Stanley Cavell
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226924939
- eISBN:
- 9780226924946
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226924946.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter explores Shylock's incoherent grief in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, where Shylock's defeat seems to have been insufficiently expressed. His penultimate words, “I am content” ...
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This chapter explores Shylock's incoherent grief in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, where Shylock's defeat seems to have been insufficiently expressed. His penultimate words, “I am content” (4.1.391), are perceived to be spiritually disabled, without recognizable emotion or comprehension, not even angry or contemptuous. How might this moment be accurately and plausibly played? How does one quickly move from an endlessly expressed murderousness to a virtually immediate acceptance of an interpretation of the law? Thus, the chapter speaks of the right to speak, noting the instances the word say occurs in the play as well as questioning the reasons why Shakespeare's trial-like exchanges are often conversations between Christians and Jews. It takes up the question of whether the play is anti-Semitic or whether it is about the experience of one's being anti-Semitic.Less
This chapter explores Shylock's incoherent grief in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, where Shylock's defeat seems to have been insufficiently expressed. His penultimate words, “I am content” (4.1.391), are perceived to be spiritually disabled, without recognizable emotion or comprehension, not even angry or contemptuous. How might this moment be accurately and plausibly played? How does one quickly move from an endlessly expressed murderousness to a virtually immediate acceptance of an interpretation of the law? Thus, the chapter speaks of the right to speak, noting the instances the word say occurs in the play as well as questioning the reasons why Shakespeare's trial-like exchanges are often conversations between Christians and Jews. It takes up the question of whether the play is anti-Semitic or whether it is about the experience of one's being anti-Semitic.
Mike Ananny
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780262037747
- eISBN:
- 9780262345828
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262037747.001.0001
- Subject:
- Information Science, Communications
This book offers a new way to think about freedom of the press in a time when media systems are in fundamental flux. The book challenges the idea that press freedom comes only from heroic, lone ...
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This book offers a new way to think about freedom of the press in a time when media systems are in fundamental flux. The book challenges the idea that press freedom comes only from heroic, lone journalists who speak truth to power. Instead, drawing on journalism studies, institutional sociology, political theory, science and technology studies, and an analysis of ten years of journalism discourse about news and technology, the book argues that press freedom emerges from social, technological, institutional, and normative forces that vie for power and fight for visions of democratic life. It shows how dominant, historical ideals of professionalized press freedom often mistook journalistic freedom from constraints for the public's freedom to encounter the rich mix of people and ideas that self-governance requires. The book's notion of press freedom ensures not only an individual right to speak, but also a public right to hear. Seeing press freedom as essential for democratic self-governance, the book explores what publics need, what kind of free press they should demand, and how today's press freedom emerges from intertwined collections of humans and machines. If someone says, “The public needs a free press,” the book urges us to ask in response, “What kind of public, what kind of freedom, and what kind of press?” Answering these questions shows what robust, self-governing publics need to demand of technologists and journalists alike.Less
This book offers a new way to think about freedom of the press in a time when media systems are in fundamental flux. The book challenges the idea that press freedom comes only from heroic, lone journalists who speak truth to power. Instead, drawing on journalism studies, institutional sociology, political theory, science and technology studies, and an analysis of ten years of journalism discourse about news and technology, the book argues that press freedom emerges from social, technological, institutional, and normative forces that vie for power and fight for visions of democratic life. It shows how dominant, historical ideals of professionalized press freedom often mistook journalistic freedom from constraints for the public's freedom to encounter the rich mix of people and ideas that self-governance requires. The book's notion of press freedom ensures not only an individual right to speak, but also a public right to hear. Seeing press freedom as essential for democratic self-governance, the book explores what publics need, what kind of free press they should demand, and how today's press freedom emerges from intertwined collections of humans and machines. If someone says, “The public needs a free press,” the book urges us to ask in response, “What kind of public, what kind of freedom, and what kind of press?” Answering these questions shows what robust, self-governing publics need to demand of technologists and journalists alike.
