Potential History

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Publisher : Verso Books
ISBN 13 : 1788735714
Total Pages : 657 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (887 download)

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Book Synopsis Potential History by : Ariella Aïsha Azoulay

Download or read book Potential History written by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A passionately urgent call for all of us to unlearn imperialism and repair the violent world we share, from one of our most compelling political theorists In this theoretical tour-de-force, renowned scholar Ariella Aïsha Azoulay calls on us to recognize the imperial foundations of knowledge and to refuse its strictures and its many violences. Azoulay argues that the institutions that make our world, from archives and museums to ideas of sovereignty and human rights to history itself, are all dependent on imperial modes of thinking. Imperialism has segmented populations into differentially governed groups, continually emphasized the possibility of progress while it tries to destroy what came before, and voraciously seeks out the new by sealing the past away in dusty archival boxes and the glass vitrines of museums. By practicing what she calls potential history, Azoulay argues that we can still refuse the original imperial violence that shattered communities, lives, and worlds, from native peoples in the Americas at the moment of conquest to the Congo ruled by Belgium's brutal King Léopold II, from dispossessed Palestinians in 1948 to displaced refugees in our own day. In Potential History, Azoulay travels alongside historical companions—an old Palestinian man who refused to leave his village in 1948, an anonymous woman in war-ravaged Berlin, looted objects and documents torn from their worlds and now housed in archives and museums—to chart the ways imperialism has sought to order time, space, and politics. Rather than looking for a new future, Azoulay calls upon us to rewind history and unlearn our imperial rights, to continue to refuse imperial violence by making present what was invented as “past” and making the repair of torn worlds the substance of politics.

Potential History

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Author :
Publisher : Verso Books
ISBN 13 : 1788735722
Total Pages : 835 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (887 download)

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Book Synopsis Potential History by : Ariella Aïsha Azoulay

Download or read book Potential History written by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 835 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this theoretical tour-de-force, renowned scholar Ariella Asha Azoulay calls on us to recognize the imperial foundations of knowledge and to refuse its strictures and its many violences. Azoulay argues that the institutions that make our world, from archives and museums to ideas of sovereignty and human rights to history itself, are all dependent on imperial modes of thinking. Imperialism has segmented populations into differentially governed groups, continually emphasised the possibility of progress while trying to destroy what came before, and voraciously sought out the new by sealing the past away in dusty archival boxes and the glass vitrines of museums. By practising what she calls potential history, Azoulay argues that we can still refuse the imperial violence that shattered communities, lives, and worlds, from native peoples in the Americas to the Congo ruled by Belgium's brutal King Lopold II, from dispossessed Palestinians in 1948 to displaced refugees in our own day. In Potential History, Azoulay travels alongside historical companions - an old Palestinian man who refused to leave his village in 1948, an anonymous woman in war-ravaged Berlin, looted objects and documents torn from their worlds and now housed in archives and museums - to chart the ways imperialism has sought to order time, space, and politics. Rather than looking for a new future, Azoulay calls upon us to rewind history and unlearn our imperial rights, to continue to refuse imperial violence by making present what was invented as "past" and making the repair of torn worlds the substance of politics.

Their Highest Potential

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Author :
Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 9780807866191
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (661 download)

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Book Synopsis Their Highest Potential by : Vanessa Siddle Walker

Download or read book Their Highest Potential written by Vanessa Siddle Walker and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2000-11-09 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African American schools in the segregated South faced enormous obstacles in educating their students. But some of these schools succeeded in providing nurturing educational environments in spite of the injustices of segregation. Vanessa Siddle Walker tells the story of one such school in rural North Carolina, the Caswell County Training School, which operated from 1934 to 1969. She focuses especially on the importance of dedicated teachers and the principal, who believed their jobs extended well beyond the classroom, and on the community's parents, who worked hard to support the school. According to Walker, the relationship between school and community was mutually dependent. Parents sacrificed financially to meet the school's needs, and teachers and administrators put in extra time for professional development, specialized student assistance, and home visits. The result was a school that placed the needs of African American students at the center of its mission, which was in turn shared by the community. Walker concludes that the experience of CCTS captures a segment of the history of African Americans in segregated schools that has been overlooked and that provides important context for the ongoing debate about how best to educate African American children. African American History/Education/North Carolina

