Magic Science Religion
Published on 18. January 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
188 pages
978-90-04-35710-5 (ISBN)
Description
Magic Science Religion explores surprising intersections among the three meaning-making and world-making practices named in the title. Through colorful examples, the book reveals circuitous ways that social, cultural and natural systems connect, enabling real kinds of magic to operate. Among the many case studies are accounts of how an eighteenth-century actor gave his audience goosebumps; how painters, poets, and pool sharks use nonlinearity in working their magics; how the first vertebrates gained consciousness; how plants fine-tuned human color vision; and the necessarily magical element of activism that builds on the conviction that "another future is possible" while working to push self-fulfilling prophecy into political action.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Leiden
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 170 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
318 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-04-35710-5 (9789004357105)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Ira Livingston teaches and directs Poetics Lab at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. His many books - such as the 2015 digital book Poetics as a Theory of Everything (available free online) - cultivate hybrids of cultural studies and systems theory.
Content
Acknowledgments.
About this Book
1 Introduction
?1?All or Nothing?
?2?Kindness
??ASIDE: The Two-Million-Dollar Comma
??ASIDE: Sufficiently Magical Technologies
??ASIDE: Our Gods
?3?Cruelty
??ASIDE: Ghostly Causality
??ASIDE: Durable Cruelties
?4?Beginning, Again
??ASIDE: Chaos Invoked
?5?The Freedom Not to Choose
??ASIDE: No Atheists in Foxholes
??ASIDE: Blake on Firm Perswasion
??ASIDE: Metafictional Magic: The Writer's Will
??ASIDE: Shapely Sentences
??ASIDE: Beckett Meets Twilight Zone, Glass-Half-Full Version
2 Complex Systems in a Nutshell
?1?Horror Movie Reboot
?2?Interpositivity
??ASIDE: Interpositivity
?3?Becoming a System
?4?Creatures of Light
??ASIDE: Transformative for Whom?
??ASIDE: Plant Sorcery
?5?Tornados, Whirlpools, and Fires
??ASIDE: iii
??ASIDE: Co-evolution
?6?Leveled
??ASIDE: On being born too early and dying too late
??ASIDE: Up Around the Bend
?7?A Personifying Universe of Stretchy Things
?8?Dynamism
??ASIDE: One Plus One Equals Infinity
?9?Magic, but No Black Boxes
??ASIDE: The T-Shirt Version
?10?Wildness
??ASIDE: Pet Resemblance via Social Theory
3 Magic by Example
?1?Failed Magic: Modernist Heaven (and Hell)
?2?Placebo Magic
??ASIDE: Pregnancy via Magic
??ASIDE: Following the Scent
?3?Mirror Magic
?4?Biting Game
?5?Dog Whisperer
?6?Conclusion
4 Future Perfect
?1?The Gettysburg Address as a Magical Speech Act
?2?Pool, Poetry, Prose, and Painting
??ASIDE: Dr. Livingston's Magical Bank-Shot Visualizer
?3?Meteors, Messiahs, and Migraines
??ASIDE: On This Rock I Build My Church
??ASIDE: Falling Off a Log
?4?Magical Militarism
?5?Four Asides
??ASIDE: Dr. Livingston's Time Travel 101
??ASIDE: A Somewhat Rationalizing Account of Mystical Nonviolence
??ASIDE: A Somewhat Mysticizing Account of Rationalist Nonviolence
??ASIDE: Four Scholars
5 What is Religion?
?1?A Fuzzy Set
?2?Magic, Science, and Religion Coevolve
?3?Restoring the Chaos
?4?Rain Dance
??ASIDE: From Flow
?5?Providence, via Vico
??ASIDE: Systematizers Systematized
6 God 3.5B (A Nearsighted Evolutionary Panorama)
?1?Salience to Sentience
?2?Primordial Systemhood Membership Narratives
??ASIDE: Law and Order
?3?The Myth of the Acquisition-of-Consciousness Moment
?4?Use of the Terms I and We
?5?Cis-Systems ? Trans-Systems
?6?First Caveat: Characters
?7?Plant and Animal Intelligence
?8?Learning and Evolution from a Systems Perspective
?9?Second Caveat: Plot
?10?Especially Informative Postinfundibular Amphioxus Hypothalamus Neuropile
?11?The Holy Grail
??ASIDE: Neuro-X
?12?Teamlikeness
??ASIDE: Play and Teamlikeness
??ASIDE: Three-Ring Circuits
?13?Conclusion
7 Blake Magic
?1?Famous in Heaven
??ASIDE: No Success Like Failure
?2?Blake Magic
?3?Auguries
??ASIDE: Prophecies
?4?Angel Kings
?5?Magic in the Current Conjuncture
?6?Five Asides
??ASIDE: Black Lives Matter and Judith Butler
??ASIDE: An Elegant Pose
??ASIDE: Ritual Retraction
??ASIDE: Obscurity
??ASIDE: Butterfly Tornado
References
Index
About this Book
1 Introduction
?1?All or Nothing?
