Sublime Historical Experience

Sublime Historical Experience

Author: F. R. Ankersmit

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 510

ISBN-13: 9780804749367

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Why are we interested in history at all? Why do we feel the need to distinguish between past and present? This book investigates how the notion of sublime historical experience complicates and challenges existing conceptions of language, truth, and knowledge.


Book Synopsis Sublime Historical Experience by : F. R. Ankersmit

Download or read book Sublime Historical Experience written by F. R. Ankersmit and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are we interested in history at all? Why do we feel the need to distinguish between past and present? This book investigates how the notion of sublime historical experience complicates and challenges existing conceptions of language, truth, and knowledge.


Sublime Desire

Sublime Desire

Author: Amy J. Elias

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2003-04-01

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 0801875439

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Co-winner of the Perkins Prize from the Society for the Study of Narrative Literature Has twentieth-century political violence destroyed faith in historical knowledge? What happens to historical fiction when history is seen as either a form of Western imperialism or a form of postmodern simulation? In Sublime Desire, Amy Elias examines our changing relationship to history and how fiction since 1960 reflects that change. She contends that postmodernism is a post-traumatic imagination that is pulled between two desires: the political desire to acknowledge the physical violence of twentieth-century history, and the yearning for an escape from that history into a ravishing realm of historical certainty. Torn between these desires, both historical fiction and historiography after 1960 redefine history as the "sublime," a territory beyond lived experience that is both unknowable and seductive. In the face of a failure of Enlightenment ideals about knowledge and the West's own history of violence, post-World War II history becomes a desire for the "secular sacred" sublime—for awe, certainty, and belief. Sublime Desire is an eloquent melding of theory and practice. Mixing the canonical with the unexpected, Elias analyzes developments in the historical romance genre from Walter Scott's novels to novels written today. She correlates developments in the historical romance to similar changes in historiography and philosophy. Sublime Desire draws engagingly on more than thirty relevant texts, from Tolstoy's War and Peace to Jeanette Winterson's Sexing the Cherry, Charles Johnson's Dreamer, and Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain. But the book also examines theories of postmodern space and time and defines the difference between postmodern and postcolonial historical perspectives. The final chapter draws from trauma theory in Holocaust studies to define how fiction can pose an ethical alternative to aestheticized history while remaining open to pluralism and democratic values. In its range and sophistication, Sublime Desire is a valuable addition to postmodernist studies as well as to studies of the historical romance novel.


Book Synopsis Sublime Desire by : Amy J. Elias

Download or read book Sublime Desire written by Amy J. Elias and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2003-04-01 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Co-winner of the Perkins Prize from the Society for the Study of Narrative Literature Has twentieth-century political violence destroyed faith in historical knowledge? What happens to historical fiction when history is seen as either a form of Western imperialism or a form of postmodern simulation? In Sublime Desire, Amy Elias examines our changing relationship to history and how fiction since 1960 reflects that change. She contends that postmodernism is a post-traumatic imagination that is pulled between two desires: the political desire to acknowledge the physical violence of twentieth-century history, and the yearning for an escape from that history into a ravishing realm of historical certainty. Torn between these desires, both historical fiction and historiography after 1960 redefine history as the "sublime," a territory beyond lived experience that is both unknowable and seductive. In the face of a failure of Enlightenment ideals about knowledge and the West's own history of violence, post-World War II history becomes a desire for the "secular sacred" sublime—for awe, certainty, and belief. Sublime Desire is an eloquent melding of theory and practice. Mixing the canonical with the unexpected, Elias analyzes developments in the historical romance genre from Walter Scott's novels to novels written today. She correlates developments in the historical romance to similar changes in historiography and philosophy. Sublime Desire draws engagingly on more than thirty relevant texts, from Tolstoy's War and Peace to Jeanette Winterson's Sexing the Cherry, Charles Johnson's Dreamer, and Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain. But the book also examines theories of postmodern space and time and defines the difference between postmodern and postcolonial historical perspectives. The final chapter draws from trauma theory in Holocaust studies to define how fiction can pose an ethical alternative to aestheticized history while remaining open to pluralism and democratic values. In its range and sophistication, Sublime Desire is a valuable addition to postmodernist studies as well as to studies of the historical romance novel.


