Erin Elizabeth Smith's Down is immediately a delight. Refreshing in its take on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the reader discovers here the odd world and new experience that Smith draws them "down" into. The fall that seems endless takes us into Tennessee, where "petals doodle lawns / like the drawings of girls" or where "grey squirrels / chase themselves into their trees." This isn't exactly Lewis Carroll surrealism, but the narrator of these poems takes us into her incantations and dreamscapes, where suddenly she looks at her spouse lying on the sofa and sees "a foreign // thing, a stammering king / made kitten in the shaking." Waking does not necessarily relieve the narrator, nor us. Rather, she writes, "I am still falling / through the slippery leaves / every bit of anorexic ice, / still waking like a child roused / in the backseat, unsure where I am / in the fragile, new dark." And, like Alice, curiouser and curiouser, the trip down means we may rise up, that "it can heal us again.
Erin Elizabeth Smith's The Naming of Strays is on fire in the best possible way--the poems sizzle with sensuality, celebrating all the senses in the way that the best blues music tips us from sadness into full-throated joy. The poems keep moving, shifting, defying expectations, singing the literal and the dream world, exalting the narrative and the experimental. I will recommend this book for poetry workshops as a primer on what poetry is and can do. And for seasoned readers, Erin Elizabeth Smith's work reminds us of why we fell in love with poetry in the first place. -MARILYN KALLET, Director, Creative Writing Program, University of Tennessee/ Erin Elizabeth Smith's poems are delicious - it is hard to resist them. But they bite back, and that is the thing: they're painful, too. And gorgeous, always. The Naming the Strays is luminous, intimate, and never afraid. - PAUL GUEST, author of My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge / Erin Elizabeth Smith's poetry is the impossible love child of a young Jorie Graham and a old bottle of Jack Daniel's. -T.A. NOONAN, author of Petticoat Government & The Bone Folders
Celebrate the legacy of the Future Farmers of America with these recipes from members and alumni that serve up healthy great tastes of the nation. For almost a century, the National FFA Organization has helped young students learn about agriculture and life sciences. From the earliest members of young men who planned to be farmers to today’s boys and girls in all fifty-two states and territories, hundreds of thousands of Americans have learned about farming, science, technology—the basics of life—through the FFA. This cookbook brings together over 200 recipes from current members and alumni of FFA—recipes that hold true to the organization’s healthy living credo while serving up great tastes from America’s heartland. Illustrated throughout with photos from the organization’s past and present, the book is a rich source of recipes for hearty home-cooking and a delightful look at the spirit of America’s past and future.
Familial Forms is the first full-length study to examine how literary writers engaged the politics of genealogy that helped define the "century of revolution." By demonstrating how conflicts over the family-state analogy intersected with the period's battles over succession, including: the ascent of James I, the execution of Charles I, disputes over the terms of the Interregnum government, the Restoration of Charles II, the Exclusion Crisis, the deposition of James II, the ascent of William and Mary, and Anne's failure to produce a surviving heir, this study provides a new map of the seventeenth-century politics of family in England. Beginning with a reconsideration of Jacobean patriarchalism, Familial Forms focuses on the work of John Milton,Lucy Hutchinson, John Dryden, and Mary Astell. From their contrasting political and gendered positions, these authors contemplated and contested the relevance of marriage and kinship to government. Their writing illuminates two crucial elements of England's conflicts. First, the formal qualities of poems and prose tracts reveal that not only was there a competition among different versions of the family-state analogy, but also a competition over its very status as an analogy. Second, through their negotiations of linear and nonlinear forms, Milton, Hutchinson, Dryden, and Astell demonstrate the centrality of temporality to the period's political battles. Through close textual analysis of poetry, political tracts, parliamentary records, and nonliterary genealogies, Familial Forms offers a fresh understanding of the seventeenth-century politics of genealogy. It also provides new answers to long-standing critical questions about the poetic form of canonical works, such as Paradise Lost and Absalom and Achitophel, and illuminates the political significance of newly-canonical works by women writers, including Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judaeoreum, Hutchinson's Order and Disorder, and Astell's A Serious Proposal to the Ladies.
