The Last Pagans of Rome
【作 者】Alan Cameron
【出版社】Oxford University Press (December 21, 2010)
【馆藏地】文科馆外文图书阅览室
【索书号】B979.546 /C182 /E
【简 介】Rufinus' vivid account of the battle between the Eastern Emperor Theodosius and the Western usurper Eugenius by the River Frigidus in 394 represents it as the final confrontation between paganism and Christianity. It is indeed widely believed that a largely pagan aristocracy remained a powerful and active force well into the fifth century, sponsoring pagan literary circles, patronage of the classics, and propaganda for the old cults in art and literature. The main focus of much modern scholarship on the end of paganism in the West has been on its supposed stubborn resistance to Christianity. The dismantling of this romantic myth is one of the main goals of Alan Cameron's book. Actually, the book argues, Western paganism petered out much earlier and more rapidly than hitherto assumed.
The subject of this book is not the conversion of the last pagans but rather the duration, nature, and consequences of their survival. By re-examining the abundant textual evidence, both Christian (Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Paulinus, Prudentius) and "pagan" (Claudian, Macrobius, and Ammianus Marcellinus), as well as the visual evidence (ivory diptychs, illuminated manuscripts, silverware), Cameron shows that most of the activities and artifacts previously identified as hallmarks of a pagan revival were in fact just as important to the life of cultivated Christians. Far from being a subversive activity designed to rally pagans, the acceptance of classical literature, learning, and art by most elite Christians may actually have helped the last reluctant pagans to finally abandon the old cults and adopt Christianity. The culmination of decades of research, The Last Pagans of Rome overturns many long-held assumptions about pagan and Christian culture in the late antique West.
The Art of Life
【作 者】Zygmunt Bauman
【出版社】Polity (September 9, 2008)
【馆藏地】文科馆外文图书阅览室
【索书号】C912.1 /B347 /E
【简 介】In our individualized society we are all artists of life - whether we know it or not, will it or not and like it or not, by decree of society if not by our own choice. In this society we are all expected, rightly or wrongly, to give our lives purpose and form by using our own skills and resources, even if we lack the tools and materials with which artists' studios need to be equipped for the artist's work to be conceived and executed. And we are praised or censured for the results - for what we have managed or failed to accomplish and for what we have achieved and lost.
In our liquid modern society we are also taught to believe that the purpose of the art of life should be and can be happiness - though it's not clear what happiness is, the images of a happy state keep changing and the state of happiness remains most of the time something yet-to-be-reached.
This new book by Zygmunt Bauman - one of the most original and influential social thinkers writing today - is not a book of designs for the art of life nor a 'how to' book: the construction of a design for life and the way it is pursued is and cannot but be an individual responsibility and individual accomplishment. It is instead a brilliant account of conditions under which our designs-for-life are chosen, of the constraints that might be imposed on their choice and of the interplay of design, accident and character that shape their implementation. Last but not least, it is a study of the ways in which our society - the liquid modern, individualized society of consumers - influences (but does not determine) the way we construct and narrate our life trajectories.
Women, Gender and Enlightenment
【作 者】Barbara Taylor, Sarah Knott
【出版社】Prentice Hall; 4th edition (2011)
【馆藏地】文科馆外文图书阅览室
【索书号】D441.9 /W872w4 /E
【简 介】Historians long excluded women from the Enlightenment orbit. But modern research shows that "woman" and gender were key categories of Enlightenment thought, and that women themselves--as scientists and salonnieres, bluestockings and governesses, feminists and novelists--contributed much to enlightened intellectual culture. This volume of interdisciplinary essays by forty leading scholars provides a detailed picture of the controversial, innovative role played by women and gender issues in the age of light.
Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China's Extraordinary Rise
【作 者】Carl Walter, Fraser Howie
【出版社】Wiley; Revised Edition edition (March 6, 2012)
【馆藏地】文科馆外文图书阅览室
【索书号】F120 /W231(ru) /E
【简 介】All eyes are on China, but will it really surpass the U.S. as the world's premier global economy? Walter and Howie aren't so certain, and in this revised and updated edition of Red Capitalism they examine whether or not the 21st century really will belong to China.
·The specter of a powerful China is haunting the U.S. and other countries suffering from economic decline and this book explores China's next move
·Packed with new statistics and stories based on recent developments, this new edition updates the outlook on China's future with the most cutting-edge information available
·Find out how China financed its current position of strength and whether it will be able to maintain its astonishing momentum
Indispensable reading for anyone looking to understand the limits that China's past development decisions have imposed on its brilliant future, Red Capitalism is an essential resource for anyone considering China's business strategies in today's extremely challenging global economy.
