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Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the Making of America
By John J. Fialka. 2003
Sisters is the first major history of the pivotal role played by nuns in the building of American society. Nuns…
were the first feminists, argues Fialka. They became the nation's first cadre of independent, professional women. Some nursed, some taught, and many created and managed new charitable organizations, including large hospitals and colleges. In the 1800s nuns moved west with the frontier, often starting the first hospitals and schools in immigrant communities. They provided aid and service in the Chicago fire, cared for orphans and prostitutes in the California Gold Rush and brought professional nursing skills to field hospitals run by both armies in the Civil War. Their work was often done in the face of intimidation from such groups as the Know Nothings and the Ku Klux Klan.In the 1900s they built the nation's largest private school and hospital systems and brought the Catholic Church into the civil rights movement. As their numbers began to decline in the 1970s, many sisters were forced to take professional jobs as lawyers, probation workers, managers and hospital executives because their salaries were needed to support older nuns, many of whom lacked a pension system. Currently there are about 75,000 sisters in America, down from 204,000 in 1968. Their median age is sixty-nine. In Sisters, Fialka reveals the strength of the spiritual capital and the unprecedented reach of the caring institutions that religious women created in America.Mad Women: The Other Side of Life on Madison Avenue in the '60s and Beyond
By Jane Maas. 2012
"Breezy and salty." -The New York Times"Hilarious! Honest, intimate, this book tells it as it was." -Mary Wells Lawrence, author…
of A Big Life (In Advertising) and founding president of Wells Rich Greene "Breezy and engaging [though] ...The chief value of Mad Women is the witness it bears for younger women about the snobbery and sexism their mothers and grandmothers endured as the price of entry into mid-century American professional life." -The Boston Globe"A real-life Peggy Olson, right out of Mad Men." -Shelly Lazarus, Chairman, Ogilvy & MatherWhat was it like to be an advertising woman on Madison Avenue in the 60s and 70s - that Mad Men era of casual sex and professional serfdom? A real-life Peggy Olson reveals it all in this immensely entertaining and bittersweet memoir.Mad Women is a tell-all account of life in the New York advertising world by Jane Maas, a copywriter who succeeded in the primarily male jungle depicted in the hit show Mad Men. Fans of the show are dying to know how accurate it is: was there really that much sex at the office? Were there really three-martini lunches? Were women really second-class citizens? Jane Maas says the answer to all three questions is unequivocally "yes." Her book, based on her own experiences and countless interviews with her peers, gives the full stories, from the junior account man whose wife almost left him when she found the copy of Screw magazine he'd used to find "a date" for a client, to the Ogilvy & Mather's annual Boat Ride, a sex-and-booze filled orgy, from which it was said no virgin ever returned intact. Wickedly funny and full of juicy inside information, Mad Women also tackles some of the tougher issues of the era, such as unequal pay, rampant, jaw-dropping sexism, and the difficult choice many women faced between motherhood and their careers.American Heretics: Catholics, Jews, Muslims and the History of Religious Intolerance
By Peter Gottschalk. 2013
In the middle of the nineteenth century a group of political activists in New York City joined together to challenge…
a religious group they believed were hostile to the American values of liberty and freedom. Called the Know Nothings, they started riots during elections, tarred and feathered their political enemies, and barred men from employment based on their religion. The group that caused this uproar?: Irish and German Catholics—then known as the most villainous religious group in America, and widely believed to be loyal only to the Pope. It would take another hundred years before Catholics threw off these xenophobic accusations and joined the American mainstream. The idea that the United States is a stronghold of religious freedom is central to our identity as a nation—and utterly at odds with the historical record. In American Heretics, historian Peter Gottschalk traces the arc of American religious discrimination and shows that, far from the dominant protestant religions being kept in check by the separation between church and state, religious groups from Quakers to Judaism have been subjected to similar patterns of persecution. Today, many of these same religious groups that were once regarded as anti-thetical to American values are embraced as evidence of our strong religious heritage—giving hope to today's Muslims, Sikhs, and other religious groups now under fire.I Ching: The Book of Change
By David Hinton. 2015
A master translator's beautiful and accessible rendering of the seminal Chinese textIn a radically new translation and interpretation of the…
I Ching, David Hinton strips this ancient Chinese masterwork of the usual apparatus and discovers a deeply poetic and philosophical text. Teasing out an elegant vision of the cosmos as ever-changing yet harmonious, Hinton reveals the seed from which Chinese philosophy, poetry, and painting grew. Although it was and is widely used for divination, the I Ching is also a book of poetic philosophy, deeply valued by artists and intellectuals, and Hinton's translation restores it to its original lyrical form.Previous translations have rendered the I Ching as a divination text full of arcane language and extensive commentary. Though informative, these versions rarely hint at the work's philosophical heart, let alone its literary beauty. Here, Hinton translates only the original strata of the text, revealing a fully formed work of literature in its own right. The result is full of wild imagery, fables, aphorisms, and stories. Acclaimed for the eloquence of his many translations of ancient Chinese poetry and philosophy, Hinton has reinvented the I Ching as an exciting contemporary text at once primal and postmodern.My Guru and His Disciple
