{"title":"Katharine Breen","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"machines-of-the-mind-book-katharine-breen-9780226776590","title":"Machines of the Mind","description":"In Machines of the Mind, Katharine Breen proposes that medieval personifications should be understood neither as failed novelistic characters nor as instruments of heavy-handed didacticism. She argues that personifications are instead powerful tools for thought that help us to remember and manipulate complex ideas, testing them against existing moral and political paradigms. Specifically, different types of medieval personification should be seen as corresponding to positions in the rich and nuanced medieval debate over universals. Breen identifies three different types of personification—Platonic, Aristotelian, and Prudentian—that gave medieval writers a surprisingly varied spectrum with which to paint their characters.   Through a series of new readings of major authors and works, from Plato to Piers Plowman, Breen illuminates how medieval personifications embody the full range of positions between philosophical realism and nominalism, varying according to the convictions of individual authors and the purposes of individual works. Recalling Gregory the Great’s reference to machinae mentis (machines of the mind), Breen demonstrates that medieval writers applied personification with utility and subtlety, employing methods of personification as tools that serve different functions. Machines of the Mind offers insight for medievalists working at the crossroads of religion, philosophy, and literature, as well as for scholars interested in literary character-building and gendered relationships among characters, readers, and texts beyond the Middle Ages.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49597634052369,"sku":"GOR013557943","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/022677659X.jpg?v=1750779702"},{"product_id":"imagining-an-english-reading-public-1150-1400-book-katharine-breen-9781107694613","title":"Imagining an English Reading Public, 1150-1400","description":"This original study explores the importance of the concept of habitus - that is, the set of acquired patterns of thought, behaviour and taste that result from internalizing culture or objective social structures - in the medieval imagination. Beginning by examining medieval theories of habitus in a general sense, Katharine Breen goes on to investigate the relationships between habitus, language and Christian virtue. While most medieval pedagogical theorists regarded the habitus of Latin grammar as the gateway to a generalized habitus of virtue, reformers increasingly experimented with vernacular languages that could fulfill the same function. These new vernacular habits, Breen argues, laid the conceptual foundations for an English reading public. Ranging across texts in Latin and several vernaculars, and including a case study of Piers Plowman, this interdisciplinary study will appeal to readers interested in medieval literature, religion and art history, in addition to those interested in the sociological concept of habitus.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51189122171153,"sku":"NIN9781107694613","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52424510570769,"sku":"NLS9781107694613","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1107694612.jpg?v=1751400538"},{"product_id":"imagining-an-english-reading-public-1150-1400-book-katharine-breen-9780521199223","title":"Imagining an English Reading Public, 1150-1400","description":"This original study explores the importance of the concept of habitus - that is, the set of acquired patterns of thought, behaviour and taste that result from internalizing culture or objective social structures - in the medieval imagination. Beginning by examining medieval theories of habitus in a general sense, Katharine Breen goes on to investigate the relationships between habitus, language and Christian virtue. While most medieval pedagogical theorists regarded the habitus of Latin grammar as the gateway to a generalized habitus of virtue, reformers increasingly experimented with vernacular languages that could fulfill the same function. These new vernacular habits, Breen argues, laid the conceptual foundations for an English reading public. Ranging across texts in Latin and several vernaculars, and including a case study of Piers Plowman, this interdisciplinary study will appeal to readers interested in medieval literature, religion and art history, in addition to those interested in the sociological concept of habitus.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52636714041617,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52636714205457,"sku":"NLS9780521199223","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780521199223.jpg?v=1761990827"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-katharine-breen.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}