Intangible Materialism: The Body, Scientific Knowledge, and the Power of Language

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U of Minnesota Press, 2009 - Philosophy - 243 pages
Taking as his point of departure Norbert Weiner's statement that information is basic to understanding materialism in our era, Ronald Schleifer shows how discoveries of modern physics have altered conceptions of matter and energy and the ways in which both information theory and the study of literature can enrich these conceptions. Expanding the reductive notion of "the material" as simply matter and energy, he formulates a new, more inclusive idea of materialism.
 

Contents

1 Intangible Materialism
1
Levels of Understanding and the Negative Science of Semiotics
35
Tourette Syndrome Neurobiology and the Affect of Poetry
71
Peirces Index Attention and the Power of Narrative
97
Materiality and the Subject of Poetry
127
Notes
171
Bibliography
207
Index
221
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About the author (2009)

Ronald Schleifer is George Lynn Cross Professor of English and adjunct professor of medicine at the University of Oklahoma.

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