Bibi's Rainbow is a delightfully narrated novel centered around a large Iranian immigrant family and their old, wise and faithful nanny, Bibi, a talented cook armed with inexhaustible secret recipes, who is resolutely determined to ease the transition of four generations of her "family" into American society. Using her wits and miraculous recipes as weapons, she ultimately manages to avert a "Clash of Civilizations" in their Beverly Hills neighborhood, winning over the hearts and souls of her extended family and their neighbors during the tumultuous period between 1979-2008. It is a tale of the long, sometimes tragic, often-hilarious, journey to assimilation.
"Film: A Critical Introduction "provides a comprehensive framework for studying films, with an emphasis on writing as a means of exploring film's aesthetic and cultural significance. This text's consistent and comprehensive focus on writing allows students to master film vocabulary and concepts while learning to formulate rich interpretations. Part I introduces readers to the importance of film analysis, offering helpful strategies for discerning the way films produce meaning. Part II examines the fundamental elements of film, including narrative form, mise en scene, cinematography, editing, and sound, and shows how these concepts can be used to interpret films. Part III moves beyond textual analysis to explore film as a cultural institution and introduce students to essential areas of film studies research.
Sex and Film is a frank, comprehensive analysis of the cinema's love affair with the erotic. Forshaw's lively study moves from the sexual abandon of the 1930s to filmmakers' circumvention of censorship, the demolition of taboos by arthouse directors and pornographic films, and an examination of how explicit imagery invaded modern mainstream cinema.
Educators and technology experts share their thoughts on classroom technology and how equity, the digital divide, and other issues need to be addressed to ensure students and teachers are realizing the full potential of different technologies.
The Greatest Meeting This is the saga of the impassioned journeys of two men, their true premonitions of a mystical meeting, and their self-discoveries. Full of compelling adventure, love and betrayal, joy and sadness, their stories have never before been told. This extraordinary true historical novel takes place in Central Asia, and the Middle East; toady's Turkey in the thirteenth century during the tumultuous time of Changiz Khan's conquest. It is an unforgettable detailed narrative account of the lives of an enigmatic giant and legendary mystic figure, Shams-e Tabrizi, and the most renowned religious scholar, Molana Jalaleddin Mohammad-e Rumi. It chronicles the relentless search of a critical and progressive thinker, Shams, to find a true friend, a soul mate, who could give a powerful echo to his voice, to his revolutionary ideas of interpreting religion relevant to our daily earthly existence, of recognizing each human being as the "Supreme Majesty." This remarkable literary work presents the story of Rumi's dream for the ultimate divine illumination, his yearning for somea¬thing greater than himself, his intellectual rebirth, and the volcanic artistic eruption that resulted in the incomparable monumental works of poetry: The Collection of Shams-e Tabrizi and Massnavi; comprised of over seventy thousand verses. For over seven centuries, over seventy thousand of Rumi's ingenious and magnificent poems have profoundly taught us all a greater level of self-awareness, and now this work acquaints us with the life of this man, and the enigmatic person who inspired him. An impressive artistic undertaking, lyrical, intelligent, beautifully crafted, paced, this work is enriched by unforgettable characters. From the early chapters to the heartwarming, triumphant, unpredictable and astonishing conclusion, Majid Amini, the author of Escape From Paradise, proves himself a masterful writer. For those who appreciate Rumi's poems and for those unfamiliar with his work, this book is a must read.
A sheltered Pakistani girl is sent to America by her parents, with unexpected results: “Entertaining, often hilarious . . . Not just another immigrant’s tale.” —Publishers Weekly Feroza Ginwalla, a pampered, protected sixteen-year-old Pakistani girl, is sent to America by her parents, who are alarmed by the fundamentalism overtaking Pakistan—and influencing their daughter. Hoping that a few months with her uncle, an MIT grad student, will soften the girl’s rigid thinking, they get more than they bargained for: Feroza, enthralled by American culture and her new freedom, insists on staying. A bargain is struck, allowing Feroza to attend college with the understanding that she will return home and marry well. As a student in a small western town, Feroza finds her perceptions of America, her homeland, and herself beginning to alter. When she falls in love with a Jewish American, her family is aghast. Feroza realizes just how far she has come—and wonders how much further she can go—in a delightful, remarkably funny coming-of-age novel that offers an acute portrayal of America as seen through the eyes of a perceptive young immigrant. “Humorous and affecting.” —Library Journal “Exceptional.” —Los Angeles Times “Her characters [are] painted so vividly you can almost hear them bickering.” —The New York Times
At the time of its publication, a woman's sexual desire was thought to be muted, even nonexistent. Sexual pursuits of any kind were thought to be a man's game, left for a woman to indulge or deny. The novel and its author so obviously challenges the standing ideas of what desire looks like and who it can come from. The main protagonist disguises herself as four different women in her efforts to understand how a man may interact with each individual persona. She is intrigued by the men at the theater and the attention they pay to the prostitutes there, decides to pretend being a prostitute herself. Disguised, she especially enjoys talking with Beauplaisir, whom she has encountered before, though previously constrained by her social status's formalities. He, not recognizing her, and believing her favors to be for sale, asks to meet her. She demurs and puts him off until the next evening.... The story explores a variety of themes, almost none of which come without literary dispute and controversy. The protagonist's game of disguise touches on everything from gender roles, to identity, to sexual desire.
Based upon the nineteenth century standard work on the Yoruba language, and first ever English-Yoruba, Yoruba-English dictionary, this new edition has been revised and enlarged considerably. The dictionary contains about 50,000 references and translations; Yoruba pronunciation guidance; examples of how words are used; contemporary meanings and interpretations; and reference to grammatical usage and parts of speech. There is also an extensive list of commonly occurring birds, plants and trees, translated from Yoruba into English alongside their botanical equivalents.
Restricted to the shorthand of “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll,” the counterculture would seem to be a brief, vibrant stretch of the 1960s. But the American counterculture, as this book clearly demonstrates, was far more than a historical blip and its impact continues to resonate. In this comprehensive history, Damon R. Bach traces the counterculture from its antecedents in the 1950s through its emergence and massive expansion in the 1960s to its demise in the 1970s and persistent echoes in the decades since. The counterculture, as Bach tells it, evolved in discrete stages and his book describes its development from coast to heartland to coast as it evolved into a national phenomenon, involving a diverse array of participants and undergoing fundamental changes between 1965 and 1974. Hippiedom appears here in relationship to the era’s movements—civil rights, women’s and gay liberation, Red and Black Power, the New Left, and environmentalism. In its connection to other forces of the time, Bach contends that the counterculture’s central objective was to create a new, superior society based on alternative values and institutions. Drawing for the first time on documents produced by self-described “freaks” from 1964 through 1973—underground newspapers, memoirs, personal correspondence, flyers, and pamphlets—his book creates an unusually nuanced, colorful, and complete picture of a time often portrayed in clichéd or nostalgic terms. This is the counterculture of love-ins and flower children, of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, but also of antiwar demonstrations, communes, co-ops, head shops, cultural feminism, Earth Day, and antinuclear activism. What Damon R. Bach conjures is the counterculture in all of its permutations and ramifications as he illuminates its complexity, continually evolving values, and constantly changing components and adherents, which defined and redefined it throughout its near decade-long existence. In the long run, Bach convincingly argues that the counterculture spearheaded cultural transformation, leaving a changed America in its wake.
