...he is an expert at intellectual and moral triage, sorting patiently through the tangle of mixed motives that make for art, admiring the candor, admonishing the perversion.

Offers progressive readers new and reinvigorated paths of engaged hope, imagination and public involvement.

In volume 2 of Birding and Mysticism: Enlightenment Through Bird Watching, there is no traditional table of contents; rather, there are the five main parts and their sections and subsections, which contain the substantive ideas and memes of volume 2, followed by six appendices. The main thrust of volume 2 concerns the many aspects, faces, and forms of mysticism: religious, spiritual, rational, scientific, personal, and practical.

According to James M. Kauffman, too much of what is said today about educational reform is nonsense that shortchanges students, parents, and taxpayers. This deforms education rather than reforming it. The primary objective of this book is to help teachers, teacher educators, policy makers, and parents think more critically about current rhetoric about education. Reason and science in the enlightenment tradition are more helpful in reforming and improving education than political agendas. Reform should focus on instruction. Education must address the full range of learners, from those who are mentally retarded to those who are intellectually gifted. Special education, multicultural education, and standardized testing are among the controversial issues explored. Extremes of both left and right ideologies are rejected in favor of careful thinking and sound judgment.

Language, education, politics, and music come together in Katherine Bergeron's Voice Lessons, a study of the French m?lodie in the Belle Epoque. Close readings of songs by Faur?, Debussy, and Ravel, along with poems, sound recordings, and other historical documents, seek to uncovers the cultural meanings of this art: why it emerged, why it mattered, and why it eventually disappeared.

Palgrave Advances in Oscar Wilde Studies is a comprehensive guide to recent critical approaches. Topics covered include Gay Studies, Feminist Criticism, Material Culture, Religion, Philosophy, Performance Studies, Aestheticism, Biography, Textual Studies and Postcolonial Theory. The book is designed to acquaint readers of all levels with the history of scholarship in a range of fields and suggest ways that Wilde's work offer new areas for research. The collection also provides a Chronology and detailed bibliography.

When Trump became president, much of the country was repelled by what they saw as the vulgar spectacle of his ascent, a perversion of the highest office in the land. In his bold, innovative book, Political Perversion, rhetorician Joshua Gunn argues that this “mean-spirited turn” in American politics (of which Trump is the paragon) is best understood as a structural perversion in our common culture, on a continuum with infantile and “gotcha” forms of entertainment meant to engender provocation and sadistic enjoyment. Drawing on insights from critical theory, media ecology, and psychoanalysis, Gunn argues that perverse rhetorics dominate not only the political sphere but also our daily interactions with others, in person and online. From sexting to campaign rhetoric, Gunn advances a new way to interpret our contemporary political context that explains why so many of us have difficulty deciphering the appeal of aberrant public figures. In this book, Trump is only the tip of a sinister, rapidly growing iceberg, one to which we ourselves unwittingly contribute on a daily basis.

A riveting account of the ways in which man's darkest impulses conflict with common sense. From the lessons learned in "Paradise Lost" and the events which transpired in the tales of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "Frankenstein" to unlocking the secrets of the atom, Shattuck's brilliant synthesis of history and literature is utterly relevant to our times and addictively readable.