By the rivers of Babylon
Extraits
Littérature étrangère
By the rivers of Babylon
Augustown, quartier pauvre de Kingston, Jamaïque. En cet après-midi d'avril 1982, assise sur sa véranda, Ma Taffy sent dans l'air une pesanteur très particulière. Kaia, son petit-fils, rentre de l'école. Ma Taffy n'y voit plus mais elle sait reconnaître entre toutes l'odeur entêtante, envahissante, de la calamité qui se prépare. Car aujourd'hui, à l'école, Monsieur Saint-Josephs a commis l'irréparable : il a coupé les dreadlocks de Kaia – sacrilège absolu chez les rastafaris. Et voilà Ma Taffy qui tremble, elle que pourtant rien n'ébranle, pas même le chef du gang Angola ni les descentes des Babylones, toutes sirènes hurlantes. Alors, pour gagner du temps sur la menace qui gronde, Ma Taffy se met à lui raconter comment elle a assisté, petite fille au milieu d'une foule immense, à la véritable ascension d'Alexander Bedward, le Prêcheur volant. Oui, à Augustown, Jamaïque, le jour de l'Autoclapse – calamité aux promesses d'Apocalypse – est une nouvelle fois en train d'advenir. Remarquablement construit, By the rivers of Babylon est un roman puissant – magnifique chant de résistance et de libération. En bref... Augustown, quartier populaire de Kingston, années quatre-vingt. Jour de colère. A travers l'histoire d'un petit garçon rastafari dont le maître d'école vient de couper les dreads (ce qui mettra le ghetto à feu et à sang) et l'histoire parallèle que lui raconte sa grand-mère, celle d'Alexander Bedward, le Prêcheur volant à la source du mouvement rastafari, Kei Miller nous emmène au coeur vibrant de la Jamaïque.
09/2017
Littérature étrangère
Rivers of Babylon
Bratislava, hiver 1989-1990. Râcz, jeune paysan simple et costaud, débarque de sa province natale en vue d'amasser le petit pécule qui lui permettra d'épouser la grosse fille chaste du boucher de son village. Il se retrouve employé comme unique chauffeur d'un vieil hôtel de luxe, l'Ambassador, dont le système de chauffage repose sur d'antiques chaudières nécessitant un entretien particulier. Très vite, le jeune homme se rend compte de l'immense pouvoir que lui vaut désormais le rôle de " maître du feu ". Allumant et éteignant le chauffage au gré de ses humeurs, il soumet rapidement la masse grouillante des habitants de cette nouvelle Babylone, constituée d'une faune cosmopolite et bigarrée : service administratif corrompu, personnel servile, escrocs à la petite semaine, prostituées aux dents longues, touristes libidineux, ex-membres de la Sécurité d'Etat reconvertis en policiers corruptibles... Commence alors l'inexorable ascension du fringant anti-héros Ràcz qui, de despote violent, se mue bientôt en démiurge omnipotent. Mélange de roman de moeurs satirique, fiction politique au vitriol, conte philosophique, cette oeuvre crue et burlesque, au comique dévastateur, met le doigt sur le système perverti et corrompu qui a régné dans les pays satellites de l'URSS au lendemain de la chute du mur.
03/2010
XXe siècle
Victory will be next ! A Diary, 6th June - 10th August 1944
The story takes place in Brittany, focussing on Rennes and Redon, i.e. about 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the D-Day landing beaches in Normandy, about fifteen minutes by plane as the crow flies. The months of June and July 1944 were very difficult for the allied troops. They relentlessly fought to block German reinforcements coming from the West and the South, which resulted in constant bombing and machine-gunning of the rear boundary of the front line, the area where we were living. As civilians, we did not take part in the fighting and everyday life alternated between calm periods, on the verge of being "normal", and tragic moments of great tension. ''Victory will be next ! " is a set of notes written at that moment in time, day by day, by a fifteen-year-old boy. They are, obviously, fragmented, even a little naive, But they are nonetheless a testimony of a snapshot of history within the larger picture of WWII. They should be taken as such.
