Download or read book A Cultural History of Causality written by Stephen Kern and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-10 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pioneering work is the first to trace how our understanding of the causes of human behavior has changed radically over the course of European and American cultural history since 1830. Focusing on the act of murder, as documented vividly by more than a hundred novels including Crime and Punishment, An American Tragedy, The Trial, and Lolita, Stephen Kern devotes each chapter of A Cultural History of Causality to examining a specific causal factor or motive for murder--ancestry, childhood, language, sexuality, emotion, mind, society, and ideology. In addition to drawing on particular novels, each chapter considers the sciences (genetics, endocrinology, physiology, neuroscience) and systems of thought (psychoanalysis, linguistics, sociology, forensic psychiatry, and existential philosophy) most germane to each causal factor or motive. Kern identifies five shifts in thinking about causality, shifts toward increasing specificity, multiplicity, complexity, probability, and uncertainty. He argues that the more researchers learned about the causes of human behavior, the more they realized how much more there was to know and how little they knew about what they thought they knew. The book closes by considering the revolutionary impact of quantum theory, which, though it influenced novelists only marginally, shattered the model of causal understanding that had dominated Western thought since the seventeenth century. Others have addressed changing ideas about causality in specific areas, but no one has tackled a broad cultural history of this concept as does Stephen Kern in this engagingly written and lucidly argued book.
Download or read book Neurology and Modernity written by Laura Salisbury and published by Springer. This book was released on 2010-02-10 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As people of the modern era were singularly prone to nervous disorders, the nervous system became a model for describing political and social organization. This volume untangles the mutual dependencies of scientific neurology and the cultural attitudes of the period 1800-1950, exploring how and why modernity was a fundamentally nervous state.
Download or read book Always Already New written by Lisa Gitelman and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2008-08-29 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Always Already New, Lisa Gitelman explores the newness of new media while she asks what it means to do media history. Using the examples of early recorded sound and digital networks, Gitelman challenges readers to think about the ways that media work as the simultaneous subjects and instruments of historical inquiry. Presenting original case studies of Edison's first phonographs and the Pentagon's first distributed digital network, the ARPANET, Gitelman points suggestively toward similarities that underlie the cultural definition of records (phonographic and not) at the end of the nineteenth century and the definition of documents (digital and not) at the end of the twentieth. As a result, Always Already New speaks to present concerns about the humanities as much as to the emergent field of new media studies. Records and documents are kernels of humanistic thought, after all—part of and party to the cultural impulse to preserve and interpret. Gitelman's argument suggests inventive contexts for "humanities computing" while also offering a new perspective on such traditional humanities disciplines as literary history. Making extensive use of archival sources, Gitelman describes the ways in which recorded sound and digitally networked text each emerged as local anomalies that were yet deeply embedded within the reigning logic of public life and public memory. In the end Gitelman turns to the World Wide Web and asks how the history of the Web is already being told, how the Web might also resist history, and how using the Web might be producing the conditions of its own historicity.
Download or read book American Encounters written by Angela L. Miller and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Contextual in approch, this text draws on socio-economic and political studies as well as histories of religion, science, literature, and popular culture, and explores the diverse, conflicted history of American art and architecture. Thematically interrelating the visual arts to other material artifacts and cultural practices, the text examines how artists and architects produced artwork that visually expressed various social and political values."--Publisher's website.
Download or read book Archeology in Cultural Systems written by Lewis R. Binford and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Archeology shares with other anthropological sciences the goal of explaining differences and similarities among cultural systems. Sally R. Binford and Lewis R. Binford, therefore are concerned with theory and arguments which treat problems of the interrelationship of cultural variables with explanatory value. Archeology in Cultural Systems is devoted to four different aspects of archeology.This book progresses from theoretical-methodological discussions to specific consideration of archeological materials. It focuses on the analysis of archeological remains from a single site. Its concern is primarily with recognizing, measuring and explaining variability in the form and distribution of a site's cultural remains. The authors argue that internal variability derives from the composition and distribution of societal segments represented at the site. The work then shifts to study of archeological components (or their attributes) and seeks explanations for observed differences and similarities. A final section of the volume comments and discusses materials in the volume.Archeology in Cultural Systems is not a monolithic presentation of any particular school of archeological thought. There are common interests and many points of agreement among the authors, but there is also diversity of opinion on several points. These points are the focus of research here.
