These interviews with Hélène Cixous offer invaluable insight into her philosophy and criticism. Culled from newspapers, journals, and books, _White Ink_ collects the best of these conversations, which address the major concerns of Cixous's critical work and features two dialogues with twentieth-century intellectuals Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. The interviews in _White Ink_ span more than three decades and include a new conversation with Susan Sellers, the book's editor and a leading Cixous scholar and translator. Cixous discusses her (...) work and writing process. She shares her views on literature, feminism, theater, autobiography, philosophy, politics, aesthetics, religion, ethics, and human relations, and she reflects on her roles as poet, playwright, professor, woman, Jew, and, her most famous, "French feminist theorist." Sellers organizes _White Ink_ in such a way that readers can grasp the development of Cixous's commentary on a series of vital questions. Taken together, the revealing performances in _White Ink_ provide an excellent introduction this thinker's brave and vital work—each one an event in language and thought that epitomizes Cixous's intellectual and poetic force. (shrink)

Niccolò Machiavelli is the father of modern constitutionalism. Constitutionalism began anew in the modern world with the study of the ancient republics and it was Machiavelli who inaugurated this revived science of politics. Five hundred years after the composition of Il Principe and the Discorsi we are still working out the implications of applying reason to the structures of law and government in pursuit of justice and the common good. Modern constitutionalism and ancient republicanism share three central beliefs: first, that (...) government should serve justice and the common good; second, that government should do so through known and stable laws; third, that these will best be secured through the checks and balances of a well-designed constitution. Machiavelli took the theories and experiences of republican Rome and applied them to his own era. This application of reason to constitutional design transformed the politics of emergent modernity and reconfigured government throughout the world. (shrink)

La parution d'un catalogue collectif des bibles imprimées conservées à Paris fournit l'occasion de faire le point sur les bibliographies qui signalent les anciennes éditions de la Bible. Le catalogue est ensuite présenté de manière critique. Son analyse débouche sur quelques réflexions montrant l'intérêt des bibliographies exhaustives des éditions de la Bible.

Panarchy suggests that an optimal framework for the emergence of the best states is that of free competition between states. In Panarchy, people and states negotiate the relationships between them, as sellers and buyers and formalize them in explicit social contracts. Different states may offer varying levels of services in areas such as health, education, and social security for different prices. Low costs for consumer mobility from state to state are necessary for competition. These can be optimized by (...) non-territorial states that offer services to citizens instead of rule a territory and compete over customers in a political market. The right of such states to coerce their clients differentiates them from mere protective associations, and is founded on explicit social contracts (law codes) rather than on monopoly over territory-- sovereignty. First, I explicate the unique properties of Panarchy, non-territorial states and explicit social contracts. Then, following the theories of Douglass North (1986) and Albert Hirschman (1970) I explain why Panarchy appears to be an appropriate framework for avoiding political monopolies and increasing political competitiveness and efficiency through cheap exit mechanisms. Then, I consider possible challenges to Panarchy: Panarchy may be utopian if the state is a natural monopoly; Panarchy does not advocate any political utopia but it may reify the utopian element to the meta-political level, to the preconditions for the emergence of the best states. If non-territorial states are inconsistent with human nature, they may be utopian. I also consider possible ethical objections to Panarchy. I argue that: The territorial sovereign state is not a natural monopoly. A free market in non-territorial states does not have to assume a coercive monopoly regulatory “super-state.” The territoriality of the state is not natural. Though there are valid ethical criticisms of Panarchy, from a utilitarian perspective, they are outweighed by ethical arguments that support it. Finally, I argue that several recent technological innovations have rendered the sovereign nation-state increasingly obsolete, while facilitating and reducing the costs of establishing Panarchy and running non-territorial states. (shrink)

In a recent article, Albertsen both elaborates the best option argument for regulated markets and levels a justice-based objection to kidney sales. In the present article, I show that Albertsen has crucially misunderstood the best option argument. It is not a defence of kidney sales, as Albertsen claims. It is a reply to an objection. The objection, perennial in the debate, opposes kidney sales on the grounds that sellers would be harmed. The best option argument—proving that (...) prohibitions tend to set back the interests of those denied their preferred option—shows this thinking to be confused. If sound, the best option argument dramatically undercuts any attempt to oppose a market citing would-be sellers’ interests. (shrink)

How important is it, morally speaking, that banning the sale of organs removes the best option available to would-be organ sellers? According to a widespread argument called the best option argument, this is very important. In a recent article I criticised such reasoning, drawing on considerations of distributive justice. Luke Semrau has argued that I have misunderstood the best option argument. In this article, I respond to Semrau’s criticism and elaborate on my original argument.

The best seller and perennial classic by one of the great Zen Buddhist masters--now available in Spanish. En los más de cuarenta años que han transcurrido desde su publicación original, Mente Zen, mente de principiante se ha convertido en uno de los grandes clásicos de la espiritualidad moderna, muy querido, continuamente releído y profusamente recomendado como el mejor libro que se puede leer sobre el Zen. Suzuki Roshi presenta las bases —desde los detalles de la postura y la respiración (...) en zazen hasta la percepción de la no dualidad— de un modo que, además de ser notablemente claro, resuena con la alegría de la comprensión desde la primera hasta la última página. (shrink)

A best-seller in Europe following its original publication in 1993, this littel book takes on a big subject, offering enduring guidelines from the Greek philosopher Epicurus for achieving lasting happiness. In a letter to his friend Menoecceus, Epicurus gives sound advice on increasing life's pleasures, not through hedonistic pursuits, as commonly assumed, but through intelligence, morality, and decency. Based on a new translation of Epicurus to Menoecceus and complete with the original Greek text, Letter on Happiness expounds upon basic (...) philosophical inquiries concerning pleasure, longevity, death, and desire that are as relevant today as they were in ancient Greece, all in a compact, attractive package that makes a thoughtful gift for any occasion. (shrink)

