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Reading Ranciere: Critical Dissensus
by Paul Bowman Richard StampOver the past 40 years, Jacques Rancière's work has defined itself through a remarkable set of philosophical differences in relation to other key figures working in the fields of politics, philosophy and aesthetics. There have been significant philosophical, theoretical and aesthetic disagreements with influential figures in contemporary thought, including Althusser, Bourdieu, Derrida, Agamben, Deleuze, Foucault, Habermas and Badiou. Through these differences Rancière has emerged as one of the world's leading contemporary theorists. Whilst Rancière has long been a well-known force in francophone contexts, the translation of his works into English has generated a lot of excitement and catapulted him to the forefront of attention in several putatively distinct but interconnected fields: philosophy, politics, critical theory, aesthetics and film. Reading Rancière intervenes in this ongoing discourse by assembling an eminent collection of critical assessments of the significance of Rancière's diverse impact and growing influence. This book offers a sustained, critically balanced response to the work of this major contemporary theorist, as well as a new interview and a key text published here for the first time.
The Truth of Žižek
by Paul Bowman Richard StampSlavoj Žižek is widely regarded as one of the world's most important contemporary thinkers. His work has contributed dramatically to the reinvention and revivification of many key theoretical and political debates. Indeed, his vociferous and challenging body of work amounts to a sustained, ground-breaking, terrain-shifting and far reaching intervention into a large number of academic disciplines, intellectual fields and cultural debates. The Truth of Žižek addresses the rigorous critical assessment demanded by this broad and increasingly influential corpus. This timely and compelling collection of essays from an international team of leading Žižekian scholars addresses the full range of Žižek's theoretical interventions, assessing critically the political, philosophical, psychoanalytical, cultural and institutional stakes of his work. Each chapter engages with and challenges Žižek's thought to explicate a key aspect of his work, clarifying its importance and challenging its claims through rigorous critique. By focusing on Žižek's contributions to these disciplines, fields and debates, this collection sets out to diagnose and assess the emergence of a ' Žižekian moment' within contemporary intellectual, cultural and political events. The Truth of Žižek provides the first sustained engagement with and assessment of the significant impact of Žižek's work. This compelling and valuable collection of essays from cutting edge scholars picks up the gauntlet thrown down by Žižek: the demand that his readers respond with 'the coldness and cruelty of true friendship.'
Dream Lovers: The Gamification of Relationships (Digital Barricades)
by Alfie BownWe are in the middle of a 'desirevolution' - a fundamental and political transformation of the way we desire as human beings. Perhaps as always, new technologies - with their associated and inherited political biases - are organising and mapping the future. What we don’t seem to notice is that the primary way in which our lives are being transformed is through the manipulation and control of desire itself. Our very impulses, drives and urges are 'gamified' to suit particular economic and political agendas, changing the way we relate to everything from lovers and friends to food and politicians. Digital technologies are transforming the subject at the deepest level of desire – re-mapping its libidinal economy - in ways never before imagined possible. From sexbots to smart condoms, fitbits to VR simulators and AI to dating algorithms, the 'love industries' are at the heart of the future smart city and the social fabric of everyday life. This book considers these emergent technologies and what they mean for the future of love, desire, work and capitalism.
In the Event of Laughter: Psychoanalysis, Literature and Comedy (Psychoanalytic Horizons)
by Alfie BownUsing Lacanian psychoanalysis, as well as its pre-history and afterlives, In the Event of Laughter argues for a new framework for discussing laughter. Responding to a tradition of 'comedy studies' that has been interested only in the causes of laughter (in why we laugh), it proposes a different relationship between laughter and causality. Ultimately it argues that laughter is both cause and effect, troubling chronological time and asking for a more nuanced way of conceiving the relationship between subjects and their laughter than existing theories have accounted for. Making this visible via psychoanalytic ideas of retroactivity, Alfie Bown explores how laughter – far from being a mere response to a stimulus – changes the relationship between the present, the past and the future. Bown investigates this hypothesis in relation to a range of comic texts from the 'history of laughter,' discussing Chaucer, Shakespeare, Kafka and Chaplin, as well as lesser-known but vital figures from the comic genre.
