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Affect, Performativity, and Chinese Diasporas in the Caribbean: Hopeful Futures (Routledge Research in Postcolonial Literatures)
By Elena Igartuburu García. 2024
Affect, Performativity, and Chinese Diasporas in the Caribbean: Hopeful Futures analyzes the emergence of Chinese diasporic literature and art in…
the Caribbean and its diasporas in the twenty-first century. This book considers the historical and critical discourse about the Chinese diasporas in the Caribbean and proposes a textual and visual archive selecting contemporary texts that signal a changing paradigm in postcolonial literature at the turn of the twenty-first century. Whereas, historically, Chinese minorities had been erased or presented as ultimate Others, contemporary texts mobilize Chinese characters and their stories strategically to propose alternative configurations of community and belonging grounded in affective structures and contest the coloniality of national imaginaries.Staging Restoration Comedy: The Royal Shakespeare Company, 1967-2019
By David Roberts. 2024
Since its 1967 production of Vanbrugh’s The Relapse, the Royal Shakespeare Company has been the world’s leading producer of Restoration…
Comedies. This book is the first to document and critique the company’s history of engagement with that repertoire. It reviews the spaces in which productions have been performed, design principles, casting, voicing, textual adaptation, musical direction, actor perspectives, and the problems of how to confront, adopt or depart from received notions of Restoration style. It goes on to posit that, for all the RSC’s explorations of Restoration Comedy, the company has maintained the repertoire as a fringe interest played out in niche spaces, while recycling many of the assumptions it claims to challenge, and that what is needed is the writer-led intervention seen in RSC and National Theatre adaptations of French drama from the same period. Only then can Restoration Comedy begin to engage wider audiences in new sites of political, historical andcultural meaning.Classical Samaritan Poetry
By Laura Suzanne Lieber. 2022
This book introduces the evocative but largely unknown tradition of Samaritan religious poetry from late antiquity to a new audience.…
These verses provide a unique window into the Samaritan religious world during a formative period.Prepared by Laura Suzanne Lieber, this anthology presents annotated English translations of fifty-five Classical Samaritan poems. Lieber introduces each piece, placing it in context with Samaritan religious tradition, the geopolitical turmoil of Palestine in the fourth century CE, and the literary, liturgical, and performative conventions of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, shared by Jews, Christians, and polytheists. These hymns, composed by three generations of poets—the priest Amram Dara; his son, Marqah; and Marqah’s son, Ninna, the last poet to write in Samaritan Aramaic in the period prior to the Muslim conquest—for recitation during the Samaritan Sabbath and festival liturgies remain a core element of Samaritan religious ritual to the present day.Shedding important new light on the Samaritans’ history and on the complicated connections between early Judaism, Christianity, the Samaritan community, and nascent Islam, this volume makes an important contribution to the reception of the history of the Hebrew Bible. It will appeal to a wide audience of students and scholars of the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, early Judaism and early Christianity, and other religions of late antiquity.Following the great periods of national leadership by Moses and Joshua, the book of Judges depicts the stewardship of various…
judges that rose to power to solve local religious and military challenges in the premonarchic period. This volume provides a close reading of the entire book of Judges, taking seriously the distinct elements of the book and how they are interconnected.Elie Assis explores the ways in which the ideology and theology of Judges unfold through a careful literary analysis. Moving beyond the cycle of sin, punishment, and salvation, Assis demonstrates how differences in the descriptive language applied to each judge, as well as the evaluations in the opening and concluding chapters, provide clues as to the organization and message of the text. Most works on Judges focus on the historical background of the period or the historical process of the book’s composition and seek to dissolve its stories into component parts. In contrast, Before There Were Kings points to the deep underlying unity of Judges and the function of the individual stories within the whole.New and carefully drawn insights related to the purpose of each section and the themes that shape the book as a whole make this a groundbreaking, programmatic contribution to research on the book of Judges. It will be of particular interest to students and scholars of the Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible.Borges Beyond the Visible
By Max Ubelaker Andrade. 2020
