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Nihilism and the Sublime Postmodern by William Slocombe Pdf
This book examines the relationship between nihilism and postmodernism in relation to the sublime, and is divided into three parts: history, theory, and praxis. Arguing against the simplistic division in literary criticism between nihilism and the sublime, the book demonstrates that both are clearly implicated with the Enlightenment. Postmodernism, as a product of the Enlightenment, is therefore implicitly related to both nihilism and the sublime, despite the fact that it is often characterised as either nihilistic or sublime. Whereas prior forms of nihilism are 'modernist' because they seek to codify reality, postmodernism creates a new formulation of nihilism - 'postmodern nihilism' - that is itself sublime. This is explored in relation to a broad survey of postmodern literature in two chapters, the first on aesthetics and the second on ethics. It offers a coherent thesis for reappraising the relationship between nihilism and the sublime, and grounds this argument with frequent references to postmodern literature, making it a book suitable for both researchers and those more generally interested in postmodern literature.
Theology and Literature after Postmodernity by Zoë Lehmann Imfeld,Peter Hampson,Alison Milbank Pdf
This volume deploys theology in a reconstructive approach to contemporary literary criticism, to validate and exemplify theological readings of literary texts as a creative exercise. It engages in a dialogue with interdisciplinary approaches to literature in which theology is alert and responsive to the challenges following postmodernism and postmodern literary criticism. It demonstrates the scope and explanatory power of theological readings across various texts and literary genres. Theology and Literature after Postmodernity explores a reconstructive approach to reading and literary study in the university setting, with contributions from interdisciplinary scholars worldwide.
One of the pastoral problems of religiosity in Slovakia today is that contemporary Christianity is pervaded by nihil-inclinations. Such inclinations manifest themselves in the loss of orientation and meaning, and a disinterest in Christianity, which has by and large remained on a doctrinal, moralistic, and ritual level without offering a constructive faith response to the 'signs of the times'. This dissertation argues that nihilism is not an entirely negative or morose concept that leaves behind a void or abyss without values, rendering this world meaningless. Nihilism as such is not an absolute (demonizing) danger; rather, it is the failure to adequately engage it that constitutes the pro-nihilizing threat. My analysis of nihilism begins with Nietzsche. In analyzing his texts, I propose my own interpretation of his nihilism. Because of the tensive state of Nietzsche's nihilism, which on the one hand lacks a firm ground of higher values, and on the other, exhibits a recurring tendency to return to these values, I refer to this state as 'nihilism-in-tension'. I suggest that 'nihilism-in-tension' may be conceived as the condition of thought that bears some resemblance to divine kenosis. I argue that kenosis is an appropriate epistemological instrument to disclose the mechanism or unknown function working within 'nihilism-in-tension', and may be described through a transformative kenotic formula ('pro-kenotic-nihil'). To reveal this mechanism, I employ the experiential theory of the sublime as the vantage point from which to uncover the inner constituents of kenosis and 'nihilism-in-tension'. Here I argue that the event which imparts transformative meaning to 'nihilism-in-tension' is the radical imitation of the deepest Christian mystery exemplified in the kenotic life of Christ. This may be expressed in the following formula: nihil and its kenotic radicalization (maximization of nihilism) = annihilation of nihil (negation of nihilism). To apply this mechanism to ecclesial life, I introduce the nada of John of the Cross and the “weak thought” of Gianni Vattimo as two modalities, spiritual and philosophical, that can translate the postmodern condition of 'nihilism-in-tension' into a practical pursuit of wisdom and right relationship. The former transmutes the nihil of 'nihilism-in-tension' from nada to todo, or from self-emptying to union with the divine. The latter transforms the nihil of 'nihilism-in-tension' through the philosophy of “weak thought,” which calls for tentative and non-foundational modes of thought and a weakening of immutable structures. I demonstrate that nada and “weak thought” are appropriate instruments for “weakening” authoritarian church structures and reinterpreting (or rewriting) the tradition in kenotic, inclusive, and dialogical forms. This study demonstrates that the kenotic movement of the nihil of 'nihilism-in-tension' into the nihil of kenosis, or fructifying todo, is a potential pastoral instrument to address the problem of nihil-inclinations in the religious context of Slovakia. It attempts to give some orientation to the local Church by raising awareness of its kenotic origins, and offering its theological, spiritual, and philosophical apparatus to approach the problem.
Focusing on a wide range of philosophers and writers, from Nietzsche to Derrida and Flaubert to Borges, this book charts the history of the deployment of the concept of nihilism within the discourses of philosophical and aesthetic modernism and considers the similarities and differences between modernist and postmodernist approaches to nihilism.
Lyotard and the Inhuman Condition by Ashley Woodward Pdf
Ashley Woodward demonstrates what a new generation of scholars are just discovering: that Lyotard's incisive work is essential for current debates in the humanities. Lyotard's ideas about the arts and the confrontations between humanist traditions and cutting-edge sciences and technologies are today known as 'posthumanism'. Woodward presents a series of studies to explain Lyotard's specific interventions in information theory, new media arts and the changing nature of the human. He assesses their relevance and impact in relation to a number of important contemporary thinkers including Bernard Stiegler, Luciano Floridi, Quentin Meillassoux and Paul Virilio.
