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Religion
Prince Siddhartha Gautama was born in 563 B.C. on the border of India and Nepal. At age 29, he left his family and life of privilege behind to become a wandering ascetic in search of enlightenment. He studied meditation with many teachers, and after six years of seeking, became enlightened under a bodhi tree. In the 25 centuries since the Buddha lived, his teachings have spread across the globe, inspiring practitioners as well as writers both famous and obscure. This collective portrait gathers writings from contributors including Hermann Hesse, Jack Kerouac, Thich Nhat Hanh, Jack Kornfield, religious scholar Karen Armstrong, and death-row prisoner Kevin Sack, and intersperses them with 150 color photos depicting Buddhism around the world.
Contains essays by many of the most important twentieth century Japanese philosophers, offering challenging and illumination insights into the nature of Reality as understood by the school of Zen.
Inspired by the teachings of the Buddha, these forty-two contemporary short stories will uplift and inspire modern-day readers, who needn't have interest in Buddhist spiritual practice nor be familiar with Buddhist jargon to derive full enjoyment from reading them. The tales express universal human predicaments and challenges that transcend any particular philosophical or religious orientation. Some of the stories are humorous, some sad, some erotic, some enigmatic; all are linked by the themes of mindfulness, nonviolence, honesty, compassion, forgiveness, generosity, and love-perhaps the greatest remaining hope for our otherwise savage society.
Written by one of the most highly regarded monk-scholars in Southeast Asia, this book is a modern distillation of the pivotal doctrines found in the Pali Buddhist canon.
Beginning in the nineteenth century and continuing to the present day, both Buddhists and admirers of Buddhism have proclaimed the compatibility of Buddhism and science. Their assertions have ranged from modest claims about the efficacy of meditation for mental health to grander declarations that the Buddha himself anticipated the theories of relativity, quantum physics and the big bang more than two millennia ago.
In Buddhism and Science, Donald S. Lopez Jr. is less interested in evaluating the accuracy of such claims than in exploring how and why these two seemingly disparate modes of understanding the inner and outer universe have been so persistently linked. Lopez opens with an account of the rise and fall of Mount Meru, the great peak that stands at the center of the flat earth of Buddhist cosmography-and which was interpreted anew once it proved incompatible with modern geography. From there, he analyzes the way in which Buddhist concepts of spiritual nobility were enlisted to support the notorious science of race in the nineteenth century. Bringing the story to the present, Lopez explores the Dalai Lama's interest in scientific discoveries, as well as the implications of research on meditation for neuroscience. Lopez argues that by presenting an ancient Asian tradition as compatible with-and even anticipating-scientific discoveries, European enthusiasts and Asian elites have sidestepped the debates on the relevance of religion in the modern world that began in the nineteenth century and still flare today. As new discoveries continue to reshape our understanding of mind and matter, Buddhism and Science will be indispensable reading for those fascinated by religion, science, and their often vexed relation.
In Buddhism and Science, Donald S. Lopez Jr. is less interested in evaluating the accuracy of such claims than in exploring how and why these two seemingly disparate modes of understanding the inner and outer universe have been so persistently linked. Lopez opens with an account of the rise and fall of Mount Meru, the great peak that stands at the center of the flat earth of Buddhist cosmography-and which was interpreted anew once it proved incompatible with modern geography. From there, he analyzes the way in which Buddhist concepts of spiritual nobility were enlisted to support the notorious science of race in the nineteenth century. Bringing the story to the present, Lopez explores the Dalai Lama's interest in scientific discoveries, as well as the implications of research on meditation for neuroscience. Lopez argues that by presenting an ancient Asian tradition as compatible with-and even anticipating-scientific discoveries, European enthusiasts and Asian elites have sidestepped the debates on the relevance of religion in the modern world that began in the nineteenth century and still flare today. As new discoveries continue to reshape our understanding of mind and matter, Buddhism and Science will be indispensable reading for those fascinated by religion, science, and their often vexed relation.
In this clear, concise account, Siderits makes the Buddhist tradition accessible to a Western audience, offering generous selections from the canonical Buddhist texts and providing an engaging, analytical introduction to the basic tenets of Buddhist thought.
Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience, Second Edition, focuses on the depth of Buddhist experience as expressed in the teachings and practices of its religious and philosophical traditions. Taking a broad and inclusive approach, this unique work spans over 2,500 years, offering chapters on Buddhism's origins in India; Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism; and Buddhism in Southeast Asia, Tibet, China, Korea, and Japan. It also includes an extensive discussion of modern, socially engaged Buddhism and a concluding chapter on the spread of Buddhism to the West. Author Donald W. Mitchell provides substantial selections of primary text material throughout that illustrate a great variety of moral, cultural, psychological, meditative, and spiritual Buddhist experiences.
Buddhism features twenty-two boxed personal narratives by respected Buddhist leaders and scholars, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Dharma Master Sheng Yen, Dharma Master Cheng Yen, Jeffrey Hopkins, Sulak Sivaraksa, Rita M. Gross, Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, and Robert Aitken. The text also includes photographs, maps, a pronunciation guide, and a glossary of technical terms. Integrating more information about how Buddhism is actually practiced around the world today, the second edition adds six brief end-of-chapter essays by scholars and practitioners on cultural experiences of Buddhism in Thailand, Tibet, China, Korea, Japan, and America. Ideal for courses in Buddhism, Asian religions, and Asian philosophy, this edition also offers additional photographs, new sections on topics like Buddhist cosmology, expanded coverage of Buddhism and globalization, and updated suggestions for further reading
Buddhism features twenty-two boxed personal narratives by respected Buddhist leaders and scholars, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Dharma Master Sheng Yen, Dharma Master Cheng Yen, Jeffrey Hopkins, Sulak Sivaraksa, Rita M. Gross, Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, and Robert Aitken. The text also includes photographs, maps, a pronunciation guide, and a glossary of technical terms. Integrating more information about how Buddhism is actually practiced around the world today, the second edition adds six brief end-of-chapter essays by scholars and practitioners on cultural experiences of Buddhism in Thailand, Tibet, China, Korea, Japan, and America. Ideal for courses in Buddhism, Asian religions, and Asian philosophy, this edition also offers additional photographs, new sections on topics like Buddhist cosmology, expanded coverage of Buddhism and globalization, and updated suggestions for further reading
"He has opened the stately grounds of scholarship to the public so that nothing of value and interest shall be missed. His readers are given an opportunity to understand something that has hitherto been only a mystery." -- The Times (London) Literary Supplement
"It would be hard to find a study of any religion which is at once so correct, scholarly, short, lucid, and readable." -- The Manchester Guardian
Based on a series of Oxford lectures delivered by a leading Buddhist scholar, this classic guide covers the entire range of Buddhist thought, including spirituality, doctrine, and basic assumptions.
An expert on the subject who converted to Buddhism in the course of his studies. Dr. Conze introduces Buddhism as both religion and philosophy, and discusses its common ground with other faiths throughout the world. He contrasts monastic and popular Buddhism and defines old and new schools of thought, discussing sects and their practices, moral wisdom, and literary history. Other subjects include the Yogacarins; the Tantra, or magical Buddhism; and developments in the faith beyond India.
The first comprehensive English-language book on Buddhism, this volume offers a concise approach to the complexities of Buddhist thought. A preface by a distinguished scholar of Oriental literature, Arthur Waley, appears in this edition.
From Buddha's teachings, these stories and interviews emphasize kindness and selflessness and include a contribution from the Dalai Lama, amongst others. Some tales are funny, some are true, all exemplify karuna, or compassion, one of the perfections and four sublime abodes.
A wide selection of readings from Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, and modern sources inteded to provide the reader with a foundation in classical Buddhist thought.
Since its beginning, Buddhism has been intimately concerned with confronting and understanding death and dying. Indeed, the tradition emphasizes turning toward the realities of sickness, old age, and death - and using those very experiences to develop wisdom and liberating compassion. In recent decades, Buddhist chaplains and caregivers all over the world have been drawing on this tradition to contribute greatly to the development of modern palliative and hospice care in the secular world at large. Specifically Buddhist hospice programs have been further developing and applying traditional Buddhist practices of preparing for death, attending the dying, and comforting the bereaved. Buddhist Care for the Dying and Bereaved contains comprehensive overviews of the best of such initiatives, drawn from diverse Buddhist traditions, and written by practitioners who embody the best of contemporary Buddhist hospice care programs practiced all over the world today. Contributors include Carl B. Becker, Moichiro Hayashi, Yozo Taniyama, Mari Sengoku, Phaisan Visalo, Beth Kanji Goldring, Caroline Prasada Brazier, Joan Jiko Halifax, and Julie Chijo Hanada.