Borges Beyond the Visible presents radically new readings of some of Jorge Luis Borges’s most celebrated stories. Max Ubelaker Andrade…
shows how Borges employed intertextual puzzles to transform his personal experiences with blindness, sexuality, and suicide while allowing readers to sense the transformative power of their own literary imaginations.In readings of “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” “El Aleph,” and “El Zahir,” Ubelaker Andrade argues that Borges, considering his own impending blindness, borrowed from Islam’s prohibitions on visual representation to create a “literary theology”—a religion focused on the contradictions of literary existence and the unstable complexities of a visual world perceived without everyday sight. Embracing these contradictions allowed Borges to transform his relationships with sex, sexuality, and family in multilayered stories such as “Emma Zunz,” “La intrusa,” and “El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan.” Yet these liberating transformations, sometimes offered to the reader as a paradoxical “gift of death,” are complicated by “La salvación por las obras,” a story built around Borges’s relationship with a suicidal reader and the woman to whom they were both connected. The epilogue presents “Místicos del Islam,” an unpublished essay draft by Borges, as a key source of insight into an irreverent, iconoclastic writing practice based on a profound faith in fiction.Compelling and clear, Borges Beyond the Visible is a revelatory examination of the work of one of the most influential authors of the twentieth century. It opens up exciting areas of inquiry for scholars, students, and readers of Borges.The Unofficial Heroes of Olympus Companion: Gods, Monsters, Myths and What's in Store for Jason, Piper and Leo
By Richard Marcus, Natalie Buczynsky, Jonathan Shelnutt. 2011
DELVE INTO THE WORLD OF THE OLYMPIANSIn the ancient world, the gods and their heroic half-blood children were legendary. Now…
in the modern world, they regain their glory in the pages of Rick Riordan's captivating novels. Providing everything you'll need to become a Hero of Olympus, the book looks back at the stories of Percy Jackson while exploring how Riordan hints at but keeps readers guessing what's in a store for Jason, Piper and Leo.In this handy companion, the Olympic gods are fully detailed, from origin and family relationships to famous tales and an expressive illustration, including:Zeus * Hera * Poseidon * Athena * Apollo * AphroditeThe vast array of other gods and fantastical creatures are also cataloged:* Atlas who literally carries the weight of the world on his shoulders* Kronos a Titan who swallows his newborn children* Persephone a kidnapped goddess who becomes queen of the Underworld* Minotaur a half-bull, half-man imprisoned in a labyrinth* Hydra a poisonous serpent who grows two heads when one is severed* Sirens deadly nymphs whose irresistibly beautiful singing lures sailors to their doomIMPORTANT NOTE TO READERS: This book is an independent and unauthorized fan publication.Best known for his general theory of relativity and the famous equation linking mass and energy, E = mc², Albert…
Einstein had a lasting impact on the world of science, the extent of which is illuminated--along with his fascinating life and unique personality--in this lively history. In addition to learning all about Einstein's important contributions to science, from proving the existence and size of atoms and launching the field of quantum mechanics to creating models of the universe that led to the discovery of black holes and the big bang theory, young physicists will participate in activities and thought experiments to bring his theories and ideas to life. Such activities include using dominoes to model a nuclear chain reaction, replicating the expanding universe in a microwave oven, creating blue skies and red sunsets in a soda bottle, and calculating the speed of light using a melted chocolate bar. Suggestions for further study, a time line, and sidebars on the work of other physicists of the day make this an incredibly accessible resource for inquisitive children.The Astronaut Maker: How One Mysterious Engineer Ran Human Spaceflight for a Generation
By Michael Cassutt. 2018
"The real book about the manned space program would be a book about George Abbey." —Richard Truly, former astronaut and…
