понедельник, 7 декабря 2009 г.

суббота, 21 ноября 2009 г.

Excrement in the Late Middle Ages: Sacred Filth and Chaucer's Fecopoetics




Excrement in the Late Middle Ages: Sacred Filth and Chaucer's Fecopoetics (The New Middle Ages)

By Susan Signe Morrison


This interdisciplinary book integrates the historical practices regarding material excrement and its symbolic representation, with special focus on fecopoetics and Chaucer’s literary agenda. Filth in all its manifestations—material (including privies, dung on fields, and as alchemical ingredient), symbolic (sin, misogynist slander, and theological wrestling with the problem of filth in sacred contexts) and linguistic (a semantic range including dirt and dung)—helps us to see how excrement is vital to understanding the Middle Ages. Applying fecal theories to late medieval culture, Morrison concludes by proposing Waste Studies as a new field of ethical and moral criticism for literary scholars.

среда, 4 ноября 2009 г.

Chuck Palahniuk - Pygmy




Pygmy

By Chuck Palahniuk
"What will he think of next?" asked the flabbergasted critic from the New York Times Book Review. Indeed, while several reviewers praised the novel as a darkly humorous commentary on American society, most agreed it contained serious flaws. Palahniuk's tenth novel seems designed to flummox readers with its extreme profanity, graphic sexual violence involving minors, and portrayal of adults as either brainless buffoons or shameless perverts. Critics were also split on the author's repeated use of an undefined syntax, reminiscent of pidgin English, throughout. What readers, after all, will have the patience to read sentences like, "Revered soon dying mother, distribute you ammunitions correct for Croatia-made forty-five-caliber, long-piston-stroke APS assault rifle"? Overall, critics acknowledged that diehard Palahniuk fans might savor Pygmy but that most folks would find it too stomach-turning.

пятница, 16 октября 2009 г.

Dan Brown - The Lost Symbol




The Lost Symbol

by Dan Brown


Let's start with the question every Dan Brown fan wants answered: Is The Lost Symbol as good as The Da Vinci Code? Simply put, yes. Brown has mastered the art of blending nail-biting suspense with random arcana (from pop science to religion), and The Lost Symbol is an enthralling mix. And what a dazzling accomplishment that is, considering that rabid fans and skeptics alike are scrutinizing every word.
The Lost Symbol begins with an ancient ritual, a shadowy enclave, and of course, a secret. Readers know they are in Dan Brown territory when, by the end of the first chapter, a secret within a secret is revealed. To tell too much would ruin the fun of reading this delicious thriller, so you will find no spoilers here. Suffice it to say that as with many series featuring a recurring character, there is a bit of a formula at work (one that fans will love). Again, brilliant Harvard professor Robert Langdon finds himself in a predicament that requires his vast knowledge of symbology and superior problem-solving skills to save the day. The setting, unlike other Robert Langdon novels, is stateside, and in Brown's hands Washington D.C. is as fascinating as Paris or Vatican City (note to the D.C. tourism board: get your "Lost Symbol" tour in order). And, as with other Dan Brown books, the pace is relentless, the revelations many, and there is an endless parade of intriguing factoids that will make you feel like you are spending the afternoon with Robert Langdon and the guys from Mythbusters.
Nothing is as it seems in a Robert Langdon novel, and The Lost Symbol itself is no exception--a page-turner to be sure, but Brown also challenges his fans to open their minds to new information. Skeptical? Imagine how many other thrillers would spawn millions of Google searches for noetic science, superstring theory, and Apotheosis of Washington. The Lost Symbol is brain candy of the best sort--just make sure to set aside time to enjoy your meal. --Daphne Durham

среда, 14 октября 2009 г.

Умберто Эко - Таинственное пламя царицы Лоаны



Умберто Эко

Таинственное пламя царицы Лоаны

Умберто Эко, крупнейший современный писатель, ученый-медиевист, семиотик, специалист по массовой культуре, автор интеллектуального бестселлера "Имя розы" (1980), представляет нам роман совершенно нового типа. Текст в нем опирается на иллюстрации, причем каждая иллюстрация - это цитата, извлеченная из контекста не только личной истории героя, но и истории целого поколения. Лопнувший кровеносный сосуд, пораженный участок мозга, начисто стертая личная память. О своем прошлом шестидесятилетний торговец антикварными книгами Джамбаттиста Бодони не помнит ничего. Он даже забыл свое имя. Но сокровищница "бумажной" памяти остается неразграбленной, через нее и лежит путь к себе - через образы и сюжеты, средневековые трактаты и повести для подростков, старые пластинки и программы радиопередач, школьные сочинения и книжки комиксов, - туда, где брезжит таинственное пламя царицы Лоаны.

пятница, 25 сентября 2009 г.

Sexuality and Gender in the Classical World



Sexuality and Gender in the Classical World: Readings and Sources (Interpreting Ancient History)

by Laura K. McClure (Editor)

This book explores the fascinating world of sex and gender roles in the classical period. It provides readers with essays that represent a range of perspectives on women, gender and sexuality in the ancient world. They are accessible to general readers whilst also challenging them to confront problems of evidence and interpretation, new theories and methodologies, and contemporary assumptions about gender and sexuality.
The essays cover a broad spectrum of scholarly perspectives, and trace the debates and themes of the field from the late 1960s to the late 1990s. They also address a range of literary and non-literary genres, including some non-canonical sources such as medical writings and inscriptions, to elucidate ancient ideas about sexuality and the discourses that shaped these ideas. The book also provides translations of primary sources to enable readers to confront the evidence for themselves and assess the methodology used by historians. It includes Greek literature and society, Roman culture and the legacy of classical myth for modern feminist scholars. It includes and examines not only women in antiquity but also masculinity and sexuality to provide a comprehensive account of this fascinating topic.

