Cultural Dialectics

In this candid and concise volume, Kyle Conway, author of The Art of Communication in a Polarized World, considers how we can open ourselves to others and to ideas that scare us by reading difficult texts. Conway argues that because we resist ideas we don't understand, we must embrace confusion as a constitutive part of understanding and meaningful exchange, whether between a reader and a text or between two people. Building on the work of hermeneutics scholar Paul Ricoeur, Conway evaluates the recurring paradox of miscommunication that results in deeper understanding and proposes strategies for reading that will allow individuals give up the illusion of certainty. In elegant and compelling prose, Conway introduces readers to the idea that it is through uncertainty that we can gain access to new and meaningful worlds-those of texts and other people. Preface: How to Read this Book Introduction: What Is Reading? Chapter 1: To Read Is to Feel Lost Chapter 2: To Read Is to Wander Chapter 3: To Read Is to Feel Love Chapter 4: To Read Is to Be Free Conclusion: To Read Is to Live with Other PeopleReferences "To read like you mean it is to find ways to live with other people, exploring their worlds as they explore yours." "A compelling book about the heart of reading. Conway affirms the primordial relationship between the word and the world and helps us read anything, including ourselves, with seriousness and care." In elegant and compelling prose, How to Read Like You Mean It introduces readers to the idea that it is through ambiguity that we can gain access to new, profound worlds-those of texts and other people. This candid, concise volume explores how we can open ourselves up to the ideas and people that scare us by reading difficult texts.

Making Game is a mixed-genre composition in which the author reflects on the philosophical and ethical implications of hunting wild game. This engaging essay is informed by the author's significant background of scholarly engagement with the phenomenological tradition in modern philosophy.

When he died at the age of thirty-seven, Vincent van Gogh left a legacy of over two thousand artworks, for which he is now justly famous. But van Gogh was also a prodigious writer of letters-more than eight hundred of them, addressed to his parents, to friends such as Paul Gauguin, and, above all, to his brother Theo. His letters have long been admired for their exceptional literary quality, and art historians have sometimes drawn on the letters in their analysis of the paintings. And yet, to date, no one has undertaken a critical assessment of this remarkable body of writing-not as a footnote to the paintings but as a highly sophisticated literary achievement in its own right. Patrick Grant's long-awaited study provides such an assessment and, as such, redresses a significant omission in the field of van Gogh studies. As Grant demonstrates, quite apart from furnishing a highly revealing self-portrait of their author, the letters are compelling for their imaginative and expressive power, as well as for the perceptive commentary they offer on universal human themes. Through a subtle exploration of van Gogh's contrastive style of thinking and his fascination with the notion of imperfection, Grant illuminates gradual shifts in van Gogh's ideas on religion, ethics, and the meaning of art. He also analyzes the metaphorical significance of a number of key images in the letters, which prove to yield unexpected psychological and conceptual connections, and probes the relationships that surface when the letters are viewed as a cohesive literary product. The result is a wealth of new insights into van Gogh's inner landscape.

In Northern Love, Paul Nonnekes proposes a conception of love suggestive of a distinctive model of Canadian masculinity. He pursues debates in psychoanalysis and cultural theory in relation to two representative male characters in novels by Rudy Wiebe (A Discovery of Strangers) and Robert Kroetsch (The Man from the Creeks). Ranging from debates on the Hegelian master-slave dialectic to the Lacanian Name of the Father, and from Butler's strange gender to Zizek's subjective awareness of lack, Nonnekes probes the two novels and their main characters, eliciting an evolving conception of love characteristic of the Canadian cultural imaginary.

"…aspirations to perfection awaken us to our actual imperfection." It is in the space between these aspirations and our inability to achieve them that Grant reflects upon imperfection. Grant argues that an awareness of imperfection, defined as both suffering and the need for justice, drive us to an unrelenting search for perfection, freedom, and self-determination. The twenty-one brief chapters of Imperfection develop this governing idea as it relates to the present situation of the God debate, modern ethnic conflicts, and the pursuit of freedom in relation to the uncertainties of personal identity and the quest for self-determination. Known for his exploration of the relationship between Buddhism and violent ethnic conflict in modern Sri Lanka, as well as his contribution to the study of Northern Ireland and the complex relationships among religion, literature, and ethnicity, Grant provides the reader with an analysis of the widespread rise of religious extremism across the globe. Referencing Plato, Van Gogh, Jesus, and the Buddha, he enlightens the reader with both succinct and original insights into human society. Imperfection is the result of an important Canadian public intellectual at work.

