Through a highly sensitive exploration of key concepts and metaphors, Bernard Faure guides Western readers in appreciating some of the more elusive aspects of the Chinese tradition of Chan Buddhism and its outgrowth, Japanese Zen. He focuses on Chan's insistence on "immediacy"--its denial of all traditional mediations, including scripture, ritual, good works--and yet shows how these mediations have always been present in Chan. Given this apparent duplicity in its discourse, Faure reveals how Chan structures its practice and doctrine on such mental paradigms as mediacy/immediacy, sudden/gradual, and center/margins.
Bernard Faure's previous works are well known as guides to some of the more elusive aspects of the Chinese tradition of Chan Buddhism and its outgrowth, Japanese Zen. Continuing his efforts to look at Chan/Zen with a full array of postmodernist critical techniques, Faure now probes the imaginaire, or mental universe, of the Buddhist Soto Zen master Keizan Jokin (1268-1325). Although Faure's new book may be read at one level as an intellectual biography, Keizan is portrayed here less as an original thinker than as a representative of his culture and an example of the paradoxes of the Soto school. The Chan/Zen doctrine that he avowed was allegedly reasonable and demythologizing, but he lived in a psychological world that was just as imbued with the marvelous as was that of his contemporary Dante Alighieri. Drawing on his own dreams to demonstrate that he possessed the magical authority that he felt to reside also in icons and relics, Keizan strove to use these "visions of power" to buttress his influence as a patriarch. To reveal the historical, institutional, ritual, and visionary elements in Keizan's life and thought and to compare these to Soto doctrine, Faure draws on largely neglected texts, particularly the Record of Tokoku (a chronicle that begins with Keizan's account of the origins of the first of the monasteries that he established) and the kirigami, or secret initiation documents.
This book explores the possible relations between Western types of rationality and Buddhism. It also examines some clichés about Buddhism and questions the old antinomies of Western culture ("faith and reason," or "idealism and materialism"). The use of the Buddhist notion of the Two Truths as a hermeneutic device leads to a double or multiple exposure that will call into question our mental habits and force us to ask questions differently, to think "in a new key." Double Exposure is somewhat of an oddity. Written by a specialist for nonspecialists, it is not a book of vulgarization. Although it aims at a better integration of Western and Buddhist thought, it is not an exercise in comparative philosophy or religion. It is neither a contribution to Buddhist scholarship in the narrow sense, nor a contribution to some vague Western "spirituality." Cutting across traditional disciplines and blurring established genres, it provides a leisurely but deeply insightful stroll through philosophical and literary texts, dreams, poetry, and paradoxes.
A collection of critical writings on music from the Nobel Prize–winning playwright behind Saint Joan and Man and Superman. The Critical Shaw: On Music is a comprehensive selection of renowned Irish playwright and Nobel Laureate Bernard Shaw’s extensive writings on a wide range of musical topics. Still recognized as one of Great Britain’s most important music critics, Shaw enriched London’s musical scene for some twenty years with his provocative, original, and penetrating reviews, before giving up music criticism to concentrate his talents on playwriting. His vast critical output encompassed opera, operetta, vocal and orchestral performance, musical theater, and oratorios, and took in major composers and performers as well as many long since forgotten names. Frequently embellished by his controversial political and social opinions, and delving as well into the nature of music criticism itself, Shaw’s reviews continue to stimulate and surprise, their depth and range setting standards that are rarely, if ever, matched today. Included in this edition is a previously unpublished draft on voice training prepared by Shaw for Vandeleur Lee, his mother’s singing teacher. The Critical Shaw series brings together, in five volumes and from a wide range of sources, selections from Bernard Shaw’s voluminous writings on topics that exercised him for the whole of his professional career: Literature, Music, Politics, Religion, and Theater. The volumes are edited by leading Shaw scholars, and all include an introduction, a chronology of Shaw’s life and works, annotated texts, and a bibliography. The series editor is L.W. Conolly, literary adviser to the Shaw Estate and former president of the International Shaw Society.
