Approaches to the Medieval Self

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Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110664763
Total Pages : 365 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (16 download)

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Book Synopsis Approaches to the Medieval Self by : Stefka G. Eriksen

Download or read book Approaches to the Medieval Self written by Stefka G. Eriksen and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-09-21 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The main aim of this book is to discuss various modes of studying and defining the medieval self, based on a wide span of sources from medieval Western Scandinavia, c. 800-1500, such as archeological evidence, architecture and art, documents, literature, and runic inscriptions. The book engages with major theoretical discussions within the humanities and social sciences, such as cultural theory, practice theory, and cognitive theory. The authors investigate how the various approaches to the self influence our own scholarly mindsets and horizons, and how they condition what aspects of the medieval self are 'visible' to us. Utilizing this insight, we aim to propose a more syncretic approach towards the medieval self, not in order to substitute excellent models already in existence, but in order to foreground the flexibility and the complementarity of the current theories, when these are seen in relationship to each other. The self and how it relates to its surrounding world and history is a main concern of humanities and social sciences. Focusing on the theoretical and methodological flexibility when approaching the medieval self has the potential to raise our awareness of our own position and agency in various social spaces today.

Approaches to the Medieval Self

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Author :
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110655586
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (16 download)

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Book Synopsis Approaches to the Medieval Self by : Stefka G. Eriksen

Download or read book Approaches to the Medieval Self written by Stefka G. Eriksen and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-09-21 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The main aim of this book is to discuss various modes of studying and defining the medieval self, based on a wide span of sources from medieval Western Scandinavia, c. 800-1500, such as archeological evidence, architecture and art, documents, literature, and runic inscriptions. The book engages with major theoretical discussions within the humanities and social sciences, such as cultural theory, practice theory, and cognitive theory. The authors investigate how the various approaches to the self influence our own scholarly mindsets and horizons, and how they condition what aspects of the medieval self are 'visible' to us. Utilizing this insight, we aim to propose a more syncretic approach towards the medieval self, not in order to substitute excellent models already in existence, but in order to foreground the flexibility and the complementarity of the current theories, when these are seen in relationship to each other. The self and how it relates to its surrounding world and history is a main concern of humanities and social sciences. Focusing on the theoretical and methodological flexibility when approaching the medieval self has the potential to raise our awareness of our own position and agency in various social spaces today.

Medieval Self-Coronations

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108889824
Total Pages : 355 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis Medieval Self-Coronations by : Jaume Aurell

Download or read book Medieval Self-Coronations written by Jaume Aurell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-11 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on narrative, iconographical, and liturgical sources, this is the first systematic study to trace the story of the ritual of royal self-coronations from Ancient Persia to the present. Exposing as myth the idea that Napoleon's act of self-coronation in 1804 was the first extraordinary event to break the secular tradition of kings being crowned by bishops, Jaume Aurell vividly demonstrates that self-coronations were not as transgressive or unconventional as has been imagined. Drawing on numerous examples of royal self-coronations, with a particular focus on European Kings of the Middle Ages, including Frederic II of Germany (1229), Alphonse XI of Castile (1328), Peter IV of Aragon (1332) and Charles III of Navarra (1390), Aurell draws on history, anthropology, ritual studies, liturgy and art history to explore royal self-coronations as privileged sites at which the frontiers and limits between the temporal and spiritual, politics and religion, tradition and innovation are encountered.

Image and Imagination of the Religious Self in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe

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Author :
Publisher : Brepols Publishers
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 528 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (318 download)

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Book Synopsis Image and Imagination of the Religious Self in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe by : Reindert Leonard Falkenburg

