Cytherica boldly introduces a new faculty of thought called cytherics to contemporary academic discursivities. It defines cytherics as the sighting and siting of an aesthetic-erotic, or «aphrodisian», environment. Building on the furthest extensions of aesthetics since the eighteenth century, cytherics develops both the aesthetic-political and aesthetic-erotic dimensions of the aesthetic tradition to formulate exciting new responses to the pressing issues of contemporary societies. While drawing richly on the background of German and European Hellenism, this book provides valuable new insights for those working in the areas of the aesthetic-political, critical theory, postmodernist discursivities, and dialectical speculation.
Unis vers Cythère forms a continuation of the ongoing project to disseminate a new faculty of thought called cytherics, which is defined as the sighting and siting of aphrodisian - aesthetic-erotic - environments. The first part of the book proposes «polis thought» as a subdivision within political theory that would encourage attention to the polis element - the openness furnished by the classical polis/city for disputation, rhetoric, performance, ceremony, and the carnivalesque - for political theory and history. The second part develops the concept of the «artful firm», derived from contemporary firm and management theories on «the art firm» and «artful making», to argue for further convergences in related areas of aesthetics and management. Unis vers Cythère begins and ends with essays on the ancient Hellenic twin concepts of «thalassocracy» and «theatrocracy» in their relations to orthodox contemporary theories of political democracy.
Aesthetic sensibility rests on perceptual experience and characterizes not only our experience of the arts but our experience of the world. Sensibility and Sense offers a philosophically comprehensive account of humans' social and cultural embeddedness encountered, recognized, and fulfilled as an aesthetic mode of experience. Extending the range of aesthetic experience from the stone of the earth's surface to the celestial sphere, the book focuses on the aesthetic as a dimension of social experience. The guiding idea of pervasive interconnectedness, both social and environmental, leads to an aesthetic critique of the urban environment, the environment of daily life, and of terrorism, and has profound implications for grounding social and political values. The aesthetic emerges as a powerful critical tool for appraising urban culture and political practice.
As the Czech ambassador to the United States, H. E. Petr Gandalovic noted in his foreword to this book that Mla Rechcgl has written a monumental work representing a culmination of his life achievement as a historian of Czech America. The Encyclopedia of Bohemian and Czech American Biography is a unique and unparalleled publication. The enormity of this undertaking is reflected in the fact that it covers a universe, starting a few decades after the discovery of the New World, through the escapades and significant contributions of Bohemian Jesuits and Moravian brethren in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the mass migration of the Czechs after the revolutionary year of 1848, and up to the early years of the twentieth century and the influx of refugees from Nazism and communism. The encyclopedia has been planned as a representative, a comprehensive and authoritative reference tool, encompassing over 7,500 biographies. This prodigious and unparalleled encyclopedic vade mecum, reflecting enduring contributions of notable Americans with Czech roots, is not only an invaluable tool for all researchers and students of Czech American history but is also a carte blanche for the Czech Republic, which considers Czech Americans as their own and as a part of its magnificent cultural history.
In this volume, Simona Goi and Frederick M. Dolan gather stimulating arguments for the indispensability of fiction--including poetry, drama, and film--as irreplaceable sites for wrestling with nature, meaning, shortcomings, and the future of modern politics. Between Terror and Freedom brings to the surface an understanding of modernity as a multifaceted and dynamic narrative as it relates to politics, philosophy, and fiction. Collecting essays across fields, Goi and Dolan challenge strict disciplinary boundaries. This is not meant to be read as another contribution to the debate of whether literature is, can, or should be political. Between Terror and Freedom instead reveals how literature illuminates and expands our understanding of philosophical and political questions. Political theorists, philosophers, cultural scholars, and rhetoricians offer a fresh perspective on the questions of our age and the paradoxes of modernity when they read literature.
Apart from a few articles, no comprehensive study has been written about the learned men and women in America with Czechoslovak roots. That’s what this compendium is all about, with the focus on immigration from the period of mass migration and beyond, irrespective whether they were born in their European ancestral homes or whether they have descended from them. Czech and Slovak immigrants, including Bohemian Jews, have brought to the New World their talents, their ingenuity, their technical skills, their scientific knowhow, and their humanistic and spiritual upbringing, reflecting upon the richness of their culture and traditions, developed throughout centuries in their ancestral home. This accounts for the remarkable success and achievements of these settlers in their new home, transcending through their descendants, as this monograph demonstrates. The monograph has been organized into sections by subject areas, i.e., Scholars, Social Scientists, Biological Scientists, and Physical Scientists. Each individual entry is usually accompanied with literature, and additional biographical sources for readers who wish to pursue a deeper study. The selection of individuals has been strictly based on geographical ground, without regards to their native language or ethical background. This was because under the Habsburg rule the official language was German and any nationalistic aspirations were not tolerated. Consequently, it would be virtually impossible to determine their innate ethnic roots or how the respective individuals felt. Doing it in any other way would be a mere guessing, and, thus, less objective.
Cosmotheism retrieves the importance of a cosmic approach to reality through its revival of the heliocentric creed championed by Copernicus, Bruno and Kepler, through its critiques of historical patterns of politics and technology, and through its sponsorship of emancipatory thinkers, artists, "psychonauts," and cosmologists.
