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Between al-Andalus and Christian Europe
Jonathan P. Decter
This stimulating and graceful book explores Iberian Jewish attitudes
toward cultural transition during the 12th and 13th centuries, when growing
intolerance toward Jews in Islamic al-Andalus and the southward expansion of the
Christian Reconquista led to the relocation of Jews from Islamic to Christian
domains. By engaging literary topics such as imagery, structure, voice, landscape,
and geography, Jonathan P. Decter traces attitudes toward transition that range from
tenacious longing for the Islamic past to comfort in the Christian environment.
Through comparison with Arabic and European vernacular literatures, Decter
elucidates a medieval Hebrew poetics of estrangement and nostalgia, poetic responses
to catastrophe, and the refraction of social issues in fictional
narratives.
Published with the generous support of the Koret
Foundation.
Translated and edited by Richebourg McWilliams, written by Pierre Iberville, int
Europe's expansion into the New World during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries was a story of power alignment and cultural transmission as well as dramatic individual effort. Spain had her conquistadores, France her coureurs de bois, and England her sea dogs. Isolated from the authority of home governments, tempted by the abundance of gold, fur, and fish in the New World, these adventurers so vital to national policies of expansion developed their own personal creeds of conquest and colonization. Their individual exploits not only represent a humanistic theme essential in Europe's movement westward but heighten the analyses of cultural institutions of the era. It is within such a multidisciplinary light that one can experience the Gulf Coast adventures of Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville.
The Concept of the Limit and the Relationship between God and the World
This book explores how Ibn al->Arabiµ (1165–1240) used the concept of barzakh (the Limit) to deal with the philosophical problem of the relationship between God and the world, a major concept disputed in ancient and medieval Islamic thought. The term “barzakh” indicates the activity or actor that differentiates between things and that, paradoxically, then provides the context of their unity. Author Salman H. Bashier looks at early thinkers and shows how the synthetic solutions they developed provided the groundwork for Ibn al->Arabiµ’s unique concept of barzakh. Bashier discusses Ibn al->Arabiµ’s development of the concept of barzakh ontologically through the notion of the Third Thing and epistemologically through the notion of the Perfect Man, and compares Ibn al->Arabiµ’s vision with Plato’s.
A Woman’s Adventures from the Mojave to the Antarctic
Lucy Jane Bledsoe
For Lucy Jane Bledsoe, wilderness had always been a source of peace. But during one disastrous solo trip in the wintry High Sierra she came face to face with a crisis: the wilderness no longer felt like home. The Ice Cave recounts Bledsoe’s wilderness journeys as she recovers her connection with the wild and discovers the meanings of fear and grace.
These are Bledsoe’s gripping tales of fending off wolves in Alaska, encountering UFOs in the Colorado Desert, and searching for mountain lions in Berkeley. Her memorable story “The Breath of Seals” takes readers to Antarctica, the wildest continent on earth, where she camped out with geologists, biologists, and astrophysicists. These fresh and deeply personal narratives remind us what it means to be simply one member of one species, trying to find food and shelter—and moments of grace—on our planet.
Nature, Culture, and Storytelling in the North Atlantic
By Karen Oslund; Foreword by William Cronon
This cultural and environmental history sweeps across the dramatic North Atlantic landscape, exploring its unusual geology, saga narratives, language, culture, and politics and analyzing its emergence as a distinctive and symbolic part of Europe. The book closes with a discussion of Iceland's modern whaling practices and its recent financial collapse.
Studies in the History of An Idea
Moshe Barasch, Luci Serrano
Over the centuries, European debate about the nature and status of images of God and sacred figures has often upset the established order and shaken societies to their core. Out of this debate, an identifiable doctrine has emerged of the image in general and of the divine image in particular. This fascinating work concentrates on these historical arguments, from the period of Late Antiquity up to the great and classic defenses of images by St. John of Damascus and Theodore of Studion. Icon extends beyond the immediate concerns of religion, philosophy, aesthetics, history, and art, to engage them all.
The Dark Theology of Samuel Beckett's Drama
Sandra Wynands
Iconic Spaces looks at Samuel Beckett's mature theatrical work as a displaced theology of the icon. Sandra Wynands rejects conventional existentialist or nihilist interpretations of Beckett's work, arguing instead that beneath the text, in the depths of language and being, Beckett creates an absolutely irreducible, transcendent space. She traces a nondual model of perception and experience through a selection of Beckett's art-critical and dramatic works, focusing in particular on four minimalist plays: Catastrophe, Not I, Quad, and Film. Iconic Spaces makes an important contribution to scholars and students of literature, philosophy, theatre studies, and religion by giving them an exciting new way of reading and experiencing Beckett's work.
A Writer's Meditation
Susan Neville
"I started this meditation on the first day of Lent. I hope to keep
going every day until Easter. Each day I go fishing in the water of this internal
voice. This week the water's still, this angled pen a blue sail; the hook is lazy in
the estuary, the water the color of lapis. So what if I don't catch a fish? I said
that I would fish; that's all I promised. I bait the hook with each day's
discipline. I have no guarantees that there is anything at all to catch in these
particular waters, that something beneath the surface won't grab my pen and pull me
under." -- from Iconography
When Susan Neville enrolls in an
icon-painting class in the cellar of an Indianapolis monastery, she begins a journey
into a fascinating hidden world where saints are fabricated of mineral and wood,
yolk and blood, earth and time. The process is tedious, and she begins to make
mistakes, to become impatient; she doesn't feel ready for the challenge. To prepare
herself, Neville makes a vow to write during the 40 days of Lent. What emerges is a
journal, a meditation, a series of confessions that we are invited to listen to as
we follow Neville's sometimes painful attempts to reveal the truth and discover the
mystery of her existence. In the layering of colors and moods, her writing is the
spiritual equivalent of an icon. As she observes the world around her and applies
the paint of language to her observations, she realizes that spirit and matter are
not separate -- that now and then moments of meaning emerge from daily life, and the
stillness and majesty of the universe shine through.