1,024 research outputs found

    Letter from S[amuel] T[homas] Pickard to John Muir, 1913 Jan 30.

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    Amesbury, Mass.Jan 3. 1913-Mr. John Muir:I have always been greatly interested in all you have written. My brother Prof. Joseph C. Pickard used to talk about you so much, before I found you in print. I wonder if my brother is remembered by you. He was Prof. in the University of Wisconsin, & another brother, Josiah L. Pickard, 053652was one of the Regents of the University, & also Supt. of the Schools of the State.I thought it possible that there was a reference to my brother in the Feb. No. of the Atlantic. He is not now living, but the older brother Josiah is still alive in 89th year, at Cupertino, Cal.Joseph\u27s enthusiasm whenever he spoke of you, & that was often, always impressed me.I am Whittier\u27s biographer, & am living in his Amesbury house.Very truly yoursS. T. Pickard05365https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmcl/42204/thumbnail.jp

    Writing and the rights of reality: usurpation and potentiality in Derrida, Plato, Nietzsche, and Beckett

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    The thesis critically evaluates Jacques Derrida's conferral of the rights of reality on writing, focussing on his theory of an arche-text in light of the speculative nature of this theory. The theory is initially considered in the context of Derrida's elucidation of the usurpatory status of writing within the Platonic and Nietzschean texts. This consideration reveals an admission of writing's usurpatory status by both writers while at the same time demonstrating their awareness of the intrinsically speculative nature of this view, the significance of writing lying in its ability to exteriorise the radically indeterminate status of consciousness m relation to reality rather than its ability to displace consciousness or reality The analyses, therefore, not only bring the Derridean hypothesis of a repressive or phonocentric metaphysical episteme into question but also exhibit the historical and philosophical role of potentiality in relation to writing, writing's ultimate significance lying in its capacity to exteriorise our existence as a mode of potentiality. Accordingly, in the second half of the thesis the Derridean theory of writing is countered with a specifically Aristotelian theory of the text as it is exhibited in the prose of Samuel Beckett, an author whose significance lies in his close alignment with Derridean theory within contemporary criticism. It is demonstrated that this identification has obviated an awareness of the significance of potentiality within the Beckettian text, his work consequently being appraised in the previously neglected context of Aristotelian metaphysics

    Reminiscences of the early anthracite-iron industry

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    This address given by Samuel Thomas, given before the American Institute of Mining Engineers at the California meeting in 1899, discusses the works and accomplishments of his father, David Thomas, in the anthracite-iron industry. Thomas also details the construction of furnaces that utilized anthracite in iron production built by the Lehigh Crane Iron Company. Edition note: Author\u27s ed. ; General note: "An address delivered before the American Institute of Mining Engineers, at the California meeting, September, 1899" ; General note: Published from advance sheets of Vol. XXIX, of the Transactions

    Ohio impromptu, genre and Beckett on film

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    Samuel Beckett’s choice of the title Ohio Impromptu to name the play first performed to an audience of academics and scholars at Columbus Ohio in 1981 is one manifestation of its author’s interest in the question of literary genre; more generally, in Beckett’s dramatic works one encounters a meticulous attention to the activity of categorisation, even if the energy is often directed toward the creation of phantom genres for spectral exemplars. This essay concerns itself with Ohio Impromptu in particular because by means of elements specific to this play (including the context in which it was first performed) it comments upon its own very failure to occupy its designated genre co-ordinates (these include its identity both as a play and as an ‘impromptu’). This play, which is so apt to incorporate other genres, however, is presided over by a stage direction which locates it firmly in the theatrical context. It is in its deliberate failure to attend to this stage direction that the Beckett on Film version of the play goes beyond the mere treacherous fidelity that is inevitably a feature of any adaptation. In arguing this, the essay analyses the foregrounding in the play of questions that can be said to pertain to genre (in several senses). Its more specific intention is to suggest that, via a combination of casting and special effects, the adaptation succeeds not only in cancelling the critical reflection on the ‘genre gesture’ that is lodged in Ohio Impromptu, but also in eradicating the very disjunction between Reader and Listener upon which the play depends

