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Love That Story: Observations from a Gorgeously Queer Life
by Jonathan Van NessIn Jonathan Van Ness’ New York Times bestselling memoir Over the Top, he showed readers how the incredibly difficult moments from his life (surviving sexual abuse and addiction, being diagnosed with HIV) have existed alongside great joy and positivity (landing a breakout role on Netflix’s Queer Eye, becoming an amateur figure skater and professional standup comedian, doting on his cats). If Jonathan has learned anything from these experiences, it’s that in order to thrive, he had to push past the shame and fear of being his true self. To embark on that journey, he had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.In this candid and curious essay collection, Jonathan takes a thoughtful, in-depth look at timely topics through the lens of his own personal experience—instances that have required him to learn, grow, and back handspring layout to a better understanding of the world around him. He dives deeply and widely—from a poignant reflection on grief and embracing body neutrality to an examination of the HIV safety net and white privilege—to share the ways in which he has learned to embrace change. These stories speak to doing the work to challenge internalized beliefs, finding compassion and confidence, and learning more about what makes us all so messy and gorgeous. Balancing the dark and the light, the serious and the signature humor that is Jonathan Van Ness, these essays will encourage readers to examine their individual assumptions and expand their horizons. Ultimately, it is about giving ourselves the permission to be the flawed and fabulous humans we are, and loving our stories.
Love the Questions: Reclaiming Research with Curiosity and Passion
by Catherine FraserWith boundless amounts of information available, it is vital that students become skilled at the art of research. In Love the Questions: Reclaiming Research with Curiosity and Passion , author Cathy Fraser outlines ways students can engage with their research projects and truly internalize and transform content.Inside you&’ll learn how to do the following: Honor students&’ passions, interests, and questions by teaching how to embrace inquiry, curiosity, and exploration Teach students how to frame relevant questions throughout the research process and make the information personal Develop authentic projects that include surveys, experiments, and interviews Assess skills, not just memorization by recognizing and legitimizing what students are doing with research on their own Fraser also includes mini lessons, practice activities, graphic organizers, and student examples within the book. Love the Questions recommends teachers and students work with librarians and other school leaders as educational partners, helping students continue to develop their analytical and logical skills.
Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance (Sexual Cultures #39)
by Janet R. Jakobsen Ann PellegriniSex. Religion. There is no denying that these two subjects are among the most provocative in American public life. Even the constitutional principle of church-state separation seems to give way when it comes to sex: the Supreme Court draws on theology as readily as it draws on case law when rendering decisions that touch on sexuality.In this compelling and carefully argued study, Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini examine this powerful and disturbing connection as they explore the reasons why secular institutions habitually use religion to regulate sexual life. From state legislatures to the halls of Congress and the Supreme Court, from daily newspapers to popular magazines and television talk shows, Jakobsen and Pellegrini illustrate the intensity of America's obsession with sex in the name of values and the dangers it poses to some of our most basic freedoms. Using a wide range of case studies, Love the Sin offers an insightful critique of the ways in which sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular are discussed and debated in the public arena. Additionally, the book sets forth constructive alternatives that highlight the vital links between sexual and religious freedom and expose the hazards of using religion as a justification for regulating sexuality.A timely, necessary, and refreshing contribution to the many debates surrounding religion, morality, and sex, Love the Sin boldly dreams an America that lives up to its promise of freedom and justice for all.
Love Thy Neighbor: A Muslim Doctor's Struggle for Home in Rural America
by Alan Eisenstock Ayaz VirjiA powerful true story about a Muslim doctor's service to small-town America and the hope of overcoming our country's climate of hostility and fear.In 2013, Ayaz Virji left a comfortable job at an East Coast hospital and moved to a town of 1,400 in Minnesota, feeling called to address the shortage of doctors in rural America. But in 2016, this decision was tested when the reliably blue, working-class county swung for Donald Trump. Virji watched in horror as his children faced anti-Muslim remarks at school and some of his most loyal patients began questioning whether he belonged in the community. Virji wanted out. But in 2017, just as he was lining up a job in Dubai, a local pastor invited him to speak at her church and address misconceptions about what Muslims practice and believe. That invitation has grown into a well-attended lecture series that has changed hearts and minds across the state, while giving Virji a new vocation that he never would have expected. In Love Thy Neighbor, Virji relates this story in a gripping, unforgettable narrative that shows the human consequences of our toxic politics, the power of faith and personal conviction, and the potential for a renewal of understanding in America's heartland.
