Illusions of Immortality

Illusions of Immortality PDF Author: David Giles
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1137096500
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
What drives people to crave fame and celebrity? How does fame affect people psychologically? These issues are frequently discussed by the media but up till now psychologists have shied away from an academic away from an academic investigation of the phenomenon of fame. In this lively, eclectic book David Giles examines fame and celebrity from a variety of perspectives. He argues that fame should be seen as a process rather than a state of being, and that 'celebrity' has largely emerged through the technological developments of the last 150 years. Part of our problem in dealing with celebrities, and the problem celebrities have dealing with the public, is that the social conditions produced by the explosion in mass communications have irrevocably altered the way we live. However we know little about many of the phenomena these conditions have produced - such as the 'parasocial interaction' between television viewers and media characters, and the quasi-religious activity of 'fans'. Perhaps the biggest single dilemma for celebrities is the fact that the vehicle that creates fame for them - the media - is also their tormentor. To address these questions, David Giles draws on research from psychology, sociology, media and communications studies, history and anthropology - as well as his own experiences as a music journalist in the 1980s. He argues that the history of fame is inextricably linked to the emergence of the individual self as a central theme of Western culture, and considers how the desire for authenticity, as well as individual privacy, have created anxieties for celebrities which are best understood in their historical and cultural context.

Illusions of Immortality

Illusions of Immortality PDF Author: David Giles
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1137096500
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
What drives people to crave fame and celebrity? How does fame affect people psychologically? These issues are frequently discussed by the media but up till now psychologists have shied away from an academic away from an academic investigation of the phenomenon of fame. In this lively, eclectic book David Giles examines fame and celebrity from a variety of perspectives. He argues that fame should be seen as a process rather than a state of being, and that 'celebrity' has largely emerged through the technological developments of the last 150 years. Part of our problem in dealing with celebrities, and the problem celebrities have dealing with the public, is that the social conditions produced by the explosion in mass communications have irrevocably altered the way we live. However we know little about many of the phenomena these conditions have produced - such as the 'parasocial interaction' between television viewers and media characters, and the quasi-religious activity of 'fans'. Perhaps the biggest single dilemma for celebrities is the fact that the vehicle that creates fame for them - the media - is also their tormentor. To address these questions, David Giles draws on research from psychology, sociology, media and communications studies, history and anthropology - as well as his own experiences as a music journalist in the 1980s. He argues that the history of fame is inextricably linked to the emergence of the individual self as a central theme of Western culture, and considers how the desire for authenticity, as well as individual privacy, have created anxieties for celebrities which are best understood in their historical and cultural context.

The Illusion of Immortality

The Illusion of Immortality PDF Author: Corliss Lamont
Publisher: Burns & Oates
ISBN: 9780804463775
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Presents the case for human mortality--the finality of death. But, Lamont argues, the illusion of immortality is an affirmative vision, not a negative one.

All the Ghosts in the Machine

All the Ghosts in the Machine PDF Author: Elaine Kasket
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 9781472141903
Category : Death
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
'As charming and touching as it is astute and insightful' Adam Alter, New York Times bestselling author of Irresistible and Drunk Tank Pink 'This a very useful book, even perhaps for people who have never been near a computer in their lives' Jake Kerridge, Sunday Telegraph Seen any ghosts on your smartphone lately? As we're compelled to capture, store and share more and more of our personal information, there's something we often forget. All that data doesn't just disappear when our physical bodies shuffle off this mortal coil. If the concept of remaining socially active after you're no longer breathing sounds crazy, you might want to get used to the idea. Digital afterlives are a natural consequence of the information age, a reality that barely anyone has prepared for - and that 'anyone' probably includes you. In All the Ghosts in the Machine, psychologist Elaine Kasket sounds a clarion call to everyone who's never thought about death in the digital age. When someone's hyperconnected, hyperpersonal digital footprint is transformed into their lasting legacy, she asks, who is helped, who is hurt, and who's in charge? And why is now such a critical moment to take our heads out of the sand? Weaving together personal, moving true stories and scientific research, All the Ghosts in the Machine takes you on a fascinating tour through the valley of the shadow of digital death. In the process, it will transform how you think about your life and your legacy, in a time when our technologies are tantalising us with fantasies of immortality.

The Illusion of Immortality. (Second Edition.).

