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Mad Girls In Love: A Novel (Girls Raised In The South Ser.)
by Michael Lee WestMichael Lee West's indomitable G.R.I.T.S. (Girls Raised in the South) are back -- enduring rough times with all the grace and outrageous flair expected of true Southern heroines.Bitsy Wentworth -- fleeing yet another relationship nightmare in a “borrowed” red Corvette, with her baby daughter and a recently acquired “demon child” -- has an APB out on her for attempted murder (she broke her ex-husband's nose with a frozen slab of ribs that she purchased at the Piggly Wiggly). Her mama, Dorothy, is writing letters to First Ladies from inside the Central State Asylum, while Aunt Clancy Jane has completed her inevitable progression from hippie to local Crazy Cat Lady. Three generations of unforgettable Crystal Falls, Tennessee, women -- and the men they attract, enrage, and confound -- are courageously plowing through tumultuous lives of compound disaster . . . and hoping the chaos the next wrong step leads to won't be insurmountable.
Rediscovering Jacob Riis: Exposure Journalism and Photography in Turn-of-the-Century New York
by Bonnie Yochelson Daniel CzitromBefore publishing his pioneering book How the Other Half Lives—a photojournalistic investigation into the poverty of New York’s tenement houses, home to three quarters of the city’s population—Jacob Riis (1849-1914) spent his first years in the United States as an immigrant and itinerant laborer, barely surviving on his carpentry skills until he landed a job as a muckraking reporter. These early experiences provided Riis with an understanding of what it was like to be poor in the immigrant communities that populated New York’s slums, and it was this empathy that would shine through in his iconic photos. With Rediscovering Jacob Riis, art historian Bonnie Yochelson and historian Daniel Czitrom place Jacob Riis’s images in historical context even as they expose a clear sightline to the present. In the first half of their book, Czitrom explores Riis’s reporting and activism within the gritty specifics of Gilded Age New York: its new immigrants, its political machines, its fiercely competitive journalism, its evangelical reformers, and its labor movement. In delving into Riis’s intellectual education and the lasting impact of How the Other Half Lives, Czitrom shows that though Riis argued for charity, not sociopolitical justice, the empathy that drove his work continues to inspire urban reformers today. In the second half of the book, Yochelson describes for the first time Riis’s photographic practice: his initial reliance on amateur photographers to take the photographs he needed, his own use of the camera, and then his collecting of photographs by professionals, who by 1900 were documenting social reform efforts for government agencies and charities. She argues that while Riis is rightly considered a revolutionary in the history of photography, he was not a photographic artist. Instead, Riis was a writer and lecturer who first harnessed the power of photography to affect social change. As staggering inequality continues to be an urgent political topic, this book, illustrated with nearly seventy of Riis’s photographs, will serve as a stunning reminder of what has changed, and what has not.
Legends 1: Short Novels By The Masters Of Modern Fantasy (Legends #2)
by Stephen King Orson Scott CardAcclaimed writer and editor Robert Silverberg asked the masters of modern fantasy to write a new story based on one of his or her most famous series:Stephen King tells a tale of Roland, the Gunslinger, in the world of The Dark Tower, in "The Little Sisters of Eluria."Robert Silverberg returns to Majipoor and to Lord Valentine's adventure in an ancient tomb, in "The Seventh Shrine."Orson Scott Card spins a yarn of Alvin and his apprentice from the Tales of Alvin Maker, in "Grinning Man."Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar Saga is the setting of the tale of "The Wood Boy." And look for Legends 2 (featuring Terry Goodkind, George R.R. Martin, and Anne McCaffrey) and Legends 3 (featuring Robert Jordan, Ursula K. Le Guin, Tad Williams, Terry Pratchett)!