A Love To Die For
by Patricia SpringerOn January 12, 1995, in Knoxville, Tennessee, 19year old Colleen Slemmer went for a walk with her friend 18-year-old Christa Pike. Suddenly, Christa turned on Colleen, accusing her of flirting with her boyfriend. Then the words turned to shocking blows. An enraged Christa used a box knife to cut her rival's throat and a mini meat cleaver to inflict more havoc. Half-naked, Colleen crawled through her own blood begging for her life. In the middle of the hour-long assault, a satanic symbol was carved in the dying girl's chest. And when Christa was finally done, she took a piece of Colleen's skull as a macabre souvenir. What were the dark forces that drove angelic-faced Christa to commit such a savage murder and become the youngest woman ever to be put on Death Row? In this shocking expose of a case that stunned the nation, Patricia Springer takes us through a horrifying crime scene and into the heart and mind of a murderess who killed for love-and would die for it, too.
Love to Learn: The Transformative Power of Care and Connection in Early Education
by Isabelle C. HauThe most important aspect of early childhood in general and education in particular is the quality and care of the relationships a child forms. Love to Learn shows how to build and develop these relationships -- and unlock every child's true potential. Early relationships are the key to healthy brain development, resilience, and lifelong flourishing. Children need to be loved, to be valued, to interact, and to be listened to. When children have the space and time to play and explore through nurturing positive relationships, then children learn. But loving relationships are precisely what so many children are missing, and modern factors are making it more difficult for children to build these necessary bonds. Kids are growing up in smaller families with fewer siblings, and in more single-parent households. They have fewer adult family friends and mentors. They have less contact with grand-parents and grand-adults. They spend 60% less time with friends than children did a decade ago. They play outside less—half the time spent by their parent&’s generation. They find themselves increasingly immersed in solitary realms of screens, a modern sanctuary where parents seek refuge as well. Many kids are so overscheduled they have less time to build friendships Love to Learn offers a vision for a future where learning is relational, and love is a literacy. It is a provocative paradigm shift, from child-centered education to relationship-centered learning. It weaves in stories of perseverance, empathy, creativity, and showcases innovations anchored in the latest neuroscience and technology advance – all driven by the desire to unlock the inherent human potential in any child. This hope-filled book seeks to change how we raise our children, how we run early learning environments, and how we construct care-full communities. It aims to inspire and engage readers, catalyze new solutions, and in doing so, change our understanding of childhood itself.
Love, Tommy: Letters Home, from the Great War to the Present Day
by Andrew RobertsA legacy of an empire and a nation at war, Love Tommy, is a collection of letters housed at the Imperial War Museum sent by British and Commonwealth troops from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa from the frontline of war to their loved ones at home. Poignant expressions of love, hope and fear sit alongside amusing anecdotes, grumbles about rations and thoughtful reflections, eloquently revealing how despite the passage of time many experiences of the fighting man are shared in countless wars and battles. From the muddy trenches of the Somme to frozen ground of the Falklands to the heat and dust of Helmand today, these letters are the ordinary soldier's testament to life on the frontline.
