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Reading the World
Reading the World
Franklin-Brown, Mary
¥488.54
The thirteenth century saw such a proliferation of new encyclopedic texts that more than one scholar has called it the "e;century of the encyclopedias."e; Variously referred to as a speculum, thesaurus, or imago mundi-the term encyclopedia was not commonly applied to such books until the eighteenth century-these texts were organized in such a way that a reader could easily locate a collection of authoritative statements on any given topic. Because they reproduced, rather than simply summarized, parts of prior texts, these compilations became libraries in miniature.?In this groundbreaking study, Mary Franklin-Brown examines writings in Latin, Catalan, and French that are connected to the encyclopedic movement: Vincent of Beauvais's Speculum maius; Ramon Llull's Libre de meravelles, Arbor scientiae, and Arbre de filosofia d'amor; and Jean de Meun's continuation of the Roman de la Rose. Franklin-Brown analyzes the order of knowledge in these challenging texts, describing the wide-ranging interests, the textual practices-including commentary, compilation, and organization-and the diverse discourses that they absorb from preexisting classical, patristic, and medieval writing. She also demonstrates how these encyclopedias, like libraries, became "e;heterotopias"e; of knowledge-spaces where many possible ways of knowing are juxtaposed.?But Franklin-Brown's study will not appeal only to historians: she argues that a revised understanding of late medievalism makes it possible to discern a close connection between scholasticism and contemporary imaginative literature. She shows how encyclopedists employed the same practices of figuration, narrative, and citation as poets and romanciers, while much of the difficulty of the imaginative writing of this period derives from a juxtaposition of heterogeneous discourses inspired by encyclopedias.With rich and innovative readings of texts both familiar and neglected, Reading the World reveals how the study of encyclopedism can illuminate both the intellectual work and the imaginative writing of the scholastic age.
Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe
Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe
Ursula Klein and E. C. Spary
¥488.54
It is often assumed that natural philosophy was the forerunner of early modern natural sciences. But where did these sciences' systematic observation and experimentation get their startsIn Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe, the laboratories, workshops, and marketplaces emerge as arenas where hands-on experience united with higher learning. In an age when chemistry, mineralogy, geology, and botany intersected with mining, metallurgy, pharmacy, and gardening, materials were objects that crossed disciplines.Here, the contributors tell the stories of metals, clay, gunpowder, pigments, and foods, and thereby demonstrate the innovative practices of technical experts, the development of the consumer market, and the formation of the observational and experimental sciences in the early modern period. Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe showcases a broad variety of forms of knowledge, from ineffable bodily skills and technical competence to articulated know-how and connoisseurship, from methods of measuring, data gathering, and classification to analytical and theoretical knowledge. By exploring the hybrid expertise involved in the making, consumption, and promotion of various materials, and the fluid boundaries they traversed, the book offers an original perspective on important issues in the history of science, medicine, and technology.
Hegel's Theory of Intelligibility
Hegel's Theory of Intelligibility
Zambrana, Rocio
¥265.87
Hegel's Theory of Intelligibility?picks up on recent revisionist readings of Hegel to offer a productive new interpretation of his notoriously difficult work, the Science of Logic. Rocio Zambrana transforms the revisionist tradition by distilling the theory of normativity that Hegel elaborates in the?Science of Logic?within the context of his signature treatment of negativity, unveiling how both features of his system of thought operate on his theory of intelligibility. ?Zambrana clarifies crucial features of Hegel's theory of normativity previously thought to be absent from the argument of the?Science of Logic-what she calls normative precariousness and normative ambivalence. She shows that Hegel's theory of determinacy views intelligibility as both precarious, the result of practices and institutions that gain and lose authority throughout history, and ambivalent, accommodating opposite meanings and valences even when enjoying normative authority. In this way, Zambrana shows that the Science of Logic provides the philosophical justification for the necessary historicity of intelligibility. Intervening in several recent developments in the study of Kant, Hegel, and German Idealism more broadly, this book provides a productive new understanding of the value of Hegel's systematic ambitions.
