1. The Art and Science of Hand Reading: Classical Methods for Self-Discovery through Palmistry by Ellen Goldberg, Dorian Bergen (Destiny Books) In this comprehensive guide to hand reading, based on Ellen Goldberg’s 40 years of teaching palmistry and the Western Mystery tradition, the authors make the powerful insights of the hand accessible in an inviting and user-friendly manner. The book presents the character traits and personality archetypes associated with each of the seven mounts of the palm and shows how to determine which are most influential in the nature of the individual. The mount archetypes reveal the lifestyle, love, sex, and marriage preferences; the best career choices; and the unique strengths and weaknesses for each person. The book also examines other factors that enhance the qualities revealed by the mount types, including the flexibility of the hand, texture of the skin, and the shapes of the fingers, fingertips, and nails. The meaning of each major and minor line is described in detail as well as the influence the person’s own mind has in healing defects and obstacles found on their lines. The authors also provide accurate timing guides for each line, making it possible to locate specific events and to see how your lines change over time.

   Palmistry is a science and a universal language. The hand tells a story about your talents, relationships, health, and how you feel about yourself. It reveals periods of ease or challenge in your life, and it speaks about your weaknesses and the traits you need to develop. As you change, so do your hands, reflecting the progress you have made.

   Presenting the hand as a guide to self-fulfillment, The Art and Science of Hand Reading incorporates correspondences to other mystical sciences such as astrology, Kabbalah, the Hermetic teachings, and archetypal psychology. It also includes practical examples and more than 600 illustrations to show how to integrate the meanings of each part of the hand to form a complete picture of your inner psychology and your ever-changing destiny. See Review

2. Truth and Method by Hans-Georg Gadamer, translation revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (Bloomsbury Revelations Series: Bloomsbury Academic)

   Truth and Method is a landmark work of 20th century thought which established Hans Georg-Gadamer as one of the most important philosophical voices of the 20th Century. In this book, Gadamer established the field of ‘philosophical hermeneutics': exploring the nature of knowledge, the book rejected traditional quasi-scientific approaches to establishing cultural meaning that were prevalent after the war. In arguing the ‘truth' and ‘method' acted in opposition to each other, Gadamer examined the ways in which historical and cultural circumstance fundamentally influenced human understanding. It was an approach that would become hugely influential in the humanities and social sciences and remains so to this day in the work of Jürgen Habermas and many others. More

3. The Subtle Body Practice Manual: A Comprehensive Guide to Energy Healing by Cyndi Dale (Sounds True)

   Cyndi Dale's The Subtle Body has become the go-to guide for anyone who wants to learn about the many varieties of energy healing. With The Subtle Body Practice Manual Dale, an internationally respected author and spiritual scholar, offers a practical instruction manual for putting energy healing into action. Filled with information, step-by-step guidance, diagrams, and insights, the book is an expansive how-to manual that covers practices from a vast range of holistic healing and energy medicine traditions. More

4. Net of Being by Alex Grey (Inner Traditions) Alex Grey’s painting Net of Being – inspired by a blazing vision of an infinite grid of Godheads during an ayahuasca journey – has reached millions as the cover and interior of the band TOOL’s Grammy award-winning triple-platinum album, 10,000 Days. Net of Being is one of many images Grey has created that have resulted in a chain reaction of uses – from apparel and jewelry to tattoos and music videos. Grey is the author of Sacred Mirrors, Transfigurations, The Mission of Art, and Art Psalms. His work has been exhibited throughout the world. More

5. Cambridge History of Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century (1790-1870)by Allen W. Wood and Songsuk Susan Hahn (Cambridge University Press) brings together twenty-nine leading experts in the field and covers the years 1790-1870. Their twenty-seven chapters provide a comprehensive survey of the period, organizing the material topically. After a brief editor's introduction, it begins with three chapters surveying the background of nineteenth century philosophy: followed by two on logic and mathematics, two on nature and natural science, five on mind and language, including psychology, the human sciences and aesthetics, four on ethics, three on religion, seven on society, including chapters on the French Revolution, the decline of natural right, political economy, and social discontent, and three on history, dealing with historical method, speculative theories of history and the history of philosophy. The essays are framed by an editor's introduction and a bibliography. More

6. The Archaeology of the Soul: Platonic Readings in Ancient Poetry and Philosophy by Seth Benardete, Ronna Burger and Michael Davis (St. Augustine's Press) The Archaeology of the Soul is a testimony to the extraordinary scope of Seth Benardete's thought. Some essays concern particular authors or texts; others range more broadly and are thematic. Some deal explicitly with philosophy; others deal with epic, lyric, and tragic poetry. Some of these authors are Greek, some Roman, and still others are contemporaries writing about antiquity. All of these essays, however, are informed by an underlying vision, which is a reflection of Benardete's life-long engagement with one thinker in particular – Plato. The Platonic dialogue presented Benardete with the most vivid case of that periagoge, or turn-around, that he found to be the sign of all philosophic thinking and that is the signature as well of his own interpretations not only of Plato but also of other thinkers. The late Benardete (1930-2001), was an outstanding teacher and scholar in classical literature and philosophy and taught at New York University; editors are Ronna Burger, who teaches philosophy at Tulane University and Michael Davis, who teaches philosophy at Sarah Lawrence College. More

7. The Unity of Linguistic Meaning by John Collins (University of Oxford Press) The problem of the unity of the proposition is almost as old as philosophy itself, and was one of the central themes of early analytical philosophy, greatly exercising the minds of Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and Ramsey. The problem is how propositions or meanings can be simultaneously unities (single things) and complexes, made up of parts that are autonomous of the positions they happen to fill in any given proposition. The problem has been associated with numerous paradoxes and has motivated general theories of thought and meaning, but has eluded any consensual resolution; indeed, the problem is sometimes thought to be wholly erroneous, a result of atomistic assumptions we should reject. In short, the problem has been thought to be of merely historical interest. Collins argues that the problem is very real and poses a challenge to any theory of linguistic meaning. He seeks to resolve the problem by laying down some minimal desiderata on a solution and presenting a uniquely satisfying account. The first part of the book surveys and rejects extant 'solutions' and dismissals of the problem from (especially) Frege and Russell, and a host of more contemporary thinkers, including Davidson and Dummett. The book's second part offers a novel solution based upon the properties of a basic syntactic principle called 'Merge', which may be said to create objects inside objects, thus showing how unities can be both single things but also made up of proper parts. The solution is defended from both philosophical and linguistic perspectives. The overarching ambition of the book, therefore, is to strengthen the ties between current linguistics and contemporary philosophy of language in a way that is genuinely sensitive to the history of both fields. More

8. The Adventure of French Philosophy by Alain Badiou and edited and translated, with an introduction by Bruno Bosteels (Verso Books) presents over forty years of French philosophy through the eyes of its greatest living exponent, Alain Badiou. Badiou teaches philosophy at the École normale supérieure and the Collège international de philosophie in Paris. In addition to several novels, plays and political essays, he has published a number of major philosophical works, including Theory of the Subject, Being and Event, Manifesto for Philosophy, and Gilles Deleuze. His recent books include The Meaning of Sarkozy, Ethics, Metapolitics, Polemics, The Communist Hypothesis, Five Lessons on Wagner, and Wittgenstein's Anti-Philosophy. More

9. Kant's Dog: On Borges, Philosophy, and the Time of Translation by David E. Johnson (SUNY Series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture Series: SUNY Press) Kant's Dog provides fresh insight into Borges's preoccupation with the contradiction of the time that passes and the identity that endures. By developing the implicit logic of the Borgesian archive, which is most often figured as the universal demand for and necessary impossibility of translation, Kant's Dog is able to spell out Borges's responses to the philosophical problems that most concerned him, those of the constitution of time, eternity, and identity; the determination of original and copy; the legitimacy of authority; experience; the nature of language and the possibility of a decision; and the name of God. Kant's Dog offers original interpretations of several of Borges's best known and most important stories and of the works of key figures in the history of philosophy, including Aristotle, Saint Paul, Maimonides, Hume, Locke, Kant, Heidegger, and Derrida. This study outlines Borges's curious relationship to literature and philosophy and, through a reconsideration of the relation between necessity and accident, opens the question of the constitution of philosophy and literature. The afterword develops the logic of translation toward the secret at the heart of every culture in order to posit a Borgesian challenge to anthropology and cultural studies. More

10. Rabbi Judah Moscato and the Jewish Intellectual World of Mantua in the 16th-17th Centuries by Giuseppe Veltri and Gianfranco Miletto (Studies in Jewish History and Culture: Brill Academic) Judah ben Joseph Moscato (c.1533-1590) was one of the most distinguished rabbis, authors, and preachers of the Italian-Jewish Renaissance. This volume is a record of the proceedings of an international conference, organized by the Institute of Jewish Studies at Halle-Wittenberg (Germany), and Mantua's State Archives. It consists of contributions on Moscato and the intellectual world in Mantua during the 16th and 17th centuries. More
    Jews and Magic in Medici Florence: The Secret World of Benedetto Blanis by Edward L. Goldberg (Toronto Italian Studies: University of Toronto Press) In the seventeenth century, Florence was the wealthy capital of the Medici Grand Dukedom of Tuscany. But amid all the affluence splendour, the Jews in its tiny Ghetto struggled to earn a living by any possible means, including loan-sharking and rag-picking. They were often regarded as a mysterious people gifted with rare supernatural powers. From their ranks arose Benedetto Blanis, a businessman and aspiring scholar from a distinguished Ghetto dynasty who sought to parlay his alleged mastery of astrology, alchemy, and Kabbalah into a grand position at the Medici Court. He gradually won the patronage of Don Giovanni dei Medici, a scion of the ruling family, and for six tumultuous years their lives were inextricably linked. More

11. Tales of the Barbarians: Ethnography and Empire in the Roman West  by Greg Woolf (Blackwell-Bristol Lectures on Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition: Wiley-Blackwell) Tales of the Barbarians traces the creation of new mythologies in the wake of Roman expansion westward to the Atlantic. Providing a fresh perspective on the topic by examining passages from ancient writers in a new light, Woolf explores how ancient geography local histories and the stories of wandering heroes were woven together by Greek scholars and local experts to establish a place for Celts and Spaniards, Africans and Britons in the classical world. En route, this investigation assesses the impact of Roman imperialism on those intellectual endeavours, tracks the interplay of scientific and mythological reasoning, and asks why ancient stereotypes survived for so long after the first encounters in the contact zone. More

12. In Search of the Lost Heart: Explorations in Islamic Thought by William C. Chittick (State University of New York Press, SUNY) In Search of the Lost Heart brings together twenty-six essays by William C. Chittick, renowned scholar of Sufism and Islamic philosophy. Written between 1975 and 2011, most of these essays are not readily available in Chittick's own books. Although this is a collection, its editors have crafted it to be a book "sufficient unto itself, which, when taken as a whole, can be said to explore the underlying worldview of Islam."
    
