Beatriz Penas Ibáñez Livres

Cultural Hybrids of (Post)Modernism starts from the premise that the literary-cultural milieu we live in is characteristically hybrid. To develop that premise, the present volume focuses on explaining the strong impact that Japanese culture, especially Japanese aesthetics, bore on Western intellectuals, Modernist literary writers and artists from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards, and, conversely, the impact of Western modernity on Japanese cultural modernization from the Meiji Era onwards. Such intercultural contact has brought on a renewal of cultural formats that can be explained in terms of hybridity as regards both the aesthetic and the intellectual production of the artists and thinkers from Japan and the West throughout the twentieth century and to the present. The outcome of modernization was the creation of new cultural standards in Japan and the West and, with it, new ways of understanding pedagogy and education, a reconceptualization of the Nation versus the individual, a redefinition of the role of women in modernizing society, also a revision of philosophical thought and a new approach to the role of linguistic signs in the production of meaning.

Con/Texts of Persuasion is a groundbreaking collection of essays examining how various forms of discourse—literary, political, religious, commercial, and philosophical—utilize strategies from linguistics, pragmatics, argumentation theory, rhetoric, and hermeneutics to influence thought and behavior. Persuasion is deeply rooted in context and culture, functioning as a dialogue-friendly rhetoric that can either facilitate understanding or serve as a tool for manipulation and propaganda. It can also act as a means of evading censure or enriching oratory with intertextual depth. By appealing to emotions, values, and subjectivity, persuasion can immerse readers in fictional worlds or emerge from the phonosemantic strategies found in poetry and advertising. The essays explore the situatedness of interpretive contexts in critical discourse, highlighting ideologically consonant and dissonant modes. This collection is essential for anyone interested in the persuasive capabilities of textual communication. The contents include discussions on literary language, totalitarian manipulations, intertextuality in famous speeches, rhetorical strategies in burlesque, and the interplay between sound and meaning, among other topics.