Download or read book Literary Infinities written by Baylee Brits and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-11-16 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, we have forgotten that mathematics was once aligned with the arts, rather than with the sciences. Literary Infinities analyses the connection between the late 19th-century revolution in the mathematics of the infinite and the literature of 20th-century modernism, opening up a novel path of influence and inquiry in modernist literature. Baylee Brits considers the role of numbers and the concept of the infinite in key modernists, including James Joyce, Italo Svevo, Jorge Luis Borges, Samuel Beckett and J.M. Coetzee. She begins by recuperating the difficult and rebellious German mathematician, Georg Cantor, for the broader artistic, cultural and philosophical project of modernism. Cantor revolutionized the mathematics of the infinite, creating reverberations across the numerical sciences, philosophy, religion and literary modernism. This 'modernist' infinity is shown to undergird and shape key innovations in narrative form, creating a bridge between the mathematical and the literary, presentation and representation, formalism and the tactile imagination.
Download or read book The Infinities written by John Banville and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-02-08 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea comes a novel that is at once a gloriously earthy romp and a wise look at the terrible, wonderful plight of being human. “One of the great living masters of English-language prose. The Infinities is a dazzling example of that mastery.” —Los Angeles Times On a languid midsummer’s day in the countryside, the Godley family gathers at the bedside of Adam, a renowned mathematician and their patriarch. But they are not alone in their vigil. Around them hovers a clan of mischievous immortals—Zeus, Pan, and Hermes among them—who begin to stir up trouble for the Godleys, to sometimes wildly unintended effect.
Download or read book Fictions of Infinity written by Martin Riedelsheimer and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-10-12 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study traces the connection of infinity and Levinasian ethics in 21st-century fiction. It tackles the paradox of how infinity can be (re-)presented in the finite space between the covers of a book and finds an answer that combines conceptual metaphor theory with concepts from classical narratology and beyond, such as mise en abyme, textual circularity, intertextuality or omniscient narration. It argues that texts with such structures may be conceptualised as infinite via Lakoff and Núñez’s Basic Metaphor of Infinity. The catachrestic transfer of infinity from structure to text means that the texts themselves are understood to be infinite. Taking its cue from the central role of the infinite in Emmanuel Levinas’s ethics, the function of such ‘fictions of infinity’ turns out to be ethical: infinite textuality disrupts reading patterns and calls into question the reader’s spontaneity to interpret. This hypothesis is put to the test in detailed readings of four 21st-century novels, David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods, Ian McEwan’s Saturday and John Banville’s The Infinities. This book thus combines ethical criticism with structural aesthetics to uncover ethical potential in fiction.
Download or read book Going For Infinity written by Poul Anderson and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2003-05-23 with total page 598 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than just a collection of some of Poul Anderson's most acclaimed works, Going for Infinity is both a celebration and a memoir of Anderson's distinguished sixty-year career in science fiction and fantasy. Along with several Hugo and Nebula Award-winning stories, Anderson also shares autobiographical musings, and fond memories as he looks back at a lifetime spent crafting many of science fiction's most memorable adventures. Between the short story and novel excerpts collected here, which range over the entire length of Anderson's career, he reminisces about his experiences, including his encounters with such peers and colleagues as John W. Campbell, Anthony Boucher, "Gordy" Dickson, Jack Vance, Clifford Simak, and Harlan Ellison. Going for Infinity provides a firsthand look at six decades of science fiction and fantasy, as lived by one of the field's most honored contributors. From the moons of Saturn to the shores of an enchanted isle, the astounding breadth of Poul Anderson's imagination is on ample display throughout this once-in-a-lifetime collection, along with a personal glimpse into the man himself.