Love Under the Skin: Interracial Marriages in the American South and France
by Cécile Coquet-MokokoThe rising visibility of interracial couples calls for increased attention to the overlapping of culture and race, in safe spaces centered on small-group dynamics, or in public spaces where peoples of African descent are under the public gaze. This comparative study seeks to de-center the U.S-centered viewpoint common to much of the literature on black/white relations. Based on nine years of fieldwork in the American South and in France, Coquet shows many unexpected parallels between the two societies. Gendered perceptions of cultural authenticity and sexual ethics are a guiding thread, being inseparable from the historical and political contingencies (re-)defining acceptable forms of dating, marrying, and parenting among cis-heterosexual couples in both societies. Her account emphasizes resilience and agency as couples seek to protect themselves and their children, while their extended or symbolic kinship networks help white partners acknowledge the existence of racial privilege.
Love Undetectable: Notes on Friendship, Sex, and Surviva
by Andrew Sullivan"I intend to be among the first generation that survives this disease." That was former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan's first public statement about his HIV diagnosis. Speaking to heterosexual and homosexual audiences alike, this book is about the first steps in that journey of survival.<P> If Sullivan's acclaimed first book, Virtually Normal, was about politics, this long-awaited sequel is about life. In a memoir in the form of three essays, Sullivan asks hard questions about his own life and others'. Can the practice of friendship ever compensate for a life without love? Is sex at war or at peace with spirituality? Can faith endure the randomness of death? Is homosexuality genetic or environmental?Love Undetectable, then, refers to many things: to a virus that, for many, has become "undetectable" in the bloodstream thanks to new drugs, and to the failed search for love and intimacy that helped spread it; to the love of God, which in times of plague seems particularly hard to find and understand; to a sexual orientation long pathologized and denied any status as an equal form of human love; and to the love between friends, a love ignored when it isn't demeaned, and obscured by the more useful imperatives of family and society.In a work destined to be as controversial as his first book, Sullivan takes on religious authorities and gay activists; talks candidly about his own promiscuity and search for love; revisits Freud in the origins of homosexuality; and makes one of the more memorable modern cases for elevating the virtue of friendship over the satisfactions of love. Scholarly, impassioned, wide-ranging, and embattled, Love Undetectable is a book that is ultimately not about homosexuality or plague, but about humanity and mortality.
Love Unites Us: Winning the Freedom to Marry in America
by Kevin M. Cathcart and Leslie J. Gabel-BrettFirsthand accounts from the attorneys and advocates who brought the historic cases and fought to secure the freedom to marry for same-sex couples. The June 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges was a sweeping victory for the freedom to marry, but it was one step in a long process. Love Unites Us is the history of activists&’ passion and persistence in the struggle for marriage rights for same-sex couples in the United States, told in the words of those who waged the battle. Launching the fight for the freedom to marry had neither an obvious nor an uncontested strategy. To many activists, achieving marriage equality seemed far-fetched, but the skeptics were proved wrong in the end. Proactive arguments in favor of love, family, and commitment were more effective than arguments that focused on rights and the goal of equality at work. Telling the stories of people who loved and cared for one another, in sickness and in health, cut through the antigay noise and moved people—not without backlash and not overnight, but faster than most activists and observers had ever imagined. With compelling stories from leading attorneys and activists including Evan Wolfson, Mary L. Bonauto, Jon W. Davidson, and Paul M. Smith, Love Unites Us explains how gay and lesbian couples achieved the right to marry. &“An exceptional piece of work by courageous and innovative leaders.&” —Eric H. Holder Jr., 82nd US attorney general &“Captures the amazing story of the fight for marriage equality—in California and around the country. A remarkable journey recounted with truth and eloquence.&” —Gavin Newsom, governor of California
Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality
by Jim Obergefell Debbie CenziperThe fascinating and very moving story of the lovers, lawyers, judges and activists behind the groundbreaking Supreme Court case that led to one of the most important, national civil rights victories in decades—the legalization of same-sex marriage.In June 2015, the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage the law in all fifty states in a decision as groundbreaking as Roe v Wade and Brown v Board of Education. Through insider accounts and access to key players, this definitive account reveals the dramatic and previously unreported events behind Obergefell v Hodges and the lives at its center. This is a story of law and love—and a promise made to a dying man who wanted to know how he would be remembered.Twenty years ago, Jim Obergefell and John Arthur fell in love in Cincinnati, Ohio, a place where gays were routinely picked up by police and fired from their jobs. In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government had to provide married gay couples all the benefits offered to straight couples. Jim and John—who was dying from ALS—flew to Maryland, where same-sex marriage was legal. But back home, Ohio refused to recognize their union, or even list Jim’s name on John’s death certificate. Then they met Al Gerhardstein, a courageous attorney who had spent nearly three decades advocating for civil rights and who now saw an opening for the cause that few others had before him.This forceful and deeply affecting narrative—Part Erin Brockovich, part Milk, part Still Alice—chronicles how this grieving man and his lawyer, against overwhelming odds, introduced the most important gay rights case in U.S. history. It is an urgent and unforgettable account that will inspire readers for many years to come.
