Showing papers in "The European Legacy in 2013"
TL;DR: Bourdieu as mentioned in this paper presents a combination of social theory, statistical data, illustrations, and interviews, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judg..., which is a collection of interviews with Bourdieu.
Abstract: By Pierre Bourdieu (London: Routledge, 2010), xxx + 607 pp. £15.99 paper. A combination of social theory, statistical data, illustrations, and interviews, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judg...
2,238 citations
TL;DR: Taylor probed principles for giving "wildlife...a chance to survive alongside the works of human culture" (299) and bringing "human civilization...into harmony with natu....
Abstract: Twenty-five years ago, Paul Taylor probed principles for giving “wildlife...a chance to survive alongside the works of human culture” (299) and bringing “human civilization...into harmony with natu...
272 citations
TL;DR: In his very insightful study, which received honorable mention for the National Council of Public History Book Award 2009, Jerome de Groot presents a wide range of areas in which "capital-H" Histor...
Abstract: In his very insightful study, which received honorable mention for the National Council of Public History Book Award 2009, Jerome de Groot presents a wide range of areas in which “capital-H” Histor...
98 citations
TL;DR: In his Preface George Saliba, who is a professor of astronomy, explains his use of the Arabic language and its relation with its relation to astronomy as discussed by the authors, and the relation between Arabic and astronomy.
Abstract: By George Saliba (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011), xi + 341 pp $2200 paper In his Preface George Saliba, who is a professor of astronomy, explains his use of the Arabic language and its relation
80 citations
TL;DR: Weyl's philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science as mentioned in this paper was published in 1949 and translated by Olaf Helmer (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1949, 2009).
Abstract: By Hermann Weyl. Translated by Olaf Helmer (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1949, 2009), xvii +311 pp. $19.95/£27.95 paper.The reprinting of Hermann Weyl’s Philosophy of Mathematics and ...
66 citations
TL;DR: The Impossible Engineering: Technology and Territoriality on the Canal du Midi by Chandra Mukerji as mentioned in this paper is a seminal work in the history of the canal du midi.
Abstract: By Chandra Mukerji (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), xvii + 304 pp. $35.00 cloth. Impossible Engineering: Technology and Territoriality on the Canal du Midi by Chandra Mukerji uses...
62 citations
TL;DR: Rosenbluth and Thies as mentioned in this paper presented a study of the Democratic Party of Japan's performance in the 2009 election in the House of Representatives of the United States. But they focused on the Japanese election.
Abstract: By Frances McCall Rosenbluth and Michael F. Thies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), xvi + 243 pp. $27.95/£19.95 paper. On August 30, 2009 the Democratic Party of Japan won 308 of t...
55 citations
TL;DR: Inglis as mentioned in this paper argues that the bureaucracy and regimentation of modern life have robbed the individual of any opportunity for significant action, and that celebrity is a vital social adhesive in a society fragmenting under the pressures of globalisation, digitisation and loss of community.
Abstract: While fully acknowledging the seedier aspects of modern celebrity culture, Inglis’s book is essentially optimistic. It begins with the premise that celebrity is a vital ‘social adhesive’ (p. 4) in a society fragmenting under the pressures of globalisation, digitisation and loss of community. As he outlines in his second chapter, ‘A short history of the feelings’, the emergence of celebrity accompanied the development of new ideas about self-hood and individuality during the 18th century, and in particular the Romantic commitment to live for the passions, whether love or, as Inglis wryly points out, money. The developments set in train by the Romantics lead us to what he earlier describes as the ‘radical individualisation of modern sensibility’, which, together with the rise of urban democracy and the expansion of media communication, is the sine qua non of the emergence of celebrity (p. 5). In the process, however, despite the cultural weight attached to the development of individuality, Inglis argues that the bureaucracy and regimentation of modern life have robbed the individual of any opportunity for significant action. In these circumstances media celebrities appear as the only ‘fully realised’ individuals, and become screens onto which the doubts and aspirations of the audience are projected (p. 32). Celebrities show us the possibilities of how to live, and, more importantly, how to feel, when feeling is the only sphere of action open to most of us. In many ways this is not a novel argument. As early as 1840, Thomas Carlyle was attempting to use his lectures on heroes and hero worship to identify the socially useful among the expanding number of public individuals, and naturally to arrive at a set of criteria that would identify him as one of them.(2) Thus Carlyle’s acme of the modern hero was not Napoleon, the ‘Hero as Man of Action’, but Samuel Johnson, the ‘Hero as Man of Letters’. However, realising that not everybody could aspire to such lofty heights, Carlyle also identified Boswell as the ideal type of the ‘hero worshipper’, the man whose devotion to his subject enabled him to bask in the glow of his subject’s aura, and thereby himself to attain a kind of reflected greatness.
