Author: Anna Lewington File Type: pdf Elegant, rich in history, and supremely useful, birches have played an extraordinary yet largely unrecognized part in shaping both our natural environment and the material culture and beliefs of millions of people around the world. Exploring birches many uses, the ancient beliefs and folklore we associate with them, their abiding portrayal in literature and art, and their biology,Birchpresents a fascinating overview of the cultural and ecological significance of these versatile trees.For thousands of years, birches have given the people of northern temperate forests and beyond raw materials in the form of leaves, twigs, branches, bark, wood, and sapmaterials used not simply to survive, but to flourish and expressidentity in practical and spiritual ways. Tough, waterproof, and flexible, birch bark has been used for everything from basketry and clothing to housing, transport, musical instruments, and medicines, and even to communicate and record sacred beliefs some of our most ancient Buddhist texts and other historic documents are written on birch bark. Birches have not only shaped regional indigenous culturesfor example, in the form of the Native American wigwam and the birch bark canoethey also continue to be of global economic importance today. Featuring an arbor of illustrations and rich analyses,Birchis an enlightening look into the history and possible future of these beautiful trees.
Author: Mehdi Azaiez
File Type: pdf
The present volume is the work of 25 scholars who represent various specializations important to the study of the Quran, including Arabic language, comparative Semitic linguistics, paleography, epigraphy, history, rhetorical theory, hermeneutics, and Biblical studies. The starting point of this work was a series of five international conferences on the Quran at the University of Notre Dame over the academic year 2012-13, although the commentaries contributed during those conferences have been carefully edited to avoid repetition. Readers of The Quran Seminar Commentary will find that the 50 passages selected for inclusion in this work include many of the most important and influential elements of the Quran, including - Q 1, al-Fatiha - Q 230-39, the angelic prostration before Adam - Q 2255, the Throne Verse - Q 37, the muhkamat and mutashabihat - Q 43, polygamy and monogamy - Q 5112-15, the table (al-maida) from heaven - Q 929, fighting the People of the Book and the jizya - Q 12, the story of Joseph - Q 2445, the Light Verse - Q 3340, the seal of the prophets - Q 53, the satanic verses - Q 96, including the passage often described as the first revelation - Q 97, the night of qadr - Q 105, the Companions of the Elephant - Q 112, on God and the denial of a divine son The collaborative nature of this work, which involves a wide range of scholars discussing the same passages from different perspectives, offers readers with an unprecedented diversity of insights on the Quranic text.
Author: William Davenport Mercer
File Type: pdf
The modern effort to locate American liberties, it turns out, began in the mud at the bottom of Baltimore harbor. John Barron Jr. and John Craig sued the city for damages after Baltimores rebuilt drainage system diverted water and sediment into the harbor, preventing large ships from tying up at Barron and Craigs wharf. By the time the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1833, the issue had become whether the citys actions constituted a taking of property by the state without just compensation, a violation of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The high courts decision in Barron v. Baltimore marked a critical step in the rapid evolution of law and constitutional rights during the first half of the nineteenth century. Diminishing the Bill of Rights examines the backstory and context of this decision as a turning point in the development of our current conception of individual rights. Since the colonial period, Americans had viewed their rights as springing from multiple sources, including the common law, natural right, and English legal tradition. Despite this rich heritage and a prohibition grounded in the Magna Carta against uncompensated state takings of property, the Court ruled against Barrons claim. The Bill of Rights, Chief Justice John Marshall declared in his opinion for the majority, restrained only the federal government, not the states. The Fifth Amendment, accordingly, did not apply to Maryland or any of the cities it chartered. In explaining how the Court came to reject a multisourced view of human liberties--a position seemingly inconsistent with its previous decisions--William Davenport Mercer helps explain why we now envision the Constitution as essential to guaranteeing our rights. Marshalls view of rights in Barron, Mercer argues, helped him navigate the Court through the precarious political currents of the time. While the chief justice may have effected a shrewd political maneuver, the decision helped hasten a reconceptualization of rights as located in documents. Its legacy, as Mercers work makes clear, is among the Jacksonian eras significant democratic reforms and marks the emergence of a distinctly American constitutionalism.
