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Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism In An Age Of Diversity
by James H. TullyIn the inaugural set of Seeley Lectures, the distinguished political philosopher James Tully addresses the demands for cultural recognition that constitute the major conflicts of today: supranational associations, nationalism and federalism, linguistic and ethnic minorities, feminism, multiculturalism and aboriginal self government. Neither modern nor post-modern constitutionalism can adjudicate such claims justly. However, by surveying 400 years of constitutional practice, with special attention to the American aboriginal peoples, Tully develops a new philosophy of constitutionalism based on dialogues of conciliation which, he argues, have the capacity to mediate contemporary conflicts and bring peace to the twenty-first century. Strange Multiplicity brings profound historical, critical and philosophical perspectives to our most pressing contemporary conflicts, and provides an authoritative guide to constitutional possibilities in a multicultural age.
The Strange Order Of Things: Life, Feeling and the Making of Cultures
by Antonio Damasio'Damasio undertakes nothing less than a reconstruction of the natural history of the universe ... [A] brave and honest book' The New York Times Book ReviewThe Strange Order of Things is a pathbreaking investigation into homeostasis, the condition of that regulates human physiology within the range that makes possible not only survival but also the flourishing of life. Antonio Damasio makes clear that we descend biologically, psychologically and even socially from a long lineage that begins with single living cells; that our minds and cultures are linked by an invisible thread to the ways and means of ancient unicellular existence and other primitive life-forms; and that inherent in our very chemistry is a powerful force, a striving toward life maintenance that governs life in all its guises, including the development of genes that help regulate and transmit life.The Strange Order of Things is a landmark reflection that spans the biological and social sciences, offering a new way of understanding the origins of life, feeling and culture.
The Strange Persistence of Universal History in Political Thought
by Brett BowdenThis book explores and explains the reasons why the idea of universal history, a form of teleological history which holds that all peoples are travelling along the same path and destined to end at the same point, persists in political thought. Prominent in Western political thought since the middle of the eighteenth century, the idea of universal history holds that all peoples can be situated in the narrative of history on a continuum between a start and an end point, between the savage state of nature and civilized modernity. Despite various critiques, the underlying teleological principle still prevails in much contemporary thinking and policy planning, including post-conflict peace-building and development theory and practice. Anathema to contemporary ideals of pluralism and multiculturalism, universal history means that not everyone gets to write their own story, only a privileged few. For the rest, history and future are taken out of their hands, subsumed and assimilated into other people's narrative.
Strange Stars: How Science Fiction and Fantasy Transformed Popular Music
by Jason HellerA Hugo Award-winning author and music journalist explores the weird and wild story of when rock ’n’ roll met the sci-fi world of the 1970sAs the 1960s drew to a close, and mankind trained its telescopes on other worlds, old conventions gave way to a new kind of hedonistic freedom that celebrated sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. Derided as nerdy or dismissed as fluff, science fiction rarely gets credit for its catalyzing effect on this revolution.In Strange Stars, Jason Heller recasts sci-fi and pop music as parallel cultural forces that depended on one another to expand the horizons of books, music, and out-of-this-world imagery.In doing so, he presents a whole generation of revered musicians as the sci-fi-obsessed conjurers they really were: from Sun Ra lecturing on the black man in the cosmos, to Pink Floyd jamming live over the broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing; from a wave of Star Wars disco chart toppers and synthesiser-wielding post-punks, to Jimi Hendrix distilling the “purplish haze” he discovered in a pulp novel into psychedelic song. Of course, the whole scene was led by David Bowie, who hid in the balcony of a movie theater to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey, and came out a changed man…If today’s culture of Comic Con fanatics, superhero blockbusters, and classic sci-fi reboots has us thinking that the nerds have won at last, Strange Stars brings to life an era of unparalleled and unearthly creativity—in magazines, novels, films, records, and concerts—to point out that the nerds have been winning all along.
