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Walter Benjamin
by Howard Eiland Michael W. JenningsWalter Benjamin is one of the twentieth century's most important intellectuals, and also one of its most elusive. His writings--mosaics incorporating philosophy, literary criticism, Marxist analysis, and a syncretistic theology--defy simple categorization. And his mobile, often improvised existence has proven irresistible to mythologizers. His writing career moved from the brilliant esotericism of his early writings through his emergence as a central voice in Weimar culture and on to the exile years, with its pioneering studies of modern media and the rise of urban commodity capitalism in Paris. That career was played out amid some of the most catastrophic decades of modern European history: the horror of the First World War, the turbulence of the Weimar Republic, and the lengthening shadow of fascism. Now, a major new biography from two of the world's foremost Benjamin scholars reaches beyond the mosaic and the mythical to present this intriguing figure in full. Howard Eiland and Michael Jennings make available for the first time a rich store of information which augments and corrects the record of an extraordinary life. They offer a comprehensive portrait of Benjamin and his times as well as extensive commentaries on his major works, including "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility," the essays on Baudelaire, and the great study of the German Trauerspiel. Sure to become the standard reference biography of this seminal thinker, Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life will prove a source of inexhaustible interest for Benjamin scholars and novices alike.
War after Death: On Violence and Its Limits
by Steven MillerWar after Death considers forms of violence that regularly occur in actual wars but do not often factor into the stories we tell about war, which revolve invariably around killing and death. Recent history demonstrates that body counts are more necessary than ever, but the fact remains that war and death is only part of the story—an essential but ultimately subordinate part. Beyond killing, there is no war without attacks upon the built environment, ecosystems, personal property, artworks, archives, and intangible traditions. Destructive as it may be, such violence is difficult to classify because it does not pose a grave threat to human lives. Nonetheless, the book argues that destruction of the nonhuman or nonliving is a constitutive dimension of all violence—especially forms of extreme violence against the living such as torture and rape; and it examines how the language and practice of war are transformed when this dimension is taken into account. Finally, War after Death offers a rethinking of psychoanalytic approaches to war and the theory of the death drive that underlies them.
War Echoes: Gender and Militarization in U.S. Latina/o Cultural Production
by Ariana E. VigilWar Echoes examines how Latina/o cultural production has engaged with U.S. militarism in the post-Viet Nam era. Analyzing literature alongside film, memoir, and activism, Ariana E. Vigil highlights the productive interplay among social, political, and cultural movements while exploring Latina/o responses to U.S. intervention in Central America and the Middle East. These responses evolved over the course of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries--from support for anti-imperial war, as seen in Alejandro Murguia's Southern Front, to the disavowal of all war articulated in works such as Demetria Martinez's Mother Tongue and Camilo Mejia's Road from Ar Ramadi. <P><P>With a focus on how issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality intersect and are impacted by war and militarization, War Echoes illustrates how this country's bellicose foreign policies have played an integral part in shaping U.S. Latina/o culture and identity and given rise to the creation of works that recognize how militarized violence and values, such as patriarchy, hierarchy, and obedience, are both enacted in domestic spheres and propagated abroad.
War Narratives and the American National Will in War
by Jeffrey J. KubiakWith the U. S. war in Afghanistan in its twelfth year, axioms regarding the American national will in war not being able to tolerate anything other than quick and costless adventures have been found useless in understanding why the U. S. continues to persist in that endeavor. This book answers complex questions about modern US intervention abroad.
