On the social consequences of machines

Automation, animation, and ecosystems are terms of central media-philosophical concern in today’s society of humans and machines. This volume describes the social consequences of machines as a mediating concept for the animation of life and automation of technology. Bernard Stiegler’s automatic society illustrates how digital media networks establish a new proletariat of knowledge workers. Gertrud Koch offers the animation of the technical to account for the pathological relations that arise between people and their devices. And Thomas Pringle synthesizes how automation and animation explain the history of intellectual exchanges that led to the hybrid concept of the ecosystem, a term that blends computer and natural science. All three contributions analyse how categories of life and technology become mixed in governmental policies, economic exploitation and pathologies of everyday life thereby both curiously and critically advancing the term that underlies those new developments: ‘machine.’ 

A mother whose child has had a cochlear implant tells Laura Mauldin why enrollment in the sign language program at her daughter’s school is plummeting: “The majority of parents want their kids to talk.” Some parents, however, feel very differently, because “curing” deafness with cochlear implants is uncertain, difficult, and freighted with judgment about what is normal, acceptable, and right. Made to Hear sensitively and thoroughly considers the structure and culture of the systems we have built to make deaf children hear.

Based on accounts of and interviews with families who adopt the cochlear implant for their deaf children, this book describes the experiences of mothers as they navigate the health care system, their interactions with the professionals who work with them, and the influence of neuroscience on the process. Though Mauldin explains the politics surrounding the issue, her focus is not on the controversy of whether to have a cochlear implant but on the long-term, multiyear undertaking of implantation. Her study provides a nuanced view of a social context in which science, technology, and medicine are trusted to vanquish disability—and in which mothers are expected to use these tools. Made to Hear reveals that implantation has the central goal of controlling the development of the deaf child’s brain by boosting synapses for spoken language and inhibiting those for sign language, placing the politics of neuroscience front and center.

Examining the consequences of cochlear implant technology for professionals and parents of deaf children, Made to Hear shows how certain neuroscientific claims about neuroplasticity, deafness, and language are deployed to encourage compliance with medical technology.

Mainsprings of Indian and Pakistani Foreign Policies was first published in 1974. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

This study by a South Asian specialist illuminates a vast and complex field. For the first time Indian and Pakistani foreign policies have been paralleled within the covers of a single volume. Also for the first time the author has not chosen as his starting point the year 1947, when these ancient lands reemerged as sovereign states, but has adopted it as the middle point, devoting equal attention to the pre-independence period.

Part I provides a cogent answer to the query, often raised but seldom answered to the satisfaction of outsiders, why the Hindus and the Muslims, nourished by the same soil for hundreds of years, were unable to form a single united and strong nation after releasing themselves from foreign domination. And it highlights the surprising extent to which the foreign policies of India and Pakistan have been motivated by impulses inherited from their long past.

Part II evaluates the actual performance of independent India and Pakistan on the world stage; reviews the rivalry between the United States, the Soviet Union, and China to gain influence in South Asia; and probes the vital question why India and Pakistan have belied the original expectation that they would rapidly become prosperous and powerful members of the international community. Domestic pressures bearing on the foreign policies of both countries, including circumstances culminating in the emergence of Bangladesh, are explained.

The Makah Indians was first published in 1953. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Elizabeth Colson lived for a year among the Makah Indians at their reservation at Neah Bay, Washington, while engaged in the field work for this fascinating anthropological study. During that time she made friends with many of the tribe. She shared in their daily living and in their festivities. She listened with an understanding ear to their problems, to their rambling conversations, as well as to their replies in formal interviews.

The result is a richly detailed description of how an American Indian group lives in modern society and an acute analysis of their social problems and adjustments.

The author describes the land of the Makah, explains the origin of the tribe, and portrays their characteristic traits. In sections on the Makah and the Whites and the Makah and the Outer World, she analyzes group relationships. In another section, she describes the internal tribal rivalries that stem from the Makah tradition. Finally, she discusses the religious concepts and practices.

Anthropologists will find the study of primary importance. It is significant to social scientists in other fields as well and to all readers who are concerned about race relations and the special problems of the American Indian. In chronicling the effects of the U.S. Indian Service on one tribe, the book treats an important aspect of American social history.

