Symbolism 2020 : : An International Annual of Critical Aesthetics / / ed. by Rüdiger Ahrens, Florian Klaeger, Klaus Stierstorfer.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Ebook Package English 2021
• HerausgeberIn: Ahrens, Rüdiger,; Klaeger, Florian,; Stierstorfer, Klaus,
• MitwirkendeR: Batzke, Ina,; Bharucha, Nilufer E.,; Burkhard, Denise,; Carpi, Daniela,; Gill, Patrick,; Gordon, Jan B.,; Hauhs, Michael,; Klaeger, Florian,; Lange, Holger,; Mueller, Stefanie,; Onega, Susana,; Reddig, Jesper,; Ritzer, Ivo,; Schmücker, Reinold,; Shrimpton, Nicholas,; Stierstorfer, Klaus,; Stähler, Axel,; Wilson, Janet M.,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2020]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: Symbolism : An International Annual of Critical Aesthetics , 20
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (VIII, 260 p.)

This special anniversary volume of Symbolism explores the nexus between symbolic signification and the future from an interdisciplinary perspective. How, contributors ask, has the future been variously rendered in symbolic terms? How do symbols and symbolic reference shape our ideas of the future? To what extent are symbols constitutive of futures, and to what extent do they restrain communication about what is possible and the imagination of fundamental change? Moreover, how have symbolic practices shaped not only artistic representations of the future, but also scientific attempts at forecasting and modelling it? What, then, is the relevance of symbolism for negotiations of the future in cultural and academic production? In essays ranging from literary and film studies to the philosophy of art and ecological modelling, the volume seeks to lay groundwork in theorizing and historicising ‘symbols of the future’ as much as ‘the future of symbolism’.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Foreword from the Editors -- Contents -- Special Focus: Symbols of the Future. The Future of Symbolism -- Introduction: Symbols of the Future. The Future of Symbolism -- Symbol’s Risks: A Note on the Interrelationship of Art and the Use of Symbols -- ‘Symbolic Futures’ as Investment -- On the Future Role of Symbols in Environmental Modelling -- The Symbolization of the Female Body in Western Culture from Ancient Greece to the Transmodern Period -- Genre and Utopia, or 48 Hrs. for the Future: Perspectives in Media Aesthetics -- The Past Is Immutable: Technology’s Symbolism and the Future in Black Mirror -- “Players and painted stage”: Symbolizing the Future in Shaw’s Back to Methuselah -- Herzlian Matrix: Theme Parks, Promised Lands, and Simulacra -- Reading the Future through the Past: Symbolism in Amitav Ghosh’s Anthropogenic Fiction -- The Cyborg, Symbol of the Evolution of the Human, or The Human of the Future -- “An ocean of thought”: AI, Robots, and Ian McEwan’s Machines Like Me and People Like You (2019) -- Book Reviews -- Sarah C. Bishop. Undocumented Storytellers: Narrating the Immigrant Rights Movement -- Sandra Dinter. Childhood in the Contemporary English Novel -- Johannes Riquet. The Aesthetics of Island Space: Perception, Ideology, Geopoetics -- Lyndsey Stonebridge. Placeless People: Writing, Rights, and Refugees -- List of Contributors -- Index