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The state of being called nostalgia has a history fraught with ambiguity and poetical connotation. In the late 17th century, nostalgic reminiscences were thought to be the symptoms of a deadly disease that shook one's mind and body. Today, we view nostalgia not as a medical condition, but as a bittersweet recollection of one's past joys and sorrows—the memories and treasures of an earlier self. And yet, there remains a category of individuals for whom such recollection can be seriously problematic: immigrants. In Yesterday's Self, Andreea Ritivoi explores the philosophical and historical dimensions of nostalgia in the lives of immigrants, forging a connection between current trends in the ...
Hannah Arendt, Herbert Marcuse, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and Edward Said each steered major intellectual and political schools of thought in American political discourse after World War II, yet none of them was American, which proved crucial to their ways of arguing and reasoning both in and out of the American context. In an effort to convince their audiences they were American enough, these thinkers deployed deft rhetorical strategies that made their cosmopolitanism feel acceptable, inspiring radical new approaches to longstanding problems in American politics. Speaking like natives, they also exploited their foreignness to entice listeners to embrace alternative modes of thought. Intimate ...
A proposal that the biolinguistic approach to human languages may have identified, beyond the study of language, a specific structure of the human mind. The contemporary discipline of biolinguistics is beginning to have the feel of scientific inquiry. Biolinguistics—especially the work of Noam Chomsky—suggests that the design of language may be “perfect”: language is an optimal solution to conditions of sound and meaning. What is the scope of this inquiry? Which aspect of nature does this science investigate? What is its relation to the rest of science? What notions of language and mind are under investigation? This book is a study of such foundational questions. Exploring Chomsky's ...
A study of controversy in the arts, and the extent to which such controversies are socially rather than just aesthetically conditioned. The collection pays special attention to the vested interests and the social dynamics involved, including class, religion, culture, and - above all - power.
This book looks at the role nostalgia plays in the radical imagination to offer a new guide to the history and politics of the left. In "Left in the Past", Bonnett re-assesses the place of nostalgia within radical politics and, in doing so, provides a new introduction to the history and politics of the left. Bonnett argues that nostalgia has been a chronic, but repressed, aspect of the socialist imagination. "Left in the Past" is premised on the idea that, in our 'post-socialist era', the relationship between radicalism and a sense of loss, and the ambivalent position of socialism in and against modernity, can be viewed with greater clarity. In Section One of the book, Bonnett shows the centrality and repression of nostalgia in both 19th-century radicalism and anti-colonial radicalism. In Section Two, he explores the consequences of this inheritance by way of 20th century and contemporary studies of revolutionary intellectuals and intellectual culture. Bonnett's unique approach in how to understand the left in an age of post-socialism will make book a needed resource for anyone interested in the history and politics of the left and radicalism.
This guide describes 27 short treks of 2-6 days and 10 day walks in the mountains of Romania. Although there is a slight focus on Transylvania, most of the main massifs are included, with chapters covering the Mountains of Maramures, the Eastern Carpathians, the mountains around Brasov, the Fagara?, the region between the Olt and the Jiu, the Retezat, the mountains of Banat and the Apuseni. Also included is an ascent of Moldoveanu, Romania's highest peak at 2544m. There is a wealth of advice to help you plan your trip and organise the logistics of your walk or trek. Some routes avail of the network of mountain huts; others offer opportunities to camp in attractive wild locations. Overviews a...
This volume collects twenty-one original essays that discuss Michael Krausz’s distinctive and provocative contribution to the theory of interpretation. At the beginning of the book Krausz offers a synoptic review of his central claims, and he concludes with a substantive essay that replies to scholars from the United States, England, Germany, India, Japan, and Australia. Krausz’s philosophical work centers around a distinction that divides interpreters of cultural achievements into two groups. Singularists assume that for any object of interpretation only one single admissible interpretation can exist. Multiplists assume that for some objects of interpretation more than one interpretation is admissible. A central question concerns the ontological entanglements involved in interpretive activity. Domains of application include works of art and music, as well as literary, historical, legal and religious texts. Further topics include truth commissions, ethnocentrism and interpretations across cultures.
This is the first book to systematically explore contemporary continental philosopher Paul Ricoeur's contribution to modem rhetorical theory. Andreea Deciu Ritivoi analyzes provocative test cases and investigates four topics central to the core vocabulary of the field-opinion, practical reasoning, commemoration, and solidarity. Her findings provide clarification on important problems and shed new light on troubling social and political issues. Placing Ricoeur's views in a larger intellectual context, Ritivoi identifies both the philosophical influences that have shaped them over the years and the correspondences with various relevant rhetorical theories. In doing so, she proves that a rhetorical enterprise refashioned with Ricoeur's help enables us to address questions that are crucially relevant to our time yet also grounded in the historical basis of the discipline.
What do we mean by ‘visual evidence’? How should we interpret visual texts, and what can they tell us? Why is ‘visual literacy’ so important and what benefits does it offer? Visual evidence encompasses a diverse range of media, from painting, cartoons and photography, to film, television and documentary. The central argument of this book is that visual evidence is a key to understanding both history and the present day and should not be relegated to a supporting role as merely illustrating the written word. The book shows students, scholars and researchers how to read the visual media to elicit meaning. As primary sources, visual texts can be studied not only for what is directly dep...
Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur were two of the most important hermeneutical philosophers of the twentieth century. Gadamer single-handedly revived hermeneutics as a philosophical field with his many essays and his masterpiece, Truth and Method. Ricoeur famously mediated the Gadamer-Habermas debate and advanced his own hermeneutical philosophy through a number of books addressing social theory, religion, psychoanalysis and political philosophy. This book brings Gadamer and Ricoeur into a hermeneutical conversation with each other through some of their most important commentators. Twelve leading scholars deliver contemporary assessments of the history and promise of hermeneutical philosophy, providing focused discussion on the work of these two key hermeneutical thinkers. The book shows how the horizons of their thought at once support and question each other and how, in many ways, the work of these two pioneering philosophers defines the issues and agendas for the new century.