Making of the Auden canon was first published in 1957. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

No poet writing in English is more representative of the intellectual trends of the thirties and forties than W. H. Auden. British born, Oxford educated, American by naturalization, and now returned to Oxford to occupy the chair of poetry, he is widely regarded as the spiritual guide and keeper of the conscience of the age, at the same time that he exemplifies the gradual passage from ideological left to right so characteristic of the period. This study of Auden's poetry and revisions has far-reaching implications for an understanding not only of Auden's own writing but that of his contemporaries as well.

Considering that 1945 Collected Poetry as the Auden canon, or authorized version of the poems, Mr. Beach examines the process by which Auden selected poems to be admitted to the canon. He shows that the poet eliminated many that were at odds with his later style and thought, discreetly revised others to bring them into line, and, at the same time, left unaltered some of the pieces from his unregenerate days. Auden's system of selection and revision reflects the winding course of his thought, and, by tracing this course, Mr. Beach endeavors to penetrate the poet's diverse masks in an effort to get at the identity of t he man himself.

The Mammals of Minnesota was first published in 1953. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

For the many Minnesotans interested in the wildlife of their state and for anyone with a special interest in the fur or game animals or in the control of harmful species, this is a practical source of information. Schools will find the book useful in teaching natural history. All the mammal species identified within Minnesota are described, and keys to the classification are given, with careful instructions on how to use the keys. Step- by step directions include photographs of animals, diagrams of the methods described, and 70 maps showing the geographical distribution of species. The material is based primarily on the collections in the Museum of Natural history and the Division of Entomology and Economic Zoology at the University of Minnesota.

Man's Quest for Political Knowledge was first published in 1964. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Considering the importance of political science as an academic subject in our time, it is surprising that more attention has not been given, until now, to the history of political study and teaching. As Professor Anderson's book makes clear, an understanding of this history throws light on questions significantly related to basic problems of contemporary political science.

By placing in their historical context pertinent developments in ancient times, Professor Anderson shows how the study and teaching of politics may flourish under certain conditions and falter or fail under others. Throughout the book he demonstrates the truth of what Aristotle said about the study of politics: "In this subject as in others the best method of investigation is to study things in the process of development from the beginning."

In early chapters the author examines three literate societies of the ancient Near East—Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Israel. He then discusses, in the major section of the book, the accomplishments of the Greeks, who, with their many self-governing city-states and their secular attitude toward politics, opened up the study of politics in a realistic way. Here he gives Aristotle the most prominent role and finds Plato less important than most scholars might expect. Finally, he traces the decline of the political study and teaching in the Hellenistic period and in the time of the Roman Empire.

The volume will be of particular interest not only to political scientists but to historians, philosophers, and classical scholars.

Manual for the Identification of the Birds of Minnesota and Neighboring States was first published in 1932. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

The Manuscript Poems of A.E. Housman was first published in 1955. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Poetry lovers everywhere, and devotees of A. E. Housman in particular, will recognize a major literary event in the publication of this volume, for it makes available for the first time some 800 lines of hitherto unpublished poetry by the well-loved author of A Shropshire Lad. This is a significant addition to the Housman treasury because the English poet published a total of only 2216 lines of poetry during his lifetime.

Dr. Haber has drawn the material for this volume from the four Housman notebooks in the Library of Congress, where they were deposited in 1940, four years after the poet's death. In an introductory section the editor describes the notebooks themselves and tells in detail the fascinating story of how the manuscripts—erased, canceled and glued fast to mounting sheets — were preserved and deciphered. The notebooks, dated from 1890 to 1925, contain the most valuable manuscript remains of Housman's poetic writings.

Among the newly published complete poems are some that Dr. Haber believes should be ranked with Housman's outstanding work. In the material that shows the poet's revisions of his own writings, the reader is afforded an intimate glimpse into the creative processes of a poetic genius, a privilege that will be especially appreciated by students and critics. Many explanatory notes are appended to show how Housman's poetry matured from first draft, through final copy, to the printed page.