47 citations
TL;DR: Hutto as discussed by the authors argues that our ability to understand intentional actions in terms of reasons has a decidedly sociocultural basis, rather than being a kind of biological inheritance, as stipulated by other metadiscourses (scientific theory theory and simulation theory).
Abstract: The title and subtitle of Daniel D. Hutto’s book are provocative, challenging both those who study narrative and contextualisation and those concerned with cognitive endowments and the relation between a sociocultural frame and the capacity to develop a folk psychological understanding. Questions such as—‘what is folk psychology? ‘what are folk psychological narratives?’ ‘what is the basis for understanding motivating reasons?’ and ‘how we learn to understand others?’—form the structural backbone of the book. The answers to these questions offer an elaborate defence of “the claim that our capacity to understand intentional actions in terms of reasons has a decidedly sociocultural basis” (x), rather than being “essentially...a kind of biological inheritance” (ix), as stipulated by other metadiscourses (scientific theory theory and simulation theory, see chaps. 8 and 9). The twelve chapters—from “The Limits of Spectatorial Folk Psychology” to “Ultimate Origins and Creation Myths”—revolve around one central challenge: the making of “as strong a case as possible for the underexamined idea that our interpretative abilities may well be socioculturally grounded” (x), and that the understanding of a person’s intentional actions in terms of reasons and the mastering of practical applications can be acquired by “being exposed to and engaging in a distinctive kind of narrative practice.” Hutto offers convincing arguments for the investigation of folk psychology (also known as commonsense or Homo Sapiens psychology), using the Narrative Practice Hypothesis (NPH) as the empirical basis for studying the human capacity for self-understanding and the understanding of others. Folk psychology is not only “the name of a theory or a procedure” (33): by “offering insight into how we might acquire our workaday skills” it is “first and foremost a practical enterprise. Its business is just the application of a special narrative framework in specific cases of making sense of actions” (33). Hutto invites us to see how human beings, particularly children, acquire folk psychology competence (chaps. 2, 6, 7). As a “sophisticated” (23) set of principles—the developmental capacity to construct, understand, and use narratives as a model in and for specific situations—folk psychology involves the acquisition of the practical understanding of propositional attitudes that deploy mental predicates (beliefs, desires). This competence involves “learning how to ascribe propositional attitudes to others” (131), the mastering of particular linguistic constructions (131–42), and the study of human and animal “abilities on which folk psychological competence rests” (chaps. 10, 11, 12). Philosophy, psychology, linguistics, cognitive science, communication and creativity, are all considered here in mapping the theory and practice of making sense of people’s everyday intentional actions while navigating the social world.
42 citations
42 citations
TL;DR: A valuable addition to the body of literature that analyzes women's activism in national liberation struggles and ethno-national conflicts is the work of women and political violence as mentioned in this paper, which is a critical contribution to our work.
Abstract: Women and Political Violence is a valuable addition to the body of literature that analyzes women’s activism in national liberation struggles and ethno-national conflicts. Miranda Alison’s central ...
TL;DR: Pippin this article divided the book into two chapters, each addressing a specific claim Hegel makes regrading the relationship between the author and the author's own ideas and the reader.
Abstract: By Robert B. Pippin (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), viii + 103 pp. $29.95/£20.95 cloth. This book is divided into two chapters, each addressing a specific claim Hegel makes regar...
TL;DR: Tiqqun as mentioned in this paper is a French collective, and this is its manifesto of revolt against the "ONE", the anonymous They, who want to "reduce" the French culture, which is the goal of our work.
Abstract: By Tiqqun (Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e), 2010), 231 pp. $12.95 paper. Tiqqun is a French collective, and this is its manifesto of revolt against the “ONE,” the anonymous They, who want to “reduce”...
TL;DR: Damrosch and Buthelezi as mentioned in this paper argued that comparing one literature or culture to another is not the objective of comparative literature, but to calibrate cultural worth through the comparison of "one literature orculture to another".
