The Challenge of Being Human


Book Description

Freud wrote that the greatest problem facing humanity is its destructive urge. There is no one factor that solves the issue. The Challenge of Being Human explores tendencies that make us up and capacities that try to meet them. The shock of ourselves is perennial. We are challenged by our own aliveness and a need to open doors as yet unknown. We are not done evolving, growing, learning, feeling, caring. Growth of capacity to tolerate and work with experience is part of our evolutionary challenge. This book seeks to support us in whatever ways we can begin to meet this challenge.




The Art of Being Human


Book Description

Anthropology is the study of all humans in all times in all places. But it is so much more than that. "Anthropology requires strength, valor, and courage," Nancy Scheper-Hughes noted. "Pierre Bourdieu called anthropology a combat sport, an extreme sport as well as a tough and rigorous discipline. ... It teaches students not to be afraid of getting one's hands dirty, to get down in the dirt, and to commit yourself, body and mind. Susan Sontag called anthropology a "heroic" profession." What is the payoff for this heroic journey? You will find ideas that can carry you across rivers of doubt and over mountains of fear to find the the light and life of places forgotten. Real anthropology cannot be contained in a book. You have to go out and feel the world's jagged edges, wipe its dust from your brow, and at times, leave your blood in its soil. In this unique book, Dr. Michael Wesch shares many of his own adventures of being an anthropologist and what the science of human beings can tell us about the art of being human. This special first draft edition is a loose framework for more and more complete future chapters and writings. It serves as a companion to anth101.com, a free and open resource for instructors of cultural anthropology. This 2018 text is a revision of the "first draft edition" from 2017 and includes 7 new chapters.




Becoming Human


Book Description

Winner, 2021 Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Prize, given by the National Women's Studies Association Winner, 2021 Harry Levin Prize, given by the American Comparative Literature Association Winner, 2021 Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ Studies Argues that Blackness disrupts our essential ideas of race, gender, and, ultimately, the human Rewriting the pernicious, enduring relationship between Blackness and animality in the history of Western science and philosophy, Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World breaks open the rancorous debate between Black critical theory and posthumanism. Through the cultural terrain of literature by Toni Morrison, Nalo Hopkinson, Audre Lorde, and Octavia Butler, the art of Wangechi Mutu and Ezrom Legae, and the oratory of Frederick Douglass, Zakiyyah Iman Jackson both critiques and displaces the racial logic that has dominated scientific thought since the Enlightenment. In so doing, Becoming Human demonstrates that the history of racialized gender and maternity, specifically anti-Blackness, is indispensable to future thought on matter, materiality, animality, and posthumanism. Jackson argues that African diasporic cultural production alters the meaning of being human and engages in imaginative practices of world-building against a history of the bestialization and thingification of Blackness—the process of imagining the Black person as an empty vessel, a non-being, an ontological zero—and the violent imposition of colonial myths of racial hierarchy. She creatively responds to the animalization of Blackness by generating alternative frameworks of thought and relationality that not only disrupt the racialization of the human/animal distinction found in Western science and philosophy but also challenge the epistemic and material terms under which the specter of animal life acquires its authority. What emerges is a radically unruly sense of a being, knowing, feeling existence: one that necessarily ruptures the foundations of "the human."




Life 3.0


Book Description

New York Times Best Seller How will Artificial Intelligence affect crime, war, justice, jobs, society and our very sense of being human? The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology—and there’s nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor who’s helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial. How can we grow our prosperity through automation without leaving people lacking income or purpose? What career advice should we give today’s kids? How can we make future AI systems more robust, so that they do what we want without crashing, malfunctioning or getting hacked? Should we fear an arms race in lethal autonomous weapons? Will machines eventually outsmart us at all tasks, replacing humans on the job market and perhaps altogether? Will AI help life flourish like never before or give us more power than we can handle? What sort of future do you want? This book empowers you to join what may be the most important conversation of our time. It doesn’t shy away from the full range of viewpoints or from the most controversial issues—from superintelligence to meaning, consciousness and the ultimate physical limits on life in the cosmos.




