Autobiographical writings remained throughout long centuries relatively unaffected by literary modes and changes. From 1770-1850 new developments in literature (especially the emergence of the novel), as well as new trends in philosophy and aesthetics ushered in a new era reflective of a search for greater consciousness and sensibility, a revolutionary mode of thought and life that profoundly affected the autobiographical genre. This study examines a number of autobiographies which herald or reflect these new trends and developments, how these and the autobiographer's changing objectives decisively enriched and modified the genre, and how they gradually stir the genre toward an inevitable identity crisis.

The Evolution of the Autobiography from 1770-1850: A Comparative Study and Analysis (American university studies)

Literature & Fiction

Stull, Heidi I.

History & Criticism

Peter Lang

Stendhal's narrators explicitly put forth an ethos of realism, yet their self-conscious voice calls attention to artifice in fictional texts that readily depict their own elaboration. This study examines the integration of various patterns of self-consciousness into works whose «textual realism» encourages readings that respect the novels as both textual construct and referential illusion. In reflecting their own structures en abyme through various embedded narratives, in thematizing the heroes' and the narrators' self-consciousness, in exalting literariness through patterns of novelistic and theatrical imitation, Stendhal's novels problematize fictional narrative discourse and language itself while affirming their referential appeal to the reader's imagination.

Stendhal's Paper Mirror: Patterns of Self-Consciousness in His Novels (American university studies)

Day, James T.

This book is a study of the paradoxes that underlie our understanding of the physical world. It is shown that many of these paradoxes are actually variants of classical paradoxes known to the ancient Indians and Greeks. The book presents a historical perspective on the development of key scientific ideas, and discusses the significance of our understanding the nature of consciousness in further advance. The book also examines several philosophical issues at the basis of modern physics.

The Nature of Physical Reality (American University Studies, Series V, Philosophy)

Politics & Social Sciences

Kak, Subhash

Philosophy

The purpose of this volume is to present an existential view of feminine myths and archetypes. It draws primarily on the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and attempts to familiarize the reader with existential tenets that describe and define woman in cultural prototypes, both in familiar patterns and in patterns outside the accepted rules. The question asked is how does the Eternal Feminine stand up under the scrutiny of existential assessors who tell us that each self is chosen by itself, that human beings of the «second sex» engaged in a search for their identity are «to freedom condemned». More simply this study will offer insights into the question of who we are and how women and men relate to each other.

The Existential Woman (American University Studies Series XXVII, Feminist Studies Vol. 3)

Peters, Hélène

Method: The Nature of Nature is the first of several volumes exposing Edgar Morin's general systems view on life and society. The present volume maintains that the organization of all life and society necessitates the simultaneous interplay of order and disorder. All systems, physical, biological, social, political and informational, incessantly reshape part and whole through feedback, thereby generating increasingly complex systems. For continued evolution, these simultaneously complementary, concurrent, and antagonistic systems require a priority of love over truth, of subject over object, of Sy-bernetics over cybernetics.

Method: Towards a Study of Humankind, Vol. 1: The Nature of Nature (American University Studies Series, No. 5, Philosophy, Vol. 3)

Edgar Morin

Religion & Spirituality

Historically, capitalism has always integrated various forms of unfree labour, including chattel slavery, convict labour and debt bondage. Contrary to purported wisdom, these forms of exploitation have not disappeared during the twentieth century. Fascist and Stalinist dictatorships used forced labour on a massive scale, while unfree labour has been increasing in several parts of the world in recent years. Labour historians have traditionally somewhat neglected the problem of coerced labour. Focusing on so-called «free» wage labourers, their living conditions, cultures and struggles, they implicitly supposed a more or less unilinear development from unfree to «free» labour to have taken place under the influence of emerging capitalism, gradually encompassing the globe. The present collection of 24 essays attempts to rethink these issues. The volume is divided into two sections: the first deals with theories about unfree labour while the second consists of case studies examining its presence or absence in particular historical contexts in the «first», «second» and «third» world. The authors use various Marxist or neoclassical approaches and disagree on four substantive points: the market, labour scarcity, gender and state intervention. These crucial differences are explored and clarified. The debate continues.

Free and Unfree Labour : The Debate Continues

Business & Money

Management & Leadership

The modern excavations at Akrotiri, on the Greek island of Thera (also known as Santorini), have provided students of antiquity with a unique opportunity to examine the civilization of the Aegean Bronze Age (3000-1100 BC) and the role of Thera within it. Thera in the Bronze Age presents a detailed study of the geography, history, and culture of a vibrant society that met its end in a catastrophic volcanic eruption which, ironically, preserved the city at Akrotiri just as it was in its final moments.

Thera in the Bronze Age

Forsyth, Phyllis Young

This book explores the seventeenth-century philosopher Spinoza’s modernist humanism. There is little doubt that Spinoza was one of the principle founders of modernity, but his modernism is often thought to come at the expense of a humanism. Drawing attention to Spinoza’s humanism, this book concentrates on politics, ethics, and psychology in order to understand Spinoza’s conception of the human being, and why that conception endures into our own time with particular relevance. This introduction to Spinoza’s thought proceeds in a reverse order from the usual treatment: rather than beginning with a consideration of Spinoza’s metaphysics, the discussion culminates in an exploration of those concepts. In this way, this book is a deeper examination of what Spinoza himself thought, and allows the reader to consider more fully Spinoza’s wider philosophy.

God, Man, and Well-Being: Spinoza's Modern Humanism

Den Uyl, Douglas

What is it about vampires that fascinates the human imagination? Blood Obsession closely scrutinizes theories of Sigmund Freud and Tzvetan Todorov and arrives at a model of the vampire as the perfect representative of genre for a variety of reasons – the vampire figure appeals to its audience because of an interdependency of looplike mental and narrative structures that lure both reader and writer incessantly back to the genre. At the same time, this book provides the reader with a thorough survey of literary and filmic vampires in both adult and juvenile fictions. Lastly, it blends the realms of legal and literary history by highlighting the changes the image of the serial killer, a close relative of the vampire, underwent at the end of the twentieth century. Blood Obsession is a highly enlightening study for the general reader as well as for students of film, literature, and popular culture.

Blood Obsession: Vampires, Serial Murder, and the Popular Imagination

Humor & Entertainment

Waltje, Jörg

Movies

In this must-have new anthology, top media scholars explore the leading edge of digital media studies to provide a broad, authoritative survey of the study of the field and a compelling preview of future developments. This book is divided into five key areas – video games, digital images, the electronic word, computers and music, and new digital media – and offers an invaluable guide for students and scholars alike.

Digital Media: Transformations in Human Communication

Arts & Photography

Business of Art

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Books by Peter Lang