Sexuality in Greek and Roman Literature and Society



Sexuality in Greek and Roman Literature and Society: A Sourcebook

by Marguer Johnson

This volume contains numerous original translations of ancient poetry, inscriptions, and documents, all of which illuminate the multifaceted nature of sexuality in antiquity.The detailed introduction provides full social and historical context for the sources, and guides students on how to use the material most effectively. Themes such as marriage, prostitution, and same-sex attraction are presented comparatively, with material from the Greek and Roman worlds shown side by side. This approach allows readers to interpret the written records with a full awareness of the different context of these separate but related societies. Commentaries are provided throughout, focusing on vocabulary and social and historical context.This is the first major sourcebook on ancient sexuality; it will be of particular use on related courses in classics/ancient history and gender studies.

A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy



A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy: 2 Volume Set (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy)

by Robert E. Goodin, Philip Pettit, Thomas W. Pogge (Editors)

Product DescriptionThis new edition of A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy has been extended significantly to include 55 chapters across two volumes written by some of today's most distinguished scholars.
New contributors include some of today’s most distinguished scholars, among them Thomas Pogge, Charles Beitz, and Michael Doyle
Provides in-depth coverage of contemporary philosophical debate in all major related disciplines, such as economics, history, law, political science, international relations and sociology
Presents analysis of key political ideologies, including new chapters on Cosmopolitanism and FundamentalismIncludes detailed discussions of major concepts in political philosophy, including virtue, power, human rights, and just war

The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics




The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics

by Alex Preminger, Terry V.F. Brogan, Frank J. Warnke (Editors)

The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics is a comprehensive reference work dealing with all aspects of its subject: history, types, movements, prosody, and critical terminology. Prepared by recognized authorities, its articles treat their topics in sufficient depth and with enough lucidity to satisfy the scholar and the general reader alike. Entries vary in length from relatively brief notices to substantial articles of about 20,000 words. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, published in 1965, established itself book as a standard in the field. Among the 215 contributors were Northrop Frye writing on allegory, Murray Krieger on belief in poetry, Philip Wheelwright on myth, John Hollander on music, and William Carlos Williams on free verse. In 1974, the Enlarged Edition increased the entries with dozens of new subjects, including rock lyric, computer poetry, and black poetry, to name just a few. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics accounts for the extraordinary change and explosion of knowledge within literary and cultural studies since the 1970s. This edition, completely revised, preserves what was most valuable from previous editions, while subjecting each existing entry to revision. Over 90 percent of the entries have been extensively revised and most major ones entirely rewritten. Completely new entries number 162, including those by new contributors Camille Paglia, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Elaine Showalter, Houston Baker, Andrew Ross, and many more. New entries include those on cultural criticism, discourse, feminist poetics, and Chicano poetry. Improvements cover several areas: All the recent developments in theory that bear on poetry are included; bibliographies of secondary sources are ex-tended; cross- references among entries and through blind entries have been expanded for greater ease of use; and coverage of emergent and non-Western poetries is dramatically increased. Indeed, a hallmark of the encyclopedia is its world-wide orientation on the poetry of national and cultural groups. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics is a comprehensive reference work dealing with all aspects of its subject: history, types, movements, prosody, and critical terminology. Prepared by recognized authorities, its articles treat their topics in sufficient depth and with enough lucidity to satisfy the scholar and the general reader alike. Entries vary in length from relatively brief notices to substantial articles of about 20,000 words. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, published in 1965, established itself book as a standard in the field. Among the 215 contributors were Northrop Frye writing on allegory, Murray Krieger on belief in poetry, Philip Wheelwright on myth, John Hollander on music, and William Carlos Williams on free verse. In 1974, the Enlarged Edition increased the entries with dozens of new subjects, including rock lyric, computer poetry, and black poetry, to name just a few. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics accounts for the extraordinary change and explosion of knowledge within literary and cultural studies since the 1970s. This edition, completely revised, preserves what was most valuable from previous editions, while subjecting each existing entry to revision. Over 90 percent of the entries have been extensively revised and most major ones entirely rewritten. Completely new entries number 162, including those by new contributors Camille Paglia, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Elaine Showalter, Houston Baker, Andrew Ross, and many more. New entries include those on cultural criticism, discourse, feminist poetics, and Chicano poetry. Improvements cover several areas: All the recent developments in theory that bear on poetry are included; bibliographies of secondary sources are ex-tended; cross- references among entries and through blind entries have been expanded for greater ease of use; and coverage of emergent and non-Western poetries is dramatically increased. Indeed, a hallmark of the encyclopedia is its world-wide orientation on the poetry of national and cultural groups.

Harold Bloom - The Anxiety of Influence



The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry

by Harold Bloom

Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence has cast its long shadow of influence since it was first published in 1973. Through an insightful study of Romantic poets, Bloom puts forth his central vision of the relations between tradition and the individual artist. His argument that all literary texts are a strong misreading of thise that precede them had an enormous impact on the practice of deconstruction and poststructuralist literary theory. The book remains a central work of criticism for all students of literature.
Written in a moving personal style, anchored by concrete examples, and memorable quotes, this second edition of Bloom's classic work maintains that the anxiety of influence cannot be evaded--neither by poets nor by responsible readers and critics. A new Introduction, centering upon Shakespeare and Marlowe, explains the genesis of Bloom's thinking, and the subsequent influence of the book on literary criticism of the past twenty years Here, Bloom asserts that the anxiety of influence comes out of a complex act of strong misreading, a creative interpretation he calls "poetic misprision." The influence-anxiety does not su much concern the forerunner but rather is an anxiety achieved in and by the story, novel, play, poem, or essay. In other words, without Keats's reading of Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth, we could not have Keats's odes and sonnets and his two Hyperions.
This new edition is certain to find a responsive audience among the new generation of scholars, students, and layreaders interested in the Bloom canon.

