Decadent Orientalisms presents a sustained critique of the ways Orientalism and decadence have formed a joint discursive mode of the imperial imagination. Attentive to historical and literary configurations of language, race, religion, and power, Fieni shows the importance of understanding Western discourses of Eastern decline and obsolescence together with Arab and Islamic responses in which the language of decadence returns as a characteristic of the West. Taking seriously Edward Said’s claim that Orientalism is a “style of having power,” Fieni works historically through the aesthetic and ideological effects of Orientalist style, showing how it is at once comparative, descriptive, and performative. Orientalism, the book argues, relies upon decadence as the figure through which its positivist scientific claims become redistributed as speech acts—“truths” that establish dominance. Rather than attending to Orientalism as a repertoire of clichés and stereotypes, Decadent Orientalisms considers the systemic epistemological consequences of the diffuse, yet coherent network of institutions that have constituted Orientalism’s power.
Alternate Paperback Cover A Resolute Playboy Groomed from a young age to become the leader of a mafia empire, Enzo Agosti's life has been nothing but a series of luxurious one-stops around the globe in search of hedonistic gratification. Cold and domineering, his dazzling looks are his secret weapon--women fall at his feet; and men want to be him. But behind the mask of opulence lay the ruins of a cynic, a man used to the dark solitude of the flashy public life, and a misanthrope weaned on bloody, depraved lullabies. A Caged Tiger Timid and meek, Allegra Marchesi has always played the dutiful daughter. Though locked in a cage designed to stifle her knowledge and keep her in ignorant bliss, Allegra is every jailor's nightmare--she can think and act for herself. And like every prisoner, she has one goal--freedom. Yet she is but a woman in a man's world, and she is quick to find out that far from absolute, there are degrees to freedom. And love might not be part of the equation.Is she willing to trade one cage for another? Intrigue. Obsession. Decadence. A hate that bubbles just beneath the surface, it takes one woman to bring Enzo to his boiling point. Yet the intensity of his explosive emotions might very well prove to be the end of them both. Morally Decadent is an enemies-to-lovers dark mafia romance that spans over a decade. There is NO cheating and the book ends with a HEA for the couple but with a cliffhanger for the series. It is best enjoyed if Morally Corrupt and Morally Blasphemous are read first. Please check the triggers before proceeding!
This book presents a philosophical rethinking of the meaning and nature of spiritual discipline. It offers a new way of describing and justifying practices like praying, meditating, fasting, and yoga, and it provides an innovative case for their contemporary importance. Spiritual discipline is especially effective at combatting Pascalian diversion, the pursuit of activities that occupy the mind just enough to avoid thinking about important things; and Nietzschean decadence, the proclivity for extirpating instinctive drives instead of satisfying or sublimating them. In addition to overcoming diversion and decadence in contemporary consumerist culture, VanNess recommends spiritual discipline as a means of political resistance to powerful institutions which seek to exercise social control in democratic societies by promulgating addictive patterns of consumption. Finally, he argues that regimens of spiritual discipline can serve healthful and liberating purposes, and generally promote fullness of life, only insofar as they are shaped by an ethos of intellectual criticism and aesthetic experimentation.
"This ethnographic study attempts to portray Pesantren Daarut Tauhid in Bandung, Java, in terms of its emergence, its nature and structure, and the role it plays in the reinforcement of Islamic morality in a Muslim community. The initial stages and the foundation of the pesantren are first discussed in order to understand a number of events which were crucial to the emergence of the pesantren. The thesis then examines the nature of the leader and his followers and the structure of interrelationships between them. Next, the practice of Islam at the pesantren is discussed in order to consider its creativity in expressing Islam. Finally, the thesis discusses the ways by which the pesantren reinforces religious morality."--Provided by publisher.