Cycling City
Cycling City
Friss, Evan
¥265.87
Cycling has experienced a renaissance in the United States, as cities around the country promote the bicycle as an alternative means of transportation. In the process, debates about the nature of bicycles-where they belong, how they should be ridden, how cities should or should not accommodate them-have played out in the media, on city streets, and in city halls. Very few people recognize, however, that these questions are more than a century old.The Cycling City?is a sharp history of the bicycle's rise and fall in the late nineteenth century. In the 1890s, American cities were home to more cyclists, more cycling infrastructure, more bicycle friendly legislation, and a richer cycling culture than anywhere else in the world.Evan Friss unearths the hidden history of the cycling city, demonstrating that diverse groups of cyclists managed to remap cities with new roads, paths, and laws, challenge social conventions, and even dream up a new urban ideal inspired by the bicycle. When cities were chaotic and filthy, bicycle advocates imagined an improved landscape in which pollution was negligible, transportation was silent and rapid, leisure spaces were democratic, and the divisions between city and country were blurred. Friss argues that when the utopian vision of a cycling city faded by the turn of the century, its death paved the way for today's car-centric cities-and ended the prospect of a true American cycling city ever being built.
American Orchestras in the Nineteenth Century
American Orchestras in the Nineteenth Century
John Spitzer
¥529.74
Studies of concert life in nineteenth-century America have generally been limited to large orchestras and the programs we are familiar with today. But as this book reveals, audiences of that era enjoyed far more diverse musical experiences than this focus would suggest. To hear an orchestra, people were more likely to head to a beer garden, restaurant, or summer resort than to a concert hall. And what they heard weren't just symphonic works-programs also included opera excerpts and arrangements, instrumental showpieces, comic numbers, and medleys of patriotic tunes.This book brings together musicologists and historians to investigate the many orchestras and programs that developed in nineteenth-century America. In addition to reflecting on the music that orchestras played and the socioeconomic aspects of building and maintaining orchestras, the book considers a wide range of topics, including audiences, entrepreneurs, concert arrangements, tours, and musicians' unions. The authors also show that the period saw a massive influx of immigrant performers, the increasing ability of orchestras to travel across the nation, and the rising influence of women as listeners, patrons, and players. Painting a rich and detailed picture of nineteenth-century concert life, this collection will greatly broaden our understanding of America's musical history.
Madwomen
Madwomen
Gabriela Mistral
¥200.12
A schoolteacher whose poetry catapulted her to early fame in her native Chile and an international diplomat whose boundary-defying sexuality still challenges scholars, Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957) is one of the most important and enigmatic figures in Latin American literature of the last century. The Locas mujeres poems collected here are among Mistral's most complex and compelling, exploring facets of the self in extremis-poems marked by the wound of blazing catastrophe and its aftermath of mourning. From disquieting humor to balladlike lyricism to folkloric wisdom, these pieces enact a tragic sense of life, depicting "e;madwomen"e; who are anything but mad. Strong and intensely human, Mistral's poetic women confront impossible situations to which no sane response exists. This groundbreaking collection presents poems from Mistral's final published volume as well as new editions of posthumous work, featuring the first English-language appearance of many essential poems. Madwomen promises to reveal a profound poet to a new generation of Anglophone readers while reacquainting Spanish readers with a stranger, more complicated "e;madwoman"e; than most have ever known.
