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This title explores the controversy surrounding the design of the new Foreign Office in London during Britain's Imperial heyday. In 1855 it was decided to build a new block of government offices in London, starting with the Foreign and War Offices. The government offices competition came at what was probably - looking back on it - the zenith of Britain's confidence as a nation and international power. One would expect the mid-Victorians to have felt, firstly, pride in their current national situation; and secondly, the urge to commemorate this in the most important national building to be projected in twenty years. Porter uses the debates surrounding the building of these important new monuments to interrogate the very fabric of British society, culture and nation building. The discussion on so many issues - religion, nationality, empire, history, modernism, truth, morality, gender - quite apart from considerations of 'pure' aesthetics, offers an unusual, perhaps even unique, insight into the relationship between these matters and the 'culture' of the time.
In Poetry, Pictures, and Popular Publishing eminent Rossetti scholar Lorraine Janzen Kooistra demonstrates the cultural centrality of a neglected artifact: the Victorian illustrated gift book. Turning a critical lens on “drawing-room books” as both material objects and historical events, Kooistra reveals how the gift book’s visual/verbal form mediated “high” and popular art as well as book and periodical publication. A composite text produced by many makers, the poetic gift book was designed for domestic space and a female audience; its mode of publication marks a significant moment in the history of authorship, reading, and publishing. With rigorous attention to the gift book’s ...
Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) was a polymath of dazzling intellectual range and energy. Renowned for his co-discovery of the second law of thermodynamics and his invention of the ophthalmoscope, Helmholtz also made many other contributions to physiology, physical theory, philosophy of science and mathematics, and aesthetic thought. During the late nineteenth century, Helmholtz was revered as a scientist-sage—much like Albert Einstein in this century. David Cahan has assembled an outstanding group of European and North American historians of science and philosophy for this intellectual biography of Helmholtz, the first ever to critically assess both his published and unpublished writings. It represents a significant contribution not only to Helmholtz scholarship but also to the history of nineteenth-century science and philosophy in general.
An original and profound exploration of contemplation from philosopher, theologian, and poet Kevin Hart. In Lands of Likeness, Kevin Hart develops a new hermeneutics of contemplation through a meditation on Christian thought and secular philosophy. Drawing on Kant, Schopenhauer, Coleridge, and Husserl, Hart first charts the emergence of contemplation in and beyond the Romantic era. Next, Hart shows this hermeneutic at work in poetry by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, and others. Delivered in its original form as the prestigious Gifford Lectures, Lands of Likeness is a revelatory meditation on contemplation for the modern world.
The wide-ranging and lively essays in Reading Thomas Hardy will appeal to anyone interested in Hardy. Specialists and Hardy enthusiasts will find a showcase for the work of many of the world's leading Hardy scholars. Subjects covered include Hardy the writer and Hardy the man, individual texts and wider themes, and Hardy's relationships to other artists. Whether presenting new research, embodying the best of traditional approaches, or challenging the reader with new interpretations, all the papers are authoritative and accessible.
An extraordinary city, London grew from a backwater in the Classical Age into an important medieval city and significant Renaissance urban center to a modern colossus--full of a free people ever evolving. Roy Porter touches the pulse of his hometown and makes it our own, capturing London's fortunes, people, and imperial glory with vigor and wit. 58 photos.