The first novel written and published in English by an American Jewish woman Published serially in the spiritualist journal Banner of Light in 1860, Cosella Wayne: Or, Will and Destiny is the first coming-of-age novel, written and published in English by an American Jewish woman, to depict Jews in the United States and transforms what we know about the history of early American Jewish literature. The novel never appeared in book form, went unmentioned in Jewish newspapers of the day, and studies of nineteenth-century American Jewish literature ignore it completely. Yet the novel anticipates many central themes of American Jewish writing: intermarriage, generational tension, family dysfunction, Jewish-Christian relations, immigration, poverty, the place of women in Jewish life, the nature of romantic love, and the tension between destiny and free will. The narrative recounts a relationship between an abusive Jewish father and the rebellious daughter he molested as well as that daughter’s struggle to find a place in the complex social fabric of nineteenth-century America. It is also unique in portraying such themes as an unmarried Jewish woman’s descent into poverty, her forlorn years as a starving orphaned seamstress, her apostasy and return to Judaism, and her quest to be both Jewish and a spiritualist at one and the same time. Jonathan Sarna, who introduces the volume, discovered Cosella Wayne while pursuing research at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem. This edition is supplemented with selections from Cora Wilburn’s recently rediscovered diary, which are reprinted in the appendix. Together, these materials help to situate Cosella Wayne within the life and times of one of nineteenth-century American Jewry’s least known and yet most prolific female authors.

The Public Is Never Wrong: The Autobiography of Adolph Zukor is a memoir written by Adolph Zukor, one of the most influential figures in the early days of Hollywood. In this book, Zukor recounts his life story, from his humble beginnings as an immigrant in New York City to his rise to fame as the founder of Paramount Pictures.Zukor's narrative takes readers on a journey through the early days of the film industry, as he describes his experiences working as a nickelodeon operator and film distributor before ultimately founding his own studio. He also discusses his relationships with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks.Throughout the book, Zukor emphasizes the importance of listening to the audience and giving them what they want. He argues that the public is never wrong and that the key to success in the film industry is to understand and cater to their tastes. He also provides insights into the business side of the industry, discussing topics such as financing, marketing, and distribution.Overall, The Public Is Never Wrong offers a fascinating glimpse into the life and career of one of the most important figures in the history of Hollywood. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the early days of the film industry and the art of storytelling on the big screen.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

American Guy examines American norms of masculinity and their role in the law, bringing a range of methodological and disciplinary perspectives to the intersection of American gender, legal, and literary issues. The collection opens with a set of papers investigating "American Guys"--The heroic nonconformists and rugged individualists that populate much of American fiction. Diverse essays examine the manly men of Hemingway, Dreiser, and others, in their relation to the law, while also highlighting the underlying tensions that complicate this version of masculinity. A second set of papers examines "Outsiders"--men on the periphery of the American Guys who proclaim a different way of being male. These essays take up counter-traditions of masculinity ranging from gay male culture to Philip Roth's portrait of the Jewish lawyer. American Guy, a follow-up to Subversion and Sympathy, edited by Alison L. LaCroix and Martha C. Nussbaum, aims at reinvigorating the law-and-literature movement through original, cross-disciplinary insights. It embraces a variety of voices from both within and outside the academy, including several contributions from prominent judges. These contributions are particularly significant, not only as features unique to the field, but also for the light they throw on the federal bench. In the face of a large body of work studying judicial conduct as a function of rigid commitment to ideology, American Guy shows a side of the judiciary that is imaginatively engaged, aware of cultural trends, and reflective about the wider world and the role of the law in it. -- from dust jacket

First published in 1936 and long out of print, The Geographical History of America brings together prose pieces, dialogues, philosophical meditations, and playlets by one of the century's most influential experimental writers. This short but brilliant book offers a dimension of Gertrude Stein's thinking not available elsewhere. Here Stein sets forth her view of the human mind: what it is, how it works, and how it is different from - and more interesting than - human nature. Geographical History also elaborates on Stein's concepts of identity, landscape, presence, and composition. Today, as literary discourse pays more attention to textuality, to voice, reader-response, and phenomenology, Stein emerges as a pioneering modernist to whom the century is slowly catching up. For those in the performing arts, Geographical History further addresses the notion of play as landscape, one of Stein's most influential theatrical ideas, as well as such issues as dialogue, character, and dramatic structure - in a book that is itself a model of modern experimentation.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

