Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno are considered today to be the two most significant early theorists in founding critical theory. In their works and correspondence, both thinkers turn to art and the aesthetic as a vital way for understanding modern society and developing philosophical methods. This volume of original essays seeks to understand how they influenced each other and disagreed with each other on fundamental questions about art and the aesthetic. The books deals with a varie...

How is art both distinct and different from the rest of human life, while also mattering in and for it? This central yet overlooked question in contemporary philosophy of art is at the heart of Georg Bertram's new aesthetic. Drawing on the resources of diverse philosophical traditions – analytic philosophy, French philosophy, and German post-Kantian philosophy – his book offers a systematic account of art as a human practice. One that remains connected to the whole of life.

When managing massive amounts of information is part of your job and daily life, how do you transform a feeling of overwhelm into a sense of abundance and empowerment?This groundbreaking guide delivers the practical insights and strategies you need to build a positive relationship with information and excel at work and in all your ventures.Ross Dawson draws on his work as a leading futurist and twenty-five years of research into the practices that transform...

This book provides a study of Walter Benjamin’s first philosophy in two senses: it focuses on his early philosophy as a source of insight into his later works, and it explores his thinking about the nature of truth, method, experience, the relation of body and mind, and the limits of human knowledge.While most attention is paid to Benjamin’s later works, his writings from roughly 1914-1925 explore philosophical themes and develop a critical method. This book argues that th...

This book develops a philosophy of aesthetic experience through two socially significant philosophical movements: early German Romanticism and early critical theory. In examining the relationship between these two closely intertwined movements, we see that aesthetic experience is not merely a passive response to art—it is the capacity to cultivate true personal autonomy, and to critique the social and political context of our lives. Art is political for these thinkers, not only when it pai...

On Mechanism in Hegel's Social and Political Philosophy examines the role of the concept of mechanism in Hegel’s thinking about political and social institutions. It counters as overly simplistic the notion that Hegel has an ‘organic concept of society’. It examines the thought of Hegel’s peers and predecessors who critique modern political intuitions as ‘machine-like’, focusing on J.G. Herder, Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis. From here it examines the early writings of Hegel, in w...

Walter Benjamin is one of the most influential authors in contemporary humanities, exerting a deep fascination for students and garnering scholarly interest in a variety of fields, such as history of philosophy, literature, film and media studies, political science, religion, architecture, art and history. This Handbook provides students and scholars with a guide to Walter Benjamin’s work that explores each of these areas in depth while also giving the reader a chance to discover connectio...

Ian Winters only ever wants one thing in life: snow.Well, he could also use a raise, would rather not get evicted, and he also wouldn't mind having a girlfriend. But then he meets Linnea Starling, and a really tall Scandinavian dude with wooden skis. Next thing he knows, he's the bearer of a powerful artifact carved from the living wood of Yggdrasil.Now, he and Linnea are the only ones who can help the Norse gods stop an even bigger apocalypse than Ragnarök: the eternal end...

This collection features original essays that examine Walter Benjamin’s and Theodor Adorno’s essays and correspondence on literature. Taken together, the essays present the view that these two monumental figures of 20th-century philosophy were not simply philosophers who wrote about literature, but that they developed their philosophies in and through their encounters with literature.Benjamin, Adorno, and the Experience of Literature is divided into three thematic sections...

Two Philadelphia natives meet at Salem College in Winston Salem. Nathan Ross Freeman is Aileen Muhammad's poetry and screenwriting professor. She believes he is her blood brother by some accidental occurrence. He says maybe in another life. She begins to write stories. He shares his and here they are. The threads that weave the fabric of these stories, the entry into the avenue of the muse and the poetic conjures are startling and satisfying.

What is jazz? How does it differ from other kinds of music? To what extent is it an important subject for thinking about aesthetic questions? Philosophy of Jazz is among the first book-length philosophical discussions devoted to jazz. Daniel Martin Feige explores the relationship between jazz and European art music, arguing that in jazz central aspects of musical practice are made explicit, aspects that remain implicit in the tradition of European art music but nevertheless inform...

High throughput screening remains a key part of early stage drug and tool compound discovery, and methods and technologies have seen many fundamental improvements and innovations over the past 20 years. This comprehensive book provides a historical survey of the field up to the current state-of-the-art. In addition to the specific methods, this book also considers cultural and organizational questions that represent opportunities for future success.Following thought-provoking forewo...