Download or read book Beasts Humans and Transhumans in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance written by J. Eugene Clay and published by Brepols Publishers. This book was released on 2020 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From shape-shifting Merlin to the homunculi of Paracelsus, the nine fascinating essays of this collection explore the contested boundaries between human and non-human animals, between the body and the spirit, and between the demonic and the divine. Drawing on recent work in animal studies, posthumanism, and transhumanism, these innovative articles show how contemporary debates about the nature and future of humanity have deep roots in the myths, literature, philosophy, and art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The authors of these essays demonstrate how classical stories of monsters and metamorphoses offered philosophers, artists, and poets a rich source for reflection on marriage, resurrection, and the passions of love. The ambiguous and shifting distinctions between human, animal, demon, and angel have long been contentious. Beasts can elevate humanity: for Renaissance courtiers, horsemanship defined nobility. But animals are also associated with the demonic, and medieval illuminators portrayed Satan with bestial features. Divided into three sections that examine metamorphoses, human-animal relations, and the demonic and monstrous, this volume raises intriguing questions about the ways humans have understood their kinship with animals, nature, and the supernatural.

Download or read book Multilingualism in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age written by Albrecht Classen and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2016-09-12 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bi- and multilingualism are of great interest for contemporary linguists since this phenomenon deeply reflects on language acquisition, language use, and sociolinguistic conditions in many different circumstances all over the world. Multilingualism was, however, certainly rather common already, if not especially, in the premodern world. For some time now, research has started to explore this issue through a number of specialized studies. The present volume continues with the investigation of multilingualism through a collection of case studies focusing on important examples in medieval and early modern societies, that is, in linguistic and cultural contact zones, such as England, Spain, the Holy Land, but also the New World. As all contributors confirm, the numerous cases of multilingualism discussed here indicate strongly that the premodern period knew considerably less barriers between people of different social classes, cultural background, and religious orientation. But we also have to acknowledge that already then human communication could fail because of linguistic hurdles which prevented mutual understanding in religious and cultural terms.

Download or read book Reading the Natural World in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance written by Thomas Willard and published by . This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The environment--together with ecology and other aspects of the way people see their world--has become a major focus of pre-modern studies. The thirteen contributions in this volume discuss topics across the millennium in Europe from the late 600s to the early 1600s. They introduce applications to older texts, art works, and ideas made possible by relatively new fields of discourse such as animal studies, ecotheology, and Material Engagement Theory. From studies of medieval land charters and epics to the canticles sung in churches, the encyclopedic natural histories compiled for the learned, the hunting parks described and illustrated for the aristocracy, chronicles from the New World, classical paintings from the Old World, and the plays of Shakespeare, the authors engage with the human responses to nature in times when it touched their lives more intimately than it does for people today, even though this contact raised concerns that are still very much alive today.

Download or read book Post and Transhumanism written by Robert Ranisch and published by Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Post- and Transhumanism are being introduced with respect to foundational questions, utopian issues, normative and evaluative elements, ontological perspectives and arts. The topics are divided up into five sections with the following titles: Confessions, Lands of Cockaygne, Neo-Socratic Reflections, Ontologies of Becoming and Paragone of the Arts.

Download or read book Paradigm Shifts During the Global Middle Ages and Renaissance written by Albrecht Classen and published by Brepols Publishers. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For a long time we have naively talked about the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and other periods, but at closer analysis all those terms prove to be constructed models to help us understand in rough terms profound changes that affected human conditions throughout time. As the contributions to the present volume indicate, paradigm shifts have occurred regularly and constituted some of the critical developments in human existence. The notion of paradigm shift as first developed by Thomas Kuhn is here considerably expanded to address also literary, religious, scientific, and cultural-historical phenomena, to deal with contrasting conceptions of various parts of the world (China versus Europe), conflicts between genders, economic changes pertaining to women's roles, social and political criticism, models of how to explain our existence, ideological positions and epistemological approaches. The study of paradigm shifts makes it possible to grasp fundamental movements both horizontally (the present world in global terms) and vertically (from the past to the present), exposing thereby central forces leading to shifts in power structures and in the mental-historical world-views. Focusing on paradigm-shifts allows us to gain deep insight into conflicting discourses throughout time and to illuminate the struggle between dominant and competing models explaining or determining reality.

Download or read book On Everyone s Lips written by Stephen D. Bowd and published by Mrts. This book was released on 2012 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The death of a small child called Simon in the town of Trent in 1475 was blamed on the local Jewish community who were accused of abducting, torturing, and strangling him as a way of obtaining Christian blood to use in their rituals. The prince-bishop of Trent orchestrated a campaign against the Jews: poets and humanists wrote about the case on the basis of first-hand knowledge or acquaintance with the trial records and provided detailed accounts of the supposed Jewish conspiracy and murder. The 'blood libel' against the Jews was familiar to most Europeans but the tales from Trent made available in English here for the first time were unprecedented in their detail, savagery of denunciation, and scope of circulation thanks to the new medium of print. As a result the story of Simon's 'martyrdom' and miracles, as well as the prosecution and execution of the Jews, resonated in the European consciousness for centuries.