Simone
Simone
Lalo, Eduardo
¥141.26
Eduardo Lalo is one of the most vital and unique voices of Latin American literature, but his work is relatively little known in the English-speaking world. That changes now: this masterful translation of his most celebrated novel, Simone-which won the 2013 Romulo Gallegos International Novel Prize-will introduce an English-language audience to this extraordinary literary talent.A tale of alienation, love, suspense, imagination, and literature set on the streets of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Simone tells the story of a self-educated Chinese immigrant student courting (and stalking) a disillusioned, unnamed writer who is struggling to make a name for himself in a place that is not exactly a hotbed of literary fame. By turns solipsistic and political, romantic and dark, Simone begins with the writer's frustrated, satiric observations on his native city and the banal life of the university where he teaches-forces utterly at odds with the sensuality of his writing. But, as mysterious messages and literary clues begin to appear-scrawled on sidewalks and walls, inside volumes set out in bookstores, left on his answering machine and under his windshield wiper-Simone progresses into a cat-and-mouse game between the writer and his mystery stalker. When the eponymous Simone's identity is at last revealed, the writer finds in the life of this Chinese immigrant a plight not unlike his own. Traumatized and lonely, the pair moves towards bittersweet collaborations in passion, grief, and art.
Invisible
Invisible
Ball, Philip
¥211.90
If offered the chance-by cloak, spell, or superpower-to be invisible, who wouldn't want to give it a tryWe are drawn to the idea of stealthy voyeurism and the ability to conceal our own acts, but as desirable as it may seem, invisibility is also dangerous. It is not just an optical phenomenon, but a condition full of ethical questions. As esteemed science writer Philip Ball reveals in this book, the story of invisibility is not so much a matter of how it might be achieved but of why we want it and what we would do with it.In this lively look at a timeless idea, Ball provides the first comprehensive history of our fascination with the unseen. This sweeping narrative moves from medieval spell books to the latest nanotechnology, from fairy tales to telecommunications, from camouflage to ghosts to the dawn of nuclear physics and the discovery of dark energy. ?Along the way, Invisible tells little-known stories about medieval priests who blamed their misdeeds on spirits; the Cock Lane ghost, which intrigued both Samuel Johnson and Charles Dickens; the attempts by Victorian scientist William Crookes to detect forces using tiny windmills; novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton's belief that he was unseen when in his dressing gown; and military efforts to enlist magicians to hide tanks and ships during WWII. ?Bringing in such voices as Plato and Shakespeare, Ball provides not only a scientific history but a cultural one-showing how our simultaneous desire for and suspicion of the invisible has fueled invention and the imagination for centuries.In this unusual and clever book, Ball shows that our fantasies about being unseen-and seeing the unseen-reveal surprising truths about who we are.
O, How the Wheel Becomes It!
O, How the Wheel Becomes It!
Powell, Anthony
¥123.61
The first novel Anthony Powell published following the completion of his epic A Dance to the Music of Time, O, How the Wheel Becomes It! fulfills perhaps every author's fantasy as it skewers a conceited, lazy, and dishonest critic. A writer who avoids serving in World War II and veers in and out of marriage, G. F. H. Shadbold ultimately falls victim to the title's spinning-and righteous-emblem of chance. Sophisticated and a bit cruel, Wheel's tale of posthumous vengeance is, nonetheless, irresistible.Written at the peak of the late British master's extraordinary literary career, this novel offers profound insight into the mind of a great artist whose unequaled style, ear for dialogue, and eye for irony will delight devotees and new readers alike.
Walking
Walking
Bernhard, Thomas
¥123.61
Thomas Bernhard is "e;one of the masters of contemporary European fiction"e; (George Steiner); "e;one of the century's most gifted writers"e; (Newsday); "e;a virtuoso of rancor and rage"e; (Bookforum). And although he is favorably compared with Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, and Robert Musil, it is only in recent years that he has gained a devoted cult following in America.A powerful, compact novella, Walking provides a perfect introduction to the absurd, dark, and uncommonly comic world of Bernhard, showing a preoccupation with themes-illness and madness, isolation, tragic friendships-that would obsess Bernhard throughout his career. Walking records the conversations of the unnamed narrator and his friend Oehler while they walk, discussing anything that comes to mind but always circling back to their mutual friend Karrer, who has gone irrevocably mad. Perhaps the most overtly philosophical work in Bernhard's highly philosophical oeuvre, Walking provides a penetrating meditation on the impossibility of truly thinking.