In the Event of Laughter: Psychoanalysis, Literature and Comedy (Psychoanalytic Horizons)
by Alfie BownUsing Lacanian psychoanalysis, as well as its pre-history and afterlives, In the Event of Laughter argues for a new framework for discussing laughter. Responding to a tradition of 'comedy studies' that has been interested only in the causes of laughter (in why we laugh), it proposes a different relationship between laughter and causality. Ultimately it argues that laughter is both cause and effect, troubling chronological time and asking for a more nuanced way of conceiving the relationship between subjects and their laughter than existing theories have accounted for. Making this visible via psychoanalytic ideas of retroactivity, Alfie Bown explores how laughter – far from being a mere response to a stimulus – changes the relationship between the present, the past and the future. Bown investigates this hypothesis in relation to a range of comic texts from the 'history of laughter,' discussing Chaucer, Shakespeare, Kafka and Chaplin, as well as lesser-known but vital figures from the comic genre.
Slavery, Freedom and Conflict: A Story of Two Birminghams
by Jane L. BownasA Story of Two Birminghams examines the roles played by two cities and the areas in which they are situated in the long history of people of African origin and their ancestors who were taken into slavery, experienced a phoney freedom and subsequently experienced racism, segregation and violence. From the eighteenth century the industrial city of Birmingham in England was involved in the manufacture of guns used in the African slave trade and then later, in the production and export of the steam engines used on the sugar plantations in the West Indies. In northern Alabama, on land where another industrial city of the same name would later develop, African slaves worked on cotton plantations owned by planters who would later make their fortunes by selling the mineral rich land. Abolitionists in Birmingham UK, and in the Southern States fought against much opposition to achieve freedom for the slaves. But this was often a phoney freedom: for example, under an apprenticeship system in Jamaica people endured conditions often worse than under slavery, and in Alabama they endured hard labour in the development of the new industrial city and under the Convict Lease system. Slavery, Freedom and Conflict follows the life path of descendants of slaves into the twentieth century, the difficulties experienced by West Indian immigrants in Birmingham UK, the segregation laws imposed in Birmingham, Alabama and the US Civil Rights movement which followed. Later in the century, riots occurring in Handsworth (Birmingham UK), the election of a far-right, racist politician in nearby Smethwick and the infamous speech of Enoch Powell indicated that, as in Birmingham, Alabama many black people were still suffering from the iniquities of the slave trade inflicted upon their ancestors more than two hundred years previously. This book is essential reading for all those with an interest in the history of slavery, and in the local history of the West Midlands of England and the Northern counties of Alabama.
Slavery, Freedom and Conflict: A Story of Two Birminghams
by Jane BownasA Story of Two Birminghams examines the roles played by two cities and the areas in which they are situated in the long history of people of African origin and their ancestors who were taken into slavery, experienced a phoney freedom and subsequently experienced racism, segregation and violence. From the eighteenth century the industrial city of Birmingham in England was involved in the manufacture of guns used in the African slave trade and then later, in the production and export of the steam engines used on the sugar plantations in the West Indies. In northern Alabama, on land where another industrial city of the same name would later develop, African slaves worked on cotton plantations owned by planters who would later make their fortunes by selling the mineral rich land. Abolitionists in Birmingham UK, and in the Southern States fought against much opposition to achieve freedom for the slaves. But this was often a phoney freedom: for example, under an apprenticeship system in Jamaica people endured conditions often worse than under slavery, and in Alabama they endured hard labour in the development of the new industrial city and under the Convict Lease system. Slavery, Freedom and Conflict follows the life path of descendants of slaves into the twentieth century, the difficulties experienced by West Indian immigrants in Birmingham UK, the segregation laws imposed in Birmingham, Alabama and the US Civil Rights movement which followed. Later in the century, riots occurring in Handsworth (Birmingham UK), the election of a far-right, racist politician in nearby Smethwick and the infamous speech of Enoch Powell indicated that, as in Birmingham, Alabama many black people were still suffering from the iniquities of the slave trade inflicted upon their ancestors more than two hundred years previously. This book is essential reading for all those with an interest in the history of slavery, and in the local history of the West Midlands of England and the Northern counties of Alabama.
