Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
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    Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
    Marie-Laure Ryan
    Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

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    ASIN: 0801877539

    Book Description

    Is there a significant difference in attitude between immersion in a game and immersion in a movie or novel? What are the new possibilities for representation offered by the emerging technology of virtual reality? As Marie-Laure Ryan demonstrates in Narrative as Virtual Reality, the questions raised by new, interactive technologies have their precursors and echoes in pre-electronic literary and artistic traditions. Formerly a culture of immersive ideals--getting lost in a good book, for example--we are becoming, Ryan claims, a culture more concerned with interactivity. Approaching the idea of virtual reality as a metaphor for total art, Narrative as Virtual Reality applies the concepts of immersion and interactivity to develop a phenomenology of reading.

    Ryan's analysis encompasses both traditional literary narratives and the new textual genres made possible by the electronic revolution of the past few years, such as hypertext, interactive movies and drama, digital installation art, and computer role-playing games. Interspersed among the book's chapters are several "interludes" that focus exclusively on either key literary texts that foreshadow what we now call "virtual reality," including those of Baudelaire, Huysmans, Ignatius de Loyola, Calvino, and science-fiction author Neal Stephenson, or recent efforts to produce interactive art forms, like the hypertext "novel" Twelve Blue, by Michael Joyce, and I'm Your Man, an interactive movie. As Ryan considers the fate of traditional narrative patterns in digital culture, she revisits one of the central issues in modern literary theory--the opposition between a presumably passive reading that is taken over by the world a text represents and an active, deconstructive reading that imaginatively participates in the text's creation.

    Writing History, Writing Trauma (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
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      Writing History, Writing Trauma (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
      Dominick LaCapra
      Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback

      HistoriographyHistoriography | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books
      HolocaustHolocaust | Jewish | World | History | Subjects | Books
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      1. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History
      2. Trauma: Explorations in Memory Trauma: Explorations in Memory
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      4. Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History
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      ASIN: 0801864968

      Book Description

      Trauma and its often symptomatic aftermath pose acute problems for historical representation and understanding. In Writing History, Writing Trauma, Dominick LaCapra provides a broad-ranging, critical inquiry into the problem of trauma, notably with respect to major historical events. In a series of interlocking essays, he explores theoretical and literary-critical attempts to come to terms with trauma as well as the crucial role post-traumatic testimonies--particularly Holocaust testimonies--have assumed in recent thought and writing. In doing so, he adapts psychoanalytic concepts to historical analysis and employs sociocultural and political critique to elucidate trauma and its after effects in culture and in people.

      In the first chapter LaCapra addresses trauma from the perspective of history as a discipline. He then lays a theoretical groundwork for the book as a whole, exploring the concept of historical specificity and insisting on the difference between transhistorical and historical trauma. Subsequent chapters consider how Holocaust testimonies raise the problem of the role of affect and empathy in historical understanding, and respond to the debates surrounding Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's book Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. The book's concluding essay, "Writing (About) Trauma," examines the various ways that the voice of trauma emerges in written and oral accounts of historical events. Theoretically ambitious and historically informed, Writing History, Writing Trauma is an important contribution from one of today's foremost experts on trauma.

      Critical Theory, Marxism, and Modernity (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
      Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      • The Frankfort School and Critical Theory
      Critical Theory, Marxism, and Modernity (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
      Douglas Kellner
      Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback

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      1. Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas
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      3. Critical Theory and Society: A Reader Critical Theory and Society: A Reader
      4. One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
      5. Dialectic of Enlightenment (Cultural Memory in the Present) Dialectic of Enlightenment (Cultural Memory in the Present)

      ASIN: 0801839149

      Book Description

      Kellner explores the effects of historical crises of capitalism and Marxism on critical theory and reflects on the continued relevance or obsolescence of Marxism and critical theory. Kellner writes, "As we move into the 1990s critical theory might help produce theoretical and political perspectives which could be part of a Left Turn that could reanimate the political hopes of the 1960s, while helping overcome and reverse the losses and regression of the 1980s."

