Stephen T. Asma's Books

On Monsters

An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears

By: Stephen T. Asma

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On Monsters

An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears

By: Stephen T. Asma

A comprehensive modern-day bestiary."--The New Yorker

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369

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Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199798095

ISBN 13

9780199798094

Against Fairness

By: Stephen T. Asma

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“Mr. Asma offers a rightly critical diagnosis of our obsession with egalitarianism.” —The Wall Street Journal In our zealous pursuit of fairness, we have banished our urges to like one person more than another, one thing over another, hiding them away as dirty secrets of our humanity. In Against Fairness, polymath philosopher Stephen T. Asma drags them triumphantly back into the light. Through playful, witty, but always serious arguments and examples, he vindicates our unspoken and undeniable instinct to favor, making the case that we would all be better off if we showed our unfair tendencies a little more kindness—indeed, if we favored favoritism. Conscious of the egalitarian feathers his argument is sure to ruffle, Asma makes his point by synthesizing a startling array of scientific findings, historical philosophies, cultural practices, analytic arguments, and a variety of personal and literary narratives to give a remarkably nuanced and thorough understanding of how fairness and favoritism fit within our moral architecture. Drawing on thinkers from Confucius to Tocqueville to Nietzsche, he reveals how we have confused fairness with more noble traits, like compassion and open-mindedness. He dismantles a number of seemingly egalitarian pursuits, from classwide Valentine’s Day cards to civil rights, to reveal the envy that lies at their hearts, going on to prove that we can still be kind to strangers, have no prejudice, and fight for equal opportunity at the same time we reserve the best of what we can offer for those dearest to us. Watch an animated book trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjPhTQ9zi5Q

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219

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226923460

ISBN 13

9780226923468

On Monsters

An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears

By: Stephen T. Asma

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On Monsters

An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears

By: Stephen T. Asma

A comprehensive modern-day bestiary."--The New Yorker

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Page Count

369

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Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199798095

ISBN 13

9780199798094

Buddha For Beginners

By: Stephen T. Asma

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Buddha For Beginners

By: Stephen T. Asma

Despite the widespread popularity of Buddhist practices (like meditation), there is little understanding of the complex philosophy behind Buddhism. The historical Buddha, Gautama, was a real person—a radical—who challenged the religious leaders of his day. Buddha For Beginnersintroduces the reader to the historical Buddha, to the ideas that made him change his life, and to the fascinating philosophical debates that engaged him and formed the core of Buddhism. Buddha For Beginners compares Buddha’s philosophy with those of his contemporaries, the later Buddhist schools, and Western Philosophy. The book includes a survey, distinguishing the philosophical differences among later schools of Buddhism, such as Theravada, Madhyamaika, Tantric, Zen, and others. Buddha For Beginners is not a book you read, it is a book you experience. It makes you stop and close your eyes. Through some magical combination of words, drawings, and intuitive wisdom, Buddha For Beginners conveys not only the facts of Buddhism, but the peace, the silence...the feel of it. It is historically accurate, spiritually challenging, and the white spaces mean as much as the words.

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178

Publisher

Red Wheel/Weiser

Published Date

ISBN 10

1939994349

ISBN 13

9781939994349

Why I Am a Buddhist

No-Nonsense Buddhism with Red Meat and Whiskey

By: Stephen T. Asma

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Why I Am a Buddhist

No-Nonsense Buddhism with Red Meat and Whiskey

By: Stephen T. Asma

Profound and amusing, this book provides a viable approach to answering the perennial questions: Who am I? Why am I here? How can I live a meaningful life? For Asma, the answers are to be found in Buddhism. There have been a lot of books that have made the case for Buddhism. What makes this book fresh and exciting is Asma’s iconoclasm, irreverence, and hardheaded approach to the subject. He is distressed that much of what passes for Buddhism is really little more than “New Age mush.” He asserts that it is time to “take the California out of Buddhism.” He presents a spiritual practice that does not require a belief in creeds or dogma. It is a practice that is psychologically sound, intellectually credible, and esthetically appealing. It is a practice that does not require a diet of brown rice, burning incense, and putting both your mind and your culture in deep storage. In seven chapters, Asma builds the case for a spiritual practice that is authentic, and inclusive. This is Buddhism for everyone, especially for people who are uncomfortable with religion but yearn for a spiritual practice.