How to Win at The Challenge and Life


Book Description

"The most accomplished and beloved champions from the cult classic reality TV show MTV's The Challenge reveal the secrets and skills to succeed on the show and in life. Since 1998, MTV's The Challenge has showcased contestants' mental and physical endurance as they overcame extreme challenges and negotiated alliances to succeed. Now, thirty of the most popular champions offer behind-the-scenes insights on how they won The Challenge and then took the invaluable skills they learned from the experience to their personal lives and careers. Eye-opening and invigorating, this is the ultimate gift for longtime and new fans of the show"--




Being Challenge


Book Description

Being Challenge is a 40-day study designed to help you grow in your relationship with God. Many people want to be greater followers of Jesus, and they want some handles on the process. It doesn't start with rules-it starts with a relationship. The best way to grow in our relationship with God is to learn from Jesus, the one who had a perfect relationship with Him. Jesus' love and life demonstrate habits that point us to God and transform our lives. Are you ready?




Sylvia Wynter


Book Description

The Jamaican writer and cultural theorist Sylvia Wynter is best known for her diverse writings that pull together insights from theories in history, literature, science, and black studies, to explore race, the legacy of colonialism, and representations of humanness. Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis is a critical genealogy of Wynter’s work, highlighting her insights on how race, location, and time together inform what it means to be human. The contributors explore Wynter’s stunning reconceptualization of the human in relation to concepts of blackness, modernity, urban space, the Caribbean, science studies, migratory politics, and the interconnectedness of creative and theoretical resistances. The collection includes an extensive conversation between Sylvia Wynter and Katherine McKittrick that delineates Wynter’s engagement with writers such as Frantz Fanon, W. E. B. DuBois, and Aimé Césaire, among others; the interview also reveals the ever-extending range and power of Wynter’s intellectual project, and elucidates her attempts to rehistoricize humanness as praxis.




Being Human


Book Description

What is consciousness? Is the mind a machine? What makes each of us a person? How do our bodies relate to our minds? In this deeply engaging exploration of what it means to be human, Rowan Williams addresses these frequently asked questions with lucid meditations that draw from findings in neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, and literature. Then he presses on to ask, Might faith be necessary to human flourishing? If so, why? And how can a traditional Christian practice—namely, silence—help us advance on the path to human maturity? The book ends with a brief but profound meditation on Christ’s ascension, inviting readers to consider how, through Jesus, our humanity in all its variety and vulnerability has been transfigured and taken into the heart of the divine life. Being Human is a book that readers of all religious persuasions will find both challenging and highly rewarding. Questions at the end of each chapter encourage personal reflection or group discussion.




Intent


Book Description

INTENT is an exploration of what sits at the very core of being human, our intentions. It is a simple explanation in contemporary language and logic on how understanding the use of our intent can unlock the door to comprehending the vast spectrum of human experience. There are many ways of accounting for the excellence of a person. We could, for example, refer to things such as the accumulation of wealth, power or knowledge, all of which are demonstrably false. There are many examples of mature, outstanding people who have been poor and uneducated. There are also many people who are wealthy, powerful and knowledgeable but who are complete disaster areas as people.After years of working with the concepts in this book, the author argues that the root of human excellence lies with the issue of our intent. Intent is very subtle, it is not easily measured statistically, but it is instantly recognised by people. It drives our behaviour, how that behaviour is interpreted by others and it governs the success or failure of all human aspirations and endeavours.The contention of this work is that the unfoldment of the highest aspects of the self are principally concerned with the 'maturation' of our intent. This maturation doesn't require privilege, wealth or a university degree. It is something that anyone, regardless of their station in life, can pursue and succeed at. Success in this venture is to succeed at the key criteria that people measure themselves and others by, irrespective of their background.




What Does It Mean to Be Human?


Book Description

In an inspirational act of faith and hope, nearly one hundred contributors--social activists, thinkers, artists and spiritual leaders--reflect with poignant candor on our shared human condition and attempt to define a core set of human values in our rapidly changing socity. Contributors include: * The Dalai Lama * Wilma Mankiller * Oscar Arias * Jimmy Carter * Cornel West * Jack Miles * Mother Teresa * Nancy Willard * Elie Wiesel * James Earl Jones * Joan Chittister * Mary Evelyn Tucker * Vaclav Havel * Archbishop Desmund Tutu What Does It Mean To Be Human? is a vital meditation on the endless possibilities of our humanity.




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