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Exile's Return (The Books of Elita)
by Kate JacobyIn a land filled with turmoil, an exile and an orphan become caught in a prophecy older than time itself. Robert Douglas, Earl of Dunlorn, returns to Lusara after three years only to find his country caught in the tyranny of the Guilde. And, even as the vanquished people cry out for a savior, other cataclysmic events unfold--events that will determine the fate not only of Lusara, but of the whole world. Robert, who possesses magical power greater than any before him, must now make a choice: to remain true to his vow never to oppose the usurper king or break his promise, assume responsibility, and save his beloved homeland. Then he and his brother rescue the orphan Jenn and discover in her a new kind of sorcerer--one whose talents may be as great as Robert's. And, with Jenn come new possibilities.
Exile, Ostracism, and Democracy: The Politics of Expulsion in Ancient Greece
by Sara ForsdykeThis book explores the cultural and political significance of ostracism in democratic Athens. In contrast to previous interpretations, Sara Forsdyke argues that ostracism was primarily a symbolic institution whose meaning for the Athenians was determined both by past experiences of exile and by its role as a context for the ongoing negotiation of democratic values. The first part of the book demonstrates the strong connection between exile and political power in archaic Greece. In Athens and elsewhere, elites seized power by expelling their rivals. Violent intra-elite conflict of this sort was a highly unstable form of "politics that was only temporarily checked by various attempts at elite self-regulation. A lasting solution to the problem of exile was found only in the late sixth century during a particularly intense series of violent expulsions. At this time, the Athenian people rose up and seized simultaneously control over decisions of exile and political power. The close connection between political power and the power of expulsion explains why ostracism was a central part of the democratic reforms. Forsdyke shows how ostracism functioned both as a symbol of democratic power and as a key term in the ideological justification of democratic rule. Crucial to the author's interpretation is the recognition that ostracism was both a remarkably mild form of exile and one that was infrequently used. By analyzing the representation of exile in Athenian imperial decrees, in the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, and in tragedy and oratory, Forsdyke shows how exile served as an important term in the debate about the best form of rule.
Exile, Statelessness, and Migration: Playing Chess with History from Hannah Arendt to Isaiah Berlin
by Seyla BenhabibAn examination of the intertwined lives and writings of a group of prominent twentieth-century Jewish thinkers who experienced exile and migrationExile, Statelessness, and Migration explores the intertwined lives, careers, and writings of a group of prominent Jewish intellectuals during the mid-twentieth century—in particular, Theodor Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Isaiah Berlin, Albert Hirschman, and Judith Shklar, as well as Hans Kelsen, Emmanuel Levinas, Gershom Scholem, and Leo Strauss. Informed by their Jewish identity and experiences of being outsiders, these thinkers produced one of the most brilliant and effervescent intellectual movements of modernity.Political philosopher Seyla Benhabib’s starting point is that these thinkers faced migration, statelessness, and exile because of their Jewish origins, even if they did not take positions on specifically Jewish issues personally. The sense of belonging and not belonging, of being “eternally half-other,” led them to confront essential questions: What does it mean for the individual to be an equal citizen and to wish to retain one’s ethnic, cultural, and religious differences, or perhaps even to rid oneself of these differences altogether in modernity? Benhabib isolates four themes in their works: dilemmas of belonging and difference; exile, political voice, and loyalty; legality and legitimacy; and pluralism and the problem of judgment.Surveying the work of influential intellectuals, Exile, Statelessness, and Migration recovers the valuable plurality of their Jewish voices and develops their universal insights in the face of the crises of this new century.
