An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture

An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture
Author: Roger Scruton
Publisher:
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2000
Genre: History
ISBN:

Received by the British press with equal acclaim and indignation, this book sets out to define and defend high culture against the world of pop, corn, and popcorn. It shows just why culture matters in an age without faith, and gives an extended argument, drawing on philosophy, criticism, and anthropology, against the "post-modernist" world-view. Scruton offers a penetrating attack on deconstruction, on Foucault, on Nietzschean self-indulgence, and on the "culture of repudiation" which has infected the modern academy. But his book is not only negative. It is a celebration of the true heroes of modern culture and a call to the higher life. The American edition of this famous and notorious work has been revised to take account of the controversy which it has inspired, and contains new material specially directed to Americans.

Modern Culture

Modern Culture
Author: Roger Scruton
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2013-01-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1408193507

What do we mean by 'culture'? This word, purloined by journalists to denote every kind of collective habit, lies at the centre of contemporary debates about the past and future of society. In this thought-provoking book, Roger Scruton argues for the religious origin of culture in all its forms, and mounts a defence of the 'high culture' of our civilization against its radical and 'deconstructionist' critics. He offers a theory of pop culture, a panegyric to Baudelaire, a few reasons why Wagner is just as great as his critics fear him to be, and a raspberry to Cool Britannia. A must for all people who are fed up to their tightly clenched front teeth with Derrida, Foucault, Oasis and Richard Rogers.

I Drink Therefore I Am

I Drink Therefore I Am
Author: Roger Scruton
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2013-01-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1408194694

Here Scruton explains the connection between good wine and serious thought with a heady mix of humour and philosophy. We are familiar with the medical opinion that a daily glass of wine is good for the health and also the rival opinion that any more than a glass or two will set us on the road to ruin. Whether or not good for the body, Scruton argues, wine, drunk in the right frame of mind, is definitely good for the soul. And there is no better accompaniment to wine than philosophy. By thinking with wine, you can learn not only to drink in thoughts but to think in draughts. This good-humoured book offers an antidote to the pretentious clap-trap that is written about wine today and a profound apology for the drink on which civilisation has been founded. In vino veritas.

An Intelligent Person's Guide to Religion

An Intelligent Person's Guide to Religion
Author: John Haldane
Publisher: Overlook Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2005-10-25
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9781585677221

We live, allegedly, in a postmodern age in which we have cast aside the narrative fantasies of the pre-modern era. If postmodernism represents the final abandonment of all grand theories, where does religion stand? If religion is a particularly unbelievable form of explanation, why does it power still affect social and political change? Here, like the skeptics of our age, the author asks, What has theology ever had to say that was of the slightest use to anyone? He argues that religion without God is like a car without an engine, and draws on many aspects of human culture to offer a defense of religion that is not only credible but necessary in an age when postmodernism itself has been exposed as a cruel illusion.

Modern Culture

Modern Culture
Author: Roger Scruton
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2006-11-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780826494443

The word, 'culture' lies at the centre of contemporary debates about the past and future of society. Here, the author argues for the religious origin of culture in all its forms, and mounts a defence of the 'high culture' of our civilization against its radical and 'deconstructionist' critics.

Culture and Everyday Life

Culture and Everyday Life
Author: David Inglis
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2004-08-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134364814

Culture is unquestionably a central topic in the contemporary social sciences. In order to understand how people think, feel, value, act and express themselves, it is necessary to examine the cultures they create, and are in turn created by. Here, David Inglis shows how the study of culture can be transformed by focusing in on how cultural forces shape, influence, structure - and occasionally disrupt - the day-to-day activities of individuals. Reconsidering different views on 'culture' - what it is, how it operates, and how it relates to other aspects of the human (and non-human) world - this new book covers key areas such as: high culture versus popular culture modern and postmodern culture globalization and culture culture and nature. Specific issues covered range from the everyday aspects of sportive play, artistic production and the mass media, to car culture and global cuisine, and students are introduced to some of the major thinkers on culture from Matthew Arnold to Bakhtin and Bourdieu. Written in a concise, student-friendly manner, theoretical arguments are illustrated with examples from film, architecture and daily life, making this an informative and indispensable introduction for those wishing to understand the complexities of culture.

