The Nobel Prize-winning dramatist Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) is undoubtedly one of the most innovative playwrights of the twentieth century and also one of the most complex. While his influence spread throughout modernist and postmodernist works, many first-time audiences and readers are confronted with the difficulty associated with such a radical aesthetic experience. In Living Masks, Umberto Mariani presents a clear and comprehensive introduction of Pirandello's major plays for general readers, students, and scholars new to Pirandello. Functioning as a guide to understanding the fundamental themes of Pirandello's plays, the author also examines the critical, aesthetic, and technical problems associated with these plays. He provides extensive reflection on some of the failings of early and contemporary criticism on Pirandello's works and offers many corrections of interpretative direction that will be significant and helpful to directors and performers. In particular, Mariani presents a deeper understanding and greater appreciation of Pirandello's works as a challenge to the tendency to adapt, and modify them, which drastically deprive the works of their original power and beauty. A concise and accessible introduction to a twentieth-century literary master, Living Masks will be of interest to dramatists, literary scholars, and students and scholars of Italian studies.
The science behind wearing a mask to stop the spread of Coronavirus, from a top expert in the field. In America, the debate over whether or not masks should be worn to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has become enmeshed with political affiliation, views on religious and personal freedoms, and conflicting media reports on the benefits and dangers of facial coverings. But now, several months into this pandemic, what does science say? What have we learned from international case studies? Dr. Hashimoto, the chief medical officer who oversees the Workplace Health and Wellness division at Mass General Brigham, a Harvard Medical School affiliated healthcare system, presents the current research, making the case that wearing masks in public is a key part of saving lives and bringing this pandemic to a halt. Citing specific examples of situations where infected individuals wore masks versus ones who didn't and how that changed the outcome, as well as population-based studies in individual states and by country, and the undeniable effect that universal masking had on Mass Brigham Hospital's staff of 75,000, Dr. Hashimoto offers a clear and compelling argument for the benefits of masking. In addition, he explains the complementary roles of social distancing, washing hands, coronavirus testing, and face shields, and a thorough exploration of what kinds of masks are most effective at stopping the spread of viruses and how they should be fitted and worn. He addresses safety concerns and medical misconceptions about mask wearing, why the CDC didn't recommend universal mask wearing at the beginning of the pandemic, and how employers can promote mask wearing in their workplaces. Don't wear a mask just because someone told you to. Find out the real reasons for masking and understand the science for yourself.
In Pirandello's Theatre of Living Masks, Umberto Mariani and Alice Gladstone Mariani offer the first new edition in nearly sixty years of six of his major works.
For the Yup'ik people of southwestern Alaska, masked dancing has long been a focal point of ceremonial activity. Performed traditionally inside the qasaiq (communal men's house) during festivals, the dances feature face and finger masks that make visible the world of helping spirits and extraordinary beings, and are specially made to tell particular stories. Although masks are infrequently used today, elders still remember their powerful presence and increasingly appreciate them as touchstones of cultural pride - as agayuliyararput, "our way of making prayer". Often used by shamans to facilitate communication and movement between worlds (human and animal, the living and the dead), Yup'ik masks usually were discarded after use. Specimens first found their way into museum collections via nineteenth-century traders and collectors working along the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, and soon were displayed internationally. The Living Tradition of Yup'ik Masks brings together masks from museum and private collections all over the world and presents them in their native context. Ann Fienup Riordan describes the natural world of southwestern Alaska and the rich ceremonial life that evolved there to acknowledge and honor the many beings that made possible the sustenance of human life in a precariously balanced environment. Chapters arranged geographically describe the world's major Yup'ik mask collectors and collections and the circumstances that made each unique. The voices of Yup'ik elders are present throughout the text, recounting stories, describing traditional Yup'ik life, and responding to particular masks.
This book surveys the poetic endeavour of John Keats and urges that his true poetry is uniquely constituted by being uttered through three artificial masks, rather than through the natural voice of his quotidian self. The first mask is formed by the attitudes and reality that ensue from aconscious commitment to the identity of poet as such. The second, called here the Mask of Camelot, takes shape from Keats's acceptance and compelling use of the vogue for medieval imaginings that was sweeping across Europe in his time. The third, the Mask of Hellas, eventuated from Keats'senthusiastic immersion in the rising tide of Romantic Hellenism. Keats's great achievement, the book argues, can only be ascertained by means of a resuscitation of the defunct critical category of 'genius', as that informs his use of the masks. To validate this category, the volume is concernedthroughout with the necessity of discriminating the truly poetic from the meretricious in Keats's endeavour. The Masks of Keats thus constitutes a criticism of and a rebuke to the deconstructive approach, which must treat all texts as equal and must entirely forego the conception of quality.