A best-seller in its French edition, the construction of this book is original and its success in the French market demonstrates its appeal. It is based on three principles: 1. An organization of the chapters by families of algorithms : exhaustive search, divide and conquer, etc. At the contrary, there is no chapter only devoted to a systematic exposure of, say, algorithms on strings. Some of these will be found in different chapters. 2. For each family of algorithms, an (...) introduction is given to the mathematical principles and the issues of a rigorous design, with one or two pedagogical examples. 3. For its most part, the book details 150 problems, spanning on seven families of algorithms. For each problem, a precise and progressive statement is given. More important, a complete solution is detailed, with respect to the design principles that have been presented ; often, some classical errors are pointed at. Roughly speaking, two thirds of the book are devoted to the detailed rational construction of the solutions. (shrink)

RESUMO Com diversos best sellers no currículo, Elena Ferrante é uma das escritoras mais influentes da atualidade; não obstante, é anônima. Sua obra é exemplo do que chamamos literatura de transição, pois indica mutações, resquícios e sinais do presente, enfatizando deslocamentos e margens nas metamorfoses sociopolíticas, bem como conflitos civilizacionais e éticos do viver. Neste ensaio, pretende-se explorar alguns elementos do ‘hibridismo pop’ de sua obra, evidenciando aspectos que conformaram sua recepção no Brasil e a adesão febril aos (...) seus escritos. O que ela denomina ‘desmarginação’ é apresentado como potência: permite a reaproximação do passado e o conhecimento de suas implicações na identidade, conduta e ética das pessoas comuns. Ação política munida da experiência histórica, a narrativa possibilita - no presente - alterações de rotas, rupturas prévias, resistências, bloqueios. ABSTRACT With several bestsellers under her belt, Elena Ferrante is one of today’s most influential writers, albeit anonymous. Her work is an example of what we could call transitional literature, as it indicates mutations, residues and signs of the present, emphasizing displacements and margins in sociopolitical metamorphoses as well as civilization and ethical conflicts of living. In this essay, we intend to explore some elements of the ‘pop hybridism’ of her work, highlighting aspects that shaped her reception in Brazil and her feverish readership. What she calls ‘demargination’ is presented as potency: it allows a reconnection to the past and the knowledge of its implications in the identity, behavior and ethics of common people. Political action imbricate in historical experience: the narrative makes possible - in the present time - alterations of routes, previous ruptures, resistances, and blockages. (shrink)

Why is Butterfield's best-seller The Origins of Modern Science (1949) such a powerful big picture, nearly impossible to move away from? Considered in the context of his life, the contrast between his attacks on Whig history and the contents of his best-seller reveals that his big picture of science continues at the centre because of his spiritual beliefs and practices. Butterfield did not make explicit his Christian (Methodist) world view to his history of science readers, although one could (...) infer this from his point that Christianity and the Scientific Revolution were the most significant events in universal history, transcending cultural boundaries. As long as Christian beliefs and practices continue to be at the centre of Western Society, so will Butterfield's big picture be at the centre. Western society is a Christian civilization. For Butterfield, the meaning of history is Christianity and The Origins of Modern Science is very much a Christian statement of the evolution of knowledge acquisition in Western society. To de-centre The Origins would require first a de-centred view of Christianity. (shrink)

Renowned moral philosopher Jonathan Glover confronts the brutal history of the twentieth century to unravel the mystery of why so many atrocities occurred. In a new preface, Glover brings the book through the post-September 11 era and into our own time—and asks whether humankind can "weaken the grip war has on us." _Praise for the first edition:_ “It is hard to imagine a more important book. Glover makes an overwhelming case for the need to understand our own inhumanity, and reduce (...) or eliminate the ways in which it can express itself—and he then begins the task himself. _Humanity _is_ _an extraordinary achievement.”—Peter Singer, Princeton University “This is an extraordinary book: brilliant, haunting and uniquely important. Almost 40 years ago a president read a best seller and avoided a holocaust. I like to think that some of the leaders and followers of tomorrow will read _Humanity._”_—_Steven Pinker, _New York Times Book Review_. (shrink)

His second best-seller, Go Kiss the World, was the story of his life, a motivation to young people that anyone can achieve. But as Subroto Bagchi says: 'Go Kiss the World did not provide a tool kit.

This book is the latest addition to the Odeon series, a multidisciplinary series devoted to original works and translations by European writers in the areas of literature, criticism, philosophy, history and politics. An English translation of the German best-seller Abschied vom Prinzipiellen, the book offers a series of essays that present a philosophy of human morality critical of philosophical utopianism. Marquard, widely considered the heir of Gadamer, Habermas, and Blumenberg, describes his role as "skeptical philosopher" and discusses the 18th-century (...) formation of such themes and disciplines as aesthetics, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of history, the nature of myth and attempts to account for it, and hermeneutics. (shrink)

a Mathematicians, like Proust and everyone else, are at their best when writing about their first lovea (TM) a ] They are among the very best we have; and their best is very good indeed. a ] One approaches this book with high hopes. Happily, one is not disappointed. a ]In paperback it might well have become a best seller. a ]read it. From The Mathematical Intelligencer Mathematics is shaped by the consistent concerns and styles of (...) powerful minds a three of which are represented here. Kaca (TM)s work is marked by deep commitment and breadth of inquiry. Rota is the easiest of these authors to reada ]a delight: witty and urbane, with a clear and interesting agenda and an astonishing intellectual range. To read him is to be a part of a pleasant and rewarding conversation. Jacob T. Schwartz attacks problems ina ]computer science, mathematical economics, computer and instructional a ] No matter how slippery the problem, Schwartz manages to capture a substantial chunk of it in his mathematical net. a Mathematics Magazine This is a volume of essays and reviews that delightfully explore mathematics in all its moods a from the light and the witty, and humorous to serious, rational, and cerebral. Topics include: logic, combinatorics, statistics, economics, artificial intelligence, computer science, and applications of mathematics broadly. You will also find history and philosophy covered, including discussion of the work of Ulam, Kant, Heidegger among others. (shrink)

