Traces of time

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Ishmael Beah

Benjamin and Bockarie are two longtime friends who return to their hometown, Imperi, after the civil war in Sierra Leone. The village is in ruins, the ground covered in bones. As more villagers come back, Benjamin and Bockarie try to forge a new community by taking up their former teaching posts, but they are beset by obstacles: a scarcity of food; a rash of murders, thievery, rape, and retaliation; and the depredations of a foreign mining company intent on sullying the town's water supply and blocking its paths with electric wires. As Benjamin and Bockarie search for a way to restore order, they're forced to reckon with the uncertainty of their past and future alike.

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Bainard Cowan and Jefferson Humphries

Emanating from a colloquium held at Louisiana State University entitled "Intertextuality and Civilization in the Americas," this volume features some of the best minds now writing in comparative and interdisciplinary fields. Through lively discussions of topics ranging from Sigmund Freud to Zora Neale Hurston, from Christopher Columbus to the Holocaust, and including latter-day cultural icons such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the contributors create a stimulating dialogue on the crucial role of the poetic imagination in shaping the identity of civilizations. Together, the essays offer a full consideration of cultural identity and bring to the fore the difficult question of the larger responsibilities that identity entails. As Bainard Cowan illustrates in his perceptive introduction, in both the past and the future of the Americas, in moments of foundation as well as of conflict and dispersal, there has been or will be present the recurrent need for mythic and poetic understanding. An unusually timely work, Poetics of the Americas skillfully addresses the crises that the world faces in the confrontations of cultures, traditions, and peoples.

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John F. Hoffmeyer

The Advent of Freedom analyzes two of the key concepts in Hegel's articulation of a logic of freedom. These key concepts are time and possibility. His Science of Logic shows that possibility is constitutive of actuality, without ever being exhausted by actuality. The Logic and other writings present a parallel argument that Hegel himself did not see clearly: the future is constitutive of the present, without ever being exhausted by the present. The full force of Hegel's concept of freedom depends upon combining his explicit analysis of possibility with his generally implicit analysis of time. Since Hegel claimed that time had no place in his Logic, interpreting his notion of freedom in this way requires reading Hegel's text in a way that differs from Hegel's own self-understanding. . This book combines two interpretive approaches. On the one hand, it engages in a detailed reading of a few selected sections of Hegelian texts. On the other hand, in the case of the Logic, it gains insights into these sections by examining their respective places within the careful and complex structuring of the work as a whole. These sections bring into play terms that have been widely used in Western philosophy, but which in Hegel's discourse take on distinctive meanings: actuality, necessity, freedom. The Advent of Freedom is an undertaking of philosophical interpretation. Its ultimate frame of reference, however, is Trinitarian theology. Hegel saw his philosophy in general as a philosophical exposition of the Christian Trinity. His philosophy is one grand response to the question: If we were to take the Trinity as our starting point, how would we think about reality? This volume seeks to render Hegel's response to one aspect of that question: namely, if we were to take the Trinity as our starting point, how would we think about time and possibility?

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Jeremy Bailenson

Virtual reality is able to effectively blur the line between reality and illusion, pushing the limits of our imagination and granting us access to any experience imaginable. With well-crafted simulations, these experiences, which are so immersive that the brain believes they're real, are already widely available with a VR headset and will only become more accessible and commonplace. But how does this new medium affect its users, and does it have a future beyond fantasy and escapism? In Experience on Demand, Jeremy Bailenson draws on two decades spent researching the psychological effects of VR and other mass media to help readers understand this powerful new tool. He offers expert guidelines for interacting with VR and describes the profound ways this technology can be put to use--not to distance ourselves from reality, but to enrich our lives and influence us to treat others, the environment, and even ourselves better. In the world of VR, a football quarterback plays a game against a competing team hundreds of times before even stepping onto the field; members of the United Nations embody a young girl in a refugee camp going through her day-to-day life; and veterans once again walk through the streets where they had experienced trauma. There are dangers and many unknowns in using VR, but it also can help us hone our performance, recover from trauma, improve our learning and communication abilities, and enhance our empathic and imaginative capacities. Like any new technology, its most incredible uses might be waiting just around the corner. Experience on Demand is the definitive look at the risks and potential of VR--a must-read for navigating both the virtual and the physical worlds ahead. Virtual reality blurs the line between reality and illusion, pushes the limits of our imagination, and grants us access to any experience imaginable. With the right equipment, the brain believes they're real. But how does this new medium affect its users, and does it have a future beyond fantasy and escapism? Bailenson offers guidelines for interacting with VR and describes the profound ways this technology can be put to use to enrich our lives and influence us to treat others, the environment, and even ourselves better. -- adapted from jacket.