Download or read book Hope without Optimism written by Terry Eagleton and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2015-09-09 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his latest book, Terry Eagleton, one of the most celebrated intellects of our time, considers the least regarded of the virtues. His compelling meditation on hope begins with a firm rejection of the role of optimism in life’s course. Like its close relative, pessimism, it is more a system of rationalization than a reliable lens on reality, reflecting the cast of one’s temperament in place of true discernment. Eagleton turns then to hope, probing the meaning of this familiar but elusive word: Is it an emotion? How does it differ from desire? Does it fetishize the future? Finally, Eagleton broaches a new concept of tragic hope, in which this old virtue represents a strength that remains even after devastating loss has been confronted. In a wide-ranging discussion that encompasses Shakespeare’s Lear, Kierkegaard on despair, Aquinas, Wittgenstein, St. Augustine, Kant, Walter Benjamin’s theory of history, and a long consideration of the prominent philosopher of hope, Ernst Bloch, Eagleton displays his masterful and highly creative fluency in literature, philosophy, theology, and political theory. Hope without Optimism is full of the customary wit and lucidity of this writer whose reputation rests not only on his pathbreaking ideas but on his ability to engage the reader in the urgent issues of life. Page-Barbour Lectures

Download or read book The Anatomy of Hope written by Jerome Groopman and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2005-01-11 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do some people find and sustain hope during difficult circumstances, while others do not? What can we learn from those who do, and how is their example applicable to our own lives? The Anatomy of Hope is a journey of inspiring discovery, spanning some thirty years of Dr. Jerome Groopman’s practice, during which he encountered many extraordinary people and sought to answer these questions. This profound exploration begins when Groopman was a medical student, ignorant of the vital role of hope in patients’ lives–and it culminates in his remarkable quest to delineate a biology of hope. With appreciation for the human elements and the science, Groopman explains how to distinguish true hope from false hope–and how to gain an honest understanding of the reach and limits of this essential emotion.

Download or read book The Science of Optimism and Hope written by Martin E. P. Seligman and published by Human Kinetics 1. This book was released on 2000 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Optimism and hope are not random feelings; they can be conscious choices. Martin E.P. Seligman, professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, is one of the world's leading authorities on learned helplessness and its relation to optimism and hope. In recognition of his contribution to the field, the John Templeton Foundation hosted a symposium to honor his work and to document its tremendous influence on the world of psychological research. This volume brings together eminent psychologists and professionals whose work has been greatly influenced by Seligman's innovative approach. The contributors focus on several concepts related to optimism and hope including expectancies, explantatory style, goal setting, future mindedness, control, and choice. They address the areas of optimism and well-being in individuals, neurobiology of optimism, psychological resilience, physical health, promoting optimism and hope, and optimism in families, faith, and cutlures. - Back cover.

Download or read book Hope in the Dark written by Rebecca Solnit and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2016-05-14 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[A] landmark book . . . Solnit illustrates how the uprisings that begin on the streets can upend the status quo and topple authoritarian regimes” (Vice). A book as powerful and influential as Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, her Hope in the Dark was written to counter the despair of activists at a moment when they were focused on their losses and had turned their back to the victories behind them—and the unimaginable changes soon to come. In it, she makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable. Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argues that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable, and that pessimism and despair rest on an unwarranted confidence about what is going to happen next. Now, with a moving new introduction explaining how the book came about and a new afterword that helps teach us how to hope and act in our unnerving world, she brings a new illumination to the darkness of our times in an unforgettable new edition of this classic book. “One of the best books of the 21st century.” —The Guardian “No writer has better understood the mix of fear and possibility, peril and exuberance that’s marked this new millennium.” —Bill McKibben, New York Times–bestselling author of Falter “An elegant reminder that activist victories are easily forgotten, and that they often come in extremely unexpected, roundabout ways.” —The New Yorker