The Love You Save: A Memoir
by Goldie Taylor*A Zibby's Most Anticipated Book of 2023**One of The Root's Most Anticipated Books of January**A Good Morning America Best Book of January?**An Essence Must Read Book of the Year*&“The Love You Save will console and inspire countless people."—J.R. Moehringer, New York Times bestselling author of The Tender BarI Know Why the Caged Bird Sings meets Educated in this harrowing, deeply hopeful memoir of family, faith and the power of books—from acclaimed journalist and human rights activist Goldie Taylor Aunt Gerald takes in anyone who asks, but the conditions are harsh. For her young niece Goldie Taylor, abandoned by her mother and coping with trauma of her own, life in Gerald&’s East St. Louis comes with nothing but a threadbare blanket on the living room floor. But amid the pain and anguish, Goldie discovers a secret. She can find kinship among writers like James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. She can find hope in a nurturing teacher who helps her find her voice. And books, she realizes, can save her life. Goldie Taylor's debut memoir shines a light on the strictures of race, class and gender in a post–Jim Crow America while offering a nuanced, empathetic portrait of a family in a pitched battle for its very soul.Profoundly moving, exquisitely rendered and ultimately uplifting, The Love You Save is a story about hidden strength, perseverance against unimaginable odds, the beauty and pain of girlhood, and the power of the written word.
Lovecraft in the 21st Century: Dead, But Still Dreaming (Routledge Studies in Speculative Fiction)
by Antonio Alcala Gonzalez Carl H. SederholmLovecraft in the 21st Century assembles reflections from a wide range of perspectives on the significance of Lovecraft’s influence in contemporary times. Building on a focus centered on the anthropocene, adaptation, and visual media, the chapters in this collection focus on the following lines: Adaptation of Lovecraft’s legacy in theater, television, film, graphic narratives, and game artwork The connection between the writer’s legacy and his life Considering capitalism, the posthuman, and the Anthropocene when reading Lovecraft How contemporary authors have worked through the implicit racial and sexual politics in Lovecraft’s fiction. Reading Lovecraft’s fiction in light of contemporary approaches to gender and sexuality
Loved and Wanted: A Memoir of Choice, Children, and Womanhood
by Christa Parravani"Haunting, wild, and quiet at once. A shimmering look at motherhood, in all its gothic pain and glory. I could not stop reading." —Lisa Taddeo, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Three WomenA stressed family, an unplanned pregnancy, and a painful, if liberating, awakening from the author of the lauded memoir HerChrista Parravani was forty years old, in a troubled marriage, and in bad financial straits when she learned she was pregnant with her third child. She and her family were living in Morgantown, West Virginia, where she had taken a professorial position at the local university.Haunted by a childhood steeped in poverty and violence and by young adult years rocked by the tragic death of her identical twin sister, Christa hoped her professor’s salary and health care might set her and her young family on a safe and steady path. Instead, one year after the birth of her second child, Christa found herself pregnant again. Six weeks into the pregnancy, she requested an abortion. And in the weeks, then months, that followed, nurses obfuscated and doctors refused outright or feared being found out to the point of, ultimately, becoming unavailable to provide Christa with reproductive choice.By the time Christa understood that she would need to leave West Virginia to obtain a safe, legal abortion, she’d run out of time. She had failed to imagine that she might not have access to reproductive choice in the United States, until it was too late for her, her pregnancy too far along.So she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Keats. And another frightening education began: available healthcare was dangerously inadequate to her newborn son’s needs; indeed, environmental degradations and poor healthcare endangered Christa’s older children as well.Loved and Wanted is the passionate story of a woman’s love for her children, and a poignant and bracing look at the difficult choices women in America are forced to make every day, in a nation where policies and a cultural war on women leave them without sufficient agency over their bodies, their futures, and even their hopes for their children’s lives.