Download or read book Posthuman Studies Reader written by Evi D. Sampanikou and published by Schwabe Verlag (Basel). This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The new reader presents an up-to-date collection of seminal texts dedicated to all branches of debates on Posthuman Studies: Transhumanism, Critical Posthumanism and Metahumanism. It includes classical as well as cutting-edge contributions to these debates. The Posthuman Studies Reader is an indispensable resource for studying as well as teaching key concepts, central claims and main arguments of contemporary debates in the field of Posthuman Studies. The reader includes texts by: Neil Badmington, Karen Barad, Nick Bostrom, Rosi Braidotti, Claire Colebrook, Jaime del Val, FM-2030, Francis Fukuyama, Elaine Graham, Donna Haraway, Ihab Habib Hassan, N. Katherine Hayles, James Hughes, Julian Huxley, Brian Massumi, Max More, David Pearce, Anders Sandberg, Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Stelarc, Natasha Vita-More and Cary Wolfe. "This Reader is a perfect guide to get into bleeding-edge philosophy."Nicolás Rojas Cortés, Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities, University of Chile "The Reader can be used not only as a textbook in higher education, but also by all researchers and students in these fields as reference. [...] I highly recommend it to everyone who is interested in these movements and those works from which excerpts are included in it."Yunus Tuncel, The New School, New York "Since Sorgner, Sampanikou, Stasienko and their colleagues, almost singlehandedly, are crafting and advancing this discipline through its forming stages, when they publish a book with handpicked canonic texts, it should be treated as a landmark."Carmel Vaisman, The Cohn Institute and The Multidisciplinary Program in the Humanities, Tel Aviv University "What makes the Posthuman Studies Reader interesting and exciting is the facility to have in one volume the basic ideas and essentials of transhumanism, critical posthumanism and metahumanism. The reader provides in a condensed version an introduction to posthuman studies for both academic and nonacademic audiences."Leo Igwe, Department of Religious Studies, University of Cape Town "The Posthuman Studies Reader serves as a comprehensive guide and/or manual of an evolving and expanding Post/Trans/Meta Humanism discourse. [...] because of the clarity of organization by the editors and the highest scholarship of the writers, the collection was able to drive the interest of readers a notch or two higher."Joseph Reylan B. Viray, Polytechnic University of the Philippines

Download or read book Menacing Virgins written by Kathleen Coyne Kelly and published by University of Delaware Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in Menacing Virgins: Representing Virginity in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance examine the nexus of religious, political, economic, and aesthetic values that produce the Western European myth of virginity, and explore how those complex cultural forces animate, empower, discipline, disclose, mystify, and menace the virginal body. As the title suggests, the virgin can be seen alternately or even simultaneously as menaced or menacing. To chart the history of virginity as a steady, evolutionary progression from a religious ideal in the Middle Ages toward a more secularized or sovereign ideal in the Renaissance would obscure how unstable a concept chastity is in both periods. What this collection demonstrates is that medieval and early modern attitudes toward virginity are not general and evolutionary, but specific, changeable, and often conflicted.

Download or read book The Fourth Industrial Revolution written by Klaus Schwab and published by Currency. This book was released on 2017-01-03 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolu­tion, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wear­able sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manu­facturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individu­als. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frame­works that advance progress.

Download or read book From Beasts to Souls written by E. Jane Burns and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Raises the issues of species and gender in tandem, asking readers to consider more fully what happens to gender in medieval representations of nonhuman embodiment.

Download or read book Minority Religions in Europe and the Middle East written by George D. Chryssides and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Minority religions, not only New Religious Movements, are explored in this innovative book including the predicament of ancient religions such as Zoroastrianism, ‘old new’ religions such as Baha’i, and traditional religions that are minorities elsewhere. The book is divided into two parts: the gathering of data on religious minorities ("mapping"), and the ways in which governments and interest groups respond to them ("monitoring"). The international group examine which new religions exist in particular countries, what their uptake is, and how allegiance can be ascertained. They explore a range of issues faced by minority religions, encompassing official state recognition and registration, unequal treatment in comparison with a dominant religion, how changes in government can affect how they fare, the extent to which members are free to practise their faith, how they sometimes seek to influence politics, and how they can be affected by harassment and persecution. Bringing together debates concerning the social and political issues facing new religions in Europe and the Middle East, this collection extends its focus to Middle Eastern minority faiths, enabling exposition of spiritual movements such as the Gülen Movement, Paganism in Israel, and the Zoroastrians in Tehran.

