Download or read book From Apocalypse to Entropy and Beyond written by Peter Freese and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Surviving the End written by Peter Freese and published by . This book was released on 1988* with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Apocalyptic Transformation written by Elizabeth K. Rosen and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2008 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Apocalyptic Transformation explores how one the oldest sense-making paradigms, the apocalyptic myth, is altered when postmodern authors and filmmakers adopt it. It examines how postmodern writers adapt a fundamentally religious story for a secular audience and it proposes that even as these writers use the myth in traditional ways, they simultaneously undermine and criticize the grand narrative of apocalypse itself.
Download or read book Futurescapes written by Ralph Pordzik and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2009 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book testifies to the growing interest in the many spaces of utopia. It intends to 'map out' on utopian and science-fiction discourses some of the new and revisionist models of spatial analysis applied in Literary and Cultural Studies in recent years. The aim of the volume is to side-step the established generic binary of utopia and dystopia or science fiction and thus to open the analysis of utopian literature to new lines of inquiry. The essays collected here propose to think of utopias not so much as fictional texts about future change and transformation but as vital elements in a cultural process through which social, spatial and subjective identities are formed. Utopias can thus be read as textual systems implying a distinct spatial and temporal dimension; as 'spatial practices' that tend to naturalize a cultural and social construction - that of the 'good life', the radically improved welfare state, the Christian paradise, the counter-society, etc. - and make that representation operational by interpellating their readers in some determinate relation to their givenness as sites of political and individual improvement. This volume is of interest for all scholars and students of literature who wish to explore the ways in which utopias of the past and recent present have circulated as media of cultural exchange and homogenization, as sites of cultural and linguistic appropriation and as foci for the spatial formation of national and regional identities in the English-speaking world.
Download or read book The Contemporary Post Apocalyptic Novel written by Diletta De Cristofaro and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-12-26 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditional apocalyptic texts concern the advent of a better world at the end of history that will make sense of everything that happened before. But what is at stake in the contemporary shift to apocalyptic narratives in which the utopian end of time is removed? The Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Novel offers an innovative critical model for our cultural obsession with 'the end' by focussing on the significance of time in the 21st-century post-apocalyptic novel and challenging traditional apocalyptic logic. Once confined to the genre of science fiction, the increasing popularity of end-of-the-world narratives has caused apocalyptic writing to feature in the work of some of contemporary literature's most well-known fiction writers. Considering novels by Will Self, Cormac McCarthy, David Mitchell, Emily St. John Mandel, Jeanette Winterson and others, Diletta De Cristofaro frames the contemporary apocalyptic imagination as a critique of modernity's apocalyptic conception of time and history. Interdisciplinary in scope, the book historicises apocalyptic beliefs by exploring how relentlessly they have shaped the modern world.
Download or read book Cormac McCarthy written by Markus Wierschem and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2024-02-01 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This definitive assessment of Cormac McCarthy’s novels captures the interactions among the literary and mythic elements, the social dynamics of violence, and the natural world in The Orchard Keeper, Child of God, Outer Dark, Blood Meridian, and The Road. Elegantly written and deeply engaged with previous scholarship as well as interviews with the novelist, this study provides a comprehensive introduction to McCarthy’s work while offering an insightful new analysis. Drawing on René Girard’s mimetic theory, mythography, thermodynamics, and information science, Markus Wierschem identifies a literary apocalypse at the center of McCarthy’s work, one that unveils another buried deep within the history, religion, and myths of American and Western culture.
Download or read book Physics and Literature written by Aura Heydenreich and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-12-20 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Physics and Literature is a unique collaboration between physicists, literary scholars, and philosophers, the first collection of essays to examine together how science and literature, beneath their practical differences, share core dimensions – forms of questioning, thinking, discovering and communicating insights.This book advances an in-depth exploration of relations between physics and literature from both perspectives. It turns around the tendency to discuss relations between literature and science in one-sided and polarizing ways. The collection is the result of the inaugural conference of ELINAS, the Erlangen Center for Literature and Natural Science, an initiative dedicated to building bridges between literary and scientific research. ELINAS revitalizes discussion of science-literature interconnections with new topics, ideas and angles, by organizing genuine dialogue among participants across disciplinary lines. The essays explore how scientific thought and practices are conditioned by narrative and genre, fiction, models and metaphors, and how science in turn feeds into the meaning-making of literary and philosophical texts. These interdisciplinary encounters enrich reflections on epistemology, cognition and aesthetics.