Rockers and Rollers: A Full-Throttle Memoir
by Brian Johnson“Surprisingly refreshing . . . You don’t need to know anything about AC/DC to appreciate his funny and highly descriptive writing about [cars].” —Publishers WeeklyFrom “Pink Cadillac” to “Low Rider” to “Little Red Corvette,” rock music has always had a racy love affair with cars. And AC/DC lead singer Brian Johnson is not only a rock legend, second-to-none at infusing razor-sharp lyrics with the screaming metal energy of a true rock and roller, but also a dyed-in-the-wool car fanatic. Books like AC/DC: Maximum Rock and Roll and Why AC/DC Matters revealed the secrets of the world’s greatest rock band—now, in Rockers and Rollers, fans will get a rare, riveting window into Brian Johnson’s other driving passion, his love for automobiles. From teenage memories in the backs of beat-up coups to a side career as a racecar driver, Johnson shares his tantalizing life story—a memoir told through his lifelong love affair with cars.“A fast, fun read . . . Johnson’s gifts for storytelling and humor shine.” —The New York Times
Moneymaker: How an Amateur Poker Player Turned $40 into $2.5 Million at the World Series of Poker
by Chris Moneymaker Daniel PaisnerIn 2004 the number of entrants -- and the winning pool -- at the World Series of Poker tripled, thanks in large part to Chris Moneymaker, an amateur player who came out of nowhere to win the 2003 Series, and prove to newcomers and poker pros alike that anything is possible with a chip and a chair.Moneymaker was a young accountant from Tennessee who loved to gamble but only took up cards after college. Three years later he was playing a $40 game of online Texas Hold 'Em and won a coveted seat at the 2003 World Series of Poker. Borrowing money to get to Las Vegas, he entered his first real-time tournament and spent the next four days battling for a top spot at the final table.Filled with everything from his early gambling ventures to a play-by-play of his major hands at the World Series of Poker, Moneymaker is a gripping, fast-paced story for anyone who has ever dreamed of winning it big.
A General History of Quadrupeds: The Figures Engraved on Wood by Thomas Bewick
by Thomas BewickIn the late eighteenth century, the British took greater interest than ever before in observing and recording all aspects of the natural world. Travelers and colonists returning from far-flung lands provided dazzling accounts of such exotic creatures as elephants, baboons, and kangaroos. The engraver Thomas Bewick (1753–1828) harnessed this newfound interest by assembling the most comprehensive illustrated guide to nature of his day.A General History of Quadrupeds, first published in 1790, showcases Bewick’s groundbreaking engraving techniques that allowed text and images to be published on the same page. From anteaters to zebras, armadillos to wolverines, this delightful volume features engravings of over four hundred animals alongside descriptions of their characteristics as scientifically understood at the time. Quadrupeds reaffirms Bewick’s place in history as an incomparable illustrator, one whose influence on natural history and book printing still endures today.
The Workhorse of Helmand: A Chinook Crewman's Account of Operations in Afghanistan & Iraq
by Michael FryAs a RAF Chinook crewman, Mick Fry’s exposure to Afghanistan spanned over 10 years and countless deployments, from watching 9/11 unfold in Australia, leaving the deck of HMS Ocean off the coast of Pakistan under the cover of darkness all the way through numerous fighting seasons and the chaos of Helmand Province. The Chinook helicopter was the workhorse of the British Military operations in Afghanistan, and the crews from RAF Odiham were confronted by their own mortality on an almost daily basis as they worked tirelessly and skillfully to support the troops on the ground. Whether it was taking part in air assault missions against a determined enemy, or extracting casualties from the battlefield under fire, and in a life or death race against time, Mick witnessed both the best and worst of humanity on a daily basis. His story is both gripping and confronting. It takes the reader on a journey through combat operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Author paints a gritty picture of repeated operational deployments, balancing harrowing scenes and the ever present threat of death with the humor and camaraderie of comrades and the exhilaration of surviving Taliban RPG’s and AK47 fire.