03/2021
Histoire et Philosophiesophie
The Undergrowth of Science. Delusion, self-deception and human frailty
Walter Gratzer's themes in the stories he relates in The Undergrowth of Science are collective delusion and human folly. Science is generally seen as a process bound by rigorous rules, which its practitioners must not transgress. Deliberate fraud occasionally intrudes, but it is soon detected, the perpetrators cast out and the course of discovery barely disturbed. Far more interesting are the outbreaks of self-delusion that from time to time afflict upright and competent researchers, and then spread like an epidemic or mass-hysteria through a sober and respectable scientific community. When this happens the rules by which scientists normally govern their working lives are suddenly suspended. Sometimes these episodes are provoked by personal vanity, an unwillingness to acknowledge error or even contemplate the possibility that a hard-won success is a will o' the wisp; at other times they stem from loyalty to a respected and trusted guru, or even from patriotic pride; and, worst of ail, they may be a consequence of a political ideology which imposes its own interpretation on scientists' observations of the natural world. Unreason and credulity supervene, illusory phenomena are described and measured, and theories are developed to explain them - until suddenly, often for no single reason, the bubble bursts, leaving behind it a residue of acrimony, recrimination, embarrassment and ruined reputations.
Here, then, are radiations, measured with high precision yet existing only in the minds of those who observed them; the Russian water, which some thought might congeal the oceans: phantom diseases which called for heroic surgery; monkey testis implants that restored the sexual powers of ageing roués and of tired sheep; truths about genetics and about the nature of matter, perceptible only to Aryan scientists in the Third Reich or Marxist ideologues in the Soviet Union; and much more. The Undergrowth of Science explores, in terms accessible to the lay reader, the history of such episodes, up to our own time, in ail their absurdity, tragedy and pathos.
01/2000
Non classé
Multiple Origins
Based on extensive research this work gives a detailed account and a reappraisal of Edward Westermarck's thought. Westermarck had versatile relations to Victorian evolutionists (Wallace, Tylor, Spencer), and to British social anthropologists (Frazer, Haddon, Rivers, Malinowski) and psychologists (Shand, Sully). Westermarck was a pioneer of anthropological fieldwork, and his writings on the history of marriage and on the origin and development of moral ideas are modern classics. He was a transitional figure between evolutionism, on the one hand, and functionalism and structuralism, on the other hand. Westermarck's theories of exogamy and incest, and his notions of psychological ethics, moral emotions and concepts, and expanding morality were referred to by Durkheim and Freud, as they are referred to by present-day evolutionary theorists. The search for mankind continues to be of current interest.
01/1999
Religion
Legal Friction
Legal Friction : Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel tracks the mystery of narratives in the Hebrew Bible and their allusions to Sinai laws by highlighting intertextual allusions created by verbal resonances. While the second and the third parts of the volume illustrate allusions to Sinai narratives made by some narratives occurring in the post-Sinaitic era, twenty-three Genesis narratives are analyzed to show that the protagonists were bound by Sinai Laws before God supposedly gave them to Moses, anticipating the Book of Jubilees. Legal Friction suggests that most of Genesis was composed during or after the Babylonian exile, after the codification of most Sinai laws, which Genesis protagonists consistently violate. The fact that they are not punished for these violations implies to the exiles that the Sinai Covenant was unconditional. In addition, the author proposes that Genesis contains a hidden polemic, encouraging the Judean exiles to follow the revisions of laws of the Covenant Code by the Holiness Code and Deuteronomy. Genesis narratives, like those describing post-Sinai events, often cannot be understood properly without recognition of their allusions to biblical laws.
05/2010
Shonen/garçon
By the grace of the gods T07
Ryôma Takebayashi, un salarié japonais trentenaire, travaillait dans une entreprise qui l'exploitait. Désormais réincarné en enfant dans le monde de Seilfall, il a ouvert sa propre laverie, et les affaires marchent bien... si bien, même, que l'ouverture d'un deuxième magasin s'impose déjà ! En dehors de ça, Ryôma et Eliaria se préparent à tenter d'apprivoiser des limours. La vie est belle, mais hélas, l'heure des au revoir avec la famille ducale approche, et la solitude de Ryôma risque d'être à la hauteur de son bonheur.
