Tama in Japanese Myth attempts to elucidate Japanese religious experiences by presenting a new interpretation of the oldest existing text of Japanese myth, the Kojiki. Informed by phenomenological hermeneutics, Iwasawa shows that the concept of tama lies at the core of Japanese religious experiences. Tama is often compared to spirit and soul in Western philosophy and religion and especially to the German concept of Geist. Tama develops in ways that do not assume a dichotomy between the ideational and the sensible, which is precisely the dichotomy informing Western theism and the Platonic tradition of metaphysics. Iwasawa argues that the Western concept of God, far from explaining all possible connections between the human and the divine, is less than satisfactory for analyzing Japanese religious experiences. Iwasawa proceeds by examining the Japanese notion of tama as an inquiry into the origin of values wholly unaffected by the Western idea of a moral God.

We all know "there's no such thing as monsters," but our imaginations tell us otherwise. From the mythical beasts of ancient Greece to the hormonal vampires of the "Twilight" saga, monsters have captivated us for millennia. Matt Kaplan, a noted science journalist and monster-myth enthusiast, employs an entertaining mix of cutting-edge research and a love of lore to explore the history behind these fantastical fictions and our hardwired obsession with things that go bump in the night. "The Science of Monsters" tackles the enduring questions that arise on the frontier between fantasy and reality. Did dragons really exist? What inspired the creation of vampires and why are we so drawn to them? Are we close to making "Jurassic Park" a reality by replicating a dinosaur from fossilized DNA? Kaplan takes readers to the forefront of science, where our favorite figures of horror may find real-life validation.

This book is an overview and analysis of the global tradition of the outlaw hero. The mythology and history of the outlaw hero is traced from the Roman Empire to the present, showing how both real and mythic figures have influenced social, political, economic and cultural outcomes in many times and places. The book also looks at the contemporary continuations of the outlaw hero mythology, not only in popular culture and everyday life, but also in the current outbreak of global terrorism.

Quench your thirst for local Savannah, with a bracing dose of tavern tales and an insider's guide to the best grog to be gotten. Witty and well written, there are half a dozen splendid drinking tales for those who love local legends and folktales. These stories, set in the city's pubs and taverns, serve up intrigue, murder, raucous fun, and juicy gossip, all illustrating that history need not be dry stuff! For those eager to belly up to the bar, the Pubs Review helps guide you to the hot spots within the Historic District, pointing out the best drinks, broadest wine menus, and tastiest bar snacks. Suggested toasts will enliven the conversation barside, and recipes for traditional drinks will let you take this taste of Savannah home.

Kansas Myths and Legends explores unusual events, unsolved crimes, and legends in Kansas's history. Each episode included in the book is a story unto itself, and the tone and style of the book is lively and easy to read for a general audience interested in Kansas history. The more than a dozen stories answer questions such as: Is it possible that a family of four living on the Kansas prairie got away with serial murder for more than three years and escaped to another part of the country to continue their killing spree? Are there still remnants of a late widow's fortune buried throughout her property? Is the well-marked grave of Buffalo Bill Cody indeed his final resting place, or did some loyal friends surreptitiously remove him from Colorado and fulfill his last wish to be buried near his namesake town? From rumors of the Dalton gang's buried treasures to the disappearance of an entire town, Kansas Myths and Legends makes history fun and pulls back the curtain on some of the state's most fascinating and compelling stories.