Download or read book Literary History Cultural History written by Herbert Grabes and published by Gunter Narr Verlag. This book was released on 2001 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the New Cultural History of Music written by Jane F. Fulcher and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 605 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the field of Cultural History grows in prominence in the academic world, an understanding of the history of culture has become vital to scholars across disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of the New Cultural History of Music cultivates a return to the fundamental premises of cultural history in the cutting-edge work of musicologists concerned with cultural history and historians who deal with music. In this volume, noted academics from both of these disciplines illustrate the continuing endeavor of cultural history to grasp the realms of human experience, understanding, and communication as they are manifest or expressed symbolically through various layers of culture and in many forms of art. The Oxford Handbook of the New Cultural History of Music fosters and reflects a sustained dialogue about their shared goals and techniques, rejuvenating their work with new insights into the field itself.
Download or read book Wilhelm Dilthey written by I.N. Bulhof and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book An Introduction to Chinese History and Culture written by Qizhi Zhang and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-04-15 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book breaks with convention and provides an overview of Chinese history in the form of special topics. These topics include the major issues of “A Scientific Approach to the Origins of Chinese Civilization,” “Ancient Chinese Society and the Change of Dynasties,” “The Golden Ages of the Han, Tang and Qing Dynasties: a Comparative Analysis,” “Transportation Systems and Cultural Communication in Ancient China,” “Ethnic Relations in Chinese History,” “The Systems of Politics, Law and Selecting Officials in Ancient China,” “Agriculture, Handicraft and Commerce in Ancient China,” “The Military Thought and Military Systems of Ancient China,” “The Rich and Colorful Social Life in Ancient China,” “The Evolution of Ancient Chinese Thought,” “The Treasure House of Ancient Chinese Literature and Art,” “The Emergence and Progress of Ancient Chinese Historiography,” “Reflection on Ancient Chinese Science and Technology,” “New Issues in the Modern History of China,” and “A General Progression to the Socialist Modernization of the People’s Republic of China.” The book is based on current literature and research by university students. The modern history section is relatively concise, while the topics related to ancient Chinese history are longer, reflecting the country’s rich history and corresponding wealth of materials. There is also an in-depth discussion on the socialist modernization of the People’s Republic of China. The book provides insights into Chinese history, allowing readers “to see the value of civilization through history; to see the preciseness of history through civilization.” It focuses on the social background, lifestyle and development processes to illustrate ideologies and ideas.
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Translation History written by Christopher Rundle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of Translation History presents the first comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of this multi-faceted disciplinary area and serves both as an introduction to carrying out research into translation and interpreting history and as a key point of reference for some of its main theoretical and methodological issues, interdisciplinary approaches, and research themes. The Handbook brings together 30 eminent international scholars from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, offering examples of the most innovative research while representing a wide range of approaches, themes, and cultural contexts. The Handbook is divided into four sections: the first looks at some key methodological and theoretical approaches; the second examines some of the key research areas that have developed an interdisciplinary dialogue with translation history; the third looks at translation history from the perspective of specific cultural and religious perspectives; and the fourth offers a selection of case studies on some of the key topics to have emerged in translation and interpreting history over the past 20 years. This Handbook is an indispensable resource for students and researchers of translation and interpreting history, translation theory, and related areas.
Download or read book Redlining Culture written by Richard Jean So and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The canon of postwar American fiction has changed over the past few decades to include far more writers of color. It would appear that we are making progress—recovering marginalized voices and including those who were for far too long ignored. However, is this celebratory narrative borne out in the data? Richard Jean So draws on big data, literary history, and close readings to offer an unprecedented analysis of racial inequality in American publishing that reveals the persistence of an extreme bias toward white authors. In fact, a defining feature of the publishing industry is its vast whiteness, which has denied nonwhite authors, especially black writers, the coveted resources of publishing, reviews, prizes, and sales, with profound effects on the language, form, and content of the postwar novel. Rather than seeing the postwar period as the era of multiculturalism, So argues that we should understand it as the invention of a new form of racial inequality—one that continues to shape the arts and literature today. Interweaving data analysis of large-scale patterns with a consideration of Toni Morrison’s career as an editor at Random House and readings of individual works by Octavia Butler, Henry Dumas, Amy Tan, and others, So develops a form of criticism that brings together qualitative and quantitative approaches to the study of literature. A vital and provocative work for American literary studies, critical race studies, and the digital humanities, Redlining Culture shows the importance of data and computational methods for understanding and challenging racial inequality.
Download or read book The Practice of U S Women s History written by S. J. Kleinberg and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last several decades, U.S. women's history has come of age. Not only have historians challenged the national narrative on the basis of their rich explorations of the personal, the social, the economic, and the political, but they have also entered into dialogues with each other over the meaning of women's history itself. In this collection of seventeen original essays on women's lives from the colonial period to the present, contributors take the competing forces of race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, and region into account. Among many other examples, they examine how conceptions of gender shaped government officials' attitudes towards East Asian immigrants; how race and gender inequality pervaded the welfare state; and how color and class shaped Mexican American women's mobilization for civil and labor rights.
