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Philosophy and the Arts
This collection of philosophical essays addresses important issues in the arts, encompassing painting, sculpture, photography, film and architecture. The author's point of departure is the conviction that art in all its manifestations is an extremely significant cultural practice because it embodies a creative, reflective appropriation of social, political, economic, religious, historical and ecological developments, and as such merits close philosophical scrutiny, reflection and interpretation. The question of whether painting is still a viable artistic practice in our technocratic society is considered here, and it is no accident that both this issue and that of artificial intelligence are...
Philosophy and Communication
The essays assembled in this volume focus on philosophical questions regarding various aspects of communication. They are predicated on the author's conviction that communication between human beings, regardless of the many difficulties involved, is something of sufficient importance to justify a patient philosophical exploration such as that embarked upon here. Interwoven with philosophical considerations readers will find insights gained from psychoanalytical thinkers such as Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva. The essays address a wide range of themes. Sometimes they concern fundamental things, such as the question of the very possibility of communication or the indispensable function of co...
Intersecting Philosophical Planes
The philosophical essays collected here are predicated on the conviction that we live in a time when all-encompassing philosophical systems can no longer be seriously entertained as a true reflection of extant reality. Instead, an indefinite number of perspectives on - or discursive appropriations of - what is thought of as 'reality' are possible. Sometimes they diverge and sometimes they intersect in surprising ways, as these essays show. While the belief in an all-inclusive philosophical system is rejected, the author shows that every perspective displays a coherence and illuminating power of its own. The collection is divided into two parts. The first considers philosophy, the individual ...
Philosophy and Psychoanalytic Theory
The essays brought together in this volume are written from the dual perspectives of philosophy and psychoanalytic theory. Sometimes more weight is given to the one perspective than to the other and vice versa, but always with the conviction that the rational, argumentative and hermeneutic-interpretive approach of philosophy requires the sobering influence of psychoanalytic theory's conception of the human being as a split subject, prone to the laws of the unconscious, no less than to those of reason. Topics range from the question concerning the relation between discourse, evil and the agency of the subject to that of the non-relativistic ethical positioning of the psychotherapist; from the problem of overcoming relativism by way of a poststructuralist understanding of language to that of a cogent (Derridean) philosophical response to global 'terrorism'; and from a Lacanian understanding of narrative identity, of human knowledge as 'paranoiac', and of 'trauma literature' to a Kristevan perspective on nature as 'abject' in the light of the degradation of ecosystems globally.
A Critical Companion to James Cameron
This book offers a comprehensive, academic and detailed study of the works of James Cameron, whose films include successful productions such as the first two Terminator films (1984-91), Aliens (1986), Titanic (1997), and Avatar (2009), but also lesser known films such as Piranha 2: The Spawning (1981), The Abyss (1989), and True Lies (1994), and a series of documentaries on the depths of the ocean or on the tomb of Christ. Cameronʼs major productions have an immense and enduring popularity throughout the globe and have attracted both public and critical attention. This volume investigates several distinct areas of Cameronʼs works and addresses the different approaches and topics invited by the multidimensionality of the subject itself: the philosophical, the artistic, the socio-cultural and the personal. The methodologies adopted by the contributors differ significantly from each other, thus offering the reader a variegated and compelling picture of Cameronʼs oeuvre. Contrary to the numerous volumes published in the past on the subject, each chapter offers specific case studies that have been previously ignored, or only partially mentioned, by other scholars.
Playing with Scripture
This book puts a creative new reading of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and literary genre theory to work on the problem of Scripture. Reading texts as Scripture brings two hermeneutical assumptions into tension: that the text will continually say something new and relevant to the present situation, and that the text has stability and authority over readers. Given how contested the Bible’s meaning is, how is it possible to ‘read Scripture’ as authoritative and relevant? Rather than anchor meaning in author, text or reader, Gadamer’s phenomenological model of hermeneutical experience as Spiel (‘play’) offers a dynamic, intersubjective account of how understandin...
Crossing Borders, Dissolving Boundaries
Borders separate but also connect self and other, and literary texts not only enact these bordering processes, but form part of such processes. This book gestures towards a borderless world, stepping, as it were, with thousand-mile boots from south to north (even across the Atlantic), from South Africa to Scandinavia. It also shows how literary texts model and remodel borders and bordering processes in rich and meaningful local contexts. The essays assembled here analyse the crossing and negotiation of borders and boundaries in works by Nadine Gordimer, Ingrid Winterbach, Deneys Reitz, Janet Suzman, Marlene van Niekerk, A.S. Byatt, Thomas Harris, Frank A. Jenssen, Eben Venter, Antjie Krog, and others under different signs or conceptual points of attraction. These signs include a spiritual turn, eventfulness, self-understanding, ethnic and linguistic mobilization, performative chronotopes, the grotesque, the carceral, the rhetorical, and the interstitial. Contributors: Ileana Dimitriu, Heilna du Plooy, John Gouws, Anne Heith, Lida Krüger, Susan Meyer, Adéle Nel, Ellen Rees, Johan Schimanski, Tony Ullyatt, Phil van Schalkwyk, Hein Viljoen.
The Morality Wars
In The Morality Wars, contributors from religious and non-religious backgrounds debate the origin and nature of human goodness. While the subject is often addressed by prominent figures on both sides of the believer/atheist divide on public platforms and social media, participants seldom get the opportunity to explain their viewpoints in depth. In addition to engaging the traditional conflict between science and religious faith over the content and nature of the moral conscience, the contributors also draw on and engage with figures who are often neglected when committed theologians and atheists debate each other, such as Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Jacques Lacan.
Research Handbook on Legal Semiotics
This comprehensive Research Handbook explores the wide variety of work conducted in legal semiotics to provide a broad understanding of how the law works through signs and symbols. Demonstrating that law is a strategical system of fluctuating signs, contributors critically analyse the ever-evolving conceptualisations of law and legal discourse.
The Impact of Media
Pluralism has become the defining characteristic of modern societies. Individuals with differing values clamor for equality. Organizations and groups assert particular interests. Social movements flourish and fade. Some see in this clash of principles and aims the potential for a more just human community, while others fear a cultural erosion. Yet beneath this welter stand powerful and pervasive institutions, whose distinctive norms profoundly shape our moral commitments and character. Specialists on media and communication, journalism, television, theologians, economists, sociologists, philosophers and ethicists discuss the many functions and challenges the media pose to the communication and orientation in late modern pluralistic societies. Contributions come from Germany, the UK, France, the USA, South Africa, and Australia.
