Years have gone by, but I’ve never forgotten David Westport. His skill on the playing field—his star quality—was legendary. However, his heart belonged to a girl named Sandra. It was too bad they dropped out before graduation to become parents, yet they appeared to have built a good life. But I wonder, does David regret the choices he made? Judging from the shadows in Sandra’s eyes, it would seem so. Too bad David is blind to all that he has. I had such hopes for them. Perhaps a blast from the past could open David’s eyes to the wonderful things in his life…and all that a man can do with the right woman by his side!
He was a loner, a drifter...and the only man who could save a little girl's life. But to do that J. D. Cade would have to reveal a secret he'd kept for over twenty-five years--the secret that he was still alive. J.D. certainly hadn't planned on staying in Whitehorn. But soon he was renewing old friendships--and forging a tempting new one. Vibrant and tender, Dr. Carey Hall didn't know who J.D. was, but she seemed ready to care for him. What would happen when she discovered J.D. was really Whitehorn's nearly forgotten golden boy--and she'd fallen prey to another Kincaid?
Jasper and Mira must escape the rift and deliver the Youli’s message to Earth Force before it’s too late in this action-packed fourth novel in what Shannon Messenger calls the “richly detailed, highly imaginative” Bounders series! After escaping the Youli’s attack on Alkalinia, Jasper and Mira find themselves trapped with the lost aeronauts in the rift, a rip in space where time moves differently. For every minute they spend in the rift, they are losing days back home. Just when Jasper fears they’ll be stuck in limbo forever, the most unlikely ally shows up: the Youli. The Youli promise to rescue everyone in the rift, but their help comes at a price. First, Jasper must tell Earth Force that the Youli want peace. And second, Mira can’t return with Jasper. She has to leave with the Youli. Back home, almost a year has passed. The Youli war is public, Bounders are in space full-time, and Jasper’s pod is divided. Cole and Lucy have been promoted. Marco and Addy are missing. Jasper delivers the Youli’s message, but the admiral isn’t interested in peace talks. Instead, she sends Jasper and the aeronauts on a publicity tour of Earth to build support for the war. At first, Jasper revels in the spotlight. But it soon becomes clear that if Jasper doesn’t convince Earth Force to stop fighting—and soon—there won’t be an Earth left to fight for, and he may never see Mira again.
A recurring and significant theme in ancient Greek literature is that of returns and returning, chiefly - but by no means only - of mythical Greek heroes from Troy. One main, and certainly the most 'marked', ancient Greek word for 'return' is nostos (plural nostoi), from which is derived the English 'nostalgia'. Nostos-related traditions were important ingredients of colonial foundation myths and the theme runs through both ancient Greek prose and poetry from Homer's Odyssey to Lykophron's Alexandra, also leaving traces in the historical record through the archaeological and epigraphical commemoration of nostoi, which played a central part in defining Greek ethnicity and crystallizing personal and communal identities. This volume offers a truly interdisciplinary exploration of the concept of nostos in ancient Greek culture, which draws on its contributors' expertise in ancient Greek (and Roman) history, literature, archaeology, and religion. The chapters examine both literary and material evidence in order to achieve a better understanding of the nature of Greek settlement in the Mediterranean zone, and of sometimes equivocal Greek and Roman perceptions of home, displacement, and returning. The special problems and vocabulary of exile are explored in the long Introduction, which offers an incisive yet accessible overview of the volume's key themes and sets its range of contributions clearly in context: while two chapters are concerned in different ways with emotions and personal identity, making use of the theoretical tool of place-attachment, another demonstrates that failed nostoi can be more interesting than successful examples. Evidential absence can be as important and illuminating as presence, and mythical women, underrepresented in this regard, feature extensively in several chapters, which open up a range of new perspectives on nostos.
In War & Homecoming: Veteran Identity and the Post-9/11 Generation, Travis L. Martin explores how a new generation of veterans is redefining what it means to come home. More than 2.7 million veterans served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their homecomings didn't include parades or national celebrations. Instead, when the last US troops left Afghanistan, American veterans raised millions of dollars for the evacuation of Afghan refugees, especially those who'd served alongside them. This brand of selflessness is one reason civilians regard veterans with reverence and pride. The phrase "thank you for your service" is ubiquitous. Yet, one in ten post-9/11 veterans struggles with substance abuse. Fifteen to twenty veterans die by suicide every day. Veterans aged eighteen to thirty-four die at the highest rates, leading advocates to focus on concepts like moral injury and collective belonging when addressing psychic wounds. Martin argues that many veterans struggle due to decades of stereotyping and a lack of healthy models of veteran identity. In the American unconscious, veterans are treated as either the superficially praised "hero" or the victimized "wounded warrior," forever defined by past accomplishments. They are often appropriated as symbols in competing narratives of national identity. War & Homecoming critically examines representations of veterans in patriotic rhetoric, popular media, literature, and the lives of those who served. From this analysis, a new veteran identity emerges—veterans as storytellers who reject stereotypes, claim their symbolic authority, and define themselves through literature, art, and service. Their dynamic approach to life after military service allows for continued growth, agency, individuality, and inspiring examples of resilience for others.
