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The Nature of the Machine and the Collapse of Cybernetics: A Transhumanist Lesson for Emerging Technologies
by Alcibiades Malapi-NelsonThis book is a philosophical exploration of the theoretical causes behind the collapse of classical cybernetics, as well as the lesson that this episode can provide to current emergent technologies. Alcibiades Malapi-Nelson advances the idea that the cybernetic understanding of the nature of a machine entails ontological and epistemological consequences that created both material and theoretical conundrums. However, he proposes that given our current state of materials research, scientific practices, and research tools, there might be a way for cybernetics to flourish this time. The book starts with a historical and theoretical articulation of cybernetics in order to proceed with a philosophical explanation of its collapse—emphasizing the work of Alan Turing, Ross Ashby and John von Neumann. Subsequently, Malapi-Nelson unveils the common metaphysical signature shared between cybernetics and emergent technologies, identifying this signature as transhumanist in nature. Finally, avenues of research that may allow these disruptive technologies to circumvent the cybernetic fate are indicated. It is proposed that emerging technologies ultimately entail an affirmation of humanity.
Umberto Eco, The Da Vinci Code, and the Intellectual in the Age of Popular Culture
by Douglass MerrellThis book provides a philosophical overview of Umberto Eco's historical and cultural development as a unique, internationally recognized public intellectual who communicates his ideas to both an academic and a popular audience. It describes Eco’s intellectual development from his childhood during World War II and student involvement as a Catholic youth activist and scholar of the Middle Ages, to his early writings on the "openness" of modern works such as Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Merrell also explores Eco’s pioneering role in semiotics and his later career as a novelist.
Umberto Eco, The Da Vinci Code, and the Intellectual in the Age of Popular Culture
by Douglass MerrellThis book provides a philosophical overview of Umberto Eco's historical and cultural development as a unique, internationally recognized public intellectual who communicates his ideas to both an academic and a popular audience. It describes Eco’s intellectual development from his childhood during World War II and student involvement as a Catholic youth activist and scholar of the Middle Ages, to his early writings on the "openness" of modern works such as Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Merrell also explores Eco’s pioneering role in semiotics and his later career as a novelist.
Videogames and Postcolonialism: Empire Plays Back
by Souvik MukherjeeThis book focuses on the almost entirely neglected treatment of empire and colonialism in videogames. From its inception in the nineties, Game Studies has kept away from these issues despite the early popularity of videogame franchises such as Civilization and Age of Empire. This book examines the complex ways in which some videogames construct conceptions of spatiality, political systems, ethics and society that are often deeply imbued with colonialism. Moving beyond questions pertaining to European and American gaming cultures, this book addresses issues that relate to a global audience – including, especially, the millions who play videogames in the formerly colonised countries, seeking to make a timely intervention by creating a larger awareness of global cultural issues in videogame research. Addressing a major gap in Game Studies research, this book will connect to discourses of post-colonial theory at large and thereby, provide another entry-point for this new medium of digital communication into larger Humanities discourses.
Videogames and Postcolonialism: Empire Plays Back
by Souvik MukherjeeThis book focuses on the almost entirely neglected treatment of empire and colonialism in videogames. From its inception in the nineties, Game Studies has kept away from these issues despite the early popularity of videogame franchises such as Civilization and Age of Empire. This book examines the complex ways in which some videogames construct conceptions of spatiality, political systems, ethics and society that are often deeply imbued with colonialism. Moving beyond questions pertaining to European and American gaming cultures, this book addresses issues that relate to a global audience – including, especially, the millions who play videogames in the formerly colonised countries, seeking to make a timely intervention by creating a larger awareness of global cultural issues in videogame research. Addressing a major gap in Game Studies research, this book will connect to discourses of post-colonial theory at large and thereby, provide another entry-point for this new medium of digital communication into larger Humanities discourses.
