Before Pornography: Erotic Writing in Early Modern England
Author: Ian Frederick Moulton File Type: pdf Before Pornography explores the relationship between erotic writing, masculinity, and national identity in Renaissance England. Drawing on both manuscripts and printed texts, and incorporating insights from modern feminist theory and queer studies, the book argues that pornography is a historical phenomenon while the representation of sexual activity exists in nearly all cultures, pornography does not. The book includes analyses of the social significance of eroticism in such canonical texts as Sidneys Defense of Poesy and Spensers Faerie Queene. **Review This is emphatically an important book, valuable both as a useful addition to the expanding field of Renaissance studies of sexuality and gender, and as a significant contribution to a key area of debate in contemporary culture....Moulton has written a serious and sensitive study of a difficult subject and he has done so with much wit and grace, not to mention scholarship and substance.--Willy Maley, University of Glasgow Before Pornography finely explores erotic literature in early modern England, showing how it does not neatly fit later models of the pornographic. Ian Moulton illuminates the relations between erotic writing and the politics of both national identity and the literary career of the professional writer. This book will be of interest to anyone studying changing definitions of gender, sexuality, and authorship.--Peter Stallybrass, University of Pennsylvania Before Pornography is an impressive achievement. Most attempts to explain what is early modern pornography have concentrated on the sexually explicit, obscene nature of the material. Moulton clears away many old debates and refreshingly reminds us to think about the historical specificity of early modern Europe and to see erotic writing as a commodity that circulated widely among literate culture. His is a rich and lively recreation of that worlds way of reading that looks from the inside out rather than the other way around.--Margaret F. Rosenthal, University of Southern California Ian Moulton carries the history of verbal eroticism into fascinating new territory on several fronts, as he brings exacting attention to material media, gender differences, national identity, and the models available to writers in fashioning a dramatic identity for themselves. Readers interested in all these diverse subjects will find Before Pornography absolutely compelling.--Bruce Smith, Georgetown University In this brilliant, provocative book Ian Moulton makes an original contribution to our understanding of the history of erotic representation. This history has remained largely unexplored, Moulton persuasively argues, because we have tended to classify erotic writing from the past under the modern rubric of pornography. Moulton makes an elegant, clearly written, and highly learned case for appreciating the culturally distinctive features of early modern erotic writing and emergent debates about gender and national identity in Tudor-Stuart England.--Margaret Ferguson, University of California, Davis A thoughtful, intelligent, and well-argued book on early modern erotic writing, especially valuable for its linking of the early modern construction of a private, inner world to the consumption of erotic writings. Showing that erotic pieces were more common in manuscript culture than in print, Moulton does excellent work in miscellanies and commonplace books. Most useful is the chapter on Pietro Aretino, who in England came to symbolize erotic corruption just as Machiavelli was seen as an embodiment of political corruption, but who has been much neglected by English-language scholars.--Linda Woodbridge, Pennsylvania State University Striking.... This satisfying book will appeal to all with an interest in early modern culture and society.--Times Literary Supplement Moultons strongest points in Before Pornography are the close readings...Moultons wide-ranging and knowledgeable use of manuscripts is rewarding.--Eighteenth-Century Studies An extremely useful study of the prevalence of and interest in erotic literature in early modern England.--Choice Moulton is especially persuasive in one of his principal theses, that erotic representation twined through English protonational identity, and was particularly important in English notions of the Italianate.... Before Pornography is an enjoyable read and offers genuine insight into the place of erotic writing in early modern English culture.--Sixteenth Century Journal About the Author Ian Frederick Moulton Associate Professor of British Literature and Renaissance Cultural History Arizona State University West
Author: Deepak Sarma
File Type: pdf
Deepak Sarma explores the degree to which outsiders can understand and interpret the doctrine of the Madhva school of Vedanta. The school is based on insider epistemology which is so restrictive that few can learn its intricate doctrines. This book reveals the complexity of studying traditions based on insider epistemologies and encourages its audience to ponder both the value and the hazards of granting any outsider the authority and opportunity to derive important insights into a tradition as an insider.
Author: Peter Cole
File Type: epub
This groundbreaking collection presents for the first time in English a substantial body of poetry that emerges directly from the sublime and often startling world of Jewish mysticism. Taking up Gershom Scholems call to plumb the tremendous poetic potential concealed in the Kabbalistic tradition, Peter Cole provides dazzling renderings of work composed on three continents over a period of some fifteen hundred years.PIn addition to the translations and the texts in their original languages, Cole supplies a lively and insightful introduction, along with accessible commentaries to the poems. Aminadav Dykman adds an elegant afterword that places the work in the context of world literature. As a whole, the collection brings readers into the fascinating force field of Kabbalistic verse, where the building blocks of both language and existence itself are unveiled.PExcerpts from IThe Poetry of Kabbalah Ihave been featured in the IParis Review, Poetry,I and...
