Two hundred years after it was first published, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, the modern Prometheus remains relevant. This novel has endured because of its literary merits and because its themes lend themselves to analysis from multiple viewpoints. Scholars from many disciplines have examined this work in relation to controversial scientific research. In this paper, we review the academic literature where Frankenstein is used to discuss ethics, bioethics, science, technology and medicine. We searched the academic literature and carried (...) out a content analysis of articles discussing the novel and films derived from it, analyzing the findings qualitatively and quantitatively. We recorded the following variables: year and language of publication, whether it referred to the novel or to a film, the academic discipline in which it was published, and the topics addressed in the analysis. Our findings indicate that the scientific literature on Frankenstein focuses mainly on science and the personality of the scientist rather than on the creature the scientist created or ethical aspects of his research. The scientist’s responsibility is central to the ethical interest of Frankenstein; this issue entails both the motivation underlying the scientist’s acts and the consequences of these acts. (shrink)

BackgroundAdvances in biomedicine can substantially change human life. However, progress is not always followed by ethical reflection on its consequences or scientists’ responsibility for their creations. The humanities can help health sciences students learn to critically analyse these issues; in particular, literature can aid discussions about ethical principles in biomedical research. Mary Shelley’sFrankenstein; or, the modern Prometheus(1818) is an example of a classic novel presenting complex scenarios that could be used to stimulate discussion.Main textWithin the framework of the (...) 200th anniversary of the novel, we searched PubMed to identify works that explore and discuss its value in teaching health sciences. Our search yielded 56 articles, but only two of these reported empirical findings. Our analysis of these articles identified three main approaches to usingFrankensteinin teaching health sciences: discussing the relationship between literature and science, analysing ethical issues in biomedical research, and examining the importance of empathy and compassion in healthcare and research. After a critical discussion of the articles, we propose usingFrankensteinas a teaching tool to prompt students to critically analyse ethical aspects of scientific and technological progress, the need for compassion and empathy in medical research, and scientists’ responsibility for their discoveries.ConclusionFrankensteincan help students reflect on the personal and social limits of science, the connection between curiosity and scientific progress, and scientists’ responsibilities. Its potential usefulness in teaching derives from the interconnectedness of science, ethics, and compassion.Frankensteincan be a useful tool for analysing bioethical issues related to scientific and technological advances, such as artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and cloning. Empirical studies measuring learning outcomes are necessary to confirm the usefulness of this approach. (shrink)

Beiträge der Tagung Antike Welt und modernes Leben in Hans Blumenbergs Philosophie vom 2. bis 4. September 2013 am Heidelberger Seminar für Klassische Philologie.

The Prometheus Syndrome includes eight essays which focus on a Promethean figure in the fields of science, theology, or literature, or as fictional character.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 239-259 [Access article in PDF] Love Against Revenge in Shelley's Prometheus David Bromwich I THE MODERNIST PREJUDICE AGAINST SHELLEY has almost disappeared, but when I talk to friends I discover that few have ever cared for his poetry, and if they go back now to read him sometimes they reinvent the prejudice. This resistance is not indifference. Shelley can disturb one's self-knowledge (...) and even one's idea of what self-knowledge may be; and in reaction against the unheard-of demand he routinely makes, one is apt to dismiss him as extravagant. Much of Shelley continues to be outside my range, and occasionally I feel him pulling farther away, as if his starting point were my outermost limit. The fact is shaming enough to prompt a decorous defensiveness. Yet in many of his most far-fetched poems, it seems to me, he justifies his procedures as one looks for a great artist to do. The main reason we find his poetry difficult is its difficulty.Shelley was a member of the first generation to accept the French Revolution as an accomplished change in the world. It was, he thought, a change for the better; he considered himself a revolutionary, though the Terror and the Napoleonic wars left their chastening mark on him. A sentence from the Preface to The Revolt of Islam, of 1817, states most clearly an intuition he held as deeply a year later when he wrote the first act of Prometheus Unbound: "There is a reflux in the tide of human things which bears the shipwrecked hopes of men into a secure haven after the storms are past." 1 Humanity, by the adaptive work of thoughts and feelings, will prove to have readied itself for any great mutation that occurs in society; so that the violence of a revolution is likely to be [End Page 239] extrinsic and unnecessary. The reasons for the assurance implicit here are brought forward in the two great prose works of his last years, A Defence of Poetry and A Philosophical View of Reform. By the time any revolution happens in life, Shelley believes, it has already happened in language, with causes that are as visible as the difference between a living and a dead metaphor. Poetry—by which he means anything imaginative and man-made whose good survives the defects of its maker—"redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity in man." He thinks that poets (including some lawgivers and social critics) are "the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present." The last phrase, from the closing paragraph of A Defence of Poetry, seemed to Shelley important enough to be used also in A Philosophical View of Reform. For him, the principle of reform in language is identical with the principle of reform in thought and action.His doctrine belongs to the high Enlightenment, and he had accepted, more complacently, I believe, in his poetry than in his prose, the idea of the poet or thinker or man-of-mind as a bringer of light to humanity. That ideal was strong in Wordsworth too, with his conception of the poet as "the rock of defence for human nature," but in Shelley it exists in tension with another belief: that the instinct for acting and suffering at the bidding of a nature "not our own" may become as general as the appeal of the revolution now accomplished. Only in having a language for thoughts and feelings does the poet differ from other men and women. This, for Shelley, is a difference not (as it was for Wordsworth) between a speaker and a listener, but rather like that between a translator and a reader. If the poet were unique in the way a revolutionary leader is unique, he would be the protagonist of a fable of revenge that needs likewise its antagonist. Our thoughts about change go along these lines because they tend to be thoughts about contest. But in his later poetry, and in Prometheus Unbound above all, Shelley was looking at... (shrink)