By Christopher Isherwood. 1980
My Guru and His Disciple is a sweetly modest and honest portrait of Isherwood's spiritual instructor, Swami Prabhavananda, the Hindu…
priest who guided Isherwood for some thirty years. It is also a book about the often amusing and sometimes painful counterpoint between worldliness and holiness in Isherwood's own life. Sexual sprees, all-night drinking bouts, a fast car ride with Greta Garbo, scriptwriting conferences at M-G-M, intellectual sparring sessions with Berthold Brecht alternated with nights of fasting at the Vedanta Center, a six-month period of celibacy and sobriety, and the pious drudgery of translating (in collaboration with the Swami) the Bhagavad-Gita. Seldom has a single man been owed with such strong drives toward both sensuality and spirituality, abandon and discipline; out of the passionate dialectic between these drives, My Guru and His Disciple has been written.This book addresses the most suggestive themes of transhumanism and critical posthumanism by placing them in dialogue with classic problems…
of metaphysics, and with some great thinkers of the past (Bruno, Spinoza, and above all Leibniz). The main purpose of this comparison is to invite transhumanists and critical posthumanists to consider a highly complex problematic tradition rooted in the history of philosophy. This study also makes use of examples drawn from the history of mythology, angelology, and mysticism. At the same time, the book promotes dialogue between scholars of classical metaphysics and philosophy of religion, and the potential metaphysical/spiritual theories developed independently by transhumanist and posthumanist thinkers within an anti-dualist and naturalistic philosophical framework. The goal is to ‘enhance’ contemporary transhumanism and posthumanism by promoting the need to safeguard intelligence as a principle, without falling into the trap of a violent and egotistic metaphysics.The self-identifying Ghanaian-Dutch and Somali-Dutch communities residing in the Randstad area of the Netherlands are deeply impacted by religious beliefs…
and cultural factors in their approach towards sexual health practices, well-being and pleasure. This book shows how religious sensibilities shape the physical activities, beauty practices, and gendered roles that are adopted into the daily lives of these communities in pursuit of their sexual and general well-being. Through an ethnographic account, it explores and challenges the assumptions held around the complex relationship between religion and sexuality.Crusading Against Christians in the Middle Ages
By Mike Carr, Nikolaos G. Chrissis, Gianluca Raccagni. 2024
This is the first book-length study into crusading against Christians, examining this complex phenomenon from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries…
and across numerous regions, from France to Russia and from southern Italy to the Baltic. Whilst the crusades are an immensely popular topic, those launched against Christian rulers and communities have been comparatively overlooked in the past, with existing studies typically focusing on a particular area, period, or campaign. This volume brings together the expertise of thirteen scholars on a variety of primary and secondary sources not often accessible to Anglophone readership, as well as their knowledge of national discourses which have often shaped historiography. It aims to serve as the first port of call for anyone who wishes to approach crusades against Christians within and without the specialism of crusader studies, and to provide the basis for a thorough comparative analysis of this phenomenon, covering its variety as comprehensively as possible.African Women’s Liberating Philosophies, Theologies, and Ethics
By Beatrice Okyere-Manu, Léocadie Lushombo. 2024
This volume explores the ethical and philosophical paradigms presented by most of the influential Matriarchs of the Circle of African…
Women Theologians. It critically evaluates the effectiveness of their ethical and philosophical theories, models, and frameworks in pursuing justice and liberation for women in Africa and globally. The authors address critical questions: How have African women theologians reimagined existing ethical paradigms? What original ethical and philosophical ideas have they generated? How have their ethical frameworks influenced the theologies and interpretations they have developed? What purposes do their ethical and philosophical paradigms serve? How do these renderings intersect with various social categories, including gender, race, class, sexuality, capitalism, and colonialism? What liberating frameworks do they propose? The volume further explores the dialogue between distinct African contexts and universal experiences and values. It explores how universal themes such as humanity, human dignity, rights, justice, motherhood, and more can coexist with communal African concepts and themes. It contemplates how embracing African approaches engages these themes more globally, bringing together particular African contexts of women and the universal ethical, philosophical, and theological theories, models, and frameworks to advance the cause of justice and liberation for African women and women worldwide into the future.Proceedings of the 2022 International Conference on International Studies in Social Sciences and Humanities (Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research #678)
