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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social institutions > Customs & folklore > Folklore
Sexy Like Us: Disability, Humor, and Sexuality takes a humorous,
intimate approach to disability through the stories, jokes,
performances, and other creative expressions of people with
disabilities. Author Teresa Milbrodt explores why individuals can
laugh at their leglessness, find stoma bags sexual, discover
intimacy in scars, and flaunt their fragility in ways both
hilarious and serious. Their creative and comic acts crash,
collide, and collaborate with perceptions of disability in
literature and dominant culture, allowing people with disabilities
to shape political disability identity and disability pride, call
attention to social inequalities, and poke back at ableist cultural
norms. This book also discusses how the ambivalent nature of comedy
has led to debates within disability communities about when it is
acceptable to joke, who has permission to joke, and which jokes
should be used inside and outside a community's inner circle.
Joking may be difficult when considering aspects of disability that
involve physical or emotional pain and struggles to adapt to new
forms of embodiment. At the same time, people with disabilities can
use humor to expand the definitions of disability and sexuality.
They can help others with disabilities assert themselves as sexy
and sexual. And they can question social norms and stigmas around
bodies in ways that open up journeys of being, not just for
individuals who consider themselves disabled, but for all people.
The Celtic peoples fed on a rich mixture of legend and myth which,
in many versions and derivations, were told at the firesides of
Europe since before literacy. The Celts' ancestors had come from
the foothills of the Himalayas, through the Middle East into
Europe, and consequently many of the mythologies of the world
connect with Celtic motifs. The most powerfully intact of the
Celtic myths and legends are to be found in the Irish, Welsh and
Breton tradition. Frank Delaney has been reading the Celtic legends
since childhood and in this volume draws together their main
strands, in a retelling of many of the most important mythologies.
This book brings up-to-date the story-telling powers of the Celts.
Gorgeous Collector's Edition. India, one of the great, ancient
civilizations, spawned a fascinating canon of myths and legends.
With multiple gods, and a riot of colour and character, this
fantastic new book, Indian Myths & Legends, explores the themes
and landscapes that created the tales, and reveals the boundless
energy that brought us the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, retelling
the stories of Krishna, Buddha and Shiva, and some of the many
different versions of creation. Flame Tree Collector's Editions
present the foundations of speculative fiction, authors, myths and
tales without which the imaginative literature of the twentieth
century would not exist, bringing the best, most influential and
most fascinating works into a striking and collectable library.
Each book features a new introduction and a Glossary of Terms.
A Feminist Mythology takes us on a poetic journey through the
canonical myths of femininity, testing them from the point of view
of our modern condition. A myth is not an object, but rather a
process, one that Chiara Bottici practises by exploring different
variants of the myth of "womanhood" through first- and third-person
prose and poetry. We follow a series of myths that morph into each
other, disclosing ways of being woman that question inherited
patriarchal orders. In this metamorphic world, story-telling is not
just a mix of narrative, philosophical dialogues and metaphysical
theorizing: it is a current that traverses all of them by
overflowing the boundaries it encounters. In doing so, A Feminist
Mythology proposes an alternative writing style that recovers
ancient philosophical and literary traditions from the pre-Socratic
philosophers and Ovid's Metamorphoses to the philosophical novellas
and feminist experimental writings of the last century.
The Angel and the Cholent: Food Representation from the Israel
Folktale Archives by Idit Pintel-Ginsberg, translated into English
for the first time from Hebrew, analyzes how food and foodways are
the major agents generating the plots of several significant
folktales. The tales were chosen from the Israel Folktales
Archives' (IFA) extensive collection of twenty-five thousand tales.
In looking at the subject of food through the lens of the folktale,
we are invited to consider these tales both as a reflection of
society and as an art form that discloses hidden hopes and often
subversive meanings. The Angel and the Cholent presents thirty
folktales from seventeen different ethnicities and is divided into
five chapters. Chapter 1 considers food and taste-tales included
here focus on the pleasure derived by food consumption and its
reasonable limits. The tales in Chapter 2 are concerned with food
and gender, highlighting the various and intricate ways food is
used to emphasize gender functions in society, the struggle between
the sexes, and the love and lust demonstrated through food
preparations and its consumption. Chapter 3 examines food and class
with tales that reflect on how sharing food to support those in
need is a universal social act considered a ""mitzvah"" (a Jewish
religious obligation), but it can also become an unspoken burden
for the providers. Chapter 4 deals with food and kashrut-the tales
included in this chapter expose the various challenges of ""keeping
kosher,"" mainly the heavy financial burden it causes and the
social price paid by the inability of sharing meals with non-Jews.
Finally, Chapter 5 explores food and sacred time, with tales that
convey the tension and stress caused by finding and cooking
specific foods required for holiday feasts, the Shabbat and other
sacred times. The tales themselves can be appreciated for their
literary quality, humor, and profound wisdom. Readers, scholars,
and students interested in folkloristic and anthropological foodway
studies or Jewish cultural studies will delight in these tales and
find the editorial commentary illuminating.
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