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194

Publisher

Hampton Roads Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1612830412

ISBN 13

9781612830414

The Emotional Mind

The Affective Roots of Culture and Cognition

By: Stephen T. Asma,Rami Gabriel

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The Emotional Mind

The Affective Roots of Culture and Cognition

By: Stephen T. Asma,Rami Gabriel

Tracing the leading role of emotions in the evolution of the mind, a philosopher and a psychologist pair up to reveal how thought and culture owe less to our faculty for reason than to our capacity to feel. Many accounts of the human mind concentrate on the brain’s computational power. Yet, in evolutionary terms, rational cognition emerged only the day before yesterday. For nearly 200 million years before humans developed a capacity to reason, the emotional centers of the brain were hard at work. If we want to properly understand the evolution of the mind, we must explore this more primal capability that we share with other animals: the power to feel. Emotions saturate every thought and perception with the weight of feelings. The Emotional Mind reveals that many of the distinctive behaviors and social structures of our species are best discerned through the lens of emotions. Even the roots of so much that makes us uniquely human—art, mythology, religion—can be traced to feelings of caring, longing, fear, loneliness, awe, rage, lust, playfulness, and more. From prehistoric cave art to the songs of Hank Williams, Stephen T. Asma and Rami Gabriel explore how the evolution of the emotional mind stimulated our species’ cultural expression in all its rich variety. Bringing together insights and data from philosophy, biology, anthropology, neuroscience, and psychology, The Emotional Mind offers a new paradigm for understanding what it is that makes us so unique.

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449

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674238923

ISBN 13

9780674238923

Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads

The Culture and Evolution of Natural History Museums

By: Stephen T. Asma

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Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads

The Culture and Evolution of Natural History Museums

By: Stephen T. Asma

The natural history museum is a place where the line between "high" and "low" culture effectively vanishes--where our awe of nature, our taste for the bizarre, and our thirst for knowledge all blend happily together. But as Stephen Asma shows in Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads, there is more going on in these great institutions than just smart fun. Asma takes us on a wide-ranging tour of natural history museums in New York and Chicago, London and Paris, interviewing curators, scientists, and exhibit designers, and providing a wealth of fascinating observations. We learn how the first museums were little more than high-toned side shows, with such garish exhibits as the pickled head of Peter the Great's lover. In contrast, today's museums are hot-beds of serious science, funding major research in such fields as anthropology and archaeology. "Rich in detail, lucid explanation, telling anecdotes, and fascinating characters.... Asma has rendered a fascinating and credible account of how natural history museums are conceived and presented. It's the kind of book that will not only engage a wide and diverse readership, but it should, best of all, send them flocking to see how we look at nature and ourselves in those fabulous legacies of the curiosity cabinet."--The Boston Herald.

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Page Count

319

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199839123

ISBN 13

9780199839124

Against Fairness

By: Stephen T. Asma

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Against Fairness

By: Stephen T. Asma

A polymath philosopher shares lighthearted examples of humanity's unspoken instinct toward favoritism to argue against zealous pursuits of fairness.

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219

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

022670212X

ISBN 13

9780226702124

Why We Need Religion

By: Stephen T. Asma

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Why We Need Religion

By: Stephen T. Asma

Religion appears to be about God, messiahs, churchgoing, and morality, but that is only the appearance. It is really about lust, rage, grief, love and the other core emotions. Why We Need Religion is about the way religion successfully manages human emotions, for the good of the individual and the group.

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273

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0190469676

ISBN 13

9780190469672

The Evolution of Imagination

By: Stephen T. Asma

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The Evolution of Imagination

By: Stephen T. Asma

“An ambitious and exciting book about creativity . . . chart[s] new territory.” —Science Consider Miles Davis, horn held high, sculpting a powerful musical statement full of tonal patterns, inside jokes, and thrilling climactic phrases—all on the fly. Or a comedy troupe riffing on cues from the audience until the whole room erupts with laughter; a team of software engineers brainstorming their way to the next Google; or the Einsteins of the world code-cracking the mysteries of nature. Maybe it’s simply a child playing with her toys. What do all of these activities share? With wisdom, humor, and joy, philosopher Stephen T. Asma answers that question: imagination. And from there he takes us on an extraordinary tour of the human creative spirit. Guided by neuroscience, animal behavior, evolution, philosophy, and psychology, Asma burrows deep into the human psyche to look at the enigmatic, powerful engine that is our improvisational creativity—the source, he argues, of our remarkable imaginational capacity. How, he asks, can a story evoke a whole world inside us? How are we able to rehearse a skill, a speech, or even an entire scenario simply by thinking about it? How does creativity go beyond experience and help us make something completely new? And how does our moral imagination help us sculpt a better society? As he shows, we live in a world that is only partly happening in reality. Huge swaths of our cognitive experiences are made up by “what-ifs,” “almosts,” and “maybes,” an imagined terrain that churns out one of the most overlooked but necessary resources for our flourishing: possibilities. Considering everything from how imagination works in our physical bodies to the ways we make images, from the mechanics of language and our ability to tell stories to the creative composition of self-consciousness, Asma expands our personal and day-to-day forms of imagination into a grand scale: as one of the decisive evolutionary forces that has guided human development from the Paleolithic era to today. The result is an inspiring look at the rich relationships among improvisation, imagination, and culture, and a privileged glimpse into the unique nature of our evolved minds.