The Watchdog That Didn't Bark: The Financial Crisis and the Disappearance of Investigative Journalism (Columbia Journalism Review)
by Dean StarkmanThe Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter details &“how the U.S. business press could miss the most important economic implosion of the past eighty years&” (Eric Alterman, media columnist for The Nation). In this sweeping, incisive post-mortem, Dean Starkman exposes the critical shortcomings that softened coverage in the business press during the mortgage era and the years leading up to the financial collapse of 2008. He examines the deep cultural and structural shifts—some unavoidable, some self-inflicted—that eroded journalism&’s appetite for its role as watchdog. The result was a deafening silence about systemic corruption in the financial industry. Tragically, this silence grew only more profound as the mortgage madness reached its terrible apogee from 2004 through 2006. Starkman frames his analysis in a broad argument about journalism itself, dividing the profession into two competing approaches—access reporting and accountability reporting—which rely on entirely different sources and produce radically different representations of reality. As Starkman explains, access journalism came to dominate business reporting in the 1990s, a process he calls &“CNBCization,&” and rather than examining risky, even corrupt, corporate behavior, mainstream reporters focused on profiling executives and informing investors. Starkman concludes with a critique of the digital-news ideology and corporate influence, which threaten to further undermine investigative reporting, and he shows how financial coverage, and journalism as a whole, can reclaim its bite. &“Can stand as a potentially enduring case study of what went wrong and why.&”—Alec Klein, national bestselling author of Aftermath &“With detailed statistics, Starkman provides keen analysis of how the media failed in its mission at a crucial time for the U.S. economy.&”—Booklist
The Way Things Go: An Essay on the Matter of Second Modernism
by Aaron JaffeBuffed up to a metallic shine; loose fitting, lopsided, or kludgy; getting in the way or getting lost; collapsing in an explosion of dust caught on the warehouse CCTV. Modern things are going their own ways, and this book attempts to follow them. A course of thought about their comings and goings and cascading side effects, The Way Things Go offers a thesis demonstrated via a century-long countdown of stuff. Modernist critical theory and aesthetic method, it argues, are bound up with the inhuman fate of things as novelty becoming waste. Things are seldom at rest. Far more often they are going their own ways, entering and exiting our zones of attention, interest, and affection. Aaron Jaffe is concerned less with a humanist story of such things--offering anthropomorphizing narratives about recouping the items we use--as he is with the seemingly inscrutable, inhuman capacities of things for coarticulation and coherence. He examines the tension between this inscrutability on the one hand, and the ways things seem ready-made for understanding on the other hand, by means of exposition, thing-and-word-play, conceptual art, essayism, autopoesis, and prop comedy.Among other novelties and detritus, The Way Things Go delves into books, can openers, roller skates, fat, felt, soap, joy buzzers, hobbyhorses, felt erasers, sleds, magic rabbits, and urinals. But it stands apart from the recent flood of thing-talk, rebuking the romantic tendencies caught up in the pathetic nature of debris defining the conversation. Jaffe demonstrates that literary criticism is the one mode of analysis that can unpack the many things that, at first glance, seem so nonliterary.
We Shall Bear Witness
by Meg Jensen Margaretta JollyPersonal testimonies are the life force of human rights work, and rights claims have brought profound power to the practice of life writing. This volume explores the connections and conversations between human rights and life writing through a dazzling, international collection of essays by survivor-writers, scholars, and human rights advocates. In"We Shall Bear Witness," editors Meg Jensen and Margaretta Jolly assemble moving personal accounts from those who have endured persecution, imprisonment, and torture; meditations on experiences of injustice and protest by creative writers and filmmakers; and innovative research on ways that digital media, commodification, and geopolitics are shaping what is possible to hear and say. The book's primary sections-testimony, recognition, representation, and justice-evoke the key stages in turning experience into a human rights life story and attend to such diverse and varied arts as autobiography, documentary film, report, oral history, blog, and verbatim theater. The result is a groundbreaking book that sensitively examines how life and rights narratives have become so powerfully entwined. Also included is an innovative guide to teaching human rights and life narrative in the classroom. "
We Share Our Matters: Two Centuries of Writing and Resistance at Six Nations of the Grand River
by Rick MontureThe Haudenosaunee, more commonly known as the Iroquois or Six Nations, have been one of the most widely written-about Indigenous groups in the United States and Canada. But seldom have the voices emerging from this community been drawn on in order to understand its enduring intellectual traditions. Rick Monture’s We Share Our Matters offers the first comprehensive portrait of how the Haudenosaunee of the Grand River region have expressed their long struggle for sovereignty in Canada. Drawing from individualsas diverse as Joseph Brant, Pauline Johnson and Robbie Robertson, Monture illuminates a unique Haudenosaunee world view comprised of three distinct features: a spiritual belief about their role and responsibility to the earth; a firm understanding of their sovereign status as a confederacy of independant nations; and their responsibility to maintain those relations for future generations. After more than two centuries of political struggle Haudenosaunee thought has avoided stagnant conservatism and continues to inspire ways to address current social and political realities.
