Makes the case that Sir Gawain and the ""Green Knight"", one of the canonical works of medieval English literature, should be recognized as a response to King Edward III's foundation in 1349 of the chivalric Order of the Garter. This book is of interest to medievalist historians as well as literary scholars.
In his latest collection of literary fiction, Mark Brazaitis evokes with sympathy, insight, and humor the lives of characters in a small Ohio town. The ten short stories of The Incurables limn the mental landscape of people facing conditions they believe are insolvable, from the oppressive horrors of mental illness to the beguiling and baffling complexities of romantic and familial love. In the book's opening story, "e;The Bridge,"e; a new sheriff must confront a suicide epidemic as well as his own deteriorating mental health. In "e;Classmates,"e; a man sets off to visit the wife of a classmate who has killed himself. Is he hoping to write a story about his classmate or to observe the aftermath of what his own suicide attempt, if successful, would have been like? In the title story, a down-on-his-luck porn actor returns to his hometown and winds up in the mental health ward of the local hospital, where he meets a captivating woman. Other stories in the collection include "e;A Map of the Forbidden,"e; about a straight-laced man who is tempted to cheat on his wife after his adulterous father dies, and "e;The Boy behind the Tree,"e; about a problematic father-son relationship made more so by the arrival on the scene of a young man the son's age. In "e;I Return,"e; a father narrates a story from the afterlife, discovering as he does so that he is not as indispensable to his family as he had believed.
W. B. Yeats's poem "e;Adam's Curse"e; provides Donoghue with motif and incentive. In Genesis God says to Adam: "e;Because thou hast harkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life."e; Yeats put it this way: "e;It is certain there is no fine thing / Since Adam's curse but needs much labouring."e; Based on a conversation he had with his beloved Maud Gonne and her sister Kathleen, Yeats's poem thinks about how difficult it is to be beautiful, to write great poetry, to love. In his Erasmus Lectures, Donoghue thinks about the lasting difficulties involved in understanding, and living with, cultural, literary, and religious values that are in restless relation to one another. On these and related matters, Donoghue enters into conversation with a variety of writers, some of them-John Crowe Ransom, Hans Urs von Balthasar, William Lynch, Alasdair MacIntyre, Emmanuel Levinas, Andrew Delbanco, and Robert Bellah-signaled by the titles of the seven lectures. Into the thematic space suggested by each of these titles Donoghue invites other writers and sages to join the conversation-Henry Adams, William Empson, John Milbank, Czeslaw Milosz, Seamus Heaney, Gabriel Josipovici, and many more. The "e;talk,"e; as you might expect, keeps coming around to the reading of specific literary texts: passages from Paradise Lost, Stevens's "e;Esthetique du mal,"e; fiction by Gide and J. F. Powers and J. M. Coetzee, to name only a few. In Adan's Curse, Donoghue brings his special intelligence to bear on some of the intersections where religion and literature provocatively meet.
The essays in this collection explore the implications of Alasdair MacIntyre's critique of liberalism, capitalism, and the modern state, his early Marxism, and the complex influences of Marxist ideas on his thought. A central idea is that MacIntyre's political and social theory is a form of revolutionary-not reactionary-Aristotelianism. The contributors aim, in varying degrees, both to engage with the theoretical issues of MacIntyre's critique and to extend and deepen his insights. The book features a new introductory essay by MacIntyre, "e;How Aristotelianism Can Become Revolutionary,"e; and ends with an essay in which MacIntyre comments on the other authors' contributions. It also includes Kelvin Knight's 1996 essay, "e;Revolutionary Aristotelianism,"e; which first challenged conservative appropriations of MacIntyre's critique of liberalism by reinterpreting his Aristotelianism through the lens of his earlier engagement with Marx.Contributors: Paul Blackledge, Kelvin Knight, Alasdair MacIntyre, Tony Burns, Alex Callinicos, Sean Sayers, Niko Noponen, Emile Perreau-Saussine, Neil Davidson, Sante Maletta, Anton Leist, Peter McMylor, and Andrius Bielskis.