Author: Amanda Kay McVety
File Type: pdf
Amanda Kay McVety has written the first history of the international effort to eradicate rinderpest - a devastating cattle disease - which began in the 1940s and ended in 2011. Rinderpest is the only other disease besides smallpox to have been eradicated, but very few people in the United States know about it, because it did not infect humans and never broke out in North America. In other parts of the world, however, rinderpest was a serious economic and social burden and the struggle against it was a critical part of the effort to fight poverty and hunger globally. McVety follows the deployment of rinderpest vaccines around the globe, exploring the role of the environment in the understanding of development, internationalism, and national security. She expands the standard Cold War narratives to show how these concepts were framed not only by economic and political concerns, but also by biological ones. **Review In her innovative, engaging, and deeply-researched book, Amanda Kay McVety brilliantly recounts the history of Rinderpest and the international struggle to contain it. Putting biology and the environment at the center of postwar history, her book makes a valuable contribution to the study of twentieth-century internationalism(s) and global development. Julia F. Irwin, University of South Florida, author of Making the World Safe The American Red Cross and a Nations Humanitarian Awakening A compelling, surprising, and elegantly written account of the disease that drew the world together. Youll never feel safe around cows again. Daniel Immerwahr, Northwestern University, Illinois,author of Thinking Small The United States and the Lure of Community Development Book Description This book uses the history of the struggle to eradicate rinderpest to expand our understanding of development and international relations in the twentieth century. It highlights the vital role that UN agencies played in development during the twentieth century, focusing on foreign relations and diplomatic history and global health policy.
Author: Jess McCormack
File Type: pdf
How might spoken words be translated into choreography? This book addresses the field of verbatim dance-theatre, around which there is currently limited existing scholarly writing. Grounded in extensive research, the project combines dance studies and performance studies theory, detailed analysis of professional choreographic work and examples of experimental practice to then employ the framework of translation studies in order to consider what a focus on movement and an attempt to dancemove other peoples words can offer to the field of verbatim theatre. It investigates ways to understand, articulate and engage in the process of choreographing movement as a response to verbatim spoken language. It is directed at an international audience of dance studies scholars, theatre and performance studies scholars and dance-theatre practitioners, and it would be appropriate reading material for undergraduate students seeking to develop their understanding of choreographic processes that use writtenspoken text as a starting point and graduate students working in the area of adaptation, verbatim theatre, physical theatre or devised theatre. **
Author: Barry Strauss
File Type: epub
In this story of the most famous assassination in history, the last bloody day of the [Roman] Republic has never been painted so brilliantly (The Wall Street Journal).Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the Roman Senate on March 15, 44 BCthe Ides of March according to the Roman calendar. He was, says author Barry Strauss, the last casualty of one civil war and the first casualty of the next civil war, which would end the Roman Republic and inaugurate the Roman Empire. The Death of Caesar provides a fresh look at a well-trodden event, with superb storytelling sure to inspire awe (The Philadelphia Inquirer). Why was Caesar killed? For political reasons, mainly. The conspirators wanted to return Rome to the days when the Senate ruled, but Caesar hoped to pass along his new powers to his family, especially Octavian. The principal plotters were Brutus, Cassius (both former allies of Pompey), and Decimus. The last was a leading general and close friend of Caesars who felt betrayed by the great man He was the mole in Caesars camp. But after the assassination everything went wrong. The killers left the body in the Senate and Caesars allies held a public funeral. Mark Antony made a brilliant speechnot Friends, Romans, Countrymen as Shakespeare had it, but something inflammatory that caused a riot. The conspirators fled Rome. Brutus and Cassius raised an army in Greece but Antony and Octavian defeated them. An original, new perspective on an event that seems well known, The Death of Caesar is one of the most riveting hour-by-hour accounts of Caesars final day I have read....An absolutely marvelous read (The Times, London).