A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s
by Stephanie CoontzIn 1963, Betty Friedan unleashed a storm of controversy with her bestselling book, The Feminine Mystique. Hundreds of women wrote to her to say that the book had transformed, even saved, their lives. Nearly half a century later, many women still recall where they were when they first read it. In A Strange Stirring, historian Stephanie Coontz examines the dawn of the 1960s, when the sexual revolution had barely begun, newspapers advertised for "perky, attractive gal typists," but married women were told to stay home, and husbands controlled almost every aspect of family life. Based on exhaustive research and interviews, and challenging both conservative and liberal myths about Friedan, A Strange Stirring brilliantly illuminates how a generation of women came to realize that their dissatisfaction with domestic life didn't reflect their personal weakness but rather a social and political injustice.
Strange, Surprising, Sure: Essays in Uncommon Philosophy
by Robert Cummings NevilleIn Strange, Surprising, Sure, Robert Cummings Neville presents a theory of being, change, and value, and engages other philosophers who deal with these concepts. The book's central thesis is that the entire created world includes everything determinate, and thus the creator does not exist within creation. Strangely, this reverses nearly everything in the Western tradition. Surprisingly, this thesis is approached from a great many angles, all of which are within the Western, South Asian, or East Asian traditions. Surely put, this thesis will win out in the long run. Although Neville writes for an English-reading audience, he engages with thinkers from all these traditions."
Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature
by Alva NoëA philosopher makes the case for thinking of works of art as tools for investigating ourselvesIn his new book, Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature, the philosopher and cognitive scientist Alva Noë raises a number of profound questions: What is art? Why do we value art as we do? What does art reveal about our nature? Drawing on philosophy, art history, and cognitive science, and making provocative use of examples from all three of these fields, Noë offers new answers to such questions. He also shows why recent efforts to frame questions about art in terms of neuroscience and evolutionary biology alone have been and will continue to be unsuccessful.
The Strange Truth About Us
by M.A.C. FarrantThis tell-all book by M.A.C. Farrant, whom Publishers Weekly has celebrated as "a brave iconoclast" and whose work the Globe & Mail has said "bristles with moral fury ... at the absurdities of our accelerated age and a great dose of laugh-out-loud humour," offers her readers nothing less than The Strange Truth About Us.A three-part novel-length work of prose fragments, snippets, questions, speculations, and meditations, by turns philosophical, dark, comedic, and lyrical, it attempts to imagine a multitude of possible futures for our garrisoned world."Annotations About an Absence" is a series of 115 numbered annotations to the day-long ruminations of a retired couple living in a gated community attempting to create an imaginary novel in which they express their fears about the future: "We attempt to express the universal confusion of mind that is the main feature of contemporary life. Which is? We are afraid.""Woman Records Brief Notes Regarding Absence" is written as a series of notes to these annotations, providing (in the utterly blank spirit of transparency) a running satiric narrative on the project. Each of these "notes" is written as if it were a description of a late-night TV movie or the content of a wet Jehovah's Witness pamphlet left on a woman's doorstep that has taken hold of her mind."Other Prose Surrounding Absence" comprises twenty-seven prose pieces that take aim at a globalized world bludgeoned by the threat of "end times"-climate change, species extinction, pandemics, and really bad politics-that seem designed insofar as we are able to retain our status as "individuals."Unique in style and approach, engaging, enigmatic, controversial, and delightful, this book is an attempt to prick the bubble of our complacency in the face of the "awful atrocity" we've made for ourselves.
A Strange Wilderness: The Lives of the Great Mathematicians
by Amir D. Aczel“Mathematics is not a careful march down a well-cleared highway, but a journey into a strange wilderness, where the explorers often get lost.”-- Mathematics historian W. S. Anglin From the internationally bestselling author of Fermats Last Theorem comes a landmark publication on the eccentric lives of the foremost mathematicians in history..From Archimedes eureka moment to Alexander Grothendiecks seclusion in the Pyrenees, bestselling author Amir Aczel selects the most compelling stories in the history of mathematics, creating a colorful narrative that explores the quirky personalities behind some of the most groundbreaking, enduring theorems. This is not your dry “college textbook” account of mathematical history; it bristles with tales of duels, battlefield heroism, flamboyant arrogance, pranks, secret societies, imprisonment, feuds, theft, and some very costly errors of judgment. (Clearly, genius doesnt guarantee street smarts.) Ultimately, readers will come away entertained, and with a newfound appreciation of the tenacity, complexity, eccentricity, and brilliance of the mathematical genius.
