A young person's entry into biblical views of relationships. Chastity is a word that isn't used much these days, but it means exercising sexual self-control in line with the moral teachings of the Bible. It means honoring God, respecting others, and embracing the liberating beauty of God's order. But how do we do that in today's recreational dating culture? And how do we think about dating and, ultimately, marriage? David Ayers has written this helpful little book to help you think through these questions, and understand why this is such an important part of the Christian life.

It has often been argued that the arrival of the early-20th-century avant-gardes and modernisms coincided with an in-depth exploration of the materiality of art and writing. The European historical avant-gardes and modernisms excelled in their attempts to establish the specificity of media and art forms as well as in experimenting with the hybridity of the materials of their multiple disciplines. This third volume of the series European Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies sheds light on the full range and import of this aspect in avant-garde and modernist aesthetics across all art forms and throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The book's contributions, written by experts from some 20 countries, seek to answer the following questions: What sort of objects and material, works and media help us to properly grasp the avant-garde and modernist "aesthetics of matter"? How were affects, emotions and sensory and bodily experiences transferred and transformed in the experiment with matter? How were "immaterial" things such as concepts of time changed in this aesthetic moment? What "material meanings" were disseminated in the cultural transfer and translation of objects? How did subsequent avant-gardes deal with the "aesthetics of matter" in their response to historical predecessors?

Notions of crisis have long charged the study of the European avant-garde and modernism, reflecting the often turbulent nature of their development. Throughout their history, the avant-garde and modernists have both confronted and instigated crises, be they economic or political, aesthetic or philosophical, collective or individual, local or global, short or perennial. The seventh volume in the series European Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies addresses the myriad ways in which the avant-garde and modernism have responded and related to crisis from the late nineteenth to the twenty-first century. How have Europe's avant-garde and modernist movements given aesthetic shape to their crisis-laden trajectory? Given the many different watershed moments the avant-garde and modernism have faced over the centuries, what common threads link the critical points of their development? Alternatively, what kinds of crises have their experimental practices and critical modes yielded? The volume assembles case studies reflecting upon these questions and more from across all areas of avant-garde and modernist activity, including visual art, literature, music, architecture, photography, theatre, performance, curatorial practice, fashion and design.

The effort to go beyond given knowledge in different domains - artistic, scientific, political, metaphysical - is a characteristic driving force in modernism and the avant-gardes. Since the late 19th century, artists and writers have frequently investigated their medium and its limits, pursued political and religious aims, and explored hitherto unknown physical, social and conceptual spaces, often in ways that combine these forms of critical inquiry into one and provoke further theoretical and methodological innovations. The fifth volume of the EAM series casts light on the history and actuality of investigations, quests and explorations in the European avant-garde and modernism from the late 19th century to the present day. The authors seek to answer questions such as: How have modernism and the avant-garde appropriated scientific knowledge, religious dogmas and social conventions, pursuing their investigation beyond the limits of given knowledge and conceptions? How have modernism and avant-garde created new conceptual models or representations where other discourses have allegedly failed? In what ways do practises of investigation, quest or exploration shape artistic work or the formal and thematic structures of artworks?

Utopian hope and dystopian despair are characteristic features of modernism and the avant-garde. Readings of the avant-garde have frequently sought to identify utopian moments coded in its works and activities as optimistic signs of a possible future social life, or as the attempt to preserve hope against the closure of an emergent dystopian present. The fourth volume of the EAM series, European Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies, casts light on the history, theory and actuality of the utopian and dystopian strands which run through European modernism and the avant-garde from the late 19th to the 21st century. The book's varied and carefully selected contributions, written by experts from around 20 countries, seek to answer such questions as: * how have modernism and the avant-garde responded to historical circumstance in mapping the form of possible futures for humanity? * how have avant-garde and modernist works presented ideals of living as alternatives to the present? * how have avant-gardists acted with or against the state to remodel human life or to resist the instrumental reduction of life by administration and industrialisation?

Crime drama starring Christian Bale. Jim Davis (Bale) is an ex-Army Ranger who finds himself slipping back into his old life of petty crime after a job offer from the LAPD evaporates. His best friend (Freddy Rodriguez) is pressured by his girlfriend Sylvia (Eva Longoria) to find a job, but Jim is more interested in hanging out and making cash from small heists, while trying to get a law enforcement job so he can marry his Mexican girlfriend.

