In Praise of Ambiguity presents a discourse about the seriousness of play. Erasmus and Huizinga are its main characters, their books In Praise of Folly (1511) and Homo Ludens (1938) its main subject. It treats those books as contemporaries and asks what they still have to say to us. The main theme of both books is the contrast between two attitudes of life: the conviction that each subject has two or more sides as opposed to the certainty that there is always only one side to the matter. It is relativism versus essentialism, play versus seriousness. In these times of populism and fundamentalism the relationship between play and seriousness is more significant than ever. Erasmus and Huizinga conceived a compromise as brilliant as it was paradoxical: turn seriousness into play, play into seriousness. Their solution is the life blood of literature. Literature is always paradoxical, always 'true' and 'not true' at the same time, both reality and fiction. Ambiguity is its home territory. Literature is the best answer to the purity and peremptoriness of prophets
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Leiden University was conceived as the embodiment of specifically academic ethics which sought to improve society through a cumulative process of knowledge acquisition. Drawing on the idea of Leiden as a 'bastion of liberty', the renowned historian Willem Otterspeer proposes that concepts such as 'equilibrium' and 'mediation' are key to understanding the university as an institution. Modernity and scale expansion have made Leiden University a different institution in the twentyfirst century, one scarcely comparable to what had gone before. As this lively and erudite study shows, a university is a form of social capital, one of Western society's answers to the dilemma of collective action, an instrument for preserving and restoring equilibrium, and hence for fostering continuity. From this vantage point, a university is a confidence-building mechanism that generates solutions to the serious problems facing society today. Also available in Dutch: "http://www.aup.nl/do.php?a=show_visitor_book&isbn=9789087280246">ISBN 978 90 8728 024 6 - The Bastion of Liberty is het eerste boek over de geschiedenis van de Universiteit Leiden sinds 1875. Vanuit zijn vakgebied, universiteitsgeschiedenis, gaat Willem Otterspeer in op de ruim 200 jaar intense historie. Van oudsher is het een instelling die het midden tussen uitersten zoekt en belichaamde daarin het poldermodel vele eeuwen avant la lettre. Het is een betrokken geschiedenis, geschreven door iemand die van zijn instelling houdt, maar tegelijkertijd professionele afstand weet te houden en ironie niet schuwt. Ook leverbaar in het Nederlands: Het bolwerk van de vrijheid "http://www.aup.nl/do.php?a=show_visitor_book&isbn=9789087280246">ISBN 978 90 8728 024 6
This book contains a unique new selection of his most important essays from the extensive oeuvre of the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga. These essays and studies have been chosen on the basis of the different subject matter that Huizinga was involved in; ranging from the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Modern History and Cultural History in general. These selections are introduced and illuminated by Prof. dr. Willem Otterspeer who is also Huizinga's biographer. Johan Huizinga was born in Groningen, in 1872. He studied Dutch and Oriental language and literature at the University of Groningen (1891 - 1895) and comparative linguistic at the University of Leipzig (1895-1896). In 1915, he was appointed professor of general history at the Leiden University. His most famous works include The Autumn of the Middle Ages (1919), which dealt with life, ideas, art, and behaviors of the upper classes of Burgundy in the 14th and 15th centuries, Erasmus (1924), a biography of the famous Dutch Renaissance scholar, and Homo Ludens (1938), focusing on the element of play in human culture. - De hand van Huizinga bevat een nieuwe selectie van de belangrijkste essays uit het omvangrijke oeuvre van de wereldberoemde Nederlandse historicus Johan Huizinga. Deze essays en studies zijn geselecteerd op basis van de diverse disciplines waarmee Huizinga zich bezighield - van de Middeleeuwen tot de Renaissance en van de moderne tot de algemene culturele geschiedenis. Deze selectie wordt geïntroduceerd en toegelicht door Huizinga-biograaf Willem Otterspeer. Johan Huizinga werd in 1872 in Groningen geboren. Tot zijn bekendste werken behoren Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen (1919), Erasmus (1924) en Homo Ludens (1938). De hand van Huizinga wordt gepubliceerd als onderdeel van "http://www.oapen.org/">OAPEN. "http://www.oapen.org/">OAPEN is een Open Access project voor het publiceren van monografieën in de geesteswetenschappen en sociale wetenschappen. De Open Access-beweging heeft zich snel ontwikkeld bij de publicaties van tijdschriften op het gebied van de natuurwetenschappen. Het consortium "http://www.oapen.org/">OAPEN bestaat op dit moment uit zes universitaire academische uitgevers, zij geloven dat de tijd rijp is dat de mogelijkheden van Open Access ook voor de geesteswetenschappen en de sociale wetenschappen volledig benut kunnen worden.
