The Lies of the Land: A Brief History of Political Dishonesty
Author: Adam Macqueen File Type: epub Trust in our politicians is at an all-time low. Were in a post-truth era, where feelings trump facts, and where brazen rhetoric beats honesty. But do politicians lie more than they used to? And do we even want them to tell the truth?In a history full of wit and political acumen, Private Eye journalist Adam Macqueen dissects the gripping stories of the biggest political lies of the last half century, from the Profumo affair to Blairs WMDs to Boris Johnsons 350 million for the NHS. Covering lesser known whoppers, infamous lies from foreign shores (I did not have sexual relations with that woman), and some of the resolute untruths from Donald Trumps explosive presidential campaign, this is the quintessential guide to dishonesty from our leaders - and the often pernicious relationship between parliament and the media.But this book is also so much more. It explains how in the space of a lifetime we have gone from the implicit assumption that our rulers have our best interests at heart, to assuming the worst even when - in the majority of cases - politicians are actually doing their best.
Author: Gabrielle Jennings
File Type: pdf
Offering historical and theoretical positions from a variety of art historians, artists, curators, and writers, this groundbreaking collection is the first substantive sourcebook on abstraction in moving-image media. With a particular focus on art since 2000, Abstract Video addresses a longer history of experimentation in video, net art, installation, new media, expanded cinema, visual music, and experimental film. Editor Gabrielle Jenningsa video artist herselfreveals as never before how works of abstract video are not merely, as the renowned curator Kirk Varnedoe once put it, pictures of nothing, but rather amorphous, ungovernable spaces that encourage contemplation and innovation. In explorations of the work of celebrated artists such as Jeremy Blake, Mona Hatoum, Pierre Huyghe, Ryoji Ikeda, Takeshi Murata, Diana Thater, and Jennifer West, alongside emerging artists, this volume presents fresh and vigorous perspectives on a burgeoning and ever-changing arena of contemporary art.
Author: Stephan Fuchs
File Type: pdf
Against Essentialism presents a sociological theory of culture. This interdisciplinary and foundational work deals with basic issues common to current debates in social theory, including society, culture, meaning, truth, and communication. Stephan Fuchs argues that many mysteries about these concepts lose their mysteriousness when dynamic variations are introduced. Fuchs proposes a theory of culture and society that merges two core traditions--American network theory and European (Luhmannian) systems theory. His book distinguishes four major types of social observers--encounters, groups, organizations, and networks. Society takes place in these four modes of association. Each generates levels of observation linked with each other into a culture--the unity of these observations. Against Essentialism presents a groundbreaking new approach to the construction of society, culture, and personhood. The book invites both social scientists and philosophers to see what happens when essentialism is abandoned. **
Author: Samuel Beckett
File Type: pdf
Subtitled A tragicomedy in two Acts, and famously described by the Irish critic Vivien Mercier as a play in which nothing happens, twice, En attendant Godot was first performed at the Theatre de Babylone in Paris in 1953. It was translated into English by Samuel Beckett, and Waiting for Godot opened at the Arts Theatre in London in 1955. Go and see Waiting for Godot. At the worst you will discover a curiosity, a four-leaved clover, a black tulip at the best something that will securely lodge in a corner of your mind for as long as you live. Harold Hobson, 7 August 1955I told him that if by Godot I had meant God I would have said God, and not Godot. This seemed to disappoint him greatly. Samuel Beckett, 1955
Author: Cath Ennis
File Type: epub
Epigenetics is the most exciting field in biology today, developing our understanding of how and why we inherit certain traits, develop diseases and age, and evolve as a species. This non-fiction comic book introduces us to genetics, cell biology and the fascinating science of epigenetics, which is rapidly filling in the gaps in our knowledge, allowing us to make huge advances in medicine. Well look at what identical twins can teach us about the epigenetic effects of our environment and experiences, why certain genes are switched on or off at various stages of embryonic development, and how scientists have reversed the specialization of cells to clone frogs from a single gut cell. In Introducing Epigenetics, Cath Ennis and Oliver Pugh pull apart the double helix, examining how the epigenetic building blocks and messengers that interpret and edit our genes help to make us, well, us.