Winter in Eden (West of Eden #2)
by Harry HarrisonA new ice age threatens Earth. Facing extinction, the dinosaurs must employ their mastery of biology to reconquer human territory swiftly. Desperately, Kerrick launches an arduous quest to rally a final defense for humankind. With his beloved wife and young son, he heads north to the land of the whale hunters, east into the enemy's stronghold, and south to a fateful reckoning with destiny.
Sing and Sing On: Sentinel Musicians and the Making of the Ethiopian American Diaspora (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology)
by Kay Kaufman ShelemayA sweeping history of Ethiopian musicians during and following the 1974 Ethiopian revolution.Sing and Sing On is the first study of the forced migration of musicians out of the Horn of Africa dating from the 1974 Ethiopian revolution, a political event that overthrew one of the world’s oldest monarchies and installed a brutal military regime. Musicians were among the first to depart the region, their lives shattered by revolutionary violence, curfews, and civil war. Reconstructing the memories of forced migration, Sing and Sing On traces the challenges musicians faced amidst revolutionary violence and the critical role they played in building communities abroad. Drawing on the recollections of dozens of musicians, Sing and Sing On details personal, cultural, and economic hardships experienced by musicians who have resettled in new locales abroad. Kay Kaufman Shelemay highlights their many artistic and social initiatives and the ways they have offered inspiration and leadership within and beyond a rapidly growing Ethiopian American diaspora. While musicians held this role as sentinels in Ethiopian culture long before the revolution began, it has taken on new meanings and contours in the Ethiopian diaspora. The book details the ongoing creativity of these musicians while exploring the attraction of return to their Ethiopian homeland over the course of decades abroad. Ultimately, Shelemay shows that musicians are uniquely positioned to serve this sentinel role as both guardians and challengers of cultural heritage.
The Iron Dragon's Mother (The Iron Dragon's Daughter #3)
by Michael SwanwickA 2020 LOCUS AWARD FINALIST AND KIRKUS BEST SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY OF 2019Award-winning author Michael Swanwick returns to the gritty, post-industrial faerie world of his New York Times Notable Book The Iron Dragon&’s Daughter with the standalone adventure fantasy The Iron Dragon&’s Mother. Caitlin of House Sans Merci is the young half-human pilot of a sentient mechanical dragon. Returning from her first soul-stealing raid, she discovers an unwanted hitchhiker. When Caitlin is framed for the murder of her brother, to save herself she must disappear into Industrialized Faerie, looking for the one person who can clear her. Unfortunately, the stakes are higher than she knows. Her deeds will change her world forever.
Discover Provence: A Shopping, Wine, Antiques, and Festivals Guide to the South of France
by Georgeanne BrennanVisit the Most Popular Destinations in Provence, France#1 New Release in Flowers and Bed & BreakfastDiscover why Provence, France is the best place for your next wanderlust-fueled quest and lose yourself to sunny beaches, lush vineyards, and historic architecture.Take an unforgettable tour of this treasured southern region of France. Soon to be your favorite of all tour guide books, author Georgeanne Brennan uses her insider’s view to take you on the getaway of a lifetime. With engaging text and gorgeous photos, she paints the perfect picture of the many gems of Provence. Beauty abounds as you travel through the sunny Côte d’Azur to the mountains of Haute Provence; to lavender, poppy and wheat fields; through bustling markets; to fisherman-filled harbors; over vine-covered hills; and into ancient castle ruins.A guide for travelers, wine lovers, dreamers, and anyone interested in Provence, France.Discover Provence is also for those who want to be a part of something picturesque and historically significant. One of the most visited areas of the world, Southern France is famous for its beautiful views, flavorful foods, and opulent French wines. Turn the pages of Discover Provence to immerse yourself in this magical region.Inside this perfectly curated Provence book, you’ll find:Indispensable driving tips for stress free way-findingAn insightful guide to understanding French wineIntimate knowledge of Provence’s villages and their traditionsIf you enjoyed travel destination books such as A Year in Provence, Rick Steves France, or Adventures on the Wine Route, then you’ll love Discover Province.