When poetry was printed, poets and their publishers could no longer take for granted that readers would have the necessary knowledge and skill to read it well. By making poems available to anyone who either had the means to a buy a book or knew someone who did, print publication radically expanded the early modern reading public. These new readers, publishers feared, might not buy or like the books. Worse, their misreadings could put the authors, the publishers, or the readers themselves at risk. Doubtful Readers: Print, Poetry, and the Reading Public in Early Modern England focuses on early modern publishers' efforts to identify and accommodate new readers of verse that had previously been restricted to particular social networks in manuscript. Focusing on the period between the maturing of the market for printed English literature in the 1590s and the emergence of the professional poet following the Restoration, this study shows that poetry was shaped by—and itself shaped—strong print publication traditions. By reading printed editions of poems by William Shakespeare, Aemilia Lanyer, John Donne, and others, this book shows how publishers negotiated genre, gender, social access, reputation, literary knowledge, and the value of English literature itself. It uses literary, historical, bibliographical, and quantitative evidence to show how publishers' strategies changed over time. Ultimately, Doubtful Readers argues that although—or perhaps because—publishers' interpretive and editorial efforts are often elided in studies of early modern poetry, their interventions have had an enduring impact on our canons, texts, and literary histories.
For Olympic athletes, fans and the media alike, the games bring out the best sport has to offer--unity, patriotism, friendly competition and the potential for stunning upsets. Yet wherever international competition occurs, politics are never far removed. Early in the Cold War, when all U.S.-Soviet interactions were treated as potential matters of life and death, each side tried to manipulate the International Olympic Committee. Despite the IOC's efforts to keep the games apolitical, they were quickly drawn into the superpowers' global struggle for supremacy, with medal counts the ultimate prize. Based on IOC, U.S. government and contemporary media sources, this book looks at six consecutive Olympiads to show how high the stakes became once the Soviets began competing in 1952, threatening America's athletic supremacy.
Using the latest scholarship and evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Gnostic texts, this groundbreaking work traces the history of reincarnation in Christianity--from Jesus and early Christians through Church councils and the persecution of so-called heretics.
One of the most prolific crime writers of the last century, Evan Hunter published more than 120 novels from 1952 to 2005 under a variety of pseudonymns. He also wrote several teleplays and screenplays, including Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, and the 1954 novel The Blackboard Jungle. When the Mystery Writers of America named Hunter a Grand Master, he gave the designation to his alter ego, Ed McBain, best known for his long-running police procedural series about the detectives of the 87th Precinct. This comprehensive companion provides detailed information about all of Evan Hunter's/Ed McBain's works, characters, and recurring themes. From police detective and crime stories to dramatic novels and films, this reference celebrates the vast body of literature of this versatile writer.
Ian Rankin is considered by many to be Scotland's greatest living crime fiction author. Most well known for his Inspector Rebus series--which has earned critical acclaim as well as scores of fans worldwide--Rankin is a prolific author whose other works include spy thrillers, nonfiction books and articles, short stories, novels, graphic novels, audio recordings, television/film, and plays. This companion--the first to provide a complete look at all of his writings--includes alphabetized entries on Rankin's works, characters, and themes; a biography; a chronology; maps of Rebus' Edinburgh; and an annotated bibliography. A champion of both Edinburgh and Scotland, Rankin continues to combine engaging entertainment with socio-political commentary showing Edinburgh as a microcosm of Scotland, and Scotland as a microcosm of the world. His writing investigates questions of Scottish identity, British history, masculinity, and contemporary culture while providing mystery readers with complex, suspenseful plots, realistic character development, and a unique mix of American hard-boiled and procedural styles with Scottish dialects and sensibilities.
