A surprisingly large number of English poets have either belonged to a secret society, or been strongly influenced by its tenets. One of the best known examples is Christopher Smart's membership of the Freemasons, and the resulting influence of Masonic doctrines on A Song to David. However, many other poets have belonged to, or been influenced by not only the Freemasons, but the Rosicrucians, Gormogons and Hell-Fire Clubs. First published in 1986, this study concentrates on five major examples: Smart, Burns, William Blake, William Butler Yeats and Rudyard Kipling, as well as a number of other poets. Marie Roberts questions why so many poets have been powerfully attracted to the secret societies, and considers the effectiveness of poetry as a medium for conveying secret emblems and ritual. She shows how some poets believed that poetry would prove a hidden symbolic language in which to reveal great truths. The beliefs of these poets are as diverse as their practice, and this book sheds fascinating light on several major writers.

From supreme president to forgotten enemy, John W. Talbot lived a remarkable life. Charismatic, energetic, and powerful, he founded a national fraternal organization, the Order of Owls, and counted senators, congressmen, and business leaders among his friends. He wielded his influence to help causes close to his heart but also to bring down those who stood against him. In So Much Bad in the Best of Us, Greta Fisher's careful research reveals that Talbot was capable of great evil, causing one woman to describe him as "the Devil Incarnate." His string of very public affairs revealed his strange sexual preferences and violent tendencies, and charges leveled against him included perjury, blackmail, jury tampering, slander, libel, misuse of the mail, assault with intent to kill, and White slavery. Ultimately convicted on the slavery charge, he spent several years in Leavenworth penitentiary and eventually lost everything, including control of the Order of Owls. His descent into alcoholism and death by fire was a fitting end to a tumultuous and dramatic life. After 50 years of newspaper headlines and court battles, Talbot's death made national news, but with more enemies than friends and estranged from his family, he was ultimately forgotten. A gripping true crime story, So Much Bad in the Best of Us offers a mesmerizing account of the life of John W. Talbot, the Order of Owls, and how quickly the powerful can fall.

Volunteering and voluntary organizations have become increasingly important in British social and political life but at a cost. Greater prominence has led to a narrow and distorted view of what voluntary action involves and how it is undertaken. This book reasserts the case for a broader view of voluntarism as a unique set of autonomous activities.

The Middle East has not, historically, been a first-order priority for Canadian foreign and defence policy. Most major Canadian decisions on the Middle East have come about through ad hoc decision-making rather than strategic necessity. Balancing international obligations with domestic goals, Canadian relations with this region try to find a balance between meeting alliance obligations and keeping domestic constituents content. Middle Power in the Middle East delves into some of Canada's key bilateral relations with the Middle East and explores the main themes in Canada's regional presence: arms sales, human rights, defence capacity-building, and mediation. Contributors analyse the key drivers of Canada's foreign and defence policies in the Middle East, including diplomatic relations with the United States, ideology, and domestic politics. Bringing together many of Canada's foremost experts on Canada-Middle East relations, this collection provides a fresh perspective that is particularly timely and important following the Arab uprisings.

Exploring pressing questions around Canadian citizenship, Canada in Question delves into contemporary issues that come into play in identifying what it means to be Canadian. Beginning with an update on the status of Canadian citizenship, Peter MacKinnon acknowledges that with the exception of Indigenous peoples, most Canadians migrated to Canada in the last 400 years. In surveying the status of citizenship, the author addresses the impact of these newcomers on Indigenous peoples, and the subsequent impression that the following influx of new immigrants and migrants has had on citizenship. MacKinnon investigates the ties that bind Canadians to their country and to their fellow citizens, and how these ties are often challenged by global influences, such as identity politics and social media. Shedding light on the connection between economic opportunity and citizenship, and on the institutional context in which differences must be accommodated, Canada in Question examines current circumstances and new challenges, and looks to the unique future of Canadian citizenship.

