Author: Todd McGowan File Type: pdf Todd McGowan launches a provocative exploration of weirdness and fantasy in David Lynchs groundbreaking oeuvre. He studies Lynchs talent for blending the bizarre and the normal to emphasize the odd nature of normality itself. Hollywood is often criticized for distorting reality and providing escapist fantasies, but in Lynchs movies, fantasy becomes a means through which the viewer is encouraged to build a revolutionary relationship with the world.Considering the filmmakers entire career, McGowan examines Lynchs play with fantasy and traces the political, cultural, and existential impact of his unique style. Each chapter discusses the idea of impossibility in one of Lynchs films, including the critically acclaimed Blue Velvet and The Elephant Man the densely plotted Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive the cult favorite Eraserhead and the commercially unsuccessful Dune. McGowan engages with theorists from the golden age of film studies (Christian Metz, Laura Mulvey, and Jean-Louis Baudry) and with the thought of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, and Hegel. By using Lynchs weirdness as a point of departure, McGowan adds a new dimension to the field of auteur studies and reveals Lynch to be the source of a new and radical conception of fantasy.ReviewA well written book combining thoughtful Lynch essays for the thinkers and film fanatics!(Horror News ) ReviewThe Impossible David Lynch displays Todd McGowans deep, sometimes truly breathtaking knowledge of David Lynchs work and of Lacanian theory.(Slavoj Zizek, author of The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime On David Lynchs Lost Highway 111009)

Author: David R. Cerbone File Type: pdf Understanding Phenomenology provides a guide to one of the most important schools of thought in modern philosophy. The book traces phenomenologys historical development, beginning with its founder, Edmund Husserl and his pure or transcendental phenomenology, and continuing with the later, existential phenomenology of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The book also assesses later, critical responses to phenomenology - from Derrida to Dennett - as well as the continued significance of phenomenology for philosophy today. Written for anyone coming to phenomenology for the first time, the book guides the reader through the often bewildering array of technical concepts and jargon associated with phenomenology and provides clear explanations and helpful examples to encourage and enhance engagement with the primary texts. **Review A superb text the best introduction to phenomenology available in English. Taylor Carman, Columbia University Essential reading for undergraduate classes in phenomenology. Sean Kelly, Princeton University About the Author David R. Cerbone is Associate Professor of Philosophy at West Virginia University.

Author: James Tracy File Type: pdf In 1572, towns in the province of Holland, led by William of Orange, rebelled against the government of the Habsburg Netherlands. The story of the Dutch Revolt is usually told in terms of fractious provinces that frustrated Oranges efforts to formulate a coherent programme. In this book James D. Tracy argues that there was a coherent strategy for the war, but that it was set by the towns of Holland. Although the States of Holland were in theory subject to the States General, Holland provided over 60 per cent of the taxes and an even larger share of war loans. Accordingly, funds were directed to securing Hollands borders, and subsequently to extending this protected frontier to neighbouring provinces.Shielded from the war by its cordon sanitaire, Holland experienced an extraordinary economic boom, allowing taxes and loans to keep flowing. The goal - in sight if not achieved by 1588 - was a United Provinces of the north, free and separate from provinces in the southern Netherlands that remained under Spanish rule. With Europe increasingly under the sway of strong hereditary princes, the new Dutch Republic was a beacon of promise for those who still believed that citizens ought to rule themselves.About the AuthorJames D. Tracy is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota.

Author: Glen David Kuecker File Type: pdf Mapping the Megalopolis Order and Disorder in Mexico City brings the humanities and the social sciences into a conversation about Mexico City in its social, political, and aesthetic manifestations. Through a shared exploration of the order and disorder that mutually constitute the city, contributing authors engage topics such as the privatization of public space, challenges to existing conceptualizations of the urban form, and variations on the flaneur and other urban actors. Mexico City is truly a city of versions, and Mapping the Megalopolis celebrates the intersection of the image of the city and the lived experience of it. Readers will find substantive entries on a great variety of Mexico Citys monumental and counter-monumental spaces, as well as some of its pivotal contemporary debates and cultural products. The volume serves both as supplemental reading on the world city or the Latin American city, and as a central text in a multidisciplinary study of Mexico City. **Review Mapping the Megalopolis is a most valuable contribution to the ever-challenging task of reading Mexico City, its spaces, and its cultures. The collective reflection on order and disorder provides new directions to think and theorize urban space in the grand Megalopolis of Latin America, in ways that help us think about the city as a problem in the global era. (Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado, Washington University in St. Louis) This exceptionally timely and coherent collection of essays maps out one of the most unmappable cities of the world. The reader comes away not only with a deeper appreciation of Mexico City as a place where elite visions of progress are repeatedly undermined by quotidian disorder, but of the deliriousness of the modern megalopolis itselfthe twenty-first century city teetering precariously on a ledge between modernity and a dystopian future. (Eric Zolov, Stony Brook University) This delightful compilation will give students, scholars, and travelers a good sense of present-day Mexico City, and its historic roots, from many disciplinary angles. It offers readers a fair consideration of the challenges which chilangos face but more importantly it reveals the artistry, persistence, and resilience with which they confront life in the big city. (Anne Rubenstein, York University) About the Author Glen David Kuecker is professor of history at DePauw University. Alejandro Puga is associate professor, Laurel H. Turk professor of modern languages, and chair of modern languages at DePauw University.