Author: Kenneth R. Miller File Type: epub A radical, optimistic exploration of how humans evolved to develop reason, consciousness, and free will. Lately, the most passionate advocates of the theory of evolution seem to present it as bad news. Scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, and Sam Harris tell us that our most intimate actions, thoughts, and values are mere byproducts of thousands of generations of mindless adaptation. We are just one species among multitudes, and therefore no more significant than any other living creature. Now comes Brown University biologist Kenneth R. Miller to make the case that this view betrays a gross misunderstanding of evolution. Natural selection surely explains how our bodies and brains were shaped, but Miller argues that its not a social or cultural theory of everything. In The Human Instinct, he rejects the idea that our biological heritage means that human thought, action, and imagination are pre-determined, describing instead the trajectory that ultimately gave us reason, consciousness and free will. A proper understanding of evolution, he says, reveals humankind in its glorious uniquenessone foot planted firmly among all of the creatures weve evolved alongside, and the other in the special place of self-awareness and understanding that we alone occupy in the universe. Equal parts natural science and philosophy, The Human Instinct is a moving and powerful celebration of what it means to be human.**ReviewHighly recommended. (Forbes) Absorbing, lucid, and engaging.An eloquentand deeply grounded case that it was evolution that gave us our humanity. (Ursula Goodenough, professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis) Fascinating.... [The Human Instinct] confronts both lay and professional misconceptions about evolution from both scientific and philosophical perspectives. (Publishers Weekly (starred review)) Miller wants to show that the contemporary consensus around natural selection leaves room for things that have long given meaning to human life. (The Washington Post) Insightful....[Millers] universe is a kaleidoscope of dazzling evolutionary possibilities. (Kirkus Reviews (starred review)) Following in Darwins footsteps, Miller makes the slam-dunk case for why, in light of our origins, humans are still special. (Edward J. Larson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Evolution) Here is a clear-eyedlook at the use and sometime misuse of evolutionary theory. (Kevin Padian, professor of biology at the University of California, Berkeley) Readers seeking a modification of doctrinaire Darwinism will find a thoughtful, scientifically sound, evolution-based exponent in Miller. (Booklist) About the Author Kenneth R. Miller is professor of biology at Brown University and the critically acclaimed bestselling author ofOnly a Theory,Finding Darwins God, andThe Human Instinct. He has appeared frequently on radio and television as a public advocate for evolution. In 2005 he was the lead expert witness for the victorious plaintiffs in the landmark Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, where he testified in favor of evolution and against intelligent design. Among his honors are the Stephen Jay Gould Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution, the Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame, and the Award for Public Engagement with Science from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Author: Julian Wolfreys File Type: pdf Writing London Inventions of the City stages a series of interventions and inventions of urban space between the years 1880 and 1930 in key literary texts of the period. Making sharp distinctions between modernity and modernism, the volume reassesses the city as a series of singular sites irreducible to stable identities, whilst also offering a cogent re-evaluation of motifs of the nocturnal and the suburban in the literary imagination of London, concluding with an extended reading of The Waste Land and its manuscript drafts.ReviewJulian Wolfreys series of Writing London books goes from strength to strength. This volume contains admirable readings of the way a series of writers invent London by way of telling stories about particular locations within it - including wonderful chapters on London at night, on Richard Marshs The Beetle, on Amy Levy and Arnold Bennett (he revived an interest in Bennett for me!), on John Berger and Iain Sinclair, and, last, on Eliots The Waste Land. The Eliot chapter is by far the best essay on The Waste Land I have ever read. It is a genuine tour de force, as is the whole book. - Professor J. Hillis Miller, Distinguished Professor, University of California, Irvine, USA About the AuthorJULIAN WOLFREYS is a Senior Lecturer with the Department of English and Drama at Loughborough University, UK. He has published numerous books on nineteenth- and twentieth-century English literature and literary theory. His most recent publications include The Old Story, with a Difference Pickwicks Vision, Thinking Difference Critics in Conversation, and Writing London Materiality, Memory, Spectrality.