Download or read book Mapping Michel Serres written by Niran Abbas and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2009-12-14 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Provides an extremely valuable introduction to the work of Michel Serres for an English-speaking audience, as well as offering useful critical approaches for those already familiar with its outlines." ---Robert Harrison, Stanford University [blurb from review pending permission] The work of Michel Serres---including the books Hermes, The Parasite, The Natural Contract, Genesis, The Troubadour of Knowledge, and Conversations on Science, Culture, and Time---has stimulated readers for years, as it challenges the boundaries of science, literature, culture, language, and epistemology. The essays in Mapping Michel Serres, written by the leading interpreters of his work, offer perspectives from a range of disciplinary positions, including literature, language studies, and cultural theory. Contributors include Maria Assad, Hanjo Berressem, Stephen Clucas, Steven Connor, Andrew Gibson, René Girard, Paul Harris, Marcel Hénaff, William Johnsen, William Paulson, Marjorie Perloff, Philipp Schweighauser, Isabella Winkler, and Julian Yates.
Download or read book Bernard Malamud written by Victoria Aarons and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-12 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Readers of American literary criticism and Jewish studies alike will appreciate this collection.
Download or read book Unmapped Countries written by Anne-Julia Zwierlein and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collection of two documentaries by Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington. 'Which Way is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington' (2013) shows how Tim travelled the world documenting conflicts in Afghanistan, Liberia and Libya, among other locations, accompanied by his friend and long-term collaborator Sebastian. The two strived to capture the humanity within conflict situations and with their images they focused on the individuals involved and their experiences of the violence surrounding them. Unfortunately, in 2011 Tim was killed by a mortar blast and this film is a tribute and celebration of the legacy he has left behind and includes interviews with those who knew him best. 'Restrepo' (2010) chronicles the year that Junger and Hetherington spent in Afghanistan on assignment for Vanity Fair magazine. Embedded with an army unit in the treacherous Korangal valley, the pair lived in close proximity with the men as they defended an outpost called Restrepo after PFC Juan S. Restrepo, a platoon medic who was an early casualty in the campaign.
Download or read book Time and History in Deleuze and Serres written by Bernd Herzogenrath and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-02-16 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first critical appraisal of Deleuze and Serre's 'joint' conception of time and history.
Download or read book An American Body politic written by Bernd Herzogenrath and published by UPNE. This book was released on 2010 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A reflection on the metaphor of the body politic throughout American history
Download or read book Path to Entropy An Apocalyptic Climax written by Blade Cort and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2022-01-07 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A narcissistic, psychotic oligarch rules over a second-rate, post-apocalyptic domain in the western part of what was once America. Sara, his communications minister, proudly supports him despite his insanity. She tells her team: "Work is work, and you should take pride in it, even when your job is to deny, divert, distract, detract, and deceive." SAMPLES FROM A FEW DYSTOPIAN EPISODES: 79 - TRANSGRESSIONS: No one at the table dared move. They knew what was coming next, and they had enough experience with Ron's histrionics to know not to dive into the middle of his torrential whirlpool of vitriol. Sara's heart was beating furiously, and Imp knew it all. Imp sensed her physical reactions. Her pulse. Sweat. Pupil dilation. Chemicals emitted from her breath and skin. Imp analyzed her eye movements. Facial tics. The number of times she licked her lips and blinked. And she knew Imp constantly monitored her thoughts, to the degree that such tech had been perfected. Ron turned to sneer at Sara. "Not picking on you, sweet child, though it's partially your fault. Maybe much your fault. You understand, little one? I can't have events like this happen. If mine was the strongest or the richest of the domains, then I'd have the power. But people are jealous of me, so they come after me. They salivate for openings like this." 81 - PROPOSAL: "Of course!" she responded. "We know from our prior comms to this cohort that they can be volatile, easily aroused to anger and fear, and highly vindictive and judgmental. We love them for all these traits. But we know we can only go so far." 83 - FOSSILS: To Edgar, Sara was an anachronism in the current context of AI. Who needed a human to create narratives when his AI was more effective? More prolific? His AI could churn-out a thousand narratives to her one. His AI could confuse the world on a whim, creating mindless, meaningless sludge to be farted across the toilet bowl of human networks. Misinformation was kid stuff, but mass misinformation - now that was AI magic. 85 - ARRANGEMENTS: Rasha smacked her lips. "You just identified the problems we are having in gathering data about them. We hoped they'd congregate like other cohorts, create consistent narratives, and develop deep complexity and fervor in their belief systems. If they did this, we could infiltrate them, manipulate the narratives, and put into effect our subtle coercion that all good things in the world always begin and end with Ron, just like what we do with the other cohorts. But we see none of this." 86 - LEVERAGE: "It sounds like something different, though. It sounds like you and your team and other ministers spend most of their time serving Ron's needs. His distorted and disgusting whimsies. His rages and torments. His threats and narcissistic demands. Look, the people I communicate with believe the Earth is in its last days of rotation, at least for humanity. There's far too much tech, too much risk in tech, and too many people or AIs who have too much capability to annihilate us. All this annihilation tech in so many incapable hands like Ron's, without any ethical construct for the race? Imagine that."