Exile, Writer, Soldier, Spy: Jorge Semprún
by Soledad Fox MauraIn this gripping, authoritative biography, Soledad Fox Maura reveals the tumultuous true-life story of the Oscar-nominated screenwriter responsible for Z and The War Is Over.A man of many faces, Jorge Semprún perfectly personified the struggles and successes of twentieth-century Europe. Semprún enjoyed a privileged childhood as the grandson of Spanish prime minister, Antonio Maura, until his world was shattered by the political strife of the Spanish Civil War and he went into exile. Facing dangers rarely seen outside the action movies of Hollywood, Semprún adopted a resilient spirit and rebel’s stance. He fought with the French Resistance in World War II and survived imprisonment at Buchenwald. After the war, he became an organizing member of the exiled Spanish communist party, maintaining the appearance of a normal civilian life while keeping one step ahead of Francisco Franco's secret police for years. Semprún later put his experiences on paper, becoming an internationally acclaimed author and screenwriter.In this skillfully crafted biography, Semprún's life reads as easily as the best thriller, and has the same addictive rush as watching an edge-of-your-seat mini-series.
Exile: Old Testament, Jewish, And Christian Conceptions (Supplements To The Journal For The Study Of Judaism Ser. #Vol. 56)
by James M. ScottExile: A Conversation with N. T. Wright
Exile: The Lady Grace Mysteries, Book 5
by Jan Burchett Sara VoglerThief! When a visiting princess's priceless ruby goes missing, Ellie the laundrymaid is accused of the crime. Will Grace be able to prove her friend's innocence, find the true thief, and restore the stone to its rightful owner? Read the daybooke of Lady Grace, Queen Elizabeth's favorite Maid of Honour, for a mysterious story of jewels and magical powers.
Exiled Among Nations: German and Mennonite Mythologies in a Transnational Age (Publications of the German Historical Institute)
by John P. EicherHow do groups of people fashion shared identities in the modern world? Following two communities of German-speaking Mennonites, one composed of voluntary migrants and the other of refugees, across four continents between 1870 and 1945, this transnational study explores how religious migrants engaged with the phenomenon of nationalism. John P. R. Eicher demonstrates how migrant groups harnessed the global spread of nationalism to secure practical objectives and create local mythologies. In doing so, he also reveals how governments and aid organizations used diasporic groups for their own purposes - and portraying such nomads as enemies or heroes in national and religious mythologies. By underscoring the importance of local and religious counter-stories that run in parallel to nationalist narratives, Exiled Among Nations helps us understand acts of resistance, flight, and diaspora in the modern world.
Exiled in Modernity: Delacroix, Civilization, and Barbarism
by David O'BrienNotions of civilization and barbarism were intrinsic to Eugène Delacroix’s artistic practice: he wrote regularly about these concepts in his journal, and the tensions between the two were the subject of numerous paintings, including his most ambitious mural project, the ceiling of the Library of the Chamber of Deputies in the Palais Bourbon. Exiled in Modernity delves deeply into these themes, revealing why Delacroix’s disillusionment with modernity increasingly led him to seek spiritual release or epiphany in the sensual qualities of painting. <p><p> While civilization implied a degree of control and the constraint of natural impulses for Delacroix, barbarism evoked something uncontrolled and impulsive. Seeing himself as part of a grand tradition extending back to ancient Greece, Delacroix was profoundly aware of the wealth and power that set nineteenth-century Europe apart from the rest of the world. Yet he was fascinated by civilization’s chaotic underbelly. In analyzing Delacroix’s art and prose, David O’Brien illuminates the artist’s effort to reconcile the erudite, tradition-bound aspects of painting with a desire to reach viewers in a more direct, unrestrained manner. <p> Focusing chiefly on Delacroix’s musings about civilization in his famous journal, his major mural projects on the theme of civilization, and the place of civilization in his paintings of North Africa and of animals, O’Brien links Delacroix’s increasingly pessimistic view of modernity to his desire to use his art to provide access to a more fulfilling experience.With more than one hundred illustrations, this original, astute analysis of Delacroix and his work explains why he became an inspiration for modernist painters over the half-century following his death. Art historians and scholars of modernism especially will find great value in O’Brien’s work.
