Download or read book The Myth of the Enlightenment written by Frederick Glaysher and published by Earthrise Press. This book was released on 2014-09-04 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Myth of the Enlightenment is Frederick Glaysher's first collection of literary essays since The Grove of the Eumenides in 2007. Divided into three sections, these essays and reviews were all written during the 21st Century, with many of them central to his evolving intellectual and spiritual struggle to write his epic poem, The Parliament of Poets, which he completed and published in late 2012. These essays open up Glaysher's own biography and his life-long interest in the writings of Leo Tolstoy, Rabindranath Tagore, John Milton, Saul Bellow, Robert Hayden, and other poets and writers, offering a fresh, new vision of literature and culture. In terms of his engagement with the writings of such philosophers and social thinkers as Plato, Giambattista Vico, Ibn Khaldun, Julien Benda, Pitirim A. Sorokin, and Jacques Barzun, Glaysher probes into the dilemmas of the Enlightenment and modernity, as he articulates a vision for the 21st Century beyond post-modernism, favoring neither East nor West, but truly global and universal. In the second section, in a number of reviews, Glaysher explores democracy in China, the United Nations, and what literature has too often become under the cultural tyranny of the American English department. In the final section, Race in America, Glaysher engages with his experience of growing up in Metropolitan Detroit and the dynamics of black and white race relations, suggesting, for the 21st Century, a wider conception of who we Americans are. Provocative, calling to account endemic complacencies, The Myth of the Enlightenment reassesses our underlying cultural assumptions, looking forward with hope toward a deeper understanding of Democratic pluralism and universality, for our nation and the globe.

Download or read book The Myth of Sisyphus And Other Essays written by Albert Camus and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-10-31 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most influential works of this century, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide; the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value of personal existence, and the possibility of life lived with dignity and authenticity.

Download or read book Top Ten Myths About Enlightenment written by Helen Hamilton and published by Balboa Press. This book was released on 2021-06-29 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: So many myths and stories occur about enlightenment that we can find ourselves chasing after an impossible goal. We may waste years along the pathway to enlightenment pursuing what we think it is and not what it actually is. This book is unique and original in that it offers readers the chance to navigate through the stories, myths and legends without getting trapped. Find out the pitfalls and traps along the way and stop trying to reach some ideal that probably dos not exist. Awakened beings have kept to a very simple path which is described for you here. Each time you read the next myth you will feel more empowered to wake up fully to the truth of what you are. You will begin to see that the great beings of the past and present that have transcended the mind were just ordinary human beings. They had no superhuman abilities or powers but simply worked with what they had. Each myth is clearly explained and clear guidance is given as to how to navigate around it. Never before has enlightenment been so clearly and simply described and available for everyone.

Download or read book The Founding Myth written by Andrew L. Seidel and published by Sterling. This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Was America founded on Judeo-Christian principles? Are the Ten Commandments the basis for American law? In the paperback edition of this critically acclaimed book, a constitutional attorney settles the debate about religion's role in America's founding. In today's contentious political climate, understanding religion's role in American government is more important than ever. Christian nationalists assert that our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and advocate an agenda based on this popular historical claim. But is this belief true? The Founding Myth answers the question once and for all. Andrew L. Seidel builds his case by comparing the Ten Commandments to the Constitution and contrasting biblical doctrine with America's founding philosophy, showing that the Declaration of Independence contradicts the Bible. Thoroughly researched, this persuasively argued and fascinating book proves that America was not built on the Bible and that Christian nationalism is un-American. Includes a new epilogue reflecting on the role Christian nationalism played in fomenting the January 6, 2021, insurrection in DC and the warnings the nation missed.

Download or read book Myth and enlightenment in American literature written by Dieter Meindl and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Myth of Disenchantment written by Jason Ananda Josephson Storm and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-05-16 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A great many theorists have argued that the defining feature of modernity is that people no longer believe in spirits, myths, or magic. Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm argues that as broad cultural history goes, this narrative is wrong, as attempts to suppress magic have failed more often than they have succeeded. Even the human sciences have been more enchanted than is commonly supposed. But that raises the question: How did a magical, spiritualist, mesmerized Europe ever convince itself that it was disenchanted? Josephson-Storm traces the history of the myth of disenchantment in the births of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, folklore, psychoanalysis, and religious studies. Ironically, the myth of mythless modernity formed at the very time that Britain, France, and Germany were in the midst of occult and spiritualist revivals. Indeed, Josephson-Storm argues, these disciplines’ founding figures were not only aware of, but profoundly enmeshed in, the occult milieu; and it was specifically in response to this burgeoning culture of spirits and magic that they produced notions of a disenchanted world. By providing a novel history of the human sciences and their connection to esotericism, The Myth of Disenchantment dispatches with most widely held accounts of modernity and its break from the premodern past.