This much-cited scholarly anthology of key Theravada Buddhist documents originally appeared in 1896 as part of the renowned Harvard Oriental Series. An excellent, accessible presentation of the vast range of Pali Buddhist literature, it was among the first English translations of the direct words of the Buddha."
* Comprehensive introduction to Buddhism that examines present-day Buddhism in the context of its historical development.
This book offers an engrossing account both of the origin and development of the sutras and of the monks who braved perilous journeys and mastered unfamiliar languages in order to carry the sutras to new lands.
In this important book, Edward Conze discusses Indian Buddhist philosophy in three phases. The first deals with Archaic Buddhism, the question of "original" doctrine, and the basic tenets common to all Buddhist sects. The second and third consider the two main schools of early Buddhism: Hinayana or "scholastic" Buddhism, and Mahayana, the more metaphysical school of thought. Conze carefully and clearly explains the development of the fundamental ideas of Buddhism in India and in what form each sect adopted them. He looks at doctinal disputes, literary sources, Buddhist logic, Nirvana, ideas of self, and other areas, thus providing the reader with a useful guide to the history and philosophy of Buddhism. Buddhist Thought in India is essential for those who wish to expand their knowledge of Eastern thought. Students and scholars of philosophy, religion, South Asian studies, and other fields will find it an invaluable resource.
A landmark publication that offers Western readers a unique combination of what Buddhists worldwide consider the holiest of holy texts, The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra.
The Diamond Sutra, or the Perfection of Wisdom, which cuts like a thunderbolt, is one of the cornerstone texts of Mahayana Buddhism and provides a summary of the core concepts of the Buddha. The Heart Sutra, perhaps the most important of all Buddhist texts, sets out to formulate the very heart, or essence of perfect wisdom and is studied with special reverence in Zen monasteries and the Tibetan Buddhist lamaseries. Edward Conze, who was until his death in 1979 a powerful force for introducing Buddhism and its sacred texts to the West, has provided these translated key texts with an extensive commentary for the easiest possible appreciation phrase by phrase. For this new edition, Judith Simmer-Brown, a well-known American scholar of Buddhism, has contributed a lively, context-setting introduction. In the annals of spirituality, certain books stand out both for their historical importance and for their continued relevance. The Vintage Spiritual Classics series offers the greatest of these works in authoritative new editions, with specially commissioned essays by noted contemporary commentators. Filled with eloquence and fresh insight, encouragement and solace, Vintage Spiritual Classics are incomparable resources for all readers who seek a more substantive understanding of mankind's relation to the divine.
The Diamond Sutra, or the Perfection of Wisdom, which cuts like a thunderbolt, is one of the cornerstone texts of Mahayana Buddhism and provides a summary of the core concepts of the Buddha. The Heart Sutra, perhaps the most important of all Buddhist texts, sets out to formulate the very heart, or essence of perfect wisdom and is studied with special reverence in Zen monasteries and the Tibetan Buddhist lamaseries. Edward Conze, who was until his death in 1979 a powerful force for introducing Buddhism and its sacred texts to the West, has provided these translated key texts with an extensive commentary for the easiest possible appreciation phrase by phrase. For this new edition, Judith Simmer-Brown, a well-known American scholar of Buddhism, has contributed a lively, context-setting introduction. In the annals of spirituality, certain books stand out both for their historical importance and for their continued relevance. The Vintage Spiritual Classics series offers the greatest of these works in authoritative new editions, with specially commissioned essays by noted contemporary commentators. Filled with eloquence and fresh insight, encouragement and solace, Vintage Spiritual Classics are incomparable resources for all readers who seek a more substantive understanding of mankind's relation to the divine.
Morals are the ropes and axes necessary for climbing those great heights from which a greater journey begins. That journey leads to the happy land of the Trinity. It is there that joys, almost unimaginable in this world, begin. Begin not end. from the preface
In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis s famous devil derides the Christian year as The Same Old Thing. To combat this, Walter Hooper has drawn from Lewis s vast bibliography, accumulating short meditations that correspond to each day of the Christian calendar. Hooper has chosen passages that emphasize Lewis illuminatingly matter-of-fact approach to religion, with each entry focused on themes such as Nearness to God, Heaven and Sexuality, or Two Kinds of Good and Bad. In addition to providing food for thought, these bite-sized excerpts facilitate a yearlong journey towards achieving the joy that Lewis wrote is the serious business of heaven.
