitors and those of novelists at the forefront of global literature today, especially Haruki Murakami. Ultimately, this book models an original approach to ethical criticism while demonstrating the relevance of modern Japanese fiction for rethinking contemporary theories of the novel.
Imaginary Worlds and Real Ethics in Japanese Fiction: Case Studies in Novel Reflexivity
by Professor or Dr. Christopher WeinbergerCan novels contribute to the ethical lives of readers? What responsibilities might they bear in representing others? Are we ethically accountable for how we read fiction? This study takes up modern Japanese fiction and metafiction, subjects overwhelmingly ignored by Anglophone scholarship on novel ethics, to discover pioneering answers to these and other questions. Each chapter offers new readings of major works of modern Japanese literature (1880s through 1920s) that experiment with the capacity of novel narration to involve readers in ethically freighted encounters. Christopher Weinberger shows that Mori Ogai and Akutagawa Ryunosuke help to address key issues in new ethical theories today: debates about the roles that identification and empathy play in novel ethics; concerns about the representation of “otherness” and alterity in novels; divergence between cognitive and affective theories of ethics; widespread disagreement about what novel ethics obtain in the experience of reading, the effects of reading, or the form or content of novel representation; and, finally, concerns with bias and appropriation in the study of world literature. Concluding with a jump to the present, Imaginary Worlds and Real Ethics in Japanese Fiction puts on display a startling continuity between the methods of Japan's modern novel progenitors and those of novelists at the forefront of global literature today, especially Haruki Murakami. Ultimately, this book models an original approach to ethical criticism while demonstrating the relevance of modern Japanese fiction for rethinking contemporary theories of the novel.
Humanism, Anti-Authoritarianism, and Literary Aesthetics: Pragmatist Stories of Progress
by Prof. or Dr. Ulf SchulenbergPresenting pragmatist humanism as a form of anti-authoritarianism, this book sheds light on the contemporary significance of pragmatist aesthetics and the revival of humanism.This interdisciplinary study shows that a mediation between pragmatist aesthetics – which emphasizes the significance of creating, making, and inventing – and Marxist materialist aesthetics – which values form – promises interesting results and that the former can learn from the latter.In doing so, Ulf Schulenberg discusses 3 layers of the multi-layered phenomenon that is the revival of humanism: He first explains the potential of a pragmatist humanism, clarifying the contemporary significance of humanism. He then argues that pragmatist humanism is a form of anti-authoritarianism. Finally, he shows the possibility of bringing together the resurgence of humanism and a renewed interest in the work of aesthetic form by arguing that pragmatist aesthetics needs a more complex conception of form.Establishing a transatlantic theoretical dialogue, Humanism, Anti-Authoritarianism, and Literary Aesthetics brings together literary and aesthetic theory, philosophy, and intellectual history. It discusses a broad range of authors – from Emerson, Whitman, James, Nietzsche, Proust, and Dewey to Wittgenstein, Lukács, Adorno, Jameson, Latour, and Rorty – to illuminate how humanism, pragmatism, and anti-authoritarianism are interlinked.
Humanism, Anti-Authoritarianism, and Literary Aesthetics: Pragmatist Stories of Progress
by Ulf SchulenbergPresenting pragmatist humanism as a form of anti-authoritarianism, this book sheds light on the contemporary significance of pragmatist aesthetics and the revival of humanism.This interdisciplinary study shows that a mediation between pragmatist aesthetics – which emphasizes the significance of creating, making, and inventing – and Marxist materialist aesthetics – which values form – promises interesting results and that the former can learn from the latter.In doing so, Ulf Schulenberg discusses 3 layers of the multi-layered phenomenon that is the revival of humanism: He first explains the potential of a pragmatist humanism, clarifying the contemporary significance of humanism. He then argues that pragmatist humanism is a form of anti-authoritarianism. Finally, he shows the possibility of bringing together the resurgence of humanism and a renewed interest in the work of aesthetic form by arguing that pragmatist aesthetics needs a more complex conception of form.Establishing a transatlantic theoretical dialogue, Humanism, Anti-Authoritarianism, and Literary Aesthetics brings together literary and aesthetic theory, philosophy, and intellectual history. It discusses a broad range of authors – from Emerson, Whitman, James, Nietzsche, Proust, and Dewey to Wittgenstein, Lukács, Adorno, Jameson, Latour, and Rorty – to illuminate how humanism, pragmatism, and anti-authoritarianism are interlinked.