American Technological Sublime

American Technological Sublime

Author: David E. Nye

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1996-02-28

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 9780262640343

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American Technological Sublime continues the exploration of the social construction of technology that David Nye began in his award-winning book Electrifying America. Here Nye examines the continuing appeal of the "technological sublime" (a term coined by Perry Miller) as a key to the nation's history, using as examples the natural sites, architectural forms, and technological achievements that ordinary people have valued intensely. Technology has long played a central role in the formation of Americans' sense of selfhood. From the first canal systems through the moon landing, Americans have, for better or worse, derived unity from the common feeling of awe inspired by large-scale applications of technological prowess. American Technological Sublime continues the exploration of the social construction of technology that David Nye began in his award-winning book Electrifying America. Here Nye examines the continuing appeal of the "technological sublime" (a term coined by Perry Miller) as a key to the nation's history, using as examples the natural sites, architectural forms, and technological achievements that ordinary people have valued intensely. American Technological Sublime is a study of the politics of perception in industrial society. Arranged chronologically, it suggests that the sublime itself has a history - that sublime experiences are emotional configurations that emerge from new social and technological conditions, and that each new configuration to some extent undermines and displaces the older versions. After giving a short history of the sublime as an aesthetic category, Nye describes the reemergence and democratization of the concept in the early nineteenth century as an expression of the American sense of specialness. What has filled the American public with wonder, awe, even terror? David Nye selects the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, the Erie Canal, the first transcontinental railroad, Eads Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, the major international expositions, the Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909, the Empire State Building, and Boulder Dam. He then looks at the atom bomb tests and the Apollo mission as examples of the increasing ambivalence of the technological sublime in the postwar world. The festivities surrounding the rededication of the Statue of Liberty in 1986 become a touchstone reflecting the transformation of the American experience of the sublime over two centuries. Nye concludes with a vision of the modern-day "consumer sublime" as manifested in the fantasy world of Las Vegas.


Book Synopsis American Technological Sublime by : David E. Nye

Download or read book American Technological Sublime written by David E. Nye and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1996-02-28 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Technological Sublime continues the exploration of the social construction of technology that David Nye began in his award-winning book Electrifying America. Here Nye examines the continuing appeal of the "technological sublime" (a term coined by Perry Miller) as a key to the nation's history, using as examples the natural sites, architectural forms, and technological achievements that ordinary people have valued intensely. Technology has long played a central role in the formation of Americans' sense of selfhood. From the first canal systems through the moon landing, Americans have, for better or worse, derived unity from the common feeling of awe inspired by large-scale applications of technological prowess. American Technological Sublime continues the exploration of the social construction of technology that David Nye began in his award-winning book Electrifying America. Here Nye examines the continuing appeal of the "technological sublime" (a term coined by Perry Miller) as a key to the nation's history, using as examples the natural sites, architectural forms, and technological achievements that ordinary people have valued intensely. American Technological Sublime is a study of the politics of perception in industrial society. Arranged chronologically, it suggests that the sublime itself has a history - that sublime experiences are emotional configurations that emerge from new social and technological conditions, and that each new configuration to some extent undermines and displaces the older versions. After giving a short history of the sublime as an aesthetic category, Nye describes the reemergence and democratization of the concept in the early nineteenth century as an expression of the American sense of specialness. What has filled the American public with wonder, awe, even terror? David Nye selects the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, the Erie Canal, the first transcontinental railroad, Eads Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, the major international expositions, the Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909, the Empire State Building, and Boulder Dam. He then looks at the atom bomb tests and the Apollo mission as examples of the increasing ambivalence of the technological sublime in the postwar world. The festivities surrounding the rededication of the Statue of Liberty in 1986 become a touchstone reflecting the transformation of the American experience of the sublime over two centuries. Nye concludes with a vision of the modern-day "consumer sublime" as manifested in the fantasy world of Las Vegas.


