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Academic Culture: A Case Study about the Social Science Academe in Japan (Beyond The Social Sciences Ser. #5)
by Kazumi OkamotoThat we live in a world ruled and confused by cultural diversity has become common sense. The social sciences gave birth to a new theoretical paradigm, the creation of cultural theories. Since then, social science theorizing applies to any social phenomenon across the world exploring cultural diversities in any social practice—except the social sciences and how they create knowledge, which is off limits. Social science theorizing seemingly assumes that creating knowledge does not know such diversities. In this book, Kazumi Okamoto develops analytical tools to study academic culture, analyze how social sciences create and distribute knowledge, and the influence the academic environment has on knowledge production. She uses the academy in Japan as a case study of how social scientists interpret academic practices and how they are affected by their academic environment. Studying Japanese academic culture, she reveals that academic practices and the academic environment in Japan show much less diversity than cultural theories tend to presuppose.
Academic Emotions: Feeling the Institution (Elements in Histories of Emotions and the Senses)
by Katie BarclayThe University is an institution that disciplines the academic self. As such it produces both a particular emotional culture and, at times, the emotional suffering of those who find such disciplinary practices discomforting. Drawing on a rich array of writing about the modern academy by contemporary academics, this Element explores the emotional dynamics of the academy as a disciplining institution, the production of the academic self, and the role of emotion in negotiating power in the ivory tower. Using methodologies from the History of Emotion, it seeks to further our understanding of the relationship between the institution, emotion and the self.
Academic Fault Lines: The Rise of Industry Logic in Public Higher Education
by Patricia J. GumportHow did public higher education become an industry? This unprecedented account reveals how campus leaders and faculty preserved the vitality and core values of public higher education despite changing resources and expectations.American public higher education is in crisis. After decades of public scrutiny over affordability, access, and quality, indictments of the institution as a whole abound. Campus leaders and faculty report a loss of public respect resulting from their alleged unresponsiveness to demands for change. But is this loss of confidence warranted? And how did we get to this point? In Academic Fault Lines, Patricia J. Gumport offers a compelling account of the profound shift in societal expectations for what public colleges and universities should be and do. She attributes these new attitudes to the ascendance of "industry logic"—the notion that higher education must prioritize serving the economy. Arguing that industry logic has had far-reaching effects, Gumport shows how this business-oriented mandate has prompted colleges to restructure for efficiency gains, adopt more corporate forms, develop deeper ties with industry, and mold academic programs in the interest of enhancing students' future employment prospects. She also explains how industry logic gained traction and momentum, altering what constitutes legitimacy for public higher education.Yet Gumport's narrative is by no means defeatist. Drawing on case studies of nine public colleges and universities, as well as more than 200 stakeholder interviews, Gumport's nuanced account conveys the successful efforts of leaders and educators to preserve and even strengthen fundamental public values such as educational access, knowledge advancement regardless of currency, and civic responsibility. Ultimately, Academic Fault Lines demonstrates how intrepid faculty and administrators engaged their communities both on and off campus, collaborating and inventing win-win scenarios to further public higher education's expanding legacy of service to all citizens while preserving its centrality to society and the world.
Academic Freedom
by Conrad RussellFirst published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Academic Freedom Under Pressure?: A Comparative Perspective
by Lorenza Violini Margrit Seckelmann Cristina Fraenkel-Haeberle Giada RagoneIs academic freedom threatened? The book examines current challenges to academic freedom in Europe, focusing mainly on Italy and Germany. The cases discussed demonstrate that research and teaching are under pressure in European democracies: in Hungary and Poland due to political constraints, in other countries due to societal expectations. Considering different interrelated aspects, the four parts of the book explore many real and potential threats to universities, scientific institutions and researchers, ranging from the European dimension of freedom of the arts and sciences to comparative analysis of emerging challenges to academic freedom against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. They highlight threats to university autonomy from the economic orientation of university governance, which emphasizes efficiency, competition, and external evaluation, and from new rules concerning trigger warnings, speech restrictions, and ethics commissions. Detailed study of these complex threats is intended to stimulate scholarly reflection and elicit serious discussion at European and national level. The volume contributes to the search for a new role of universities and scientific institutions and is addressed to academics and political stakeholders.