Wedding Officiant's Guide: How to Write & Conduct a Perfect Ceremony
by Lisa FrancescaLast year, one in three American weddings were officiated by a friend or family member. With the officiating trend on the rise, novice officiants need a resource to guide them. In The Wedding Officiant's Guide, interfaith minister Lisa Francesca breaks down the entire officiating process, from becoming an ordained officiant and interviewing the couple to drafting and performing a moving ceremony. Written in an engaging and friendly tone, and featuring empowering advice, suggested readings, stories and lessons learned from new officiants, and practical tips from wedding planners, this inviting handbook will help new officiants write and deliver a wedding ceremony that fulfills marriage laws, delights guests, and honors the marrying couple.
The Weekend Book Proposal: How to Write a Winning Proposal in 48 Hours and Sell Your Book
by Ryan G. Van CleaveWrite Better Proposals Faster to Accelerate Your Writing Career! Whether you are a true beginner or a seasoned writer looking to secure more book contracts, The Weekend Book Proposal shows you how to take your best ideas and create powerful proposals--quickly and professionally. No need to spend months laboring over a proposal when in just a few days you can write one that will ignite the interest of agents and editors. Ryan G. Van Cleave presents the tools you need to craft an eye-grabbing proposal for your nonfiction, memoir, anthology, textbook, novel, and more. Jam-packed with proven strategies, nuts-and-bolts advice, sample queries and proposals, interviews with publishing experts, and "Hit the Gas" tips for speeding up the proposal process, The Weekend Book Proposal will show you how to succeed and prosper as a writer--and sell your books before you've even written them! The Weekend Book Proposal explains how to: Write a catchy title and book description. Create a compelling author bio and chapter outline. Develop a targeted, engaging concept statement. Build a strong marketing plan and endorsements list. Structure your proposals based on those crafted by successful authors.
Welsh Grammar You Really Need to Know: Teach Yourself
by Christine JonesComprehensive and clear explanations of key grammar patterns and structures are reinforced and contextualized through authentic materials. You will not only learn how to construct grammar correctly, but when and where to use it so you sound natural and appropriate. Welsh Grammar You Really Need to Know will help you gain the intuition you need to become a confident communicator in your new language.
What English Language Teachers Need to Know Volume III: Designing Curriculum
by MaryAnn Christison Denise E. MurrayWhat English Teachers Need to Know, a set of companion texts designed for pre-service teachers and teachers new to the field of ELT, addresses the key question: What do English language teachers need to know and be able to do in order for their students to learn English? These texts work for teachers across different contexts (countries where English is the dominant language, one of the official languages, or taught as a foreign language); different levels (elementary/primary, secondary, college or university, or adult education); and different learning purposes (general English, workplace English, English for academic purposes, or English for specific purposes). Volume I, on understanding learning, provides the background information that teachers need to know and be able to use in their classroom. Volume II, on facilitating learning, covers the three main facets of teaching: planning, instructing, and assessing. Volume III, on designing curriculum, covers the contexts for, processes in, and types of ELT curricula—linguistic based, content-based, learner-centered, and learning-centered. Throughout the three volumes, the focus is on outcomes, that is, student learning. Features • Situated in current research in the field of English language teaching and other disciplines that inform it • Sample data, including classroom vignettes • Three kinds of activities/tasks: Reflect, Explore, and Expand
What Galileo Saw: Imagining the Scientific Revolution
by Lawrence LipkingThe Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century has often been called a decisive turning point in human history. It represents, for good or ill, the birth of modern science and modern ways of viewing the world. In What Galileo Saw, Lawrence Lipking offers a new perspective on how to understand what happened then, arguing that artistic imagination and creativity as much as rational thought played a critical role in creating new visions of science and in shaping stories about eye-opening discoveries in cosmology, natural history, engineering, and the life sciences. When Galileo saw the face of the Moon and the moons of Jupiter, Lipking writes, he had to picture a cosmos that could account for them. Kepler thought his geometry could open a window into the mind of God. Francis Bacon's natural history envisioned an order of things that would replace the illusions of language with solid evidence and transform notions of life and death. Descartes designed a hypothetical "Book of Nature" to explain how everything in the universe was constructed. Thomas Browne reconceived the boundaries of truth and error. Robert Hooke, like Leonardo, was both researcher and artist; his schemes illuminate the microscopic and the macrocosmic. And when Isaac Newton imagined nature as a coherent and comprehensive mathematical system, he redefined the goals of science and the meaning of genius. What Galileo Saw bridges the divide between science and art; it brings together Galileo and Milton, Bacon and Shakespeare. Lipking enters the minds and the workshops where the Scientific Revolution was fashioned, drawing on art, literature, and the history of science to reimagine how perceptions about the world and human life could change so drastically, and change forever.
