Encountering the Impossible

Encountering the Impossible PDF Author: Alexander Sergeant
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438484607
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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Book Description
2022 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Shortlisted for the 2022 Best First Monograph Award presented by the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Hollywood fantasy cinema is responsible for some of the most lucrative franchises produced over the past two decades, yet it remains difficult to find popular or critical consensus on what the experience of watching fantasy cinema actually entails. What makes something a fantasy film, and what unique pleasures does the genre offer? In Encountering the Impossible, Alexander Sergeant solves the riddle of the fantasy film by theorizing the underlying experience of imagination alluded to in scholarly discussions of the genre. Drawing principally on the psychoanalysis of Melanie Klein and D.W. Winnicott, Sergeant considers the way in which fantasy cinema rejects Hollywood's typically naturalistic mode of address to generate an alternative experience that Sergeant refers to as the fantastic, a way of approaching cinema that embraces the illusory nature of the medium as part of the pleasure of the experience. Analyzing such canonical Hollywood fantasy films as The Wizard of Oz, It's a Wonderful Life, Mary Poppins, Conan the Barbarian, and The Lord of the Rings movies, Sergeant theorizes how fantasy cinema provides a unique film experience throughout its ubiquitous presence in the history of Hollywood film production.

Encountering the Impossible

Encountering the Impossible PDF Author: Alexander Sergeant
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438484607
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 379

Get Book Here

Book Description
2022 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Shortlisted for the 2022 Best First Monograph Award presented by the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Hollywood fantasy cinema is responsible for some of the most lucrative franchises produced over the past two decades, yet it remains difficult to find popular or critical consensus on what the experience of watching fantasy cinema actually entails. What makes something a fantasy film, and what unique pleasures does the genre offer? In Encountering the Impossible, Alexander Sergeant solves the riddle of the fantasy film by theorizing the underlying experience of imagination alluded to in scholarly discussions of the genre. Drawing principally on the psychoanalysis of Melanie Klein and D.W. Winnicott, Sergeant considers the way in which fantasy cinema rejects Hollywood's typically naturalistic mode of address to generate an alternative experience that Sergeant refers to as the fantastic, a way of approaching cinema that embraces the illusory nature of the medium as part of the pleasure of the experience. Analyzing such canonical Hollywood fantasy films as The Wizard of Oz, It's a Wonderful Life, Mary Poppins, Conan the Barbarian, and The Lord of the Rings movies, Sergeant theorizes how fantasy cinema provides a unique film experience throughout its ubiquitous presence in the history of Hollywood film production.

The Impossible Will Take a Little While

The Impossible Will Take a Little While PDF Author: Paul Rogat Loeb
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465038581
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
More relevant than ever, this seminal collection of essays encourages us to believe in the power of ordinary citizens to change the world In today's turbulent world it's hard not to feel like we're going backwards; after decades of striving, justice and equality still seem like far off goals. What keeps us going when times get tough? How have the leaders and unsung heroes of world-changing political movements persevered in the face of cynicism, fear, and seemingly overwhelming odds? In The Impossible Will Take a Little While, they answer these questions in their own words, creating a conversation among some of the most visionary and eloquent voices of our times. Today, more than ever, we need their words and their wisdom. In this revised edition, Paul Rogat Loeb has comprehensively updated this classic work on what it's like to go up against Goliath -- whether South African apartheid, Mississippi segregation, Middle East dictatorships, or the corporations driving global climate change. Without sugarcoating the obstacles, these stories inspire hope to keep moving forward. Think of this book as a conversation among some of the most visionary and eloquent voices of our times -- or any time: Contributors include Maya Angelou, Diane Ackerman, Marian Wright Edelman, Wael Ghonim, Váav Havel, Paul Hawken, Seamus Heaney, Jonathan Kozol, Tony Kushner, Audre Lorde, Nelson Mandela, Bill McKibben, Bill Moyers, Pablo Neruda, Mary Pipher, Arundhati Roy, Dan Savage, Desmond Tutu, Alice Walker, Cornel West, Terry Tempest Williams, and Howard Zinn.

Impossible Encounters

Impossible Encounters PDF Author: Zoran Zivkovic
Publisher:
ISBN: 9784908793127
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description
Six strangely related stories about six encounters that could or should have never happened... Encounters that are impossible, encounters that are from beyond the boundaries of what we have decided is reality and possibility, and yet remain within the realms of what we call ordinary.