      Customer Reviews:

      5 out of 5 stars The Frankfort School and Critical Theory.......2000-04-22

      This book provided an excellent analysis of the Frankfurt School including the contributions of Horkheimer and Habermas. There were also three very interesting chapters that focused on the mass media and technology. For someone looking to develop a critical perspective of the media this book is a great start. Also, it was fairly easy to read.
      Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums (Re Visions : Critical Studies in the History and Theory of Art)
      Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
      • Fantastic
      • Duncan the hateful
      • Review
      • Informative and Easy to Read
      • Informative, Easy To Read
      Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums (Re Visions : Critical Studies in the History and Theory of Art)
      Carol Duncan
      Manufacturer: Routledge
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback

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      ASIN: 0415070120

      Book Description

      Public art museums have become necessary fixtures of every city or country with any claim to importance. Yet we have still to understand what happens in them. Civilizing Rituals treats art museums from a new perspective--as ritual settings in their own right and as cultural artifacts that are much more than neutral shelters for art.

      Drawing from both anthropological and philosophical literature, Carol Duncan begins by exploring the idea of the art museum-as-ritual. She examines specific musuem rituals in the US, Britain and France including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musuem of Modern Art, the National Gallery in London, the Louvre and several donor memorials including the Frick Collection and the Morgan Library, not only in relation to their political and social contexts but also paying close attention to the details of the museum settings themselves.

      Duncan illuminates the ways in which musuems engage their visitors in the performance of ritual scenarios and, through them, commmunicate and affirm ideas, values and social identities. Art museums emerge as significant objects of historical and art-historical inquiry, sites on which political power and social interests and the history of cultural forms visibly intersect.

      Customer Reviews:

      5 out of 5 stars Fantastic.......2007-09-30

      The boook was for my academic course..... and I was surprised by the reponse of amazon. They delivered it to me so fast. Thanks a lot. And the quality of the book is good too.....
      Book is basically related to museum culture and importance of rituals in those spaces.

      1 out of 5 stars Duncan the hateful.......2006-04-10

      As the title of Miss Duncan's book suggest, she sees the museums as almost religious institutions that entice the visitor to "enact a performance of some kind". Their very identity and meaning are constructed through this ritualistic practice, which is neither natural nor neutral. In the introduction the author states that she has no ambition in propagating what an art museum should be. In fact she does not indicate if she has such a clear cut ideal thought-out at all. The purpose of her research is to see, decipher and describe. There are, it turns out, two ways - two ideals in fact - a museum is presented to the public: the educational museum and the aesthetic museum. The first type proposes to educate the visitor, treating the exhibits as "art-historical objects", while in the second they are unique, original works of art to be reflected upon by the sophisticated guest, sheltered by the museum. Duncan insists that either way, all this happens in a "ritual-like" atmosphere, and that is what she wants to prove in her book. She deals with this aspect specifically in the first chapter. The older museums were practically all built in a style that consciously copied the architecture of old Greek and Roman temples and were often compared to them. The visitor, already mentally prepared for an enlightening experience, would receive (in a seemingly "objective" and disinterested package) rational and verifiable knowledge - a truth that is so obvious as to be irrefutable, when in fact it is highly subjective and hierarchical.
      In the second chapter, Duncan traces the development of the museum from the princely gallery into today's public, secular space, and maintains that this space is neither quite as clearly public, nor secular as it would like to be seen. Here, the Louvre and the National Gallery in London are primary examples. The museum here serves particular needs of the bourgeois state and its ideology.
      The third chapter follows the "museum boom" in the United States that begun in the late 19th century. Duncan sees it as a pretentious attempt of the new republic with no history to boast to be seen as civilized and a part of wider Western culture. She follows the mushrooming of "American Louvres", museums that ideologically support White Protestants' view of themselves and their political power. Here, an American museum equals money.
      Private museums that once belonged to rich collectors are dealt with in the fourth chapter. The characters of the often ruthless and predominantly white men are vividly brought to life, together with how they saw themselves, and how they wished their collections to reflect this.
      The final chapter deals in great length with the nature of modern art, and its use in today's museums.