In this paper, we explore how the application of technological tools has reshaped food production systems in ways that foster large-scale outbreaks of foodborne illness. Outbreaks of foodborne illness have received increasing attention in recent years, resulting in a growing awareness of the negative impacts associated with industrial food production. These trends indicate a need to examine systemic causes of outbreaks and how they are being addressed. In this paper, we analyze outbreaks linked to ground beef and salad greens. These (...) case studies are informed by personal interviews, site visits, and an extensive review of government documents and peer-reviewed literature. To explore these cases, we draw from actor-network theory and political economy to analyze the relationships between technological tools, the design of industrial production systems, and the emergence and spread of pathogenic bacteria. We also examine if current responses to outbreaks represent reflexive change. Lastly, we use the myth of Prometheus to discuss ethical issues regarding the use of technology in food production. Our findings indicate that current tools and systems were designed with a narrow focus on economic efficiency, while overlooking relationships with pathogenic bacteria and negative social impacts. In addition, we find that current responses to outbreaks do not represent reflexive change and a continued reliance on technological fixes to systemic problems may result in greater problems in the future. We argue that much can be learned from the myth of Prometheus. In particular, justice and reverence need to play a more significant role in guiding production decisions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 239-259 [Access article in PDF] Love Against Revenge in Shelley's Prometheus David Bromwich I THE MODERNIST PREJUDICE AGAINST SHELLEY has almost disappeared, but when I talk to friends I discover that few have ever cared for his poetry, and if they go back now to read him sometimes they reinvent the prejudice. This resistance is not indifference. Shelley can disturb one's self-knowledge (...) and even one's idea of what self-knowledge may be; and in reaction against the unheard-of demand he routinely makes, one is apt to dismiss him as extravagant. Much of Shelley continues to be outside my range, and occasionally I feel him pulling farther away, as if his starting point were my outermost limit. The fact is shaming enough to prompt a decorous defensiveness. Yet in many of his most far-fetched poems, it seems to me, he justifies his procedures as one looks for a great artist to do. The main reason we find his poetry difficult is its difficulty.Shelley was a member of the first generation to accept the French Revolution as an accomplished change in the world. It was, he thought, a change for the better; he considered himself a revolutionary, though the Terror and the Napoleonic wars left their chastening mark on him. A sentence from the Preface to The Revolt of Islam, of 1817, states most clearly an intuition he held as deeply a year later when he wrote the first act of Prometheus Unbound: "There is a reflux in the tide of human things which bears the shipwrecked hopes of men into a secure haven after the storms are past." 1 Humanity, by the adaptive work of thoughts and feelings, will prove to have readied itself for any great mutation that occurs in society; so that the violence of a revolution is likely to be [End Page 239] extrinsic and unnecessary. The reasons for the assurance implicit here are brought forward in the two great prose works of his last years, A Defence of Poetry and A Philosophical View of Reform. By the time any revolution happens in life, Shelley believes, it has already happened in language, with causes that are as visible as the difference between a living and a dead metaphor. Poetry—by which he means anything imaginative and man-made whose good survives the defects of its maker—"redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity in man." He thinks that poets (including some lawgivers and social critics) are "the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present." The last phrase, from the closing paragraph of A Defence of Poetry, seemed to Shelley important enough to be used also in A Philosophical View of Reform. For him, the principle of reform in language is identical with the principle of reform in thought and action.His doctrine belongs to the high Enlightenment, and he had accepted, more complacently, I believe, in his poetry than in his prose, the idea of the poet or thinker or man-of-mind as a bringer of light to humanity. That ideal was strong in Wordsworth too, with his conception of the poet as "the rock of defence for human nature," but in Shelley it exists in tension with another belief: that the instinct for acting and suffering at the bidding of a nature "not our own" may become as general as the appeal of the revolution now accomplished. Only in having a language for thoughts and feelings does the poet differ from other men and women. This, for Shelley, is a difference not (as it was for Wordsworth) between a speaker and a listener, but rather like that between a translator and a reader. If the poet were unique in the way a revolutionary leader is unique, he would be the protagonist of a fable of revenge that needs likewise its antagonist. Our thoughts about change go along these lines because they tend to be thoughts about contest. But in his later poetry, and in Prometheus Unbound above all, Shelley was looking at... (shrink)

