This book focuses on non-fictional, visual narratives (including comics; graphic narratives; animated documentaries and online, interactive documentaries) that attempt to represent violent experiences, primarily in the Levant. In doing so it explores, from a philosophical perspective, the problem of representing trauma when language seems inadequate to describe our experiences and how the visual narrative form may help us with this. The book uses the concept of the ineffable to expand the notion of representation beyond the confines of a western, individualist notion of trauma as event based. In so doing, it engages a postcolonial perspective of trauma, which treats violence as ongoing and connected to several incidents of violence across time and space. This book demonstrates how the formal qualities of visual, non-fiction may help close the gap between representation and experience through the process of ‘dark’ writing.

This innovative text reinvigorates argumentation studies by exploring the experience of argument across cultures, introducing an anthropological perspective into the domains of rhetoric, communication, and philosophy. The Anthropology of Argument fills an important gap in contemporary argumentation theory by shifting the focus away from the purely propositional element of arguments and onto how they emerge from the experiences of peoples with diverse backgrounds, demonstrating how argumentation can be understood as a means of expression and a gathering place of ideas and styles. Confronting the limitations of the Western tradition of logic and searching out the argumentative roles of place, orality, myth, narrative, and audience, it examines the nature of multi-modal argumentation. Tindale analyzes the impacts of colonialism on the field and addresses both optimistic and cynical assessments of contextual differences. The results have implications for our understanding of contemporary argumentative discourse in areas marked by deep disagreement, like politics, law, and social policy. The book will interest scholars and upper-level students in communication, philosophy, argumentation theory, anthropology, rhetoric, linguistics, and cultural studies.

Honoring the lifework of the comparative literature scholar, From the Americas to the World: Essays in Honor of Lois Parkinson Zamora traces artistic and cultural pathways that connect Latin American literature and culture to the Americas, and to the world beyond. The essays in this collection cover three critical fields: comparative hemispheric American literature, magical realism, and the Baroque/New World Baroque/Neobaroque. Beginning with a critical reassessment of hemispheric American studies, these essays analyze the works of a wide array of writers, such as Roberto Bolaño, Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel García Márquez, Waldo Frank, and José Lez. These chapters build upon the legacy of the scholarship done by Dr. Zamora and exemplify the pattern of literary studies that she has driven forward.

This exciting essay focuses on the explanation and analysis of Zhuang Zhou's Zhuangzi one the most influential works in history and whose understanding, due to its complexity and depth, escapes comprehension on a first reading. Whether you have already read the Zhuangzi or not, this essay will allow you to immerse yourself in each and every one of its meanings, opening a window to master Zhuang's philosophical thought and his true intention when he created this immortal work.

As universities rethink their approaches to student and faculty mental health, this volume showcases academics who openly and proudly embrace the identity of “Mad scholar.” In twenty-three essays—from contributors working in nearly a dozen disciplines and across three continents—Mad Scholars explores how neurodivergent scholars’ work and lived experiences are richer because of their difference, not in spite of it. In doing so, these essays both expose the deep-rooted ableism that undergirds traditional mental health interventions and envision a more rigorous, more inclusive, and more outward-facing future for scholarly community and engagement, within and outside traditional academia. A long-awaited corrective by scholars accustomed to having their stories told for them, this collection draws on Mad perspectives at the intersection of various marginalized identities, boldly dreaming of a future where all students and educators can thrive. By offering concrete steps and strategies that radically reimagine the current academic landscape, Mad Scholars opens our eyes to much-needed innovations in research, pedagogy, and community, ones which promise to transform higher education and create vital paths for scholarly innovation.

Art Nouveau presents a new overview of the international Art Nouveau movement. Art Nouveau represented the search for a new style for a new age, a sense that the conditions of modernity called for fundamentally new means of expression. Art Nouveau emerged in a world transformed by industrialisation, urbanisation and increasingly rapid means of transnational exchange, bringing about new ways of living, working and creating. This book is structured around key themes for understanding the contexts behind Art Nouveau, including new materials and technologies, colonialism and imperialism, the rise of the 'modern woman', the rise of the professional designer and the role of the patron-collector. It also explores the new ideas that inspired Art Nouveau: nature and the natural sciences, world arts and world religions, psychology and new visions for the modern self. Ashby explores the movement through 41 case studies of artists and designers, buildings, interiors, paintings, graphic arts, glass, ceramics and jewellery, drawn from a wide range of countries.

This ambitious and innovative volume stretches over time and space, over the history of modernity in relation to antiquity, between East and West, to offer insights into what the author terms the 'geographical unconscious.' She argues that, by tapping into this, we can contribute towards the reinstatement of some kind of morality and justice in today's troubled world. Approaching selected moments from ancient times to the present of Greek cultural and aesthetic geographies on the basis of a wide range of sources, the book examines diachronic spatiotemporal flows, some of which are mainly cultural, others urban or landscape-related, in conjunction with parallel currents of change and key issues of our time in the West more generally, but also in the East. In doing so, The Geographical Unconscious reflects on visual and spatial perceptions through the ages; it re-considers selective affinities plus differences and identifies enduring age-old themes, while stressing the deep ancient wisdom, the disregarded relevance of the aesthetic, and the unity between human senses, nature, and space. The analysis provides new insights towards the spatial complexities of the current age, the idea of Europe, of the East, the West, and their interrelations, as well as the notion of modernity.

Fictions of Fact and Value looks at logical positivism's major influence on the development of postwar American fiction, charting a literary and philosophical genealogy that has been absent from criticism on the American novel since 1945.

Conceptions of evil have changed dramatically over time, and though humans continue to commit acts of cruelty against one another, today we possess a clearer, more moral way of analyzing them. In Narrating Evil, María Pía Lara explores what has changed in our understanding of evil, why the transformation matters, and how we can learn from this specific historical development. Drawing on Immanuel Kant's and Hannah Arendt's ideas about reflective judgment, Lara argues that narrative plays a key role in helping societies acknowledge their pasts. Particular stories haunt our consciousness and lead to a kind of examination and dialogue that shape notions of morality. A powerful description of a crime can act as a filter, helping us to draw conclusions about what constitutes a moral wrong, and public debates over these narratives allow us to construct a more accurate picture of historical truth, leading to a better understanding of why such actions are possible. In building her argument, Lara considers Greek tragedies, Shakespeare's depictions of evil, Joseph Conrad's literary metaphors, and movies that portray human cruelty. Turning to such philosophers and writers as Jürgen Habermas, Walter Benjamin, Primo Levi, Giorgio Agamben, and Ariel Dorfman, Lara defines a reflexive relationship between an event, the narrative of the event, and the public reception of the narrative, and she proves that the stories of perpetrators and sufferers are always intertwined. The process of disclosure, debate, and the public fashioning of collective judgment are vital methods through which we make sense not only of new forms of cruelty but of past crimes as well. Narrating Evil describes the steps of this process and why they are a crucial part of our attempt to build a different, more just world.