Relic (Object Lessons)
by Dr. Ed SimonObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.Every culture, every religion, every era has enshrined otherwise regular objects with a significance which stretches beyond their literal importance. Whether the bone of a Catholic martyr, the tooth of a Buddhist lama, or the cloak of a Sufi saint, relics are material conduits to the immaterial world. Yet relics aren't just a feature of religion. The exact same sense of the transcendent animates objects of political, historical, and cultural significance.From Abraham Lincoln's death mask to Vladimir Lenin's embalmed corpse, Emily Dickinson's envelopes to Jimi Hendrix's guitar pick, relics are the objects which the faithful understand as being more than just objects. Material things of sacred importance, relics are indicative of a culture's deepest values. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
Relic (Object Lessons)
by Dr. Ed SimonObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.Every culture, every religion, every era has enshrined otherwise regular objects with a significance which stretches beyond their literal importance. Whether the bone of a Catholic martyr, the tooth of a Buddhist lama, or the cloak of a Sufi saint, relics are material conduits to the immaterial world. Yet relics aren't just a feature of religion. The exact same sense of the transcendent animates objects of political, historical, and cultural significance.From Abraham Lincoln's death mask to Vladimir Lenin's embalmed corpse, Emily Dickinson's envelopes to Jimi Hendrix's guitar pick, relics are the objects which the faithful understand as being more than just objects. Material things of sacred importance, relics are indicative of a culture's deepest values. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.
How Music Changed YouTube
by Dr. Guillaume HeuguetHow do digital technologies transform music? The answer depends on the lens of one's analysis: creation, promotion, or the experience of the listener. How Music Changed YouTube shows that the reverse question – How does music transform digital technologies? – is also worth exploring: through reliance on sound recording and music, internet technologies and media are manufactured, transformed, and come to dominate.Guillaume Heuguet's study situates YouTube in relation to both the internet platform and music industries by unpacking the cultural and technological forms embedded within and observing the practices and values associated with it, from the art of collecting to the accelerated circulation of samples and remixes. Heuguet's documentary and genealogical work relies on YouTube's traces in internet archives, its successive interfaces, the blogs of its teams, and a few emblematic channels and videos. Particular attention is paid to the tensions between the promises associated with music algorithms - recommendation system, copyright control, view calculation - and the reality of their operation from a technical and cultural point of view. How Music Changed YouTube shows how, far from responding to an immediate need, YouTube's editorial and economic model developed over time, how the various fans, artists, labels, lawyers and legislators shaped the site, and how these factors affected its rise as a global media force in the early 21st century.
How Music Changed YouTube
by Dr. Guillaume HeuguetHow do digital technologies transform music? The answer depends on the lens of one's analysis: creation, promotion, or the experience of the listener. How Music Changed YouTube shows that the reverse question – How does music transform digital technologies? – is also worth exploring: through reliance on sound recording and music, internet technologies and media are manufactured, transformed, and come to dominate.Guillaume Heuguet's study situates YouTube in relation to both the internet platform and music industries by unpacking the cultural and technological forms embedded within and observing the practices and values associated with it, from the art of collecting to the accelerated circulation of samples and remixes. Heuguet's documentary and genealogical work relies on YouTube's traces in internet archives, its successive interfaces, the blogs of its teams, and a few emblematic channels and videos. Particular attention is paid to the tensions between the promises associated with music algorithms - recommendation system, copyright control, view calculation - and the reality of their operation from a technical and cultural point of view. How Music Changed YouTube shows how, far from responding to an immediate need, YouTube's editorial and economic model developed over time, how the various fans, artists, labels, lawyers and legislators shaped the site, and how these factors affected its rise as a global media force in the early 21st century.
