David R. Castillo - Böcker

By exploring manifestations of normative and non-normative thinking in the geopolitical and cultural contexts of Early Modern Italy, Spain, and the American colonies, this volume hopes to encourage interdisciplinary discussions on the early modern notions of reason and unreason, good and evil, justice and injustice, center and periphery, freedom and containment, self and other. We still dream early modern dreams (Reason, the Subject, the Nation, the Modern World), and we are still haunted by the void at the center of it all.

By exploring manifestations of normative and non-normative thinking in the geopolitical and cultural contexts of Early Modern Italy, Spain, and the American colonies, this volume hopes to encourage interdisciplinary discussions on the early modern notions of reason and unreason, good and evil, justice and injustice, center and periphery, freedom and containment, self and other. We still dream early modern dreams (Reason, the Subject, the Nation, the Modern World), and we are still haunted by the void at the center of it all.

This volume explores the intersection between theories of the modern spectacle--from Jose Antonio Maravall's conceptualisation of the spectacular culture of the baroque to the Frankfurt School's theorisation of mass culture, to Baudrillard's notion of the simulacrum, to Guy Debord's understanding of the society of the spectacle--and the findings of the emerging fields of urban studies, landscape studies, and, generally speaking, studies of space.

This volume explores the intersection between theories of the modern spectacle--from Jose Antonio Maravall's conceptualisation of the spectacular culture of the baroque to the Frankfurt School's theorisation of mass culture, to Baudrillard's notion of the simulacrum, to Guy Debord's understanding of the society of the spectacle--and the findings of the emerging fields of urban studies, landscape studies, and, generally speaking, studies of space.

Revisits, reassesses, and reclaims the legacy of May '68 in light of our present cultural and historical emergency.Continental Theory Buffalo is the inaugural volume of the Humanities to the Rescue book series, a public humanities project dedicated to discussing the role of the arts and humanities today. This book is a collaborative act of humanistic renewal that builds on the transcontinental legacy of May 1968 to offer insightful readings of the cultural (d)evolution of the last fifty years. The volume contributors revisit, reclaim and reassess the "revolutionary" legacy of May 1968 in light of the urgency of the present and the future. Their essays are effective illustrations of the potential of such interpretive traditions as philosophy, literature and cultural criticism to run interference with (and offer alternatives to) the instrumentalist logic and predatory structures that are reducing the world to a collection of quantifiable and tradeable resources. The book will be of interest to cultural historians and theorists, media studies scholars, political scientists, and students of French and Francophone literature and culture on both sides of the Atlantic.This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to the generous support of the Humanities Institute at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. It can also be found in the SUNY Open Access Repository.

Revisits, reassesses, and reclaims the legacy of May '68 in light of our present cultural and historical emergency.Continental Theory Buffalo is the inaugural volume of the Humanities to the Rescue book series, a public humanities project dedicated to discussing the role of the arts and humanities today. This book is a collaborative act of humanistic renewal that builds on the transcontinental legacy of May 1968 to offer insightful readings of the cultural (d)evolution of the last fifty years. The volume contributors revisit, reclaim and reassess the "revolutionary" legacy of May 1968 in light of the urgency of the present and the future. Their essays are effective illustrations of the potential of such interpretive traditions as philosophy, literature and cultural criticism to run interference with (and offer alternatives to) the instrumentalist logic and predatory structures that are reducing the world to a collection of quantifiable and tradeable resources. The book will be of interest to cultural historians and theorists, media studies scholars, political scientists, and students of French and Francophone literature and culture on both sides of the Atlantic.This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to the generous support of the Humanities Institute at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. It can also be found in the SUNY Open Access Repository.

Offers a thorough, multidisciplinary picture of the informational challenges of our media ecosystem, as well as collaborative strategies for addressing them.The unprecedented spread of false and misleading information is the flip side of the Internet's promise of universal access and information democratization. This volume features original contributions from scholars working on the challenge of misinformation across a wide range of STEM, humanities, and art disciplines. Modeling a collaborative, multidisciplinary "convergence approach," Truth-Seeking in an Age of (Mis)Information Overload is structured in three parts. Part 1, "Misinformation and Artificial Intelligence," confronts the danger of outsourcing judgement and decision-making to AI instruments in key areas of public life, from the processing of loan applications to school funding, policing, and criminal sentencing. Part 2, "Science Communication," foregrounds the need to rethink how scientific findings are communicated to the public, calling on scientists to cooperate with colleagues in other disciplines and community representatives to help minimize the negative effects of mis/disinformation in such vital areas as climate change science and public health. Part 3, "Building Trust," further advocates for and explores instances of trust-building initiatives as a necessary precondition of both community-oriented scholarly activity and effective intervention strategies in high impact areas such as public health.This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to the generous support of the Humanities Institute at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. It can also be found in the SUNY Open Access Repository.

Offers a thorough, multidisciplinary picture of the informational challenges of our media ecosystem, as well as collaborative strategies for addressing them.The unprecedented spread of false and misleading information is the flip side of the Internet's promise of universal access and information democratization. This volume features original contributions from scholars working on the challenge of misinformation across a wide range of STEM, humanities, and art disciplines. Modeling a collaborative, multidisciplinary "convergence approach," Truth-Seeking in an Age of (Mis)Information Overload is structured in three parts. Part 1, "Misinformation and Artificial Intelligence," confronts the danger of outsourcing judgement and decision-making to AI instruments in key areas of public life, from the processing of loan applications to school funding, policing, and criminal sentencing. Part 2, "Science Communication," foregrounds the need to rethink how scientific findings are communicated to the public, calling on scientists to cooperate with colleagues in other disciplines and community representatives to help minimize the negative effects of mis/disinformation in such vital areas as climate change science and public health. Part 3, "Building Trust," further advocates for and explores instances of trust-building initiatives as a necessary precondition of both community-oriented scholarly activity and effective intervention strategies in high impact areas such as public health.This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to the generous support of the Humanities Institute at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. It can also be found in the SUNY Open Access Repository.

The term anamorphosis, from the greek ana (again) and morphe (shape), designates a variety of perspective experiments that can be traced back to the artistic developments of the 1500's and 1600's. Anamorphic devices challenge viewers to experience different forms of perceptual oscillation and uncertainty. Images shift in front of the eyes of puzzled spectators as they move from the center of the representation to the margins, or from one side to the other. (A) Wry Views demonstrates that much of the literature of the Spanish Golden Age is susceptible, and indeed requires, oblique readings (as in anamorphosis).

We are living in a time of inflationary media. While technological change has periodically altered and advanced the ways humans process and transmit knowledge, for the last 100 years the media with which we produce, transmit, and record ideas have multiplied in kind, speed, and power. Saturation in media is provoking a crisis in how we perceive and understand reality. Media become inflationary when the scope of their representation of the world outgrows the confines of their culture's prior grasp of reality. We call the resulting concept of reality that emerges the culture's medialogy.Medialogies offers a highly innovative approach to the contemporary construction of reality in cultural, political, and economic domains. Castillo and Egginton, both luminary scholars, combine a very accessible style with profound theoretical analysis, relying not only on works of philosophy and political theory but also on novels, Hollywood films, and mass media phenomena. The book invites us to reconsider the way reality is constructed, and how truth, sovereignty, agency, and authority are understood from the everyday, philosophical, and political points of view. A powerful analysis of actuality, with its roots in early modernity, this work is crucial to understanding reality in the information age.