The Second Kind of Impossible

The Second Kind of Impossible PDF Author: Paul Steinhardt
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 147672993X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
*Shortlisted for the 2019 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize* One of the most fascinating scientific detective stories of the last fifty years, an exciting quest for a new form of matter. “A riveting tale of derring-do” (Nature), this book reads like James Gleick’s Chaos combined with an Indiana Jones adventure. When leading Princeton physicist Paul Steinhardt began working in the 1980s, scientists thought they knew all the conceivable forms of matter. The Second Kind of Impossible is the story of Steinhardt’s thirty-five-year-long quest to challenge conventional wisdom. It begins with a curious geometric pattern that inspires two theoretical physicists to propose a radically new type of matter—one that raises the possibility of new materials with never before seen properties, but that violates laws set in stone for centuries. Steinhardt dubs this new form of matter “quasicrystal.” The rest of the scientific community calls it simply impossible. The Second Kind of Impossible captures Steinhardt’s scientific odyssey as it unfolds over decades, first to prove viability, and then to pursue his wildest conjecture—that nature made quasicrystals long before humans discovered them. Along the way, his team encounters clandestine collectors, corrupt scientists, secret diaries, international smugglers, and KGB agents. Their quest culminates in a daring expedition to a distant corner of the Earth, in pursuit of tiny fragments of a meteorite forged at the birth of the solar system. Steinhardt’s discoveries chart a new direction in science. They not only change our ideas about patterns and matter, but also reveal new truths about the processes that shaped our solar system. The underlying science is important, simple, and beautiful—and Steinhardt’s firsthand account is “packed with discovery, disappointment, exhilaration, and persistence...This book is a front-row seat to history as it is made” (Nature).

When the Impossible Happens

When the Impossible Happens PDF Author: Stanislav Grof
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458742938
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Feelings of oneness with others, nature, and the universe. Encounters with extraterrestrials, deities, and demons. Out-of-body experiences and past-life memories. Science casts a skeptical eye. But Dr. Stanislav Grof - the psychiatric researcher who co-founded transpersonal psychology - believes otherwise. When the Impossible Happens presents Dr. Grof's mesmerizing firsthand account of his fifty-year inquiry into waters uncharted by conventional psychology, an odyssey that will leave you questioning the very fabric of your existence. From the first LSD session that gave Dr. Grof a glimpse of cosmic consciousness to his latest work with Holotropic Breathwork, When the Impossible Happens explores fascinating experiments in astral projection; remarkable tales of synchronicity; memories of birth and prenatal life; the survival of consciousness after death, and much more. Here is an incredible opportunity to journey beyond ordinary consciousness - guaranteed to shake the foundations of what we assume to be reality - and sure to offer a new vision of our human potential, as we contemplate When the Impossible Happens. STANISLAV GROF, M.D., PH.D. One of the founders and chief theoreticians of transpersonal psychology, Dr. Grof is the president of the International Transpersonal Association, and a professor of psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies and the Pacifica Graduate Institute. His numerous books include Beyond the Brain and Psychology of the Future.

Hope in 60 Seconds

Hope in 60 Seconds PDF Author: Cristina Baker
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 0785253637
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
Now more than ever, we all face trying situations. The hope we need and hunger for is not a strategy or state of mind, but faith in Jesus. He stands secure for us in the face of every trial, from loss to sickness to injustice. Through 20 short prayers, 10 personal stories of miraculous transformations, and Biblical teachings, Hope in 60 Seconds will help you take the first steps towards a journey of security in the hope of Jesus. “At twenty-one I was as far from hopeful as anyone could get. Maybe as far as you are now.” These are the words of Cristina Baker as she considered her traumatic life: from childhood abuse to troubled teen years, to a descent into substance abuse, she resonates with a lost world who understands first-hand how easy it is to lose hope. Then, just as she was about to go to jail for drug possession, the Hero of Hope, Jesus Christ, came into her life and set her on a completely new path. If you are weary and doubting, Cristina understands. Hope in 60 Seconds will help you to: Be encouraged and empowered by someone who has been in a similar place of discouragement and discovered Christ’s authority and love, Learn how Jesus establishes hope and begin to experience it first-hand in the darkest of circumstances, Grow in your ability to connect with Jesus and find the hope you have longed for all of your life, and Prove that a connection with Jesus is the ultimate source of hope. The message of Cristina’s life is Jesus, the hope we need and hunger for—a hope that will stand secure in the face of brokenness, loss, sickness, abuse, a brain tumor diagnosis, injustice, and death. In Hope in 60 Seconds, she shares the steps of her journey to encounter, receive, and walk in the hope of Jesus, and offers readers powerful wisdom for how they can take the same journey for themselves.