    Acerca del relativismo de Thomas Samuel Kuhn

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    The impact of the work of Thomas Samuel Kuhn It is due, in large part, to the emphasis with which this author highlighted the relevance of factors external to scientific knowledge in the development of scientific practice. But also the relativistic and subjectivist consequences that emerge from many of the positions that he defended in his first publications contributed to the wide dissemination of his ideas. However, in his later writings, Kuhn seems to have qualified some of his more radical views. In this work, some critical observations about his work are formulated. It is also argued that the modifications subsequently introduced by this author only constitute partial alterations of the most extreme theses that characterize his work.El impacto de la obra de Thomas Samuel Kuhn se debe, en gran parte, al énfasis con que este autor destacó la relevancia de factores externos al conocimiento científico en el desarrollo de la práctica científica. Pero también las consecuencias relativistas y subjetivistas que se desprenden de muchas de las posiciones que defendió en sus primeras publicaciones contribuyeron con la amplia difusión de sus ideas. No obstante, en sus últimos escritos, Kuhn parece haber matizado algunas de sus concepciones más radicales. En este trabajo, se formulan algunas observaciones críticas sobre su obra. Se argumenta, además, que las modificaciones posteriormente introducidas por este autor sólo constituyen alteraciones parciales de las tesis más extremas que caracterizan su obra

    Samuel Beckett and the Writers of Port-Royal

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    It has been observed that ‘the literary influences on Beckett have been far more important than has been acknowledged, and more important indeed, than the philosophical influences’ (Smith 2002: 3). The truth of this statement is evidenced by the description that scholars have given of Samuel Beckett’s relationship to seventeenth century French classicism. To date, critical interest has been limited for the most part to the figure of the philosopher René Descartes on the (fragile) grounds that Beckett was exclusively concerned with the Cartesian imperative of clarity and order, the fundamental dualism between body and mind, and Nominalism. Together with the assumption that Beckett’s vision was essentially Cartesian, his literary filiation with Pascal was suggested by critics, but only in terms of Beckett’s formal approach to the theatre. In his short article on En attendant Godot in 1953, the playwright Jean Anouilh was among the first reviewers to suggest that Beckett’s drama synthesizes the encounter between ‘classicism’ and a ‘modern’ form of art. It is well known that Beckett retained a lifelong admiration for Pascal – indeed, Pascal was one of his ‘old chestnuts’ (Knowlson 1997: 653). Little attention has been paid, however, to the originality of Pascal’s thought, the specific nature of his prose, and the impact these might have had upon Beckett’s mature work, especially the trilogy and the subsequent short prose. Yet, in the literary and philosophical context of post-war France, Beckett’s filiation with Pascal, their corresponding preoccupations, were evident to his contemporaries, who identified Pascal as an underlying presence in his works

    [Letter] 1780 May 11, Philadelphia [to] [Thomas Jefferson] the Governor of Virginia / Samuel Huntington.

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    See also Huntington\u27s biography and a guide to research collections of his papers (http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H000998), as well as Jefferson\u27s official White House biography (http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/tj3.html), and a guide to research collections of his papers (http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=J000069); search the collection for Jefferson\u27s additional correspondence.Huntington forwards an Act of Congress and a letter from P. Legras addressing the issues therein. At the time this letter was written, Huntington was serving as President of the Continental Congress (1779-1781, 1783) of which he was a Member in 1776, 1778-1781 and 1783. Active in the Early Republic, Huntington signed the Declaration of Independence, and served as Governor of Connecticut from 1786 to his death in 1796. The recipient of the letter, Thomas Jefferson, served as Governor of Virginia from 1779 to 1781. Before assuming these duties he had served in the Continental Congress (1775-76 and later 1783-84) and was recognized as the main author of the Declaration of Independence (1776). He went on to serve as Washington\u27s Secretary of State (1789-93), Adam\u27s Vice President (1797-1801), minister to France, and third President of the United States (1801-1809) for two terms. He later founded the University of Virginia
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