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Humanism, Anti-Authoritarianism, and Literary Aesthetics: Pragmatist Stories of Progress
by Ulf SchulenbergPresenting pragmatist humanism as a form of anti-authoritarianism, this book sheds light on the contemporary significance of pragmatist aesthetics and the revival of humanism.This interdisciplinary study shows that a mediation between pragmatist aesthetics – which emphasizes the significance of creating, making, and inventing – and Marxist materialist aesthetics – which values form – promises interesting results and that the former can learn from the latter.In doing so, Ulf Schulenberg discusses 3 layers of the multi-layered phenomenon that is the revival of humanism: He first explains the potential of a pragmatist humanism, clarifying the contemporary significance of humanism. He then argues that pragmatist humanism is a form of anti-authoritarianism. Finally, he shows the possibility of bringing together the resurgence of humanism and a renewed interest in the work of aesthetic form by arguing that pragmatist aesthetics needs a more complex conception of form.Establishing a transatlantic theoretical dialogue, Humanism, Anti-Authoritarianism, and Literary Aesthetics brings together literary and aesthetic theory, philosophy, and intellectual history. It discusses a broad range of authors – from Emerson, Whitman, James, Nietzsche, Proust, and Dewey to Wittgenstein, Lukács, Adorno, Jameson, Latour, and Rorty – to illuminate how humanism, pragmatism, and anti-authoritarianism are interlinked.
Humanism, Drama, and Performance: Unwriting Theatre
by Hana WorthenThis book examines the appropriation of theatre and theatrical performance by ideologies of humanism, in terms that continue to echo across the related disciplines of literary, drama, theatre, and performance history and studies today. From Aristotle onward, theatre has been regulated by three strains of critical poiesis: the literary, segregating theatre and the practices of the spectacular from the humanizing work attributed to the book and to the internality of reading; the dramatic, approving the address of theatrical performance only to the extent that it instrumentalizes literary value; and the theatrical, assimilating performance to the conjunction of literary and liberal values. These values have been used to figure not only the work of theatre, but also the propriety of the audience as a figure for its socializing work, along a privileged dualism from the aestheticized ensemble—harmonizing actor, character, and spectator to the essentialized drama—to the politicized assembly, theatre understood as an agonistic gathering.
Humanism: Foundations, Diversities, Developments (Routledge Approaches to History)
by Jörn RüsenThe book describes humanism in a systematic and historical perspective. It analyzes its manifestation and function in cultural studies and its role in the present. Within the book, special attention is given to the intention of contemporary humanism to overcome ethno-centric elements in the cultural orientation of contemporary living conditions and to develop humane dimensions of this orientation. This is linked to a fundamental critique of the current post-human self-understanding of the humanities. Furthermore, the intercultural aspect in the understanding of humanism is emphasized; for non-Western cultures also have their own humanistic traditions. Two further aspects are also addressed: the Holocaust as the most radical challenge to humanistic thinking and the relationship of humanism to nature. Sitting at the intersection of history and philosophy, the book is perfect for those exploring humanism from an historical perspective.
Humanism: Foundations, Diversities, Developments (Routledge Approaches to History)
by Jörn RüsenThe book describes humanism in a systematic and historical perspective. It analyzes its manifestation and function in cultural studies and its role in the present. Within the book, special attention is given to the intention of contemporary humanism to overcome ethno-centric elements in the cultural orientation of contemporary living conditions and to develop humane dimensions of this orientation. This is linked to a fundamental critique of the current post-human self-understanding of the humanities. Furthermore, the intercultural aspect in the understanding of humanism is emphasized; for non-Western cultures also have their own humanistic traditions. Two further aspects are also addressed: the Holocaust as the most radical challenge to humanistic thinking and the relationship of humanism to nature. Sitting at the intersection of history and philosophy, the book is perfect for those exploring humanism from an historical perspective.
