[PDF] Rewriting Magic eBook

Author : Claire Fanger
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 234 pages
File Size : 16,38 MB
Release : 2015-04-13
Category : History
ISBN : 0271072032

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In Rewriting Magic, Claire Fanger explores a fourteenth-century text called The Flowers of Heavenly Teaching. Written by a Benedictine monk named John of Morigny, the work all but disappeared from the historical record, and it is only now coming to light again in multiple versions and copies. While John’s book largely comprises an extended set of prayers for gaining knowledge, The Flowers of Heavenly Teaching is unusual among prayer books of its time because it includes a visionary autobiography with intimate information about the book’s inspiration and composition. Through the window of this record, we witness how John reconstructs and reconsecrates a condemned liturgy for knowledge acquisition: the ars notoria of Solomon. John’s work was the subject of intense criticism and public scandal, and his book was burned as heretical in 1323. The trauma of these experiences left its imprint on the book, but in unexpected and sometimes baffling ways. Fanger decodes this imprint even as she relays the narrative of how she learned to understand it. In engaging prose, she explores the twin processes of knowledge acquisition in John’s visionary autobiography and her own work of discovery as she reconstructed the background to his extraordinary book. Fanger’s approach to her subject exemplifies innovative historical inquiry, research, and methodology. Part theology, part historical anthropology, part biblio-memoir, Rewriting Magic relates a story that will have deep implications for the study of medieval life, monasticism, prayer, magic, and religion.

Author : Daniel Vasella, M.D.
Publisher : Harper Collins
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 17,85 MB
Release : 2003-06-03
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0060010304

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History of the breakthrough of the cancer pill "Gleevec."

Author : Albrecht Classen
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 768 pages
File Size : 30,37 MB
Release : 2017-10-23
Category : History
ISBN : 311055772X

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There are no clear demarcation lines between magic, astrology, necromancy, medicine, and even sciences in the pre-modern world. Under the umbrella term 'magic,' the contributors to this volume examine a wide range of texts, both literary and religious, both medical and philosophical, in which the topic is discussed from many different perspectives. The fundamental concerns address issue such as how people perceived magic, whether they accepted it and utilized it for their own purposes, and what impact magic might have had on the mental structures of that time. While some papers examine the specific appearance of magicians in literary texts, others analyze the practical application of magic in medical contexts. In addition, this volume includes studies that deal with the rise of the witch craze in the late fifteenth century and then also investigate whether the Weberian notion of disenchantment pertaining to the modern world can be maintained. Magic is, oddly but significantly, still around us and exerts its influence. Focusing on magic in the medieval world thus helps us to shed light on human culture at large.

Author : David J. Collins, S. J.
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 294 pages
File Size : 17,40 MB
Release : 2019-03-20
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0271084375

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Inspired by the work of eminent scholar Richard Kieckhefer, The Sacred and the Sinister explores the ambiguities that made (and make) medieval religion and magic so difficult to differentiate. The essays in this collection investigate how the holy and unholy were distinguished in medieval Europe, where their characteristics diverged, and the implications of that deviation. In the Middle Ages, the natural world was understood as divinely created and infused with mysterious power. This world was accessible to human knowledge and susceptible to human manipulation through three modes of engagement: religion, magic, and science. How these ways of understanding developed in light of modern notions of rationality is an important element of ongoing scholarly conversation. As Kieckhefer has emphasized, ambiguity and ambivalence characterize medieval understandings of the divine and demonic powers at work in the world. The ten chapters in this volume focus on four main aspects of this assertion: the cult of the saints, contested devotional relationships and practices, unsettled judgments between magic and religion, and inconclusive distinctions between magic and science. Freshly insightful, this study of ambiguity between magic and religion will be of special interest to scholars in the fields of medieval studies, religious studies, European history, and the history of science. In addition to the editor, the contributors to this volume are Michael D. Bailey, Kristi Woodward Bain, Maeve B. Callan, Elizabeth Casteen, Claire Fanger, Sean L. Field, Anne M. Koenig, Katelyn Mesler, and Sophie Page.

Author : M Papazoglou
Publisher : World Scientific
Page : 390 pages
File Size : 19,12 MB
Release : 1993-01-19
Category :
ISBN : 9814553298

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This proceedings contains the latest reports on research, development and novel applications of database systems. Topics covered include: database design, parallel and distributed databases, storage structures, integrity constraints, deductive databases and theoretical aspects of databases.

