What Is the Present?

Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy, Modern, Metaphysics, Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism
Cover of the book What Is the Present? by Michael North, Princeton University Press
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Author: Michael North ISBN: 9781400890439
Publisher: Princeton University Press Publication: June 5, 2018
Imprint: Princeton University Press Language: English
Author: Michael North
ISBN: 9781400890439
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Publication: June 5, 2018
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Language: English

A provocative new look at concepts of the present, their connection to ideas about time, and their effect on literature, art, and culture

The problem of the present—what it is and what it means—is one that has vexed generations of thinkers and artists. Because modernity places so much value on the present, many critics argue that people today spend far too much time in the here and now—but how can we tell without first knowing what the here and now actually is? What Is the Present? takes a provocative new look at this moment in time that remains a mystery even though it is always with us.

Michael North tackles puzzles that have preoccupied philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, history, and aesthetic theory and examines the complex role of the present in painting, fiction, and film. He engages with a range of thinkers, from Aristotle and Augustine to William James and Henri Bergson. He draws illuminating examples from artists such as Fra Angelico and Richard McGuire, filmmakers like D. W. Griffith and Christopher Nolan, and novelists such as Elizabeth Bowen and Willa Cather. North offers a critical analysis of previous models of the present, from the experiential present to the historical period we call the contemporary. He argues that the present is not a cosmological or experiential fact but a metaphor, a figurative relationship with the whole of time.

Presenting an entirely new conception of the temporal mystery Georg Lukács called the "unexplained instant," What Is the Present? explores how the arts have traditionally represented the present—and also how artists have offered radical alternatives to that tradition.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

A provocative new look at concepts of the present, their connection to ideas about time, and their effect on literature, art, and culture

The problem of the present—what it is and what it means—is one that has vexed generations of thinkers and artists. Because modernity places so much value on the present, many critics argue that people today spend far too much time in the here and now—but how can we tell without first knowing what the here and now actually is? What Is the Present? takes a provocative new look at this moment in time that remains a mystery even though it is always with us.

Michael North tackles puzzles that have preoccupied philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, history, and aesthetic theory and examines the complex role of the present in painting, fiction, and film. He engages with a range of thinkers, from Aristotle and Augustine to William James and Henri Bergson. He draws illuminating examples from artists such as Fra Angelico and Richard McGuire, filmmakers like D. W. Griffith and Christopher Nolan, and novelists such as Elizabeth Bowen and Willa Cather. North offers a critical analysis of previous models of the present, from the experiential present to the historical period we call the contemporary. He argues that the present is not a cosmological or experiential fact but a metaphor, a figurative relationship with the whole of time.

Presenting an entirely new conception of the temporal mystery Georg Lukács called the "unexplained instant," What Is the Present? explores how the arts have traditionally represented the present—and also how artists have offered radical alternatives to that tradition.

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