Strange Wonder: The Closure of Metaphysics and the Opening of Awe (Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture)
by Mary-Jane RubensteinStrange Wonder confronts Western philosophy's ambivalent relationship to the Platonic "wonder" that reveals the strangeness of the everyday. On the one hand, this wonder is said to be the origin of all philosophy. On the other hand, it is associated with a kind of ignorance that ought to be extinguished as swiftly as possible. By endeavoring to resolve wonder's indeterminacy into certainty and calculability, philosophy paradoxically secures itself at the expense of its own condition of possibility.Strange Wonder locates a reopening of wonder's primordial uncertainty in the work of Martin Heidegger, for whom wonder is first experienced as the shock at the groundlessness of things and then as an astonishment that things nevertheless are. Mary-Jane Rubenstein traces this double movement through the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Jacques Derrida, ultimately thematizing wonder as the awesome, awful opening that exposes thinking to devastation as well as transformation. Rubenstein's study shows that wonder reveals the extraordinary in and through the ordinary, and is therefore crucial to the task of reimagining political, religious, and ethical terrain.
Strangeness in Jacobean Drama (Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama)
by Callan DaviesCallan Davies presents “strangeness” as a fresh critical paradigm for understanding the construction and performance of Jacobean drama—one that would have been deeply familiar to its playwrights and early audiences. This study brings together cultural analysis, philosophical enquiry, and the history of staged special effects to examine how preoccupation with the strange unites the verbal, visual, and philosophical elements of performance in works by Marston, Shakespeare, Middleton, Dekker, Heywood, and Beaumont and Fletcher. Strangeness in Jacobean Drama therefore offers an alternative model for understanding this important period of English dramatic history that moves beyond categories such as “Shakespeare’s late plays,” “tragicomedy,” or the home of cynical and bloodthirsty tragedies. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of early modern drama and philosophy, rhetorical studies, and the history of science and technology.
Stranger America: A Narrative Ethics of Exclusion (Cultural Frames, Framing Culture)
by Josh TothContradictory ideals of egalitarianism and self-reliance haunt America’s democratic state. We need look no further than Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and victory for proof that early twentieth-century anxieties about individualism, race, and the foreign or intrusive "other" persist today. In Stranger America, Josh Toth tracks and delineates these anxieties in America’s aesthetic production, finally locating a potential narrative strategy for circumnavigating them.Toth’s central focus is, simply, strangeness—or those characters who adamantly resist being fixed in any given category of identity. As with the theorists employed (Nancy, i ek, Derrida, Freud, Hegel), the subjects and literature considered are as encompassing as possible: from the work of Herman Melville, William Faulkner, James Weldon Johnson, and Nella Larsen to that of Philip K. Dick, Woody Allen, Larry David, and Bob Dylan; from the rise of nativism in the early twentieth century to object-oriented ontology and the twenty-first-century zombie craze; from ragtime and the introduction of sound in American cinema to the exhaustion of postmodern metafiction.Toth argues that American literature, music, film, and television can show us the path toward a new ethic, one in which we organize identity around the stranger rather than resorting to tactics of pure exclusion or inclusion. Ultimately, he provides a new narrative approach to otherness that seeks to realize a truly democratic form of community.