The history of the Great Irish Famine has been mired in debate over the level of culpability of the British government. Most scholars reject the extreme nationalist charge of genocide, but beyond that there is little consensus. In Human Encumbrances: Political Violence and the Great Irish Famine, David Nally argues for a nuanced understanding of "e;famineogenic behavior"e;-conduct that aids and abets famine-capable of drawing distinctions between the consequences of political indifference and policies that promote reckless conduct.Human Encumbrances is the first major work to apply the critical perspectives of famine theory and postcolonial studies to the causes and history of the Great Famine. Combining an impressive range of archival sources, including contemporary critiques of British famine policy, Nally argues that land confiscations and plantation schemes paved the way for the reordering of Irish political, social, and economic space. According to Nally, these colonial policies undermined rural livelihoods and made Irish society more vulnerable to catastrophic food crises. He traces how colonial ideologies generated negative evaluations of Irish destitution and attenuated calls to implement traditional anti-famine programs. The government's failure to take action, born out of an indifference to the suffering of the Irish poor, amounted to an avoidable policy of "e;letting die."e;
Examines the censorship issues that propelled the major writers of the period toward their massive use of visionary genres. This book examines controversial ideas as diverse as the early experimental humanism of Chaucer, censured beatific vision theology and the breakdown of Langland's A Text, and Julian's authorial suppression of her gender.
Demonstrates that the moral teaching of the Catholic Church has changed and continues to change without abandoning its foundational commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This book looks at the profound changes that have occurred over the centuries in Catholic moral teaching on freedom of conscience, lending for a profit, and slavery, and more.
In a world where the value of a liberal arts education is no longer taken for granted, Mark William Roche lucidly and passionately argues for its essential importance. Drawing on more than thirty years of experience in higher education as a student, faculty member, and administrator, Roche deftly connects the broad theoretical perspective of educators to the practical needs and questions of students and their parents. Roche develops three overlapping arguments for a strong liberal arts education: first, the intrinsic value of learning for its own sake, including exploration of the profound questions that give meaning to life; second, the cultivation of intellectual virtues necessary for success beyond the academy; and third, the formative influence of the liberal arts on character and on the development of a sense of higher purpose and vocation. Together with his exploration of these three values-intrinsic, practical, and idealistic-Roche reflects on ways to integrate them, interweaving empirical data with personal experience. Why Choose the Liberal Arts? is an accessible and thought-provoking work of interest to students, parents, and administrators.
Departing from the usual discussions of public morality, and considering the moral interests of the community as a whole, this book is a contribution to this intensely debated theme and considers how public morality can be justified in theory and accommodated in practice in a liberal society.
The twentieth-century Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) left behind an impressive canon of philosophical works and has continued to influence a scholarly community in Europe and North America, which has extended, critiqued, and applied his thought in many academic fields. Jonathan Chaplin introduces Dooyeweerd for the first time to many English readers by critically expounding Dooyeweerd's social and political thought and by exhibiting its pertinence to contemporary civil society debates. Chaplin begins by contextualizing Dooyeweerd's thought, first in relation to present-day debates and then in relation to the work of the Dutch philosopher Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920). Chaplin outlines the distinctive theory of historical and cultural development that serves as an essential backdrop to Dooyeweerd's substantive social philosophy; examines Dooyeweerd's notion of societal structural principles; and sets forth his complex classification of particular types of social structure and their various interrelationships. Chaplin provides a detailed examination of Dooyeweerd's theory of the state, its definitive nature, and its proper role vis-a-vis other elements of society. Dooyeweerd's contributions, Chaplin concludes, assist us in mapping the ways in which state and civil society should be related to achieve justice and the public good.
In Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular against the Sacred, Barbara Newman offers a new approach to the many ways that sacred and secular interact in medieval literature, arguing that the sacred was the normative, unmarked default category against which the secular always had to define itself and establish its niche. Newman refers to this dialectical relationship as "e;crossover"e;-which is not a genre in itself, but a mode of interaction, an openness to the meeting or even merger of sacred and secular in a wide variety of forms. Newman sketches a few of the principles that shape their interaction: the hermeneutics of "e;both/and,"e; the principle of double judgment, the confluence of pagan material and Christian meaning in Arthurian romance, the rule of convergent idealism in hagiographic romance, and the double-edged sword in parody. Medieval Crossover explores a wealth of case studies in French, English, and Latin texts that concentrate on instances of paradox, collision, and convergence. Newman convincingly and with great clarity demonstrates the widespread applicability of the crossover concept as an analytical tool, examining some very disparate works.