By Daniel Barredo-Ibáñez, Farrah Bérubé, Paulo Carlos López-López, Daniel H. Mutibwa. 2023
This is an open access book. CISOC’2022 – The 2022 International Conference on International Studies in Social Sciences and Humanities,…
invites the entire scientific, academic and professional community to present their contributions, which can be written in French, English, Spanish or Portuguese. All papers (full articles) will be submitted to a “double-blind review” by at least two members of the Scientific Committee, based on relevance, originality, importance and clarity. The papers presented must bring discussions on actual theoretical, or methodological, or empirical workshop proposals around Social Sciences and Humanities. The topics proposed for the Conference are related to: Psychology, Education, History, Linguistics and language, Political science, Religious studies, Philosophy, Globalization, Humanities, Archaeology, Anthropology, Inter-cultural studies, Development, Geography, Library and Information Sciences.Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends
By Neale Donald Walsch. 2006
An instant New York Times bestseller, Neale Donald Walsch offers the classic exploration of the process by which we end…
our lives here on earth and begin our so-called after life experience in God's kingdom.An uplifting masterwork of comfort and compassion exploring the ultimate questions of existence and transcendence. Nothing has riveted humanity's interest more, nor has anything been more frightening or awe-inspiring, than the finality of death. In Home with God, the last installment of his bestselling Conversations with God series, Neale Donald Walsch asks the questions that everyone has longed to ask and receives the answers readers have all been waiting for. Through his profound and personal dialogue with God, Walsch explores the process by which all human beings must end their days here on Earth and begin their new life in God's Kingdom -- to which all eventually return, regardless of their earthly deeds. An astonishing and spiritual work, Home with God offers hope, comfort, and surprising revelations for all humankind.Essential Judaism: A Complete Guide to Beliefs, Customs & Rituals
By George Robinson. 2016
You’ll find everything you need to know about being Jewish in this indispensable, revised and updated guide to the religious…
traditions, everyday practices, philosophical beliefs, and historical foundations of Judaism.What happens at a synagogue service? What are the rules for keeping kosher? How do I light the Hanukah candles? What is in the Hebrew Bible? What do the Jewish holidays signify? What should I be teaching my children about being Jewish? With the first edition of Essential Judaism, George Robinson offered the world the accessible compendium that he sought when he rediscovered his Jewish identity as an adult. In his “ambitious and all-inclusive” (New York Times Book Review) guide, Robinson illuminates the Jewish life cycle at every stage and lays out many fascinating aspects of the religion—the Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism, the evolution of Hasidism, and much more—while keeping a firm focus on the different paths to living a good Jewish life in today’s world. Now, a decade and a half later, Robinson has updated this valuable introductory text with information on topics including denominational shifts, same-sex marriage, the intermarriage debate, transgender Jews, the growth of anti-Semitism, and the changing role of women in worship, along with many other hotly debated topics in the contemporary Jewish world and beyond. The perfect gift for a Bar/Bat Mitzvah or anyone thinking about conversion—this is the ultimate companion for anyone interested in learning more about Judaism, the kind of book its readers will revisit over and over for years to come.The thirteenth-century poet Gonzalo de Berceo is the first named author of Old Spanish letters and the most prolific contributor…
to the emergence of the body of learned vernacular verse known as the mester de clerecía. In the Doorway of All Worlds focuses on the four hagiographies Berceo produced as a unified body of poetic expression and world-building. Robin M. Bower traces the poet’s intricate juxtaposition of contraries to shed light on a poetic world that will innovate a deceptively simple poetic vernacular and elevate its capacity to express nuance, power, and mystery. The book examines the entanglements that bind formal and lexical choices, the inscription of performance sites and audiences, and problematic source authority. It argues that Berceo’s elaboration of a poetic vernacular was wholly enmeshed in the immediate human, experiential world and the diverse cultural, religious, linguistic, and literary contexts that framed it. The book also highlights how Berceo invented a literary vernacular that befits the spoken idiom not only for the crafting of learned fictions, but for giving linguistic shape to the ineffable. In the Doorway of All Worlds ultimately reveals how Berceo freed the meanings trapped in relics, shrines, and the impenetrable texts from which he translated the saints to circulate in a new time.The Crusades: A Reader, Third Edition (Readings in Medieval Civilizations and Cultures #VIII)
By S. J. Allen, Emilie Amt. 2024
Since its first appearance in 2004, The Crusades: A Reader has been the go-to sourcebook in the field. S.J. Allen…