Download or read book Future Ethics written by Stefan Skrimshire and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2010-08-12 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Future Ethics: Climate Change and Political Action presents a comprehensive examination of the philosophical questions facing activists, policy makers and educators fighting the causes of climate change. These questions reflect a genuine crisis in ethical reflection for individuals and groups in today's society and are also underpinned by a broader question of how the future forms the basis for action in the present. For instance, does the reporting of impending 'points of no return' in global warming renew a spirit of resistance or a spirit of fatalism? How is the future of the human species really imagined in society and how does this affect our sense of ethical responsibility? In this fascinating book, thirteen leading experts explore the philosophical and ethical issues underlying social responses to climate change and in particular how these responses draw upon ideas about the future. Ideal for students of environmental ethics in multiple disciplines, the book provides sources and discussion for anyone interested in issues to do with environment, society and ethics.
Download or read book Space in America written by Klaus Benesch and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2005 with total page 589 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's sense of space has always been tied to what Hayden White called the narrativization of real events. If the awe-inspiring manifestations of nature in America (Niagara Falls, Virginia's Natural Bridge, the Grand Canyon, etc.) were often used as a foil for projecting utopian visions and idealizations of the nation's exceptional place among the nations of the world, the rapid technological progress and its concomitant appropriation of natural spaces served equally well, as David Nye argues, to promote the dominant cultural idiom of exploration and conquest. From the beginning, American attitudes towards space were thus utterly contradictory if not paradoxical; a paradox that scholars tried to capture in such hybrid concepts as the middle landscape (Leo Marx), an engineered New Earth (Cecelia Tichi), or the technological sublime (David Nye). Not only was America's concept of space paradoxical, it has always also been a contested terrain, a site of continuous social and cultural conflict. Many foundational issues in American history (the dislocation of Native and African Americans, the geo-political implications of nation-building, immigration and transmigration, the increasing division and clustering of contemporary American society, etc.) involve differing ideals and notions of space. Quite literally, space and its various ideological appropriations formed the arena where America's search for identity (national, political, cultural) has been staged. If American democracy, as Frederick Jackson Turner claimed, is born of free land, then its history may well be defined as the history of the fierce struggles to gain and maintain power over both the geographical, social and political spaces of America and its concomitant narratives. The number and range of topics, interests, and critical approaches of the essays gathered here open up exciting new avenues of inquiry into the tangled, contentious relations of space in America. Topics include: Theories of Space - Landscape / Nature - Technoscape / Architecture / Urban Utopia - Literature - Performance / Film / Visual Arts.
Download or read book Cormac McCarthy and the Writing of American Spaces written by Andrew Keller Estes and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2013 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Cormac McCarthy and the Writing of American Spaces Andrew Estes examines ideas about the land as they emerge in the later fiction of this important contemporary author. McCarthy's texts are shown to be part of larger narratives about American environments. Against the backdrop of the emerging discipline of environmental criticism, Estes investigates the way space has been constructed in U.S. American writing. Cormac McCarthy is found to be heir to diametrically opposed concepts of space: as something Americans embraced as either overwhelmingly positive and reinvigorating or as rather negative and threatening. McCarthy's texts both replicate this binary thinking about American environments and challenge readers to reconceive traditional ways of seeing space. Breaking new ground as to how literary landscapes and spaces are critically assessed this study seeks to examine the many detailed descriptions of the physical world in McCarthy on their own terms. Adding to so-called 'second wave' environmental criticism, it reaches beyond an earlier, limited understanding of the environment as 'nature' to consider both natural landscapes and built environments. Chapter one discusses the field of environmental criticism in reference to McCarthy while chapter two offers a brief narrative of conceptions of space in the U.S. Chapter three highlights trends in McCarthy criticism. Chapters four through eight provide close readings of McCarthy's later novels, from Blood Meridian to The Road.
Download or read book Beyond the Living Dead written by Bruce Peabody and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1968, George Romero's film Night of the Living Dead premiered, launching a growing preoccupation with zombies within mass and literary fiction, film, television, and video games. Romero's creativity and enduring influence make him a worthy object of inquiry in his own right, and his long career helps us take stock of the shifting interest in zombies since the 1960s. Examining his work promotes a better understanding of the current state of the zombie and where it is going amidst the political and social turmoil of the twenty-first century. These new essays document, interpret, and explain the meaning of the still-budding Romero legacy, drawing cross-disciplinary perspectives from such fields as literature, political science, philosophy, and comparative film studies. Essays consider some of the sources of Romero's inspiration (including comics, science fiction, and Westerns), chart his influence as a storyteller and a social critic, and consider the legacy he leaves for viewers, artists, and those studying the living dead.
