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Irony of Theology and the Nature of Religious Thought
Donald Wiebe critically examines the pervasive assumption that theology is a form of religious thought that is both compatible with and supportive of religious faith. The irony, he argues, is that theology is in fact detrimental to religion and the religious way of life.
Kierkegaard and His Contemporaries
Interpreting Kierkegaard in the general context of Golden Age Denmark, this interdisciplinary anthology features articles which treat his various relations to his most famous Danish contemporaries. It aims to see them not as minor figures laboring in Kierkegaard's shadow but rather as significant thinkers and artists in their own right. The articles illuminate both Kierkegaard's influence on his contemporaries and their varied influences on him. By means of the analyses of these various relations, aspects of Kierkegaard's authorship are brought into new and insightful perspectives. The featured essays treat some of the most important figures from the time, representing the fields of philosophy, theology, literature, criticism and art.
The Golden Horns
As an introduction to modern myth, The Golden Horns masterfully encompasses a wide circle of historical and literary materials. John Greenway first establishes the theoretical base of his discussion by examining the nature of time in Norse mythic consciousness. After suggesting several ways in which the mythic apprehension of reality conditioned medieval Icelandic narrative, he then elaborates on the dialectical relationship between myth and reason. Maintaining that myth is neither true nor false but always either expressive or not, the author then traces the origin, rise, and fall of two great modern myths of northern birth: seventeenth century Swedish Gothicism and the Ossianic craze of th...
Vampires
In the modern world vampires come in all forms: they can be perpetrators or victims, metaphors or monsters, scapegoats for sinfulness or mirrors of our own evil. What becomes obvious from the scope of the fifteen essays in this collection is that vampires have infiltrated just about every area of popular culture and consciousness. In fact, the way that vampires are depicted in all types of media is often a telling signifier of the fears and expectations of a culture or community and the way that it perceives itself; and others. The volume’s essays offer a fascinating insight into both vampires themselves and the cultures that envisage them.
The Body Electric
Between the years 1850 and 1950, Americans became the leading energy consumers on the planet, expending tremendous physical resources on energy exploration, mental resources on energy exploitation, and monetary resources on energy acquisition. A unique combination of pseudoscientific theories of health and the public’s rudimentary understanding of energy created an age in which sources of industrial power seemed capable of curing the physical limitations and ill health that plagued Victorian bodies. Licensed and “quack” physicians alike promoted machines, electricity, and radium as invigorating cures, veritable “fountains of youth” that would infuse the body with energy and push ou...
Pseudo-Science and Society in 19th-Century America
Progressive nineteenth-century Americans believed firmly that human perfection could be achieved with the aid of modern science. To many, the science of that turbulent age appeared to offer bright new answers to life's age-old questions. Such a climate, not surprisingly, fostered the growth of what we now view as "pseudo-sciences"—disciplines delicately balancing a dubious inductive methodology with moral and spiritual concerns, disseminated with a combination of aggressive entrepreneurship and sheer entertainment. Such "sciences" as mesmerism, spiritualism, homoeopathy, hydropathy, and phrenology were warmly received not only by the uninformed and credulous but also by the respectable and...
Geographies of Knowledge and Imagination in 19th Century Philological Research on Northern Europe
Comparative philology was one of the most prolific fields of knowledge in the humanities during the 19th century. Based on the discovery of the Indo-European language family, it seemed to admit the reconstruction of a common history of European languages, and even mythologies, literatures, and people. However, it also represented a way to establish geographies of belonging and difference in the context of 19th century nation-building and identity politics. In spite of a widely acknowledged consensus about the principles and methods of comparative philology, the results depended on local conditions and practices. If Scandinavians were considered to be Germanic or not, for example, was up to i...
A History of Hegelianism in Golden Age Denmark, Tome I
This is the first of a three-volume work dedicated to exploring the influence of G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophical thinking in Golden Age Denmark. The work demonstrates that the largely overlooked tradition of Danish Hegelianism played a profound and indeed constitutive role in many spheres of Golden Age culture. This initial tome covers the period from the beginning of the Hegel reception in the Danish Kingdom in the 1820s until the end of 1836. The dominant figure from this period is the poet and critic Johan Ludvig Heiberg, who attended Hegel’s lectures in Berlin in 1824 and then launched a campaign to popularize Hegel’s philosophy among his fellow countrymen. Using his journal Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post as a platform, Heiberg published numerous articles containing ideas that he had borrowed from Hegel. Several readers felt provoked by Heiberg’s Hegelianism and wrote critical responses to him, many of which appeared in Kjøbenhavnsposten, the rival of Heiberg’s journal. Through these debates Hegel’s philosophy became an important part of Danish cultural life.
Street Urchins, Sociopaths and Degenerates
From the notable emergence of orphan figures in late eighteenth-century literature, through early- and middle-period Victorian fiction and, as this book argues, well into the fin de siecle, this potent literary type is remarkable for its consistent recurrence and its metamorphosis as a register of cultural conditions. The striking ubiquity of orphans in the literature of these periods encourages inquiry into their metaphoric implications and the manner in which they function as barometers of burgeoning social concerns. The overwhelming majority of criticism focusing on orphans centres particularly on the form as an early- to middle-century convention, primarily found in social and domestic w...
Somatic Fictions
This book focuses on the centrality of illness—particularly psychosomatic illness—as an imaginative construct in Victorian culture. It shows how illness shaped the terms through which people perceived relationships between body and mind, self and other, private and public, and how Victorians tried to understand and control their world through a process of physiological and pathological definition.