четверг, 24 сентября 2009 г.

Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography



Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography

by John Hannavy

Supported by an international board of advisors and contributors, editor Hannavy has produced an impressive and authoritative, albeit somewhat expensive, resource encompassing the photographers, techniques, equipment, theories, literature, exhibitions, history, and organizations involved in photography during its early development. There are also regional and country overviews. Along with the alphabetical list of entries, entries are grouped into 12 thematic areas: “Companies,” “Formats,” etc. Entry length ranges “from shorter 200 word entries that provide snapshots of photographic figures and other key elements of nineteenth century photography to large, 5,000 word entries that provide detailed, analytical scholarship.” Some 850 of the approximately 1,200 signed entries treat people—photographers, inventors, patrons, and critics. Many entries have see also and further-reading references. Both volumes contain the detailed 64-page index. Illustrations are few and far between but do include unique, seldom-seen images. They are not always next to an appropriate entry. The list of contributors does not include their affiliations. This is wonderful set to browse as well as to search for information on the obscure as well as the famous photographers of the period. Information sometimes refers back to photography’s predecessors and forward to lives that extended into the twentieth century. As with any large, comprehensive work, there is missing information, which some readers will notice. When comparing the finished work with the planned list of entries published in 2005, it is apparent that some did not attract contributors, others were added, and editorial decisions were made, as the planned one volume grew to two substantial ones. However, the wealth of information found here, and in no comparable work, will be used by photographers (including instructors, experimenters, and students); historians of art, science, and technology; genealogists studying old family images; and interested general readers for many years to come. This a fine reference work deserving inclusion in all libraries having large art/photography collections. --Linda Loos Scarth

Archaeological Chemistry



Archaeological Chemistry

by Mark A. Pollard, Carl Heron (Authors)

Mark Pollard and Carl Heron have set out to produce a text that will bring together an interdisciplinary readership in the fields of chemical conservation, restoration, archaeological excavation, historical provenancing, and chemical analysis. It is perhaps the latter area that will appeal most to chemists, but it must be appreciated that the application of chemical analytical procedures to artefacts and archaeological materials has several unique restraints which demand, in particular, minimal sampling, or preferably non-invasive and non-destructive analysis. These pose major challenges for analytical chemists due to the special nature of the specimens presented.
One of the first chemists to analyze ancient pigments was Sir Humphry Davy, who published his results from the analysis of wall paintings from Pompeii in the Proceedings of the Royal Society in 1815; this paper stands as the first example of the application of chemical analysis to ancient art and archaeology. Even then, Davy appreciated the fact that his analyses completely destroyed the valuable specimens presented to him. In the 1920s, a seminal study of English porcelains by Eccles and Rackham produced some very important analytical information but again at the expense of the sacrifice of whole items of chinaware, such as plates, cups and saucers. These analytical protocols would just not be acceptable today.
Many of these aspects are addressed in this book and it will provide a fascinating introduction to experienced analytical chemists interested in applications of their techniques in new areas. It will also be a source book for experienced archaeologists and conservators who are interested in information about the use of ancient materials and their degradation in the depositional environment using modern analytical techniques. This book is also highly recommended for students across a range of chemistry and archaeological science degree courses.

Nazi Cinema as Enchantment



Nazi Cinema as Enchantment: The Politics of Entertainment in the Third Reich (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture)

by Mary-Elizabeth O'Brien

ReviewO'Brien carries the reader into the world of Babelsberg, the German Hollywood, where the reader sees Nazi filmmaking as a form of amusement that carries the Nazi message. CHOICE The readings are integrated within a larger, compelling argument about the function of entertainment within the framework of Nazi culture so that the focus convincingly broadens the understanding of the complexities in this crucial period of German film history. MONATSHEFTE O'Brien's book is the product of extensive archival research and provides numerous services to the reader... (Her) readings convincingly show how films not generally viewed as propaganda films were produced with explicit ideological goals in mind. GERMAN QUARTERLY clearly structured, ... the film interpretations are embedded in well-summarized historical contexts.... The book's eminent readability makes it enjoyable and accessible to the non-specialist. GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW Product DescriptionHitler's regime not only terrorized its citizens; it also seduced them, offering stability, a traditional value system, a sense of belonging, and hope of a better standard of living. Nazi cinema was part of this seduction, expressing positive social fantasies and promoting the enchantment of reality, so that one would want to share in the dream at any price. This interdisciplinary study, based on exhaustive research in German archives, examines how thirteen films from five genres -- the historical musical, the foreign adventure film, the home-front film, the melodrama, and the problem film -- enchanted audiences and enacted shared stories that can tell us much about how family, community, history, the nation, and the war were imagined in Nazi Germany. MARY-ELIZABETH O'BRIEN is associate professor of German at Skidmore College.

The Opera Lover's Companion



The Opera Lover's Companion

by Charles Osborne

Review"'A loving and expert guide to the great operas in the repertoire, written from many years of experience. A must for all opera lovers young and old. I love it.' Dame Joan Sutherland 'An erudite, instructive and unpretentious guide.' Michael Kennedy, The Sunday Telegraph 'This book is exactly what the title claims: an opera lover's companion. Reading it is like going to the opera with a knowledgeable friend who tells you enough to make you want to see the piece but not so much you're drowned in superfluous detail.' Richard Fawkes, Opera Now" Review
"A loving and expert guide to the great operas in the repertoire, written from many years of experience. A must for all opera lovers young and old. I love it."—DAME JOAN SUTHERLAND