This book is an interdisciplinary synthesis and interpretation about the experience of light as revealed in a wide range of art and literature from Paleolithic to Roman times. Humanistic in spirit and in its handling of facts, it marshals a substantial body of scholarship to develop an explication of light as a central, even dramatic, reality of human existence and experience in diverse cultural settings. David S. Herrstrom underscores our intimacy with light-not only its constant presence in our life but its insinuating character. Focusing on our encounters with light and ways of making sense of these, this book is concerned with the personal and cultural impact of light, exploring our resistance to and acceptance of light. Its approach is unique. The book's true subject is the individual's relationship with light, rather than the investigation of light's essential nature. It tells the story of light seducing individuals down through the ages. Consequently, it is not concerned with the "progress" of scientific inquiries into the physical properties and behavior of light (optical science), but rather with subjective reactions to it as reflected in art (Paleolithic through Roman), architecture (Egyptian, Grecian, Roman), mythology and religion (Paleolithic, Egyptian), and literature (e.g., Akhenaten, Plato, Aeschylus, Lucretius, John the Evangelist, Plotinus, and Augustine). This book celebrates the complexity of our relation to light's character. No individual experience of light is "truer" than any other; none improves on any previous experience of light's "tidal pull" on us. And the wondrous variety of these encounters has yielded a richly layered tapestry of human experience. By its broad scope and interdisciplinary approach, this pioneering book is without precedent.

Folktales are at the heart of Native American culture. Prepared especially for students and general readers, this book conveniently collects 31 of the most important Native American folktales. These are drawn from the major Native American cultural and geographical areas and are organized in sections on origins; heroes, heroines, villains, and fools; society and conflict; and the supernatural. The tales reflect the environment, cultural adaptations, and prevailing concerns of the areas from which they are taken. Each tale begins with a brief introductory headnote, and the book closes with a selected bibliography. Students in social studies classes will welcome this book as a window on Native American culture, while students in literature courses will value its exploration of Native American oral traditions.

Prepared especially for students and general readers, this book conveniently collects and comments on 31 of the most important Native American folktales. These are drawn from the major Native American cultural and geographical areas and reflect the environment, cultural adaptations, and prevailing concerns of the regions from which they are taken.

This book is the logical continuation of a series of collected essays examining the origins and evolution of myths and legends of the supernatural in Western and non-Western tradition and popular culture. The first two volumes of the series, The Universal Vampire: Origins and Evolution of a Legend (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013) and Images of the Modern Vampire: The Hip and the Atavistic. (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013) focused on the vampire legend. The essays in this collection expand that scope to include a multicultural and multigeneric discussion of a pantheon of supernatural creatures who interact and cross species-specific boundaries with ease. Angels and demons are discussed from the perspective of supernatural allegory, angelic ethics and supernatural heredity and genetics. Fairies, sorcerers, witches and werewolves are viewed from the perspectives of popular nightmare tales, depictions of race and ethnicity, popular public discourse and cinematic imagery. Discussions of the "undead and still dead" include images of death messengers and draugar, zombies and vampires in literature, popular media and Japanese anime.

"Les ecoles Catholiques? C'est une bonne chose. . . . Beaucoup de cadres de ce pays sont passes par la. . . . Nous voulons aussi que l'ecole des vodunsi connaisse le jour." We hear a dignitary of Vodou confirm the force of Catholicism in Benin. Other voices also define the contours of Catholicism; some seeing it as open to otherness and inculturated practice, and some see its limitations. "Positive Vodou" (intuition of Mawu) is compatible with Catholicism, but not the "system Vodou." Intellectual voices, aware of extended family and illnesses chief role in upholding the traditional, debate the value of inculturation. This work addresses the relationship between the Catholic imagination, acceptance of the other, and -- using the case of Haitian- and African-Americans -- suggests the concept is a useful tool for the study of diasporic cultures.