The Loved Ones: A Modern Arabic Novel
by Alia Mamdouh Marilyn L. Booth Hélène Cixous"Leaves an indelible impression. [The Loved Ones] is rich with family and neighbors and [Alia Mamdouh] notes all of their subtle interactions and secrets."--Library Journal"Ferocious, visceral descriptions . . . give a powerful sense not only of Suhaila's world but also of the way we make and understand memories."--Booklist"Often intense and lyrical."--Kirkus ReviewsThis winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Prize for Literature mingles memories of the past with the shifting voices of the present when the estranged son of an Iraqi exile flies from his home in Toronto to visit her in Paris. As his ailing mother, the once-vibrant Suhaila, lies in a hospital bed, he acquaints himself with her constellation of close friends. Immediately, he becomes immersed in the complex relationships he has fought so hard to avoid: with his mother and his war-torn homeland. Alia Mamdouh weaves a magical tale of the human condition in this stunning and beautifully written novel of faith, family, and hope. Alia Mamdouh is the author of essays, short stories, and four novels, including the most widely translated, Naphtalene. Born in Iraq, she now lives in exile in Paris. Marilyn Booth is a translator of Middle Eastern fiction and autobiography. She received her BA from Harvard-Radcliffe and her DPhil from Oxford University, and has taught at Brown University and The American University in Cairo. Currently, she is visiting associate professor of comparative literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Hélène Cixous is a world-renowned French feminist theorist, critic, essayist, novelist, and playwright.
The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk: Practicing Buddhism in Modern Thailand
by Justin McDanielStories centering on the lovelorn ghost (Mae Nak) and the magical monk (Somdet To) are central to Thai Buddhism. Historically important and emotionally resonant, these characters appeal to every class of follower. Metaphorically and rhetorically powerful, they invite constant reimagining across time. Focusing on representations of the ghost and monk from the late eighteenth century to the present, Justin Thomas McDaniel builds a case for interpreting modern Thai Buddhist practice through the movements of these transformative figures. He follows embodiments of the ghost and monk in a variety of genres and media, including biography, film, television, drama, ritual, art, liturgy, and the Internet. Sourcing nuns, monks, laypeople, and royalty, he shows how relations with these figures have been instrumental in crafting histories and modernities. McDaniel is especially interested in local conceptions of being "Buddhist" and the formation and transmission of such identities across different venues and technologies. Establishing an individual's "religious repertoire" as a valid category of study, McDaniel explores the performance of Buddhist thought and ritual through practices of magic, prognostication, image production, sacred protection, and deity and ghost worship, and clarifies the meaning of multiple cultural configurations. Listening to popular Thai Buddhist ghost stories, visiting crowded shrines and temples, he finds concepts of attachment, love, wealth, beauty, entertainment, graciousness, security, and nationalism all spring from engagement with the ghost and the monk and are as vital to the making of Thai Buddhism as venerating the Buddha himself.