The Humanist (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Literature)
by Michael BrysonThe exciting new book argues for a renewed emphasis on humanism--contrary to the trend of post-humanism, or what Neema Parvini calls "the anti-humanism" of the last several decades of literary and theoretical scholarship. In this trail-blazing study, Michael Bryson argues for this renewal of perspective by covering literature written in different languages, times, and places, calling for a return to a humanism, which focuses on literary characters and their psychological and existential struggles—not struggles of competition, but of connection, the struggles of fragmented, incomplete individuals for integration, wholeness, and unity.
The Humanist (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Literature)
by Michael BrysonThe exciting new book argues for a renewed emphasis on humanism--contrary to the trend of post-humanism, or what Neema Parvini calls "the anti-humanism" of the last several decades of literary and theoretical scholarship. In this trail-blazing study, Michael Bryson argues for this renewal of perspective by covering literature written in different languages, times, and places, calling for a return to a humanism, which focuses on literary characters and their psychological and existential struggles—not struggles of competition, but of connection, the struggles of fragmented, incomplete individuals for integration, wholeness, and unity.
Humanistic Heritage: Critical Theories of the English Novel from James to Hillis Miller
by Daniel R. SchwarzThis is an examination of the principle works of Anglo-American novel criticism, defining the values, method and concepts that these works have in common and advancing a defence of Anglo-American humanistic criticism and the ideas proposed by Structuralism, Marxism and deconstruction.
Humanitarian Journalists: Covering Crises from a Boundary Zone (Routledge Focus on Journalism Studies)
by Martin Scott Kate Wright Mel BunceThis book documents the unique reporting practices of humanitarian journalists – an influential group of journalists defying conventional approaches to covering humanitarian crises. Based on a 5-year study, involving over 150 in-depth interviews, this book examines the political, economic and social forces that sustain and influence humanitarian journalists. The authors argue that – by amplifying marginalised voices and providing critical, in-depth explanations of neglected crises – these journalists show us that another kind of humanitarian journalism is possible. However, the authors also reveal the heavy price these reporters pay for deviating from conventional journalistic norms. Their peripheral position at the ‘boundary zone’ between the journalistic and humanitarian fields means that a humanitarian journalist’s job is often precarious – with direct implications for their work, especially as ‘watchdogs’ for the aid sector. As a result, they urgently need more support if they are to continue to do this work and promote more effective and accountable humanitarian action. A rigorous study of how unique professional practices can be produced at the ‘boundary zone’ between fields, this book will interest students and scholars of journalism and communication studies, sociology and humanitarian studies. It will also appeal to those interested in studies of news and media work as occupational identities.
Humanitarian Journalists: Covering Crises from a Boundary Zone (Routledge Focus on Journalism Studies)
by Martin Scott Kate Wright Mel BunceThis book documents the unique reporting practices of humanitarian journalists – an influential group of journalists defying conventional approaches to covering humanitarian crises. Based on a 5-year study, involving over 150 in-depth interviews, this book examines the political, economic and social forces that sustain and influence humanitarian journalists. The authors argue that – by amplifying marginalised voices and providing critical, in-depth explanations of neglected crises – these journalists show us that another kind of humanitarian journalism is possible. However, the authors also reveal the heavy price these reporters pay for deviating from conventional journalistic norms. Their peripheral position at the ‘boundary zone’ between the journalistic and humanitarian fields means that a humanitarian journalist’s job is often precarious – with direct implications for their work, especially as ‘watchdogs’ for the aid sector. As a result, they urgently need more support if they are to continue to do this work and promote more effective and accountable humanitarian action. A rigorous study of how unique professional practices can be produced at the ‘boundary zone’ between fields, this book will interest students and scholars of journalism and communication studies, sociology and humanitarian studies. It will also appeal to those interested in studies of news and media work as occupational identities.