Archive, Slow Ideology and Egodocuments as Microhistorical Autobiography

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781032011967
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (119 download)

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Book Synopsis Archive, Slow Ideology and Egodocuments as Microhistorical Autobiography by : Sigurur

Download or read book Archive, Slow Ideology and Egodocuments as Microhistorical Autobiography written by Sigurur and published by . This book was released on 2021-12 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book aims to demonstrate how scholars in recent times have been utilizing egodocuments from various angles and providing an opening for the multivocality of the sources to be fully appreciated. The first part of the book is concerned with the significance of egodocuments, both for the individual him/herself who creates such documents, and also for the other, who receives them. The author approaches the subject on the basis of his own personal experience, and goes on to discuss the importance of such documents for the academic world, emphasizing more general questions and issues within the fields of historiography, philosophy of history, microhistory, and memory studies. The second part of the book is based upon a photographic collection - an archive - that belonged to the author's grandfather, who over decades accumulated photographs of vagabonds and outsiders. This part seeks to explore what kind of knowledge can be applied when a single source - an archive, document, letter, illustration, etc. - is examined, and whether the knowledge derived may not be quite as good in its own context as in the broader perspective"--

The Immortality Key

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Author :
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 125027091X
Total Pages : 340 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis The Immortality Key by : Brian C. Muraresku

Download or read book The Immortality Key written by Brian C. Muraresku and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER As seen on The Joe Rogan Experience! A groundbreaking dive into the role psychedelics have played in the origins of Western civilization, and the real-life quest for the Holy Grail that could shake the Church to its foundations. The most influential religious historian of the 20th century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. Did the Ancient Greeks use drugs to find God? And did the earliest Christians inherit the same, secret tradition? A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age? There is zero archaeological evidence for the original Eucharist – the sacred wine said to guarantee life after death for those who drink the blood of Jesus. The Holy Grail and its miraculous contents have never been found. In the absence of any hard data, whatever happened at the Last Supper remains an article of faith for today’s 2.5 billion Christians. In an unprecedented search for answers, The Immortality Key examines the archaic roots of the ritual that is performed every Sunday for nearly one third of the planet. Religion and science converge to paint a radical picture of Christianity’s founding event. And after centuries of debate, to solve history’s greatest puzzle. Before the birth of Jesus, the Ancient Greeks found salvation in their own sacraments. Sacred beverages were routinely consumed as part of the so-called Ancient Mysteries – elaborate rites that led initiates to the brink of death. The best and brightest from Athens and Rome flocked to the spiritual capital of Eleusis, where a holy beer unleashed heavenly visions for two thousand years. Others drank the holy wine of Dionysus to become one with the god. In the 1970s, renegade scholars claimed this beer and wine – the original sacraments of Western civilization – were spiked with mind-altering drugs. In recent years, vindication for the disgraced theory has been quietly mounting in the laboratory. The constantly advancing fields of archaeobotany and archaeochemistry have hinted at the enduring use of hallucinogenic drinks in antiquity. And with a single dose of psilocybin, the psychopharmacologists at Johns Hopkins and NYU are now turning self-proclaimed atheists into instant believers. But the smoking gun remains elusive. If these sacraments survived for thousands of years in our remote prehistory, from the Stone Age to the Ancient Greeks, did they also survive into the age of Jesus? Was the Eucharist of the earliest Christians, in fact, a psychedelic Eucharist? With an unquenchable thirst for evidence, Muraresku takes the reader on his twelve-year global hunt for proof. He tours the ruins of Greece with its government archaeologists. He gains access to the hidden collections of the Louvre to show the continuity from pagan to Christian wine. He unravels the Ancient Greek of the New Testament with the world’s most controversial priest. He spelunks into the catacombs under the streets of Rome to decipher the lost symbols of Christianity’s oldest monuments. He breaches the secret archives of the Vatican to unearth manuscripts never before translated into English. And with leads from the archaeological chemists at UPenn and MIT, he unveils the first scientific data for the ritual use of psychedelic drugs in classical antiquity. The Immortality Key reconstructs the suppressed history of women consecrating a forbidden, drugged Eucharist that was later banned by the Church Fathers. Women who were then targeted as witches during the Inquisition, when Europe’s sacred pharmacology largely disappeared. If the scientists of today have resurrected this technology, then Christianity is in crisis. Unless it returns to its roots. Featuring a Foreword by Graham Hancock, the NYT bestselling author of America Before.