"The Moral Art of Philip Massinger views the successor of Shakespeare and Fletcher in a new sociopolitical position: one of accommodation based on a moderate reformation of the tradition of the old hierarchy of inherited degree, patriarchy, and patronage. In addition, author Ira Clark claims a superior aesthetic position for tragicomedy as a sophisticated, elaborate synthesis of dramatic conventions in complex multiple plots filled with reversals, recognitions, miraculous conversations, and reconciliations after clashes of absolutes. The genre's complex testing of characters, discovery of their failures, and reintegration of them into a reformed society focuses central sociopolitical and moral issues for an allegedly decadent but actually deeply troubled society. Finally, the study takes into its account Massinger's many collaborations with John Fletcher, which are generally ignored. In sum, this work attempts to revise obsolete views of the dominant playwright just before the closing of the theaters and the opening of the English Civil War." ""A Case for Massinger" presents a critical history of why Massinger is unappreciated, traces his life with an eye to his ideal of patronage and his emphasis on gratitude, and outlines the rest of the work. "Models for Massinger the Apprentice" focuses on the techniques of tragicomedy as Massinger learned them from his three masters. The Queen of Corinth, written with Fletcher, serves as an exemplum of what this master collaborator taught him about tragicomedy. The City Madam. which obviously alludes to Volpone, serves as an example of the traditions of the estates morality play, satiric style, and metadrama, which Jonson transmitted to Massinger. The Duke of Milan and The Emperor of the East, with motifs borrowed from Othello, serve as exempla of how Massinger used traditional dramatic allusions to present social issues." ""Massinger's Political Plays in their Time" focuses on the sociopolitical inclinations that Massinger consistently presented through his collaborations and solo plays. Primarily the issues revolved around the relative value of court and country, monarchism and parliamentary balance, hereditary degree and social mobility, and conspicuous consumption and martial maintenance. "Massinger's Tragedies and Satiric Tragicomedies in their Social and Family Settings" focuses on the social, family, and personal preferences that Massinger presented in his work: a concerned patriarchy, a greater voice for women, and the rights of inheritance by younger sons. "Massinger's Tragicomedy" circles around to view all of Massinger's artistic and sociopolitical themes by way of readings of a collaborative tragicomedy and a solo tragicomedy: The Elder Brother (with Fletcher) and The Guardian."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
From novels of the nineteenth century to films of the 1990s, American culture, abounds with images of white, middle-class mothers. In Motherhood and Representation, E. Ann Kaplan considers how the mother appears in three related spheres: the historical, in which she charts changing representations of the mother from 1830 to the postmodernist present; the psychoanalytic, which discusses theories of the mother from Freud to Lacan and the French Feminists; and the mother as she is figured in cultural representations: in literary and film texts such as East Lynne, Marnie and the The Handmaid's Tale, as well as in journalism and popular manuals on motherhood. Kaplan's analysis identifies two dominant paradigms of the mother as `Angel' and `Witch', and charts the contesting and often contradictory discourses of the mother in present-day America.
Annotation Responding to a fundamental challenge from feminism, a primary objective of this book is to propose that all narrative and its reading are intrinsically inflected by sexual politics. Various approaches represented here demonstrate problems of confronting the gendered pleasures of reading.
This book is about legality in its relation with morality. It is to explore dialectical dynamics in-between the two subject matters, i.e., legality and morality. It is because, in reality, the ethical foundation of legality is getting weaker and more ineffectual. That is why the authority of the law is getting weaker and less effective, as time goes on. That is consequently why there are more violence and crimes in American society, if not in the entire global community. This book is by no means to teach you the law. Legality has its own rich history and tradition, formal and informal conventions, and profound and diverse theories and doctrines. This book is simply geared to highlight the ethical dimension in the nature and function of the law. In brief, it is to “ethicalize” the law in its legislation, interpretation, and execution. Instead of discussing in detailed theories and doctrines of the law being entertained by its complexities and diversities, this book is to investigate philosophically major themes of the law, mainly in order to reveal their inherent connections with ethics and ultimately to emphasize the crucial necessity of ethics in legality. Unless we radically increase the ethical implication in legality, the humanity may not be able to entertain the twenty-second century.
This book approaches perceptions of Robert Gabriel Mugabe within Zimbabwe and beyond during his period in power and towards the end of his time in government. The book examines how Mugabe became the focus of a thriving personality cult, studying the argument that Mugabe could be regarded as the founder of a new religious movement in Zimbabwe and the Global South. The contributors analyse the use of ideology and mythology in promoting Mugabe’s hegemony in Zimbabwe, looking at the appropriation of religious ideas by the Mugabe government and the impact this had on perceptions of Mugabe both within Zimbabwe and beyond. Focusing on the final years of Mugabe’s rule, the chapters provide new insights into how different actors, including politicians, African Traditional Religions, African Independent/Initiated Churches, Pentecostal churches, the media and others deployed religious idioms to support or critique Mugabe at a time when his tenure was coming under serious threat. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Southern African politics and religion.