Plan and Organize Your Life: Achieve your Goals by Creating Intentional Habits and Routines for Success
by Beatrice NaujalyteDesign your days intentionally with this smart, inspiring guide from the creator of the Bliss Bean podcast and YouTube channel. This comprehensive and interactive &“planning bible&” is packed with proven advice on how to get organized, embrace simple habits, and work your way toward true self-improvement and personal development. Beatrice Naujalyte introduces us to the four pillars of an intentional life: planning, organization, productivity, and routines. With these simple tools, you&’ll be able to master everything from effective note taking to minimalist workspace organization. This book is the ultimate guide to developing a planning system to effectively execute your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals. Whether you have professional, personal, or creative planning to do, this book helps you accomplish your smallest and biggest goals by creating new habits and setting realistic expectations—with a system that works for you. Included are: Organizational tips and prompts for your everyday success Time and task management tools to help guide you Productivity tips for your ultimate lifestyle change
American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870–1970
by Thomas P. HughesThe book that helped earn Thomas P. Hughes his reputation as one of the foremost historians of technology of our age and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1990, American Genesis tells the sweeping story of America's technological revolution. Unlike other histories of technology, which focus on particular inventions like the light bulb or the automobile, American Genesis makes these inventions characters in a broad chronicle, both shaped by and shaping a culture. By weaving scientific and technological advancement into other cultural trends, Hughes demonstrates here the myriad ways in which the two are inexorably linked, and in a new preface, he recounts his earlier missteps in predicting the future of technology and follows its move into the information age.
Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250–1750: From the Priorate of the Guilds to the End of the Medici Grand Duchy
by Anthony M. CummingsA comprehensive account of music in Florence from the late Middle Ages until the end of the Medici dynasty in the mid-eighteenth century. Florence is justly celebrated as one of the world’s most important cities. It enjoys mythic status and occupies an enviable place in the historical imagination. But its musico-historical importance is not as well understood as it should be. If Florence was the city of Dante, Michelangelo, and Galileo, it was also the birthplace of the madrigal, opera, and the piano. Music in Golden-Age Florence, 1250–1750 recounts Florence’s principal contributions to music and the history of how music was heard and cultivated in the city, from civic and religious institutions to private patronage and the academies. This book is an invaluable complement to studies of the art, literature, and political thought of the late-medieval and early-modern eras and the quasi-legendary figures in the Florentine cultural pantheon.
The Eterna Solution: The Eterna Files #3 (The Eterna Files #3)
by Leanna Renee HieberThe exciting conclusion to a sumptuous gaslamp fantasy series!Leanna Renee Hieber brings Victorian London and New York to life and fills both cities with ghosts and monsters. Two groups of paranormally talented investigators discover that the Eterna compound—thought to be the key to immortality—is, instead, a powerful protective charm. That protection is sorely needed, for both England and the U.S. are under attack by dark forces. Having vanquished the demonic pretender to the British throne, the now-united forces of the Eterna Commission and the Omega Department reach America ready to take on a new menace. But like the United States itself, this evil is rapidly spreading from sea to shining sea. Will the new magic our heroes have discovered be strong enough to defeat it?With its blend of Victorian details, complex plots, and compelling characters, Hieber's fascinating historical fantasy continues to earn critical acclaim.The Eterna Files seriesThe Eterna FilesEterna and OmegaThe Eterna SolutionAt the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems (American Politics And Political Economy Ser.)
