The Land of the Body


Book Description

This book presents the first extended study of the representation of Egypt in the writings of Philo of Alexandria. Philo is a crucial witness, not only to the experiences of the Jews of Alexandria, but to the world of early Roman Egypt in general. As historians of Roman Alexandria and Egypt are well aware, we have access to very few voices from inside the country in this era; Philo is the best we have. As a commentator on Jewish Scripture, Philo is also one of the most valuable sources for the interpretation of Egypt in the Pentateuch. He not only writes very extensively on this subject, but he does so in ways that are remarkable for their originality when compared with the surviving literature of ancient Judaism. In this book, Sarah Pearce tries to understand Philo in relation to the wider context in which he lived and worked. Key areas for investigation include: defining the 'Egyptian' in Philo's world; Philo's treatment of the Egypt of the Pentateuch as a symbol of 'the land of the body'; Philo's emphasis on Egyptian inhospitableness; and his treatment of Egyptian religion, focusing on Nile veneration and animal worship.




The Land of Open Graves


Book Description

In this gripping and provocative “ethnography of death,” anthropologist and MacArthur "Genius" Fellow Jason De León sheds light on one of the most pressing political issues of our time—the human consequences of US immigration and border policy. The Land of Open Graves reveals the suffering and deaths that occur daily in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona as thousands of undocumented migrants attempt to cross the border from Mexico into the United States. Drawing on the four major fields of anthropology, De León uses an innovative combination of ethnography, archaeology, linguistics, and forensic science to produce a scathing critique of “Prevention through Deterrence,” the federal border enforcement policy that encourages migrants to cross in areas characterized by extreme environmental conditions and high risk of death. For two decades, systematic violence has failed to deter border crossers while successfully turning the rugged terrain of southern Arizona into a killing field. Featuring stark photography by Michael Wells, this book examines the weaponization of natural terrain as a border wall: first-person stories from survivors underscore this fundamental threat to human rights, and the very lives, of non-citizens as they are subjected to the most insidious and intangible form of American policing as institutional violence. In harrowing detail, De León chronicles the journeys of people who have made dozens of attempts to cross the border and uncovers the stories of the objects and bodies left behind in the desert. The Land of Open Graves will spark debate and controversy.




I Am a Body of Land


Book Description

"If poetry is a place to question, I Am a Body of Land by Shannon Webb-Campbell is an attempt to explore a relationship to poetic responsibility and accountability, and frame poetry as a form of re-visioning. Here Webb-Campbell revisits the text of her earlier work Who Took My Sister? to examine her self, her place and her own poetic strategies. These poems are efforts to decolonize, unlearn, and undo harm. Reconsidering individual poems and letters, Webb-Campbell’s confessional writing circles back, and challenges what it means ask questions of her own settler-Indigenous identity, belonging, and attempts to cry out for community, and call in with love. Edited for the press, and with an introduction by Lee Maracle; includes an an afterword by the author."--




The Body


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A must-read owner’s manual for every body. Take a head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body in this “delightful, anecdote-propelled read” (The Boston Globe) from the author of A Short History of Nearly Everything. With a new Afterword. “You will marvel at the brilliance and vast weirdness of your design." —The Washington Post Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body—how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and (unfortunately) the ways it can fail. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and irresistible Brysonesque anecdotes, The Body will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular. As Bill Bryson writes, “We pass our existence within this wobble of flesh and yet take it almost entirely for granted.” The Body will cure that indifference with generous doses of wondrous, compulsively readable facts and information. As addictive as it is comprehensive, this is Bryson at his very best.