Over half a century ago, in The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), Marshall McLuhan noted that the overlap of traditional print and new electronic media like radio and television produced widespread upheaval in personal and public life: Even without collision, such co-existence of technologies and awareness brings trauma and tension to every living person. Our most ordinary and conventional attitudes seem suddenly twisted into gargoyles and grotesques. Familiar institutions and associations seem at times menacing and malignant. These multiple transformations, which are the normal consequence of introducing new media into any society whatever, need special study. The trauma and tension in the daily lives of citizens as described here by McLuhan was only intensified by the arrival of digital media and the Web in the following decades. The rapidly evolving digital realm held a powerful promise for creative and constructive good-a promise so alluring that much of the inquiry into this new environment focused on its potential rather than its profound impact on every sphere of civic, commercial, and private life. The totalizing scope of the combined effects of computerization and the worldwide network are the subject of the essays in The Digital Nexus, a volume that responds to McLuhan's request for a 'special study' of the tsunami-like transformation of the communication landscape. These critical excursions provide analysis of and insight into the way new media technologies change the workings of social engagement for personal expression, social interaction, and political engagement. The contributors investigate the terms and conditions under which our digital society is unfolding and provide compelling arguments for the need to develop an accurate grasp of the architecture of the Web and the challenges that ubiquitous connectivity undoubtedly delivers to both public and private life. Contributions by Ian Angus, Maria Bakardjieva, Daryl Campbell, Sharone Daniel, Andrew Feenberg, Raphael Foshay, Carolyn Guertin, David J. Gunkel, Bob Hanke, Leslie Lindballe, Mark McCutcheon, Roman Onufrijchuk, Josipa G. Petrunić, Peter J. Smith, Lorna Stefanick, Karen Wall.

In Grant's earlier book, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh. A Critical Study (AU Press, 2014), he followed a practical-critical analysis of the letters that dealt with key patterns of metaphors and concepts. This volume is a complement to the first book and provides an effective, theory-based reading of the letters that brings them more fully and successfully into the domain of modern literary studies. Each chapter addresses some significant aspect of Van Gogh's writing including a "reading" of the letter-sketches and their narrative dimensions, a deconstruction of the binaries used in Van Gogh's writing and painting, observations of Van Gogh's own understanding of the permeable boundary between words and visual art, and a discussion of the set of polarities apparent in Van Gogh's discussions of imagination, fantasy, belief, and self-surrender. Consequently, as a whole and in each of its parts, this book offers a new, timely, and theoretically-informed interpretation of Van Gogh's literary achievement.

The modern university can trace its roots to Kant's call for enlightened self-determination, with education aiming to produce an informed and responsible body of citizens. As the university evolved, specialized areas of investigation emerged, enabling ever more precise research and increasingly nuanced arguments. In recent decades, however, challenges to the hegemony of disciplines have arisen, partly in response to a perceived need for the university to focus greater energy on its public vocation-teaching and the dissemination of knowledge. Valences of Interdisciplinarity presents essays by an international array of scholars committed to enhancing our understanding of the theoretical underpinnings and the practical realities of interdisciplinary teaching and research. What is, and what should be, motivating our reflections on (and practice of) approaches that transcend the conventional boundaries of discipline? And in adopting such transdisciplinary approaches, how do we safeguard critical methods and academic rigour? Reflecting on the obstacles they have encountered both as thinkers and as educators, the authors map out innovative new directions for the interdisciplinary project. Together, the essays promise to set the standards of the debate about interdisciplinarity for years to come.

Online discourse has created a new media environment for contributions to public life, one that challenges the social significance of the role of public intellectuals-intellectuals who, whether by choice or by circumstance, offer commentary on issues of the day. The value of such commentary is rooted in the assumption that, by virtue of their training and experience, intellectuals possess knowledge-that they understand what constitutes knowledge with respect to a particular topic, are able to distinguish it from mere opinion, and are in a position to define its relevance in different contexts. When intellectuals comment on matters of public concern, they are accordingly presumed to speak truth, whether they are writing books or op-ed columns or appearing as guests on radio and television news programs. At the same time, with increasing frequency, discourse on public life is taking place online. This new digital environment is characterized by abundance-an abundance of speakers, discussion, and access. But has this abundance of discourse-this democratization of knowledge, as some describe it-brought with it a corresponding increase in truth? Casting doubt on the assertion that online discourse, with its proliferation of voices, will somehow yield collective wisdom, Speaking Power to Truth raises concerns that this wealth of digitally enabled commentary is, in fact, too often bereft of the hallmarks of intellectual discourse: an epistemological framework and the provision of evidence to substantiate claims. Instead, the pursuit of truth finds itself in competition with the quest for public reputation, access to influence, and enhanced visibility. But as knowledge is drawn into the orbit of power, and as the line between knowledge and opinion is blurred, what role will the public intellectual play in the promotion and nurturing of democratic processes and goals? In exploring the implications of the digital transition, the contributors to Speaking Power to Truth provide both empirical evidence of, and philosophical reflection on, the current and future role of the public intellectual in a technologically mediated public sphere. With contributions by Karim-Aly Kassam, Barrry Cooper, Jacob G. Foster, Richard Hawkins, Michael Keren, Boaz Miller, Liz Pirnie, and Eleanor Townsley.