Download or read book The Beginning of Infinity written by David Deutsch and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2011-03-31 with total page 571 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Science has never had an advocate quite like David Deutsch ... A computational physicist on a par with his touchstones Alan Turing and Richard Feynman, and a philosopher in the line of his greatest hero, Karl Popper. His arguments are so clear that to read him is to experience the thrill of the highest level of discourse available on this planet and to understand it' Peter Forbes, Independent In our search for truth, how far have we advanced? This uniquely human quest for good explanations has driven amazing improvements in everything from scientific understanding and technology to politics, moral values and human welfare. But will progress end, either in catastrophe or completion - or will it continue infinitely? In this profound and seminal book, David Deutsch explores the furthest reaches of our current understanding, taking in the Infinity Hotel, supernovae and the nature of optimism, to instill in all of us a wonder at what we have achieved - and the fact that this is only the beginning of humanity's infinite possibility. 'This is Deutsch at his most ambitious, seeking to understand the implications of our scientific explanations of the world ... I enthusiastically recommend this rich, wide-ranging and elegantly written exposition of the unique insights of one of our most original intellectuals' Michael Berry, Times Higher Education Supplement 'Bold ... profound ... provocative and persuasive' Economist 'David Deutsch may well go down in history as one of the great scientists of our age' Scotsman
Download or read book Naming Infinity written by Loren Graham and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-31 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1913, Russian imperial marines stormed an Orthodox monastery at Mt. Athos, Greece, to haul off monks engaged in a dangerously heretical practice known as Name Worshipping. Exiled to remote Russian outposts, the monks and their mystical movement went underground. Ultimately, they came across Russian intellectuals who embraced Name Worshipping—and who would achieve one of the biggest mathematical breakthroughs of the twentieth century, going beyond recent French achievements. Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Kantor take us on an exciting mathematical mystery tour as they unravel a bizarre tale of political struggles, psychological crises, sexual complexities, and ethical dilemmas. At the core of this book is the contest between French and Russian mathematicians who sought new answers to one of the oldest puzzles in math: the nature of infinity. The French school chased rationalist solutions. The Russian mathematicians, notably Dmitri Egorov and Nikolai Luzin—who founded the famous Moscow School of Mathematics—were inspired by mystical insights attained during Name Worshipping. Their religious practice appears to have opened to them visions into the infinite—and led to the founding of descriptive set theory. The men and women of the leading French and Russian mathematical schools are central characters in this absorbing tale that could not be told until now. Naming Infinity is a poignant human interest story that raises provocative questions about science and religion, intuition and creativity.
Download or read book Of Literature and Knowledge written by Peter Swirski and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-02-12 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Of Literature and Knowledge looks ... like an important advance in this new and very important subject... literature is about to become even more interesting." – Edward O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Professor, Harvard University. Framed by the theory of evolution, this colourful and engaging volume presents a new understanding of the mechanisms by which we transfer information from narrative make-believe to real life. Ranging across game theory and philosophy of science, as well as poetics and aesthetics, Peter Swirski explains how literary fictions perform as a systematic tool of enquiry, driven by thought experiments. Crucially, he argues for a continuum between the cognitive tools employed by scientists, philosophers and scholars or writers of fiction. The result is a provocative study of our talent and propensity for creating imaginary worlds, different from the world we know yet invaluable to our understanding of it. Of Literature and Knowledge is a noteworthy challenge to contemporary critical theory, arguing that by bridging the gap between literature and science we might not only reinvigorate literary studies but, above all, further our understanding of literature.
Download or read book The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature Science and Art written by and published by . This book was released on 1875 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Space Time and Infinity written by Brian M. Stableford and published by Wildside Press LLC. This book was released on 2006-11-01 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new collection of critical essays on science fiction and fantasy literature features the following pieces: "Setting Ideas in Space, Time, and Infinity," "The Necessity of Science Fiction," "The British and American Traditions of Speculative Fiction," "The Biology and Sociology of Alien Worlds," "Cosmic Perspectives in Nineteenth-Century Literature," "An Introduction to Alternate Worlds," "Adolf Hilter: His Part in Our Struggle: (A Brief Economic History of British SF Magazines)," "The Battle of Dorking and Its Aftermath," "The Science in Science Fiction," "The Siren Song of Sexuality: The Mythology of Femmes Fatales," "What We Know About Vampires," "A Brief History of Vampires," and "A Brief History of Werewolves." Brian Stableford is the bestselling writer of 50 books and hundreds of essays, including science fiction, fantasy, literary criticism, and popular nonfiction. He lives and works in Reading, England.
Download or read book English Renaissance Literature and Contemporary Theory written by Paul Cefalu and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-08-06 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers the first sustained assessment of the ways in which recent contemporary philosophy and cultural theory - including the work of Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, Eric Santner, Slavoj Zizek, and Alenka Zupancic - can illuminate Early Modern literature and culture.
Download or read book Literature and Philosophy written by D. Rudrum and published by Springer. This book was released on 2006-07-31 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays, grounded in state-of-the-art research that explores contemporary debates at the interface between literature and philosophy. It brings together diverse schools of thought and provides both a useful overview and an examination of one of the most fascinating cross-disciplinary encounters in the humanities today.
