In the mid-eleventh century, secular Byzantine poetry attained a hitherto unseen degree of wit, vividness, and personal involvement, chiefly exemplified in the poetry of Christophoros Mitylenaios, Ioannes Mauropous, and Michael Psellos. This is the first volume to consider this poetic activity as a whole, critically reconsidering modern assumptions about Byzantine poetry, and focusing on Byzantine conceptions of the role of poetry in society. By providing a detailed account of the various media through which poetry was presented to its readers, and by tracing the initial circulation of poems, this volume takes an interest in the Byzantine reader and his/her reading habits and strategies, allowing aspects of performance and visual representation, rarely addressed, to come to the fore. It also examines the social interests that motivated the composition of poetry, establishing a connection with the extraordinary social mobility of the time. Self-representative strategies are analyzed against the background of an unstable elite struggling to find moral justification, which allows the study to raise the question of patronage, examine the discourse used by poets to secure material rewards, and explain the social dynamics of dedicatory epigrams. Finally, gift exchange is explored as a medium that underlines the value of poetry and confirms the exclusive nature of intellectual friendship.
Byzantine poetry of the eleventh century is fascinating, yet underexplored terrain. It presents a lively view on contemporary society, is often permeated with wit and elegance, and is concerned with a wide variety of subjects. Only now are we beginning to perceive the possibilities that this poetry offers for our knowledge of Byzantine culture in general, for the intellectual history of Byzantium, and for the evolution of poetry itself. It is, moreover, sometimes in the most neglected texts that the most fascinating discoveries can be made. This book, the first collaborative book-length study on the topic, takes an important step to fill this gap. It brings together specialists of the period who delve into this poetry with different but complementary objectives in mind, covering the links between art and text, linguistic evolutions, social functionality, contemporary reading attitudes, and the like. The authors aim to give the production of 11th-century verse a place in the Byzantine genre system and in the historic evolution of Byzantine poetry and metrics. As a result, this book will, to use the expression of two important poets of the period, "offer a small taste" of what can be gained from the serious study of this period.
In the mid-eleventh century, secular Byzantine poetry attained a hitherto unseen degree of wit, vividness, and personal involvement, chiefly exemplified in the poetry of Christophoros Mitylenaios, Ioannes Mauropous, and Michael Psellos. This is the first volume to consider this poetic activity as a whole, critically reconsidering modern assumptions about Byzantine poetry, and focusing on Byzantine conceptions of the role of poetry in society. By providing a detailed account of the various media through which poetry was presented to its readers, and by tracing the initial circulation of poems, this volume takes an interest in the Byzantine reader and his/her reading habits and strategies, allowing aspects of performance and visual representation, rarely addressed, to come to the fore. It also examines the social interests that motivated the composition of poetry, establishing a connection with the extraordinary social mobility of the time. Self-representative strategies are analyzed against the background of an unstable elite struggling to find moral justification, which allows the study to raise the question of patronage, examine the discourse used by poets to secure material rewards, and explain the social dynamics of dedicatory epigrams. Finally, gift exchange is explored as a medium that underlines the value of poetry and confirms the exclusive nature of intellectual friendship.
Byzantine poetry of the eleventh century is fascinating, yet underexplored terrain. It presents a lively view on contemporary society, is often permeated with wit and elegance, and is concerned with a wide variety of subjects. Only now are we beginning to perceive the possibilities that this poetry offers for our knowledge of Byzantine culture in general, for the intellectual history of Byzantium, and for the evolution of poetry itself. It is, moreover, sometimes in the most neglected texts that the most fascinating discoveries can be made. This book, the first collaborative book-length study on the topic, takes an important step to fill this gap. It brings together specialists of the period who delve into this poetry with different but complementary objectives in mind, covering the links between art and text, linguistic evolutions, social functionality, contemporary reading attitudes, and the like. The authors aim to give the production of 11th-century verse a place in the Byzantine genre system and in the historic evolution of Byzantine poetry and metrics. As a result, this book will, to use the expression of two important poets of the period, "offer a small taste" of what can be gained from the serious study of this period.
