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The Office of Scarlet Letter (Parallax)
by Sacvan Bercovitch"The Scarlet Letter has proved our most enduring classic," writes Sacvan Bercovitch, "because it is the liberal example par excellence of art as ideological mimesis. To understand the office of the A is to see how culture empowers symbolic form, including forms of dissent, and how symbols participate in the dynamics of culture, including the dynamics of constraint."With an approach that both reflects and contests developments in literary studies, Bercovitch explores these connections from two perspectives: first, he examines a historical reading of the novel's unities; and then, a rhetorical analysis of key mid-nineteenth-century issues, at home and abroad. In order to highlight the relation between rhetoric and history, he focuses on the point at which the scarlet letter does its office at last, the moment when Hester decides to come home to America.In The Office of "The Scarlet Letter," Bercovitch argues that the process by which the United States usurped "America" for itself, symbolically, is also the process by which liberalism established political and economic dominance. In the course of his study, he offers sustained discussions of Hawthorne's irony and ambiguity, of aesthetic and social strategies of cohesion, and of the conundrums of liberal dissent. Winner of the Modern Language Association's James Russell Lowe prize, The Office of "The Scarlet Letter" provides a theoretical redefinition of the function of symbolism in culture and an exemplary literary-ideological reading of a major text.
The Official History of Privatisation Vol. I: The formative years 1970-1987 (Government Official History Series)
by David ParkerThis first volume of the Official History studies the background to privatisation, and the privatisations of the first two Conservative Governments led by Margaret Thatcher from May 1979 to June 1987. First commissioned by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair as an authoritative history, this volume addresses a number of key questions: To what extent was privatisation a clear policy commitment within the Thatcher Governments of the 1980s - or did Government simply stumble on the idea? Why were particular public corporations sold early in the 1980s and other sales delayed until well into the 1990s? What were the privatisation objectives and how did they change over time, if at all? How was each privatisation planned and executed, how were different City advisers appointed and remunerated, what precise roles did they play? How was each privatisation administered; in what ways did the methods evolve and change and why? How were sale prices determined? Which government departments took the lead role; what was the input of the Treasury and Bank of England; and what was the relationship between Ministers and civil servants? The study draws heavily from the official records of the British Government to which the author was given full access and from interviews with leading figures involved in each of the privatisations – including ex-Ministers, civil servants, business and City figures, as well as academics that have studied the subject. This new official history will be of much interest to students of British political history, economics and business studies.
Oikonomia: Ancient Greek Philosophers on the Meaning of Economic Life
by Étienne HelmerA detailed analysis of oikonomia, an underexplored branch of knowledge in ancient Greek philosophy. In this book, Étienne Helmer offers a comprehensive analysis of oikonomia in ancient Greek philosophy. Despite its similarity to the word “economy,” for the ancients, oikonomia named a branch of knowledge—the science of management—that was aimed at studying the practices we engage in to satisfy our needs. This began with the domestic sphere, but it radiated outward from the oikos (house) to encompass broader issues in the polis (city) as well. Helmer explores topics such as gender roles and marriage, property and the household, the acquisition and preservation of material goods, and how Greek philosophers addressed the issue of slavery in the ancient world. Even if we are not likely to share many of ancient thinkers’ beliefs today, Helmer shows that there was once a way of thinking of “economic life” that went beyond the mere accumulation of wealth, representing a key point of departure for understanding how to inhabit the world with others.