Stranger from Abroad: Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, Friendship and Forgiveness
by Daniel Maier-KatkinTwo titans of twentieth-century thought: their lives, loves, ideas, and politics. Shaking up the content and method by which generations of students had studied Western philosophy, Martin Heidegger sought to ennoble man's existence in relation to death. Yet in a time of crisis, he sought personal advancement, becoming the most prominent German intellectual to join the Nazis. Hannah Arendt, his brilliant, beautiful student and young lover, sought to enable a decent society of human beings in relation to one other. She was courageous in the time of crisis. Years later, she was even able to meet Heidegger once again on common ground and to find in his past behavior an insight into Nazism that would influence her reflections on "the banality of evil"--a concept that remains bitterly controversial and profoundly influential to this day. But how could Arendt have renewed her friendship with Heidegger? And how has this relationship affected her reputation as a cultural critic? In Stranger from Abroad, Daniel Maier-Katkin offers a compassionate portrait that provides much-needed insight into this relationship. Maier-Katkin creates a detailed and riveting portrait of Arendt's rich intellectual and emotional life, shedding light on the unique bond she shared with her second husband, Heinrich Blücher, and on her friendships with Mary McCarthy, W. H. Auden, Karl Jaspers, and Randall Jarrell--all fascinating figures in their own right. An elegant, accessible introduction to Arendt's life and work, Stranger from Abroad makes a powerful and hopeful case for the lasting relevance of Arendt's thought.
Stranger in a Strange Land: Searching for Gershom Scholem and Jerusalem
by George ProchnikTaking his lead from his subject, Gershom Scholem—the 20th century thinker who cracked open Jewish theology and history with a radical reading of Kabbalah—Prochnik combines biography and memoir to counter our contemporary political crisis with an original and urgent reimagining of the future of Israel.In Stranger in a Strange Land, Prochnik revisits the life and work of Gershom Scholem, whose once prominent reputation, as a Freud-like interpreter of the inner world of the Cosmos, has been in eclipse in the United States. He vividly conjures Scholem’s upbringing in Berlin, and compellingly brings to life Scholem’s transformative friendship with Walter Benjamin, the critic and philosopher. In doing so, he reveals how Scholem’s frustration with the bourgeois ideology of Germany during the First World War led him to discover Judaism, Kabbalah, and finally Zionism, as potent counter-forces to Europe’s suicidal nationalism. Prochnik’s own years in the Holy Land in the 1990s brings him to question the stereotypical intellectual and theological constructs of Jerusalem, and to rediscover the city as a physical place, rife with the unruliness and fecundity of nature. Prochnik ultimately suggests that a new form of ecological pluralism must now inherit the historically energizing role once played by Kabbalah and Zionism in Jewish thought.
Strangers at the Bedside: A History of How Law and Bioethics Transformed Medical Decision Making
by David J. RothmanWhat caused physicians in the USA to confront committees, forms, and active patients? Tracing the revolution that transformed the doctor-patient relationship, this book takes the reader into the laboratory and the examining room, tracing the development of new technologies and social attitudes.
Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help
by Larissa MacfarquharWhat does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their deeply intimate stories; their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats and wrenching dilemmas. A couple adopts two children in distress. But then they think: If they can change two lives, why not four? Or ten? They adopt twenty. But how do they weigh the needs of unknown children in distress against the needs of the children they already have? Another couple founds a leprosy colony in the wilderness in India, living in huts with no walls, knowing that their two small children may contract leprosy or be eaten by panthers. The children survive. But what if they hadn't? How would their parents' risk have been judged? A woman believes that if she spends money on herself, rather than donate it to buy life-saving medicine, then she's responsible for the deaths that result. She lives on a fraction of her income, but wonders: when is compromise self-indulgence and when is it essential? We honor such generosity and high ideals; but when we call people do-gooders there is skepticism in it, even hostility. Why do moral people make us uneasy? Between her stories, MacFarquhar threads a lively history of the literature, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture. Through its sympathetic and beautifully vivid storytelling, Strangers Drowning confronts us with fundamental questions about what it means to be human. In a world of strangers drowning in need, how much should we help, and how much can we help? Is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to? Moving and provocative, Strangers Drowning challenges us to think about what we value most, and why.From the Hardcover edition.