Academic Freedom Under Siege: Higher Education in East Asia, the U.S. and Australia (Education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Issues, Concerns and Prospects #54)
by Zhidong Hao Peter ZabielskisThis book argues that academic freedom in higher education in East Asia, the U.S. and Australia is under stress. Academic freedom means freedom to teach, research, and serve in multiple political and social roles based on professional principles. It is closely linked to shared governance, in which academics participate in and influence decision making in core academic concerns such as choosing new faculty, faculty promotion, tenure decisions and the approval of new academic programs.In different countries and regions, the duress confronting academic freedom may come from different directions, and the ability of faculty to share power can vary greatly. In authoritarian mainland China, it is mostly political and ideological controls that greatly affect academic freedom, and shared governance is very much limited. In semi-democracies like Hong Kong and Macau and democracies like Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the U.S. and Australia, corporatization and commercialization have had great impact on both academic freedom and shared governance. The result is that the roles professors play within academia are continually being diminished and the academic profession is struggling to maintain its ground. Similar developments are also occurring in Europe. These developments should cause great concern to educators, researchers and policymakers everywhere. The authors collected here present attempts to learn from current practice in order to move policy into directions that will help protect higher education as a common good. This book highlights the importance of academic freedom and provides insights into the ways it is being infringed both by commercialization and corporatization on the one hand and political repression on the other. It vividly illustrates detailed case studies and empirical data that make it a compelling read.- Professor Ruth Hayhoe, University of Toronto, Canada Academic freedom is as important today as at any time in the last century. The authors point out the challenges that academic freedom faces on a global scale. The import of the book is in its comparative perspective steeped in data and analysis. Thoughtful. Cogent. Compelling. - Professor William G. Tierney and Professor Wilbur-Kieffer, University of Southern California, United States
Academic Freedom in Africa: The Struggle Rages On
by Yamikani Ndasauka Garton KamchedzeraThis book leaves no stone unturned in its comprehensive examination of the complex challenges surrounding academic freedom in Africa.Drawing on diverse perspectives and methodologies, it delves into the historical, philosophical, legal, and socio-political dimensions shaping academic freedom across the continent. The authors grapple with colonial legacies, tensions between Western and African notions of intellectual liberty, government authoritarianism, and institutional constraints that hinder open discourse and the pursuit of knowledge. The book highlights systemic obstacles and promising avenues for progress through case studies, comparative analysis, and empirical research, such as constitutional reforms, scholar activism, and regional networks. This thought-provoking volume offers critical insights into the state of academic freedom in Africa, emphasising the necessity of supporting African voices and agencies in the quest for meaningful intellectual autonomy.Academic Freedom in Africa is an essential read for students, scholars, policymakers, and anyone concerned with the future of higher education and democracy on the continent.
Academic Freedom in the European Context: Legal, Philosophical and Institutional Perspectives (Palgrave Critical University Studies)
by Ralf Lüfter Ivo De Gennaro Hannes HofmeisterThis book explores the concept of academic freedom from a European vantage point. Drawing on both philosophical and legal perspectives, the editors and contributors analyse the concept of academic freedom within the present institutional setting. Academic freedom has long been considered a natural part of higher education, but as the world enters the digital age, a renewed understanding of its role and the threats it must face is required. The authors question the purpose of science without freedom, and subsequently the purpose of political communities without free science. Although the book uses European case studies to answer these questions, it undoubtedly has global relevance: what would be left of the present notion of the ‘global world’ were we to conceive of its character without modern science? This book calls for a critical re-examination of the academic community and its own understanding of the sources, conditions and aims of scientific practice.
Academic Identity and the Place of Stories: The Personal in the Professional
by Susan CarterThis book explores academic identity development in the 21st century university. Recognising dramatic shifts in academic practices and landscapes, the book pushes back on rising neoliberalism with a person-focused, culturally aware pathway for career development. Stories of the author’s own experiences intersect a solid grounding in educational literature, encouraging scholars to take an active role in considering their own academic identity. In doing so, this volume suggests that academics look inward at what matters to them – rather than being overwhelmed by academia – in order to shape identities and career trajectories that are dynamic and satisfying.