In 1970, a sixty-five-year-old Philadelphian named Maggie Kuhn began vocally opposing the notion of mandatory retirement. Taking inspiration from the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, Kuhn and her cohorts created an activist organization that quickly gained momentum as the Gray Panthers. After receiving national publicity for her efforts-she even appeared on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson-she gained thousands of supporters, young and old. Their cause expanded to include universal health care, nursing home reform, affordable and accessible housing, defense of Social Security, and elimination of nuclear weapons. Gray Panthers traces the roots of Maggie Kuhn's social justice agenda to her years as a YWCA and Presbyterian Church staff member. It tells the nearly forty-year story of the intergenerational grassroots movement that Kuhn founded and its scores of local groups. During the 1980s, more than one hundred chapters were tackling local and national issues. By the 1990s the ranks of older members were thinning and most young members had departed, many to pursue careers in public service. But despite its challenges, including Kuhn's death in 1995, the movement continues today. Roger Sanjek examines Gray Panther activism over four decades. Here the inner workings and dynamics of the movement emerge: the development of network leadership, local projects and tactics, conflict with the national office, and the intergenerational political ties that made the group unique among contemporary activist groups. Part ethnography, part history, part memoir, Gray Panthers draws on archives and interviews as well as the author's thirty years of personal involvement. With the impending retirement of the baby boomers, Sanjek's book will surely inform the debates and discussions to follow: on retirement, health care, and many other aspects of aging in a society that has long valued youth above all.

Coloniality and Racial (In)Justice in the University examines the disruption and remaking of the university at a moment in history when white supremacist politics have erupted across North America, as have anti-racist and anti-colonial movements. Situating the university at the heart of these momentous developments, this collection debunks the popular claim that the university is well on its way to overcoming its histories of racial exclusion. Written by faculty and students located at various levels within the institutional hierarchy, this book demonstrates how the shadows of settler colonialism and racial division are reiterated in "newer" neoliberal practices. Drawing on critical race and Indigenous theory, the chapters challenge Eurocentric knowledge, institutional whiteness, and structural discrimination that are the bedrock of the institution. The authors also analyse their own experiences to show how Indigenous dispossession, racial violence, administrative prejudice, and imperialist militarization shape classroom interactions within the university.

Expectations about the contribution that volunteering can make are at a new high. This book aims to meet this interest by bringing together in one volume what is known about the phenomenon of volunteering; the principles and practice of involving volunteers, and the enduring challenges for volunteering in today's world.

Book 3 in the New York Times bestselling series, now a TV series on Disney+! 'This book reminded me of some of the children's books I grew up with, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Phantom Tollbooth.' RICK RIORDAN, author of the PERCY JACKSON series on book 1 'Like the Potter books, this story goes beyond mere adventure' BOOKLIST on book 1 Reynie, Kate, Sticky and Constance are back - but so is Mr Curtain, with another devious scheme. Can the Mysterious Benedict Society thwart Mr Curtain's plans, even whilst held prisoner? Join them on their adventure as they face all sorts of dilemmas in a bid to save Stonetown ... Book 3 in the 4-book New York Times bestselling adventure series - ideal for children aged 10 and up The series has been adapted for TV on Disney+, streaming now Join a group of smart and resourceful junior sleuths as they solve a series of page-turning puzzles and mysteries Perfect for fans of Robin Stevens's MURDER MOST UNLADYLIKE series The adventure continues in book 4, THE MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY AND THE RIDDLE OF AGES

Supporting Children and Their Families Facing Health Inequities in Canada fills an urgent national need to analyze disparities among vulnerable populations, where socio-economic and cultural factors compromise health and create barriers. Offering solutions and strategies to the prevalent health inequities faced by children, youth, and families in Canada, this book investigates timely issues of social, economic, and cultural significance. Chapters cover a diverse range of socio-economic and cultural factors that contribute to health inequality among the country's most vulnerable youth populations, including mental health challenges, low income, and refugee status. This book shares scientific evidence from thousands of interviews, questionnaires, surveys, and client consultations, while also providing professional insights that offer key information for at-risk families experiencing health inequities. Timely and transformative, this book will serve as an informed and compassionate guide to promote the health and resiliency of vulnerable children, youth, and families across Canada.

With its implications for health care, the economy, and an assortment of other policy areas, population aging is one of the most pressing issues facing governments and society today, and confronting its complex reality is becoming increasingly urgent, particularly in the age of COVID-19. In The Four Lenses of Population Aging, Patrik Marier looks at how Canada's ten provinces are preparing for an aging society. Focusing on a wide range of administrative and policy challenges, this analysis explores multiple actions from the development of strategic plans to the expansion of long-term care capacity. To enhance this analysis, Marier adopts four lenses: the intergenerational, the medical, the social gerontological, and the organizational. By comparing the unique insights and contributions of each lens, Marier draws attention to the vital lessons and possible solutions to the challenges of an aging society. Drawing on over a hundred interviews with senior civil servants and thousands of policy documents, The Four Lenses of Population Aging is a significant contribution to public administration, provincial politics, and comparative public policy literatures, and a timely resource for policymakers and general readers seeking an informed perspective on a timely and important issue.

