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Why the humanities matter : a commonsense approach / Frederick Luis Aldama.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Aldama, Frederick Luis, 1969-
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Postmodernism.
- Philosophy, Modern--20th century.
- Philosophy, Modern.
- Philosophy, Modern--21st century.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (392 p.)
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Place of Publication:
- Austin : University of Texas Press, 2008.
- Language Note:
- English
- Summary:
- Is there life after postmodernism? Many claim that it sounded the death knell for history, art, ideology, science, possibly all of Western philosophy, and certainly for the concept of reality itself. Responding to essential questions regarding whether the humanities can remain politically and academically relevant amid this twenty-first-century uncertainty, Why the Humanities Matter offers a guided tour of the modern condition, calling upon thinkers in a variety of disciplines to affirm essential concepts such as truth, goodness, and beauty. Offering a lens of "new humanism," Frederick Aldama also provides a liberating examination of the current cultural repercussions of assertions by such revolutionary theorists as Said, Foucault, Lacan, and Derrida, as well as Latin Americanists such as Sommer and Mignolo. Emphasizing pedagogy and popular culture with equal verve, and writing in colloquial yet multifaceted prose, Aldama presents an enlightening way to explore what "culture" actually does—who generates it and how it shapes our identities—and the role of academia in sustaining it.
- Contents:
- Introduction: a new humanism
- Self, identity, and ideas
- Revisiting Derrida, Lacan, and Foucault
- Derrida gets medieval
- Imaginary empires, real nations
- Edward Said spaced out
- Modernity, what?
- Teachers, scholars, and the humanities today
- Translation matters
- Can music resist?
- The "cultural studies turn" in Brown studies
- Pulling up stakes in Latin/o American theoretical claims
- Fugitive thoughts on justice and happiness
- Why literature matters
- Interpretation, interdisciplinarity, and the people.
- Notes:
- Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
- Includes bibliographical references (p. [327]-348) and index.
- ISBN:
- 9780292793972
- 0292793979
- OCLC:
- 646793463
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