In his best-seller The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han maintained that the immunological dispositive is not compatible with global capitalism. In this article, I argue, against Han, that the capitalism we inhabit produces countless immunological devices, and not just in times of pandemic. In particular, I emphasize the affective dimension of these mechanisms, the configuration of desire they generate. When carrying out this reflection, I highlight the complexity of immunity: since it can be considered a defense system that activates forms (...) of rejection towards the strange, identified as a risk for a body assumed in an identitarian way. However, immunity can also be understood in symbiotically terms, as a system of protection and care strategies, not tied to preserving the border between self and not-self, the proper and the improper, but dependent on a relational understanding of life. (shrink)

Parkinson, Joseph Near death experiences and the wisdom they produce are the stuff of countless novels, but when the story ends in the author's death, where is wisdom to be found? American neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi has left an astonishingly eloquent and lucid account of his own dying and his inner journey to find meaning and even peace in that experience. As inspiring as it is tragic, "When Breath Becomes Air" rightly sits on The New York Times list of best (...) sellers, and is a must-read for anyone working in bioethics or health care. (shrink)

If ever there were a time in which concerns about equality as a primary issue for social policy disappeared from public view, now is not that time. Recent work in economics on inequality has climbed to the top of best-sellers lists, and the issue was a major talking point in American midterm elections in 2014. The sheer bewildering volume of scholarship and discussion of equality makes it difficult to distinguish signal from noise. What, of all that we know (...) about ways in which we are equal and ways in which we are unequal, matters? If, as seems plausible, we neither are nor should desire to be equal in every respect that we could in theory be equal, in which ways ought we to care about being equal? Does the kind of equality of outcome — perhaps equality of income or wealth — that is frequently the focus of discussion matter most? Does opportunity matter more? What about less material forms of equality such as equality of status, or power, or authority? How do these various forms of equality interact with each other? The essays in this volume represent the work of a number of leading scholars from different disciplines on these questions. Drawing on sources in philosophical analysis, empirical science, and history, they sort through competing claims and counterclaims about the intuitions that drive our concern for equality. Their conclusions are not in unison, but nonetheless represent important advances in our attempts to grapple with this crucial social value. (shrink)

One of the century's greatest philosophers, without whom there would be no Sartre, no Foucault, no Frankfurt School, Martin Heidegger was also a man of great failures and flaws, a Faustus who made a pact with the devil of his time, Adolf Hitler. The story of Heidegger's life and philosophy, a quintessentially German story in which good and evil, brilliance and blindness are inextricably entwined and the passions and disasters of a whole century come into play, is told in this (...) brilliant biography. Heidegger grew up in Catholic Germany where, for a chance at pursuing a life of learning, he pledged himself to the priesthood. Soon he turned apostate and sought a university position, which set him on the path to becoming the star of German philosophy in the 1920s. Rüdiger Safranski chronicles Heidegger's rise along with the thought he honed on the way, with its debt to Heraclitus, Plato, and Kant, and its tragic susceptibility to the conservatism that emerged out of the nightmare of Germany's loss in World War I. A chronicle of ideas and of personal commitments and betrayals, Safranski's biography combines clear accounts of the philosophy that won Heidegger eternal renown with the fascinating details of the loves and lapses that tripped up this powerful intellectual. The best intellectual biography of Heidegger ever written and a best-seller in Germany, Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil does not shy away from full coverage of Heidegger's shameful transformation into a propagandist for the National Socialist regime; nor does it allow this aspect of his career to obscure his accomplishments. Written by a master of Heidegger's philosophy, the book is one of the best introductions to the thought and to the life and times of the greatest German philosopher of the century. (shrink)

Following the announcement in 1949 in the USA that cortisone offered rheumatoid arthritis sufferers effective treatment for their crippling disease, the Ministry of Health came under considerable pressure from the medical profession and the public to make cortisone available in Britain. The Ministry, therefore, urged British companies to start manufacturing cortisone. Among the several pharmaceutical firms responding to the Ministry’s request, Glaxo’s expertise in the field of vitamins gave them a head start. This paper describes the varied and flexible strategy (...) that enabled Glaxo to maintain this head start, and the scientific and technical capabilities which the company subsequently built up, enabling them to dominate the market for corticosteroids in Britain.Among the drugs to emerge out of the Glaxo project to manufacture cortisone, which began in 1950 and later became a wider R&D programme on steroids, was the topical steroid Betnovate, launched in 1963, which remains a best-seller today. However, although it led to successful new products, Glaxo’s programme had limitations. The paper identifies a missed opportunity, in the shape of the biosynthetic route to steroid drugs, often considered as a milestone in the development of the new biotechnology. Whether or not this missed opportunity proved costly to the company is uncertain. However, it illustrates the role of technological path-dependence, and the importance of the integration between different scientific disciplines, in this case chemistry and biology, in pharmaceutical innovation. (shrink)

Over the last few years, there have been five best sellers critical of religion and religious belief. It seems that there is great interest in questions about religious belief. Ironically, critical thinking texts seldom examine the topic. This paper will evaluate eight arguments to exempt religious belief from rational critique. I conclude that the topic of religious belief should not be exempt from critical thinking classes.