This book explores the nexus between children, media, and nature during a time of planetary crisis marked by climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. In this time of planetary emergency, children have become an increasingly visible part of conversations about the human/nature relationship – they have also become an important market for environmentally-themed media content. Indeed, recent years have seen a proliferation of environmental texts, products, and narratives for young people: children are recognised and addressed as audiences for environmental content across a range of media including news, films, television programs, magazines, videogames, and transmedia franchises. Through analysis of a range of case studies, this book examines the construction of children as green audiences, the intersection between media and environmental literacies, and the mainstreaming of children’s voices in environmental communication. The book will appeal to readers with an interest in children’s media and the industry imperatives that shape the production of children’s culture as well as to students, scholars, and practitioners in the field of environmental communication.
An incisive study showing how cultural ideas of merit in academic science produce unfair and unequal outcomes. In Misconceiving Merit, sociologists Mary Blair-Loy and Erin A. Cech uncover the cultural foundations of a paradox. On one hand, academic science, engineering, and math revere meritocracy, a system that recognizes and rewards those with the greatest talent and dedication. At the same time, women and some racial and sexual minorities remain underrepresented and often feel unwelcome and devalued in STEM. How can academic science, which so highly values meritocracy and objectivity, produce these unequal outcomes? Blair-Loy and Cech studied more than five hundred STEM professors at a top research university to reveal how unequal and unfair outcomes can emerge alongside commitments to objectivity and excellence. The authors find that academic STEM harbors dominant cultural beliefs that not only perpetuate the mistreatment of scientists from underrepresented groups but hinder innovation. Underrepresented groups are often seen as less fully embodying merit compared to equally productive white and Asian heterosexual men, and the negative consequences of this misjudgment persist regardless of professors’ actual academic productivity. Misconceiving Merit is filled with insights for higher education administrators working toward greater equity as well as for scientists and engineers striving to change entrenched patterns of inequality in STEM.
How did creative genius develop in tandem with the criminalization of Blackness in the early United States? In Criminal Genius in African American and US Literature, 1793–1845, Erin Forbes uncovers a model of racialized, collective agency in American literature and culture. Identifying creative genius in the figure of the convict, the zombie, the outlaw, the insurgent, and the fugitive, Forbes deepens our understanding of the historical relationship between criminality and Blackness and reestablishes the importance of the aesthetic in early African American literature.
Teaches students the art and practice of comparison in the globalizing world, fully updated to reflect recent scholarship and major developments in the field Comparing Religions: The Study of Us that Changes Us is a wholly original, absorbing, and provocative reimagining of the comparative study of religion in the 21st century. The first textbook of its kind to foreground the extraordinary or “paranormal” aspects of religious experience, this innovative volume reviews the fundamental tenets of the world’s religions, discusses the benefits and problems of comparative inquiry, explores how the practice can impact a person's worldview and values, and much more. Asserting that religions have always engaged in comparing one another, the authors provide insights into the history, trends, debates, and questions of explicit comparativism in the modern world. Easily accessible chapters examine the challenges of studying religion using a comparative approach rather than focusing on religious identity, inspiring students to think seriously about religious pluralism as they engage in comparative practice. Throughout the text, a wealth of diverse case studies and vivid illustrations are complemented by chapter outlines, summaries, toolkits, discussion questions, and other learning features. Substantially updated with new and revised material, the second edition of Comparing Religions: Draws from both comparative work and critical theory to present a well-balanced introduction to contemporary practice Explains classic comparative themes, provides a historical outline of comparative practices, and offers key strategies for understanding, analyzing, and re-reading religion Draws on a wide range of religious traditions to illustrate the complexity and efficacy of comparative practice Embraces the transcendent nature of the religious experience in all its forms, including in popular culture, film, and television Contains a classroom-proven, three-part structure with easy-to-digest, thematically organized chapters Features a companion website with information on individual religious traditions, additional images, a glossary, discussion questions, and links to supplementary material Comparing Religions: The Study of Us that Changes Us, Second Edition, is the perfect textbook for undergraduate students and faculty in comparative religion, the study of religion, and world religions, as well as a valuable resource for general readers interested in understanding this rewarding area.
