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  Structuralism and...

  Donald D. Palmer

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  “What is Structuralism? How is it possible? And once the structures of Structuralism have been discovered, how is Poststructuralism possible?”Thus begins Don Palmer’s Structuralism and Poststructuralism For Beginners. If Nobel or Pulitzer ever made a prize for making the most difficult philosophers and ideas accessible to the greatest number of people, one of the leading candidates would certainly be Professor Don Palmer. From his Sartre For Beginners and  Kierkegaard For Beginners to his Looking at Philosophy, author/illustrator Don Palmer has the magic touch when it comes to translating the most brutally difficult ideas into language and images that non-specialists can understand.“In its less dramatic versions,” writes Palme, “structuralism is just a method of studying language, society, and the works of artists and novelists. But in its most exuberant form, it is a philosophy, an overall worldview that provides an account of reality and knowledge.” Poststructuralism is a loosely knit intellectual movement, comprised mainly of ex-structuralists, who either became dissatisfied with the theory or felt they could improve it.Structuralism and Poststructuralism For Beginners is an illustrated tour through the mysterious landscape of Structuralism and Poststructuralism. The book’s starting point is the linguistic theory of Ferdinand de Sausser. The book moves on to the anthropologist and literary critic Claude Lévi-Strauss; the semiologost and literary critic Roland Barthes; the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser; the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan; the deconstructionist Jacques Derrida. Learn among other things, why structuralists say    Reality is composed of not Things, but Relationships    Every “object” is both a presence and an absence    The total system is present in each of its parts    The parts are more real than the wholeThe book concludes by examining the postmodern obsession with language and with the radical claim of the disappearance of the individual – obsessions that unite the work of all these theorists.

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  Media in the Digital Age

  John Pavlik

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  Digital technologies have fundamentally altered the nature and function of media in our society, reinventing age-old practices of public communication and at times circumventing traditional media and challenging its privileged role as gatekeepers of news and entertainment. Some critics believe these technologies keep the public involved in an informed discourse on matters of public importance, but it isn't clear this is happening on a large scale. Propaganda disguised as news is flourishing, and though interaction with the digital domain teaches children valuable skills, it can also expose them to grave risks. John V. Pavlik critically examines our current digital innovations—blogs, podcasting, peer-to-peer file sharing, on-demand entertainment, and the digitization of television, radio, and satellites—and their positive and negative implications. He focuses on present developments, but he also peers into the future, foreseeing a media landscape dominated by a highly fragmented, though active audience, intense media competition, and scarce advertising dollars. By embracing new technologies, however, Pavlik shows how professional journalism and media can hold on to their role as a vital information lifeline and continue to operate as the tool of a successful democracy.

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  The Long Dark Road - an...

  P.R. Black

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  If you go, there's no coming back. 
   
  Dr Georgia Healey can't grieve. Her nineteen-year-old daughter went for a walk two years ago and vanished. The police never found Stephanie's body. The case has gone stale, but Georgia can't let it go. She knows Stephanie's out there, somewhere.
   
  On the anniversary of Stephanie's disappearance, Georgia's ready to re-interrogate university students, lecturers, Steph's past boyfriends, everyone. She treads the exact path where Stephanie vanished. Yet the shocking truth is even more than she can handle.
   
  When you seek the lost, be prepared for what you find . . . 
   
  Praise for P.R. Black: 
   
  'It's edge-of-the-seat stuff. The plot is good. I really couldn't see how it was going to work out ... It's a cracker' BOOKBAG
   
  'I absolutely loved this heart-stopping, spine-tingling novel that had me completely and utterly gripped throughout' Amazon Reviewer
   
  'Cleverly written with some great shockers and I had no idea how it would end – I wasn't disappointed' Amazon Reviewer
   
  'This was a fast-paced murder thriller that kept me turning the pages late into the night. It was intelligent and slick' Amazon Reviewer
   
  'It's always something of a risk trying a new author, but I was really glad I did ... I did not see the plot twist coming, and it was very surprising' Amazon Reviewer

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  King Arthur's Death - The...

  Michael Smith

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  Michael Smith's new translation brings the poem alive for a modern audience, while his comprehensive introduction situates the work in its historic and literary context.This is the first new translation of the poem for ten years.Features beautiful linocut illustrations by the author throughout, meticulously researched for contemporary accuracy, alongside detailed recreations of the illuminated lettering found in the original manuscript.For fans of Simon Armitage's Middle English translations (Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) and Seamus Heaney's Beowulf.

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  Conan Doyle's Wide World -...

  Andrew Lycett

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  With fascinating extracts from his own writings, this book reveals the captivating travels and adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle - the creator of Sherlock Holmes. 
   
  Arthur Conan Doyle was not simply the creator of the world's greatest detective; he was also an intrepid traveler and extraordinary travel writer. His descriptions of his journeys and adventures--which took him to the Arctic and the Alps, throughout Africa, Australia and North America, and across every ocean in between--are full of insight, humor and exceptional evocations of place. Until now, these captivating travelogues have never been gathered together. In this ground-breaking book, Andrew Lycett, Conan Doyle's celebrated biographer, collects and annotates the best of his writings from around the world, which illuminate not just the places he visited, but the man himself.

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  On Bullshit

  Harry G. Frankfurt

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  A #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLEROne of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

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