Oil Palm: A Global History (Flows, Migrations, and Exchanges)
by Jonathan E. RobinsOil palms are ubiquitous—grown in nearly every tropical country, they supply the world with more edible fat than any other plant and play a role in scores of packaged products, from lipstick and soap to margarine and cookies. And as Jonathan E. Robins shows, sweeping social transformations carried the plant around the planet. First brought to the global stage in the holds of slave ships, palm oil became a quintessential commodity in the Industrial Revolution. Imperialists hungry for cheap fat subjugated Africa's oil palm landscapes and the people who worked them. In the twentieth century, the World Bank promulgated oil palm agriculture as a panacea to rural development in Southeast Asia and across the tropics. As plantation companies tore into rainforests, evicting farmers in the name of progress, the oil palm continued its rise to dominance, sparking new controversies over trade, land and labor rights, human health, and the environment. By telling the story of the oil palm across multiple centuries and continents, Robins demonstrates how the fruits of an African palm tree became a key commodity in the story of global capitalism, beginning in the eras of slavery and imperialism, persisting through decolonization, and stretching to the present day.
Ökonomische Theorien der Politik
by Jochen Sunken Klaus SchubertÖkonomische Theorien der Politik verwenden das theoretische und methodische Instrumentarium der Wirtschaftswissenschaften für die Analyse von politischen Strukturen, Prozessen und Inhalten. Da der ökonomische Ansatz der Politik eine immer größer werdende Rolle in der Politikwissenschaft spielt, werden in dieser Einführung die grundlegenden Begriffe und Theorien in verständlicher Form dargestellt. Ziel ist es, einen ersten Überblick über Denkweise, Logik und Mehrwert ökonomischer Theorien der Politik zu geben.
Ökonomisierung und Bildung: Zu den Formen ökonomischer Rationalisierung im Feld der Bildung (essentials)
by Thomas HöhneÖkonomisierung als Rationalisierung im Arbeits- und Produktionsbereich stellt ein kapitalistisches Grundprinzip dar, das seit den 1980er Jahren zunehmend auf außerökonomische Bereiche übertragen wird. Vorangetrieben wird diese Entwicklung national sowie international vor allem durch Staat, Politik und transnationale Akteure, die zunehmend ökonomische Steuerungsmittel wie Evaluation und Indikatorensteuerung in den Bildungsbereich einführen. Primäres Ziel ist es, Wettbewerb systematisch im Bildungssystem als Entwicklungsinstrument zu etablieren. Hierdurch sollen marktähnliche Strukturen - sogenannte Quasi-Märkte - geschaffen werden, deren bildungsökonomisches Ziel insgesamt eine nachhaltige Steigerung der gesamtgesellschaftlichen Produktivität von Bildung ist.
The Old Faith and the Russian Land: A Historical Ethnography of Ethics in the Urals (Culture and Society after Socialism)
by Douglas RogersThe Old Faith and the Russian Land is a historical ethnography that charts the ebbs and flows of ethical practice in a small Russian town over three centuries. The town of Sepych was settled in the late seventeenth century by religious dissenters who fled to the forests of the Urals to escape a world they believed to be in the clutches of the Antichrist. Factions of Old Believers, as these dissenters later came to be known, have maintained a presence in the town ever since. The townspeople of Sepych have also been serfs, free peasants, collective farmers, and, now, shareholders in a post-Soviet cooperative.Douglas Rogers traces connections between the town and some of the major transformations of Russian history, showing how townspeople have responded to a long series of attempts to change them and their communities: tsarist-era efforts to regulate family life and stamp out Old Belief on the Stroganov estates, Soviet collectivization drives and antireligious campaigns, and the marketization, religious revival, and ongoing political transformations of post-Soviet times. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork and extensive archival and manuscript sources, Rogers argues that religious, political, and economic practice are overlapping arenas in which the people of Sepych have striven to be ethical-in relation to labor and money, food and drink, prayers and rituals, religious books and manuscripts, and the surrounding material landscape.He tracks the ways in which ethical sensibilities-about work and prayer, hierarchy and inequality, gender and generation-have shifted and recombined over time. Rogers concludes that certain expectations about how to be an ethical person have continued to orient townspeople in Sepych over the course of nearly three centuries for specific, identifiable, and often unexpected reasons. Throughout, he demonstrates what a historical and ethnographic study of ethics might look like and uses this approach to ask new questions of Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet history.