Strangers, Gods and Monsters: Interpreting Otherness
by Richard KearneyFirst published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Strangers in Our Midst: The Political Philosophy of Immigration
by David MillerHow should democracies respond to the millions who want to settle in their societies? David Miller's analysis reframes immigration as a question of political philosophy. Acknowledging the impact on host countries, he defends the right of states to control their borders and decide the future size, shape, and cultural make-up of their populations.
Strangers in the City: The Atlanta Chinese, Their Community and Stories of Their Lives (Studies in Asian Americans)
by Jianli ZhaoBased largely on interviews from residents of Atlanta's Chinese community, this book provides new insights on the rise of Asian communities in the Southeast United States since the US immigration policy changes in 1965.
Sūtras, Stories and Yoga Philosophy: Narrative and Transfiguration
by Daniel RavehThis book presents a close reading of four Indian narratives from different time periods (epic, Upaniṣadic, pre-modern and contemporary): Ekalavya's story from the Mahābhārata (MBh 1.123.1-39), the story of Prajāpati, Indra and Virochana from the Chāndogya Upanisad (CU 8.7.1-8.12.5), the story of Śankara in the King's body from the Śankaradigvijaya, and A.R. Murugadoss's Hindi film Ghajini (2008), respectively. These stories are thematically juxtaposed with Pātañjala-yoga, namely Patañjali's Yogasūtra and its vast commentarial body. The sūtras reveal hidden philosophical layers. The stories, on the other hand, contribute to the clarification of "philosophical junctions" in the Yogasūtra. Through sūtras and stories, the author explores the question of self-identity, with emphasis on the role of memory and the place of body in identity-formation. Each of the stories diagnoses the connection between self-identity and (at least a sense of) freedom. Employing cutting-edge methodology, crossing the boundaries of literary theory, story-telling, and philosophical reflection, this book presents fresh interpretations of Indian thought. It is useful to specialists in Asian philosophy and culture.
Strategic Conspiracy Narratives: A Semiotic Approach (Conspiracy Theories)
by Mari-Liis Madisson Andreas VentselStrategic Conspiracy Narratives proposes an innovative semiotic perspective for analysing how contemporary conspiracy theories are used for shaping interpretation paths and identities of a targeted audience. Conspiracy theories play a significant role in the viral spread of misinformation that has an impact on the formation of public opinion about certain topics. They allow the connecting of different events that have taken place in various times and places and involve several actors that seem incompatible to bystanders. This book focuses on strategic-function conspiracy narratives in the context of (social) media and information conflict. It explicates the strategic devices in how conspiracy theories can be used to evoke a hermeneutics of suspicion – a permanent scepticism and questioning of so-called mainstream media channels and dominant public authorities, delegitimisation of political opponents, and the ongoing search for hidden clues and coverups. The success of strategic dissemination of conspiracy narratives depends on the cultural context, specifics of the targeted audience and the semiotic construction of the message. This book proposes an innovative semiotic perspective for analysing contemporary strategic communication. The authors develop a theoretical framework that is based on semiotics of culture, the notions of strategic narrative and transmedia storytelling. This book is targeted to specialists and graduate students working on social theory, semiotics, journalism, strategic communication, social media and contemporary social problems in general.