Author : Tara Williams
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 185 pages
File Size : 27,7 MB
Release : 2018-03-14
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0271081783

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This multidisciplinary volume illustrates how representations of magic in fourteenth-century romances link the supernatural, spectacle, and morality in distinctive ways. Supernatural marvels represented in vivid visual detail are foundational to the characteristic Middle English genres of romance and hagiography. In Middle English Marvels, Tara Williams explores the didactic and affective potential of secular representations of magic and shows how fourteenth-century English writers tested the limits of that potential. Drawing on works by Augustine, Gervase of Tilbury, Chaucer, and the anonymous poets of Sir Orfeo and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, among others, Williams examines how such marvels might convey moral messages within and beyond the narrative. She analyzes examples from both highly canonical and more esoteric texts and examines marvels that involve magic and transformation, invoke visual spectacle, and invite moral reflection on how one should relate to others. Within this shared framework, Williams finds distinct concerns—chivalry, identity, agency, and language—that intersect with the marvelous in significant ways. Integrating literary and historical approaches to the study of magic, this volume convincingly shows how certain fourteenth-century texts eschewed the predominant trends and developed a new theory of the marvelous. Williams’s engaging, erudite study will be of special interest to scholars of the occult, the medieval and early modern eras, and literature.

Author : Sergio Greco
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 155 pages
File Size : 20,67 MB
Release : 2022-05-31
Category : Computers
ISBN : 3031018540

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The use of logic in databases started in the late 1960s. In the early 1970s Codd formalized databases in terms of the relational calculus and the relational algebra. A major influence on the use of logic in databases was the development of the field of logic programming. Logic provides a convenient formalism for studying classical database problems and has the important property of being declarative, that is, it allows one to express what she wants rather than how to get it. For a long time, relational calculus and algebra were considered the relational database languages. However, there are simple operations, such as computing the transitive closure of a graph, which cannot be expressed with these languages. Datalog is a declarative query language for relational databases based on the logic programming paradigm. One of the peculiarities that distinguishes Datalog from query languages like relational algebra and calculus is recursion, which gives Datalog the capability to express queries like computing a graph transitive closure. Recent years have witnessed a revival of interest in Datalog in a variety of emerging application domains such as data integration, information extraction, networking, program analysis, security, cloud computing, ontology reasoning, and many others. The aim of this book is to present the basics of Datalog, some of its extensions, and recent applications to different domains.

Author : Manuel Carro
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 307 pages
File Size : 13,35 MB
Release : 2010-01-12
Category : Computers
ISBN : 3642115020

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This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages, PADL 2010, held in Madrid, Spain, in January 2010, colocated with POPL 2010, the Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages. The 22 revised full papers presented together with 2 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 58 submissions. The volume features original work emphasizing novel applications and implementation techniques for all forms of clarative concepts, including functions, relations, logic, and constraints. The papers address all current aspects of declarative programming; they are organized in topical sections on non-monotonic reasoning - answer set programming, types, parallelism and distribution, code quality assurance, domain specific languages, programming aids, constraints, and tabling - agents.

Author : Boon Thau Loo
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 111 pages
File Size : 20,91 MB
Release : 2022-05-31
Category : Computers
ISBN : 3031018869

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Declarative Networking is a programming methodology that enables developers to concisely specify network protocols and services, which are directly compiled to a dataflow framework that executes the specifications. Declarative networking proposes the use of a declarative query language for specifying and implementing network protocols, and employs a dataflow framework at runtime for communication and maintenance of network state. The primary goal of declarative networking is to greatly simplify the process of specifying, implementing, deploying and evolving a network design. In addition, declarative networking serves as an important step towards an extensible, evolvable network architecture that can support flexible, secure and efficient deployment of new network protocols. This book provides an introduction to basic issues in declarative networking, including language design, optimization and dataflow execution. The methodology behind declarative programming of networks is presented, including roots in Datalog, extensions for networked environments, and the semantics of long-running queries over network state. The book focuses on a representative declarative networking language called Network Datalog (NDlog), which is based on extensions to the Datalog recursive query language. An overview of declarative network protocols written in NDlog is provided, and its usage is illustrated using examples from routing protocols and overlay networks. This book also describes the implementation of a declarative networking engine and NDlog execution strategies that provide eventual consistency semantics with significant flexibility in execution. Two representative declarative networking systems (P2 and its successor RapidNet) are presented. Finally, the book highlights recent advances in declarative networking, and new declarative approaches to related problems. Table of Contents: Introduction / Declarative Networking Language / Declarative Networking Overview / Distributed Recursive Query Processing / Declarative Routing / Declarative Overlays / Optimization of NDlog / Recent Advances in Declarative Networking / Conclusion