From a Church that once enjoyed devotional loyalty, political influence, and institutional power unrivaled in Europe, the Catholic Church in Ireland now faces collapse. Devastated by a series of reports on clerical sexual abuse, challenged publicly during several political battles, and painfully aware of plunging Mass attendance, the Irish Church today is confronted with the loss of its institutional legitimacy. This study is the first international and interdisciplinary attempt to consider the scope of the problem, analyze issues that are crucial to the Irish context, and identify signs of both resilience and renewal. In addition to an overview of the current status and future directions of Irish Catholicism, The Catholic Church in Ireland Today examines specific issues such as growing secularism, the changing image of Irish bishops, generational divides, Catholic migrants to Ireland, the abuse crisis and responses in Ireland and the United States, Irish missionaries, the political role of Irish priests, the 2012 Dublin Eucharistic Congress, and contemplative strands in Irish identity. This book identifies the key issues that students of Irish society and others interested in Catholic culture must examine in order to understand the changing roles of religion in the contemporary world.

The Critical Heritage gathers together a large body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read the material themselves.

This series gathers together a body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read for themselves, for example, comments on early performances of Shakespeare's plays, or reactions to the first publication of Jane Austen's novels. The selected sources range from important essays in the history of criticism to journalism and contemporary opinion, and documentary material such as letters and diaries. Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included, in order to demonstrate the fluctuations in an author's reputation. Each volume contains an introduction to the writer's published works, a selected bibliography, and an index of works, authors and subjects.

'the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts' The greatest 'state of the nation' novel in English, Middlemarch addresses ordinary life at a moment of great social change, in the years leading to the Reform Act of 1832. Through her portrait of a Midlands town, George Eliot addresses gender relations and class, self-knowledge and self-delusion, community and individualism. Eliot follows the fortunes of the town's central characters as they find, lose, and rediscover ideals and vocations in the world. Through its psychologically rich portraits, the novel contains some of the great characters of literature, including the idealistic but naive Dorothea Brooke, beautiful and egotistical Rosamund Vincy, the dry scholar Edward Casaubon, the wise and grounded Mary Garth, and the brilliant but proud Dr Lydgate. In its whole view of a society, the novel offers enduring insight into the pains and pleasures of life with others, and explores nearly every subject of concern to modern life:. art, religion, science, politics, self, society, and, above all, human relationships. This edition uses the definitive Clarendon text.

‘God gave her to me because you turned your back upon her, and He looks upon her as mine: you’ve no right to her!’

Wrongly accused of theft and exiled from a religious community many years before, the embittered weaver Silas Marner lives alone in Raveloe, living only for work and his precious hoard of money. But when his money is stolen and an orphaned child finds her way into his house, Silas is given the chance to transform his life. His fate, and that of the little girl he adopts, is entwined with Godfrey Cass, son of the village Squire, who, like Silas, is trapped by his past. Silas Marner, George Eliot’s favourite of her novels, combines humour, rich symbolism and pointed social criticism to create an unsentimental but affectionate portrait of rural life.

The text uses the Cabinet edition, revised by George Eliot in 1878. David Carroll’s introduction is accompanied by the original Penguin Classics introduction by Q. D. Leavis.

Along with its rich history and spectacular scenery, Dumfries and Galloway is home to a great many curious and unusual buildings, objects and landscape features that have survived the centuries. This well-illustrated book is a guide to 100 of these remarkable sights, including Scotland's highest village, the world's narrowest hotel, and even the statue of a rhinoceros on top of a bus shelter. Dumfries & Galloway Curiosities will encourage readers to explore this area of south-west Scotland and perhaps make their own curious discoveries.

"Paris is firing all its ammunition into the August night. Against a vast backdrop of water and stone, on both sides of a river awash with history, freedom's barricades are once again being erected. Once again justice must be redeemed with men's blood."

Albert Camus (1913-1960) wrote these words in August 1944, as Paris was being liberated from German occupation. Although best known for his novels including "The Stranger" and "The Plague," it was his vivid descriptions of the horrors of the occupation and his passionate defense of freedom that in fact launched his public fame.

Now, for the first time in English, "Camus at 'Combat'" presents all of Camus' World War II resistance and early postwar writings published in "Combat," the resistance newspaper where he served as editor-in-chief and editorial writer between 1944 and 1947. These 165 articles and editorials show how Camus' thinking evolved from support of a revolutionary transformation of postwar society to a wariness of the radical left alongside his longstanding strident opposition to the reactionary right. These are poignant depictions of issues ranging from the liberation, deportation, justice for collaborators, the return of POWs, and food and housing shortages, to the postwar role of international institutions, colonial injustices, and the situation of a free press in democracies. The ideas that shaped the vision of this Nobel-prize winning novelist and essayist are on abundant display.