Hermenegildo and the Jesuits: Staging Sainthood in the Early Modern Period
by Stefano MuneroniThis book explores the cultural conditions that led to the emergence and proliferation of Saint Hermenegildo as a stage character in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It considers how this saint became a theatrical trope enabling the Society of Jesus to address religious and secular concerns of the post-Tridentine Church, and to discuss political issues such as the supremacy of the pope over the monarch and the legitimacy of regicide. The book goes on to explain how the Hermenegildo narrative developed outside of Jesuit colleges, through works by professional dramatist Lope de Vega and Mexican nun Juana Inés de la Cruz. Stefano Muneroni takes a global approach to the staging of Hermenegildo, tracing the character’s journey from Europe to the Americas, from male to female authors, and from a sacrificial to a sacramental paradigm where the emphasis shifts from bloodletting to spiritual salvation. Given its interdisciplinary approach, this book is geared toward scholars and students of theatre history, religion and drama, early modern theology, cultural studies, romance languages and literature, and the history of the Society of Jesus..
Hermenegildo and the Jesuits: Staging Sainthood in the Early Modern Period
by Stefano MuneroniThis book explores the cultural conditions that led to the emergence and proliferation of Saint Hermenegildo as a stage character in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It considers how this saint became a theatrical trope enabling the Society of Jesus to address religious and secular concerns of the post-Tridentine Church, and to discuss political issues such as the supremacy of the pope over the monarch and the legitimacy of regicide. The book goes on to explain how the Hermenegildo narrative developed outside of Jesuit colleges, through works by professional dramatist Lope de Vega and Mexican nun Juana Inés de la Cruz. Stefano Muneroni takes a global approach to the staging of Hermenegildo, tracing the character’s journey from Europe to the Americas, from male to female authors, and from a sacrificial to a sacramental paradigm where the emphasis shifts from bloodletting to spiritual salvation. Given its interdisciplinary approach, this book is geared toward scholars and students of theatre history, religion and drama, early modern theology, cultural studies, romance languages and literature, and the history of the Society of Jesus..
Lines of Geography in Latin American Narrative: National Territory, National Literature
by Aarti Smith MadanThis book looks to the writings of prolific statesmen like D.F. Sarmiento, Estanislao Zeballos, and Euclides da Cunha to unearth the literary and political roots of the discipline of geography in nineteenth-century Latin America. Tracing the simultaneous rise of text-writing, map-making, and institution-building, it offers new insight into how nations consolidated their territories. Beginning with the titanic figures of Strabo and Humboldt, it rereads foundational works like Facundo and Os sertões as examples of a recognizably geographical discourse. The book digs into lesser-studied bulletins, correspondence, and essays to tell the story of how three statesmen became literary stars while spearheading Latin America’s first geographic institutes, which sought to delineate the newly independent states. Through a fresh pairing of literary analysis and institutional history, it reveals that words and maps—literature and geography—marched in lockstep to shape national territories, identities, and narratives.
Lines of Geography in Latin American Narrative: National Territory, National Literature
by Aarti Smith MadanThis book looks to the writings of prolific statesmen like D.F. Sarmiento, Estanislao Zeballos, and Euclides da Cunha to unearth the literary and political roots of the discipline of geography in nineteenth-century Latin America. Tracing the simultaneous rise of text-writing, map-making, and institution-building, it offers new insight into how nations consolidated their territories. Beginning with the titanic figures of Strabo and Humboldt, it rereads foundational works like Facundo and Os sertões as examples of a recognizably geographical discourse. The book digs into lesser-studied bulletins, correspondence, and essays to tell the story of how three statesmen became literary stars while spearheading Latin America’s first geographic institutes, which sought to delineate the newly independent states. Through a fresh pairing of literary analysis and institutional history, it reveals that words and maps—literature and geography—marched in lockstep to shape national territories, identities, and narratives.
Hesitant Histories on the Romanian Screen
by László StrauszThis book argues that hesitation as an artistic and spectatorial strategy connects various screen media texts produced in post-war Romania. The chapters draw a historical connection between films made during the state socialist decades, televised broadcasts of the 1989 Romanian revolution, and films of the new Romanian cinema. The book explores how the critical attitude of new Romanian cinema demonstrates a refusal to accept limiting, binary discourses rooted in Cold War narratives. Strausz argues that hesitation becomes an attempt to overcome restrictive populist narratives of the past and present day. By employing a performative and mobile position, audiences are encouraged to consider conflicting approaches to history and social transformation.