World Without War is a book written by J. D. Bernal, which explores the idea of creating a world without war. The book is a philosophical and political treatise that examines the root causes of war and proposes solutions to prevent it. Bernal argues that war is not a natural or inevitable part of human existence, but rather a product of specific historical and social conditions. He believes that these conditions can be changed, and that it is possible to create a world without war. The book is divided into three parts. The first part explores the causes of war, including economic factors, nationalism, and the arms race. The second part proposes solutions to prevent war, including disarmament, international cooperation, and the creation of a world government. The third part examines the implications of a world without war, including the possibility of a more peaceful and prosperous world, and the challenges of building a new global order. Throughout the book, Bernal draws on a wide range of sources, including history, philosophy, and science. He argues that war is not only destructive but also irrational, and that it is in the interest of all people to work towards a world without war. World Without War is a thought-provoking and inspiring book that challenges readers to think critically about the root causes of war and to imagine a better future for humanity.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

"Ilan Stavans has emerged as Latin America’s liveliest and boldest critic and most innovative cultural enthusiast," states the Washington Post. And the New York Times described him as "the czar of Latino literature in the United States." But his influential oeuvre doesn’t address Hispanic culture exclusively. It has also opened fresh new vistas into Jewish life globally, which has prompted the Forward to portray Stavans as "a maverick intellectual whose canonical work has already produced a whole array of marvels that are redefining Jewishness." Neal Sokol devoted almost a decade to the study of Stavans’s work. He applies his substantial knowledge to this candid, thought-provoking series of eight interviews. In them Stavans is caught at the vortex where his Mexican, Jewish, and American heritages meet. He discusses everything from the formative influences that shaped his worldview to anti-Semitism, Edmund Wilson, sexuality in Latin America, Gabriel García Márquez, and the fate of Yiddish. He also contrasts the role of intellectuals in advanced and developing societies, dwells on his admiration for Don Quixote and his passion for dictionaries, and reflects on his groundbreaking, controversial research on Spanglish—the hybrid encounter of English and Spanish that infuriates the Royal Academy in Madrid and also makes people describe Stavans as "the Salman Rushdie of the Hispanic world." Sokol shrewdly tests Stavans’s ideas and places them in context. By doing so, he offers a map to the heart and mind of one of our foremost thinkers today—an invaluable tool for his growing cadre of readers.

"A tribute to Abraham Cahan, founder of a prominent Yiddish language newspaper whose discussion of everything from voting rights to baseball offered crucial guidance to Jewish immigrants"--

“We got to talking”—so David Antin begins the introduction to Radical Coherency , embarking on the pursuit that has marked much of his breathless, brilliantly conversational work. For the past forty years, whether spoken under the guise of performance artist or poet, cultural explorer or literary critic, Antin’s innovative observations have helped us to better understand everything from Pop to Postmodernism. Intimately wedded to the worlds of conceptual art and poetics, Radical Coherency collects Antin’s influential critical essays and spontaneous, performed lectures (or “talk pieces”) for the very first time, capturing one of the most distinctive perspectives in contemporary literature. The essays presented here range from the first serious assessment of Andy Warhol published in a major art journal, as well as Antin’s provocative take on Clement Greenberg’s theory of Modernism, to frontline interventions in present debates on poetics and fugitive pieces from the ’60s and ’70s that still sparkle today—and represent a gold mine for art historians of the period. From John Cage to Allan Kaprow, Mark Rothko to Ludwig Wittgenstein, Antin takes the reader on an idiosyncratic, personal journey through twentieth-century culture with his trademark antiformalist panache—one thatwill be welcomed by any fan of this consummate trailblazer.