Old Gods, New Enigmas: Marx's Lost Theory
by Mike DavisIs revolution possible in the age of the Anthropocene?Marx has returned, but which Marx? Recent biographies have proclaimed him to be an emphatically nineteenth-century figure, but in this book, Mike Davis’s first directly about Marx and Marxism, a thinker comes to light who speaks to the present as much as the past. In a series of searching, propulsive essays, Davis, the bestselling author of City of Quartz and recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, explores Marx’s inquiries into two key questions of our time: Who can lead a revolutionary transformation of society? And what is the cause—and solution—of the planetary environmental crisis?Davis consults a vast archive of labor history to illuminate new aspects of Marx’s theoretical texts and political journalism. He offers a “lost Marx,” whose analyses of historical agency, nationalism, and the “middle landscape” of class struggle are crucial to the renewal of revolutionary thought in our darkening age. Davis presents a critique of the current fetishism of the “anthropocene,” which suppresses the links between the global employment crisis and capitalism’s failure to ensure human survival in a more extreme climate. In a finale, Old Gods, New Enigmas looks backward to the great forgotten debates on alternative socialist urbanism (1880–1934) to find the conceptual keys to a universal high quality of life in a sustainable environment.
The Old is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born
by Nancy FraserNeoliberalism is fracturing, but what will emerge in its wake?Across the globe politics as usual are being rejected and faith in neoliberalism is fracturing beyond repair. Leading political theorist Nancy Fraser, in conversation with Jacobin publisher Bhaskar Sunkara, dissects neoliberalism's current crisis and argues that we might wrest new futures from its ruins.The global political, ecological, economic, and social breakdown--symbolized, but not caused, by Trump's election--has destroyed faith that neoliberal capitalism is beneficial to the majority. Fraser explores how this faith was built through the late twentieth century by balancing two central tenets: recognition (who deserves rights) and distribution (who deserves income). When these began to fray, new forms of outsider populist politics emerged on the left and the right. These, Fraser argues, are symptoms of the larger crisis of hegemony for neoliberalism, a moment when, as Gramsci had it, "the old is dying and the new cannot be born."Explored further in an accompanying interview with Jacobin publisher Bhaskar Sunkara, Fraser argues that we now have the opportunity to build progressive populism into an emancipatory social force, one that can claim a new hegemony.
An Old Melody in a New Song: Aesthetics and the Art of Psychology (Theory and History in the Human and Social Sciences)
by Luca TateoThis book explores the relationship between cultural psychology and aesthetics, by integrating the historical, theoretical and phenomenological perspectives. It offers a comprehensive discussion of the history of aesthetics and psychology from an international perspective, with contributions by leading researchers from Serbia, Austria, Portugal, Norway, Denmark, and Brazil. The first section of the book aims at summarizing the debate of where the song comes from. It discusses undeveloped topics, methodological hints, and epistemological questions in the different areas of contemporary psychological sciences. The second section of the book presents concrete examples of case-studies and methodological issues (the new melodies in psychological research) to stimulate further explorations. The book aims to bring art back into psychology, to provide an understanding for the art of psychology. An Old Melody in a New Song will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in the fields of educational and developmental psychology, cultural psychology, history of ideas, aesthetics, and art-based research.
The Old Regime And The Revolution
by Alexis De Tocqueville Francoise Melonio Alan S. Kahan François FuretThe Old Regime and the Revolution is Alexis de Tocqueville's great meditation on the origins and meanings of the French Revolution. One of the most profound and influential studies of this pivotal event, it remains a relevant and stimulating discussion of the problem of preserving individual and political freedom in the modern world. Alan Kahan's translation provides a faithful, readable rendering of Tocqueville's last masterpiece, and includes notes and variants which reveal Tocqueville's sources and include excerpts from his drafts and revisions. The introduction by France's most eminent scholars of Tocqueville and the French Revolution, Françoise Mélonio and the late François Furet, provides a brilliant analysis of the work.