The Humanities and Everyday Life: The Literary Agenda (The Literary Agenda)
by Michael LevensonThe Literary Agenda is a series of short polemical monographs about the importance of literature and of reading in the wider world and about the state of literary education inside schools and universities. The category of 'the literary' has always been contentious. What is clear, however, is how increasingly it is dismissed or is unrecognised as a way of thinking or an arena for thought. It is sceptically challenged from within, for example, by the sometimes rival claims of cultural history, contextualized explanation, or media studies. It is shaken from without by even greater pressures: by economic exigency and the severe social attitudes that can follow from it; by technological change that may leave the traditional forms of serious human communication looking merely antiquated. For just these reasons this is the right time for renewal, to start reinvigorated work into the meaning and value of literary reading. We think of the humanities as a cluster of specialized academic activities. So they are. But they also belong to the ordinary world, the world where students and faculty make connections and careers; where they eat and drink and fret; where they move through new buildings and old seminar rooms. In The Humanities and Everyday Life Michael Levenson places academic humanities within this field of daily life, where abstract thought stands alongside material need. The humanities also live outside the university in activities that have been overlooked or undervalued: in book clubs, in historical re-enactments, in visits to museums and libraries, in private collections, in contributions to Wikipedia, and in amateur genealogy. These activities belong to the humanities, quite as much as research published in specialty journals. The Humanities and Everyday Life addresses both the university and the world beyond, to see where they meet and fail to meet, and to argue that the walls between them should lower. At the centre of the book is an account of experts and expertise, a controversial topic that poses questions about professionals versus amateurs and what constitutes expertise. Drawing on the recent rejection of political elite expertise, as seen in the Brexit referendum and the American election campaign, as well as examples from science and medicine, the volume reveals the unsteady boundary between specialized knowledge and public curiosity. The Humanities and Everyday Life asks us to accept that the humanities are as enduring as religion, are indeed both rival and complement to religion; and to acknowledge that despite imperfections, they give an image of many-dimensioned life. The humanities are worth improving on their own terms, but also because, just often enough, they constitute an exemplary micro-society, one that will illuminate still more widely when academic thought meets the light of the everyday.
The Humanities and Everyday Life: The Literary Agenda (The Literary Agenda)
by Michael LevensonThe Literary Agenda is a series of short polemical monographs about the importance of literature and of reading in the wider world and about the state of literary education inside schools and universities. The category of 'the literary' has always been contentious. What is clear, however, is how increasingly it is dismissed or is unrecognised as a way of thinking or an arena for thought. It is sceptically challenged from within, for example, by the sometimes rival claims of cultural history, contextualized explanation, or media studies. It is shaken from without by even greater pressures: by economic exigency and the severe social attitudes that can follow from it; by technological change that may leave the traditional forms of serious human communication looking merely antiquated. For just these reasons this is the right time for renewal, to start reinvigorated work into the meaning and value of literary reading. We think of the humanities as a cluster of specialized academic activities. So they are. But they also belong to the ordinary world, the world where students and faculty make connections and careers; where they eat and drink and fret; where they move through new buildings and old seminar rooms. In The Humanities and Everyday Life Michael Levenson places academic humanities within this field of daily life, where abstract thought stands alongside material need. The humanities also live outside the university in activities that have been overlooked or undervalued: in book clubs, in historical re-enactments, in visits to museums and libraries, in private collections, in contributions to Wikipedia, and in amateur genealogy. These activities belong to the humanities, quite as much as research published in specialty journals. The Humanities and Everyday Life addresses both the university and the world beyond, to see where they meet and fail to meet, and to argue that the walls between them should lower. At the centre of the book is an account of experts and expertise, a controversial topic that poses questions about professionals versus amateurs and what constitutes expertise. Drawing on the recent rejection of political elite expertise, as seen in the Brexit referendum and the American election campaign, as well as examples from science and medicine, the volume reveals the unsteady boundary between specialized knowledge and public curiosity. The Humanities and Everyday Life asks us to accept that the humanities are as enduring as religion, are indeed both rival and complement to religion; and to acknowledge that despite imperfections, they give an image of many-dimensioned life. The humanities are worth improving on their own terms, but also because, just often enough, they constitute an exemplary micro-society, one that will illuminate still more widely when academic thought meets the light of the everyday.
