GaWaNi Pony Boy's unique approach to horses is captured in these five books from BowTie Press. GaWaNi Pony Boy is the founder and president of lyuptala University (lyuptala means "one-with" in Lakota), and online college that allows horse lovers to expand their knowledge of these magnificent animals. He regularly writes for equine publications throughout the United States and Europe.
Fictions of Adolescent Carnality considers one of the most controversial topics related to adolescents: their experience of desire. In fiction for adolescents, carnal desire is variously presented as a source of angst, an overwhelming experience over which one has no control, bestial, disgusting and, just occasionally, a source of pleasure. The on-set of desire, within the Anglophone tradition, has been closely associated with the loss of innocence and the end of childhood. Drawing on a corpus of 200 narratives of adolescent desire, Kokkola examines the connections between sociological accounts of teenagers’ sexual behaviour, adult fears for and about their off-spring and fictional representations of adolescents exploring their sexuality. Taking up topics such as adolescent pregnancy and parenthood, queer sexualities, animal-human connections and sexual abuse, Kokkola provides wide-ranging insights into how Anglophone literature responds to adolescents’ carnal desires, and contributes to on-going debates on the construction of adolescence and the ideology of innocence.
In a world increasingly dominated by human beings, the survival of other species becomes more and more questionable. In this brilliant book, Paul Shepard offers a provocative alternative to an "us or them" mentality, proposing that other species are integral to humanity's evolution and exist at the core of our imagination. This trait, he argues, compels us to think of animals in order to be human. Without other living species by which to measure ourselves, Shepard warns, we would be less mature, care less for and be more careless of all life, including our own kind.
A funny, fact-driven, and illustrated field guide to how to live a feminist life in today's world, from the hosts of the hit Unladylike podcast. Get ready to get unladylike with this field guide to the what's, why's, and how's of intersectional feminism and practical hell-raising. Through essential, inclusive, and illustrated explorations of what patriarchy looks like in the real world, authors and podcast hosts Cristen Conger and Caroline Ervin blend wild histories, astounding stats, social justice principles, and self-help advice to connect where the personal meets political in our bodies, brains, booty calls, bank accounts, and other confounding facets of modern woman-ing and nonbinary-ing. By laying out the uneven terrain of double-standards, head games, and handouts patriarchy has manspread across society for ages, Unladylike is here to unpack our gender baggage and map out the space that's ours to claim.
After more than 20 years in print, an updated edition of the evocative and transformational classic about the powerful bond between women and horses When Linda Kohanov wrote The Tao of Equus over twenty years ago, she posed questions that few were asking: Do horses make choices? How do they seem to know what people are thinking and feeling? Are horses spiritual beings? What do they have to teach people? Why are women so attracted to horses? The answers, detailed in this extraordinary chronicle that synthesizes science, behavioral research, and personal insight, transformed how we think about one of humanity’s oldest companions and established Kohanov at the vanguard of the emerging field of animal-assisted learning/therapy. In this updated edition, Kohanov weaves new developments in neurological science and scholarship into her original exploration of spiritual awakening, cultural history, and mythology. The Tao of Equus delves into the mental and spiritual processes behind the magical connections that people often experience with horses. It remains a powerful exploration of the feminine wisdom horses model, subtleties that women riders have intuited for centuries.
From a renowned horsewoman and gifted storyteller comes this groundbreaking new book that explores a powerful relationship like no other: the magical kinship between women and horses. Drawing from myth and literature, the author’s own experiences, and interviews with countless women, we learn, through women’s deeply personal stories, how horses enrich our lives and connect us to nature–making us readers of rhythm and invisible signs, helping us harness our youthful sexuality, sharing the “horsepower” we need to reach our dreams. And here we see how, for thousands of years, the deep kinship between women and horses has connected us to our most intimate feelings of delight, helped us learn to solve problems, and set our creativity free. From the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer to the fiction of Jane Austen to folktales from around the world, She Flies Without Wings uses great literature and myth to encompass a wide spectrum of beliefs and perspectives–and creates a true celebration of speed, air, and the spectacular animal that connects us with both. Filled with the moving lessons–-about sensuality, commitment, power, nurturance, and spirituality–women riders have known for centuries, written with a loving hand by an expert equestrian, She Flies Without Wings is an eloquent paean to a pairing that enlivened history, inspired literature, and continues to enchant us all.
“A wild, rollicking ride into the heart of horse country—these essays get at what it means to love horses, in all that love's complexity.” —Anton DiSclafani, author of The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls A compelling and provocative essay collection that smashes stereotypes and redefines the meaning of the term “horse girl,” broadening it for women of all cultural backgrounds. As a child, horses consumed Halimah Marcus’ imagination. When she wasn’t around horses she was pretending to be one, cantering on two legs, hands poised to hold invisible reins. To her classmates, girls like Halimah were known as “horse girls,” weird and overzealous, absent from the social worlds of their peers. Decades later, when memes about “horse girl energy,” began appearing across social media—Halimah reluctantly recognized herself. The jokes imagine girls as blinkered as carriage ponies, oblivious to the mockery behind their backs. The stereotypical horse girl is also white, thin, rich, and straight, a daughter of privilege. Yet so many riders don’t fit this narrow, damaging ideal, and relate to horses in profound ways that include ambivalence and regret, as well as unbridled passion and devotion. Featuring some of the most striking voices in contemporary literature—including Carmen Maria Machado, Pulitzer-prize winner Jane Smiley, T Kira Madden, Maggie Shipstead, and Courtney Maum—Horse Girls reframes the iconic bond between girls and horses with the complexity and nuance it deserves. And it showcases powerful emerging voices like Braudie Blais-Billie, on the connection between her Seminole and Quebecois heritage; Sarah Enelow-Snyder, on growing up as a Black barrel racer in central Texas; and Nur Nasreen Ibrahim, on the colonialist influence on horse culture in Pakistan. By turns thought-provoking and personal, Horse Girls reclaims its titular stereotype to ask bold questions about autonomy and desire, privilege and ambition, identity and freedom, and the competing forces of domestication and wildness.
This volume brings together studies from various disciplines of the social sciences and humanities ( anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, history and literary theory) that shed light on the equestrian world as a historically gendered and highly dynamic field of contemporary sport and culture. From high level international dressage and jumping, polo and the turf, to the rodeo world of the Americas and popular forms of equestrian sport and culture, we are introduced to a range of issues that are played out at local and global, national and international levels. Students and scholars of gender, culture and sport will find much of interest in this original look at contemporary issues such as “engendered” (women’s and men’s) identities/subjectivities as equestrians, representations of girls, horses and the world of adventure in juvenile fiction; the current “feminization” of particular equestrian activities (and where boys and men stand in relation to this); how broad forms of social inequality and stratification play themselves out within gendered equestrian contexts; men and women and their relation to horses within the framework of current discussions on the relation of animals to humans (which may include not only love and care, but also exploitation and violence), among others. Singular contributions show how equestrian activities contribute to historical and current constructions of embodied “femininities” and “masculinities”, reflecting a world that has been moving “beyond the binaries” while continuing to be enmeshed in their persistent and contradictory legacy.