Administrator of NASA. One of the most elusive and controversial figures in NASA's history, George W. S. Abbey was called "the Dark Lord," "the Godfather," and "UNO" (unidentified NASA official) by those within NASA. He was said to be secretive, despotic, a Space Age Machiavelli. Yet Abbey had more influence on human spaceflight than almost anyone in history. From young pilot and wannabe astronaut to engineer, bureaucrat, and finally director of the Johnson Space Center ("mission control"), Abbey's story has never been fully told—until now. The Astronaut Maker takes readers inside NASA to learn the real story of how Abbey rose to power and wielded it out of the spotlight. Over a 37-year career he oversaw the selection of every astronaut class from 1978 to 1987, deciding who got to fly, and when; was with the Apollo 1 astronauts the night before the fire that killed them in January 1967; was in mission control the night of the Apollo 13 accident and organized the recovery effort; led NASA's recruitment of women and minorities as Space Shuttle astronauts—including hiring Sally Ride; and much more. By the coauthor of the acclaimed astronaut memoirs DEKE! and We Have Capture and informed by countless hours of interviews with Abbey and his family, friends, adversaries, and former colleagues, The Astronaut Maker is the ultimate insider's account of ambition and power politics at NASA.Engaging the Emotions in Spanish Culture and History
By Jo Labanyi, Luisa Elena Delgado, Pura Fernandez. 2016
Rather than being properties of the individual self, emotions are socially produced and deployed in specific cultural contexts, as this…
collection documents with unusual richness. All the essays show emotions to be a form of thought and knowledge, and a major component of social life—including in the nineteenth century, which attempted to relegate them to a feminine intimate sphere.The collection ranges across topics such as eighteenth-century sensibility, nineteenth-century concerns with the transmission of emotions, early twentieth-century cinematic affect, and the contemporary mobilization of political emotions including those regarding nonstate national identities. The complexities and effects of emotions are explored in a variety of forms—political rhetoric, literature, personal letters, medical writing, cinema, graphic art, soap opera, journalism, popular music, digital media—with attention paid to broader European and transatlantic implications.Chasing Space: An Astronaut's Story of Grit, Grace, and Second Chances
By Leland Melvin. 2017
In this revelatory and moving memoir, a former NASA astronaut and NFL wide receiver shares his personal journey from the…
gridiron to the stars, examining the intersecting roles of community, perseverance and grace that align to create the opportunities for success. Leland Melvin is the only person in human history to catch a pass in the National Football League and in space. Though his path to the heavens was riddled with setbacks and injury, Leland persevered to reach the stars. While training with NASA, Melvin suffered a severe injury that left him deaf. Leland was relegated to earthbound assignments, but chose to remain and support his astronaut family. His loyalty paid off. Recovering partial hearing, he earned his eligibility for space travel. He served as mission specialist for two flights aboard the shuttle Atlantis, working on the International Space Station. In this uplifting memoir, the former NASA astronaut and professional athlete offers an examination of the intersecting role of community, determination, and grace that align to shape our opportunities and outcomes. Chasing Space is not the story of one man, but the story of many men, women, scientists, and mentors who helped him defy the odds and live out an uncommon destiny. As a chemist, athlete, engineer and space traveler, Leland’s life story is a study in the science of achievement. His personal insights illuminate how grit and grace, are the keys to overcoming adversity and rising to success.Handprints on Hubble: An Astronaut's Story of Invention (Lemelson Center Studies in Invention and Innovation series)
By Kathryn D. Sullivan. 2019
The first American woman to walk in space recounts her experience as part of the team that launched, rescued, repaired,…
and maintained the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble Space Telescope has revolutionized our understanding of the universe. It has, among many other achievements, revealed thousands of galaxies in what seemed to be empty patches of sky; transformed our knowledge of black holes; found dwarf planets with moons orbiting other stars; and measured precisely how fast the universe is expanding. In Handprints on Hubble, retired astronaut Kathryn Sullivan describes her work on the NASA team that made all of this possible. Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space, recounts how she and other astronauts, engineers, and scientists launched, rescued, repaired, and maintained Hubble, the most productive observatory ever built. Along the way, Sullivan chronicles her early life as a “Sputnik Baby,” her path to NASA through oceanography, and her initiation into the space program as one of “thirty-five new guys.” (She was also one of the first six women to join NASA's storied astronaut corps.) She describes in vivid detail what liftoff feels like inside a spacecraft (it's like “being in an earthquake and a fighter jet at the same time”), shows us the view from a spacewalk, and recounts the temporary grounding of the shuttle program after the Challenger disaster. Sullivan explains that “maintainability” was designed into Hubble, and she describes the work of inventing the tools and processes that made on-orbit maintenance possible. Because in-flight repair and upgrade was part of the plan, NASA was able to fix a serious defect in Hubble's mirrors—leaving literal and metaphorical “handprints on Hubble.” Handprints on Hubble was published with the support of the MIT Press Fund for Diverse Voices.What's It Like in Space?: Stories from Astronauts Who've Been There
