The Birth Of The Archive

The dynamic but little-known story of how archives came to shape and be shaped by European culture and society

Originally published in 1914, this fascinating volume in the Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series presents a psychological interpretation of characters from classical mythology, from Oedipus to Perseus, and Hercules to Jesus. Authored by Dr Otto Rank (1884-1939), an associate of Sigmund Freud, it is suited to those interested in the classics, history and mythology, and psychoanalysis alike. Chapters include: introduction - Sargon - Moses - Karna - Oedipus - Paris -Telephos - Perseus - Gilgamos - Kyros - Tristan - Romulus - Hercules - Jesus - Siegfried - Lohengrin. We are republishing this rare, vintage text in a high quality, modern and affordable edition, complete with a specially written concise biography.

"This Supplement builds on a burgeoning body of research that approaches the archive not merely as the object, but also as the subject of enquiry. It explores the phenomenon of record keeping in the early modern period in the context of signifi cant ecclesiastical, political, intellectual and cultural developments that served as a stimulus to it: state formation, religious reformation, and economic transformation; the advent of the mechanical press, the spread of educational opportunity, and the expansion of literacy; changing epistemological conventions, shifting attitudes towards history and memory, and new modes of self-representation. Focusing attention on the impulses behind the surge in public and private documentation in Europe between 1500 and 1800, the contributors to this volume place the processes by which individual, collective and institutional records were created, compiled, authorised, and used under the microscope. They examine the activities of curators and scribes, analyse the issues of credibility and authenticity to which their endeavours gave rise, and evaluate the role of textual, pictorial, material and fi nancial records in managing knowledge and giving expression to senses of identity. Stretching traditional, technical defi nitions of the record and archive, they investigate how writing and document-making of various kinds was shaped by dynamic interactions between ordinary people and by the politics of everyday life. They also illuminate the multiple ways in which archives mediate and construct the past, preserving some traces of it for posterity while consigning others to oblivion."--

In this volume, which reaffirms the uncompromising brilliance of his mind, Cioran strips the human condition down to its most basic components, birth and death, suggesting that disaster lies not in the prospect of death but in the fact of birth, "that laughable accident." In the lucid, aphoristic style that characterizes his work, Cioran writes of time and death, God and religion, suicide and suffering, and the temptation to silence. Through sharp observation and patient contemplation, Cioran cuts to the heart of the human experience. “A love of Cioran creates an urge to press his writing into someone’s hand, and is followed by an equal urge to pull it away as poison.”—The New Yorker “In the company of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard."—Publishers Weekly "No modern writer twists the knife with Cioran's dexterity. . . . His writing . . . is informed with the bitterness of genuine compassion."—Boston Phoenix

A thief, desire -- No archive will restore you -- the body archive -- The inarticulate trace -- Other women -- The ghost archive.

Written by its founder, the inside story of VISA International and the "chaordic" organization that has made it the largest and one of the most innovative businesses in the world. Excerpted in "Fast Company" and "Wired."

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.