Download or read book Image and Imagination of the Religious Self in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe written by Reindert Leonard Falkenburg and published by Brepols Publishers. This book was released on 2007 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the central and defining beliefs in late-medieval and early-modern spirituality was the notion of the formability of the religious self. Identified with the soul, the self was conceived, indeed experienced, not as an abstraction, but rather as an essential spiritual persona, as well as the intellectual and sensory center of a human being. This volume investigates the role played by images construed as formal and semantic variables - mental images, visual tropes and figures, pictorial and textual representations - in generating and sustaining processes of meditation that led the viewer or reader from outward perception to various forms of inward perception and spiritual discernment. The fifteen articles address the history of the soul as a cultural construct, an internal locus of self-formation where the divine is seen to dwell and the person may experience her/himself as a place inhabited by the spirit of God. Three central questions are approached from various disciplines: first, how was the self-contained soul created in God's likeness, yet stained by sin and as such susceptible both to destructive and redemptive forces, refashioned as a porous and malleable entity susceptible to metaphysical effects and human practices, such as self-investigation, meditative prayer, and other techniques of inwardness? Second, how did such practices constitutive of an inner liturgy prepare the soul - the anima, bride - for an encounter with God that trains, purifies, moulds, shapes, and transforms the religious self? Finally, in this process of self-reformation, how were images of place and space mobilized, how were loci found, and how did the soul come to see itself situated within these places mapped upon itself?

The Routledge Companion to Humanism and Literature

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000552330
Total Pages : 310 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis The Routledge Companion to Humanism and Literature by : Michael Bryson

Download or read book The Routledge Companion to Humanism and Literature written by Michael Bryson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-03-31 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Companion to Humanism and Literature provides readers with a comprehensive reassessment of the value of humanism in an intellectual landscape. Offering contributions by leading international scholars, this volume seeks to define literature as a core expressive form and an essential constitutive element of newly reformulated understandings of humanism. While the value of humanism has recently been dominated by anti-humanist and post-humanist perspectives which focused on the flaws and exclusions of previous definitions of humanism, this volume examines the human problems, dilemmas, fears, and aspirations expressed in literature, as a fundamentally humanist art form and activity. Divided into three overarching categories, this companion will explore the histories, developments, debates, and contestations of humanism in literature, and deliver fresh definitions of "the new humanism" for the humanities. This focus aims to transcend the boundaries of a world in which human life is all too often defined in terms of restrictions—political, economic, theological, intellectual—and lived in terms of obedience, conformity, isolation, and fear. The Routledge Companion to Humanism and Literature will provide invaluable support to humanities students and scholars alike seeking to navigate the relevance and resilience of humanism across world cultures and literatures.

Animal Skins and the Reading Self in Medieval Latin and French Bestiaries

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Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022643673X
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (264 download)

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Book Synopsis Animal Skins and the Reading Self in Medieval Latin and French Bestiaries by : Sarah Kay

Download or read book Animal Skins and the Reading Self in Medieval Latin and French Bestiaries written by Sarah Kay and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-02-24 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sarah Kay s interests in this book are, first, to examine how medieval bestiaries depict and challenge the boundary between humans and other animals; and second, to register the effects on readers of bestiaries by the simple fact that parchment, the writing support of virtually all medieval texts, is a refined form of animal skin. Surveying the most important works created from the ninth through the thirteenth centuries, Kay connects nature to behavior to Christian doctrine or moral teaching across a range of texts. As Kay shows, medieval thought (like today) was fraught with competing theories about human exceptionalism within creation. Given that medieval bestiaries involve the inscription of texts about and images of animals onto animal hides, these texts, she argues, invite readers to reflect on the inherent fragility of bodies, both human and animal, and the difficulty of distinguishing between skin as a site of mere inscription and skin as a containing envelope for sentient life. It has been more than fifty years since the last major consideration of medieval Latin and French bestiaries was published. Kay brings us up to date in the archive, and contributes to current discussions among animal studies theorists, manuscript studies scholars, historians of the book, and medievalists of many stripes."

The Prosimetrum of the Íslendingasögur

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Author :
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 311128039X
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (112 download)

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Book Synopsis The Prosimetrum of the Íslendingasögur by : Brynja þOrgeirsdóttir