    Chittick draws upon the writings of towering figures such as Ibn al-`Arabi, Rumi, and Mulla Sadra, as well as other important, but lesser-known thinkers, as he engages with a wide variety of topics, such as the nature of being and knowledge, the relationship between love and scriptural hermeneutics, the practical and theoretical dimensions of Islamic mysticism, the phenomenon of religious diversity, and the ecological crisis. More

13. Discernment of Spirits: Assessing Visions & Visionaries in the Late Middle Ages by Wendy Love Anderson (Spatmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation: Mohr Siebeck) argues for continuity between thirteenth-century debates over visionary Franciscan clerics and fifteenth-century debates over visionary lay women. More generally, I will argue for a visionary discourse about the discernment of spirits throughout the late Middle Ages, that is, not only a forward-looking discourse but a discourse in which many of the participants either experienced revelations and other special spiritual gifts or were reputed by contemporaries to have done so. Academically trained theologians who wrote about the discernment of spirits also wrote about "mystical" theology; authors of saints' lives described their own visions of the prospective saints; preachers and confessors alluded to their own spiritual consolations while offering guidance to visionaries they encountered on a daily basis. Some female visionaries — Birgitta of Sweden prominent among them — could and did contribute to this discourse, which remained relatively egalitarian until the fifteenth century. In other words, there was no absolute distinction between the "visionary" and the "examiner" until the very end of the period in question. What preoccupied these men and women was not gender, but authority: they sought to define, regulate, or justify their own or their companions' religiously based claims to influence the direction of late medieval Christendom. Their efforts turned to writing about the discernment of spirits at precisely those historical moments when the Church's authority structures were being called into question (as, indeed, they frequently were during this period). And the precise details of those historical moments had considerable and demonstrable impact on the texts that grew out of them. It is for just that reason that Anderson has also focused on examining writings about the discernment of spirits within their historical contexts, a practice which throws the idiosyncratic details of each text into the sharpest possible relief and avoids the temptation of lumping too many disparate formulations into a vaguely understood "discourse."  More

14. The Art and Material Culture of Iranian Shi'ism: Iconography and Religious Devotion in Shi'i Islam  by Pedram Khosronejad(Iran and the Persianate World: I.B. Tauris in association with the Iran Heritage Foundation) Shi'i Islam has been the official religion of Iran from the Safavids (1501-1732) to the present day. The Shi'i world experience has provided a rich artistic tradition, encompassing painting, sculpture, and the production of artifacts and performance, which has helped to embed Shi'i identity in Iran as part of its national narrative. In what areas of material culture has Iranian Shi'ism manifested itself through objects or buildings that are unique within the overall culture of Islam? To what extent is the art and architecture of Iran from the Safavid period onwards identifiably Shi'i? What does this say about the relationship of nation, state, and faith in Iran? Here, leading experts trace the material heritage of Iranian Shi'ism within each of its political, religious, and cultural dimensions. More

15. Geomancy in Theory and Practice by Stephen Skinner (Golden Hoard Press) Geomancy - divination by earth - ranks alongside the tarot, astrology and the I Ching as a major form of divination. Since the Renaissance it has largely fallen out of favour for want of a generally available book on its practice. This is the first and most comprehensive book in English to cover the full historical background and practice of divinatory geomancy, and will therefore be invaluable to all those interested in geomancy, divination, and astrology. It is the only complete history in any language, covering geomancy's various manifestations in different cultures, as well as being a practical manual showing how to cast and interpret geomantic figures.
    Drawing on material from Latin, French, German and Arabic sources, Stephen Skinner explores the roots of geomancy in the Islamic raml divination of northern Africa, which lead to Fa, IA and voodoo divinatory practices on the West Coast and sikidy in Madagascar.
    He examines the impact Islamic geomancy had on medieval Europe, where it rose to prominence and became, after astrology, the prime method of divination. The part it played in Renaissance thinking and in the great astrological revival of the nineteenth century is followed by an examination of its use in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and its declining influence in the twentieth century, only to be revived again in the last two decades.
    The second section of the book is concerned with the practice, manipulation and generation of geomantic figures as standardized in Europe, and gives practical examples as a guide to the interpretation and practice of the art. It also covers astrogeomany which uses the Houses of astrology in geomancy.There is really no better work in English on the history and the direct practice of geomancy. It is a definite supplement to astrological practice and can be adapted to the 16 court cards of the tarot as a subsystem of divining. More

16. Ancient Egyptian Demonology. Studies on the Boundaries between the Demonic and the Divine in Egyptian Magic by P. Kousoulis (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta: Peeters) In the Egyptian context, what we term magic and demon, drawing on our own cultural heritage, are not seen as negative aspects of cultural practice and conceptualisation. Similarly, the Egyptian equivalents do not carry the pejorative connotations borne by the modern terms and their Greek antecedents; magic and demons can be forces for good as well as evil. Indeed, the practice of magic and the conceptualisation of personified demonic agents are central to the Egyptian understanding of the workings of the world from the very continuation of the cosmos itself down to the vicissitudes of existence faced by individuals. In particular, the broader practice of magic and articulation of the involvement of demonic agency form one of the crucial links in Ancient Egypt between individual existence on the human level and the level of nature or the cosmos, the realm of the gods. Unlike, though, the explicit recognition of the term demon in the ancient Greek language and religion, as the intermediary between god and mortals, the majority of the demonic names in the Egyptian literature do not possess an apparent ontological essence, or a clearly defined denotation. Their characteristics and role depended momentously on the verbal and performative ritual environment they were part of. The relation between the name of a demon and its cosmic-natural personification is not contradictory as it may seem, but it is closely interwoven in a well established ritual framework of words and actions. This multi-authored volume of 10 essays comprises an up-to-date authorization account of many aspects of ancient Egyptian demonology, including the multiple persona of the demonic or name vs. identity in the Egyptian formation of the demonic, nightmares and underworld demons, dream rituals and magic, categories of demonic entities and the vague distinction between the divine and the demonic in Egyptian cosmology and ritual, the theological and demonic aspects of Egyptian magic, demons as reflections of human society. Contributors include Paul John Frandsen, Hedvig Gyory, Joachim Friedrich Quack, Yvan Koenig, Panagiotis Kousoulis, Alan Lloyd, Robert Ritner, Alessandro Roccati, Kasia Szpakowska and Penelope Wilson. More

17. Living Consciousness: The Metaphysical Vision of Henri Bergson by G. William Barnard (S U N Y Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology: New York State University Press) examines the brilliant, but now largely ignored, insights of French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941). Offering a detailed and accessible analysis of Bergson's thought, G. William Barnard highlights how Bergson's understanding of the nature of consciousness and, in particular, its relationship to the physical world remain strikingly relevant to numerous contemporary fields. These range from quantum physics and process thought to philosophy of mind, depth psychology, transpersonal theory, and religious studies. Bergson's notion of consciousness as a ceaselessly dynamic, inherently temporal substance of reality itself provides a vision that can function as a persuasive alternative to mechanistic and reductionistic understandings of consciousness and reality. Barnard closes the work with several "ruminations" or neo-Bergsonian responses to a series of vitally important questions such as: What does it mean to live consciously, authentically, and attuned to our inner depths? Is there a philosophically sophisticated way to claim that the survival of consciousness after physical death is not only possible but likely? More

18. Spirituality in the Modern World: Within Religious Tradition and Beyond 4 volume set by Paul Heelas (Critical Concepts in Religious Studies: Routledge) It would not be an exaggeration to say that during the last century, most especially during and since the 1960s, the language of spirituality has become one of the most significant ways in which the sacred has come to be understood and judged in the West, and, increasingly, elsewhere. Whether it is true that ‘spirituality’ has eclipsed ‘religion’ in Western settings remains debatable. What is incontestable is that the language of spirituality, together with practices (most noticeably spiritual, complementary, and alternative medicine), has become a major feature of the sacred dimensions of contemporary modernity. Equally incontestably, spirituality is a growing force in all those developing countries where its presence is increasingly felt among the cosmopolitan elite, and where spiritual forms of traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine are thriving.
    This new four-volume, 1,856 page, Spirituality in the Modern World: Within Religious Tradition and Beyond collection from Routledge provides a coherent compilation of landmark texts which cannot be ignored by those intent on making sense of what is happening to the sacred as spirituality—more exactly what is taken to be spirituality—develops as an increasingly important lingua franca, series of practices, and as a humanistic ethicality. More