The Illusion of Immortality. (Second Edition.). PDF Author: Corliss LAMONT
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description


The Future of an Illusion

The Future of an Illusion PDF Author: Sigmund Freud
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Psychoanalysis
Languages : en
Pages : 110

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Book Description


The Denial of Death

The Denial of Death PDF Author: ERNEST. BECKER
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781788164269
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work, The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the 'why' of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie - man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. The book argues that human civilisation is a defence against the knowledge that we are mortal beings. Becker states that humans live in both the physical world and a symbolic world of meaning, which is where our 'immortality project' resides. We create in order to become immortal - to become part of something we believe will last forever. In this way we hope to give our lives meaning.In The Denial of Death, Becker sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates decades after it was written.

Eternity

Eternity PDF Author: Maggie Shayne
Publisher: Oliver-Heber books
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
“A rich, sensual, bewitching adventure of good vs. evil with love as the prize.” ~Publisher’s Weekly on ETERNITY WINNER: RT Book Reviews: Reviewers Choice Award WINNER: Reviewer's Listserv: Best Paranormal Romance Award WINNER: New Jersey Romance Writers: Golden Leaf Award One of BN.com's "Top 12 Reads of the Year" 300 years ago, Raven St. James was hanged for witchcraft. But she revives among the dead to find herself alive. She is an Immortal High Witch, one of the light. A note from her mother warns that there are others, those of the Dark, who preserve their own lives by taking the hearts of those like her. Duncan Wallace’s forbidden love for the secretive lass costs him his life. 300 years later, he loves her again, tormented by hazy memories of a past that can’t be real. She tells him of another lifetime, claims to be immortal. Though he knows she’s deluded, he can’t stay away. And the Dark Witch after her heart is far closer than either of them know. If you liked OUTLANDER, or HIGHLANDER, you will LOVE this series. Don’t miss Book 2, INFINITY or Book 3, DESTINY. “A hauntingly beautiful story of a love that endures through time itself.” ~New York Times Bestselling Author, Kay Hooper “This captivating story of a love that reaches across the centuries, becomes as immortal as the lover’s themselves, resonates with timeless passion, powerful magic, and haunting heartbreak.” ~BN.com’s official review

The Book of Illusions

The Book of Illusions PDF Author: Paul Auster
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0312990960
Category : Absence and presumption of death
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
A man's obsession with a silent-film star sends him on a journey into a shadow world of lies, illusions, and unexpected love Six months after losing his wife and two young sons in an airplane crash, Vermont professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours mired in a blur of alcoholic grief and self-pity. Then, watching television one night, he stumbles upon a clip from a lost silent film by comedian Hector Mann. Zimmer's interest is piqued, and he soon finds himself embarking on a journey around the world to research a book on this mysterious figure, who vanished from sight in 1929 and has been presumed dead for sixty years. When the book is published the following year, a letter turns up in Zimmer's mailbox bearing a return address from a small town in New Mexico-supposedly written by Hector's wife. "Hector has read your book and would like to meet you. Are you interested in paying us a visit?" Is the letter a hoax, or is Hector Mann still alive? Torn between doubt and belief, Zimmer hesitates, until one night a strange woman appears on his doorstep and makes the decision for him, changing his life forever. This stunning novel plunges the reader into a universe in which the comic and the tragic, the real and the imagined, the violent and the tender dissolve into one another. With The Book of Illusions, one of America's most powerful and original writers has written his richest, most emotionally charged work yet.

Everyday Immortality

Everyday Immortality PDF Author: Deepak Chopra
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 140706309X
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Everyday Immortality contains a series of insights, known in Eastern wisdom traditions as sutras or koans. Like a string of pearls, each insight follows the next, page by page. Only when the lesson of one page is fully absorbed does the reader go on to the next. Through this process, the reader`s thought patterns are literally transformed, causing a permanent shift in perception. These exercises are a modern version of Gyana Yoga, India`s ancient Yoga of Knowledge, long considered the most direct path to attaining enlightenment and immortality.

When Breath Becomes Air

When Breath Becomes Air PDF Author: Paul Kalanithi
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0812988418
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living? NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • People • NPR • The Washington Post • Slate • Harper’s Bazaar • Time Out New York • Publishers Weekly • BookPage Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Books for a Better Life Award in Inspirational Memoir At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir. Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.