Exiled in Modernity: Delacroix, Civilization, and Barbarism
by David O'BrienNotions of civilization and barbarism were intrinsic to Eugène Delacroix’s artistic practice: he wrote regularly about these concepts in his journal, and the tensions between the two were the subject of numerous paintings, including his most ambitious mural project, the ceiling of the Library of the Chamber of Deputies in the Palais Bourbon. Exiled in Modernity delves deeply into these themes, revealing why Delacroix’s disillusionment with modernity increasingly led him to seek spiritual release or epiphany in the sensual qualities of painting.While civilization implied a degree of control and the constraint of natural impulses for Delacroix, barbarism evoked something uncontrolled and impulsive. Seeing himself as part of a grand tradition extending back to ancient Greece, Delacroix was profoundly aware of the wealth and power that set nineteenth-century Europe apart from the rest of the world. Yet he was fascinated by civilization’s chaotic underbelly. In analyzing Delacroix’s art and prose, David O’Brien illuminates the artist’s effort to reconcile the erudite, tradition-bound aspects of painting with a desire to reach viewers in a more direct, unrestrained manner. Focusing chiefly on Delacroix’s musings about civilization in his famous journal, his major mural projects on the theme of civilization, and the place of civilization in his paintings of North Africa and of animals, O’Brien links Delacroix’s increasingly pessimistic view of modernity to his desire to use his art to provide access to a more fulfilling experience.With more than one hundred illustrations, this original, astute analysis of Delacroix and his work explains why he became an inspiration for modernist painters over the half-century following his death. Art historians and scholars of modernism especially will find great value in O’Brien’s work.
Exiled in the Homeland
by Donna Robinson DivineOffering a new perspective on Zionism, Exiled in the Homeland draws on memoirs, newspaper accounts, and archival material to examine closely the lives of the men and women who immigrated to Palestine in the early twentieth century. Rather than reducing these historic settlements to a single, unified theme, Donna Robinson Divine's research reveals an extraordinary spectrum of motivations and experiences among these populations. Though British rule and the yearning for a Jewish national home contributed to a foundation of solidarity, Exiled in the Homeland presents the many ways in which the message of emigration settled into the consciousness of the settlers. Considering the benefits and costs of their Zionist commitments, Divine explores a variety of motivations and outcomes, ranging from those newly arrived immigrants who harnessed their ambition for the goal of radical transformation to those who simply dreamed of living a better life. Also capturing the day-to-day experiences in families that faced scarce resources, as well as the British policies that shaped a variety of personal decisions on the part of the newcomers, Exiled in the Homeland provides new keys to understanding this pivotal chapter in Jewish history.
Exiled to Palestine: The Emigration of Soviet Zionist Convicts, 1924-1934 (Cummings Center Series #21)
by Ziva Galili Boris MorozovThis is the unknown story of how Zionists imprisoned by Soviet authorities were allowed to choose sentences of permanent departure to Palestine, where they helped build Jewish society, the backbone of left-wing parties, and the powerful trade union movement. These leading authors bring to light undiscovered documents from archives opened after the collapse of the Soviet Union and go on to revise fundamental assumptions about these events. They examine the means by which internal power struggles and personal interventions in the uppermost echelons of the Soviet leadership allowed the Zionists to disseminate their message and recruit thousands of members before the massive arrests of the mid-1920s; demonstrate the extent to which personal contacts between Zionists and those who aided them, Soviet leaders and members of the security services, were vital to initiating and sustaining the practice of substitution; and using a broad array of British and Zionist documents, they reveal the crucial role of Anglo-Zionist co-operation in facilitating the immigration of Zionist convicts. This book will of great interest to all students and scholars of Jewish and Israeli, Russian and Soviet and European and British history.
