Saxberger has written nothing for thirty years, yet he now realises that he is more than merely an Unremarkable Civil Servant, after all: a Venerable Poet, for whom Late Fame is inevitable – if, that is, his new acolytes are to be believed…Arthur Schnitzler was one of the most admired, provocative European writers of the twentieth century. The Nazis attempted to burn all of his work, but his archive was miraculously saved, and with it, Late Fame. Never published before, it is a treasure, a perfect satire of literary self-regard and charlatanism.Arthur Schnitzler (b. 1862 in Vienna) was one of the most influential European writers of the twentieth century, perhaps best known here for his novellas Dream Story and Fräulein Else. He qualified as a doctor but was increasingly driven to a career in writing, resulting in several celebrated plays, novellas and novels which explore the great existential subjects of the modern age: relationships, love, sex, ageing and death. Because his work dealt with subjects considered taboo, he frequently attracted the hostility of the authorities, consequently losing his position as Chief Medic in the Reserve Army and being tried for disorderly conduct. Schnitzler was close friends with Stefan Zweig and Sigmund Freud, who both admired him greatly, and a member of the 'Young Vienna' circle of writers who regularly met at a café nicknamed 'Café Megalomania' - the very same clique and café he satirises so deliciously in Late Fame. Schnitzler died in 1931.Pushkin Press also publishes his novellas Fräulein Else, Dying and Casanova's Return to Venice.

    Giorgio Agamben traces the tense history of constitutions and their coexistence with various governments. Alain Badiou contrasts current democratic practice with democratic communism. Daniel Bensaid ponders the institutionalization of democracy, while Wendy Brown discusses the democratization of society under neoliberalism. Jean-Luc Nancy measures the difference between democracy as a form of rule and as a human end, and Jacques Ranci're highlights its egalitarian nature. Kristin Ross identifies hierarchical relationships within democratic practice, and Slavoj Zizek complicates the distinction between those who desire to own the state and those who wish to do without it.Concentrating on the classical roots of democracy and its changing meaning over time and within different contexts, these essays uniquely defend what is left of the left-wing tradition after the fall of Soviet communism. They confront disincentives to active democratic participation that have caused voter turnout to decline in western countries, and they address electoral indifference by invoking and reviving the tradition of citizen involvement. Passionately written and theoretically rich, this collection speaks to all facets of modern political and democratic debate.

    For it is not religion that is returning; rather, there is something else quite profound that is taking on increasing significance in the present: the human as a practising, training being, one that creates itself through exercises and thereby transcends itself. Rainer Maria Rilke formulated the drive towards such self-training in the early twentieth century in the imperative 'You must change your life'.In making his case for the expansion of the practice zone for individuals and for society as a whole, Sloterdijk develops a fundamental and fundamentally new anthropology. The core of his science of the human being is an insight into the self-formation of all things human. The activity of both individuals and collectives constantly comes back to affect them: work affects the worker, communication the communicator, feelings the feeler.It is those humans who engage expressly in practice that embody this mode of existence most clearly: farmers, workers, warriors, writers, yogis, rhetoricians, musicians or models. By examining their training plans and peak performances, this book offers a panorama of exercises that are necessary to be, and remain, a human being

    Susan Sontag's prefatory essay is one of her finest acts of criticism, informed by intellectual sympathy and a sure sense of the contours of the mind she is describing.

    Drawing on history & popular culture, textual research & everyday beliefs, Heaven offers an understanding of one of the most shared ideals of spiritual life. Miller raises discussions not just about visions of the afterlife, but about how beliefs have influenced the societies we've built & the lifestyles to we've adopted, exploring the roots of beliefs in heaven & how these have evolved through the ages to offer hope. She also reveals how the notion of heaven has been used for manipulation, as inspiration for selfless behavior & as justification for mass murder. As she demonstrates, the desire for a celestial afterlife is shared by the faithful around the world & across religions. While there are many notions of what exactly heaven is & how to get there, Jews, Christians & Muslims all agree that heaven is god's home. From Revelation to the Left Behind series, Augustine to Osama bin Laden, Muslims in the W. Bank to Mormons baptizing the dead, Heaven is a look at a cherished religious ideal.IntroductionWhat is heaven?The miracleThe kingdom is near Green, green pastures ResurrectionSalvation VisionariesReunionsIs heaven boring?EpilogueAuthor's Note & AcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

    "Are the German people guilty?" These lectures by Karl Jaspers, an outstanding European philosopher, attracted wide attention among German intellectuals and students; they seemed to offer a path to sanity and morality in a disordered world.Jaspers, a life-long liberal, attempted in this book to discuss rationally a problem that had thus far evoked only heat and fury. Neither an evasive apology nor a wholesome condemnation, his book distinguished between types of guilt and degrees of responsibility. He listed four categories of guilt: criminal guilt (the commitment of overt acts), political guilt (the degree of political acquiescence in the Nazi regime), moral guilt (a matter of private judgment among one's friends), and metaphysical guilt (a universally shared responsibility of those who chose to remain alive rather than die in protest against Nazi atrocities). Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) took his degree in medicine but soon became interested in psychiatry. He is the author of a standard work of psychopathology, as well as special studies on Strindberg, Van Gogh and Nietsche. After World War I he became Professor of Philosophy at Heidelberg, where he achieved fame as a brilliant teacher and an early exponent of existentialism. He was among the first to acquaint German readers with the works of Kierkegaard.Jaspers had to resign from his post in 1935. From the total isolation into which the Hitler regime forced him, Jaspers returned in 1945 to a position of central intellectual leadership of the younger liberal elements of Germany. In his first lecture in 1945, he forcefully reminded his audience of the fate of the German Jews. Jaspers's unblemished record as an anti-Nazi, as well as his sentient mind, have made him a rallying point center for those of his compatriots who wish to reconstruct a free and democratic Germany.

    Before his success as an author Goodkind worked primarily as a painter, as well as doing carpentry and woodworking. Goodkind is a proponent of Ayn Rand's philosophical approach of Objectivism, with references to Rand's ideas and novels referenced in his works.The Sword of Truth series sold twenty-five million copies worldwide and was translated into more than twenty languages. It was adapted into a television series called Legend of the Seeker, premiering November 1, 2008 but canceled after two seasons in May, 2010.

    Without these lectures the New Thought Movement and The Science of Mind might never have been born. Thomas Troward was an early New Thought writer who had an immense impact on those who would follow. Ernest Holmes, Frederick Bailes, Joseph Murphy, and Emmett Fox cited him as a major influence, and Genevieve Behrend was his student. It is impossible to over estimate his importance to the New Thought movement. His intense fusion of Eastern and Western philosophy is unmatched.