Histories of Violence

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Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1783602406
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (836 download)

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Book Synopsis Histories of Violence by : Brad Evans

Download or read book Histories of Violence written by Brad Evans and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-01-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While there is a tacit appreciation that freedom from violence will lead to more prosperous relations among peoples, violence continues to be deployed for various political and social ends. Yet the problem of violence still defies neat description, subject to many competing interpretations. Histories of Violence offers an accessible yet compelling examination of the problem of violence as it appears in the corpus of canonical figures – from Hannah Arendt to Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault to Slavoj Žižek – who continue to influence and inform contemporary political, philosophical, sociological, cultural, and anthropological study. Written by a team of internationally renowned experts, this is an essential interrogation of post-war critical thought as it relates to violence.

Archive, Slow Ideology and Egodocuments as Microhistorical Autobiography

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000472779
Total Pages : 138 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Archive, Slow Ideology and Egodocuments as Microhistorical Autobiography by : Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon

Download or read book Archive, Slow Ideology and Egodocuments as Microhistorical Autobiography written by Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-08-29 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book aims to demonstrate how scholars in recent times have been utilizing egodocuments from various angles and providing an opening for the multivocality of the sources to be fully appreciated. The first part of the book is concerned with the significance of egodocuments, both for the individual him/herself who creates such documents, and also for the other, who receives them. The author approaches the subject on the basis of his own personal experience, and goes on to discuss the importance of such documents for the academic world, emphasizing more general questions and issues within the fields of historiography, philosophy of history, microhistory, and memory studies. The second part of the book is based upon a photographic collection – an archive – that belonged to the author’s grandfather, who over decades accumulated photographs of vagabonds and outsiders. This part seeks to explore what kind of knowledge can be applied when a single source – an archive, document, letter, illustration, etc. – is examined, and whether the knowledge derived may not be quite as good in its own context as in the broader perspective.

Haunted Words, Haunted Selves

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Author :
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1666769231
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (667 download)

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Book Synopsis Haunted Words, Haunted Selves by : Colby Dickinson

Download or read book Haunted Words, Haunted Selves written by Colby Dickinson and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2024-03-22 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are all haunted by things we fear, repress, and those things of which we have no conscious knowledge. We are thus haunted by a variety of "ghosts" in our lives so that, at times, we might notice those things we have ignored, and so too allow the repressed elements of our world a chance to speak more directly to us. Being honest with ourselves means listening better to what haunts us, and to wrestle with our own ghosts, as humans have often claimed throughout history to wrestle with God. Recognizing how we are ceaselessly haunted by that which threatens to undo our representations of ourselves is what draws together a series of reflections in this book on how we will never be able to rid ourselves of such hauntings. By examining a series of "hauntings," this study looks at what continues to haunt the field of continental philosophy, the various things that haunt our sovereign construction of ourselves, the church, our words and language in general, and even how our texts are endlessly haunted by the autobiographical "I" we are often taught to exclude from our writings.

Aïm Deüelle Lüski and Horizontal Photography

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Author :
Publisher : Leuven University Press
ISBN 13 : 9058679497
Total Pages : 150 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (586 download)

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Book Synopsis Aïm Deüelle Lüski and Horizontal Photography by : Ariella Azoulay

Download or read book Aïm Deüelle Lüski and Horizontal Photography written by Ariella Azoulay and published by Leuven University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-07 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the product of a unique collaboration between Israeli artist and philosopher Aïm Deüelle Lüski and visual culture theorist Ariella Azoulay. In their longstanding working relationship, they research how to theorize the structure of the contemporary scopic regime and open a space for its civil transformation.

