{"product_id":"to-relish-the-sublime-isbn-9781859844618","title":"To Relish the Sublime?","description":"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.“The idea of culture as a means of self-realisation and an embodiment of universal values has been derided by most progressive critics for more than a generation, and by many reactionary ones too. But perhaps they have all been wrong. This well-informed study of history, politics and literature makes an eloquent case for reinstating it: a powerful and timely book.”—Jonathan Ree\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In a time when culture is said to be ‘everything’, Ryle and Soper are prepared to say what culture is opposed to, and thus to salvage its scarcity and its value. Defending what culture can do for the stubbornly persistent self, their untimely meditation on politics and aesthetics announces the twilight of the Nietzscheans and the dawn, perhaps, of a new cohabitation of cultural politics with literary pleasure. Brave, subtle, and passionately intelligent, this book is a much-needed plea for belief in the culture to which we also demand more democratic access.”—Bruce Robbins\u003cb\u003eMartin Ryle\u003c\/b\u003e is Senior Lecturer in Continuing Education at the University of Sussex. His previous books include \u003ci\u003eThe Politics of Nuclear Disarmament\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eEcology and Socialism\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eJourneys in Ireland\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eKate Soper\u003c\/b\u003e teaches philosophy and cultural theory at the University of North London. Her previous works include \u003ci\u003eOn Human Needs\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWhat is Nature?\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eCulture, Politics and the Non-Human\u003c\/i\u003e and, with Verso, \u003ci\u003eTroubled Pleasures\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"Verso","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301674438885,"sku":"NP9781859844618","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781859844618.jpg?v=1767742716","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/to-relish-the-sublime-isbn-9781859844618","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}