and Emilie Amt cover the entire crusading movement, from its origins to its modern afterlife, using key primary source documents. The third edition features a new introduction that includes a guide for students on how to use the book. The editors have also added more content on women, material culture, Jewish and Byzantine perspectives, Muslim-Crusader interactions, and modern use of Crusade imagery and rhetoric by the Far Right. The geographic range is broad, covering not only Crusades in the Middle East, but also in Spain and in northern Europe and against European heretics. While scholarship, courses, and textbooks on the Crusades have proliferated over the past twenty years, The Crusades: A Reader remains the only comprehensive, up-to-date, and in-print sourcebook available on the subject.Prophet of Reason: Science, Religion and the Origins of the Modern Middle East
By Peter Hill. 2024
'An outstanding intellectual biography.' Eugene Rogan In 1813, high in the Lebanese mountains, a thirteen-year-old boy watches a solar eclipse.…
Will it foretell a war, a plague, the death of a prince? Mikha&’il Mishaqa&’s lifelong search for truth starts here. Soon he&’s reading Newtonian science and the radical ideas of Voltaire and Volney: he loses his religion, turning away from the Catholic Church. Thirty years later, as civil war rages in Syria, he finds a new faith – Evangelical Protestantism. His obstinate polemics scandalise his community. Then, in 1860, Mishaqa barely escapes death in the most notorious event in Damascus: a massacre of several thousand Christians. We are presented with a paradox: rational secularism and violent religious sectarianism grew up together. By tracing Mishaqa&’s life through this tumultuous era, when empires jostled for control, Peter Hill answers the question: What did people in the Middle East actually believe? It&’s a world where one man could be a Jew, an Orthodox Christian and a Sunni Muslim in turn, and a German missionary might walk naked in the streets of Valletta.Religious Truth for Our Time
By W. Montgomery Watt. 1995
Offering ways of addressing the intellectual and practical problems confronting today's religions, this study discusses the way forward for those…
who believe in the importance of religious faith in a multi-religious world. It also examines issues such as the limitations of human thought and language, and the role of world views which form the context within which different religions are borne. The author's other books include "Companion to the Qur'an" and "The Faith and Practice of Al-Ghazali".One Thing at a Time: 100 Simple Ways to Live Clutter-Free Every Day
By Cindy Glovinsky. 2004
Simple, effective ways to put things in their placeThose piles of papers, clothes, and other things you thought you'd successfully…
de-cluttered have returned, and this time they brought friends. What's the use of trying to fight the clutter? Is there a better way?This powerful and useful guide delivers solutions that work, no matter how overwhelmed you feel. The answer isn't an elaborate new system, or a solemn vow to start tomorrow. Instead, psychotherapist and organizer Cindy Glovinsky shares 100 simple strategies for tackling the problem the way it grows--one thing at a time. Here's a sampling of the tips explained in the book: *Declare a fix-it day*Purge deep storage areas first *Label it so you can read it*Get a great letter opener*Practice toy population planning *Leave it neater than you found itWritten in short takes and with a supportive tone, this is an essential, refreshing book that helps turn a hopeless struggle into a manageable part of life, one thing at a time.The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control
By Abraham H. Foxman. 2007
The representative of the Jewish community and staunch defender of human rights, Foxman delivers a powerful blow to such ideas…
as "The Israel Lobby." He shows how old stereotypes associated with the most virulent forms of bigotry have been resurfacing and taking subtle new forms. From Carter to Mearsheimer, he addresses the public figures who make these beliefs appear credible. He also reveals a disturbing parallel trend: the decline of global Jewish solidarity, which he argues is critical for dealing with the current threat. Foxman advocates forthright and decisive solutions to an international crisis, ensuring that this will be an important clarion call.Can You Hear Me Now?: Part One (Can You Hear Me Now? Ser. #1)
By Annie O'Sullivan. 2012
First published as only parts of her life, this book brings together the full life story of the woman known…
as Annie O'Sullivan. Horribly abused at the hand of her father, it is a collection of essays that graphically recount memories of her life as a confused child and young adult as she careened through life without compass, to ultimately, and against all odds, prosper. Culminating in the event that brought a degree of closure to her torture, O'Sullivan brings the reader on an intimate life journey through the eyes of this child&’s misunderstanding, will to persevere and desire to seek goodness despite her circumstances.Terrifying, infuriating and uplifting, this book touches not only survivors; but parents, childcare workers and teachers; reminding us of the true vulnerability of children and our collective responsibility to protect them.Mirror of God: Christian Faith as Spiritual Practice
By James W. Jones. 2003
What are the benefits of being a spiritual person? This is the question that James Jones explores in his newest…
book, The Mirror of God. Jones contends that true religious belief is not a passive process and that one must work hard towards believing in God through acts such as prayer, meditation and communal worship. He explores the boundaries between psychotherapy and religious practice, looks at what Christians might learn from Buddhists and shows their effects on the body and mind. Jones is a psychologist as well as a professor of religion and, ultimately, he provides a blueprint for worship that's smart, effective and grounded in the real lives we all live.