The relationship between everyday experience and culture - seen as a set of ideas, values, or symbolic codes - has challenged social scientists and especially anthropologists, for more than a century. As a comprehensive and critical account of knowledge and research in the field of culture theory, leading social scientists explore the implications for understanding different aspects of subjective experience, social practice, and individual behavior. The focus of the volume is on the role of symbols and meaning in the development of mind, self, and emotion. They examine the content of culture and how it interacts with cognitive, social, and emotional growth; how ideas relate to attitudes, feelings, and behavior; how concepts and meanings are historically transmitted. They also explore methodological and conceptual problems involved in the definition and study of meaning, and revisit the perennial problem of 'relativism' in light of topical advances in semantic analysis and in culture theory. This book will appeal to an interdisciplinary audience of anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers, historians, and linguists, as well as those interested in hermeneutics and a science of subjectivity.

Best known for his masterpiece 'Infinite Jest', David Foster Wallace re-invented fiction and non-fiction for a generation with his groundbreaking and original work. Wallace's desire to blend formal innovation and self-reflexivity with the communicative and restorative function of literature resulted in works that appeal as much to a reader's intellect as they do emotion.

Medicines are the core of treatment in biomedicine, as in many other medical traditions. As material things, they have social as well as pharmacological lives, with people and between people. They are tokens of healing and hope, as well as valuable commodities. Each chapter of this book shows drugs in the hands of particular actors: mothers in Manila, villagers in Burkina Faso, women in the Netherlands, consumers in London, market traders in Cameroon, pharmacists in Mexico, injectionists in Uganda, doctors in Sri Lanka, industrialists in India, and policymakers in Geneva. Each example is used to explore a different problem in the study of medicines, such as social efficacy, experiences of control, skepticism and cultural politics, commodification of health, the attraction of technology and the marketing of images and values. The book shows how anthropologists deal with the sociality of medicines, through their ethnography, their theorizing, and their uses of knowledge.

The concept of toleration plays a central role in pluralistic societies. It designates a stance which permits conflicts over beliefs and practices to persist while at the same time defusing them, because it is based on reasons for coexistence in conflict - that is, in continuing dissension. A critical examination of the concept makes clear, however, that its content and evaluation are profoundly contested matters and thus that the concept itself stands in conflict. For some, toleration was and is an expression of mutual respect in spite of far-reaching differences, for others, a condescending, potentially repressive attitude and practice. Rainer Forst analyses these conflicts by reconstructing the philosophical and political discourse of toleration since antiquity. He demonstrates the diversity of the justifications and practices of toleration from the Stoics and early Christians to the present day and develops a systematic theory which he tests in discussions of contemporary conflicts over toleration.

Distinguished international contributors examine the major figures in Critical Theory, including Adorno, Benjamin, and Habermas, as well as lesser known but important thinkers. They survey the shared philosophical concerns that have given impetus to Critical Theory throughout its history, and reveal the diversity among its proponents that contributes so much to its richness as a philosophical school.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) was described by Paul Ricoeur as 'the greatest of the French phenomenologists'. The essays in this 2004 volume examine the full scope of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy, from his central and abiding concern with the nature of perception and the bodily constitution of intentionality to his reflections on science, nature, art, history, and politics. The authors explore the historical origins and context of his thought as well as its continuing relevance to contemporary work in phenomenology, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, biology, art criticism and political and social theory. What emerges is a fresh image of Merleau-Ponty as a deep and original thinker whose philosophical importance has been underestimated, in part owing to the influence of intellectual movements such as existentialism and structuralism, into which his work could not be easily assimilated. New readers will find this the most convenient and accessible guide to Merleau-Ponty currently available.

Across the humanities, a set of interrelated concepts - excess, becoming, the event - have gained purchase as analytical tools for thinking about power. Some versions of affect theory rely on Gilles Deleuze's concept of 'becoming', proposing that affect is best understood as a field of dynamic novelty. Reconsidering affect theory's relationship with life sciences, Schaefer argues that this procedure fails as a register of the analytics of power. By way of a case study, this work concludes with a return to the work of Saba Mahmood, in particular her 2005 study of the women's mosque movement in Cairo, Politics of Piety.

This is one of the first books in a new series that will publish the very best work in the philosophy of biology. The series will be non-sectarian in character, will extend across the broadest range of topics, and will be genuinely interdisciplinary. The Immune Self is a critical study of immunology from its origins at the end of the nineteenth century to its contemporary formulation. The book offers the first extended philosophical critique of immunology, in which the function of the term 'self' that underlies the structure of current immune theory is analysed. However, this analysis is carefully integrated into a broad survey of the major scientific developments in immunology, a discussion of their historical context, and a review of the conceptual arguments that have moulded this sophisticated modern science.