Abstract In this paper, we explore how the application of technological tools has reshaped food production systems in ways that foster large-scale outbreaks of foodborne illness. Outbreaks of foodborne illness have received increasing attention in recent years, resulting in a growing awareness of the negative impacts associated with industrial food production. These trends indicate a need to examine systemic causes of outbreaks and how they are being addressed. In this paper, we analyze outbreaks linked to ground beef and salad greens. (...) These case studies are informed by personal interviews, site visits, and an extensive review of government documents and peer-reviewed literature. To explore these cases, we draw from actor-network theory and political economy to analyze the relationships between technological tools, the design of industrial production systems, and the emergence and spread of pathogenic bacteria. We also examine if current responses to outbreaks represent reflexive change. Lastly, we use the myth of Prometheus to discuss ethical issues regarding the use of technology in food production. Our findings indicate that current tools and systems were designed with a narrow focus on economic efficiency, while overlooking relationships with pathogenic bacteria and negative social impacts. In addition, we find that current responses to outbreaks do not represent reflexive change and a continued reliance on technological fixes to systemic problems may result in greater problems in the future. We argue that much can be learned from the myth of Prometheus. In particular, justice and reverence need to play a more significant role in guiding production decisions. Content Type Journal Article Category Articles Pages 1-26 DOI 10.1007/s10806-011-9357-8 Authors Diana Stuart, Kellogg Biological Station and Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, 3700 East Gull Lake Drive, Hickory Corners, MI 49060, USA Michelle R. Woroosz, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Auburn University, 306A Comer Hall, Auburn, AL 36849, USA Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: Introduction; Part I. Theoretical Views about Pity and Fear as Aesthetic Emotions: 1. Drama and the emotions: an Indo-European connection? 2. Gorgias: a strange trio, the poetic emotions; 3. Plato: from reality to tragedy and back; 4. Aristotle: the first 'theorist' of the aesthetic emotions; Part II. Pity and Fear within Tragedies: 5. An introduction; 6. Aeschylus: Persians; 7. Prometheus Bound; 8. Sophocles: Ajax; 9. Euripides: Orestes; Appendix: catharsis and the emotions in the definition of (...) tragedy in the Poetics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Fragments PLATONIC ELEMENTS IN KAFKA'S "INVESTIGATIONS OF A DOG" by Lewis W. Leadbeater Few critics of Kafka, and certainly few German critics of Kafka, have been willing to allow for much of any classical influence on his works. There are exceptions, but for the most part these commentators can bring themselves to admit only the fact Kafka endured with distaste his lengthy involvement with the classical languages (...) and literature and that, if in any way, he was influenced only in terms of syntax or style.1 Yet it is certain that Kafka read classical literature with interest and that he was well acquainted with classical epic, tragedy, philosophy, and mythology. The wandering Odysseus, the sea god Poseidon, tortured Prometheus —all these and other classical figures are to be found in his works. Indeed, a recent interpretation of The Trial involves a discussion of it in comparison with the trial of Socrates.2 The fact is that Kafka knew Plato's Apology and counted as one of his prized possessions a copy of Plato's Phaedrus. He and Brod read Plato together in high school.3 Are we really to assume, then, that, given Kafka's philosophical bent, he saw no relationship between Plato and the later philosophers, like Kierkegaard for instance, with whom he was quite taken, and that given his fertile mind and penchant for metaphor, Kafka reflects only Platonic syntax?4 Quite the contrary; we must, I think, cede his classicism to Kafka, and in the discussion which follows I should like to point out that in one of the short stories, "Investigations of a Dog," parable and metaphor blend as well as they do because of Platonic influence, and especially that of the Apology and the Phaedrus. Kafka's animals pervade his works in both metaphor and simile. Gregor Samsa awakes one morning to find himself transformed into a gigantic beetle; Joseph K dies, at the end of his trial, like a dog, and it is a questioning canine which investigates the meaning of dog104 Lewis W. Leadbeater105 ness in "Forschungen eines Hundes." Generally the animalistic metaphor involves removal, alienation, and isolation— a loss of kinship with humanity to be sure, but more important a loss of communication, an inability to communicate, and hence an emphasis on all-encompassing, frustrating silence. The natural result for these people turned animal is an involvement in a process of severe introspection frequently linked with the pursuit of some idea or ideal which will provide a hitherto unknown, transcendent nourishment for a famished, alienated soul. Such is certainly the case with Gregor Samsa and quite possibly the case with Joseph K; it is in fact such pursuits which lie at the heart of the researches of our investigating Dog. Though any attempt to pinpoint the source of Kafka's penchant for animalistic metaphors is quite certainly futile, one might well posit as paradigmatic the alienation plays of Aristophanes involving animals, and certainly the notion of a psychological link between man and beast is present in Plato's Phaedrus, a dialogue in which the soul metaphor itself involves horses, and one in which there is considerable discussion of the interchangeability of the souls of men and beasts.5 As noted above such interchangeability or transformation occurs regularly in Kafka; within the ugly form of beetle lay the psyche of Gregor Samsa. Perhaps within the not-so-ugly canine form of our investigating hound lies the soul of Socrates. Consider for a moment the character of our Dog in light of Plato's Socrates as he appears in the Apology. To begin with, the Dog, as he tells us, is a solitary creature, withdrawn and involved solely in his "investigations" (p. 278).6 In addition, he fully realizes that he is different from the rest of his species (p. 279) and that indeed at times he feels rejected by his kind, realizing as he does that his investigations run counter to the traditional values of his species, a species by which he had hoped at one time to be accepted with great honor (p. 308). What he has capitulated to is "questions" which, furthermore, have quite removed him from normal... (shrink)