11/2023
Non classé
Ruling Class Men
What is it like to be a master of the universe ? The authors have researched the desires and fears of the world's most powerful men. The Murdochs, Packers, Kennedys, Agnellis and other men like them, directly determine the fates of thousands and influence the future of the world like no other people. Described as ‘sacred monsters' by one of their own, they are carefully created to be what they are and to enjoy shaping the world in their own likeness. To learn about these often reclusive men, the authors extended the life-history technique to interrogate autobiographies, diaries and biographies and have created a composite picture, a collective portrait, of tycoons over three generations. The book carefully explores the childhoods, schooling, work and play, sexual activities, marriages and deaths of the wealthiest men who have ever lived. It exposes the nature of ruling-class masculinity itself.
02/2007
Non classé
Experimental Social Dilemmas
Most of the papers on social dilemmas were presented at a conference on social dilemmas that was held at the University of Groningen in the spring of 1984. Social dilemmas are interpersonal situations that are characterized by a conflict between private and collective interest, i.e. in attempting to further their private interests, participants may end up worser off than if they had abandonned self-interest and worked for the good of the community. The chapters in this book describe efforts made by social psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists to advance our understanding of the psychological processes that influence people's behavior in social dilemmas. It is assumed that understanding of these processes can help our search for solutions.
12/1986
Monographies
Hilma af Klint. The Five Notebook 1
In 1896, Hilma af Klint and four other like-minded women artists left the Edelweiss Society and founded the "Friday Group", also known as "The Five". They met every Friday for spiritual meetings, including prayers, studies of the New Testament, meditation and séances. The medium exercised automatic writing and mediumistic drawing. Eventually they established contact with spiritual beings whom they called "The High Ones". In 1896, the five women began taking meticulous notes of the mediumistic messages conveyed by the spirits. In time, Hilma af Klint felt she had been selected for more important messages. After ten years of esoteric training with "The Five", aged 43, Hilma af Klint accepted a major assignment, the execution of The Paintings for the Temple. This commission, which engaged the artist from 1906 to 1915, changed the course of her life. In 1908, Rudolf Steiner, leader of the German Theosophical Society, held several lectures in Stockholm. He also visited af Klint's studio and saw some of the early Paintings for the Temple. In 1913, Steiner founded the Anthroposophical Society, which af Klint joined in 1920 and remained a member for the rest of her life.
01/2022
Sculpture
The Riace Bronzes
The fourth volume in our "Hidden Treasures" series is dedicated to the Riace Bronzes, two of the very few ancient bronze statues that have survived to this day and now preserved in the National Archeological Museum in Reggio Calabria. This publication was designed to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of their discovery. In it, Luigi Spina's photographic research dialogs with the texts written by Carmelo Malacrino. The photographer here develops a continued narrative, offering a direct comparison between the two sculptures, identified as A and B, exploring interpretations of the physicality of the two subjects as well as the three-dimensional quality of the bronze bodies, often concealed by the two-dimensional appearance of photographic images. Carmelo Malacrino and Riccardo Di Cesare analyse these famous 5th century BC masterpieces from two points of view : as ancient works of art on the one hand, and considering their significance for contemporary culture on the other. He retraces the story of the Bronzes beginning with their discovery in August, 1972, exploring the circumstances of their unearthing, the restoration they underwent, the exhibitions in which they were shown, as well as the impact they have had on the public, both nationally and internationally. Equally relevant is the reinterpretation of these two statues, beginning with their contextualization in the sphere of ancient Greek art, the related stylistic issues, and the reflection upon the practices and the knowledge possessed by Classical sculpture workshops. This volume will be a pleasant surprise for those of you who love Classical sculpture, for archaeology enthusiasts, and for all those who aren't satisfied with a quick glance when it comes to admiring a work of art.
10/2022
Littérature française
Sons of Fantasy
When we were children, we believed anything was possible... This book is a fantasy novel originally written for children. But, if you are a father or a mother, a teacher or a writer, if you still have some bits of fantasy in your soul... then, this novel is for you too. We all know how geniuses changed the world with their childlike Imagination, and how people use creative thinking to solve problems. This is a story about hope ; "Sons of Fantasy" shares the story of M. Alger, a father grieving for the loss of his dear wife, who left him with two beautiful kids. Norris and Socrates were adjusting to life without Mom... But things got more complicated when one of them was paralyzed because of a severe psychological trauma due to an overdose of fantasy... This family has a very interesting neighbor who lives a few feet away. He has a weird little hobby, reading books in the most unlikely places... He for example travelled to Romania and read "Dracula" by Bram Stoker in the Castelul Bran Castle, because it's said that the main character Dracula lived in it. And then all of a sudden he stopped travelling... He got a month ago a big long hat that belongs to the greatest witch that lived during the middle ages, "Moje Gayla". In fact, after being burned by the church, one of her relatives kept her belongings inside a wooden box... and in the twentieth century one of her grandchildren donated the box to "The Magic Square Museum" in London. Genius bought the hat at a public auction as an art relic to decorate one of his rooms. Could this weird neighbor be the reason of Socrates' psychological trauma ? Or maybe he is the one who will cure him ? And what has the hat to do with all this ?