The Media City



The Media City: Media, Architecture and Urban Space

by Dr Scott McQuire

Review'If only more new media commentators had this level of historical-critical reference, engaging, good stories, and a degree of wonder at what media and windows bring to the city, to life...' - John Hutnyk, Academic Director, Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths University of London
'Just when you thought the last word had been said about cities and media, along comes Scott McQuire to breathe new life into the debate. When revisiting existing pathways, his always ingenious eyes produce startling and original insights. When striking out into new territory, he opens up before us inspiring new vistas. I love this book' - James Donald, Professor of Film Studies, University of New South Wales
'A book that contains sometimes audacious segues, that crams into a single chapter more insights and illustrations than seems feasible, yet which ties all threads together through a consistent, theoretically rich analysis of the interplay of media and city... Writing with effusiveness uncharacteristic of back-cover blurbs on academic tomes, James Donald says "I love this book". But I will end by echoing his praise, and make a promise to readers: you will love The Media City, too' - European Journal of Communication
'Compared to the urban studies literature of say David Harvey or Ed Soja, McQuire writes with a much greater architectural sensibility. His argument is that we move from a rather centred space of the classical renaissance city to a 'relational space' where past and future are juxtaposed not in simple Newtonian chronology but in complex relation to present. Such a transformed urbanism and media (compared with say Renaissance and Beaux Arts perspective) moves from what might be seen as the panoptic to a serial succession of photographic shots, of film frames, of movements along vistas at speed.
At stake is a city that is continually redefined by the media and understood along the lines of McQuire's quite novel media theory. At stake is a vision of media, which are too ubiquitous in the multiplication of screens, surveillance and other devices/interfaces in private and public space to primarily function any more as representations. Media in this (McQuire's) context are no longer primarily a set of representations, but constitute the very substance and fabric of urban public and private space' - Scott Lash, Goldsmiths, University of London
'…refreshingly clear, getting to grips with some of the key concepts of urban sociology in a way that moves beyond the wistful evocation and splatter of undigested terms that characterises so much academic writing on culture and cities… a clear historical and theoretically informed look at the city over the last 200 years… give us one of the most cogent accounts we have had for some time' - Media, Culture & Society

среда, 23 сентября 2009 г.

Walter Benjamin - The Arcades Project



The Arcades Project

by Walter Benjamin

"Quite simply, the Passagen-Werk is one of the twentieth century's great efforts at historical comprehension--some would say the greatest." --T. J. Clark, author of The Painting of Modern Life The Arcades Project Walter Benjamin Translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin "To great writers," Walter Benjamin once wrote, "finished works weigh lighter than those fragments on which they labor their entire lives." Conceived in Paris in 1927 and still in progress when Benjamin fled the Occupation in 1940, The Arcades Project (in German, Das Passagen-Werk) is a monumental ruin, meticulously constructed over the course of thirteen years--"the theater," as Benjamin called it, "of all my struggles and all my ideas." Focusing on the arcades of nineteenth-century Paris--glass-roofed rows of shops that were early centers of consumerism--Benjamin presents a montage of quotations from, and reflections on, hundreds of published sources, arranging them in thirty-six categories with descriptive rubrics such as "Fashion," "Boredom," "Dream City," "Photography," "Catacombs," "Advertising," "Prostitution," "Baudelaire," "Theory of Progress." His central preoccupation is what he calls the commodification of things--a process in which he locates the decisive shift to the modern age. The Arcades Project is Benjamin's effort to represent and to critique the bourgeois experience of nineteenth-century history, and, in so doing, to liberate the suppressed "true history" that underlay the ideological mask. In the bustling, cluttered arcades, street and interior merge and historical time is broken up into kaleidoscopic distractions and displays of ephemera. Here, at a distance from what is normally meant by "progress," Benjamin finds the lost time(s) embedded in the spaces of things.

Faulkner and Love




Faulkner and Love: The Women Who Shaped His Art

by Prof. Judith L. Sensibar


"We know a lot about William Faulkner''s drinking, his philandering, his struggles with race, sexuality and history. We know much less about why Faulkner was so spectacularly talented and so spectacularly troubled. Judith Sensibar''s magisterial new book tells how the fraught, obsessive relationships with the women in his life permeated every aspect of his art and life. Faulkner''s critics and biographers too often dismiss or caricature his mother, his "mammy," and his wife. But by uncovering important new information about Faulkner''s family life, and integrating it with intelligent readings of his fiction and poetry, Faulkner and Love places Maud Butler, Caroline Barr, and his wife Estelle Oldham Faulkner back where they belong at the center of his work and illuminates the obsessions that impelled him to write the greatest novels of the 20th century." - Diane Roberts, author of Dream State (Diane Roberts )

понедельник, 14 сентября 2009 г.

Ancient Greek Music - Ensemble Melpomen




Ancient Greek Music - Ensemble Melpomen


Ensemble Melpomen

Conrad Steinman,aulos - direction

Arianna Savall,soprano - barbitos

Luis Alves da Silva,altus - kymbala

Massimo Cialfi,tympanon,krotola - salpinx

Music of the Ancient Sumerians, Egyptians & Greeks (De Organographia)




Music of the Ancient Sumerians, Egyptians & Greeks (De Organographia)
Music from c. 1950 B.C. to 300 A.D. (Including the world's oldest notated music) performed on voice, lyres, kithara, pandoura, double reed pipes, flutes & other ancient instruments.

пятница, 11 сентября 2009 г.

The Cultures of Globalization


DOWNLOAD


The Cultures of Globalization (Post-Contemporary Interventions)


by Fredric Jameson, Ioan Davies, Subramani, Barbara Trent, Sherif Hetata, Joan Martinez-Alier, Noam Chomsky

A pervasive force, globalization has come to represent the export and import of culture, the speed and intensity of which has increased to unprecedented levels in recent years. Here an international panel of intellectuals consider the process of globalization and how the global character of technology, communication networks, consumer culture, intellectual discourse, the arts, and mass entertainment have all been affected by recent worldwide trends.