Scandal and Civility: Journalism and the Birth of American Democracy
【作 者】Marcus Daniel
【出版社】Oxford University Press, (January 23, 2009)
【馆藏地】文科馆外文图书阅览室
【索书号】G219.712.9 /D184 /E
【简 介】A new breed of journalists came to the fore in post-revolutionary America--fiercely partisan, highly ideological, and possessed of a bold sense of vocation and purpose as they entered the fray of political debate. Often condemned by latter-day historians and widely seen in their own time as a threat to public and personal civility, these colorful figures emerge in this provocative new book as the era's most important agents of political democracy.
Through incisive portraits of the most influential journalists of the 1790s--William Cobbett, Benjamin Franklin Bache, Philip Freneau, Noah Webster, John Fenno, and William Duane--Scandal and Civility moves beyond the usual cast of "revolutionary brothers" and "founding fathers" to offer a fresh perspective on a seemingly familiar story. Marcus Daniel demonstrates how partisan journalists, both Federalist and Democratic-Republican, were instrumental in igniting and expanding vital debates over the character of political leaders, the nature of representative government, and, ultimately, the role of the free press itself. Their rejection of civility and self-restraint--not even icons like George Washington were spared their satirical skewerings--earned these men the label "peddlers of scurrility." Yet, as Daniel shows, by breaking with earlier conceptions of "impartial" journalism, they challenged the elite dominance of political discourse and helped fuel the enormous political creativity of the early republic.
Daniel's nuanced and penetrating narrative captures this key period of American history in all its contentious complexity. And in today's climate, when many decry media "excesses" and the relentlessly partisan and personal character of political debate, his book is a timely reminder that discord and difference were essential to the very creation of our political culture.
The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory
【主 编】Michael Ryan
【出版社】Wiley-Blackwell (17 Dec 2010)
【馆藏地】文科馆密集书库
【索书号】I106-61 /E56e1 /v.1 /E
I106-61 /E56e1 /v.2 /E
I106-61 /E56e1 /v.3 /E
【简 介】This is the first comprehensive multi–volume encyclopedia of literary and cultural theory. Arranged in three volumes covering Literary Theory from 1900 to 1966, Literary Theory from 1966 to the present, and Cultural Theory, this encyclopedia provides accessible entries on the important concepts, theorists and trends in post–1900 literary and cultural theory. With explanations of complex terms and important theoretical concepts, and summaries of the work and ideas of key figures, it is a highly informative reference work for a multi–disciplinary readership Part of the Wiley–Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature Contains over 300 entries of 1000–7000 words written by an international cast of nearly 300 leading scholars in literary and cultural theory Provides explanations of complex terms, important theoretical concepts, and tools for critical analysis Provides summaries of the work and ideas of key figures such as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Slavoj ？i？ek, and many more Online version provides students and researchers with 24/7 access to authoritative reference and powerful searching, browsing and cross–referencing capabilities Special introductory price available
What Makes a Masterpiece: Artists, Writers, and Curators on the World's Greatest Art
【作 者】Christopher Dell
【出版社】Thames & Hudson; First Edition edition (October 31, 2010)
【馆藏地】文科馆外文图书阅览室
【索书号】J111 /W555 /E
【简 介】What Makes a Masterpiece explores the most important works of art ever created, from the Chauvet Cave to Cézanne. It covers art from Africa to China, Japan to South and Central America, Persia to Sri Lanka, as well as a large selection of European works from Ancient Greece to Impressionism. Little-known treasures such as the Iberian Lady of Elche or a Maya relief from Palenque appear alongside well-loved classics such as Masaccio’s Expulsion of Adam and Eve or Degas’s Little Dancer, creating a fascinating and unique collection of groundbreaking and beautiful works.
The book brings together an impressive list of authors: artists such as Antony Gormley and Avigdor Arikha, writers including Marina Warner and Philip Pullman, and cultural figures like Germaine Greer and Quentin Blake appear alongside curators and directors from the Louvre, Prado, Museo di San Marco, Berlin Gemäldegalerie, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, British Museum, and the National Gallery, London. Intimate knowledge combines with unique insight (and some startling new interpretations) to create fresh analyses of these works, of as much interest to art historians as to the general reader. 280 color illustrations.