Academic Integrity and the Role of the Academic Library: Institutional Examples and Promising Practices (Ethics and Integrity in Educational Contexts #7)
by Jason Openo Josh SeelandThis book presents the growing interconnection of two pillars from the world’s higher education institutions: academic integrity and libraries. It provides sound examples to extant questions and conversations about whose job it is to teach academic integrity, and what library work is. The role of libraries in supporting academic integrity is not always clear and has not been fully explored. Drawing from library literature and that of academic integrity more broadly, readers are exposed to how libraries are necessary in a holistic approach to academic integrity. Education about academic integrity and the prevention of academic misconduct, for not only students but other institutional stakeholders, are demonstrated as occurring optimally in positive, supportive, and proactive ways. The book details numerous ways in which librarians can work with faculty and other stakeholders using established frameworks such as information literacy and blended librarianship as well as innovative platforms and content. Other contributions involve the identification of potential academic misconduct and administration of academic integrity policies to complete the cycle recommended by the frameworks of global educational quality organizations (QAA, TEQSA). Initiatives presented in the book include those at the course level and institution-wide initiatives involving curriculum, policy, and supports for faculty and students. Also contained are efforts occurring at a national level within professional networks , in addition to international library curriculum. This book provides inspiration to institutions and academic libraries of any size and scope to embrace this emerging role in creating cultures of academic integrity.
Academic Integrity in Vocational and Polytechnic Education (Ethics and Integrity in Educational Contexts #8)
by Brenda M. Stoesz Lisa VogtAcademic Integrity in Vocational and Polytechnic Education addresses educative approaches to support academic integrity in hands-on and applied learning environments with a focus on practitioner experiences. Building on systems theory, the book documents multi-stakeholder perspectives of institutional leaders, department specialists, and individual champions of academic integrity. Readers will be introduced to the 4M framework, which views academic integrity as a responsibility at all levels of the institution and connects to the broader community and professional industries. Each chapter is set in an applied context and lends to the philosophy of a shared responsibility in growing the institutional culture of academic integrity. This book offers insights from the perspectives of leaders, faculty, and support staff, as authors describe challenges and solutions to upholding academic integrity in short term programming geared toward employment readiness. Although the work is about vocational and polytechnic education written by members of this community, it has a wider appeal across higher education due to shifting pedagogical methods that are becoming more applied and personalized. In an age of information ubiquity, where traditional learning activities such as rote memorization and essay writing do not sufficiently assess learning or prepare the learner for the workplace, educators will find unique insights from the vocational and polytechnic sector to supporting academic integrity in a changing academic landscape.
Academic Integrity in the Social Sciences: Perspectives on Pedagogy and Practice (Ethics and Integrity in Educational Contexts #6)
by Guy J. CurtisThis international book provides a series of viewpoints on academic integrity from the perspective of social sciences. It brings together multiple aspects of academic integrity, but with the consistent theme of being at a level of analysis that considers people and their place in the world. It covers topics such as how academic integrity can be taught, and why academic integrity breaches occur. This book informs the work of researchers, educators, and practitioners as we go forward in understanding academic integrity and addressing academic misconduct. The social sciences include academic disciplines such as sociology, economics, psychology, education, anthropology, political science, and criminology. Researchers and theorists in these fields offer a range of unique and valuable perspectives on academic integrity with questions ranging from: “Why do students cheat and how best do we teach them not to?” to “What are the societal and political implications of academic cheating?”
Academic Integrity: Proceedings from the European Conference on Academic Integrity and Plagiarism 2021 (Ethics and Integrity in Educational Contexts #4)
by Sonja Bjelobaba Tomáš Foltýnek Irene Glendinning Veronika Krásničan Dita Henek DlabolováThis book aims to broaden the horizons of academic integrity by discussing novel practices and technologies, and the importance of student involvement in building a culture of academic integrity. Examples are the outreach efforts towards a range of non-educational organisations, the exploration and comparison of ethical policies and actions in different institutions, and the improvement of student responses in research on sensitive topics. It explores a range of scenarios and strategies adopted in different parts of the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, and addresses new technological advances for investigating types of academic misconduct that are difficult to find, including translation plagiarism, contract cheating, the usage of the proctoring systems, and the innovative use of data mining to detect cheating on on-line quizzes. The work shows how working with students is an essential part of the fight against academic misconduct. The student voice can be a powerful source of motivation for students, but educators also need to understand their perspectives, especially regarding such an important topic as academic integrity.
Academic Mothers Building Online Communities: It Takes a Village
by Rachael Dwyer Sarah Trocchio Lisa K. Hanasono Jessica Jorgenson Borchert Jeanette Yih HarvieThis volume focuses on the diverse ways in which mothers working within academia seek to find others with similar experiences to build virtual communities. Although the faculty and student populations of universities have diversified, mothers in academia are disproportionately overrepresented in precarious faculty and staff positions and continue to experience myriad institutional and interpersonal barriers, such as gender wage gaps that are exacerbated by stop-the-clock tenure policies, inadequate parental leave policies, expensive or scarce local childcare options, and social biases. The book gives space to the many ways women create and challenge their own versions of motherhood through a digital “village,” examining how academic mothers use virtual communities to seek and enact different kinds of support.