Marie Cabaud Meaney looks at Simone Weil's Christological interpretations of the Sophoclean Antigone and Electra, the Iliad and Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound. Apart from her article on the Iliad, Weil's interpretations are not widely known, probably because they are fragmentary and boldly twist the classics, sometimes even contradicting their literal meaning. Meaney argues that Weil had an apologetic purpose in mind: to the spiritual ills of ideology and fanaticism in World War II she wanted to give a spiritual answer, namely (...) the re-Christianization of Europe to which she wished to contribute in some way. To the intellectual agnostics of her day she intended to show through her interpretations that the texts they cherished so much could only be fully understood in light of Christ; to the Catholics she sought to reveal that Catholicism was much more universal than generally believed, since Greek culture already embodied the Christian spirit - perhaps to a greater extent than the Catholic Church ever had. Despite or perhaps because of this apologetic slant, Weil's readings uncover new layers of these familiar texts: Antigone is a Christological figure, combating Creon's ideology of the State by a folly of love that leads her to a Passion in which she experiences an abandonment similar to that of Christ on the Cross. The Iliad depicts a world as yet unredeemed, but which traces objectively the reign of force to which both oppressors and oppressed are subject. Prometheus Bound becomes the vehicle of her theodicy, in which she shows that suffering only makes sense in light of the Cross. But the pinnacle of the spiritual life is described in Electra which, she believes, reflects a mystical experience - something Weil herself had experienced unexpectedly when 'Christ himself came down and took her' in November 1938. In order to do justice to Weil's readings, Meaney not only traces her apologetic intentions and explains the manner in which she recasts familiar Christian concepts, but also situates them among standard approaches used by classicists today, thereby showing that her interpretations truly contribute something new. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:384 BOOK REVIEWS Philosophy and.Atheism: In Defense of.Atheism. By KAI NIELSEN. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1985. Pp. 231. $18.95. Kai Nielsen is among the most prolific, trenchant, and articulate critics of religion now working in the world of English-speaking philosophy. In a steady spate of articles and books, including (to mention a few) Contemporary Critiques of Religion, Scepticism, Reason and Practice, Ethics Without God, and An Introduction (...) to the Philosophy of Religion, he has mounted a relentless and sophisticated attack on religious belief. The collection called Philosophy and.Atheism: In Defense of.Atheism brings together essays written over a number of years for audiences of various kinds. The wpics range from popular or autobiographical material to the complex technicalities of competing theories of rationality and justification. Of the eleven essays, seven have appeared previously. There is no index, but the notes and bibliographies appended to the more scholarly essays constitute a useful guide to a major segment of the literature in philosophy of religion. Nielsen's language sometimes betrays scorn for at least some types of religious belief. But typographical inconsistencies sametimes diminish the power of his phrases, as for example when on facing pages he alludes to certain conceptions of God as "a kind of cosmic mickey-mouse" and "a kind of cosmic Mickey Mouse." The number of typographical errors and inconsistencies in the book-not all of them as pregnant as this one with theological contrasts-is annoying. The reader of these essays is constantly reminded of the sustained attacks that some of the greatest minds of modern philosophy (Hume, for example) have mounted on religious belief. But one also thinks of the remark in Wittgenstein's On Ce1·tainty: "Very intelligent and welleducat ~ people believe in the story of creation in the Bible, while others hold it as proven false, and the grounds of the latter are well known to the former." This remark suggests, perhaps, why issues in philosophical theology tend w regress : Is there a God? Is it rational to believe in the existence of God? What are the criteria of rationality appropriate to the assessment of religious belief? Can we sensibly inquire about and compare alternative or competing theories of rationality? Readers of Nielsen's essays will find much to admire in his intricate deployment of complex arguments, many of which operate at one or two removes from the question of theism or atheism. But the energy and complexity of his treatment contrasts sharply with the complex question he poses in the last essay: " Why... is the philosophy of religion so boring? " (p. 224). Nielsen's own response, that there is little to be said for theism, suggests that he misunderstands something basic-not the point of arguments in favor of theism, but the nature of the interests that BOOK REVIEWS 385 underlie religious belief and the sensibilities, among religious people, that make his argumentation unpersuasive. Is the philosophy of religion boring~ Wittgenstein penned a note, published in Zettel: "Some philosophers... suffer from what may be called 