Thousands of years ago Playground of the Gods (PoG) sank and settled onto the ocean floor, intact and dormant, like the city of Atlantis. Only once per century are all the planets properly aligned to raise the sleeping island from the bottom of the sea. However the light of the blue moon must shine into a witch's circle assembled with powerful elements of fire, earth, air and water. Flash forward to the twenty first century on the island of Manhattan, Jack and Gwen are anxious to leave the hustle and bustle of the city behind and travel to a secluded vacation spot known for its rich history and folklore. After fifteen years of marriage Jack knew Gwen pretty well and that's why he thought it would be easy to plan a surprise vacation to celebrate her fortieth birthday. But soon after arriving on the secluded island Gwen began having vivid dreams of supernatural creatures with sapphire blue eyes. These beings possessed the ability to shift into the shape of a deer, could breathe underwater and all six senses were wildly enhanced in both human and animal form. The more Gwen learned about these mysterious shapeshifters, the more she began to question her own unknown past.

She Animates examines the work of twelve female animation directors in the Soviet Union and Russia, who have long been overlooked by film scholars and historians. Our approach examines these directors within history, culture, and industrial practice in animation. In addition to making a case for including these women and their work in the annals of film and animation history, this volume also makes an argument for why their work should be considered part of the tradition of women's cinema. We offer textual analysis that focuses on the changing attitudes towards both the woman question and feminism by examining the films in light of the emergence and evolution of a Soviet female subjectivity that still informs women's cinema in Russia today.

She Animates examines the work of twelve female animation directors in the Soviet Union and Russia, who have long been overlooked by film scholars and historians. Our approach examines these directors within history, culture, and industrial practice in animation. In addition to making a case for including these women and their work in the annals of film and animation history, this volume also makes an argument for why their work should be considered part of the tradition of women's cinema. We offer textual analysis that focuses on the changing attitudes towards both the woman question and feminism by examining the films in light of the emergence and evolution of a Soviet female subjectivity that still informs women's cinema in Russia today.

An exploration of the complex roles that bodies - both literally and figuratively - play in the 21 volume Aubrey-Maturin novels reveals much about the novels' meditation on the dichotomy of mind and body. The book begins with a consideration of the role of genre norms and the bodies of the novels' main characters. The focus then shifts to considerations of the way the series offers interconnections between the human body and history. The more literal considerations of the human body examine O'Brian's depictions of drug use, particularly the opium addiction that afflicts Stephen Maturin, and human sexuality in its many guises. The concluding section of the study focuses on Desolation Island, the fifth novel in the series, reading it in light of the discussions that came before but also in terms of political and psychological tropes which draw upon the relationship of mind and body. These various discussions also link to questions about the relationship of reader to author, and what sustains such a long narrative and what continues to bring a reader back again and again.