Academic Non-Fiction: Crafting to Publishing
by R. SooryamoorthyThis book offers comprehensive directions to crafting academic nonfiction that is both rigorous and captivating, filling a critical gap in the genre. While academic nonfiction plays a vital role in fostering knowledge-based societies and driving economic growth, there has long been a need for a resource that helps authors create works that are as engaging as they are informative. Designed for both aspiring and established writers, this book provides practical advice and innovative techniques to elevate nonfiction writing. It covers everything from selecting marketable topics and developing effective writing habits to managing time and navigating the complexities of the publication process. Unlike most writing guides, it emphasises how to infuse nonfiction with the allure and engagement necessary to reach a broad audience without compromising accuracy or depth. With short, digestible chapters, insider tips on proposal writing, and insights into the peer review process, this book serves as a step-by-step roadmap to transforming academic writing into compelling works. Essential for writers aiming to produce nonfiction that not only informs but also resonates with readers, this resource is an indispensable tool for creating impactful scholarly work.
Academic Scepticism in the Development of Early Modern Philosophy (International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées #221)
by Sébastien Charles Plínio Junqueira SmithThis book explores how far some leading philosophers, from Montaigne to Hume, used Academic Scepticism to build their own brand of scepticism or took it as its main sceptical target. The book offers a detailed view of the main modern key figures, including Sanches, Charron, La Mothe Le Vayer, Bacon, Gassendi, Descartes, Malebranche, Pascal, Foucher, Huet, and Bayle. In addition, it provides a comprehensive assessment of the role of Academic Scepticism in Early Modern philosophy and a complete survey of the period. As a whole, the book offers a basis for a new, balanced assessment of the role played by scepticism in both its forms. Since Richard Popkin's works, there has been considerable interest in the role played by Pyrrhonian Scepticism in Early Modern Philosophy. Comparatively, Academic Scepticism was much neglected by scholars, despite some scattered important contributions. Furthermore, a general assessment of the presence of Academic Scepticism in Early Modern Philosophy is lacking. This book fills the void.
Academic Skepticism in Hume and Kant: A Ciceronian Critique of Metaphysics (Synthese Library #449)
by Catalina González QuinteroThis book offers an unprecedented study of the influence of the skepticism of the New Platonic Academy on David Hume’s and Immanuel Kant’s critiques of metaphysics. By demonstrating how the skeptical teachings of the Academy affected these authors’ Enlightened attacks on traditional metaphysics, this book deepens and broadens the burgeoning scholarship on the role that the Ancients schools of skepticism played in the configuration of Modern skeptical outlooks. It bolsters the newfound recognition that we must reconsider the conventional view that the revival of Pyrrhonism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries gave birth to Modern skepticism by incorporating the influence of Academic skepticism in the analysis.Giving a new impetus to this line of research, the author argues that Academic ideas and methods informed Hume’s and Kant’s critique of metaphysics in substantial and thus far unacknowledged ways. Specifically, she demonstrates the centrality of Academic skepticism to Hume’s epistemology and critique of religion through a detailed analysis of his theory of belief in the Treatise and the first Enquiry as well as of its application in the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. Likewise, her analysis reveals how Kant’s anti-metaphysical stance, developed in the Transcendental Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason, contains many skeptical insights of Academic inspiration, bequeathed to him by Hume.