?2?Kindness
??ASIDE: The Two-Million-Dollar Comma
??ASIDE: Sufficiently Magical Technologies
??ASIDE: Our Gods
?3?Cruelty
??ASIDE: Ghostly Causality
??ASIDE: Durable Cruelties
?4?Beginning, Again
??ASIDE: Chaos Invoked
?5?The Freedom Not to Choose
??ASIDE: No Atheists in Foxholes
??ASIDE: Blake on Firm Perswasion
??ASIDE: Metafictional Magic: The Writer's Will
??ASIDE: Shapely Sentences
??ASIDE: Beckett Meets Twilight Zone, Glass-Half-Full Version
2 Complex Systems in a Nutshell
?1?Horror Movie Reboot
?2?Interpositivity
??ASIDE: Interpositivity
?3?Becoming a System
?4?Creatures of Light
??ASIDE: Transformative for Whom?
??ASIDE: Plant Sorcery
?5?Tornados, Whirlpools, and Fires
??ASIDE: iii
??ASIDE: Co-evolution
?6?Leveled
??ASIDE: On being born too early and dying too late
??ASIDE: Up Around the Bend
?7?A Personifying Universe of Stretchy Things
?8?Dynamism
??ASIDE: One Plus One Equals Infinity
?9?Magic, but No Black Boxes
??ASIDE: The T-Shirt Version
?10?Wildness
??ASIDE: Pet Resemblance via Social Theory
3 Magic by Example
?1?Failed Magic: Modernist Heaven (and Hell)
?2?Placebo Magic
??ASIDE: Pregnancy via Magic
??ASIDE: Following the Scent
?3?Mirror Magic
?4?Biting Game
?5?Dog Whisperer
?6?Conclusion
4 Future Perfect
?1?The Gettysburg Address as a Magical Speech Act
?2?Pool, Poetry, Prose, and Painting
??ASIDE: Dr. Livingston's Magical Bank-Shot Visualizer
?3?Meteors, Messiahs, and Migraines
??ASIDE: On This Rock I Build My Church
??ASIDE: Falling Off a Log
?4?Magical Militarism
?5?Four Asides
??ASIDE: Dr. Livingston's Time Travel 101
??ASIDE: A Somewhat Rationalizing Account of Mystical Nonviolence
??ASIDE: A Somewhat Mysticizing Account of Rationalist Nonviolence
??ASIDE: Four Scholars
5 What is Religion?
?1?A Fuzzy Set
?2?Magic, Science, and Religion Coevolve
?3?Restoring the Chaos
?4?Rain Dance
??ASIDE: From Flow
?5?Providence, via Vico
??ASIDE: Systematizers Systematized
6 God 3.5B (A Nearsighted Evolutionary Panorama)
?1?Salience to Sentience
?2?Primordial Systemhood Membership Narratives
??ASIDE: Law and Order
?3?The Myth of the Acquisition-of-Consciousness Moment
?4?Use of the Terms I and We
?5?Cis-Systems ? Trans-Systems
?6?First Caveat: Characters
?7?Plant and Animal Intelligence
?8?Learning and Evolution from a Systems Perspective
?9?Second Caveat: Plot
?10?Especially Informative Postinfundibular Amphioxus Hypothalamus Neuropile
?11?The Holy Grail
??ASIDE: Neuro-X
?12?Teamlikeness
??ASIDE: Play and Teamlikeness
??ASIDE: Three-Ring Circuits
?13?Conclusion
7 Blake Magic
?1?Famous in Heaven
??ASIDE: No Success Like Failure
?2?Blake Magic
?3?Auguries
??ASIDE: Prophecies
?4?Angel Kings
?5?Magic in the Current Conjuncture
?6?Five Asides
??ASIDE: Black Lives Matter and Judith Butler
??ASIDE: An Elegant Pose
??ASIDE: Ritual Retraction
??ASIDE: Obscurity
??ASIDE: Butterfly Tornado
References
Index