This "interesting, informative, and provocative book" explores the pervasive influence of neuroscience and "the view that we are essentially our brains" (History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences).Being Brains offers a critical exploration of neurocentrism, the belief that "we are our brains," which came to prominence in the 1990s. Encouraged by advances in neuroimaging, the humanities and social sciences have gravitated toward the brain as well, develop...

Fernando Vidal's trailblazing text on the origins of psychology traces the development of the discipline from its appearance in the late sixteenth century to its redefinition at the end of the seventeenth and its emergence as an institutionalized field in the eighteenth. Originally published in 2011, The Sciences of the Soul continues to be of wide importance in the history and philosophy of psychology, the history of the human sciences more generally, and in the social and intell...

Performing Brains on Screen deals with film enactments and representations of the belief that human beings are essentially their brains, a belief that embodies one of the most influential modern ways of understanding the human. Films have performed brains in two chief ways: by turning physical brains into protagonists, as in the brain movies of the 1950s, which show terrestrial or extra-terrestrial disembodied brains carrying out their evil intentions; or by giving brains that rem...

The notion of Endangerment stands at the heart of a network of concepts, values and practices dealing with objects and beings considered threatened by extinction, and with the procedures aimed at preserving them. Usually animated by a sense of urgency and citizenship, identifying endangered entities involves evaluating an impending threat and opens the way for preservation strategies.Endangerment, Biodiversity and Culturelooks at some of the fundamental ways in whi...

"A brilliant work . . . A dazzling meditation on the very nature of language itself" from the world-renowned scholar and author of The Poetry of Thought ( Kirkus Reviews).In his classic work, literary critic and scholar George Steiner tackles what he considers the Babel "problem": Why, over the course of history, have humans developed thousands of different languages when the social, material, and economic advantages of a single tongue are obvious?...

Explore the weird, the eerie, and the horrific in 20th-century literature, film, and music—from H.P. Lovecraft and Daphne Du Maurier to Stanley Kubrick and Christopher Nolan.What exactly are the Weird and the Eerie? Two closely related but distinct modes, and each possesses its own distinct properties. Both have often been associated with Horror, but this genre alone does not fully encapsulate the pull of the outside and the unknown.In several essays, Mark ...

Arguably the most decisive shift in the history of ideas in modern times was the complete demolition during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - in the wake of the Scientific Revolution - of traditional structures of authority, scientific thought, and belief by the new philosophy and the philosophes, culminating in Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. In this revolutionary process which effectively overthrew all justicfication for monarchy, aristocracy, and ecclesiastical power, as ...

From the acclaimed author of the novel Oval comes a book of “fan nonfiction” about living and writing in the age of extinctionIn this constellation of essays, Elvia Wilk asks what kinds of narratives will help us rethink our human perspective toward Earth. The book begins as an exploration of the role of fiction today and becomes a deep interrogation of the writing process and the self.Wilk examines creative works across time and genre in order to ...

This book contributes to current bioethical debates by providing a critical analysis of the philosophy of human death. Bernard N. Schumacher discusses contemporary philosophical perspectives on death, creating a dialogue between phenomenology, existentialism and analytic philosophy. He also examines the ancient philosophies that have shaped our current ideas about death. His analysis focuses on three fundamental problems: (1) the definition of human death, (2) the knowledge of mortality an...

Horror cinema is a hugely successful, but at the same time culturally illicit genre that spans the history of cinema. It continues to flourish with recent cycles of supernatural horror and torture porn that span the full range of horror styles and aesthetics. It is enjoyed by audiences everywhere, but also seen as a malign influence by others.In this Routledge Film Guidebook, audience researcher and film scholar Brigid Cherry provides a comprehensive overview of the horror film and...

Characters in some languages, particularly Hebrew and Arabic, may not display properly due to device limitations. Transliterations of terms appear before the representations in foreign characters.This is an encyclopedic dictionary of close to 400 important philosophical, literary, and political terms and concepts that defy easy—or any—translation from one language and culture to another. Drawn from more than a dozen languages, terms such as Dasein (German), pr...

From the four-time Nebula Award–winning author, an indispensable work of science fiction criticism, revised and expanded.Samuel R. Delany's The Jewel-Hinged Jaw appeared originally in 1977, and is now long out of print and hard to find. The impact of its demonstration that science fiction was a special language, rather than just gadgets and green-skinned aliens, began reverberations still felt in science fiction criticism. This edition includes two new ess...