Academic Skepticism in Seventeenth-Century French Philosophy: The Charronian Legacy 1601-1662 (International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées #215)
by José R. Maia NetoThis book is the first systematic account of Pierre Charron's influence among the major French philosophers in the period (1601-1662). It shows that Charron's Wisdom was one of the main sources of inspiration of Pierre Gassendi's first published book, the Exercitationes adversus aristoteleos. It sheds new light on La Mothe Le Vayer, who is usually viewed as a major free thinker. By showing that he was a follower of Charron, La Mothe emerges neither as a skeptical apologist nor as a disguised libertine, as combatting superstition but not as irreligious. The book shows the close presence of Charron in the preambles of Descartes' philosophy and that the cogito is mainly based on the moral Academic self-assurance of Charron's wise man. This interpretation reverses the standard view of Descartes' relation to skepticism. Once this skepticism is recognized to be Charron's Academic one, it is seen not as the target but as the source of the cogito. Pascal is the last major philosopher for whom Charron's wisdom is crucially relevant. Montaigne and Descartes influenced, respectively, Pascal's view of the Pyrrhonian skeptic and of the skeptical main arguments. The book shows that Charron's Academic skeptical wise man is one of the main targets of his projected apology for Christianity, since he considered him as a threat and counter-example of the kind of Christian view of human beings he believed. By restoring the historical philosophical relevance of Charron in early modern philosophy and arguing for the relevance of Academic skepticism in the period, this book opens a new research program to early modern scholars and will be valuable for those interested in the history of philosophy, French literature and religion.
Academic Women in Neoliberal Times (Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education)
by Briony LiptonThis book investigates the gendered dimensions of academic life in the contemporary Australian university. It examines key discourses – most notably academic performativity and identity – through a feminist lens, and scrutinises how discourses of neoliberalism and feminism are entangled in the structure, systems, operations and cultures of the university. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with academic women in Australia, the author uses a mix of experimental methods to emphasise the performative and discursive decisions women make with regard to their academic careers. In doing so, this book reveals how women themselves generate neoliberal and feminist shifts, how they manage the contradictions they produce, and how they carve spaces of influence and authority. Moving towards a re-evaluation of existing discourses, this book offers new insights into gender inequality in the Australian university in neoliberal times.
Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses
by Richard Arum Josipa RoksaIn spite of soaring tuition costs, more and more students go to college every year. A bachelor's degree is now required for entry into a growing number of professions. And some parents begin planning for the expense of sending their kids to college when they're born. Almost everyone strives to go, but almost no one asks the fundamental question posed by Academically Adrift: are undergraduates really learning anything once they get there? For a large proportion of students, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa's answer to that question is a definitive no. Their extensive research draws on survey responses, transcript data, and, for the first time, the state-of-the-art Collegiate Learning Assessment, a standardized test administered to students in their first semester and then again at the end of their second year. According to their analysis of more than 2,300 undergraduates at twenty-four institutions, 45 percent of these students demonstrate no significant improvement in a range of skills--including critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing--during their first two years of college. As troubling as their findings are, Arum and Roksa argue that for many faculty and administrators they will come as no surprise--instead, they are the expected result of a student body distracted by socializing or working and an institutional culture that puts undergraduate learning close to the bottom of the priority list. Academically Adrift holds sobering lessons for students, faculty, administrators, policy makers, and parents--all of whom are implicated in promoting or at least ignoring contemporary campus culture. Higher education faces crises on a number of fronts, but Arum and Roksa's report that colleges are failing at their most basic mission will demand the attention of us all.
Academics in Action!: A Model for Community-Engaged Research, Teaching, and Service
by Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein Bernadette Doykos Nina C. Martin Allison McGuireThe academy is often described as an ivory tower, isolated from the community surrounding it. Presenting the theory, vision, and implementation of a socially engaged program for the Department of Human and Organizational Development (HOD) in Peabody’s College of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University, Academics in Action! describes a more integrated model wherein students and faculty work with communities, learn from them, and bring to bear findings from theory and research to generate solutions to community problems.Offering examples of community-engaged theory, scholarship, teaching, and action, Academics in Action! describes the nuanced structures that foster and support their development within a research university. Theory and action span multiple ecological levels from individuals and small groups to organizations and social structures. The communities of engagement range from local neighborhoods and schools to arenas of national policy and international development.Reflecting the unique perspectives of research faculty, practitioners, and graduate students, Academics in Action! documents a specific philosophy of education that fosters and supports engagement; the potentially transformative nature of academic work for students, faculty, and the broader society; and some of the implications and challenges of action-oriented efforts in light of dynamics such as income inequality, racism, and global capitalism. This edited volume chronicles teaching, research, and community action that influences both inside and outside the classroom as well as presents dimensions of a participatory model that set such efforts into action.
