Bellies, Bowels and Entrails in the Eighteenth Century
Author: Rebecca Anne Barr File Type: pdf This collection of essays seeks to challenge the notion of the supremacy of the brain as the key organ of the Enlightenment, by focusing on the workings of the bowels and viscera that so obsessed writers and thinkers during the long eighteenth-century. These inner organs and the digestive process acted as counterpoints to politeness and other modes of refined sociability, drawing attention to the deeper workings of the self. Moving beyond recent studies of luxury and conspicuous consumption, where dysfunctional bowels have been represented as a symptom of excess, this book seeks to explore other manifestations of the visceral and to explain how the bowels played a crucial part in eighteenth-century emotions and perceptions of the self. The collection offers an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspective on entrails and digestion by addressing urban history, visual studies, literature, medical history, religious history, and material culture in England, France, and Germany.**About the AuthorRebecca Anne Barr is Lecturer above the bar at the National University of Ireland, Galway Sylvie Kleiman-Lafon is Maitre de conferences at Universite Paris 8 Sophie Vasset is Maitre de conferences at Universite Paris-Diderot
Author: Sohini Kar
File Type: pdf
Microfinance is the business of giving small, collateral-free loans to poor borrowers that are paid back in frequent intervals with interest. While these for-profit microfinance institutions (MFIs) promise social and economic empowerment, they have mainly succeeded at enfolding the poorespecially womeninto the vast circuits of global finance. Financializing Poverty ethnographically examines how the emergence of MFIs has allowed financial institutions in the city of Kolkata, India, to capitalize on the poverty of its residents. This book reveals how MFIs have restructured debt relationships in new ways. On the one hand, they have opened access to new streams of credit. However, as the network of finance increasingly incorporates the poor, the inclusive dimensions of microfinance are continuously met with rigid forms of credit risk management that reproduce the very inequality the loans are meant to alleviate. Moreover, despite being collateral-free loans, the use of life insurance to manage the high mortality rates of poor borrowers has led to the collateralization of life itself. Thus the newfound ability of the poor to use MFI loans has entrapped them in a system dependent not only on their circulation of capital, but on the poverty that threatens their lives. **
Author: Edward O. Wilson
File Type: pdf
An enormous intellectual adventure. In this groundbreaking new book, the American biologist Edward O. Wilson, considered to be one of the worlds greatest living scientists, argues for the fundamental unity of all knowledge and the need to search for consilience--the proof that everything in our world is organized in terms of a small number of fundamental natural laws that comprise the principles underlying every branch of learning. Professor Wilson, the pioneer of sociobiology and biodiversity, now once again breaks out of the conventions of current thinking. He shows how and why our explosive rise in intellectual mastery of the truths of our universe has its roots in the ancient Greek concept of an intrinsic orderliness that governs our cosmos and the human species--a vision that found its apogee in the Age of Enlightenment, then gradually was lost in the increasing fragmentation and specialization of knowledge in the last two centuries. Drawing on the physical sciences and biology, anthropology, psychology, religion, philosophy, and the arts, Professor Wilson shows why the goals of the original Enlightenment are surging back to life, why they are reappearing on the very frontiers of science and humanistic scholarship, and how they are beginning to sketch themselves as the blueprint of our world as it most profoundly, elegantly, and excitingly is.
Author: Sarah R. Davies
File Type: pdf
A new industrial revolution. The age of making. From bits to atoms. Many people are excited by the possibilities offered by new fabrication technologies like 3D printers, and the way in which they are being used in hacker and makerspaces. But why is the power of hacking and making an idea whose time has come? Hackerspaces Making the Maker Movement takes the rise of the maker movement as its starting point. Hacker and makerspaces, fab labs, and DIY bio spaces are emerging all over the world. Based on a study of hacker and makerspaces across the US, the book explores cultures of hacking and making in the context of wider social changes, arguing that excitement about the maker movement is not just about the availability of new technologies, but the kinds of citizens we are expected to be. **
Author: Damian F. White
File Type: pdf
This is the first comprehensive overview of the work of Murray Bookchin, the left-libertarian social theorist and political ecologist who is widely regarded as the visionary precursor of anti-corporate politics. Bookchins writing spans fifty years and engages with a wide variety of issues from ecology to urban planning, from environmental ethics to debates about radical democracy. Weaving insights from Hegel and Marx, Kropotkin and Mumford, Bookchin presents a critical theory whose central utopian message is things could be other than they are. This accessible introduction maps the evolution of Bookchins project. It traces his controversial engagements with Marxism, anarchism, critical theory, postmodernism and eco-centric thought. It evaluates his attempt to develop a social ecology. Finally, it considers how his thinking relates to current debates in social theory and environmentalism, critical theory and philosophy, political ecology and urban theory. Offering a clear account of Bookchins key themes, this book provides a critical but sympathetic account of the strengths and weaknesses of Bookchins writing.ReviewAn excellent book. Damian White brings to life Bookchin the man and his work for a new generation of readers. In so doing, he shows us how and why Bookchin can inspire us today. -- Professor Noel Castree, School of Environment and Development, Manchester University This is a sophisticated and considered work that exhibits a genuine rare critical engagement with the intricacies of Bookchins thought. -- Professor Mike Smith, Queens University, Ontario, Canada. [The book] offers an insightful, scholarly and balanced account of the intellectual journey and achievements of Murray Bookchin, one of the towering figures of modern radical political thought and action. This book is a wonderful exposition of Bookchins thought. -- Dr. John Barry, School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, Queens University Belfast White brings his immense scholarship and acute analytical skills to bear in both bringing to life and critically situating Bookchins vision in the context of contemporary thinking. In prose that is both engaging and engaged, White demonstrates the centrality of Bookchins questions to our contemporary dilemmas, while carefully disentangling and evaluating his answers. -- Professor Ted Benton, Department of Sociology, University of Essex About the AuthorDamian White is an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Department of History, Philosophy and Social Science at The Rhode Island School of Design.