'loss of problems.' Then everything seems quite simple to them, no deep problems seem t-0 exist anymore, and the world becomes broad and flat and loses all depth....'' One need not embrace the fideism Nielsen attributed to followers of Wittgenstein, in essays now nearly 20 years old, in order to hold that a sympathetic entertainment of the interests and sensibilities at stake in an undertaking is an essential ingredient in any fair and useful assessment of its rationality, legitimacy, or defensibility. It is that sympathetic entertainment that Nielsen lacks in the case of religious belief. And so he falls prey to the tendency Wittgenstein diagnosed in the case of Sir James Frazer: " His explanations... are much cruder than the sense of the observances themselves.'' There is a delightful characterization of C. D. Broad's philosophical method in A. J. Ayer's A Part of My Life: "He does not buITow under the surface, but only few can do this with profit, and it is much to have the surface properly scrubbed.'' In a similar way, Nielsen offers, in these essays, a thorough scrubbing-perhaps scouring-of the surface of theistic belief... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 347-350 [Access article in PDF] Book Review The Sin of Knowledge: Ancient Themes and Modern Variations, The Sin of Knowledge: Ancient Themes and Modern Variations, by Theodore Ziolkowski; xvi & 222 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, $29.95. After thirty-five years of teaching and administrating at Princeton University, dozens of books, and innumerable articles, the eminent Germanist Theodore Ziolkowski has turned his attention to (...) a theme appropriate for someone so immersed in the intellectual life: the sorrow and grief that accompany human knowledge. Although Ziolkowski has made great contributions in standard studies of genre (notably the elegy and the twentieth-century novel) and authors (Mann, Hesse, and Broch), he became especially well known for his theorization and implementation of thematic studies, ranging from the sublime--fictionalizations of the life of Jesus--to the humorous--talking animals in literature. The figures whom Ziolkowski has selected for analysis of the sin of knowledge are Adam, Prometheus, and Faust, each of whom he views through both an ancient and a modern lens.All three of these mythic heroes violate "divine prohibitions against the new knowledge" (p. 69). Less heroically, all of these myths treat women misogynistically. Generally, Ziolkowski sees each of these stories as having emerged in a time of crisis, when new opportunities presented humanity with knowledge both alluring and disruptive. Because these are highly elastic myths, able to provide meaning in a variety of contexts, they have all mutated in modern times. Adam's Fall comes to represent the human transition from innocence to consciousness, Prometheus becomes a symbol for socialism's promise, and Faust turns into a representative of the American way of life.Looking at the ancient legend of Adam, Ziolkowski notes that sexuality and wisdom are linked in many of the oldest texts in humanity's recorded history. The emphasis on knowledge, however, is especially strong in the Hebrew myth. While many Near Eastern traditions have stories with similarities to the Biblical account of Adam and Eve, only Hebrew mythology has the Tree of Knowledge. For Ziolkowski, the fact that this story was probably set down during the reign of King Solomon explains this emphasis on knowledge. Because the Age of Solomon was a time of unparalleled wealth and power for the Hebrews, [End Page 347] Ziolkowski argues that the tale of Adam and Eve is the kind of myth "produced by cultures that have reached a certain level of sophistication... and look back with a degree of nostalgia at an imagined simpler, happier existence" (p. 23). According to Ziolkowski, knowledge becomes a sin for the Hebrews as they come to terms with the limitations of everything that their knowledge has brought them even at the height of their power and glory.In the modern era, Ziolkowski continues, the story of Adam has become secularized, representing the transition of humanity from a state of innocence to one of consciousness. He finds references to the Fall in Voltaire's Candide, Kleist's The Broken Pitcher, E. T. A. Hoffmann's The Golden Pot, Melville's Billy Budd, and Hesse's Demian. The overall trend of these representations of the rise of consciousness has been increasingly negative, culminating in sentiments like those expressed by the East German author Günter Kunter, who argues that "our whole present misery and all the problems of industrial civilization" can be linked to "the moment when man used the first firestone as a tool, the Fall" (p. 107). As Ziolkowski concludes: "Two centuries of secularization have brought the modern Adam to a depressing end" (p. 108).Citing Nietzsche, who compared Prometheus to Adam (and Pandora to Eve), Ziolkowski looks first at Hesiod's depiction of Prometheus as a trickster and then to Aeschylus' hero. Unlike the authors of the story of Adam and Eve, though, Aeschylus depicts Prometheus' claim to divine knowledge in a positive light: "Rather than a humankind declining from a glorious golden age to the present deplorable iron age, Aeschylus sees humanity progressing by means of knowledge--the crafts, arts, and sciences--from blindness and ignorance... (shrink)