Sublime historical experience

Sublime historical experience

Author: Franklin Rudolf Ankersmit

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 9787547304143

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Book Synopsis Sublime historical experience by : Franklin Rudolf Ankersmit

Download or read book Sublime historical experience written by Franklin Rudolf Ankersmit and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:


The Sublime

The Sublime

Author: Timothy M. Costelloe

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-07-30

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 0521143675

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This volume offers readers a unique and comprehensive overview of different theoretical and interdisciplinary perspectives on 'the sublime'.


Book Synopsis The Sublime by : Timothy M. Costelloe

Download or read book The Sublime written by Timothy M. Costelloe and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-30 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers readers a unique and comprehensive overview of different theoretical and interdisciplinary perspectives on 'the sublime'.


The Sublime in Modern Philosophy

The Sublime in Modern Philosophy

Author: Emily Brady

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-08-12

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1107276268

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In The Sublime in Modern Philosophy: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Nature, Emily Brady takes a fresh look at the sublime and shows why it endures as a meaningful concept in contemporary philosophy. In a reassessment of historical approaches, the first part of the book identifies the scope and value of the sublime in eighteenth-century philosophy (with a focus on Kant), nineteenth-century philosophy and Romanticism, and early wilderness aesthetics. The second part examines the sublime's contemporary significance through its relationship to the arts; its position with respect to other aesthetic categories involving mixed or negative emotions, such as tragedy; and its place in environmental aesthetics and ethics. Far from being an outmoded concept, Brady argues that the sublime is a distinctive aesthetic category which reveals an important, if sometimes challenging, aesthetic-moral relationship with the natural world.


Book Synopsis The Sublime in Modern Philosophy by : Emily Brady

Download or read book The Sublime in Modern Philosophy written by Emily Brady and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-12 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Sublime in Modern Philosophy: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Nature, Emily Brady takes a fresh look at the sublime and shows why it endures as a meaningful concept in contemporary philosophy. In a reassessment of historical approaches, the first part of the book identifies the scope and value of the sublime in eighteenth-century philosophy (with a focus on Kant), nineteenth-century philosophy and Romanticism, and early wilderness aesthetics. The second part examines the sublime's contemporary significance through its relationship to the arts; its position with respect to other aesthetic categories involving mixed or negative emotions, such as tragedy; and its place in environmental aesthetics and ethics. Far from being an outmoded concept, Brady argues that the sublime is a distinctive aesthetic category which reveals an important, if sometimes challenging, aesthetic-moral relationship with the natural world.


Meaning, Truth, and Reference in Historical Representation

Meaning, Truth, and Reference in Historical Representation

Author: Frank R. Ankersmit

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2012-04-24

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 0801464323

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In this book, the noted intellectual historian Frank Ankersmit provides a systematic account of the problems of reference, truth, and meaning in historical writing. He works from the conviction that the historicist account of historical writing, associated primarily with Leopold von Ranke and Wilhelm von Humboldt, is essentially correct but that its original idealist and romanticist idiom needs to be translated into more modern terms. Rehabilitating historicism for the contemporary philosophy of history, he argues, "reveals the basic truths about the nature of the past itself, how we relate to it, and how we make sense of the past in historical writing." At the heart of Ankersmit's project is a sharp distinction between interpretation and representation. The historical text, he holds, is first and foremost a representation of some part of the past, not an interpretation. The book's central chapters address the concept of historical representation from the perspectives of reference, truth, and meaning. Ankersmit then goes on to discuss the possible role of experience in the history writing, which leads directly to a consideration of subjectivity and ethics in the historian's practice. Ankersmit concludes with a chapter on political history, which he maintains is the "basis and condition of all other variants of historical writing." Ankersmit’s rehabilitation of historicism is a powerfully original and provocative contribution to the debate about the nature of historical writing.