by Thomas Ferguson"To discover who rules, follow the gold." This is the argument of Golden Rule, a provocative, pungent history of modern American politics. Although the role big money plays in defining political outcomes has long been obvious to ordinary Americans, most pundits and scholars have virtually dismissed this assumption. Even in light of skyrocketing campaign costs, the belief that major financial interests primarily determine who parties nominate and where they stand on the issues—that, in effect, Democrats and Republicans are merely the left and right wings of the "Property Party"—has been ignored by most political scientists. Offering evidence ranging from the nineteenth century to the 1994 mid-term elections, Golden Rule shows that voters are "right on the money." Thomas Ferguson breaks completely with traditional voter centered accounts of party politics. In its place he outlines an "investment approach," in which powerful investors, not unorganized voters, dominate campaigns and elections. Because businesses "invest" in political parties and their candidates, changes in industrial structures—between large firms and sectors—can alter the agenda of party politics and the shape of public policy.Golden Rule presents revised versions of widely read essays in which Ferguson advanced and tested his theory, including his seminal study of the role played by capital intensive multinationals and international financiers in the New Deal. The chapter "Studies in Money Driven Politics" brings this aspect of American politics into better focus, along with other studies of Federal Reserve policy making and campaign finance in the 1936 election. Ferguson analyzes how a changing world economy and other social developments broke up the New Deal system in our own time, through careful studies of the 1988 and 1992 elections. The essay on 1992 contains an extended analysis of the emergence of the Clinton coalition and Ross Perot's dramatic independent insurgency. A postscript on the 1994 elections demonstrates the controlling impact of money on several key campaigns. This controversial work by a theorist of money and politics in the U.S. relates to issues in campaign finance reform, PACs, policymaking, public financing, and how today's elections work.
Death Goddess Dance: Red Right Hand, Black Goat Blues, Death Goddess Dance (The Mythos War #3)
by Levi BlackThe Lovecraftian horror trilogy concludes as a young woman aims to defeat a devious elder god and prevent the destruction of the universe.In Red Right Hand, Charlie Tristan Moore became the unwilling acolyte of the Man In Black, a treacherous elder god also known as Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos.In Black Goat Blues, Charlie fought her way past bloodthirsty gods and demons to rescue her lover’s stolen soul, only to put all of Creation at risk.Now she must stop the Man In Black from achieving his ultimate goal: freeing his dread father, Azathoth, from endless confinement to feast upon humanity for all eternity. But before she can confront her inhuman mentor for the final time, Charlie must make her way to the heart of a hellish, otherworldly prison—and call upon the darkest powers at her command . . . Praise for the Mythos War Trilogy“A merge of horror and dark fantasy that will grab you by the throat!” —Faith Hunter, New York Times–bestselling author of the Jane Yellowrock series on Red Right Hand“A beautiful, terrifying nightmare of a book. Stylish and nerve-wracking. . . . More, Levi Black!” —Nancy Holder, New York Times–bestselling author of The Rules on Red Right Hand“Solid writing, an immensely engaging lead character, crackling dialogue, and relationship complexities.” —Scream magazine on Black Goat Blues“A compulsive page-turner that I couldn’t put down until I’d reached the end. . . . Black does a superb job of incorporating classic elements of Weird tales in with the modern story he’s telling.” —Fantasy Literature on Black Goat Blues
The Accommodated Animal: Cosmopolity in Shakespearean Locales
by Laurie ShannonShakespeare wrote of lions, shrews, horned toads, curs, mastiffs, and hellhounds. But the word “animal” itself only appears very rarely in his work, which was in keeping with sixteenth-century usage. As Laurie Shannon reveals in The Accommodated Animal, the modern human / animal divide first came strongly into play in the seventeenth century, with Descartes’s famous formulation that reason sets humans above other species: “I think, therefore I am.” Before that moment, animals could claim a firmer place alongside humans in a larger vision of belonging, or what she terms cosmopolity. With Shakespeare as her touchstone, Shannon explores the creaturely dispensation that existed until Descartes. She finds that early modern writers used classical natural history and readings of Genesis to credit animals with various kinds of stakeholdership, prerogative, and entitlement, employing the language of politics in a constitutional vision of cosmic membership. Using this political idiom to frame cross-species relations, Shannon argues, carried with it the notion that animals possess their own investments in the world, a point distinct from the question of whether animals have reason. It also enabled a sharp critique of the tyranny of humankind. By answering “the question of the animal” historically, The Accommodated Animal makes a brilliant contribution to cross-disciplinary debates engaging animal studies, political theory, intellectual history, and literary studies.