In Theriaca 343–358, Nicander recounts a rather unusual myth. After Prometheus had stolen fire, Zeus was seeking the thief and, when men delivered Prometheus over to him, he gave them the gift of youth. Humans entrusted the ass to carry this load, but the ass was seized by thirst and sought the help of the snake, who demanded in return the thing he was carrying on his back. This is how the gift of youth given to men fell (...) to the serpent’s lot. Ever since, inevitable old age has weighed upon them, while the snakes cast off their old skin and gain a new one. Like any digression in Hellenistic epic poetry, this parable certainly is intended to entertain the reader, yet it must have a more serious function: by showing that it was only out of stupidity that men gave away their invaluable gift to the ass, Nicander asserts the great value of knowledge for life. Remarkably, it is precisely in this passage that the poet has inserted the acrostic of his name. The idea that his poetic work will ensure the survival of his name for future generations, directly expressed in the closing lines, is here conveyed with the greatest refinement. (shrink)

M'illumino/d'immenso - I'm lit/with immensity is Geoffrey Brock's translation of Giuseppe Ungaretti's poem Mattina. In the poem's minimalism, Ungaretti points to the maximal: the richness of poetry's expressive possibilities and the power of thinking in literature. This book addresses the fascination of readers to transcend the boundaries of their own in fiction, and literature's capacity, according to Kant, even to evoke, with the help of the development of aesthetic ideas, representations that exceed what is empirically and conceptually graspable (...) - in case studies about myths of creativity, images of death and the beyond after the 'death of God', of the soul, of melancholy as the dark ground of genius, of metamorphoses of both evil and good, of ecstasy, of the economy of self-sacrifice, of the art of resistance, and, among others, about figurations of biography and the portrait as approaches to singularity, what is particular and cannot be fully subsumed to any universality. (shrink)

Relationalität und Selbstdiskursivierung in den lebens -- und Sozialwissenschaften -- Selbstreflexion und Relationalität in der literatur.

