The Specter of Babel
The Specter of Babel

Author: Michael J. Thompson

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2020-11-01

Total Pages: 475

ISBN-13: 1438480377

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In an age of rising groupthink, reactionary populism, social conformity, and democratic deficit, political judgment in modern society has reached a state of crisis. In The Specter of Babel, Michael J. Thompson offers a critical reconstruction of the concept of political judgment that can help resuscitate critical citizenship and democratic life. At the center of the book are two arguments. The first is that modern practical and political philosophy has made a postmetaphysical turn that is unable to guard against the effects of social power on consciousness and the deliberative powers of citizens. The second is that an alternative path toward a critical social ontology can provide a framework for a new theory of ethics and politics. This critical social ontology looks at human sociality not as mere intersubjectivity or communication, but rather as constituted by the shapes that our social-relational structures take as well as the kinds of purposes and ends toward which our social lives are organized. Only by calling these into question, Thompson boldly argues, can we once again attempt to revitalize social critique and democratic politics.

The Pleasures of Babel
The Pleasures of Babel

Author: Jay Clayton

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1993-12-02

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 0195359291

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The Pleasures of Babel acquaints the layperson and the expert alike with the creative and intellectual achievements of America's multicultural society. Arguing that the present is "a great period of writing," Jay Clayton relates novels from the seventies, eighties, and nineties to the latest developments in literary theory. He offers a lucid, cutting-edge look at the often stormy relationship between contemporary literature and criticism. Avoiding theoretical jargon, Clayton systematically sets out to make sense of the critical movements of the last two decades: deconstruction, psychoanalysis, minority writing, multiculturalism, and feminism. In the course of clarifying the accomplishments of Barthes, Kristeva, Lyotard, Said, and others, the author discusses some of America's most prominent writers of fiction: Saul Bellow, Sandra Cisneros, E.L. Doctorow, Toni Morrison, and many others. The result successfully weds a layperson's guide to recent criticism with a scholarly application of that criticism to the very works it concerns. In light of the current debates being waged over the canon and multiculturalism, The Pleasures of Babel should prove an indispensable tool for those engaged in the practice of literary criticism, as well as anyone concerned with the way in which narrative interacts with society.

Babel’s Tower Translated
Babel’s Tower Translated

Author: Phillip Michael Sherman

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2013-04-15

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 9004248617

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In Babel's Tower Translated, Phillip Sherman explores the narrative of Genesis 11 and its reception and interpretation in several Second Temple and Early Rabbinic texts (e.g., Jubilees, Philo, Genesis Rabbah). The account of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) is famously ambiguous. The meaning of the narrative and the actions of both the human characters and the Israelite deity defy any easy explanation. This work explores how changing historical and hermeneutical realities altered and shifted the meaning of the text in Jewish antiquity.

The Specter of Sex
The Specter of Sex

Author: Sally Kitch

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2009-08-06

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9781438427546

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Genealogy of the formation of race and gender hierarchies in the U.S.

Many Sides: A Protagorean Approach to the Theory, Practice and Pedagogy of Argument
Many Sides: A Protagorean Approach to the Theory, Practice and Pedagogy of Argument

Author: M. Mendelson

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-06-29

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 9401598908

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Many Sides is the first full-length study of Protagorean antilogic, an argumentative practice with deep roots in rhetorical history and renewed relevance for contemporary culture. Founded on the philosophical relativism of Protagoras, antilogic is a dynamic rather than a formal approach to argument, focused principally on the dialogical interaction of opposing positions (anti-logoi) in controversy. In ancient Athens, antilogic was the cardinal feature of Sophistic rhetoric. In Rome, Cicero redefined Sophistic argument in a concrete set of dialogical procedures. In turn, Quintilian inherited this dialogical tradition and made it the centrepiece of his own rhetorical practice and pedagogy. Many Sides explores the history, theory, and pedagogy of this neglected rhetorical tradition and, by appeal to recent rhetorical and philosophical theory, reconceives the enduring features of antilogical practice in a dialogical approach to argumentation especially suited to the pluralism of our own age and the diversity of modern classrooms.

A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature
A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature

Author: David Lyle Jeffrey

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 1000

ISBN-13: 9780802836342

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Over 15 years in the making, an unprecedented one-volume reference work. Many of today's students and teachers of literature, lacking a familiarity with the Bible, are largely ignorant of how Biblical tradition has influenced and infused English literature through the centuries. An invaluable research tool. Contains nearly 800 encyclopedic articles written by a distinguished international roster of 190 contributors. Three detailed annotated bibliographies. Cross-references throughout.

Formations of United States Colonialism
Formations of United States Colonialism

Author: Alyosha Goldstein

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2014-11-11

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 0822375966

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Bridging the multiple histories and present-day iterations of U.S. settler colonialism in North America and its overseas imperialism in the Caribbean and the Pacific, the essays in this groundbreaking volume underscore the United States as a fluctuating constellation of geopolitical entities marked by overlapping and variable practices of colonization. By rethinking the intertwined experiences of Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, Chamorros, Filipinos, Hawaiians, Samoans, and others subjected to U.S. imperial rule, the contributors consider how the diversity of settler claims, territorial annexations, overseas occupations, and circuits of slavery and labor—along with their attendant forms of jurisprudence, racialization, and militarism—both facilitate and delimit the conditions of colonial dispossession. Drawing on the insights of critical indigenous and ethnic studies, postcolonial theory, critical geography, ethnography, and social history, this volume emphasizes the significance of U.S. colonialisms as a vital analytic framework for understanding how and why the United States is what it is today. Contributors. Julian Aguon, Joanne Barker, Berenika Byszewski, Jennifer Nez Denetdale, Augusto Espiritu, Alyosha Goldstein, J. K?haulani Kauanui, Barbara Krauthamer, Lorena Oropeza, Vicente L. Rafael, Dean Itsuji Saranillio, Lanny Thompson, Lisa Uperesa, Manu Vimalassery

Lionel Trilling
Lionel Trilling

Author: Daniel T. O'Hara

Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9780299113148

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Daniel T. O'Hara reads the career of Trilling as a single, completely conmprehensive work of self-fashioning. The intention of such work, says O'Hara, from the beginning and throughout Trilling's intelectual life, was to create a self that, when confronted with the great achievement of another mind, was capable of imaginative sympathy and not solely resentful critique. In order to reach that goal, however, Trilling had to adopt on e of the conventional masks available to the intellectual in modern culture and adapt it to his needs and to those of his "liberal" time.

Music from a Speeding Train
Music from a Speeding Train

Author: Harriet Murav

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2011-08-15

Total Pages: 414

ISBN-13: 0804774439

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Music from a Speeding Train challenges the view that there was no Jewish culture in the Soviet Union by exploring over one hundred Russian and Yiddish works from the 1920s to the turn of the 21st century.