Four Days to Glory: Wrestling with the Soul of the American Heartland
by Mark KreidlerSomewhere beyond the circle of money, glitz, drugs, and controversy that characterizes professional sports in America, remnants of an ideal exist. In Iowa, that ideal survives in the form of high school wrestling. Each a three-time state champion, Jay Borschel and Dan LeClere have a chance in their senior year to join the sport's most elite group: the "four-timers," wrestlers who win four consecutive state titles. For Jay, a ferocious competitor who feeds off criticism and doubt, a victory would mean vindication over the great mass of skeptics waiting for him to fail. For Dan, who carries on his back the burdens of his tiny farming community, the dreams of his hard-driving coach and father, and his own personal demons, another title is the only acceptable outcome. Four Days to Glory is the story of America as told through its small towns and their connection to sport the way it was once routinely perceived: as a means of mattering to the folks next door.
Foundations of Ecology: \Classic Papers with Commentaries
by Leslie A. Real and James H. BrownAssembled here for the first time in one volume are forty classic papers that have laid the foundations of modern ecology. Whether by posing new problems, demonstrating important effects, or stimulating new research, these papers have made substantial contributions to an understanding of ecological processes, and they continue to influence the field today. The papers span nearly nine decades of ecological research, from 1887 on, and are organized in six sections: foundational papers, theoretical advances, synthetic statements, methodological developments, field studies, and ecological experiments. Selections range from Connell's elegant account of experiments with barnacles to Watt's encyclopedic natural history, from a visionary exposition by Grinnell of the concept of niche to a seminal essay by Hutchinson on diversity. Six original essays by contemporary ecologists and a historian of ecology place the selections in context and discuss their continued relevance to current research. This combination of classic papers and fresh commentaries makes Foundations of Ecology both a convenient reference to papers often cited today and an essential guide to the intellectual and conceptual roots of the field. Published with the Ecological Society of America.
Tank Commander: From the Cold War to the Gulf & Beyond
by Stuart CrawfordStuart Crawford’s personal memoir traces a military career of 20 years in the 4th Royal Tank Regiment (Scotland’s Own). The narrative records his experiences between joining his Regiment as a young troop leader in West Germany though to his eventual resignation of his commission to stand for the Scottish Parliament when it was reinstated in 1999. In between times he attended two staff colleges, served under the UN banner in Cyprus, was a staff officer in HQ British Forces Middle East during the first Gulf War, and undertook a research fellowship at Glasgow University investigating and reporting on race relations within the British army. Although regarded in some circles as an iconoclast and maverick, he was destined for higher things when he took the decision to leave the army. Written in a humorous and occasional whimsical style, there are also many instances of criticism of army practices and discussion on the morality of war. As a keen amateur photographer at the time, the book is illustrated mainly by the author’s own photographs, many of which have not been published previously.
Alien Hunter: A Flynn Carroll Thriller (The Flynn Carroll Thrillers #3)
by Whitley StrieberAlien Hunter: The White House is the electrifying third installment in Whitley Strieber's Alien Hunter series The aliens have seen many worlds, but they know that Earth in particular is a jewel. They lust for its soaring mountains, its shining seas, its gorgeous forests, and majestic deserts. There is just one part of the planet that they don't want: us. Flynn Carroll knows that the aliens are a race of brilliance and extraordinary cruelty. And he knows that they have found a way to eliminate humanity: capture the mind of the president of the United States. Control him, and you control the most powerful man in the world. Though Carroll is determined to stop the aliens from achieving their goal, the president remains ignorant of the danger that he and the rest of the planet are in. With doomsday coming ever closer, Carroll might be the only hope for the survival of the human race.