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis PDF Author: Janet Malcolm
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 030779783X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
From the author of In the Freud Archives and The Journalist and the Murderer comes an intensive look at the practice of psychoanalysis through interviews with “Aaron Green,” a Freudian analyst in New York City. Malcolm is accessible and lucid in describing the history of psychoanalysis and its development in the United States. It provides rare insight into the contradictory world of psychoanalytic training and treatment and a foundation for our understanding of psychiatry and mental health. "Janet Malcom has managed somehow to peer into the reticent, reclusive world of psychoanalysis and to report to us, with remarkable fidelity, what she has seen. When I began reading I thought condescendingly, 'She will get the facts right, and everything else wrong.' She does get the facts right, but far more pressive, she has been able to capture and convey the claustral atmosphere of the profession. Her book is journalism become art." —Joseph Andelson, The New York Times Book Review

Conquering the Impossible

Conquering the Impossible PDF Author: Mike Horn
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466880155
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
In August 2002, Mike Horn set out on a mission that bordered on the impossible: to travel 12,000 miles around the globe at the Arctic Circle - alone, against all prevailing winds and currents, and without motorized transportation. Conquering the Impossible is the gripping account of Horn's grueling 27-month expedition by sail and by foot through extreme Arctic conditions that nearly cost him his life on numerous occasions. Enduring temperatures that ranged to as low as -95 degrees Fahrenheit, Horn battled hazards including shifting and unstable ice that gave way and plunged him into frigid waters, encounters with polar bears so close that he felt their breath on his face, severe frostbite in his fingers, and a fire that destroyed all of his equipment and nearly burned him alive. Complementing the sheer adrenaline of Horn's narrative are the isolated but touching human encounters the adventurer has with the hardy individuals who inhabit one of the remotest corners of the earth. From an Inuit who teaches him how to build an igloo to an elderly Russian left behind when the Soviets evacuated his remote Arctic town, Horn finds camaraderie, kindness, and assistance to help him survive the most unforgiving conditions. This awe-inspiring account is a page-turner and an Arctic survival tale in one. Most of all, it's a testament to one man's unrelenting desire to push the boundaries of human endurance.

Cloud of the Impossible

Cloud of the Impossible PDF Author: Catherine Keller
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231538707
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
The experience of the impossible churns up in our epoch whenever a collective dream turns to trauma: politically, sexually, economically, and with a certain ultimacy, ecologically. Out of an ancient theological lineage, the figure of the cloud comes to convey possibility in the face of the impossible. An old mystical nonknowing of God now hosts a current knowledge of uncertainty, of indeterminate and interdependent outcomes, possibly catastrophic. Yet the connectivity and collectivity of social movements, of the fragile, unlikely webs of an alternative notion of existence, keep materializing--a haunting hope, densely entangled, suggesting a more convivial, relational world. Catherine Keller brings process, feminist, and ecopolitical theologies into transdisciplinary conversation with continental philosophy, the quantum entanglements of a "participatory universe," and the writings of Nicholas of Cusa, Walt Whitman, A. N. Whitehead, Gilles Deleuze, and Judith Butler, to develop a "theopoetics of nonseparable difference." Global movements, personal embroilments, religious diversity, the inextricable relations of humans and nonhumans--these phenomena, in their unsettling togetherness, are exceeding our capacity to know and manage. By staging a series of encounters between the nonseparable and the nonknowable, Keller shows what can be born from our cloudiest entanglement.

Impossible

Impossible PDF Author: Nancy Werlin
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101575956
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
A beautifully wrought modern fairy tale from master storyteller and award-winning author Nancy Werlin Inspired by the classic folk ballad “Scarborough Fair,” this is a wonderfully riveting novel of suspense, romance, and fantasy. Lucy is seventeen when she discovers that she is the latest recipient of a generations-old family curse that requires her to complete three seemingly impossible tasks or risk falling into madness and passing the curse on to the next generation. Unlike her ancestors, though, Lucy has family, friends, and other modern resources to help her out. But will it be enough to conquer this age-old evil?