Andre Gorz and the Sartrean Legacy: Arguments for a Person-Centred Social Theory
by Finn BowringA comprehensive and scholarly exploration of the personal and philosophical origins of André Gorz's work, this book includes a unique analysis of his early untranslated texts, as well as critical discussion of his relationship to the work of Husserl, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Marx and Habermas. Reassessing pivotal notions such as the 'lifeworld' and the 'subject', it argues that Gorz has pioneered a person-centred social theory in which the motive and meaning of social critique is firmly rooted in people's lived experience.
Erotic Love in Sociology, Philosophy and Literature: From Romanticism to Rationality
by Finn BowringWhy is 'love' taken for granted as a part of human experience? And why is sexual or romantic love in particular so important to us? This book aims to find out, tracing the intellectual history of sexual love, from the ancient Greeks to the modern day.Erotic Love shows how discourses of love have intersected with social and cultural trends, as well as with personal events and experiences. Beginning with the queering of love in Greek antiquity, it looks at how sexual love has been sung about, fictionalized and theorized as a cornerstone of the formation of Western culture. From the courtly love of twelfth-century troubadours and the rise of affective individualism in the eighteenth century, to the way the novel helped catalyze and crystallize the hopes and contradictions of love and marriage, these are decisive episodes in the history of romantic love. Lastly, the book deals with how sociologists and feminist theorists have made sense of the liberalization of sexuality over the last fifty years, especially given the post-romantic pragmatism of commercialized dating practices.Arguing against the over-rationalism of intimate life, Erotic Love recognizes the need to liberate love from patriarchal, racist and homophobic prejudices, and highlights the value of literary and sociological traditions to emphasize how they dignify the rhapsodies and the sufferings of love.
Erotic Love in Sociology, Philosophy and Literature: From Romanticism to Rationality (Bloomsbury Revelations Ser.)
by Finn BowringWhy is 'love' taken for granted as a part of human experience? And why is sexual or romantic love in particular so important to us? This book aims to find out, tracing the intellectual history of sexual love, from the ancient Greeks to the modern day.Erotic Love shows how discourses of love have intersected with social and cultural trends, as well as with personal events and experiences. Beginning with the queering of love in Greek antiquity, it looks at how sexual love has been sung about, fictionalized and theorized as a cornerstone of the formation of Western culture. From the courtly love of twelfth-century troubadours and the rise of affective individualism in the eighteenth century, to the way the novel helped catalyze and crystallize the hopes and contradictions of love and marriage, these are decisive episodes in the history of romantic love. Lastly, the book deals with how sociologists and feminist theorists have made sense of the liberalization of sexuality over the last fifty years, especially given the post-romantic pragmatism of commercialized dating practices.Arguing against the over-rationalism of intimate life, Erotic Love recognizes the need to liberate love from patriarchal, racist and homophobic prejudices, and highlights the value of literary and sociological traditions to emphasize how they dignify the rhapsodies and the sufferings of love.
Donald MacKinnon's Theology: To Perceive Tragedy Without the Loss of Hope (T&T Clark Studies in English Theology)
by Andrew BowyerAndrew Bowyer presents the first comprehensive examination of Donald MacKinnon's theology in relation to his moral philosophy. He offers an original and creative reading of MacKinnon's methodology, and important insights into the key influences and core questions which stood at the heart of his work. Bowyer outlines MacKinnon's contributions to Anglican theology in the aftermath of the Second World War, highlighting the “therapeutic” nature of his approach in as far as it combined a call for intense self-awareness with a commitment to moral realism. . As one of the most influential Anglican theologians in the mid-twentieth century, MacKinnon's writings reveal him as a restive and unsystematic thinker. However, Bowyer argues that a series of reoccurring questions – 'obsessions' might better honour the memory of MacKinnon's temperament –appear throughout his work, relating to the tensions between the realism and idealism, the call to be “morally serious”, the nature of theological truth claims, and the perennially disruptive presence of Christ. Bowyer examines the key influences on MacKinnon's thought, the centrality of Christology to his project, his engagement with literature and literary criticism, as well as his response to Wittgenstein's later philosophy. This volume offers an appreciation of his contribution and a critique of his legacy.