08/2018
Non classé
Debating National Security
The nature of security in the contemporary world is changing rapidly. Superpower detente, the progress and further prospects of arms control, the collapse of East European communist regimes, and German unification, to name but the most spectacular features, present unprecedented challenges not only for political decision-makers, but also for the mass publics in democratic societies. What are the trends of public opinion on these issues and how do they reflect these changes ? By what factors are pertinent public attitudes shaped and what structures do emerge ? How can they be reliably assessed and meaningfully analyzed ? Which demands flow from the dynamics of public opinion that have to be taken into account in security policy making ? These are the key questions addressed by the twelve contributions to this volume. Combining longitudinal and comparative approaches they cover the public dimension of the national security debate in seven Western nations : Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States.
04/1991
Shonen/garçon
By the grace of the gods Tome 1
Grâce à l'intervention de trois divinités, Ryôma Takebayashi, un employé japonais ordinaire, se retrouve réincarné après sa mort dans le monde étrange de Seilfall. Redevenu un jeune garçon, il décide de vivre en ermite dans la forêt et de se consacrer à l'étude des slimes, des petites créatures rondes dévorant tout ce qu'elles trouvent. Pour Ryôma, c'est le début d'une nouvelle vie calme et paisible dans ce monde de fantasy, entouré de ses slimes aux capacités insoupçonnées !
01/2023
Shonen/garçon
By the grace of the gods Tome 2
Après un accord passé avec trois divinités, Ryôma Takebayashi, un salarié japonais, se retrouve réincarné en enfant dans un autre monde. C'est alors qu'il commence à étudier les slimes qu'il a apprivoisés et met à profit leurs capacités pour savourer pleinement sa nouvelle et paisible existence. Mais les expériences de sa vie antérieure vont également lui être très utiles ! Voici le récit de son quotidien tranquille et amusant entouré de gens bienveillants dans un monde de fantasy !
01/2023
Shonen/garçon
By the grace of the gods Tome 6
Ryôma Takebayashi, un salarié japonais trentenaire, travaillait dans une entreprise abusive. Désormais réincarné en tant qu'enfant dans le monde de Seilfall, il décide de monter sa propre entreprise ! Ses slimes sont utiles en combat, mais également pour construire sa laverie. Grâce à son entourage bienveillant, il parvient à trouver un bon emplacement pour se lancer !! Les liens qu'il noue à Gimul seront la base qui lui permettra de créer sa nouvelle vie. Voici l'histoire de son quotidien tranquille dans un monde de fantasy !
09/2023
Shonen/garçon
By the grace of the gods Tome 3
Ryôma Takebayashi, un salarié japonais trentenaire, s'est réincarné dans un autre monde grâce à l'aide de trois divinités. Maintenant qu'il est inscrit à la guilde des aventuriers, c'est l'occasion pour lui d'aider toutes sortes de personnes en utilisant à la fois le savoir de sa vie antérieure et les capacités de ses slimes ! Voici le récit de sa vie tranquille dans un monde de fantasy, où il profite du bonheur simple d'avoir la reconnaissance et la gratitude des gens !
03/2023
Shonen/garçon
By the grace of the gods Tome 4
Ryôma Takebayashi, un salarié ordinaire, a accepté d'être réincarné en jeune garçon par des dieux afin de sauver leur monde. Les connaissances de sa première vie lui permettent d'utiliser l'alchimie, mais parviendra-t-il à en faire un commerce ? Entre l'étude d'une nouvelle variété de slimes et sa participation à une extermination de monstres à grande échelle avec ses camarades de la guilde, Ryôma ne chôme pas ! Voici l'histoire de sa nouvelle vie et de la guérison progressive de son coeur grâce à la bienveillance de son entourage !
