Tradition and revelation are often seen as opposites: tradition is viewed as being secondary and reactionary to revelation which is a one-off gift from God. Drawing on examples from Christian history, Judaism, Islam, and the classical world, this book challenges these definitions and presents a controversial examination of the effect history and cultural development has on religious belief: its narratives and art. David Brown pays close attention to the nature of the relationship between historical and imaginative truth, and focuses on the way stories from the Bible have not stood still but are subject to imaginative 'rewriting'. This rewriting is explained as a natural consequence of the interaction between religion and history: God speaks to humanity through the imagination, and human imagination is influenced by historical context. It is the imagination that ensures that religion continues to develop in new and challenging ways.
Sfakians on the island of Crete are known for their distinctive dress and appearance, fierce ruggedness, and devotion to traditional ways. Konstantinos Kalantzis explores how Sfakians live with the burdens and pleasures of maintaining these expectations of exoticism for themselves, for their fellow Greeks, and for tourists. Sfakian performance of masculine tradition has become even more meaningful for Greeks looking to reimagine their nation's global standing in the wake of stringent financial regulation, and for non-Greek tourists yearning for rootedness and escape from the post-industrial north. Through fine-grained ethnography that pays special attention to photography, Tradition in the Frame explores the ambivalence of a society expected to conform to outsiders' perception of the traditional even as it strives to enact its own vision of tradition. From the bodily reenactment of historical photographs to the unpredictable, emotionally-charged uses of postcards and commercial labels, the book unpacks the question of power and asymmetry but also uncovers other political possibilities that are nested in visual culture and experiences of tradition and the past. Kalantzis explores the crossroads of cultural performance and social imagination where the frame is both empowerment and subjection.
This book is written in the belief that the essential basic principles underlying good singing are in themselves rather few, and very simple, but that their application is amazingly varied in light of the individual's needs. It is not intended as a manual of voice production, and does notconcern itself with medical matters, nor directly with anatomy, physiology, and acoustics. While not belittling the value of appropriate scientific investigation, Hemsley believes that modern methods of training have gone too far in the direction of the materialistic approach; that singing in all its aspects and at all times should be guided by the imagination, the feelings, and theintuition; that we have become so pre-occupied by voice per se and the vocal function since the advent of vocal science, that we too easily forget that singing is not voice, but modification of voice - `not only a language through which we understand the emotions of others, but also a means ofexciting our sympathy with such emotions.' (H. Spencer). This book can be seen as an attempt to redress the balance. Quote from reader's report by Professor David Galliver: "Here is a comprehensive and well-ordered philosophy of the art of singing; one which integrates both technical and interpretative aspects. While the technical principles of the classical tradition of singing as expounded by the late Lucie Manen lie at its basis, what is put forward here is verymuch an extension and development, illumined by Thomas Hemsley's long and exceptionally wide experience as a professional singer and teacher, as well as by a wealth of historical evidence. The second part of the book applies these principles, emphasising the fundamental role played by artisticimagination aund understanding. The picture which emerges is essentially comprehensive, and offers a holistic approach to the art of singing. "The book is addressed to those `with a gift for singing who would like to understand better how to approach putting that gift to use'. It will appeal to a wide range of singers, professional and others, and will challenge those pedagogues who rely heavily on the so-called `scientific' approach atthe expense of fundamental human and artistic considerations. Hemsley's own scientific qualifications give additional authority to his hard-hitting arguments. The book is engagingly written, with many personal examples and anecdotes; it certainly makes good reading."
