This volume explores the broad range of ideas about nature reflected in 20th- century concepts of natural gardens, suggesting the various ways in which "nature" is an ideologically defined concept. T
This book explores the role of the ideology of nature in producing urban and exurban sprawl. It examines the ironies of residential development on the metropolitan fringe, where the search for “nature
Shinto, Nature and Ideology in Contemporary Japan is the first systematic study of Shinto's environmental turn. The book traces the development in recent decades of the idea of Shinto as an 'ancient n
Shinto, Nature and Ideology in Contemporary Japan is the first systematic study of Shinto's environmental turn. The book traces the development in recent decades of the idea of Shinto as an 'ancient n
This book develops a number of new conceptual tools to tackle some of the most hotly debated issues concerning the nature of fascism, using three profoundly different national contexts in the inter-wa
Tents and Pyramids deals with an unusual and absorbing topic: how the Arabs see and deal with reality and the implications this has for the nature of power in the Arab world. 'Tents' and 'pyramids' ar
Ideology critique generally seeks to undermine selected theories and beliefs by demonstrating their partisan origins and their insidious social functions. This approach rightly reveals the socially implicated nature of much purported knowledge, but also brackets or bypasses its cognitive properties. In contrast, Michael Morris argues that it is possible to integrate the social and epistemic dimensions of belief in a way that preserves the cognitive and adjudicatory capacities of reason, while acknowledging that reason itself is inevitably social, historical, and interested. Drawing upon insights from Hegel, Lukács, Mannheim, and Habermas, he interprets and reconstructs Marx's critique of ideology as a positive theory of knowledge, one that reconciles the inherently interested and inextricably situated nature of thought with more traditional conceptions of rational adjudication, normativity, and truth. His wide-ranging examination of the social and epistemic dimensions of ideology will
Ideology critique generally seeks to undermine selected theories and beliefs by demonstrating their partisan origins and their insidious social functions. This approach rightly reveals the socially implicated nature of much purported knowledge, but also brackets or bypasses its cognitive properties. In contrast, Michael Morris argues that it is possible to integrate the social and epistemic dimensions of belief in a way that preserves the cognitive and adjudicatory capacities of reason, while acknowledging that reason itself is inevitably social, historical, and interested. Drawing upon insights from Hegel, Lukács, Mannheim, and Habermas, he interprets and reconstructs Marx's critique of ideology as a positive theory of knowledge, one that reconciles the inherently interested and inextricably situated nature of thought with more traditional conceptions of rational adjudication, normativity, and truth. His wide-ranging examination of the social and epistemic dimensions of ideology will
In this provocative and original study, Robert E. Abrams argues that in mid-nineteenth-century American writing, new concepts of space and landscape emerge. Abrams explores the underlying frailty of a sense of place in American literature of this period. Sense of place, Abrams proposes, is culturally constructed. It is perceived through the lens of maps, ideas of nature, styles of painting, and other cultural frameworks that can contradict one another or change dramatically over time. Abrams contends that mid-century American writers ranging from Henry D. Thoreau to Margaret Fuller are especially sensitive to instability of sense of place across the span of American history, and that they are ultimately haunted by an underlying placelessness. Many books have explored the variety of aesthetic conventions and ideas that have influenced the American imagination of landscape, but this study introduces the idea of placeless into the discussion, and suggests that it has far-reaching conseque
In this provocative and original study, Robert E. Abrams argues that in mid-nineteenth-century American writing, new concepts of space and landscape emerge. Abrams explores the underlying frailty of a sense of place in American literature of this period. Sense of place, Abrams proposes, is culturally constructed. It is perceived through the lens of maps, ideas of nature, styles of painting, and other cultural frameworks that can contradict one another or change dramatically over time. Abrams contends that mid-century American writers ranging from Henry D. Thoreau to Margaret Fuller are especially sensitive to instability of sense of place across the span of American history, and that they are ultimately haunted by an underlying placelessness. Many books have explored the variety of aesthetic conventions and ideas that have influenced the American imagination of landscape, but this study introduces the idea of placeless into the discussion, and suggests that it has far-reaching conseque
For countless generations people have been told that their potential as humans is limited and fundamentally unequal. The social order, they have been assured, is arranged by powers beyond their control. More recently the appeal has been to biology, specifically the genes, brain sciences, the concept of intelligence, and powerful new technologies. Reinforced through the authority of science and a growing belief in bio-determinism, the ordering of the many for the benefit of a few has become more entrenched. Yet scientists are now waking up to the influence of ideology on research and its interpretation. In Genes, Brains, and Human Potential, Ken Richardson illustrates how the ideology of human intelligence has infiltrated genetics, brain sciences, and psychology, flourishing in the vagueness of basic concepts, a shallow nature-versus-nurture debate, and the overhyped claims of reductionists. He shows how ideology, more than pure science, has come to dominate our institutions, especially
This book sets out to clarify the nature of the aesthetic as a category within the theory of historical materialism. It opens with an analysis of Marx’s brief discussion of Greek art in the Grundrisse
In The Everest Effect Elizabeth Mazzolini traces a series of ideological shifts in the status of Mount Everest in Western culture over the past century to the present day and links these shifts to tec
People can be disgusted by the concrete and by the abstract -- by an object they find physically repellent or by an ideology or value system they find morally abhorrent. Different things will disgust
How is theology liberating? In the context of a post-Gorbachev world, where many demand freedom which the Western powers seem ill-equipped to deliver, is it even possible to envisage a liberative theology? Taking as his starting point the Marxist complaint that Christianity is ideological, Peter Scott argues that it is not enough for Christian theology to talk about liberation: it must be liberative. Stressing with feminist and liberation theologies the embodied, contextual nature of theology, the constructive proposal made here locates God's liberating abundance toward society in an interpretation of resurrection as social. Only in this way, in the author's view, can a trinitarian Christian account of liberation be adequately grounded. The book will be of interest to all those who wish to know if theology may speak truthfully about the transformation of society: it offers the shape of a liberative theology pointing towards social freedom.
This book starts from the premise that methodology - the procedures for obtaining an 'objective' knowledge of the past - has always dominated archaeology to the detriment of broader social theory. It argues that social theory is archaeological theory, and that past failure to recognise this has resulted in disembodied archaeological theory and weak disciplinary practice. Ideology, Power and Prehistory therefore seeks to reinstate the primacy of social theory and the social nature of the past worlds that archaeologists seek to understand. The contributors to this book argue that past peoples, the creators of the archaeological records, should be understood as actively manipulating their own material world to represent and misrepresent their own and others' interests. Thus the concepts of ideology and power, long discussed in social and political science yet largely ignored by archaeologists, must henceforward play a central role in our understanding of the past as a social creation. Arc
How is theology liberating? In the context of a post-Gorbachev world, where many demand freedom which the Western powers seem ill-equipped to deliver, is it even possible to envisage a liberative theology? Taking as his starting point the Marxist complaint that Christianity is ideological, Peter Scott argues that it is not enough for Christian theology to talk about liberation: it must be liberative. Stressing with feminist and liberation theologies the embodied, contextual nature of theology, the constructive proposal made here locates God's liberating abundance toward society in an interpretation of resurrection as social. Only in this way, in the author's view, can a trinitarian Christian account of liberation be adequately grounded. The book will be of interest to all those who wish to know if theology may speak truthfully about the transformation of society: it offers the shape of a liberative theology pointing towards social freedom.
Informative, entertaining, lucid, forceful, frequently witty . . . never dull . . . should be read and remembered for a long time."?New York Times Book Review "The authors argue persuasively that biol