05/2023
Ethnologie et anthropologie
The Wolves Rise Again. New elites born out of chaos
The successive shocks that strike our time have acted as an indicator of men : the bland elites of yesteryear, suddenly rejected by the masses, went back silently into the void where they had first come from. This opportunist plutarchy, that maintained itself so far, thanks to the industry of lying, the targeted elimination of creative people, will soon be engulfed. Around these illusionists with no audience, the hidden alphas will begin to rise. Within a few months, alphas, forged in a new metal, invaded public space. How can it be explained ? In troubled times, the hierarchies of peacetime had left, suddenly, a place to the atomisation of individuals. Chaos then allows the individual alphas to rise to power. Like a pack of wolves, these alphas quickly take the lead of small human groups organising themselves into rival packs. The French Revolution is a striking example of this evolution : the masters of yesterday were relegated because of their unsuitability.
06/2022
Critique littéraire
My Fight
February 1997, a native of Italy patient is repatriated emergency in the intensive care unit where Claie works. This is a family reunion is the first cause of his transfer. Letting themselves be overwhelmed by his feelings, Claie she will live a fairy tale ? ... You will discover more of this story by browsing through the pages of this book. Love, passion, delusion, betrayal ... So many emotions !
06/2016
Comics
Sheriff of Babylon
2003. Le règne de Saddam Hussein est terminé. Les Américains sont aux commandes, et pourtant rien ne semble sous contrôle. Dans la Green Zone, Christopher Henry, l'ancien policier de San Diego devenu instructeur militaire, le sait mieux que quiconque. Envoyé sur place pour former une nouvelle force de police irakienne, il apprend le meurtre de l'une de ses recrues dont le corps a été retrouvé sur la Grand Place. Epaulé de Sofia, une Irakienne élevée en Amérique, et de Nassir, un vétéran de la police baghdadi, il débute l'une des enquêtes les plus périlleuses de sa vie.
09/2018
Anglais apprentissage
A multitude of Sins. Richard Ford
A sequel to Rock Springs and Women with Men, the collection of short stories entitled A Multitude of Sins was published in 2001 and immediately achieved worldwide recognition. If this series of ten short stories seems to feature adultery, it would be a major mistake to believe that the stories can be reduced to what is actually a side issue or a pretext to something else, sometimes of much greater importance. As often with great writers, Richard Ford tackles several other topics along with the sin of unfaithfulness which is a base camp from which to go further up into the knowledge of human deficiency, lack and want. Pondering these sins, Richard Ford lays them all bare while often unveiling the issue of the story right from the beginning, instead of cautiously preserving it as a last chance literary trick to pull it off at the fast moment. Showing insight through observation, his writing is deceptive in as much as it seems natural and easygoing when it requires close analysis and several successive readings to yield up its literary and humane secrets. The comparison some critics have made to Chekhov is not overblown and Agregation students, certainly among the most perceptive readers in the world, should naturally enjoy both reading and studying A Multitude of Sins, pleasure and scholarship being complementary, not antagonistic. The exclusive interview of Richard Ford at the end of the book will certainly be appreciated by Agregation students, who will thus be able to finish off their knowledge of Ford's works.
11/2007
Télévision, radio
By order of the Peaky Blinders
Poussez les portes battantes du Garrison Pub, parcourez les rues de Birmingham, et passez devant les usines aux cheminées fumantes et les foires aux chevaux à la périphérie de la ville. Bienvenue dans l'univers des Peaky Blinders. Depuis son lancement sur nos écrans en 2013, Peaky Blinders est passé du statut de série culte à celui de phénomène mondial. By Order of the Peaky Blinders est le premier livre officiel de la série, présentant des entrevues exclusives avec le créateur et scénariste Steven Knight, les acteurs et l'équipe de production, ainsi qu'une mine d'informations inédites sur la série et sur l'époque !