Art, the Sublime, and Movement by Amanda du Preez Pdf
This book is a critical interdisciplinary approach to the study of contemporary visual culture and image studies, exploring ideas about space and place and ultimately contributing to the debates about being human in the digital age. The upward and downward pull seem in a constant contest for humanity’s attention. Both forces are powerful in the effects and affects they invoke. When tracing this iconological history, Amanda du Preez starts in the early nineteenth century, moving into the twentieth century and then spanning the whole century up to contemporary twenty-first century screen culture and space travels. Du Preez parses the intersecting pathways between Heaven and Earth, up and down, flying and falling through the concept of being “spaced out”. The idea of being “spaced out” is applied as a metaphor to trace the visual history of sublime encounters that displace Earth, gravity, locality, belonging, home, real life, and embodiment. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual culture, media and cultural studies, phenomenology, digital culture, mobility studies, and urban studies.
Interconnecting Music and the Literary Word by Fausto Ciompi,Roberta Ferrari,Laura Giovannelli Pdf
Dealing with the interconnections between music and the written word, this volume brings into focus an updated range of analytical and interpretative approaches which transcend the domain of formalist paradigms and the purist assumption of music’s non-referentiality. Grouped into three thematic sections, these fifteen essays by Italian, British and American scholars shed light on a phenomenological network embracing different historical, socio-cultural and genre contexts and a variety of theoretical concepts, such as intermediality, the soundscape notion, and musicalisation. At one end of the spectrum, music emerges as a driving cultural force, an agent cooperating with signifying and communication processes and an element functionally woven into the discursive fabric of the literary work. The authors also provide case studies of the fruitful musico-literary dialogue by taking into account the seminal role of composers, singer-songwriters, and performers. From another standpoint, the music-in-literature and literature-in-music dynamics are explored through the syntax of hybridisations, transcoding experiments, and iconic analogies.
Gianni Vattimo reexamines the roots of modernism and postmodernism in Nietzsche, Benjamin, and Heidegger. Exploring the links between concepts of nihilism and destiny in nineteenth-century humanism, Vattimo follows these trends in aesthetic and scientific theory from Benjamin to Bloch, Ricoeur, and Kuhn.
Redemptive Hybridism in Post-Postmodern Writing by Tasha Haines Pdf
From Virginia Woolf to David Foster Wallace and beyond, 'redemptive hybridism' – a new way of reading texts full of possibility and genre blending – emerges as a key trajectory for post-postmodernity. Tasha Haines investigates what she calls 'redemptive hybridism' a tendency in post-postmodern writing characterized by possibility. She suggests that near the 21st century, postmodern élitisme gives way to a reparative blending of high-low forms and genre collaborations for challenging and extending the relationship between writer, written material, and reader. By combining an innovative literary investigation with creative and auto-theoretical strategies, Haines offers valuable new interpretations for texts of 'the modernisms continuum'. Her conversational survey moves among the hybridity of Virginia Woolf, the paratextuality of David Foster Wallace, with Nathalie Sarraute, Édouard Levé, Maggie Nelson and more. In reference to Deleuze and Guattari, Hassan, and others, writers are curated for their approach to form, method, and content, evoking and invoking textual hybridity. Haines articulates a new way of viewing works via comparisons and close-ups that exemplify the possibility and genre-blending that is Redemptive Hybridism in Post-Postmodern Writing.
In Byron's Ghosts British and American scholars join together to overturn some of the prevailing assumptions that romance scholars have made about Byron, offering a fresh new reading of his poetry. Informed by recent critical theory focused on spectrality, they look at ghosts in his work, both in the conventional sense—what Mary Shelley once described as the “true, old-fashioned, foretelling, flitting, gliding ghost”—and in a postmodern sense, one concerned with a range of phantom effects. Balancing attention on these diverse concepts of the ghost, their essays complicate the popular images of Byron as a materialist, skeptic, and anti-Romantic, revealing crucial new insights about his poetry.
Lyotard and the Inhuman Condition by Ashley Woodward Pdf
Ashley Woodward demonstrates what a new generation of scholars are just discovering: that Lyotard's incisive work is essential for current debates in the humanities. Lyotard's ideas about the arts and the confrontations between humanist traditions and cutting-edge sciences and technologies are today known as 'posthumanism'. Woodward presents a series of studies to explain Lyotard's specific interventions in information theory, new media arts and the changing nature of the human. He assesses their relevance and impact in relation to a number of important contemporary thinkers including Bernard Stiegler, Luciano Floridi, Quentin Meillassoux and Paul Virilio.
Trauma in American Popular Culture and Cult Texts, 1980-2020 by Sean Travers Pdf
This book examines trauma in late twentieth- and twenty-first century American popular culture. Trauma has become a central paradigm for reading contemporary American culture. Since the early 1980s, an extensive range of genres increasingly feature traumatised protagonists and traumatic events. From traumatised superheroes in Hollywood blockbusters to apocalyptic-themed television series, trauma narratives abound. Although trauma is predominantly associated with high culture, this project shows how popular culture has become the most productive and innovative area of trauma representation in America. Examining film, television, animation, video games and cult texts, this book develops a series of original paradigms through which to understand trauma in popular culture. These include: popular trauma texts’ engagement with postmodern perspectives, formal techniques termed ‘competitive narration’, ‘polynarration’ and ‘sceptical scriptotherapy’, and perpetrator trauma in metafictional games.