Exiled: From the Killing Fields of Cambodia to California and Back
by Katya CengelSan Tran Croucher&’s earliest memories are of fleeing ethnic attacks in her Vietnamese village, only to be later tortured in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge. Katya Cengel met San when San was seventy-five years old and living in California, having miraculously survived the Cambodian genocide with her three daughters, Sithy, Sithea, and Jennifer. But San&’s family&’s troubles didn&’t end after their resettlement in California. As a teenager under the Khmer Rouge, San&’s daughter Sithy had been the family&’s savior, the strong one who learned how to steal food to keep them alive. In the United States, Sithy&’s survival skills were best suited for a life of crime, and she was eventually jailed for drug possession. U.S. immigration law enforces deportation of any immigrant or refugee who is found guilty of certain illegal activities, and San has hired a lawyer to fight Sithy&’s deportation case. Only time will tell if they are successful. In Exiled Cengel follows the stories of four Cambodian families, including San&’s, as they confront criminal deportation forty years after their resettlement in the United States. Weaving together these stories into a single narrative, Cengel finds that violence comes in many forms and that trauma is passed down through generations. With no easy answers, Cengel reveals a cycle of violence, followed by safety, and then loss.
Exiled: Memoirs of a Camel
by Kathleen KarrIn the nineteenth century, Ali the camel is separated from his mother in Egypt and sent to Texas, where he becomes part of the United States Camel Corps, but does not forget his longing for sand dunes and freedom.
Exiles
by Ron HansenIn December 1875 the steamship Deutschland left Bremen, Germany, bound for America. On board were five nuns, exiled by a ban on religious orders, bound to begin their lives anew in Missouri. Their journey would end when the Deutschland ran aground at the mouth of the Thames and all five drowned. Ron Hansen tells their harrowing story, but also that of the poet and seminarian Gerard Manly Hopkins, and how the shipwreck moved him to write a grand poem, a revelatory work read throughout the world today. Combining a thrilling tragedy at sea, with the seeming shipwreck of Hopkins's own life, "Hansen brilliantly, if soberly, weaves two interrelated story lines into a riveting novel" (BooklistonExiles).
Exiles from a Future Time
by Alan M. WaldWith this book, Alan Wald launches a bold and passionate account of the U.S. Literary Left from the 1920s through the 1960s. Exiles from a Future Time, the first volume of a trilogy, focuses on the forging of a Communist-led literary tradition in the 1930s. Exploring writers' intimate lives and heartfelt political commitments, Wald draws on original research in scores of archives and personal collections of papers; correspondence and interviews with hundreds of writers and their friends and families; and a treasure trove of unpublished memoirs, fiction, and poetry. In fashioning a "humanscape" of the Literary Left, Wald not only reassesses acclaimed authors but also returns to memory dozens of forgotten, talented writers. The authors range from the familiar Mike Gold, Langston Hughes, and Muriel Rukeyser to William Attaway, John Malcolm Brinnin, Stanley Burnshaw, Joy Davidman, Sol Funaroff, Joseph Freeman, Alfred Hayes, Eugene Clay Holmes, V. J. Jerome, Ruth Lechlitner, and Frances Winwar.Focusing on the formation of the tradition and the organization of the Cultural Left, Wald investigates the "elective affinity" of its avant-garde poets, the "Afro-cosmopolitanism" of its Black radical literary movement, and the uneasy negotiation between feminist concerns and class identity among its women writers.
Exiles in Sepharad: The Jewish Millennium in Spain
by Jeffrey GorskyThe dramatic one-thousand-year history of Jews in Spain comes to life in Exiles in Sepharad. Jeffrey Gorsky vividly relates this colorful period of Jewish history, from the era when Jewish culture was at its height in Muslim Spain to the horrors of the Inquisition and the Expulsion.Twenty percent of Jews today are descended from Sephardic Jews, who created significant works in religion, literature, science, and philosophy. They flourished under both Muslim and Christian rule, enjoying prosperity and power unsurpassed in Europe. Their cultural contributions include important poets; the great Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides; and Moses de Leon, author of the Zohar, the core text of the Kabbalah.But these Jews also endured considerable hardship. Fundamentalist Islamic tribes drove them from Muslim to Christian Spain. In 1391 thousands were killed and more than a third were forced to convert by anti-Jewish rioters. A century later the Spanish Inquisition began, accusing thousands of these converts of heresy. By the end of the fifteenth century Jews had been expelled from Spain and forcibly converted in Portugal and Navarre. After almost a millennium of harmonious existence, what had been the most populous and prosperous Jewish community in Europe ceased to exist on the Iberian Peninsula.