Download or read book The Prosimetrum of the Íslendingasögur written by Brynja þOrgeirsdóttir and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-12-16 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Verse quotation is intrinsic to the literary style of the medieval Icelandic corpus of Íslendingasögur (sagas of Icelanders), one of the most important vernacular literary genres of the European Middle Ages. The essays collected in this volume demonstrate that the combination of prose and verse constitutes a distinctive literary aesthetic, and that in the medieval Icelandic literary tradition, it was not a question of choosing between prose and verse as the vehicle for stories about the foundational generations of settlers on the island, but of combining both modes to forge the unique literary form of the saga. Verse quotation has always been recognised as an important aspect of the Íslendingasögur, but to date, the significance of verse to the aesthetic of the narrative has mainly been explored with reference to the sub-genre of the skáldasögur (sagas of poets), in which the proportion of verse to prose is at its highest. The contributions to the volume analyse the Íslendingasögur as prosimetrum - that is, they treat the combination of verse and prose as a salient generic and aesthetic feature of this body of sagas. The contributors are leading scholars in the field of Old Norse studies, and their work represents current research trends in the UK, USA, Iceland, Denmark, and Germany. Their innovative approaches will enable a better understanding on the literary mode of the corpus as a whole, as well as producing fresh insights into the compositional habits of the (anonymous) authors of individual sagas.

On Becoming God:Late Medieval Mysticism and the Modern Western Self

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Author :
Publisher : Fordham Univ Press
ISBN 13 : 0823239926
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (232 download)

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Book Synopsis On Becoming God:Late Medieval Mysticism and the Modern Western Self by : Ben Morgan

Download or read book On Becoming God:Late Medieval Mysticism and the Modern Western Self written by Ben Morgan and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do we have to conceive of ourselves as isolated individuals, inevitably distanced from other people and from whatever we might mean when we use the word God? On Becoming God offers an innovative approach to the history of the modern Western self by looking at human identity as something people do together rather than on their own. Ben Morgan argues that the shared practices of human identity can be understood as ways of managing and keeping at bay the impulses and experiences associated with the word God. The "self" is a way of doing things, or of not doing things, with "God." The book draws on phenomenology (Heidegger), gender studies (Beauvoir, Butler) and contemporary neuroscience to present a new approach to the history of modern identity. It surveys existing approaches to modern selfhood (Foucault, Charles Taylor) and proposes an alternative account by investigating late medieval mysticism, in particular texts written in Germany by Meister Eckhart and others in the same milieu. Reactions to the condemnation of Meister Eckhart's teaching for heresy in 1329 offer a microcosm of the circumstances in which something like the modern self arises as people change their behavior toward others, toward themselves, and toward what they call "God." The book makes Meister Eckhart and his contemporaries appear as our contemporaries by changing the assumptions with which we approach our own identity. To make this change requires a revision of current vocabularies for approaching ourselves, and in particular the vocabulary and habits inherited from psychoanalysis. The book finishes by exploring the parallel between late medieval confessors and their spiritual charges, and late-nineteenth-century psychoanalysts and their patients. The result is a renewed vision of the Freud's project of finding a vocabulary for acknowledging and nurturing our everyday commitments to others and to our spiritual longings.

Paradigms and Methods in Early Medieval Studies

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Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1137123052
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (371 download)

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Book Synopsis Paradigms and Methods in Early Medieval Studies by : C. Chazelle

Download or read book Paradigms and Methods in Early Medieval Studies written by C. Chazelle and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-30 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The articles in this volume, by scholars all pursuing careers in the United States, concern the theoretical approaches and methods of early medieval studies. Most of the issues examined span the period from roughly 400 to 1000 CE and regions stretching from westernmost Eurasia to the Black Sea and the Baltic. This is the first volume of essays explicitly to reassess the heuristic structures and methodologies of research on "early medieval Europe." Because of its geographic, chronological, thematic, and methodological diversity and scope, the collection also showcases the breadth of early medieval studies currently practiced in the United States.

Peirce's Approach to the Self

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Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 9780887068829
Total Pages : 176 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (688 download)

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Book Synopsis Peirce's Approach to the Self by : Vincent Michael Colapietro

Download or read book Peirce's Approach to the Self written by Vincent Michael Colapietro and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1988-12-31 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a careful study of his unpublished manuscripts as well as his published work, this book explores Peirce's general theory of signs and the way in which Peirce himself used this theory to understand subjectivity. Peirce's views are presented, not only in reference to important historical (James, Saussure) and contemporary (Eco, Kristeva) figures, but also in reference to some of the central controversies regarding signs. Colapietro adopts as a strategy of interpretation Peirce's own view that ideas become clarified only in the course of debate.