This Companion showcases the best scholarship on Ian McEwan's work, and offers a comprehensive demonstration of his importance in the canon of international contemporary fiction. The whole career is covered, and the connections as well as the developments across the oeuvre are considered. The essays offer both an assessment of McEwan's technical accomplishments and a sense of the contextual factors that have provided him with inspiration. This volume has been structured to highlight the points of intersection between literary questions and evaluations, and the treatment of contemporary socio-cultural issues and topics. For the more complex novels - such as Atonement - this book offers complementary perspectives. In this respect, The Cambridge Companion to Ian McEwan serves as a prism of interpretation, revealing the various interpretive emphases each of McEwan's more complex works invite, and to show how his various recurring preoccupations run through his career.

Between the mid-seventeenth century and the early nineteenth century there developed in Britain a range of empirical and increasingly secular sciences concerned with the earth. This book presents a detailed account of how this development led to the creation of a complex socio-intellectual fabric of methods, ambitions, facts and ideas which took on the nature of a distinctive, self-sustaining discipline: 'geology'. During this period the criteria for a proper science of the earth were continually reassessed and the earth as an object of science was radically reinterpreted. In his account of this transformation, Dr Porter treats science as an integral but distinct part of the spectrum of man's intellectual and social activities. His account thus illuminates the nature of science and scientific knowledge as a dynamic intellectual, social and cultural enterprise. The book will be of interest not only to historians and philosophers of science but also to social historians and geologists.

In 1959, C. P. Snow lamented the presence of what he called the 'two cultures': the apparently unbridgeable chasm of understanding and knowledge between modern literature and modern science. In recent decades, scholars have worked diligently and often with great ingenuity to interrogate claims like Snow's that represent twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature and science as radically alienated from each other. The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Science offers a roadmap to developments that have contributed to the demonstration and emergence of reciprocal connections between the two domains of inquiry. Weaving together theory and empiricism, individual chapters explore major figures - Shakespeare, Bacon, Emerson, Darwin, Henry James, William James, Whitehead, Einstein, Empson, and McClintock; major genres and modes of writing - fiction, science fiction, non-fiction prose, poetry, and dramatic works; and major theories and movements - pragmatism, critical theory, science studies, cognitive science, ecocriticism, cultural studies, affect theory, digital humanities, and expanded empiricisms. This book will be a key resource for scholars, graduate students, and undergraduate students alike.
Product Description
In 1959, C. P. Snow lamented the presence of what he called the 'two cultures': the apparently unbridgeable chasm of understanding and knowledge between modern literature and modern science. In recent decades, scholars have worked diligently and often with great ingenuity to interrogate claims like Snow's that represent twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature and science as radically alienated from each other. The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Science offers a roadmap to developments that have contributed to the demonstration and emergence of reciprocal connections between the two domains of inquiry. Weaving together theory and empiricism, individual chapters explore major figures - Shakespeare, Bacon, Emerson, Darwin, Henry James, William James, Whitehead, Einstein, Empson, and McClintock; major genres and modes of writing - fiction, science fiction, non-fiction prose, poetry, and dramatic works; and major theories and movements - pragmatism, critical theory, science studies, cognitive science, ecocriticism, cultural studies, affect theory, digital humanities, and expanded empiricisms. This book will be a key resource for scholars, graduate students, and undergraduate students alike.
Review
'The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Science is a serious, substantial, and illuminating volume. The contributors are among the most highly regarded and influential scholars in their respective areas of expertise in literature and science. Together, their contributions provide a comprehensive, consistently informative, and frequently enlightening survey of what is an extremely varied and theoretically challenging interdisciplinary field. The volume will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars working in any area of literature and sciences studies.' Paul Peppis, University of Oregon
'... original, transformative, and enormously valuable as a fresh perspective on the field.' Martin Willis, The British Society for Literature and Science Reviews (www.bsls.ac.uk)
Book Description
This Companion is designed for undergraduates, graduates and faculty that wish to understand how the sciences and humanities inform one another. This up-to-date guide to literature and science explores major figures, genres and theories in the field, showing that the two area of studies are more closely aligned than they typically appear.

Ian Watt (1917-1999) has long been acknowledged as one of the finest of post-War literary critics. The Rise of the Novel (1957) is still the landmark account of the way in which realist fiction developed in the eighteenth century and Watt's work on Conrad has been enormously influential. Conrad in the Nineteenth Century (1979) was to have been followed by a volume addressing Conrad's later work, but the material for this long-awaited second volume remains in essay form. It is these essays, as Frank Kermode points out in his foreword, which form the nucleus of Essays on Conrad. Watt's own worldview, as well as his insight into Conrad's work, was shaped by his experiences as a prisoner of war on the River Kwai. His personal, and painfully moving, account of these experiences forms part of his famous essay 'The Bridge over the River Kwai as Myth' which completes this essential collection.

