Search results for ""Author Paul Yachnin""

Examines how mechanisms of change and conversions harrowed and transformed early modern people and their worlds Brings forward the history of made things and the history of practices as a new way of understanding the social and political dimensions of early modern conversion (mostly religious conversion but also bodily, sexual, and machine-to-human kinds of transformation) Engenders a multidisciplinary approach to conversion as a process of change including history, art and architectural histories, literary studies, and philosophy Focuses on the 16th and 17th centuries with case studies of conversion machines that operated in England, New Spain, Italy, the Low Countries, France, and islands in the Mediterranean Develops accounts of systems and mechanisms for attracting converts, and for managing, manipulating, and staging conversions Individual chapters focus on literary works such as Hamlet, The Temple by George Herbert, and L'Isle des Hermaphrodites; works of art and architecture by Jacopo Ligozzi and Claudio de Arciniega, and thinkers such as Augustine, Descartes, and Leibniz Individual chapters focus on spaces, movement, visions, sensory experiences, material, spiritual, and bodily transformations that are highly self-aware and inventive things Concludes with a pairing of philosophical chapters on what machines cannot do" and on "human conversion machines" Conversion machines are apparatuses, artfully-fashioned preparations, arrangements, and things that demonstrate processes of change. They are paradoxical things at once intent on verifying what was invisible, uncertain, and even unknowable, while also acting as sowers of dissimulation. The book does not seek to mechanize conversion. In many ways, conversion and the transformation of the convert will remain ineffable. But we maintain that conversion of all kinds must unfold in ecologies that include politics, law, religious practice, the arts, and the material and corporeal realms. Shifting the focus from subjectivity toward the operations of governments, institutions, artifices, and the body, the contributors to the volume consider how early moderns suffered under the mechanisms of conversion, sometimes were able to realize themselves by dint of being caught up in the machinery of sovereignty, invented scores of new, purpose-built conversional instruments, and experienced forms of radical transformation in their own bodies. "

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The world that William Shakespeare creates in The Tempest has many features that make it recognizably like the world we live in. There are bad, self-seeking people; brothers fall out with brothers; people who have power are reluctant to give it up; people fall in love; children love their fathers but want to break free. But there are elements in The Tempest's world that are very unlike the world we live in. There is a fairy-spirit; there is music in the very air of the island; and there is a powerful magician who can command the elements and even, he tells us, bring the dead back to life. Combining reality and magic, Shakespeare creates an uncanny but morally coherent world through the play's genre, design, themes, and characters. This edition features a variety of interleaved materials that expand upon allusions in the play and explore elements of its stagecraft. Appendices offer excerpts from Shakespeare's key sources and inspirations, along with historical materials on exploration and colonialism.

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The Oxford Shakespeare General Editor: Stanley Wells The Oxford Shakespeare offer authoritative texts from leading scholars in editions designed to interpret and illuminate the plays for modern readers - a new, modern-spelling text, collated and edited from the early texts - wide-ranging introduction discusses the play's historical contexts, political significance, characters, sources, and language - detailed stage history designed to meet the needs of students and theatre professionals - on-page commentary and notes explain meaning, allusions, staging, and much else - illustrated with production photographs, historical portraits, textual facsimiles, and map - full index to introduction and commentary - durable sewn binding for lasting use 'not simply a better text but a new conception of Shakespeare' Times Literary Supplement ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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