Strategic Denial and Deception: The Twenty-First Century Challenge
by Roy Godson James J. WirtzDoes foreign denial and deception threaten the interests of contemporary democracies? Strategic denial and deception (D&D) has emerged as a little understood challenge to security in general, and the intelligence community in particular. To gain advantages, adversaries seek to deny critical information about their own activities and capabilities, and to decieve foreign governments. In recent years, Iraq, India, Somalia, Colombian criminal groups, and terrorists, for example, have all used D&D successfully against the United States. Denial and deception is a low cost, potentially high impact to level political, military, and economic playing fields, particularly against strong opponents.Concerns about the threat of denial and deception have waxed and waned since the end of World War II. Sometimes it shaped assessments about the former Soviet Union, for example. At other times, such as the end of the Cold War, such threats appear to fade into insignificance. This volume considers whether globalization, proliferating communication technologies, and the dissemination of vast amounts of information make effective foreign denial and deception more or less likely. Contributors also examine whether more information and data sources make policymakers better informed or simply create confusion.Drawing on lessons learned from historical experiences, the authors propose ways to minimize future challenges. Chapters include ""Elements of Strategic Denial and Deception,"" by Abram Shulsky; ""Conditions Making for Success and Failure of D&D,"" by Barton Whaley; ""Conditions Making for Success and Failure of D&D,"" by M.R.D. Foot; ""Conditions Making for Success and Failure of D&D,"" by J. Bowyer Bell; ""Arms Control,"" by Lynn M. Hansen; and ""Prescription: Detecting Deception-Practice, Practitioners, and Theory,"" by Barton Whaley and Jeffrey Busby.While there are previous books about celebrated D&D cases, from Troy to Pearl Harbor and D-Day, no work attempts to assess how these instruments o
Strategic Instincts: The Adaptive Advantages of Cognitive Biases in International Politics (Princeton Studies in International History and Politics #172)
by Dominic D. Johnson"A very timely book."—Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New AmericaHow cognitive biases can guide good decision making in politics and international relationsA widespread assumption in political science and international relations is that cognitive biases—quirks of the brain we all share as human beings—are detrimental and responsible for policy failures, disasters, and wars. In Strategic Instincts, Dominic Johnson challenges this assumption, explaining that these nonrational behaviors can actually support favorable results in international politics and contribute to political and strategic success. By studying past examples, he considers the ways that cognitive biases act as “strategic instincts,” lending a competitive edge in policy decisions, especially under conditions of unpredictability and imperfect information.Drawing from evolutionary theory and behavioral sciences, Johnson looks at three influential cognitive biases—overconfidence, the fundamental attribution error, and in-group/out-group bias. He then examines the advantageous as well as the detrimental effects of these biases through historical case studies of the American Revolution, the Munich Crisis, and the Pacific campaign in World War II. He acknowledges the dark side of biases—when confidence becomes hubris, when attribution errors become paranoia, and when group bias becomes prejudice. Ultimately, Johnson makes a case for a more nuanced understanding of the causes and consequences of cognitive biases and argues that in the complex world of international relations, strategic instincts can, in the right context, guide better performance.Strategic Instincts shows how an evolutionary perspective can offer the crucial next step in bringing psychological insights to bear on foundational questions in international politics.
Strategic Logic and Political Rationality: Essays in Honor of Michael I. Handel
by Bradford A. Lee Karl F. WallingOne of three volumes in honour of the teaching and scholarship of the late Michael I. Handel, this book details the universal logic of strategy and the ability of liberal-democratic governments to address this logic rationally.Treating war as an extension of politics, the diverse contributors (drawn from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Israel) explore the difficulties in matching strategy to policy, especially in free societies.
Strategies for Knowledge Elicitation: The Experience of the Russian School of Field Linguistics
by Tatiana B. Agranat Leyli R. DodykhudoevaThis volume provides an overview of experimental methods, approaches, and techniques used by field linguists of the Russian school, and highlights the fieldwork experience of Russian scholars working in regions with a range of languages that differ genetically, typologically, and in the degree of their preservation.The collection presents language and sociolinguistic data relating to fieldwork in diverse languages: Uralic, Altaic, Paleo-Siberian, Yeniseian, Indo-European Iranian, Vietic, Kra-Day, and Mayan languages, as well as pidgin.The authors highlight the fieldwork techniques they use, and the principles underlying them.The volume’s multidisciplinary approach covers linguistic, ethnolinguistic, sociolinguistic, educational, and ethnocultural issues. The authors explore problems associated with the study of minority languages and indicate diverse and creative techniques for data elicitation. Close collaboration with speakers lies at the core of their approach. The collection presents strategies for eliciting systems of knowledge from mother-tongue speakers, triggering linguistic self-awareness, and providing semantic and morphosyntactic context for their languages.This publication is intended for academics, and for specialists in the field of linguistics and minority and indigenous languages. It will also benefit students as a guide to field research, as well as language activists, interested in documenting and preserving their mother tongue.