Author: Paul Crowther File Type: pdf Despite the wonders of the digital world, people still go in record numbers to view drawings and paintings in galleries. Why? What is the magic that pictures work on us? This book provides a provocative explanation, arguing that some pictures have special kinds of beauty and sublimity that offer aesthetic transcendence. They take us imaginatively beyond our finite limits and even invoke a sense of the divine. Such aesthetic transcendence forges a relationship with the ultimate and completes us psychologically. Philosophers and theologians sometimes account for this as an effect of art, but How Pictures Complete Us distinguishes itself by revealing how this experience is embodied in pictorial structures and styles. Through detailed discussions of artworks from the Renaissance through postmodern times, Paul Crowther reappraises the entire scope of beauty and the sublime in the context of both representational and abstract art, offering unexpected insights into familiar phenomena such as Ideal beauty, pictorial perspective, and what pictures are in the first place. **Review Paul Crowthers vital contribution to the burgeoning field of theological aesthetics analyzes what exactly the experience of transcendence is and how it takes place through the mediation of visual art. At once a complement and a challenge to contemporary scholarship, his book is a must-read for anyone attempting to understand the visual arts as a humanizing endeavor.Sandra Lynne Shapshay, Indiana University Bloomington Bold, original, speculative, and striking a good balance between analytical clarity and phenomenological perceptiveness, this book sets forth an important and exhilarating idea that it explores in a philosophically sophisticated manner.Richard Viladesau, Fordham University About the Author Paul Crowther is Established Professor of Philosophy at the National University of Ireland, Galway. His many books include Phenomenology of the Visual Arts (Even the Frame) (Stanford, 2009). Despite the wonders of the digital world, people still go in record numbers to view drawings and paintings in galleries. Why? What is the magic that pictures work on us? This book provides a provocative explanation, arguing that some pictures have special kinds of beauty and sublimity that offer aesthetic transcendence. They take us imaginatively beyond our finite limits and even invoke a sense of the divine. Such aesthetic transcendence forges a relationship with the ultimate and completes us psychologically. Philosophers and theologians sometimes account for this as an effect of art, but How Pictures Complete Us distinguishes itself by revealing how this experience is embodied in pictorial structures and styles. Through detailed discussions of artworks from the Renaissance through postmodern times, Paul Crowther reappraises the entire scope of beauty and the sublime in the context of both representational and abstract art, offering unexpected insights into familiar phenomena such as ideal beauty, pictorial perspective, and what pictures are in the first place. **Review Paul Crowthers vital contribution to the burgeoning field of theological aesthetics analyzes what exactly the experience of transcendence is and how it takes place through the mediation of visual art. At once a complement and a challenge to contemporary scholarship, his book is a must-read for anyone attempting to understand the visual arts as a humanizing endeavor.Sandra Lynne Shapshay, Indiana University Bloomington Bold, original, speculative, and striking a good balance between analytical clarity and phenomenological perceptiveness, this book sets forth an important and exhilarating idea that it explores in a philosophically sophisticated manner.Richard Viladesau, Fordham University About the Author Paul Crowther is Professor of Philosophy at the National University of Ireland, Galway. His many books include Phenomenology of the Visual Arts (even the frame) (Stanford, 2009).

Author: Robert Kilroy File Type: pdf This book marks the centenary of Marcel Duchamps Fountain by critically re-examining the established interpretation of the work. It introduces a new methodological approach to art-historical practice rooted in a revised understanding of Lacan, Freud and Slavoj Zizek. In weaving an alternative narrative, Kilroy shows us that not only has Fountain been fundamentally misunderstood but that this very misunderstanding is central to the works significance. The author brings together Duchamps own statements to argue Fountains verdict was strategically stage-managed by the artist in order to expose the underlying logic of its reception, what he terms The Creative Act. This book will be of interest to a broad range of readers, including art historians, psychoanalysts, scholars and art enthusiasts interested in visual culture and ideological critique. **Review This book, timely in every sense, brilliantly shows how Marcel Duchamps creative strategy over the period 1910s to 1960s resulted in an opus that did more than merely meet the eye. For Duchamps notorious ready-made Fountain (1917), visually provocative though it was, is but one element in a complex enterprise implicating the object of art in wider temporal and structural relations. Aptly adopting the framework of crime detection, Kilroys investigation discovers new clues to Duchamps work. (David Scott, Professor of French, Textual and Visual Studies, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Author of Pictorialist Poetics Poetry and the Visual Arts in 19th-Century France, 1988) Lacan and Duchampits what Slavoj Zizek would call a short circuit reading a canonical text through the lens of a minor and hopefully producing some kind of a charge. And this is what Robert Kilroy does here read Duchamp through the lens ofahemLacan and Zizek. But eventually the tables are turned and he ends up reading Lacan and Zizek through Duchamp. Here is where we really begin to look through the keyhole of the door of Etant donnes. (Rex Butler, Professor of Art History, Monash University. Author of Slavoj Zizek Live Theory, 2005) From the Back Cover This book marks the centenary of Marcel Duchamps Fountain by critically re-examining the established interpretation of the work. It introduces a new methodological approach to art-historical practice rooted in a revised understanding of Lacan, Freud and Slavoj Zizek. In weaving an alternative narrative, Kilroy shows us that not only has Fountain been fundamentally misunderstood but that this very misunderstanding is central to the works significance. The author brings together Duchamps own statements to argue Fountains verdict was strategically stage-managed by the artist in order to expose the underlying logic of its reception, what he terms The Creative Act. This book will be of interest to a broad range of readers, including art historians, psychoanalysts, scholars and art enthusiasts interested in visual culture and ideological critique.

Author: Paul Springer File Type: pdf Military robots are already being used in conflicts around the globe and are affecting both the decision to go to war and the means by which wars are conducted. This book covers the history of military robotics, analyzes their current employment, and examines the ramifications of their future utilization. Clearly identifies the links between the technological developments of the most recent innovations and the ethical and legal challenges of the future Presents accurate, up-to-date information that is grounded in scholarly research regarding an ever-changing field Clarifies the capabilities aspect of military robotics and offers detailed analysis on why limits need to be placed on their development Includes tables, charts, and photographs to illustrate the main points of the text**About the Author Paul J. Springer, PhD, is professor of comparative military studies and chair of the Department of Research at the Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL. He is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Author: Thomas Mann File Type: mobi span Apple-style-span font-style normal spanspan Apple-style-span font-style normalThis superb translation of spanbspan Apple-style-span font-style normalDeath in Venice spanbspan Apple-style-span font-style normaland six other stories by Thomas Mann is a tour de force, deserving to be the definitive text for English-speaking readers. These seven stories represent Manns early writing career and a level of literary quality Mann himself despaired of ever again matching. In these stories he began to grapple with themes that were to recur throughout his work. In Little Herr Friedemann, a characters carefully structured way of life is suddenly threatened by an unexpected sexual passion. In Gladius Dei, puritanical intellect clashes with beauty. In Tristan, Mann presents an ironic and comic account of the tension between an artist and bourgeois society.spanspan Apple-style-span font-style normalAll seven of these stories are accomplished and memorable, but it is spanbspan Apple-style-span font-style normalDeath in Venice spanbspan Apple-style-span font-style normalthat truly forms the centerpiece of the collection. The themes that Mann weaves through the shorter pieces come to a climax in this stunning novella, one of the most hauntingly magnificent tales of art and self-destruction ever written.span