Volney Patrick Gay's Books

Progress and Values in the Humanities

Comparing Culture and Science

By: Volney Patrick Gay

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Progress and Values in the Humanities

Comparing Culture and Science

By: Volney Patrick Gay

Money and support tend to flow in the direction of economics, science, and other academic departments that demonstrate measurable "progress." The humanities, on the other hand, offer more abstract and uncertain outcomes. A humanist's objects of study are more obscure in certain ways than pathogens and cells. Consequently, it seems as if the humanities never truly progress. Is this a fair assessment? By comparing objects of science, such as the brain, the galaxy, the amoeba, and the quark, with objects of humanistic inquiry, such as the poem, the photograph, the belief, and the philosophical concept, Volney Gay reestablishes a fundamental distinction between science and the humanities. He frees the latter from its pursuit of material-based progress and restores its disciplines to a place of privilege and respect. Using the metaphor of magnification, Gay shows that, while we can investigate natural objects to the limits of imaging capacity, magnifying cultural objects dissolves them into noise. In other words, cultural objects can be studied only within their contexts and through the prism of metaphor and narrative. Gathering examples from literature, art, film, philosophy, religion, science, and psychoanalysis, Gay builds a new justification for the humanities. By revealing the unseen and making abstract ideas tangible, the arts create meaningful wholes, which itself is a form of progress.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

248

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231147902

ISBN 13

9780231147903

Freud on Sublimation

Reconsiderations

By: Volney Patrick Gay

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Freud on Sublimation

Reconsiderations

By: Volney Patrick Gay

This book is the only full-length treatment of the relationship between aesthetic truths and psychoanalytic discoveries--of art, artists, and a new concept of sublimation. It provides a radical and unique study of the concept of sublimation and proposes a modest replacement for it. In the first third of the book the author reviews critically the psychoanalytic sources of the concept of sublimation. In the second third he shows how the concept developed from Freud's nineteenth-century notions of perception. In the last third he revises a concept of sublimation using a contemporary theory of perception. In the final chapter he examines four works of literature: short stories of John Cheever, a Japanese novel, portions of Hamlet, and sublimation and perversion in Orson Welles' Citizen Kane.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

388

Publisher

SUNY Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0791411834

ISBN 13

9780791411834

Freud on Sublimation

Reconsiderations

By: Volney Patrick Gay

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Freud on Sublimation

Reconsiderations

By: Volney Patrick Gay

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

388

Publisher

SUNY Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0791411834

ISBN 13

9780791411834

On the Pleasures of Owning Persons

The Hidden Face of American Slavery

By: Volney Gay

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

On the Pleasures of Owning Persons

The Hidden Face of American Slavery

By: Volney Gay

The real reason Americans owned slaves was not just financial. They did it because they liked it. For the first two centuries of American history, starting with the colonists, slavery was a part of the social, economic, and governmental order. Looking back, many of us find it more comfortable to view slave owners as evil or sociopathic. The startling truth is that many were otherwise admirable. To understand America's struggles with race relations, we must take an uncensored look at our country's involvement with slavery. We examine three questions: - What were the pleasures of owning slaves? - How did freedom-loving, American Christians explain ownership to themselves? - How did they defend themselves against this double contradiction? Answering those questions will help us face our future with greater clarity. From the Preface to On The Pleasures of Owning Persons: The Hidden Face of American Slavery: This book is a study of the pleasures that slavery gives to owners. This is a demanding, if not an unfathomable topic that rests upon a simple, self-evident truth. The unfathomable part is because slavery seems remote from us now in the 21st century we struggle to imagine its workings from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The self-evident truth is that millions of Americans, over a span of nearly four centuries, owned slaves because they wished to. They actively chose and maintained a way of life which they felt merited protection and permanency. A small number of these people were sociopathic, most likely between 2 and 4 percent, the usual norm for large populations.[i] Most were not. Indeed, outstanding persons, among them undoubted geniuses like Thomas Jefferson, engaged in slavery all their lives. It is difficult to understand sociopathic persons, but the vast majority of owners were like you and me, normal. Great men who laid the foundations of American freedom defended to their graves the institution of slavery. This book addresses three questions: what were these pleasures; how did freedom-loving, American Christians explain ownership to themselves; how did they defend themselves against this double contradiction? [i] Buckels, Erin E., Paul D. Trapnell, and Delroy L. Paulhus. "Trolls just want to have fun." Personality and individual Differences 67 (2014): 97-102. They conclude, "Thus cyber-trolling appears to be an Internet manifestation of everyday sadism" p. 97.

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

390

Publisher

Ipbooks

Published Date

ISBN 10

099654819X

ISBN 13

9780996548199

Book's by Volney Patrick Gay

Progress and Values in the Humanities

Progress and Values in the Humanities

Freud on Sublimation

Freud on Sublimation

Freud on Sublimation

Freud on Sublimation

On the Pleasures of Owning Persons

On the Pleasures of Owning Persons

Username

Password

Username

Password

Password again

Birthday

Email