The Old Tea Seller: Life and Zen Poetry in 18th Century Kyoto
by BaisaoPoet, Zen Buddhist priest, renowned thinker, and seller of tea — Baisao was all of these things, as well as being a bit of an eccentric. Known to carry large wicker baskets filled with tea utensils through the streets and surrounding hills of Japan's capital, Baisao set up shop wherever he ended up and brewed tea for those who came to enjoy the scenery with him. Establishing a quiet, simple life, Baisao spent his final years composing poetry, brewing tea, and teaching Zen, in the process becoming a well–loved figure. These poems, memoirs, and letters tell us more about this endearing person and trace his long life's profound spiritual journey. This comprehensive translation includes nearly all of Baisao's writings, giving us a deep look at this remarkable man.
Old Testament Ethics: A Guided Tour
by John GoldingayWhat is ethics? Ethics is not merely about tricky situations or hot topics. Instead, ethics asks questions about what sort of people we are, how we think, what sort of things we do and don't do, and how we ought to live our everyday lives. How might we learn ethics from the Old Testament? Instead of searching for support for our positions or pointing out problems with certain passages, trusted guide John Goldingay urges us to let the Old Testament itself set the agenda. In this volume, readers will encounter what the Old Testament teaches about relationships, work, Sabbath, character, and more. Featuring Goldingay's own translation and discussion questions for group use, Old Testament Ethics: A Guided Tour is a resource for ethics like no other. Topically organized with short, stand-alone chapters, this book is one to keep close at hand.
Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction
by James L CrenshawThe title of the book can be pleasantly deceiving. Crenshaw goes well beyond the wisdom tradition found in the biblical books of Ecclesiates, Psalms, Proverbs, and Job. He takes a broader perspective and includes apocrapha writings as well as Egyptian and Mesopotamian literature. This is a very thorough, concise, and well orgainized book, much appreciated for students working under time constraints.
The Oldest Biography of Spinoza (Routledge Library Editions: 17th Century Philosophy)
by A. WolfOriginally published in 1927, the publication of this volume may be regarded as a fitting contribution to the international celebrations in memory of one of the greatest of the sons of men. This biography is the oldest, and it is the only one written by one who knew Spinoza personally, and loved him well.
The Oldest Book in the World: Philosophy in the Age of the Pyramids
by Bill ManleyA new translation of a philosophical and practical advice classic of the ancient world, The Teaching of Ptahhatp, written in Egypt four thousand years ago and still relevant for modern readers today. Noted author and Egyptologist Bill Manley renders into approachable modern English for the first time the oldest surviving statement of philosophy from the ancient world: the thirty-seven teachings and twelve conclusions of The Teaching of Ptahhatp, vizier, or chief minister, to the Old Kingdom pharaoh Izezi (2390–2350 BCE). Manley’s expert commentary elucidates Ptahhatp’s profound yet practical philosophy, which covers such topics as ambition, fame, confrontation, sex, and wisdom, and offers a unique window onto ancient Egyptian life and society. The Teaching of Ptahhatp ought to begin the list of the world’s classics of philosophy, yet it has been largely forgotten since its rediscovery in the nineteenth century. Manley’s new translation corrects this oversight, making accessible for the first time the Old Kingdom vizier Ptahhatp’s concise, helpful insights into the human condition. New translations of two further texts—The Dialogue Between a Man and His Soul, in which a man asks himself, “What is the point of living?,” and Why Things Happen, the oldest surviving account of creation from anywhere in the world—demonstrate how Ptahhatp’s philosophy was founded in ancient Egyptian beliefs about truth and reality. Manley introduces the vizier and the world within which he operated, as well as the significance of the “oldest book of the world,” preserved in a scroll now known as the Papyrus Prisse in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. Together these works by Ptahhatp provide a new perspective on the Pyramid Age and overturn traditional stereotypes about the origins of Western philosophy.
