This book reassesses the late 3rd-century Greek rhetorician Menander of Laodicea (Menander Rhetor). Menander is generally regarded as a specialist in epideictic, as such, he is often considered an ...exemplary rhetorician of an age which saw the triumph of epideictic eloquence. But detailed examination of the fragments shows that he was an expert on judicial and deliberative oratory whose most influential work was a commentary on Demosthenes. Source-critical analysis of the Demosthenes scholia shows that his commentary can be partially reconstructed. The book presents its reassessment of Menander’s significance in the context of a new reconstruction of the history of later Greek rhetoric, ranging from the theoretical innovations of the 2nd century AD to the comparatively unknown sophists of 5th-century Alexandria. Particular attention is given to the evolving structure of the rhetorical curriculum and to the practices of the rhetorical education, with an emphasis on the practical orientation of training in rhetoric and its predominant focus on techniques of forensic and deliberative oratory. These characteristics of rhetorical teaching raise questions about the nature and functions of rhetoric in this period. It is argued that rhetoric was concerned fundamentally with teaching students how to devise arguments and articulate them in a persuasive way, and that these skills still had a direct application in the subsequent careers of the rhetoricians’ pupils.
Generosity is an ambiguous quality, William Flesch observes; while receiving gifts is pleasant, gift-giving both displays the wealth and strength of the giver and places the receiver under an ...obligation. In provocative new readings of Shakespeare, Herbert, and Milton, Flesch illuminates the personal authority that is bound inextricably with acts of generosity. Drawing on the work of such theorists as Mauss, Blanchot, Bourdieu, Wittgenstein, Bloom, Cavell, and Greenblatt, Flesch maintains that the literary power of Shakespeare, Herbert, and Milton is at its most intense when they are exploring the limits of generosity. He considers how in Herbert's Temple divine assurance of the possibility of redemption is put into question and how the poet approaches such a gift with the ambivalence of a beneficiary. In his readings of Shakespeare's Richard II, Henry IV, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and the sonnets, Flesch examines the perspective of the benefactor—including Shakespeare himself—who confronts the decline of his capacity to give. Turning to Milton's Paradise Lost, Flesch identifies two opposing ways of understanding generosity—Satan's, on the one hand, and Adam and Eve's, on the other - and elaborates the different conceptions of poetry to which these understandings give rise. Scholars of Shakespeare and of Renaissance culture, Miltonists, literary theorists, and others interested in the relationship between philosophy and literature will want to read this insightful and challenging book.
Bodies of tomorrow Vint, Sherryl
Bodies of tomorrow,
c2007, 20070224, 2006, 2000, 2007, 2006-01-01
eBook
Bodies of Tomorrowargues for the importance of challenging visions of humanity in the future that overlook our responsibility as embodied beings connected to a material world.
The Toronto school of communication theory Blondheim, Menahem; Watson, Rita P. M
The Toronto school of communication theory,
c2007, 20080301, 2008-02-01, 2007, 2008, 2008-01-01, 2008-02-23, 20070101
eBook
While never formally recognized as a school of thought in its time, the work of a number of University of Toronto scholars over several decades - most notably Harold Adams Innis and Marshall McLuhan ...- formulated a number of original attempts to conceptualize communication as a phenomenon, and launched radical and innovative conjectures about its consequences. This landmark collection of essays re-assesses the existence, and re-evaluates the contribution, of the so-called Toronto School of Communication.
While the theories of Innis and McLuhan are notoriously resistant to neat encapsulation, some general themes have emerged in scholarly attempts to situate them within the discipline of communications studies that they helped to define. Three such themes - focus on the effects and consequences of communications, emphasis on communications as a process rather than as structure, and a sharp focus on the technology of communication, or the 'medium' - are the most fundamental in characterizing the unique perspective of the Toronto School. This collection not only represents a crucial step in defining the 'Toronto School,' it also provides close analysis of the ideas of its individual members.
InThe Romance Epics of Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso, Jo Ann Cavallo attempts a new interpretation of the history of the renaissance romance epic in northern Italy, focusing on the period's three major ...chivalric poets. Cavallo challenges previous critical assumptions about the trajectory of the romance genre, especially regarding questions of creative imitation, allegory, ideology, and political engagement.
In tracing the development of the romance epic against the historical context of the Ferrarese court and the Italian peninsula, Cavallo moves from a politically engaged Boiardo, whose poem promotes the tenets of humanism, to an individualistic Tasso, who opposed the repressive aspects of the counter-reformation culture he is often thought to represent. Ariosto is read from the vantage of his predecessor Boiardo, and Cavallo describes his cynicism and later mellowing attitude toward the real-world relevance of his and Boiardo's fiction.The Romance Epics of Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tassois the first critical study to bring together the three poets in a coherent vision that maps changes while uncovering continuities.
Exploiting Erasmusexamines the legacy of Erasmus in England from the mid-sixteenth century to the overthrow of James II in 1688 and studies the various ways in which his works were received, ...manipulated, and used in religious controversies that threatened both church and state.
Available in paperback for the first time, this groundbreaking in-depth history of the involvement of African Americans in the early recording industry examines the first three decades of sound ...recording in the United States, charting the surprising roles black artists played in the period leading up to the Jazz Age and the remarkably wide range of black music and culture they preserved._x000B__x000B_Applying more than thirty years of scholarship, Tim Brooks identifies key black artists who recorded commercially and provides illuminating biographies for some forty of these audio pioneers. Brooks assesses the careers and recordings of George W. Johnson, Bert Williams, George Walker, Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, W. C. Handy, James Reese Europe, Wilbur Sweatman, Harry T. Burleigh, Roland Hayes, Booker T. Washington, and boxing champion Jack Johnson, as well as a host of lesser-known voices. Many of these pioneers faced a difficult struggle to be heard in an era of rampant discrimination and "the color line," and their stories illuminate the forces--both black and white--that gradually allowed African Americans greater entree into the mainstream American entertainment industry. The book also discusses how many of these historic recordings are withheld from the public today because of stringent U.S. copyright laws._x000B__x000B_Lost Sounds includes Brooks's selected discography of CD reissues, and an appendix by Dick Spottswood describing early recordings by black artists in the Caribbean and South America.
The unfolding of words Henderson, Judith Rice
The unfolding of words,
2012, 20130122, 2013-01-22, 2012-12-07
eBook
The Unfolding of Wordsbrings together international scholarship to explore crucial changes in writers' interactions with religious and classical texts.
What have Lumière in common with Wachowski? More than one hundred years separate these two pairs of brothers who astonished, quite similarly, the film spectator of their respective time with special ...effects of movement: a train rushing into the audience and a bullet flying in slow motion. Do they belong to the same family of "cinema of attractions"? Twenty years ago Tom Gunning introduced the phrase "cinema of attractions" to define the essence of the earliest films made between 1895 and 1906. His term scored an immediate success, even outside the field of early cinema. The present anthology questions the attractiveness and usefulness of the term for both pre-classical and post-classical cinema. With contributions by the most prominent scholars of this discipline (such as Tom Gunning, André Gaudreault, Thomas Elsaesser, Charles Musser, Scott Bukatman and Vivian Sobchack) this volume offers a kaleidoscopic overview of an important historiographical debate.
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