Votes for Women! The American Woman Suffrage Movement and the Nineteenth Amendment: A Reference Guide (Guides to Historic Events in America)
by Marion W. RoydhouseThis contextual narrative of the 70-year history of the woman suffrage movement in the United States demonstrates how an important mass political and social movement coalesced into a political force despite class, racial, ethnic, religious, and regional barriers.Votes for Women! provides an updated consideration of the questions raised by the mass movement to gain equality and access to power in our democracy. It interprets the campaigns for woman suffrage from the 1830s until 1920, analyzes the impact of the Nineteenth Amendment, and presents primary documents to allow a glimpse into the minds of those who campaigned for and against woman suffrage.The book's examination of the 70-year woman suffrage campaign shows how the movement faced enormous barriers, was perceived as threatening the very core of accepted beliefs, and was a struggle that showcased the efforts of strong protagonists and brilliant organizers who were intellectually innovative and yet were reflective of the great divides of race, ethnicity, religion, economics, and region existing across the nation. Included within the narrative section are biographies of significant personalities in the movement, such as militant Alice Paul and anti-suffragist Ida Tarbell as well as more commonly known leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple
by Rebecca MooreThis in-depth investigation of Peoples Temple and its tragic end at Jonestown corrects sensationalized misunderstandings of the group and places its individual members within the broader context of religion in America.Most people understand Peoples Temple through its violent disbanding following events in Jonestown, Guyana, where more than 900 Americans committed murder and suicide in a jungle commune. Media coverage of the event sensationalized the group and obscured the background of those who died. The view that emerged thirty years ago continues to dominate understanding of Jonestown today, despite the dozens of books, articles, and documentaries that have appeared. This book provides a fresh perspective on Peoples Temple, locating the group within the context of religion in America and offering a contemporary history that corrects the inaccuracies often associated with the group and its demise. Although Peoples Temple had some of the characteristics many associate with cults, it also shared many characteristics of black religion in America. Moreover, it is crucial to understand how the organization fits into the social and political movements of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s: race, class, colonialism, gender, and other issues dominated the times and so dominated the consciousness of the members of Peoples Temple. Here, Rebecca Moore, who lost three family members in the events in Guyana, offers a framework for U.S. social, cultural, and political history that helps readers to better understand Peoples Temple and its members.
U.S. Foreign Policy: A Documentary and Reference Guide (Documentary and Reference Guides)
by Akis Kalaitzidis Gregory W. StreichA critical tool for the study of U.S. history, this volume offers an analysis of important documents and decisions in U.S. foreign policy from George Washington to Barack Obama.The study of historical primary documents provides a uniquely beneficial and insightful view into history. To that end, U.S. Foreign Policy: A Documentary and Reference Guide presents and interprets important documents from throughout U.S. history, from the administration of George Washington to that of Barack Obama. Examining U.S. foreign policy through this lens identifies the ideals of the United States during different periods, illuminates the intent behind its military actions, and reveals how each American president interpreted his moral responsibilities as leader of one of the most powerful nations in the world.Organized to allow readers to examine the historical evolution of U.S. foreign policy, the book includes treaties, speeches, and other documents that illustrate important doctrines and decisions over the more than two centuries of American history, covering all presidential doctrines to the current administration. It also highlights various phases of foreign policy, from regionalism to westward expansion, from the Cold War to a New World Order. In addition to the documents themselves, the authors provide invaluable analysis and commentary that will help students understand what the documents mean—both in the context of their time, and in terms of their broader historical significance.
The Supreme Court [4 volumes]: Controversies, Cases, and Characters from John Jay to John Roberts [4 volumes]
by Paul FinkelmanAn insightful, chronological—by chief justice—examination of the Supreme Court that enables students and readers to understand and appreciate the constitutional role the Court plays in American government and society.American citizens need to understand the importance of the Supreme Court in determining how our government and society operates, regardless of whether or not they agree with the Court's opinions. Unfortunately, the role and powers of the third branch of government are not well understood by the American public. After an introduction and overview to the history of the Supreme Court from 1789 to 2013, this book examines the Court's decisions chronologically by Chief Justice, allowing readers to grasp how the role and powers of the Court have developed and shifted over time. The chapters depict the Court as the essential agent of review and an integrated part of the government, regardless of the majority/minority balance on the Court, and of which political party is in the White House or controlling the House or Senate.
