I am Professor of Early Modern Literature at Bangor University, Wales UK and Research Fellow at the Institut de Recherche sur la Renaissance, l'Âge Classique et les Lumières, Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier 3, France. I am someone who has been interested throughout his career in all aspects of what used to be called the European Renaissance and especially in establishing a dialogue between cultural debates raging four hundred years ago and those which dominate our own everyday lives in the twenty-first century. In the past, my work has addressed ideas, for example, concerned with social theory, the construction of cultural space, and the significance of memory.
This study is primarily concerned with thinking about Shakespearean texts in an international context of early modern Europe: how does the dramatist emerge when we see him writing plays, such as Histories, which intersect with continental politics and are being responded to by international audiences at that time?
Centrally, I investigate the ways in which violence in its many forms (physical, psychological, legal, religious…) can shape the ways in which we read these texts and interpret the world around us, then and now.
This is an immensely readable book and a wonderful introduction to the very different ways in which violence might be interpreted from a dizzying range of perspectives.
Schinkel urges us to reflect on our appetites for violence in our reading matter, our cinema and theatre-going, and our hunger for news. He also poses thorny questions about the ‘productive’ potential of violent action.
This book provides a novel approach to the social scientific study of violence. It argues for an 'extended' definition of violence in order to avoid subscribing to commonsensical or state propagated definitions of violence, and pays specific attention to 'autotelic violence' (violence for the sake of itself), as well as to terrorism.
This is now a well-recognised and established intervention in the ongoing debate about the status and function of violence of life in society.
Simmel makes particularly telling points in his discussion of the ways in which group identities may be forged and maintained through violent action and the costs that may be incurred by resisting such social practices.
This book is particularly enlightening concerning the ways in which cultural value may be attributed to individual bodies, armed conflict, and, indeed, to human life itself in different political, geographical, and military circumstances.
Butler compels us to examine our own practices of compassion, partisanship, and/or habits of interpretation as we (or the media) move from one location to another around the globe.
In this urgent response to violence, racism and increasingly aggressive methods of coercion, Judith Butler explores the media's portrayal of armed conflict, a process integral to how the West prosecutes its wars. In doing so, she calls for a reconceptualization of the Left, one united in opposition and resistance to the illegitimate and arbitrary effects of interventionist military action.
This book engages with questions of violence, suffering, and cultural value both in terms of literature and critical debate.
Eagleton asks us to consider how society may invest in and elsewhere venerate certain kinds of experience (e.g., inflicting pain, victimisation, witnessing destruction), which initially we may expect to be demonised.
Terry Eagleton's Tragedy provides a major critical and analytical account of the concept of 'tragedy' from its origins in the Ancient world right down to the twenty-first century.
A major new intellectual endeavour from one of the world's finest, and most controversial, cultural theorists.
Provides an analytical account of the concept of 'tragedy' from its origins in the ancient world to the present day.
Explores the idea of the 'tragic' across all genres of writing, as well as in philosophy, politics, religion and psychology, and throughout western culture.
Considers the psychological, religious and socio-political implications and consequences of our fascination…
This book is a meditation on the ways in which violence has come to shape everyday life in the modern age, from the international political stage to scenes of our own daily routines.
Particularly poignant and thought-provoking are Žižek’s considerations of how inactivity, passivity, and reluctance to engage may ultimately be the most violent courses of action to adopt.
David Fletcher needs a surgeon, stat! But when he captures a British merchantman in the Caribbean, what he gets is Charley Alcott, an apprentice physician barely old enough to shave. Needs must, and Captain Fletcher takes the prisoner back aboard his ship with orders to do his best or he’ll be walking the plank.
Charley Alcott’s medical skills are being put to the test in a life-or-death situation, Charley’s life as well as the patient’s. Even if she can save the American privateer's brother there will still be hell to pay—and maybe a plank to walk—when Captain Fletcher learns Charley…
David Fletcher needs a surgeon, stat! But when he captures a British merchantman in the Caribbean what he gets is Charley Alcott, an apprentice physician barely old enough to shave. Needs must, and Captain Fletcher takes the prisoner back aboard his ship with orders to do his best, or he'll be walking the plank.
Charley Alcott's medical skills are being put to the test in a life-or-death situation, Charley's life as well as the patient's. Even if she can save the pirate's brother there will still be hell to pay--and maybe a plank to walk--when Captain Fletcher…
Interested in
violence,
political violence,
and
philosophy?
11,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them.
Browse their picks for the best books about
violence,
political violence,
and
philosophy.