La “referencia al origen es un invariante cultural” . Sin embargo, cada país tiene modos particulares de procesar su propia historia. Este trabajo analiza una de las modalidades en que –en Argentina– se narra ese origen, en el contexto de los bicentenarios latinoamericanos. Ese momento originario –la Revolución de Mayo de 1810– aparece representado en producciones literarias que han sido best sellers de historia. Esos relatos de no-ficción junto a otros de ficción permiten problematizar la cuestión del género (...) y su relación con “la nación” como matriz cultural. Un modo de imaginar un “nosotros” y de permitir ciertas inclusiones y exclusiones identitarias en el momento del origen y en el presente del Bicentenario. (shrink)

Novo livro do autor do best-seller A simples beleza do inesperado, vencedor do Jabuti. O caldeirão é onde se misturam ingredientes visando sua transmutação. É o laboratório onde buscamos alguma forma de transcendência, o portal que nos transporta a uma nova realidade. Em O caldeirão azul, Marcelo Gleiser reúne ensaios provenientes de sua reflexão sobre as questões que considera mais relevantes para o momento atual: nossa relação com o planeta e suas criaturas, com os membros da sociedade em que (...) vivemos, e com a tecnologia, que está transformando quem somos e como nos relacionamos. O tema que conecta todos os textos é a visão da ciência como produto da nossa capacidade de nos maravilhar com o mundo toda vez que nos engajamos com o mistério da criação. Na sua essência, encontramos o mesmo ímpeto que move o espírito religioso: como lidar com nossas questões existenciais mais profundas, nossa origem, nossa vida, nossa morte. Nesta obra, Gleiser nos lembra que a ciência, aliada à nossa busca por respostas e nosso fascínio pelo mistério que nos cerca, pode ser usada tanto como ponte para um mundo melhor, como para construir a pior distopia imaginável. E nos convida a refletir – e decidir – sobre o futuro que queremos para nós, respeitando as diferenças de cada um e estando abertos para aprender com os que pensam de outras formas. (shrink)

A newly revised edition of the International Best-Seller, Making the Brain/Body Connection hit the book stores in June. This book has people raving about its user friendly approach and its solid research based information. Explore and experience how your brain, body and senses interrelate. Sharon Promislow's approach makes the brain research almost fun. Learn about your body's defence mechanism for stress and how you can adapt them to defuse stress instead of allowing it to accumulate into a full blown (...) stress attack. In her lively and entertaining book, Sharon blends cutting edge stress and brain research with practical exercises and techniques that have you moving beyond your current limitations and into a life you only imagined you could have. Her Quick Six stress buster techniques can be used on the street, in the board room, wherever you are when stress hits.Follow along with this step-by-step guide as she leads you through a model for change that unlocks hidden "stress circuits." Clear away mental, emotional and physical blocks to success with simple movements from the 10 Step Change Process, that make change fun. Illustrated with humorus new cartoon characters by Cathrine Levan. (shrink)

A penetrating and freewheeling evaluation of Kant’s magnum opus. A best seller in Italy, Maurizio Ferraris’s Goodbye, Kant! delivers a nontechnical, entertaining, and occasionally irreverent overview of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. He borrows his title from Wolfgang Becker’s Goodbye Lenin!, the 2003 film about East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which depicts both relief at the passing of the Soviet era and affection for the ideals it embodied. Ferraris approaches Kant in similar spirits, demonstrating (...) how the structure that Kant elaborates for the understanding of human knowledge can generate nostalgia for lost aspirations, while still leaving room for constructive criticism. Isolating key themes and concerns in the work, Ferraris evaluates Kant’s claims relative to what science and philosophy have come to regard as the conditions for knowledge and experience in the intervening two centuries. He remains attentive to the historical context and ideals from which Kant’s Critique emerged but also resolute in identifying what he sees as the limits and blind spots in the work. The result is an accessible account of a notoriously difficult book that will both provoke experts and introduce students to the work and to these important philosophical debates about the relations of experience to science. (shrink)

The term “lean in” was popularized by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, via her #1 Best Seller encouraging women to defy their fears and dare to be leaders in their fields. She received criticism because although admitting to external barriers contributing to the gender gap in leadership, the scope of her book focused on the internal shortcomings of women. She asserted that women are hindered by barriers that exist within themselves, and provided practical tips, backed by research, to equip women (...) with strategies to proactively progress in the workplace instead of shying away. Sandberg is not the first to raise concern about gender inequality. Other women in history like Susan B. Anthony and Maggie Lena Walker also challenged lopsided gender roles through their words and actions. Using the critical biography methodology, this paper explores these women’s experiences, philosophies and contributions, reflects on Sandberg’s insight, and develops a framework, based on the theory of planned behavior as well as the ethical principles of utilitarianism and corporate social responsibility, that links internal factors, organizational external factors, and societal external factors to intentions to lean in and leaning in behavior. Thus, via critical biography, this paper examines both internal and external factors, showing how they are linked, and how they may impact leaning in intentions and behavior. The paper also discusses how leaning in may influence both individual and gender mobility for women, and ultimately, increased gender equality. (shrink)

Ce recueil d’essais rassemblés par une équipe internationale de chercheurs examine la représentation des hommes dans les œuvres de neuf écrivaines de la Belle Époque. Le volume est composé de onze essais sur neuf écrivaines dont certaines, telle Colette, sont toujours célèbres. La plupart cependant sont beaucoup moins connues aujourd’hui, sauf par des spécialistes. Pourtant, pendant leur époque, elles furent les auteures de best-sellers ou couronnées de prix, bien qu’elles aient dû faire face...