"The point about reading C. S. Lewis is that he makes you sure, whatever you believe, that religion accepted or rejected means something extremely serious, demanding the entire energy of the mind." Harper s
"A potent anthology." Los Angeles Times"
In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis s famous devil derides the Christian year as The Same Old Thing. To combat this, Walter Hooper has drawn from Lewis s vast bibliography, accumulating short meditations that correspond to each day of the Christian calendar. Hooper has chosen passages that emphasize Lewis illuminatingly matter-of-fact approach to religion, with each entry focused on themes such as Nearness to God, Heaven and Sexuality, or Two Kinds of Good and Bad. In addition to providing food for thought, these bite-sized excerpts facilitate a yearlong journey towards achieving the joy that Lewis wrote is the serious business of heaven.
"The point about reading C. S. Lewis is that he makes you sure, whatever you believe, that religion accepted or rejected means something extremely serious, demanding the entire energy of the mind." Harper s
"A potent anthology." Los Angeles Times"
"I didn't think he'd do it. I really didn't think he would. I thought he'd say, whoa, hold on, wait a minute. We made a deal, remember, the land, the blessing, the nation, the descendants as numerous as the sands on the shore and the stars in the sky."
So begins James Goodman's original and urgent encounter with one of the most compelling and resonant stories ever told--God's command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. A mere nineteen lines in the book of Genesis, it rests at the heart of the history, literature, theology, and sacred rituals of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. For more than two millennia, people throughout the world have grappled with the troubling questions about sacrifice, authority, obedience, and faith to which the story gives rise. Writing from the vantage of "a reader, a son, a Jew, a father, a skeptic, a historian, a lover of stories, and a writer," Goodman gives us an enthralling narrative history that moves from its biblical origins to its place in the cultures and faiths of our time. He introduces us to the commentary of Second Temple sages, rabbis and priests of the late antiquity, and early Islamic exegetes (some of whom imagined that Ishmael was the nearly sacrificed son). He examines Syriac hymns (in which Sarah stars), Hebrew chronicles of the First Crusade (in which Isaac often dies), and medieval English mystery plays. He looks at the art of Europe's golden age, the philosophy of Kant and Kierkegaard, and the panoply of twentieth-century interpretation, sacred and profane, including the work of Bob Dylan, Elie Wiesel, and A. B. Yehoshua. In illuminating how so many others have understood this story, Goodman tells a gripping and provocative story of his own.
The first English publication of Sami folktales from Scandinavia collected and illustrated in the early twentieth century
Although versions of tales about wizards and magical reindeer from northern Scandinavia are found in European folk and fairytale collections, stories told by the indigenous Nordic Sami themselves are rare in English translation. The stories in By the Fire, collected by the Danish artist and ethnographer Emilie Demant Hatt (1873-1958) during her travels in the early twentieth century among the nomadic Sami in Swedish Sápmi, are the exception--and a matchless pleasure, granting entry to a fascinating world of wonder and peril, of nature imbued with spirits, and strangers to be outwitted with gumption and craft.
Between 1907 and 1916 Demant Hatt recorded tales of magic animals, otherworldly girls who marry Sami men, and cannibalistic ogres or Stallos. Many of her storytellers were women, and the memorable tales included in this collection tell of plucky girls and women who outfox their attackers (whether Russian bandits, mysterious Dog-Turks, or Swedish farmers) and save their people. Here as well are tales of ghosts and pestilent spirits, murdered babies who come back to haunt their parents, and legends in which the Sami are both persecuted by their enemies and cleverly resistant. By the Fire, first published in Danish in 1922, features Demant Hatt's original linoleum prints, incorporating and transforming her visual memories of Sápmi in a style influenced by the northern European Expressionists after World War I.
With Demant Hatt's field notes and commentary and translator Barbara Sjoholm's Afterword (accompanied by photographs), this first English publication of By the Fire is at once a significant contribution to the canon of world literature, a unique glimpse into Sami culture, and a testament to the enduring art of storytelling.
For over thirty years, the Oxford C. S. Lewis Society has met weekly in the medieval colleges of the University of Oxford. During that time, it has hosted as speakers nearly all those still living who were associated with the Inklings-the Oxford literary circle led by C. S. Lewis--as well as authors and thinkers of a prominence that nears Lewis's own. C. S. Lewis and His Circle offers the reader a chance to join this unique group. Roger White has worked with Society past presidents Brendan and Judith Wolfe to select the most important talks, which are here made available to the wider public for the first time. They exemplify the best of traditional academic essays, thoughtful memoirs, and informal reminiscences about C. S. Lewis and his circle. The reader will reimagine Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy with former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, read philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe's final word on Lewis's arguments for Christianity, hear the Reverend Peter Bide's memories of marrying Lewis and Joy Davidman in an Oxford hospital, and learn about Lewis's Narnia Chronicles from his former secretary. Representing the finest of both personal and scholarly engagement with C. S. Lewis and the Inklings, the talks collected here set a new tone for engagement with this iconic Oxford literary circle--a tone close to Lewis's own Oxford--bred sharpness and wryness, seasoned with good humor and genuine affection for C. S. Lewis and his circle.
This Companion's starting point is the realization that Jesus of Nazareth cannot be studied purely as a subject of ancient history, or as "a man like any other man". History, literature, theology and the dynamic of a living, worldwide religious reality appropriately impinge on the study of Jesus. This book therefore incorporates the most up-to-date historical work on Jesus with the "larger issues" of critical method--the story of Christian faith and study, as well as Jesus in a global church and in the encounter with Judaism and Islam.
Popular Hinduism is shaped, above all, by worship of a multitude of powerful divine beings--a superabundance indicated by the proverbial total of 330 million gods and goddesses. The fluid relationship between these beings and humans is a central theme of this rich and accessible study of popular Hinduism in the context of the society of contemporary India. Lucidly organized and skillfully written, The Camphor Flame brings clarity to an immensely complicated subject. C. J. Fuller combines ethnographic case studies with comparative anthropological analysis, and draws on textual and historical scholarship as well. The book begins with an analysis of namaskara--the graceful gesture with which Hindus greet and show respect to gods and goddesses and to social superiors in the human world. Hierarchy is at the heart of Hinduism and Indian society, and Fuller examines the many contexts in which unequal relationships between deities and people, and among people themselves, are expressed--or denied--in popular religion. Throughout he proposes new ways of looking at many aspects of popular Hinduism and society in India, such as the relationship between worship and sacrifice, the importance of kingship even at the local level, the place of devotionalism in popular religion, the ritual power of goddesses and women, the connection between alternative explanations of misfortune, and the common basis of rituals that range from the most complicated to the simple showing of a single camphor flame to a god or goddess.
Carmina Burana, literally "Songs from Beuern," is named after the village where the manuscript was found. The songbook consists of nearly 250 poems, on subjects ranging from sex and gambling to crusades and corruption. Compiled in the thirteenth century in South Tyrol, a German-speaking region of Italy, it is the largest surviving collection of secular Medieval Latin verse and provides insights into the vibrant social, spiritual, and intellectual life of the Middle Ages. The multilingual codex includes works by leading Latin poets such as the Archpoet, Walter of Châtillon, and the canonist Peter of Blois, as well as stanzas by German lyric poets. More than half these poems are preserved nowhere else.
A selection from Carmina Burana first appeared in Victorian England in 1884 under the provocative title Wine, Women and Song. The title Carmina Burana remains fixed in the popular imagination today, conjured vividly by Carl Orff's famous cantata--no Medieval Latin lyrics are better known throughout the world. This new presentation of the medieval classic in its entirety makes the anthology accessible in two volumes to Latin lovers and English readers alike.
Carmina Burana, literally "Songs from Beuern," is named after the village where the manuscript was found. The songbook consists of nearly 250 poems, on subjects ranging from sex and gambling to crusades and corruption. Compiled in the thirteenth century in South Tyrol, a German-speaking region of Italy, it is the largest surviving collection of secular Medieval Latin verse and provides insights into the vibrant social, spiritual, and intellectual life of the Middle Ages. The multilingual codex includes works by leading Latin poets such as the Archpoet, Walter of Châtillon, and the canonist Peter of Blois, as well as stanzas by German lyric poets. More than half these poems are preserved nowhere else.