Author: Patricia E. Reagan
File Type: pdf
Deconstructing Paradise investigates Christian symbols that appear in Latin American Literature in an inverted way. The texts under investigation invert the Christian center to generate a social, political, cultural, or even artistic commentary. In doing so, each text underscores a search for meaning that rejects the centering presence of the more traditional Christian focus that has long validated humankinds existence both in society and in literature. As Deconstructing Paradise examines, finding a unified center around which to construct meaning is no longer possible, although the search for meaning persists in the inverted Christian center. The first three chapters analyze the trifecta of novels that offer a full allegory of inverted Christian symbolism including Miguel Angel Asturias El Senor Presidente Juan Rulfos Pedro Paramo and Jose Donosos El lugar sin limites. Chapters Four and Five focus on inverted Christ and inverted Judas figures in multiple novels and short fiction. As many Latin American literary critics affirm, it is increasingly difficult to categorize fiction after the Boom, although even the usefulness of these categories is ultimately questionable. Literary critics now look for patterns and Deconstructing Paradise offers one such pattern by identifying a trend in an impressive scope of the well-known authors of twentieth-century Latin American literature, while also tracing this pattern back to nineteenth-century precursors. Deconstructing Paradise offers a unique and comprehensive look at a significant trend that will undoubtedly foment new ideas and paths of study in contemporary Latin American literature.**ReviewOne of the abiding myths of Latin American culture is that it is grounded in Catholic symbolism and should be read as such. While this is partially true, it underestimates the continuing enormous pull of a complex range of indigenous faiths, often seen as minor decorative arts, and of non-Catholic faiths such as Judaism, Pentocostal sects, and now Mormonism. In this context, a careful examination of the deconstructing of Catholic myths and dogmas, such as that provided by Deconstructing Paradise, is all the more suggestive because of how it can lead to the very non-traditionally Catholic of contemporary Latin American religions. (David William Foster, Arizona State University) While a number of critics of the Latin American New Novel have identified and interpreted a range of inverted Christian images, the originality of this book is that it brings together such instances in order to identify a pattern or trend that actually characterizes twentieth-century Latin American fiction. This is an important and overdue contribution to mainstream conceptions of the nueva narrativa. (Philip Swanson, Hughes Professor of Spanish, University of Sheffield) About the Author Patricia E. Reagan is associate professor of Spanish at Randolph-Macon College
Author: Simon Thomas Parsons
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The interrelation of so-called literary and historical sources of the crusades, and the fluidity of these categorisations, are the central concerns of the essays collected here. They demonstrate what the study of literary texts can do for our historical understanding of the crusading movement, challenging earlier historiographical assumptions about well-known poems and songs, and introducing hitherto understudied manuscript sources which elucidate a rich contemporary compositional culture regarding the matter of crusade. The volume discusses a wide array of European textual responses to the medieval crusading movement, from the Plantagenet and Catalan courts to the Italy of Charles of Anjou, Cyprus, and the Holy Land. Meanwhile, the topics considered include the connexions between poetry and history in the Latin First Crusade texts the historical, codicological and literary background to Richard the Lionhearts famous song of captivity crusade references in the troubadour Cerveri of Girona literary culture surrounding Charles of Anjous expeditions the use of the Melusine legend to strengthen the Lusignans claim to Cyprus and the influence of aristocratic selection criteria in manuscript traditions of Old French crusade songs. These diverse approaches are unified in their examination of crusading texts as cultural artefacts ripe for comparison across linguistic and thematic divides. Simon Thomas Parsons teaches Medieval History at Royal Holloway, University of London and Kings College London Linda Paterson is Professor Emerita at Warwick University. **
Author: Nino Luraghi
File Type: pdf
The origins and development of Greek historiography cannot be properly understood unless early historical writings are situated in the framework of late archaic and early classical Greek culture and society. Contextualization opens up new perspectives on the subject in The Historians Craft in the Age of Herodotus. Essays by an international range of experts explore all aspects of the topic and, at the same time, make a thought-provoking contribution to the ongoing debates concerning literacy and oral culture. **Review Everyone who works on early Greek poetics, history and culture will find much of interest in this rich volume ... provocative and exciting book ... The contributors and in particular Professors Luraghi and Murray have given us an enormous amount to think about. Bryn Mawr Classical Review About the Author Nino Luraghi is Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics, Harvard University
Author: Jennifer Ashton
File Type: pdf
Book DescriptionIn this overview of twentieth-century American poetry, Jennifer Ashton explores the complex currents of poetic and intellectual interest linking contemporary poets with their modernist forebears, including Stein, Williams and Pound. She develops important ways to read modernist and postmodernist poetry through their similarities as well as their differences. About the AuthorJennifer Ashton is Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago In this overview of twentieth-century American poetry, Jennifer Ashton examines the relationship between modernist and postmodernist American poetics. Ashton moves between the iconic figures of American modernism - Stein, Williams, Pound - and developments in contemporary American poetry to show how contemporary poetics, specially the school known as language poetry, have attempted to redefine the modernist legacy. She explores the complex currents of poetic and intellectual interest that connect contemporary poets with their modernist forebears. The works of poets such as Gertrude Stein and John Ashbery are explained and analysed in detail. This major account of the key themes in twentieth-century poetry and poetics develops important ways to read both modernist and postmodernist poetry through their similarities as well as their differences. It will be of interest to all working in American literature, to modernists, and to scholars of twentieth-century poetry.Book DescriptionIn this overview of twentieth-century American poetry, Jennifer Ashton explores the complex currents of poetic and intellectual interest linking contemporary poets with their modernist forebears, including Stein, Williams and Pound. She develops important ways to read modernist and postmodernist poetry through their similarities as well as their differences. About the AuthorJennifer Ashton is Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago
Author: Peter Jones
File Type: pdf
The intellectual scope and cultural impact of British writers cannot be assessed without reference to their European fortunes. These essays, prepared by an international team of scholars, critics and translators, record the ways in which David Hume has been translated, evaluated and emulated in different national and linguistic areas of Europe. This is the first collection of essays to consider how and where Humes works were initially understood throughout Europe. They reflect on how early European responses to Hume relied on available French translations, and concentrated on his Political Discourses and his History, and how later German translations enabled professional philosophers to discuss his more abstract ideas. Also explored is the idea that continental readers were not able to judge the accuracy of the translations they read, nor did many consider the contexts in which Hume was writing rather, they were intent on using what they read for their own purposes. **Review The Reception of David Hume in Europe provides invaluable clues as to how the reception of an authors work impacts its status as a classic. And, perhaps more importantly, it presses us to revise our conception of what is now, particularly in the Anglo-American world, taken to be the quintessential philosophical classic, namely Humes Treatise of Human Nature...The Reception can be read as telling the history of the different lives of Humes works - the story of the making of what is now, for us, a philosophical classic... And this story needs to be told. -- Alix Cohen, New Essays on David Hume Reviewed in Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie (Journal of the Institute of Philosophy, of the Catholic University of Leuven), 2007 issue. About the Author Peter Jones is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.