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      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        May 2024

        A book of monsters

        Promethean horror in modern literature and culture

        by David Ashford

        This books traces the rise to prominence in the twentieth-century of a sub-genre of gothic fiction that is, emphatically, a horror of enlightenment rationality rather than gothic darkness, examining post-modern revisions of Modernist "Promethean" tropes in an eclectic range of gothic, fantasy and SF writing. Whether the subject be terror of London's churches in the psychogeographical fiction of Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore, the Orcs in the linguistic fantasies of J.R.R. Tolkien, King Kong, killer-computers, or demon-children in post-war British science-fiction, A Book of Monsters offers illuminating perspectives on the darker recesses of the post-modern imagination, setting out a compelling, and comprehensive, overview on our contemporary unconscious.

      • Philosophy
        February 2017

        The Future of the Image

        by Federico Vercellone

        Thanks to the new technologies, images have become the true obsession of our time. The Internet, smartphones, television, newspapers, and even the instruments of medical research, subject us to a daily bombardment, a constant flow of images which penetrate and overwhelm the canons of cultural transmission and of the interpretation of the present. The age-old conflict between image and word seems to have ended with the unexpected defeat of the latter. Is it possible to find our way through this new forest without adopting excessively reactive attitudes, tending towards a new iconoclasm? Will we be able to benefit from the potential of images, by recognizing the needs that their hyperproduction expresses, without suffering its violent consequences? The new task is to identify the model of reason for a world where images are no longer appearances but cultural environments.

      • Philosophy: aesthetics
        April 2011

        Evolutionary Aesthetics of Human Ethics in Hardy’s Tragic Narratives

        by Author(s): Rıza Öztürk

        Treatment of Hardy’s tragic narratives under the objective lens of evolutionary literary theory has led to three basic findings: First, within the scope of the analysis of the five major tragic narratives, representation of Hardy’s evolutionary aesthetics of human ethics, in terms of altruistic sympathy and compassion, shows that adapted parental investment in children indicates the reason why women submit to pain and suffering more than the men do. The costly investment of women in maternal behaviour leads to submission in many cases, but in return they gain better fitness for survival and reproduction than men. This is implicitly highlighted as a force of superiority in the tragedies studied, as the male characters often invest in heroic deeds over their children. Second, that which has for many years been identified as pessimism in Hardy’s tragic narratives is in fact a surface cognitive layer, under which is an implicit teaching of evolutionary aesthetics of human ethics, which guides to a true fitness of human life. Third, sympathy and particularly compassion are not only human emotions but also adapted cognitive virtues that centre on ethical teaching.Thus, an integrated model of science and humanities for art and literary analysis is required to address not only those of English language and literature departments, but also those aligned to the idea of integrating the two methods. A scientific and objective view of human life is in opposition to postmodern and structuralist approaches, which have generally been considered as the centre of interest during the latter half of the 20th century.

      • Teaching, Language & Reference
        February 2018

        Digital Materialism

        Origins, Philosophies, Prospects

        by Baruch Gottlieb

        Digital materiality (digimat) proposes a set of basic principles for how we understand the world through digital processes. Digital instruments may seem forbiddingly complex but they are based on simple mechanical principles which operate today on the subatomic scale, which creates challenges for conventional human epistemology. This short book sets out a methodical materialist understanding of digital technologies, where they come from, how they work, and what they do. This analysis starts from the classical materialism of the Greek physicist-philosophers, engages with the humanist and historical materialism of the flourishing of Enlightenment arts and sciences, and extrapolates from post-humanist new materialism informed by quantum physics. There can be no future without a present and that present is always, persistently material. Readers of this book must grapple with the mattering of digital material, especially the awe-inspiring epistemological schism between the infinitesimal, lightspeed reality of digital data and conventional, empirical human epistemologies which provide the vocabularies and cultural metaphors we must have recourse to in the attempt to discuss, communicate and decypher these phenomena. The obsolescent figure of anthropos (human being) will provide a central foil and subject for this challenge to understand our digital tools and their seemingly irrepressible reproduction. The future of humanity is at stake!

      • Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2015

        Roaming in Aesthetics

        by Zong Baihua

        The first edition of Roaming in Aesthetics was published in 1981, which was reprinted many times and sold to this day. It is a classic and must-read book for Chinese aesthetics. This print was an illustration collection and was kept in its original form. Only some statement omission was revised, and more than 150 illustrations were added to make the book more embossed, giving readers an immersive aesthetic enjoyment. We missed the figure that was holding a cane and squatting on the shore of Weiming Lake; we tasted the brightness of walking sound. Please go to this aesthetic journey, “walk slowly, appreciate!”

      • Philosophy of mind

        Materialistic Philosophy and Human Analysis

        by Abdel Wahab El-Messiri

        Material philosophy and human dismantling D.Abdel Wahab El-Messiri The Egyptian writer and famous thinker D.Abdel Wahab El-Messiri is one of the most important researchers and sociologists in the Arab world and the whole world has been touched by his influential ideas and analytical and critical ideas of all social, political, philosophical and psychological phenomena affecting the nature, requirements and needs of human beings. he was able to create a new scientific and objective view of the Jewish phenomenon and Western modernity in general. And also lived his whole life studying Arab and Western cultures then came out with a large number of literal works that shaped the consciousness of many after him. In this book we read about the concept of philosophy absent from many readers and its shortcomings and we will learn about a clear critical concept of it and its impact on the life of the individual in particular and society in general, We will go deeper into reading about the phenomenon of racism and differences of thought between humans in all parts of the world. and on the idea of equality and how different minds address it and seek to implement it, And about the nature of man's understanding of himself and the people around him away from the idea of comparing behaviors, attitudes and opinions, this rare book dives into how the world is seen from a physical perspective and changes how we understand things and human nature. In analytical studies of this book, it was shown that it is one of the best books that provided adequate explanation of man's needs and possibilities in the creation, development and even preservation of civilizations from decay and degradation And it's also one of the best critical studies that has talked about science and technology and their impact on societies and thought over modern times that are very different from before. This book is a true reflection of Arab thought in the past 20 years. and a great influence on the nature of Arab peoples and their perception of the end of history and the world, It is also an important picture of the concept of modernity, which has become one of the most important themes of the day. and the emergence of a new world order that has brought about historical developments that can never be ignored, and the depth of the world's cultural and economic crisis as a whole. .

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