Donald MacKinnon's Theology: To Perceive Tragedy Without the Loss of Hope (T&T Clark Studies in English Theology)
by Andrew BowyerAndrew Bowyer presents the first comprehensive examination of Donald MacKinnon's theology in relation to his moral philosophy. He offers an original and creative reading of MacKinnon's methodology, and important insights into the key influences and core questions which stood at the heart of his work. Bowyer outlines MacKinnon's contributions to Anglican theology in the aftermath of the Second World War, highlighting the “therapeutic” nature of his approach in as far as it combined a call for intense self-awareness with a commitment to moral realism. . As one of the most influential Anglican theologians in the mid-twentieth century, MacKinnon's writings reveal him as a restive and unsystematic thinker. However, Bowyer argues that a series of reoccurring questions – 'obsessions' might better honour the memory of MacKinnon's temperament –appear throughout his work, relating to the tensions between the realism and idealism, the call to be “morally serious”, the nature of theological truth claims, and the perennially disruptive presence of Christ. Bowyer examines the key influences on MacKinnon's thought, the centrality of Christology to his project, his engagement with literature and literary criticism, as well as his response to Wittgenstein's later philosophy. This volume offers an appreciation of his contribution and a critique of his legacy.
An Accidental Statistician: The Life and Memories of George E. P. Box
by George E. BoxCelebrating the life of an admired pioneer in statistics In this captivating and inspiring memoir, world-renowned statistician George E. P. Box offers a firsthand account of his life and statistical work. Writing in an engaging, charming style, Dr. Box reveals the unlikely events that led him to a career in statistics, beginning with his job as a chemist conducting experiments for the British army during World War II. At this turning point in his life and career, Dr. Box taught himself the statistical methods necessary to analyze his own findings when there were no statisticians available to check his work. Throughout his autobiography, Dr. Box expertly weaves a personal and professional narrative to illustrate the effects his work had on his life and vice-versa. Interwoven between his research with time series analysis, experimental design, and the quality movement, Dr. Box recounts coming to the United States, his family life, and stories of the people who mean the most to him. This fascinating account balances the influence of both personal and professional relationships to demonstrate the extraordinary life of one of the greatest and most influential statisticians of our time. An Accidental Statistician also features: • Two forewords written by Dr. Box’s former colleagues and closest confidants • Personal insights from more than a dozen statisticians on how Dr. Box has influenced and continues to touch their careers and lives • Numerous, previously unpublished photos from the author’s personal collection An Accidental Statistician is a compelling read for statisticians in education or industry, mathematicians, engineers, and anyone interested in the life story of an influential intellectual who altered the world of modern statistics.
An Accidental Statistician: The Life and Memories of George E. P. Box
by George E. BoxCelebrating the life of an admired pioneer in statistics In this captivating and inspiring memoir, world-renowned statistician George E. P. Box offers a firsthand account of his life and statistical work. Writing in an engaging, charming style, Dr. Box reveals the unlikely events that led him to a career in statistics, beginning with his job as a chemist conducting experiments for the British army during World War II. At this turning point in his life and career, Dr. Box taught himself the statistical methods necessary to analyze his own findings when there were no statisticians available to check his work. Throughout his autobiography, Dr. Box expertly weaves a personal and professional narrative to illustrate the effects his work had on his life and vice-versa. Interwoven between his research with time series analysis, experimental design, and the quality movement, Dr. Box recounts coming to the United States, his family life, and stories of the people who mean the most to him. This fascinating account balances the influence of both personal and professional relationships to demonstrate the extraordinary life of one of the greatest and most influential statisticians of our time. An Accidental Statistician also features: • Two forewords written by Dr. Box’s former colleagues and closest confidants • Personal insights from more than a dozen statisticians on how Dr. Box has influenced and continues to touch their careers and lives • Numerous, previously unpublished photos from the author’s personal collection An Accidental Statistician is a compelling read for statisticians in education or industry, mathematicians, engineers, and anyone interested in the life story of an influential intellectual who altered the world of modern statistics.