Edward W. Said - presentations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures




presentations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures

by Edward W. Said


Celebrated humanist, teacher, and scholar, Edward W. Said here examines the ever-changing role of the intellectual today. In these six stunning essays - delivered on the BBC as the prestigious Reith Lectures - Said addresses the ways in which the intellectual can best serve society in the light of a heavily compromised media and of special interest groups who are protected at the cost of larger community concerns. Said suggests a recasting of the intellectual's vision to resist the lures of power, money, and specialization. in these powerful pieces, Said eloquently illustrates his arguments by drawing on such writers as Antonio Gramsci, Jean-Paul Sartre, Regis Debray, Julien Benda, and Adorno, and by discussing current events and celebrated figures in the world of science and politics: Robert Oppenheimer, Henry Kissinger, Dan Quayle, Vietnam, and the Gulf War. Said sees the modern intellectual as an editor, journalist, academic, or political adviser - in other words, a highly specialized professional - who has moved from a position of independence to an alliance with powerful institutional organizations. He concludes that it is the exile-immigrant, the expatriate, and the amateur who must uphold the traditional role of the intellectual as the voice of integrity and courage, able to speak out against those in power.

пятница, 15 мая 2009 г.

Herzog on Herzog




Herzog on Herzog

by Paul Cronin (Editor), Werner Herzog (Author)


An invaluable set of career-length interviews with the German genius hailed by François Truffaut as “the most important film director alive”Most of what we’ve heard about Werner Herzog is untrue. The sheer number of false rumors and downright lies disseminated about the man and his films is truly astonishing. Yet Herzog’s body of work is one of the most important in postwar European cinema.His international breakthrough came in 1973 with Aguirre, The Wrath of God, in which Klaus Kinski played a crazed Conquistador. For The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Herzog cast in the lead a man who had spent most of his life institutionalized, and two years later he hypnotized his entire cast to make Heart of Glass. He rushed to an explosive volcanic Caribbean island to film La Soufrière, paid homage to F. W. Murnau in a terrifying remake of Nosferatu, and in 1982 dragged a boat over a mountain in the Amazon jungle for Fitzcarraldo. More recently, Herzog has made extraordinary “documentary” films such as Little Dieter Needs to Fly. His place in cinema history is assured, and Paul Cronin’s volume of dialogues provides a forum for Herzog’s fascinating views on the things, ideas, and people that have preoccupied him for so many years.

Georg Simmel - The Philosophy of Money




The Philosophy of Money

by Georg Simmel


In The Philosophy of Money, Simmel provides us with a remarkably wide-ranging discussion of the social, psychological and philosophical aspects of the money economy, full of brilliant insights into the forms that social relationships take. He analyzes the relationships of money to exchange, the human personality, the position of women, individual freedom and many other areas of human existence. Later he provides us with an account of the consequences of the modern money economy and the division of labor, which examines the processes of alienation and reification in work, urban life and elsewhere. Perhaps, more than any of his other sociological works, The Philosophy of Money gives us an example of his comprehensive analysis of the interrelationships between the most diverse and seemingly connected social phenomena.

The Dictionary of Mythology




The Dictionary of Mythology

by J.A. Coleman


This book includes myths, heroes, places and legends from all five continents, and from the different cultures and peoples found there. It has appeal to all general knowledge and crossword enthusiasts, and those who enjoy complete reference libraries. It can be read for enjoyment as well as extensively for reference. It is a serious player in its field, both by its content and extent.

понедельник, 11 мая 2009 г.

Ancient Literary Criticism




Ancient Literary Criticism (Oxford Readings in Classical Studies)

by Andrew Laird


The volume makes widely available some important scholarship on the canonical texts of ancient rhetoric and poetics. While there are numerous studies of general trends in classical criticism, this collection offers direct discussions of primary sources, which provide a useful companion to the Russell and Winterbottom anthology, Ancient Literary Criticism. The volume contains a chronology, suggestions for further reading, a new translation of Bernays' 1857 essay on katharsis, and an important introductory chapter addressing the tension in ancient literary criticism between its place in the classical tradition and its role in contemporary endeavors to reconstruct ancient culture.

Plato Complete Works




Plato Complete Works


Outstanding translations by leading contemporary scholars -- many commissioned especially for this volume -- are presented here in the first single edition to include the entire surviving corpus of works attributed to Plato in antiquity. In his introductory essay, John Cooper explains the presentation of these works, discusses questions concerning the chronology of their composition, comments on the dialogue form in which Plato wrote, and offers guidance on approaching the reading and study of Plato's works. Also included are concise introductions to each translation, meticulous annotation designed to serve both scholar and general reader, and a comprehensive index. This handsome volume offers fine paper and a high-quality Smyth-sewn cloth binding in a sturdy elegant edition.

Hans-Georg Gadamer - Truth And Method




Truth And Method (Continuum Impacts)

by Hans-Georg Gadamer


This is Gadamer's most influential work, his magnum opus. An astonishing synthesis of literary criticism, philosophy, theology, the theory of law and classical scholarship, it is undoubtedly one of the most important texts in twentieth century philosophy.

Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography




Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography (Hardcover)

by Ruth Morello, A. D. Morrison (Editors)


The surviving body of ancient letters offers the reader a stunning variety of material, ranging from the everyday letters preserved among the Oxyrhynchus papyri to imperial rescripts, New Testament Epistles, fictional or pseudepigraphical letters and a wealth of missives on almost every conceivable subject. They offer us a unique insight into ancient practices in the fields of politics, literature, philosophy, medicine and many other areas. This collection presents a series of case studies in ancient letters, asking how each letter writer manipulates the epistolary tradition, why he chose the letter form over any other, and what effect the publication of volumes of collected letters might have had upon a reader's engagement with epistolary works. This volume is the first of its kind on ancient letters in any language, and it brings together both well-established and promising young scholars currently working in the fields of ancient literature, history, philosophy and medicine to engage in a shared debate about this most adaptable and 'interdisciplinary' of genres.