Academics in a Century of Displacement: The Global History and Politics of Protecting Endangered Scholars (Migrationsgesellschaften)
by Frank Wolff Leyla Dakhli Pascale Laborier‘Endangered scholars’ is a recently highly relevant, yet historical notion. Embedded in the greater history of the 20th and 21st centuries, it captures the phenomenon of scholars who, after years of intellectual work and integration in their societies of origin, are forced to seek rescue in foreign host societies. The pressing urgency of the topic thus has an important historical background. From escaping Russian intellectuals after 1917 to the protection of Jewish refugees during World War II, Algerian intellectuals in contemporary history, or persecuted academics from Turkey today: Over the course of about a century, categories of inclusion, transnational relations, and forms of agency of scholars at risk remained surprisingly stable (and hence diachronously and synchronously comparable) while they also adjusted flexibly to contemporary conditions. This collective volume carves out this historical development and its recent expressions. It brings together researchers in a vivid yet largely unconnected field of migration and refugee studies. By developing a complex image of the origin of the global history and politics of protecting endangered scholars from the early 20th century until today, the book contributes to research on academics in exile as a part of refugee research, migration studies, the history of higher education, and the contemporary history of societies. The interdisciplinary volume explores the phenomenon as a historical, political and legal subject, brings together scholars of forced migration and intellectual studies, and includes currently affected scholars into those reflections.
Acceptance and Resistance of Innovative Technologies: Investigating the Acceptance and Resistance of Innovative Technologies with a Focus on Ethics and Sustainability (Handel und Internationales Marketing Retailing and International Marketing)
by Jan-Lukas SelterThe book examines the adoption of different innovative technologies and explores the behavioral intention of both consumers and companies of using these technologies. Both determinants of acceptance and resistance of technology are considered by referring to the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology and the Innovation Resistance Theory. The six essays in this publication relate to six innovative technologies and approaches. This entails an examination of technologies that either involve ethical challenges or are designed with the objective of achieving (ecological) sustainability.
Accident: A Philosophical and Literary History
by Ross HamiltonFrom ancient philosophy to Tristram Shandy and Buster Keaton movies, this book tells the engaging history of accident as an idea. An accidental glance at a newspaper notice causes Rousseau to collapse under the force of a vision. A car accidentally hits Giacometti, and he experiences an epiphany. Darwin introduces accident to the basic process of life, and Freud looks to accident as the expression of unconscious desire. Accident, Ross Hamilton claims, is the force that makes us modern. Tracing the story of accident from Aristotle to Buster Keaton and beyond, Hamilton’s daring book revives the tradition of the grand history of ideas. Accident tells an original history of Western thought from the perspective of Aristotle’s remarkably durable categories of accident and substance. Throughout antiquity and the Middle Ages, Aristotle’s distinction underwrote an insistence on order and subordination of the inessential. In a groundbreaking innovation, Hamilton argues that after the Reformation, the concept of accident began to change places with that of substance: accident became a life-transforming event and effectively a person’s essence. For moderns, it is the accidental, seemingly trivial moments of consciousness that, like Wordsworth’s “spots of time,” create constellations of meaning in our lives. Touching on a broad array of images and texts—Augustine, Dante, the frescoes of Raphael, Descartes, Jane Austen, the work of the surrealists, and twentieth-century cinema—Hamilton provides a new way to map the mutations of personal identity and subjectivity.
Accident: A Philosophical and Literary History
by Ross HamiltonFrom ancient philosophy to Tristram Shandy and Buster Keaton movies, this book tells the engaging history of accident as an idea. An accidental glance at a newspaper notice causes Rousseau to collapse under the force of a vision. A car accidentally hits Giacometti, and he experiences an epiphany. Darwin introduces accident to the basic process of life, and Freud looks to accident as the expression of unconscious desire. Accident, Ross Hamilton claims, is the force that makes us modern. Tracing the story of accident from Aristotle to Buster Keaton and beyond, Hamilton’s daring book revives the tradition of the grand history of ideas. Accident tells an original history of Western thought from the perspective of Aristotle’s remarkably durable categories of accident and substance. Throughout antiquity and the Middle Ages, Aristotle’s distinction underwrote an insistence on order and subordination of the inessential. In a groundbreaking innovation, Hamilton argues that after the Reformation, the concept of accident began to change places with that of substance: accident became a life-transforming event and effectively a person’s essence. For moderns, it is the accidental, seemingly trivial moments of consciousness that, like Wordsworth’s “spots of time,” create constellations of meaning in our lives. Touching on a broad array of images and texts—Augustine, Dante, the frescoes of Raphael, Descartes, Jane Austen, the work of the surrealists, and twentieth-century cinema—Hamilton provides a new way to map the mutations of personal identity and subjectivity.