War for the Soul of America
War for the Soul of America
Hartman, Andrew
¥147.15
When Patrick Buchanan took the stage at the Republican National Convention in 1992 and proclaimed, "e;There is a religious war going on for the soul of our country,"e; his audience knew what he was talking about: the culture wars, which had raged throughout the previous decade and would continue until the century's end, pitting conservative and religious Americans against their liberal, secular fellow citizens. It was an era marked by polarization and posturing fueled by deep-rooted anger and insecurity.?Buchanan's fiery speech marked a high point in the culture wars, but as Andrew Hartman shows in this richly analytical history, their roots lay farther back, in the tumult of the 1960s-and their significance is much greater than generally assumed. Far more than a mere sideshow or shouting match, the culture wars, Hartman argues, were the very public face of America's struggle over the unprecedented social changes of the period, as the cluster of social norms that had long governed American life began to give way to a new openness to different ideas, identities, and articulations of what it meant to be an American. The hot-button issues like abortion, affirmative action, art, censorship, feminism, and homosexuality that dominated politics in the period were symptoms of the larger struggle, as conservative Americans slowly began to acknowledge-if initially through rejection-many fundamental transformations of American life.?As an ever-more partisan but also an ever-more diverse and accepting America continues to find its way in a changing world, A War for the Soul of America reminds us of how we got here, and what all the shouting has really been about.
Science in the Marketplace
Science in the Marketplace
Aileen Fyfe and Bernard Lightman
¥447.34
The nineteenth century was an age of transformation in science, when scientists were rewarded for their startling new discoveries with increased social status and authority.But it was also a time when ordinary people from across the social spectrum were given the opportunity to participate in science, for education, entertainment, or both. In Victorian Britain science could be encountered in myriad forms and in countless locations: in panoramic shows, exhibitions, and galleries; in city museums and country houses; in popular lectures; and even in domestic conversations that revolved around the latest books and periodicals.Science in the Marketplace reveals this other side of Victorian scientific life by placing the sciences in the wider cultural marketplace, ultimately showing that the creation of new sites and audiences was just as crucial to the growing public interest in science as were the scientists themselves. By focusing attention on the scientific audience, as opposed to the scientific community or self-styled popularizers, Science in the Marketplace ably links larger societal changes-in literacy, in industrial technologies, and in leisure-to the evolution of "e;popular science."e;
Second-Best Justice
Second-Best Justice
Ramseyer, J. Mark
¥329.62
It's long been known that Japanese file fewer lawsuits per capita than Americans do. Yet explanations for the difference have tended to be partial and unconvincing, ranging from circular arguments about Japanese culture to suggestions that the slow-moving Japanese court system acts as a deterrent.With?Second-Best Justice, J. Mark Ramseyer offers a more compelling, better-grounded explanation: the low rate of lawsuits in Japan results not from distrust of a dysfunctional system but from trust in a system that works-that sorts and resolves disputes in such an overwhelmingly predictable pattern that opposing parties rarely find it worthwhile to push their dispute to trial. Using evidence from tort claims across many domains, Ramseyer reveals a court system designed not to find perfect justice, but to "e;make do"e;-to adopt strategies that are mostly right and that thereby resolve disputes quickly and economically.An eye-opening study of comparative law,?Second-Best Justice?will force a wholesale rethinking of the differences among alternative legal systems and their broader consequences for social welfare.?
Crafting Selves
Crafting Selves
Kondo, Dorinne K.