By Ariel Waldman. 2016
Everyone wonders what it's really like in space, but very few of us have ever had the chance to experience…
it firsthand. This captivating illustrated collection brings together stories from dozens of international astronauts—men and women who've actually been there—who have returned with accounts of the sometimes weird, often funny, and awe-inspiring sensations and realities of being in space. With playful artwork accompanying each, here are the real stories behind backwards dreams, "moon face," the tricks of sleeping in zero gravity and aiming your sneeze during a spacewalk, the importance of packing hot sauce, and dozens of other cosmic quirks and amazements that come with travel in and beyond low Earth orbit.Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars: The Story of the First American Woman to Command a Space Mission
By Jonathan H. Ward, Col. Eileen M. Collins Usaf. 2021
The long-awaited memoir of a trailblazer and role model who is telling her story for the first time. Eileen…
Collins was an aviation pioneer her entire career, from her crowning achievements as the first woman to command an American space mission as well as the first to pilot the space shuttle to her early years as one of the Air Force's first female pilots. She was in the first class of women to earn pilot's wings at Vance Air Force Base and was their first female instructor pilot. She was only the second woman pilot admitted to the Air Force's elite Test Pilot Program at Edwards Air Force Base. NASA had such confidence in her skills as a leader and pilot that she was entrusted to command the first shuttle mission after the Columbia disaster, returning the US to spaceflight after a two-year hiatus. Since retiring from the Air Force and NASA, she has served on numerous corporate boards and is an inspirational speaker about space exploration and leadership. Eileen Collins is among the most recognized and admired women in the world, yet this is the first time she has told her story in a book. It is a story not only of achievement and overcoming obstacles but of profound personal transformation. The shy, quiet child of an alcoholic father and struggling single mother, who grew up in modest circumstances and was an unremarkable student, she had few prospects when she graduated from high school, but she changed her life to pursue her secret dream of becoming an astronaut. She shares her leadership and life lessons throughout the book with the aim of inspiring and passing on her legacy to a new generation.Safely to Earth: The Men and Women Who Brought the Astronauts Home
By Jack Clemons. 2018
In this one-of-a-kind memoir, Jack Clemons—a former lead engineer in support of NASA—takes readers behind the scenes and into the…
inner workings of the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs during their most exciting years. Discover the people, the events, and the risks involved in one of the most important parts of space missions: bringing the astronauts back home to Earth. Clemons joined Project Apollo in 1968, a young engineer inspired by science fiction and electrified by John F. Kennedy’s challenge to the nation to put a man on the moon. He describes his experiences supporting the NASA engineering team at what is now the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where he played a pivotal role in designing the reentry and landing procedures for Apollo astronauts and providing live support as part of the Mission Control Center’s backroom team. He went on to work on Skylab and the Space Shuttle Program, eventually assuming leadership for the entire integrated software system on board the Space Shuttle. Through personal stories, Clemons introduces readers to many of the unsung heroes of the Apollo and Space Shuttle missions—the people who worked side by side with NASA engineers supporting reentry and landing for each Apollo mission and the software team who fashioned the computer programs that accompanied the crews on the Space Shuttle. Clemons worked closely with astronauts who relied on him and his fellow engineers for directions to their destination, guidance on how to get there, control of their fate during their journeys, and a safe return. He reveals problems, challenges, and near-disasters previously unknown to the public and offers candid opinions on the preventable failures that led to the loss of fourteen astronauts in the Challenger and Columbia tragedies. Highlighting the staggering responsibility and the incredible technological challenges that Clemons and his colleagues took on in the race to reach the moon and explore the mysteries of space, this book is a fascinating insider’s view of some of the greatest adventures of the twentieth century.Coward the Dramatist: Morals and Manners (Bernard Shaw and His Contemporaries)