A Non-instrumentalist Approach to Collective Intentionality, Practical Reason, and the Self

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Publisher : V&R unipress GmbH
ISBN 13 : 3847102273
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (471 download)

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Book Synopsis A Non-instrumentalist Approach to Collective Intentionality, Practical Reason, and the Self by : Juliette Gloor

Download or read book A Non-instrumentalist Approach to Collective Intentionality, Practical Reason, and the Self written by Juliette Gloor and published by V&R unipress GmbH. This book was released on 2014 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: English summary: Taking into account the relevant and mostly contemporary ango-american debates concering collective intentionality, the author eximanes what it means to share reasons and other intentional states such as thoughts and emotions. The guiding question of the dissertation is in what way and to what extent morality and therefore self-consciousness can be understood as conditions of possibility for the sharing of mental states, especially reasons. The dissertation is a contribution mainly to fields of research in practical philosophy (normative ethics and moral psychology) and in social philosophy (collective intentionality analysis) and rational choice theory. German description: Juliette Gloors Monographie fragt aus hauptsachlich analytischer Perspektive und unter spezieller Berucksichtigung der einschlagigen anglo-amerikanischen Debatten, was es bedeutet, Grunde und andere intentionale Einstellungen zu teilen. Die Leitfrage der Untersuchung lautet, inwiefern Moral und damit Selbstbewusstsein als Bedingungen der Moglichkeit solchen Teilens begriffen werden konnen. Die Dissertation ist ein Beitrag zur Forschung innerhalb des Gebiets der Praktischen Philosophie (insbesondere der normativen Ethik) und der Sozialphilosophie (speziell im Bereich der Kollektiven Intentionalitat).

Administration of Justice in Medieval Egypt

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Publisher : Edinburgh University Press
ISBN 13 : 1474459269
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (744 download)

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Book Synopsis Administration of Justice in Medieval Egypt by : Yaacov Lev

Download or read book Administration of Justice in Medieval Egypt written by Yaacov Lev and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-02 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows how political and administrative forces shaped the way justice was applied in medieval Egypt. It introduces the model that evolved during the 7th to the 9th centuries, which involved four judicial institutions: the cadi, the court of complaint (mazalim), the police/shurta (responsible for criminal justice) and the Islamized market law (hisba) administrated by the market supervisor/muhtasib. Literary and non-literary sources are used to highlight how these institutions worked in real-time situations such as the famine of 1024-1025, which posed tremendous challenges to the market supervisors in Cairo. The inner workings of the court of complaint during the 11th-12th century Fatimid state are revealed through array of documentary sources. Further, non-Muslim communities, their courts and their sphere of responsibilities are treated as integral to how justice was dispensed in medieval Islam. Documentary sources offers significant insights into these issues and illuminate the scope and limits of non-Muslims self-rule/judicial autonomy.In sum, the book shows that the administrative and political history of the judiciary in medieval Egypt implicitly and explicitly illuminates broader questions about religious and social forces that shaped the lives of medieval people in the Middle East, Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Imagining the Self, Imagining the Other

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Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9789004125650
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (256 download)

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Book Synopsis Imagining the Self, Imagining the Other by : Eva Frojmovic

Download or read book Imagining the Self, Imagining the Other written by Eva Frojmovic and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays re-examines the dynamics of Jewish indentity and Jewish-Christian relations in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, from the perspective of visual culture, especially manuscript illustration.

Sculpting the Self

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Publisher : University of Michigan Press
ISBN 13 : 0472132628
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (721 download)

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Book Synopsis Sculpting the Self by : Muhammad Umar Faruque