Since its emergence in 1991, the awareness ribbon has achieved the kind of cultural status usually reserved for big brand icons and religious symbols; yet its meaningfulness as a symbol is often questioned by activists and media commentators. Certainly, showing awareness is not as straightforward a social practice as it might at first seem. The ribbon is, for example, both a kitsch fashion accessory as well as an emblem that expresses empathy; it is a symbol that represents awareness, yet requires no knowledge of the cause it represents; it appears to signal concern for others, but in fact prioritizes self-expression. "Ribbon Culture" explores ambiguities surrounding these ribbons, the nature of contemporary mourning practices, the sociology of compassion, the marketing discourses of charities and the relationship between awareness and consumerism.

The Second Ku Klux Klan's success in the 1920s remains one of the order's most enduring mysteries. Emerging first as a brotherhood dedicated to paying tribute to the original Southern organization of the Reconstruction period, the Second Invisible Empire developed into a mass movement with millions of members that influenced politics and culture throughout the early 1920s. This study explores the nature of fraternities, especially the overlap between the Klan and Freemasonry. Drawing on many previously untouched archival resources, it presents a detailed and nuanced analysis of the development and later decline of the Klan and the complex nature of its relationship with the traditions of American fraternalism.

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"Turk illuminates a previously neglected, marginal(ized) subject in her balanced assessment, showing how women's Greek letter fraternities reflected larger social currents: gracefully written and handsomely presented."--"Choice"

"Turk paints an eloquent picture of how the bonds of sisterhood sustained these women and their fellow pioneers . . . Turk is to be commended for illuminating a neglected but relevant chapter in the history of women's education."--"Library Journal"

"Turk presents a mostly balanced treatment of women's fraternities. She fills in gaps left behind by previous scholars."--"American Historical Review"

Sororities are often thought of as exclusive clubs for socially inclined college students, but Bound by a Mighty Vow, a history of the women's Greek system, demonstrates that these organizations have always served more serious purposes. Diana Turk explores the founding and development of the earliest sororities (then called women's fraternities) and explains how these groups served as support networks to help the first female collegians succeed in the hostile world of nineteenth century higher education.

Turk goes on to look at how and in what ways sororities changed over time. While the first generation focused primarily on schoolwork, later Greek sisters used their fraternity connections to ensure social status, gain access to jobs and job training, and secure financial and emotional support as they negotiated life in turn-of-the-century America. The costs they paid were conformity to certain tightly prescribed beliefs of how "ideal" fraternity women should act and what "ideal" fraternity womenshould do.

Drawing on primary source documents written and preserved by the fraternity women themselves, as well as on oral history interviews conducted with fraternity officers and alumnae members, Bound by a Mighty Vow uncovers the intricate history of these early women's networks and makes a bold statement about the ties that have bound millions of American women to one another in the name of sisterhood.

Metro Vancouver is a diverse city where half the residents identify as people of colour, but only one percent of the population is racialized as Black. In this context, African-Canadians are both hyper-visible as Black, and invisible as distinct communities. Informed by feminist and critical race theories, and based on interviews with women and men who grew up in Vancouver, "Where Are You From?" recounts the unique experience of growing up in a place where the second generation seldom sees other people who look like them, and yet are inundated with popular representations of Blackness from the United States. This study explores how the second generation in Vancouver redefine their African identities to distinguish themselves from African-Americans, while continuing to experience considerable everyday racism that challenges belonging as Canadians. As a result, some members of the second generation reject, and others strongly assert, a Canadian identity.

In England, perhaps more than most places, people's engagement with the landscape is deeply felt and has often been expressed through artistic media. The popularity of walking and walking clubs perhaps provides the most compelling evidence of the important role landscape plays in people's lives. Not only is individual identity rooted in experiencing landscape, but under the multiple impacts of social fragmentation, global economic restructuring and European integration, membership in recreational walking groups helps recover a sense of community. Moving between the 1750s and the present, this transdisciplinary book explores the powerful role of landscape in the formation of historical class relations and national identity. The author's direct field experience of fell walking in the Lake District and with various locally based clubs includes investigation of the roles gender and race play. She shows how the politics of access to open spaces has implications beyond the immediate geographical areas considered and ultimately involves questions of citizenship.