Written by one of the pre-eminent interpreters of Heidegger, this book is an important statement about the basis of human sociability that is a major contribution to the continuing debates about Heidegger in particular, and ethics in general. Existential philosophy is often thought to promote moral nihilism in which everything is permitted. This book demonstrates that, in the case of Martin Heidegger, any such accusation is unjust. On the contrary, Heidegger thought seriously about the implications of human co-existence, and this book shows that conceptions of trust and responsibility that lie at the very heart of morality are to be found in the sketch of Mitsein - our being together with one another in the world - offered in Being and Time. That Heidegger never developed these conceptions may explain why they have been overlooked, but renders them no less important for that.

What happens when journalism is made superfluous? Combining ethnography, media analysis, moral and political theory this book examines the unravelling of professional journalism in Russia over the past twenty-five years, and its effects on society. It argues that, contrary to widespread assumptions, late Soviet-era journalists shared a cultural contract with their audiences, which ensured that their work was guided by a truth-telling ethic. Post-communist economic and political upheaval led not so much to greater press freedom as to the de-professionalization of journalism, as journalists found themselves having to monetize their truth-seeking skills. This has culminated in a perception of journalists as political prostitutes, or members of the 'second oldest profession', as they are commonly termed in Russia. Roudakova argues that this cultural shift has fundamentally eroded the value of truth-seeking and telling in Russian society.
‘Natalia Roudakova brings deep ethnographic research, fluency in social theory, and an engaged ethical sense for the deep urgency of journalism to this thoughtful and essential book. Her account of the surprising career of Russian journalism - from its fall from grace as a moral outlet under the Soviets to its ‘prostitution' in a time of oligarchs, big money, and ‘kompromat' - offers not only a sparkling case study but a vision of the high societal stakes of journalism more generally. Losing Pravda presents us with an uncannily familiar media environment. The conditions that Roudakova analyses, such as fake news, sponsored content, swirling rumors and cynicism, punctuated here and there by the courageous few committed to telling the truth, are not unique to Russia. In a way, Roudakova has helped us understand not only the Russian scene, but also our own in the age of Donald J. Trump.'
John D. Peters - University of Iowa
'Changes in Russia’s press are vital to understanding the global media climate of today. … the book offers a thoughtful and useful discussion of how truth can slowly be erased from public discourse. Highly Recommended.'
J. R. Clardie Source: Choice

This book was originally published in 2007, the relationship between the work of Charles Dickens and popular literature has often been noted, but the extent to which his fiction and journalism were rooted in, and continued to respond to, the popular radical culture of his time had so far been unexplored. Sally Ledger traces the influence of Regency radicals, such as William Hone and William Cobbett, and mid-century radical writers, such as Douglas Jerrold and the Chartists Ernest Jones and G. W. M. Reynolds. She offers substantial readings of works from Pickwick to Little Dorrit, arguing that Dickens's populism bridged eighteenth- and nineteenth-century conceptions of the 'popular', the first identified with the political idea of 'the People', the second identified with a mass-market 'populace' that emerged during Dickens's career. Richly illustrated, this study also uncovers the resonance between Dickens's writings and popular graphic art by George Cruikshank, Robert Seymour, C. J. Grant and others.

This important new title by Richard J. Bernstein presents a detailed examination of Freud's last book, Moses and Monotheism. Bernstein argues convincingly that this frequently vilified and dismissed book is one of Freud's most important works. It is in Moses and Monotheism that Freud answers the question that obsessed him: what is the essence of the Jewish people? Bernstein goes on to show how Freud developed a new interpretation of the concept of a religious tradition--an interpretation that is applicable to both Judaism and Christianity.

This book demonstrates the rich diversity and depth of political philosophy in the twentieth century. Catherine H. Zuckert has compiled a collection of essays recounting the lives of political theorists, connecting each biography with the theorist's life work and explaining the significance of the contribution to modern political thought. The essays are organized to highlight the major political alternatives and approaches. Beginning with essays on John Dewey, Carl Schmitt and Antonio Gramsci, representing the three main political alternatives - liberal, fascist and communist - at mid-century, the book proceeds to consider the lives and works of emigres such as Hannah Arendt, Eric Voegelin, and Leo Strauss, who brought a continental perspective to the United States after World War II. The second half of the collection contains essays on recent defenders of liberalism, such as Friedrich Hayek, Isaiah Berlin and John Rawls and liberalism's many critics, including Michel Foucault, Jurgen Habermas and Alasdair MacIntyre.