Humanist Heroes
Humanist Heroes

Author: Rev. Douglas Kenneth Peary

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2004-04-08

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1453501770

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Each of the 17 chapters of this book is an introduction to the life and beliefs of a great scientist, philosopher, poet or thinker who rejects faith in theistic concepts of religion developed by primitive people. They run from Voltaire, Thomas Paine and Robert Ingersoll, to Walt Whitman, Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan. These thinkers expound on their views of the natural world and on what we can hope and believe based on the scientific method and discoveries. They fill us with overwhelming sense of wonder and awe by what they teach about how to view our wonderful world. They teach us to thrill to evolving life and to be at peace with ourselves despite the limits of our lives. Past President of the Humanist Association of Central Connecticut, Dr. David Schafer, said, "For several years, among the talks most consistently popular with our members have been those in Doug Peary?s long running series, ?Humanist Heroes.? One reason seems to be the emotional intensity Doug brings to his research on each of his subjects, an intensity that continues to reward him, and us, deeply with each of his subjects with each new biography he touches. These are not just interesting stories from and about the lives of Humanists--they are intimate glimpses of more meaningful insights into living, working, loving, and dying, profoundly inspirational for Doug and his audiences."

Super/heroes
Super/heroes

Author: Wendy Haslem

Publisher: New Academia Publishing, LLC

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 0977790843

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This collection explores contemporary superhero narratives, including comic books and films, in a wider mythic context. Since the 1930s superheroes have come to dominate a variety of media formats. Why are audiences so fascinated with heroes, and what makes the idea of heroes so necessary in society?

The Art and Science of Heroism and Heroic Leadership
The Art and Science of Heroism and Heroic Leadership

Author: Scott T. Allison

Publisher: Frontiers Media SA

Published: 2019-06-21

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 288945889X

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Heroism is a rich, elusive phenomenon. Any adequate understanding of heroic behavior requires a new type of scholarly imagination, one that taps into human artistic sensibilities as much as it does the rigors of scientific inquiry. In an important sense, we invoke a meta-version of the call to heroic imagination by Franco, Blau, and Zimbardo (2011), who describe such imagination “as a mind-set” and “a collection of attitudes” (p. 13) that can steer everyday people toward heroic achievement. This eBook also merges our understanding of heroism with heroic leadership, demonstrating that heroic leadership applies the principles of heroism in moving groups toward noble collective goals. This eBook represents an effort by a distinguished group of authors to unleash their own creative mindsets, attitudes, and imaginations in their scholarship on heroism and heroic leadership.

Thicker Than Water
Thicker Than Water

Author: Lauren Weindling

Publisher: University of Alabama Press

Published: 2023-04-17

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0817361014

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"The proverb goes that "blood is thicker than water." But do common bloodlines in fact demand special duties or prescribe affections? Does this maxim presume that we can or should only love others biologically similar to ourselves? Are we nobler if we do, or somehow defective if we don't? "Thicker than Water" examines the roots of this belief by studying the omnipresent discourse of bloodlines and kindred relations in the literature of early modern Europe, specifically its role in the creation and maintenance of oppressive social structures. Lauren Weindling examines how drama from England, France, and Italy tests these assumptions about blood and love, exposing their underlying political function. Among the key texts that Weindling studies are Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and The Merchant of Venice, Pierre Corneille's Le Cid, Giambattista della Porta's La Sorella and its English analog, Thomas Middleton's No Wit/Help Like a Woman's, John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, and Machiavelli's La Mandragola. Each of these plays in some way offers an extreme limit case for these beliefs in plots of love, courtship, and marriage (e.g., blood feuds or incest). They also illustrate that blood functions not as a biological basis for affinities, but discursively. Moreover, they feature the voices of marginalized groups, unprivileged by this ideology, which present significant counterpoints to this bloody worldview. Those outsiders reveal that finding alternative vocabularies to the bloody discourse of elite groups is both extremely difficult and often ineffectual, further evidenced by their persistence today. Much critical work on blood has examined this discourse as it manifests onstage: as evidence of guilt, the product of violence, or in bleeding figures. This book, instead, examines the work that blood does unseen in its connection to discourses of love and kinship-arbitrating social and emotional connections between persons, and thus underwriting our deepest forms of social organization"--

Luther and German Humanism
Luther and German Humanism

Author: Lewis W. Spitz

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-10-28

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 1040244920

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The particular interest of Professor Spitz has been the close relationship and synergy between humanism and religious reform in the transformation of European culture in the 16th century. Within the general cultural and intellectual context of the Renaissance and Reformation movements, the present volume focuses on Luther and German humanism; a subsequent collection looks more particularly at the place of education and history in the thought of the time. The articles here discuss Luther's imposing knowledge of the classics, his attitudes towards learning, the religious and patriotic interests of the humanists, and the role of a younger generation of humanists in the Reformation. Also included is a far-reaching appraisal of the impact of humanism and the Reformation on Western history.