An Intimate Rebuke

An Intimate Rebuke PDF Author: Laura S. Grillo
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478002638
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Throughout West African societies, at times of social crises, postmenopausal women—the Mothers—make a ritual appeal to their innate moral authority. The seat of this power is the female genitalia. Wielding branches or pestles, they strip naked and slap their genitals and bare breasts to curse and expel the forces of evil. In An Intimate Rebuke Laura S. Grillo draws on fieldwork in Côte d’Ivoire that spans three decades to illustrate how these rituals of Female Genital Power (FGP) constitute religious and political responses to abuses of power. When deployed in secret, FGP operates as spiritual warfare against witchcraft; in public, it serves as a political activism. During Côte d’Ivoire’s civil wars FGP challenged the immoral forces of both rebels and the state. Grillo shows how the ritual potency of the Mothers’ nudity and the conjuration of their sex embodies a moral power that has been foundational to West African civilization. Highlighting the remarkable continuity of the practice across centuries while foregrounding the timeliness of FGP in contemporary political resistance, Grillo shifts perspectives on West African history, ethnography, comparative religious studies, and postcolonial studies.

An Intimate Rebuke

An Intimate Rebuke PDF Author: Laura S. Grillo
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478002638
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Get Book Here

Book Description
Throughout West African societies, at times of social crises, postmenopausal women—the Mothers—make a ritual appeal to their innate moral authority. The seat of this power is the female genitalia. Wielding branches or pestles, they strip naked and slap their genitals and bare breasts to curse and expel the forces of evil. In An Intimate Rebuke Laura S. Grillo draws on fieldwork in Côte d’Ivoire that spans three decades to illustrate how these rituals of Female Genital Power (FGP) constitute religious and political responses to abuses of power. When deployed in secret, FGP operates as spiritual warfare against witchcraft; in public, it serves as a political activism. During Côte d’Ivoire’s civil wars FGP challenged the immoral forces of both rebels and the state. Grillo shows how the ritual potency of the Mothers’ nudity and the conjuration of their sex embodies a moral power that has been foundational to West African civilization. Highlighting the remarkable continuity of the practice across centuries while foregrounding the timeliness of FGP in contemporary political resistance, Grillo shifts perspectives on West African history, ethnography, comparative religious studies, and postcolonial studies.

Cruising

Cruising PDF Author: Alex Espinoza
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781944700829
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Acclaimed author Alex Espinoza takes readers on an uncensored journey through the underground, to reveal the timeless art of cruising. Combining historical research and oral history with his own personal experience, Espinoza examines the political and cultural forces behind this radical pastime. From Greek antiquity to the notorious Molly houses of 18th century England, the raucous 1970s to the algorithms of Grindr, Oscar Wilde to George Michael, cruising remains at once a reclamation of public space and the creation of its own unique locale―one in which men of all races and classes interact, even in the shadow of repressive governments

Religions in Contemporary Africa

Religions in Contemporary Africa PDF Author: Laura S. Grillo
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351260707
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Religions in Contemporary Africa is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the three main religious traditions on the African continent, African indigenous religions, Christianity and Islam. The book provides a historical overview of these important traditions and focuses on the roles they play in African societies today. It includes social, cultural and political case studies from across the continent on the following topical issues: Witchcraft and modernity Power and politics Conflict and peace Media and popular culture Development Human rights Illness and health Gender and sexuality With suggestions for further reading, discussion questions, illustrations and a list of glossary terms this is the ideal textbook for students in religion, African studies and adjacent fields approaching this subject area for the first time.

Naked Agency

Naked Agency PDF Author: Naminata Diabate
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478007575
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
Across Africa, mature women have for decades mobilized the power of their nakedness in political protest to shame and punish male adversaries. This insurrectionary nakedness, often called genital cursing, owes its cultural potency to the religious belief that spirits residing in women's bodies can be unleashed to cause misfortune in their targets, including impotence, disease, and death. In Naked Agency, Naminata Diabate analyzes these collective female naked protests in Africa and beyond to broaden understandings of agency and vulnerability. Drawing on myriad cultural texts from social media and film to journalism and fiction, Diabate uncovers how women create spaces of resistance during socio-political duress, including such events as the 2011 protests by Ivoirian women in Côte d’Ivoire and Paris as well as women's disrobing in Soweto to prevent the destruction of their homes. Through the concept of naked agency, Diabate explores fluctuating narratives of power and victimhood to challenge simplistic accounts of African women's helplessness and to show how they exercise political power in the biopolitical era.

Friend-ish

Friend-ish PDF Author: Kelly Needham
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 1400213525
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
For so many of us, our friends are like family members--we lean on them through our highest highs and our lowest lows--but sometimes those friendships don't turn out quite as we hoped. Bible teacher Kelly Needham debunks our world's constricted, narrow view of friendship and casts a richer, more life-giving, biblical vision for friendship. In Friend-ish, Kelly Needham reminds us that we were called to more than halfhearted friendships and lukewarm connections. We need something more stable, secure, and sacred. We were designed for real friendship--but the difficult truth is that too many of us are settling for less. Kelly deconstructs what Scripture says about the gift of friendship and takes a closer look at the distorted view that most of us have instead. As she shares the lessons she's learned from experience, Kelly paints her own glorious vision of what Christian friendship could look like. With hard-fought wisdom, a clear view of Scripture, and a been-there perspective, Friend-ish teaches us how to: Recognize symptoms of idolatry and toxic dependency Boldly ask for what we need from our community of friends Understand and address the problems that arise in friendship--from neediness to discord Recognize when it's time to end an unhealthy friendship Reorient toward the purposeful, loving relationships we all crave that ultimately bring us closer to God Find the friends you need and start to become that friend for others Join Kelly as she challenges you to view your chosen family in a new light, gain a vision of friendship according to Jesus, and finally enjoy friendships as God intended.