Philosophy of History

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350111864
Total Pages : 311 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis Philosophy of History by : Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen

Download or read book Philosophy of History written by Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a recent surge of interest in the field, a volume taking stock of important theoretical shifts in the philosophy of history is greatly needed. A Philosophy of History fills this gap by weaving together a range of perspectives on the field which finds itself at a crossroads, and asks where it is headed in the 21st century. The book takes a concerted effort to go beyond the customary three-fold distinction between the speculative, analytic and narrativist approaches in philosophy of history. It considers, what comes after the enduring 'narrativist turn'. Chapters incorporate cutting-edge discussions on the relevance of contemporary political phenomena such as populism, the relation between science and history, pragmatism and the paradigmatic challenge of the Anthropocene. It also re-evaluates the continued relevance of major historical thinkers like Leibniz and R.G. Collingwood, and the endlessly fresh insights they can offer to key debates in the field today. Philosophy of History is a much-needed reappraisal of the philosophy and theory of history; offering an up-to-date overview of major developments in the field, and addressing the pressing questions of where to go next in a 'post-analytical', 'post-narrativist' world.

Representations of Loss in Irish Literature

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Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319785508
Total Pages : 205 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (197 download)

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Book Synopsis Representations of Loss in Irish Literature by : Deirdre Flynn

Download or read book Representations of Loss in Irish Literature written by Deirdre Flynn and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-07-30 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book on Irish literature to focus on the theme of loss, and how it is represented in Irish writing. It focuses on how literature is ideally suited to expressions and understanding of the nature of loss, given its ability to access and express emotions, sensations, feelings, and the visceral and haptic areas of experience. Dealing with feelings and with sensations, poems, novels and drama can allow for cathartic expressions of these emotions, as well as for a fuller understanding of what is involved in loss across all situations. The main notion of loss being dealt with is that of death, but feelings of loss in the wake of immigration and of the loss of certainties that defined notions of identity are also analysed. This volume will be of interest to scholars, students and researchers in Irish Studies, loss, memory, trauma, death, and cultural studies.

Edible Insects

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Publisher : Reaktion Books
ISBN 13 : 1789144477
Total Pages : 177 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (891 download)

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Book Synopsis Edible Insects by : Gina Louise Hunter

Download or read book Edible Insects written by Gina Louise Hunter and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2021-09-16 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From grasshoppers to grubs, an eye-opening look at insect cuisine around the world. An estimated two billion people worldwide regularly consume insects, yet bugs are rarely eaten in the West. Why are some disgusted at the thought of eating insects while others find them delicious? Edible Insects: A Global History provides a broad introduction to the role of insects as human food, from our prehistoric past to current food trends—and even recipes. On the menu are beetles, butterflies, grasshoppers, and grubs of many kinds, with stories that highlight traditional methods of insect collection, preparation, consumption, and preservation. But we not only encounter the culinary uses of creepy-crawlies across many cultures. We also learn of the potential of insects to alleviate global food shortages and natural resource overexploitation, as well as the role of world-class chefs in making insects palatable to consumers in the West.

A History of the Theory of Elasticity and of the Strength of Materials: pts. 1-2. Saint-Venant to Lord Kelvin

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 576 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis A History of the Theory of Elasticity and of the Strength of Materials: pts. 1-2. Saint-Venant to Lord Kelvin by : Isaac Todhunter

Download or read book A History of the Theory of Elasticity and of the Strength of Materials: pts. 1-2. Saint-Venant to Lord Kelvin written by Isaac Todhunter and published by . This book was released on 1893 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Rescuing History from the Nation

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Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226167232
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (261 download)

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Book Synopsis Rescuing History from the Nation by : Prasenjit Duara

Download or read book Rescuing History from the Nation written by Prasenjit Duara and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1996-11-20 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prasenjit Duara offers the first systematic account of the relationship between the nation-state, nationalism, and the concept of linear history. Focusing primarily on China and including discussion of India, Duara argues that many historians of postcolonial nation-states have adopted a linear, evolutionary history of the Enlightenment/colonial model. As a result, they have written repressive, exclusionary, and incomplete accounts. The backlash against such histories has resulted in a tendency to view the past as largely constructed, imagined, or invented. In this book, Duara offers a way out of the impasse between constructionism and the evolving nation; he redefines history as a series of multiple, often conflicting narratives produced simultaneously at national, local, and transnational levels. In a series of closely linked case studies, he considers such examples as the very different histories produced by Chinese nationalist reformers and partisans of popular religions, the conflicting narratives of statist nationalists and of advocates of federalism in early twentieth-century China. He demonstrates the necessity of incorporating contestation, appropriation, repression, and the return of the repressed subject into any account of the past that will be meaningful to the present. Duara demonstrates how to write histories that resist being pressed into the service of the national subject in its progress—or stalled progress—toward modernity.