The Humanities and the Dream of America
by Geoffrey Galt HarphamIn this bracing and original book, Geoffrey Galt Harpham argues that today’s humanities are an invention of the American academy in the years following World War II, when they were first conceived as an expression of American culture and an instrument of American national interests. The humanities portray a “dream of America” in two senses: they represent an aspiration of Americans since the first days of the Republic for a state so secure and prosperous that people could enjoy and appreciate culture for its own sake; and they embody in academic terms an idealized conception of the American national character. Although they are struggling to retain their status in America, the concept of the humanities has spread to other parts of the world and remains one of America's most distinctive and valuable contributions to higher education. The Humanities and the Dream of America explores a number of linked problems that have emerged in recent years: the role, at once inspiring and disturbing, played by philology in the formation of the humanities; the reasons for the humanities’ perpetual state of “crisis”; the shaping role of philanthropy in the humanities; and the new possibilities for literary study offered by the subject of pleasure. Framed by essays that draw on Harpham’s pedagogical experiences abroad and as a lecturer at the U.S. Air Force Academy, as well as his vantage as director of the National Humanities Center, this book provides an essential perspective on the history, ideology, and future of this important topic.
The Humanities and the Dream of America
by Geoffrey Galt HarphamIn this bracing and original book, Geoffrey Galt Harpham argues that today’s humanities are an invention of the American academy in the years following World War II, when they were first conceived as an expression of American culture and an instrument of American national interests. The humanities portray a “dream of America” in two senses: they represent an aspiration of Americans since the first days of the Republic for a state so secure and prosperous that people could enjoy and appreciate culture for its own sake; and they embody in academic terms an idealized conception of the American national character. Although they are struggling to retain their status in America, the concept of the humanities has spread to other parts of the world and remains one of America's most distinctive and valuable contributions to higher education. The Humanities and the Dream of America explores a number of linked problems that have emerged in recent years: the role, at once inspiring and disturbing, played by philology in the formation of the humanities; the reasons for the humanities’ perpetual state of “crisis”; the shaping role of philanthropy in the humanities; and the new possibilities for literary study offered by the subject of pleasure. Framed by essays that draw on Harpham’s pedagogical experiences abroad and as a lecturer at the U.S. Air Force Academy, as well as his vantage as director of the National Humanities Center, this book provides an essential perspective on the history, ideology, and future of this important topic.
The Humanities and the Dream of America
by Geoffrey Galt HarphamIn this bracing and original book, Geoffrey Galt Harpham argues that today’s humanities are an invention of the American academy in the years following World War II, when they were first conceived as an expression of American culture and an instrument of American national interests. The humanities portray a “dream of America” in two senses: they represent an aspiration of Americans since the first days of the Republic for a state so secure and prosperous that people could enjoy and appreciate culture for its own sake; and they embody in academic terms an idealized conception of the American national character. Although they are struggling to retain their status in America, the concept of the humanities has spread to other parts of the world and remains one of America's most distinctive and valuable contributions to higher education. The Humanities and the Dream of America explores a number of linked problems that have emerged in recent years: the role, at once inspiring and disturbing, played by philology in the formation of the humanities; the reasons for the humanities’ perpetual state of “crisis”; the shaping role of philanthropy in the humanities; and the new possibilities for literary study offered by the subject of pleasure. Framed by essays that draw on Harpham’s pedagogical experiences abroad and as a lecturer at the U.S. Air Force Academy, as well as his vantage as director of the National Humanities Center, this book provides an essential perspective on the history, ideology, and future of this important topic.