Hesitant Histories on the Romanian Screen
by László StrauszThis book argues that hesitation as an artistic and spectatorial strategy connects various screen media texts produced in post-war Romania. The chapters draw a historical connection between films made during the state socialist decades, televised broadcasts of the 1989 Romanian revolution, and films of the new Romanian cinema. The book explores how the critical attitude of new Romanian cinema demonstrates a refusal to accept limiting, binary discourses rooted in Cold War narratives. Strausz argues that hesitation becomes an attempt to overcome restrictive populist narratives of the past and present day. By employing a performative and mobile position, audiences are encouraged to consider conflicting approaches to history and social transformation.
Negative Theology and Utopian Thought in Contemporary American Poetry: Determined Negations
by Jason LagapaThis book explores the utopian imagination in contemporary American poetry and the ways in which experimental poets formulate a utopian poetics by adopting the rhetorical principles of negative theology, which proposes using negative statements as a means of attesting to the superior, unrepresentable being of God. With individual chapters on works by such poets as Susan Howe, Nathaniel Mackey, Charles Bernstein, and Alice Notley, this book illustrates how a strategy of negation similarly proves optimal for depicting the subject of utopia in literary works. Negative Theology and Utopian Thought in Contemporary American Poetry: Determined Negations contends that negative statements in experimental poetry illustrate the potential for utopian social change, not by portraying an ideal world itself but by revealing the very challenge of representing utopia directly.
Negative Theology and Utopian Thought in Contemporary American Poetry: Determined Negations
by Jason LagapaThis book explores the utopian imagination in contemporary American poetry and the ways in which experimental poets formulate a utopian poetics by adopting the rhetorical principles of negative theology, which proposes using negative statements as a means of attesting to the superior, unrepresentable being of God. With individual chapters on works by such poets as Susan Howe, Nathaniel Mackey, Charles Bernstein, and Alice Notley, this book illustrates how a strategy of negation similarly proves optimal for depicting the subject of utopia in literary works. Negative Theology and Utopian Thought in Contemporary American Poetry: Determined Negations contends that negative statements in experimental poetry illustrate the potential for utopian social change, not by portraying an ideal world itself but by revealing the very challenge of representing utopia directly.
Walking Virginia Woolf’s London: An Investigation in Literary Geography
by Lisbeth LarssonThis innovative volume employs theoretical tools from the field of literary geography to explore Virginia Woolf’s writing and the ways in which she constructs her human subjects. It follows the routes of characters from The Voyage, Jacob’s Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and more as they walk around London, demonstrating how Woolf constructs the characters in her stories in a very politically conscious way. As Larsson argues, none of Woolf’s characters are able to walk just anywhere, at any time in history, or at any time of the day. Time, place, gender, and class form the conditions of life that the characters must accept or challenge. Featuring an array of detailed maps, Walking Virginia Woolf’s London: An Investigation in Literary Geography brings a fascinating new perspective to Virginia Woolf’s work. It is essential reading for scholars of modernist literature or geocriticism.
Walking Virginia Woolf’s London: An Investigation in Literary Geography (PDF)
by Lisbeth LarssonThis innovative volume employs theoretical tools from the field of literary geography to explore Virginia Woolf’s writing and the ways in which she constructs her human subjects. It follows the routes of characters from The Voyage, Jacob’s Room, Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and more as they walk around London, demonstrating how Woolf constructs the characters in her stories in a very politically conscious way. As Larsson argues, none of Woolf’s characters are able to walk just anywhere, at any time in history, or at any time of the day. Time, place, gender, and class form the conditions of life that the characters must accept or challenge. Featuring an array of detailed maps, Walking Virginia Woolf’s London: An Investigation in Literary Geography brings a fascinating new perspective to Virginia Woolf’s work. It is essential reading for scholars of modernist literature or geocriticism.