Biff America


Book Description

Biff America is a wonderfully funny mix of Andy Rooney and Garrison Keillor. From low-flow toilets to prostate pride, knee surgery to avalanche fatalities, gay marriage to schoolyard bullies, Biff America poignantly writes what the American people need to know. Through it all, Biff America has a gift for revealing the uplifting realities of modern life and, sometimes, his humor will make you blow beer through your nose. With an introduction by John Nichols, author of THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR, and copious illustrations of Biff in action. REVIEWS: "Whether it is on stage, in print or on top of a fourteen-thousand-foot summit, Biff America can make you laugh, cry and feel nauseous-all at the same time." -Rachel Dratch, cast member, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE "Don't let any of that touchy feely crap fool you; Biff America can be a mean drunk, a weasel when confronted and is an unstable individual. He still owes me $67." -Brad Pitt, Baraboo, WI "Biff America's writing is provocative, edgy, insightful and, most important, absorbing. He has a unique gift for mixing comedy with pathos; his observations on life, politics, his family, himself or anything else that strike his fancy are uncannily on point, often with a devilish wit." -NBC "Beneath his blue-collar sensibilities, rough-hewn mountain-town ethos and snort-your-morning-coffee dorm-room humor, Biff America is a surprisingly refined and nuanced writer who finds amazing insights in everyday life. Unrestrained, ribald and slightly off-kilter, he stands as a mad prophet of our times. George W. Bush should read this book." -DENVER POST "The columns in this rich collection form one of the more thoughtful and laugh-provoking journeys that I've taken in a long spell. Think of Lake Wobegon Days meets The Little World of Don Camillo. There's a biting satire aplenty throughout these pages, but it is always couched in a truly humane understanding of our species' tragic-comic fallibility... I found myself repeatedly moved, and moved deeply, by these poignant and funny stories." - John Nichols, author of THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Boston-born writer, comedian and skier, Jeffrey Bergeron, under the alias Biff America, was the recipient of the 2005 Colorado Press Association award for both humor and serious column writing. Recently elected to the Breckenridge City Council on the homeland security and medicinal marijuana platform, Bergeron skis more days than he works and lives in Breckenridge with his hot wife, Ellen. He can be seen on TV, heard on radio, and read regularly in various magazines and newspapers. CONTENTS: Chapter 1: Recreation Chapter 2: Family Chapter 3: People Chapter 4: Dead People Chapter 5: Politics Chapter 6: Connubial Bliss Chapter 7: God Chapter 8: Sex, Love and Body Parts Don't miss out on your Biff fix - get Biff America: Steep, Deep, and Dyslexic today!




Living on the Land


Book Description

From a variety of methodological perspectives, contributors to Living on the Land explore the nature and scope of Indigenous women’s knowledge, its rootedness in relationships, both human and spiritual, and its inseparability from land and landscape. The authors discuss the integral role of women as stewards of the land and governors of the community and points to a distinctive set of challenges and possibilities for Indigenous women and their communities.




Of Body and Brush


Book Description

The Qianlong emperor, who dominated the religious and political life of eighteenth-century China, was in turn dominated by elaborate ritual prescriptions. These texts determined what he wore and ate, how he moved, and above all how he performed the yearly Grand Sacrifices. In Of Body and Brush, Angela Zito offers a stunningly original analysis of the way ritualizing power was produced jointly by the throne and the official literati who dictated these prescriptions. Forging a critical cultural historical method that challenges traditional categories of Chinese studies, Zito shows for the first time that in their performance, the ritual texts embodied, literally, the metaphysics upon which imperial power rested. By combining rule through the brush (the production of ritual texts) with rule through the body (mandated performance), the throne both exhibited its power and attempted to control resistance to it. Bridging Chinese history, anthropology, religion, and performance and cultural studies, Zito brings an important new perspective to the human sciences in general.




New Creation Eschatology and the Land


Book Description

What will the final state of the redeemed look like? Throughout the history of the church, conceptions of the final state have tended to minimize the promise of the new heavens and new earth. In contrast to the historical dominance of spiritual, heavenly, non-temporal conceptions of the final state, the last two decades have witnessed a rise in conceptions that include the redemption of material, earthly, and temporal reality. These “new creation” conceptions have included proposals regarding the fulfillment of Old Testament land promises. In New Creation Eschatology and the Land, Steven L. James argues that in recent new creation conceptions of the final state there is a logical inconsistency between the use of Old Testament texts to inform a renewed earth and the exclusion of the territory of Israel from that renewed earth. By examining a select group of new creationists, James shows that the exclusion of the territorial restoration of Israel in a new creation conception fails to appreciate the role of the particular territory in Old Testament prophetic texts and results in an inconsistent new creationism.




Jamaica Kincaid


Book Description

As a writer who has been quoted as saying she writes to save her life- that is she couldn't write, she would be a revolutionary- Antiguan novelist Jamaica Kincaid translates this passion into searing, exhilarating prose. Her weaving of history, autobiography, fiction, and polemic has won her a large readership. In this first book-length study of her work, Moira Ferguson examines all of Kincaid's writing up to 1992, focusing especially o their entwinement of personal and political identity. In doing so, she draws a parallel between the dynamics of the mother-daughter relationship in Kincaid's fiction and the more political relationship of the colonizer and the colonized. Ferguson calls this effect the "doubled mother"- a conception of motherhood as both colonial and biological.




Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land: Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit


Book Description

This is a very personal, and at times very moving account of the author's horseback journey to the Holy Land, now mostly Israel. He was himself a clergyman and therefore making a sort of pilgrimage but he writes with such passion and clarity that he brings the land to life for the reader.