The Strategy Makers: Thoughts on War and Society from Machiavelli to Clausewitz (Praeger Security International)
by Beatrice HeuserThis book reintroduces readers to the lives and writings of the greatest military minds of the modern era, writers whose ideas and teachings continue to shape the conduct of war in the 21st century.The word "strategy" only came into usage in West European languages after the work of a Byzantine emperor was translated around the time of the French Revolution. Nevertheless, there was writing on strategy – relating political aims to the use of the military – also in Western Europe, well before this. This book surveys and analyzes the existing literature. It presents commented excerpts of the work of the Elizabethan writer Matthew Sutcliffe (who wrote the first modern comprehensive strategic concept) and translations into English of excerpts from the writing of the Machiavelli-admirer the Seigneur de Fourquevaux (1548) and his French compatriot Bertrand de Loque, who also went by the name of François de Saillans (1589); the Spanish diplomats and military officers Don Bernardino de Mendoza (1595) and the Third Marques of Santa Cruz de Marcenado (1724-1730); the Frenchmen Paul Hay du Chastelet (1668) and Count Guibert (1770); and the Prussian contemporary of Clausewitz, Rühle von Lilienstern (1816). Key concepts such as preventive war, the fight for the hearts and minds of the population to combat insurgents, the "democratic peace theory," and debates such as the preference for defense or the offensive, the desirability of battle, the purpose and function of war, the advantages of conscript or professional soldiers, can thus be shown to go back far longer than generally assumed and appear in a new light.
Sociological Insights of Great Thinkers: Sociology through Literature, Philosophy, and Science
by Christofer Edling Jens RydgrenIn this book, leading sociologists expand the scope of their discipline by revealing the sociological aspects of the works of great philosophers, scientists, and writers.Sociologists have long recognized that sociological insight can be gleaned from creative thinkers outside their formal discipline. Sociological Insights of Great Thinkers: Sociology through Literature, Philosophy, and Science captures and examines those insights in 32 essays that discuss scholars and writers not normally associated with any sociological school of thought.Following a tradition of enriching the sociological toolkit by finding influence in philosophy and literature, the volume's contributors—an international group of renowned scholars—eschew biography to focus solely on sociological interpretations that can be drawn from the work of many of history's preeminent thinkers. Among the book's subjects are philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato, Kant, and Cassirer; scientists such as Darwin and Galileo; and authors such as Kafka, Proust, and Shakespeare. The essays not only allow readers to see such thinkers in a new light, but underscore the fact that sociological questions have lain at the very heart of humanity throughout history.
The Science and Psychology of Music: From Beethoven at the Office to Beyoncé at the Gym
by William Forde Thompson and Kirk N. OlsenThis book provides a broad introduction to the scientific and psychological study of music, exploring how music is processed by our brains, affects us emotionally, shapes our personal and cultural identities, and can be used in therapeutic and educational contexts.Why are some people tone deaf and others musical savants? What do our musical preferences say about our personality and the culture in which we were raised? Why do certain songs remind us so strongly of particular people, places, or events? How can music be therapeutically used to help those with autism, Parkinson's, and other medical conditions? The Science and Psychology of Music: From Beethoven at the Office to Beyoncé at the Gym answers these and other questions.This book provides a broad and accessible introduction to the fascinating field of music psychology. Despite its name, music psychology includes a number of fields, including neuroscience, psychology, social psychology, sociology, and health. Through a collection of thematically organized chapters, readers will discover how our brains recognize elements of music, how music can affect us and shape our identities, and the many real-world applications for such information.