'Spooky and absorbing. I was gripped from the first page!' CASS GREEN There's a stranger in your house... When her stepmother dies unexpectedly, Caro returns to her childhood home in Derbyshire. She hadn't seen Elizabeth in years, but the remote farmhouse offers refuge from a bad relationship, and a chance to start again. But going through Elizabeth's belongings unearths memories Caro would rather stay buried. In particular, the story her stepmother would tell her, about two little girls and the terrible thing they do. As heavy snow traps Caro in the village, where her neighbours stare and whisper, Caro is forced to question why Elizabeth hated her so much, and what she was hiding. But does she really want to uncover the truth? A haunting and twisty story about the lies we tell those closest to us, perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and Cass Green. If you love CUCKOO, don't miss Sophie Draper's brand-new mystery MAGPIE, available to order now! Readers love CUCKOO: 'A remarkably, taut and chilling debut. I absolutely loved it. Brilliant writing. All the creepiness. A heart-stopping ending' CLAIRE ALLAN 'Sophie Draper is a remarkable new voice, combining beautiful writing with a gothic creepiness and a level of suspense which will keep the reader gripped to the end' STEPHEN BOOTH 'A brilliant, sinister debut that creeps under your skin and keeps you hooked until the shocking ending' ROZ WATKINS 'Wow! This is what a horror story is supposed to be! Super spooky and absolutely wonderful in all its gothic glory' NETGALLEY REVIEWER 'The ending was amazing. Psychological fiction at its best. Five Stars' NETGALLEY REVIEWER 'I never use the term "jaw-dropping" but it best describes the rest of this spectacular read!' NETGALLEY REVIEWER 'The ending BLEW. ME. AWAY. I feel like I'm going to have a book hangover now. SO, SO GOOD' NETGALLEY REVIEWER

This is a best-selling series of fantastic folktales, myths, and legends from around the world - many available in English for the first time. It includes tales from Iceland, Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, Tibet, amongst others.It features a dedicated mailing and e-mail campaign to targeted media and organisations.Rich in cultural significance, social commentary, and popular beliefs, the tales found in this series represent the best, the most intriguing, and the most curious of oral literature from cultures whose legends, myths, and folklore have been largely unavailable in English until now.Each volume includes 20 to 30 tales, accompanied by an introduction and a historical overview which give the reader compelling insights into the culture, the folk literature, and the lives of the people in the region.

From the mysterious disappearance of hijacker D.B. Cooper to persistent rumors of bigfoot, this selection of thirteen stories from Oregon's past explores some of the Beaver State's most compelling mysteries and debunks some of its most famous myths. Read about the mysterious disappearances of several people over the years around Mount Emily, relive the gruesome discovery of three murdered trappers near the Deschutes River, and learn why many people believe an eleven-ton meteorite might be hidden in the mountains of southwestern Oregon.

Soviet Heroic Poetry in Context discusses key issues surrounding the composition and recording of folklore as well as its often intensely political aspect and its preoccupation with chimerical cultural authority. These issues are dramatically displayed in Soviet epic compositions of the 1930s and 1940s, the so-called noviny ("new songs"), which took their formal inspiration largely from traditional Russian epic songs, byliny ("songs of the past"), and their narrative content from contemporary, political, and other events in Stalinist Russia. The story of the noviny is at once complex and comprehensible. While it may be tempting to interpret the excrescences of Stalinism as unique aberrations, the reality was often more complicated. The noviny were not simply the result of political fiat, an episode in an ideological vacuum. Their emergence occurred in part because of specific trends and controversies that marked European folklore collection and publication from at least the late eighteenth century on, as well as developments in Russian folkloristics from the mid-nineteenth century on that assumed exaggerated proportions. The demise of the noviny was equally mediated by a host of political and theoretical considerations. This study tells the story of the rise and fall of the noviny in all its cultural richness and pathos, an instructive tale of the interaction of aesthetics and ideology.

Exploring the pedagogical power of the monstrous, this collection of fresh essays provides curriculum and teaching strategies that use our cultural fascination with monsters to enhance learning in high school and college courses. The contributors explore the implications of inviting fearsome creatures into the classroom and describe how they work to create compelling narrative and illustrative models. Topics include gender, sexuality and rhetoric in monster literature; monsters as subversive imagination; teaching monstrosity in American Gothic narratives; and using zombies to teach theater. Some essays provide sample syllabi, assignments and class materials.

"Peasants tell tales," one prominent cultural historian tells us (Robert Darnton). Scholars must then determine and analyze what it is they are saying and whether or not to incorporate such tellings into their histories and ethnographies. Challenging the dominant culturalist approach associated with Clifford Geertz and Marshall Sahlins among others, this book presents a critical rethinking of the philosophical anthropologies found in specific histories and ethnographies and thereby bridges the current gap between approaches to studies of peasant society and popular culture. In challenging the methodology and theoretical frameworks currently used by social scientists interested in aspects of popular culture, the author suggests a common discursive ground can be found in an historical anthropology that recognizes how myths, fairytales and histories speak to a universal need for imagining oneself in different timescapes and for linking one's local world with a "known" larger world.

