For first-year/entry-level Learning Skills, Learning Strategies, and Study Skills courses. New Beginnings helps adults develop a range of skills to succeed in college from how to manage time and stress to how to develop strong writing and study skills ability. Specifically addressing adults by building on skills they already use in their everyday work and lives, this friendly, accessible, and supportive guide shows readers what to expect and how to create success in college. Real students relate their success strategies and college experiences as an added encouragement. The 4th edition offers an expanded section on internet research and writing with a word processor. Eight chapters include information on test-taking, note-taking, classroom protocol, resources for help, strategies for reading and thinking critically; plus a basic grammar and math review. TECHNOLOGY OFFERING: MyStudentSuccessLab is available with this book upon request. It is an online solution designed to help students 'Start strong, Finish stronger' by building skills for ongoing personal and professional development. Go to http: //mystudentsuccesslab.com/mssl3 for a Point and Click DEMO of the Time Management module

Girls' Series Fiction and American Popular Culture examines the ways in which young female heroines in American series fiction have undergone dramatic changes in the past 150 years, changes which have both reflected and modeled standards of behavior for America's tweens and teen girls. Though series books are often derided for lacking in imagination and literary potency, that the majority of American girls have been exposed to girls' series in some form, whether through books, television, or other media, suggests that this genre needs to be studied further and that the development of the heroines that girls read about have created an impact that is worthy of a fresh critical lens. Thus, this collection explores how series books have influenced and shaped popular American culture and, in doing so, girls' everyday experiences from the mid nineteenth century until now. The collection interrogates the cultural work that is performed through the series genre, contemplating the messages these books relay about subjects including race, class, gender, education, family, romance, and friendship, and it examines the trajectory of girl fiction within such contexts as material culture, geopolitics, socioeconomics, and feminism.

William James claimed that his Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking would prove triumphant and epoch-making. Today, after more than 100 years, how is pragmatism to be understood? What has been its cultural and philosophical impact? Is it a crucial resource for current problems and for life and thought in the future? John J. Stuhr and the distinguished contributors to this multidisciplinary volume address these questions, situating them in personal, philosophical, political, American, and global contexts. Engaging James in original ways, these 11 essays probe and extend the significance of pragmatism as they focus on four major, overlapping themes: pragmatism and American culture; pragmatism as a method of thinking and settling disagreements; pragmatism as theory of truth; and pragmatism as a mood, attitude, or temperament.

The name Chanel brings immediately to mind the signature scent of No. 5 and the understated but sophisticated glamour of a simple black dress and pearls. But to consider Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel (1883-1971) as simply a fashion designer fails to capture her social and cultural significance. As Linda Simon reveals in this biography, Chanel was an iconoclastic entrepreneur who rebelled against and manipulated gender expectations of her time. With her menswear-inspired designs, her loose jersey sweaters belted jauntily at the waist, and her svelte, unadorned gowns, Chanel changed women's silhouettes, and she became known as a champion of women's freedom. Chanel not only changed the shape of women's clothing, but the narrative of women's lives in the early twentieth century. From her very first hat shop until her death, Chanel sold more than fashion--she sold a myth that became as attractive for many women as her coveted outfits. Simon here teases apart that myth to explore its contradictions--Chanel was a self-proclaimed recluse who emerged as one of the most spectacular personalities of her time; she was a brilliant businesswoman who signed away ninety percent of her company; and she was a genius who claimed she was nothing more than an artisan. In this insightful book, Simon examines the world both reflected and shaped by Chanel, setting her life and work within the context of women's history in France and America from the Roaring Twenties to the profound social changes of the 1960s. Drawing upon rich archival sources, Simon's lively book is a clear-eyed look at a woman whose influence and legend transcend the world of fashion.

Comprehensive survey and analysis of the scholarship and criticism on perhaps the greatest American writer. Although some of Henry James's contemporary critics deemed him just short of a great writer, history has elevated him to indisputable preeminence in the American canon. Linda Simon chronicles and analyzes James criticism beginningwith contemporary newspaper and magazine reviews and ending with current academic criticism. The story begins in the 1870s, when critics saw James's works as mirrors of American identity and sought to establish him in the nation's evolving canon. James himself worked to secure that place with his prefaces to the standard edition of his works; Simon analyzes criticism about those prefaces. She also shows how James's reputation became contested after his death: praised by some critics for psychological insight and stylistic innovation, he was dismissed by others as socially and politically irrelevant. But beginning in the 1940s, such critics as Trilling, Rahv, Leavis, and, most influentially, Leon Edel secured James's place at the forefront of the American canon. More recently, James scholarship has focused on sexuality and gender, race and morality, and the nature of consciousness; critical trends Simon also considers. This book, the only comprehensive overview of James criticism over the past 140 years, helps readers understand the paths that that criticism has taken and how scholars and critics have built upon past work. Linda Simon is Professor Emerita of English at Skidmore College and Editor-in-Chief of William James Studies. Her books include Genuine Reality: A Life of William James, which was a New York Times Notable Book of 1998.

In the glorious, boozy party after the first World War, a new being burst defiantly onto the world stage: the so-called flapper. Young, impetuous, and flirtatious, she was an alluring, controversial figure, celebrated in movies, fiction, plays, and the pages of fashion magazines. But, as this book argues, she didn't appear out of nowhere. This spirited, beautifully illustrated history presents a fresh look at the reality of young women's experiences in America and Britain from the 1890s to the 1920s, when the "modern" girl emerged. Linda Simon shows us how this modern girl bravely created a culture, a look, and a future of her own. Lost Girls is an illuminating history of the iconic flapper as she evolved from a problem to a temptation, and finally, in the 1920s and beyond, to an aspiration.