Download or read book Feel Free written by Zadie Smith and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Notable Book From Zadie Smith, one of the most beloved authors of her generation, a new collection of essays Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers, but also a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a literary event in its own right. Arranged into five sections--In the World, In the Audience, In the Gallery, On the Bookshelf, and Feel Free--this new collection poses questions we immediately recognize. What is The Social Network--and Facebook itself--really about? "It's a cruel portrait of us: 500 million sentient people entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore." Why do we love libraries? "Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay." What will we tell our granddaughters about our collective failure to address global warming? "So I might say to her, look: the thing you have to appreciate is that we'd just been through a century of relativism and deconstruction, in which we were informed that most of our fondest-held principles were either uncertain or simple wishful thinking, and in many areas of our lives we had already been asked to accept that nothing is essential and everything changes--and this had taken the fight out of us somewhat." Gathering in one place for the first time previously unpublished work, as well as already classic essays, such as, "Joy," and, "Find Your Beach," Feel Free offers a survey of important recent events in culture and politics, as well as Smith's own life. Equally at home in the world of good books and bad politics, Brooklyn-born rappers and the work of Swiss novelists, she is by turns wry, heartfelt, indignant, and incisive--and never any less than perfect company. This is literary journalism at its zenith. Zadie Smith's new book, Grand Union, is on sale 10/8/2019.

Download or read book The Hope Circuit written by Martin Seligman and published by Penguin Group Australia. This book was released on 2018-04-02 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martin E. P. Seligman is one of the most decorated and popular psychologists of his generation. When he first encountered the discipline in the 1960s, it was devoted to eliminating misery: the science of how past trauma creates present symptoms. Today, thanks in large part to Seligman's own work pioneering the Positive Psychology movement, it is ever more focused on the bright side – gratitude, resilience and hope. In this breakthrough memoir, Seligman recounts how he learned to study optimism – including a life-changing conversation with his five-year-old daughter. In wise, eloquent prose, Seligman tells the human stories behind some of his major findings. He recounts developing CAVE, an analytical tool that predicts election outcomes (with shocking accuracy) based on the language used in campaign speeches, and the canonical studies that birthed the theory of learned helplessness – which he now reveals was incorrect. And he writes at length for the first time about his own battles with depression at a young age. All the while, Seligman works out his theory of psychology, making a compelling and deeply personal case for the importance of virtues like hope, anticipation, gratitude and wisdom for our mental health. You will walk away from this book not just educated but deeply enriched.

Download or read book Optimism written by Helen Keller and published by The Floating Press. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stuck in a rut? Need an attitude adjustment? This inspirational classic from American author Helen Keller is bound to fit the bill. Rendered deaf and blind by scarlet fever in her infancy in a time when the disabled were often shunned and ignored, Keller managed to learn to read, write, and speak, not in only in her native English, but in several other languages, as well. Keller regards optimism as "the faith that leads to achievement," and this treatise lays out her views on making the best of even the direst of circumstances.

Download or read book Kubrick s Hope written by Julian Rice and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2008-09-29 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There have been two common assumptions about Stanley Kubrick: that his films portray human beings who are driven exclusively by aggression and greed, and that he pessimistically rejected meaning in a contingent, postmodern world. However, as Kubrick himself remarked, 'A work of art should be always exhilarating and never depressing, whatever its subject matter may be.' In this new interpretation of Kubrick's films, Julian Rice suggests that the director's work had a more positive outlook than most people credit him. And while other studies have recounted Kubrick's life and production histories, few have offered lucid explanations of specific sources and their influence on his films. In Kubrick's Hope, Rice explains how the theories of Freud and Jung took cinematic form, and also considers the significant impression left on the director's last six films by Robert Ardrey, Bruno Bettelheim, and Joseph Campbell. In addition to providing useful contexts, Rice offers close readings of the films, inviting readers to note details they may have missed and to interpret them in their own way. By refreshing their experience of the films and discarding postmodern clichZs, viewers may discover more optimistic themes in the director's works. Beginning with 2001: A Space Odyssey and continuing through A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut, Rice illuminates Kubrick's thinking at the time he made each film. Throughout, Rice examines the compelling political, psychological, and spiritual issues the director raises. As this book contends, if these works are considered together and repeatedly re-viewed, Kubrick's films may help viewers to personally grow and collectively endure.

Download or read book Materialism written by Terry Eagleton and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliant introduction to the philosophical concept of materialism and its relevance to contemporary science and culture In this eye-opening, intellectually stimulating appreciation of a fascinating school of philosophy, Terry Eagleton makes a powerful argument that materialism is at the center of today’s important scientific and cultural as well as philosophical debates. The author reveals entirely fresh ways of considering the values and beliefs of three very different materialists—Marx, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein—drawing striking comparisons between their philosophies while reflecting on a wide array of topics, from ideology and history to language, ethics, and the aesthetic. Cogently demonstrating how it is our bodies and corporeal activity that make thought and consciousness possible, Eagleton’s book is a valuable exposition on philosophic thought that strikes to the heart of how we think about ourselves and live in the world.