Download or read book Sculpting the Self written by Muhammad Umar Faruque and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sculpting the Self addresses “what it means to be human” in a secular, post-Enlightenment world by exploring notions of self and subjectivity in Islamic and non-Islamic philosophical and mystical thought. Alongside detailed analyses of three major Islamic thinkers (Mullā Ṣadrā, Shāh Walī Allāh, and Muhammad Iqbal), this study also situates their writings on selfhood within the wider constellation of related discussions in late modern and contemporary thought, engaging the seminal theoretical insights on the self by William James, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Michel Foucault. This allows the book to develop its inquiry within a spectrum theory of selfhood, incorporating bio-physiological, socio-cultural, and ethico-spiritual modes of discourse and meaning-construction. Weaving together insights from several disciplines such as religious studies, philosophy, anthropology, critical theory, and neuroscience, and arguing against views that narrowly restrict the self to a set of cognitive functions and abilities, this study proposes a multidimensional account of the self that offers new options for addressing central issues in the contemporary world, including spirituality, human flourishing, and meaning in life. This is the first book-length treatment of selfhood in Islamic thought that draws on a wealth of primary source texts in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Greek, and other languages. Muhammad U. Faruque’s interdisciplinary approach makes a significant contribution to the growing field of cross-cultural dialogue, as it opens up the way for engaging premodern and modern Islamic sources from a contemporary perspective by going beyond the exegesis of historical materials. He initiates a critical conversation between new insights into human nature as developed in neuroscience and modern philosophical literature and millennia-old Islamic perspectives on the self, consciousness, and human flourishing as developed in Islamic philosophical, mystical, and literary traditions.

Imagining the Self, Constructing the Past

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Author :
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1443897043
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (438 download)

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Book Synopsis Imagining the Self, Constructing the Past by : Robert G. Sullivan

Download or read book Imagining the Self, Constructing the Past written by Robert G. Sullivan and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2016-09-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagining the Self, Constructing the Past celebrates the various ways in which the Middle Ages and the Renaissance are adapted, recollected, and represented in our own day and age. Most of the chapters fit broadly into one of three categories: namely, the representation of the self in medieval and early modern history and literature; the recollection and utilization of the past in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; and the role of the medieval and the early modern in our own society. Overall, the contributions to this volume bear witness to the importance of representation to our understanding of ourselves, each other, and our shared past.

Selfishness and Selflessness

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Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 180539908X
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis Selfishness and Selflessness by : Linda L. Layne

Download or read book Selfishness and Selflessness written by Linda L. Layne and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2020-04-09 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are said to be suffering a narcissism epidemic when the need for collective action seems more pressing than ever. The traits of Selfishness and selflessness address the ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ relationship between one’s self and others. The work they do during periods of social instability and cultural change is probed in this original, interdisciplinary collection. Contributions range from an examination of how these concepts animated the eighteenth-century anti-slavery campaigners to a dissection of the way middle-class mothers’ experiences illustrate gendered struggles over how much and to whom one is morally obliged to give.

The Medieval Risk-Reward Society

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780814252659
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (526 download)

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Book Synopsis The Medieval Risk-Reward Society by : Will Hasty

Download or read book The Medieval Risk-Reward Society written by Will Hasty and published by . This book was released on 2016-04-13 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Medieval Risk-Reward Society" offers a study of adventure and love in the European Middle Ages focused on the poetry of authors such as Marie de France, Chretien de Troyes, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Gottfried von Strassburg-showing how a society based on sacrifice becomes one of wagers and investments. Will Hasty's sociological approach to medieval courtly literature, informed by the analytic tools of game theory, reveals the blossoming of a worldview in which outcomes are uncertain, such that the very self (of a character or an authorial persona) is contingent on success or failure in possessing the things it desires-and upon which its social identity and personal happiness depend. Drawing on a diverse selection of contrasting canonical works ranging from the "Iliad" to the biblical book of Joshua to High Medieval German political texts to the writings of Leibniz and Mark Twain, Hasty enables an appreciation of the distinctive contributions made in antiquity and the Middle Ages to the medieval emergence of a European society based on risks and rewards. "The Medieval Risk-Reward Society: Courts, Adventure, and Love in the European Middle Ages" takes a descriptive approach to the competitions in religion, politics, and poetry that are constitutive of medieval culture. Culture is considered always to be "happening, " and to be happening on the cultural cutting edge as competitions for rewards involving the element of chance. This study finds adventure and love--the principal concerns of medieval European romance poetry--to be cultural game changers, and thereby endeavors to make a humanist contribution to the development of a cultural game theory. Will Hasty is Professor of German and Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Florida, Gainesville."