Memory and Confession in Middle English Literature
by Kisha G. TracyThis book argues that the traditional relationship between the act of confessing and the act of remembering is manifested through the widespread juxtaposition of confession and memory in Middle English literary texts and, furthermore, that this concept permeates other manifestations of memory as written by authors in a variety of genres. This study, through the framework of confession, identifies moments of recollection within the texts of four major Middle English authors – Langland, Chaucer, Gower, and the Gawain-Poet – and demonstrates that these authors deliberately employed the devices of recollection and forgetfulness in order to indicate changes or the lack thereof, both in conduct and in mindset, in their narrative subjects. Memory and Confession in Middle English Literature explores memory’s connection to confession along with the recurring textual awareness of confession’s ability to transform the soul; demonstrating that memory and recollection is used in medieval literature to emphasize emotional and behavioral change.
Memory and Confession in Middle English Literature
by Kisha G. TracyThis book argues that the traditional relationship between the act of confessing and the act of remembering is manifested through the widespread juxtaposition of confession and memory in Middle English literary texts and, furthermore, that this concept permeates other manifestations of memory as written by authors in a variety of genres. This study, through the framework of confession, identifies moments of recollection within the texts of four major Middle English authors – Langland, Chaucer, Gower, and the Gawain-Poet – and demonstrates that these authors deliberately employed the devices of recollection and forgetfulness in order to indicate changes or the lack thereof, both in conduct and in mindset, in their narrative subjects. Memory and Confession in Middle English Literature explores memory’s connection to confession along with the recurring textual awareness of confession’s ability to transform the soul; demonstrating that memory and recollection is used in medieval literature to emphasize emotional and behavioral change.
Austrian Imperial Censorship and the Bohemian Periodical Press, 1848–71: The Baneful Work of the Opposition Press is Fearsome
by Jeffrey T. LeighThis book analyzes the conduct of press policy in Bohemia from the Revolutions of 1848 through the period of the Tábory, 1867-71. In the aftermath of the revolutions, the Habsburg state, far from constituting an historical relic, proved itself boldly innovative, inaugurating liberal reforms, most importantly the rule of law. While the reforms helped it to survive its immediate challenges, they nonetheless, quite paradoxically, created an environment in which the periodical press continued to advance perspectives emblematic of the revolution, even during the era of Neoabsolutism. This new legal environment fostered the rise of the bourgeois public sphere, as theorized by Jürgen Habermas, and the very political movements that would contribute to its demise, as signaled in the Tábory campaign of 1867-71. At the nexus of civil society and the state stood the provincial Habsburg officials responsible for public order and security. Their experience was one of endeavoring to balance the ideals of the rule of law imposed by the Imperial center and their own vital concerns regarding the survival of the Monarchy. This work, for the first time, concentrates on the role of these officials who determined what would—and would not—appear in print.
Austrian Imperial Censorship and the Bohemian Periodical Press, 1848–71: The Baneful Work of the Opposition Press is Fearsome
by Jeffrey T. LeighThis book analyzes the conduct of press policy in Bohemia from the Revolutions of 1848 through the period of the Tábory, 1867-71. In the aftermath of the revolutions, the Habsburg state, far from constituting an historical relic, proved itself boldly innovative, inaugurating liberal reforms, most importantly the rule of law. While the reforms helped it to survive its immediate challenges, they nonetheless, quite paradoxically, created an environment in which the periodical press continued to advance perspectives emblematic of the revolution, even during the era of Neoabsolutism. This new legal environment fostered the rise of the bourgeois public sphere, as theorized by Jürgen Habermas, and the very political movements that would contribute to its demise, as signaled in the Tábory campaign of 1867-71. At the nexus of civil society and the state stood the provincial Habsburg officials responsible for public order and security. Their experience was one of endeavoring to balance the ideals of the rule of law imposed by the Imperial center and their own vital concerns regarding the survival of the Monarchy. This work, for the first time, concentrates on the role of these officials who determined what would—and would not—appear in print.
Other Animals in Twenty-First Century Fiction
by Catherine ParryThis book is about ordinary animals and how they are imagined in twenty-first century fiction. Examining contemporary animal representations and the fraught and potent distinctions humans fashion between themselves and all other animals, it asks how a range of novels make, re-make or un-make traditional conceptions of the creatures we love, admire, eat, vilify and abuse. Other Animals’ detailed readings of horses, an animalised human, a donkey, ants, chickens and chimpanzees develop new critical practices in Literary Animal Studies. They explore the connections between fictional animal representation, narrative form, ethics, and the lives and warm bodies of the real-world creatures that precede and exceed our imagination. Human-animal relationships are conditioned by our imaginative shapings of other animals, and by our sense of distinction from them, and Other Animals opens out how fictional animal forms and tropes respond to, participate in, or challenge the ways animals’ lives are lived out in consequence of human imaginings of them.
