This dissertation consists of a philological and philosophical exploration of the Guiguzi 鬼谷子. It establishes the sinological background of the text through a detailed contextual study and locates Master Guigu in the Chinese intellectual tradition. Guiguzi is the legendary transmitter of the Sunzi bingfa ("Art of War") tradition, said to have bestowed his text upon Sun Bin. The research reveals that the Book of Master Guigu conceives a comprehensive "art of persuasion" by promoting an unassuaging efficacy within an early Daoist cosmological framework. [Hardcover reprint from a new scan of the 2000 edition]
This pre-Qin dynasty recluse produced what is considered the earliest Chinese treatise devoted entirely to the art of persuasion. Called Guiguzi after its author, the text provides an indigenous rhetorical theory and key persuasive strategies, some of which are still used by those involved in decision making and negotiations in China today. In "Guiguzi," China's First Treatise on Rhetoric, Hui Wu and C. Jan Swearingen present a new critical translation of this foundational work, which has great historical significance for the study of Chinese rhetoric and communication and yet is little known to Western readers.
An illuminated tour of Walter Benjamin's ideas; a graphic translation; an encyclopedia of fragments. Walter Benjamin was a man of letters, an art critic, an essayist, a translator, a philosopher, a collector, and an urban flâneur. In his writings, he ambles, samples, and explores. With Walter Benjamin Reimagined, Frances Cannon offers a visual and literary response to Benjamin's work. With detailed and dreamlike pen-and-ink drawings and hand-lettered text, Cannon gives readers an illuminated tour of Walter Benjamin's thoughts—a graphic translation, an encyclopedia of fragments. Cannon has not created a guide to Benjamin's greatest ideas—this is not an illustrated Walter Benjamin cheat sheet—but rather a beautifully rendered work of graphic literature. Cannon doesn't plod through thickets of minutiae; she strolls—a flâneuse herself—using Benjamin's words and her own drawings to construct a creative topography of Benjamin's writing. Phrases from “Unpacking My Library,” for example, are accompanied by images of flying papers, stray books, stacked books—books “not yet touched by the mild boredom of order”—and a bearded mage. Cannon takes the reader through different periods of Benjamin's writing: “Artifacts of Youth,” nostalgic musings on his childhood; “Fragments of a Critical Eye,” early writings, political observations, and cultural criticism; “Athenaeum of Imagination,” meditations on philosophy and psychology; “A Stroll through the Arcades,” Benjamin's unfinished magnum opus; and “A Collection of Dreams and Stories,” experimental and fantastical writings. With drawings and text, Cannon offers a phantasmagorical tribute to Benjamin's wandering eye.
The ultimate handbook for fostering and cultivating a strong team culture, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Culture Code and The Talent Code. “If you are a leader—or if you work with one—and want to understand how to build psychological safety, trust, and a sense of purpose for your team, then you need this book.”—Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit Building a team has never been harder than it is right now. How do you create connection and trust? How do you stay focused on your goals? In his years studying the ways successful groups work together, Daniel Coyle has spent time with elite teams around the world, observing the ways they support each other, manage conflict, and move toward a common goal. In The Culture Playbook, he distills everything he has learned into sixty concrete, actionable tips and exercises that will help your team build a cohesive, positive culture. Great cultures, Coyle has found, are built on three essential skills: safety, vulnerability, and purpose. Within this framework, he shows us how we can better serve our teammates, ourselves, and our shared purpose, including: • scheduling regular team “tune-ups” to place an explicit spotlight on the team’s inner workings and create conversations that surface and improve team dynamics • creating spaces for remote coworkers to connect with their colleagues to foster a team spirit even across distances • holding an anxiety party to serve as a pressure-relief valve, as well as a platform for people to connect and solve problems together With reflections, exercises, and practical tips that will prove invaluable to companies, athletes, and families alike, and replete with black-and-white illustrations, The Culture Playbook is an indispensable guide to ensuring that your team performs at its best.
"I fully realize that my discussion of the mental climate of collecting will confirm many of you in your conviction that this passion is behind the times, in your distrust of the collector type. Nothing is further from my mind than to shake either your conviction or your distrust." Walter Benjamin was one of the great cultural critics of the twentieth century. In Unpacking My Library he offers a strikingly personal meditation on his career as a book collector and on the strange relations that spring up between objects and their owners. Witty, erudite and often moving, this book will resonate with bibliophiles of all kinds. Eris Gems make available in the form of beautifully produced saddle-stitched booklets a series of outstanding short works of fiction and non-fiction.
Written over a period of more than two decades, Colour Matters is a collection of essays that shows how race informs the aspirational pursuits of Black youth in the Greater Toronto Area.
After years of war with the invading Canim, Tavi of Calderon, now Captain of the First Aleran Legion, uncovers information about an even greater threat, and must risk everything to forge a desperate alliance between the Aleran and Cane to take on their mu
The subtle arts of management and leadership have been developed over thousands of years by the Chinese. The Book of Leadership and Strategy represents the Taoist culmination of this long tradition and is one of the most prestigious works of ancient Chinese thought. Collected here are insightful teachings on the challenges of leadership on all levels, from organizational management to political statecraft. The translator, Thomas Cleary, has chosen and arranged these teachings to emphasize the most valuable lessons of Taoist wisdom for modern Western readers. Like Cleary's best-selling translation of The Art of War by Sun Tzu, this work will serve as an enlightening guide for people in business, politics, and government.
Understanding the development and practice of power—based on an in-depth observation of human psychology—has been a part of traditional Chinese thought for thousands of years and is considered a prerequisite for mastering the arts of strategy and leadership. Thunder in the Sky presents two secret classics of this ancient Chinese tradition. The commentary by Thomas Cleary—the renowned translator of dozens of Asian classics—highlights the contemporary application of these teachings.
Xing Lu examines language, art, persuasion, and argumentation in ancient China and offers a detailed and authentic account of ancient Chinese rhetorical theories and practices within the society's philosophical, political, cultural, and linguistic contexts. She focuses on the works of five schools of thought and ten well-known Chinese thinkers from Confucius to Han Feizi to the the Later Mohists. Lu identifies seven key Chinese terms pertaining to speech, language, persuasion, and argumentation as they appeared in these original texts, selecting ming bian as the linchpin for the Chinese conceptual term of rhetorical studies. Lu compares Chinese rhetorical perspectives with those of the ancient Greeks, illustrating that the Greeks and the Chinese shared a view of rhetoric as an ethical enterprise and of speech as a rational and psychological activity. The two traditions differed, however, in their rhetorical education, sense of rationality, perceptions of the role of language, approach to the treatment and study of rhetoric, and expression of emotions. Lu also links ancient Chinese rhetorical perspectives with contemporary Chinese interpersonal and political communication behavior and offers suggestions for a multicultural rhetoric that recognizes both culturally specific and transcultural elements of human communication.