10/2022
Histoire et Philosophiesophie
Thinking about Physics
Physical scientists are problem solvers. They are comfortable "doing" science: they find problems, solve them, and explain their solutions. Roger Newton believes that his fellow physicists might be too comfortable with their roles as solvers of problems. He argues that physicists should spend more time thinking about physics. If they did, he believes, they would become even more skilled at solving problems and "doing" science. As Newton points out in this thought-provoking book, problem solving is always influenced by the theoretical assumptions of the problem solver. Too often, though, he believes, physicists haven't subjected their assumptions to thorough scrutiny. Newton's goal is to provide a framework within which the fundamental theories of modem physics can be explored, interpreted, and understood.
"Surely physics is more than a collection of experimental results, assembled to satisfy the curiosity of appreciative experts," Newton writes. Physics, according to Newton, has moved beyond the describing and naming of curious phenomena, which is the goal of some other branches of science. Physicists have spent a great part of the twentieth century searching for explanations of experimental findings. Newton agrees that experimental facts are vital to the study of physics, but only because they lead to the development of a theory that can explain them. Facts, he argues, should undergird theory.
Newton's explanatory sweep is both broad and deep. He covers such topics as quantum mechanics, classical mechanics, field theory, thermodynamics, the role of mathematics in physics, and the concepts of probability and causality. For Newton the fundamental entity in quantum theory is the field, from which physicists can explain the particle-like and wave-like properties that are observed in experiments. He grounds his explanations in the quantum field.
Although this is not designed as a standalone textbook, it is essential reading for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, professors, and researchers. This is a clear, concise, up-to-date book about the concepts and theories that underlie the study of contemporary physics. Readers will find that they will become better-informed physicists and, therefore, better thinkers and problem solvers, too.
01/2000
Histoire et Philosophiesophie
WHY SEX MATTERS. A Darwinian Look at Human Behavior
Why are men, like other primate usually the aggressors and risk takers? Why do women typically have fewer sexual partners? Why is killing infants routine in some cultures, but forbidden in others? Why is incest everywhere taboo? Bobbi Low ranges from ancient Rome to modern America, from the Amazon to the Arctic, and from single-celled organisms to international politics to show that these and many other questions about human behavior largely come down to evolution and sex. More precisely, as she shows in this uniquely comprehensive and accessible survey of behavioral and evolutionary ecology, they come down to the basic principle that all organisms evolved to maximize their reproductive success and seek resources to do so.
Low begins by reviewing the fundamental arguments and assumptions of behavioral ecology: selfish genes, conflicts of interest, and the tendency for sexes to reproduce through different behaviors. She explains why in primate species-from chimpanzees and apes to humans-males seek to spread their genes by devoting extraordinary efforts to finding mates, while females find it profitable to expend more effort on parenting. Low illustrates these sexual differences among humans by showing that in places as diverse as the parishes of nineteenth-century Sweden, the villages of seventeenth-century China, and the forests of twentieth-century Brasil, men have tended to seek power and resources, from cattle to money, to attract mates, while women have sought a secure environment for raising children. She makes it clear, however, they have not done so simply through individual efforts or in a vacuum, but that men and women act in complex ways that involve cooperation and coalition building and that are shaped by culture, technology, tradition, and the availability of resources. Low also considers how file evolutionary drive to
acquire resources leads to environmental degradation and warfare and asks whether our behavior could be channeled in more constructive ways.
Why Sex Matters is a compelling work of biology, sociology, and anthropology and a penetrating study of the deep motivations that underlie individual and social behavior.
01/2000
Littérature française
Willa Cather my Antonia. Unabridged Text with Introduction, Biography and Analysis
Willa Cather My Ántonia : Unabridged Text with Introduction, Biography and Analysis My Ántonia is a novel published in 1918 by American writer Willa Cather, considered one of her best works. It is the final book of her "prairie trilogy" of novels, preceded by O Pioneers ! and The Song of the Lark. The novel tells the stories of an orphaned boy from Virginia, Jim Burden, and the elder daughter in a family of Bohemian immigrants, Ántonia Shimerda, who are each brought as children to be pioneers in Nebraska towards the end of the 19th century. Both the pioneers who first break the prairie sod for farming, as well as of the harsh but fertile land itself, feature in this American novel. The first year in the very new place leaves strong impressions in both children, affecting them lifelong. This novel is considered Cather's first masterpiece. Cather was praised for bringing the American West to life and making it personally interesting. This edition includes the full original version of the Willa Cather's book and provides other valuable features under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, including a commented introduction, helpful bibliography, author's biography, notes, references, and much more.
