On The Shoulders Of Giants The Post Italianate Edition

Download or read book On the Shoulders of Giants written by Robert K. Merton and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1993-05-15 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With playfulness and a large dose of wit, Robert Merton traces the origin of Newton's aphorism, "If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Using as a model the discursive and digressive style of Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Merton presents a whimsical yet scholarly work which deals with the questions of creativity, tradition, plagiarism, the transmission of knowledge, and the concept of progress. "This book is the delightful apotheosis of donmanship: Merton parodies scholarliness while being faultlessly scholarly; he scourges pedantry while brandishing his own abstruse learning on every page. The most recondite and obscure scholarly squabbles are transmuted into the material of comedy as the ostensible subject is shouldered to one side by yet another hobby horse from Merton's densely populated stable. He has created a jeu d'esprit which is profoundly suggestive both in detail and as a whole."—Sean French, Times Literary Supplement

Download or read book Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia written by C. M. C. Green and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sanctuary dedicated to Diana at Aricia flourished from the Bronze age to the second century CE. From its archaic beginnings in the wooded crater beside the lake known as the 'mirror of Dianea' it grew into a grand Hellenistic-style complex that attracted crowds of pilgrims and the sick. Diana was also believed to confer power on leaders. This book examines the history of Diana's cult and healing sanctuary, which remained a significant and wealthy religious center for more than a thousand years. It sheds new light on Diana herself, on the use of rational as well as ritual healing in the sanctuary, on the subtle distinctions between Latin religious sensibility and the more austere Roman practice, and on the interpenetration of cult and politics in Latin and Roman history.

Download or read book On the Shoulders of Giants written by Umberto Eco and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A posthumous collection of essays by one of our greatest contemporary thinkers that provides a towering vision of Western culture. In Umberto Eco’s first novel, The Name of the Rose, Nicholas of Morimondo laments, “We no longer have the learning of the ancients, the age of giants is past!” To which the protagonist, William of Baskerville, replies: “We are dwarfs, but dwarfs who stand on the shoulders of those giants, and small though we are, we sometimes manage to see farther on the horizon than they.” On the Shoulders of Giants is a collection of essays based on lectures Eco famously delivered at the Milanesiana Festival in Milan over the last fifteen years of his life. Previously unpublished, the essays explore themes he returned to again and again in his writing: the roots of Western culture and the origin of language, the nature of beauty and ugliness, the potency of conspiracies, the lure of mysteries, and the imperfections of art. Eco examines the dynamics of creativity and considers how every act of innovation occurs in conversation with a superior ancestor. In these playful, witty, and breathtakingly erudite essays, we encounter an intellectual who reads comic strips, reflects on Heraclitus, Dante, and Rimbaud, listens to Carla Bruni, and watches Casablanca while thinking about Proust. On the Shoulders of Giants reveals both the humor and the colossal knowledge of a contemporary giant.

Download or read book How to Think Like Shakespeare written by Scott Newstok and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book offers a short, spirited defense of rhetoric and the liberal arts as catalysts for precision, invention, and empathy in today's world. The author, a professor of Shakespeare studies at a liberal arts college and a parent of school-age children, argues that high-stakes testing and a culture of assessment have altered how and what students are taught, as courses across the arts, humanities, and sciences increasingly are set aside to make room for joyless, mechanical reading and math instruction. Students have been robbed of a complete education, their imaginations stunted by this myopic focus on bare literacy and numeracy. Education is about thinking, Newstok argues, rather than the mastery of a set of rigidly defined skills, and the seemingly rigid pedagogy of the English Renaissance produced some of the most compelling and influential examples of liberated thinking. Each of the fourteen chapters explores an essential element of Shakespeare's world and work, aligns it with the ideas of other thinkers and writers in modern times, and suggests opportunities for further reading. Chapters on craft, technology, attention, freedom, and related topics combine past and present ideas about education to build a case for the value of the past, the pleasure of thinking, and the limitations of modern educational practices and prejudices"--

Download or read book Matrix and Analytical Methods for Performance Analysis of Telecommunication Systems written by Valeriy Naumov and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-02-15 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This introductory textbook is designed for a one-semester course on the use of the matrix and analytical methods for the performance analysis of telecommunication systems. It provides an introduction to the modelling and analysis of telecommunication systems for a broad interdisciplinary audience of students in mathematics and applied disciplines such as computer science, electronics engineering, and operations research.

Download or read book Copyright Law written by Paul Torremans and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: . . . this book provides an interesting insight into many aspects of copyright law. It is a useful resource not only for those whose core practice is copyright but also those involved in industries reliant on copyright. New Zealand Law Journal Copyright law is undergoing rapid transformations to cope with the new international digital environment. This valuable research Handbook provides a thorough and contemporary tableau of current thinking in copyright law. It traces the changes undergone and the challenges faced by copyright, as well as its roots and its diversity, combining to present a colourful picture of a dynamic research area. The editor brings together an elite group of international copyright scholars who offer incisive and original analysis of a wide range of issues and aspects of copyright law, and in some cases a multiplicity of perspectives on a single topic. Rigorous and often thought-provoking in nature, this research Handbook clearly maps the current landscape, and will also undoubtedly stimulate further research in the field. Analysing the cutting edge of current copyright research, Copyright Law will be of great interest to researchers, students, practitioners and policymakers.

Download or read book Concepts and the Social Order written by Yehuda Elkana and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-10 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a comprehensive perspective on knowledge production in the field of sociology. Moreover, it is a tribute to the scope of Merton's work and the influence Merton has had on the work and life of sociologists around the world. This is reflected in each of the 12 chapters by internationally acclaimed scholars witnessing the range of fields Merton has contributed to as well as the personal impact he has had on sociologists. This approach is in itself a tribute to Merton: an analysis of knowledge production through a contextualized review of an author's life-work – a quintessentially "Mertonian" enterprise.