About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherBloomsbury Publishing

ISBN-101441119140

ISBN-139781441119148

eBay Product ID (ePID)109237021

Product Key Features

Number of Pages208 Pages

Publication NameHow Literature Changes the Way We Think

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2012

SubjectGeneral, Semiotics & Theory

TypeTextbook

AuthorMichael Mack

Subject AreaLiterary Criticism, Philosophy

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.4 in

Item Weight8.8 Oz

Item Length8.5 in

Item Width5.5 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

LCCN2011-019845

Dewey Edition23

ReviewsThe central thesis of Mack's bold and timely defence of the arts and humanities, How Literature Changes the Way We Think, is that literature has a ' unique and underappreciated capacity to make us aware of how we can change accustomed forms of perception and action' (p. 1). Mack's apologia for literature is a refreshing alternative to contemporary arguments for the social and political relevance of art's representational work., "This is a subtle, learned, and at the same time radical investigation of the powers of literature. Dr. Mack challenges us to think afresh. Through his analyses, which range from philosophers such as Spinoza and Benjamin to novelists such as Ishiguru and Doctorow, he demonstrates the new social, ethical and emotional possibilities opened up by the activity of literature." -- Dame Gillian Beer, FBA, King Edward VII Professor Emeritus of English Literature and former President of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, UK, How Literature Changes the Way We Think comprises interesting, sometimes fascinating inroads toward a diagnosis of the problems of representation, and the effort to describe a theory avoiding these pitfalls seems a helpful project., "How Literature Changes the Way We Think comprises interesting, sometimes fascinating inroads toward a diagnosis of the problems of representation, and the effort to describe a theory avoiding these pitfalls seems a helpful project." --Sean Gerard Ferrier, Contemporary Political Theory "The central thesis of Mack's bold and timely defence of the arts and humanities, How Literature Changes the Way We Think, is that literature has a ' unique and underappreciated capacity to make us aware of how we can change accustomed forms of perception and action' (p. 1). Mack's apologia for literature is a refreshing alternative to contemporary arguments for the social and political relevance of art's representational work." -- Simon Calder, University of Minnesota, English Studies, "Michael Mack supplies an answer to the increased doubts about the role of the humanities. His claim is that literature changes the way we see and act; that it is one of the aspects of our cultural life that shapes who we are on the most elemental level. This confrontation with post-modern theory is part of the newly evolving field of the medical humanities and will be a critical contribution to the debates about how and why we teach literature." - Sander L. Gilman, Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences, Emory University, USA.

Original LanguageEnglish

Dewey Decimal801/.3

Table Of ContentAcknowledgments / 1. Think Again: An Introduction / 2. Death Again: Reimagining the End / 3. Revisiting Torture and Torment / 4. Revisiting Clones: Change and the Politics of Life / 5. Rethinking Suffering: Self and Substance / 6. The Birth of Literature / 7. The Birth of Politics / 8. Rethinking Birth and Aging: A Conclusion / Bibliography / Index

SynopsisThe capacity of the arts and the humanities, and of literature in particular, to have a meaningful societal impact has been increasingly undervalued in recent history. Both humanists and scientists have tended to think of the arts as a means to represent the world via imagination. Mack maintains that the arts do not merely describe our world but that they also have the unique and underappreciated power to make us aware of how we can change accustomed forms of perception and action. Mack explores the works of prominent writers and thinkers, including Nietzsche, Foucault, Benjamin, Wilde, Roth, and Zizek, among others, to illustrate how literature interacts with both people and political as well as scientific issues of the real world. By virtue of its distance from the real world--its virtuality--the aesthetic has the capability to help us explore different and so far unthinkable forms of action and thereby to resist the repetition and perpetuation of harmful practices such as stereotyping, stigma, exclusion, and the exertion of violence., The capacity of the arts and the humanities, and of literature in particular, to have a meaningful societal impact has been increasingly undervalued in recent history. Both humanists and scientists have tended to think of the arts as a means to represent the world via imagination. Mack maintains that the arts do not merely describe our world but that they also have the unique and underappreciated power to make us aware of how we can change accustomed forms of perception and action. Mack explores the works of prominent writers and thinkers, including Nietzsche, Foucault, Benjamin, Wilde, Roth, and Zizek, among others, to illustrate how literature interacts with both people and political as well as scientific issues of the real world. By virtue of its distance from the real world-its virtuality-the aesthetic has the capability to help us explore different and so far unthinkable forms of action and thereby to resist the repetition and perpetuation of harmful practices such as stereotyping, stigma, exclusion, and the exertion of violence., Argues for the importance, and societal impact, of the study of the arts and humanities, and of literature in particular., This book argues for the importance, and societal impact, of the study of the arts and humanities, and of literature in particular. The capacity of the arts and the humanities, and of literature in particular, to have a meaningful societal impact has been increasingly undervalued in recent history. Both humanists and scientists have tended to think of the arts as a means to represent the world via imagination. Mack maintains that the arts do not merely describe our world but that they also have the unique and under appreciated power to make us aware of how we can change accustomed forms of perception and action. Mack explores the works of prominent writers and thinkers, including Nietzsche, Foucault, Benjamin, Wilde, Roth, and Zizek, among others, to illustrate how literature interacts with both people and political as well as scientific issues of the real world. By virtue of its distance from the real world - its virtuality - the aesthetic has the capability to help us explore different and so far unthinkable forms of action and thereby to resist the repetition and perpetuation of harmful practices such as stereotyping, stigma, exclusion, and the exertion of violence.

LC Classification NumberPN45.M319 2011