For much of western history, the achievements of classical antiquity were seen as unsurpassable, and works by Latin and Greek authors were viewed as treasure troves of information still useful for contemporary society. By the late seventeenth century, however, the progress of scientific discoveries and the new paradigms of rationalism and empiricism meant the authority of the ancients was called into question. Those working on the classical past and its literature debated new ways of defending their relevance for society. The different approaches to classical literature defended in these debates explain how the writings of ancient Greece and Rome could become a vital part of eighteenth-century culture and political thinking. Floris Verhaart analyses these eighteenth-century debates about the value of classics, arguing that the Enlightenment, though often seen as an age of reason and modernity, in fact continuously sought inspiration from preceding traditions and ages such as Renaissance humanism and classical antiquity. The volume offers an interesting parallel with the modern day, in which the relationship between 'experts' and the general public has become the topic of debate and many academics, especially in the humanities, face pressure to explain how their work benefits society at large.
After reading this book, the world won't look the same. Imagine yourself confined to a wheelchair; or living within the severely constricted lifestyle options of a woman in Saudi Arabia; or being a homosexual in a homophobic society; or a coffee farmer in Ethiopia; or a cow on a factory farm; or growing up impoverished in a developing country; or living 500 years from now when future generations may be negatively impacted by what we do today. This compelling thought experiment invites readers to take a moral journey, which in turn leads to an inconvenient evaluation of the way most of us live. The author proposes a new perspective, called universal subjectivism, which can be adopted by anyone regardless of religious or philosophical orientation. It takes into consideration the universal capacity for suffering and, through raising awareness, seeks to diminish that suffering and increase happiness. With consistent and crystal clear moral reasoning, van den Berg shows that the world can be organized to ensure more pleasure, beauty, justice, happiness, health, freedom, animal welfare, and sustainability. He emphasizes that today the near-term future is our greatest challenge- our affl
This book aims at providing the Legal Masters student throughout Europe's universities with a thorough selection of case law that would be of direct help when studying the subject for the first time. The primary criterion for selection has been whether a particular case has contributed to the development of one of the doctrines or notions that are so important to the understanding of EU competition law. All cases and decisions have been incorporated with their key recitals and texts only, so as to make the amount of text digestible in the context of an introductory course in EU competition law. Furthermore. for each case there is the mention of its relevance within the legal system and each case is accompamed with a short summary of its facts and circumstances. The sequence of cases follows the logic order in which EU competition law may or. in the author's view, should be taught. Wherever of practical use to the reader, cross-references are being made, be these of a general --
The Reformed (or Calvinist) universities of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe hosted rich, Latin-language conversations on the nature of politics, the powers of kings and magistrates, resistance, revolution, and religious warfare. Nevertheless, it is too often assumed that Reformed political thought did not develop beyond John Calvin’s Institutes of 1559. This book remedies this problem, presenting extracts from major Reformed theologians and intellectuals (including Peter Martyr Vermigli, Guillaume de Buc, David Pareus, Lambert Daneau, and Bartholomäus Keckermann) which demonstrate both continuity and change in Reformed political argument. These men taught in France, the Holy Roman Empire, the Low Countries, and England, between the 1540s and 1660s, but they were read in universities throughout the North Atlantic world into the eighteenth century. Should all political action be subject to God’s direct command? Were humans capable of using their own God-given reason to tell right from wrong? Was it ever just to resist tyrants? Was religious difference enough by itself to justify war? Their political doctrines often aroused the greatest controversy in their own time; this is generally the first time that these extracts from their works have been translated into English. These texts and translations are accompanied by an introduction placing these authors in the context of the great European religious wars, advice on further reading, and a full bibliography.