Hermann Rebel was born in Frankfurt/Main, Germany, and educated at the University of Toronto and at UC Berkeley. He has taught at York University in Toronto, the University of Iowa, and the University of Arizona and has published Peasant Classes (Princeton, 1983) as well as articles on Austrian and German agrarian and cultural history.

Galilee has been a crossroads of cultures, religions, and languages for centuries, as illustrated in these fascinating Bedouin folktales, which offer excellent examples of the Arabic narrative tradition of the Middle East. Bedouin Folktales from the North of Israel collects nearly 60 traditional folktales, told mostly by women, that have been carefully translated in the same colloquial style in which they were told. These stories are grouped into themes of love and devotion, ghouls and demons, and animal stories. The work also includes phonetic transcription and linguistic annotation. Accompanying each folktale is a comprehensive ethnographic, folkloristic, and linguistic commentary, placing the tales in context with details on Galilee Bedouin dialects and the tribes themselves. A rich, multifaceted collection, Bedouin Folktales from the North of Israel is an invaluable resource for linguists, folklorists, anthropologists, and any reader interested in a tradition of storytelling handed down through the centuries.

Zombies are upon us as never before. So what should we do about it? Recent zombie apocalypses on the screen and page reshape our understanding of the walking dead and ourselves; we find that all bets are off in the case of apocalypse. The undead have begun to mirror our cultural fears of ourselves, always demanding a response, exposing our weaknesses, chewing social rules. Whether we fear the unknown of space, governmental control, lawlessness, or interpersonal relationships, zombies are there. Even now we live with intense nostalgia, longing for a simple time before the beginning of apocalypse even as we imaginatively create ever more complex and horrifying versions of postapocalyptic life. With this thin veneer covering our real fears in mind, the focal points of zombie criticism shift toward cause and cure. This ultimately spotlights a way forward: possible cures for the zombies that ail us. For students, critics, and zombie aficionados, we offer responses to the end of the world as we know it. Along the way, we argue that the traditional evolutionary model of interpreting zombies is not enough; we must also chase zombies from advent through destruction and toward reintegration as we learn to live alongside them.

This book traces the construct of female monsters as an embodiment of sociocultural fears of female sexuality and reproductive power. It examines the female maturation cycle and the various archetypes of female monsters associated with each stage of development in literature, art, film, and television with a particular focus on Latin American work.

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In this Appalachian variant of the traditional tale, Jack trades his old cow to a gypsy for three beans that are guaranteed to feed him his entire life.

This examination of the heroic journey in world mythology casts the protagonist as a personification of nature-a ""botanical hero"" one might say-who begins the quest in a metaphorical seed-like state, then sprouting into a period of verdant strength. But the hero must face a mythic underworld where he or she contends with mortality and sacrifice-embracing death as a part of life. For centuries, humans have sought superiority over nature. Yet the botanical hero finds nothing is lost by recognizing that one is merely a part of nature. Instead, a cyclical promise of continuous life is realized, in which no element fully disappears, and the hero's message is not to dwell on death.

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Proving conclusively that `mad folks and proverbs reveal many truths', this is an authoritative and hugely browsable treasury of over 15,000 sayings, adages, and maxims commonly used in the United States and Canada.

Based on oral as well as written sources, it covers thousands of uniquely American proverbs as well as those hailing from classical, biblical, European, and English literature. The culmination of over 40 years' research, the dictionary includes nuggets of wisdom on all aspects of life: weather, romance, food, families, politics, health, religion, and the arts, and includes thousands of proverbs that have never previously been recorded.

This book constitutes the first attempt to gather into a single body as many Judeo-Spanish tales published in Latin characters as could be assembled. It represents a major contribution to Sephardic and Hispanic studies, as well as to comparative folklore scholarship in a world-wide perspective.