Download or read book Practicing History written by Gabrielle M. Spiegel and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This essential new collection of key articles from critical thinkers and practicing historians focuses on where history is now in terms of its theory and practice. For students, teachers and historians alike, this is an indispensable reader.
Download or read book A Hopi Social History written by Scott Rushforth and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-08-27 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Incorporate[s] a multitude of theoretical approaches about Hopi sociological life . . . Ranging from prehistoric times until contemporary times.” —Indigenous Nations Studies Journal All anthropologists and archaeologists seek to answer basic questions about human beings and society. Why do people behave the way they do? Why do patterns in the behavior of individuals and groups sometimes persist for remarkable periods of time? Why do patterns in behavior sometimes change? A Hopi Social History explores these basic questions in a unique way. The discussion is constructed around a historically ordered series of case studies from a single sociocultural system (the Hopi) in order to understand better the multiplicity of processes at work in any sociocultural system through time. The case studies investigate the mysterious abandonments of the Western Pueblo region in late prehistory, the initial impact of European diseases on the Hopis, Hopi resistance to European domination between 1680 and 1880, the split of Oraibi village in 1906, and some responses by the Hopis to modernization in the twentieth century. These case studies provide a forum in which the authors examine a number of theories and conceptions of culture to determine which theories are relevant to which kinds of persistence and change. With this broad theoretical synthesis, the book will be of interest to students and scholars in the social sciences. “A foundation for general discourse on anthropological theory and explanation . . . Covering the prehistoric, Spanish, early historic, and contemporary periods.” —American Indian Quarterly
Download or read book A Brief History of Archaeology written by Nadia Durrani and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-17 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This short account of the discipline of archaeology tells of spectacular discoveries and the colorful lives of the archaeologists who made them, as well as of changing theories and current debates in the field. Spanning over two thousand years of history, the book details early digs as well as covering the development of archaeology as a multidisciplinary science, the modernization of meticulous excavation methods during the twentieth century, and the important discoveries that led to new ideas about the evolution of human societies. A Brief History of Archaeology is a vivid narrative that will engage readers who are new to the discipline, drawing on the authors’ extensive experience in the field and classroom. Early research at Stonehenge in Britain, burial mound excavations, and the exploration of Herculaneum and Pompeii culminate in the nineteenth century debates over human antiquity and the theory of evolution. The book then moves on to the discovery of the world’s pre-industrial civilizations in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Central America, the excavations at Troy and Mycenae, the Royal Burials at Ur, Iraq, and the dramatic finding of the pharaoh Tutankhamun in 1922. The book concludes by considering recent sensational discoveries, such as the Lords of Sipán in Peru, and exploring the debates over processual and postprocessual theory which have intrigued archaeologists in the early 21st century. The second edition updates this respected introduction to one of the sciences’ most fascinating disciplines.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of Culture History written by R. Lee Lyman and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 1997-06-30 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents an insightful critical analysis of the culture history approach to Americanist anthropology. Reasons for the acceptance and incorporation of important concepts, as well as the paradigm's strengths and weaknesses, are discussed in detail. The framework for this analysis is founded on the contrast between two metaphysics used by evolutionary biologists in discussing their own discipline: materialistic/populational thinking and essentialistic/typological thinking. Employing this framework, the authors show not only why the culture history paradigm lost favor in the 1960s, but also which of its aspects need to be retained if archaeology is ever to produce a viable theory of culture change.
Download or read book History written by Peter Claus and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-04-07 with total page 519 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demystifying the subject with clarity and verve, History: An Introduction to Theory, Method and Practice familiarizes the reader with the varied spectrum of historical approaches in a balanced, comprehensive and engaging manner. Global in scope, and covering a wide range of topics from the ancient and medieval worlds to the twenty-first century, it explores historical perspectives not only from historiography itself, but from related areas such as literature, sociology, geography and anthropology. Clearly written, accessible and student-friendly, this second edition is fully updated throughout to include: An increased spread of case studies from beyond Europe, especially from American and imperial histories. New chapters on important and growing areas of historical inquiry, such as environmental history and digital history Expanded sections on political, cultural and social history More discussion of non-traditional forms of historical representation and knowledge like film, fiction and video games. Accompanied by a new companion website (www.routledge.com/cw/claus) containing valuable supporting material for students and instructors such as discussion questions, further reading and web links, this book is an essential introduction for all students of historical theory and method.