суббота, 9 мая 2009 г.

Jean-Luc Nancy - The Creation of the World or Globalization




The Creation of the World or Globalization (SUNY Series in Contemporary French Thought)

by Jean-Luc Nancy


Appearing in English for the first time, Jean-Luc Nancy's 2002 book reflects on globalization and its impact on our being-in-the-world. Developing a contrast in the French language between two terms that are usually synonymous, or that are used interchangeably, namely globalisation (globalization) and mondialisation (world-forming), Nancy undertakes a rethinking of what "world-forming" might mean. At stake in this distinction is for him nothing less than two possible destinies of our humanity, and of our time. On the one hand, with globalization, there is the uniformity produced by a global economical and technological logic leading to the contrary of an inhabitable world, "the un-world" (l'im-monde)-as Nancy refers to it-an un-world that entails social disintegration, misery, and injustice. And, on the other hand, there is the possibility of an authentic world-forming, that is, of a making of the world and of a making sense that Nancy calls a "creation" of the world. Nancy understands such world-forming in terms of an inexhaustible struggle for justice. This book is an important contribution by Nancy to a philosophical reflection on the phenomenon of globalization and a further development on his earlier works on our being-in-common, justice, and a-theological existence.

Jacques Derrida - The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond




The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond

by Jacques Derrida


You were reading a somewhat retro loveletter, the last in history. But you have not yet received it. Yes, its lack or excess of address prepares it to fall into all hands: a post card, an open letter in which the secret appears, but indecipherably. What does a post card want to say to you? On what conditions is it possible? Its destination traverses you, you no longer know who you are. At the very instant when from its address it interpellates, you, uniquely you, instead of reaching you it divides you or sets you aside, occasionally overlooks you. And you love and you do not love, it makes of you what you wish, it takes you, it leaves you, it gives you. On the other side of the card, look, a proposition is made to you, S and p, Socrates and plato. For once the former seems to write, and with his other hand he is even scratching. But what is Plato doing with his outstretched finger in his back? While you occupy yourself with turning it around in every direction, it is the picture that turns you around like a letter, in advance it deciphers you, it preoccupies space, it procures your words and gestures, all the bodies that you believe you invent in order to determine its outline. You find yourself, you, yourself, on its path. The thick support of the card, a book heavy and light, is also the specter of this scene, the analysis between Socrates and Plato, on the program of several others. Like the soothsayer, a "fortune-telling book" watches over and speculates on that-which-must-happen, on what it indeed might mean to happen, to arrive, to have to happen or arrive, to let or to make happen or arrive, to destine, to address, to send, to legate, to inherit, etc., if it all still signifies, between here and there, the near and the far, da und fort, the one or the other. You situate the subject of the book: between the posts and the analytic movement, the pleasure principle and the history of telecommunications, the post card and the purloined letter, in a word the transference from Socrates to Freud, and beyond. This satire of epistolary literature had to be farci, stuffed with addresses, postal codes, crypted missives, anonymous letters, all of it confided to so many modes, genres, and tones. In it I also abuse dates, signatures, titles or references, language itself.J. D."With The Post Card, as with Glas, Derrida appears more as writer than as philosopher. Or we could say that here, in what is in part a mock epistolary novel (the long section is called "Envois," roughly, "dispatches" ), he stages his writing more overtly than in the scholarly works. . . . The Post Card also contains a series of self-reflective essays, largely focused on Freud, in which Derrida is beautifully lucid and direct."—Alexander Gelley, Library Journal

Euripides and the Poetics of Nostalgia




Euripides and the Poetics of Nostalgia

by Gary S. Meltzer


Branded by critics from Aristophanes to Nietzsche as sophistic, iconoclastic, and sensationalistic, Euripides has long been held responsible for the demise of Greek tragedy. Despite this reputation, his drama has a fundamentally conservative character. It conveys nostalgia for an idealized age that still respected the gods and traditional codes of conduct. Using deconstructionist and feminist theory, this book investigates the theme of the lost voice of truth and justice in four Euripidean tragedies. The plays' unstable mix of longing for a transcendent voice of truth and skeptical analysis not only epitomizes the discursive practice of Euripides' era but also speaks to our postmodern condition. The book sheds new light on the source of the playwright's tragic power and enduring appeal, revealing the surprising relevance of his works for our own day.

среда, 6 мая 2009 г.

Raiders and Rebels: A History of the Golden Age of Piracy




Raiders and Rebels: A History of the Golden Age of Piracy

by Frank Sherry

Product Description
I he most authoritative history of piracy, Frank Sherry's rich and colorful account reveals the rise and fall of the real "raiders and rebels" who terrorized the seas. From 1692 to 1725 pirates sailed the oceans of the world, plundering ships laden with the riches of India, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. Often portrayed as larger-than-life characters, these outlaw figures and their bloodthirsty exploits have long been immortalized in fiction and film. But beneath the legends is the true story of these brigands—often common men and women escaping the social and economic restrictions of 18th-century Europe and America. Their activities threatened the beginnings of world trade and jeopardized the security of empires. And together, the author argues, they fashioned a surprisingly democratic society powerful enough to defy the world.

Harold Bloom - Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds




Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds

by Harold Bloom


Product DescriptionAmerica's most prominent and bestselling literary critic takes an enlightening look at the concept of genius through the ages in a celebration of the greatest creative writers of all time.A monumental achievement of scholarship, GENIUS examines 100 of the most creative and literary minds in history. From the Bible to Socrates, through the transcendent achievements of Shakespeare and Dante, down through the ages to Hemingway, Faulkner, and Ralph Ellison, Bloom discusses the numerous influences of his chosen geniuses and the kinships among them over the centuries. He also offers revealing excerpts from their works that continue to surprise, enchant, and move the reader time after time. Bloom's insightful analyses of the poetry of Milton, Shelley, and Whitman; the drama of Ibsen and Tennessee Williams; and the narratives of Melville and Tolstoy, among many others, will illuminate and expand readers' understanding and appreciation of these great works of art. A wide-ranging study that enriches as it informs, GENIUS is a book to treasure.

