Touch centers on a girl, the youngest of nine sisters in a Palestinian family. In the singular world of this novella, this young woman’s everyday experiences resonate until they have become as weighty as any national tragedy. The smallest sensations compel, the events of history only lurk at the edges--the question of Palestine, the massacre at Sabra and Shatila. In a language that feels at once natural and alienated, Shibli breaks with the traditions of modern Arabic fiction, creating a work that has been and will continue to be hailed across literatures. Here every ordinary word, ordinary action is a small stone dropped into water: of inevitable consequence. We find ourselves mesmerized one quiet ripple at a time.
"From the notorious Lizzie Borden to the innumerable, haunted rooms of Sarah Winchester's mysterious mansion this offbeat, insightful, first-ever book of its kind from the brilliant guides behind 'Boroughs of the Dead,' featured on NPR.org, The New York Times, and Jezebel, explores the history behind America's female ghosts, the stereotypes, myths, and paranormal tales that swirl around them, what their stories reveal about us--and why they haunt us"--
A present contains a monstrous secret. An uninvited guest haunts a Christmas party. A shadow slips across the floor by firelight. A festive entertainment ends in darkness and screams. Who knows what haunts the night at the dark point of the year? This collection of seasonal chillers looks beneath Christmas cheer to a world of ghosts and horrors, mixing terrifying modern fiction with classic stories by masters of the macabre. From Neil Gaiman and M. R. James to Muriel Spark and E. Nesbit, there are stories here to make the hardiest soul quail - so find a comfy chair, lock the door, ignore the cold breath on your neck and get ready to welcome in the real spirits of Christmas.
This book explores the nascent and complex terrain of democratization and peaceful political transitions in Africa. It analyzes major election-related conflicts across the continent, explains their root causes and major consequences, and offers measures that may be undertaken to prevent, manage, and resolve election-induced conflicts. It charts a path for the future political and democratic stability in Africa.
Displacement does not only have an effect on groups' and individuals' ways of relating to their identity and their past but the knowledge and experience of it also has an impact on its representation. Looking at films that represent the experience of displacement in relation to Turkey's minorities, Aesthetics of Displacement argues that there is a particular aesthetic continuity among the otherwise unrelated films. Ozlem Koksal focuses on films that bring taboo issues concerning the repression of minorities into visibility, arguing that the changing political and social conditions determine not only the types of stories told but also the ways in which these stories are told. Focusing on aesthetic and narrative continuities, the films discussed include Ararat, Waiting for the Clouds and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia among others. Each film is examined in light of major historical event(s) and their context (political and social) as well as the impact these events had on the construction of both minority and Turkish identity.
From that cheerful puff of smoke known as Casper to the hunkiest potter living or dead, Sam Wheat, there is probably no more iconic entity in supernatural history than the ghost. And these are just recent examples. From the earliest writings such as the Epic of Gilgamesh to today’s ghost-hunting reality TV shows, ghosts have chilled the air of nearly every era and every culture in human history. In this book, Lisa Morton uses her scholarly prowess—more powerful than any proton pack—to wrangle together history’s most enduring ghosts into an entertaining and comprehensive look at what otherwise seems to always evade our eyes. Tracing the ghost’s constantly shifting contours, Morton asks the most direct question—What exactly is a ghost?—and examines related entities such as poltergeists, wraiths, and revenants. She asks how a ghost is related to a soul, and she outlines all the different kinds of ghosts there are. To do so, she visits the spirits of the classical world, including the five-part Egyptian soul and the first haunted-house, conceived in the Roman playwright Plautus’s comedy, Mostellaria. She confronts us with the frightening phantoms of the Middle Ages—who could incinerate priests and devour children—and reminds us of the nineteenth-century rise of Spiritualism, a religion essentially devoted to ghosts. She visits with the Indian bhuta and goes to the Hungry Ghost Festival in China, and of course she spends time in Mexico, where ghosts have a particularly strong grip on belief and culture. Along the way she gathers the ectoplasmic residues seeping from books and film reels, from the Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto to the 2007 blockbuster Paranormal Activity, from the stories of Ann Radcliffe to those of Stephen King. Wide-ranging, informative, and slicked with over fifty unearthly images, Ghosts is an entertaining read of a cultural phenomenon that will delight anyone, whether they believe in ghosts or not.
"Show me your cemeteries, and I will tell you what kind of people you have." - Benjamin Franklin Discover the historic haunts and frightful specters that make the city of brotherly love a haven for unexplained phenomena. Author Josh Hitchens details the spooky stories of Philadelphia's past and present.
Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world. The spirits who are stopped in time retain their youth, mystery, and beauty. They may also still hold their pain, eternally. #2 The death of a beautiful woman is the most poetical topic in the world. The spirits who are stopped in time retain their youth, mystery, and beauty. They may also still hold their pain, eternally. #3 Women in academia are typically cut off from the domestic sphere, and thus from the conservative impulses that underlie this sort of folktale. #4 Women in academia are typically cut off from the domestic sphere, and thus from the conservative impulses that underlie this sort of folktale.
Haunted by History, Volume I, by Craig Owens uncovers little known facts about eight prominent historic hotels in Southern California and the origins behind many of their ghost stories. Not only does his well-documented research separate facts from legends, but Owens also keeps the subject matter interesting by interweaving historic photos with his own elaborately staged Old Hollywood-style photos shot in the most haunted rooms, hallways, and lobbies. This unique book blends solid research, fascinating insights, and haunting photography that will appeal to believers and non-believers alike. Hotels and inns featured in Vol. 1 are the Hotel del Coronado, the Victorian Rose Bed & Breakfast, the Julian Gold Rush Hotel, the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa, the Alexandria Hotel, the Wyndham Garden Pierpont Inn, the Banning House Lodge, and the Glen Tavern Inn.
