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On Ugliness
''On Ugliness'' ( it, Storia della bruttezza) is a 2007 essay by Italian author Umberto Eco, originally published by Bompiani in 2007. The book is a continuation of Eco's 2004 aesthetic work '' On Beauty: A History of a Western Idea''. Like the previous work, this essay combines literary excerpts and illustrations of artworks from ancient times to the present to define the concept of what it means to be ugly. "Ugliness is more fun than beauty", said Eco himself and some other reviews. Synopsis Eco begins with an introduction trying to define the idea of ugliness, to verify that it is a polysemic concept, and that is associated with emotional expressions such as rejection or disgust which impede a rational approach. The first chapter approaches the Greek conception of beauty, trying to discern by opposition what is ugly, and ugliness is associated with the lack of harmony according to ancient Greeks. Ugliness is not only in the physical but also in the moral sense, Christianity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of the Rose'', a historical mystery combining semiotics in fiction with biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory, as well as ''Foucault's Pendulum,'' his 1988 novel which touches on similar themes. Eco wrote prolifically throughout his life, with his output including children's books, translations from French and English, in addition to a twice-monthly newspaper column "La Bustina di Minerva" (Minerva's Matchbook) in the magazine ''L'Espresso'' beginning in 1985, with his last column (a critical appraisal of the Romantic paintings of Francesco Hayez) appearing 27 January 2016. At the time of his death, he was an Emeritus professor at the University of Bologna, where he taught for much of his life. In the 21st century, he has conti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Postmodern Relativism
Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to objectivity within a particular domain and assert that valuations in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assessed. There are many different forms of relativism, with a great deal of variation in scope and differing degrees of controversy among them. ''Moral relativism'' encompasses the differences in moral judgments among people and cultures. '' Epistemic relativism'' holds that there are no absolute principles regarding normative belief, justification, or rationality, and that there are only relative ones. '' Alethic relativism'' (also factual relativism) is the doctrine that there are no absolute truths, i.e., that truth is always relative to some particular frame of reference, such as a language or a culture (cultural relativism). Some forms of relativism also bear a resemblance to philosophical skepticism. ''Descriptive relativism'' seeks to describe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bompiani Books
Bompiani is an Italian publishing house based in Milan. It was founded in 1929 by Valentino Bompiani. In 1990, Bompiani became part of the RCS MediaGroup. It was sold in 2015 to the Giunti Group. It is widely regarded as one of the leading literary publishing houses in Italy. History Bompiani experienced attempts at book censorship by Italy's fascist government from the 1920s through the 1940s. In 1940, Valentino Bompiani was summoned to Rome to meet with Alessandro Pavolini, the Minister of Popular Culture. At this meeting, Pavolini told Bompiani that he must limit the number of translations that he was publishing. At the time of the meeting, Bompiani was preparing to publish an anthology of American writers. Despite being told not to do so, Bompiani moved forward with the anthology. Pavolini learned of this and wrote to Bompiani that "The United States is a potential enemy of ours...This is no time to perform acts of courtesy toward America, not even literary ones." Bompiani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2007 Non-fiction Books
7 (seven) is the natural number following 6 and preceding 8. It is the only prime number preceding a cube. As an early prime number in the series of positive integers, the number seven has greatly symbolic associations in religion, mythology, superstition and philosophy. The seven Classical planets resulted in seven being the number of days in a week. It is often considered lucky in Western culture and is often seen as highly symbolic. Unlike Western culture, in Vietnamese culture, the number seven is sometimes considered unlucky. It is the first natural number whose pronunciation contains more than one syllable. Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, Indians wrote 7 more or less in one stroke as a curve that looks like an uppercase vertically inverted. The western Ghubar Arabs' main contribution was to make the longer line diagonal rather than straight, though they showed some tendencies to making the digit more rectilinear. The eastern Arabs developed the digit f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress) and the fourth largest in the world. It is a private, non-governmental, independently managed, nonprofit corporation operating with both private and public financing. The library has branches in the boroughs of the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island and affiliations with academic and professional libraries in the New York metropolitan area. The city's other two boroughs, Brooklyn and Queens, are not served by the New York Public Library system, but rather by their respective borough library systems: the Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Public Library. The branch libraries are open to the general public and consist of circulating libraries. The New York Public Library also has four research libraries, which are also open to the ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the online edition. The newspaper was controlled by Tony O'Reilly's Irish Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to the Russian oligarch and former KGB Officer Alexander Lebedev in 2010. In 2017, Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel bought a 30% stake in it. The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. The website and mobile app had a combined monthly reach of 19,826,000 in 2021. History 1986 to 1990 Launched in 1986, the first issue of ''The Independent'' was published on 7 October in broadsheet format.Dennis Griffiths (ed.) ''The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992'', London & Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, p. 330 It was produc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kitsch
Kitsch ( ; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly-eccentric, gratuitous, or of banal taste. The avant-garde opposed kitsch as melodramatic and superficial affiliation with the human condition and its natural standards of beauty. In the first half of the 20th century, kitsch referred to products of pop culture that lacked the depth of fine art. However, since the emergence of Pop Art in the 1950s, kitsch is sometimes re-appreciated in knowingly ironic, humorous or earnest fashion. To brand visual art as "kitsch" is often still pejorative, though not exclusively. Art deemed kitsch may be enjoyed in an entirely positive and sincere manner. For example, it carries the ability to be quaint or "quirky" without being offensive on the surface, as in the ''Dogs Playing Poker'' paintings. Kitsch can refer to music, literature, or any work, and relates to camp, as they both incorporate irony and extravagance. Hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical Debate and Poetic Practices' (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), p. 64 . It is frequently characterized by aesthetic innovation and initial unacceptability.Kostelanetz, Richard, ''A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes'', Routledge, May 13, 2013 The avant-garde pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the '' [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ivory Tower
An ivory tower is a metaphorical place—or an atmosphere—where people are happily cut off from the rest of the world in favor of their own pursuits, usually mental and esoteric ones. From the 19th century, it has been used to designate an environment of intellectual pursuit disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life. Most contemporary uses of the term refer to academia or the college and university systems in many countries. The term originated from the Biblical Song of Songs () with a different meaning and was later used as an epithet for Mary. Biblical usage In the Christian tradition, the term ''ivory tower'' is used as a symbol for noble purity. It originates with the Song of Songs 7:4 ("Your neck is like an ivory tower"; in the Hebrew Masoretic text, it is found in 7:5) and was included in the epithets for Mary in the sixteenth-century Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary ("tower of ivory", ''turris eburnea'' in Latin), though the title and image were i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uncanny
The uncanny is the psychological experience of something as not simply mysterious, but creepy, often in a strangely familiar way. It may describe incidents where a familiar thing or event is encountered in an unsettling, eerie, or taboo context.D. Bate, ''Photography and Surrealism'' (2004) pp. 39–40. Ernst Jentsch set out the concept of the uncanny later elaborated on by Sigmund Freud in his 1919 essay ''Das Unheimliche'', which explores the eeriness of dolls and waxworks. For Freud, the uncanny locates the strangeness in the ordinary. Expanding on the idea, psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan wrote that the uncanny places us "in the field where we do not know how to distinguish bad and good, pleasure from displeasure", resulting in an irreducible anxiety that gestures to the Real. The concept has since been taken up by a variety of thinkers and theorists such as roboticist Masahiro Mori's uncanny valley and Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection. History German idealism ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism, clandestine literature, paganism, idealization of nature, suspicion of science and industrialization, and glorification of the past with a strong preference for the medieval rather than the classical. It was partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, the social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education, chess, social sciences, and the natural sciences. It had a significant and complex effect on politics, with romantic thinkers influencing conservatism, libe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