A major new authoritative and comprehensive biography, shedding new light on the life and personality of the great Reformer - and the milieu in which he lived and worked. Cottret's Calvin is not the 'static' theologian of earlier biographies, but a man of enormous vigour, constantly on the move in his thinking as well as in his life. Professor Cottret introduces the reader to the world into which Calvin was born, and follows him from childhood to humanistic and literary pursuits in Basel, to ministry in Geneva, to the halcyon Strasbourg years and finally back to Geneva. The vital issues of the day are encountered as it were through Calvin's eyes, as the author leads the reader through the dramatic upheavals of sixteenth-century Europe. A classic biography which will be an indispensable resource for students and scholars for years to come. Praise for Calvin: 'A tour de force. . . Cottret has avoided the trap of painting a character who would have had, from the beginning, all of the traits of his later years, and endeavours to show how Calvin became Calvin. . . Brilliant.' --Le Monde 'This excellent book regards the French Reformer with new eyes. . . Cottret mixes seriousness and welcome humour. For the public interested in a history of Protestanism, this book is full of reflections of the spirit of the Reformation.' --Les Livres du Mois "Bernard Cottret is an accomplished and successful writer . . . He has an idiosyncratic style that mixes narrative and professional bon mots of a cold philosophical nature . . . Cottret is also the first of recent biographers [. . .] to make extensive use of Calvin's sermons, many of which languished unpublished until recently. Calvin had grave doubts about the publication of such works and thought them fit only for a local and transitory audience; but it is here, in this less guarded medium, that Calvin's skill as a teacher and expositor shines forth with greatest clarity." --English Historical Review
A concise introduction to the theory of contracts, emphasizing basic tools that allow the reader to understand the main theoretical models; revised and updated throughout for this edition. The theory of contracts grew out of the failure of the general equilibrium model to account for the strategic interactions among agents that arise from informational asymmetries. This popular text, revised and updated throughout for the second edition, serves as a concise and rigorous introduction to the theory of contracts for graduate students and professional economists. The book presents the main models of the theory of contracts, particularly the basic models of adverse selection, signaling, and moral hazard. It emphasizes the methods used to analyze the models, but also includes brief introductions to many of the applications in different fields of economics. The goal is to give readers the tools to understand the basic models and create their own. For the second edition, major changes have been made to chapter 3, on examples and extensions for the adverse selection model, which now includes more thorough discussions of multiprincipals, collusion, and multidimensional adverse selection, and to chapter 5, on moral hazard, with the limited liability model, career concerns, and common agency added to its topics. Two chapters have been completely rewritten: chapter 7, on the theory of incomplete contracts, and chapter 8, on the empirical literature in the theory of contracts. An appendix presents concepts of noncooperative game theory to supplement chapters 4 and 6. Exercises follow chapters 2 through 5. Praise for the previous edition: “The Economics of Contracts offers an excellent introduction to agency models. Written by one of the leading young researchers in contact theory, it is rigorous, clear, concise, and up-to-date. Researchers and students who want to learn about the economics of incentives will want to read this primer.”—Jean Tirole, Institut D'Économie Industrielle, Universite des Sciences Sociales, France “Students will find this a very useful introduction to the ideas of contract theory. Salanié has managed to summarize a large amount of material in a relatively short number of pages in a highly accessible and readable manner.”—Oliver Hart, Professor of Economics, Harvard University
Faced with climate changes, pest pressure on plants is increasing and new pest complexes are appearing, for which plant protection solutions are not yet available. The reduction of anthropic pressure on agroecosystems requires a reduction in the use of chemical inputs and the promotion of biocontrol approaches. In this book, we present new advances on plant disease management that are emerging from research outputs. The ability of biocontrol products to directly (e.g. production of antimicrobial peptides or quorum quenching activities by microorganisms, use of plant or agro-industrial by-products as biopesticides, etc.) or indirectly (e.g. via the increase of plant defense or plant growth pathways) protect plants against pathogens and pests is also considered. We also address new strategies like the development of phage-based biocontrol products and those that consider the plant as a holobiont and plant microbiota as targets of biocontrol treatments. The important question of the current regulatory process needed to launch plant production products on the market is also addressed, such as methods to evaluate their environmental impact.
Although most people are aware of the value of developing new energy technologies, the importance of assessing such technologies is only just beginning to be recognized in full. This book, illustrated by real-life examples, fulfils two main objectives. Firstly, it provides an in-depth summary of energy system evaluation methods, the result of decades of work in this area, for the use of researchers, engineers and anybody else interested in the energy sector. Secondly, the vicious cycle of neglect towards in situ evaluation is broken. This neglect is due to its unjust reputation for being “thankless work”: longwinded, expensive, difficult to exploit and undervalued. By scientifically organizing experience acquired over more than 30 years, Energy Transition highlights the considerable usefulness of the approach, not only economically, but also from a human standpoint.
Molecular Fluorescence This second edition of the well-established bestseller is completely updated and revised with approximately 30 % additional material, including two new chapters on applications, which has seen the most significant developments. The comprehensive overview written at an introductory level covers fundamental aspects, principles of instrumentation and practical applications, while providing many valuable tips. For photochemists and photophysicists, physical chemists, molecular physicists, biophysicists, biochemists and biologists, lecturers and students of chemistry, physics, and biology.
How did the elephant seal survive being driven to the brink of extinction in the nineteenth century? What variables determine the lifetime reproductive success of individual seals? How have elephant seals adapted to tolerate remarkable physiological extremes of nutrition, temperature, asphyxia, and pressure? Answering these questions and many more, this book is the result of the author's 50-year study of elephant seals. The chapters cover a broad range of topics including diving, feeding, migration and reproductive behavior, yielding fundamental information on general biological principles, the operation of natural selection, the evolution of social behavior, the formation of vocal dialects, colony development, and population changes over time. The book will be a valuable resource for graduate students and researchers of marine mammal behavior and reproductive life history as well as for amateur naturalists interested in these fascinating animals.