The ancient cento-genre was prone to be used on all kinds of subjects. New texts were created out of the classical epics. Empress Eudocia followed this practice and composed the story of Jesus in lines lifted almost verbatim from Homer’s epics. Jesus and his relevance to her audience is thus presented within the confines of style and vocabulary offered by the Iliad and Odyssey. The lines picked to convey her theology are often clustered around key Homeric motifs or type scenes, such as warfare, homecoming, feast, reconciliation, hospitality. Jesus waging war against all evil and Hades in particular runs throughout this Homeric and simultaneously biblical epic. The story starts in the Old Testament which is conceived as a divine counsel on Mt. Olympus where a plan to save sinful humanity is presented. The narrative then follows the biographic lines of the canonical gospels, with John’s Gospel holding pride of place in the way she renders and interprets the Jesus-story. The story told suspends both the geography and time of Jesus. Eudocia preaches the story she tells. She emerges in this poem as one of the most, if not the most prolific female theologian and preacher in the first Christian centuries.
Between ancient Greece and modern psyche lies a divide of not only three thousand years, but two cultures that are worlds apart in art, technology, economics and the accelerating flood of historical events. This unique collection of essays from an international selection of contributors offers compelling evidence for the natural connection and relevance of ancient myth to contemporary psyche, and emerges from the second 'Ancient Greece, Modern Psyche' conference held in Santorini, Greece, in 2012. This volume is a powerful homecoming for those seeking a living connection between the psyche of the ancients and our modern psyche. This book looks at eternal themes such as love, beauty, death, suicide, dreams, ancient Greek myths, the Homeric heroes and the stories of Demeter, Persephone, Apollo and Hermes as they connect with themes of the modern psyche. The contributors propose that that the link between them lies in the underlying archetypal patterns of human behaviour, emotion, image, thought, and memory. Ancient Greece, Modern Psyche: Archetypes Evolving makes clear that an essential part of deciphering our dilemmas resides in a familiarity with Western civilization's oldest stories about our origins, our suffering, and the meaning or meaninglessness in life. It will be of great interest to Jungian psychotherapists, academics and students as well as scholars of classics and mythology.
The Global Silicon Valley Home takes a close look at how residents (Taiwanese American high-tech engineer families) of the jet-set, wired-to-the-Net, trans-Pacific commuter culture have invented new ways of thinking about how their homes and landscapes reflect their personal identities—ways that enable them to make sense of "living life within two places at once."
This comprehensive Handbook presents the major perspectives within philosophy and literary studies on the relations, overlaps and tensions between philosophy and literature. Drawing on recent work in philosophy and literature, literary theory, philosophical aesthetics, literature as philosophy and philosophy as literature, its twenty-nine chapters plus substantial Introduction and Afterword examine the ways in which philosophy and literature depend on each other and interact, while also contrasting with each other in that they necessarily exclude or incorporate each other. This book establishes an enduring framework for structuring the broad themes defining the relations between philosophy and literature and organising the main topics in the field. Key Features • Structured in five parts addressing philosophy as literature, philosophy of literature, philosophical aesthetics, literary criticism and theory, and main areas of work within philosophy and literature • An Introduction setting out the main concerns of the field through discussion of the major themes along with the individual topics • An Afterword looking at the interactions between philosophy and literature through itself enacting philosophical and literary writing while examining the question of how they can be brought together The Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Literature is an essential resource for scholars, researchers and advanced students in philosophy of literature, philosophy as literature, literary theory, literature as philosophy, and the philosophical aesthetics of literature. It is an ideal volume for researchers, advanced students and scholars in philosophy, literary studies, philosophy and literature, cultural studies, classical studies and other related fields.
This generous abridgment of Stanley Lombardo's translation of the Odyssey offers more than half of the epic, including all of its best-known episodes and finest poetry, while providing concise summaries for omitted books and passages. Sheila Murnaghan's Introduction, a shortened version of her essay for the unabridged edition, is ideal for readers new to this remarkable tale of the homecoming of Odysseus.
