Puppet - An Essay on Uncanny Life

A collection of pivotal ideas about beauty from throughout history, with an introduction and critical headnotes.

The Triumph of the Necrophiles is the product of over forty years of research and is the most thorough, comprehensive, and penetrating critique of the mechanical world view ever written. Modrow meticulously traces the prescientific sources of that world view back to our Judeo-Christian heritage and to the metaphysics of Plato and Pythagoras. He documents that Plato was in fact a necrophile and that his metaphysics can best be understood as a sublimation of his necrophilia. He discusses the influence that Plato and Pythagoras had on Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo. He especially emphasizes how the necrophilic world view of Plato essentially became the world view of Galileo, Descartes, and other seventeenth- century thinkers. He also discusses how Newton's world view was shaped by his religious beliefs.

Modrow contends that the mechanical world view is totally at odds with every major scientific advance that has occurred since the mid nineteenth century. He painstakingly explains how and why these scientific advances discredit that world view. He discusses the philosophical implications of the theory of evolution, the theory of relativity, quantum theory, Bell's theorem, and Godel's proof and presents an alternative world view that is more consistent with current scientific knowledge.

In a final chilling chapter, Modrow shows where the necrophilic world view of Plato and his modern mechanistic followers are taking us.

In the 1993 edition, I considered black madonnas a metaphor for a memory of the time when the earth was belived to be the body of woman and all creatures were equal, a memory transmitted in vernacular traditions of earth-bounded cultures, historically expressed in cultural and poltical resistance, and glimpsed today in movements aiming for transformation.

Sine then my understanding of black madonnas has been deepened by genetics finding that the orgin of modern humans is Africa, that migrations from Africa carried a primordial belief in a dar woman divinity to all continents. Black madonnas and other dark women of the world suggest a metaphor for healing millennial divisions of gender and race and concerted movements for justice.

Th e art of vernacular painting in India is not only varied and rich but also intriguing for several reasons. With such observations the book addresses certain issues, like the validity of the historical information on Indian Art that excludes vernacular trends. The information on vernacular art in India has either been ignored such as in ancient literary discourses or inadvertently misconstrued within the theoretical purviews of modern days. If the hierarchy of the Hindu caste system has marginalised the culture of the lower rung groups, the lexicon of twentieth century anthropological studies has seen this art as material evidence of undeveloped societies; both creating the same value: to be patronised but not ‘art’. Can art be weighed on a scale of development? Arguments have been developed within the specifi c focus on scroll paintings by the itinerant painter bards in Bengal. Th e bardic tradition has been known to exist in India since a pre-Christian era and still continues within two vibrant trends of vernacular art forms – Bangla and Santhal pat. Th e book redefi nes and repositions the notion of art with contemporary folk art. As the picture Plates are self-evident, the book draws attention on a world of art that has not been present in Indian Art History.

Interest in the middle ages is at an all time high at the moment, thanks in part to "The Da Vinci Code." Never has there been a moment more propitious for a study of our misconceptions of the Middle Ages than now.

Ranging across religion, art, and science, Misconceptions about the Middle Ages unravels some of the many misinterpretations that have evolved concerning the medieval period, including:

• the church
• war
• science
• art
• society

With an impressive international array of contributions, the book will be essential reading for students and scholars involved with medieval religion, history, and culture.