Mania For Freedom

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm," wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1841. While this statement may read like an innocuous truism today, the claim would have been controversial in the antebellum United States when enthusiasm was a hotly contested term associated with religious fanaticism and poetic inspiration, revolutionary politics and imaginative excess. In analyzing the language of enthusiasm in philosophy, religion, politics, and literature, John Mac Kilgore uncovers a tradition of enthusiasm linked to a politics of emancipation. The dissenting voices chronicled here fought against what they viewed as tyranny while using their writings to forge international or antinationalistic political affiliations. Pushing his analysis across national boundaries, Kilgore contends that American enthusiastic literature, unlike the era's concurrent sentimental counterpart, stressed democratic resistance over domestic reform as it navigated the global political sphere. By analyzing a range of canonical American authors--including William Apess, Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Walt Whitman--Kilgore places their works in context with the causes, wars, and revolutions that directly or indirectly engendered them. In doing so, he makes a unique and compelling case for enthusiasm's centrality in the shaping of American literary history.

"In this study of literature in antebellum America, John Mac Kilgore argues that a distinct rhetorical tradition of enthusiasm emerged as a form of political dissent. This was literature written to confront normative values, to respond to critical injustice, and to incite revolt, if not broad change. Literary enthusiasm came to signify a particular form of protest among marginalized groups, including commoners, slaves, immigrants, Native Americans, women, and abolitionists. These dissenting voices, these enthusiasts, fought against what they viewed as tyranny while using their writings to forge international or anti-nationalistic political affiliations"--

By offering a fresh look at the strange history of this idea, Another Freedom delivers a nuanced portrait of freedom's unpredictable occurrences and unexplored plots, one whose repercussions will be felt well into the future. --Book Jacket.

Originally published in 1917 in the midst of World War I, Carpenter argues that industry in pre-war Britain was simply exploitation of labour for private gain and attempts to look toward a future with more socialist values. The papers in this study explore the negative aspects of industrial life and suggest a new outlook with which the United Kingdom can move forward in industry. This title will be of interest to students of sociology.

A doctor's bold analysis of the cultural disease that afflicts us all. Despite an astonishing appetite for life, more and more Americans are feeling overworked and dissatisfied. In the world's most affluent nation, epidemic rates of stress, anxiety, depression, obesity, and time urgency are now grudgingly accepted as part of everyday existence they signal the American Dream gone awry. Peter C. Whybrow, director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at UCLA, grounds the extraordinary achievements and excessive consumption of the American nation in an understanding of the biology of the brain's reward system offering for the first time a comprehensive and physical explanation for the addictive mania of consumerism. American Mania presents a clear and novel vantage point from which to understand the most pressing social issues of our time, while offering an informed approach to refocusing our pursuit of happiness. Drawing upon rich scientific case studies and colorful portraits, "this fascinating and important book will change the way you think about American life" (Karen Olson, Utne Reader).

‘Our greatest blessings come to us by way of mania, provided it is given us by divine gift,’ – says Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus. Certain forms of alteration of consciousness, considered to be inspired by supernatural forces, were actively sought in ancient Greece. Divine mania comprises a fascinating array of diverse experiences: numerous initiates underwent some kind of alteration of consciousness during mystery rites; sacred officials and inquirers attained revelations in major oracular centres; possession states were actively sought; finally, some thinkers, such as Pythagoras and Socrates, probably practiced manipulation of consciousness. These experiences, which could be voluntary or involuntary, intense or mild, were interpreted as an invasive divine power within one’s mind, or illumination granted by a super-human being. Greece was unique in its attitude to alteration of consciousness. From the perspective of individual and public freedom, the prominent position of the divine mania in Greek society reflects its acceptance of the inborn human proclivity to experience alteration of consciousness, interpreted in positive terms as god-sent. These mental states were treated with cautious respect, and in contrast to the majority of complex societies, ancient and modern, were never suppressed or pushed to the cultural and social periphery.

Since the publication of The Wretched of the Earth in 1961, Fanon's work has been deeply significant for generations of intellectuals and activists from the 60s to the present day. Alienation and Freedom collects together unpublished works comprising around half of his entire output – which were previously inaccessible or thought to be lost. This book introduces audiences to a new Fanon, a more personal Fanon and one whose literary and psychiatric works, in particular, take centre stage. These writings provide new depth and complexity to our understanding of Fanon's entire oeuvre revealing more of his powerful thinking about identity, race and activism which remain remarkably prescient. Shedding new light on the work of a major 20th-century philosopher, this disruptive and moving work will shape how we look at the world.

What would you do if you woke up one night and your whole life had changed? At the age of thirty-nine, this is exactly what happened to Ronald Allan Reimche. In the middle of the night, he woke up paralyzed with despair in the middle of his first depressive attack. This event began a lifetime of struggles, as he fought to rise above the turmoil of his bipolar disorder. During this time, Ronald found strength in the assurance of the love of God. No matter how dark things became, holding onto that assurance brought him through. God used family, friends, and medical professionals to carry him through the trials. Ronald’s relationship with Jesus Christ allowed for prayer time, without which his life would have been much more desperate. By telling his own story, Ronald hopes that he can extend that same hope to those of you who are currently living with—or know others who are living with—bipolar disorder, as you navigate the peaks and valleys of your own lives.