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Of Bridges: A Poetic and Philosophical Account
Current price:
$40.25
Publication Date: April 1st, 2021
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
ISBN:
9780226735290
Pages:
304
Description
Offers a philosophical history of bridges—both literal bridges and their symbolic counterparts—and the acts of cultural connection they embody.
“Always,” wrote Philip Larkin, “it is by bridges that we live.” Bridges represent our aspirations to connect, to soar across divides. And it is the unfinished business of these aspirations that makes bridges such stirring sights, especially when they are marvels of ingenuity.
A rich compendium of myths, superstitions, and literary and ideological figurations, Of Bridges organizes a poetic and philosophical history of bridges into nine thematic clusters. Leaping in lucid prose between distant times and places, Thomas Harrison questions why bridges are built and where they lead. He probes links forged by religion between life’s transience and eternity as well as the consolidating ties of music, illustrated by the case of the blues. He investigates bridges in poetry, as flash points in war, and the megabridges of our globalized world. He illuminates real and symbolic crossings facing migrants each day and the affective connections that make persons and societies cohere. In readings of literature, film, philosophy, and art, Harrison engages in a profound reflection on how bridges form and transform cultural communities. Of Bridges is a mesmerizing, vertiginous tale of bridges both visible and invisible, both lived and imagined.
Praise for Of Bridges: A Poetic and Philosophical Account
“Of Bridges is a fascinating and profound meditation on the semantics and the symbolism of bridges, and the myriad connections to language, to music, to our creativity and the conundrums of the human condition. We are all between worlds and the span of a bridge is the architecture of our common reality.”
— Sting, musician
“Of Bridges is a dazzling investigation into the profound semantic and historical resonance of the seemingly simple word bridge, that passage between two points that is unique in its material, metaphoric, and philosophical properties. Harrison has chapters on every possible aspect of bridging, for example, the musical bridge, the poetic bridge as in Hart Crane’s famous poem by that title, the actual historic bridges of Greece and Rome, and the ‘thought’ bridges of Nietzsche and Heidegger. Throughout, Harrison’s book is astonishingly learned, well written, and imaginative. Bridges will never be the same after this brilliant study.”
— Marjorie Perloff, Stanford University
“Of Bridges is an extraordinarily sweeping study of bridges as cultural signifiers, extending its analysis from ancient Rome to the contemporary footbridges of major European cities, and providing much intricate detail along the way. This work is a tour de force in multidisciplinary cultural history, presenting the bridge as a simultaneously connective and separating structure, from which Harrison deduces an ensemble of political and ethical ideas. The scholarship is astounding in its particularity, the writing and interpretations brilliant.”
— Daniela Bini, University of Texas at Austin
“Keenly erudite, imaginative, interdisciplinary, and lyrical, Of Bridges is a monumental piece of scholarship. Harrison has written a Calvinoesque tale of bridges both invisible and visible, ontological and epistemological. Harrison draws upon his vast knowledge of Italian art and literature to offer a genealogy of thought reflected through and with bridges. In this work, Harrison himself becomes the bridge that he writes about, bringing together events and forms in unique and insightful ways.”
— Timothy Campbell, Cornell University
"Of Bridges explores complex questions about the way in which our interaction with the physical world is bound (via bridges of thought, imagination, aspiration, despair) to the world of ideas and, thus, to the development of an ethical and aesthetic conduct of life. . . . Like all great books, each a bridge from lone writer to lone reader, Harrison’s magisterial and lively Of Bridges calls us to attention and makes this difficult task more bearable. For there is no ultimate crossing over, only a temporary dwelling in between."
— On the Seawall
"At the heart of Harrison’s book is this desire to share the myriad and often invisible ways in which we experience and use the seemingly mundane architectural phenomenon of bridges in our lives. . . . Of Bridges offers us a transformative journey through its thoughtful pages."
— Aqsa Ijaz
"Harrison, a comparativist by training, scours the cultural landscapes of the world for meditations and mediations on the theme of real and imagined bridges. No matter one's area of interest or expertise, these nine intriguing and accessible essays will connect readers to old and new ways of thinking about what bridges do and often to what they might have already done. . . . Harrison combines keen observations with cogent analyses that will make readers think twice before crossing another bridge, whether it is over a highway or waterway or simply connects what one makes in one's mind."
— Choice