The Rainbow of Experiences, Critical Trust, and God

The Rainbow of Experiences, Critical Trust, and God
Author: Kai-man Kwan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2011-08-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1441191372

The question of whether religious experience can be trusted has been hotly debated in epistemology and philosophy of religion in recent years. Kwan surveys this contemporary philosophical debate, provides in-depth analysis of the crucial issues, and offer arguments for an affirmative answer to the above question. Kwan first argues against traditional empiricist epistemologies and defends Swinburne's Principle of Credulity which holds that we should trust our experiences unless there are special considerations to the contrary. The Principle of Credulity is renamed the Principle of Critical Trust to highlight the need for balance between trust and criticism and is used as the foundation for a new approach to epistemology, the Critical Trust Approach (CTA), which maintains an emphasis on experience but attempts to break loose of the straitjacket of traditional empiricism by broadening the evidential base of experience. Kwan then widens his focus by looking at theistic experience in the contemporary multicultural context.

National Myth and the First World War in Modern Popular Music

National Myth and the First World War in Modern Popular Music
Author: Peter Grant
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2016-12-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 1137601396

This book looks at the role of popular music in constructing the myth of the First World War. Since the late 1950s over 1,500 popular songs from more than forty countries have been recorded that draw inspiration from the War. National Myth and the First World War in Modern Popular Music takes an inter-disciplinary approach that locates popular music within the framework of ‘memory studies’ and analyses how songwriters are influenced by their country’s ‘national myths’. How does popular music help form memory and remembrance of such an event? Why do some songwriters stick rigidly to culturally dominant forms of memory whereas others seek an oppositional or transnational perspective? The huge range of musical examples include the great chansonniers Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens; folk maestros including Al Stewart and Eric Bogle; the socially aware rock of The Kinks and Pink Floyd; metal legends Iron Maiden and Bolt Thrower and female iconoclasts Diamanda Galás and PJ Harvey.

Christology in Cultural Perspective

Christology in Cultural Perspective
Author: Colin J. D. Greene
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 453
Release: 2015-10-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1498230555

Christology defines the very heart of the Christian faith. Traditionally the study of the person and work of Christ has been understood largely as an exercise in biblical exegesis or historical and doctrinal analysis. Rarely, if ever, has Christology focused on the changing cultural paradigms that have deeply influenced the development of human knowledge and self understanding. This unique volume by Colin Greene reverses that trend and, in line with developments in modern cultural theory, explores the interlaces between successive cultural contexts and the story of Jesus to which the Scriptures bear witness. Starting with an examination of the three main Christological trajectories that have dominated the history of Christology--cosmological Christology, political Christology, and anthropological Christology--Greene proceeds to concentrate on the subtle and complex linkages between Christology and the sociopolitical paradigms that have bolstered the epistemological assumptions of modernity. Greene's wide-ranging study closes with a creative exploration into how Christology might once again provide us with a Christ-centered vision of reality.

Rethinking Cultural Policy

Rethinking Cultural Policy
Author: Jim McGuigan
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2004-03-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0335226426

“a fascinating, thorough and expertly argued discussion of the modes and practices of cultural policy in an increasingly globalized and neoliberal world.” European Journal of Communication Rethinking Cultural Policy addresses issues concerning culture, economy and power in the age of new-liberal globalization. It examines how public cultural policies have been rationalized in the past and how they are being rethought. Arguing that the study of culture and policy should not be confined to prevailing governmental agendas, the book offers a distinctive and independent analysis of cultural policy. The book examines a wide range of issues in cultural policy and blends a close reading of key theories with case studies. Topics covered include: Branding culture and exploitation The state, market and civil society How visitor attractions such as London's Millennium Dome are used for national aggrandizement and corporate business purposes Cultural development, diversity and ecological tourism in poorer parts of the world This is the ideal introduction to contemporary cultural policy for undergraduate students in culture and media studies, sociology of culture, politics, arts administration and cultural management courses, as well as postgraduates and researchers.