The Humanities and the Dynamics of Inclusion since World War II
by David A. HollingerThe role played by the humanities in reconciling American diversity—a diversity of both ideas and peoples—is not always appreciated. This volume of essays, commissioned by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, examines that role in the half century after World War II, when exceptional prosperity and population growth, coupled with America's expanded political interaction with the world abroad, presented American higher education with unprecedented challenges and opportunities. The humanities proved to be the site for important efforts to incorporate groups and doctrines that had once been excluded from the American cultural conversation.Edited and introduced by David Hollinger, this volume explores the interaction between the humanities and demographic changes in the university, including the link between external changes and the rise of new academic specializations in area and other interdisciplinary studies.This volume analyzes the evolution of humanities disciplines and institutions, examines the conditions and intellectual climate in which they operate, and assesses the role and value of the humanities in society.Contents:John Guillory, "Who's Afraid of Marcel Proust? The Failure of General Education in the American University" Roger L. Geiger, "Demography and Curriculum: The Humanities in American Higher Education from the 1950s through the 1980s" Joan Shelley Rubin, "The Scholar and the World: Academic Humanists and General Readers"Martin Jay, "The Ambivalent Virtues of Mendacity: How Europeans Taught (Some of Us) to Learn to Love the Lies of Politics"James T. Kloppenberg, "The Place of Value in a Culture of Facts: Truth and Historicism"Bruce Kuklick, "Philosophy and Inclusion in the United States, 1929–2001"John T. McGreevy, "Catholics, Catholicism, and the Humanities, 1945–1985"Jonathan Scott Holloway, "The Black Scholar, the Humanities, and the Politics of Racial Knowledge Since 1945"Rosalind Rosenberg, "Women in the Humanities: Taking Their Place"Leila Zenderland, "American Studies and the Expansion of the Humanities"David C. Engerman, "The Ironies of the Iron Curtain: The Cold War and the Rise of Russian Studies"Andrew E. Barshay, "What is Japan to Us"?Rolena Adorno, "Havana and Macondo: The Humanities Side of U.S. Latin American Studies, 1940–2000"
The Humanities "Crisis" and the Future of Literary Studies
by P. JayDemonstrating that the supposed drawbacks of the humanities are in fact their source of practical value, Jay explores current debates about the role of the humanities in higher education, puts them in historical context, and offers humanists and their supporters concrete ways to explain the practical value of a contemporary humanities education.
Humanities Data Analysis: Case Studies with Python
by Folgert Karsdorp Mike Kestemont Allen RiddellA practical guide to data-intensive humanities research using the Python programming languageThe use of quantitative methods in the humanities and related social sciences has increased considerably in recent years, allowing researchers to discover patterns in a vast range of source materials. Despite this growth, there are few resources addressed to students and scholars who wish to take advantage of these powerful tools. Humanities Data Analysis offers the first intermediate-level guide to quantitative data analysis for humanities students and scholars using the Python programming language. This practical textbook, which assumes a basic knowledge of Python, teaches readers the necessary skills for conducting humanities research in the rapidly developing digital environment.The book begins with an overview of the place of data science in the humanities, and proceeds to cover data carpentry: the essential techniques for gathering, cleaning, representing, and transforming textual and tabular data. Then, drawing from real-world, publicly available data sets that cover a variety of scholarly domains, the book delves into detailed case studies. Focusing on textual data analysis, the authors explore such diverse topics as network analysis, genre theory, onomastics, literacy, author attribution, mapping, stylometry, topic modeling, and time series analysis. Exercises and resources for further reading are provided at the end of each chapter.An ideal resource for humanities students and scholars aiming to take their Python skills to the next level, Humanities Data Analysis illustrates the benefits that quantitative methods can bring to complex research questions.Appropriate for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars with a basic knowledge of PythonApplicable to many humanities disciplines, including history, literature, and sociologyOffers real-world case studies using publicly available data setsProvides exercises at the end of each chapter for students to test acquired skillsEmphasizes visual storytelling via data visualizations
Humanities Data in R: Exploring Networks, Geospatial Data, Images, and Text (Quantitative Methods in the Humanities and Social Sciences)
by Taylor Arnold Lauren TiltonThis pioneering book teaches readers to use R within four core analytical areas applicable to the Humanities: networks, text, geospatial data, and images. This book is also designed to be a bridge: between quantitative and qualitative methods, individual and collaborative work, and the humanities and social sciences. Humanities Data with R does not presuppose background programming experience. Early chapters take readers from R set-up to exploratory data analysis (continuous and categorical data, multivariate analysis, and advanced graphics with emphasis on aesthetics and facility). Following this, networks, geospatial data, image data, natural language processing and text analysis each have a dedicated chapter. Each chapter is grounded in examples to move readers beyond the intimidation of adding new tools to their research. Everything is hands-on: networks are explained using U.S. Supreme Court opinions, and low-level NLP methods are applied to short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. After working through these examples with the provided data, code and book website, readers are prepared to apply new methods to their own work. The open source R programming language, with its myriad packages and popularity within the sciences and social sciences, is particularly well-suited to working with humanities data. R packages are also highlighted in an appendix. This book uses an expanded conception of the forms data may take and the information it represents. The methodology will have wide application in classrooms and self-study for the humanities, but also for use in linguistics, anthropology, and political science. Outside the classroom, this intersection of humanities and computing is particularly relevant for research and new modes of dissemination across archives, museums and libraries.