From the beginning, myths have told of women who lived apart from men -- the Sirens who sang on the Aegean rocks, the Amazons of the Brazilian jungle, the self-reproducing women on islands in Polynesia, to mention only a few. As this theme emerged in her own fiction, Batya Weinbaum became intrigued by its persistence across time and cultures and began tracing it in literature and mythology, as well as in actual locales that are or were said to be islands of women. In this fascinating, interdisciplinary book, she explores how the myth of Amazons has served varying psychological needs in different cultures over time. Weinbaum first analyzes various historical interpretations and uses of the Amazon archetype, some designed to empower women, others created by men to disempower them. She next turns to the original Greek context, in Homer's epics and other aspects of Greek culture, and then traces how Amazons eventually evolved into negative representations of paganism. Moving from Rodriguez de Montalvo's fifteenth-century Sergas de Esplandian, which imagined an island of women in the New World, Weinbaum concludes with revealing fieldwork she conducted on Isla Mujeres (Island of Women) off the Yucatan Peninsula, which included giving birth with the participation of a native Maya midwife. Batya Weinbaum is Assistant Professor of English at Cleveland State University. She founded and edits the journal Femspec.

Final Edition is a one-issue-only political magazine written by people who are aesthetes and literary writers and edited by Wallace Shawn, who seriously believes that part of our national problem is that the people who run the country have a crude and minimal imaginative life and are too little acquainted with the quartets of Beethoven. The issue consists of five pieces: "Before the Election—Fragments from a Diary 2004" by Wallace Shawn The diarist broods on the analogy between the addiction to pornography and nationalistic obsessions, and he wonders whether a collection of people who vote in a kind of sleepwalking ignorance can ever be called a democracy. "Invitation to a Degraded World" by Jonathan Schell In this essay, Schell meditates on the comic book/disaster movie view of life, in which bin Laden and George Bush are both immersed, and discusses the "standing army" stationed in all of our homes, the media. "The Webern Variations" by Mark Strand Strand’s hauntingly delicious poem explores what is most poignantly beautiful, while exploring the themes of darkness, descent, decline, and nothingness. Wallace Shawn Interviews Noam Chomsky For those with no acquaintance with Chomsky, this could make a wonderful introduction, while offering surprising insights to those who know him well. Chomsky is electric with vitality, wit, and rage as he ranges ferociously across the present and ancient worlds, giving his thoughts on the development of the internet, the 2004 election, and the God of the Bible. In an odd way, the interview highlights the inspirational and optimistic quality of this enormously angry man. "The Twilight of the Superheroes" by Deborah Eisenberg In this brooding, passionate, and brilliant short story, Deborah Eisenberg paints a brutally honest portrait of New York City today and of our lives today, wherever we live. Through observing the lives of some sophisticated residents of the great metropolis, we encounter truths which are both poetic and deeply political.

“The sly courage, the deft intelligence, and the fierceness of vision that we, his fans, have come to expect from a Rafael Yglesias novel all blaze brightly forth--and cast very dark shadows--inThe Wisdom of Perversity.” —Michael Chabon, author of Telegraph Avenue Brian and Jeff were best friends, growing up together in New York City in the late 1960s. Then something unspeakable happened that ended both their friendship and their childhoods. For forty years, their shared secret lay buried, but new circumstances have forced them to face the consequences of their silence. The predator who sexually abused them, as well as Jeff’s cousin, Julie, and countless others, has been exposed by more recent victims, but his wealth and privilege may protect him from punishment. Brian, Jeff, and Julie must weigh devastating choices: to tell all and risk their carefully constructed lives or face the likelihood that others will be victimized. Rafael Yglesias, critically acclaimed bestselling novelist and screenwriter, unmasks the headlines, giving voice to what has been left unsaid and light to what has been hidden.The Wisdom of Perversity is a startling, engrossing, unsettling, and moving story of surviving an insidious evil and of a triumphant struggle to heal its wounds. “Here is the antithesis of Nabokov’s Lolita . . . Set beside the grim literalness ofThe Wisdom of Perversity, as beside any case history of sexual abuse, Lolita is a lark, an extravagance, a phantasm of romance, a tour de force, a jubilant metaphor. Yglesias has known the real thing, and has chosen not to refashion it into anything other than itself.” —Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review “An affecting novel that is big-screen lurid without being superficial or too slick . . . [with] a touch of Agatha Christie-like mystery.”—Kirkus Reviews “Yglesias delivers a powerful message about victimization, healing, and empowerment in a novel that is as timely as it is poignant.”—Booklist

A pioneering study of the theatre's treatment of homosexuals and homosexuality from the 1920s to the present day. Only in the 60s did theatres confront heterosexual prejudice and in the wake of AIDS, the issue is once again highly charged.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.