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To Relish the Sublime?: Culture and Self-Realization in Postmodern Times
More than 130 years from Matthew Arnold's pronouncement that human beings 'must be compelled to relish the sublime', education in the humanities still relies on the ideal of culture as the means of intellectual development. In this distinctive and original work, Martin Ryle and Kate Soper explore the growing tensions and contradictions between this and the contemporary world of work, pleasure, and consumption.
While critical of the hypocrisies and elitism that can attach to notions of cultural self-realization, the authors nonetheless defend its overall educational and social value. Their wide-ranging discussion takes in critiques of philosophers from Kant and Schiller to Nietzsche and Marx, and includes historically contextualized readings of novels by Wollstonecraft, Hardy, Gissing, London, and Woolf. In their sustained defense of a conception of personal worth and self-fulfillment for its own sake, Ryle and Soper not only offer a powerful critique of the continuing dominance of work in contemporary society, but also provide a compelling alternative to the standard postmodern skepticism about the relevance of high culture.
While critical of the hypocrisies and elitism that can attach to notions of cultural self-realization, the authors nonetheless defend its overall educational and social value. Their wide-ranging discussion takes in critiques of philosophers from Kant and Schiller to Nietzsche and Marx, and includes historically contextualized readings of novels by Wollstonecraft, Hardy, Gissing, London, and Woolf. In their sustained defense of a conception of personal worth and self-fulfillment for its own sake, Ryle and Soper not only offer a powerful critique of the continuing dominance of work in contemporary society, but also provide a compelling alternative to the standard postmodern skepticism about the relevance of high culture.
300 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 5, 2020
4 people want to read
About the author
Kate Soper
19 books23 followersKate Soper is a British philosopher and the author of and contributor to over a dozen books on feminism and Continental Philosophy, addressing the works of Jean-Paul Sartre, Karl Marx and Simone de Beauvoir, among others. She has also been involved in several environmentalist and peace movements in both the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe and some of her work addresses ecological issues. She regularly contributes columns or editorial content to the journals Radical Philosophy, New Left Review and Capitalism, Nature, Socialism. She is known to be a critic of post-structuralist feminism.
She has lectured on many of the above topics at University of North London (which became part of London Metropolitan University in 2002) since 1987. Previous to this she worked in the field of journalism and had studied at the University of Oxford.
She has lectured on many of the above topics at University of North London (which became part of London Metropolitan University in 2002) since 1987. Previous to this she worked in the field of journalism and had studied at the University of Oxford.
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