Questions about the dignity of the human person give rise to many of the most central and hotly disputed topics in bioethics. In A Defense of Dignity: Creating Life, Destroying Life, and Protecting the Rights of Conscience, Christopher Kaczor investigates whether each human being has intrinsic dignity and whether the very concept of "e;dignity"e; has a useful place in contemporary ethical debates. Kaczor explores a broad range of issues addressed in contemporary bioethics, including whether there is a duty of "e;procreative beneficence,"e; the ethics of ectopic pregnancy, and the possibility of "e;rescuing"e; human embryos with human wombs or artificial wombs. A Defense of Dignity also treats issues relevant to the end of life, including physician-assisted suicide, provision of food and water to patients in a persistent vegetative state, and how to proceed with organ donation following death. Finally, what are the duties and prerogatives of health care professionals who refuse in conscience to take part in activities that they regard as degrading to human dignity? Should they be forced to do what they consider to be violations of the patient's well being, or does patient autonomy always trump the conscience of a health care professional? Grounded in the Catholic intellectual and moral tradition, A Defense of Dignity argues that all human beings from the beginning to the end of their lives should be treated with respect and considers how this belief should be applied in controversial cases.
Political theorist Jean Bethke Elshtain brings Augustine's thought into the contemporary political arena and the result is a book about one of the world's most complex thinkers.
This text proposes different ways of thinking about work. It explores many of the ways in which human beings have thought about the place of work in life - its meanings, its limits, and its relation to other obligations, to the life cycle, to play and to rest.
Introduces both students and scholars to the relatively 'new' idea of virtue ethics, a dominant principle in Catholic moral theology. This work draws on documents of the Catholic Church since 1991 to enrich the contemporary discussion of moral virtues and the dynamics of living a happy life.
In Cattle Lords and Clansmen, Nerys Patterson provides an analysis of the social structure of medieval Ireland, focusing on the pre-Norman period. By combining difficult, often fragmentary primary sources with sociological and anthropological methods, Patterson produces a unique approach to the study of early Ireland-one that challenges previous scholarship. The second edition includes a chapter on seasonal rhythm, material derived from Patterson's post-1991 publications, and an updated bibliography.
The essays in this collection range widely across the fields of metaphysics, epistemlogy, philosophy of mind and action, and theory of value with most linking analytical and Aristotelian-Thomistic ideas and some focusing on Aquinas in particular.
Presents a comprehensive picture of Aquinas' thought, which is designed to help students understand how his concept of happiness and the good life are part of a coherent, theologically-informed world view. This book reveals the coherent nature of Aquinas' account of the moral life and of what fulfills us as human beings.
Investigates the figure of Mary Magdalene in post-medieval English religious writings and visual representations. This title argues that the medieval Magdalene story was not discarded as part of Reformation iconoclasm, but was enthusiastically embraced by English writers and artists and retold in a wide array of genres.
Arabic literary salons emerged in ninth-century Iraq and, by the tenth, were flourishing in Baghdad and other urban centers. In an age before broadcast media and classroom education, salons were the primary source of entertainment and escape for middle- and upper-rank members of society, serving also as a space and means for educating the young. Although salons relied on a culture of oral performance from memory, scholars of Arabic literature have focused almost exclusively on the written dimensions of the tradition. That emphasis, argues Samer Ali, has neglected the interplay of oral and written, as well as of religious and secular knowledge in salon society, and the surprising ways in which these seemingly discrete categories blurred in the lived experience of participants. Looking at the period from 500 to 1250, and using methods from European medieval studies, folklore, and cultural anthropology, Ali interprets Arabic manuscripts in order to answer fundamental questions about literary salons as a social institution. He identifies salons not only as sites for socializing and educating, but as loci for performing literature and oral history; for creating and transmitting cultural identity; and for continually reinterpreting the past. A fascinating recovery of a key element of humanistic culture, Ali's work will encourage a recasting of our understanding of verbal art, cultural memory, and daily life in medieval Arab culture.