Author: Gene D. Phillips File Type: pdf WITH A FOREWORD BY WALTER MURCH Gene Phillips blends biography, studio history, and film criticism to complete the most comprehensive work on Coppola ever written. The force behind such popular and critically acclaimed films as Apocalypse Now and the Godfather trilogy, Coppola has imprinted his distinct style on each of his movies and on the landscape of American popular culture. In Godfather , Phillips argues that Coppola has repeatedly bucked the Hollywood factory system in an attempt to create distinct films that reflect his own artistic visionoften to the detriment of his career and finances. Phillips conducted interviews with the director and his colleagues and examined Coppolas production journals and screenplays. Phillips also reviewed rare copies of Coppolas student films, his early excursions into soft-core pornography, and his less celebrated productions such as One from the Heart and Tucker The Man and His Dream . The result is the definitive assessment of one of Hollywoods most enduring and misunderstood mavericks. **From Publishers Weekly Phillips throws down the gauntlet in his prologue other books on the Academy Award-winning American director are mere biographies or filmographies or hopelessly out of date. Phillips asserts he has proven Coppola is a genuine cinematic artist who is also a popular entertainer. But was this ever in dispute? Phillips has undeniably researched his subject with daunting thoroughness (he even contradicts the directors memory of his own films), categorizing and analyzing every film Coppola ever made, including his brief early forays into soft porn and his stint doing slasher flicks with Roger Corman. The author, who has written on film for three decades, interviews numerous colleagues of Coppolas as well as the director and his wife, Eleanor. He is expansive on the Godfather trilogy and its importance to modern American cinema, explicates the genius of Apocalypse Now and The Conversation, delineates the genealogy of Coppolas work with George Lucas (Star Wars) and Marlon Brando, and even explains how Coppolas bout with polio when he was 10 led to his interest in filmmaking. The book has such depth of information on the directors metier and auteurship, yet Phillips writes with smugness and doesnt quote Coppola enough. The insider tone Phillips sets in his prologue continues throughout, marring (and even undermining) an otherwise superb work of scholarship. This is certainly the definitive work on the director to date and scholars (and lovers) of film will revel in the details about Coppolas best work and hoard the trivia about his worst. 39 photos. Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. From Booklist Of the many brilliant young American directors in the 1970s, Coppola was perhaps the brightest. He received the greatest acclaim for The Godfather and its first sequel, but critics were equally impressed by the less popular The Conversation. Since his 1982 debacle One from the Heart (whose failure cost him the independent studio he had set up), he has made mostly undistinguished films. Phillips depicts Coppolas career as a struggle to exist as an artist in an industry, showing that the auteur theory has validity even within todays Hollywood system. He valiantly attempts to make this case by giving equal time to Coppolas less-celebrated efforts, arguing effectively for the underappreciated Bram Stokers Dracula, which he maintains reinvented the horror film much as The Godfather had the gangster film, but less successfully for gun for hire jobs such as the John Grisham adaptation, The Rainmaker. Phillips relies heavily on previously published resources but makes good use of a lengthy interview with Coppola. Not definitive, but worthwhile. Gordon Flagg American Library Association. lt

Author: K. A. E. Enenkel File Type: pdf span orphans 2 widows 2Throughout the early modern period, the nymph remained a powerful figure that inspired and informed the cultural imagination in many different ways. Far from being merely a symbol of the classical legacy, the nymph was invested with a surprisingly broad range of meanings. Working on the basis of these assumptions, and thus challenging Aby Warburgs famous reflections on the nympha that both portrayed her as cultural archetype and reduced her to a marginal figure, the contributions in this volume seek to uncover the multifarious roles played by nymphs in literature, drama, music, the visual arts, garden architecture, and indeed intellectual culture tout court, and thereby explore the true significance of this well-known figure for the early modern age.spanbr box-sizing inherit orphans 2 widows 2br box-sizing inherit orphans 2 widows 2span orphans 2 widows 2Contributors Barbara Baert, Mira Becker-Sawatzky, Agata Anna Chrzanowska, Karl Enenkel, Wolfgang Fuhrmann, Michaela Kaufmann, Andreas Keller, Eva-Bettina Krems, Damaris Leimgruber, Tobias Leuker, Christian Peters, Christoph Pieper, Bernd Roling, and Anita Traninger.span