WHAT IF?: You Are and Life Is Miraculous! ABC, Affirmation, Art Coloring Book
by Audrye S. ArbeWHAT IF? YOU ARE AND LIFE IS MIRACULOUS!, ABC, Affirmation, Art Coloring Book, printed on 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper, is ready for you! Great for anyone five years young and beyond, this book transforms and uplifts the reader's vibration, intrigues and piques the intellect with outstanding words, plus leads to brain-enhancement with its multi-perspective Audrye OmArt: Art That Opens the Heart (c). Coloring is the new meditation, hailed by psychologists as a way to uplift depression, help those in recovery, and, this book in particular, bring forth gales of laughter. Children, adolescents, teens, and adults love this book! Each run benefits the planet, as well, as testified to by www.GreenPressInitiative.org in the book itself.
What If 2: More Fascinating Halachic Discussions for the Shabbos Table, Arranged According to the Weekly Torah Reading
by Moshe SherrowWhat if... <p><p> ...a mohel is running late, and the bris will not be performed on time unless he breaks the speed limit on a major highway? <p><p> ...a person buys a hat, and the "cashier" turns out to be a thief who had simply sat at the cash register - does he have to pay the store again? <p><p> ...a man hired to say Kaddish does so faithfully, and finds out at the end of eleven months that he's gotten the name of the deceased wrong? <p><p> These are all true stories. All real-life halachic questions. And all absolutely fascinating. <p><p> Jews the world over have discovered the perfect conversation-starter at their Shabbos table: What If? Based on the popular Hebrew-language series Chashukei Chemed, written by noted rav and posek, Rav Yitzchok Zilberstein shlita, and translated and arranged in the order of the weekly parashah by Rabbi Moshe Sherrow, What If? includes hundreds of real-life halachic questions, each accompanied by a brief, practical scenario to illustrate the case, and an analysis that is understandable and easy to follow. <p><p> What If? garnered immense acclaim because it reaches people of all ages and backgrounds. The queries, stories, and halachic explanations are clear and simple, so that even youngsters can discuss them (and guess at the answers - a sure conversation starter!). At the same time these fascinating halachic questions and responses hold the interest of those well-versed in Torah scholarship. <p><p> Since its publication, What If? has become a beloved guest at thousands of Shabbos tables - and readers have been clamoring for more. What If? Volume 2 continues the Torah conversation, with still more unusual and engrossing questions and cases. <p><p> Let the conversation at your Shabbos table flow as smoothly as fine wine, with What If? Volume 2.
What Is a Classic? Postcolonial Rewriting and Invention of the Canon
by Ankhi MukherjeeWhat Is a Classic? revisits the famous question posed by critics from Sainte-Beuve and T. S. Eliot to J. M. Coetzee to ask how classics emanate from postcolonial histories and societies. Exploring definitive trends in twentieth- and twenty-first century English and Anglophone literature, Mukherjee demonstrates the relevance of the question of the classic for the global politics of identifying and perpetuating so-called core texts. Emergent canons are scrutinized in the context of the wider cultural phenomena of book prizes, the translation and distribution of world literatures, and multimedia adaptations of world classics. Throughout, Mukherjee attunes traditional literary critical concerns to the value contestations mobilizing postcolonial and world literature. The breadth of debates and topics she addresses, as well as the book's ambitious historical schema, which includes South Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and North America, set this study apart from related titles on the bookshelf today.
