Summers of Discontent: The Purpose of the Arts Today
Author: Raymond Tallis File Type: pdf Since the time of the ancient Greeks, philosophers have pondered the nature and purpose of the arts, but artists have gone on making them and audiences enjoying them regardless of these musings. None of their theories have met with universal or even popular acceptance. But here is theory that places the artsall the artsfirmly and squarely within everyones everyday experiences.Summers of Discontent goes to the heart of the arts. Its an examination of why artists create them in the first place and why we all feel the need for them. Raymond Tallis thinks the arts spring from our inability as humans fully to experience our experiences from our hunger for a more rounded, more complete sense of the world.Talliss thesis is original and fresh, down-to-earth and life-enhancing. Above all it is practical and intelligible. It will inspire anyone who feels the creative urge today, or anyone who wants to understand why and how the arts enrich their lives and those of others.Raymond Tallis is a leading academic doctor, poet, philosopher, and cultural critic. Author of more than twenty books, he was until his retirement professor of geriatric medicine at the University of Manchester.Julian Spalding was director, successively of Sheffield and Manchester Art Galleries, and latterly of the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow. He has written over a dozen books on art historical subjects and curated many exhibitions.**ReviewTallis has a range of expertise that would leave Jonathan Miller gasping. Sunday Times About the AuthorRaymond Tallis Raymond Tallis is a leading academic doctor, philosopher, cultural critic and polymath. Author of more than 20 books, and a regular contributor to Prospect, TLS, BBC Radio 4 etc, he was, until his retirement, professor of geriatric medicine at the University of Manchester. Julian Spalding Julian Spalding was director, successively of Sheffield and Manchester Art Galleries, and latterly of the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow. He has written over a dozen books on art historical topics, and curated many exhibitions.
Author: Alain Badiou
File Type: epub
Alain Badiou, one of the most powerful voices in contemporary French philosophy, shows how our prevailing ethical principles serve ultimately to reinforce an ideology of the status quo and fail to provide a framework for an effective understanding of the concept of evil.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Author: Ukmina Manoori
File Type: epub
You will be a son, my daughter. With these stunning words Ukmina learned that she was to spend her childhood as a boy. In Afghanistan there is a widespread practice of girls dressing as boys to play the role of a son. These children are called bacha posh literally girls dressed as boys. This practice offers families the freedom to allow their child to shop and workand in some cases, it saves them from the disgrace of not having a male heir. But in adolescence, religion restores the natural law. The girls must marry, give birth, and give up their freedom.Ukmina decided to confront social and family pressure and keep her menswear. This brave choice paved the way for an extraordinary destiny she wages war against the Soviets, assists the mujaheddin and ultimately commands the respect of all whom she encounters. She eventually becomes one of the elected council members of her province.But freedom always has a price. For Ukmina warrior that price was her life as a woman. This is a stunning and brave memoir about a little known practice that will challenge your perceptions about gender and the courage it takes to live your life to the fullest.
Author: Jacques Derrida
File Type: pdf
In this important new book, Jacques Derrida talks with Bernard Stiegler about the effect of teletechnologies on our philosophical and political moment. Improvising before a camera, the two philosophers are confronted by the very technologies they discuss and so are forced to address all the more directly the urgent questions that they raise. What does it mean to speak of the present in a situation of live recording? How can we respond, responsibly, to a question when we know that the so-called natural conditions of expression, discussion, reflection, and deliberation have been breached?As Derrida and Stiegler discuss the role of teletechnologies in modern society, the political implications of Derridas thought become apparent. Drawing on recent events in Europe, Derrida and Stiegler explore the impact of television and the internet on our understanding of the state, its borders and citizenship. Their discussion examines the relationship between the juridical and the technical, and it shows how new technologies for manipulating and transmitting images have influenced our notions of democracy, history and the body. The book opens with a shorter interview with Derrida on the news media, and closes with a provocative essay by Stiegler on the epistemology of digital photography. In Echographies of Television, Derrida and Stiegler open up questions that are of key social and political importance. Their book will be of great interest to all those already familiar with Derridas work, as well as to students and scholars of philosophy, literature, sociology and media studies.ReviewJacques Derrida has been awarded the prestigious Theodor W. Adorno-Preis, 2001Language NotesText English (translation)Original Language French
Author: Greg Hill
File Type: pdf
This book examines Rousseaus ideas about the natural transparency of human intention, the loss of this transparency in the opaque cities of Europe, and the possibility of its restoration within small republican communities. The author weaves together Rousseaus provocative conjectures about transparency and opaqueness to provide an original interpretation of Rousseaus political thought and its bearing on several contemporary controversies. He also argues that civic cooperation in Rousseaus model republic requires mutual surveillance that Hobbess argument for a sovereign state assumes the natural opacity of human intention and that Adam Smiths invisible hand cannot efficiently coordinate the self-interested choices of opaque traders.ReviewA rational-choice interpretation of Rousseau? And one that even people bored by rational-choice theory will want to read? That is the miracle Greg Hill has pulled off. Rousseaus Theory of Human Association is an engaging read and a challenge--not only to conventional interpretations of Rousseau--but to defenses of unfettered capitalism. Hill writes well and thinks hard, and the results will be worthwhile for anyone with an interest in Rousseau or in the nature of modern interpersonal relationships.--Jeffrey Friedman, Editor, Critical ReviewAbout the AuthorGreg Hill is a Strategic Advisor in the City of Seattles Department of Finance. He was Lecturer and Adjunct Professor at the University of Washington, and served as Special Assistant to the Mayor of Seattle. He has published articles in philosophy, political theory, and economics, including contributions to Polity, The Review of Politics, Rationality & Society, Political Research Quarterly, The Journal of Social Philosophy, The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Critical Review, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Economic Issues, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, and Economics of Planning.