The Rise of the Federal Colossus: The Growth of Federal Power from Lincoln to F.D.R. (Praeger Series on American Political Culture)
by Peter ZavodnyikThis challenging book explores the debates over the scope of the enumerated powers of Congress and the Fourteenth Amendment that accompanied the expansion of federal authority during the period between the beginning of the Civil War and the inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.The Rise of the Federal Colossus: The Growth of Federal Power from Lincoln to F.D.R. offers readers a front-row seat for the critical phases of a debate that is at the very center of American history, exploring such controversial issues as what powers are bestowed on the federal government, what its role should be, and how the Constitution should be interpreted.The book argues that the critical period in the growth of federal power was not the New Deal and the three decades that followed, but the preceding 72 years when important precedents establishing the national government's authority to aid citizens in distress, regulate labor, and take steps to foster economic growth were established. The author explores newspaper and magazine articles, as well as congressional debates and court opinions, to determine how Americans perceived the growing authority of their national government and examine arguments over whether novel federal activities had any constitutional basis. Responses of government to the enormous changes that took place during this period are also surveyed.
Religion and Transhumanism: The Unknown Future of Human Enhancement
by Calvin Mercer, Tracy J. Trothen, EditorsShould technology be used to improve human faculties such as cognition and longevity? This thought-provoking dialogue between "transhumanism" and religion examines enhancement technologies that could radically alter the human species."Transhumanism" or "human enhancement" is an intellectual and cultural movement that advocates the use of emerging technologies to change human traits. Although they may sound like science fiction, the possibilities suggested by transhumanism are very real, and the questions they raise have no easy answers. If these enhancements—especially major ones like the indefinite extension of healthy human life—become widely available, they would arguably have a more radical impact on humankind than any other development in history.This book comprises essays that explore transhumanism and the issues that surround it, addressing numerous fascinating questions posed by scholars of religion from various traditions. How will "immortality" or extreme longevity change our religious beliefs and practices? How might pharmaceuticals enhance spiritual experiences? Will "post-human" technologies be available to all persons, or will a superior "post-human race" arise to dominate the human species? The discussions are as intriguing as the future they suggest.
Reason and Wonder: A Copernican Revolution in Science and Spirit
by Dave PruettIn this enlightening and provocative exploration, Dave Pruett sets out a revolutionary new understanding of our place in the universe, one that reconciles the rational demands of science with the deeper tugs of spirituality.Defining a moment in human self-awareness four centuries in the making, Reason and Wonder: A Copernican Revolution in Science and Spirit offers a way to move beyond the either/or choice of reason versus intuition—a dichotomy that ultimately leaves either the mind or the heart wanting. In doing so, it seeks to resolve an age-old conflict at the root of much human dysfunction, including today's global ecological crisis.An outgrowth of C. David Pruett's breakthrough undergraduate honors course, "From Black Elk to Black Holes: Shaping Myth for a New Millennium," Reason and Wonder embraces the insights of modern science and the wisdom of spiritual traditions to "re-enchant the universe." The new "myth of meaning" unfolds as the story of three successive "Copernican revolutions"—cosmological, biological, and spiritual—offers an expansive view of human potential as revolutionary as the work of Copernicus, Galilleo, and Darwin.
The President as Economist: Scoring Economic Performance from Harry Truman to Barack Obama
by Richard J. CarrollThis book provides evaluations of American presidents over the course of 66 years of U.S. economic history, using quantitative data to provide credible, defensible answers to controversial questions like "Whose economic policies were more effective, Ronald Reagan's or Bill Clinton's?"The President as Economist: Scoring Economic Performance from Harry Truman to Barack Obama provides eye-opening insights about matters of critical importance for the future of the United States. Author Richard J. Carroll tackles a topic that he has researched and been focused on for more than 20 years, providing impartial assessments and rankings of each presidential administration according to numerous key performance indicators—quantitative data, not subjective opinions. The final chapter combines all of the data to present a numeric score (Presidential Performance Index-PPI) for each administration that allows an overall ranking of the 11 presidents. The analysis covers 66 years of U.S. economic history, ranging from 1946 through 2011. The earlier administrations of Harry S. Truman through Jimmy Carter set the context against which more recent presidencies are judged. This title will be an invaluable resource for everyone from general readers to students at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels, as well as journalists, lobbyists, and anyone directly or indirectly involved in the political process.