An original analysis of one of Plato s most well-known and pivotal dialogues, this study is based upon the effort to think together the most manifest themes of the Symposium (the nature of eros and the relation between poetry and philosophy) with its less obvious but no less essential themes (the character of the city and the nature and limitations of sophistic enlightenment). Author Steven Berg offers an interpretation of this dialogue wherein all the speakers at the banquet with the exception of Socrates not only offer their views on the nature of love, but represent Athens and the Athenian enlightenment. Accordingly, Socrates speech, taken in relation to the speeches that precede it, is shown to articulate the relation between Socrates and the Athenian enlightenment, to expose the limitations of that enlightenment, and therefore finally to bring to light the irresolvable tension between Socrates and his philosophy and the city of Athens even at her most enlightened.

This book provides perspectives and insights across the educational system for how we might move toward living out this wish in all schools. The chapters provide perspectives on fundamental questions that have been guiding recent research on wellbeing in schools: How do school communities flourish together? How does supporting educator wellbeing connect to teaching, learning, leading in schools? What characteristics, qualities and strategies support the wellbeing of the whole school community? This book is unique in that it answers these questions from the perspectives of teachers, students, administrators in K-12 schools, as well as from university and the wider community. Importantly, these chapters provide a repertoire of varied answers to the question that underpins this shift in research toward a positive organizational perspective: How can we leverage what works well to grow more, to instill in each community member a sense of their value and capacity to contribute? These chapters serve as examples, invitations, and inspiration for readers to notice in their own contexts ways they can grow wellbeing through a focused attention on building appreciative, strengths-based, positive approaches to teaching, learning, and leading in all schools.

When Zen master Ikkyu Sojun (1394-1481) was appointed headmaster of the great temple at Kyoto, he lasted nine days before denouncing the rampant hypocrisy he saw among the monks there. He in turn invited them to look for him in the sake parlors of the Pleasure Quarters. A Zen monk-poet-calligrapher-musician, he dared to write about the joys of erotic love, along with more traditional Zen themes. He was an eccentric and genius who dared to defy authority and despised corruption. Although he lived during times plagued by war, famine, rioting, and religious upheaval, his writing and music prevailed, influencing Japanese culture to this day.
Stephen Berg is the Editor and founder of "American Poetry Review."
Also available by Stephen Berg
"Steel Cricket"
PB $16.00, 1-55659-075-X CUSA
"New & Selected Poems"
PB $12.00, 1-55659-043-1 CUSA

Devised by the man recorded in Guinness as the world's fastest reader--80 pages per minutes--this is the only program that combines the most up-to-date learning techniques and psychological discoveries with proven speed-reading methods and ancient tools like meditation to significantly improve both reading speed and comprehension.

Twenty-eight distinguished contemporary American poets provide a multifaceted view of the creative process. Each poet has contributed a poem and chosen several poems by other poets that have influenced it. In an essay, each poet then describes how those influences have led to a sense of poetic mastery.

The Contributors: A.R. Ammons L.S. Asekoff Stephanie Brown Hayden Carruth Gillian Conoley Amy Gerstler Judith Hall Hunt Hawkins Jane Hirshfield Claudia Keelan Yusef Komunyakaa Lisa Lewis Dana Levin Laurence Lieberman Thomas Lux Jane Mead Jack Myers Donald Revell Len Roberts Michael Ryan Ira Sadoff Hugh Seidman Jennifer Snyder Gerald Stern Lucien Stryk Karen Volkman Ted Weiss Joe Wenderoth

"Anyone interested in how language calls to language, and heart to heart, will find these pages irresistible." --"The Philadelphia Inquirer"

"In this quirky, resonant, and necessary book, generously edited by Stephen Berg, a wide range of American poets at all stages of their writing lives offer their poems and choose their precursors, meditating with great humility and insight on the dual mysteries of influence and mastery, on the reading that fosters writing, on the shimmering nobility of poetry itself." --Edward Hirsch, Author of "How to Read a Poem"

In this highly-acclaimed translation of the most famous of all Greek tragedies, Stephen Berg DS a well-known poet DS and Diskin Clay DS a distinguished classicist DS combine their talents to produce a powerful version of Sophocles' timeless work. The volume also contains a critical introduction, commentary on difficult passages, stage directions, and glossaries of myythical and geographical terms.

Dogen, a Zen master of early medieval Japan, wrote poems that have fascinated readers for centuries. In this volume, acclaimed poet Stephen Berg adapts and refashions more than sixty of them.

This is a landmark work in African diaspora studies, in English for the first time. ""Nago Grandma and White Papa"" is a signal work in Brazilian anthropology and African diaspora studies originally published in Brazil in 1988. This edition makes Beatriz Gois Dantas' historioethnographic study available to English-speaking audiences for the first time. Dantas compares the formation of Yoruba (Nago) religious traditions and ethnic identities in the Brazilian states of Sergipe and Bahia, revealing how they diverged from each other due to their different social and political contexts and needs. By tracking how markers of supposedly 'pure' ethnic identity and religious practice differed radically from one place to another, Dantas shows the social construction of identity within a network of class-related demands and alliances. She demonstrates how the shape and meaning of 'purity' have been affected by prolonged and complex social and cultural mixing, compromise, and struggle over time. Ethnic identity, as well as social identity in general, is formed in the crucible of political relations between social groups that purposefully mobilize and manipulate cultural markers to define their respective boundaries - a process, Dantas argues, that must be applied to understanding the experience of African-descended people in Brazil.

A breathtaking, incomparable overview of American poetry at the turn of the millennium, from experimental language poetry to traditional formal verse, with all the vital, monumental stops between, The Body Electric captures the spirit of contemporary American poetry. Among the 180 poets included in this collection are Ai, John Ashbery, John Berryman, Charles Bukowski, Lucille Clifton, Carolyn Forche, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Hass, Seamus Heaney, Kenneth Koch, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Derek Walcott, plus a generous array of exciting new poets from recent years. The breadth and innovation of American poetry as well as the shifting styles and tastes of over a quarter of a century are represented in this volume. No other anthology gives such a complete and wide-ranging representation of American poetry today.

This impressive collection of previously unpublished essays examines the relationship between competing conceptions of 'nature' and 'woman.' By looking historically and comprehensively at the problems and questions associated with human thinking about nature and woman, the contributors strive to gain the proper vantage point from which to assess modern virtues and vices. Also taking note of important religious and literary contributions to thought on nature and woman, these essays present a broad range of claims from classical Greece to the present intended to stimulate modern thinking. Nature, Woman, and the Art of Politics will prove indispensable to scholars of philosophy, political science and womenOs studies.