Exiles in a Land of Liberty
by Kenneth H. WinnUsing the concept of "classical republicanism" in his analysis, Kenneth Winn argues against the common view that the Mormon religion was an exceptional phenomenon representing a countercultural ideology fundamentally subversive to American society. Rather, he maintains, both the Saints and their enemies affirmed republican principles, but in radically different ways.Winn identifies the 1830 founding of the Mormon church as a religious protest against the pervasive disorder plaguing antebellum America, attracting people who saw the libertarianism, religious pluralism, and market capitalism of Jacksonian America as threats to the Republic. While non-Mormons shared the perception that the Union was in danger, many saw the Mormons as one of the chief threats. General fear of Joseph Smith and his followers led to verbal and physical attacks on the Saints, which reinforced the Mormons' conviction that America had descended into anarchy. By 1846, violent opposition had driven Mormons to the uninhabited Great Salt Lake Basin.
Exiles of Hope: The Story of China's Persecuted Church, Vol. 2
by Anthony G. BollbackThis personalized story of China's persecuted church will startle, grip and convict your heart as it has mine. Dr. Edwin W. Kilbourne Vice President-at-Large, OMS International. Exiles of Hope expresses the bold and resolved witness of China's Christians. The characters challenge the reader to exchange temporal, earthly comforts for eternal, heavenly glory as they risk imprisonment and torture to tell others about Jesus Christ. Dr. Tom White Director of The Voice of the Martyrs - USA The Acts of the Holy Spirit continue as Jesus builds His church in China. Anthony Bollback has captured that in this moving sequel to Red Runs the River, which will result in greater praise to God, prayers for the Chinese believers, and inspiration for the reader. Dr. David E. Schroeder President, Nyack Collage / Alliance Theological Seminary. Enthusiastically I am delighted to endorse Exiles of Hope, authored by veteran missionary Anthony Bollback. This is a unique volume describing the sufferings- and victories of fellow believers in China. Ben Armstrong, Ph.D. Former founding director, Trans World Radio and Executive director National Religious Broadcasters, NRB. Exiles of Hope is a most welcome addition to the first volume on The Story of China's Persecuted Church. Anthony Bollback vividly and sensitively captures the reality of this phenomenal movement of the Holy Spirit. Dr. Rexford A. Boda, Past President of Canadian Bible College / Canadian Theological Seminary Nyack College / Alliance Theology Seminary.
Exiles, Entrepreneurs, and Educators: African Americans in Ghana (SUNY series in African American Studies)
by Steven J. TaylorAfter repeated coups and periods of military rule, Ghana is now one of Africa's longest enduring democratic republics. Exiles, Entrepreneurs, and Educators compares the political proclivities of two generations of African Americans who moved to Ghana. Steven J. L. Taylor blends archival and ethnographic research, including interviews, to provide a unique perspective on these immigrants who chose to leave an economically developed country and settle in an impoverished developing country. The first generation consisted of voluntary exiles from the US who arrived from 1957 to 1966, during the regime of President Kwame Nkrumah, and embraced both Nkrumah and his left-leaning political party. In contrast to the first generation, many in the second generation left the US to establish commercial enterprises in Ghana. Although they identified with the Democratic Party while living in the US, and were politically active, they avoided political activity in Ghana and many identified with the Ghanaian party that is modeled after the Republican Party in the US. Taylor dispels some of the incorrect assumptions about African politics and provides readers with an insightful look at how developing nations can embark upon a path toward democratization.