Studying the nature of symbol in Coleridge's work, Father Barth shows that it is central to Coleridge's intellectual endeavor in poetry and criticism as well as in philosophy and theology. He finds symbol to be an essentially religious reality for Coleridge, one that partakes of the nature of a sacrament, especially sacrament as an encounter between material and spiritual reality. Father Barth notes that eighteenth-century poetry was by and large a poetry of metaphor rather than of symbol, a poetry of reference rather than of encounter. In close readings of the poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge, he shows how they practiced and developed the poetry of symbol. Finally, analyzing the symbolic imagination, the author concludes that it is a phenomenon profoundly linked with the experience of Romanticism itself and with a fundamental change in religious sensibility. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Does philosophy have a future? Postmodern thought, with its rejection of claims to absolute truth or moral objectivity, would seem to put the philosophical enterprise in jeopardy. In this volume some of today's most influential thinkers face the question of philosophy's future and find an answer in its past. Their efforts show how historical traditions are currently being appropriated by philosophy, how some of the most provocative questions confronted by philosophers are given their impetus and direction by cultural memory. Unlike analytic philosophy, a discipline supposedly liberated from any manifestation of cultural memory, the movement represented by these essays demonstrates how the inquiries, narratives, traditions, and events of our cultural past can mediate some of the most interesting exercises of the present-day philosophical imagination. Attesting to the power of historical tradition to enhance and redirect the prospects of philosophy these essays exemplify a new mode of doing philosophy. The product of a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute in 1990, it is the task of this book to show that history can be reclaimed by philosophy and resurrected in postmodernity. Contributors. George Allan, Eva T. H. Brann, Arthur C. Danto, Lynn S. Joy, George L. Kline, George R. Lucas, Jr., Alasdair MacIntyre, Robert C. Neville, John Rickard, Stanley Rosen, J. B. Scheenwind, Donald Phillip Verene
In this challenging and enlightening treatment, Brueggemann traces the lines from the radical vision of Moses to the solidification of royal power in Solomon to the prophetic critique of that power with a new vision of freedom in the prophets. Here he traces the broad sweep from Exodus to Kings to Jeremiah to Jesus. He highlights that the prophetic vision and not only embraces the pain of the people but creates an energy and amazement based on the new thing that God is doing. In this new edition, Brueggemann has completely revised the text, updated the notes, and added a new preface.
"For Anglicans, English lyric poetry occupies a significant place: they do not turn to it in order to learn a spirituality so much as to find "companionship in practising what they have already begun to understand of life in the presence of the Holy." The lyric poet is not primarily engaged in prescribing or instructing. Herbert, Vaughan, Donne and their successors down to Eliot and R. S. Thomas in our own century, offer as it were an overhead discourse that often touches on the hidden depths of the life of the spirit." "William Countryman's obvious love for this poetry, and his sense of a relationship with its writers - a shared history, a shared tradition of worship, a shared gaze towards the Holy - means that this book can also display for its readers something of the "light that surprises", the "discovery of grace", the kind of spiritual awakening that New Testament authors call metanoia."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Most critics overlook the literary significance of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's work, focusing instead on biographical, political, and moral interpretations. This examination of Solzhenitsyn's major novels--One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, The First Circle, Cancer Ward, and August 1914--emphasizes that his writings must be understood within the tradition of Russian literature and the context of Western culture. James M. Curtis provides a detailed analysis of Tolstoy's crucial influence on Solzhenitsyn, and he discusses at length Solzhenitsyn's relationship to Dostoyevsky, Leskov, Chekhov, and Zamyatin. Curtis also demonstrates that a study of Ernest Hemingway (whose books have been enormously popular in Russia) and Virginia Woolf can contribute to our understanding of the Russian novelist. Solzhenitsyn's Traditional Imagination includes a chapter on Dos Passos and Eisenstein whose work constituted Solzhenitsyn's first major artistic interest outside Russian literature. The chapter presents the first comprehensive examination of the importance of film for Solzhenitsyn and shows how he learned the use of film technique in literature from Dos Passos and how he adapted it from Eisenstein's films. This was the first full-length study to use Solzhenitsyn's revised editions of One Day . . ., The First Circle, and Cancer Ward (all published in 1978). Professor Curtis's careful use of the best available texts, together with his wide knowledge of contemporary literary criticism and his insistence upon Solzhenitsyn's purely literary importance, make this a valuable book for all students of Solzhenitsyn's fiction.
