Banyak di antara kita telah mencurahkan waktu dan energi untuk menengok argumen yang mendukung maupun menentang keberadaan Tuhan. Namun, tidak demikian dengan saya. Saya memutuskan beberapa waktu yang lalu bahwa ada semacam hasil lebih yang terus berkurang (diminishing return) dalam perdebatan soal keberadaan Tuhan; saya juga meragukan adanya terobosan yang ditawarkan oleh kedua belah pihak. Di…
Nalar sering dianggap dapat membawa ke arah kebajikan. Semakin bernalar seseorang semakin bajik dia. Buku ini menunjukkan bahwa dugaan itu keliru. Dengan menggunakan pendekatan multidisiplin, mulai dari biologi evolusioner, psikologi sampai neurologi, Calne memperlihatkan bahwa nalar ternyata tidak berperan dalam menentukan kebajikan atau tujuan manusia. Nalar hanyalah piranti semata, sehingga …
The Birth of the Archive traces the history of archives from their emergence in the Late Middle Ages through the Early Modern Period, and vividly shows how archives permeated and fundamentally changed European culture. Archives were compiled and maintained by peasants and kings, merchants and churchmen, and conceptions of archives were as diverse as those who used them. The complex, demanding j…
"Empire of Reason: Exact Sciences in Indonesia, 1840-1940" by Lewis Pyenson delves into the development of scientific research in the Dutch East Indies during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The book explores how scientific endeavors were influenced by the imperialist and colonial ideologies of the time. Pyenson examines the relationship between scientific projects in the colonies and the in…
Genomic technologies have had a profound impact on understandings of what it means to be human and our links to the world we inhabit, and on practices of inhabiting the world. This open access book considers this impact across a range of literary forms, cultural practices, and political imaginaries, and argues that new descriptions of biological value introduced through practices of genomic seq…
This open access book explores the challenges society faces with big data, through the lens of culture rather than social, political or economic trends, as demonstrated in the words we use, the values that underpin our interactions, and the biases and assumptions that drive us. Focusing on areas such as data and language, data and sensemaking, data and power, data and invisibility, and big data…
From quantum physics and genetics to psychology and the social sciences, from the development of atomic weapons to the growing mass media of film and radio, the early 20th century was a period of intense scientific and technological change. Modernism, Science, and Technology surveys the scientific contexts of writers from H.G. Wells and Gertrude Stein to James Joyce and Virginia Woolf and the w…
This volume deals with the sultanate of Banten from the outbreak of the rebellion of 1750-52 to the launching of the Cultivation System in 1830. After the suppression of the rebellion by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), local society showed considerable vitality. The introduction by the VOC of forced exploitation of the pepper cultivation did not lead to a significant increase in production,…
Dorongan untuk melakukan ekspansi ke luar wilayah Eropa telah lama dipandang membawa peradaban ke tempat yang kurang beradab. Doktrin superioritas kulit putih versus inferioritas pribumi berbarengan dengan eksploitasi yang melampaui batas terhadap tenaga kerja lokal. Di bawah pemerintah kolonial, ideologi yang dikenal sebagai neoliberalisme mendapat kebebasan untuk menjadikan buruh tunduk pada …
Kitab Ihyâ' ‘Ulûmuddîn merupakan kitab yang paling populer di antara kitab-kitab klasik tradisional yang ada. Bahkan, hingga sekarang, kitab ini tetap menjadi rujukan utama bagi para penempuh jalan sufi. Tuntutan zaman modern yang serba ringkas dan cepat tampaknya telah diantisipasi oleh Imam Al-Ghazali. Buku Mutiara Ihyâ' ‘Ulûmuddîn ini merupakan ringkasan dari kitab Ihyâ' ‘UlÃ…