The Oldest Trick in the Book: Panic-Driven Scapegoating in History and Recurring Patterns of Persecution
by Ben M. DebneyThis book investigates the normalisation of blame-shifting within ideological discourse as a broad feature of history, working from Churchill’s truism that history is written by the victors. To that end, it explores historical episodes of political persecution carried out under cover of moral panic, highlighting the process of ‘Othering’ common to each and theorising a historical model of panic-driven scapegoating from the results. Building this model from case studies in witch panic, communist panic and terrorist panic respectively, The Oldest Trick in the Book builds an argument that features common to each case study reflect broader historical patterning consistent with Churchill’s maxim. On this basis it argues that the periodic construction of bogeymen or ‘folk demons’ is a useful device for enabling the kind of victim-playing and victim-blaming critical to protecting elite privilege during periods of crisis and that in being a recurring theme historically, panic-driven scapegoating retains great ongoing value to the privileged and powerful, and thus conspicuously remains an ongoing feature of world politics.
Olfaction: An Interdisciplinary Perspective from Philosophy to Life Sciences (Human Perspectives in Health Sciences and Technology #4)
by Nicola Di Stefano Maria Teresa RussoThis book offers a broad and timely perspective on research on olfaction and its current technological challenges. It specifically emphasizes the interdisciplinary context in which olfaction is investigated in contemporary research. From aesthetics to sociology, from bioengineering to anthropology, the different chapters discuss a wide variety of issues arising from olfaction research and its application in different contexts. By highlighting the overlaps between different areas of research, the book fosters a better communication between disciplines and leads towards a better understanding of the role of olfaction in human perception and cognition. This inspiring read is of interest to students, researchers and practitioners in psychology, philosophy, bioengineering, and cultural studies.
The Oligarch: Rewriting Machiavelli’s The Prince for Our Time
by James SherryThis book uses the structure of Machiavelli’s The Prince to show how governance has changed over the last 500 years. If Machiavelli focuses on power concentrated in the hands of the republic or principalities, The Oligarch looks at how states and companies today function as oligarchies. Rather than dealing with the form of government, it addresses the operations and networks of governance for both states and corporations as a single set of common processes. The author links politics, ecology and literature, by using the literary device of appropriation to raise awareness of ecology and the overreach of powerful people, offering both wielders and critics of power a common ground based on how people in power actually conduct themselves.
Oligarchy
by Jeffrey A. WintersFor centuries, oligarchs were viewed as empowered by wealth, an idea muddled by elite theory early in the twentieth century. The common thread for oligarchs across history is that wealth defines them, empowers them and inherently exposes them to threats. The existential motive of all oligarchs is wealth defense. How they respond varies with the threats they confront, including how directly involved they are in supplying the coercion underlying all property claims and whether they act separately or collectively. These variations yield four types of oligarchy: warring, ruling, sultanistic and civil. Moreover, the rule of law problem in many societies is a matter of taming oligarchs. Cases studied in this book include the United States, ancient Athens and Rome, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, medieval Venice and Siena, mafia commissions in the United States and Italy, feuding Appalachian families and early chiefs cum oligarchs dating from 2300 BCE.
