It uses the Wittgensteinian notions of "samples" and "criteria" to show that language is involved in the appropriation of aspects of the world through the historically contingent activities of linguistic practice, and it uses Wittgenstein's analysis of aspect perception to forge a new account of the ideological role of the literary and its relation to the real."--Jacket.

Two literary scholars focus on five central aspects of the literary critical theory: recurrent use of anecdotes, preoccupation with the nature of representations, fascination with the history of the body, sharp focus on neglected details, and skeptical analysis of ideology.

Touch matters. It is fundamental to how we know ourselves and each other, and it is central to how we communicate. Digital touch is embedded in many technologies, from wearable devices and gaming hardware to tactile robots and future technologies. What would it be like if we could hug or touch digitally across distance? How might this shape our sense of connection? How might we establish trust or protect our privacy and safety? Digital Touch is a timely and original book that addresses such questions. Offering a rich account of digital touch, the book introduces the key issues and debates, as well as the design and ethical challenges raised by digital touch. Using clear, accessible examples and creative scenarios, the book shows how touch – how we touch, as well as what, whom and when we touch – is being profoundly reshaped by our use of technologies. Above all, it highlights the importance of digital touch in our daily lives and how it will impact our relationships and way of life in the future. The first work of its kind, Digital Touch is the go-to book for anyone wanting to get to grips with this crucial emerging topic, especially students and scholars of Digital Media and Communication Studies, Digital Humanities, Sensory Studies, and Science and Technology Studies.

A historian of early Christianity considers various theoretical critiques to examine the problems and opportunities posed by the ways in which history is written. Clark argues for a renewal of the study of premodern Western history through engagement with the critical methods that have transformed other humanities disciplines in recent decades.

Touch has been a taboo in mainstream Western talking therapies since their inception. This book examines the effects on us of touch, and of touch deprivation – what we feel when we are touched, what it means to us, and the fact that some individuals and cultures are more tactile than others. The author traces the development and perpetuation of the touch taboo, puts forward counterarguments to it, outlines criteria for the safe and effective use of touch in therapy, and suggests ways of dismantling the touch taboo should we wish to do so. Through moving interviews with clients who have experienced life-changing benefits of physical contact at the hands of their therapists, the place of touch in therapy practice is re-evaluated and the therapy profession urged to re-examine its attitudes towards this important therapeutic tool. This book will be essential reading for therapists, counsellors, social workers, educators, health professionals and for any general reader interested in the crucial issue of touch in everyday life.

Taking the reader back to the early modern period, this book addresses the works of Shakespeare, and asks how historical texts might be seen to interplay with identity. Beginning with Stephen Greenblatt's illuminating essay, questions are raised about how we come up with "important" historical texts, how we use educational and cultural institutions to maintain their primacy, and what the costs of this can be. Several of the essays look at ways of defining "the self" in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the working-through of these notions in various writings. Others tell us about how people traveled and the effects of travel on selfhood - how they dressed, how they celebrated special occasions, and how they thought of work and pleasure. The authors reflect on recent methodological concerns and adapt them to new issues in historically-oriented literary and cultural studies. They offer important contributions to new directions in scholarship. The book emerges from a symposium held at the Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, to celebrate the work of Stephen Greenblatt. Drawing on Greenblatt's methodologies, contributors examine strategies by which we "know" ourselves through our relationships with the past.

In Self-Identity and Powerlessness, Alice Koubová proposes a conception of human existence that does not essentially depend on the definition of self-identity. The author shows that the philosophical stress on human identity fails to grasp essential aspects of human existence. By emphasizing the moments of Dasein’s powerlessness in Heidegger’s fundamental ontology, she develops — in her analysis of various philosophers, literary examples, and social psychology —an original phenomenology of alternation of existence and affair. How necessary is identity for thinking? Are we capable of philosophical thought even when we have neither ourselves, nor the world under our full control? Is it possible to relax, become powerless, and yet think precisely? These questions are to be answered in this book.