This book explores the measures taken by the newly re-installed monarchy and its supporters to address the drastic events of the previous two decades. Profoundly preoccupied with - and, indeed, anxious about - the uses and representations of the nation’s recent troubled past, the returning royalist regime heavily relied upon the dissemination, in popular print, of prescribed varieties of remembering and forgetting in order to actively shape the manner in which the Civil Wars, the Regicide, and the Interregnum were to be embedded in the nation’s collective memory. This study rests on a broad foundation of documentary evidence drawn from hundreds of widely distributed and affordable pamphlets and broadsheets that were intended to shape popular memories, and interpretations, of recent events. It thus makes a substantial original contribution to the fields of early modern memory studies and the history of the English Civil Wars and early Restoration.
Mothers Making Latin America utilizes a combination of gender scholarship and source material to dispel the belief that women were separated from—or unimportant to—central developments in Latin American history since independence. Presents nuanced issues in gender historiography for Latin America in a readable narrative for undergraduate students Offers brief, primary-source document excerpts at the end of each chapter that instructors can use to stimulate class discussion Adheres to a focus on motherhood, which allows for a coherent narrative that touches upon important themes without falling into a “list of facts” textbook style
Folk art emerged in twentieth-century Nova Scotia not as an accident of history, but in tandem with cultural policy developments that shaped art institutions across the province between 1967 and 1997. For Folk’s Sake charts how woodcarvings and paintings by well-known and obscure self-taught makers - and their connection to handwork, local history, and place - fed the public’s nostalgia for a simpler past. The folk artists examined here range from the well-known self-taught painter Maud Lewis to the relatively anonymous woodcarvers Charles Atkinson, Ralph Boutilier, Collins Eisenhauer, and Clarence Mooers. These artists are connected by the ways in which their work fascinated those active in the contemporary Canadian art world at a time when modernism – and the art market that once sustained it – had reached a crisis. As folk art entered the public collection of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and the private collections of professors at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, it evolved under the direction of collectors and curators who sought it out according to a particular modernist aesthetic language. Morton engages national and transnational developments that helped to shape ideas about folk art to show how a conceptual category took material form. Generously illustrated, For Folk’s Sake interrogates the emotive pull of folk art and reconstructs the relationships that emerged between relatively impoverished self-taught artists, a new brand of middle-class collector, and academically trained professors and curators in Nova Scotia’s most important art institutions.
Only at Comic-Con examines the relationship between exclusivity and the proliferation of media industry promotion at the San Diego Comic-Con, from the convention's founding in 1970 to its current status as a destination for hundreds of thousands of pop culture fans and a hub of Hollywood hype and buzz.
Pets, People, and Pragmatism examines human relationships with pets without assuming that such relations are either benign or unnatural and to be avoided. The book addresses a lack of respect in pet–people relationships; for respectful relationships to be a real possibility, however, humans must make the effort to understand the beings with which we live, work, and play. American pragmatism understands that humans and other animal beings have been interacting and transforming each other for thousands of years. There is nothing “unnatural” about the human domestication of other animal beings, though domestication does raise specific practical and ethical questions. A pragmatist account of our relationship with those animal beings commonly considered as pets does not prohibit the use of these beings in research, entertainment, competition, or work. It does, however, find abuse and neglect ethical. Because abuse can occur in any use of other animal beings, this pragmatist account takes up the abusive practices in research, entertainment, competition, and work without arguing that these practices are inherently abusive. Some of the sources of abuse have been addressed by utilitarian and deontological accounts, but a pragmatist evolutionary perspective offers unique insights and results in some surprising conclusions: For instance, there may be an ethical obligation to let a horse race, a dog show, or a cat compete in agility. Pets, People, and Pragmatism embarks on a philosophical journey that will captivate scholars and pet enthusiasts alike. It provides an important contribution to longstanding debates in the area of animal issues and strengthens the idea of multiple approaches to nonhuman beings. It also opens space for approaches that challenge some of the assumptions in the field of philosophy that have resulted in a dualistic and hierarchical approach to metaphysics and ethics.
