Home - Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Under Any Sky: Contemporary Readings of George Santayana
Editor: Matthew Caleb Flamm and Krzysztof Piotr Skowroñski
Date Of Publication: May 2007
Isbn13: 9781847181664
Isbn: 1-84718-166-X
Under Any Sky: Contemporary Readings of George Santayana is a testament to the cross-cultural relevance of the work of one of the leading intellectuals of the twentieth century, George Santayana (1863-1952, birth name Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana). A list of geographic origins of the twenty-two contributions contained in this volume indicates the transatlantic cultural diversity of scholarly representation: scholars variously hailing from Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Slovakia, and Switzerland, and from the United States, representing three of its major regions. The authors explore the major plots of Santayana's thinking, including materialistic Platonism in ontology, skepticism in epistemology, rationality in social philosophy, naturalism in aesthetics, piety in materialism, and literary and poetic expression as a means to cosmic understanding. After a preface by Professor John Lachs (also a contributor), and an editorial introduction, the book is divided into three respective thematic parts: I. Ontology and Naturalism; II. Culture, Society, America; and III. Aesthetics, Poetry, and Spirit. Before each thematic section brief introductions of the section papers is provided to accommodate specific scholarly interests. The authors entrust the present volume to readers appreciative of the philosophic catholicity of the subject's work, invoking the book title which is taken from the preface of Santayana's mature system of philosophy, Scepticism and Animal Faith: "In the past or in the future, my language and my borrowed knowledge would have been different, but under whatever sky I had been born, since it is the same sky, I should have had the same philosophy"

Krzysztof Piotr Skowroñski, Ph.D., currently teaches Contemporary Philosophy, Aesthetics, Cultural Anthropology, Polish Philosophy, and American Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Opole University, Poland.

Matthew Caleb Flamm, Ph.D is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Rockford College, in Rockford, Illinois.

“Santayana's ‘holistic interpretative approach’ is alive in this collection of essays from an international group of scholars. This book makes a convincing case for the cross-cultural relevance of George Santayana as philosopher, poet, and critic. The scholarship is of the highest standard, and the contributors represent a rich variety of cultural perspectives. The thoughtful editing appreciates the breadth and depth of both the thinker and the present contributions. The essays take up Santayana's philosophic vision from their variety of cultural and intellectual perspectives and suggest important possibilities for humane intellectual life in the 21st century.”

-Professor Marianne S. Wokeck, Santayana Edition, Director and Editor; Kristine W. Frost, Santayana Edition, Assistant Director and Associate Editor; Dr. Martin Coleman, Santayana Edition, Associate Editor; Professor Paul Nagy, Santayana Edition, Consulting Editor.

“Among philosophers of our own time, George Santayana enjoyed the rarest of distinctions in being immortalized in Wallace Stevens' long poem ‘To an Old Philosopher in Rome.’ The present volume, justly international in scope and exhibiting the breadth, depth, and pace of progress in the burgeoning field of Santayana Studies, marks the most contemporary tribute to the philosopher whose ‘life in the spirit’ ranged across continents and centuries.”

-Professor David Dilworth, State University of New York at Stony Brook

Price Uk Gbp: 34.99
Price Us Usd: 52.99

Sample pdf (including Table of Contents)

We recommend

Cultural Studies
Art and Identity: Visual Culture, Politics and Religion in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Film and Theatre Studies
The Conformists: Creativity and Decadence in the Bulgarian Cinema 1945-89

Film and Theatre Studies
The People’s Pictures: National Lottery Funding and British Cinema

Interesting reviews

From Border States in the Work of Tom Mac Intyre: A Paleo-Postmodern Perspective

''Catriona Ryan has more than achieved what she set out to do.She has emphatically presented Tom Mac Intyre as a writer with a distinctive voice who not only provides a crucial link in the chain that goes back through Kavanagh to Yeats, but as a bridging figure, a transgressive author whose reflections on the Irish literary scene, and on writing more generally, have much to tell us about the ways in which constrictive critical currents can cut off living literary streams. It is clear from Catriona Ryan's painstaking excavation that Mac Intyre has been wrongly neglected. Her thoughtful and perceptive critical intervention will remedy that wrong.''
- Willy Maley, Litteraria Pragensia, 22:44 (2013), 131-134, p. 134.

“This is a critically independent piece of work that very much constructs and defines its own project, and maps an intellectual terrain of its own. It is an impressively original and also critically self-assured piece. It is marked by a sense of intellectual brio and also by the excitement of discovery.”
– Dr Steven Vine, Swansea University

“Since Tom Mac Intyre is a writer and dramatist who has received very little critical attention, this work intervenes in an under-researched area and offers an innovative and valuable extension of the frontier of knowledge in the field of Irish literary and dramatic studies.”
– Dr Aidan Arrowsmith, Manchester Metropolitan University