Author: Liat Steir-Livny
File Type: pdf
Since the late 1990s in Israel, third-generation Holocaust survivors have become the new custodians of cultural memory, and the documentary films they produce play a major role in shaping a societal consensus of commemoration.In Remaking Holocaust Memory, a pioneering analysis of third-generation Holocaust documentaries in Israel, Liat Steir-Livny, co-recipient of the 2019 Young Scholar Award given jointly by the Association of Israel Studies and the Israel Institute, investigates compelling films that have been screened in Israel, Europe, and the United States, appeared in numerous international film festivals, and won international awards, but have yet to receive significant academic attention. Steir-Livnys comprehensive investigation reveals how the absolute truths that appeared in the majority of second-generation films are deconstructed and disputed in the newer films, which do not dismiss their cinematic parents approach but rather rethink fixed notions, extend the debates, and pose questions where previously there had been exclamation marks. Steir-Livny also explores the ways in which the third-generations perspectives on Holocaust memory govern cinematic trends and aesthetic choices, and howthese might impact the moral recollection of the past.Finally, Remaking Holocaust Memory serves as an excellent reference tool, as it helpfully lists all of the second- and third-generation films available, as well as the festival screenings and awards they have garnered.
Author: Theodore D. George
File Type: pdf
In Tragedies of Spirit, Theodore D. George engages Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit to explore the philosophical significance of tragedy in post-Kantian continental thought. George follows lines of inquiry originally developed by Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamer, and Derrida, and takes as his point of departure the concern that Hegels speculative philosophy forms a summit of modernity that the present historical time is called to interrogate. Yet, George argues that Hegels larger speculative ambitions in the Phenomenology compel him to turn to the resource of tragedy in order to give voice to issues of incommensurability, discontinuity, otherness, strife, and crisis. From this standpoint, Hegels interest in the tragic proves to be more pervasive and to run deeper than has previously been recognized. The author shows that Hegels reliance upon the tragic not only stretches and tests assumptions of speculative philosophy, but also illuminates original insights into human finitude. While situating Hegels approach to tragedy as part of a broader response to Kant, George also contextualizes Hegels interest in tragedy with reference to figures in German Idealism and Romanticism, such as Schelling, Holderlin, and Schlegel.
Author: Ludolph Of Saxony
File Type: epub
The Vita Christi of the fourteenth century Carthusian, Ludolph of Saxony, is the most comprehensive series of meditations on the life of Christ of the late Middle Ages. Ludolph assembles a wealth of commentary from the fathers of the church and the great medieval spiritual writers and weaves them into a seamless exposition on the Gospel. This is the first English translation of this classic work, and it also is the first edition in any language to identify the thousands of sources used by Ludolph, both those he quotes and the many he cites without attribution. It will be of great interest to students of Christian spirituality, but it is intended, as was the original text, for ordinary believers seeking to enter more deeply into the meaning of the life of Christ. When complete, there will be 4 volumes. **Review Walsh has done pioneering work. [This book] will prove an invaluable tool for scholars researching the late medieval engagement with the humanity of Christ, while simultaneously catering for general readers and religious practitioners interested in learning more about a traditional and influential imaginative meditational practice. Christiania Whitehead, Professor of Middle English Literature, University of Warwick Milton T. Walsh has taken on a Herculean task of translating The Life of Christ by the fourteenth-century Carthusian, Ludolph of Saxony. He has more than risen to the challenge! Ludolphs text was one of the most widely spread and influential treatments of the theme in the later Middle Ages and has, until now, been available only in an insufficient late nineteenth-century edition (Rigollot). The manuscript tradition of *The Life of Christ * is extremely complex, and Walsh, while basing his translation on the edition, has gone beyond in providing critical apparatus that will be of significant use to scholars, as well as making the text available for students and all interested in the theology, spirituality, and religious life of the later Middle Ages. His introduction expertly places Ludolphs work in the textual tradition and is itself a contribution to scholarship. Simply put, this is an amazing achievement! Walshs work fills an essential gap inour understanding of the text and its world, and will be the standard point of departure for all future research on Ludolph and treatises dealing with the life of Christ in the later Middle Ages. Accessible and readable, Walshs translation should be on the shelf of every library, and anyone who actively concerns themselves with the later Middle Ages will want their own copy. The first volume, here translated, takes the narrative through the Sermon on the Mount. We can only eagerly await the appearance of the rest of the work! Eric Leland Saak, Professor of History, Indiana University This translationthe first into Englishof The Life of Jesus Christ by Ludolph of Saxony will be welcomed both by scholars in various fields and by practicing Christians. It is at the same time an encyclopedia of biblical, patristic, and medieval learning and a compendium of late medieval spirituality, stressing the importance of meditation in the life of individual believers. It draws on an astonishing number of sources and sheds light on many aspects of the doctrinal and institutional history of the Church down to the fourteenth century. Giles Constable About the Author Milton T. Walsh holds a doctorate in sacred theology from the Gregorian University in Rome. For many years, he taught theology at St. Patricks Seminary in Menlo Park, California. He is the author of several books, includingSecond Friends C. S. Lewis and Ronald Knox in Conversation, In Memory of Me A Meditation on the Roman Canon,andWitness of the Saints Patristic Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours.