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Myth in the Ancient World provides a complete introduction to this important field of study. It contains a selection of readings from ancient texts and a comprehensive glossary designed for readers meeting the people and places of the ancient world for the first time. The book asks what a myth is and how it differs from other narratives, such as legends and folktales. It also looks at interpretations of meaning in mythology. The focus is on Ancient Greek myth, but Roman reinterpretation of Greek stories and the invention of Roman myth are also discussed. Texts from Egypt, the peoples of Mesopotamia, and the Jewish traditions found in the Bible broaden the context and deepen our understanding of myth. The book examines the relevance of key themes to the cultures in which the myths arose or in which they were adapted and retold. Looking at the reflection of the ancient world through myth helps us to identify important religious, social and political aspects of ancient cultures.
Despite a common perception that most writing in antiquity was produced by men, some important literature written by women during this period has survived. Edited by I. M. Plant, Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome is a comprehensive anthology of the surviving literary texts of women writers from the Graeco-Roman world that offers new English translations from the works of more than fifty women. From Sappho, who lived in the seventh century B.C., to Eudocia and Egeria of the fifth century A.D., the texts presented here come from a wide range of sources and span the fields of poetry and prose. Each author is introduced with a critical review of what we know about the writer, her work, and its significance, along with a discussion of the texts that follow. A general introduction looks into the problem of the authenticity of some texts attributed to women and places their literature into the wider literary and social contexts of the ancient Graeco-Roman world.
The Plant Book for Dumbarton Oaks was prepared as a resource for those charged with maintenance of the gardens following their acquisition by Harvard University in 1941. Beatrix Farrand here explains the reasoning behind her plan for each of the gardens and stipulates how each should be cared for in order that its basic character remain intact. Her resourceful suggestions for alternative plantings, her rigorous strictures concerning pruning and replacement, her exposition of the overall concept that underlies each detail, and the plant lists that accompany her discussion of each garden make this a volume of interest to every student, practitioner, and lover of landscape design.
When "Coyote" and its skipper, Mike Plant, went missing mid-Atlantic in November 1992, the sailing world held its breath. Now, twenty years later, the story around the mystery, tragedy, and enigma is told at last.
Reconciling Copyright with Cumulative Creativity: The Third Paradigm examines the long history of creativity, from cave art to digital remix, in order to demonstrate a consistent disparity between the traditional cumulative mechanics of creativity and modern copyright policies. Giancarlo Frosio calls for the return of creativity to an inclusive process, so that the first (pre-modern imitative and collaborative model) and second (post-Romantic copyright model) creative paradigms can be reconciled into an emerging third paradigm which would be seen as a networked peer and user-based collaborative model.
Using a variety of methodologies from multi-disciplinary backgrounds, this volume is the first to present an in-depth analysis of the life and times of Laskarina Bouboulina, the legendary heroine of the Greek Revolution and one of the most important figures in modern Greek history, the Mediterranean, and indeed, the world. At the age of fifty and mother to ten children, Bouboulina commanded a fleet of ships from the island of Spetses and became the first female admiral in world naval history. But her success on the battlefield is only part of the story – by considering her three-century impact on feminism, cultural production, and as a touchstone of diasporic Greek identity, the contributors to this volume also expand our understanding of her far-reaching and under-recognized contributions.
As a young woman growing up in a small, religious community, Regan Penaluna daydreamed about the big questions: Who are we and what is this strange world we find ourselves in? In college she discovered philosophy and fell in love with its rationality, its abstractions, its beauty. What Penaluna didn't realize was that philosophy - at least the canon that's taught in Western universities, as well as the culture that surrounds it - would slowly grind her down through its devaluation of women and their minds. Women were nowhere in her curriculum, and feminist philosophy was dismissed as marginal, unserious. Until Penaluna came across the work of a seventeenth-century woman named Damaris Cudwort...
The end of the universe happened at around ten o’clock at night on 22 December, 2032. It’s just that humanity hasn’t realized it yet. And the Chaga, the strange flora deposited from the stars, is still busy terraforming the tropics into someone else’s terra. Gaby McAslan was once a hungry news reporter who compromised her relationship with UNECTA researcher Dr. Shepard for the sake of her story... but Gaby is no longer a journalist and she doesn’t want to be a full-time mother, even though her child Serena is her last link with Shepard. Gaby’s fire has gone out; she’s gone soft. But the massive political and military upheavals rocking the world are about to drag her back into the action. REVIEWS "This is a huge and ambitious novel, the work of a supremely talented writer approaching the top of his game." – SFX "So outstanding a writer that he deserves reading beyond the science-fantasy market ... He has such marvellous talent, so vivid an imagination. His prose sings and zings – simultaneously." – The Times