Book Synopsis Meaning, Truth, and Reference in Historical Representation by : Frank R. Ankersmit

Download or read book Meaning, Truth, and Reference in Historical Representation written by Frank R. Ankersmit and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-24 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, the noted intellectual historian Frank Ankersmit provides a systematic account of the problems of reference, truth, and meaning in historical writing. He works from the conviction that the historicist account of historical writing, associated primarily with Leopold von Ranke and Wilhelm von Humboldt, is essentially correct but that its original idealist and romanticist idiom needs to be translated into more modern terms. Rehabilitating historicism for the contemporary philosophy of history, he argues, "reveals the basic truths about the nature of the past itself, how we relate to it, and how we make sense of the past in historical writing." At the heart of Ankersmit's project is a sharp distinction between interpretation and representation. The historical text, he holds, is first and foremost a representation of some part of the past, not an interpretation. The book's central chapters address the concept of historical representation from the perspectives of reference, truth, and meaning. Ankersmit then goes on to discuss the possible role of experience in the history writing, which leads directly to a consideration of subjectivity and ethics in the historian's practice. Ankersmit concludes with a chapter on political history, which he maintains is the "basis and condition of all other variants of historical writing." Ankersmit’s rehabilitation of historicism is a powerfully original and provocative contribution to the debate about the nature of historical writing.


Frank Ankersmit's Lost Historical Cause

Frank Ankersmit's Lost Historical Cause

Author: Peter P. Icke

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 0415808030

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The contemporary Dutch historical theorist and philosopher Frank Ankersmit, an erstwhile advocate and promulgator of what has become known as 'the linguistic turn' in historical theory, is very well known within the discipline. His early position with regard to the historical text is frequently discussed and evaluated today, and his writings on the subject are often cited. However, this former narrativist position, so robustly defended by Ankersmit in the past, has been progressively marginalized by Ankersmit himself as his current and radically different theoretical position, most fully expressed in his recent publication Sublime Historical Experience, now takes precedence. Frank Ankersmit's Lost Historical Cause is a polemical account of, and a suggested explanation for, this Ankersmitean 'trajectory' of thought which transported Ankersmit from the sustainable logic of his early work on the narrative form to the arguably unsustainable concept of sublime historical experience.


Book Synopsis Frank Ankersmit's Lost Historical Cause by : Peter P. Icke

Download or read book Frank Ankersmit's Lost Historical Cause written by Peter P. Icke and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contemporary Dutch historical theorist and philosopher Frank Ankersmit, an erstwhile advocate and promulgator of what has become known as 'the linguistic turn' in historical theory, is very well known within the discipline. His early position with regard to the historical text is frequently discussed and evaluated today, and his writings on the subject are often cited. However, this former narrativist position, so robustly defended by Ankersmit in the past, has been progressively marginalized by Ankersmit himself as his current and radically different theoretical position, most fully expressed in his recent publication Sublime Historical Experience, now takes precedence. Frank Ankersmit's Lost Historical Cause is a polemical account of, and a suggested explanation for, this Ankersmitean 'trajectory' of thought which transported Ankersmit from the sustainable logic of his early work on the narrative form to the arguably unsustainable concept of sublime historical experience.


The Sublime Engine

The Sublime Engine

Author: Stephen Amidon

Publisher: Rodale Books

Published: 2012-01-17

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1609617274

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The heart has consistently captured the human imagination. It has been singled out as a cultural icon, the repository of our deepest religious and artistic impulses, the organ whose steady functioning is understood, both literally and symbolically, as the very life force itself. The Sublime Engine will explore the profound sense of awe every person feels when they ponder the miracle encased within their ribs. In this lyrical history of our most essential organ, a critically-acclaimed novelist and a leading cardiologist--who happen to be brothers--draw upon history, science, religion, popular culture, and literature to illuminate all of the heart's physical and figurative chambers. Each of the four sections-- The Ancient Heart, The Renaissance Heart, The Modern Heart, and The Future Heart--will focus on a major epoch in our understanding of the heart and the hidden history of cardiology. Erudite, witty, and enthralling, The Sublime Engine makes the heart come alive for readers.


