Tells the story of archaeological travel and excavation in Iraq -- then Mesopotamia -- from the time of the great Arab geographers to the 2003 devastation of the Iraq National Museum. Fagan tells of Henry Rawlinson, Jules Oppert, and Edward Hincks, decipherers of cuneiform; Claudius and Mary Rich, observers of Nineveh and Babylon; and Émile Botta and Austen Henry Layard, who revealed the Assyrian civilisation to an astonished world. Here, also, are men like Hormuzd Rassam, whose illegal digging and plundering horrified local officials, and Wallis Budge, consummate smuggler of cuneiform tablets. Fagan also recounts the careers of the multi-talented administrator Gertrude Bell, a primary influence in the creation of the nation of Iraq, and of Leonard Woolley, renowned for his excavation of Sumerian civilisation at Ur. Bringing this remarkable history up to date, Fagan chronicles the development of scientific archaeology in Mesopotamia, the growing Iraqi involvement in archaeology, and the tragic events of recent years that led to the looting of the Iraq National Museum and many archaeological sites.

Although cinema was invented in the mid-1890s, it was a decade more before the concept of a “film spectator” emerged. As the cinema began to separate itself from the commercial entertainments in whose context films initially had been shown—vaudeville, dime museums, fairgrounds—a particular concept of its spectator was developed on the level of film style, as a means of predicting the reception of films on a mass scale. In Babel and Babylon, Miriam Hansen offers an original perspective on American film by tying the emergence of spectatorship to the historical transformation of the public sphere. Hansen builds a critical framework for understanding the cultural formation of spectatorship, drawing on the Frankfurt School’s debates on mass culture and the public sphere. Focusing on exemplary moments in the American silent era, she explains how the concept of the spectator evolved as a crucial part of the classical Hollywood paradigm—as one of the new industry’s strategies to integrate ethnically, socially, and sexually differentiated audiences into a modern culture of consumption. In this process, Hansen argues, the cinema might also have provided the conditions of an alternative public sphere for particular social groups, such as recent immigrants and women, by furnishing an intersubjective context in which they could recognize fragments of their own experience. After tracing the emergence of spectatorship as an institution, Hansen pursues the question of reception through detailed readings of a single film, D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916), and of the cult surrounding a single star, Rudolph Valentino. In each case the classical construction of spectatorship is complicated by factors of gender and sexuality, crystallizing around the fear and desire of the female consumer. Babel and Babylon recasts the debate on early American cinema—and by implication on American film as a whole. It is a model study in the field of cinema studies, mediating the concerns of recent film theory with those of recent film history.

»Babylon Revisited« is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, originally published in 1931. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD [1896-1940] was an American author, born in St. Paul, Minnesota. His legendary marriage to Zelda Montgomery, along with their acquaintances with notable figures such as Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway, and their lifestyle in 1920s Paris, has become iconic. A master of the short story genre, it is logical that his most famous novel is also his shortest: The Great Gatsby [1925].

Bestselling Author Lynn Austin Launches New Biblical Saga After years of watching his children and grandchildren wander from their faith, Iddo's prayers are answered: King Cyrus is allowing God's chosen people to return to Jerusalem. Jubilant, he joyfully prepares for their departure, only to learn that his family, grown comfortable in the pagan culture of Babylon, wants to remain. Zechariah, Iddo's oldest grandson, feels torn between his grandfather's ancient beliefs and the comfort and success his father enjoys in Babylon. But he soon begins to hear the voice of God, encouraging him to return to the land given to his forefathers. Bringing to life the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah, Return to Me tells the compelling story of Iddo and Zechariah, the women who love them, and the faithful followers who struggle to rebuild their lives in obedience to the God who beckons them home.

A FINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022 – Boston Globe, BuzzFeed, LitHub, Electric Literature, LGBTQ Reads, Latinx in Publishing *Recommended by The New York Times* In this contemporary debut novel—an intimate portrait of queer, racial, and class identity —Andrés, a gay Latinx professor, returns to his suburban hometown in the wake of his husband’s infidelity. There he finds himself with no excuse not to attend his twenty-year high school reunion, and hesitantly begins to reconnect with people he used to call friends. Over the next few weeks, while caring for his aging parents and navigating the neighborhood where he grew up, Andrés falls into old habits with friends he thought he’d left behind. Before long, he unexpectedly becomes entangled with his first love and is forced to tend to past wounds. Captivating and poignant; a modern coming-of-age story about the essential nature of community, The Town of Babylon is a page-turning novel about young love and a close examination of our social systems and the toll they take when they fail us.

Many books of the Hebrew Bible were either composed in some form or edited during the Exilic and post-Exilic periods among a community that was to identify itself as returning from Babylonian captivity. At the same time, a dearth of contemporary written evidence from Judah/Yehud and its environs renders any particular understanding of the process within its social, cultural and political context virtually impossible. This has led some to label the period a dark age or black box – as obscure as it is essential for understanding the history of Judaism. In recent years, however, archaeologists and historians have stepped up their effort to look for and study material remains from the period and integrate the local history of Yehud, the return from Exile, and the restoration of Jerusalem’s temple more firmly within the regional, and indeed global, developments of the time. At the same time, Assyriologists have also been introducing a wide range of cuneiform material that illuminates the economy, literary traditions, practices of literacy and the ideologies of the Babylonian host society – factors that affected those taken into Exile in variable, changing and multiple ways. This volume of essays seeks to exploit these various advances.

Explores the Old Testament's prophetic cry against materialism, consumerism, violence, and oppression

The classic apocalyptic novel that stunned the world.

A sardonic young woman must face the demons of her past when a high school friend commits suicide in this “startling coming of age story” (Kirkus). Recent college grad Aubrey Glass has a collection of potential suicide notes—just in case. And now, five years—and five notes—after Aubrey has left her hometown, her former best friend Rachel is the one who goes and kills herself. Aubrey can’t believe her luck. But Rachel’s death doesn’t leave Aubrey in peace. There’s a voice mail from her former friend, left only days before her death, that she can’t bring herself to listen to—and worse, a macabre memorial-turned-high-school-reunion that promises the opportunity to catch up with everyone . . . including the man responsible for everything that went wrong between Aubrey and Rachel. In the days leading up to the funeral and infamous after-party, Aubrey slips seamlessly between her past and present. Memories of friendship tangle with painful new encounters, while underneath it all Aubrey feels the rush of something closing in, something she can no longer run from. And when the past and present collide in one devastating night, nothing will be the same again.