Margins in the Classroom was first published in 1994. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

For today's teacher of literature, facing a minefield of politics and theory, this book arrives as a much needed guide through the multiplying cultural anxieties of the college classroom. Margins in the Classroom brings together established scholars and emerging voices from diverse backgrounds to show how politics and theory can and do affect the most pressing problems confronting the contemporary teacher of literature. The essays in this volume go beyond questioning and examining existing practices to suggest fresh approaches to teaching the expanding literary canon within the context of the politics of the educational institution.

Kostas Myrsiades is professor of comparative literature, and Linda S. Myrsiades is professor of English, both at West Chester University. Kostas Myrsiades is editor of College Literature, where Linda S. Myrsiades is an associate editor.

Marianne Moore - American Writers 50 was first published in 1965. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Dominant history would have us believe that colonialism belongs to a previous era that has long come to an end. But as Native people become mobile, reservation lands become overcrowded and the state seeks to enforce means of containment, closing its borders to incoming, often indigenous, immigrants.

In Mark My Words, Mishuana Goeman traces settler colonialism as an enduring form of gendered spatial violence, demonstrating how it persists in the contemporary context of neoliberal globalization. The book argues that it is vital to refocus the efforts of Native nations beyond replicating settler models of territory, jurisdiction, and race. Through an examination of twentieth-century Native women’s poetry and prose, Goeman illuminates how these works can serve to remap settler geographies and center Native knowledges. She positions Native women as pivotal to how our nations, both tribal and nontribal, have been imagined and mapped, and how these women play an ongoing role in decolonization.

In a strong and lucid voice, Goeman provides close readings of literary texts, including those of E. Pauline Johnson, Esther Belin, Joy Harjo, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Heid Erdrich. In addition, she places these works in the framework of U.S. and Canadian Indian law and policy. Her charting of women’s struggles to define themselves and their communities reveals the significant power in all of our stories.

Mark Twain - American Writers 5 was first published in 1960. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

A media theory of markets

Markets abound in media—but a media theory of markets is still emerging. Anthropology offers media archaeologies of markets, and the sociology of markets and finance unravels how contemporary financial markets have witnessed a media technological arms race. Building on such work, this volume brings together key thinkers of economic studies with German media theory, describes the central role of the media specificity of markets in new detail and inflects them in three distinct ways. Nik-Khah and Mirowski show how the denigration of human cognition and the concomitant faith in computation prevalent in contemporary market-design practices rely on neoliberal conceptions of information in markets. Schröter confronts the asymmetries and abstractions that characterize money as a medium and explores the absence of money in media. Beverungen situates these inflections and gathers further elements for a politically and historically attuned media theory of markets concerned with contemporary phenomena such as high-frequency trading and cryptocurrencies.

Marsden Hartley was first published in 1952. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Art connoisseurs and students, who are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of Marsden Hartley in an understanding of modern at, will welcome this book. It contains a biographical and critical essay on the artist and his work, a checklist of items in the Hudson D. Walker collection of Hartley's works, a biography of writings by and about Hartley, a chronology of his life, and halftone reproductions illustrating his development as an artist. The illustrations are taken from works in the Walker collection, which is on long-term loan to the University of Minnesota Gallery.

Mary McCarthy - American Writers 72 was first published in 1968. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Masterworks of the Orchestral Repertoire was first published in 1968. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

The fullest enjoyment of an orchestral performance or a record concert comes with a background of knowledge about the music itself. This handbook is designed to help music lovers get the ultimate pleasure from their listening by providing them with that background about a large portion of the orchestral repertoire.

Professor Ferguson analyzes and interprets the most important classical symphonies, overtures, and concertos, as well as selected orchestral works of modern composers. He goes beyond a conventional analysis of structure since he believes (with a majority of the music-loving public) that great music is actually a communication -- that it expresses significant emotions. The great composers, on their own testimony, have striven not merely to create perfect forms but to interpret human experience. Mingled with the analyses, then, the reader will find comments on the expressive purport of the music.

For twenty-five years Professor Ferguson has supplied the program notes for the subscription concerts of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, and this volume is an outgrowth of that activity. In preparing the material for book publication, however, he studied the musical compositions anew, and the resulting chapters provide a much deeper exploration of the musical subjects than did the program notes. The themes of important works are illustrated by musical notations, and a brief glossary explains technical terms.