Book Synopsis The Sublime Engine by : Stephen Amidon

Download or read book The Sublime Engine written by Stephen Amidon and published by Rodale Books. This book was released on 2012-01-17 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The heart has consistently captured the human imagination. It has been singled out as a cultural icon, the repository of our deepest religious and artistic impulses, the organ whose steady functioning is understood, both literally and symbolically, as the very life force itself. The Sublime Engine will explore the profound sense of awe every person feels when they ponder the miracle encased within their ribs. In this lyrical history of our most essential organ, a critically-acclaimed novelist and a leading cardiologist--who happen to be brothers--draw upon history, science, religion, popular culture, and literature to illuminate all of the heart's physical and figurative chambers. Each of the four sections-- The Ancient Heart, The Renaissance Heart, The Modern Heart, and The Future Heart--will focus on a major epoch in our understanding of the heart and the hidden history of cardiology. Erudite, witty, and enthralling, The Sublime Engine makes the heart come alive for readers.


Sublime Thoughts/penny Wisdom

Sublime Thoughts/penny Wisdom

Author: Richard F. Teichgraeber

Publisher:

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13:

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Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau have traditionally been portrayed as alienated outsiders, isolated voices of opposition to a society that failed to heed their words. More recently, they have been seen as unwitting advocates of capitalist culture, their texts and careers driven by its hidden logic even as they indicted its excesses. In Sublime Thoughts/Penny Wisdom Richard F. Teichgraeber III rejects both of these views to offer a revisionist account of the relation of Emerson and Thoreau to the emerging market culture of antebellum America. Emerson and Thoreau, Teichgraeber argues, were engaged with their contemporary readers in a common conversation about the institutions, conduct, and values of a Northern society experiencing extensive and radical social changes, and encountering in Southern slavery a dramatic challenge to its new political and economic way of life. Teichgraeber contends that Emerson and Thoreau knew their own purposes as social critics and set about achieving them in their published writings. In turn, the new commercial mediators of antebellum culture--publishers, editors, reviewers, and booksellers--introduced the two Concord writers to ordinary readers, discussed their works with surprising discernment, and constructed the images by which Emerson and Thoreau would eventually be canonized in American literature. "Teichgraeber's study has extremely important implications for the much-gnawed question of the relationship of Emerson and Thoreau to American culture. The general opinion right now is that they have somehow been canonized by a cultural elite and therefore, at best, can claim only to be representative men.' Teichgraeber demonstrates thatmuch more can be claimed for them--that during their own lives and careers they touched a popular nerve, so that their canonization was not an act of a cultural elite but an expression of democracy."--James Hoopes, Babson College.


Book Synopsis Sublime Thoughts/penny Wisdom by : Richard F. Teichgraeber

Download or read book Sublime Thoughts/penny Wisdom written by Richard F. Teichgraeber and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau have traditionally been portrayed as alienated outsiders, isolated voices of opposition to a society that failed to heed their words. More recently, they have been seen as unwitting advocates of capitalist culture, their texts and careers driven by its hidden logic even as they indicted its excesses. In Sublime Thoughts/Penny Wisdom Richard F. Teichgraeber III rejects both of these views to offer a revisionist account of the relation of Emerson and Thoreau to the emerging market culture of antebellum America. Emerson and Thoreau, Teichgraeber argues, were engaged with their contemporary readers in a common conversation about the institutions, conduct, and values of a Northern society experiencing extensive and radical social changes, and encountering in Southern slavery a dramatic challenge to its new political and economic way of life. Teichgraeber contends that Emerson and Thoreau knew their own purposes as social critics and set about achieving them in their published writings. In turn, the new commercial mediators of antebellum culture--publishers, editors, reviewers, and booksellers--introduced the two Concord writers to ordinary readers, discussed their works with surprising discernment, and constructed the images by which Emerson and Thoreau would eventually be canonized in American literature. "Teichgraeber's study has extremely important implications for the much-gnawed question of the relationship of Emerson and Thoreau to American culture. The general opinion right now is that they have somehow been canonized by a cultural elite and therefore, at best, can claim only to be representative men.' Teichgraeber demonstrates thatmuch more can be claimed for them--that during their own lives and careers they touched a popular nerve, so that their canonization was not an act of a cultural elite but an expression of democracy."--James Hoopes, Babson College.