In 1987 the book Not Without My Daughter by Betty Mahmoody became a worldwide best-seller. In the line of Mahmoody’s book, similar ‘true stories’ of western white women with oriental husbands were published. These books concentrate on topics like bad marriages, abuse and international parental abduction. In this article the books are analysed as popular culture products of orientalist discourse on mixed marriages. They are maternal melodramas in which women who are victims of their intermarriage become heroines by sacrificing (...) themselves for the sake of their children. As ‘learned foolhardy women’ the authors of these stories are cultural reproducers of the West; their function is to warn other women not to enter into a mixed marriage and to warn western society about the dangers of racial and cultural intermixture. (shrink)

" _On Friendship_, with its total of one hundred sayings, is the perfect gift for friends."—Feng Yingjing, renowned scholar and civic official, 1601 Matteo Ricci is best known as the Italian Jesuit missionary who brought Christianity to China. He also published a landmark text on friendship—the first book to be written in Chinese by a European—that instantly became a late Ming best seller. _On Friendship_ distilled the best ideas on friendship from Renaissance Latin texts into one hundred (...) pure and provocative Chinese maxims. Written in a masterful classical style, Ricci's sayings established his reputation as a great sage and the sentiments still ring true. Available for the first time in English, _On Friendship_ matches a carefully edited Chinese text with a facing-page English translation and includes notes on sources and biographical, historical, and cultural information. Still admired in China for its sophistication and inspirational wisdom, _On Friendship_ is a delightful cross-cultural work by a crucial and fascinating historical figure. It is also an excellent tool for learning Chinese, pairing a superb model of the classical language with an accessible and accurate translation. (shrink)

"Thirty-five years ago few could have predicted that The New Science of Politics would be a best-seller by political theory standards. Compressed within the Draconian economy of the six Walgreen lectures is a complete theory of man, society, and history, presented at the most profound and intellectual level. . . . Voegelin's [work] stands out in bold relief from much of what has passed under the name of political science in recent decades. . . . The New Science is (...) aptly titled, for Voegelin makes clear at the outset that a 'return to the specific content' of premodern political theory is out of the question. . . . The subtitle of the book, An Introduction, clearly indicates that The New Science of Politics is an invitation to join the search for the recovery of our full humanity."--From the new Foreword by Dante Germino "This book must be considered one of the most enlightening essays on the character of European politics that has appeared in half a century. . . . This is a book powerful and vivid enough to make agreement or disagreement with even its main thesis relatively unimportant."-- Times Literary Supplement "Voegelin . . . is one of the most distinguished interpreters to Americans of the non-liberal streams of European thought. . . . He brings a remarkable breadth of knowledge, and a historical imagination that ranges frequently into brilliant insights and generalizations."--Francis G. Wilson, American Political Science Review "This book is beautifully constructed . . . his erudition constantly brings a startling illumination."--Martin Wright, International Affairs "A ledestar to thinking men who seek a restoration of political science on the classic and Christian basis . . . a significant accomplishment in the retheorization of our age."--Anthony Harrigan, Christian Century. (shrink)

Para que um livro chegue às mãos de seus leitores, há uma série de processos e procedimentos editoriais, que se iniciam na escrita, passam pela revisão, diagramação, impressão e distribuição dos exemplares. Esses processos são os mesmos, guardadas as diferenças de escala, para todos os livros, incluindo os best-sellers como S., obra de J. J. Abrams e Doug Dorst, objeto de nosso estudo. Nestes breves parágrafos, pretendemos descrever a campanha de marketing liderada pela editora Intrínseca, analisando o caminho (...) traçado para o lançamento da obra no Brasil e nos Estados Unidos, a fim de que o livro figurasse nas listas dos mais vendidos da editora nesses países. Para isso, fazemos uso do método midiológico, recuperando seus vestígios de circulação à época de seu lançamento para compor as considerações de análise.Palavras-chave:Mediação editorial. Humanidades digitais. Objetos editoriais. Literatura contemporânea. Indústrias criativas. (shrink)

