Real Ideal

In the years following the announcement of the invention of photography in 1839, practitioners in France gave shape to this intriguing new medium through experimental printing techniques and innovative compositions. The rich body of work they developed proved foundational to the establishment of early photography, from the introduction of the paper negative in the late 1840s to the proliferation of more standardized equipment and photomechanical technology in the 1860s. The essays in this elegant volume investigate the early history of the medium when the ambiguities inherent in the photograph were ardently debated. Focusing on the French photographers who worked with paper negatives, especially the key figures Édouard Baldus, Gustave Le Gray, Henri Le Secq, and Charles Nègre, Real/Ideal explores photography’s status as either fine art or industrial product (or both), its repertoire of subject matter, its ideological functions, and even the ever-experimental photographic process itself.

Between the Ideal and the Real describes why Iraq state-building and democratic transformation failed by offering a very new, and unusual, perspective, away from the usual blame assigned to the US that has become part of the “conventional wisdom” about Iraq and the Middle East. Although the book acknowledges US failings in Iraq, the main argument it presents is that the main causes of failure lie in a problematic alliance between Iraqi Shiite Islamist parties and the clerical establishment in Najaf, led by Ayatollah Sistani. To appreciate this new perspective, the book takes you into the history of Iraqi Shiism both as a set of doctrinal and theological beliefs about the world and a lived experience by ordinary Iraqi Shias. The book argues that this understanding hindered Shias from embracing many products of modernity such as nationalism, individualism, humanism, and democratic rule, by consolidating a primordial group identity that ties people to the past, a particular kind of past based on doctrinal supremacy and historical victimhood. Combined, the two have the negative effect of depriving ordinary Iraqi Shias of a personal sense of agency and contributing to a general spirit skeptical of difference. The book also documents people’s push back against this restrictive approach to reality in a variety of contexts. Based on extensive historical and doctrinal research into the distant past of Shiism, the book links the past to the present by examining the unfortunate consequences that grow out of the insistence to allow pre-modern values determine the modern experience of life.

We all grow up with the mental picture of what our life should turn out like. We added brush strokes to this majestic tapestry as we moved through childhood, adolescence, and young adult life. Yet, as we arrive at our full-blown adult life, our expectations of life and our reality of life looks very different. In fact, there is a gap as wide as the Grand Canyon. What happened to the life I envisioned? If you are honest, you live with the tension of the ideal life you want and the real life you have. You are not alone if your expectations and reality do not match. Many wake up each day wondering what is going on with their daily agenda. Life is not working as they thought. Discover how to grow and even thrive in this “tension gap” life you are living. God meets you in the middle of your frustration. He comforts. He guides. He restores. You win! Your life is about to take a drastic turn upward as you learn how to go from your real to your ideal life.

The present volume comprises thirteen of the papers delivered at RICAN 5, which was held in Rethymnon, Crete, on May 25-26,2009. The theme of the volume, ‘The Construction of the Real and the Ideal in the Ancient Novel,’ allows the contributors the freedom to use their skills to examine the real and the ideal either individually or in conjunction or in interaction. The papers offer a wide and rich range of perspectives: a political reading of prose fiction in Late Period Egypt (Selden); the presence of robbers and murderers in ideal fiction (Dowden); the interaction between illusion and reality in novelistic ekphrasis (Zeitlin); divine loves as real precedents for human loves (Rosati); comical elements in Heliodorus’ Aethiopika (Doody); myths as paradigms for the inexperienced lovers in the Greek novels (Létoublon); moral ideas in the Odyssey and the Greek novels in relation to moralizing interpretations of Homer (Montiglio); the reality of the basic plot of Callirhoe in the light of historical events and Aristotle’s Poetics (Paschalis); the interaction between fictionality and reality in Daphnis and Chloe (Bowie); entrapment and insufficient understanding of reality in the Satyrica (Labate); fantasy, physical and ideal landscapes in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (König); bridging the gap between Photis (real) and Isis (ideal) in Apuleius (Carver); the gendered aesthetics of the Greek novels viewed through the lens of the mimetic theory of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Whitmarsh).

Begins by explaining and arguing for certain criteria for assessing normative moral theories. Then argues that these criteria lead to a rule-consequentialist moral theory.

Otto Ludwig, nineteenth-century German novelist and critic, originated the term poetic realism. In this excellent study, Ludwig's prose is sympathetically and thoroughly examined and a clear account of the evolution of German fiction after Romanticism is presented. Taking Ludwig's narrative works together with his literary criticism, McClain shows how the author attempted to blend the real and the ideal to reach the goal of poetic realism as he envisioned it.

The Ideal Made Real is written by the founding New Thought leader and teacher Christian D. Larson, who was a prolific author of metaphysical and self-help books. His ideas and ideals and those of others in the New Thought Movement have seen a resurgence with the release of the bestselling book and film "The Secret" and the popularity of the Jerry and Esther Hicks Abraham Teachings. This guide presents practical methods through which anyone can realize their ideals, cause cherished dreams to come true, and cause the visions of the soul to become tangible realities in everyday life. But The Ideal Made Real could not possibly be complete, because the ideal world is limitless and the process of making it real is joyously endless and eternal.