Download or read book Medical Enhancement and Posthumanity written by Bert Gordijn and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-10-20 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As we are increasingly using new technologies to change ourselves beyond therapy and in accordance with our own desires, understanding the challenges of human enhancement has become one of the most urgent topics of the current age. This volume contributes to such an understanding by critically examining the pros and cons of our growing ability to shape human nature through technological advancements. The authors undertake careful analyses of decisive questions that will confront society as enhancement interventions using bio-, info-, neuro- and nanotechnologies become widespread in the years to come. They provide the reader with the conceptual tools necessary to address such questions fruitfully. What makes the book especially attractive is the combination of conceptual, historical and ethical approaches, rendering it highly original. In addition, the well-balanced structure allows both favourable and critical views to be voiced. Moreover, the work has a crystal clear structure. As a consequence, the book is accessible to a broad academic audience. The issues raised are of interest to a wide reflective public concerned about science and ethics, as well as to students, academics and professionals in areas such as philosophy, applied ethics, bioethics, medicine and health management.

Download or read book Human Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Renaissance written by Douglas Radcliff-Umstead and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Future of Business written by Rohit Talwar and published by Fast Future Publishing Ltd . This book was released on 2015-03-15 with total page 591 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Future of Business explores how the commercial world is being transformed by the complex interplay between social, economic and political shifts, disruptive ideas, bold strategies and breakthroughs in science and technology. Over 60 contributors from 21 countries explore how the business landscape will be reshaped by factors as diverse as the modification of the human brain and body, 3D printing, alternative energy sources, the reinvention of government, new business models, artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, and the potential emergence of the Star Trek economy.

Download or read book Man Woman Or Monster written by Laila Abdalla and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Early modern culture perceived transvestism in a multiform manner. It signifies monstrosity in the polemical pamphlet, serves to indicate an estimable apex of humanity in Shakespearean comedy, and represents women in roles that range from monstrous disrupter to adept uniter in the works of such other playwrights as Ben Jonson and Thomas Middleton. While the pamphlet's social commentary argues that masculinity rendered a woman monstrously unfeminine, the literature finds ways of interrogating definitions of the sex-gender system in a world which was constantly and fundamentally mutating. The drama employs elements such as inversion, monstrosity and transgressions of class to negotiate a society in flux." --

Download or read book Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe written by Lisa M. Bitel and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2013-03-26 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Gender and Christianity in Medieval Europe, six historians explore how medieval people professed Christianity, how they performed gender, and how the two coincided. Many of the daily religious decisions people made were influenced by gender roles, the authors contend. Women's pious donations, for instance, were limited by laws of inheritance and marriage customs; male clerics' behavior depended upon their understanding of masculinity as much as on the demands of liturgy. The job of religious practitioner, whether as a nun, monk, priest, bishop, or some less formal participant, involved not only professing a set of religious ideals but also professing gender in both ideal and practical terms. The authors also argue that medieval Europeans chose how to be women or men (or some complex combination of the two), just as they decided whether and how to be religious. In this sense, religious institutions freed men and women from some of the gendered limits otherwise imposed by society. Whereas previous scholarship has tended to focus exclusively either on masculinity or on aristocratic women, the authors define their topic to study gender in a fuller and more richly nuanced fashion. Likewise, their essays strive for a generous definition of religious history, which has too often been a history of its most visible participants and dominant discourses. In stepping back from received assumptions about religion, gender, and history and by considering what the terms "woman," "man," and "religious" truly mean for historians, the book ultimately enhances our understanding of the gendered implications of every pious thought and ritual gesture of medieval Christians. Contributors: Dyan Elliott is John Evans Professor of History at Northwestern University. Ruth Mazo Karras is professor of history at the University of Minnesota, and the general editor of The Middle Ages Series for the University of Pennsyvlania Press. Jacqueline Murray is dean of arts and professor of history at the University of Guelph. Jane Tibbetts Schulenberg is professor of history at the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

Download or read book Masculinities and Femininities in the Middle Ages and Renaissance written by Frederick Kiefer and published by Brepols Publishers. This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracy Adams: 'Make me chaste and continent, but not yet': A Model for Clerical Masculinity?Victor Scherb: Shoulder Companions and Shoulders in BeowulfLynn Shutters, Lion Hearts, Saracen Heads, Dog Tails: The Body of the Conqueror in Richard Coer de LyonAlbrecht Classen: Women Win the Day: The Female Heroine in Late-Medieval German MaerenMegan Moore: Chretien's Romances of Grief: Widows and Their Erotic BodiesJudith H. Bryce: The Faces of Ginevra de' Benci: Homosocial Agendas and Female Subjectivity in Later Quattrocentro FlorenceElizabeth Schirmer: 'Trewe Men': Pastoral Masculinity in Lollard PolemicRyan Singh Paul: To See and Be Seen: Aemilia Lanyer's Poetics of VisionPaul Hartle: Sleeping with the Menagerie: Sex and the Renaissance Pet