The study of film adaptations, particularly those coming from literature, has been growing at a rapid rate during the last years due to the amount of adaptations coming from both mainstream and independent film industries. The focus of these studies though is generally addressed to best sellers where the literary style is clearly adaptable to the screen; however, there are cases where the adaptive process has resulted in an entirely different outcome. Naked Lunch, written by William Burroughs and (...) adapted to screen by David Cronenberg, represents a bold change if compared with other novels turned into films. The purpose of this article is to descriptively analyse the literary style in order to understand how it has been represented and adapted into Cronenberg’s film. The analysis will be performed helped with computer-based tools to support statements, using the novel itself as corpus and adding theoretical ideas from Leech and Short’s perspectives. The results suggest that the author’s corrosive, sexually-fuelled claustrophobic style has been translated following three patterns in terms of adaptation theory, although Burroughs, in the hands of Cronenberg, becomes an almost new classification of adaptation, not only adding literary features to the film, but also distinguishable core moments of the writer’s life to the final product. The analysis conducted encourages the study of other uncommon adaptations from literary authors in order to understand the adaptive process followed by filmmakers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.2 (2002) 225-237 [Access article in PDF] Did Bayle Read Saint-Evremond? Thomas M. Lennon Of course Bayle read Saint-Evremond—he quotes him. Moreover, he published one of Saint-Evremond's texts. But there is reading, and then there is reading. There is selective, inattentive perusal of excerpts or even secondary sources, with no attempt to penetrate beyond a superficial understanding; and then there is comprehensive, close (...) scrutiny of the best primary sources, with sensitivity to nuance, and attention to context. In short, there is a difference between skimming and studying. Did Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) skim or study the work of Saint-Evremond (ca.1614-1703)?This article argues that Bayle's first-hand knowledge of Saint-Evremond's work was superficial and dependent on a secondary source that gives that work a less than obvious, and hitherto unappreciated meaning for Bayle. This shift matters because it bears on the question of the status of Bayle's religious faith. With her classic Pierre Bayle (1963-64), Elizabeth Labrousse set aside the traditional view of Bayle as a religious skeptic whose professions of faith cannot be taken at face value. Such had been the view held by many in Bayle's own time, most notably by Pierre Jurieu, and near-universally from the Enlightenment into the twentieth century. Very recently, in a work that is no less impressive than hers on this and other topics in Bayle, Gianluca Mori has defended the traditional view, basing a part of his argument on Bayle's use of Saint-Evremond. 1 Thus the question above. Moreover, the matter of Bayle's religious belief is not a merely biographical one. First, there is the fact of his [End Page 225] influence, especially given his huge readership, although Bayle's influence may well be other than anything he intended. Secondly, in any case, the interpretation of Bayle's work as a whole depends on it, for virtually everything he wrote besides the Dictionnaire has a religious dimension.To appreciate the importance of the question, something must first be said about Charles de Marguetel de St. Denis, sieur de Saint-Evremond. He was known in his time, and still is, as a libertine. It is difficult, however, to define libertinage beyond a combination of hedonistic mores and dubious religious beliefs—Epicureanism in some loose and popular sense. 2 What is more important, in any case, is how Bayle might have thought the term applied to Saint-Evremond; and here it is clear that outright atheism may have been at issue. Bayle reports that it was publicly known that Saint-Evremond "ended his long life, just as he had lived it, en esprit fort." He seems certainly to have died without benefit of religion. When asked on his deathbed whether he wished to be reconciled, says Bayle, he answered yes, "with all my heart. I would like to be reconciled with my appetite. For my stomach is no longer functioning in its usual way." Bayle was often at pains to insist upon the ultimate inaccessibility of others' real beliefs (and of the inappropriateness of attempting to reach them). In this case, however, he was prepared to hold up Saint-Evremond as a counter-example to the widely-held belief that there were no speculative atheists, i.e., people who would sincerely deny the existence of God, but only practical atheists, i.e., people who live as if they did not believe in the existence of God, but who, try as they may, are at least occasionally aware of it. 3This view of Saint-Evremond is important because, when accused of irreligion himself, Bayle cited the libertine's work as indicative of his own beliefs. To understand how Bayle came to be accused, and the significance of this response to it, some of the historical background is first necessary. Bayle's Dictionnaire historique et critique sold better than any text in the eighteenth century, philosophical or otherwise; and it was a best-seller right from the publication of its first edition, in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Active Euthanasia and Assisted SuicidePat Milmoe McCarrick (bio)Although the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research in its 1983 report, Deciding to Forego Life-Sustaining Treatment, described the words and terms "euthanasia," "right to die," and "death with dignity" as slogans or code words—"empty rhetoric," (I, p. 24), the literature reviewed for this Scope Note continues to use these terms. Therefore, to (...) discuss the termination of a patient's life by a physician at the patient's request, the phrase active euthanasia is used, and the supplying of a means by a physician whereby a patient can end his or her life is referred to as assisted suicide.Euthanasia, either as the "good death" from classical Greek or "mercy killing" to end unbearable suffering in the dying, has long been a topic of interest in western civilization (III, Brody 1989). In recent years, public awareness of this discussion about control over the time of one's death has been informed by a series of well-publicized events. They include the November 1991 rejection by a vote of 54 percent to 46 percent of the Washington state Initiative 119, which would have allowed the option of requesting one's physician to "aid-in-dying" for adult patients in a "medically terminal condition" (V, Gross 1991); two medical journal articles describing physician's actions in helping bring death to two patients (V, Anonymous 1988; V, Quill 1991); Dr. Jack Kevorkian's assistance in the suicide of three women (V, Belkin 1990; V, Wilkerson 1991); and the best seller status of a how-to book on committing suicide with opiates obtained from a physician (III, Humphry 1991).For the most part, material included in the annotated bibliography in Scope Note 18 has been chosen from works published in the four years since "It's Over, Debbie" (V, Anonymous 1988) appeared in early January 1988 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.Dr. Edmund D. Pellegrino (V, 1991, pp. 3118-19) presented opposing views about active voluntary euthanasia as follows:Those who favor voluntary euthanasia argue that it is a beneficent and compassionate act; it respects autonomy by preserving the patient's control of the manner, method, [End Page 79] and timing of death; it takes the matter outside the reach of "medical power" (accessed in this Scope Note's bibliography at V, Fletcher 1973; V, Nowell-Smith 1989) and scrupulosity; and it prevents the injustice that allows some patients to choose death by refusal of life-support measures, while denying others the right to do so by active euthanasia....The opponents of active euthanasia argue that it undermines the value of, and respect for, all human life (V, Kass 1989; V, Coyle 1990; V, Singer 1990). They fear that guidelines cannot avoid sliding down the "slippery slope" to involuntary euthanasia and selective devaluation of the lives of the most vulnerable among us.... If euthanasia is legal, it is predicted that patients will feel subtle pressure to conform so as to relieve the economic and emotional burdens they impose on family and friends.Euthanasia, its opponents further argue, is socially destructive: it undermines trust in physicians, desensitizes society to killing, and imperils the ground already gained in legitimating passive euthanasia(IV, Wolf 1989).Physicians were not particularly involved with a patient's death until after World War II when participation grew in proportion to the growth of technology. Since the complex, life-sustaining equipment that could forestall death was located in a hospital, death itself became almost completely medicalized (V, Dagi 1991). For terminally ill persons who would like to die a painless death, either by their own hand or with assistance, physicians have almost a monopoly on obtaining strong drugs for distribution to patients (V, Abrams 1990).Active euthanasia for human beings is not legalized anywhere in the world (V, VonDrehle 1991). It is classified as homicide or murder in all fifty states and in Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and the Phillippines (V, Nerland 1989). Twentysix states in the United States prohibit assisted suicide by statute (V, Rosenblum 1990).In 1969 in the Netherlands, a physician named Jan Hendrik van... (shrink)