      The premise that museums are ritual sites is highly problematic and on closer examination cannot be supported by facts. The argument that older museums were built in the style that closely followed that of the temples of antiquity is a hollow one, for in the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth century, all structures of significance were built that way. Banks, schools, parliaments, city markets, private houses, ch?teaux, family crypts, public baths and indeed museums were built in that style. Does it mean that all of these were ritualistic, temple-like places? Hardly. Duncan either doesn't know it or doesn't grasp the significance. Instead she tells us that in art museums, it is the visitors who perform the ritual. And I think therein lies the problem. While it is perfectly reasonable to say that a great majority (if not all) of people attending a mass in a church are there for a specific - ritualistic - reason, such assumption won't work when studying the behavior of museum-goers who may be there for a number of causes. First of all, there is absolutely nothing about timing one's visit to a museum that would suggest this. There is nothing regular about the visits and such a visit is often accidental as much as planned. Once inside the museum, I have never seen anything that would suggest any shared patterns of the visitors' conduct that would support this `ritual' theory. I have always interpreted what is more-or-less silence or only quiet talk as a mere politeness towards people around, rather then any sort of `ritualistic behavior'. I am silent in a hospital too. Whether one wants to admire one particular work of art or even see it as such is one's free choice. No museum in the world could force me to look at something longer then I want to. I have seen people, particularly in American museums, to behave no differently the they would elsewhere. Museums can place all manner of things for us to see in every way they can, to represent whatever they want them to represent, but in the end it is up to us to accept it or not. If someone wants to worship, why should I care?
      Duncan quotes Goethe as he impatiently waited for the opening of the Dresden Gallery in 1768 and using his exaltations as a proof of the ritualistic nature of gallery visits. She probably doesn't realize, that if this was the very first day of a gallery functioning, in the 18th century when there were almost no public museums or galleries, there could be hardly any talk of an established ritual. Duncan states that the origins of the evolution of the museum from the princely gallery lie in the discourse "in which bourgeois and aristocratic modes of culture were pitted against each other" and that the museums such as the Louvre stand as monuments to the new bourgeois state as it emerged at the time of revolutions. Yet later in the second chapter she says that conversions of this type happened before revolution in Dresden and Vienna. Why aristocratic and ultra-conservative regimes such as Saxony and Austria had at the time, would promote a monument to bourgeois state remains a mystery our eager writer could not be bothered to explain. After all, even Bourbons were considering opening the Louvre to the public before the revolution. Between 1789 and 1871 France experienced several revolutions, was run by three monarchies, two empires, three republics, directory and a consulate, and went through the Paris Commune, yet none of these widely varied governments thought of closing down the museum. If the new type of museum was simply a monument to the bourgeoisie, then why was it kept on in Soviet Russia and the entire communist bloc? Little details like that could not bother Duncan. Her overall historical scholarship is below that of an eight-grader, and so she cheerfully states that by 1825 all western capitals, monarchical or republican had a national gallery. Obviously, the fact that in 1825, there was no republican government in Europe escapes her. It is the complete lack of in-depth knowledge on Duncan's part that allows her to arrogantly write that the countries of the third world have museums just so that they can receive western military and economic aid. It is not just that it is plainly insulting, but what is implied is that getting money and weapons from the west is as easy as building a museum. And why, then, do some third world countries that refuse aid from the west still build museums? If a major argument in (what I take for) a serious book is built on hot air like that, than the book is perhaps not as serious as we might think. Duncan, as is painfully obvious by now, has no taste. It is therefore no surprise that she hates those who do. With misplaced sarcasm she derides the practice of basing museums on `national genius', claiming this to be the governing pattern in the west by 19th century. I seriously doubt that, if only because hardly two, perhaps three countries in the west could possess such wealth of cultural heritage as to claim a genius and not be laughed at. British art galleries, for example, could hardly build their identity on such shaky ground. But Duncan does not care about facts. Or logic. She unworriedly states that museums were seen as instruments of "social change capable of strengthening the social order", without realizing that it is a contradiction in terms. Now the plot has been completely lost, and by chapter three Duncan doesn't talk about ritual anymore. What she wants is to hate and deride. To her, public museums set up in the United States in the second half of the 19th century are nothing but nests of hypocrisy, thinly veiled racist institutions, run by and for the white male, the root cause of all evil. Uncouth terms like the `WASP' are standard here and one is left wondering if all white male Protestants really are pathological liars. The impression one takes from this is that museum founders, donors and curators are twisted, dangerous psychopaths. Perhaps we should keep them under lock and key as soon as they even start rambling about museums. When talking about lives of museum donors, Duncan approaches something resembling mildly appealing writing, but only because the subject is interesting. Predictably, another pearl awaits us at the end of the fourth chapter where she idiotically writes that Andrew Mellon's refusal to have his name associated with the National Gallery "is an act, however, that also obscures the deep contradiction on which the National Gallery is built: that one man, single-handedly, was able to dictate, pay for, and carry out the creation of so potent a symbol of the nation's spiritual and material wealth". I don't see Duncan's point. So what if one man can do all this? One man was behind building of the Suez Canal, one man led India's independence movement, a single sixteen year old French girl in the 1420's saved her country, yet no one would claim there to be some "deep rooted" contradictions. One prefers to admire the courage and persistence of an individual. Duncan does not. To her, anyone out of the ordinary, above the average, is an elitist.
      It all finally falls apart in the final chapter on modern art museums. These are places frequented by sexual deviants, all male. In fact, Duncan is convinced, all (!) of the modern art is about sex. This is just one of her bizarre beliefs, based on her strange, shamanistic psychoanalysis. I was, let me admit, a bit surprised to discover that as a man I had feelings of inadequacy and vulnerability in front of mature women (like Duncan, I presume) and was frightened of the vagina. Throwing in Latinisms just for good measure is apparently Duncan's idea of maturity.