The Suasive Art of David Hume
by M. A. BoxRecognized in his day as a man of letters equaling Rousseau and Voltaire in France and rivaling Samuel Johnson, David Hume passed from favor in the Victorian age--his work, it seemed, did not pursue Truth but rather indulged in popularization. Although Hume is once more considered as one of the greatest British philosophers, scholars now tend to focus on his thought rather than his writing. To round out our understanding of Hume, M. A. Box in this book charts the interrelated development of Hume's literary ambitions, theories of style, and compositional practice from his Treatise in 1739 through the Enquiries. In so doing, Box makes the case for Hume's career-long concern with the presentational modes of reaching an audience for his philosophical writings. Hume reacted to the popular failure of his masterpiece, A Treatise of Human Nature, Box suggests, by self-consciously exploring strategies in his subsequent works for agreeably bringing his readership to participate in the act of philosophizing. Combining a sensitive grasp of the ways Restoration period and eighteenth-century writers conceived the relations between rhetoric and philosophy with sound readings of particular texts, Box shows how Hume's literary concerns went beyond matters of style to involve persona, structure, and doctrine. While this book helps explain long-standing ambiguities surrounding Hume, especially by pointing out the tension between his created persona and his own voice, it also serves as an excellent introduction to his philosophy.Originally published in 1990.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
The Lost Art of the Good Schmooze: Building Rapport and Defusing Conflict in Everyday and Public Talk
by Diana BoxerThis book shows how a good schmooze can be turned to social benefit, without the humiliation of "sucking up" or the hypocrisy of the "the hard sell."The good schmooze is talk about life itself: the good, the bad, and the ugly—a heartfelt interaction with others—chatting, not "chatting up." The Lost Art of the Good Schmooze: Building Rapport and Defusing Conflict in Everyday and Public Talk is about what to say, when to say it, and how to say it. Full of insights that will prove useful at work, at home, with friends, and just about everywhere else, the book will help readers become tactful schmoozers who can defuse situational tensions and lubricate personal, social, workplace, and political interactions with others.The book is organized around five occasions: schmoozing in social interactions, family schmoozing, schmoozing in the workplace, schmoozing in education, and schmoozing in cross-cultural interactions. Examples of both successful and failed schmoozing are drawn from television, films, news, and everyday life. Hundreds of real-world verbal interactions illustrate how recapturing this lost art can lead to increased harmony in all spheres of life.
Adult Education as Empowerment: Re-imagining Lifelong Learning through the Capability Approach, Recognition Theory and Common Goods Perspective (Palgrave Studies in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning)
by Pepka Boyadjieva Petya Ilieva-TrichkovaThis book re-imagines the essence and role of adult education at both the individual and societal levels. It provides arguments for understanding adult education as a process of agency and empowerment, which has not only instrumental but intrinsic and transformative roles to play. This book brings together ideas from the capability approach with insights from recognition theory; the embeddedness approach; the political economic perspective for understanding public and private goods and the common goods perspective. The analysis draws on data from large-scale international studies – alongside qualitative data - and adopts a wide-ranging European comparative perspective. The book develops original instruments for measuring different dimensions of adult education as a common good, and its realisation in different social contexts. It is aimed at academics, students, practitioners, and policy makers interested in adult and/or higher education and the social justice perspective to human life.