19. The Story of Islamic Philosophy: Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Al-'Arabi, and Others on the Limit Between Naturalism and Traditionalism by Salman H. Bashier (SUNY: State University of New York Press) In this innovative work, Salman H. Bashier challenges traditional views of Islamic philosophy. While Islamic thought from the crucial medieval period is often depicted as a rationalistic elaboration on Aristotelian philosophy and an attempt to reconcile it with the Muslim religion, Bashier puts equal emphasis on the influence of Plato's philosophical mysticism. This shift encourages a new reading of Islamic intellectual tradition, one in which boundaries between philosophy, religion, mysticism, and myth are relaxed. Bashier shows the manner in which medieval Islamic philosophers reflected on the relation between philosophy and religion as a problem that is intrinsic to philosophy and shows how their deliberations had the effect of redefining the very limits of their philosophical thought. The problems of the origin of human beings, human language, and the world in Islamic philosophy are discussed. Bashier highlights the importance of Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, a landmark work often overlooked by scholars, and the thought of the great Sufi mystic Ibn al-Arabi to the mainstream of Islamic philosophy. More

    Ibn al-'Arabi's Barzakh: The Concept of the Limit and the Relationship between God and the World by Salman H. Bashier (SUNY: State University of New York Press) This book explores how Ibn al-'Arabi (1165-1240) used the concept of barzakh (the Limit) to deal with the philosophical problem of the relationship between God and the world, a major concept disputed in ancient and medieval Islamic thought. The term "barzakh" indicates the activity or actor that differentiates between things and that, paradoxically, then provides the context of their unity. Author Salman H. Bashier looks at early thinkers and shows how the synthetic solutions they developed provided the groundwork for Ibn al-'Arabi's unique concept of barzakh. Bashier discusses Ibn al-'Arabi's development of the concept of barzakh ontologically through the notion of the Third Thing and epistemologically through the notion of the Perfect Man, and compares Ibn al-'Arabi's vision with Plato's.

    "Salmon H. Bashier has rightly identified the importance of the concept of the Limit (barzakh), a central theme in Ibn al-'Arabi's thought, and situates the concept in two new contexts: earlier Islamic thought as a whole, and the larger Western philosophic tradition. It is a worthy ambition." —John Walbridge More

20. Derek Parfit, On What Matters, Volumes 1 and 2, Oxford University Press, 2011, 592pp. + 848pp., $55.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780199265923 Reviewed by Mark Schroeder, University of Southern California, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 

    It is finally here. Wrapped in a stunning jacket design featuring the author's own photographs and embossed gold and black titling, the two massive volumes of Derek Parfit's On What Matters will be the most beautiful philosophy books on any shelf they grace -- a worthy start to living up to over a decade of being "the most eagerly awaited book in philosophy", according to Oxford University Press's promotion materials. Given the enormous stature of Parfit's 1984 Reasons and Persons (my colleague Jake Ross calls its part IV 'the Platonic Form of philosophy') and Parfit's selective publication schedule, it should be no surprise that his second book should be so anticipated. But with Brad Hooker's [2010] advance notice that it is "probably . . . the most important publication in moral philosophy since Henry Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics in 1874" and Peter Singer's [2011] front-page Times Literary Supplement gush that it is "the most significant work in ethics since Sidgwick's masterpiece was published in 1873," On What Matters certainly has a lot to live up to.

    Lofty expectations aside, there is no doubt that On What Matters is an epochal work. Philosophers my age and younger have never experienced a philosophical world in which there were not conferences and symposia being organized for Parfit to present drafts of the material collected in this work and critics to evaluate it before it was even finished. It is at the same time one of the most collaborative philosophical works ever created (Parfit thanks hundreds for their input) and one of the most intensely personal. And the book is indeed a remarkable achievement, giving us a truly comprehensive picture of the moral outlook -- both normative and metaethical -- of one of the greatest moral thinkers of our time. Whether or not its many specific arguments are widely accepted, the comprehensive picture of the normative terrain it outlines is one with which future work will need to grapple. More

21. Beckmann & America edited by Jutta Schutt, Städel, Museum Frankfurt am Main, foreword by Max Hollein, texts by David Anfam, Karoline Feulner, Ursula Harter, Lynette Roth, Stefana Sabin, Jutta Schutt, Christiane Zeiller, graphic design by Andreas Platzgummer [hardcover. 280 pp., 261 ills.] The catalogue accompanying the Max Beckmann exhibition at the Städel Museum(Hatje Cantz) Max Beckmann (1884-1950) moved to the United States in the late summer of 1947. He would spend the last three years of his life far away from Europe, years that signified a liberating, intense new start for him. The vastness of the foreign continent, its coasts, the atmosphere of its "wild" landscapes, and its big cities all formed a palpable source of inspiration for Beckmann, who had never before had this type of physical experience of space.

    Working with incredible energy and productivity, Beckmann produced numerous major works in these few short years. From today's perspective, Beckmann's independence is all the more impressive when seen in relation to the development of abstract art that was taking place in America at the same time. Beckmann retained his link to representationalism and its metaphorical themes, yet still managed to assert himself as a European painter of international status. More

    Max Beckmann The Landscapes edited by Bernhard Mendes Bürgi, Nina Peter, texts by Hans Belting, Bernhard Mendes Bürgi, Eva Demski, Nina Peter, Maren Stotz, Beatrice von Bornnann, graphic design by Schott & Schibig [236 pp., c. 135 ills., 115 in color, 25 x 30.7 cm, hardcover] (Hajte Cantz) Highlights from the master's oeuvre—the landscapes.

    Max Beckmann is one of the titans of modern art, although he considered himself the last of the Old Masters. This publication examines the artist's landscape paintings, which are not characterized by layers of allegorical meaning, as are his works in other genres, and their splendid painterly qualities are instantly perceptible. One of the foundations for these landscapes is the potent experience of nature. Personal objects belonging to Beckmann frequently appear in the foreground, like remnants of still lifes, making the viewer aware of the artist's presence. On the other hand, the paintings are realistic reproductions of places he visited, for which Beckmann also made reference to photographs or postcards. A third artistic idea came from art itself: flashes of Beckmann's immense knowledge of art history can be seen in his citations of other works. Thus, his landscapes can be regarded as a kind of summation of his understanding of the world. More

22. A Study of the Life and Works of Athanasius Kircher, 'Germanus Incredibilis': With a Selection of His Unpublished Correspondence and an Annotated Translation of His Autobiography by John Edward Fletcher and Elizabeth Fletcher (Aries Book: Brill Academic) Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit in 17th-century Rome, was an enigma. Intensely pious and a prolific author, he was also a polymath fascinated with everything from Egyptian hieroglyphs to the tiny creatures in his microscope. His correspondence with popes, princes and priests was a window into the restless energy of the period. It showed first-hand the seventeenth-century’s struggle for knowledge in astronomy, microscopy, geology, chemistry, musicology, Egyptology, horology… The list goes on. Kircher’s books reflect the mind-set of 17th-century scholars - endless curiosity and a … read more substantial larding of naiveté: Kircher scorned alchemy as the wishful thinking of charlatans, yet believed in dragons. His life and correspondence provide a key to the transition from the Middle Ages to a new scientific age. This book, though unpublished, has been long quoted and referred to. Awaited by scholars and specialists of Kircher, it is finally available with this edition. More
    

23. Critical Discourse Studies in Context and Cognition edited by Christopher Hart (Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture Series: John Benjamins Publishing Company) Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), under the general editors of Ruth Wodak and Greg Myers and associate editor Johann Unger, University of Lancaster, is an exciting research enterprise in which scholars are concerned with the discursive reproduction of power and inequality. However, researchers in CDS are increasingly recognizing the need to investigate the cognitive dimensions of discourse and context if they want to fully account for any connection between language, legitimization and social action. Critical Discourse Studies in Context and Cognition, edited by Christopher Hart, Northumbria University, presents a collection of papers in CDS concerned with various ideological discourses. Analyses are firmly rooted in linguistics and cognition constitutes a major focus of attention. The chapters, which are written by prominent researchers in CDS, come from a broad range of theoretical perspectives spanning pragmatics, cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics. More

24. Transforming Self and Others Through Research: Transpersonal Research Methods and Skills for the Human Sciences and Humanities by Rosemarie Anderson and William Braud (SUNY Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology: SUNY Press) Research approaches in the field of transpersonal psychology can be transformative for researchers, participants, and the audience of a project. Transforming Self and Others Through Research offers these transformative approaches to those conducting research across the human sciences and the humanities. Rosemarie Anderson and William Braud first described such methods in their book Transpersonal Research Methods for the Social Sciences (1998). Since that time, in hundreds of empirical studies, these methods have been tested and integrated with qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method research designs. Anderson, Professor of Transpersonal Psychology at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and Braud, Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, writing with a contribution from Jennifer Clements, invite scholars to bring multiple ways of knowing and personal resources to their scholarship. While emphasizing established research conventions for rigor, Anderson and Braud encourage researchers to plumb the depths of intuition, imagination, play, mindfulness, compassion, creativity, and embodied writing as research skills. Experiential exercises to help readers develop these skills are provided. More

25. Preparing for Tantra: Creating the Psychological Ground for Practice by Rob Preece (Snow Lion Publications) The preliminary practices of Tantra are not a hurdle to be gotten through in order to get somewhere else; they are an extraordinarily rich collection of practices which have much to offer as a means of cultivating and maturing the practitioner's psychological ground. They can enable experiences to unfold, and they can clear the way when there seem to be problems or hindrances practitioners are struggling with. More 

26. Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights, 1750-1790 [Hardcover] by Jonathan I. Israel (Oxford University Press) That the Enlightenment shaped modernity is uncontested. Yet remarkably few historians or philosophers have attempted to trace the process of ideas from the political and social turmoil of the late eighteenth century to the present day. This is precisely what Jonathan Israel now does.
    In Democratic Enlightenment, Israel demonstrates that the Enlightenment was an essentially revolutionary process, driven by philosophical debate. The American Revolution and its concerns certainly acted as a major factor in the intellectual ferment that shaped the wider upheaval that followed, but the radical philosophes were no less critical than enthusiastic about the American model. From 1789, the General Revolution's impetus came from a small group of philosophe-revolutionnaires, men such as Mirabeau, Sieyes, Condorcet, Volney, Roederer, and Brissot. Not aligned to any of the social groups represented in the French National assembly, they nonetheless forged "la philosophie moderne"--in effect Radical Enlightenment ideas--into a world-transforming ideology that had a lasting impact in Latin America, Canada and eastern Europe as well as France, Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries. In addition, Israel argues that while all French revolutionary journals powerfully affirmed that la philosophie moderne was the main cause of the French Revolution, the main stream of historical thought has failed to grasp what this implies. Israel sets the record straight, demonstrating the true nature of the engine that drove the Revolution, and the intimate links between the radical wing of the Enlightenment and the anti-Robespierriste "Revolution of reason." More

27. The Existence of God: An Exposition and Application of Fregean Meta-Ontology by Stig Børsen Hansen (Quellen Und Studien Zur Philosophie: De Gruyter) This study breaks new ground on the question of the existence of God. It innovatively combines biblical scholarship with an analysis of existence drawn from the writings of the philosopher Gottlob Frege. It shows that the strength of Frege's approach is its emphasis on the notions of proper name and predicate; this in turn sheds new light on important elements of theological language. Finally, the Fregean approach in this book is defended against objections drawn from readings of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.  More

28. Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics, 19th edition: Expert Consult Premium Edition – Enhanced Online Features and Print by Robert M. Kliegman, MD, Bonita F. Stanton, MD, and Richard E. Behrman, MD; Joseph W. St. Geme III, MD, and Nina F. Schor, MD, PhD, (Elsevier Saunders) Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics has been the world's most trusted pediatrics resource for nearly 75 years. Drs. Robert Kliegman, Bonita Stanton, Richard Behrman, and two new editors – Joseph St. Geme, III, MD and Nina Schor, MD, who contribute on the key subspecialties, including pediatric infectious disease and pediatric neurology – continue to provide the most authoritative coverage of the best approaches to care. This streamlined 19th edition covers the latest on genetics, neurology, infectious disease, melamine poisoning, sexual identity and adolescent homosexuality, and psychosis associated with epilepsy. The expanded online access features the regularly updated text, case studies, new references and journal articles, Clinics articles, and exclusive web-only content. More

29. Plants As Persons: A Philosophical Botany by Matthew Hall and Harold Coward (SUNY Series on Religion and the Environment: State University of New York, SUNY) Plants are people too? Not exactly, but in this work of philosophical botany Matthew Hall challenges readers to reconsider the moral standing of plants, arguing that they are other-than-human persons. Plants constitute the bulk of our visible biomass, underpin all natural ecosystems, and make life on Earth possible. Yet plants are considered passive and insensitive beings rightly placed outside moral consideration. As the human assault on nature continues, more ethical behavior toward plants is needed. Hall surveys Western, Eastern, Pagan, and Indigenous thought, as well as modern science and botanical history, for attitudes toward plants, noting the particular resources for plant personhood and those modes of thought which most exclude plants. The most hierarchical systems typically put plants at the bottom, but Hall finds much to support a more positive view of plants. Indeed, some Indigenous animisms actually recognize plants as relational, intelligent beings who are the appropriate recipients of care and respect. New scientific findings encourage this perspective, revealing that plants possess many of the capacities of sentience and mentality traditionally denied them. More

30. Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Shobo Genzo by Dogen Dogen and Kazuaki Tanahashi (Shambhala) represents the collective San Francisco Zen Center community endeavor at translating and understanding the work in its entirety. It lacks the scholarly extras of  BDK English Tripitaka Series but used in conjunction with the Standard translation can offer essential insight about what the text is getting at. below the table of contents I offer examples of translations of chapter 1 (of the 75 chapter version) or 3 (of the 95 chapter version) The Genjo-Koan so one can compare for oneself.
    Treasury of the True Dharma Eye (Shobo Genzo, in Japanese) is a monumental work, considered to be one of the profoundest expressions of Zen wisdom ever put on paper, and also the most outstanding literary and philosophical work of Japan. It is a collection of essays by Eihei Dogen (1200–1253), founder of Zen’s Soto school.
    Kazuaki Tanahashi and a team of translators that represent a Who’s Who of American Zen have produced a translation of the great work that combines accuracy with a deep understanding of Dogen’s voice and literary gifts. The finely produced, two-volume boxed set includes a wealth of materials to aid understanding, including maps, lineage charts, a bibliography, and an exhaustive glossary of names and terms—and, as a bonus, the most renowned of all Dogen’s essays, “Recommending Zazen to All People.” More

31. The Postconventional Personality: Assessing, Researching, and Theorizing Higher Development  by Angela H. Pfaffenberger, Paul W. Marko and Allan Combs (SUNY Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology: State University of New York Press, SUNY) Cutting-edge volume devoted to optimal adult development. Postconventional stages of personality development involve growth well beyond the average, and have become a rapidly growing subject of research not only in developmental psychology circles but also in areas such as executive leadership development. This book is the first to bring together many of the major researchers in the field, showcasing diverse perspectives ranging from the spiritual to the corporate. The contributors present research on essential questions about the existence and prevalence of high levels of personal growth, whether such achievement is correlated with other types of psychological growth, whether high levels of growth actually indicate happiness, what kinds of people exhibit these higher levels of development, how they may have developed this expanded perspective, and the characteristics of their viewpoints, abilities, and preoccupations. For anyone interested in Ken Wilber's integral psychology, as well as those in executive coaching, this volume is an invaluable resource and will be a standard reference for years to come. More

32. Socrates and Philosophy in the Dialogues of Plato by Sandra Peterson (Cambridge University Press) In Plato's Apology, Socrates says he spent his life examining and questioning people on how best to live, while avowing that he himself knows nothing important. Elsewhere, however, for example in Plato's Republic, Plato's Socrates presents radical and grandiose theses.
    In this book Sandra Peterson offers a new hypothesis which explains the puzzle of Socrates' two contrasting manners. She argues that the apparently confident doctrinal Socrates is in fact conducting the first step of an examination: by eliciting his interlocutors' reactions, his apparently doctrinal lectures reveal what his interlocutors believe is the best way to live. She tests her hypothesis by close reading of passages in the Theaetetus, Republic, and Phaedo. Her provocative conclusion, that there is a single Socrates whose conception and practice of philosophy remain the same throughout the dialogues, will be of interest to a wide range of readers in ancient philosophy and classics. More

33. A Companion to Greek Mythology by Ken Dowden and Niall Livingstone (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World: Wiley-Blackwell) approaches the richly diverse phenomenon of Greek myth from a distinctive new angle -- one that delves deeply into its origins in shared Indo-European story patterns and the Greeks’ contacts with their Eastern Mediterranean neighbours. Contributions from a team of international experts trace the development of Greek myth into a shared language, heritage, and way of thinking throughout the entire Greco-Roman world.
    Individual essays address such topics as how myths were presented in stories, poems, dramas and all forms of visual art, as well as the role of myth in philosophy, learning, religion, mystery-cult, and Greek self identity. Other essays explore contemporary reception of Greek myth and the potential of modern theoretical approaches. A Companion to Greek Mythology offers invaluable insights into the ancient world that will help to shape our understanding of the wide ranging appeal and influence of Greek myth across the ages. More

34. Philosophical Genealogy Volume I: An Epistemological Reconstruction of Nietzsche and Foucault's Genealogical Method by Brian Lightbody (American University Studies Series V: v 208, Philosophy: Peter Lang) Philosophical Genealogy Volume II: An Epistemological Reconstruction of Nietzsche and Foucault's Genealogical Method by Brian Lightbody(American University Studies Series V: v 209, Philosophy: Peter Lang) Philosophical Genealogy Volume I: An Epistemological Reconstruction of Nietzsche and Foucault's Genealogical Method is a rigorous examination of the philosophical investigatory practice known as "genealogy." This critique of the philosophical tradition leads to the creation of new values. Both Nietzsche and Foucault extolled these critical and emancipatory virtues of genealogy.
    Volume I examines the principal ontological and epistemological problems with Nietzsche and Foucault's respective uses of the genealogical method. It elucidates the differences between genealogy and other forms of historical inquiry before turning to explicate, in great detail, the three axes of genealogical inquiry: the power axis, the truth axis and the ethical axis. Volume I explains the very important role the body plays in a genealogical investigation before examining several of the problems with the doctrine of perspectivism—a central component to a genealogical inquiry.
    Volume II: An Epistemological Reconstruction of the Genealogical Method, these problems are now resolved. Volume II establishes what requisite ontological underpinnings are required in order to provide a successful, epistemic reconstruction of the genealogical method. Problems regarding the nature of the body, the relation between power and resistance as well as the justification of Nietzschean perspectivism, are now all clearly answered. It is shown that genealogy is a profound, fecund and, most importantly, coherent method of philosophical and historical investigation which may produce many new discoveries in the fields of ethics and moral inquiry provided it is correctly employed. More
    

35. Warming the Stone Child: Myths and Stories about Abandonment and the Unmothered Child by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, audiobook, 2 CDs, unabridged, running time 1 hours (Jungian Storyteller Series: Sounds True)
    The pain of abandonment, both real and metaphorical, can cast a shadow over a persons entire adult experience. Warming the Stone Child investigates the abandoned child archetype in world myths and cultures to find clues about the process of healing the unmothered child within us all. Spiced with Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes' storytelling, Warming the Stone Child is a unique listening experience with a practical edge.
    On 2 CDs, Estes leads listeners past the gates of the conscious mind to discover the unmothered child within. Along the way, this gifted storyteller and Jungian psychoanalyst instructs them about the psychology of abandonment in childhood, how it affects them in later life, and its curiously special gifts and powers. Drawing from many world cultures, Estes has gathered a collection of deep myths, fables, and fairy tales with adult listeners in mind. Her storytelling creates a compelling picture of the orphan figure through the ages, while helping listeners understand the meaning of preadolescent abandonment in their own lives. More

36. Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla's Hermeneutics by Elke Morlok (Mohr Siebeck) Elke Morlok deals with the hermeneutics of R. Joseph Gikatilla, one of the most outstanding and influential kabbalists of medieval Jewish mysticism. His literary creativity falls onto the last decades of the 13th century, when very innovative ideas on kabbalah and its hermeneutics were developed and formulated for the first time. The author analyzes several key concepts throughout his writings such as his ideas on letter combination, symbol, memory, imagination and ritual and their varying functions within the hermeneutical and theosophic structures that underlie Gikatilla's approach. With the application of methods derived from modern theories on language and literature, she tries to create the basis for a fruitful encounter between medieval mystical hermeneutics and postmodern hermeneutical approaches. As Gikatilla incorporates two main trends of kabbalistic thinking during the medieval period, he was one of the most valuable sources for Christian thinkers interested in medieval kabbalistic thought. More

37. Parmenides, Venerable and Awesome: Proceedings of the International Symposium by Nestor-Luis Cordero (Parmenides Publishing) Despite Parmenides' tremendous importance during his own lifetime and his perennial influence on philosophical thought ever since, the great Eleatic - born circa 515 BCE and described by Plato as "Venerable and Awesome" (Theaetetus, 183e) - had never been the subject of an international conference until 2007, when some of the world's most eminent specialists on Parmenides' philosophy convened for a multinational and multilingual Symposium in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This present volume offers a collection of the papers (translated, where applicable) presented at the conference, each advancing the respective scholar's current state of research on Parmenides and his Poem, "On Nature", often with far-reaching and sometimes controversial results. The topics discussed include the challenge of translation, the Poem's poetic form, its logical structure, the sequence of the fragments, the interpretation of "Aletheia" and "Doxa", what Parmenides meant by "mortals" the Poem's "physics" (especially Parmenidean astronomy), the various senses of Being and the role of thought, as well as Plato's relationship to Parmenides. In their different ways each contribution conveys a deep appreciation for the revolutionary nature of Parmenides' philosophy, and the collection as a whole bears witness to the fact that the study of Parmenides continues to yield rich and prolific scholarship - perhaps today more so than ever. This book is intended for scholars and non-specialists alike, and will be of particular relevance to students of Ancient Greek Philosophy, Classical Studies, as well as philosophy and literature more generally. It includes contributors such as: Scott Austin; Jean Bollack; Giovanni Casertano; Barbara Cassin; Giovanni Cerri; Nestor-Luis Cordero; Lambros Couloubaritsis; Patricia Curd; Jean Frere; Arnold Hermann; Charles H Kahn; Alexander P D Mourelatos; Massimo Pulpito; Chiara Robbiano; Fernando Santoro; Jose Trindade Santos; Jose Dueso Solana; and, Panagiotis Thanassas.
    Parmenides, Venerable and Awesome discusses all aspects of Parmenides' Poem, "On Nature", including the challenge of translation, the Poem’s poetic form, its logical structure, the sequence of the fragments, the interpretation of “Aletheia” and “Doxa,” what Parmenides meant by “mortals,” the Poem’s “physics” (especially Parmenidean astronomy), the various senses of Being and the role of thought, as well as Plato’s relationship to Parmenides. In their different ways each contribution conveys a deep appreciation for the revolutionary nature of Parmenides’ philosophy, and the collection as a whole bears witness to the fact that the study of Parmenides continues to yield rich and prolific scholarship—perhaps today more so than ever. More
    
    Plato's Parmenides and Its' Heritage: History and Interpretation from the Old Academy to Later Platonism and Gnosticism  by John D. Turner and Kevin Corrigan (Writings from the Greco-Roman World Supplements, 2: Brill Academic) Paper
    Plato's Parmenides and Its' Heritage: Its Reception in Neoplatonic, Jewish, and Christian Texts by John D. Turner and Kevin Corrigan (Writings from the Greco-Roman World Supplements, 3: Brill Academic) Paper
    'Plato’s Parmenides and Its Heritage' presents in two volumes ground-breaking results in the history of interpretation of Plato’s Parmenides, the culmination of six years of international collaboration by the SBL Annual Meeting seminar, “Rethinking Plato’s Parmenides and Its Platonic, Gnostic and Patristic Reception” (2001–2007).
    The theme of Volume 1 is the dissolution of firm boundaries for thinking about the tradition of Parmenides interpretation from the Old Academy through Middle Platonism and Gnosticism. The volume suggests a radically different interpretation of the history of thought from Plato to Proclus than is customary by arguing against Proclus’s generally accepted view that there was no metaphysical interpretation of the Parmenides before Plotinus in the third century C.E. Instead, this volume traces such metaphysical interpretations, first, to Speusippus and the early Platonic Academy; second, to the Platonism of the first and second centuries C.E. in figures like Moderatus and Numenius; third, to the emergence of an exegetical tradition that read Aristotle’s categories in relation to the Parmenides; and, fourth, to important Middle Platonic figures and texts. The contributors to Volume 1 are Kevin Corrigan, Gerald Bechtle, Luc Brisson, John Dillon, Thomas Szlezák, Zlatko Pleše, Noel Hubler, John D. Turner, Johanna Brankaer, Volker Henning Drecoll, and Alain Lernould.
    Volume 2 examines and establishes for the first time evidence for a significant knowledge of the Parmenides in Philo, Clement, and patristic sources. It offers an extensive and balanced analysis of the case for and against the various possible attributions of date and authorship of the Anonymous Commentary in relation to Gnosticism, Middle Platonism, and Neoplatonism and argues that on balance the case for a pre-Plotinian authorship is warranted. It also undertakes for the first time in this form an examination of the Parmenides in relation to Jewish and Christian thought, moving from Philo and Clement through Origen and the Cappadocians to Pseudo-Dionysius. The contributors to Volume 2 are Matthias Vorwerk, Kevin Corrigan, Luc Brisson, Volker Henning Drecoll, Tuomas Rasimus, John F. Finamore, John M. Dillon, Sara Ahbel-Rappe, Gerald Bechtle, David T. Runia, Mark Edwards, Jean Reynard, and Andrew Radde-Gallwitz. More

38. Popular Religion and Shamanism by Edited by Ma Xisha and Meng Huiying (Religious Studies in Contemporary China Collection: Brill Academic) addresses two areas of religion within Chinese society; the lay teachings that Chinese scholars term folk or `popular' religion, and shamanism. Each area represents a distinct tradition of scholarship, and the book is therefore split into two parts.
    PART I: Popular Religion discusses the evolution of organized lay movements over an arc often centuries. Its eight chapters focus on three key points: the arrival and integration of new ideas before the Song dynasty, the coalescence of an intellectual and scriptural tradition during the Ming, and the efflorescence of new organizations during the late Qing.
    PART II: Shamanism reflects the revived interest of scholars in traditional beliefs and culture that reemerged with the 'open' policy in China that occurred in the 197os. Two of the essays included in this section address shamanism in northeast China where the traditions played an important role in the cultures of the Manchu, Mongol, Sibe, Daur, Oroqen, Evenki, and Hezhen. The other essay discusses divination rites in a local culture of southwest China.
    Both sections of Popular Religion and Shamanism will introduce Western readers to the ideas of Chinese scholars, not just their data. More
    

39. Re-Symbolization of the Self: Human Development and Tarot Hermeneutic by Inna Semetsky (Sense Publishers) This groundbreaking book brings depth of meaning and intellectual scholarship to the field of human development while also lifting the human spirit by offering new dimensions of self-formation through the ancient medium of Tarot. It should be of great interest to health and human service professionals. --JEAN WATSON, Distinguished Professor, University of Colorado Denver College of Nursing; author of Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring and Caring Science as Sacred Science.

    Semetsky's book is a timely antidote for our current crises in education. Drawing on her empirical research with Tarot and her deep knowledge of Jungian psychology, she offers an approach to education that stirs the depths of the Self as it deepens mind into soul. Her Tarot hermeneutic opens a path toward a revolutionary pedagogy that, in its commitment to the complexity, fullness and fluidity of human subjectivity, recovers the ethical and therapeutic dimensions of education. A bold book, a daring achievement, a spark of illumination! --ROBERT D. ROMANYSHYN, Senior Core Faculty, Pacifica Graduate Institute; Affiliate Member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts; author of The Wounded Researcher: Research with Soul in Mind and Ways of the Heart: Essays toward an Imaginal Psychology.
    This text elucidates the potential of Tarot well beyond its popular usage. It demonstrates how Tarot can become a pedagogical and counseling tool for enriching human experiences and the whole of culture with wisdom, integrity, meaning, and spirituality. A must to read! ---MARY K. GREER, author of Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for Personal Transformation.
    Bringing together popular and academic cultures, Inna Semetsky presents Tarot as a system of transformative hermeneutics for adult self-education and cultural pedagogy. Her research is a decisive and intelligent step ahead from the reductive stereotype of Tarot as fortune-telling. The fifteen life stories at the heart of the book exemplify the author's commitment to alternative modes of education and counseling that transcend individual, cultural or language barriers. Assembling a rich array of sources, from Hermeticism to Jungian depth psychology, the philosophies of Noddings, Buber, and Deleuze, and the science of self-organization, this book opens a new path to personal and social revitalization. It should be widely read across disciplinary divides by scholars, students, and professionals alike. --PHILIP WEXLER, Professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; author of Symbolic Movement: Critique and Spirituality in Sociology of Education and Holy Sparks: Social Theory, Education and Religion. More

40. Archetypal Cosmos: Rediscovering the Gods in Myth, Science, and Astrology by Keiron Le Grice (Floris Books) The modern world is passing through a period of critical change on many levels: cultural, political, ecological and spiritual. We are witnessing the decline and dissolution of the old order, the tumult and uncertainty of a new birth. Against this background, Keiron Le Grice argues that the developing insights of a new cosmology could provide a coherent framework of meaning to lead us beyond the growing fragmentation of culture, belief and personal identity.
    In a compelling synthesis of the ideas of seminal thinkers from depth psychology and new paradigm science, Le Grice positions the new discipline of archetypal astrology at the centre of an emerging world view that reunifies psyche and cosmos, spirituality and science, mythology and metaphysics, enabling us to see mythic gods, heroes and themes in a fresh light.
    Heralding a 'rediscovery of the gods' and the passage into a new spiritual era, The Archetypal Cosmos presents a new understanding of the role of myth and archetypal principles in our lives, one that could give a cosmic perspective and deeper meaning to our personal experience.

