Bright Colors Falsely Seen

In a conversation with his physician, a nineteenth-century resident of Paris who lived near the railroad described sensations of brilliant color generated by the sounds of trains passing in the night. This patient - a synaesthete - experienced "color hearing" for letters, words, and most sounds. Synaesthesia, a phenomenon now known to science for more than a century, is a rare form of perception in which one sense may respond to stimuli received by other senses. This fascinating book provides the first historical treatment of synaesthesia and a closely related mode of perception called eideticism. Kevin Dann discusses divergent views of synaesthesia and eideticism of the past hundred years and explores the controversies over the significance of these unusual modes of perception.

How the extraordinary multisensory phenomenon of synesthesia has changed our traditional view of the brain. A person with synesthesia might feel the flavor of food on her fingertips, sense the letter “J” as shimmering magenta or the number “5” as emerald green, hear and taste her husband's voice as buttery golden brown. Synesthetes rarely talk about their peculiar sensory gift—believing either that everyone else senses the world exactly as they do, or that no one else does. Yet synesthesia occurs in one in twenty people, and is even more common among artists. One famous synesthete was novelist Vladimir Nabokov, who insisted as a toddler that the colors on his wooden alphabet blocks were “all wrong.” His mother understood exactly what he meant because she, too, had synesthesia. Nabokov's son Dmitri, who recounts this tale in the afterword to this book, is also a synesthete—further illustrating how synesthesia runs in families. In Wednesday Is Indigo Blue, pioneering researcher Richard Cytowic and distinguished neuroscientist David Eagleman explain the neuroscience and genetics behind synesthesia's multisensory experiences. Because synesthesia contradicted existing theory, Cytowic spent twenty years persuading colleagues that it was a real—and important—brain phenomenon rather than a mere curiosity. Today scientists in fifteen countries are exploring synesthesia and how it is changing the traditional view of how the brain works. Cytowic and Eagleman argue that perception is already multisensory, though for most of us its multiple dimensions exist beyond the reach of consciousness. Reality, they point out, is more subjective than most people realize. No mere curiosity, synesthesia is a window on the mind and brain, highlighting the amazing differences in the way people see the world.

One of the most enduring and pervasive myths about modernist architecture is that it was white-pure white walls both inside and out. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. The Color of Modernism explodes this myth of whiteness by offering a riot of color in modern architectural treatises, polemics, and buildings. Focusing on Germany in the early 20th century, one of modernism's most foundational and influential periods, it examines the different scientific and artistic color theories which were advanced by members of the German avant-garde, from Bruno Taut to Walter Gropius to Hans Scharoun. German color theory went on to have a profound influence on the modern movement, and Germany serves as the key case study for an international phenomenon which encompassed modern architects worldwide from le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto to Berthold Lubetkin and Lina Bo Bardi. Supported by accessible introductions to the development of color theory in philosophy, science and the arts, the book uses the German case to explore the new ways in which color was used in architecture and urban design, turning attention to an important yet overlooked aspect of the period. Much more than a mere correction to the historical record, the book leads the reader on an adventure into the color-filled worlds of psychology, the paranormal, theories of sensory perception, and pleasure, showing how each in turn influenced the modern movement. The Color of Modernism will fundamentally change the way the early modernist period is seen and discussed.

How did the tumult caused by German composer Richard Wagner result in the first modernist painting? In the first full-length book dedicated to the study of Edouard Manet and music, art historian Therese Dolan demonstrates that the 1862 painting Music in the Tuileries represents the progressive musical culture of his time, heretofore read by scholars predominantly through the words of Charles Baudelaire. Dolan sees in this painting's radical style the conceptual shift to modernism in both painting and music, a transition that, she convincingly argues, received a strong impetus from Manet's Music in the Tuileries and Wagner's controversial Tannh?er, which premiered the previous year. Supplemental to analysis of the painting, Dolan incorporates discussion of texts by Theophile Gautier, Champfleury, and Baudelaire who are represented in the painting. This book incorporates studies of the major artistic, literary, and musical figures of nineteenth-century France. It represents an important contribution to an understanding of French culture in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, a period of intense literary, artistic, and musical activity that formed the crucible for modernism.