A selection from Carmina Burana first appeared in Victorian England in 1884 under the provocative title Wine, Women and Song. The title Carmina Burana remains fixed in the popular imagination today, conjured vividly by Carl Orff's famous cantata--no Medieval Latin lyrics are better known throughout the world. This new presentation of the medieval classic in its entirety makes the anthology accessible in two volumes to Latin lovers and English readers alike.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A nuanced exploration of the role of religion in our lives, drawing on insights of the past to build a faith for our dangerously polarized age--from the New York Times bestselling author of The History of God
Moving from the Paleolithic age to the present, Karen Armstrong details the great lengths to which humankind has gone in order to experience a sacred reality that it called by many names, such as God, Brahman, Nirvana, Allah, or Dao. Focusing especially on Christianity but including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Chinese spiritualities, Armstrong examines the diminished impulse toward religion in our own time, when a significant number of people either want nothing to do with God or question the efficacy of faith. Why has God become unbelievable? Why is it that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God in a way that veers so profoundly from the thinking of our ancestors? Answering these questions with the same depth of knowledge and profound insight that have marked all her acclaimed books, Armstrong makes clear how the changing face of the world has necessarily changed the importance of religion at both the societal and the individual level. Yet she cautions us that religion was never supposed to provide answers that lie within the competence of human reason; that, she says, is the role of logos. The task of religion is "to help us live creatively, peacefully, and even joyously with realities for which there are no easy explanations." She emphasizes, too, that religion will not work automatically. It is, she says, a practical discipline: its insights are derived not from abstract speculation but from "dedicated intellectual endeavor" and a "compassionate lifestyle that enables us to break out of the prism of selfhood."
Moving from the Paleolithic age to the present, Karen Armstrong details the great lengths to which humankind has gone in order to experience a sacred reality that it called by many names, such as God, Brahman, Nirvana, Allah, or Dao. Focusing especially on Christianity but including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Chinese spiritualities, Armstrong examines the diminished impulse toward religion in our own time, when a significant number of people either want nothing to do with God or question the efficacy of faith. Why has God become unbelievable? Why is it that atheists and theists alike now think and speak about God in a way that veers so profoundly from the thinking of our ancestors? Answering these questions with the same depth of knowledge and profound insight that have marked all her acclaimed books, Armstrong makes clear how the changing face of the world has necessarily changed the importance of religion at both the societal and the individual level. Yet she cautions us that religion was never supposed to provide answers that lie within the competence of human reason; that, she says, is the role of logos. The task of religion is "to help us live creatively, peacefully, and even joyously with realities for which there are no easy explanations." She emphasizes, too, that religion will not work automatically. It is, she says, a practical discipline: its insights are derived not from abstract speculation but from "dedicated intellectual endeavor" and a "compassionate lifestyle that enables us to break out of the prism of selfhood."
A collection of radical political fairy tales--some in English for the first time--from one of the great female practitioners of the genre
Hermynia Zur Mühlen (1883-1951), one of the twentieth century's great political writers, was not seemingly destined for a revolutionary, unconventional literary career. Born in Vienna to an aristocratic Catholic family, Zur Mühlen married an Estonian count. But she rebelled, leaving her upper-class life to be with the Hungarian writer and Communist Stefan Klein, and supporting herself through translations and publications. Altogether, Zur Mühlen wrote thirty novels, mysteries, and story collections, and translated around 150 works, including those of Upton Sinclair, John Galsworthy, and Edna Ferber. A wonderful new addition to the Oddly Modern Fairy Tales series, The Castle of Truth and Other Revolutionary Tales presents English readers with a selection of Zur Mühlen's best political fairy tales, some translated from German for the first time. In contrast to the classical tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, Zur Mühlen's candid, forthright stories focus on social justice and the plight of the working class, with innovative plots intended to raise the political consciousness of readers young and old. For example, in "The Glasses," readers are encouraged to rip off the glasses that deceive them, while in "The Carriage Horse," horses organize a union to resist their working and living conditions. In "The Broom," a young worker learns how to sweep away injustice. With an informative introduction by Jack Zipes and period illustrations by George Grosz, John Heartfield, Heinrich Vogeler, and Karl Holtz, The Castle of Truth and Other Revolutionary Tales revives the legacy of a notable female artist whose literary and political work remains relevant in our own time.