¥247.21
"e;The ethnography of Japan is currently being reshaped by a new generation of Japanologists, and the present work certainly deserves a place in this body of literature. . . . The combination of utility with beauty makes Kondo's book required reading, for those with an interest not only in Japan but also in reflexive anthropology, women's studies, field methods, the anthropology of work, social psychology, Asian Americans, and even modern literature."e;-Paul H. Noguchi, American Anthropologist"e;Kondo's work is significant because she goes beyond disharmony, insisting on complexity. Kondo shows that inequalities are not simply oppressive-they are meaningful ways to establish identities."e;-Nancy Rosenberger, Journal of Asian Studies
Mind, Self, and Society
Mind, Self, and Society
Mead, George Herbert
¥247.21
George Herbert Mead is widely recognized as one of the most brilliantly original American pragmatists. Although he had a profound influence on the development of social philosophy, he published no books in his lifetime. This makes the lectures collected in Mind, Self, and Society all the more remarkable, as they offer a rare synthesis of his ideas.This collection gets to the heart of Mead's meditations on social psychology and social philosophy. Its penetrating, conversational tone transports the reader directly into Mead's classroom as he teases out the genesis of the self and the nature of the mind. The book captures his wry humor and shrewd reasoning, showing a man comfortable quoting Aristotle alongside Alice in Wonderland.Included in this edition are an insightful foreword from leading Mead scholar Hans Joas, a revealing set of textual notes by Dan Huebner that detail the text's origins, and a comprehensive bibliography of Mead's other published writings. While Mead's lectures inspired hundreds of students, much of his brilliance has been lost to time. This new edition ensures that Mead's ideas will carry on, inspiring a new generation of thinkers.
Distorting the Law
Distorting the Law
Haltom, William
¥211.90
In recent years, stories of reckless lawyers and greedy citizens have given the legal system, and victims in general, a bad name. Many Americans have come to believe that we live in the land of the litigious, where frivolous lawsuits and absurdly high settlements reign.Scholars have argued for years that this common view of the depraved ruin of our civil legal system is a myth, but their research and statistics rarely make the news. William Haltom and Michael McCann here persuasively show how popularized distorted understandings of tort litigation (or tort tales) have been perpetuated by the mass media and reform proponents. Distorting the Law lays bare how media coverage has sensationalized lawsuits and sympathetically portrayed corporate interests, supporting big business and reinforcing negative stereotypes of law practices.Based on extensive interviews, nearly two decades of newspaper coverage, and in-depth studies of the McDonald's coffee case and tobacco litigation, Distorting the Law offers a compelling analysis of the presumed litigation crisis, the campaign for tort law reform, and the crucial role the media play in this process.
Sacred Relics
Sacred Relics
Barnett, Teresa
¥329.62
A piece of Plymouth Rock. A lock of George Washington's hair. Wood from the cabin where Abraham Lincoln was born. Various bits and pieces of the past-often called "e;association items"e;-may appear to be eccentric odds and ends, but they are valued because of their connections to prominent people and events in American history. Kept in museum collections large and small across the United States, such objects are the touchstones of our popular engagement with history.In Sacred Relics, Teresa Barnett explores the history of private collections of items like these, illuminating how Americans view the past. She traces the relic-collecting tradition back to eighteenth-century England, then on to articles belonging to the founding fathers and through the mass collecting of artifacts that followed the Civil War. Ultimately, Barnett shows how we can trace our own historical collecting from the nineteenth century's assemblages of the material possessions of great men and women.
