The crisis or &"death&" of philosophy currently identified both within and outside professional circles is commonly attributed to the failure to find universals in metaphysics, epistemology, and, most obviously, in valuational judgment. Profundity concentrates on an assumption uniformly upheld in the theory of value, that all human values are contextually dependent. Harrell contends, to the contrary, that there exists one major value that is universal to humans, regardless of context. That value is profundity, or depth. Considering how &"profundity&" is used in our language leads Harrell to identify two fundamental sensory patterns that are common to all human life at its origin&—an auditory pattern that is first experienced before birth and a visual one that is experienced immediately after birth. From analysis of these patterns as they recur in music and the visual arts, Harrell moves on to discuss their related manifestations in religious doctrine, ceremony, and experience and also in works of literature. Overall her theory entails a radical revamping of the concept of creativity, since no artist can create profundity as a universal value, and provides the first full-scale treatment of profundity in the history of Western philosophy.

"Without authority," a phrase Kierkegaard repeatedly applied to himself and his writings, is an appropriate title for this volume of five short works that in various ways deal with the concept and practice of authority. The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air contemplates the teaching authority of these creatures based on three different passages in the Gospels. The first of Two Ethical-Religious Essays mediates on the ethics of Jesus' martyrdom; the second contrasts the authority of the genius with that of the apostle. The remaining works--Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays (1849), An Upbuilding Discourse (1850), and Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays (1851)--are meditations on sin, forgiveness, and the power of love.

Elizabeth Bishop, who constructed poems of crystalline visual accuracy, is often regarded as the most painterly of twentieth-century American poets. In Deep Skin, Peggy Samuels explores Bishop's attraction to painters who experimented with dynamic interactions between surface and depth. She tells the story of the development of Bishop's poetics in relation to her engagement with mid-century art, particularly the work of Paul Klee, Kurt Schwitters, and Alexander Calder.Contemporary conversations about the visual arts circulating among art historians and reviewers shaped Bishop's experience and illuminated aesthetic problems for which she needed to find solutions. The book explores in particular the closest intellectual context for Bishop, her friend Margaret Miller, who worked as a research associate and later associate curator at the Museum of Modern Art. Samuels traces a complex and rich four-way metaphor in her portrait of Bishop's methods: surface of verse, surface of painting, skin, and interface between mind and world.The visual arts helped Bishop to develop a new model for lyric: the surface of verse becomes a threshold that opens in two directions--to nature and to the interior of the poet. Bishop's poetics is very much about the touch of the materials of the mind and world inside the materiality of verse. Translating and revising some of the concepts from the visual arts in her own linguistic medium, she begins to experiment with modulation, absorption, and incorporation across multiple registers of experience.

The preoccupation with “depth” and its relevance to cinema and media studies For decades the concept of depth has been central to critical thinking in numerous humanities-based disciplines, legitimizing certain modes of inquiry over others. Deep Mediations examines why and how this is, as scholars today navigate the legacy of depth models of thought and vision, particularly in light of the “surface turn” and as these models impinge on the realms of cinema and media studies. The collection’s eighteen essays seek to understand the decisive but evolving fixation on depth by considering the term’s use across a range of conversations as well as its status in relation to critical methodologies and the current mediascape. Engaging contemporary debates about new computing technologies, the environment, history, identity, affect, audio/visual culture, and the limits and politics of human perception, Deep Mediations is a timely interrogation of depth’s ongoing importance within the humanities. Contributors: Laurel Ahnert; Taylor Arnold, U of Richmond; Erika Balsom, King’s College London; Brooke Belisle, Stony Brook University; Jinhee Choi, King’s College London; Jennifer Fay, Vanderbilt U; Lisa Han, UC Santa Barbara; Jean Ma, Stanford U; Shaka McGlotten, Purchase College-SUNY; Susanna Paasonen, U of Turku, Finland; Jussi Parikka, U of Southampton; Alessandra Raengo, Georgia State U; Pooja Rangan, Amherst College; Katherine Rochester, VIA Art Fund in Boston; Karl Schoonover, University of Warwick (UK); Jordan Schonig, Michigan State U; John Paul Stadler, North Carolina State U; Nicole Starosielski, New York U; Lauren Tilton, U of Richmond.

The contributors to this volume cover the international range of scholarship in the field of Historical Linguistics, as well as some of its major themes. The work and ideas they discuss are relevant not only to other aspects of Historical Linguistics but also to more general developments in linguistic theory. Along with Professor Jones' Introduction, their comments provide a major overview of Historical Linguistics that will be the reference point for its development for many years to come and form an important contribution to general theories of linguistic behaviour.

“Lovingly crafted, deep, richly engaging, and wise.” —Jack Kornfield “An important resource...for many years to come.” —Sharon Salzberg “...brilliant and utterly engaging.” —Tara Brach This “glorious book” explores the essence of connection through 5 essential types of relationships, “[guiding] us into the infinite mysteries of human attunement” (Bessel van der Kolk, New York Times–bestselling author of The Body Keeps the Score). Do you long to connect more deeply with other human beings? Do you wonder if you’re living up to your human potential to make these deep connections happen—and perhaps missing out on this most compelling aspect of a vital life? In this groundbreaking book, bestselling author Stephen Cope invites us to explore the most important questions in this domain: What is the nature of human connection? Why, precisely, is a capacity to connect deeply so important to the development of our minds, bodies, and spirits? What are the actual mechanisms of connection that we must master during the course of life? How can our lack of connection inhibit our happiness and satisfaction in life? Can we learn to connect more wisely than we do? Cope is well known as a master storyteller, and he seamlessly blends science, scholarship, and storytelling, drawing on poignant stories from his own life as well as the lives of famous figures—from E. M. Forster to Sigmund Freud to Queen Victoria—whose formative relationships shed light on the nature of connection itself. In the process, he lays out in stunning detail the precise mechanisms of human connection, which he distills into five helpful categories: containment, twinship, adversity, mirroring, and conscious partnership. Then he invites us into a remarkably practical reflection on how these forms of connection appear in our own lives, helping us work toward a fuller understanding of deep human connection—and a more satisfying and fruitful life. Deep Human Connection was originally published as Soul Friends.