      5 out of 5 stars Review.......2005-10-04

      Excellent working with seller, received item very fast! Would definitely recommend business with this seller.

      5 out of 5 stars Informative and Easy to Read.......2000-06-04

      Dr. Duncan's books discusses the history of art museums and focusses in on some notable, present day museums. Her approach combines the traditional art historian view with a sociological view. Art is not created in a vacuum and reflects the society it lives within. Duncan's approach gives us insight into why some artwork is accepted while other artwork is not.

      This book was required reading in my undergraduate studies. It is one of the few I choose to have in my personal library as well.

      Carol Duncan's book is small in size and easy to read. However, just because of its ease and size, don't mistake its value to art history. It is well researched and well edited. It is short, sweet and to the point. Too bad other art history books cannot be like that.

      5 out of 5 stars Informative, Easy To Read.......2000-06-04

      Dr. Duncan's book was required reading in my undergraduate studies. She writes from two angles - first, being the traditional fine arts view, and second, a sociological view. Art is not created in a vacuum and is directly affected by the society it lives in. There is a value to looking at art from this combined point of view. You have a clear picture why some art is considered valuable, while some is not.

      Carol Duncan's book delves into the reasons why we have art museums and then focusses in on some notable museums of today. The small book is an easy and quick read. However, its relative ease and small size does not mean it does not inform. It is well researched and well edited. It is short, sweet and to the point. Too bad more art history books are not like that.
      The Vision And The Vow: Re-Discovering Life and Grace
      Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      • Life-Changing
      • Worthy Sequel to "Red Moon Rising"
      • An Excellent Book
      • a review of vision and the vow by matt gregor from cardiff
      • The Vision And The Vow is a joy and a challenge to read
      The Vision And The Vow: Re-Discovering Life and Grace
      Pete Greig
      Manufacturer: Relevant Books
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback

      DiscipleshipDiscipleship | Christian Living | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
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      ASIN: 097292762X

      Book Description

      In the early 18th century, a Christian named Count Zinzendorf formed a secret society called the Honorable Order of the Grain of Mustard. Members wore a ring inscribed with the words "No man liveth unto himself" and took a solemn vow to be true to Christ, to be kind to people and to take the Gospel to the nations. Zinzendorf's vow to live unselfishly is as challenging today as ever. Through these principles, Pete Greig offers a "rule of life" for a generation looking for guidance through a chaotic culture. Included is a 40-day devotional to dig deeper into biblical principles, plus a full-color bonus section featuring a visual interpretation of "The Vision," a prayerful manifesto written by Greig that's become a rallying cry of a generation.

      Customer Reviews:

      5 out of 5 stars Life-Changing.......2007-07-19

      This book has helped me to see my Christian walk in a way I never saw it before. I have been challenged and changed by the words of this book. It is time to start living the Vision for Christ instead of playing church. Don't read the Vision and the Vow if you're not ready to be challenged for Christ.

      5 out of 5 stars Worthy Sequel to "Red Moon Rising".......2006-07-08

      I have ordered over 20 copies of "Red Moon Rising" to distribute to Christian friends--all responses have been positive. I purchased "The Vision and the Vow" just to see what Pete Grieg was currently thinking. I found it powerful and persuasive--count me in. It is the rare book I want to give to a very gifted, capable, unconventional non-Christian who understandably can't get interested in "normal" Christianity.