A Dictionary of Symbols




A Dictionary of Symbols

by J. E. Cirlot


Product DescriptionAt every stage of civilization, people have relied on symbolic expression, and advances in science and technology have only increased our dependence on symbols. An essential part of the ancient arts of the Orient and Western medieval traditions, symbolism underwent a twentieth-century revival with the study of the unconscious. Indeed, symbolic language is considered a science, and this informative volume offers an indispensable tool in the study of symbology. Its alphabetical entries--drawn from a diverse range of sources, including all of the major world religions, astrology, alchemy, numerology, heraldry, and prehistoric art--clarify the essential and unvarying meanings of each symbol. Whether used as a reference or browsed for pleasure, this informative volume offers a valuable key to elucidating the symbolic worlds encountered in both the arts and the history of ideas. 32 b/w illustrations.

воскресенье, 3 мая 2009 г.

Deconstruction: Theory and Practice



Deconstruction: Theory and Practice (New Accents)

by Christopher Norris

In this third, revised edition, Norris builds upon his 1991 afterword with an entirely new postscript, reflecting upon recent critical debate. The postscript includes an extensive list of recommended reading, complementing what was already one of the most useful bibliographies available.

Deconstruction And Criticism



Deconstruction And Criticism (Question What You Thought Before)

by Jacques Derrida, Geoffrey H. Hartman, J. Hillis Miller, Harold Bloom, Paul De Man (Authors)
This is the book that introduced deconstruction as a tool for literary and cultural theorists throughout the English-speaking world, and set the ball rolling for the subsequent controversies over the use of theory to study liuterature.

A Concise Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Drama



A Concise Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Drama (Concise Companions to Literature and Culture)

by Nadine Holdsworth, Mary Luckhurst (Editors)

Focusing on major and emerging playwrights, institutions, and various theatre practices this Concise Companion examines the key issues in British and Irish theatre since 1979. Written by leading international scholars in the field, this collection offers new ways of thinking about the social, political, and cultural contexts within which specific aspects of British and Irish theatre have emerged and explores the relationship between these contexts and the works produced. The collection analyses key issues such as globalization, genocide, migration, and national identity, forms such as verbatim theatre and site-specific performance, the use of new technologies, and the practice of physical theatre. It investigates why particular issues and practices have emerged as significant in the theatre of this period.

The Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism



The Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism (Cambridge Companions to Literature)

by Steven Connor (Editor)

Offering a comprehensive introduction to postmodernism, this Companion features examinations of the different aspects of postmodernist thought and culture that have had a significant effect on contemporary critical thought. Topics discussed by experts in the field include postmodernism's relation to modernity, and its significance and relevance to literature, film, law, philosophy, and modern cultural studies. Additional material includes a guide to further reading and a chronology.

четверг, 30 апреля 2009 г.

Monk's Music




Monk's Music: Thelonious Monk and Jazz History in the Making (Roth Family Foundation Music in America Imprint)

by Gabriel Solis


Thelonious Monk (1917-1982) was one of jazz's greatest and most enigmatic figures. As a composer, pianist, and bandleader, Monk both extended the piano tradition known as Harlem stride and was at the center of modern jazz's creation during the 1940s, setting the stage for the experimentalism of the 1960s and '70s. This pathbreaking study combines cultural theory, biography, and musical analysis to shed new light on Monk's music and on the jazz canon itself. Gabriel Solis shows how the work of this stubbornly nonconformist composer emerged from the jazz world's fringes to find a central place in its canon. Solis reaches well beyond the usual life-and-times biography to address larger issues in jazz scholarship--ethnography and the role of memory in history's construction. He considers how Monk's stature has grown, from the narrowly focused wing of the avant-garde in the 1960s and '70s to the present, where he is claimed as an influence by musicians of all kinds. He looks at the ways musical lineages are created in the jazz world and, in the process, addresses the question of how musicians use performance itself to maintain, interpret, and debate the history of the musical tradition we call jazz.

Artists in Exile



Artists in Exile: How Refugees from Twentieth-Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts

by Joseph Horowitz

Decades of war and revolution in Europe forced an "intellectual migration" during the last century, relocating thousands of artists and thinkers to the United States. For many of Europe's premier performing artists, America proved to be a destination both strange and opportune.
Featuring the stories of George Balanchine, Kurt Weill, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and many others, Artists in Exile explores the impact that these famous newcomers had on American culture, and that America had on them.

вторник, 28 апреля 2009 г.

World Press Encyclopedia



World Press Encyclopedia: A Survey of Press Systems Worldwide ( TWO VOL. SET )

by Amanda C. Quick
Twenty-one years after publication of the first edition, this completely revised work contains articles on the press and media in 232 countries and territories. Arranged alphabetically by country, entries generally cover the history of the Fourth Estate, press laws, economic framework, censorship, attitudes toward foreign media, a chronology of significant recent events, and a bibliography. Several entries are illustrated with black-and-white graphs depicting Internet use, top-circulation newspapers, and the number of personal computers; basic country data are also included. Three appendixes provide comparative statistical rankings (newspaper circulation, television stations, radio sets, etc.); annotated listing of news associations and organizations; and a collection of regional maps. A unified author-subject index provides easy access to the contents of both volumes.Compiled by 80 contributors, the individual essays vary greatly in quality and length (200-30,000 words). For some smaller and less developed nations, such as Belize and Benin, the essays are quite short. Essays for countries where the press is strictly regulated, such as Cambodia, can also be skimpy. Two additional appendixes would have been helpful: a listing of the Web sites for major newspapers and a general bibliography listing guides, directories, and handbooks to the world press.World Press Encyclopedia is an excellent reference source providing concise information for material currently dispersed in numerous print and Web sources. Especially valuable is the bibliography at the end of each entry. The Ghana essay, for example, cites a wide variety of sources from American media publications to Ghanaian newspapers. Useful for students, scholars, and those seeking quick information, this unique source is recommended for public and academic libraries.

