Dazzle Gradually

At the crossroads of philosophy and science, the sometimes-dry topics of evolution and ecology come alive in this new collection of essays--many never before anthologized. Learn how technology may be a sort of second nature, how the systemic human fungus Candida albicans can lead to cravings for carrot cake and beer, how the presence of life may be why there's water on Earth, and many other fascinating facts. The essay "Metametazoa" presents perspectives on biology in a philosophical context, demonstrating how the intellectual librarian, pornographer, and political agitator Georges Bataille was influenced by Russian mineralogist Vladimir Vernadsky and how this led to his notion of the absence of meaning in the face of the sun--which later influenced Jacques Derrida, thereby establishing a causal chain of influence from the hard sciences to topics as abstract as deconstruction and post-modernism. In "Spirochetes Awake" the bizarre connection between syphilis and genius in the life of Friedrich Nietzsche is traced. The astonishing similarities of the Acquired-Immune-Deficiency-Syndrome symptoms with those of chronic spirochete infection, it is argued, contrast sharply with the lack of evidence that "HIV is the cause of AIDS". Throughout these readings we are dazzled by the intimacy and necessity of relationships between us and our other planetmates. In our ignorance as "civilized" people we dismiss, disdain, and deny our kinship with the only productive life forms that sustain this living planet.

THE IMMERSIVE AND HEARTFELT EXPLORATION OF FAMILY AND LOVE 'A beautiful bittersweet story of love, loss and families. Tears were shed!' GRAHAM NORTON 'A moving and powerful novel' JOHN BOYNE 'Human, graceful and healing, a true gift of a novel' SEBASTIAN BARRY 'A beautiful story' SARAH WINMAN 'Lyrical, optimistic and redemptive' CLARE CHAMBERS 'Just loved it . . . so moving on motherhood, depression, family ties and Ireland' ANNIE MACMANUS __________ On an island off the west coast of Ireland, the Moone family gathers. Maeve is an actor, struggling with her most challenging role yet - as a mother to four children. Murtagh, her devoted husband, is a potter whose craft brought them from the city to this rural life. In the wake of one fateful night, the Moone siblings must learn the story of who their parents truly are, and what has happened since their first meeting, years before, outside Trinity College in Dublin. We watch as one love story gives rise to another, until we arrive at a future that none of the Moones could have predicted. Except perhaps Maeve herself. The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually is a celebration of the complex, flawed and stubbornly optimistic human heart. __________ Longlisted for the Guardian's 'Not The Booker' prize PRAISE FOR THE TRUTH MUST DAZZLE GRADUALLY: 'I devoured this, falling in love with the setting and with every character. It is just glorious. A close-up on the everyday beautiful details that make up love' Emma Flint, author of Little Deaths 'Intensely moving, beautifully written and drenched with Irish atmosphere, this novel asks brave and thoughtful questions about mental health' Daily Mail 'Loved it. Beautiful and original' Sunday Independent 'Cullen is a thoughtful writer and she dissects the stubborn optimism of the human heart with skill and sympathy' Irish Independent 'A perfect combination of deeply-felt tragedy with great hopefulness' Anne Youngson, author of Meet me at the Museum 'Masterfully constructed. A book of rare quality' i Paper 'A beautifully observed saga of abandoned dreams, loss and self-discovery. A fabulous creation' Alan McGonagle, author of Ithaca 'So wonderful on the Irish family and the utter complexity of motherhood, family entanglement and love. I was full on weeping at the end' Elaine Feeney, author of As You Were

"The truth must dazzle gradually," wrote Emily Dickinson. Here is an account of the first 20 years of an unwanted "only" child entrusted by the legal system in 1920s and 1930s America to the divorcing female parent. It was evoked by a the television film Sybil, a study of a woman transformed by years of physical and emotional abuse by her parents. By considering the scant professional literature of the complex subject and her first twenty years, Dr. Wheeler critiques the genesis of making one's way out of a potentially crippling life. Part of this process is an attempt to account for her parents' behavior by examining their early lives. There is evidence that on the scale of childhood trauma, divorce is second only to parental death, a long-lasting and wrenching experience for many. The quality of the mother-child relationship is the single most critical factor in determining how children feel about themselves in the post-divorce decade and how well they function in the domains of their lives. Fictional kids of scripted media are typically armed with built-in insights referred to as self-esteem and courage. Snapshot memories employed by this author demonstrate great inequities associated with the one child/one custodian arrangement. The mother's objective shifted from unloading, to controlling, to capturing the adult daughter. The author, who is not opposed to divorce, began to make her way out, in two senses: discernment and change.