Exiles: A Novel
by Ron HansenWith Exiles, Ron Hansen tells the story of a notorious shipwreck that prompted Gerard Manley Hopkins to break years of "elected silence" with an outpouring of dazzling poetry. In December 1875 the steamship Deutschland left Bremen, bound for England and then America. On board were five young nuns who, exiled by Bismarck's laws against Catholic religious orders, were going to begin their lives anew in Missouri. Early one morning, the ship ran aground in the Thames and more than sixty lives were lost—including those of the five nuns. Hopkins was a Jesuit seminarian in Wales, and he was so moved by the news of the shipwreck that he wrote a grand poem about it, his first serious work since abandoning a literary career at Oxford to become a priest. He too would die young, an exile from the literary world. But as Hansen's gorgeously written account of Hopkins's life makes clear, he fulfilled his calling. Combining a thrilling tragedy at sea with the seeming shipwreck of Hopkins's own life, Exiles joins Hansen's Mariette in Ecstasy (called "an astonishingly deft and provocative novel" by The New York Times) as a novel that dramatizes the passionate inner search of religious life and makes it accessible to us in the way that only great art can.
Exilkonstnärernas salong i Kalifornien: Salka Viertel tog emot skådespelare och intellektuella som flydde från nazismen i sin exil
by Núria Añó"Exilkonstnärernas salong i Kalifornien" är en biografi om Salka Viertel, en judisk skådespelerska som emigrerade till Hollywood och blev populärt känd som manusförfattaren till den svenska skådespelerskan Greta Garbo. Dessutom hade hon en salong i Santa Monica, Kalifornien, där en stor del av den europeiska exilintelligentsian samlades. Salka var en mycket modern och intressant kvinna för sin tid, och hon förtjänar att bli känd som hon verkligen är värd. I boken behandlas ämnen som den påstådda bisexualiteten hos Salka Viertel och de många erkända vänner hon hade, såsom Albert Einstein, Charles Chaplin, Sergei Eisenstein, F. W. Murnau, Max Reinhardt, Arnold Schönberg, Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Greta Garbo, Montgomery Clift, för att nämna några. Liksom Gertrude Stein och andra framstående kvinnor hade hon dessutom sin egen litterära salong, där författare som Truman Capote, Christopher Isherwood, Gore Vidal och många fler deltog. Andra ämnen som tas upp är Berlin på 1920-talet; övergången från stumfilm till ljudfilm, sett från filmens mecka, Hollywood. Sedan Hitlers uppgång och vad det innebar för den judiska situationen; exilen för de intellektuella som inte kunde återvända till sina respektive länder på grund av andra världskriget. Senare, kalla kriget och häxjakten mot kommunismen. Faktum är att Salka Viertels liv och hennes vänners krets berör de stora händelserna under 1900-talet. För detta projekt erhöll författaren stipendier från Shanghai Writing Program (Kina, 2016) och Baltic Centre (Sverige, 2017). "Trots att Salka Viertel var en så central gestalt i exilsamhället, har det skrivits väldigt lite om henne, vilket gör Núria Añós bok till ett korrektiv, och hon fyller många av luckorna i Främlingarna på Mabery Road." —Dialog International "En mycket intressant berättelse och jag tycker fortfarande att den är mycket aktuell, eftersom vi enligt min mening inte har ko
Existence and Machine
by Fabio GrigentiThe aim of this work is to provide a preliminary analysis of a much more far-reaching investigation into the relationship between technology and philosophy. In the context of the contemporary German thought, the author compares the different positions of Karl Marx, Martin Heidegger, Ernst and Friedrich Junger, Arnold Gehlen and Gunther Anders. The term machine is used precisely to mean that complex material device assembled in the last quarter of the 18th century as a result of the definitive modern refinement of certain fundamental technologies, i. e. metallurgy, precision mechanics and hydraulics. The machine discussed here arrived on the scene of man s history when the processes of spinning and weaving were entrusted to semi-automatic means; when the water wheels used in mills, hitherto always made of wood, were supplanted by the metal levers of the steam engine; and especially when the steam engine was connected to the weaving frames, to the metalworking hammers, and to other machines used to manufacture other machines in an endless reiteration of assemblies and applications, the enormous outcome of which is what subsequently came to be described as mass production . The philosophers discussed here were also dealing with the type of machine described above and in their works she we can identify three model images of this idea of machine. These images have been drawn on at various times, also outside the realms of philosophy, and they still provide the backdrop for our knowledge of the machine, which has circulated in a great variety of languages. "
