The critical literary world has spent a wealth of thought and words on the question of Hawthorne himself: Where does he stand in his works? In history? In literary tradition? In this major new study, G. R. Thompson recasts the "Hawthorne question" to show how authorial presence in the writer's works is as much a matter of art as the writing itself. The Hawthorne who emerges from this masterful analysis is not, as has been supposed, identical to the provincial narrator of his early tales; instead he is revealed to be the skillful manipulator of that narrative voice, an author at an ironic distance from the tales he tells. By focusing on the provincial tales as they were originally conceived--as a narrative cycle--Thompson is able to recover intertextual references that reveal Hawthorne's preoccupation with framing strategies and variations on authorial presence. The author shows how Hawthorne deliberately constructs sentimental narratives, only to deconstruct them. Thompson's analysis provides a new aesthetic context for understanding the whole shape of Hawthorne's career as well as the narrative, ethical, and historical issues within individual works. Revisionary in its view of one of America's greatest authors, The Art of Authorial Presence also offers invaluable insight into the problems of narratology and historiography, ethics and psychology, romanticism and idealism, and the cultural myths of America.

The book outlines the influences on academic, authorial self-representation in English as a second language. It explores how writer identity is negotiated within socio-cultural and disciplinary contexts. This collective aspect of writer self is formed alongside the individual self with the emergent voice as outcome of the struggle between the two.

This book takes Roland Barthes’s famous proclamation of ‘The Death of the Author’ as a starting point to investigate concepts of authorial presence and absence on various levels of text and performance. By offering a new understanding of ‘the author’ as neither a source of unquestioned authority nor an obsolete construct, but rather as a performative figure, the book illuminates wide-ranging aesthetic and political aspects of ‘authorial death’ by asking: how is the author constructed through cultural and political imaginaries and erasures, intertextual and intertheatrical references, re-performances and self-referentiality? And what are the politics and ethics of these constructions?

A footprint of reality dwells in every pen a writer holds. Whenever it inks from one page to the next, it is inevitable for him to contribute a piece of himself to the narrative. The resemblance stays uncanny to the writer who writes from the heart and unconsciously reveals himself in his work. This research paper wanders beyond the walls of fiction as it exposes the reality of the dark life of the author, evident in every flip of his book, every plot in motion, every character in conflict, and every milieu in sight.

"This book examines what it means to be present in one's teaching- how to mentally and emotionally connect to your students, your classroom, and your teaching. The author outlines the structure of reflection, its intentional practice, and its importance to presence. Rodgers also provides a detailed outline for teaching presence to new and preservice teachers"--

Many of us experience being overly sensitive and more reactive than we'd like to be throughout the day at work, but why? When we are overly reliant on external validation and reactive to external pressures--driven by fear of judgment, criticism, and failure--we lose our composure. The good news is, like any important skill, composure is something you can learn and cultivate by creating strong personal boundaries, building confidence, developing self-awareness, and aligning yourself and your values. This is what is explored profoundly in this book. Drawing on more than twenty years of experience as corporate executives, executive coaches, and their expertise in neurolinguistics and trauma and PTSD therapy, Kate Purmal and her colleagues Lee Epting and Joshua Isaac Smith deliver a unique approach to navigating work environments that don't feel psychologically safe. Using proven techniques, COMPOSURE shows how you can compose yourself to elevate your presence at work, at home, and, ultimately, within yourself.

"Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art, the first comprehensive survey of performance art by black visual artists. While black performance has been largely contextualized as an extension of theater, visual artists have integrated performance into their work for over five decades, generating a repository of performance work that has gone largely unrecognized until now. Radical Presence provides a critical framework to discuss the history of black performance traditions within the visual arts beginning with the "happenings" of the early 1960s, throughout the 1980s, and into the present practices of contemporary artists."--Publisher's website

Before the Renaissance and Reformation, holy images were treated not as "art" but as objects of veneration which possessed the tangible presence of the Holy. the faithful believed that these images served as relics and were able to work miracles, deliver oracles, and bring victory to the battlefield. In this magisterial book, Hans Belting traces the long history of the sacral image and its changing role--from surrogate for the represented image to an original work of art--in European culture. Likeness and Presence looks at the beliefs, superstitions, hopes, and fears that come into play as people handle and respond to sacred images, and presents a compelling interpretation of the place of the image in Western history. -- Back cover

In the spring of 2004, Eckhart Tolle lead an extraordinary weekend retreat at Findhord, Scotland, a spiritual community on the leading edge of personal and global transformation. The whole retreat was captured on video and edited to create two DVDs.