Lovers and Strangers: An Immigrant History of Post-War Britain
by Clair WillsSHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2018 TLS BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2017'Generous and empathetic ... opens up postwar migration in all its richness' Sukhdev Sandhu, Guardian'Groundbreaking, sophisticated, original, open-minded ... essential reading for anyone who wants to understand not only the transformation of British society after the war but also its character today' Piers Brendon, Literary Review'Lyrical, full of wise and original observations' David Goodhart, The TimesThe battered and exhausted Britain of 1945 was desperate for workers - to rebuild, to fill the factories, to make the new NHS work. From all over the world and with many motives, thousands of individuals took the plunge. Most assumed they would spend just three or four years here, sending most of their pay back home, but instead large numbers stayed - and transformed the country.Drawing on an amazing array of unusual and surprising sources, Clair Wills' wonderful new book brings to life the incredible diversity and strangeness of the migrant experience. She introduces us to lovers, scroungers, dancers, homeowners, teachers, drinkers, carers and many more to show the opportunities and excitement as much as the humiliation and poverty that could be part of the new arrivals' experience. Irish, Bengalis, West Indians, Poles, Maltese, Punjabis and Cypriots battled to fit into an often shocked Britain and, to their own surprise, found themselves making permanent homes. As Britain picked itself up again in the 1950s migrants set about changing life in their own image, through music, clothing, food, religion, but also fighting racism and casual and not so casual violence.Lovers and Strangers is an extremely important book, one that is full of enjoyable surprises, giving a voice to a generation who had to deal with the reality of life surrounded by 'white strangers' in their new country.
Lovers' Legends: The Gay Greek Myths
by Andrew CalimachFirst comprehensive uncensored collection of homosexual Greek myths in years. Lucians Different Loves, an unabashed debate on gay vs. straight love, frames richly illustrated stories of Hercules, Orpheus, Narcissus, others. Presents positive and negative aspects of Greek male love within historical/cultural context. Carefully documented, suitable for classes in gender studies / history / religion. Notes, bibliography, glossary, map. Study guide forthcoming.
Love's Next Meeting: The Forgotten History of Homosexuality and the Left in American Culture
by Aaron LeckliderHow queerness and radical politics intersected—earlier than you thought. Well before Stonewall, a broad cross section of sexual dissidents took advantage of their space on the margins of American society to throw themselves into leftist campaigns. Sensitive already to sexual marginalization, they also saw how class inequality was exacerbated by the Great Depression, witnessing the terrible bread lines and bread riots of the era. They participated in radical labor organizing, sympathized like many with the early prewar Soviet Union, contributed to the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, opposed US police and state harassment, fought racial discrimination, and aligned themselves with the dispossessed. Whether they were themselves straight, gay, or otherwise queer, they brought sexual dissidence and radicalism into conversation at the height of the Left's influence on American culture. Combining rich archival research with inventive analysis of art and literature, Love’s Next Meeting explores the relationship between homosexuality and the Left in American culture between 1920 and 1960. Aaron S. Lecklider uncovers a lively cast of individuals and dynamic expressive works, revealing remarkably progressive engagement with homosexuality among radicals, workers, and the poor. Leftists connected sexual dissidence with radical gender politics, antiracism, and challenges to censorship and obscenity laws through the 1920s and 1930s. In the process, a wide array of activists, organizers, artists, and writers laid the foundation for a radical movement through which homosexual lives and experiences were given shape and new political identities were forged. Love's Next Meeting cuts to the heart of some of the biggest questions in American history: questions about socialism, about sexuality, about the supposed clash still making headlines today between leftist politics and identity politics. What emerges is a dramatic, sexually vibrant story of the shared struggles for liberation across the twentieth century.
Love's Not Color Blind: Race and Representation in Polyamorous and Other Alternative Communities
by Kevin A. Patterson Ruby Bouie JohnsonThe issues that make monogamous dating daunting for people of color—shaming and exclusion by white partners, being fetishized, having realities of everyday racism ignored—occur in polyamorous relationships too, and trying "not to see race" only makes it worse. To make polyamorous communities inclusive, we must all acknowledge our part in perpetuating racism and listen to people of color. Love's Not Color Blind puts forward the framework—through research, anecdotal testimony, and analogy—for understanding, identifying, and confronting racism within polyamorous communities.
