Taking as his point of departure Norbert Weiner's statement that information is basic to understanding materialism in our era, Ronald Schleifer shows how discoveries of modern physics have altered conceptions of matter and energy and the ways in which both information theory and the study of literature can enrich these conceptions. Expanding the reductive notion of "the material" as simply matter and energy, he formulates a new, more inclusive idea of materialism.Schleifer's project attempts to bridge the divisions between the humanities and the sciences and to create a nonreductive materialism for the information age. He presents a materialistic account of human bodily experience by delving into language and literature that powerfully represents our faces, voices, hands, and pain. For example, he examines the material resources of poetic "literariness" as it is revealed in the condition of Tourette's syndrome. Schleifer also investigates gestures of the hand in the formation of sociality, and he studies pain as both a physiological and phenomenological experience.This ambitious work explores physiological analyses, evolutionary explanations, and semiotic descriptions of materialism to reveal how aspects of physical existence discover meaning in experience.
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780816644674
Publisert
2009-07-31
Utgiver
Vendor
University of Minnesota Press
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Dybde
23 mm
Aldersnivå
05, UP
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
272

Forfatter

Biographical note

Ronald Schleifer is George Lynn Cross Professor of English and adjunct professor of medicine at the University of Oklahoma.