Humanities Data in R: Exploring Networks, Geospatial Data, Images, and Text (Quantitative Methods in the Humanities and Social Sciences)
by Taylor Arnold Lauren TiltonThis book teaches readers to integrate data analysis techniques into humanities research practices using the R programming language. Methods for general-purpose visualization and analysis are introduced first, followed by domain-specific techniques for working with networks, text, geospatial data, temporal data, and images. The book is designed to be a bridge between quantitative and qualitative methods, individual and collaborative work, and the humanities and social sciences. The second edition of the text is a significant revision, with almost every aspect of the text rewritten in some way. The most notable difference is the incorporation of new R packages such as ggplot2 and dplyr that center broad data-science concepts. This 2nd edition of Humanities Data with R does not presuppose background programming experience. Early chapters take readers from R set-up to exploratory data analysis, with one chapter dedicated to each stage of the data-science pipeline (data collection, visualization, manipulation, and relational joins). Following this, text analysis, networks, temporal data, geospatial data, and image analysis each have a dedicated chapter. These are grounded in examples to move readers beyond the intimidation of adding new tools to their research. The final section of the book extends the core material with additional computer science techniques for processing large datasets. Everything is hands-on: image analysis is explained using digitized photographs from the 1930s, and networks are applied to page links on Wikipedia. After working through these examples with the provided data, code and book website, readers are prepared to apply new methods to their own work. The open source R programming language, with its myriad packages and popularity within the sciences and social sciences, is particularly well-suited to working with humanities data. R packages are also highlighted in an appendix. The methodology will have wide application in classrooms and self-study for the humanities, but also for use in linguistics, anthropology, and political science. Outside the classroom, this intersection of humanities and computing is particularly relevant for research and new modes of dissemination across archives, museums and libraries.
The Humanities, Higher Education, and Academic Freedom: Three Necessary Arguments
by Michael Bérubé J. RuthThis book is a lively, passionate defence of contemporary work in the humanities, and, beyond that, of the university system that makes such work possible. The book's stark accounts of academic labour, and its proposals for reform of the tenure system, are novel, controversial, timely, and very necessary.
Humanities in the Twenty-First Century: Beyond Utility and Markets
by Eleonora Belfiore Anna UpchurchThis collection of essays by scholars with expertise in a range of fields, cultural professionals and policy makers explores different ways in which the arts and humanities contribute to dealing with the challenges of contemporary society in ways that do not rely on simplistic and questionable notions of socio-economic impact as a proxy for value.
The Humanities Pandemic: Towards a Front-Line Approach
by Margaret ToppingThis book explores how the Humanities can play an essential services role in addressing global challenges such as the Covid pandemic. In arguing for their contribution alongside that of the Health Sciences, it calls for a new critical engagement – honest and self-reflective – from Humanities scholars with the question of how to overcome a fundamental challenge facing universities globally: finding a common language and set of ‘cultural’ assumptions between disciplines as the basis for communication. The book looks at the nature of the challenges that can beset collaboration across disciplines (and indeed across sectors, notably between researchers and the general public) and argues for a new Translational Humanities, in both the sense of an applied Humanities and a Humanities that can translate itself across disciplines and sectors. Crucially, too, it suggests that it is not narratives such as a pandemic novel or contagion film that successfully engage with contentious debates about the challenges of Covid, but rather critically distant texts and thematic contexts that typically place the self in the position of other like travel narratives. This book sits at a previously unconsidered intersection between debates around interdisciplinary collaboration and communication, theories of intercultural contact and encounter, and the role of the Humanities in tackling global issues.