Now available in paperback, The Greatest Shows on Earth takes us from eighteenth-century hippodromes in Britain to intimate one-ring circuses in nineteenth-century Paris, where Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso became enchanted by aerialists and clowns. We meet P. T. Barnum, James Bailey and the enterprising Ringling Brothers, who created the golden age of American circuses. We explore contemporary transformations of the circus, from the whimsical Circus Oz in Australia to New York City's Big Apple Circus. Circus people are central to the story: trick riders and tightrope walkers, sword swallowers and animal trainers, contortionists and clowns - these are the men and women who create the sensational, raucous, titillating and incomparable world of the circus. Beautifully illustrated, rich in historical detail and full of colourful anecdotes, Linda Simon's vibrant history is as enchanting as a night at the big-top itself.

"Gertrude Stein Remembered," a collection of memoirs by twenty people who knew her well, adds invaluable details to our view of Stein as a writer and woman. The recollections, some previously unpublished, cover the entire span of her career: from her time as an undergraduate at Radcliffe College to her extraordinary years as a writer in Paris from 1903 through 1946. Among the memoirists are novelists Sherwood Anderson and Thornton Wilder, bookseller Sylvia Beach, Russian painter Pavel Tchelitchew, journalists T. S. Matthews, Therese Bonney, and Eric Sevareid, and photographers Carl Van Vechten and Cecil Beaton.

The composite portrait that emerges is of a complex, sometimes contradictory, always fascinating woman. Gertrude Stein Remembered is a kaleidoscopic view of Stein that perfectly suits this protean champion of modern literature and the avant-garde.

In the glorious, boozy party after the First World War, a new being burst defiantly onto the world stage: the 'flapper'. Young, impetuous and flirtatious, she was an alluring, controversial figure, celebrated in movies, fiction, plays and the pages of fashion magazines. But, as this book argues, she didn't appear out of nowhere. This spirited history presents a fresh look at the reality of young women's experiences in America and Britain from the 1890s to the 1920s, when the 'modern' girl emerged. Lost Girls is a story of youth derided and fetishized; of ageing viscerally feared. It is a story of a culture beset by anxiety about adolescent girls. And it is a story of young women trying to shape their own identity amidst contradictory theories of adolescence and sexuality, the politics of suffrage, and the popular fiction, theatre, cinema and dance hall crazes of the time. Linda Simon shows us how the modern girl bravely created a culture, a look and a future of her own. Lost Girls is an illuminating history of the iconic flapper as she evolved from a problem to a temptation, and finally, in the 1920s and beyond, to an aspiration.

Girls' Series Fiction and American Popular Culture examines the ways in which young female heroines in American series fiction have undergone dramatic changes in the past 150 years, changes which have both reflected and modeled standards of behavior for America's tweens and teen girls. Though series books are often derided for lacking in imagination and literary potency, that the majority of American girls have been exposed to girls' series in some form, whether through books, television, or other media, suggests that this genre needs to be studied further and that the development of the heroines that girls read about have created an impact that is worthy of a fresh critical lens. Thus, this collection explores how series books have influenced and shaped popular American culture and, in doing so, girls' everyday experiences from the mid nineteenth century until now. The collection interrogates the cultural work that is performed through the series genre, contemplating the messages these books relay about subjects including race, class, gender, education, family, romance, and friendship, and it examines the trajectory of girl fiction within such contexts as material culture, geopolitics, socioeconomics, and feminism.

The modern world imagines that the invention of electricity was greeted with great enthusiasm. But in 1879 Americans reacted to the advent of electrification with suspicion and fear. Forty years after Thomas Edison invented the incandescent bulb, only 20 percent of American families had wired their homes. Meanwhile, electrotherapy emerged as a popular medical treatment for everything from depression to digestive problems. Why did Americans welcome electricity into their bodies even as they kept it from their homes? And what does their reaction to technological innovation then have to teach us about our reaction to it today?
In Dark Light, Linda Simon offers the first cultural history that delves into those questions, using newspapers, novels, and other primary sources. Tracing fifty years of technological transformation, from Morse's invention of the telegraph to Roentgen's discovery of X-rays, she has created a revealing portrait of an anxious age.

Intellectual rebel, romantic pragmatist, aristocratic pluralist, William James was both a towering figure of the nineteenth century and a harbinger of the twentieth. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including 1,500 letters between James and his wife, acclaimed biographer Linda Simon creates an intimate portrait of this multifaceted and contradictory man. Exploring James's irrepressible family, his diverse friends, and the cultural and political forces to which he so energetically responded, Simon weaves the many threads of William James's life into a genuine, and vibrant, reality.
"William James . . . has never seemed so vulnerably human as in Linda Simon's biography. . . . [S]he vivifies James in such a way that his life and thought come freshly alive for the modern reader."--David S. Reynolds, "New York Times Book Review"
"Superb. . . . "Genuine Reality" is recommended reading for all soul-searchers."--George Gurley, "Chicago Tribune"
"Ms. Simon . . . has provided an ideal pathway for James's striding. . . . [Y]ou become engaged in his struggles as if they were your own."--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "New York Times"
"[A]n excellent narrative biography at once sensitively told and lucidly written."--John Patrick Diggins, "Wall Street Journal"

William James, well known for his contributions to psychology and philosophy, occupies a secure place in American intellectual history.This fifth volume of a projected twelve-volume edition chronicles James's emergence into professional and personal maturity. During this period, James took decisive steps toward resolving his notoriously protracted and difficult search for a profession. he published his first substantial signed articles and undertook some shrewd academic maneuvering that would secure him a chair in philosophy despite his lack of formal training.