The claims of justice are universal, yet we need the structures of the nation state to implement its policies. This book argues that the EU is able to overcome this paradox. It suggests that EU law, and in particular the right to free movement, creates connections and solidarity between citizens to broaden our understanding of justice.
This book provides a novel formulation and defence of moral error theory. It also provides a novel solution to the so-called now what question; viz., the question what we should do with our moral thought and talk after moral error theory. The novel formulation of moral error theory uses pragmatic presupposition rather than conceptual entailment to argue that moral judgments carry a non-negotiable commitment to categorical moral reasons. The new answer to the now what question is pragmatic presupposition substitutionism: we should substitute our current moral judgments, which pragmatically presuppose the existence of categorical moral reasons with ‘schmoral’ judgments that pragmatically presuppose the existence of a specific class of prudential reasons. These are prudential reasons that, when we act on them, contribute to the satisfaction of what the author calls ‘the fundamental desire’; namely, the desire to live in a world with mutually beneficial cooperation.
Tania Stadsbader wrestled with a balance disorder for 15 years before undergoing an operation that cured her of her condition. In this book, she looks back on her long search for a proper diagnosis, and on the impact of her years of illness. She tells her story directly and clearly, and also gives a voice to many of her fellow sufferers. Professor Floris Wuyts adds a scientific viewpoint and presents the most up-to-date discoveries from the field of vestibular research. The groundbreaking combination of patients’ and professionals’ voices makes this volume unique of its type.
In this first book-length historiographical study of the Scientific Revolution, H. Floris Cohen examines the body of work on the intellectual, social, and cultural origins of early modern science. Cohen critically surveys a wide range of scholarship since the nineteenth century, offering new perspectives on how the Scientific Revolution changed forever the way we understand the natural world and our place in it. Cohen's discussions range from scholarly interpretations of Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, to the question of why the Scientific Revolution took place in seventeenth-century Western Europe, rather than in ancient Greece, China, or the Islamic world. Cohen contends that the emergence of early modern science was essential to the rise of the modern world, in the way it fostered advances in technology. A valuable entrée to the literature on the Scientific Revolution, this book assesses both a controversial body of scholarship, and contributes to understanding how modern science came into the world.
In modern times the Theriaca of Nicander of Colophon (2nd century BCE) has not attracted many enthusiasts. Its complicated style, abstruse diction and technical subject matter – venomous bites and their remedies – have long put off classical scholars. In the wake of renewed interest in Hellenistic poetry, however, Nicander’s dark poetry deserves new appreciation. In this book Floris Overduin provides a literary commentary on the Theriaca, focusing on Nicander’s artistic merits. Viewed against the background of Alexandrian aesthetics and the didactic epic tradition, Nicander deserves pride of place among his Hellenistic peers. This book, the first full commentary in English, may thus contribute to the reappraisal of Nicander’s Theriaca as a work of literature, not science.
This book explores how states and traits of anxiety are reflected in the style and structure of certain works by three key figures of modern Scandinavian literature: August Strindberg, Inger Christensen, Karl Ove Knausgård. On the basis of particular literary analyses, it develops a literary phenomenology of anxiety as well as a hermeneutical theory of anxiety that considers the ways in which anxiety has been represented in various genres of modern Scandinavian literature from the last three centuries. Whereas the former uncovers the ways in which anxiety is reflected in literary form and style, the latter interprets the relationship between author, text, and reader as well as the effects of genre. As Strindberg’s works capture the tensions between existential indeterminism and naturalistic determinism and make way for negative aesthetic pleasure, poetry such as Christensen’s challenges scientistic and psychiatric conceptions of anxiety and instigates a change in how humans conduct themselves in relation to the experience of anxiety. Finally, Knausgård’s autofictive work gives voice to the socially anxious self of late modernity and incites moments of self-intensification and reorganizes the fragile self of contemporary society. In this way, it becomes clear that literature is an outstanding archive of representations and transformations in the cultural history of anxiety. Literature is an aesthetic medium of expression and reflection that represents anxiety in a number of ways that may enrich our understanding of anxiety today. This work thus contributes to cultural and literary scholarship that contests the subjugation of anxiety to a scientific world view and aims to expose the imaginative and creative dimensions of anxiety that are often ignored in contemporary public discourse and policy.