More than fifty years after the publication of these writings, they have lost none of their force. They still speak to us about freedom, justice, truth, and democracy.

This is the first book to provide a sustained critical analysis of the literary-aesthetic dimension of French fascism--the peculiarly French form of what Walter Benjamin called the fascist "aestheticizing of politics." Focusing first on three important extremist nationalist writers at the turn of the century and then on five of the most visible fascist intellectuals in France in the 1930s, David Carroll shows how both traditional and modern concepts of art figure in the elaboration of fascist ideology--and in the presentation of fascism as an art of the political.

Carroll is concerned with the internal relations of fascism and literature--how literary fascists conceived of politics as a technique for fashioning a unified people and transforming the disparate elements of society into an organic, totalized work of art. He explores the logic of such aestheticizing, as well as the assumptions about art, literature, and culture at the basis of both the aesthetics and politics of French literary fascists. His book reveals how not only classical humanism but also modern aesthetics that defend the autonomy and integrity of literature became models for xenophobic forms of nationalism and extreme "cultural" forms of anti-Semitism. A cogent analysis of the ideological function of literature and culture in fascism, this work helps us see the ramifications of thinking of literature or art as the truth or essence of politics.

In Light without Heat, David Carroll Simon argues for the importance of carelessness to the literary and scientific experiments of the seventeenth century. While scholars have often looked to this period in order to narrate the triumph of methodical rigor as a quintessentially modern intellectual value, Simon describes the appeal of open-ended receptivity to the protagonists of the New Science. In straying from the work of self-possession and the duty to sift fact from fiction, early modern intellectuals discovered the cognitive advantages of the undisciplined mind. Exploring the influence of what he calls the "observational mood" on both poetry and prose, Simon offers new readings of Michel de Montaigne, Francis Bacon, Izaak Walton, Henry Power, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Andrew Marvell, and John Milton. He also extends his inquiry beyond the boundaries of early modernity, arguing for a literary theory that trades strict methodological commitment for an openness to lawless drift.

Journey into the world of Ayahuasca and healing. A mysterious and powerful plant medicine with curative powers that is drunk as a tea during a sacred ceremony, Ayahuasca has been known to change people's lives dramatically. But what was once a healing experience practiced only by Indigenous South Americans - and sought out by the adventurous few - has, in the past fifty years, become increasingly popular around the world. Hachumak, a Peruvian medicine man, has been practicing traditional healing arts in his country for more than twenty years. His unique approach is based on ritualistic simplicity and highlights the essence of the Art, which includes the borrowed forces from Nature. In this remarkable book, he shares his knowledge and experiences to broaden our understanding of this powerful medicine and protect it from misuse and exploitation. Whether you are among the uninitiated and curious, or a seasoned journeyer, you will gain a deeper understanding of what shamanism is and how and why it works, as well as its possibilities and limitations. Hachumak reveals his own path to becoming a shaman and explains how a well-crafted Ayahuasca ceremony unfolds when run by an experienced curandero. He describes in detail what to expect - both physically and psychologically - while under the guidance of the sacred plants. With Hachumak as our experienced and trusted guide, Journeying Through the Invisible offers a new and healing way of seeing ourselves and the world around us.

Tangled Thoughts that range from sweet/bittersweet, to grief, regret, and jump/shout happiness form a truly delightful 'easy read' that challenges the reader to look deep into their own lives. Philosophical musings and reflections take the reader on a roller coaster ride of emotions as they experience life through the eyes of a recovering alcoholic who journals the entanglement of his thoughts as he writes of seeing the world through sober eyes for the first time.

Moves beyond the basics of public speaking and addresses the foundations necessary for preparing an engaging sermon.

Moves beyond the basics of public speaking and addresses the foundations necessary for preparing an engaging sermon.

Most people would say, if asked about recreational activities, that there is no difference between one creative movement and another. But that is not what the church says when it comes to eastern recreational activities such as the martial arts, yoga, transcendental meditation, and alternative therapies. The church says that these activities are underlied by eastern religions, even by the occult, and that Christians ought not practice them. It becomes complicated for the ordinary man or woman to weigh it up in their mind, as to the pros and cons, as to what the Bible actually says even with the passages right in front of them. such as which are taught in western based exercise classes and sports centers, which by their outward appearance are similar to those that are practiced in the east. I have sought to answer the question, can a practicing Christian engage in the martial arts, yoga, transcendental meditation, and alternative therapies and similar activities, while at the same time be attending a church and participating in the Holy Communion? I explain the Bible's difficult passages that speak about sacrificing to idols, passages which also speak about the arising of the antichrist at the end times. I also explain the passages that speak of the spiritual gifts that can be seen being practiced in some churches. These include speaking in strange tongues, healing by the laying on of hands, and casting out demons.