Staying Alive

Staying Alive
By:L.O. Aranye Fradenburg
Published on 2013-10-21 by punctum books

Staying Alive: A Survival Manual for the Liberal Arts fiercely defends the liberal arts in and from an age of neoliberal capital and techno-corporatization run amok, arguing that the public university’s purpose is not vocational training, but rather the cultivation of what Fradenburg calls “artfulness,” including the art of making knowledge. In addition to sustained critical and creative thinking, the humanities develop the mind’s capacities for real-time improvisational communication and interpretation, without which we can neither thrive nor survive. Humanist pedagogy and research use play, experimentation and intersubjective exchange to foster forms of artfulness critical to the future of our species. From perception to reality-testing to concept-formation and logic, the arts and humanities teach us to see, hear and respond more keenly, and to imagine, or “model,” new futures and possibilities. Innovation of all kinds, technological or artistic, depends on the enhancement of the skills proper to staying alive. Bringing together psychoanalysis, neuroscience, animal behavioral research, biology & evolutionary theory, and premodern literarature (from Virgil to Chaucer to Shakespeare), Fradenburg offers a bracing polemic against the technocrats of higher education and a vibrant new vision for the humanities as both living art and new life science. Contrary to recent polemics that simply urge the humanities to become more scientistic or technology-focused, to demonstrate their utility or even trophy their uselessness, Staying Alive does something remarkably different: it argues for the humanism of a new scientific paradigm based on complexity theory and holistic and ecological approaches to knowledge-making. It urges us to take the further step of realizing not only that we can promote and enhance neuroplastic connectivity and social-emotional cognition, but also that the humanities have always already been doing so. “Nature always exceeds itself in its expressivity” — which is to say that living is itself an art, and artfulness is necessary for living: for adaptation and innovation, for forging rich and varied relationships with other minds, bodies and things, and thus, for thriving — whether in the boardroom or the art gallery, the biology lab or the recording studio, the alley or the playground, the book or the dream. Staying Alive contains companion essays by Donna Beth Ellard (Rice University), Ruth Evans (Saint Louis University), Eileen A. Joy (BABEL Working Group), Julie Orlemanski (University of Chicago), Daniel C. Remein (New York University), and Michael D. Snediker (University of Houston). TABLE OF CONTENTS Eileen A. Joy (BABEL Working Group): Prelude: Hands Off Our Jouissance: The Collaborative Risk of a Shared Disorganization // Chapter 1: Driving Education: A Crash Course // Fugue 1: Julie Orlemanski (University of Chicago): An Army of Lovers // Chapter 2: Living the Liberal Arts: An Argument for Embodied Learning Communities // Fugue 2: Daniel C. Remein (New York University): Human-Tongued Basilisks // Chapter 3: Breathing with Lacan’s Seminar X: Expression and Emergence // Fugue 3: Ruth Evans (Saint Louis University): The Object Breath // Chapter 4: Life’s Reach: Territory, Display, Ekphrasis // Fugue 4: Donna Beth Ellard (Rice University): Ekphrastic Beowulf: Defying Death and Staying Alive in the Academy // Coda: Michael D. Snediker (University of Houston): Fuzzy Thinking

This Book was ranked at 20 by Google Books for keyword fuzzy thinking the new science of fuzzy logic.

Book ID of Staying Alive's Books is eZuQAQAAQBAJ, Book which was written byL.O. Aranye Fradenburghave ETAG "tYiqwtB7wsU"

Book which was published by punctum books since 2013-10-21 have ISBNs, ISBN 13 Code is 9780615906508 and ISBN 10 Code is 0615906508

Reading Mode in Text Status is false and Reading Mode in Image Status is true

Book which have "372 Pages" is Printed at BOOK under CategoryPhilosophy

This Book was rated by Raters and have average rate at ""

This eBook Maturity (Adult Book) status is NOT_MATURE

Book was written in en

eBook Version Availability Status at PDF is trueand in ePub is false

Book Preview