Constraining Chance

Constraining Chance
Author: Alison James
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2009-02-03
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0810125307

This text examines the representation and staging of chance in literature through the study of a specific case - the work of the 20th-century French writer Georges Perec (1936-82).

God's Action in Nature's World

God's Action in Nature's World
Author: Nathan Hallanger
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2016-04-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1317126254

In 1981 Robert John Russell founded what would become the leading center of research at the interface of science and religion, the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. Throughout its twenty-five year history, CTNS under Russell's leadership has continued to guide and further the dialogue between science and theology. Russell has been an articulate spokesperson in calling for "creative mutual interaction" between the two fields. God's Action in Nature's World brings together sixteen internationally-recognized scholars to assess Robert Russell's impact on the discipline of science and religion. Focusing on three areas of Russell's work - methodology, cosmology, and divine action in quantum physics - this book celebrates Robert John Russell's contribution to the interdisciplinary engagement between the natural sciences and theology.

Delphi Collected Works of Romain Rolland (Illustrated)

Delphi Collected Works of Romain Rolland (Illustrated)
Author: Romain Rolland
Publisher: Delphi Classics
Total Pages: 3997
Release: 2020-12-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1913487342

Romain Rolland was an early twentieth century French novelist, dramatist and essayist. Throughout his life he was a fervent idealist, deeply involved with pacifism, the fight against fascism, the search for world peace and the analysis of artistic genius, which was a recurring theme of his works. In 1915 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature as “a tribute to the lofty idealism of his literary production and to the sympathy and love of truth with which he has described different types of human beings”. This comprehensive eBook presents Rolland’s collected works, with numerous illustrations, rare translations appearing in digital print for the first time, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Rolland’s life and works * Concise introductions to the novels and other texts * 15 novels, with individual contents tables * The complete 10-volume novel cycle ‘Jean-Christophe’, translated by Gilbert Cannan * The first two volumes of Rolland’s other novel cycle, ‘The Soul Enchanted’, appearing here for the first time in digital publishing * Images of how the books were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts * Excellent formatting of the texts * Includes rare non-fiction works, including Rolland’s classical music criticism * Features a bonus biography by the noted Austrian author Stefan Zweig – discover Rolland’s literary life * Ordering of texts into chronological order and genres Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles CONTENTS: Jean-Christophe (tr. Gilbert Cannan) Dawn (1904) Morning (1904) Youth (1904) Revolt (1905) The Marketplace (1908) Antoinette (1908) The House (1908) Love and Friendship (1910) The Burning Bush (1911) The New Dawn (1912) The Soul Enchanted Annette and Sylvie (1922) (tr. Ben Ray Redman) Summer (1924) (tr. Eleanor Stimson and Van Wyck Brooks) Other Fiction Colas Breugnon (1919) (tr. Katherine Miller) Clérambault (1920) (tr. Katherine Miller) Pierre and Luce (1920) (tr. Charles de Kay) The Plays Georges Danton (1899) The Fourteenth of July (1902) The Non-Fiction François-Millet (1902) Beethoven (1903) Life of Michelangelo (1907) Musicians of To-Day (1908) Musicians of Former Days (1908) Handel (1910) Tolstoy (1911) The Forerunners (1919) A Musical Tour through the Land of the Past (1922) Mahatma Gandhi (1924) The Biography Romain Rolland (1921) by Stefan Zweig (tr. Eden and Cedar Paul) Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles or to purchase this eBook as a Parts Edition of individual eBooks

Bandwidth: How Mathematics, Physics, And Chemistry Constrain Society

Bandwidth: How Mathematics, Physics, And Chemistry Constrain Society
Author: Alexander Scheeline
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 446
Release: 2023-05-19
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9811237891

The physical sciences and mathematics are extraordinarily useful in explaining the material world. People and society are constrained by physical reality, but we are often unclear on what constraints are absolute, which may be relative, and those that are simply a matter of taste. Bandwidth explains how limitations in the movement and perception of information constrain human behavior, cognition, interaction, and perspective. How fast can we learn? How much? Why are habits and biases unavoidable? Why is the common statement 'any nation that can land people on the moon surely can ...' frequently wrong? Using equations and physical models, Bandwidth describes constraints which, in part, explain political, economic, religious, and personal frictions. Aspects considered include: how much information can one human absorb in a lifetime? How far does a process of perturbation propagate? How do specialization or generalization, critical thinking or belief, influence what people accomplish? Throughout, equations are used to compactly express ideas, illustrating why mathematical economy of expression accelerates communication and deeper understanding. The critical impacts of uncertainty, fluctuations, or noise, and their implications for law and society, are emphasized.

Afterlives of Georges Perec

Afterlives of Georges Perec
Author: Rowan Wilken
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2017-03-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1474404898

Examines Perec's impact on architecture, art, design, media, electronic communications, computing and the everydayWhat do Perec's descriptions of the minutiae of everyday life reveal about our use of information and communications technologies?What happens if we read Life: A Users Manual as a toolbox of ideas for games studies? What light does the concept of the ainfra-ordinary shed on social media? What insights does algorithmic writing generate for the digital humanities? What lessons can architects, artists, game-designers and writers draw from Perec's fascination with creative constraints? Through an examination of such questions, this collection takes Perec scholarship beyond its existing limits to offer new ways of rethinking our present.ContributorsTom Apperley, Monash University, Australia.Caroline Bassett, University of Sussex, UK. David Bellos, Princeton, USA.Justin Clemens, University of Melbourne, Australia.Ben Highmore, University of Sussex, UK.Alison James, University of Chicago, USA.Sandra Kaji-OGrady, University of Sydney, Australia. Christian Licoppe, TA(c)lA(c)com ParisTech, France.Anthony McCosker, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. Mireille RibiA*re, independent scholar, translator and author.Darren Tofts, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia.Rowan Wilken, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia.Mark Wolff, Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York, USA.