Socrates and the Fat Rabbis
by Daniel BoyarinWhat kind of literature is the Talmud? To answer this question, Daniel Boyarin looks to an unlikely source: the dialogues of Plato. In these ancient texts he finds similarities, both in their combination of various genres and topics and in their dialogic structure. But Boyarin goes beyond these structural similarities, arguing also for a cultural relationship. In Socrates and the Fat Rabbis, Boyarin suggests that both the Platonic and the talmudic dialogues are not dialogic at all. Using Michael Bakhtin’s notion of represented dialogue and real dialogism, Boyarin demonstrates, through multiple close readings, that the give-and-take in these texts is actually much closer to a monologue in spirit. At the same time, he shows that there is a dialogism in both texts on a deeper structural level between a voice of philosophical or religious dead seriousness and a voice from within that mocks that very high solemnity at the same time. Boyarin ultimately singles out Menippean satire as the most important genre through which to understand both the Talmud and Plato, emphasizing their seriocomic peculiarity. An innovative advancement in rabbinic studies, as well as a bold and controversial new way of reading Plato, Socrates and the Fat Rabbis makes a major contribution to scholarship on thought and culture of the ancient Mediterranean.
Socrates and the Fat Rabbis
by Daniel BoyarinWhat kind of literature is the Talmud? To answer this question, Daniel Boyarin looks to an unlikely source: the dialogues of Plato. In these ancient texts he finds similarities, both in their combination of various genres and topics and in their dialogic structure. But Boyarin goes beyond these structural similarities, arguing also for a cultural relationship. In Socrates and the Fat Rabbis, Boyarin suggests that both the Platonic and the talmudic dialogues are not dialogic at all. Using Michael Bakhtin’s notion of represented dialogue and real dialogism, Boyarin demonstrates, through multiple close readings, that the give-and-take in these texts is actually much closer to a monologue in spirit. At the same time, he shows that there is a dialogism in both texts on a deeper structural level between a voice of philosophical or religious dead seriousness and a voice from within that mocks that very high solemnity at the same time. Boyarin ultimately singles out Menippean satire as the most important genre through which to understand both the Talmud and Plato, emphasizing their seriocomic peculiarity. An innovative advancement in rabbinic studies, as well as a bold and controversial new way of reading Plato, Socrates and the Fat Rabbis makes a major contribution to scholarship on thought and culture of the ancient Mediterranean.
Socrates and the Fat Rabbis
by Daniel BoyarinWhat kind of literature is the Talmud? To answer this question, Daniel Boyarin looks to an unlikely source: the dialogues of Plato. In these ancient texts he finds similarities, both in their combination of various genres and topics and in their dialogic structure. But Boyarin goes beyond these structural similarities, arguing also for a cultural relationship. In Socrates and the Fat Rabbis, Boyarin suggests that both the Platonic and the talmudic dialogues are not dialogic at all. Using Michael Bakhtin’s notion of represented dialogue and real dialogism, Boyarin demonstrates, through multiple close readings, that the give-and-take in these texts is actually much closer to a monologue in spirit. At the same time, he shows that there is a dialogism in both texts on a deeper structural level between a voice of philosophical or religious dead seriousness and a voice from within that mocks that very high solemnity at the same time. Boyarin ultimately singles out Menippean satire as the most important genre through which to understand both the Talmud and Plato, emphasizing their seriocomic peculiarity. An innovative advancement in rabbinic studies, as well as a bold and controversial new way of reading Plato, Socrates and the Fat Rabbis makes a major contribution to scholarship on thought and culture of the ancient Mediterranean.
