
Rhetoric and Politics
Baltasar Gracian and the New World Order
Nicholas Spadaccini(Author)
University of Minnesota Press
Published on 15. July 1997
Book
Paperback/Softback
432 pages
978-0-8166-2911-4 (ISBN)
Description
Considers current events through an examination of this seventeenth-century philosopher.
In recent years there has been a revival of interest in the writings of Baltasar GraciAn, a seventeenth-century Spanish Jesuit who explored the political uses of rhetoric. GraciAn is best known in the United States for his bestselling collection of aphorisms entitled The Art of Worldly Wisdom, but his pragmatic philosophy has been influential in Europe since the mid-seventeenth century.
The essays in this volume focus on the relevance of GraciAn's writings in our own day, when the importance of rhetoric as a discipline necessary to manage public life is indisputable. Ranging in focus and theoretical perspective from Lacanian psychoanalysis to the sociology of everyday life, from considerations of aesthetics and philosophy to examinations of the culture of the baroque, these essays demonstrate that GraciAn's work offers insights into the deployment of rhetoric under the "New World Order."
Contributors: Luis F. AvilEs, U of Massachusetts, Amherst; Anthony J. Cascardi, U of California, Berkeley; David Castillo, U of Minnesota; Jorge Checa, U of California, Santa Barbara; William Egginton, Stanford U; Alban K. Forcione, Princeton U; Edward H. Friedman, Indiana U; Carlos HernAndez-SacristAn, U of Valencia, Spain; Isabel C. Livosky, Knox College; Michael Nerlich, Technische UniversitAEt, Berlin; Oscar Pereira, U of Nebraska; Malcolm K. Read, SUNY, Stony Brook; Francisco J. SAnchez, U of Iowa.
In recent years there has been a revival of interest in the writings of Baltasar GraciAn, a seventeenth-century Spanish Jesuit who explored the political uses of rhetoric. GraciAn is best known in the United States for his bestselling collection of aphorisms entitled The Art of Worldly Wisdom, but his pragmatic philosophy has been influential in Europe since the mid-seventeenth century.
The essays in this volume focus on the relevance of GraciAn's writings in our own day, when the importance of rhetoric as a discipline necessary to manage public life is indisputable. Ranging in focus and theoretical perspective from Lacanian psychoanalysis to the sociology of everyday life, from considerations of aesthetics and philosophy to examinations of the culture of the baroque, these essays demonstrate that GraciAn's work offers insights into the deployment of rhetoric under the "New World Order."
Contributors: Luis F. AvilEs, U of Massachusetts, Amherst; Anthony J. Cascardi, U of California, Berkeley; David Castillo, U of Minnesota; Jorge Checa, U of California, Santa Barbara; William Egginton, Stanford U; Alban K. Forcione, Princeton U; Edward H. Friedman, Indiana U; Carlos HernAndez-SacristAn, U of Valencia, Spain; Isabel C. Livosky, Knox College; Michael Nerlich, Technische UniversitAEt, Berlin; Oscar Pereira, U of Nebraska; Malcolm K. Read, SUNY, Stony Brook; Francisco J. SAnchez, U of Iowa.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Minnesota
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 149 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-8166-2911-4 (9780816629114)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Nicholas Spadaccini is professor of Spanish and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota. Jenaro Talens is professor of literary theory and film at the University of Valencia, Spain. Together they coauthored Through the Shattering Glass: Cervantes and the Self-Made World (Minnesota, 1993).
Content
The practice of worldly wisdom; re-reading Gracian and the New World Order. Part 1 The politics of modernity: at the threshold of modernity; Gracian's criticon; Alban K. Forcione; image and Gracian's prototype; Isabel C. Livosky. Part 2 Subjectivities: saving appearances - language and commodification in Baltasar Gracian; surviving the field of vision; the building of a subject in Gracian's "El Criticon".