This book interprets Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles with the openness toward experience recommended by John Dewey’s Art as Experience. The characters of Tess are considered as real people with sexual bodies and complex minds. Efron identifies the “experience blockers” that the critical tradition has stumbled upon, and defends Hardy’s involvement in telling his story. Efron offers a new way of evaluating literature inspired by Dewey’s pragmatist aesthetics.

This book presents the work of Polish and American philosophers about Poland's transition from Communist domination to democracy. Among their topics are nationalism, liberalism, law and justice, academic freedom, religion, fascism, and anti-Semitism. Beyond their insights into the ongoing situation in Poland, these essays have broader implications, inspiring reflection on dealing with needed social changes.

Essays throwing fresh light on what it was like to be a medieval soldier, drawing on archival research.

With the same sweep, authority, and originality that marked his best-selling Freud: A Life for Our Time, Peter Gay here takes us on a remarkable journey through middle-class Victorian culture. Gay's search through middle-class Victorian culture, illuminated by lively portraits of such daunting figures as Bismarck, Darwin and his acolytes, George Eliot, and the great satirists Daumier and Wilhelm Busch, covers a vast terrain: the relations between men and women, wit, demagoguery, and much more. We discover the multiple ways in which the nineteenth century at once restrained aggressive behavior and licensed it. Aggression split the social universe into insiders and outsiders. "By gathering up communities of insiders," Professor Gay writes, the Victorians "discovered--only too often invented--a world of strangers beyond the pale, of individuals and classes, races and nations it was perfectly proper to debate, patronize, ridicule, bully, exploit, or exterminate." The aggressions so channeled or bottled could not be contained forever. Ultimately, they exploded in the First World War.

In Fiction and Repetition, one of our leading critics and literary theorists offers detailed interpretations of seven novels: Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Thackeray's Henry Esmond, Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles and The Well-Beloved, Conrad's Lord Jim, and Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and Between the Acts. Miller explores the multifarious ways in which repetition generates meaning in these novels—repetition of images, metaphors, motifs; repetition on a larger scale of episodes, characters, plots; and repetition from one novel to another by the same or different authors. While repetition creates meanings, it also, Miller argues, prevents the identification of a single determinable meaning for any of the novels; rather, the patterns made by the various repetitive sequences offer alternative possibilities of meaning which are incompatible. He thus sees “undecidability” as an inherent feature of the novels discussed. His conclusions make a provocative contribution to current debates about narrative theory and about the principles of literary criticism generally. His book is not a work of theory as such, however, and he avoids the technical terminology dear to many theorists; his book is an attempt to interpret as best he can his chosen texts. Because of his rare critical gifts and his sensitivity to literary values and nuances, his readings send one back to the novels with a new appreciation of their riches and their complexities of form.

Pragmatism provides not just a theoretical perspective on science and inquiry, but ways of being in the world, of knowing the reality we inhabit. Approaching this philosophical tradition as a diverse set of philosophies that it is, The Bloomsbury Companion to Pragmatism introduces many of the ideas and debates at the centre of the field today. Focusing on issues in 12 different subject areas, this up-to-date companion covers current research in aesthetics, economics, education, ethics, history, law, metaphysics, politics, race, religion, science and technology, language, and social theory. Supported by an introduction to research methods and problems, as well as a guide to past and future directions in the field, the chapters are also enhanced by a glossary, research guide and an annotated bibliography. For anyone working in contemporary pragmatism or modern American philosophy more generally, this companion provides a practical means of navigating what can sometimes feel like a disparate field. Showing where important work continues to be done, the tensions that exist, and, most valuably, the exciting new directions the field is taking, The Bloomsbury Companion to Pragmatism expands our understanding of the role of pragmatism in 21st century philosophy.

The Continuum Companion to Pragmatism offers the definitive guide to a key area of contemporary philosophy. The book covers all the fundamental questions asked by pragmatism - areas that have continued to attract interest historically as well as topics that have emerged more recently as active areas of research. Twelve specially commissioned essays from an international team of experts reveal where important work continues to be done in the area and, most valuably, the exciting new directions the field is taking. The Companion explores issues pertaining to aesthetics, economics, education, ethics, history, law, metaphysics, politics, race, religion, science and technology, language, and social theory. Featuring a series of indispensable research tools, including an A to Z of key terms and concepts, a chronology, a detailed list of resources and a fully annotated bibliography, this is the essential reference tool for anyone working in contemporary pragmatism or modern American philosophy more generally.

Pragmatism provides not just a theoretical perspective on science and inquiry, but ways of being in the world, of knowing the reality we inhabit. Approaching this philosophical tradition as a diverse set of philosophies that it is, The Bloomsbury Handbook of Pragmatism introduces many of the ideas and debates at the centre of the field today. Focusing on issues in different subject areas, this up-to-date handbook covers current research in aesthetics, economics, education, ethics, history, law, metaphysics, politics, race, religion, science and technology, language, and social theory. Supported by an introduction to research methods and problems, as well as a guide to past and future directions in the field, chapters are enhanced by a 'how to use' guide and glossary. Now expanded, this edition includes new chapters on pragmatism and various global and regional philosophical traditions, as well as feminism and environmental philosophy. Showing where important work continues to be done, the tensions that exist, and, most valuably, the exciting new directions the field is taking, The Bloomsbury Handbook of Pragmatism advances our understanding of the role of pragmatism in 21st century philosophy.