Download or read book The Literary Review written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Dialogue on the Infinity of Love written by Tullia d'Aragona and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1997-03-15 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrated as a courtesan and poet, and as a woman of great intelligence and wit, Tullia d'Aragona (1510–56) entered the debate about the morality of love that engaged the best and most famous male intellects of sixteenth-century Italy. First published in Venice in 1547, but never before published in English, Dialogue on the Infinity of Love casts a woman rather than a man as the main disputant on the ethics of love. Sexually liberated and financially independent, Tullia d'Aragona dared to argue that the only moral form of love between woman and man is one that recognizes both the sensual and the spiritual needs of humankind. Declaring sexual drives to be fundamentally irrepressible and blameless, she challenged the Platonic and religious orthodoxy of her time, which condemned all forms of sensual experience, denied the rationality of women, and relegated femininity to the realm of physicality and sin. Human beings, she argued, consist of body and soul, sense and intellect, and honorable love must be based on this real nature. By exposing the intrinsic misogyny of prevailing theories of love, Aragona vindicates all women, proposing a morality of love that restores them to intellectual and sexual parity with men. Through Aragona's sharp reasoning, her sense of irony and humor, and her renowned linguistic skill, a rare picture unfolds of an intelligent and thoughtful woman fighting sixteenth-century stereotypes of women and sexuality.
Download or read book The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature written by Richard Bradford and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-09-03 with total page 912 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE WILEY BLACKWELL COMPANION TO CONTEMPORARY BRITISH AND IRISH LITERATURE An insightful guide to the exploration of modern British and Irish literature The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature is a must-have guide for anyone hoping to navigate the world of new British and Irish writing. Including modern authors and poets from the 1960s through to the 21st century, the Companion provides a thorough overview of contemporary poetry, fiction, and drama by some of the most prominent and noteworthy writers. Seventy-three comprehensive chapters focus on individual authors as well as such topics as Englishness and identity, contemporary Science Fiction, Black writing in Britain, crime fiction, and the influence of globalization on British and Irish Literature. Written in four parts, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature includes comprehensive examinations of individual authors, as well as a variety of themes that have come to define the contemporary period: ethnicity, gender, nationality, and more. A thorough guide to the main figures and concepts in contemporary literature from Britain and Ireland, this two-volume set: Includes studies of notable figures such as Seamus Heaney and Angela Carter, as well as more recently influential writers such as Zadie Smith and Sarah Waters. Covers topics such as LGBT fiction, androgyny in contemporary British Literature, and post-Troubles Northern Irish Fiction Features a broad range of writers and topics covered by distinguished academics Includes an analysis of the interplay between individual authors and the major themes of the day, and whether an examination of the latter enables us to appreciate the former. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature provides essential reading for students as well as academics seeking to learn more about the history and future direction of contemporary British and Irish Literature.
Download or read book Infinity written by Ian Stewart and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ian Stewart considers the concept of infinity and the profound role it plays in mathematics, logic, physics, cosmology, and philosophy. He shows that working with infinity is not just an abstract, intellectual exercise, and analyses its important practical everyday applications.
Download or read book Awakening through Literature and Film written by Jae-seong Lee and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2021-04-16 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In order to deeply understand a work of literature or film, one requires the emotional and spiritual experience of the sublime aesthetic power, through which one may glimpse the ultimate reality, as well as the thematic approach. This book, mainly from the perspective of literary criticism of postmodern ethics and kongan (koan)/hwadu Ch’an, Seon, and Zen Buddhism, guides the reader to not simply follow the conventional thematic approach, but to catch nondual, spiritual feelings while appreciating a given work. Through a meditative state, the reading or watching of such work would ultimately be a way of questing for spiritual enlightenment.
Download or read book The Book of Nothing written by John D. Barrow and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-05-20 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What conceptual blind spot kept the ancient Greeks (unlike the Indians and Maya) from developing a concept of zero? Why did St. Augustine equate nothingness with the Devil? What tortuous means did 17th-century scientists employ in their attempts to create a vacuum? And why do contemporary quantum physicists believe that the void is actually seething with subatomic activity? You’ll find the answers in this dizzyingly erudite and elegantly explained book by the English cosmologist John D. Barrow. Ranging through mathematics, theology, philosophy, literature, particle physics, and cosmology, The Book of Nothing explores the enduring hold that vacuity has exercised on the human imagination. Combining high-wire speculation with a wealth of reference that takes in Freddy Mercury and Shakespeare alongside Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawking, the result is a fascinating excursion to the vanishing point of our knowledge.