Abstract: There are many things to commend as well as to criticize in this collection on comparative literature’s disciplinary development. While the essays are historically important for the field, the editorial perspective leads to some disappointing omissions. Thus the book’s perspective needs some explanation. The editors include David Damrosch, Natalie Melas, and Mbongiseni Buthelezi. Former president of the American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA; 2001–3), David Damrosch holds the Ernest Bernbaum professorship and is chair of the Comparative Literature Department at Harvard University. His major publications have focused primarily on world literature, how to teach it, what constitutes it, and why we need it. He is also a driving force behind the Longman anthologies in World and British Literatures. Associate professor of comparative literature at Cornell, Natalie Melas is the author of All the Difference in the World: Postcoloniality and the Ends of Comparison (2007); Mbongiseni Buthelezi, the third editor, is lecturer in English at the University of Cape Town. He works primarily on postcolonial identities in South Africa. His most recent publication, “Praise, Politics, Performance: From Zulu izibongo to the Zionists” appears in Cambridge History Online (2011). Of the three editors, Damrosch and Melas have had significant influence in the field through their engagement with ACLA. For several decades, ACLA has set the agenda for comparative literature in the United States, stemming largely From its production of the Bernheimer Report (1993), subsequently published as Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism (1995). Although the Sourcebook editors mention it only briefly (x), the Bernheimer Report punctuates their choice of articles, their categorical divisions, as well as their theoretical perspectives. The Bernheimer Report’s most far-reaching effect has been its recognition of the instability and inadequacy of “comparison” as a founding principle of the field. Melas takes up this instability in All the Difference in the World, arguing that her “objective is neither to compare one literature or culture to another, nor to propose a new model of analysis” (xii). Her “approach...is premised...on...postcoloniality as a condition linked to the cultural logic subtending the history of European conquests...history whose extraordinary violence and almost unmitigated exploitation persist...to this day” (ibid). In other words, European imperialism or “the history of European conquests” not only produces the postcolonial condition, but it also calibrates cultural worth through the comparison of “one literature or culture to another.” If comparatists fail to recognize the centrality of these claims, it indicates the field’s amnesia regarding its inception and not the claim’s invalidity.
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TL;DR: Raunig and Derieg as discussed by the authors translated the German original into English by Gerald Raunig, and Aileen Derieg translated it into German by translating it into English with a pocket-sized book.
Abstract: By Gerald Raunig. Translated by Aileen Derieg (Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e), 2010), 120 pp. $12.95 paper. This pocket-sized book is a translation into English of the German original by Gerald Raun...
TL;DR: Anthony and Chi as discussed by the authors, with Jennifer Y. Chi, discuss the lost world in the title of this handsome publication was apt to be a dr... and discuss the importance of the lost worlds in literature.
Abstract: Edited by David W. Anthony, with Jennifer Y. Chi (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 254 pp. $49.95/£34.95 cloth. “Lost World” in the title of this handsome publication was apt to dr...
TL;DR: In this article, Wolf et al. present a short foreword by the Norwegian scholar Thomas et al., with a short summary of Wolf's work and a short introduction to the paper.
Abstract: By Eric R. Wolf. 2nd ed. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2010), xxvii + 503 pp. $27.95/£19.95 paper. This represents a reprinting, with a short foreword by the Norwegian scholar Thom...
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TL;DR: Tarankin as discussed by the authors is widely regarded as one of the world's leading authorities on Russian literature and has published a number of books on Russian language and culture, e.g., as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: By Richard Taruskin (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009), ii + 407 pp. $24.95/£16.95 paper. Richard Taruskin is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading authorities on Russian ...
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TL;DR: The answer to what distinguishes homo sapiens from other species is reading, according to Alberto Manguel as discussed by the authors, for what defines humans is also their reading of buildings, not simply book-reading.
Abstract: What distinguishes homo sapiens from other species? The answer, according to Alberto Manguel, is reading. He means not simply book-reading, for what defines humans is also our reading of buildings ...
TL;DR: The authors show that the desire for self-preservation is rationally required by modifying Hobbes' subjectivist theory of the good to equate what is good for an agent only with the satisfaction of desires (for her own life) that she has at the time that they are satisfied.
Abstract: In deriving his moral code, Hobbes does not appeal to any mind-independent good, natural human telos, or innate human sympathies. Instead he assumes a subjectivist theory of value and an egoistic theory of human motivation. Some critics, however, doubt that his laws of nature can be constructed from such scant material. Hobbes ultimately justifies the acceptance of moral laws by the fact that they promote self-preservation. But, as Hobbes himself acknowledges, not everyone prefers survival over natural liberty. In this essay I show that Hobbes can argue that the desire for self-preservation is rationally required by modifying his subjectivist theory of the good to equate what is good for an agent only with the satisfaction of desires (for her own life) that she has at the time that they are satisfied. It is thus irrational to prefer postmortem glory over survival since an agent must be alive for glory to have any value for her.