Explores the impact of the Russian Revolution and League of Nations on British modernist culture 1917 was the moment in which a new sense of internationalism came into being under the impetus of the Russian Revolution and the formation of the League of Nations. Drawing on the responses of journalists and literary authors, David Ayers examines the work of lesser-known travellers and commentators alongside the work of major authors to show how these world-changing events impacted on British culture. We see how visitors to Moscow responded to meeting Lenin, how the Bolsheviks intervened in the British public sphere, and how cultural figures such as Leonard Woolf, H.G. Wells and T.S. Eliot, debated the League and the Revolution. Using Transnationalism theory and the work of Alain Badiou, Ayers demonstrates how a new age of transnational politics began and gave shape to the present. Key Features: * Presents little-known material dealing with the Russian Revolution and the League of Nations in Britain* Combines archival and theoretical approaches with reference to mainstream modernist authors* References contemporary discussions on transnational modernism and on ideas of Alain Badiou* Documents the hitherto neglected climate of ideas which shaped modernism after the Great WarKeywords: Modernism, Transnationalism, Russian Revolution, T S Eliot, Virginia Woolf, H G Wells

Explores the impact of the Russian Revolution and League of Nations on British modernist culture 1917 was the moment in which a new sense of internationalism came into being under the impetus of the Russian Revolution and the formation of the League of Nations. Drawing on the responses of journalists and literary authors, David Ayers examines the work of lesser-known travellers and commentators alongside the work of major authors to show how these world-changing events impacted on British culture. We see how visitors to Moscow responded to meeting Lenin, how the Bolsheviks intervened in the British public sphere, and how cultural figures such as Leonard Woolf, H.G. Wells and T.S. Eliot, debated the League and the Revolution. Using Transnationalism theory and the work of Alain Badiou, Ayers demonstrates how a new age of transnational politics began and gave shape to the present. Key Features: * Presents little-known material dealing with the Russian Revolution and the League of Nations in Britain* Combines archival and theoretical approaches with reference to mainstream modernist authors* References contemporary discussions on transnational modernism and on ideas of Alain Badiou* Documents the hitherto neglected climate of ideas which shaped modernism after the Great WarKeywords: Modernism, Transnationalism, Russian Revolution, T S Eliot, Virginia Woolf, H G Wells

Why should we care about marriage? There is a lot of confusion about the purpose of marriage today: outside the church as well as within it. Written by a distinguished Christian sociologist, Christian Marriage is a theologically rich, biblically robust, and sociologically informed treatise on the nature and value of marriage. Drawing on recent social science research, empirical data, and social history, Ayers paints a picture of marriage as an institution meant for human flourishing. Along the way, Ayers addresses such topics as: Dating and selection of a spouse The importance of premarital counseling Sex and procreation Mentoring and supporting unmarried believers Divorce and remarriage Current controversies surrounding premarital sex and same-sex marriage Though the book is academically and theologically informed, it is written with a pastoral heart. It seeks to provide a rich resource for pastors and counselors on a topic of supreme importance to a vibrant church and society.

The Salt Companion to Mina Loy comprises ten essays by leading scholars and writers on the work of modernist poet Mina Loy. Loy (1882-1966) formed part of the new generation of poets who revolutionised writing in the early twentieth century. She had personal and artistic links to Italian Futurism and Parisian Surrealism, as well as to individuals such as James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, Djuna Barnes and Gertrude Stein. Working with reference to, but also often against the ideas of these fellow writers, her experimental, witty and inconoclastic poems were both distinctive and arresting. Since the republication of her poems in 1996-7, Loy has gained in stature and importance both in the UK and the US: her writing is now seen as central to literary innovations in the 1910s and 1920s, and she is often a set author on undergraduate and MA courses. Apart from the collection of essays Mina Loy: Woman and Poet published twelve years ago, there is currently no single book on Loy's work in print. The Companion will be an invaluable new resource for students and readers of modernism. It provides new perspectives and cutting-edge research on Loy's work and is distinctive in its consideration of her prosodic and linguistic experiments alongside a discussion of the literary and historical contexts in which she worked. The contributors include influential and emerging experts in modernist studies. They are Peter Nicholls, Tim Armstrong, Geoff Gilbert, David Ayers, Andrew Robertson, John Wilkinson, Suzanne Hobson, Rachel Potter, Alan Marshall, Rowan Harris and Sandeep Parmar.