A leading expert on the past, present, and future of public monuments in America. An urgent and fractious national debate over public monuments has erupted in America. Some people risk imprisonment to tear down long-ignored hunks of marble; others form armed patrols to defend them. Why do we care so much about statues? Which ones should stay up and which should come down? Who should make these decisions, and how? Erin L. Thompson, the country’s leading expert in the tangled aesthetic, legal, political, and social issues involved in such battles, brings much-needed clarity in Smashing Statues. She lays bare the turbulent history of American monuments and its abundant ironies, from the enslaved man who helped make the statue of Freedom that tops the United States Capitol, to the fervent Klansman fired from sculpting the world’s largest Confederate monument—who went on to carve Mount Rushmore. And she explores the surprising motivations behind contemporary flashpoints, including the toppling of a statue of Columbus at the Minnesota State Capitol, the question of who should be represented on the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument in Central Park, and the decision by a museum of African American culture to display a Confederate monument removed from a public park. Written with great verve and informed by a keen sense of American history, Smashing Statues gives readers the context they need to consider the fundamental questions for rebuilding not only our public landscape but our nation as a whole: Whose voices must be heard, and whose pain must remain private?
Innocent, guilty, coerced, framed. These are the stories of dozens of women who found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Whether innocent or not, these women were all indicted for murder of some sort; most of them ended up facing execution. From Britain’s late medieval period through the following 600 years, this book explores the world of murderous female crime and pulls you in to the lives of these women. It situates their stories on the timeline of British crime and relates their terrible deeds to the criminal world and proceedings of the times they lived in. Enjoy this glimpse into the history of Britain’s criminal underbelly and the women within it, who showed what desperation, lack of mental health support, and cruelty, could lead to.
Courtney Thomas offers an intriguing investigation of honour's social meanings amongst early modern elites in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England.
What has a use in the future, unforeseeably, is radically useless now. What has an effect now is not necessarily useful if it falls through the gaps. In For a Pragmatics of the Useless Erin Manning examines what falls outside the purview of already-known functions and established standards of value, not for want of potential but for carrying an excess of it. The figures are various: the infrathin, the artful, proprioceptive tactility, neurodiversity, black life. It is around the latter two that a central refrain echoes: "All black life is neurodiverse life." This is not an equation, but an "approximation of proximity." Manning shows how neurotypicality and whiteness combine to form a normative baseline for existence. Blackness and neurodiversity "schizz" around the baseline, uselessly, pragmatically, figuring a more-than of life living. Manning, in dialogue with Félix Guattari and drawing on the black radical tradition's accounts of black life and the aesthetics of black sociality, proposes a "schizoanalysis" of the more-than, charting a panoply of techniques for other ways of living and learning.
An unconventional take on the corpse challenges traditional conceptions of who—and what—counts as human, while offering bold insights into the modernist project Too often regarded as the macabre endpoint of life, the corpse is rarely discussed and largely kept out of the public eye. In The Modernist Corpse, Erin E. Edwards unearths the critically important but previously buried life of the corpse, which occupies a unique place between biology and technology, the living and the dead. Exploring the posthumous as the posthuman, Edwards argues that the corpse is central to understanding relations between the human and its “others,” including the animal, the machine, and the thing. From photographs of lynchings to documentation of World War I casualties, the corpse is also central to the modernist project. Edwards turns critical attention to the corpse through innovative, posthumanist readings of canonical thinkers such as William Faulkner, Jean Toomer, W. E. B. Du Bois, Mina Loy, Djuna Barnes, and Gertrude Stein, offering new insights into the intersections among race, gender, technical media, and matter presumed to be dead. Edwards’s expansive approach to modernism includes diverse materials such as Hollywood film, experimental photography, autopsy discourses, and the comic strip Krazy Kat, producing a provocatively broad understanding of the modernist corpse and its various “lives.” The Modernist Corpse both establishes important new directions for modernist inquiry and overturns common thought about the relationship between living and dead matter.
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