An Analysis of Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo Mary Douglas is an outstanding example of an evaluative thinker at work. In Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo she delves in great detail into existing arguments that portray traditional societies as “evolving” from “savage” beliefs in magic to religion to modern science then explains why she believes those arguments are wrong. She also adeptly chaperones readers through a vast amount of data from firsthand research in the Congo to close readings of the Old Testament and analyzes it in depth to provide evidence that traditional and Western religions have more in common than the first comparative religion scholars and early anthropologists thought. First evaluating her scholarly predecessors by marshalling their arguments Douglas identifies their main weakness: that they dismiss traditional societies and their religions by identifying their practices as “magic ” thereby creating a chasm between savages who believe in magic and sophisticates who practice religion. | An Analysis of Mary Douglas's Purity and Danger An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo GBP 6.50 1
An Analysis of Roland Barthes's The Death of the Author Roland Barthes’s 1967 essay The Death of the Author argues against the traditional practice of incorporating the intentions and biographical context of an author into textual interpretation because of the resultant limitations imposed on a text. Hailing the birth of the reader Barthes posits a new abstract notion of the reader as the conceptual space containing all the text’s possible meanings. The essay has become one of the most cited works in literary criticism and is a key text for any reader approaching reader response theory. | An Analysis of Roland Barthes's The Death of the Author GBP 6.50 1
An Analysis of Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction combats traditional art criticism’s treatment of artworks as fixed unchanging mystical objects. For Walter Benjamin the consequences of addressing a work of art in this manner have a wider resonance: closed off from any active visual or tactile engagement the work of art becomes an object of passive contemplation and a potential tool of oppression. Benjamin argues that technology has fundamentally altered the way art is experienced. Potentially open to interpretation and accessible to many art in the age of mechanical reproduction has the potential to be mobilized for radical purposes. While ostensibly addressing the artistic consequences of technical reproducibility on art Benjamin also addresses the wider political consequences of this shift. | An Analysis of Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction GBP 6.50 1
An Analysis of Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom Amartya Sen uses his 1999 work Development as Freedom to evaluate the processes and outcomes of economic development. Having come to the conclusion that development is best summed up as the expansion of freedom Sen examines traditional definitions and understandings of the term. He says people tend to think of freedoms as economic (the freedom to enter into market exchanges) or political (the freedom to vote and be an active citizen) and tries to understand why the definition has been so narrow hitherto. He concludes that an evaluation of true freedom must necessarily include the freedom to access social services such as healthcare sanitation and nutrition just as much as it must acknowledge economic and political freedoms. Evaluating the relevance of the current thinking behind development Sen concludes that the term ‘freedom’ cannot simply be about income. In many ways measuring income does not account for various “unfreedoms” (manmade or natural bars to wellbeing) that hinder development. Sen’s evaluation is all the more powerful for its clarity: The freedom-centered perspective has a generic similarity to the common concern with quality of life. | An Analysis of Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom GBP 6.50 1
An Analysis of Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales In The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat neurologist Oliver Sacks looked at the cutting-edge work taking place in his field and decided that much of it was not fit for purpose. Sacks found it hard to understand why most doctors adopted a mechanical and impersonal approach to their patients and opened his mind to new ways to treat people with neurological disorders. He explored the question of deciding what such new ways might be by deploying his formidable creative thinking skills. Sacks felt the issues at the heart of patient care needed redefining because the way they were being dealt with hurt not only patients but practitioners too. They limited a physician’s capacity to understand and then treat a patient’s condition. To highlight the issue Sacks wrote the stories of 24 patients and their neurological clinical conditions. In the process he rebelled against traditional methodology by focusing on his patients’ subjective experiences. Sacks did not only write about his patients in original ways – he attempt to come up with creative ways of treating them as well. At root his method was to try to help each person individually with the core aim of finding meaning and a sense of identity despite or even thanks to the patients’ condition. Sacks thus redefined the issue of neurological work in a new way and his ideas were so influential that they heralded the arrival of a broader movement – narrative medicine – that placed stronger emphasis on listening to and incorporating patients’ experiences and insights into their care. | An Analysis of Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales GBP 6.50 1