05/2017
Musique classique
Songs of Love. 12 Romances. 12 Lieder. Soprano (tenor) and piano.
Leokadiya Kashperova (1872-1940), hitherto consigned to a footnote in musical history as Stravinsky's piano teacher, is undergoing rediscovery. A double graduate of the St Petersburg Conservatoire, she emerged as a virtuoso pianist and composer in the romantic tradition. She was associated with some of the great musicians of her day, including Balakirev and Auer. She performed in both Germany and the UK in the 1900s, but her career petered out after 1920. Songs of Love was first published in 1904. No evidence survives of any public performance in Kashperova's lifetime although it is very likely that they were performed at her regular 'musical evenings at home on Tuesdays' mentioned in her Memoirs. The transparency of the piano writing strongly suggests that she would accompany herself singing. Kashperova, by all accounts, possessed a fine voice, and in the summer of 1906 she decided 'to learn from the artistry', as she put it, of the tenor Raimond von Zur-Mühlen who was widely celebrated for having developed (with Clara Schumann) the Lieder-Abend tradition. His summer-schools on the Baltic coast were frequented by aspiring singers from all over Europe, even Japan and India. Kashperova herself was responsible for the poetic lyrics of Songs of Love (in both Russian and German), which may well have emerged from her own bittersweet experience of life and love ; she was not to marry until 1916 at the age of forty-four. That Kashperova is the author of both the music and the lyrics of Songs of Love would suggest that they express very personal sentiments. Instrumentation : soprano (tenor) and piano
12/2023
Non classé
Brides on Sale
Beginning in the 1990s large numbers of women from Mainland China and Southeast Asia married men in Taiwan. They now number over 400,000, warranting some to call them "Taiwan's Fifth Ethnic Group". This book argues that the rise of these marriages is a gendered and relational phenomenon, linked to the forces of globalization. Traditional ideas of marriage, such as the belief that a woman "marries out" of her natal family to be dependent upon her husband and his family, and the idea that a man should "marry down" to a woman of a lesser social and economic status, have not kept pace with changes in women's educational and career opportunities. How these relationships are formed, how they impact gendered understandings of women and men, how families are constituted and relationships developed, and how they affect the children of these families and their education, are the issues explored in this book. It breaks new ground in our understanding of transnational and cross-border marriages by looking at the long-term effects of such marriages on communities, families, and individuals.
04/2015
Histoire et Philosophiesophie
PIONEERS OF REPRESENTATION THEORY: FROBENIUS, BURNSIDE, SCHUR, AND BRAUER
The year 1897 was marked by two important mathematical events: the publication of the first paper on representations of finite groups by Ferdinand Georg Frobenius ( 1849-1917) and the appearance of the first treatise in English on the theory of finite groups by William Burnside (1852-1927). Burnside soon developed his own approach to representations of finite groups. In the next few years, working independently, Frobenius and Burnside explored the new subject and its applications to finite group theory.
They were soon joined in this enterprise by Issai Schur (1875-194 1) and some years later, by Richard Brauer (1901-1977). These mathematicians' pioneering research is the subject of this book. It presents an account of the early history of representation theory through an analysis of the published work of the principals and others with whom the principals' work was interwoven. Also included are biographical sketches and enough mathematics to enable readers to follow the development of the subject. An introductory chapter contains some of the results involving characters of finite abelian groups by Lagrange, Gauss, and Dirichlet, which were part of the mathematical tradition from which Frobenius drew his inspiration.
This book presents the early history of an active branch of mathematics. It includes enough detail to enable readers to learn the mathematics along with the history. The volume would be a suitable text for a course on representations of finite groups, particularly one emphasizing an historical point of view.
01/1999
Non classé
Studies in Elizabethan Audience Response to the Theatre
The aim of this volume is to give an analytic description of how Elizabethan Spectators in documentary evidence responded to the theatre performances they watched or knew to be about. It also considers why they responded in that way. Opposing dual consciousness to the reification of the character (its 'ideal presence'), the author concludes that Elizabethan spectators were predominantly interested in the characters' 'ideal presence'. Why they were, is explained by relating their statements to the Renaissance theory of visual perception, (demonic) transformation, and ideas on acting.
02/1993