The Bedroom

The Bedroom PDF Author: Michelle Perrot
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300169531
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Book Description
An erudite and highly enjoyable exploration of the most intriguing of personal spaces, from Greek and Roman antiquity through today The winner of France’s prestigious Prix Femina Essai (2009), this imaginative and captivating book explores the many dimensions of the room in which we spend so much of our lives—the bedroom. Eminent cultural historian Michelle Perrot traces the evolution of the bedroom from the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans to today, examining its myriad forms and functions, from royal king’s chamber to child’s sleeping quarters to lovers’ trysting place to monk’s cell. The history of women, so eager for a room of their own, and that of prisons, where the principal cause of suffering is the lack of privacy, is interwoven with a reflection on secrecy, walls, the night and its mysteries. Drawing from a wide range of sources, including architectural and design treatises, private journals, novels, memoirs, and correspondences, Perrot’s engaging book follows the many roads that lead to the bedroom—birth, sex, illness, death—in its endeavor to expose the most intimate, nocturnal side of human history.

Blitzed

Blitzed PDF Author: Norman Ohler
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 1328664090
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
A New York Times bestseller, Norman Ohler's Blitzed is a "fascinating, engrossing, often dark history of drug use in the Third Reich” (Washington Post). The Nazi regime preached an ideology of physical, mental, and moral purity. Yet as Norman Ohler reveals in this gripping history, the Third Reich was saturated with drugs: cocaine, opiates, and, most of all, methamphetamines, which were consumed by everyone from factory workers to housewives to German soldiers. In fact, troops were encouraged, and in some cases ordered, to take rations of a form of crystal meth—the elevated energy and feelings of invincibility associated with the high even help to account for the breakneck invasion that sealed the fall of France in 1940, as well as other German military victories. Hitler himself became increasingly dependent on injections of a cocktail of drugs—ultimately including Eukodal, a cousin of heroin—administered by his personal doctor. Thoroughly researched and rivetingly readable, Blitzed throws light on a history that, until now, has remained in the shadows. “Delightfully nuts.”—The New Yorker

Return to Rome

Return to Rome PDF Author: Francis J. Beckwith
Publisher: Brazos Press
ISBN: 1441203907
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
What does it mean to be evangelical? What does it mean to be Catholic? Can one consider oneself both simultaneously? Francis Beckwith has wrestled with these questions personally and professionally. He was baptized a Catholic, but his faith journey led him to Protestant evangelicalism. He became a philosophy professor at Baylor University and president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). And then, in 2007, after much prayer, counsel, and consideration, Beckwith decided to return to the Catholic church and step down as ETS president. This provocative book details Beckwith's journey, focusing on his internal dialogue between the Protestant theology he embraced for most of his adult life and Catholicism. He seeks to explain what prompted his decision and offers theological reflection on whether one can be evangelical and Catholic, affirming his belief that one can be both. EXCERPT It's difficult to explain why one moves from one Christian tradition to another. It is like trying to give an account to your friends why you chose to pursue for marriage this woman rather than that one, though both may have a variety of qualities that you found attractive. It seems to me then that any account of my return to the Catholic church, however authentic and compelling it is to me, will appear inadequate to anyone who is absolutely convinced that I was wrong. Conversely, my story will confirm in the minds of many devout Catholics that the supernatural power of the grace I received at baptism and confirmation as a youngster were instrumental in drawing me back to the Mother Church. Given these considerations, I confess that there is an awkwardness in sharing my journey as a published book, knowing that many fellow Christians will scrutinize and examine my reasons in ways that appear to some uncharitable and to others too charitable.

The Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson

The Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson PDF Author: Harry Mount
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472976525
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
A return to the wit and wisdom of Boris Johnson – Brexiteer, Foreign Secretary, Prime Minister. New and updated edition. 2019 – the year that Boris took on the 'lingering gloomadon-poppers', pledged to steer the UK between the 'Scylla and Charybdis of Corbyn and Farage' and into the calmer waters of political freedom. Of course there was always bound to be 'a bit of plaster coming off the ceilings of Europe's Chanceries'. Harry Mount has updated his edited collection of the Prime Minister's wit and wisdom with three new chapters dealing with Boris's time as Brexiteer-in-chief; Foreign Secretary and 'On the Threshold of Downing Street'. He describes Boris's Brexit campaign, his leadership breakdown in 2016, his ups and downs as Foreign Secretary, his time outside the political establishment, his turbulent private life and how Boris felt it was his manifest destiny to become the Prime Minister. So buckle up for a riotous tour of the million-pound NHS funder, golden wonder, pro-having, pro-eating blond behemoth. This is the Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson.

I Am J

I Am J PDF Author: Cris Beam
Publisher: Orbit Books
ISBN: 0316053619
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
J, who feels like a boy mistakenly born as a girl, runs away from his best friend who has rejected him and the parents he thinks do not understand him when he finally decides that it is time to be who he really is.