Monkey and the Inkpot
【作 者】Carla Nappi
【出版社】Harvard University Press; 1 edition (21 Nov 0009)
【馆藏地】理科馆外国教材中心阅览室
【索书号】N092 /N217 /E
【简介】 This is the story of a Chinese doctor, his book, and the creatures that danced within its pages. "The Monkey and the Inkpot" introduces natural history in sixteenth-century China through the iconic Bencao gangmu (Systematic materia medica) of Li Shizhen (1518-1593). The encyclopedic Bencao gangmu is widely lauded as a classic embodiment of pre-modern Chinese medical thought. In the first book-length study in English of Li's text, Carla Nappi reveals a 'cabinet of curiosities' of gems, beasts, and oddities whose author was devoted to using natural history to guide the application of natural and artificial objects as medical drugs. Nappi examines the making of facts and weighing of evidence in a massive collection where tales of wildmen and dragons were recorded alongside recipes for ginseng and peonies. Nappi challenges the idea of a monolithic tradition of Chinese herbal medicine by showing the importance of debate and disagreement in early modern scholarly and medical culture. "The Monkey and the Inkpot" also illuminates the modern fate of a book that continues to shape alternative healing practices, global pharmaceutical markets, and Chinese culture.
Looking for a Few Good Males: Female Choice in Evolutionary Biology
【作 者】Erika L. Milam
【出版社】The Johns Hopkins University Press (29 Jan 2010)
【馆藏地】理科馆外国教材中心阅览室
【索书号】Q958 /M637 /E
【简 介】Why do female animals select certain mates, and how do scientists determine the answer? In considering these questions, Erika Lorraine Milam explores the fascinating patterns of experiment and interpretation that emerged as twentieth-century researchers studied sexual selection and female choice.
Approaching the topic from both biological and animal-studies perspectives, Milam not only presents a broad history of sexual selection—from Darwin to sociobiology—but also analyzes the animal-human continuum from the perspectives of sex, evolution, and behavior. She asks how social and cultural assumptions influence human-animal research and wonders about the implications of gender on scientific outcomes.
Although female choice appears to be a straightforward theoretical concept, the study of sexual selection has been anything but simple. Scientists in the early twentieth century investigated female choice in animals but did so with human social and sexual behavior as their ultimate objective. By the 1940s, evolutionary biologists and population geneticists shifted their focus, studying instead how evolution affected natural animal populations. Two decades later, organismal biologists once again redefined the investigation of sexual selection as sociobiology came to dominate the discipline.
Outlining the ever-changing history of this field of study, Milam uncovers lost mid-century research programs and finds that the discipline did not languish in the decades between Darwin’s theory of sexual selection and sociobiology, as observers commonly believed. Rather, population geneticists, ethologists, and organismal biologists alike continued to investigate this important theory throughout the twentieth century.
Would Trotsky Wear a Bluetooth?: Technological Utopianism under Socialism, 1917-1989
【作 者】Paul R. Josephson
【出版社】The Johns Hopkins University Press (December 9, 2009)
【馆藏地】理科馆外国教材中心阅览室
【索书号】T-05 /J83 /E
【简 介】After visiting Russia in 1921, the journalist Lincoln Steffens famously declared, "I have seen the future, and it works." Steffens referred to the social experiment of technological utopianism he found in the Soviet Union, where subway cars and farm tractors would carry the worker and peasant—figuratively and literally—into the twentieth century. Believing that socialism and technology together created a brave new world, Boleslaw Bierut of Poland and Kim Il Sung of North Korea—and other leaders—joined Russia’s Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky in embracing big technology with a verve and conviction that rivaled the western world's.
Paul R. Josephson here explores these utopian visions of technology—and their unanticipated human and environmental costs. He examines the role of technology in communist plans and policies and the interplay between ideology and technological development. He shows that while technology was a symbol of regime legitimacy and an engine of progress, the changes it spurred were not unequivocally positive. Instead of achieving a worker’s paradise, socialist technologies exposed the proletariat to dangerous machinery and deadly pollution; rather than freeing women from exploitation in family and labor, they paradoxically created for them the dual—and exhausting—burdens of mother and worker. The future did not work.
The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked the end of communism’s self-proclaimed glorious quest to "reach and surpass" the West. Josephson’s intriguing study of how technology both helped and hindered this effort asks new and important questions about the crucial issues inextricably linked with the development and diffusion of technology in any sociopolitical system.