Download or read book Rebuilding an Enlightened World written by Bill Ivey and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, the long-assumed belief in the permanence of an enlightened world is suddenly open to challenge. Human rights, participatory government, and social justice are losing global influence, and the world of ordinary people is pushing back against Enlightenment conceits. Accumulated anger links Taliban, Tea Party, and Trump, threatening women's rights, social justice, and democracy. To understand and counteract the threat to these ideas, we must set aside embedded explanations and embrace a new frame of observation and tolerance grounded in the power of belief, legend, and tradition. In Rebuilding an Enlightened World, Bill Ivey explores how folklore offers a unique and compelling new way to understand the underlying forces disrupting the world today. If we are to salvage the best of the Enlightenment dream and build a better future, we must begin to listen, patiently and inquisitively, in order to interpret the customs, norms, and traditional practices that shape all human behavior.

Download or read book Lions written by Hans Blumenberg and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For distinguished philosopher Hans Blumenberg, lions were a life-long obsession. Lions, translated by Kári Driscoll, collects thirty-two of Blumenberg's philosophical vignettes to reveal that the figure of the lion unites two of his other great preoccupations: metaphors and anecdotes as non-philosophical forms of knowledge. Each of these short texts, sparkling with erudition and humor, is devoted to a peculiar leonine presence--or, in many cases, absence--in literature, art, philosophy, religion, and politics. From Ecclesiastes to the New Testament Apocrypha, Dürer to Henri Rousseau, Aesop and La Fontaine to Rilke and Thomas Mann, the extraordinary breadth of Blumenberg's knowledge and intellectual curiosity is on full display. Lions has much to offer readers, both those already familiar with Blumenberg's oeuvre and newcomers looking for an introduction to the thought of one of Germany's most important postwar philosophers.

Download or read book Blake Myth and Enlightenment written by David Fallon and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-01-09 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides compelling new readings of William Blake’s poetry and art, including the first sustained account of his visionary paintings of Pitt and Nelson. It focuses on the recurrent motif of apotheosis, both as a figure of political authority to be demystified but also as an image of utopian possibility. It reevaluates Blake’s relationship to Enlightenment thought, myth, religion, and politics, from The French Revolution to Jerusalem and The Laocoön. The book combines careful attention to cultural and historical contexts with close readings of the texts and designs, providing an innovative account of Blake’s creative transformations of Enlightenment, classical, and Christian thought.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies written by Donald Bloxham and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-04-15 with total page 696 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genocide has scarred human societies since Antiquity. In the modern era, genocide has been a global phenomenon: from massacres in colonial America, Africa, and Australia to the Holocaust of European Jewry and mass death in Maoist China. In recent years, the discipline of 'genocide studies' has developed to offer analysis and comprehension. The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies is the first book to subject both genocide and the young discipline it has spawned to systematic, in-depth investigation. Thirty-four renowned experts study genocide through the ages by taking regional, thematic, and disciplinary-specific approaches. Chapters examine secessionist and political genocides in modern Asia. Others treat the violent dynamics of European colonialism in Africa, the complex ethnic geography of the Great Lakes region, and the structural instability of the continent's northern horn. South and North America receive detailed coverage, as do the Ottoman Empire, Nazi-occupied Europe, and post-communist Eastern Europe. Sustained attention is paid to themes like gender, memory, the state, culture, ethnic cleansing, military intervention, the United Nations, and prosecutions. The work is multi-disciplinary, featuring the work of historians, anthropologists, lawyers, political scientists, sociologists, and philosophers. Uniquely combining empirical reconstruction and conceptual analysis, this Handbook presents and analyses regions of genocide and the entire field of 'genocide studies' in one substantial volume.

Download or read book Adorno written by J. M. Bernstein and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-07-23 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides the first account in any language of the ethical theory latent in Adorno's writings.

Download or read book Tragic Modernities written by Miriam Leonard and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2015-06-08 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under the microscope of recent scholarship the universality of Greek tragedy has started to fade, as particularities of Athenian culture have come into focus. Miriam Leonard contests the idea of the death of tragedy and argues powerfully for the continued vitality and viability of Greek tragic theater in the central debates of contemporary culture.