Humanities, Provocateur: Towards a Contemporary Political Aesthetics
by Brinda BoseThis highly original collection is a far cry from the demand on the literary humanities to offer the soothing hum of theory to a world of breaks, crises and pain. Instead, it exemplifies a way ahead for the critical humanities….-Arjun Appadurai, New York University 'Doing the Humanities' comes to life in this passionate, provocative set of experiments in descriptive poetics. Failure, fantasy, freefall are reconceived as forms of aesthetic achievement across the creative arts.…-Ros Ballaster, University of Oxford ....This timely volume inspires a collective undertaking to learn 'to do' the humanities through the untimeliness of a work of art. A humanities that remains attentive to this form of techné will prove indispensable to remaking the world in the aftermath of a pandemic.-Premesh Lalu, University of the Western Cape ….exhilarating in the democratic breadth of its interests, the emotional fervour of its commitments and its yoking of systemic criticism to the work of poetic language.-Helen Small, University of Oxford How can the humanities make an intervention in such a time as this, when life as we have known it hangs in pandemic balance since the spring of 2020-and when contagion calls for distancing and isolation, while loneliness cries out for the solace of touch? Perhaps only by being, at once, fearless, critical, sorrowing, exultant, enraged, intimate. Humanities, Provocateur brings you fourteen essays and two creative pieces by established as well as younger scholars and writers from America, Europe, the Middle East, South Africa and South Asia, in a bracing invitation to a freefall of reading. They travel from classical literatures and philosophy to twentieth-century writing, cinema and critical-imaginative thinking, grouped whimsically around a set of provocations-Gleaning, Perforation, Caprice, Paraphernalia, Descent, Flux, Flesh, Ephemera-and welcome you to argue, to cherish or to distrust. Taking sharp, sparkling twists and turns in thought and style, this eclectic collection of writings incites you to be intellectually adventurous and destitute at the same time. And, invoking Dante, to never be afraid, for our fate is our gift.
Humanities, Provocateur: Towards a Contemporary Political Aesthetics
by Brinda BoseThis highly original collection is a far cry from the demand on the literary humanities to offer the soothing hum of theory to a world of breaks, crises and pain. Instead, it exemplifies a way ahead for the critical humanities….-Arjun Appadurai, New York University 'Doing the Humanities' comes to life in this passionate, provocative set of experiments in descriptive poetics. Failure, fantasy, freefall are reconceived as forms of aesthetic achievement across the creative arts.…-Ros Ballaster, University of Oxford ....This timely volume inspires a collective undertaking to learn 'to do' the humanities through the untimeliness of a work of art. A humanities that remains attentive to this form of techné will prove indispensable to remaking the world in the aftermath of a pandemic.-Premesh Lalu, University of the Western Cape ….exhilarating in the democratic breadth of its interests, the emotional fervour of its commitments and its yoking of systemic criticism to the work of poetic language.-Helen Small, University of Oxford How can the humanities make an intervention in such a time as this, when life as we have known it hangs in pandemic balance since the spring of 2020-and when contagion calls for distancing and isolation, while loneliness cries out for the solace of touch? Perhaps only by being, at once, fearless, critical, sorrowing, exultant, enraged, intimate. Humanities, Provocateur brings you fourteen essays and two creative pieces by established as well as younger scholars and writers from America, Europe, the Middle East, South Africa and South Asia, in a bracing invitation to a freefall of reading. They travel from classical literatures and philosophy to twentieth-century writing, cinema and critical-imaginative thinking, grouped whimsically around a set of provocations-Gleaning, Perforation, Caprice, Paraphernalia, Descent, Flux, Flesh, Ephemera-and welcome you to argue, to cherish or to distrust. Taking sharp, sparkling twists and turns in thought and style, this eclectic collection of writings incites you to be intellectually adventurous and destitute at the same time. And, invoking Dante, to never be afraid, for our fate is our gift.
Humanities World Report 2015
by D. Scott P. Holm A. JarrickThis book is open access under a CC BY license.The first of its kind, this Open Access 'Report' is a first step in assessing the state of the humanities worldwide. Based on an extensive literature review and enlightening interviews the book discusses the value of the humanities, the nature of humanities research and the relation between humanities and politics, amongst other issues.