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Pierre Chaunu sprach 1971 noch vorsichtig von der Herausbildung von "l'Europe des Lumières". Ein halbes Jahrhundert später ist längst zu fragen: Aufklärung nur in Europa? Die transareal angelegte Vorlesung will versuchen, nach der (verlorenen) Einheit der Aufklärung und nach den transatlantisch verflochtenen Geschichten des 18. Jahrhunderts im Bewusstsein der Vielgestaltigkeit aufklärerischer Diskurse zwischen zwei Welten, Europa und Amerika, zu fragen. Gab es eine Aufklärung oder gab es deren viele? Mit einem deutlichen Schwerpunkt innerhalb der Romania will die Vorlesung ein Verständnis dafür wecken, auf welche Weise im "Siècle des Lumières" inter- und transkulturelle Kontakte und Beziehungen im Bereich von Literatur, Philosophie und Kultur funktionierten und wie die literarischen Räume der Aufklärung transatlantisch in Bewegung gerieten. Ziel der Vorlesung ist es, aus vergleichender Sicht monokulturelle Bilder der Aufklärung wie der entstehenden Moderne zu hinterfragen.

LITERARY CRITICISM / European / General. --- Enlightenment. --- Modernity. --- Romance Literatures.

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This book examines the transformation of the figure of the stranger in the literature of the modern age in terms of liminality. As a ‘spectral monster’ that has a paradoxical and liminal relationship to both the sacred and the secular, the figure of the modern stranger has played a role in both adapting and shaping a culturally determined understanding of the self and the other. With the advent of modernity, the stranger, the monster, and the spectre became interconnected. Haunting the edges of reason while also being absorbed into ‘normal’ society, all three, together with the cyborg, manifest the vulnerability of an age that is fearful of the return of the repressed. Yet these figures can also become re-appropriated as positive symbols, able to navigate between the dangerous and chaotic elements that threaten society while serving as precarious and ironic symbols of hope or sustainability. The book shows the explanatory potential of focusing on the resacralizing – in a paradoxical and liminal manner – of traditionally sacred concepts such as ‘messianic’ time and the ‘utopian,’ and the conflicts that emerged as a result of secularized modernity’s denial of its own hybridization. This approach to modern literature shows how the modern stranger, a figure that is both paradoxically immersed and removed from society, deals with the dangers of failing to be re-assimilated into mainstream society and is caught in a fixed or permanent state of liminality, a state that can ultimately lead to boredom, alienation, nihilism, and failure. These ‘monstrous’ aspects of liminality can also be rewarding in that traversing difficult and paradoxical avenues they confront both traditional and contemporary viewpoints, enabling new and fresh perspectives suspended between imagination and reality, past and future, nature and artificial. In many ways, the modern stranger as a figure of literature and the cultural imagination has become more complicated and challenging in the (post)modern contemporary age, both clashing with and encompassing people who go beyond simply the psychological or even spiritual inability to blend in and out of society. However, while the stranger may be altering once again the defining or essentializing the figure could result in the creation of other sets of binaries, and thereby dissolve the purpose and productiveness of both strangeness and liminality. The intention of “Monstrous Liminality” is to trace the liminal sphere located between the secular and sacred that has characterized modernity itself. This space has consequently altered the makeup of the stranger from something external, into a figure far more liminal, which is forced to traverse this uncanny space in an attempt to find new meanings for an age that is struggling to maintain any.

Strangers in literature. --- Secularism --- Monstrous --- Modernity --- Resacralization --- Liminality --- Modern Stranger

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Civilization, Modern. --- Modern civilization --- Modernity --- Civilization --- Renaissance --- History

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“Reason” and “rationality” are, today, problematic notions: considered for a long time, in the history of Western thought, as distinctive traits of man and of the Euro-American civilization, from a certain point onwards they have been called into question and ripped apart by the crisis and the malaise of the latter. In the light of the most recent controversies and reflections on the subject developed over the first half of the 20th century, this book aims to riegnite the debate on “ratio” with the intention of highlighting – through a series of “case studies” – the fine texture of the multiple meanings and uses of the notion of reason, but also to question the different “eras” of reason by attempting to reconstruct its “history”. The essays included in this volume, therefore, contextualise and analyse the meanings and ambiguities of the term “ratio” and its derivatives within the framework of the many discussions that have marked its history from the earliest modernity, when the concept assumed new configurations with respect to the uses attested in Ancient and Medieval thought, to the contemporary debate. “Ragione” e “razionalita” sono oggi nozioni problematiche: considerate a lungo, nella storia del pensiero occidentale, come tratti distintivi dell’uomo e della civiltà euro-americana, da un certo punto in poi sono state messe in discussione e lacerate dalla crisi e dal malessere di quest’ultima. Alla luce delle controversie più recenti e delle riflessioni sul tema sviluppate nella prima metà del Novecento, questo libro si propone di riaprire la querelle sulla ratio con l’intento di mettere in luce – attraverso una serie di “casi di studio” – la grana sottile dei molteplici significati e usi della nozione di ragione, ma anche di interrogarsi sulle differenti “epoche” della ragione provando a ricostruirne la “storia”. I saggi contenuti in questo volume, dunque, contestualizzano e analizzano le accezioni e le ambiguità del termine ratio e dei suoi derivati nel quadro delle molteplici discussioni che ne hanno ritmato la storia a partire dalla prima modernità, quando il concetto assunse nuove configurazioni rispetto agli usi attestati nel pensiero antico e medioevale, sino al dibattito contemporaneo .

xxxx --- reason --- rationality --- rationalization --- history --- modernity --- contemporary philosophy

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Civilization, Modern --- -Modern civilization --- Modernity --- Civilization --- Renaissance --- History --- -Civilization, Modern --- Civilization, Modern - 1950