Author: Margaret Reynolds
File Type: epub
Born around 630BC on the Greek island of Lesbos, Sappho is now regarded as the greatest lyrical poet of ancient Greece, ironic and passionate, capturing the troubled depths of love. Her work survives only in fragments, yet her influence extends throughout Western literature, fuelled by the speculations and romances which have gathered around her name, her story and her sexuality.This remarkable anthology brilliantly displays the way different periods have taken up Sapphos haunting story bringing together many different kinds of work. We see her image change, re-created in Ovids poetry and Boccaccios tales, in translations by Pope, Rossetti and Swinburne, Baudelaire, in the modern versions of Eavan Boland, Ruth Padel and Jeanette Winterson. **
Author: Catherine A. Bradley
File Type: pdf
The Montpellier Codex (Bibliotheque interuniversitaire, Section Medecine, H.196) occupies a central place in scholarship on medieval music. This small book, packed with gorgeous gold leaf illuminations, historiated initials, and exquisite music calligraphy, is one of the most famous of all surviving music manuscripts, fundamental to understandings of the development of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century polyphonic composition. At some point in its history an eighth section (fascicle) of 48 folios was appended to the codex when and why this happened has long perplexed scholars. The forty-three works contained in the manuscripts final section represent a collection of musical compositions, assembled at a complex moment of historical change, straddling the historiographical juncture between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This book provides the first in-depth exploration of the contents and contexts of the Montpellier Codexs final fascicle. It explores the manuscripts production, dating, function, and notation, offering close-readings of individual works, which illuminate compositionally progressive features of the repertoire as well as its interactions with existing musical and poetic traditions, from a variety of perspectives thirteenth- and fourteenth-century music, art history, and manuscript culture. **
Author: Qian Zhongshu
File Type: pdf
Translated by Duncan M. Campbell.0This book presents in English translation a number of essays written by the Chinese literary scholar and novelist Qian Zhongshu (1910-1998). One of the great minds of the twentieth century, Qian, with his characteristic erudition and wit, addresses here aspects of the classical literary and artistic traditions of China. Better known, as a scholar, for his magisterial Limited Views Essays on Ideas & Letters (Guanzhui bian) (1979-80) and, as a novelist, for his Fortress Besieged (Weicheng) (1947), these essays, first written during the period 1948-83 and much revised over the years, allow readers insight into Qians abiding concern with striking connections between disparate literary, historical, and intellectual traditions, ancient and modern, Chinese and Western.
Author: Isaiah Berlin
File Type: epub
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. This ancient Greek aphorism, preserved in a fragment from the poet Archilochus, describes the central thesis of Isaiah Berlins masterly essay on Leo Tolstoy and the philosophy of history, the subject of the epilogue to War and Peace. Although there have been many interpretations of the adage, Berlin uses it to mark a fundamental distinction between human beings who are fascinated by the infinite variety of things and those who relate everything to a central, all-embracing system. Applied to Tolstoy, the saying illuminates a paradox that helps explain his philosophy of history Tolstoy was a fox, but believed in being a hedgehog. One of Berlins most celebrated works, this extraordinary essay offers profound insights about Tolstoy, historical understanding, and human psychology.This new edition features a revised text that supplants all previous versions, English translations of the many passages in foreign languages, a new foreword in which Berlin biographer Michael Ignatieff explains the enduring appeal of Berlins essay, and a new appendix that provides rich context, including excerpts from reviews and Berlins letters, as well as a startling new interpretation of Archilochuss epigram.**