The Truth That Most Christians Will Reject Millions of Christians have been led to believe that they are being saved by professing faith in Jesus, going to church, and trying to be good, while otherwise living lives that are fundamentally as worldly, as the unbelievers around them. This patterned discipleship, practiced in almost all churches, attempts to join faith in God, with faith, comfort, and approval in the world. It seeks to have eternal life later, and the rewards of the world now. It seeks to serve two masters. It is disguised in high words such as faith and discipleship, and affirms itself through rituals, but it lacks the genuine dependance on God, the humility that abandons worldly affirmation, and the self-sacrifice that forgoes comfort to further the Kingdom. To contrast this, the Bible proclaims a very different church and discipleship—A Church of such true belief in Christ, that its disciples are moved to sacrifice their comfort, their pride, and even their lives, to stand as a testimony to the truth and saving power of God, in a fallen world. It proclaims a Church more concerned about saving others than saving itself, and therein lies the shallowness of the churches that we see today. This should move us to question: Where is the church in the world today, and why is it so hidden, if it is supposed to be a city on a hill? "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;" Matthew 5:14 Where is the rejection by the world, of believers who stand by God's truth? "If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you." John 15:19 Where is the preaching that leads believers to a true understanding of the world and true separation from the world? "Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." 1 John 2:15 Where are the messengers, who are supposed to share the Good News with the 100,000 unbelievers who are perishing every day? "…How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent?…" Romans 10:14-15 Where is the true fellowship that does more than chat over coffee and meals, but instead supports, corrects, edifies, and heals fellow believers in humility, love, and truth? "We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone." 1 Thessalonians 5:14 Where is the belief in eternal life that abandons slavery to the fear of death?—the belief that was so obviously missing during the COVID-19 pandemic? "…He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives." Hebrews 2:14-15 Where is the sacrifice for Jesus, the denial of self for the growing of the Kingdom? "…If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me." Matthew 16:24 Jesus, himself, warned us: "For many are called, but few are chosen" Matthew 22:14. In this light, "Living With Babel" testifies to what scripture says the Church should be. It breaks the chains and misconceptions formed over centuries, to reveal our true purpose in God's plan of redemption for our fallen world—It is a guide on how to live with Babel.
WINNER OF: Frantz Fanon Outstanding Book from the Caribbean Philosophical Association Canadian Political Science Association’s C.B. MacPherson Prize Studies in Political Economy Book Prize Over the past forty years, recognition has become the dominant mode of negotiation and decolonization between the nation-state and Indigenous nations in North America. The term “recognition” shapes debates over Indigenous cultural distinctiveness, Indigenous rights to land and self-government, and Indigenous peoples’ right to benefit from the development of their lands and resources. In a work of critically engaged political theory, Glen Sean Coulthard challenges recognition as a method of organizing difference and identity in liberal politics, questioning the assumption that contemporary difference and past histories of destructive colonialism between the state and Indigenous peoples can be reconciled through a process of acknowledgment. Beyond this, Coulthard examines an alternative politics—one that seeks to revalue, reconstruct, and redeploy Indigenous cultural practices based on self-recognition rather than on seeking appreciation from the very agents of colonialism. Coulthard demonstrates how a “place-based” modification of Karl Marx’s theory of “primitive accumulation” throws light on Indigenous–state relations in settler-colonial contexts and how Frantz Fanon’s critique of colonial recognition shows that this relationship reproduces itself over time. This framework strengthens his exploration of the ways that the politics of recognition has come to serve the interests of settler-colonial power. In addressing the core tenets of Indigenous resistance movements, like Red Power and Idle No More, Coulthard offers fresh insights into the politics of active decolonization.
Drawing on secondary works in archaeology, art history, folklore, ethnohistory, ethnography, and literature, the authors maintain that the mask is the central metaphor for the Mesoamerican concept of spiritual reality. Covers the long history of the use of the ritual mask by the peoples who created and developed the mythological tradition of Mesoamerica. Chapters: (1) the metaphor of the mask in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica: the mask as the God, in ritual, and as metaphor; (II) metaphoric reflections of the cosmic order; and (III) the metaphor of the mask after the conquest: syncretism; the Pre-Columbian survivals; the syncretic compromise; and today's masks. Over 100 color and black-&-white photos.
The third volume in Dr. Sky’s inspiring five-part SohKiDo® series, Pathways III and IV: Masks and Rituals focuses on two powerful tools for use in therapeutic healing and self-discovery. SohKiDo, a Japanese hybrid word created by Dr. Sky, essentially means “the way of Transpersonal creativity.” This book explains the third and fourth of its seven pathways. Using masks and rituals as therapy can be extremely effective as an alternative to more traditional and clinical methods. Using a myriad of discoveries from Dr. Sky’s own creative and spiritual journey—including centuries-old Japanese Noh Theater techniques and Finnish lamenting traditions—Pathways III and IV: Masks and Rituals will inspire you to access the healing power available to us all through SohKiDo and its unique and life-changing insights into spirituality and the self.