The first two editions of the Dictionary of Neurological Signs were very well-received by readers and reviewers alike. Like those editions, this Third Edition, updated and expanded, can be almost as well described in terms of what the book is not, along with details about what it is. The Dictionary is not a handbook for treatment of neurological disorders. While many entries provide the latest treatment options, up-to-the-minute therapies are not discussed in bedside level detail. The Dictionary is not a board review book because it is not in Q&A format but could easily serve in that capacity since each entry is a fairly complete snapshot of a specific disorder or disease. The Dictionary is an alphabetical listing of commonly presenting neurological signs designed to guide the physician toward the correct clinical diagnosis. The Dictionary is focused, problem-based, concise and practical. The structured entries in this practical, clinical resource provide a thumbnail of a wide range of neurological signs. Each entry includes: • A definition of the sign • A brief account of the clinical technique required to elicit the sign • A description of the other signs which may accompany the index sign • An explanation of pathyophysiological and/or pharmacological background • Differential diagnosis • Brief treatment details Where known, these entries also include the neuroanatomical basis of the sign. The Dictionary of Neurological Signs, Third Edition, is an indispensable reference for all students, trainees, and clinicians who care for patients with neurological disorders.

Robert Brain traces the origins of artistic modernism to specific technologies of perception developed in late-nineteenth-century laboratories. Brain argues that the thriving fin-de-siècle field of “physiological aesthetics,” which sought physiological explanations for the capacity to appreciate beauty and art, changed the way poets, artists, and musicians worked and brought a dramatic transformation to the idea of art itself.

Psychology: The Key Concepts is a comprehensive overview of 200 concepts central to a solid understanding of Psychology and includes the latest recommendations from the British Psychology Society (BPS). The focus is on practical uses of Psychology in settings such as nursing, education and human resources, with topics ranging from Gender to Psychometrics and Perception.

This study analyzes the impact of color-making technologies on the visual culture of nineteenth-century France, from the early commercialization of synthetic dyes to the Lumière brothers’ perfection of the autochrome color photography process. Focusing on Impressionist art, Laura Anne Kalba examines the importance of dyes produced in the second half of the nineteenth century to the vision of artists such as Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Claude Monet. The proliferation of vibrant new colors in France during this time challenged popular understandings of realism, abstraction, and fantasy in the realms of fine art and popular culture. More than simply adding a touch of spectacle to everyday life, Kalba shows, these bright, varied colors came to define the development of a consumer culture increasingly based on the sensual appeal of color. Impressionism—emerging at a time when inexpensively produced color functioned as one of the principal means by and through which people understood modes of visual perception and signification—mirrored and mediated this change, shaping the ways in which people made sense of both modern life and modern art. Demonstrating the central importance of color history and technologies to the study of visuality, Color in the Age of Impressionism adds a dynamic new layer to our understanding of visual and material culture.

"Webb offers a carefully and creatively wrought phenomenology of sound, showing its relation to the proclamation of God's Word. His keen insights on the primordial nature of sound, speech, and hearing will force theologians to examine, once again, what it means to be a 'hearer of the Word.' Webb masterfully displays the intrinsic relationship between dynamic listening and speech--how intent hearing and confident proclamation are intimately conjoined. He has the rare gift of combining acute theological insight with a mellifluous, readable style. The nature of God's own Word here becomes clearer: vibrant and tensile, life-giving in tone and texture. Whether examining Jesus as the voice of the Father, the role of voice in innertrinitarian relations, or the relationship between voice and gender, Webb offers the kind of thought-provoking and highly creative reflections rarely found elsewhere. He has a creative and incisive theological mind." --Thomas Guarino, Seton Hall University "Being appreciative of Webb's earlier work on hyperbolic language in theology and preaching, I welcomed The Divine Voice. How risky to toss a spoken word into a room of silent readers and expect it to be heard! I was reprimanded, instructed, and moved by the sound of this book. Were I still in the seminary classroom, The Divine Voice would be required reading before one word was said about how to preach." --Fred B. Craddock, The Craddock Center "The Divine Voice is a book of academic theology worthy of the Psalmist who sang 'Day after day the word goes forth, night after night the story is told. Soundless the speech, voiceless the talk, yet the story is echoed throughout the world' (Ps 19:2-3). Stephen Webb is an 'acoustemological' theologian, for whom speech can be prayerful as silence, and silence as instructive as proclamation. When the sounds heard by faith reach Webb's ever-insightful and creative mind, only synthesia could result, and the result is a gift for us all." --Peter Ochs, University of Virginia