In Praise of the Whip: A Cultural History of Arousal is a new history of voluntary flagellation in Europe, from its invention in medieval relgious devotion to its use in the modern pornographic imagination. Working with a wide range of religious, literary, and medical texts and images, Niklaus Largier explores the emotional and sensual, religious and erotic excitement of the whip, a crucial instrument of stimulation in devotional and sexual practices. From early modern pornography to the Marquis de Sade and the fantasies of Swinburne and Joyce, the erotic and devotional imagination drew on the whip. Largier explores how the Reformation and Counter-Reformation problematized the medieval culture of arousal. The stimulating qualities of medieval visual displays, especially flagellant practices, processions, and spectacles, were subjected to a criticsm that sought to control the imagination. In modern bourgeois life the practice, effects, and imagery of flagellation became a central site of the investigation into concerns and anxieties about exercising emotional self-control and censoring fantasy. Modern references to flagellant practice in the works of Swinburne, Proust, and Joyce testified not only to a “decadent” fascination with “medieval” cultures or “perverse sexuality,” but also to a fascination that nineteenth-century censorship, informed by psychopathological discourse, had obliterated. Such histories of flagellation, Largier explains, were attempts to recover a culture of stimulation and imagination — both erotic and devotional — that transcended the modern boundaries of sexuality.

You never know where the road may lead you. Or who you’ll find along the way… When Whip comes across a disabled motorcycle at the foot of the mountain—the one that’s nothing but bad news—he hopes the stranded rider is nothing more than just that. Someone who needs help. And not a trap. Or an undercover fed. When her motorcycle breaks down on a deserted road, Fallon Murphy’s caught off guard by the mechanic with the sexy smirk who comes to her rescue. After shedding her restrictive corporate chains, she’s now living life on her own terms. She no longer answers to anyone for anything. Like most bikers, her motto is “live free, ride free.” But that’s where her and Whip’s similarities end. The saying is “opposites attract,” but Whip tried that once before. It didn’t work out. Fallon’s not only far out of his league, they couldn’t be more opposite. Even so, he isn’t easily deterred. However, to his surprise, Fallon has her own plans and isn’t shy about going after what she wants. Meanwhile, trouble on that mountain is brewing, and no one is safe. His MC stands at a crossroads, and it’s time for the Fury to take action once and for all. No more excuses. No more quarter. No mercy given. Especially from the one who goes by that name. Note: Blood & Bones: Whip is the eleventh book in the Blood Fury MC series. This older woman/ younger man romance (seven-year difference) has no cheating, no cliffhanger, and has an HEA. It’s highly recommended to read this series in order.

The Whip is inspired by the true story of a woman, Charlotte "Charley" Parkhurst (1812-1879) who lived most of her extraordinary life as a man. As a young woman in Rhode Island, she fell in love and had a child. Her husband was lynched and her baby killed. The destruction of her family drove her west to California, dressed as a man, to track down the murder. Charley became a renowned stagecoach driver. She killed a famous outlaw, had a secret love affair, and lived with a housekeeper who, unaware of her true sex, fell in love with her. Charley was the first woman to vote in America (as a man). Her grave lies in Watsonville, California.

This book explores our corporeal connections to the past by considering what three theoretical approaches - somaesthetics, posthumanism, and the uncanny - may reveal about both premodern and postmodern terms of embodiment. It takes as its point of departure a selection of fifteenth-century northern European Books of Hours - evocative objects designed at once to inscribe social status, to strengthen religious commitment, to entertain, to stimulate emotions, and to encourage discomfiting self-scrutiny. Studying their kaleidoscopically strange, moving, humorous, disturbing, and imaginative pages not only enables a window into relationships among bodies, images, and things in the past but also in our own internet era, where surprisingly popular memes drawn from such manuscripts constitute a part of our own visual culture. In negotiating theoretical, post-theoretical, and historical concerns, this book aims to contribute to an emerging and much-needed intersectional social history of art. It will be of interest to scholars working in art history, medieval studies, Renaissance/early modern studies, gender studies, the history of the book, posthumanism, aesthetics, and the body.

This timely volume ventures into the subject of sadomasochism in varied aspects of medieval life. Saint’s Lives and mystical treatises provide evidence of failed sadism and empowering masochism. Literary culture in the form of epics and courtly tales preserve stories of eroticised power. These exciting chapters join together to form a picture of medieval culture that is kinky in its practice and deeply psychological at its core.

Tapping into selected works of Erasmus of Rotterdam, this book offers a series of philosophical meditations designed to retrieve and deploy a distinctively Erasmian manner of thinking - one that is capacious in its perception, agile in its judgments, and unsettling in its irony. In purpose, it takes a philosophical route, addressing perennial questions of self-knowledge - what we can know and how best to communicate what we take to be true, what we ought to do or how we should live, and what we might hope for or what would offer us fulfilment. In method, however, this work taps into the various strategies of irony at play in the works of Erasmus, looking for guidance in handling these age-old questions. What readers will find in Erasmus is a knack for playfully reversing appearances and realities, a penchant for pushing disturbing questions relentlessly to the limit, and a skill for juxtaposing oddly matched opposites. Again and again, Erasmus presses readers to rethink these fundamental questions with dexterity and nuance, ever ready to appreciate the surprising and unsettling upshot of ironic insight.

In this translation of Hommage a la femme noire (1988), the authors pay tribute in essays and color images to a group victimized by "scholarly neglect and racist assumptions." Featured African women include 19th-20th century activists, authors, one of the first black fashion models, and others going beyond tradition. Published as part of a UNESCO project for the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture/New York Public Library. 9.25x12 ". The correct ISBN is given on the dust jacket but not on the copyright page. V. 4 is expected in spring 2004. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Sid Halley, now a private investigator with a bionic hand, finds himself uncovering corruption in the racing world.