Socrates and the Fat Rabbis
by Daniel BoyarinWhat kind of literature is the Talmud? To answer this question, Daniel Boyarin looks to an unlikely source: the dialogues of Plato. In these ancient texts he finds similarities, both in their combination of various genres and topics and in their dialogic structure. But Boyarin goes beyond these structural similarities, arguing also for a cultural relationship. In Socrates and the Fat Rabbis, Boyarin suggests that both the Platonic and the talmudic dialogues are not dialogic at all. Using Michael Bakhtin’s notion of represented dialogue and real dialogism, Boyarin demonstrates, through multiple close readings, that the give-and-take in these texts is actually much closer to a monologue in spirit. At the same time, he shows that there is a dialogism in both texts on a deeper structural level between a voice of philosophical or religious dead seriousness and a voice from within that mocks that very high solemnity at the same time. Boyarin ultimately singles out Menippean satire as the most important genre through which to understand both the Talmud and Plato, emphasizing their seriocomic peculiarity. An innovative advancement in rabbinic studies, as well as a bold and controversial new way of reading Plato, Socrates and the Fat Rabbis makes a major contribution to scholarship on thought and culture of the ancient Mediterranean.
Socrates and the Fat Rabbis
by Daniel BoyarinWhat kind of literature is the Talmud? To answer this question, Daniel Boyarin looks to an unlikely source: the dialogues of Plato. In these ancient texts he finds similarities, both in their combination of various genres and topics and in their dialogic structure. But Boyarin goes beyond these structural similarities, arguing also for a cultural relationship. In Socrates and the Fat Rabbis, Boyarin suggests that both the Platonic and the talmudic dialogues are not dialogic at all. Using Michael Bakhtin’s notion of represented dialogue and real dialogism, Boyarin demonstrates, through multiple close readings, that the give-and-take in these texts is actually much closer to a monologue in spirit. At the same time, he shows that there is a dialogism in both texts on a deeper structural level between a voice of philosophical or religious dead seriousness and a voice from within that mocks that very high solemnity at the same time. Boyarin ultimately singles out Menippean satire as the most important genre through which to understand both the Talmud and Plato, emphasizing their seriocomic peculiarity. An innovative advancement in rabbinic studies, as well as a bold and controversial new way of reading Plato, Socrates and the Fat Rabbis makes a major contribution to scholarship on thought and culture of the ancient Mediterranean.
Socrates and the Fat Rabbis
by Daniel BoyarinWhat kind of literature is the Talmud? To answer this question, Daniel Boyarin looks to an unlikely source: the dialogues of Plato. In these ancient texts he finds similarities, both in their combination of various genres and topics and in their dialogic structure. But Boyarin goes beyond these structural similarities, arguing also for a cultural relationship. In Socrates and the Fat Rabbis, Boyarin suggests that both the Platonic and the talmudic dialogues are not dialogic at all. Using Michael Bakhtin’s notion of represented dialogue and real dialogism, Boyarin demonstrates, through multiple close readings, that the give-and-take in these texts is actually much closer to a monologue in spirit. At the same time, he shows that there is a dialogism in both texts on a deeper structural level between a voice of philosophical or religious dead seriousness and a voice from within that mocks that very high solemnity at the same time. Boyarin ultimately singles out Menippean satire as the most important genre through which to understand both the Talmud and Plato, emphasizing their seriocomic peculiarity. An innovative advancement in rabbinic studies, as well as a bold and controversial new way of reading Plato, Socrates and the Fat Rabbis makes a major contribution to scholarship on thought and culture of the ancient Mediterranean.
Political Discourse in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Ireland
by D. G. Boyce R. Eccleshall V. GeogheganThis collection explores the complex political thinking of a fundamental period of Irish history. It moves from the political, religious and military turmoil of the seventeenth century, through the years of the protestant ascendancy, to the revolutionary events at the end of the eighteenth century. The book addresses the basic conflicts of the age. In the case of religious politics it examines the hopes, anxieties, and interactions of Anglicans, Catholics and Presbyterians. It investigates the great political issues of the day - the constitutional thinkers and politicians involved in these struggles. Light is thrown on the great and the good - Swift and Molyneux, Grattan and Lucas - as well as on a huge cast of forgotten or never known figures, be they royal officials, lawyers, clergymen, landowners, or popular writers. A whole world of vibrant political debate is exposed.