Existence as a Real Property
by Francesco BertoThis profound exploration of one of the core notions of philosophy--the concept of existence itself--reviews, then counters (via Meinongian theory), the mainstream philosophical view running from Hume to Frege, Russell, and Quine, summarized thus by Kant: "Existence is not a predicate." The initial section of the book presents a comprehensive introduction to, and critical evaluation of, this mainstream view. The author moves on to provide the first systematic survey of all the main Meinongian theories of existence, which, by contrast, reckon existence to be a real, full-fledged property of objects that some things possess, and others lack. As an influential addition to the research literature, the third part develops the most up-to-date neo-Meinongian theory called Modal Meinongianism, applies it to specific fields such as the ontology of fictional objects, and discusses its open problems, laying the groundwork for further research. In accordance with the latest trends in analytic ontology, the author prioritizes a meta-ontological viewpoint, adopting a dual definition of meta-ontology as the discourse on the meaning of being, and as the discourse on the tools and methods of ontological enquiry. This allows a balanced assessment of philosophical views on a cost-benefit basis, following multiple criteria for theory evaluation. Compelling and revealing, this new publication is a vital addition to contemporary philosophical ontology.
Existence as a Real Property: The Ontology of Meinongianism (Synthese Library #356)
by Francesco BertoThis profound exploration of one of the core notions of philosophy—the concept of existence itself—reviews, then counters (via Meinongian theory), the mainstream philosophical view running from Hume to Frege, Russell, and Quine, summarized thus by Kant: “Existence is not a predicate.” The initial section of the book presents a comprehensive introduction to, and critical evaluation of, this mainstream view. The author moves on to provide the first systematic survey of all the main Meinongian theories of existence, which, by contrast, reckon existence to be a real, full-fledged property of objects that some things possess, and others lack. As an influential addition to the research literature, the third part develops the most up-to-date neo-Meinongian theory called Modal Meinongianism, applies it to specific fields such as the ontology of fictional objects, and discusses its open problems, laying the groundwork for further research.In accordance with the latest trends in analytic ontology, the author prioritizes a meta-ontological viewpoint, adopting a dual definition of meta-ontology as the discourse on the meaning of being, and as the discourse on the tools and methods of ontological enquiry. This allows a balanced assessment of philosophical views on a cost-benefit basis, following multiple criteria for theory evaluation. Compelling and revealing, this new publication is a vital addition to contemporary philosophical ontology.
Existential Threats: American Apocalyptic Beliefs in the Technological Era
by Lisa VoxAmericans have long been enthralled by visions of the apocalypse. Will the world end through nuclear war, environmental degradation, and declining biodiversity? Or, perhaps, through the second coming of Christ, rapture of the faithful, and arrival of the Antichrist—a set of beliefs known as dispensationalist premillennialism? These seemingly competing apocalyptic fantasies are not as dissimilar as we might think. In fact, Lisa Vox argues, although these secular and religious visions of the end of the world developed independently, they have converged to create the landscape of our current apocalyptic imagination.In Existential Threats, Vox assembles a wide range of media—science fiction movies, biblical tractates, rapture fiction—to develop a critical history of the apocalyptic imagination from the late 1800s to the present. Apocalypticism was once solely a religious ideology, Vox contends, which has secularized in response to increasing technological and political threats to American safety. Vox reads texts ranging from Christianity Today articles on ecology and the atomic bomb to Dr. Strangelove, and from Mary Shelley's The Last Man to the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, demonstrating along the way that conservative evangelicals have not been as resistant to science as popularly believed and that scientists and science writers have unwittingly reproduced evangelical eschatological themes and scenarios in their own works. Existential Threats argues that American apocalypticism reflects and propagates our ongoing debates over the authority of science, the place of religion, uses of technology, and America's evolving role in global politics.