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Page Count

338

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

022622533X

ISBN 13

9780226225333

The Gods Drink Whiskey

Stumbling Toward Enlightenment in the Land of the Tattered Buddha

By: Stephen T. Asma

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The Gods Drink Whiskey

Stumbling Toward Enlightenment in the Land of the Tattered Buddha

By: Stephen T. Asma

This funny, action-packed travelogue through Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka introduces readers to the basics of Buddhism in a way that could not be more entertaining, nor more thought-provoking. This is a "Year of Living Dangerously" that provides a compelling look into the clash of civilizations in a little-known corner of our shrinking world.

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Page Count

276

Publisher

Harper Collins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0060723955

ISBN 13

9780060723958

Why We Need Religion

By: Stephen T. Asma

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Why We Need Religion

By: Stephen T. Asma

How we feel is as vital to our survival as how we think. This claim, based on the premise that emotions are largely adaptive, serves as the organizing theme of Why We Need Religion. This book is a novel pathway in a well-trodden field of religious studies and philosophy of religion. Stephen Asma argues that, like art, religion has direct access to our emotional lives in ways that science does not. Yes, science can give us emotional feelings of wonder and the sublime--we can feel the sacred depths of nature--but there are many forms of human suffering and vulnerability that are beyond the reach of help from science. Different emotional stresses require different kinds of rescue. Unlike secular authors who praise religion's ethical and civilizing function, Asma argues that its core value lies in its emotionally therapeutic power. No theorist of religion has failed to notice the importance of emotions in spiritual and ritual life, but truly systematic research has only recently delivered concrete data on the neurology, psychology, and anthropology of the emotional systems. This very recent "affective turn" has begun to map out a powerful territory of embodied cognition. Why We Need Religion incorporates new data from these affective sciences into the philosophy of religion. It goes on to describe the way in which religion manages those systems--rage, play, lust, care, grief, and so on. Finally, it argues that religion is still the best cultural apparatus for doing this adaptive work. In short, the book is a Darwinian defense of religious emotions and the cultural systems that manage them.

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273

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0190469684

ISBN 13

9780190469689

Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads

The Culture and Evolution of Natural History Museums

By: Stephen T. Asma

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Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads

The Culture and Evolution of Natural History Museums

By: Stephen T. Asma

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319

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199839123

ISBN 13

9780199839124

The Evolution of Imagination

By: Stephen T. Asma

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The Evolution of Imagination

By: Stephen T. Asma

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Page Count

338

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

022622533X

ISBN 13

9780226225333

The Emotional Mind

The Affective Roots of Culture and Cognition

By: Stephen T. Asma,Rami Gabriel

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The Emotional Mind

The Affective Roots of Culture and Cognition

By: Stephen T. Asma,Rami Gabriel

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Page Count

449

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674980557

ISBN 13

9780674980556

Why I Am a Buddhist

No-Nonsense Buddhism with Red Meat and Whiskey

By: Stephen T. Asma

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Why I Am a Buddhist

No-Nonsense Buddhism with Red Meat and Whiskey

By: Stephen T. Asma

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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Page Count

194

Publisher

Hampton Roads Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

1612830412

ISBN 13

9781612830414

Book's by Stephen T. Asma

On Monsters

On Monsters

Against Fairness

Against Fairness

On Monsters

On Monsters

Buddha For Beginners

Buddha For Beginners

Why I Am a Buddhist

Why I Am a Buddhist

The Emotional Mind

The Emotional Mind

Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads

Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads

Against Fairness

Against Fairness

Why We Need Religion

Why We Need Religion

The Evolution of Imagination

The Evolution of Imagination

The Gods Drink Whiskey

The Gods Drink Whiskey

Why We Need Religion

Why We Need Religion

Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads

Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads

The Evolution of Imagination

The Evolution of Imagination

The Emotional Mind

The Emotional Mind

Why I Am a Buddhist

Why I Am a Buddhist

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