Off-Screen Cinema: Isidore Isou and the Lettrist Avant-Garde
by Kaira M. CabañasOne of the most important avant-garde movements of postwar Paris was Lettrism, which crucially built an interest in the relationship between writing and image into projects in poetry, painting, and especially cinema. Highly influential, the Lettrists served as a bridge of sorts between the earlier works of the Dadaists and Surrealists and the later Conceptual artists.Off-Screen Cinema is the first monograph in English of the Lettrists. Offering a full portrait of the avant-garde scene of 1950s Paris, it focuses on the film works of key Lettrist figures like Gil J Wolman, Maurice Lemaître, François Dufrêne, and especially the movement's founder, Isidore Isou, a Romanian immigrant whose “discrepant editing” deliberately uncoupled image and sound. Through Cabañas's history, we see not only the full scope of the Lettrist project, but also its clear influence on Situationism, the French New Wave, the New Realists, as well as American filmmakers such as Stan Brakhage.
The Skull Collectors: Race, Science, and America's Unburied Dead
by Ann FabianWhen Philadelphia naturalist Samuel George Morton died in 1851, no one cut off his head, boiled away its flesh, and added his grinning skull to a collection of crania. It would have been strange, but perhaps fitting, had Morton’s skull wound up in a collector’s cabinet, for Morton himself had collected hundreds of skulls over the course of a long career. Friends, diplomats, doctors, soldiers, and fellow naturalists sent him skulls they gathered from battlefields and burial grounds across America and around the world. With The Skull Collectors, eminent historian Ann Fabian resurrects that popular and scientific movement, telling the strange—and at times gruesome—story of Morton, his contemporaries, and their search for a scientific foundation for racial difference. From cranial measurements and museum shelves to heads on stakes, bloody battlefields, and the “rascally pleasure” of grave robbing, Fabian paints a lively picture of scientific inquiry in service of an agenda of racial superiority, and of a society coming to grips with both the deadly implications of manifest destiny and the mass slaughter of the Civil War. Even as she vividly recreates the past, Fabian also deftly traces the continuing implications of this history, from lingering traces of scientific racism to debates over the return of the remains of Native Americans that are held by museums to this day. Full of anecdotes, oddities, and insights, The Skull Collectors takes readers on a darkly fascinating trip down a little-visited but surprisingly important byway of American history.
Objects in Air: Artworks and Their Outside around 1900
by Margareta Ingrid ChristianMargareta Ingrid Christian unpacks the ways in which, around 1900, art scholars, critics, and choreographers wrote about the artwork as an actual object in real time and space, surrounded and fluently connected to the viewer through the very air we breathe. Theorists such as Aby Warburg, Alois Riegl, Rainer Maria Rilke, and the choreographer Rudolf Laban drew on the science of their time to examine air as the material space surrounding an artwork, establishing its “milieu,” “atmosphere,” or “environment.” Christian explores how the artwork’s external space was seen to work as an aesthetic category in its own right, beginning with Rainer Maria Rilke’s observation that Rodin’s sculpture “exhales an atmosphere” and that Cezanne’s colors create “a calm, silken air” that pervades the empty rooms where the paintings are exhibited. Writers created an early theory of unbounded form that described what Christian calls an artwork’s ecstasis or its ability to stray outside its limits and engender its own space. Objects viewed in this perspective complicate the now-fashionable discourse of empathy aesthetics, the attention to self-projecting subjects, and the idea of the modernist self-contained artwork. For example, Christian invites us to historicize the immersive spatial installations and “environments” that have arisen since the 1960s and to consider their origins in turn-of-the-twentieth-century aesthetics. Throughout this beautifully written work, Christian offers ways for us to rethink entrenched narratives of aesthetics and modernism and to revisit alternatives.