There is a growing need for public buy-in if democratic processes are to run smoothly. But who exactly is "the public"? What does their engagement in policy-making processes look like? How can our understanding of "the public" be expanded to include - or be led by - diverse voices and experiences, particularly of those who have been historically marginalized? And what does this expansion mean not only for public policies and their development, but for how we teach policy? Drawing upon public engagement case studies, sites of inquiry, and vignettes, this volume raises and responds to these and other questions while advancing policy justice as a framework for public engagement and public policy. Stretching the boundaries of deliberative democracy in theory and practice, Creating Spaces of Engagement offers critical reflections on how diverse publics are engaged in policy processes.

As Africa's oldest orchestra, and certainly its most versatile, the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra is a proud part of the fabric of the Mother City. Founded in 1914 as a municipally funded ensemble, the orchestra was privatised in 1986 and later merged with the former Capab orchestra, achieving independence in 2000.

A Century Of Symphony tells the story of Cape Town’s orchestras over the past 100 years. Bringing together reminiscences, anecdotes and heartfelt stories by players, conductors and audience members, images of the orchestra both past and present, and information gathered from city, newspaper and university archives, A Century Of Symphony offers a timeless perspective on the place of orchestral music in the life of the city.

The challenges of running an orchestra in the 21st century are formidable, but the orchestra’s mission to deliver first-class music played by first-class musicians in a sustainable way has never been more apparent. Outreach and education efforts in disadvantaged communities point the way to the future. This is a story not only worth telling, but also worth preserving, for Cape Town’s orchestras have been the cultural jewel of the city for 100 years.

(Includes a shrinkwrapped CD of music played by the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra)

The Renaissance is still often wrongly characterized as a period of religious indifference. Contradicting that viewpoint, this book examines confraternities: lay groups through which Italians of the Renaissance expressed their individual and collective religious beliefs. Intensely local and dominated by artisans and craftsmen, the confraternities shaped the civic religious cult through various activities such as charitable work, public shrines, and processions. This book puts these religious activities into the turbulent social and political context of Renaissance Bologna.

The movement of millions of settlers to Siberia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked one of the most ambitious undertakings pursued by the tsarist state. Colonizing Russia's Promised Land examines how Russian Orthodoxy acted as a basic building block for constructing Russian settler communities in current-day southern Siberia and northern Kazakhstan. Russian state officials aspired to lay claim to land that was politically under their authority, but remained culturally unfamiliar. By exploring the formation and evolution of Omsk diocese - a settlement mission - Colonizing Russia's Promised Land reveals how the migration of settlers expanded the role of Orthodoxy as a cultural force in transforming Russia's imperial periphery by "russifying" the land and marginalizing the Indigenous Kazakh population. In the first study exploring the role of Orthodoxy in settler colonialism, Aileen Friesen shows how settlers, clergymen, and state officials viewed the recreation of Orthodox parish life as practised in European Russia as fundamental to the establishment of settler communities, and to the success of colonization. Friesen uniquely gives peasant settlers a voice in this discussion, as they expressed their religious aspirations and fears to priests and tsarist officials. Despite this agreement, tensions existed not only among settlers, but also within the Orthodox Church as these groups struggled to define what constituted the Russian Orthodox faith and culture.

This book explores the foundations of modern secret societies, examining the history and known facts of three very different organisations: the Assassins of the Middle East, the Templars of Europe, and the Secret Tribunals of Westphalia. This was the first book to gather information on these secret orders and, although this is a reprint of an 1846 edition, it is still used widely as a reference book on the subject.

Engaging with discussions surrounding the culture of disease, Disrupting Breast Cancer Narratives explores politically insistent narratives of illness. Resisting the optimism of pink ribbon culture, these stories use anger as a starting place to reframe cancer as a collective rather than an individual problem. Disrupting Breast Cancer Narratives discusses the ways emotion, gender, and sexuality, in relation to breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, all become complicated, relational, and questioning. Providing theoretically informed close-readings of breast cancer narratives, this study explores how disruption functions both personally and politically. Highlighting a number of contributors in the field of health and gender studies including Barbara Ehrenreich, Kathlyn Conway, Audre Lorde, and Teva Harrison, this work takes into account documentary film, television, and social media as popular mediums used to explore stories of disease.