Oliver Wendell Holmes: A Willing Servant to an Unknown God (Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society)
by Catharine Pierce WellsOliver Wendell Holmes was one of the most influential figures in American law. As a Supreme Court Justice, he wrote foundational opinions about such important constitutional issues as freedom of speech and the limits of state regulatory power. As a scholar and Massachusetts High Court judge, he helped to reshape the common law for the modern industrial era. And yet, despite the many accounts of his career, Holmes himself remains an enigma. This book is the first to explore the nineteenth-century New England influences so crucial to the formation of his character. Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson's transcendentalism, Holmes belonged to a group of men who formulated a philosophy known as American pragmatism that stood as an alternative to English empiricism and German rationalism. This innovative study places Holmes within the transcendentalist, pragmatist tradition and thereby unlocks his unique identity and contribution to American law. Wells' nuanced analysis will appeal to legal scholars, historians, philosophers, and general readers alike.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Legal Logic
by Frederic R. KelloggWith Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Legal Logic, Frederic R. Kellogg examines the early diaries, reading, and writings of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935) to assess his contribution to both legal logic and general logical theory. Through discussions with his mentor Chauncey Wright and others, Holmes derived his theory from Francis Bacon’s empiricism, influenced by recent English debates over logic and scientific method, and Holmes’s critical response to John Stuart Mill’s 1843 A System of Logic. Conventional legal logic tends to focus on the role of judges in deciding cases. Holmes recognized input from outside the law—the importance of the social dimension of legal and logical induction: how opposing views of “many minds” may converge. Drawing on analogies from the natural sciences, Holmes came to understand law as an extended process of inquiry into recurring problems. Rather than vagueness or contradiction in the meaning or application of rules, Holmes focused on the relation of novel or unanticipated facts to an underlying and emergent social problem. Where the meaning and extension of legal terms are disputed by opposing views and practices, it is not strictly a legal uncertainty, and it is a mistake to expect that judges alone can immediately resolve the larger issue.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Pragmatism and Neuroscience
by Jay SchulkinThis book explores the cultures of philosophy and the law as they interact with neuroscience and biology, through the perspective of American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes’ Jr., and the pragmatist tradition of John Dewey. Schulkin proposes that human problem solving and the law are tied to a naturalistic, realistic and an anthropological understanding of the human condition. The situated character of legal reasoning, given its complexity, like reasoning in neuroscience, can be notoriously fallible. Legal and scientific reasoning is to be understood within a broader context in order to emphasize both the continuity and the porous relationship between the two. Some facts of neuroscience fit easily into discussions of human experience and the law. However, it is important not to oversell neuroscience: a meeting of law and neuroscience is unlikely to prove persuasive in the courtroom any time soon. Nevertheless, as knowledge of neuroscience becomes more reliable and more easily accepted by both the larger legislative community and in the wider public, through which neuroscience filters into epistemic and judicial reliability, the two will ultimately find themselves in front of a judge. A pragmatist view of neuroscience will aid and underlie these events.
El olvido de la razón
by Juan José SebreliUn análisis exhaustivo de las corrientes filosóficas, políticas ysociales del siglo XX. Las distintas trayectorias y tendencias del pensamiento del siglo XX queSebreli ilumina dan cabida a muchos de los conflictos intelectuales ypolíticos, filosóficos y sociales que urdieron la trama de lo que a estaaltura, cansadamente, se llama posmodernidad. Sin descartar su aparicióny despunte, el autor de «Asedio a la modernidad» critica las modasdeterminadas frívolamente por capillas francesas que terminanconvirtiéndose en ortodoxias gracias a las adopciones de los gruposuniversitarios.El gran conocimiento de los repertorios temáticos de la literatura, lafilosofía y la sociología del siglo pasado permite a Sebreli trazarademás un mapa amplio que permitirá a su vez al lector reconocercontenidos e incidencias, asimilaciones y rechazos.
Olympe de Gouges (Elements on Women in the History of Philosophy)
by Sandrine BergèsOlympe de Gouges, though a well-known historical figure, has not been investigated as a philosopher until quite recently. Yet, many of her writings have philosophical import, whether they are written in the genre of the philosophical treatise, drama or political pamphlets. In the three main sections, the author gives an overview of some of her arguments, showing their originality and their relevance to debates contemporary to her and to us. In the introduction, the author addresses the question of genre and argue that Gouges should be read as a philosopher, as well as a playwright and political writer. In the conclusion, the author draws out the relevance of her work for contemporary philosophers.