      5 out of 5 stars An Excellent Book.......2006-06-06

      This is an excellent book exploring what it means to be fully committed to Jesus Christ in our current world. It explores everything from grace to holiness to our commission to take the gospel to the world. The call to prayer and intimate relationship with God is set in line with the call to be outward meeting the practial and spiritual needs of the hurting. This book is definitely worth the time. It actually surprised me how good it is. Pete Greig writes in a very natural and honest style and is very easy to read and identify with.

      5 out of 5 stars a review of vision and the vow by matt gregor from cardiff.......2005-05-26

      The vision and the vow - pete greig

      Not being someone who's been into the whole 24-7 thing massively I haven't read any of pete grieg's stuff before. I've been amazed and impacted by some of the truths of coming back to a life of sacrifice and love for God.

      The book is not a natural contender for a recommendation on the ignite web site because towards the end it suggests you think about taking a vow of commitment to love Jesus, be kind to others and spread the gospel in other nations. It's not miles away from our own ignite declaration we encourage you to take but in all honesty we're into building God's kingdom and want to recommend this one to you because we believe it may inspire you.

      The book has roughly five sections, firstly a fabulous chapter about Jesus that I've loved and that the vision, from the 247 stuff is actually Jesus and then some of how that works out in real life for us people living in the 21st century. The Vision in these pages connected somewhere in my heart with a desire that longs to live "dangerously, obsessively and undeniably" for Jesus. My favourite part of the book is called "summon the losers", identifying that no one is too bad, broken or boring to be used by God. I've used it as a great framework for some talks I've been doing in Christian unions across Cardiff. Those chapters, and in fact the whole book is packed with great stories and illustrations about us growing up into maturity with our relationship with God, a call to discipleship and some of the "how to" help that is most valuable.

      4 out of 5 stars The Vision And The Vow is a joy and a challenge to read.......2005-04-04

      In reading The Vision and the Vow by Pete Greig, you are taken beyound comfortable boundaries, beyond the "easy-does-it Christianity" that the modern church has gotten drunk on. Pete Greig challenges those who claim Christ as Savior to also embrace him as Lord. We cannot divorce the two, and therefore we must submit to His authority with our whole lives. Greig takes us through his vision of where the Church is headed, and how Christians needs to rise above mediocrity and start becoming revolutionary.

      We are to be disciples, not converts. Greig points out that all to often Christians are letting themselves become complacent in their faith instead of being whole-life disciples. It is not an easy call to be a disciple of Christ, but it is a worthy one.
      The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Postmodern Culture (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
      Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      • Vattimo's hard to accept tesis about a weak thinking.
      The End of Modernity: Nihilism and Hermeneutics in Postmodern Culture (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
      Gianni Vattimo
      Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback

      GeneralGeneral | Criticism & Theory | History & Criticism | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
      HermeneuticsHermeneutics | Criticism & Theory | History & Criticism | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
      SemioticsSemiotics | Criticism & Theory | History & Criticism | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
      RenaissanceRenaissance | Movements & Periods | History & Criticism | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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      5. Basic Writings: from Being and Time (1927) to The Task of Thinking (1964) Basic Writings: from Being and Time (1927) to The Task of Thinking (1964)

      ASIN: 0801843170

      Book Description

      Gianni Vattimo reexamines the roots of modernism and postmodernism in Nietzsche, Benjamin, and Heidegger. Exploring the links between concepts of nihilism and destiny in nineteenth-century humanism, Vattimo follows these trends in aesthetic and scientific theory from Benjamin to Bloch, Ricoeur, and Kuhn.

      Customer Reviews:

      5 out of 5 stars Vattimo's hard to accept tesis about a weak thinking........1998-10-14

      This book is important to understand postmodernism. However, i don't image american readers accepting Vattimo's tesis about weak subjet right to have a place in world. Why modern civilization has impossed to us the obligation of being strong and the first in every action as the only way to be allowed as a member of this society?
      The Well-Tempered Self: Citizenship, Culture, and the Postmodern Subject (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
      Average customer rating: Not rated
        The Well-Tempered Self: Citizenship, Culture, and the Postmodern Subject (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
        Toby Miller
        Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Paperback

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        Similar Items:
        1. Technologies of Truth: Cultural Citizenship and the Popular Media (Technologies of Truth) Technologies of Truth: Cultural Citizenship and the Popular Media (Technologies of Truth)

        ASIN: 0801846048

        Book Description

        "This is a major work on the connection of theoretical to political practice under postmodernity. At once rigorous and readable, its academic concerns will be both accessible and useful to readers asking--as contemporary readers indomitably do--what these debates in cultural theory have to do with the conduct of theirsocial lives."--Meaghan Morris, author of The Pirate's Fiancée: Feminism, Reading, Postmodernism.