41. Keiron Le Grice, Ph.D., is founder and co-editor of Archai: The Journal of Archetypal Cosmology. He is adjunct faculty in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness programme at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. More 

Art

Net of Being by Alex Grey (Inner Traditions) Alex Grey’s painting Net of Being – inspired by a blazing vision of an infinite grid of Godheads during an ayahuasca journey – has reached millions as the cover and interior of the band TOOL’s Grammy award-winning triple-platinum album, 10,000 Days. Net of Being is one of many images Grey has created that have resulted in a chain reaction of uses – from apparel and jewelry to tattoos and music videos. Grey is the author of Sacred Mirrors, Transfigurations, The Mission of Art, and Art Psalms. His work has been exhibited throughout the world. More 

The Theatre of Diokaisareia (Diokaisareia in Kilikien) by Marcello Spanu (Walter de Gruyter) The theatre of Diokaisareia (today Uzuncaburc) located in the Roman province of Cilicia (Turkey) has been studied within the German Archaeological Research Project directed by Detlev Wannagat. This volume offers a thorough historical and architectural analysis of the building erected in the second half of the 2nd century AD. The text is complemented by an extended collection of figures and plates, providing a detailed graphic and photographic documentation and reconstruction. This is an important contribution to the study of roman theatres and architectural decoration in Asia Minor. More

The Art and Material Culture of Iranian Shi'ism: Iconography and Religious Devotion in Shi'i Islam  by Pedram Khosronejad(Iran and the Persianate World: I.B. Tauris in association with the Iran Heritage Foundation) Shi'i Islam has been the official religion of Iran from the Safavids (1501-1732) to the present day. The Shi'i world experience has provided a rich artistic tradition, encompassing painting, sculpture, and the production of artifacts and performance, which has helped to embed Shi'i identity in Iran as part of its national narrative. In what areas of material culture has Iranian Shi'ism manifested itself through objects or buildings that are unique within the overall culture of Islam? To what extent is the art and architecture of Iran from the Safavid period onwards identifiably Shi'i? What does this say about the relationship of nation, state, and faith in Iran? Here, leading experts trace the material heritage of Iranian Shi'ism within each of its political, religious, and cultural dimensions. MoreBeckmann & America edited by Jutta Schutt, Städel, Museum Frankfurt am Main, foreword by Max Hollein, texts by David Anfam, Karoline Feulner, Ursula Harter, Lynette Roth, Stefana Sabin, Jutta Schutt, Christiane Zeiller, graphic design by Andreas Platzgummer [hardcover. 280 pp., 261 ills.] The catalogue accompanying the Max Beckmann exhibition at the Städel Museum(Hatje Cantz) Max Beckmann (1884-1950) moved to the United States in the late summer of 1947. He would spend the last three years of his life far away from Europe, years that signified a liberating, intense new start for him. The vastness of the foreign continent, its coasts, the atmosphere of its "wild" landscapes, and its big cities all formed a palpable source of inspiration for Beckmann, who had never before had this type of physical experience of space.

Working with incredible energy and productivity, Beckmann produced numerous major works in these few short years. From today's perspective, Beckmann's independence is all the more impressive when seen in relation to the development of abstract art that was taking place in America at the same time. Beckmann retained his link to representationalism and its metaphorical themes, yet still managed to assert himself as a European painter of international status. More

Max Beckmann The Landscapes edited by Bernhard Mendes Bürgi, Nina Peter, texts by Hans Belting, Bernhard Mendes Bürgi, Eva Demski, Nina Peter, Maren Stotz, Beatrice von Bornnann, graphic design by Schott & Schibig [236 pp., c. 135 ills., 115 in color, 25 x 30.7 cm, hardcover] (Hajte Cantz) Highlights from the master's oeuvre—the landscapes.

Max Beckmann is one of the titans of modern art, although he considered himself the last of the Old Masters. This publication examines the artist's landscape paintings, which are not characterized by layers of allegorical meaning, as are his works in other genres, and their splendid painterly qualities are instantly perceptible. One of the foundations for these landscapes is the potent experience of nature. Personal objects belonging to Beckmann frequently appear in the foreground, like remnants of still lifes, making the viewer aware of the artist's presence. On the other hand, the paintings are realistic reproductions of places he visited, for which Beckmann also made reference to photographs or postcards. A third artistic idea came from art itself: flashes of Beckmann's immense knowledge of art history can be seen in his citations of other works. Thus, his landscapes can be regarded as a kind of summation of his understanding of the world. More

Images of Medieval Sanctity by Debra Higgs Strickland (Visualising the Middle Ages: Brill Academic) Assembled on the occasion of Gary Dickson's retirement from the University of Edinburgh following a distinguished career as an internationally acclaimed scholar of medieval social and religious history, this volume contains contributions by both established and newer scholars inspired by Dickson's particular interests in medieval popular religion, including 'religious enthusiasm'. Together, the essays comprise a comprehensive and rich investigation of the idea of sanctity and its many medieval manifestations across time (fifth through fifteenth centuries) and in different geographical locations (England, Scotland, France, Italy, the Low Countries). By approaching the theme of sanctity from multiple disciplinary perspectives, this highly original collection pushes forward current academic thinking about medieval hagiography, iconography, social history, women's studies, and architectural history. See example of her article on the holy and unholy in representation.
DEBRA HIGGS STRICKLAND, Ph.D. (1993) in Art History, Columbia University, is Deputy Director of the Glasgow Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of Glasgow. Her major publications include Saracens, Demons, and Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art (Princeton, 2003).  More

Nul = 0 - the Dutch Zero Movement in an International Context, 1961-1966 by Colin Huizing, Antoon Melissen, Diana Stiger, Pietje Tegenbosch, Tijs Visser, Caroline de Westenholz, Renate Wiehager, Atsuo Yamamoto, Midori Yamamura (NAi Publishers in association the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam) With the financial support of the Gifted Art Foundation Rotterdam, Harten Fonds Foundation, Schiedam Vlaardingen Fund and the ZERO Foundation, Düsseldorf

A Seminal International Survey of the Legendary Artistic ZERO Movement

The legendary Dutch Nul Group of the 1960s consisting of Armando, Henk Peeters, Jan Schoonhoven, Jan Henderikse and, for a while, herman de vries, has in recent years been the subject of renewed interest, both in the Netherlands and internationally. In September 2011 the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam is staging an international exhibition about nul, the first to be held in the Netherlands for half a century. There are plans for important exhibitions in the USA, Germany and England over the coming years. The publication nul = 0 offers a richly illustrated international perspective on the work of the Dutch nul artists and their kindred spirits abroad.

The publication Nul = 0- the Dutch Zero Movement in an International Context, 1961-1966 reveals the artistic principles of the Nul movement. Leading international writers reconstruct the developments and collaborations of the Dutch Nul group with its spiritual brethren: the artists of the German Zero, the French Nouveau Réalisme, Italy's Azimut Group and the Japanese Gutai Group, as well as individual artists like Yves Klein, Yayoi Kusama and Lucio Fontana. Given the current generation of artists' rediscovery of such elements as time and space, light and motion, the achievements of these artists are now more relevant than ever. More

The Afterlife of Raphael's Paintings by Cathleen Hoeniger (Cambridge University Press) Raphael is one of the rare artists who have never gone out of fashion. Acclaimed during his lifetime, he was imitated by contemporaries and served as a model for painters through the nineteenth century. Because of the artist's renown, his works have continuously been subject to care, conservation, and restoration. In The Afterlife of Raphael's Paintings, Cathleen Hoeniger, Associate Professor of Art History at Queen's University, focuses on the legacy of Raphael's art: the historical trajectory or afterlife of the paintings themselves. More

Green Interior Design by Lori Dennis (Allworth Press) Since average Americans spend 90 percent of their lives indoors, it is no wonder they are looking homeward to become more environmentally friendly. While jumping in with both feet works for some, transforming the home into a green Mecca can be overwhelming.
How does one design and craft green interiors? Is it difficult to make the change? With all the product choices flooding the marketplace, how does one choose the right ones? Is designing green too expensive? More

Crows, Cranes & Camellias by Amy Reigle Newland (Hotei Publishing, Brill Academic) Little is known about the artist Ohara Koson (1877-1945), whose career bridged the era between the decline of the full-coloured woodblock print (nishiki-e) in the late 19th century/early 20th century and the emergence of the Shin hanga ('new print') movement in the 1910s. An artist principally marketed abroad, Koson's bird-and-flower prints met with great success in the United States and Europe. He has only recently received attention in his native Japan following the discovery of important reference material including original sketches and paintings for his prints. More

