1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910465117603321

Autore

Bailey Michael David <1971->

Titolo

Fearful spirits, reasoned follies [[electronic resource] ] : the boundaries of superstition in late medieval Europe / / Michael D. Bailey

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, : Cornell University Press, 2013

ISBN

0-8014-6731-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (312 p.)

Disciplina

398/.41094

Soggetti

Superstition - Europe - History

Superstition - Religious aspects - Catholic Church - History

Civilization, Medieval

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction : the meanings of medieval superstition -- The weight of tradition -- Superstition in court and cloister -- The cardinal, the confessor, and the chancellor -- Dilemmas of discernment -- Witchcraft and its discontents -- Toward disenchantment?.

Sommario/riassunto

Superstitions are commonplace in the modern world. Mostly, however, they evoke innocuous images of people reading their horoscopes or avoiding black cats. Certain religious practices might also come to mind-praying to St. Christopher or lighting candles for the dead. Benign as they might seem today, such practices were not always perceived that way. In medieval Europe superstitions were considered serious offenses, violations of essential precepts of Christian doctrine or immutable natural laws. But how and why did this come to be? In Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies, Michael D. Bailey explores the thorny concept of superstition as it was understood and debated in the Middle Ages.Bailey begins by tracing Christian thinking about superstition from the patristic period through the early and high Middle Ages. He then turns to the later Middle Ages, a period that witnessed an outpouring of writings devoted to superstition-tracts and treatises with titles such as De superstitionibus and Contra vitia superstitionum. Most were written by theologians and other academics based in Europe's



universities and courts, men who were increasingly anxious about the proliferation of suspect beliefs and practices, from elite ritual magic to common healing charms, from astrological divination to the observance of signs and omens. As Bailey shows, however, authorities were far more sophisticated in their reasoning than one might suspect, using accusations of superstition in a calculated way to control the boundaries of legitimate religion and acceptable science. This in turn would lay the conceptual groundwork for future discussions of religion, science, and magic in the early modern world. Indeed, by revealing the extent to which early modern thinkers took up old questions about the operation of natural properties and forces using the vocabulary of science rather than of belief, Bailey exposes the powerful but in many ways false dichotomy between the "superstitious" Middle Ages and "rational" European modernity.

2.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910824995703321

Autore

Bruzzi Stella <1962->

Titolo

Men's cinema : masculinity and mise-en-scène in Hollywood / / Stella Bruzzi

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Edinburgh, [England] : , : Edinburgh University Press, , 2013

©2013

ISBN

0-7486-7619-8

0-7486-7617-1

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (370 p.)

Disciplina

791.4365211

Soggetti

Masculinity in motion pictures

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of figures -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: towards a masculine aesthetic -- 1. How mise en scène tells the man’s story -- 2. Towards a masculine aesthetic -- 3. Men’s cinema -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Cinema is not only an intellectual or cerebral experience, especially when we are talking about popular movies. This is a book about one



aspect of how cinema makes us feel as well as think. Although all these aspects are intertwined, Men's Cinema is about identification as well as analysis, about mise-en-scene alongside representation and narrative . It reflects on how we as spectators are invited to understand, desire or identify with Hollywood's vision of men and masculinity via mise-en-scene , from the classical era to the present day. It shows how Hollywood has built up and refined the 'la