Well, gentlemen, here's a tale that people have told time and again . . . . So begins the title story in this collection of fifty Sicilian folk and fairy tales edited and translated by noted folklore scholar Jack Zipes. But while some of the stories may sound as if they've been told time and again--such as variations on Cinderella and Puss in Boots--many will enchant English-language readers and storytellers for the first time. From "The Pot of Basil" to "The Talking Belly," "The Little Mouse with the Stinky Tail" to "Peppi, Who Wandered out into the World," the stories in Catarina the Wise range from simple tales of getting a new dress or something good to eat to fantastical plots for outwitting domineering husbands, rescuing impoverished fathers, or attracting wealthy suitors (frequently the Prince of Portugal). Many feature strong, clever women (usually daughters who become queen). Many are funny; many are wise. Some are very, very strange. As Zipes relates, the true story of their origins is as extraordinary as the tales themselves. Born to a poor family of sailors in Palermo, Giuseppe Pitrè would go on to serve with Garibaldi, become a traveling country doctor, and gather one of the most colossal collections of folk and fairy tales of the nineteenth century. But while his work as a folklorist rivaled that of the Brothers Grimm, Pitrè remains a relative unknown. Catarina the Wise highlights some of the most delectable stories at the heart of his collection. Featuring new, original illustrations, this book is a beautiful, charming treasure for any fan of story, storytelling, and heroines and heroes living happily ever after--sometimes.
Described by Cornel West as "a towering public intellectual and the leading universalist philosopher of his generation," Forrest Church was one of the preeminent liberal theologians of our time. His final gift, The Cathedral of the World, draws from the entire span of Church's life's work to leave behind a clear statement of his universalist theology and liberal faith. Giving new voice to the power of liberal religion, Church invites all seekers to enter the Cathedral of the World, home to many windows but only one Light.
Catholics live in an enchanted world: a world of statues and holy water, stained glass and votive candles, saints and religious medals, rosary beads and holy pictures. But these Catholic paraphernalia are merely hints of a deeper and more pervasive religious sensibility that inclines Catholics to see the Holy lurking in creation. The world of the Catholic is haunted by a sense that the objects, events, and persons of daily life are revelations of Grace. In this fascinating discussion of what is unique about the Catholic worldview and culture and what distinguishes it from Protestantism, Andrew Greeley--one of the most popular and prolific authors writing today--examines the religious imagination that shapes Catholics' lives.
In a lively and engaging narrative, Greeley discusses the central themes of Catholic culture: Sacrament, Salvation, Community, Festival, Structure, Erotic Desire, and the Mother Love of God. Ranging widely from Bernini to Scorsese, Greeley distills these themes from the high arts of Catholic culture and asks: Do these values really influence people's lives? Using international survey data, he shows the counterintuitive ways in which Catholics are defined. He goes on to root these behaviors in the Catholic imagination.
As he identifies and explores the fertile terrain of Catholic culture, Greeley illustrates the enduring power of particular stories, images, and orientations in shaping Catholics' lived experience. He challenges a host of assumptions about who Catholics are and makes a strong case for the vitality of the culture today. The Catholic imagination is sustained and passed on in relationships, the home, and the community, Greeley shows. Absorbing, compassionate, and deeply informed, this book provides an entirely new perspective on the nature and role of religion in daily life for Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
In a lively and engaging narrative, Greeley discusses the central themes of Catholic culture: Sacrament, Salvation, Community, Festival, Structure, Erotic Desire, and the Mother Love of God. Ranging widely from Bernini to Scorsese, Greeley distills these themes from the high arts of Catholic culture and asks: Do these values really influence people's lives? Using international survey data, he shows the counterintuitive ways in which Catholics are defined. He goes on to root these behaviors in the Catholic imagination.
As he identifies and explores the fertile terrain of Catholic culture, Greeley illustrates the enduring power of particular stories, images, and orientations in shaping Catholics' lived experience. He challenges a host of assumptions about who Catholics are and makes a strong case for the vitality of the culture today. The Catholic imagination is sustained and passed on in relationships, the home, and the community, Greeley shows. Absorbing, compassionate, and deeply informed, this book provides an entirely new perspective on the nature and role of religion in daily life for Catholics and non-Catholics alike.