One Irish family. Three decades. One dazzling story. “A love letter to family and to the arts. Beautiful.” —Maggie Smith, author of Good Bones In the courtyards of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1978, aspiring actress Maeve meets pottery student Murtagh Moone. As their relationship progresses, marriage and motherhood come in quick succession, but for Maeve, with the joy of children also comes the struggle to hold on to the truest parts of herself. Decades later, on a small Irish island, the Moone family are poised for celebration but instead are struck by tragedy. Each family member must find solace in their own separate way, until one dazzling truth brings them back together. But as the Moone family confront the past, they also journey toward a future that none of them could have predicted. Except perhaps Maeve herself. “A perfect combination of deeply felt tragedy with great hopefulness.” —Anne Youngson, author of Meet Me at the Museum

Marking the 50th anniversary of one among this philosopher’s most distinguished pieces, Blumenberg’s Rhetoric proffers a decidedly diversified interaction with the essai polyvalently entitled ‘Anthropological Approach to the Topicality (or Currency, Relevance, even actualitas) of Rhetoric’ ("Anthropologische Annäherung an die Aktualität der Rhetorik"), first published in 1971. Following Blumenberg’s lead, the contributors consider and tackle their topics rhetorically—treating (inter alia) the variegated discourses of Phenomenology and Truthcraft, of Intellectual History and Anthropology, as well as the interplay of methods, from a plurality of viewpoints. The diachronically extensive, disciplinarily diverse essays of this publication—notably in the current lingua franca—will facilitate, and are to conduce to, further scholarship with respect to Blumenberg and the art of rhetoric. With contributions by Sonja Feger, Simon Godart, Joachim Küpper, DS Mayfield, Heinrich Niehues-Pröbsting, Daniel Rudy Hiller, Katrin Trüstedt, Alexander Waszynski, Friedrich Weber-Steinhaus, Nicola Zambon.

Rapp begins with a question posed by the poet Theodore Roethke: “Should we say that the self, once perceived, becomes a soul?” Through her examination of Plato’s Phaedrus and her insights about the place of forgetting in a life, Rapp answers Roethke’s query with a resounding Yes. In so doing, Rapp reimagines the Phaedrus, interprets anew Plato’s relevance to contemporary life, and offers an innovative account of forgetting as a fertile fragility constitutive of humanity. Drawing upon poetry and comparisons with other ancient Greek and Daoist texts, Rapp brings to light overlooked features of the Phaedrus, disrupts longstanding interpretations of Plato as the facile champion of memory, and offers new lines of sight onto (and from) his corpus. Her attention to the Phaedrus and her meditative apprehension of the permeable character of human life leave our understanding of both Plato and forgetting inescapably altered. Unsettle everything you think you know about Plato, suspend the twentieth-century entreaty to “Never forget,” and behold here a new mode of critical reflection in which textual study and humanistic inquiry commingle to expansive effect.

How might film reveal God? In its most basic form, film is a series of images displayed over time. Of course, film has developed greatly since the Lumière brothers by adding components such as sound, special effects, digital recording, and more to create an increasingly complex artistic medium. Historically, film studies has often focused on the narrative aspect of film as it seeks to tell a story. More recent studies, however, have turned attention to other elements of film, such as the musical score. Yet, film remains, in a sense, a series of images. In this Studies in Theology and the Arts (STA) volume, theologian Richard Goodwin considers how the images that constitute film might be a conduit of God's revelation. By considering works by Carl Theodor Dreyer, Stanley Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson, Robert Bresson, Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, and more, Goodwin argues that by inviting emotional responses, film images can be a medium of divine revelation. Blessed are those who have seen God... through film. The Studies in Theology and the Arts series encourages Christians to thoughtfully engage with the relationship between their faith and artistic expression, with contributions from both theologians and artists on a range of artistic media including visual art, music, poetry, literature, film, and more.