Renowned contributors use the late work of this crucial figure to open new speculations on "materiality." 

A "material event," in one of Paul de Man’s definitions, is a piece of writing that enters history to make something happen. This interpretation hovers over the publication of this volume, a timely reconsideration of de Man’s late work in its complex literary, critical, cultural, philosophical, political, and historical dimensions.

A distinguished group of scholars responds to the problematic of "materialism" as posed in Paul de Man’s posthumous final book, Aesthetic Ideology. These contributors, at the forefront of critical theory, productive thinking, and writing in the humanities, explore the question of "material events" to illuminate not just de Man’s work but their own. Prominent among the authors here is Jacques Derrida, whose extended essay “Typewriter Ribbon:  Limited Inc (2)” returns to a celebrated episode in Rousseau’s Confessions that was discussed by de Man in Allegories of Reading. 

The importance of de Man’s late work is related to a broad range of subjects and categories and-in Derrida’s provocative reading of de Man’s concept of "materiality"-the politico-autobiographical texts of de Man himself. This collection is essential reading for all those interested in the present state of literary and cultural theory.  

Contributors: Judith Butler, UC Berkeley; T. J. Clark, UC Berkeley; Jacques Derrida, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and UC Irvine; Barbara Johnson, Harvard U; Ernesto Laclau, U of Essex; Arkady Plotnitsky, Purdue U; Laurence A. Rickels, UC Santa Barbara; and Michael Sprinker.

To care can feel good, or it can feel bad. It can do good, it can oppress. But what is care? A moral obligation? A burden? A joy? Is it only human? In Matters of Care, María Puig de la Bellacasa presents a powerful challenge to conventional notions of care, exploring its significance as an ethical and political obligation for thinking in the more than human worlds of technoscience and naturecultures. 

Matters of Care contests the view that care is something only humans do, and argues for extending to non-humans the consideration of agencies and communities that make the living web of care by considering how care circulates in the natural world. The first of the book’s two parts, “Knowledge Politics,” defines the motivations for expanding the ethico-political meanings of care, focusing on discussions in science and technology that engage with sociotechnical assemblages and objects as lively, politically charged “things.” The second part, “Speculative Ethics in Antiecological Times,” considers everyday ecologies of sustaining and perpetuating life for their potential to transform our entrenched relations to natural worlds as “resources.” 

From the ethics and politics of care to experiential research on care to feminist science and technology studies, Matters of Care is a singular contribution to an emerging interdisciplinary debate that expands agency beyond the human to ask how our understandings of care must shift if we broaden the world.  

The Mayflies of North and Central America was first published in 1976. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Mayflies have fascinated man for centuries because of the brief span of their adult lives. These aquatic insects spend most of their lives as nymphs in water, then develop into winged stages and soon die, most species having an adult life of only two or three days. This brevity is implied in the very name of the order, Ephemeroptera.

The mayflies are almost worldwide in distribution, being found everywhere except in Antarctica, the extreme Arctic, and many small oceanic islands. All by three of the twenty families in the world occur in North or Central America, the regions covered in this volume. The book provides a modern, useful, and well-illustrated key to the adults and nymphs. Data on habitats, behavior, and life history are given for each genus. Characteristics of nymphs and adults are given for families, subfamilies, and genera, with brief accounts for extralimital families.

A discussion of methods of collecting and preserving specimens precedes the main portion of the text. The book is generously illustrated with drawings, photographs, and a map.

The role of aquatic insects as indicators of water pollution has received increasing attention, and in this connection this book will be of special interest to those concerned with pollution problems. Mayflies, besides indicating the presence of pollutants, also help remove such substances from the waters, the authors explain.

As a basic reference work, the book is essential for all biological science libraries. Many fly-fishermen are amateur students of mayflies, since the nymphs of larger species are used as bait. With the help of this volume the fisherman can acquire a greater knowledge of aquatic entomology and relate to his sport.

