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An investigation of the emotional power of narrative that illuminates the relationship between the human brain and the stories we tell As humans, we think in stories—stories that allow us to feel and share emotions. In order for this phenomenon to work, our brains and the ways in which we tell stories must be attuned to each other. But how exactly does this happen? Tapping into the essence of thinking in stories, Fritz Breithaupt draws on the latest scientific research, including a retelling study (comparable to the telephone game) with more than 12,000 participants, and experiments in which ChatGPT functions as storyteller. This wide-ranging study includes analyses of political history, novels, fairy tales, and everyday office gossip; proposes a new theory of narrative that focuses on emotions and affects; and hypothesizes on the evolution of narratives among our hominid ancestors. Redefining us as beings who anchor ourselves in the world through narratives, Breithaupt introduces a new kind of psychology that cuts to the core of how and why humans feel the need to tell stories.
At the intersection of literary theory, philosophy of history and phenomenology, Arts of Connection: Poetry, History, Epochality explores the representation of connections between events in literary, historical and philosophical narratives. Events in a story can be seen as ordered according to proximate causation, which leads diachronically from one event to the next; and they can also be understood in view of the structure of the narrative as a whole – for instance in terms of the unity of plot. Feldman argues that there exists an essential narrative tension between these two kinds of connection, i.e. between the overarching arrangement or plot that holds together events from "outside," a...
How does the entrance of a character on the tragic stage affect their visibility and presence? Beginning with the court culture of the seventeenth century and ending with Nietzsche’s Dionysian theater, this monograph explores specific modes of entering the stage and the conditions that make them successful—or cause them to fail. The study argues that tragic entrances ultimately always remain incomplete; that the step figures take into visibility invariably remains precarious. Through close readings of texts by Racine, Goethe, and Kleist, among others, it shows that entrances promise both triumph and tragic exposure; though they appear to be expressions of sovereignty, they are always simultaneously threatened by failure or annihilation. With this analysis, the book thus opens up possibilities for a new theory of dramatic form, one that begins not with the plot itself but with the stage entrance that structures how characters appear and thus determines how the plot advances. By reflecting on acts of entering, this book addresses not only scholars of literature, theater, media, and art but anyone concerned with what it means to appear and be present.
This textbook presents the phenomenological method(s) not only theoretically, but also in their current intra- and interdisciplinary applications. “Back to the things themselves as they are given in experience” – this is the motto of phenomenology starting from Edmund Husserl. For this we have to question the self-evident and bracket all presuppositions. But how can we do this? How do we arrive at an unprejudiced description? How can the general be determined in the concrete? And how can we inquire into the conditions of experience? This will be explained with reference to historical texts and illustrated using contemporary examples. The present text is an updated and re-worked version of “Phänomenologie. Eine Einführung” (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, J.B. Metzler 2022). The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent manual revision was done primarily in terms of content.
In the early 19th century, a new social collective emerged out of impoverished artisans, urban rabble, wandering rural lower classes, bankrupt aristocrats and precarious intellectuals, one that would soon be called the proletariat. But this did not yet exist as a unified, homogeneous class with affiliated political parties. The motley appearance, the dreams and longings of these figures, torn from all economic certainties, found new forms of narration in romantic novellas, reportages, social-statistical studies, and monthly bulletins. But soon enough, these disorderly, violent, nostalgic, errant, and utopian figures were denigrated as reactionary and anarchic by the heads of the labour movement, since they did not fit into their grand linear vision of progress. In this book, Patrick Eiden-Offe tells their story, tracing the making of the proletariat in Vörmarz Germany (1815–1848) through the writings of figures like Ludwig Tieck, Moses Hess, Wilhelm Weitling, Georg Weerth, Friedrich Engels, Louise Otto-Peters, Ernst Willkomm, and Georg Büchner, and in so doing, revealing a striking similarity to the disorderly classes of today.
The volume examines from a comparative perspective the phenomenon of aesthetic disruption within the various arts in contemporary culture. It assumes that the political potential of contemporary art is not solely derived from presenting its audiences with openly political content, but rather from creating a space of perception and interaction using formal means: a space that makes hegemonic structures of action and communication observable, thus problematizing their self-evidence. The contributions conceptualize historical and contemporary politics of form in the media, which aim to be more than mere shock strategies, which are concerned not just with the ‘narcissistic’ exhibition of art...
This one-of-a-kind comprehensive study highlights the importance of automated testing techniques and the significance of vision screening measures other than standard visual acuity testing for assessing all drivers and, in particular, at-risk drivers and older drivers. Non-automated tests tend to be subjective, time-consuming, costly, and heavily reliant on the experience of the examiner. Due to the high collision, injury, and fatality rates of all drivers in the State of Arizona, and the disproportionate number of at-fault older drivers and collision risks in the States of Arizona and Florida, new and automated screening methodologies and vision standards are now needed to promote road safe...