Compensating for Quasi-periodic Motion in Robotic Radiosurgery outlines the techniques needed to accurately track and compensate for respiratory and pulsatory motion during robotic radiosurgery. The algorithms presented within the book aid in the treatment of tumors that move during respiration. In Chapters 1 and 2, the book introduces the concept of stereotactic body radiation therapy, motion compensation strategies and the clinical state-of-the-art. In Chapters 3 through 5, the author describes and evaluates new methods for motion prediction, for correlating external motion to internal organ motion, and for the evaluation of these algorithms’ output based on an unprecedented amount of real clinical data. Finally, Chapter 6 provides a brief introduction into currently investigated, open questions and further fields of research. Compensating for Quasi-periodic Motion in Robotic Radiosurgery targets researchers working in the related fields of surgical oncology, artificial intelligence, robotics and more. Advanced-level students will also find this book valuable.
The Instant Composers Pool and Improvisation Beyond Jazz contributes to the expansion and diversification of our understanding of the jazz tradition by describing the history and practice of one of the most important non-American jazz groups: The Instant Composers Pool, founded in Amsterdam in 1967. The Instant Composers Pool describes the meaning of "instant composition" from both a historical and ethnographic perspective. Historically, it details instant composition’s emergence from the encounter between various overlapping transnational avant-gardes, including free jazz, serialism, experimental music, electronic music, and Fluxus. The author shows how the improvising musicians not only engaged with the cultural politics of ethnicity and race involved in the negotiation of the boundaries of jazz as a cultural practice, but transformed the meaning of music in society—particularly the nature of improvisation and performance. Ethnographically, The Instant Composers Pool encourages readers to reconsider the conceptual tools we use to describe music performance, improvisation, and creativity. It takes the practice of "instant composition" as an opportunity to reflect on music performance as a social practice, which is crucial not only for jazz studies, but for general music scholarship.
Baruch Spinoza a Dutch rationalist philosopher of the 17th century and Donald Davidson one of the most distinguished contemporary American analytic philosophers, are two thinkers not usually analysed in conjunction with each other in the philosophical literature yet there are remarkable parallels in their thought. In this book Floris van der Burg identifies topics of comparison in the areas of ontology, epistemology, philosophy of mind and philosophy of language and, after explaining the theory of each philosopher, examines the parallel themes between Spinoza and Davidsonian theory. In the light of this comparison van der Burg shows that the staunch naturalism of Spinoza, even in the mental realm, should not be abandoned in modern times. Rather it is exactly what Spinoza lacks in this area, the linguistic turn in philosophy, characterised by Davidson, that allows for his naturalism to be salvaged after 300 years. Van der Burg's analysis culminates in his paving the way for a Spinozistic ethics for a Davidsonian philosophy.
For centuries, laymen and priests, lone thinkers and philosophical schools in Greece, China, the Islamic world and Europe reflected with wisdom and perseverance on how the natural world fits together. As a rule, their methods and conclusions, while often ingenious, were misdirected when viewed from the perspective of modern science. In the 1600s thinkers such as Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Bacon and many others gave revolutionary new twists to traditional ideas and practices, culminating in the work of Isaac Newton half a century later. It was as if the world was being created anew. But why did this recreation begin in Europe rather than elsewhere? This book caps H. Floris Cohen's career-long effort to find answers to this classic question. Here he sets forth a rich but highly accessible account of what, against many odds, made it happen and why.
The book discusses the theories, theorists, and contexts from which behavioral economics arose and shows how this new field in economics subsequently developed. The central theme running through the book is that behavioral economics reflects and contributes to a fundamental reorientation of the foundations upon which economics was based for nearly two hundred years.
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