Manet, Baudelaire and Photography Book 1 & Manet, Baudelaire and Photography Book 2 by Larry Leroy Ligo (Edwin Mellen Press) Professor Ligo s defense and illustration of his claim that Manet s work represents an intelligent and active attempt to embody the modernist aesthetic of his friend, the poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire, makes for absorbing reading. Well aware of the many reasons why Baudelaire may not have been either willing or able to write a full-length essay on Manet in the years 1863-1866 when he knew him best (hard years for Baudelaire, who would die in 1867 and who had lived in Brussels since 1864, in a desperate search for funds and publishers), Professor Ligo fills in the background details both on the friendship between the two men and the artistic life of the times. There are fascinating parallels between specific works by the two artists (Baudelaire’s essay on Wagner s "Tannhauser", for instance, seen in tandem with Manet s "D’jeuner sur l herbe" and particularly interesting arguments about photography and the place of the crowd for both Baudelaire and Manet. Dr. Ligo makes a strong and well-documented case for his conviction that Manet consciously decided to take up the challenge to contemporary painters that Baudelaire sets down in his famous and influential essay, “The Painter of Modern Life”. There is much here for scholars of both Baudelaire and Manet (the parallels enable us to see each in a different light) and for the general reader interested in impressionism, the influence of photography and/or aesthetics more broadly. More

Cézanne in Provence edited by Philip Conisbee and Denis Coutagne (Yale University Press) It was in Paris, not Provence, that Cézanne's art history was made. The centre of the artworld has since been shifted from Paris by the rise of America, but power relations between periphery and centre prevail. The major exhibition that gave rise to this catalogue (available in English and French) would not have been possible without the power of the centre, Washington's National Gallery of Art. The Musée Granet in Aix was thereby able to offer a blockbuster show as a major tourist magnet for the Midi during summer 2006, when the Jas de Bouffan opened to the public. All this is part of a project, 'Cézanne 2006', backed by various development agencies. What is represented for cultural tourism is 'Cézanne's Provence', a short-circuit of nature and painter in which the genius loci of the Aixois landscape supposedly formed Cézanne's approach and the art then forged how we came to see this terrain. More

Music

Music for Sight Singing 5th edition[Spiral-bound] by Thomas E. Benjamin, Michael Horvit, Robert S. Nelson (Schirmer) Designed for the "musicianship" portion of the freshman theory sequence presents music that is carefully chosen to challenge--not overwhelm--the student.
Ease into sight singing, with this accessible text that offers an array of beginning-level pieces designed to build your musicianship skills and your confidence at the same time. The authors' multifaceted approach includes a variety of examples, exercises, and musical genres that ensure well-rounded skill development, from simple rhythms and melodies to duets and canons. More 

Plato on Music, Soul and Body by Francesco Pelosi (Cambridge University Press) Plato's reflection on the relationship between soul and body has attracted scholars' attention since antiquity. Less noted, but worthy of consideration, is Plato's thought on music and its effects on human beings. This book adopts an innovative approach towards analysing the soul—body problem by uncovering and emphasising the philosophical value of Plato's treatment of the phenomenon of music. By investigating in detail how Plato conceives of the musical experience and its influence on intelligence, passions and perceptions, it illuminates the intersection of cognitive and emotional functions in Plato's philosophy of mind.
FRANCESCO PELOSI obtained a Ph.D. in philosophy at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. His main field of research is the relation between music and philosophy in ancient Greece. More

Philosophy

Truth and Method by Hans-Georg Gadamer, translation revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (Bloomsbury Revelations Series: Bloomsbury Academic)

Truth and Method is a landmark work of 20th century thought which established Hans Georg-Gadamer as one of the most important philosophical voices of the 20th Century. In this book, Gadamer established the field of ‘philosophical hermeneutics': exploring the nature of knowledge, the book rejected traditional quasi-scientific approaches to establishing cultural meaning that were prevalent after the war. In arguing the ‘truth' and ‘method' acted in opposition to each other, Gadamer examined the ways in which historical and cultural circumstance fundamentally influenced human understanding. It was an approach that would become hugely influential in the humanities and social sciences and remains so to this day in the work of Jurgen Habermas and many others. More

Pico della Mirandola: Oration on the Dignity of Man: A New Translation and Commentary by Pico della Mirandola, edited by Francesco Borghesi, Dr Michael Papio and Dr Massimo Riva (Cambridge University Press) This is a new translation of and commentary on Pico della Mirandola's most famous work, the Oration on the Dignity of Man. It is the first English edition to provide readers with substantial notes on the text, essays that address the work's historical, philosophical, and theological context, and a survey of its reception. Often called the "Manifesto of the Renaissance," this brief but complex text was originally composed in 1486 as the inaugural speech for an assembly of intellectuals, which could have produced one of the most exhaustive metaphysical, theological, and psychological debates in history, had Pope Innocent VIII not forbidden it. This edition of the Oration reflects the spirit of the original text in bringing together experts in different fields. Not unlike the debate Pico optimistically anticipated, the resulting work is superior to the sum of its parts. More

Hegel's Undiscovered Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis Dialectics: What Only Marx and Tillich Understood by Leonard F. Wheat (Prometheus Books) More

Cambridge History of Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century (1790-1870)by Allen W. Wood and Songsuk Susan Hahn (Cambridge University Press) brings together twenty-nine leading experts in the field and covers the years 1790-1870. Their twenty-seven chapters provide a comprehensive survey of the period, organizing the material topically. After a brief editor's introduction, it begins with three chapters surveying the background of nineteenth century philosophy: followed by two on logic and mathematics, two on nature and natural science, five on mind and language, including psychology, the human sciences and aesthetics, four on ethics, three on religion, seven on society, including chapters on the French Revolution, the decline of natural right, political economy, and social discontent, and three on history, dealing with historical method, speculative theories of history and the history of philosophy. The essays are framed by an editor's introduction and a bibliography. More

The Archaeology of the Soul: Platonic Readings in Ancient Poetry and Philosophy by Seth Benardete, Ronna Burger and Michael Davis (St. Augustine's Press) The Archaeology of the Soul is a testimony to the extraordinary scope of Seth Benardete's thought. Some essays concern particular authors or texts; others range more broadly and are thematic. Some deal explicitly with philosophy; others deal with epic, lyric, and tragic poetry. Some of these authors are Greek, some Roman, and still others are contemporaries writing about antiquity. All of these essays, however, are informed by an underlying vision, which is a reflection of Benardete's life-long engagement with one thinker in particular – Plato. The Platonic dialogue presented Benardete with the most vivid case of that periagoge, or turn-around, that he found to be the sign of all philosophic thinking and that is the signature as well of his own interpretations not only of Plato but also of other thinkers. The late Benardete (1930-2001), was an outstanding teacher and scholar in classical literature and philosophy and taught at New York University; editors are Ronna Burger, who teaches philosophy at Tulane University and Michael Davis, who teaches philosophy at Sarah Lawrence College. More

The Unity of Linguistic Meaning by John Collins (University of Oxford Press) The problem of the unity of the proposition is almost as old as philosophy itself, and was one of the central themes of early analytical philosophy, greatly exercising the minds of Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and Ramsey. The problem is how propositions or meanings can be simultaneously unities (single things) and complexes, made up of parts that are autonomous of the positions they happen to fill in any given proposition. The problem has been associated with numerous paradoxes and has motivated general theories of thought and meaning, but has eluded any consensual resolution; indeed, the problem is sometimes thought to be wholly erroneous, a result of atomistic assumptions we should reject. In short, the problem has been thought to be of merely historical interest. Collins argues that the problem is very real and poses a challenge to any theory of linguistic meaning. He seeks to resolve the problem by laying down some minimal desiderata on a solution and presenting a uniquely satisfying account. The first part of the book surveys and rejects extant 'solutions' and dismissals of the problem from (especially) Frege and Russell, and a host of more contemporary thinkers, including Davidson and Dummett. The book's second part offers a novel solution based upon the properties of a basic syntactic principle called 'Merge', which may be said to create objects inside objects, thus showing how unities can be both single things but also made up of proper parts. The solution is defended from both philosophical and linguistic perspectives. The overarching ambition of the book, therefore, is to strengthen the ties between current linguistics and contemporary philosophy of language in a way that is genuinely sensitive to the history of both fields. More

Parmenides, Venerable and Awesome: Proceedings of the International Symposium by Nestor-Luis Cordero (Parmenides Publishing) Despite Parmenides' tremendous importance during his own lifetime and his perennial influence on philosophical thought ever since, the great Eleatic - born circa 515 BCE and described by Plato as "Venerable and Awesome" (Theaetetus, 183e) - had never been the subject of an international conference until 2007, when some of the world's most eminent specialists on Parmenides' philosophy convened for a multinational and multilingual Symposium in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This present volume offers a collection of the papers (translated, where applicable) presented at the conference, each advancing the respective scholar's current state of research on Parmenides and his Poem, "On Nature", often with far-reaching and sometimes controversial results. The topics discussed include the challenge of translation, the Poem's poetic form, its logical structure, the sequence of the fragments, the interpretation of "Aletheia" and "Doxa", what Parmenides meant by "mortals" the Poem's "physics" (especially Parmenidean astronomy), the various senses of Being and the role of thought, as well as Plato's relationship to Parmenides. In their different ways each contribution conveys a deep appreciation for the revolutionary nature of Parmenides' philosophy, and the collection as a whole bears witness to the fact that the study of Parmenides continues to yield rich and prolific scholarship - perhaps today more so than ever. This book is intended for scholars and non-specialists alike, and will be of particular relevance to students of Ancient Greek Philosophy, Classical Studies, as well as philosophy and literature more generally. It includes contributors such as: Scott Austin; Jean Bollack; Giovanni Casertano; Barbara Cassin; Giovanni Cerri; Nestor-Luis Cordero; Lambros Couloubaritsis; Patricia Curd; Jean Frere; Arnold Hermann; Charles H Kahn; Alexander P D Mourelatos; Massimo Pulpito; Chiara Robbiano; Fernando Santoro; Jose Trindade Santos; Jose Dueso Solana; and, Panagiotis Thanassas.
Parmenides, Venerable and Awesome discusses all aspects of Parmenides' Poem, "On Nature", including the challenge of translation, the Poem’s poetic form, its logical structure, the sequence of the fragments, the interpretation of “Aletheia” and “Doxa,” what Parmenides meant by “mortals,” the Poem’s “physics” (especially Parmenidean astronomy), the various senses of Being and the role of thought, as well as Plato’s relationship to Parmenides. In their different ways each contribution conveys a deep appreciation for the revolutionary nature of Parmenides’ philosophy, and the collection as a whole bears witness to the fact that the study of Parmenides continues to yield rich and prolific scholarship—perhaps today more so than ever. More