Download or read book Radical Sacrifice written by Terry Eagleton and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A trenchant analysis of sacrifice as the foundation of the modern, as well as the ancient, social order The modern conception of sacrifice is at once cast as a victory of self-discipline over desire and condescended to as destructive and archaic abnegation. But even in the Old Testament, the dual natures of sacrifice, embodying both ritual slaughter and moral rectitude, were at odds. In this analysis, Terry Eagleton makes a compelling argument that the idea of sacrifice has long been misunderstood. Pursuing the complex lineage of sacrifice in a lyrical discourse, Eagleton focuses on the Old and New Testaments, offering a virtuosic analysis of the crucifixion, while drawing together a host of philosophers, theologians, and texts--from Hegel, Nietzsche, and Derrida to the Aeneid and The Wings of the Dove. Brilliant meditations on death and eros, Shakespeare and St. Paul, irony and hybridity explore the meaning of sacrifice in modernity, casting off misperceptions of barbarity to reconnect the radical idea to politics and revolution.

Download or read book Radical Hope written by Jonathan Lear and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the story of Plenty Coups, the last great Chief of the Crow Nation. This title contains a philosophical and ethical inquiry into a people faced with the end of their way of life.

Download or read book The Uses of Pessimism written by Roger Scruton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-04 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ranging widely over human history and culture, from ancient Greece to the current global economic downturn, Scruton makes a counterintuitive yet persuasive case that optimists and idealists -- with their ignorance about the truths of human nature and human society, and their naive hopes about what can be changed -- have wrought havoc for centuries. Scruton's argument is nuanced, however, and his preference for pessimism is not a dark view of human nature; rather his is a 'hopeful pessimism' which urges that instead of utopian efforts to reform human society or human nature, we focus on the only reform that we can truly master -- the improvement of ourselves through the cultivation of our better instincts. Written in Scruton's trademark style-- erudite, sweeping in scope across centuries and cultures, and unafraid to offend-- this book is sure to intrigue and provoke readers concerned with the state of Western culture, the nature of human beings, and the question of whether social progress is truly possible.

Download or read book Warmth written by Daniel Sherrell and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2021 BY THE NEW YORKER AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY “[Warmth] is lyrical and erudite, engaging with science, activism, and philosophy . . . [Sherrell] captures the complicated correspondence between hope and doubt, faith and despair—the pendulum of emotional states that defines our attitude toward the future.” —The New Yorker “Beautifully rendered and bracingly honest.” —Jenny Odell, author of How to Do Nothing From a millennial climate activist, an exploration of how young people live in the shadow of catastrophe Warmth is a new kind of book about climate change: not what it is or how we solve it, but how it feels to imagine a future—and a family—under its weight. In a fiercely personal account written from inside the climate movement, Sherrell lays bare how the crisis is transforming our relationships to time, to hope, and to each other. At once a memoir, a love letter, and an electric work of criticism, Warmth goes to the heart of the defining question of our time: how do we go on in a world that may not?

Download or read book Hope Human and Wild written by Bill McKibben and published by Milkweed Editions. This book was released on 2007 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Divided into three sections, Hope, Human and Wild profiles the efforts of three caring communities to preserve wilderness and reverse environmental devastation. They include the reforestation of McKibben's home territory, New York's Adirondack Mountains; solving traffic and pollution problems in the densely populated Curitiba, Brazil; and how the citizens of Kerala, India have demonstrated that quality of life doesn't depend on overconsumption of resources. This edition features a new introduction that revisits these places and explores how they've changed over the years.