What Makes Living Things Go? (SEEDS Book Reader)
by Kevin Beals Jonathan CurleyNIMAC-sourced textbook
What Makes This Book So Great: Re-Reading the Classics of Fantasy and SF
by Jo WaltonJo Walton is an award-winning author of, inveterate reader of, and chronic re-reader of science fiction and fantasy books. What Makes This Book So Great? is a selection of the best of her musings about her prodigious reading habit. Jo Walton’s many subjects range from acknowledged classics, to guilty pleasures, to forgotten oddities and gems. Among them, the Zones of Thought novels of Vernor Vinge; the question of what genre readers mean by ‘mainstream’; the under-appreciated SF adventures of C. J. Cherryh; the field’s many approaches to time travel; the masterful science fiction of Samuel R. Delany; Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children; the early Hainish novels of Ursula K. Le Guin; and a Robert A. Heinlein novel you have most certainly never read. Over 130 essays in all, What Makes This Book So Great is an immensely engaging collection of provocative, opinionated thoughts about past and present-day fantasy and science fiction, from one of our best writers.
What Makes This Book So Great: Re-Reading the Classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy
by Jo WaltonAs any reader of Jo Walton's Among Others might guess, Walton is both an inveterate reader of SF and fantasy, and a chronic re-reader of books. In 2008, then-new science-fiction mega-site Tor.com asked Walton to blog regularly about her re-reading—about all kinds of older fantasy and SF, ranging from acknowledged classics, to guilty pleasures, to forgotten oddities and gems. These posts have consistently been among the most popular features of Tor.com. Now this volumes presents a selection of the best of them, ranging from short essays to long reassessments of some of the field's most ambitious series.Among Walton's many subjects here are the Zones of Thought novels of Vernor Vinge; the question of what genre readers mean by "mainstream"; the underappreciated SF adventures of C. J. Cherryh; the field's many approaches to time travel; the masterful science fiction of Samuel R. Delany; Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children; the early Hainish novels of Ursula K. Le Guin; and a Robert A. Heinlein novel you have most certainly never read. Over 130 essays in all, What Makes This Book So Great is an immensely readable, engaging collection of provocative, opinionated thoughts about past and present-day fantasy and science fiction, from one of our best writers. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
What Ship Is Not a Ship
by Harriet ZiefertWhat language lesson doesn't seem like a lesson? The fun guessing game inside this book! Clever word groupings list three things that are alike and one that it is different. For example, there are living rooms, bedrooms, and bathrooms, but a mushroom is not a room! Picture clues will help kids figure out which thing is different and begin to grasp fine-tuned nuances of word parts, roots, and meanings. In addition, the text's guessing-game approach invites kids into a call-and-response dynamic. This title is a great companion to the well-received Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow? and What Is Part This, Part That?
What to Talk About: On a Plane, at a Cocktail Party, in a Tiny Elevator with Your Boss's Boss
by Rob Baedeker Chris Colin Tony MillionaireHomo sapiens have been speaking for hundreds of years--and yet basic communication still stymies us. We freeze up in elevators, on dates, at parties, under Dumpsters. We stagger through our exchanges merely hoping not to crash, never considering that we might soar. We go home sweaty and eat a birthday cake in the shower.But no more. With What to Talk About you'll learn to speak--fluently, intelligently, charmingly--to family, friends, coworkers, lovers, future lovers, horse trainers, children, even yourself. This hilarious manual, written by two award-winning authors and illustrated by legendary cartoonist Tony Millionaire, is tailor-made for anyone who might one day attend a dinner party, start a job, celebrate a birthday, graduate from school, date a human, or otherwise use words.What to Talk About is not rocket science, but it is a lot like brain surgery, in the sense that is terrifying, risky--and could change you forever.