In the history of medicine, hospitals are usually seen as passive reflections of advances in medical knowledge and technology. In Medicine by Design, Annmarie Adams challenges these assumptions, examining how hospital design influenced the development of twentieth-century medicine and demonstrating the importance of these specialized buildings in the history of architecture.

At the center of this work is Montreal’s landmark Royal Victoria Hospital, built in 1893. Drawing on a wide range of visual and textual sources, Adams uses the “Royal Vic”—along with other hospitals built or modified over the next fifty years—to explore critical issues in architecture and medicine: the role of gender and class in both fields, the transformation of patients into consumers, the introduction of new medical concepts and technologies, and the use of domestic architecture and regionally inspired imagery to soften the jarring impact of high-tech medicine.

Identifying the roles played by architects in medical history and those played by patients, doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals in the design of hospitals, Adams also links architectural spaces to everyday hospital activities, from meal preparation to the ways in which patients entered the hospital and awaited treatment.

Methodologically and conceptually innovative, Medicine by Design makes a significant contribution to the histories of both architectural and medical practices in the twentieth century. 

Annmarie Adams is William C. Macdonald Professor of Architecture at McGill University and the author of Architecture in the Family Way: Doctors, Houses, and Women, 1870–1900 and coauthor of Designing Women: Gender and the Architectural Profession.

The Medieval Castle was first published in 1991. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

The Medieval Mediterranean was first published in 1991. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

"Three faiths—Jewish, Christian, and Muslim—became the dominant religions of western civilization in the course of the Middle Ages. Within each, there is and was great cultural and ethnic diversity. The complex relationships today among Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Mediterranean, the tensions and attempts at resolution of conflicts among these groups, have their roots in the Middle Ages."

Contributors: Oleg Grabar, The Meaning of the Dome of the Rock; Oliver Nicholson, Golden Age and the End of the World: Myths of Mediterranean Life from Lactantius to Joshua the Stylite; Ivan Havener, OSB, Two Early Anecdotes Concerning Gregory the Great from the Greek Tradition; Catherine B. Asher, The Public Baths of Medieval Spain: An Architectural Study; Jonathan M. Bloom, The Revival of Early Islamic Architecture by the Umayyads of Spain; Marvin Mills, Scenario for a Roman Provenance for the Mosque of Cordoba; Sybil H. Mintz, The Carpet Pages of the Spanish-Hebrew Farhi Bible; Ann Thorson Walton, The Three Hebrew Children in the Fiery Furnace: A Study of Christian Iconography; W. Eugene Kleinbauer, Pre-Carolingian Concepts of Architectural Planning; Clara Estow, Iberia and North Africa: A Comparative View of Religious and Sexual Discrimination in a Medieval Plural Society; Moshe Sokolow, Arabic Books in Jewish Libraries: The Evidence of Genizah Booklist; Leslie S. B. MacCoull, Coptic Alchemy and Craft Technology in Islamic Egypt: The Papyrological Evidence; Thomas S. Noonan, Technology Transfer Between Byzantium and Eastern Europe: A Case Study of the Glass Industry in Early Russia; Stephanie Cain Van D'Elden, Black and White: Contact with the Mediterranean World in Medieval German Narrative; Gerhard Weiss, The Pilgrim as Tourist: Travels to the Holy Land as Reflected in the Published Accounts of German Pilgrims Between 1450 and 1550

The Melting Pot and the Altar was first published in 1981. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Recent studies of assimilation in nineteenth-century America have focused on the ways in which immigrant groups maintained separate identities rather than on their absorption in American society. In The Melting Pot and the Altar Richard M. Bernard puts to test the theory of the melting pot. He concludes that although cultural and structural pluralism deserves attention so does interaction between the host society and the immigrants

Through extensive quantitative analysis of census reports and marriage records Bernard studies the pattern of intergroup marriage - the ultimate test of assimilation - during a period of massive migration to this country. His research on eleven immigrant groups and the native-born population in Wisconsin suggests that there was considerable intergroup mixing. Moreover, once allowance is made for differing times of arrival, immigration generations, and rural or urban residences, the assimilative patterns of Western and Eastern European groups were remarkably similar. An examination of several factors, such as occupation, age, location, and birthplace of parents, shows that certain demographic and social characteristics rather than any particular ethnic identification increased the likelihood that an individual would marry outside his or her group.