ExcerptFive years after its publication, the late Christopher Hitchens's polemic against religion reads like a desperate call-to-arms against believers by a liberal who promises perpetual peace but in reality advocates endless war. The attacks on faith by contemporary militant atheists—Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Stephen Jay Gould, or Sam Harris—are becoming ever more shrill and hysterical, a clear sign of atheist anxiety about their absolute certainty that there are “absolutely no certainties.” Having risen to public, popular prominence with Dawkins's 2006 (...) class='Hi'>best-seller The God Delusion, this “enlightened” vanguard has attracted much mediatic acclaim and academic attention. A close reading of their…. (shrink)

Published in 1935, George Santayana's The Last Puritan was the American philosopher's only novel. It became an instant best-seller, immediately linked in its painful voyage of self discovery to The Education of Henry Adams. It is essentially a novel of ideas, expressed in the birth, life, and early death of Oliver Alden.The Last Puritan is volume four in a new critical edition of The Works of George Santayana that restores Santayana's original text and provides important new scholarly information. Books (...) in this series - the first complete publication of Santayana's works - include an editorial apparatus with notes to the text, textual commentary, discussions of adopted readings, lists of variants and emendations, and line-end hyphenations. Irving Singer's new introduction to this edition takes up Santayana's philosophical and artistic concerns, including issues of homosexuality raised by the depiction of the novel's two protagonists, Oliver and Mario, and of the relationship between Oliver and the rogue character Jim Darnley. In his thoughtful analysis Singer finds the term "homosexual novel" too reductionist and imprecise for what Santayana is trying to achieve. Singer brings to light the author's skillful and inventive methods for perceiving and interpreting reality, including ideal forms of friendship, and his success in exploring the pervasive moral problems that people face throughout their existence. (shrink)

European intellectuals diagnosed the end of the nineteenth century as “the sickness of an age.” Schopenhauer's pessimistic books suddenly became popular; Nietzsche announced the “death of god”; and Max Nordeau's Degeneration was an international best seller. To be sure, this mood of despair was initially limited to a handful of poets and philosophers. But once the outbreak of World War I revealed what “the treacherous years were all the while making for and meaning,” the sense that the West had (...) somehow been betrayed by its own most fundamental accomplishments and beliefs was globalized. Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain captured the idea neatly by describing Europe as a tuberculosis sanatorium behind whose walls splendid accomplishment rapidly rotted toward calamity. Spengler's Decay of the West and the early volumes of Toynbee's Study of History argued that decline was inevitable. As Europeans lost faith in their ability to erect The Heavenly City Of The Eighteenth Century Philosophers [Becker, 1932], the era of “enlightenment optimism” gave way to Auden's “Age of Anxiety.” If, as T.S. Eliot put it in East Coker, “the quiet-voiced elders” bequeathed us “merely a receipt for deceit,” then, to cite again W.B. Yeats’ famous poem, it became increasingly obvious that “things fall apart, the center cannot hold.” “[F]ollowing some rough beast” that “slouches toward Bethlehem to be born,” modern civilization began a desperate search for new values that could orient society in an unexpected world. (shrink)

In unraveling the long-hidden issues of the most famous free speech case of all time, noted author I.F. Stone ranges far and wide over Roman as well as Greek history to present an engaging and rewarding introduction to classical antiquity and its relevance to society today. The New York Times called this national best-seller an "intellectual thriller.".

En el seno de la historia es el resultado de no pocas horas de reflexión de dos amigos que comparten algunas pasiones, como son -y por este orden- la historia y la universidad. Hartos de oír hablar de crisis en las dos, salieron de su cubículum y vieron, primero, que nunca como ahora había habido tantos libros buenos de historia, algunos verdaderos best-seller, segundo, que jamás en la universidad española había habido tantos estudiantes -y estudiosos- y nunca se había (...) investigado más y mejor que ahora. ¿Dónde está, pues, la crisis? La intentaron buscar en el impacto producido por las novedades, desde lo postmoderno a la historia basura, pero acabaron por ver que incluso en los más rabiosos rupturistas afloraba la solidez de la historia y la fortaleza de algunas grandes tradiciones científicas. Sin embargo, notaron que ni así se consuelan los defensores de una Clío amenazada por mil peligros. Sospachando alguna razón inconfesable -externa al oficio, queremos decir- que explique la paradoja, los dos amigos se contentan por ahora con poner por escrito lo que tienen más seguro: lo que está probado en la mejor tradición clásica y lo que de bueno aporta la novedad. Siempre,... en el seno de la historia. (shrink)

ArgumentThis paper contributes to inquiries into scientific personae by employing a rhetorical approach. It analyzes the persuasive strategies of Judith Rich Harris in The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do. Rhetorical analysis of Harris' self-fashioning in this remarkable best-seller and the reactions of the press to her persona demonstrates the resilience of specific archaic cultural repertoires for constructing scientific identities. While historical studies investigate how repertoires for scientific self-fashioning evolve through time, rhetoric reveals how identity (...) models from an earlier age may be appropriated in the present. (shrink)

In this characteristically concise, witty, and lucid book, Terry Eagleton turns his attention to the questions we should ask about literature, but rarely do. What is literature? Can we even speak of "literature" at all? What do different literary theories tell us about what texts mean and do? In throwing new light on these and other questions he has raised in previous best-sellers, Eagleton offers a new theory of what we mean by literature. He also shows what it (...) is that a great many different literary theories have in common. In a highly unusual combination of critical theory and analytic philosophy, the author sees all literary work, from novels to poems, as a strategy to contain a reality that seeks to thwart that containment, and in doing so throws up new problems that the work tries to resolve. The "event" of literature, Eagleton argues, consists in this continual transformative encounter, unique and endlessly repeatable. Freewheeling through centuries of critical ideas, he sheds light on the place of literature in our culture, and in doing so reaffirms the value and validity of literary thought today. (shrink)