Richly illustrated study drawing on art, literature and science to explore Victorian attitudes towards sight.

Numinous spaces in British literature from William Wordsworth to Samuel Beckett -- Jesus figures in American literature from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Edward Albee -- Using Bakhtin's definitions to discover ethical voices in Solzhenitsyn and Tolstoy -- René Girard's categories of scapegoats in literature of the American South -- Hopkins's metaphysics of nature as sacred disclosure -- The book of job as mirrored in Hopkins's metaphysics -- Beckett's mythos of the absence of God.

This collection emphasizes a cross-disciplinary approach to the problem of scale, with essays ranging in subject matter from literature to film, architecture, the plastic arts, philosophy, and scientific and political writing. Its contributors consider a variety of issues provoked by the sudden and pressing shifts in scale brought on by globalization and the era of the Anthropocene, including: the difficulties of defining the concept of scale; the challenges that shifts in scale pose to knowledge formation; the role of scale (...) in mediating individual subjectivity and agency; the barriers to understanding objects existing in scalar realms different from our own; the role of scale in mediating the relationship between humans and the environment; and the nature of power, authority, and democracy at different social scales. (shrink)

How does literature illuminate the way we live? Maurice Natanson, a prominent champion of phenomenology, draws upon this method's unique power to show how fiction can highlight aspects of experience that are normally left unexamined. By exploring the structure of the everyday world, Natanson reveals the "uncanny" that lies at the core of the ordinary. Phenomenology--which involves the questioning of that which we usually take for granted--is for Natanson the essence of philosophy. Drawing upon his philosophical predecessors Edmund Husserl, (...) Alfred Schutz, and Jean-Paul Sartre, Natanson paves his own way with stories and examples that themselves bear witness to how phenomenology occurs in literature. In considering such works as Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, and Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Natanson shows how literature opens us to the domain of possibility and how metaphor offers philosophical power when we think about freedom and change. This book, written by one of the twentieth century's leading phenomenologists, will interest students in philosophy and in literature. They will value the work particularly for its clarification of concepts and terms that frequently emerge in the contemporary intellectual climate. (shrink)

Through the examination of anti-psychiatric theory and literary texts, this timely and thought-provoking volume explores the possibilities of liberating our habitual patterns of perception and consciousness beyond the confines of a capitalist era. In Post-Capitalist Subjectivity in Literature and Anti-Psychiatry, Skott-Myhre asks the question, how might we be different if we didn't live in a capitalist society? By drawing on Marxist and post-Marxist theory, and conducting nuanced analysis of the professional writings of anti-psychiatrists including Basaglia and Laing, and the (...) work of fiction writers Kafka and Garcia Marquez, the text identifies alternative conceptualizations of the self. Focusing in particular on portrayals of institutions and the family, Skott-Myhre proposes that these social systems offer new modes of reading the world and ourselves which will transform social organization and free subjectivity from dominant capitalist structures. This transdisciplinary text responds to a revitalized interest in alternatives to traditional psychology, an interest in life beyond capitalism, and the crisis in the traditional family. Post-Capitalist Subjectivity in Literature and Anti-Psychiatry will offer timely reading for graduate students, researchers, and scholars in the fields of cultural studies, psychology, philosophy, family studies, and interdisciplinary studies. (shrink)

Poetry of life in literature and through literature, and the vast territory in between - as vast as human life itself - where they interact and influence each other, is the nerve of human existence. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are profoundly dissatisfied with the stark reality of life's swift progress onward, and the enigmatic and irretrievable meaning of the past. And so we dramatise our existence, probing deeply for a lyrical and heartfelt yet (...) universally valid sense of our experience. It is in great works of literature that we seek those hidden springs that so move us. It is in honour of this search that this collection focuses on the creative imagination at work in literature and aesthetics. (shrink)

Looking at representations of the Irish landscape in contemporary literature and the arts,this volume discusses the economic, political and environmental issues associated with it, questioning the myths behind Ireland's landscape, from the first Greek descriptions to present day post Celtic-Tiger architecture.