Semiotics: The Basics






Semiotics: The Basics

by Dani Chandler


This up-dated second edition provides a clear and concise introduction to the key concepts of semiotics in accessible and jargon-free language. With a revised introduction and glossary, extended index and suggestions for further reading, this new edition provides an increased number of examples including computer and mobile phone technology, television commercials and the web.
Demystifying what is a complex, highly interdisciplinary field, key questions covered include:
What is a sign?
Which codes do we take for granted?
How can semiotics be used in textual analysis?
What is a text?
A highly useful, must-have resource, Semiotics: The Basics is the ideal introductory text for those studying this growing area.

Contesting the Logic of Painting




Contesting the Logic of Painting (Visualising the Middle Ages) [ILLUSTRATED]

by C.E. Barber


Drawing on a range of philosophical and theological writings produced in eleventh-century Byzantium, this book offers a reading of the icon and Byzantine aesthetics that not only expands our understanding of these topics but challenges our assumptions about the work of art itself.

воскресенье, 26 апреля 2009 г.

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man



Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man

by Marshall McLuhan

with a new introduction by Lewis H. Lapham This reissue of Understanding Media marks the thirtieth anniversary (1964-1994) of Marshall McLuhan's classic expose on the state of the then emerging phenomenon of mass media. Terms and phrases such as "the global village" and "the medium is the message" are now part of the lexicon, and McLuhan's theories continue to challenge our sensibilities and our assumptions about how and what we communicate. There has been a notable resurgence of interest in McLuhan's work in the last few years, fueled by the recent and continuing conjunctions between the cable companies and the regional phone companies, the appearance of magazines such as WiRed, and the development of new media models and information ecologies, many of which were spawned from MIT's Media Lab. In effect, media now begs to be redefined. In a new introduction to this edition of Understanding Media, Harper's editor Lewis Lapham reevaluates McLuhan's work in the light of the technological as well as the political and social changes that have occurred in the last part of this century.

Mimesis and Its Romantic Reflections



Mimesis and Its Romantic Reflections

by Frederick Burwick

In this study, Frederick Burwick probes the origins - philosophical, aesthetic and literary - of developing subjectivist mimesis in the literature and theory of the Romantic period. He draws on the theories of Aristotle, Kant, Schiller, Thomas De Quincey, and others.

Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism



Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism

by William Harmless

In the fourth century, the deserts of Egypt became the nerve center of a radical new movement, what we now call monasticism. Groups of Christians-from illiterate peasants to learned intellectuals-moved out to the wastelands beyond the Nile Valley and, in the famous words of Saint Athanasius, made the desert a city. In so doing, they captured the imagination of the ancient world. They forged techniques of prayer and asceticism, of discipleship and spiritual direction, that have remained central to Christianity ever since. Seeking to map the soul's long journey to God and plot out the subtle vagaries of the human heart, they created and inspired texts that became classics of Western spirituality. These Desert Christians were also brilliant storytellers, some of Christianity's finest. This book introduces the literature of early monasticism. It examines all the best-known works, including Athanasius' Life of Antony, the Lives of Pachomius, and the so-called Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Later chapters focus on two pioneers of monastic theology: Evagrius Ponticus, the first great theoretician of Christian mysticism; and John Cassian, who brought Egyptian monasticism to the Latin West. Along the way, readers are introduced to path-breaking discoveries-to new texts and recent archeological finds-that have revolutionized contemporary scholarship on monastic origins. Included are fascinating snippets from papyri and from little-known Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopic texts. Interspersed in each chapter are illustrations, maps, and diagrams that help readers sort through the key texts and the richly-textured world of early monasticism. Geared to a wide audience and written in clear, jargon-free prose, Desert Christians offers the most comprehensive and accessible introduction to early monasticism.

суббота, 18 апреля 2009 г.

Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography




Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography

by Lynne Warren

Product DescriptionPhotography is an international cultural form, practice, and profession. Encompassing art, advertising, journalism, fashion, commercial, political, and everyday photography, the field of photography also includes chemical processes, mechanical inventions, equipment, industries, movements, techniques, terms and concepts. In addition, photography has a considerable presence in public forums of all kinds, such as museums, archives, galleries, and publications.The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography brings together this rich history in three volumes. It explores the vast international scope of twentieth-century photography and explains that history with a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary manner. This unique approach covers the aesthetic history of photography as an evolving art and documentary form, while also recognizing it as a developing technology and cultural force. This three volume Encyclopedia presents the important developments, movements, photographers, photographic institutions, and theoretical aspects of the field along with information about equipment, techniques, and practical applications of photography. To bring this history alive for the reader, the set is illustrated in black and white throughout, and each volume contains a color plate section. A useful glossary of terms is also included.

The Byzantine Revival




The Byzantine Revival, 780-842

by Warren T. Treadgold


This is the story of how the Byzantine Empire, led by a succession of extraordinary rulers, emerged from a long decline to reclaim its place as a leading state of the medieval world. "This is a work of painstaking and substantive scholarship that should long remain the authoritative work on the period...The illustrations have been carefully selected and nicely reproduced. The publisher should be complimented on producing a handsome volume." American Historical Review

UXL Encyclopedia of World Biography




UXL Encyclopedia of World Biography Edition 1. [ILLUSTRATED]

by Laura B. Tyle (Editor)


A collection of 750 biographies and portraits of notable historic and current figures in American and world history, literature, science and math, arts and entertainment, and the social sciences.