The Melting Pot and the Altar is the first multiple variable analysis of marital assimilation in an entire state whose immigration patterns is similar to that of the nation. Both historians and sociologist will find this work of interest as an example of quantitative methodology and for its new evidence on an important subject.

Memoirs and Letters was first published in 1934. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

This volume, the last in a set of four containing posthumous works of Oscar W. Firkins, consists mainly of some two hundred personal letters, which reveal many delightful facets of a unique character.

Oscar W. Firkins—critic, biographer, playwright, lecturer, and teacher—was regarded as a recluse, living in a world peopled largely by "poets dead and gone" and the creatures of their imagination and his own. That he enjoyed warm friendships with men and women of his time is brought to light in these miscellaneous letters: letters to clergymen and children, to editors and club women, to students and poets, to actors and college deans.

Many brilliantly epigrammatic comments from Firkins' famous classroom lectures are included in the section of this book entitled "From Oscar Firkins' Notebooks." The "Estimate and Appreciation" with which the volume opens is by Dr. Richard Burton, for many years a colleague of Professor Firkins at the University of Minnesota. "Oscar Firkins as a Teacher" is contributed by a former student. A complete bibliography, compiled by Ina Ten Eyck Firkins, concludes the volume.

Daring new theories of masculinity, built from a large and geographically diverse interview study of transgender men
 

American masculinity is being critiqued, questioned, and reinterpreted for a new era. In Men in Place Miriam J. Abelson makes an original contribution to this conversation through in-depth interviews with trans men in the U.S. West, Southeast, and Midwest, showing how the places and spaces men inhabit are fundamental to their experiences of race, sexuality, and gender.

Men in Place explores the shifting meanings of being a man across cities and in rural areas. Here Abelson develops the insight that individual men do not have one way to be masculine—rather, their ways of being men shift between different spaces and places. She reveals a widespread version of masculinity that might be summed up as “strong when I need to be, soft when I need to be,” using the experiences of trans men to highlight the fundamental construction of manhood for all men.

With an eye to how societal institutions promote homophobia, transphobia, and racism, Men in Place argues that race and sexuality fundamentally shape safety for men, particularly in rural spaces, and helps us to better understand the ways that gender is created and enforced.

The Mental and the Physical was first published in 1967. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Professor Feigl's essay "The 'Mental' and the 'Physical'" has provoked a great deal of comment, criticism, and discussion since it first appeared as a part of the content of Volume II of the Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science about ten years ago. Now Professor Feigl takes account of the critical discussions and presents his own comments with respect to the most important points raised in the criticisms. The essay itself is presented here in full, along with the postscript. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science has called the essay "a 'super-colossal' survey of the mind-body problem." In its review of the earlier book containing the essay, Thought said: "This essay deserves careful reading by every philosopher concerned with genuine philosophical dialogue."

Mentality and Machines was first published in 1985. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Mentality and Machines — with a new preface and an extended postscript—is a general essay on the philosophy of mind, oriented to philosophical and psychological questions about real as well as imagined, robots and machines. The second edition retains all of the essays from the original book, including Gunderson's influential critique ("The Imitation Game") of A.M. Turing's treatment of the question "Can machines think?" and his controversial distinction between program-receptive and program-resistant aspects of the mind. This edition's postscript includes further reflections on these themes and others, and relates them to recent writings of other philosophers and computer scientists.

It is one thing to comprehend how culture makes its way through the world in those cases where something old is reproduced in the same physical shape-where, for example, a song is sung or a story retold. It is another thing altogether, as Greg Urban demonstrates, to think about cultural motion when something new is created-a new song or a new story. And this, the creating of new culture, is the overarching value of the contemporary world, as well as the guiding principle of the capitalist entrepreneur.  

From the Declaration of Independence to the movie Babe, from the Amazon River to the film studio, from microscopic studies of the words making up myths and books to the large-scale forces of conquest, conversion, and globalization that drive history, Urban follows the clues to a startling revelation: "metaculture" makes the modern, entrepreneurial form of culture possible. In Urban’s work we see how metaculture, in its relationship to newness, explains the peculiar shape of modern society and its institutions, from the prevalence of taste and choice to the processes of the public sphere, to the centrality of persuasion and hegemony within the nation.