For many people attracted to Eastern religions (particularly Zen Buddhism), Asia seems the source of all wisdom. As Bernard Faure examines the study of Chan/Zen from the standpoint of postmodern human sciences and literary criticism, he challenges this inversion of traditional "Orientalist" discourse: whether the Other is caricatured or idealized, ethnocentric premises marginalize important parts of Chan thought. Questioning the assumptions of "Easterners" as well, including those of the charismatic D. T. Suzuki, Faure demonstrates how both West and East have come to overlook significant components of a complex and elusive tradition. Throughout the book Faure reveals surprising hidden agendas in the modern enterprise of Chan studies and in Chan itself. After describing how Jesuit missionaries brought Chan to the West, he shows how the prejudices they engendered were influenced by the sectarian constraints of Sino-Japanese discourse. He then assesses structural, hermeneutical, and performative ways of looking at Chan, analyzes the relationship of Chan and local religion, and discusses Chan concepts of temporality, language, writing, and the self. Read alone or with its companion volume, The Rhetoric of Immediacy, this work offers a critical introduction not only to Chinese and Japanese Buddhism but also to "theory" in the human sciences.
Professor Jerzy Lukierski, an outstanding specialist in the domain of quantum groups, will reach on May 21, 1995 the age of sixty. This is a birthday volume dedicated to him. It assumes the form of a collection of papers on a wide range of topics in modern research area from theoretical high energy physics to mathematical physics. Various topics of quantum groups will be treated with a special emphasis. Quantum groups is nowadays a very fashionable subject both in mathematics and high energy physics.
From Hank Aaron to King Zog, Mao Tse-Tung to Madonna, Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes features more than 2,000 people from around the world, past and present, in all fields. These short anecdotes provide remarkable insight into the human character. Ranging from the humorous to the tearful, they span classical history, recent politics, modern science and the arts. Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes is a gold mine for anyone who gives speeches, is doing research, or simply likes to browse. As an informal tour of history and human nature at its most entertaining & instructive, this is sure to be a perennial favorite for years to come.
Optimizing the process of converting heat into mechanical power is a major challenge when it comes to meeting targets for protecting primary energy resources and minimizing our environmental impact. For many years to come, the use of thermal engines will continue to be necessary for transportation on land, by sea and by air, as well as for many industrial applications. Against this background, Thermodynamics of Heat Engines aims to present a comprehensive overview of the thermodynamic concepts, including combustion, that are necessary for understanding the phenomena governing the energy efficiency of internal and external combustion engines as well as that of gas turbines and jet propulsion engines. Existing and developing industrial applications, based on combined heat and power (CHP) or the use of staged cycles, are presented, with particular attention paid to the recovery of low temperature waste heat. This book, which is mainly intended for university and engineering students but is also useful for engineers and technicians working in the fields concerned, provides a basis for reflection on the optimization of energy systems.
Bernard Shaw's essays on music include some of the most scintillating ever written on the subject. In this volume, Louis Crompton has brought together Shaw's major articles on Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, and a host of other composers, articles culled from six miscellaneous volumes of criticism made up largely of untitled reviews. Concert goers and opera enthusiasts will enjoy comparing Shaw's views of familiar works with their own, and professional music critics will find much to engage them in his pungent opinions. Throughout these pages Shaw's sparkling wit is everywhere in evidence, along with the intellectual vigor that him one of the mentors of his age. Crompton's extensive introduction discusses Shaw's views on musical greatness and traces connections between his thinking on music and the social and aesthetic currents of his time."--Publisher's description.
This book is a completely revised new edition of the definitive reference on disorders of hemoglobin. Authored by world-renowned experts, the book focuses on basic science aspects and clinical features of hemoglobinopathies, covering diagnosis, treatment, and future applications of current research. While the second edition continues to address the important molecular, cellular, and genetic components, coverage of clinical issues has been significantly expanded, and there is more practical emphasis on diagnosis and management throughout. The book opens with a review of the scientific underpinnings. Pathophysiology of common hemoglobin disorders is discussed next in an entirely new section devoted to vascular biology, the erythrocyte membrane, nitric oxide biology, and hemolysis. Four sections deal with α and β thalassemia, sickle cell disease, and related conditions, followed by special topics. The second edition concludes with current and developing approaches to treatment, incorporating new agents for iron chelation, methods to induce fetal hemoglobin production, novel treatment approaches, stem cell transplantation, and progress in gene therapy.
This volume contains the best of Shaw's musical writing, including sections on Gluck, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Verdi, Berlioz, pieces on opera, musical analysis, oratorios, Gilbert and Sullivan, plus a long autobiographical preface, one of Shaw's most self-revealing works. The result is a book of unparalleled brilliance and grace by a writer who, according to W.H. Auden, "was probably the greatest music critic who ever lived." "For all music collections." - Library Journal
The authors have put together a fascinating narrative of the creation process of one of the most successful example of frugal engineering in recent years. They bring out insightful details of what managerial, organizational and technological pathways were taken to come up with a disruptive innovation that has the potential to change the entry-level automobile market in India and other emerging markets. The book significantly deepens and extends the knowledge of disruptive and reverse innovation, as well as of strategic alliance management. The book keeps the reader captive and is a must read for all who have an interest in innovation.
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