Despite his short life, Friedrich von Hardenberg (otherwise known as Novalis, 1772-1801) was one of the most original and polymathic figures of the early Romantic movement in Germany. Philosophical, Literary, and Poetic Writings assembles, for the first time in English, translations of Novalis's published philosophical works, a large share of his surviving philosophical notes and fragments, his two unfinished novels (The Disciples at Saïs and Heinrich von Ofterdingen), and the Hymns to the Night. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Novalis not only theorized about art and its place in both the world of everyday human life and the universe of philosophical discourse but was himself a consummate artist in his own right. This unique edition of Novalis's writings in English allows readers to track issues and themes throughout his short but productive career as a budding philosopher in the post-Kantian tradition, as a philosophical novelist, and as a poet of the first rank. Readers interested in Novalis's views on philosophy, art, morality, politics, and religion, and how positions in each of these areas might be unified in single, overarching vision of reality, will find the present translation an essential guide.

Novalis: Philosophical, Literary, and Poetic Writings

Literature & Fiction

Reid, James D.

Poetry

Oxford University Press

With a new translation of the Duino Elegies “Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’/orders?” Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies opens with one of the most powerful poetic expressions of the search for meaning in the modern world. Published in 1923, the Elegies would influence important philosophers on the Continent, including Heidegger. But with a few exceptions, Rilke’s poetry has not had an impact on philosophy in the Anglo-American world. In Being Here Is Glorious, James D. Reid offers a fresh translation of the Elegies, which hews to the form of the original and provides his own meditation on the place of poetry in philosophy. Reid makes a convincing case that poetry and philosophy can address the problem of finding things significant and worth affirming in light of various reasons to doubt the value of the world in which we find ourselves cast.

Being Here Is Glorious: On Rilke, Poetry, and Philosophy

History & Criticism

Northwestern University Press

With a new translation of the Duino Elegies “Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels’/orders?” Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies opens with one of the most powerful poetic expressions of the search for meaning in the modern world. Published in 1923, the Elegies would influence important philosophers on the Continent, including Heidegger. But with a few exceptions, Rilke’s poetry has not had an impact on philosophy in the Anglo-American world. In Being Here Is Glorious, James D. Reid offers a fresh translation of the Elegies, which hews to the form of the original and provides his own meditation on the place of poetry in philosophy. Reid makes a convincing case that poetry and philosophy can address the problem of finding things significant and worth affirming in light of various reasons to doubt the value of the world in which we find ourselves cast.

Heidegger's Moral Ontology

Heidegger's Moral Ontology offers the first comprehensive account of the ethical issues that underwrite Heidegger's efforts to develop a novel account of human existence. Drawing from a wide array of source materials from the period leading up to the publication of Being and Time (1919-1927), and in conversation with ancient, modern, and contemporary contributions to moral philosophy, James D. Reid brings Heidegger's early philosophy into fruitful dialogue with the history of ethics, and sheds fresh light on such familiar topics as Heidegger's critique of Husserl, his engagement with Aristotle, his account of mortality, the role played by Kant in the genesis of Being and Time, and Heidegger's early reflections on philosophical language and concepts. This lively book will appeal to all who are interested in Heidegger's early phenomenology and in his thought more generally, as well as to those interested in the nature, scope, and foundations of ethical life.

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Cambridge University Press

Agency and Imagination in the Films of David Lynch: Philosophical Perspectives (Cine-Aesthetics: New Directions in Film and Philosophy)

Agency and Imagination in the Films of David Lynch: Philosophical Perspectives offers a sustained philosophical interpretation of the filmmaker's work in light of classic and contemporary discussions of human agency and the complex relations between our capacity to act and our ability to imagine. With the help of the pathological characters that so often leave their unforgettable mark on Lynch's films, this book reveals several important ways in which human beings fail to achieve fuller embodiments of agency or seek substitute satisfactions in spaces of fantasy. In keeping with Lynch's penchant for unconventional narrative techniques, James D. Reid and Candace R. Craig explore the possibility, scope, and limits of the very idea of agency itself and what it might be like to renounce concepts of agency altogether in the interpretation and depiction of human life. In a series of interlocking readings of eight feature-length films and Twin Peaks: The Return that combine suggestive philosophical analysis with close attention to cinematic detail, Reid and Craig make a convincing case for the importance of David Lynch's work in the philosophical examination of agency, the vagaries of the human imagination, and the relevance of film for the philosophy of human action. Scholars of film studies and philosophy will find this book particularly useful.

Humor & Entertainment

Craig, Candace R.

Movies

Lexington Books

This classroom guide to Ralph Waldo Emerson is the third in a growing series of Craig's Notes Classroom Guides for teachers of literature. The Emerson guide is a bit different from the others, however. To begin, it is the first of three unique guides devoted to the American Transcendentalists. The Emerson guide is an outgrowth of a collaboration between Candace R. Craig and James D. Reid, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. Reid's scholarly work includes publications on Kant in world-class journals, such as The Kantian Review and The Review of Metaphysics. He is also co-editor and essay contributor for Thoreau's Importance for Philosophy (Fordham). His second book, Being Here Is Glorious: On Rilke, Poetry, and Philosophy, which includes a philosophical interpretation and fresh translation of the Duino Elegies, is forthcoming with Northwestern University Press (July 2015). Reid has written substantial introductions to each of the three works presented in this guide: Nature, the "Divinity School Address," & "Self-Reliance." He has also contributed some of his own ideas for advanced-level essay prompts and college-level class discussion questions. The Emerson guide is thus a cohesive amalgamation of the expertise of a serious scholar and a veteran teacher of high-school English. The first section of the guide contains pre-reading activities and two substantial introductions. The subsequent three sections take a chronological approach, beginning with Nature, followed by the "Divinity School Address" and culminating in "Self-Reliance." Each of these sections contains a helpful introduction (Reid), followed by a combination of classroom activities, tests, quizzes, writing activities, etc., focusing on everything from vocabulary to basic comprehension to rhetorical and literary devices to essay assignments, and more. The final section of the guide contains culminating activities that challenge students to practice their writing and critical thinking skills by synthesizing and drawing connections between each of the three Emerson texts and the spiritual or intellectual descendants of Emerson's legacy (i.e., Thoreau, Whitman, Frost, Stevens, Dillard, and recent sojourners seeking to experience deeper meaning and self-knowledge through their correspondence with nature). The final pages include lists of project ideas, research topics, and advanced essay prompts.

A Classroom Guide to Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature, The Divinity School Address & Self-Reliance (Craig's Notes Classroom Guides)

Reference

Words, Language & Grammar

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

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Books by Reid, James D.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Reid, James D.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Novalis: Philosophical, Literary, and Poetic Writings

Being Here Is Glorious: On Rilke, Poetry, and Philosophy

Being Here Is Glorious: On Rilke, Poetry, and Philosophy

Heidegger's Moral Ontology

Heidegger's Moral Ontology

Agency and Imagination in the Films of David Lynch: Philosophical Perspectives (Cine-Aesthetics: New Directions in Film and Philosophy)

A Classroom Guide to Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature, The Divinity School Address & Self-Reliance (Craig's Notes Classroom Guides)