The greatest trick the videogame industry ever pulled was convincing the world that videogames were games rather than a medium for making metagames. Elegantly defined as “games about games,” metagames implicate a diverse range of practices that stray outside the boundaries and bend the rules: from technical glitches and forbidden strategies to Renaissance painting, algorithmic trading, professional sports, and the War on Terror. In Metagaming, Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux demonstrate how games always extend beyond the screen, and how modders, mappers, streamers, spectators, analysts, and artists are changing the way we play.

Metagaming uncovers these alternative histories of play by exploring the strange experiences and unexpected effects that emerge in, on, around, and through videogames. Players puzzle through the problems of perspectival rendering in Portal, perform clandestine acts of electronic espionage in EVE Online, compete and commentate in Korean StarCraft, and speedrun The Legend of Zelda in record times (with or without the use of vision). Companies like Valve attempt to capture the metagame through international e-sports and online marketplaces while the corporate history of Super Mario Bros. is undermined by the endless levels of Infinite Mario, the frustrating pranks of Asshole Mario, and even Super Mario Clouds, a ROM hack exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

One of the only books to include original software alongside each chapter, Metagaming transforms videogames from packaged products into instruments, equipment, tools, and toys for intervening in the sensory and political economies of everyday life. And although videogames conflate the creativity, criticality, and craft of play with the act of consumption, we don’t simply play videogames—we make metagames.

An engaging critique of the science and metaphysics behind our understanding of the universe

 

The James Webb Space Telescope, when launched in 2021, will be the premier orbital observatory, capable of studying every phase of the history of the universe, from the afterglow of the Big Bang to the formation of our solar system. Examining the theoretical basis for key experiments that have made this latest venture in astrophysics possible, Bjørn Ekeberg reveals that scientific cosmology actually operates in a twilight zone between the physical and metaphysical. 

Metaphysical Experiments explains how our current framework for understanding the universe, the Big Bang theory, is more determined by a deep faith in mathematical universality than empirical observation. Ekeberg draws on philosophical insights by Spinoza, Bergson, Heidegger, and Arendt; on the critical perspectives of Latour, Stengers, and Serres; and on cutting-edge physics research at the Large Hadron Collider, to show how the universe of modern physics was invented to reconcile a Christian metaphysical premise with a claim to the theoretical unification of nature.

By focusing on the nonmathematical assumptions underlying some of the most significant events in modern science, Metaphysical Experiments offers a critical history of contemporary physics that demystifies such concepts as the universe, particles, singularity, gravity, blackbody radiation, the speed of light, wave/particle duality, natural constants, black holes, dark matter, and dark energy. Ekeberg’s incisive reading of the metaphysical underpinnings of scientific cosmology offers an innovative account of how we understand our place in the universe.

The Micmac Indians of Eastern Canada was first published in 1955. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

The culture of an Indian tribe over a period of 300 years is described in this comprehensive ethnographic study by a husband and wife anthropologist team. The earliest accounts of the Micmac Indians were written by seventeenth-century French explorers and missionaries. These give historical perspective to the work done by the Wallises, whose research is based on field trips that bridged a 40-years span. Dr. Wallis first observed the Micmac tribes in 1911–12. He and Mrs. Wallis revisited them in 1950 and 1953, assessing the changes in material cultural and in orientation, drives, and motivations. In addition, they have preserved a rich collection of Micmac folktales and traditions, published as a separate section of the book.

For three centuries, concepts of the state have been animated by one of the most powerful metaphors in politics: the body politic, a claustrophobic and bounded image of sovereignty. Climate change, neoliberalism, mass migration, and other aspects of the late Anthropocene have increasingly revealed the limitations of this metaphor. Just as the human body is not whole and separate from other bodies—comprising microbes, bacteria, water, and radioactive isotopes—Stefanie R. Fishel argues that the body politic of the state exists in dense entanglement with other communities and forms of life. 