Love's Refraction
by Jillian DeriPopular wisdom might suggest that jealousy is an inevitable outcome of non-monogamous relationships. In Love's Refraction, Jillian Deri explores the distinctive question of how and why polyamorists - people who practice consensual non-monogamy - manage jealousy. Her focus is on the polyamorist concept of "compersion" - taking pleasure in a lover's other romantic and sexual encounters.By discussing the experiences of queer, lesbian, and bisexual polyamorous women, Deri highlights the social and structural context that surrounds jealousy. Her analysis, making use of the sociology of emotion and feminist intersectionality theory, shows how polyamory challenges traditional emotional and sexual norms.Clear and concise, Love's Refraction speaks to both the academic and the polyamorous community. Deri lets her interviewees speak for themselves, linking academic theory and personal experiences in a sophisticated, engaging, and accessible way.
Love's Revolution: Interracial Marriage
by Maria P. P. RootStudy of interracial marriage including anecdotal information from interviews and focus groups as well as statistical data.
Love's Uncertainty
by Teresa KuanLove's Uncertainty explores the hopes and anxieties of urban, middle-class parents in contemporary China. Combining long-term ethnographic research with analyses of popular child-rearing manuals, television dramas, and government documents, Teresa Kuan bears witness to the dilemmas of ordinary Chinese parents, who struggle to reconcile new definitions of good parenting with the reality of limited resources. Situating these parents' experiences in the historical context of state efforts to improve "population quality," Love's Uncertainty reveals how global transformations are expressed in the most intimate of human experiences. Ultimately, the book offers a meditation on the nature of moral agency, examining how people discern, amid the myriad contingencies of life, the boundary between what can and cannot be controlled.
Love's Whipping Boy: Violence and Sentimentality in the American Imagination
by Elizabeth BarnesWorking to reconcile the Christian dictum to "love one's neighbor as oneself" with evidence of U. S. sociopolitical aggression, including slavery, corporal punishment of children, and Indian removal, Elizabeth Barnes focuses her attention on aggressors--rather than the weak or abused--to suggest ways of understanding paradoxical relationships between empathy, violence, and religion that took hold so strongly in nineteenth-century American culture. Looking at works by Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Louisa May Alcott, among others, Barnes shows how violence and sensibility work together to produce a more "sensitive" citizenry. Aggression becomes a site of redemptive possibility because salvation is gained when the powerful protagonist identifies with the person he harms. Barnes argues that this identification and emotional transformation come at a high price, however, as the reparative ends are bought with another's blood. Critics of nineteenth-century literature have tended to think about sentimentality and violence as opposing strategies in the work of nation-building and in the formation of U. S. national identity. Yet to understand how violence gets folded into sentimentality's egalitarian goals is to recognize, importantly, the deep entrenchment of aggression in the empathetic structures of liberal, Christian culture in the United States.
Lovin' Bloom
by Heather KranenburgWith his stunning good looks and dreamy brown eyes, British heartthrob Orlando Bloom has captured Hollywood’s spotlight—and the adoration of girls everywhere. After his award-winning performance in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Orlando made audiences swoon as a swashbuckling hero in The Pirates of the Caribbean. What lies ahead for this handsome Brit? With lead roles in the upcoming films Troy and Kingdom of Heaven, Orlando is poised to bloom big-time. Yet how did this charming young man make it from the stages of London to movie screens around the world? Lovin’ Bloom traces Orlando’s path to superstardom. Along the way you’ll discover everything you’ve ever wanted to know—including his favorite sports, the music he craves, his Hollywood crushes, and behind-the-scenes info from his films. There’s little doubt why his legion of fans voted Orlando Bloom one of Teen People’s twenty-five hottest stars of 2002—and the best is yet to come! From the Paperback edition.