Author: Julia Peters
File Type: pdf
While the current philosophical debate surrounding Hegels aesthetics focuses heavily on the philosophers controversial end of art thesis, its participants rarely give attention to Hegels ideas on the nature of beauty and its relation to art. This study seeks to remedy this oversight by placing Hegels views on beauty front and center. Peters asks us to rethink the common assumption that Hegelian beauty is exclusive to art and argues that for Hegel beauty, like art, is subject to historical development. Her careful analysis of Hegels notion of beauty not only has crucial implications for our understanding of the end of art and Hegels aesthetics in general, but also sheds light on other fields of Hegels philosophy, in particular his anthropology and aspects of his ethical thought.
Author: Christopher Leslie Brown
File Type: pdf
Arming slaves as soldiers is a counterintuitive idea. Yet throughout history, in many varied societies, slaveholders have entrusted slaves with the use of deadly force. This book is the first to survey the practice broadly across space and time, encompassing the cultures of classical Greece, the early Islamic kingdoms of the Near East, West and East Africa, the British and French Caribbean, the United States, and Latin America. To facilitate cross-cultural comparisons, each chapter addresses four crucial issues the social and cultural facts regarding the arming of slaves, the experience of slave soldiers, the ideological origins and consequences of equipping enslaved peoples for battle, and the impact of the practice on the status of slaves and slavery itself. What emerges from the book is a new historical understanding the arming of slaves is neither uncommon nor paradoxical but is instead both predictable and explicable. **
Author: Lee Shai Weissbach
File Type: pdf
Lee Shai Weissbachs innovative study sheds light on the functioning of smaller Jewish communities in a state representative of many in the Midwest and South. The synagogue buildings of Kentucky tell much about the experience of Kentucky Jewry. Synagogues, especially in smaller towns, have often served as the only setting available for a wide variety of communal activities. Weissbach outlines the history of every congregation established in Kentucky and every house of worship that has served Kentucky Jewry over the last 150 years, considering such issues as the financing of construction, the selection of architects, the way synagogue buildings reveal congregational attitudes, and the way local synagogue design reflects national trends. Eighty-two photographs show every one of Kentuckys synagogues, including buildings that are no longer standing or have been converted to other uses. This pictorial record documents the variety, distinctiveness, and significance of these buildings as a part of the Commonwealths architectural, cultural, and religious landscape. **
Author: Todd Klutz
File Type: pdf
The category magic , long used to signify an allegedly substantive type of activity distinguishable from religion, has nearly been dismantled by recent historical and social-scientific approaches to religious studies. While recognising and at times reinforcing this stance, the essays in this collection show that there is still much to be learned about the cultural context of early Judaism and Christianity by analysing ancient texts which either use magic as a category for purposes of deviance labelling or promote behaviour of a broadly magico-religious variety. Through sustained engagement with texts ranging from Exod. 7-9 and Acts 8 to the Testament of Solomon and the Late Antique alchemical treatise known as the Cyranides, this volume focuses chiefly on materials that challenge the familiar boundaries between miracle and magic and medicine yet it also heightens awareness of the way unsuspecting use of a sick sign (e.g. magic) can impede critical understanding of texts and their respective contexts of production and reception.Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series, Volume 245.
Author: Fiona Jeffries
File Type: pdf
Our modern lives are saturated with fear. If its not the war on terror, its the war on the middle class. The war on drugs. The war on war. Crisis dictates the daily discourse of our news feeds, and scare-tactic headlines fill our homes and public spaces. Nothing to Lose But Our Fear delivers a long-overdue counter-blow to this rampant culture of fear fueled by increasingly alarmist news outlets. Fiona Jeffries explores contemporary and historical manifestations of this phenomenon through a series of conversations with eminent artists, journalists, and activists, such as Marcus Rediker, Silvia Federici, and David Harvey. Their discussions go beyond scrutinizing what constitutes rational versus irrational fear and identifying how politicians and reporters manipulate human fears. They go further, to reveal how that fear antagonizes our subjectivity and how different people across the globe have resisted the political use of fear throughout history. **
Author: Abu L-Ala Al-Maarri
File Type: pdf
One of the most unusual books in classical Arabic literature,The Epistle of Forgivenessis the lengthy reply by the prolific Syrian poet and prose writer Abu l-Ala al-Maarri (d. 449 H1057 AD), to a letter written by an obscure grammarian, Ibn al-Qarih. With biting irony,The Epistle of Forgivenessmocks Ibn al-Qarihs hypocrisy and sycophancy by imagining he has died and arrived with some difficulty in Heaven, where he meets famous poets and philologists from the past. He also glimpses Hell, and converses with the Devil and various heretics. Al-Maarria maverick, a vegan, and often branded a heretic himselfseems to mock popular ideas about the Hereafter. This book, the first of two volumes, includes Ibn al-Qarihs initial letter to al-Maarri, as well as the first half ofThe Epistle of Forgiveness. This translation is the first complete translation in any language and retains the many digressions, difficult passages, and convoluted grammatical discussions of the original typically omitted in other translations. It is accompanied by a comprehensive introduction and detailed annotation. Replete with erudite commentary, amusing anecdotes, and sardonic wit,The Epistle of Forgivenessis an imaginative tour-de-force by one of the most pre-eminent figures in classical Arabic literature. One of the most unusual books in classical Arabic literature,The Epistle of Forgivenessis the lengthy reply by the prolific Syrian poet and prose writer Abu l-Ala al-Maarri (d. 449 H1057 AD), to a letter written by an obscure grammarian, Ibn al-Qarih. With biting irony,The Epistle of Forgivenessmocks Ibn al-Qarihs hypocrisy and sycophancy by imagining he has died and arrived with some difficulty in Heaven, where he meets famous poets and philologists from the past. He also glimpses Hell, and converses with the Devil and various heretics. Al-Maarria maverick, a vegan, and often branded a heretic himselfseems to mock popular ideas about the Hereafter. This book, the first of two volumes, includes Ibn al-Qarihs initial letter to al-Maarri, as well as the first half ofThe Epistle of Forgiveness.This translation is the first complete translation in any language and retains the many digressions, difficult passages, and convoluted grammatical discussions of the original typically omitted in other translations. It is accompanied by a comprehensive introduction and detailed annotation. Replete with erudite commentary, amusing anecdotes, and sardonic wit,The Epistle of Forgivenessis an imaginative tour-de-force by one of the most pre-eminent figures in classical Arabic literature.**