Author: David Mitzner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788389129956
Category : Holocaust survivors
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Author: Curtis White
Publisher: Melville House
ISBN: 1612192017
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 133

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One of our most brilliant social critics—author of the bestselling The Middle Mind—presents a scathing critique of the “delusions” of science alongside a rousing defense of the tradition of Romanticism and the “big” questions. With the rise of religion critics such as Richard Dawkins, and of pseudo-science advocates such as Malcolm Gladwell and Jonah Lehrer, you’re likely to become a subject of ridicule if you wonder “Why is there something instead of nothing?” or “What is our purpose on earth?” Instead, at universities around the world, and in the general cultural milieu, we’re all being taught that science can resolve all questions without the help of philosophy, politics, or the humanities. In short, the rich philosophical debates of the 19th century have been nearly totally abandoned, argues critic Curtis White. An atheist himself, White nonetheless calls this new turn “scientism”—and fears what it will do to our culture if allowed to flourish without challenge. In fact, in “scientism” White sees a new religion with many unexamined assumptions. In this brilliant multi-part critique, he aims at a TED talk by a distinguished neuroscientist in which we are told that human thought is merely the product of our “connectome,” a map of neural connections in the brain that is yet to be fully understood. . . . He whips a widely respected physicist who argues that our new understanding of the origins of the universe obviates any philosophical inquiry . . . and ends with a learned defense of the tradition of Romanticism, which White believes our technology and science-obsessed world desperately needs to rediscover. It’s the only way, he argues, that we can see our world clearly. . . and change it.

Author: Maureen Jackson
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 080478566X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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This book traces the mixing of musical forms and practices in Istanbul to illuminate multiethnic music-making and its transformations across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It focuses on the Jewish religious repertoire known as the Maftirim, which developed in parallel with "secular" Ottoman court music. Through memoirs, personal interviews, and new archival sources, the book explores areas often left out of those histories of the region that focus primarily on Jewish communities in isolation, political events and actors, or nationalizing narratives. Maureen Jackson foregrounds artistic interactivity, detailing the life-stories of musicians and their musical activities. Her book amply demonstrates the integration of Jewish musicians into a larger art world and traces continuities and ruptures in a nation-building era. Among its richly researched themes, the book explores the synagogue as a multifunctional venue within broader urban space; girls, women, and gender issues in an all-male performance practice; new technologies and oral transmission; and Ottoman musical reconstructions within Jewish life and cultural politics in Turkey today.

Author: Barbara Kessel
Publisher: UPNE
ISBN: 1584656204
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Dramatic personal stories of the unexpected discovery of a Jewish heritage

Author: Dan Gilgoff
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429917091
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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*The crucial Ohio get-out-the-vote effort that lifted Bush over Kerry. *The Terri Schiavo controversy. *The push for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. *Attacks on Roe v. Wade. *"Intelligent design" in our science curriculum. The evangelical right has pushed all of these initiatives, led by the immense behind-the-scenes influence of Dr. James Dobson, the founder and chairman of Focus on the Family: an organization that has grown from its roots as a local parenting advice center to a powerful ministry that broadcasts Dr. Dobson each day on more than 3,000 radio and 80 television stations in the U.S. alone. Dobson has supplanted Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Ralph Reed as the spokesman for tens of millions of American evangelical Christians--even though Dobson is not a minister, but a family therapist with a doctorate in child development. Dobson maintains that the American political and social spectrums are firmly rooted in a centuries-old Christian tradition--one that has come under siege beginning in the 1960s, spear-headed by court rulings that have undermined the necessity of religion in public life. With the support of evangelical followers, Dobson has garnered more and support than many ever thought possible and has harnessed this power to wage a crusade in support of strengthening abortion restrictions and establishing anti-gay rights litigation. The Jesus Machine is the first book to examine Focus on the Family as the cutting edge of the larger evangelical movement, backing what many view to be goals in common with the current political agenda of the Bush administration, as it works to become the voice of mainstream America. Through exhaustive research, Dan Gilgoff, a Senior Reporter for US News & World Report, exposes the intricacies of the Focus on the Family's rallying cry and the drastic implications they hold for the future of America's political system.

Author: Susan Jacoby
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1400096383
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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A scathing indictment of American modern-day culture examines the current disdain for logic and evidence fostered by the mass media, religious fundamentalism, poor public education, a lack of fair-minded intellectuals, and a lazy, credulous public, condemning our addiction to infotainment, from TV to the Web, and assessing its repercussions for the country as a whole. Reprint. 75,000 first printing.