        "Miller's work is extremely engaging, original, and successful in producing a set of innovative analyses of the formation of cultural subjects."--Douglas Kellner, University of Texas, Austin

        Sublime Desire: History and Post-1960s Fiction (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
        Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
        • A great read; not another PM rehash
        • FYI
        Sublime Desire: History and Post-1960s Fiction (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
        Amy J. Elias
        Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Hardcover

        HistoriographyHistoriography | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books
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        ASIN: 0801867339

        Book Description

        Has twentieth-century political violence destroyed faith in historical knowledge? What happens to historical fiction when history is seen as either a form of Western imperialism or a form of postmodern simulation?

        In Sublime Desire, Amy Elias examines our changing relationship to history and how fiction since 1960 reflects that change. She contends that postmodernism is a post-traumatic imagination that is pulled between two desires: the political desire to acknowledge the physical violence of twentieth-century history, and the yearning for an escape from that history into a ravishing realm of historical certainty. Torn between these desires, both historical fiction and historiography after 1960 redefine history as the "sublime," a territory beyond lived experience that is both unknowable and seductive. In the face of a failure of Enlightenment ideals about knowledge and the West's own history of violence, post-World War II history becomes a desire for the "secular sacred" sublime -- for awe, certainty, and belief.

        Sublime Desire is an eloquent melding of theory and practice. Mixing the canonical with the unexpected, Elias analyzes developments in the historical romance genre from Walter Scott's novels to novels written today. She correlates developments in the historical romance to similar changes in historiography and philosophy. Sublime Desire draws engagingly on more than thirty relevant texts, from Tolstoy's War and Peace to Jeanette Winterson's Sexing the Cherry, Charles Johnson's Dreamer, and Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain. But the book also examines theories of postmodern space and time and defines the difference between postmodern and postcolonial historical perspectives. The final chapter draws from trauma theory in Holocaust studies to define how fiction can pose an ethical alternative to aestheticized history while remaining open to pluralism and democratic values. In its range and sophistication, Sublime Desire is a valuable addition to postmodernist studies as well as to studies of the historical romance novel.

        Customer Reviews:

        5 out of 5 stars A great read; not another PM rehash.......2005-11-24

        Elias offers a lucid account of postmodernism's relationship to history. Sublime Desire is something of a rare bird, in that it is theoretically rigorous without neglecting fiction, or merely paying it lip-service. Novelists such as Pynchon, Barth, Silko, and Scott are not just trotted out to fill out chapters; rather, one gets the sense that Elias actually developed her theoretical approach out of a close reading of the texts she discusses.

        Some familiarity with the fist half of Foucault's 'Archaeology of Knowledge' and Jameson's 'Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism' will be helpful.

        One point: the publisher's list price of $47.00 is absurd.

        5 out of 5 stars FYI.......2003-08-11

        This book won the 2002 Barbara and George Perkins Award from the Society for the Study of Narrative Literature. You can read a review online at EBR: Electronic Book Review.
        Decadent Subjects: The Idea of Decadence in Art, Literature, Philosophy, and Culture of the Fin de Siècle in Europe (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
        Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
        • Really Nice Postmodern Criticism...
        Decadent Subjects: The Idea of Decadence in Art, Literature, Philosophy, and Culture of the Fin de Siècle in Europe (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
        Charles Bernheimer
        Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Hardcover

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        1. Perennial Decay: On the Aesthetics and Politics of Decadence (New Cultural Studies) Perennial Decay: On the Aesthetics and Politics of Decadence (New Cultural Studies)
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        3. Degeneration Degeneration
        4. Sublime Surrender: Male Masochism at the Fin-De-Siecle (Cornell Studies in the History of Psychiatry) Sublime Surrender: Male Masochism at the Fin-De-Siecle (Cornell Studies in the History of Psychiatry)
        5. The Decadent Reader: Fiction, Fantasy, and Perversion from Fin-de-Siècle France The Decadent Reader: Fiction, Fantasy, and Perversion from Fin-de-Siècle France

        ASIN: 0801867401

        Book Description

        Charles Bernheimer described decadence as a "stimulant that bends thought out of shape, deforming traditional conceptual molds." In this posthumously published work, Bernheimer succeeds in making a critical concept out of this perennially fashionable, rarely understood term.

