The first collection of essays treating exclusively the figure of the prostitute in modern German literature. Unlike her counterpart in French literature, and despite her importance in drama, poetry, and prose, the figure of the prostitute in modern German literature has been a largely neglected phenomenon. Commodities of Desire addresses this omission: it is the first collection of essays to exclusively investigate this colorful and multi-faceted figure in its many forms and mutations. The book pursues this goal by analyzing a number of key texts -- from the Wilhelmine Empire to the Weimar Republic -- and by providing the social, legal, and cultural contexts necessary for their interpretation. While the 'sex-worker' has been a presence in literature for centuries, the prostitute was never more popular in German literature than between the late 1880s and the early 1930s. It was then -- during a time when prostitution had become one of the most pressing social problems of urban Germany -- that the streetwalker became a symbol of the destructive and fertile forces of the metropolis, an allegorization of the political and social crisis, and a vehicle for biting social criticism. This book focuses on prostitutes as literary figures and prostitution as a topic in works by well-known and lesser-known writers. It thus clarifies the iconography of the prostitute and aids the reader in understanding her significance in the development of modern German literature. Christiane Schoenfeld teaches German at the University of Galway, Ireland.

The last two decades have been transformational, often discordant ones for German feminism, as a new cohort of activists has come of age and challenged many of the movement's strategic and philosophical orthodoxies. Mad Madchen offers an incisive analysis of these trans-generational debates, identifying the mother-daughter themes and other tropes that have defined their representation in German literature, film, and media. Author Margaret McCarthy investigates female subjectivity as it processes political discourse to define itself through both differences and affinities among women. Ultimately, such a model suggests new ways of re-imagining feminist solidarity across generational, ethnic, and racial lines.

The last two decades have been transformational, often discordant ones for German feminism, as a new cohort of activists has come of age and challenged many of the movement's strategic and philosophical orthodoxies. Mad Madchen offers an incisive analysis of these trans-generational debates, identifying the mother-daughter themes and other tropes that have defined their representation in German literature, film, and media. Author Margaret McCarthy investigates female subjectivity as it processes political discourse to define itself through both differences and affinities among women. Ultimately, such a model suggests new ways of re-imagining feminist solidarity across generational, ethnic, and racial lines.

In this twenty-first century our external environment contains innumerable hazards to our health and wellbeing. These impose new and ever greater challenges to our immune systems. As our immune systems become over-loaded and the number and variety of medical problems from which we suffer increases. Often conventional medicine is ill-equipped to deal with these problems. In consequence dealing with chronic illness is becoming a growing burden for society and healthcare providers. In Lymphatic Therapy for Toxic Decongestion Margaret McCarthy describes the relationship between degenerative disease and physiological malfunction within the body. She then goes on to demonstrate how an integrated therapy, which draws on a variety of approaches, may be used to assess the body as a whole and to promote restoration of health simply, effectively and economically, without the use of expensive drugs or equipment. Practical approach uses case histories to explain how and when to use specific techniques. Well illustrated with high-quality line drawings to clarify the text. Straightforward style is easy to read and understand. Written by an experienced practitioner for the most accurate, authoritative perspective on lymphatic therapy.

The brains of males and females, men and women, are different-that is a fact. What is debated is how different and how important those differences are. Sex differences in the brain are determined by genetics, hormones, and experience, which in humans includes culture, society, and parental and peer expectations. The importance of nonbiological variables to sex differences in humans is paramount, making it difficult if not impossible to parse out those contributions that are truly biological. The study of animals provides us the opportunity to understand the magnitude and scope of biologically based sex differences in the brain and understanding the cellular mechanisms provides us insight into novel sources of brain plasticity. Many sex differences are established during a developmental sensitive window by differences in the hormonal milieu of males versus females. The neonatal testis produces large amounts of testosterone, which gains access to the brain and is further metabolized into active androgens and estrogens, which modify brain development. Major parameters that are influenced by hormones include neurogenesis, cell death, neurochemical phenotype, axonal and dendritic growth, and synaptogenesis. Variance in these parameters results in sex differences in the size of particular brain regions, the projections between brain regions, and the number and type of synapses within particular brain regions. The cellular mechanisms are both region and endpoint specific and invoke many surprising systems such as prostaglandins, endocannabinoids, and cell death proteins. By understanding when, why, and how sex differences in the brain are established, we may also learn the source of strong gender biases in the relative risk and severity of numerous neurological diseases and disorders of mental health, including but not limited to autism, dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, and major depressive disorder. Table of Contents: Introduction / Sex Determination versus Sex Differentiation / Masculinization, Feminization, and Defeminization / Steroid Hormones Are Potent Modulators of Brain Development / Sex Differences in the Brain Are Established During a Developmental Sensitive Window / Sex Differences in Physiology and Behavior Are Coordinated / Knockouts of the Rule: Mice with Null Mutations of Steroid Receptors, Steroidogenic Enzymes, and Binding Proteins / Steroids Influence Multiple Endpoints to Organize the Brain / Cellular Mechanisms of Steroid-Mediated Organization of the Brain / Winged Messengers: Lessons from Birds and Flies / Sexual Differentiation of the Primate Brain / Sexual Differentiation of the Human Brain / Overcoming the Hegemony of Hormones: Genes Matter Too / The Value of Understanding the Effect of Sex on the Developing Brain / References

Light Motives undertakes a long-overdue critical reassessment of German popular cinema, challenging the traditional view of German film history and offering new ways to think about popular cinema in general. Critics rarely associate popular film with German cinema despite the international success of such films as Das Boot (1981), The Never-Ending Story (1984), Run Lola Run (1998), and recent German comedies, all representing a rich body of work outside the parameters of high culture. This very success compels the editors of Light Motives to take an unprecedented look at German popular film across the historical spectrum and to challenge the tendency among critics to divvy up German film, like Germans themselves, into the Good and the Bad. Together the essays reexamine popular film production along with larger cultural, historical, and political meanings suggested by the term "popular." Most critical accounts have focused on the golden era of Weimar film and the New German Cinema of the 1960s and '70s leaving much of popular film by the wayside. This volume attributes the division to such sources as Frankfurt School dictates, Goethe Haus film offerings, and state-funded film production during the 1970s, which promoted high-culture art films to broadcast the success of West German democratization. The essays challenge the traditional shape of German film history, while offering in-depth analyses of films that have until now been beyond the pale of critical attention. What emerges is a "Never-Ending Story" of oft-repeated obsessions, overlapping generic forms, omnipresent or subtle nods to Hollywood, and myriad political concerns irreducible to a unified message or aesthetic form--allbearing witness to the vibrancy of German culture.

Includes hundreds of ready-to-use samples for intimate, personal letters and powerful business correspondence. Including letter templates and advice on thankyou notes, apologies, invitations, special occasions, cancellations, requests, and expressing opposition as well as practical advice on format, style, tone, forms of address, and much, much more!