Download or read book All We Can Save written by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and published by One World. This book was released on 2021-07-20 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Provocative and illuminating essays from women at the forefront of the climate movement who are harnessing truth, courage, and solutions to lead humanity forward. “A powerful read that fills one with, dare I say . . . hope?”—The New York Times NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE There is a renaissance blooming in the climate movement: leadership that is more characteristically feminine and more faithfully feminist, rooted in compassion, connection, creativity, and collaboration. While it’s clear that women and girls are vital voices and agents of change for this planet, they are too often missing from the proverbial table. More than a problem of bias, it’s a dynamic that sets us up for failure. To change everything, we need everyone. All We Can Save illuminates the expertise and insights of dozens of diverse women leading on climate in the United States—scientists, journalists, farmers, lawyers, teachers, activists, innovators, wonks, and designers, across generations, geographies, and race—and aims to advance a more representative, nuanced, and solution-oriented public conversation on the climate crisis. These women offer a spectrum of ideas and insights for how we can rapidly, radically reshape society. Intermixing essays with poetry and art, this book is both a balm and a guide for knowing and holding what has been done to the world, while bolstering our resolve never to give up on one another or our collective future. We must summon truth, courage, and solutions to turn away from the brink and toward life-giving possibility. Curated by two climate leaders, the book is a collection and celebration of visionaries who are leading us on a path toward all we can save. With essays and poems by: Emily Atkin • Xiye Bastida • Ellen Bass • Colette Pichon Battle • Jainey K. Bavishi • Janine Benyus • adrienne maree brown • Régine Clément • Abigail Dillen • Camille T. Dungy • Rhiana Gunn-Wright • Joy Harjo • Katharine Hayhoe • Mary Annaïse Heglar • Jane Hirshfield • Mary Anne Hitt • Ailish Hopper • Tara Houska, Zhaabowekwe • Emily N. Johnston • Joan Naviyuk Kane • Naomi Klein • Kate Knuth • Ada Limón • Louise Maher-Johnson • Kate Marvel • Gina McCarthy • Anne Haven McDonnell • Sarah Miller • Sherri Mitchell, Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset • Susanne C. Moser • Lynna Odel • Sharon Olds • Mary Oliver • Kate Orff • Jacqui Patterson • Leah Penniman • Catherine Pierce • Marge Piercy • Kendra Pierre-Louis • Varshini • Prakash • Janisse Ray • Christine E. Nieves Rodriguez • Favianna Rodriguez • Cameron Russell • Ash Sanders • Judith D. Schwartz • Patricia Smith • Emily Stengel • Sarah Stillman • Leah Cardamore Stokes • Amanda Sturgeon • Maggie Thomas • Heather McTeer Toney • Alexandria Villaseñor • Alice Walker • Amy Westervelt • Jane Zelikova

Download or read book Inheritors of the Earth written by Chris D. Thomas and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human activity has irreversibly changed the natural environment. But the news isn't all bad. It's accepted wisdom today that human beings have permanently damaged the natural world, causing extinction, deforestation, pollution, and of course climate change. But in Inheritors of the Earth, biologist Chris Thomas shows that this obscures a more hopeful truth -- we're also helping nature grow and change. Human cities and mass agriculture have created new places for enterprising animals and plants to live, and our activities have stimulated evolutionary change in virtually every population of living species. Most remarkably, Thomas shows, humans may well have raised the rate at which new species are formed to the highest level in the history of our planet. Drawing on the success stories of diverse species, from the ochre-colored comma butterfly to the New Zealand pukeko, Thomas overturns the accepted story of declining biodiversity on Earth. In so doing, he questions why we resist new forms of life, and why we see ourselves as unnatural. Ultimately, he suggests that if life on Earth can recover from the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs, it can survive the onslaughts of the technological age. This eye-opening book is a profound reexamination of the relationship between humanity and the natural world.

Download or read book Commanding Hope written by Thomas Homer-Dixon and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2022-06-14 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Calling on history, cutting-edge research, complexity science and even The Lord of the Rings, renowned thought leader Thomas Homer-Dixon lays out the tools we can command to rescue a world on the brink. For three decades, Thomas Homer-Dixon, author of The Ingenuity Gap and The Upside of Down, has examined the threats to our future security—predicting a deteriorating global environment, extreme economic stresses, mass migrations, social instability and wide political violence if humankind continued on its current course. He was called The Doom Meister, but we now see how prescient he was. Today, just about everything we've known and relied on (our natural environment, economy, societies, cultures and institutions) is changing dramatically—too often for the worse. Without radical new approaches, our planet will become unrecognizable as well as poorer, more violent and more authoritarian. In his latest work (dedicated to his young children), he calls on his extraordinary knowledge of complexity science, of how societies work and can evolve, and of our capacity to handle threats, to show that we can shift human civilization onto a decisively new path if we mobilize our minds, spirits, imaginations and collective values. Commanding Hope marshals a fascinating, accessible argument for reinvigorating our cognitive strengths and belief systems to affect urgent systemic change, strengthen our economies and cultures, and renew our hope in a positive future for everyone on Earth.