By Roger Kojecky. 2024
Discussions of Coward’s achievement in the theatre between 1920 and 1966 have tended to stay with the colourful biography. The…
more analytical literary approach adopted here places Coward’s success in its wider theatrical context, making the connections with the work of other dramatists. He developed his technique according to what worked with theatre audiences. Taking up the well-made play, he brought in a more colloquial dialogue, explored, for instance, the morality and psychology of marriage and free love, and frequently exploited the dramatic possibilities of characters grouped into two camps. The book considers both the ‘pleasant’ and ‘unpleasant’ plays (to use the Shavian terms), and the episodic patriotic plays. It Includes Coward’s ambivalent approach to the ‘theatre of war’ in the 20th century. (123)Storytelling in Kabuki: An Exploration of Spatial Poetics of Comics (Encapsulations: Critical Comics Studies)
By Steen Ledet Christiansen. 2024
Steen Ledet Christiansen&’s Storytelling in &“Kabuki&” explores the series created by David Mack—a slow, recursive narrative that focuses on the…
death of Kabuki and her past. The series ran from 1994 to 2004 in a variety of miniseries, one-shots, and spin-offs, rather than following a conventional American monthly release schedule. Most of the series explores different perspectives on the same event and adds background to Kabuki&’s past, usually through surreal sequences, dreams, and near-death experiences. The flexibility of comics&’ approach to chronology, space, focalization, narrative, and fictionality enabled Mack to produce an unusual experience. Kabuki tells a story that can only exist via comics. Christiansen analyzes the visual design of the series, a heterogeneous collection of styles depending on the story. To understand Kabuki, it is crucial to explore the visual styles, as well as the use of visual and spatial rhymes and mixed media forms. Because Kabuki employs a complex layering of focalizations, diegetic levels, and metafictional self-reflectivity that is rare in mainstream American comics, it utilizes a narrative poetics that focuses on constant repeating, restating, and returning to the same events.Kabuki&’s unique compositional layering allows Christiansen to provide a clear example of how comics work while also expanding on critical vocabulary, especially in terms of spatial poetics. By exploring spatial form, Christiansen illuminates and gives a critical framework to a different and underexamined aspect of comics.Black History 365: An Inclusive Account Of American History (50 Stars)
By Walter Milton. 2020
Black History 365 is an educational entity whose purpose is to create cutting-edge resources that invite students, educators, and other…
readers to become critical thinkers, compassionate listeners, fact-based, respectful communicators and action-oriented solutionists.Henry Ford: Young Man with Ideas (Childhood of Famous Americans Series)
By Hazel B. Aird, Catherine Ruddiman. 1960
Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life
By Jason Roberts. 2024
From the bestselling author of A Sense of the World comes this dramatic, globe-spanning and meticulously-researched story of two scientific…
rivals and their race to survey all life on Earth.In the 18th century, two men dedicated their lives to the same daunting task: identifying and describing all life on Earth. Their approaches could not have been more different. Carl Linnaeus, a pious Swedish doctor with a huckster's flair, believed that life belonged in tidy, static categories. Georges-Louis de Buffon, an aristocratic polymath and keeper of France's royal garden, viewed life as a dynamic swirl of complexities. Both began believing their work to be difficult, but not impossible—how could the planet possibly hold more than a few thousand species? Stunned by life's diversity, both fell far short of their goal. But in the process they articulated starkly divergent views on nature, on humanity's role in shaping the fate of our planet and on humanity itself. The rivalry between these two unique, driven individuals created reverberations that still echo today. Linnaeus, with the help of acolyte explorers he called "apostles" (only half of whom returned alive), gave the world such concepts as mammal, primate and homo sapiens—but he also denied species change and promulgated racist pseudo-science. Buffon coined the term reproduction, formulated early prototypes of evolution and genetics, and argued passionately against prejudice. It was a clash that, during their lifetimes, Buffon seemed to be winning. But their posthumous fates would take a very different turn.With elegant, propulsive prose grounded in more than a decade of research, featuring appearances by Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin and Charles Darwin, bestselling author Jason Roberts tells an unforgettable true-life tale of intertwined lives and enduring legacies, tracing an arc of insight and discovery that extends across three centuries into the present day.