Author: Bill and Nancy Nadeau
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1665531177
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 641

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Book Description
Ten people travelling on a tour of Turkey’s amazing cultural sites encounter many adventures and problems, some almost fatal. Why does the trip become so dangerous? Ten travellers have joined a tour of the historic and cultural attractions of western Turkey. They are taking this tour for a variety of reasons—some are interested in Turkey’s historical sights, some are focused on Turkey’s place in current geopolitical activities, and some are active participants in those very activities. When they meet their tour guide for the first time in Istanbul, he explains that after three days exploring Istanbul, they will be making their way south along the western Mediterranean coast of Turkey, with stops at world-famous locations, including Gallipoli, Troy, Pergamum, Ephesus, and finally completing the tour in Konya, where they will visit the tomb of the poet Rumi. The travelers consist of an urbane Arab and his hired antiquarian assistant, in search of a mysterious artifact in Turkey; a husband who works for the UN and his wife, who teaches physics; two young female college students; a Jewish couple from Cincinnati; an Evangelical Christian who represents a company that hunts for crafts to sell in the States; a British MI6 agent on a mission; a local Alevi, who joins the tour in Turkey; and a physics post-doc, who is traveling in Turkey for special reasons of his own. This post-doc, Benny, who is also a psychic, hopes to use his powers to stop nuclear weapons. But in order to do so, he must find a secure location from which to direct his anti-nuke energy. For this reason, he has joined the tour, but he expects to leave the group when it gets to his destination, the secluded caves of Göreme, in central Turkey. However, as the tour makes its way along its planned route, various nuclear powers are intent on stopping whoever is interfering with their nukes. As a result, some members of the group are put in extreme danger at several points in the journey.

Author: Dennis R. Okerstrom
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826272673
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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On November 18, 1944, the end of the war in Europe finally in sight, American copilot Lieutenant Lee Lamar struggled alongside pilot Randall Darden to keep Bottoms Up, their B-24J Liberator, in the air. They and their crew of eight young men had believed the intelligence officer who, at the predawn briefing at their base in southern Italy, had confided that their mission that day would be a milk run. But that twenty-first mission out of Italy would be their last. Bottoms Up was staggered by an antiaircraft shell that sent it plunging three miles earthward, the pilots recovering control at just 5,000 feet. With two engines out, they tried to make it to a tiny strip on a British-held island in the Adriatic Sea and in desperation threw out everything not essential to flight: machine guns, belts of ammunition, flak jackets. But over Pula, in what is now Croatia, they were once more hit by German fire, and the focus quickly became escaping the doomed bomber. Seemingly unable to extricate himself, Lamar all but surrendered to death before fortuitously bailing out. He was captured the next day and spent the rest of the war as a prisoner at a stalag on the Baltic Sea, suffering the deprivations of little food and heat in Europe’s coldest winter in a century. He never saw most of his crew again. Then, in 2006, more than sixty years after these life-changing experiences, Lamar received an email from Croatian archaeologist Luka Bekic, who had discovered the wreckage of Bottoms Up. A veteran of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, Bekic felt compelled to find out the crew’s identities and fates. Lee Lamar, a boy from a hardscrabble farm in rural northwestern Missouri, had gone to college on the GI Bill, become a civil engineer, gotten married, and raised a family. Yet, for all the opportunity that stemmed from his wartime service, part of him was lost. The prohibition on asking prisoners of war their memories during the repatriation process prevented him from reconciling himself to the events of that November day. That changed when, nearly a year after being contacted by Bekic, Lamar visited the site, hoping to gain closure, and met the Croatian Partisans who had helped some members of his crew escape. In this absorbing, alternating account of World War II and its aftermath, Dennis R. Okerstrom chronicles, through Lee Lamar’s experiences, the Great Depression generation who went on to fight in the most expensive war in history. This is the story of the young men who flew Bottoms Up on her final mission, of Lamar’s trip back to the scene of his recurring nightmare, and of a remarkable convergence of international courage, perseverance, and friendship.

Author: Dean King
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0759509697
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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b.A masterpiece of historical adventure, ISkeletons on the Zahara The western Sahara is a baking hot and desolate place, home only to nomads and their camels, and to locusts, snails and thorny scrub -- and its barren and ever-changing coastline has baffled sailors for centuries. In August 1815, the US brig Commerce was dashed against Cape Bojador and lost, although through bravery and quick thinking the ship's captain, James Riley, managed to lead all of his crew to safety. What followed was an extraordinary and desperate battle for survival in the face of human hostility, starvation, dehydration, death and despair. Captured, robbed and enslaved, the sailors were dragged and driven through the desert by their new owners, who neither spoke their language nor cared for their plight. Reduced to drinking urine, flayed by the sun, crippled by walking miles across burning stones and sand and losing over half of their body weights, the sailors struggled to hold onto both their humanity and their sanity. To reach safety, they would have to overcome not only the desert but also the greed and anger of those who would keep them in captivity. From the cold waters of the Atlantic to the searing Saharan sands, from the heart of the desert to the heart of man, Skeletons on the Zahara is a spectacular odyssey through the extremes and a gripping account of courage, brotherhood, and survival.

Author: Eliano Barese
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781536184150
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Masculinity and Femininity: Past, Present and Future first focuses on the way in which the #MeToo movement has challenged men to respond to the widespread exploitation of women by men, raising questions about men's ethical responsibility. Following this, the authors examine how the construction of masculinity is changing in the global south and how more men are demonstrating progressive versions of masculinity. Traditional masculinity in the workplace is explored, particularly in the context of parental leave, presenting a framework for action at the institutional, community and individual level. A historical sketch of the development of the Kurdish political movement up until 2009 is provided, and the details of the construction of this distinct form of femininity are traced through the self-narrations of women local representatives nominated and/or elected for the 2009 local elections. Jack Halberstam's new vision of gender and feminism which embraces queer and trans experiences within the categories of womanhood and femininity is presented as a more inclusive feminism which fits the twenty-first century"--