The dual purpose of this volume--to provide a distinctively philosophical introduction to logic, as well as a logic-oriented approach to philosophy--makes this book a unique and worthwhile primary text for logic and/or philosophy courses. Logic and Philosophy covers a variety of elementary formal and informal types of reasoning, including a chapter on traditional logic that culminates in a treatment of Aristotle's philosophy of science; a truth-functional logic chapter that examines Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, logic, and mysticism; and sections on induction, analogy, and fallacies that incorporate material on mind-body dualism, pseudoscience, the "e;raven paradox,"e; and proofs of God.
The author of this book challenges the contemporary view of God and suffering. Calling upon scripture, and the philosophical and theological tradition of the Fathers and Aquinas, he advocates the incarnational truth that the Son of God actually does experience human living, including suffering.
Conservative Edmund Burke (1729-1777) was a British statesman, orator, and political writer. This comprehensive anthology provides authoritative insight into Burke's political life and philosophy. Editor Peter Stanlis incorporates all of Burke's essential writings and speeches from the decade before he entered politics until just before his death.
In God as Reason: Essays in Philosophical Theology, Vittorio Hösle presents a systematic exploration of the relation between theology and philosophy. In examining the problems and historical precursors of rational theology, he calls on philosophy, theology, history of science, and the history of ideas to find an interpretation of Christianity that is compatible with a genuine commitment to reason. The essays in the first part of God as Reason deal with issues of philosophical theology. Hösle sketches the challenges that a rationalist theology must face and discusses some of the central ones, such as the possibility of a teleological interpretation of nature after Darwin, the theodicy issue, freedom versus determinism, the mindbody problem, and the relation in general between religion, theology, and philosophy. In the essays of the second part, Hösle studies the historical development of philosophical approaches to the Bible, the continuity between the New Testament concept of pneuma and the concept of Geist (spirit) in German idealism, and the rationalist theologies of Anselm, Abelard, Llull, and Nicholas of Cusa, whose innovative philosophy of mathematics is the topic of one of the chapters. The book concludes with a thorough evaluation of Charles Taylor's theory of secularization. This ambitious work will interest students and scholars of philosophical theology and philosophy of religion as well as historians of ideas and science.
In Rene Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis, Scott Cowdell provides the first systematic interpretation of Rene Girard's controversial approach to secular modernity. Cowdell identifies the scope, development, and implications of Girard's thought, the centrality of Christ in Girard's thinking, and, in particular, Girard's distinctive take on the uniqueness and finality of Christ in terms of his impact on Western culture. In Girard's singular vision, according to Cowdell, secular modernity has emerged thanks to the Bible's exposure of the cathartic violence that is at the root of religious prohibitions, myths, and rituals. In the literature, the psychology, and most recently the military history of modernity, Girard discerns a consistent slide into an apocalypse that challenges modern ideas of romanticism, individualism, and progressivism. In the first three chapters, Cowdell examines the three elements of Girard's basic intellectual vision (mimesis, sacrifice, biblical hermeneutics) and brings this vision to a constructive interpretation of "e;secularization"e; and "e;modernity,"e; as these terms are understood in the broadest sense today. Chapter 4 focuses on modern institutions, chiefly the nation state and the market, that function to restrain the outbreak of violence. And finally, Cowdell discusses the apocalyptic dimension of Girard's theory in relation to modern warfare and terrorism. Here, Cowdell engages with the most recent writings of Girard (particularly his Battling to the End) and applies them to further conversations in cultural theology, political science, and philosophy. Cowdell takes up and extends Girard's own warning concerning an alternative to a future apocalypse: "e;What sort of conversion must humans undergo, before it is too late?"e;
Rachel M. Billings offers a holistic reading of Joshua, which joins theological sophistication with an emphasis on its meaning and purpose as a literary work.
This text, the inaugural volume in the ""Catholic Social Tradition Series"", defines the proposed thrust of the new series: to study the very best of what the Catholic social tradition has to offer in response to the pressing issues and problems of our times.
This work celebrates composers and creators such as Harry Partch, Raymond Scott, Leon Theremin, and George Ives, who had to invent new instruments to capture the music heard in their ""mind's ear"". It's subject is the artist's dilemma - how to deliver a new idea through existing media.
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