|
Showing 1 - 14 of
14 matches in All Departments
*A Book of the Month Club Pick* NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK IN
ESSENCE MAGAZINE, THE MILLIONS AND BOOKISH "Don't Cry for Me is a
perfect song."--Jesmyn Ward A Black father makes amends with his
gay son through letters written on his deathbed in this wise and
penetrating novel of empathy and forgiveness, for fans of Ta-Nehisi
Coates, Robert Jones Jr. and Alice Walker As Jacob lies dying, he
begins to write a letter to his only son, Isaac. They have not met
or spoken in many years, and there are things that Isaac must know.
Stories about his ancestral legacy in rural Arkansas that extend
back to slavery. Secrets from Jacob's tumultuous relationship with
Isaac's mother and the shame he carries from the dissolution of
their family. Tragedies that informed Jacob's role as a father and
his reaction to Isaac's being gay. But most of all, Jacob must
share with Isaac the unspoken truths that reside in his heart. He
must give voice to the trauma that Isaac has inherited. And he must
create a space for the two to find peace. With piercing insight and
profound empathy, acclaimed author Daniel Black illuminates the
lived experiences of Black fathers and queer sons, offering an
authentic and ultimately hopeful portrait of reckoning and
reconciliation. Spare as it is sweeping, poetic as it is
compulsively readable, Don't Cry for Me is a monumental novel about
one family grappling with love's hard edges and the unexpected
places where hope and healing take flight.
This book takes the interface - or rather to interface, a process
rather than a discrete object or location - as a concept emblematic
of our contemporary embodied relationship with technological
artefacts. The fundamental question addressed by this book is: How
can we understand what it means to perceive or act upon the world
as a body-artefact assemblage? Black works to clarify the role of
artefacts of all kinds in human perception and action, then
considers the ways in which new digital technologies can expand and
transform this capacity to change our mode of engagement with our
environment. Throughout, the discussion is grounded in specific
technologies - some already familiar and some still in development
(e.g. new virtual reality and brain-machine interface technologies,
natural user interfaces, etc.). In order to develop a detailed,
generalizable theory of how we interface with technology, Black
assembles an analytical toolkit from a number of different
disciplines, including media theory, ethology, clinical psychology,
cultural theory, philosophy, science and technology studies,
cultural history, aesthetics and neuroscience.
Drawing on philosophical, neurological and cultural answers to the
question of what constitutes a body, this book explores the
interaction between mechanistic beliefs about human bodies and the
successive technologies that have established and illustrated these
beliefs. At the same time, it draws upon newer perspectives on
technology and embodied human thought in order to highlight the
limitations and inadequacies of such beliefs and suggest
alternative perspectives. In so doing, it provides a position from
which widely held assumptions about our relationship with
technology can be understood and questioned, by both showing how
these presuppositions have emerged and developed, and examining the
extent to which they are dependent upon our grasp of specific
technologies. Illustrated with examples from the Renaissance and
Enlightenment periods, as well as the industrial age and the recent
eras of informatics, gene science and nanotechnology, Embodiment
and Mechanisation highlights the ways in which technological
changes have led to shifts in the definition of machine and body,
investigating their shared underlying belief that all matter can be
reduced to a common substance. From clockwork and cadavers to
engines and energy, this volume reveals our long-standing
fascination with and enduring commitment to the idea that bodies
are machines and that machines are in some sense bodies. As such,
it will appeal to scholars across the humanities and social
sciences with interests in the sociology of science and technology,
embodiment, cultural studies and the history of ideas.
Drawing on philosophical, neurological and cultural answers to the
question of what constitutes a body, this book explores the
interaction between mechanistic beliefs about human bodies and the
successive technologies that have established and illustrated these
beliefs. At the same time, it draws upon newer perspectives on
technology and embodied human thought in order to highlight the
limitations and inadequacies of such beliefs and suggest
alternative perspectives. In so doing, it provides a position from
which widely held assumptions about our relationship with
technology can be understood and questioned, by both showing how
these presuppositions have emerged and developed, and examining the
extent to which they are dependent upon our grasp of specific
technologies. Illustrated with examples from the Renaissance and
Enlightenment periods, as well as the industrial age and the recent
eras of informatics, gene science and nanotechnology, Embodiment
and Mechanisation highlights the ways in which technological
changes have led to shifts in the definition of machine and body,
investigating their shared underlying belief that all matter can be
reduced to a common substance. From clockwork and cadavers to
engines and energy, this volume reveals our long-standing
fascination with and enduring commitment to the idea that bodies
are machines and that machines are in some sense bodies. As such,
it will appeal to scholars across the humanities and social
sciences with interests in the sociology of science and technology,
embodiment, cultural studies and the history of ideas.