Carol Gilligan heard a ‘distinct moral language’ in the voices of women who were subjects in her studies of moral reasoning. Though herself a developmental psychologist, Gilligan has put her mark on contemporary feminist moral philosophy by daring to claim the competence of this voice and the worth of its message. Her book, In a Different Voice, which one theorist has aptly described as a best-seller, explored the concern with care and relationships which Gilligan discerned in the moral reasoning (...) of women and contrasted it with the orientation toward justice and rights which she found to typify the moral reasoning of men. (shrink)

Recently, there have been at least five best sellers critical of religion and religious belief. It seems, at least among readers in the U.S., that there is great interest in questions about the rationality of religious belief. Ironically, critical thinking texts seldom examine the topic. After reviewing a series of previous arguments that people have an ethical duty to think critically, this paper will evaluate a number of arguments intended to exempt religious belief from the sorts of rational (...) critique covered in critical thinking classes. After critiquing each argument, I conclude that the proper scope of critical thinking should include religious beliefs. In summary, if people have an ethical duty to think critically about important beliefs and religious beliefs are indeed important, then people have an obligation to think critically about religious beliefs. Nothing in the paper addresses the question of whether it is or is not rational to endorse a religion. (shrink)

Quand l’historienne autrichienne Brigitte Hamann publie en 1986 Bertha von Suttner. Ein Leben für den Frieden, elle met fin à la longue traversée du désert que subissait depuis sa mort en juin 1914 la pacifiste autrichienne Bertha von Suttner, Prix Nobel de la paix en 1905 et auteure de Die Waffen nieder!, roman antimilitariste signé de son nom et titre, paru en 1889 et devenu le best-seller de la fin du xixe siècle. Alors qu’elle avait été une des grandes (...) figures publiques du tournant du siè... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Arthur O. Lovejoy and the Challenge of Intellectual HistoryJohn Patrick DigginsMen and ideas advance by parricide, by which the children kill, if not their fathers, at least the beliefs of their fathers, and arrive at new beliefs.Sir Isaiah Berlin1I was supposed to wind up the study of mine, and become the Lovejoy of my generation—that's the silly talk of scholarly people.Saul Bellow2To become "the Lovejoy," with the implication that (...) each generation could only have one, was the ambition of Moses Herzog in Saul Bellow's novel, written a few years after he had won the Nobel Award for literature. Herzog presents the life of a professor who has as many sexual escapades and as much personal angst as he has scholarly interests, too unfocused to be another Lovejoy. Bellow's novel is full of letters to Nietzsche, Heidegger, and other modernist minds who brought Western intellectual life to a standstill, posing a lasting question mark about the possibilities of knowledge. Bellow taught in the program of the Committee on Social Thought at [End Page 181] the University of Chicago. His colleague and close friend Allan Bloom also taught in that program. But when Bloom wrote the best seller, The Closing of the American Mind, he cited Nietzsche and Heidegger as part of the "German disease" that did so much to subvert academic thought, supposedly turning students into zombies, walking air heads responding only to vacuous visual stimuli and mind-numbing music, with Rock n' Roll blasting through a Walkman and having the effect of a "masturbational fantasy."3While Bellow's epistolary novel interrogated modernist thinkers, Bloom's popular tract of the times cited many classical thinkers as a countervoice to the modernists—Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Hobbes, Kant, Lessing, Schiller, Locke, and Rousseau. Such minds also figured prominently in the works of Arthur O. Lovejoy. But the recitation of such names leaves the impression that Lovejoy concerned himself only with the main currents of European intellectual history. On the contrary, two of his most important and often neglected books are The Thirteen Pragmatisms and Reflections on Human Nature.4 There one finds profound meditations on two vital episodes in the history of ideas in America: the Enlightenment and the philosophy of pragmatism. Perry Miller, arguably America's greatest intellectual historian, skipped over the Enlightenment as he proceeded to study the Puritans and then the transcendentalists, and he never seemed to have much interest in the pragmatists.5 But what Lovejoy had to write on the Enlightenment and pragmatism is richly ironic.The pragmatists claimed to have liberated modern thought from the easy assumptions of the "Age of Reason," and today's poststructuralists charge that eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers deceived themselves in looking to the advent of knowledge as an answer to the presence of power. Lovejoy's books offer a different take entirely, making us aware that it is the modernist thinkers who may be deceiving themselves with the dubious promises of pragmatism and the arrogant conceits of poststructuralism and deconstruction, whose proponents claim to be the first "masters [End Page 182] of suspicion." In many of Lovejoy's works, nothing is resolved and everything is left suspended in a state of honest suspicion.Lovejoy was comfortable with contradiction, and hence more in tune with Augustine, who looked to the depths of human consciousness for spiritual knowledge, than with Aquinas, who believed evidence for God and human freedom could be found in reason alone. Nowhere is Lovejoy's affinity for the emotions of consciousness better seen than in his several essays on romanticism, both English, French, German, and even its origins in Chinese aesthetics and Confucian ethics. It was not reason and the notion of order and regulation that appealed to Lovejoy but the spontaneous promptings of nature springing forth without reflection or design. He delighted in quoting Voltaire against classicists and scholastics. "Worship God and practice justice—this is the sole religion of the Chinese literati.... O Thomas Aquinas, Scotus, Bonaventure, Francis, Dominic, Luther, Calvin, canons of Westminister, have you anything better? For four thousand years this religion, so simple and so noble, has endured in... (shrink)