Download or read book Critical Social Theory written by Tim Dant and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2004-01-15 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critical theory has left an indelible mark on postwar social thought. But what are the relations between critical theory and ′the cultural turn′ ? How did critical theory inform later French critical theorists, such as Lefebvre, Barthes and Baudrillard? This accomplished and accessible book: - Demonstrates the origins of critical theory in the Marxian analysis of the capitalist mode of production and Freudian psychoanalysis - Clearly explains the main achievements of critical theory - Elucidates how critical theory defines culture as a system that constrains and alienates the individual - Explores the potential for social change and personal emancipation in the critical heritage. The author locates the importance of myth and reason, the significance of sexuality, the place of work, the difference between art and entertainment, the nature of everyday life and the relationship between knowledge and action. The result is a lucid and informative text which will appeal to all students interested in the critical traditions of social thought.

Download or read book Natural written by Alan Levinovitz and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Illuminates the far-reaching harms of believing that natural means “good,” from misinformation about health choices to justifications for sexism, racism, and flawed economic policies. People love what’s natural: it’s the best way to eat, the best way to parent, even the best way to act—naturally, just as nature intended. Appeals to the wisdom of nature are among the most powerful arguments in the history of human thought. Yet Nature (with a capital N) and natural goodness are not objective or scientific. In this groundbreaking book, scholar of religion Alan Levinovitz demonstrates that these beliefs are actually religious and highlights the many dangers of substituting simple myths for complicated realities. It may not seem like a problem when it comes to paying a premium for organic food. But what about condemnations of “unnatural” sexual activity? The guilt that attends not having a “natural” birth? Economic deregulation justified by the inherent goodness of “natural” markets? In Natural, readers embark on an epic journey, from Peruvian rainforests to the backcountry in Yellowstone Park, from a “natural” bodybuilding competition to a “natural” cancer-curing clinic. The result is an essential new perspective that shatters faith in Nature’s goodness and points to a better alternative. We can love nature without worshipping it, and we can work toward a better world with humility and dialogue rather than taboos and zealotry.

Download or read book Adaptations of Mental and Cognitive Disability in Popular Media written by Whitney Hardin and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-03-31 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining representations of mental difference, this collection focuses on the ways that adaptations (including remakes, reboots, and other examples of remixed narratives) can shape and shift the social contexts and narratives we use to define mental disability. The movement of narratives across media via adaptation, or within media but across time and space in the case of remakes and reboots, is a common tactic for revitalization, allowing storytellers to breathe new life into tired narratives, remedying past inaccuracies and making them accessible and relevant for contemporary audiences. Thus, this collection argues that adaptation provides a useful tool for examining the constraints or opportunities different media impose on or afford narratives, or for measuring shifts in ideology as narratives move across cultures or through time. Further, narrative functions within this collection as a framework for examining the ways that popular media exerts rhetorical power, allowing for deeper understandings of the ways that mental disability is experienced by differently situated individuals, and revealing relationships with broader social narratives that attempt to push definitions of disability onto them.

Download or read book The Lost Writings of Wu Hsin written by Wu Hsin and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-06-01 with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wu Hsin repeatedly returns to three key points. First, on the phenomenal plane, when one ceases to resist What-Is and becomes more in harmony with It, one attains a state of Ming, or clear seeing. Having arrived at this point, all action becomes wei wu wei, or action without action (non-forcing) and there is a working in harmony with What-Is to accomplish what is required. Second, as the clear seeing deepens (what he refers to as the opening of the great gate), the understanding arises that there is no one doing anything and that there is only the One doing everything through the many and diverse objective phenomena which serve as Its instruments. From this flows the third and last: the seemingly separate me is a misapprehension, created by the mind which divides everything into pseudo-subject (me) and object (the world outside of this me). This seeming two-ness (dva in Sanskrit, duo in Latin, dual in English), this feeling of being separate and apart, is the root cause of unhappiness.

Download or read book Dialectic of Enlightenment written by Max Horkheimer and published by Burns & Oates. This book was released on 1993 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major study of modern culture, Dialectic of Enlightenment for many years led an underground existence among the homeless Left of the German Federal Republic until its definitive publication in West Germany in 1969. Originally composed by its two distinguished authors during their Californian exile in 1944, the book can stand as a monument of classic German progressive social theory in the twentieth century.>