Grasping Hand
Grasping Hand
Somin, Ilya
¥247.21
In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that the city of New London, Connecticut, could condemn fifteen residential properties in order to transfer them to a new private owner. Although the Fifth Amendment only permits the taking of private property for "e;public use,"e; the Court ruled that the transfer of condemned land to private parties for "e;economic development"e; is permitted by the Constitution-even if the government cannot prove that the expected development will ever actually happen. The Court's decision in Kelo v. City of New London empowered the grasping hand of the state at the expense of the invisible hand of the market.In this detailed study of one of the most controversial Supreme Court cases in modern times, Ilya Somin argues that Kelo was a grave error. Economic development and "e;blight"e; condemnations are unconstitutional under both originalist and most "e;living constitution"e; theories of legal interpretation. They also victimize the poor and the politically weak for the benefit of powerful interest groups and often destroy more economic value than they create. Kelo itself exemplifies these patterns. The residents targeted for condemnation lacked the influence needed to combat the formidable government and corporate interests arrayed against them.Moreover, the city's poorly conceived development plan ultimately failed: the condemned land lies empty to this day, occupied only by feral cats. The Supreme Court's unpopular ruling triggered an unprecedented political reaction, with forty-five states passing new laws intended to limit the use of eminent domain. But many of the new laws impose few or no genuine constraints on takings. The Kelo backlash led to significant progress, but not nearly as much as it may have seemed.Despite its outcome, the closely divided 5-4 ruling shattered what many believed to be a consensus that virtually any condemnation qualifies as a public use under the Fifth Amendment. It also showed that there is widespread public opposition to eminent domain abuse. With controversy over takings sure to continue, The Grasping Hand offers the first book-length analysis of Kelo by a legal scholar, alongside a broader history of the dispute over public use and eminent domain and an evaluation of options for reform.?
Uncivil Rights
Uncivil Rights
Perrillo, Jonna
¥265.87
Almost fifty years after?Brown v. Board of Education, a wealth of research shows that minority students continue to receive an unequal education. At the heart of this inequality is a complex and often conflicted relationship between teachers and civil rights activists, examined fully for the first time in Jonna Perrillo's?Uncivil Rights, which traces the tensions between the two groups in New York City from the Great Depression to the present.While movements for teachers' rights and civil rights were not always in conflict, Perrillo uncovers the ways?they have become so, brought about both by teachers who have come to see civil rights efforts as detracting from or competing with their own goals and by civil rights activists whose aims have de-professionalized the role of the educator. Focusing in particular on unionized teachers, Perrillo finds a new vantage point from which to examine the relationship between school and community, showing how in this struggle, educators, activists, and especially our students have lost out.?
Meaning
Meaning
Polanyi, Michael
¥229.55
Published very shortly before his death in February 1976, Meaning is the culmination of Michael Polanyi's philosophic endeavors. With the assistance of Harry Prosch, Polanyi goes beyond his earlier critique of scientific "e;objectivity"e; to investigate meaning as founded upon the imaginative and creative faculties.Establishing that science is an inherently normative form of knowledge and that society gives meaning to science instead of being given the "e;truth"e; by science, Polanyi contends here that the foundation of meaning is the creative imagination. Largely through metaphorical expression in poetry, art, myth, and religion, the imagination is used to synthesize the otherwise chaotic and disparate elements of life. To Polanyi these integrations stand with those of science as equally valid modes of knowledge. He hopes this view of the foundation of meaning will restore validity to the traditional ideas that were undercut by modern science. Polanyi also outlines the general conditions of a free society that encourage varied approaches to truth, and includes an illuminating discussion of how to restore, to modern minds, the possibility for the acceptance of religion.
More than Lore
More than Lore
Talbot, Marion
¥206.01
The founding articles of the University of Chicago contained what was for the era a shocking declaration: "e;To provide, impart, and furnish opportunities for all departments of higher education to persons of both sexes on equal terms."e; In a time when many still scoffed at educating women, the university was firmly co-ed from the very start. One of its first hires was Marion Talbot. Ready for the adventure of a lifetime, she set her sights on Chicago at a time when the city was still considered all but the Wild West. Talbot eventually became the University of Chicago's first Dean of Women, influencing a generation of female students.Originally published in 1936, More than Lore is a unique firsthand account of the early days of the university, capturing the excitement and travails of life on an academic frontier. Talbot shares gossip from the faculty lounge, relays student antics in the dorms, and tells stories from the living rooms of Hyde Park. It's also a fascinating look at life as an early twentieth-century college woman, with scandals over improper party invitations and underground sororities, petitions calling for more female professors, and campaigns to have students be known as "e;university women"e; instead of "e;college girls."e; With Talbot as our guide, we reenter a lost world where simply to be a woman was to be a pioneer and where the foundations of the modern undergrad experience were being established.