Gleanings is a gathering of hitherto uncollected essays written by Christine Downing during the quarter century since the publication in 1981 of her seminal book, The Goddess: Mythological Images of the Feminine. Many of the essays continue her exploration of Greek goddess traditions and other aspects of Greek mythology. Others grow out of her ongoing involvement with the thought of both Freud and Jung. The interrelationship between polis and psyche, city and soul, is a central theme of several of these papers, including those that focus on the Holocaust. Various facets of lesbian and gay experience are also examined.

This book is a careful attempt to explore and “fill in the picture” of the eschatological puzzle using the entire Biblical Scripture cohesively within a conceptual framework of two peoples, Jew and Christian, who are His people of the New Covenant (Jer. 31:31; Matt. 2:28) united under one Messiah as “one new man” (Eph. 2:15). Using solid hermeneutical practices, the author attempts to disprove some major aspects of the Pretribulational “Rapture” theory because it produces a distorted picture of future events regarding the relationship between Jews and Christians. She has organized prophetic past, present, and future events into a logical and coherent sequence that more closely resembles historical reality and God’s eternal plans. At the end, she highlights some of the similarities between Christian and Jewish eschatologies, and then describes the final outcome of God’s purposes with mankind while offering some suggestions as to what Christians can do as they await victoriously for the converging of both eschatologies and the fulfillment of all things.

Lurianics tells the story of a youngish man – one Isaac Luria (namesake of one of the world's great Kabbalists) – who seeks to create a "true work" which will give his life a meaning that is uniquely beyond label. Set on Manhattan's Upper West Side, the novel anatomizes this unlikely hero's ambivalence-racked relationships with a veritable cast of thousands, all of whom have one thing in common – a craving to derail his every attempt to get on with the job. They include: a smugly go-getting kid brother, a hyper-articulate mystery woman, and assorted bosses, co-workers, composers and filmmakers living and dead, ballet stars, murdered doormen, stuff-strutting sparrows, and honey locusts about to bloom. But chaos does not always reign supreme and in the end every encounter plays its part in forcing Luria to confront the ultimate question: Does he have the guts not just to erect his Valhalla (any fool can do that) but to erect it with the only building blocks worth a damn, i.e., the very things befouling the path?

This comprehensive volume on the blood-gas barrier (BGB) among vertebrates covers its structure and composition along with aspects of evolution, bioengineering, and morphometry. The book also discusses the embryological development of the BGB, including chronology of events and molecular control in vertebrates; modulation of the barrier function, including cyclic stretch-induced increases in alveolar epithelial permeability; mechanisms of lung vascular/epithelial permeability; transport mechanisms of the BGB, including sodium transport channels; factors affecting trans-barrier traffic of fluids, such as chronic elevation of pulmonary microvascular pressure; stress failure; regulation and repair in acute lung injury; chronic lung disease; and lung transportation. Ten authoritative chapters approach the blood-gas barrier holistically, from basic structure and development to pathology and treatment. Properties of the BGB are discussed in the earlier chapters, followed by prenatal and post-natal development and mechanisms of the healthy BGB. The latter half of the book delves into the pathology of the BGB, analyzing common afflictions and exploring options for treatment, including its alterations during lung transplantation. Intuitively structured and comprehensive, The Vertebrate Blood-Gas Barrier in Health and Disease is ideal for researchers and clinicians interested in pneumology and angiology.

Volume XVI Phenomenology of Emotions, Systematical and Historical Perspectives Aim and Scope: The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy provides an annual international forum for phenomenological research in the spirit of Husserl's groundbreaking work and the extension of this work by such figures as Scheler, Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty and Gadamer. Contributors: Esteban Marín Ávila, Thiemo Breyer, Jakub Čapek, Mariano Crespo, Roberta De Monticelli, John J. Drummond, Søren Engelsen, Maria Gyemant, Mirja Hartimo, Elisa Magrì, Ronny Miron, Anthony J. Steinbock, Panos Theodorou, Íngrid Vendrell Ferran, Antonio Zirión Quijano, and Nate Zuckerman. Submissions: Manuscripts, prepared for blind review, should be submitted to the Editors ([email protected] and [email protected]) electronically via e-mail attachments.

For generations, critics have noticed in nineteenth-century American women's sentimentality a streak of masochism, but their discussions of it have over-simplified its complex relationship to women's power. Marianne Noble argues that tropes of eroticized domination in sentimental literature must be recognized for what they were: a double-edged sword of both oppression and empowerment. She begins by exploring the cultural forces that came together to create this ideology of desire, particularly Protestant discourses relating suffering to love and middle-class discourses of "true womanhood." She goes on to demonstrate how sentimental literature takes advantage of the expressive power in the convergence of these two discourses to imagine women's romantic desire. Therefore, in sentimental literature, images of eroticized domination are not antithetical to female pleasure but rather can be constitutive of it. The book, however, does not simply celebrate that fact. In readings of Warner's The Wide Wide World, Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Dickinson's sentimental poetry, it addresses the complex benefits and costs of nineteenth-century women's literary masochism. Ultimately it shows how these authors both exploited and were shaped by this discursive practice. The Masochistic Pleasures of Sentimental Literature exemplifies new trends in "Third Wave" feminist scholarship, presenting cultural and historical research informed by clear, lucid discussions of psychoanalytic and literary theory. It demonstrates that contemporary theories of masochism--including those of Deleuze, Bataille, Kristeva, Benjamin, Bersani, Noyes, Mansfield--are more relevant and comprehensible when considered in relation to sentimental literature.

The Apocalepticon, a modern neo-classical epic poem, covering an encyclopedic range of subject matter, historical themes, philosophical schools and theological traditions - A work conceived over three decades, in a culmination of poetical language, that gives a new and original voice to the Western Epic Tradition.

When Maria leaves Italy on a ship to America, she has no idea she is about to meet the only man she will ever love. Michael is enraged by Nathan Hawkins' unjust treatment of immigrant coal miners, and is aboard the same ship to uncover information to end Hawkins' reign of terror. But when destiny brings Michael and Maria together, neither can foresee that Maria would be Hawkins' next pawn.

"Ecstasy is a force to be reckoned with--sometimes creative, sometimes destructive. Eigen argues that there is an ecstasy that comes through the ever-necessary confrontation of our psychic cores with suffering and degradation and he shows that when we can learn to be present with these feelings, they add to the tone and texture of our lives, and help us to feel real."--Page 4 of cover.

Spiritual awakenings, whether quiet and subtle or dramatic and breathtaking, are deeply personal events. More than half of us have undergone a spiritual transformation, each unique and life-changing. We may only have a moment or two to act or we may have a few months to sort things out. We may curse the gods or sink to our knees in gratitude. Th e circumstances vary but two things are certain. One, our life is about to change. And two, it's a day we will not soon forget. Sixty Seconds is an uplifting collection of intimate, heartfelt stories from prominent people who graciously share their personal experiences with the profound. Their moving, life-altering interviews powerfully illustrate that sacred moments of illumination and insight are available to us all.