Drawing on insights from continental philosophy, science and technology studies, and international relations theory, this path-breaking book critiques the concept of the body politic on the grounds of its very materiality. Fishel both redefines and extends the metaphor of the body politic and its role in understanding an increasingly posthuman, globalized world politics. By conceiving of bodies and states as lively vessels, living harmoniously with multiplicity and the biosphere, she argues that a radical shift in metaphors can challenge a politics based on fear to open new forms of global political practice and community. 

Reframing the concept of the body politic to accommodate greater levels of complexity, Fishel suggests, will result in new configurations for the political and social organization necessary to build a world in which the planet’s inhabitants do not merely live but actively thrive.

Micro-Politics was first published in 1994. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Patricia S. Mann explains our current period as a time of social transformation resulting from an "unmooring" of women, men, and children from the nuclear family, gender relations having replaced economic relations as the primary site of social tension and change in our lives. The feminist movement has evolved, according to Mann, into a popularly based postfeminist struggle to reconstruct relationships between women and men within everyday contexts of work, family, education, and politics.

Middletown Families was first published in 1985. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Fifty years after publication of Robert and Helen Lloyd's classic studies, Middletown (1929) and Middletown in Transition (1937), the Middletown III Project picked up and continued their exploration of American values and institutions. By duplicating the original studies - in many cases by using the same questions - this team of social scientists attempted to gauge the changes that had taken place in Muncie, Indiana, since the 1920s. In Middletown Families, the first book to emerge from this project, Theodore Caplow and his colleagues reveal that many widely discussed changes in family life, such as the breakdown of traditional male/female roles, increased conflict between parents and children, and disintegration of extended family ties, are more perceived than actual. Their evidence suggests that the Middletown family seems to be stronger and more tolerant, with closer bonds and greater marital satisfaction than fifty years ago. Instead of breaking it apart, the pressures of modern society may have drawn the family closer together.

Milton's Earthly Paradise was first published in 1972. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

This study provides a history of the changing interpretations of the first earthly paradise—the garden of Eden—in Western thought and relates Paradise Lost and other literary works to this paradise tradition. The author traces the beginnings of the tradition as they appear in the Bible and in classical literature and shows how these two strains were joined in early Christian and medieval literature. His emphasis, however, is on the relation of Paradise Lost to Renaissance commentary and to other literary works of the period dealing with the paradise story.

Professor Duncan views Paradise Lost as one of many Renaissance works that reveal an untiring effort to understand and explain the first chapters of Genesis. In the rational and humanistic commentary of the Renaissance, he explains, the aim was to provide an interpretation of the literal sense of the Scriptural account that was credible, detailed, and historically valid. He finds that the cumulative influence of the commentary is reflected in Milton's attention to the location of paradise, the emphasis on the natural and the rational in his description of paradise, and in the importance of the typological relationship between the terrestrial and celestial paradises. This illuminating discussion makes it clear that Milton's re-creation of paradise is not only superb poetry but also a penetrating account of the origins of man, involving highly complex and controversial issues.

The Mind and Art of Victorian England was first published in 1976. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

In a series of ten essays and a generous selection of illustrations, many in color, this volume depicts and assesses the mind and art of Victorian England. Multidisciplinary in approach, the essays deal with a variety of aspects in the history of the Victorian age.

Professor Altholz, the volume editor, writes: "It was an age not of revolution but of reform; political reform which admitted first the middle and then the working classes to the dominant share of the suffrage; economic and social reforms which proclaimed the triumph of laissez-faire while laying the foundations of the welfare state; moral reforms attempted if not achieved through education and religious revival; aesthetic reforms proposed if not achieved and, even in their failure, adding to the richness and diversity of Victorian England. It was an age whose problems cried out for reform; and, despite the prevailing complacency, virtually all the great Victorians were critics of their age. Their criticisms were diverse and often mutually incompatible, with each other -- and their public -- but they shared a high seriousness which gave character and substance to the flowering of their culture. Such was the Victorian age: the high-water mark of English history, the maturation of British culture, and the seedbed of our problems and our discontents."

The illustrations include color reproductions of some of the works discussed by Melvin Waldfogel in his essay "Narrative Painting," and a selection of architectural engravings and photographs.