Bøker utgitt av Brill

The strong influence of pragmatism in the early 20th-century international debate, its subsequent and apparently inexorable decline, and its recent revival are intertwined with the fate of other currents of thought that have marked the development of contemporary philosophy. This volume clarifies the most recent events of this development focusing on key theoretical issues common both to American classic philosophical tradition and analytical thought. Many essays in this volume belong to what we can call "new" pragmatism, namely a pragmatist perspective that is different from the postmodernist "neo" pragmatism à la Rorty. The volume shows that both pragmatists and analytic thinkers stress the importance of logic and scientific method in order to deal with philosophical problems and seek for a clarification of the relation between our ethical values and our understanding of natural facts. Moreover, the anti-skeptic attitude that characterizes pragmatism as well as most part of analytic philosophy, and their common attention to the problems of language and communication are emphasized. The more sophisticated tools for addressing both theoretical and methodological problems developed by analytic philosophy are pointed out, and the essays show the possible integration of these two forms of speculation that, for too a long time, mutually disregarded one another.

IWriting the Heavenly Frontier /Icelebrates the early voices of the air as it examines the sky as a metaphorical and political landscape. While flight histories usually focus on the physical dangers of early aviation, this book introduces the figurative liabilities of ascension. Early pilot-writers not only grappled with an unwieldy machine; they also grappled with poetics that were extremely selective. Tropes that cast Charles Lindbergh as the transcendent hero of the new millennium were the same ones that kept women, black Americans, and indigenous peoples imaginatively tethered to the ground. The most popular flight autobiographies in the United States posited a hero who rose from the mundane to the miraculous; and yet the most startling autobiographies point out the social factors that limited or forbade vertical movement-both literally and figuratively. A survey of pilot writing, the book will appeal to flight enthusiasts and people interested in American autobiography and culture. But it will also appeal strongly to readers interested in the poetics and politics of place.

The Canonical Debate Today. Crossing Disciplinary and Cultural Boundaries re-enacts the canonical issues current in the 90s from a new perspective, triggered by the changes that occurred worldwide in understanding the concepts and the status of theory, in the legacy of literary studies within the field of humanities, and in cultural production and reception. During the last decade discussions of globalization mostly took into account its impact on the status of academic disciplines such as comparative literature or cultural studies, or the reconfiguration of national literary fields. These debates do not dispense with canonicity altogether but make it more urgent and necessary. Canons seen as sets of norms or regulatory practices are central to the formation of disciplines, to the recognition and transmission of values, even to the articulation of discourses on identity on various levels.The three sections of the volume deal with three interrelated subjects: theories and applicable contexts of the canon (Canons and Contexts); recent transformations in the area of literary studies in response to the task of canon formation (Reshaping Literary Studies); and the challenges brought to the understanding of the canon(s) by the current process of re-defining literary and cultural boundaries (Transgressing Literary and Cultural Boundaries). This volume will appeal to researchers, teachers, and students of cultural studies, comparative literature, and literary theory.

The old contrast between "universal" and "local" is now collapsing, but a new paradigm has yet to be defined. The contributors claim that the questions they raise will help redraw the lines of demarcation each in a unique way. Their collaborative result is a re-submission of the century-old question regarding "the essence of Christianity," and the readers will hear answers to this question resounding in polyphonic voices. The book will make a unique contribution to the scholarship by constructing a common forum connecting diasporic Asians and Oceanians who live and work in regions around the Pacific Ocean. Publication in the field of theology has been thick on the American side of the Pacific, and the agenda of discussion are shaped largely in accordance with the concerns of those living on the North-American continent and in British Isles. Theologians living on the other side of the Pacific, while in daily contact with the multi-religious realities that beg theological attention, sometimes lack means of engaging in sustained discussion with other theologians who are similarly struggling to gain insights into different cultural contexts. This book will provide a shared ground for reflection and discussion.

What did you do when you fell ill in fifteenth-century Florence? How did you get the medicines that you needed at a price you could afford? What would you find when you entered an apothecary's shop? This richly detailed study of the Speziale al Giglio in Florence provides surprising answers, demonstrating the continued importance of highly personalised medical practice late into the fifteenth century. Drawing on extensive archival research, it shows how personal relationships and mutual trust, rather than market forces, made payment possible even for those with limited incomes. Examining the spaces, people and products involved, Making and Marketing Medicine investigates the roles played by sociability, information networks and regulation in creating communities as well as in promoting health in Renaissance Italy.