For over 25,000 years, humans across the globe have shaped, decorated, and fired clay. Despite great differences in location and time, universal themes appear in the world's ceramic traditions, including religious influences, human and animal representations, and mortuary pottery. In Global Clay: Themes in World Ceramic Traditions, noted pottery scholar John A. Burrison explores the recurring artistic themes that tie humanity together, explaining how and why those themes appear again and again in worldwide ceramic traditions. The book is richly illustrated with over 200 full-color, cross-cultural illustrations of ceramics from prehistory to the present. Providing an introduction to different styles of folk pottery, extensive suggestions for further reading, and reflections on the future of traditional pottery around the world, Global Clay is sure to become a classic for all who love art and pottery and all who are intrigued by the human commonalities revealed through art.

Storytellers, a rich collection of more than 250 authentic folktales, confirms the oral tradition of the South. Rising out of a shared rural past, the legends and myths, the jests and trickster tales presented here are as diverse as the tellers themselves. Edited and introduced by John A.Burrison and selected from more than twenty years of recorded interviews conducted in the lower Southeast by folklore students, ""Storytellers"" brings together a broad variety of tales told in voices of African-American, Anglo-Saxon, and native American descent. The work speaks of the South - not one South but many a region whose diversity is revealed and preserved in the telling of tales. Presented in a standard-sized format, this affordable paperback edition reproduces the complete text of the earlier clothbound edition.