What W. H. Auden Can Do for You (Writers on Writers #5)
by Alexander McCall SmithBestselling novelist Alexander McCall Smith's charming account of how the poet W. H. Auden has helped guide his life—and how he might guide yours, tooWhen facing a moral dilemma, Isabel Dalhousie—Edinburgh philosopher, amateur detective, and title character of a series of novels by best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith—often refers to the great twentieth-century poet W. H. Auden. This is no accident: McCall Smith has long been fascinated by Auden. Indeed, the novelist, best known for his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, calls the poet not only the greatest literary discovery of his life but also the best of guides on how to live. In this book, McCall Smith has written a charming personal account about what Auden has done for him—and what he just might do for you.Part self-portrait, part literary appreciation, the book tells how McCall Smith first came across the poet's work in the 1970s, while teaching law in Belfast, a violently divided city where Auden's "September 1, 1939," a poem about the outbreak of World War II, strongly resonated. McCall Smith goes on to reveal how his life has related to and been inspired by other Auden poems ever since. For example, he describes how he has found an invaluable reflection on life's transience in "As I Walked Out One Evening," while "The More Loving One" has provided an instructive meditation on unrequited love. McCall Smith shows how Auden can speak to us throughout life, suggesting how, despite difficulties and change, we can celebrate understanding, acceptance, and love for others.An enchanting story about how art can help us live, this book will appeal to McCall Smith's fans and anyone curious about Auden.
What We See When We Read
by Peter MendelsundA gorgeously unique, fully illustrated exploration into the phenomenology of reading--how we visualize images from reading works of literature, from one of our very best book jacket designers, himself a passionate reader. What do we see when we read? Did Tolstoy really describe Anna Karenina? Did Melville ever really tell us what, exactly, Ishmael looked like? The collection of fragmented images on a page--a graceful ear there, a stray curl, a hat positioned just so--and other clues and signifiers helps us to create an image of a character. But in fact our sense that we know a character intimately has little to do with our ability to concretely picture our beloved--or reviled--literary figures. In this remarkable work of nonfiction, Knopf's Associate Art Director Peter Mendelsund combines his profession, as an award-winning designer; his first career, as a classically trained pianist; and his first love, literature--he considers himself first and foremost as a reader--into what is sure to be one of the most provocative and unusual investigations into how we understand the act of reading.
What's Queer about Europe?: Productive Encounters and Re-enchanting Paradigms
by Sudeep Dasgupta Mireille RoselloWhat’s Queer about Europe? examines how queer theory helps us initiate disorienting conjunctions and counterintuitive encounters for imagining historical and contemporary Europe. This book queers Europe and Europeanizes queer, forcing a reconsideration of both. Its contributors study Europe relationally, asking not so much what Europe is but what we do when we attempt to define it. The topics discussed include: gay marriage in Renaissance Rome, Russian anarchism and gender politics in early-twentieth-century Switzerland, colonialism and sexuality in Italy, queer masculinities in European popular culture, queer national identities in French cinema, and gender theories and activism. What these apparently disparate topics have in common is the urgency of the political, legal, and cultural issues they tackle. Asking what is queer about Europe means probing the blind spots that continue to structure the long and discrepant process of Europeanization.
When Organization Fails: Why Authority Matters
by James R. Taylor Elizabeth J. Van EveryWhen Organization Fails: Why Authority Matters develops the study of authority as an area of investigation in organizational communication and management. As a research topic, authority has rarely been addressed in depth in the management and organizational communication literature. It is critical, however, to maintaining unity of purpose and action of the organization, and it is frequently cited by organizational members themselves. Utilizing two case studies, examined in depth and based on the accounts of the individuals involved, authors James R. Taylor and Elizabeth J. van Every explore the pathology of authority when it fails. They develop a theoretical foundation that aims to illuminate authority by positioning it in communication theory. This volume sets the stage for a new generation of scholars who can make their reputations as experts on authority, and is intended for scholars and graduate students in organizational communication, leadership, and discourse analysis. It also offers practical insights to consultants and management experts worldwide.