Power Discourses

Power Discourses

Power Discourses
Representations of Power in Science and Art
Edited by Csilla Bíró, Beatrix Visy
NSZL–Gondolat, Budapest, 2016.
[Bibliotheca Scientiae & Artis 8., Series Editor: László Boka], 340 pages
ISBN 978 963 200 655 0

Language: 
Hungarian
3 900,- Ft
Available

The present volume of the Bibliotheca Scientiae et Artis series explores eternal topics of human history: the reflection of power in arts, its legitimization, the relation between power and elite, and power and the individual. The content is organized  in three units along a chronological timeline from 5 BC to present.

Many of the studies here published lean on unexplored or only partly known sources at approaching our topic from the academic fields of general history, political science, philosophy, literary science, theatre history, and culture history. Although belong to diverse fields, the essays make up an amazing interrelated network of thoughts reflecting one to another and demonstrating how laudations, theatre presentations, Ex Libris and handwritten possessor notes all served the interest of power (self) representation.

What strategies do the old and new tyrants, monarchies, democracies and totalitarian states use; how much and what do they allow to the citizens, what roles could and can the intelligentsia play when close to power, what image does the fictitious world of literary works provide on the relation between power and the individual or the peripheries, and how does this relate to reality? These are the questions the essays in this volume seek to answer.

Bibliotheca Scientiae et Artis
National Széchényi Library holds its yearly internal conference, the Research Session to give chance to its researchers to present and discuss their topics, and facilitate a scholarly dialogue between the experts. The selected and edited material of these thematic conferences has been being published from 2010, as volumes of the book series Bibliotheca Scientiae et Artis. The series editor is László Boka, the Director of Research at National Széchényi Library, and each volume is edited by the curator of the related Session.