I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for a year-long fellowship that enabled me to write major portions of this book; ...

No other thinker so engaged the Russian cultural imagination of the early twentieth century as did Friedrich Nietzche. The Revolution of Moral Consciousness shows how Nietzschean thought influenced the brilliant resurgence of literary life that started in the 1890s and continued for four decades. Through an analysis of the Russian encounter with Nietzsche, Edith Clowes defines the shift in ethical and aesthetic vision that motivated Russia's unprecedented artistic renascence and at the same time led its followers to the brink of (...) cultural despair. Clowes shows how in the last years of the nineteenth century a diverse array of writers and critics discovered Nietzsche's thought, embracing or repudiating it with equal vigor. The literary storm brewing around Nietzsche and the concurrent relaxation of censorship combined to attract a public eager to follow the new intellectual fashion. Young writers, such as Andreev and Kuprin, welcomed the idea of the "superman" as a promising path to personal fulfillment. The tragic fates of their protagonists and the alluring gospel of the vulgar Zarathustra-like characters of such bestselling authors as Boborykin, Artsybashev, and Verbitskaia found enthusiastic, if indiscriminating, audiences ready to be "taught" how to "find themselves." By considering this Nietzschean cult, Clowes draws fresh insight into the nature of the budding popular-culture industry in Russia and the fast-growing reading public. From this ferment emerged the greatest Russian literary voices of the early twentieth century. The revolutionary romantics, Gorky and Lunacharsky, sought in Nietzsche's writing a new vision of total social and cultural change. Merezhkovsky led a generation of mystic symbolists in the search for a literary myth of resurrection. Ivanov, Blok, and Belyi appropriated the image of the "crucified Dionysus" as the central symbol of spiritual transfiguration. Their encounters with Nietzschean thought disclose an even more profound creative struggle with their own cultural past and its established formulations of nation and individual, culture and history. Clowes uses the term future anxiety to speak of a creative mentality that strove to assert itself by diminishing the impact of powerful literary precursors, such as Tolstoi, Dostoevsky, and Solovyov, and opening to the imagination the vision of a future full of vast creative possibility. (shrink)

Chapter 14. Andrea Timár engages with literary representations of the experience of perpetrators of dehumanization. Her chapter focuses on perpetrators of dehumanization who do not violate laws of their society (i.e., they are not criminals) but exemplify what Simona Forti, inspired by Hannah Arendt, calls “the normality of evil.” Through the parallel examples of Dezső Kosztolányi’s Anna Édes (1926) and Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing (1950), Timár first explores a possible clash between criminals and perpetrators of dehumanization, showing (...) class='Hi'>literature’s exceptional ability to reveal the gap between ethics and law. Second, she examines novels focalized through perpetrators and the difficult narrative empathy they provoke, arguing that only the critical reading of these novels can make one engage with the potential perpetrator in oneself. As case studies, Timár examines Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), which may potentially turn its reader into an accomplice in the process of dehumanization, and J.M. Coetzee’s Foe (1986), which puts on critical display the dehumanizing potentials of both aesthetic representation and sympathy as imaginative violence. Third, she reads Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones [Les Bienveillantes, 2006], which can make the reader question, through the polyphony of the voice of its protagonist, the notions of narrative voice and readerly empathy, only to reveal that the difficulty involved in empathizing with perpetrator characters lies not so much in the characters’ being perpetrators, but rather in their being literary characters. Eventually, Timár briefly touches upon the problem of the aesthetic and the comic via Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) to ask whether one can avoid some necessarily dehumanizing aspects of humor. (shrink)

This volume contains a selection of nine essays with an interdisciplinary perspective. They were originally presented at the Sixth International Conference on Word and Music Studies, which was held at Edinburgh University in June 2007 and was organized by the International Association for Word and Music Studies (WMA). The contributions to this volume focus on self-reference in various systematic, historical and intermedial ways. Self-reference - including, as a special case, metareference (the self-conscious reflection on music, literature and other medial (...) concerns) - is explored, among others, in instrumental music by Mozart, Mahler and Satie, in the structure and performance of (meta-)operas, in operatic adaptations of drama and filmic adaptations of opera, as well as in intermedial novelistic references to music. The essays cover a historical range from the 18th century to the present and are of interest to literary and opera scholars and students, musicologists as well as all readers generally interested in medial self-reference and intermediality studies. (shrink)