Potential Images

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Publisher : Reaktion Books
ISBN 13 : 9781861891495
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (914 download)

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Book Synopsis Potential Images by : Dario Gamboni

Download or read book Potential Images written by Dario Gamboni and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2002 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Potential Images Dario Gamboni explores ambiguity in modern art, considering images that rely to a great degree on a projected or imaginative response from viewers to achieve their effect. Ambiguity became increasingly important in late 19th- and early 20th-century aesthetics, as is evidenced in works by such artists as Redon, Cezanne, Gauguin, Ensor and the Nabis. Similarly, the Cubists subverted traditional representational conventions, requiring their viewers to decipher images to extract their full meanings. The same device was taken up in the various experiments leading to abstraction. For example, it was Kandinsky's intention that his work could be interpreted in both figurative and non-figurative ways, and Duchamp's Readymades suggested the radical conclusion that 'it is the beholder who makes the picture'. These invitations to viewers to participate in the process of artistic communication had social and political implications, as they accorded artist and beholder symmetrical, almost interchangeable, roles.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

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Publisher : Currency
ISBN 13 : 1524758876
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (247 download)

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Book Synopsis The Fourth Industrial Revolution by : Klaus Schwab

Download or read book The Fourth Industrial Revolution written by Klaus Schwab and published by Currency. This book was released on 2017-01-03 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolu­tion, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wear­able sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manu­facturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individu­als. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frame­works that advance progress.

The Consolations of History: Themes of Progress and Potential in Richard Wagner's Gotterdammerung

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 9781032087993
Total Pages : 158 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (879 download)

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Book Synopsis The Consolations of History: Themes of Progress and Potential in Richard Wagner's Gotterdammerung by : ALEXANDER H. SHAPIRO

Download or read book The Consolations of History: Themes of Progress and Potential in Richard Wagner's Gotterdammerung written by ALEXANDER H. SHAPIRO and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-06-30 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book on Richard Wagner's compelling but enigmatic masterpiece Götterdämmerung, the final opera of his monumental Ring tetralogy, Alexander H. Shapiro advances an ambitious new interpretation which uncovers intriguing new facets to the work's profound insights into the human condition. By taking a fresh look at the philosophical and historical influences on Wagner, and critically reevaluating the composer's intellectual worldview as revealed in his own prose works, letters, and diary entries, the book challenges a number of conventional views that continue to impede a clear understanding of this work's meaning. The book argues that Götterdämmerung, and hence the Ring as a whole, achieves coherence when interpreted in terms of contemporary nineteenth-century theories of progress, and, in particular, G.W.F. Hegel's philosophies of mind and history. A central target of the book is the article of faith that has come to dominate Wagner scholarship over the years - that Wagner's encounter in 1854 with Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy conclusively altered the final message of the Ring from one of historical optimism to existential pessimism. The author contends that Schopenhauer's uncompromising denigration of the will and denial of the possibility for human progress find no place in the written text of the Ring or in a plausible reading of the final musical setting. In its place, the author discovers in the famous Immolation Scene a celebration of mankind's inexhaustible capacity for self-improvement and progress. The author makes the further compelling case that this message of progress is communicated not through Siegfried, the traditional male hero of the drama, but through Brünnhilde, the warrior goddess who becomes a mortal woman. In her role as a battle-tested world-historical prophet she is the true revolutionary change agent of Wagner's opera who has the strength and vision to comprehend and thereby shape human history. This highly lucid and accessible study is aimed not only at scholars and researchers in the fields of opera studies, music and philosophy, and music history, but also Wagner enthusiasts, and readers and students interested in the history and philosophy of the nineteenth century.