Other Animals in Twenty-First Century Fiction
by Catherine ParryThis book is about ordinary animals and how they are imagined in twenty-first century fiction. Examining contemporary animal representations and the fraught and potent distinctions humans fashion between themselves and all other animals, it asks how a range of novels make, re-make or un-make traditional conceptions of the creatures we love, admire, eat, vilify and abuse. Other Animals’ detailed readings of horses, an animalised human, a donkey, ants, chickens and chimpanzees develop new critical practices in Literary Animal Studies. They explore the connections between fictional animal representation, narrative form, ethics, and the lives and warm bodies of the real-world creatures that precede and exceed our imagination. Human-animal relationships are conditioned by our imaginative shapings of other animals, and by our sense of distinction from them, and Other Animals opens out how fictional animal forms and tropes respond to, participate in, or challenge the ways animals’ lives are lived out in consequence of human imaginings of them.
The Doctrine of Being in Hegel’s Science of Logic: A Critical Commentary
by Mehmet TabakThis book provides an accessible and thorough analysis of “The Doctrine of Being,” the first part of Hegel’s Science of Logic. Though it received much scholarly attention in the past, interpreters of this text have generally refrained from examining it in a sufficiently detailed manner. Through a rigorous and critical reading of Hegel’s speculative arguments, Mehmet Tabak illustrates that Hegel meant his logic to be both a presuppositionless analysis and development of the basic categories of thought, on the one hand, and a post-Kantian ontology on the other. However, the analysis of the text demonstrates that Hegel fails to deliver such logic. This volume promises to be an indispensable guide to those who wish to understand the first book of Science of Logic.
The Doctrine of Being in Hegel’s Science of Logic: A Critical Commentary
by Mehmet TabakThis book provides an accessible and thorough analysis of “The Doctrine of Being,” the first part of Hegel’s Science of Logic. Though it received much scholarly attention in the past, interpreters of this text have generally refrained from examining it in a sufficiently detailed manner. Through a rigorous and critical reading of Hegel’s speculative arguments, Mehmet Tabak illustrates that Hegel meant his logic to be both a presuppositionless analysis and development of the basic categories of thought, on the one hand, and a post-Kantian ontology on the other. However, the analysis of the text demonstrates that Hegel fails to deliver such logic. This volume promises to be an indispensable guide to those who wish to understand the first book of Science of Logic.
Representing the Eighteenth Century in Film and Television, 2000–2015
by Karen Bloom GevirtzThis book analyzes early twenty-first century film and television’s fascination with representing the Anglo-American eighteenth century. Grounded in cultural studies, film studies, and adaptation theory, the book examines how these works represented the eighteenth century to assuage anxieties about values, systems, and institutions at the start of a new millennium. The first two chapters reveal how films like Gulliver’s Travels (2010) or the remake of Poldark (2015) use history to establish the direct relationship between the eighteenth century and the twenty-first. The final chapters examine pairs of productions for how they address and legitimate different aspects of contemporary ideology such as attitudes toward race and gender, or the connection between technological and social progress.
Representing the Eighteenth Century in Film and Television, 2000–2015
by Karen Bloom GevirtzThis book analyzes early twenty-first century film and television’s fascination with representing the Anglo-American eighteenth century. Grounded in cultural studies, film studies, and adaptation theory, the book examines how these works represented the eighteenth century to assuage anxieties about values, systems, and institutions at the start of a new millennium. The first two chapters reveal how films like Gulliver’s Travels (2010) or the remake of Poldark (2015) use history to establish the direct relationship between the eighteenth century and the twenty-first. The final chapters examine pairs of productions for how they address and legitimate different aspects of contemporary ideology such as attitudes toward race and gender, or the connection between technological and social progress.