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Values of Literature by Hanna Meretoja (Volume Editor); Saija Isomaa (Volume Editor); Pirjo Lyytikäinen (Volume Editor); Kristina Malmio (Volume Editor)
Why we read literature and why we should read literature are age-old questions that have, in recent years, gained unprecedented scope and intensity, against the backdrop of what has been perceived as a world-wide crisis in the humanities. While scholars frequently discuss different types of value separately, in this volume values of literature are approached in the plural: we argue that the ethical, aesthetic, cognitive, affective, social, historical, and existential values of literature should be explored in connection with each other. The three parts of the book explore the relationship between ethics and aesthetics; the cognitive, affective, and social values of literature; and the construction and questioning of literary values in society. Throughout the book, we discuss the different things literature can do - ranging from affirmation of social dogmas to its capacities for self-questioning and challenging of moral certainties - through the dynamic interplay of its ethical and aesthetic, cognitive and affective aspects. Literature not only reflects and draws on the values of the historical world from which it stems; it also actively addresses, challenges, and transforms those values and explores new ways to understand value. Through these complementary processes, literature engages in its own distinctively literary forms of value inquiry.
Call Number: Online
Publication Date: 2015
The Work of Literature by Derek Attridge
What is distinctive about the cultural practice called "literature"? How does it benefit individuals and society? How do literary works retain their importance and their capacity to give pleasure over decades and centuries? What constitutes responsible criticism? These are some of thequestions addressed in this book, which develops the arguments put forward in Derek Attridge's influential study The Singularity of Literature (2004).Beginning with an extended cross-examination in the form of an interview addressing a range of topics relating to the work of literature (understood both as the activity of the writer and as the text itself) and the practices of literary reading and literary criticism, it asks what it means to "dojustice to" a work of literature, provides a full account of the concept of singularity, considers the problematic power of criticism, and advances an account of the role of context in the writing and reading of literary works. In other chapters it explores the issue of cultural difference inresponses to literature, discusses the working of metaphor, questions the attribution of knowledge to literary works, and addresses the topics of affect and hospitality.The book follows through the consequences of regarding the singular and inventive work of literature as an event that takes place anew each time it is read, providing an opening to an otherness excluded by prevailing cultural norms and habits of thought and feeling. Although the focus of the book ison literature, the arguments are relevant to all the arts, and engage with the thought of major aesthetic theorists in a number of traditions.
Call Number: Online
Publication Date: 2015
An Introduction to the Social and Political Philosophy of Bertolt Brecht by Anthony Squiers
Bertolt Brecht is widely considered one of the most important figures in Twentieth Century literature. While there is a broad corpus of scholarship which analyzes the formalistic elements of Brecht's work, much of this has been limited by formalistic approaches and has neglected his unique contributions to Marxist philosophy. This book serves to remedy this by reconstructing Brecht's social and political philosophy into a single theoretical framework for the first time. It presents Brecht's thought in context of a revolutionary Marxist aesthetic and explores his vision of consciousness as it relates to historical materialism, the dialectic of enlightenment, social ontology, epistemology and ethics. This is accomplished by meticulous readings of his theoretical writings and close analysis of three important plays, The Good Woman of Setzuan, Life of Galileo, and his adaption of Coriolanus. In doing so, this book reveals Brecht's relevance today for anyone interested in politics and aesthetics.
Call Number: Online
Publication Date: 2014
Utopia 1516-2016 : More's eccentric essay and its activist aftermath by Han van Ruler (Editor); Giulia Sissa (Editor)
This year marks the five-hundredth anniversary of Thomas More's widely influential book Utopia, and this volume brings together a number of scholars to consider the book, its long afterlife, and specifically its effects on political activists over the centuries. In addition to thorough studies of Utopia itself, and appraisals of More's relationship with Erasmus, the book presents detailed studies of the effect of Utopia on early modern England and the Low Countries, as well as philosophical reflections on ideology and the utopian mind, and much more.
Call Number: Online
Publication Date: 2017