Understanding Rancière, Understanding Modernism

Understanding Rancière, Understanding Modernism
Author: Patrick M. Bray
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2017-03-23
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1501311379

The contemporary philosopher Jacques Rancière has become over the last two decades one of the most influential voices in philosophy, political theory, and literary, art historical, and film criticism. His work reexamines the divisions that have defined our understanding of modernity, such as art and politics, representation and abstraction, and literature and philosophy. Working across these divisions, he engages the historical roots of modernism at the end of the eighteenth century, uncovering forgotten texts in the archive that trouble our notions of intellectual history. The contributors to Understanding Rancière, Understanding Modernism engage with the multiplicity of Rancière's thought through close readings of his texts, through comparative readings with other philosophers, and through an engagement with modernist works of art and literature. The final section of the volume includes an extended glossary of the most important terms used by Rancière, which will be a valuable resource for experts and students alike.

Rough Notes to Erasure

Rough Notes to Erasure
Author: Dolsy Smith
Publisher: punctum books
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2020-04-23
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1950192792

We are living through the wrack of the White Male. As the compact between social hierarchy, inherited privilege, and race (reinforced by gender and other normative categories) shows signs of buckling, his rage and resentment threaten us all. For he is a thing possessed: possessed by his own love of possession, and born to a sense that the world belongs to him and him alone. The spoils of oppression lie coiled inside him, a glut he can't digest, and murder beckons behind the respect that he conceives of as his due." A hybrid of critical essay and memoir, and Rough Notes to Erasure contributes to a growing body of work that wrestles with the tacit and embodied nature of privilege and prejudice, and it contributes not only via argument but also through style. Taking inspiration from feminist/queer poetics and what Fred Moten calls “the black avant-garde,” these rough notes address the remainder that gets lost in explicit argument, which is the flesh. Where privilege roils through history, and empire whets the appetites. But also where the world catches on its own fractalization by thought, feeling, and desire; and language recovers, for a moment or two, the power to entangle us with our mother tongue.

The Romance of Reality

The Romance of Reality
Author: Bobby Azarian
Publisher: BenBella Books
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2022-06-28
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1637740441

Why do we exist? For centuries, this question was the sole province of religion and philosophy. But now science is ready to take a seat at the table. According to the prevailing scientific paradigm, the universe tends toward randomness; it functions according to laws without purpose, and the emergence of life is an accident devoid of meaning. But this bleak interpretation of nature is currently being challenged by cutting-edge findings at the intersection of physics, biology, neuroscience, and information theory—generally referred to as “complexity science.” Thanks to a new understanding of evolution, as well as recent advances in our understanding of the phenomenon known as emergence, a new cosmic narrative is taking shape: Nature’s simplest “parts” come together to form ever-greater “wholes” in a process that has no end in sight. In The Romance of Reality, cognitive neuroscientist Bobby Azarian explains the science behind this new view of reality and explores what it means for all of us. In engaging, accessible prose, Azarian outlines the fundamental misunderstanding of thermodynamics at the heart of the old assumptions about the universe’s evolution, and shows us the evidence that suggests that the universe is a “self-organizing” system, one that is moving toward increasing complexity and awareness. Cosmologist and science communicator Carl Sagan once said of humanity that “we are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” The Romance of Reality shows that this poetic statement in fact rests on a scientific foundation and gives us a new way to know the cosmos, along with a riveting vision of life that imbues existence with meaning—nothing supernatural required.

Mathematics in Twentieth-Century Literature & Art

Mathematics in Twentieth-Century Literature & Art
Author: Robert Tubbs
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2014-07-03
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1421414023

The author of What Is a Number? examines the relationship between mathematics and art and literature of the 20th century. During the twentieth century, many artists and writers turned to abstract mathematical ideas to help them realize their aesthetic ambitions. Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, and, perhaps most famously, Piet Mondrian used principles of mathematics in their work. Was it coincidence, or were these artists following their instincts, which were ruled by mathematical underpinnings, such as optimal solutions for filling a space? If math exists within visual art, can it be found within literary pursuits? In short, just what is the relationship between mathematics and the creative arts? In this exploration of mathematical ideas in art and literature, Robert Tubbs argues that the links are much stronger than previously imagined and exceed both coincidence and commonality of purpose. Not only does he argue that mathematical ideas guided the aesthetic visions of many twentieth-century artists and writers, Tubbs further asserts that artists and writers used math in their creative processes even though they seemed to have no affinity for mathematical thinking. In the end, Tubbs makes the case that art can be better appreciated when the math that inspired it is better understood. An insightful tour of the great masters of the last century and an argument that challenges long-held paradigms, this book will appeal to mathematicians, humanists, and artists, as well as instructors teaching the connections among math, literature, and art. “Though the content of Tubbs’s book is challenging, it is also accessible and should interest many on both sides of the perceived divide between mathematics and the arts.” —Choice

B S Johnson and Post-War Literature

B S Johnson and Post-War Literature
Author: M. Ryle
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2015-12-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1137349557

A collection of essays on the 1960s experimental writer B.S. Johnson, this book draws together new research on all aspects of his work, and, in tracing his connections to a wider circle of continental, British and American avant-garde writers, offers exciting new approaches to reading 1960s experimental fiction.