Author: Brian Clegg
File Type: epub
Space is big. Really big. You just wont believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think its a long way down the street to the chemist, but thats just peanuts to space. Douglas Adams, Hitch-hikers Guide to the GalaxyWe human beings have trouble with infinity - yet infinity is a surprisingly human subject. Philosophers and mathematicians have gone mad contemplating its nature and complexity - yet it is a concept routinely used by schoolchildren. Exploring the infinite is a journey into paradox. Here is a quantity that turns arithmetic on its head, making it feasible that 1 = 0. Here is a concept that enables us to cram as many extra guests as we like into an already full hotel. Most bizarrely of all, it is quite easy to show that there must be something bigger than infinity - when it surely should be the biggest thing that could possibly be. Brian Clegg takes us on a fascinating tour of that borderland between the extremely large and the ultimate that takes us from Archimedes, counting the grains of sand that would fill the universe, to the latest theories on the physical reality of the infinite. Full of unexpected delights, whether St Augustine contemplating the nature of creation, Newton and Leibniz battling over ownership of calculus, or Cantor struggling to publicise his vision of the transfinite, infinitys fascination is in the way it brings together the everyday and the extraordinary, prosaic daily life and the esoteric.Whether your interest in infinity is mathematical, philosophical, spiritual or just plain curious, this accessible book offers a stimulating and entertaining read.**ReviewHere [Clegg] has done an excellent job of making the most complex concepts accessible while allowing their mystery to continue to shimmer just out of focus. --Kirkus Reviews Clegg is immensely readable and manages to convey to a lay audience some of the key mathematical ideas concerning infinity... a success. --H. Geiges, Times Higher Education Supplement An accessible and, of course, open-ended overview of infinity as conceived of and wrestled with by theologians, mathematicians and philosophers, from Ancient Greece onwards... endlessly fascinating. --Laurence Phelan, The Independent About the Author Brian Clegg studied physics at Cambridge University and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has written a number of popular science books including A Brief History of Infinity, Light Years, The God Effect and Before the Big Bang.
Author: Harlan Hahn
File Type: pdf
In Urban America and Its Police, Harlan Hahn and Judson L. Jeffries present a broad and comparative overview of urban policing in the United States. Synthesizing their own research with information from an eclectic array of sources - seminal social science studies of urban police departments, government documents, reports from organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, and think tank monographs - they present a nationally oriented and historically informed understanding of the diverse and often conflicting roles police officers play on city streets.Hahn and Jeffries also demonstrate the ways in which race and ethnicity have influenced law enforcement in the United States since the creation of the nations first police force. Ultimately, the authors call for a renewed emphasis on the social service dimension of police work - a shift they argue would reduce crime and enhance community support for those who are sworn to protect and serve.
Author: Sam Mitrani
File Type: pdf
The police simply did not exist in early American life. Between 1840s and the end of 1880s, every major northern city built a substantial police force. Sam Mitrani examines the making of the police in Chicago, which rapidly grew into the most violent, turbulent city in America by the late 1800s. From the Lager Beer riot of 1855, through the Civil War, 1867s strikes for the eight-hour day, the 1871 fire, 1877 strike and riot, the May Day strikes and the May Day strikes and the Haymarket bombing, Chicago was roiling with political and economic conflict, much of it rooted in class tensions. Chicagos lawmakers overcame many obstacles to build a force that could impose order. Forming an adequately paid, professional department turned out rather expensive. The polices advocates responded by forging a concept of order into a central political ideology. This concept reinforced the polices legitimacy among the urban populace, defining the role of policemen in municipal affairs. First the police protected property and suppressed disturbances on the street. They also arrested thousands for drunk and disorderly behavior throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, and attempted to control the behavior of women in brothels. By the 1880s, this ideology of order shaped both the polices behavior and a large portion of municipal politics. Mitrani recasts late-nineteenth-century Chicago in terms of the struggle over order, emphasizing the role of public institutions in the development of capitalism. Businessmen shaped these state institutions to protect their economic interests, yet Chicagos police could not control daily life in the working class neighborhoods. Thus, ordinary Chicagoans managed to limit the force of the municipal police--
Author: Michael Dumper
File Type: pdf
The repatriation of Palestinians is a highly topical issue, and a critical component of any future peace process for Israel Palestine. Until now, the mechanics of repatriation has not been dealt with before in this detail. This book explores the notion that the Palestinian refugee case is exceptional. It does this through the comparative study of refugee repatriation, and by asking the following questions to what extent can the Palestinian case said to be unique? Where are the divergences, the overlaps and points of similarity with other refugee situations? What lessons can be drawn from these comparisons? How can these lessons inform refugee organizations, the donor community and policy makers? In attempting to answer these questions, the expert contributors cover three main fields. Firstly the contextual and methodological field, reviewing on one hand the main trends in forced migration and refugee studies and issues concerning policy transfer and comparative research and on the other hand, the historical and political background of UNHCR and the negotiations around the Palestinian refugee issue. Secondly the book offers a truly comparative approach with other case studies from around the world. It covers in-depth case studies of specific refugee situations - covering Cambodia, Guatemala, the Horn of Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina - to reveal the key issues in the formulation of repatriation programs. Finally, the book draws together the lessons learnt, and considers to what extent these lessons are relevant to the Palestinian-Israeli situation--Provided by publisher.