The Never-Ending Lives of Liver-Eating Johnson


Book Description

From Farmer and Sailor to Mountain Man, Crow Killer, and Town Sheriff, One man’s reputation lives past all others When it came to western mountain men, no one on earth ever matched the physical prowess or will to survive of John “Liver-Eating” Johnson. Throughout his life, John Johnston was known by several names, including “Crow Killer” and “Liver-Eating Johnson” (without the “t”), names he earned through his penchant for killing Crow Indians before cutting out and eating their livers. Born around 1824 in New Jersey, Johnston headed west after deserting from the U.S. Navy and became a well-known and infamous mountain man. His many lives would involve him working as a miner, hunter, trapper, bootlegger, woodcutter, and army scout. When his Flathead Indian wife and child were killed by Crow Indians while he was away hunting and trapping, he swore to avenge their deaths and began his next life as a man after revenge . He killed hundreds and earned his nickname because he was said to cut out and eat his victims’ livers. Twenty-five years after his wife’s death, his life would take another turn when he joined the Union Army in Missouri. And that was just the start of his second act.




The Allure of Machinic Life


Book Description

An account of the creation of new forms of life and intelligence in cybernetics, artificial life, and artificial intelligence that analyzes both the similarities and the differences among these sciences in actualizing life.The Allure of Machinic Life




The Committee for the Reburial of Liver-Eating Johnston


Book Description

In 1974, Tri Robinson and his 7th grade American Literature class went on an unthinkable quest to dig up and rebury a famous mountain man. That man was John Johnston - otherwise known by his legendary name as Liver-eating Johnston, and the inspiration for the Robert Redford movie, Jeremiah Johnson. This is the remarkable story of how, against all odds, 24 twelve-year-old kids succeeded in persuading the U.S. Congress to name their class as Johnston's official next of kin. With that designation they could move the body of a man who had been buried for 75 years in a gravesite near the San Diego Freeway in Los Angeles, California. The journey would entail crossing five state lines to bring Johnston to a final resting spot in the Rocky Mountains - a place he once roamed and loved. The inspiring account reveals the obstacles the students endured along the way such as the legal battle between the states of Wyoming and Montana to obtain the rights to Johnston's remains. It also highlights some of the unlikely support provided from people like Robert Redford and Roy Neil (a news correspondent for NBC), who both became advocates to the students' cause. The Committee for the Reburial of Liver-eating Johnston is an amazing true tale that is humorous, inspiring and nothing short of miraculous. It is a testimony to the power of creative and innovative education. This is a book every aspiring teacher should read before entering the classroom as it speaks of overcoming learning disabilities, working with the gifted, and the impact of a teacher's empowering words.




Crow Killer


Book Description

The saga of the famed mountain man and Indian-hater. The film Jeremiah Johnson was based on this work.




Let's Study John


Book Description

Mark Johnston guides us through John's account of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. John takes us by the hand and leads us into the depths and mysteries of Christ's Person and wonders He has accomplished - so that the reader should come to living faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and have eternal life in His Name.







Content Points


Book Description




Carnival of Repetition


Book Description

Although published many decades ago, William Gaddis's The Recognitions is only now beginning to receive the critical attention it deserves. Carnival of Repetition, the first full-length study of the novel, is a sophisticated analysis that places it in a new literary and cultural context . This novel of the 1950 s is unlike anything else from that decade. It harks back to the works of high modernism (exemplified by Joyce's Ulysses) and looks forward to postmodern fiction (especially as practiced by Barth, Pynchon, and DeLillo). Imitation is its major theme, one that Gaddis pursues on many levels, across several continents, into mazes of arcane knowledge and bogus scholarship, and even into the novel's structure through the repetition of prior texts and the interplay between literal and disguised quotation. Through an endless play of repetition, Gaddis con­founds the reader's recognition of similarity and difference. Johnston uses the theories of Bakhtin and Deleuze (and others, such as Julia Kristeva) to map out a context for this most unusual and difficult work. From Bakhtin, he appropriates the concepts of "carnivalesque" fiction and dialogism (or a plurality of independent voices, no one more important than another). From Deleuze, he borrows the idea of the simulacrum, a copy that presupposes no original and that becomes meaningful through a process of infinite repetition. With these instruments, Johnston analyzes the labyrinth of copy and counterfeit that Gaddis constructs in his novel.




The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky


Book Description

Introducing a dramatic new chapter to American Indian literary history, this book brings to the public for the first time the complete writings of the first known American Indian literary writer, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft (her English name) or Bamewawagezhikaquay (her Ojibwe name), Woman of the Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky (1800-1842). Beginning as early as 1815, Schoolcraft wrote poems and traditional stories while also translating songs and other Ojibwe texts into English. Her stories were published in adapted, unattributed versions by her husband, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, a founding figure in American anthropology and folklore, and they became a key source for Longfellow's sensationally popular The Song of Hiawatha. As this volume shows, what little has been known about Schoolcraft's writing and life only scratches the surface of her legacy. Most of the works have been edited from manuscripts and appear in print here for the first time. The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky presents a collection of all Schoolcraft's extant writings along with a cultural and biographical history. Robert Dale Parker's deeply researched account places her writings in relation to American Indian and American literary history and the history of anthropology, offering the story of Schoolcraft, her world, and her fascinating family as reinterpreted through her newly uncovered writing. This book makes available a startling new episode in the history of American culture and literature.