Author: Giorgio Agamben
File Type: pdf
Is it meaningful to call oneself a democrat? And if so, how do you interpret the word?In responding to this question, eight iconoclastic thinkers prove the rich potential of democracy, along with its critical weaknesses, and reconceive the practice to accommodate new political and cultural realities. Giorgio Agamben traces the tense history of constitutions and their coexistence with various governments. Alain Badiou contrasts current democratic practice with democratic communism. Daniel Bensaid ponders the institutionalization of democracy, while Wendy Brown discusses the democratization of society under neoliberalism. Jean-Luc Nancy measures the difference between democracy as a form of rule and as a human end, and Jacques Ranciere highlights its egalitarian nature. Kristin Ross identifies hierarchical relationships within democratic practice, and Slavoj Zizek complicates the distinction between those who desire to own the state and those who wish to do without it.Concentrating on the classical roots of democracy and its changing meaning over time and within different contexts, these essays uniquely defend what is left of the left-wing tradition after the fall of Soviet communism. They confront disincentives to active democratic participation that have caused voter turnout to decline in western countries, and they address electoral indifference by invoking and reviving the tradition of citizen involvement. Passionately written and theoretically rich, this collection speaks to all facets of modern political and democratic debate.** Is it meaningful to call oneself a democrat? And if so, how do you interpret the word?In responding to this question, eight iconoclastic thinkers prove the rich potential of democracy, along with its critical weaknesses, and reconceive the practice to accommodate new political and cultural realities. Giorgio Agamben traces the tense history of constitutions and their coexistence with various governments. Alain Badiou contrasts current democratic practice with democratic communism. Daniel Bensaid ponders the institutionalization of democracy, while Wendy Brown discusses the democratization of society under neoliberalism. Jean-Luc Nancy measures the difference between democracy as a form of rule and as a human end, and Jacques Ranciere highlights its egalitarian nature. Kristin Ross identifies hierarchical relationships within democratic practice, and Slavoj Zizek complicates the distinction between those who desire to own the state and those who wish to do without it.Concentrating on the classical roots of democracy and its changing meaning over time and within different contexts, these essays uniquely defend what is left of the left-wing tradition after the fall of Soviet communism. They confront disincentives to active democratic participation that have caused voter turnout to decline in western countries, and they address electoral indifference by invoking and reviving the tradition of citizen involvement. Passionately written and theoretically rich, this collection speaks to all facets of modern political and democratic debate.
Author: Dylan Thomas
File Type: epub
Collected here are eight particularly enjoyable Dylan Thomas stories, stories hailed byThe New Statesmanas the unself-conscious classics, compassionate, fresh, and very funny... radiating enthusiasm and delight in the telling. This story collection includesThe End of The River, The School for Witches, The Peaches, Just Like Little Dogs, Old Garbo, One Warm Saturday, Plenty of Furniture, The Followers **From Publishers Weekly The cream of the legendary word-smiths stories, in a low-priced edition. 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal With these volumes, New Directions launches its new Bibelots series. The purpose of the Bibelots is to reprint small sections from existing titles by prestigious authors at a reasonable price. Firbanks Caprice first appeared in Three More Novels , Millers Devil was gleaned from 1957s Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus , and the Thomas shorts were lifted from a larger Collected Stories anthology. For academic and public libraries specializing in hardcore literature, particularly those needing multiple copies, the Bibelots series offers an affordable alternative to the higher-priced full texts. Recommended accordingly. - Michael Rogers, Library Journal 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. html
Author: Iskrena Yordanova
File Type: pdf
This volume is dedicated to Serenata and Festa Teatrale in 18th Century Europe, especially to the production of this music-dramatic genre at the courts on the Iberian Peninsula, in Italy, and the Holy Roman Empire where it was an integral part of court ceremonials and a privileged ritual of repraesentatio maiestatis. The 16 studies on patrons and artists, exceptional events and local traditions,reveal highly interesting material for the research on these up to now largely neglected genre. Any approach to these works full of metaphors, symbols and allusions has to take into account the context of the celebration and the resulting multiplicity of aspects choice of themes, dramaturgical forms, textual and musical structures, vocal and instrumental ensembles, and the various options regarding the stage apparatus. Serenata and Festa Teatrale in 18th Century Europe, edited by Iskrena Yordanova (Lisbon) and Paologiovanni Maione (Naples), inaugurates the series Cadernos de Queluz, a subseries of Specula Spectacula by Don Juan Archiv Wien. **
Author: David Brown
File Type: pdf
This book explores the ways in which music can engender religious experience, by virtue of its ability to evoke the ineffable and affect how the world is open to us. Arguing against approaches that limit the religious significance of music to an illustrative function, The Extravagance of Music sets out a more expansive and optimistic vision, which suggests that there is an excess or extravagance in both music and the divine that can open up revelatory and transformative possibilities. In Part I, David Brown argues that even in the absence of words, classical instrumental music can disclose something of the divine nature that allows us to speak of an experience analogous to contemplative prayer. In Part II, Gavin Hopps contends that, far from being a wasteland of mind-closing triviality, popular music frequently aspires to elicit the imaginative engagement of the listener and is capable of evoking intimations of transcendence. Filled with fresh and accessible discussions of diverse examples and forms of music, this ground-breaking book affirms the disclosive and affective capacities of music, and shows how it can help to awaken, vivify, and sustain a sense of the divine in everyday life. **
Author: Bernard Porter
File Type: epub
Britains secret state exists to protect her from enemies within. It has always aroused controversy on the one hand it is credited with preventing wars, revolutions and terrorism and on the other it is accused of subverting democratically elected governments and luring innocents to death. What is the true story? The book, first published in 1992, delves beneath the myths and deceptions surrounding the secret service to reveal the true nature and significance of covert political policing in Britain, from the spies and bloodites of the eighteenth century to todays MI5. This title will be of interest to students of modern history and politics.
Author: H. Stith Bennett
File Type: pdf
In the 1960s and 1970s, becoming a rock musician was fundamentally different than playing other kinds of music. It was a learned rather than a taught skill. In On Becoming a Rock Musician, sociologist H. Stith Bennett observes what makes someone a rock musician and what persuades others to take him seriously in this role. The book explores how bands form the backstage and onstage reality of playing in a band how bands promote themselves and interact with audiences and music professionals like DJs and the role of performance. **