Bibliophobia

Bibliophobia PDF Author: Brian Cummings
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192663097
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 591

Book Description
Bibliophobia is a book about material books, how they are cared for, and how they are damaged, throughout the 5000-year history of writing from Sumeria to the smartphone. Its starting point is the contemporary idea of 'the death of the book' implied by the replacement of physical books by digital media, with accompanying twenty-first-century experiences of paranoia and literary apocalypse. It traces a twin fear of omniscience and oblivion back to the origins of writing in ancient Babylon and Egypt, then forwards to the age of Google. It uncovers bibliophobia from the first Chinese emperor to Nazi Germany, alongside parallel stories of bibliomania and bibliolatry in world religions and literatures. Books imply cognitive content embodied in physical form, in which the body cooperates with the brain. At its heart this relationship of body and mind, or letter and spirit, always retains a mystery. Religions are founded on holy books, which are also sites of transgression, so that writing is simultaneously sacred and profane. In secular societies these complex feelings are transferred to concepts of ideology and toleration. In the ambiguous future of the internet, digital immateriality threatens human equilibrium once again. Bibliophobia is a global history, covering six continents and seven religions, describing written examples from each of the last thirty centuries (and several earlier). It discusses topics such as the origins of different kinds of human script; the development of textual media such as scrolls, codices, printed books, and artificial intelligence; the collection and destruction of libraries; the use of books as holy relics, talismans, or shrines; and the place of literacy in the history of slavery, heresy, blasphemy, censorship, and persecution. It proposes a theory of writing, how it relates to speech, images, and information, or to concepts of mimesis, personhood, and politics. Originating as the Clarendon Lectures in the Faculty of English at the University of Oxford, the methods of Bibliophobia range across book history; comparative religion; philosophy from Plato to Hegel and Freud; and a range of global literature from ancient to contemporary. Richly illustrated with textual forms, material objects, and art works, its inspiration is the power that books always (and continue to) have in the emotional, spiritual, bodily, and imaginative lives of readers.

Bibliophobia

Bibliophobia PDF Author: Brian Cummings
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192847317
Category : Books
Languages : en
Pages : 591

Book Description
This volume is illustrated with manuscripts, printed objects, and art works. It tells a 5000-year history of writing and books, giving readers an account of why books matter and how they impact our lives.

The Fear of Books

The Fear of Books PDF Author: Holbrook Jackson
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252070402
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
Examines the violence, destruction, and suppression that have hounded books throughout their history and the fears that lead to such treachery. This book identifies three deeply seated fears: fear of insurrection, fear of blasphemy, and fear of pornography.

The Ferrante Letters

The Ferrante Letters PDF Author: Sarah Chihaya
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023155088X
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 327

Book Description
Like few other works of contemporary literature, Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels found an audience of passionate and engaged readers around the world. Inspired by Ferrante’s intense depiction of female friendship and women’s intellectual lives, four critics embarked upon a project that was both work and play: to create a series of epistolary readings of the Neapolitan Quartet that also develops new ways of reading and thinking together. In a series of intertwined, original, and daring readings of Ferrante’s work and her fictional world, Sarah Chihaya, Merve Emre, Katherine Hill, and Juno Jill Richards strike a tone at once critical and personal, achieving a way of talking about literature that falls between the seminar and the book club. Their letters make visible the slow, fractured, and creative accretion of ideas that underwrites all literary criticism and also illuminate the authors’ lives outside the academy. The Ferrante Letters offers an improvisational, collaborative, and cumulative model for reading and writing with others, proposing a new method the authors call collective criticism. A book for fans of Ferrante and for literary scholars seeking fresh modes of intellectual exchange, The Ferrante Letters offers incisive criticism, insouciant riffs, and the pleasure of giving oneself over to an extended conversation about fiction with friends.

Afraid of Everything

Afraid of Everything PDF Author: Adam Tierney
Publisher: IDW Publishing
ISBN: 1684068509
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 100

Book Description
What kind of scared are you? Find out in these fun horror stories for young readers based on a range of phobias from Arachnophobia to Zoophobia! These tales of fear, dread, risk, and doom contain all the classic elements of horror that young fans crave, without the gore. Features 26 terrifying short stories, each based on a different A-to-Z phobia and accompanied by a unique illustration. Also includes 11 bonus stories featuring art by Temmie Chang, Mariel Cartwright, and Ko Takeuchi, plus a section detailing the origins and developments of the stories and art.

Phobophobia

Phobophobia PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780983624523
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Book Description
There is nothing to fear but fear itself... Twenty six original tales of horror by established masters of terror and talented new voices lie within this Lexicon of Fear. Beware the dark power of words in BIBLIOPHOBIA...a carnival double act made in Hell can be found in the clown cemetery in COULROPHOBIA...an artist loses his power to create ice sculptures because of his fear of cold in FRIGOPHOBIA, but that is the least of his problems as his therapist suffers the same phobia... The fear of open spaces manifests itself in KENOPHOBIA, a tale of the ultimate emptiness - the Great Void that awaits us all...the fear of beautiful women is fully justified in VENUSTROPHOBIA, a tale of futile defence against the Succubus... ...but beware: the cure may be worse... Denying yourself a place in Heaven is one way to avoid JESUSPHOBIA, but the only alternative means Hell to pay...a playwright fights his fear of the colour yellow by creating an unusual addition to his Dramatis Personae in XANTHOPHOBIA...a Witchfinder's fear of open water will only be relieved by imbibing one of two deathly fluids in AQUAPHOBIA...and a widower follows the age-old advice of turning to face your fear in QIQIRN, only to uncover the true nature of an Inuit dog spirit that carries the essence of cold terror from its ancient homeland into the realm of human grief... Open the pages. It is time to learn your A to Dread...

The Anatomy of Bibliomania

The Anatomy of Bibliomania PDF Author: Holbrook Jackson
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252070433
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 676

Book Description
Inspects the allure of books, their curative and restorative properties, and the passion for them that leads to bibliomania. This title comments on why we read, where we read - on journeys, at mealtimes, on the toilet (this has 'a long but mostly unrecorded history'), in bed, and in prison - and what happens to us when we read.

From David to Gedaliah

From David to Gedaliah PDF Author: Bob Becking
Publisher: Saint-Paul
ISBN: 9783525530290
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
The ten essays in this volume all deal with various aspects of the interpretation of the Book of Kings. Bob Becking tries to set a course between Scylla and Charibdis. Both 'minimalism' and 'maximalism' are avoided by trying to apply a variety of methods: narratology, historical criticism and theological analysis. This implies that extra-biblical evidence -- the Tell Dan inscription, Assyrian royal inscriptions, West Semitic seal inscriptions -- are taken into account. Selected texts from this biblical book are read on the basis of a three-dimensional matrix: (1) the narrative character of the story/stories; (2) the value and function of extra-biblical material, be it of an epigraphical or an archaeological character; (3) the art of history-writing both ancient and modern. The essays are arranged according to the order in which the relevant texts or their main characters figure in the Book of Kings. Originally published between 1987 and 2005, they have been updated for publication in the present collection.
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