This book takes the interface - or rather to interface, a process
rather than a discrete object or location - as a concept emblematic
of our contemporary embodied relationship with technological
artefacts. The fundamental question addressed by this book is: How
can we understand what it means to perceive or act upon the world
as a body-artefact assemblage? Black works to clarify the role of
artefacts of all kinds in human perception and action, then
considers the ways in which new digital technologies can expand and
transform this capacity to change our mode of engagement with our
environment. Throughout, the discussion is grounded in specific
technologies - some already familiar and some still in development
(e.g. new virtual reality and brain-machine interface technologies,
natural user interfaces, etc.). In order to develop a detailed,
generalizable theory of how we interface with technology, Black
assembles an analytical toolkit from a number of different
disciplines, including media theory, ethology, clinical psychology,
cultural theory, philosophy, science and technology studies,
cultural history, aesthetics and neuroscience.
"Daniel Black's "Perfect Peace "is the heartbreaking portrait of a
large, rural southern family's attempt to grapple with their
mother's desperate decision to make her newborn son into the
daughter she will never have "
When the seventh child of the Peace family, named Perfect, turns
eight, her mother Emma Jean tells her bewildered daughter, "You was
born a boy. I "made "you a girl. But that ain't what you was
supposed to be. So, from now on, you gon' be a boy. It'll be a
little strange at first, but you'll get used to it, and this'll be
over after while." From this point forward, his life becomes a
bizarre kaleidoscope of events. Meanwhile, the Peace family is
forced to question everything they thought they knew about gender,
sexuality, unconditional love, and fulfillment.
A "novel of self-discovery, family bonds and the healing of one
small southern town
""Twelve Gates to the City" is the much-anticipated sequel to
Black's acclaimed debut, They Tell Me of a Home. In this novel,
Sister assumes the voice of the narrator, speaking from the spirit
realm, telling her brother TL things he could have never known
about their family. She constructs the story as a series of
spiritual revelations, exposing to readers both who she was in the
years of TL's absence and how every event in his life was an
orchestration for his return.
TL in the meantime is back in Swamp Creek, to stay this time, but
he's still haunted by his sister's death. His decision to become
the Schoolmaster is the only thing he's sure about, and his impact
upon the students becomes palpable. But he still doesn't know what
happened to Sister. As he searches for ultimate truth, he discovers
the secrets and beauty of Swamp Creek.
"Twelve Gates to the City" is a novel about spiritual revelation,
and communal healing, ushered in by one who finally realizes that
his gifts were bestowed upon him, not for his own glory, but for
the transformation of his people.
In the summer of 1955, fourteen-year-old Clement enters a General
Store in Money, Mississippi to purchase a soda. Unaware of the
consequences of flouting the rules governing black-white relations
in the South, this Chicago native lays the nickel on the counter
and turns to depart. Miss Cuthbert, the store attendant, demands
that he place the money in her hand, but he refuses and exits with
a sense of entitlement unknown to black people at the time. His
brutal murder sparks a racial war in Money that forces the black
community to galvanize its strength in pursuit of racial equality.
Readers won't forget this poignant story that calls us to explore
the best and worst in the human condition.
The study of Asian culture, media and communications is an area
that has developed rapidly over the past two decades. This rapid
development has led to the deployment of diverse scholarly
approaches while simultaneously raising important questions
regarding the extent to which the use of key terms such as
"nation", "citizenship" and "modernity" must be modified to reflect
the specificity of an Asian context. Furthermore, the irrepressible
flows of popular cultural forms and the enthusiastic adoption of
new communications technologies across the region demand approaches
that can accommodate the dynamism and diversity of Asian culture
and media. Contemporary Culture and Media in Asia brings together
leading scholars from Asia, North America and Australia to address
questions related to these challenges, producing new insights and
frameworks that can be productively utilized by students and
scholars working in the field.
The study of Asian culture, media and communications is an area
that has developed rapidly over the past two decades. This rapid
development has led to the deployment of diverse scholarly
approaches while simultaneously raising important questions
regarding the extent to which the use of key terms such as
"nation", "citizenship" and "modernity" must be modified to reflect
the specificity of an Asian context. Furthermore, the irrepressible
flows of popular cultural forms and the enthusiastic adoption of
new communications technologies across the region demand approaches
that can accommodate the dynamism and diversity of Asian culture
and media. Contemporary Culture and Media in Asia brings together
leading scholars from Asia, North America and Australia to address
questions related to these challenges, producing new insights and
frameworks that can be productively utilized by students and
scholars working in the field.
|
|