Frances A. Yates: The Art of Memory (1966–) [EN, ES]

In this classic study of how people learned to retain vast stores of knowledge before the invention of the printed page, Frances A. Yates traces the art of memory from its treatment by Greek orators, through its Gothic transformations in the Middle Ages, to the occult forms it took in the Renaissance, and finally to its use in the seventeenth century. This book, the first to relate the art of memory to the history of culture as a whole, was revolutionary when it first appeared and continues to mesmerize readers with its lucid and revelatory insights.

Publisher Ark Paperbacks, an imprint of Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1966
ISBN 074480020X
400 pages

Frances Yates and the Mnemonic Works of Giordano Bruno (François Quiviger, Warburg Institute, includes Yates’ reconstruction of Bruno’s memory wheel from De Umbris Idearum)

The Art of Memory (English, 1966/1999)
El arte de la memoria (Spanish, trans. Ignacio Gómez de Liaño, 2005)

Walter J. Ong: Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (1982–)

This classic work explores the vast differences between oral and literate cultures offering a very clear account of the intellectual, literary and social effects of writing, print and electronic technology.

In the course of his study, Walter J. Ong offers fascinating insights into oral genres across the globe and through time, and examines the rise of abstract philosophical and scientific thinking. He considers the impact of orality-literacy studies not only on literary criticism and theory but on our very understanding of what it is to be a human being, conscious of self and other.

First published in 1982 by Methuen & Co. Ltd
Publisher Routledge, 2002
New Accents series
ISBN 0415281296, 9780415281294
204 pages

Publisher
Google books

PDF (1982/2002, updated on 2014-11-23)

Michel Foucault: Fearless Speech (2001–) [EN, TR]

“Comprised of six lectures delivered, in English, by Michel Foucault while teaching at Berkeley in the Fall of 1983, Fearless Speech was edited by Joseph Pearson and published in 2001. Reviewed by the author, it is the last book Foucault wrote before his death in 1984 and can be read as his last testament. Here, he positions the philosopher as the only person able to confront power with the truth, a stance that boldly sums up Foucault’s project as a philosopher.

Still unpublished in France, Fearless Speech concludes the genealogy of truth that Foucault pursued throughout his life, starting with his investigations in Madness and Civilization, into the question of power and its technology. The expression “fearless speech” is a rough translation of the Greek parrhesia, which designates those who take a risk to tell the truth; the citizen who has the moral qualities required to speak the truth, even if it differs from what the majority of people believe and faces danger for speaking it.

‘Parrhesia is a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth through frankness instead of persuasion, truth instead of flattery, and moral duty instead of self-interest and moral apathy.'”

Edited by Joseph Pearson
Publisher Semiotext(e), 2001
Foreign Agents series
ISBN 1584350113, 9781584350118
183 pages

Publisher

Fearless Speech (English, 2001, no OCR; updated on 2012-12-30)
Doğruyu Söylemek (Turkish, trans. Kerem Eksen, 2005/2012, added on 2014-5-19, via)