        Decadent Subjects is a coherent and moving picture of fin de siècle decadence. Mature, ironic, iconoclastic, and thoughtful, this remarkable collection of essays shows the contradictions of the phenomenon, which is both a condition and a state of mind. In seeking to show why people have failed to give a satisfactory account of the term decadence, Bernheimer argues that we often mistakenly take decadence to represent something concrete, that we see as some sort of agent. His salutary response is to return to those authors and artists whose work constitutes the topos of decadence, rereading key late nineteenth-century authors such as Nietzsche, Zola, Hardy, Wilde, Moreau, and Freud to rediscover the very dynamics of the decadent. Through careful analysis of the literature, art, and music of the fin de siècle including a riveting discussion of the many faces of Salome, Bernheimer leaves us with a fascinating and multidimensional look at decadence, all the more important as we emerge from our own fin de siècle.

        Customer Reviews:

        5 out of 5 stars Really Nice Postmodern Criticism..........2004-06-13

        This slim volume of exquisite little critical essays is a gem of literary and aesthetic criticism. Bernheimer was dying of cancer when he composed these last pieces, and they were edited and published just after his death. But sickness and death are only marginally reflected in the essays: Bernheimer was an expert of comparative literature, and that is the locus of the book.

        He is looking at the phenomenon of aesthetic Decadence which appeared in European literature c.1885-1905. One can argue that Decadence had earlier adumbrations in Poe, Baudelaire, Gautier, and the Goncourts, but their earlier efforts really saw fruition in the period known as the Fin de Siècle.

        One can look at the table of contents to see Bernheimer's topics of Nietzsche, Flaubert, Zola, Huysmans, Freud, etc. But what I want to impart is the excellence of Bernheimer's critique: he has a firm handle on what's become known as Postmodern criticism, but he's much more lucid than others who dabble in the genre. He writes a very nice English: he constructs very pellucid texts with lovely language--vocabulary, syntax, and punctuation. And his vision is very clear: he understands what he sees, and he is able to clearly formulate his vision to relate it Au lecteur (to the Reader) in such a manner as to make it easily apprehendable--something too often lacking in Postmodern criticism. Highly recommended for students and scholars of turn-of-the-century literature, culture, and intellectual history.
        Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
        Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
        • Brilliant, challenging, and geeky
        Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
        George P. Landow
        Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Paperback

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        1. Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print
        2. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature
        3. Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society) Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
        4. Writing for Visual Media, Second Edition Writing for Visual Media, Second Edition
        5. Remediation: Understanding New Media Remediation: Understanding New Media

        ASIN: 0801882575

        Book Description

        George Landow's widely acclaimed Hypertext was the first book to bring together the worlds of literary theory and computer technology. Landow was one of the first scholars to explore the implications of giving readers instant, easy access to a virtual library of sources as well as unprecedented control of what and how they read. In hypermedia, Landow saw a strikingly literal embodiment of many major points of contemporary literary theory, particularly Derrida's idea of "de-centering" and Barthes's conception of the "readerly" versus "writerly" text.

        From Intermedia to Microcosm, Storyspace, and the World Wide Web, Landow offers specific information about the kinds of hypertext, different modes of linking, attitudes toward technology, and the proliferation of pornography and gambling on the Internet. For the third edition he includes new material on developing Internet-related technologies, considering in particular their increasingly global reach and the social and political implications of this trend as viewed from a postcolonial perspective. He also discusses blogs, interactive film, and the relation of hypermedia to games. Thoroughly expanded and updated, this pioneering work continues to be the "ur-text" of hypertext studies.

        Customer Reviews:

        5 out of 5 stars Brilliant, challenging, and geeky.......2007-08-22

        As more writers create and distribute their work in hypertext it's important to think about how dramatically that is changing the humanities, arts, and culture in general. Landow guides us through this process, drawing from his experience as a professor of English and art history at Brown University. A long time user of hypermedia in teaching and writing, he observes that the worlds of literary theory and computer hypertext have increasingly converged over the past couple decades. This is a brilliant, challenging, and somewhat dense book, and will appeal to the geek in anyone.

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