Parmenides, Plato and Mortal Philosophy: Return from Transcendence by Vishwa Adluri (Continuum) Parmenides has survived the "parricide" committed against him in Plato's Sophist and in every philosophy of plurality and becoming. Despite the brevity of the fragments of his poem, supposedly titled On Nature (Peri Phuseos), and the apparent simplicity of its central thought -- "being is" -- Parmenides continues to nourish speculation, historical research, and philological debate. We now even have Parmenides Publishing, which has printed or reprinted over half a dozen studies of the pre-Socratic to date. The series Continuum Studies in Ancient Philosophy currently includes no fewer than three books on the topic: Raymond Tallis' The Enduring Significance of Parmenides, Lisa Atwood Wilkinson's Parmenides and To Eon, and Vishwa Adluri's Parmenides, Plato, and Mortal Philosophy. Adluri's work stands out for the radicality of its argument, the subtlety of its interdisciplinary interpretations, and the forthright passion that motivates it.
Adluri's radical reading denies that Parmenides is the enemy of plurality and becoming. How can this be, if the poem bluntly argues that, since "being is," becoming is unthinkable and being is eternally one -- pastless, futureless, and featureless? The answer begins in plain sight, on the surface of the poem, but this surface has been ignored all too often by readers who assume they already know what Parmenides stands for.  Parmenides does not in fact say "being is." The phrase (with its sundry tortured variations) is uttered by an unnamed goddess who addresses the poem's narrator. The poem begins in the first person, describing the narrator's (Parmenides'?) passionate journey ("as far as thumos might reach," fragment 1, line 1) to the gates of the divine domain. The goddess then welcomes the voyager and presents two accounts: an account of the "truth" (monistic being) and an account of mortal opinions about the mutable cosmos. The usual assumption is that the first-person proem is window dressing: like the dactylic hexameter, it is a remnant of or concession to the prephilosophical, mythmaking culture from which Parmenides is emerging. The goddess' first account is assumed to be Parmenides' own theory. Her second account is then problematic: if there is nothing but being, how can there "be" a plurality of phenomena, opinions (whether true or untrue), and opiners? Parmenides the monist turns out to be an extreme dualist, due to his uncompromising split between reality and appearance. Our task is then to construct a logical solution to this split -- if not within Parmenides' theory itself, then in our own physical or metaphysical theories. More

F.C.S. Schiller on Pragmatism and Humanism: Selected Writings, 1891-1939  by F. C. S. Schiller and H. P. McDonald (Contemporary Studies in Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Humanity Books) In his prolific seventy-three-year lifetime, F. C. S. Schiller was a well-known philosopher of the highest repute, considered synonymous with humanist philosophy. Up until his death in 1937, he carried the torch of pragmatism and self-titled humanism into the twentieth century, nearly single-handedly energizing European debates over pragmatic approaches to logic, science, truth, and reality. He retained humanism as the foundation for his entire philosophy, stressing that the environment, knowledge, and values must always be the creation of human choices and activities.
The study of Schiller's most important contributions to the philosophical traditions of humanism and pragmatism continues to be of great significance for contemporary scholars. The forty-two pieces that appear in this volume, carefully selected from his .books, journal articles, and essay contributions published between 1891 and 1939, represent Schiller's finest writings. They range across a broad spectrum of specific topics: logic and scientific method, meaning and truth, pluralism and monism, personalism and idealism, metaphysics and values, evolution and religion, and ethics and politics. The collection also includes an introduction to Schiller's life and career, introductory essays, and a bibliography of his momentous work, With reverential enthusiasm, Shook and McDonald have here awakened the intelligent and passionate voice of humanism's all-too-neglected driving force. More

Interpreting Heidegger: Critical Essays by Lee Braver (Cambridge University Press) This volume of essays by internationally prominent scholars interprets the full range of Heidegger's thought and major critical interpretations of it. It explores such central themes as hermeneutics, facticity and Ereignis, conscience in Being and Time, freedom in the writings of his period of transition from fundamental ontology, and his mature criticisms of metaphysics and ontotheology. The volume also examines Heidegger's interpretations of other authors, the philosophers Aristotle, Kant and Nietzsche and the poets Rilke, Trakl and George. A final group of essays interprets the critical reception of Heidegger's thought, both in the analytic tradition (Ryle, Carnap, Rorty and Dreyfus) and in France (Derrida and Lévinas). This rich and wide-ranging collection will appeal to all who are interested in the themes, the development and the context of Heidegger's philosophical thought. More

From Inquiry to Demonstrative Knowledge: New Essays on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics edited by J. H. Lesher (Academic Printing and Publishing)  ISBN 9781926598017. Aristotle's Posterior Analytics is regarded as an original work that determined the course of philosophy of science — and to some extent of science itself — for two millennia. Nevertheless the work poses many challenges to the scholar. How does the demonstrative syllogism that is the focus of Aristotle's interest in the APo relate to the non-syllogistic accounts of phenomena that we find in his scientific treatises? How do the accounts of knowledge, definition, and explanation put forward in the APo stand in relation to other elements in Aristotle's philosophy — his accounts of substance, the four causes, the distinctions between actuality and potentiality, form and matter, processes and activities, etc? How exactly do we know the first principles of scientific inquiry: why should we suppose that we have access to some non-demonstrative way of knowing, why in explaining how we can know first principles does Aristotle focus instead on how we form concepts, and what could it possibly mean to say that 'while we perceive the particular, perception is of the universal'? The distinguished contributors to this volume address all of these questions and more. The volume sets a new standard for the interpretation and assessment of one of Aristotle's most important philosophical works. More

On Aristotle's 'Metaphysics': An Annotated Translation of the So-called 'Epitome'  by Averroës and edited translated by Rudiger Arnzen (Scientia Graeco-Arabica: De Gruyter) The Arab philosopher Abu L-Walid Muhammad Ibn Rushd (1126-98), among western historians of philosophy better known by his Latinized name Averroës, composed more than thirty commentaries and studies on the works of Aristotle. Although these commentaries had an enormous influence on medieval Latin and Hebrew philosophy in general as well as on the reception and transformation of Aristotelian doctrines in particular, a lot of them are still in need of reliable critical editions, and an even greater number still await complete modern translations in order to be readily accessible to students and scholars of medieval philosophy unable to read the original Arabic texts.
This applies also to the work presented here for the first time in a complete English translation for which there is no definitive critical edition of the Arabic text available. As a matter of fact, the translation was originally supposed to be accompanied by a critical edition of the Arabic text itself—a plan that had to be postponed for the time being because it was impossible to obtain copies of all extant medieval and early modern manuscripts of the work. However, the translation is based not only on the previous editions of the text, but also on a number of thoroughly collated Arabic manuscripts not taken into consideration in these editions. Thus, the present translation is not only of interest to those engaged in medieval philosophy yet unable to examine the Arabic documents, but it might also be helpful for exploring the Arabic manuscripts and assaying Averroes' intentions more comprehensively and accurately than this has been possible on the basis of the previous Arabic editions. More

Petrarch's Humanism and the Care of the Self by Gur Zak (Cambridge University Press) Petrarch was one of the founding fathers of Renaissance humanism, yet the nature and significance of his ideas are still widely debated. In this book, Gur Zak examines two central issues in Petrarch's works - his humanist philosophy and his concept of the self. Zak argues that both are defined by Petrarch's idea of care for the self. Overcome by a strong sense of fragmentation, Petrarch turned to the ancient idea that philosophy can bring harmony and wholeness to the soul through the use of spiritual exercises in the form of writing. Examining his vernacular poetry and his Latin works from both literary and historical perspectives, Zak explores Petrarch's attempts to use writing as a spiritual exercise, how his spiritual techniques absorbed and transformed ancient and medieval traditions of writing, and the tensions that arose from his efforts to care for the self through writing. More

When Philosophers Rule: Ficino on Plato's Republic, Laws & Epinomis (Commentaries by Ficino on Plato's Writing) Translation by Arthur Farndell (Shepheard-Walwyn) Marsillio Ficino of Florence (1433-99) was one of the most influential thinkers of the Renaissance. He put before society a new ideal of human nature, emphasising its divine potential. As teacher and guide to a remarkable circle of men, he made a vital contribution to changes that were taking place in European thought. For Ficino, the writings of Plato provided the key to the most important knowledge for mankind, knowledge of God and the soul. It was the absorption of this knowledge that proved so important to Ficino, to his circle, and to later writers and artists. As a young man, Ficino had been directed by Cosimo de’ Medici towards the study of Plato in the original Greek. Later he formed a close connection with Cosimo’s grandson, Lorenzo de’ Medici, under whom Florence achieved its age of brilliance. Gathered round Ficino and Lorenzo were such men as Landino, Bembo, Poliziano and Pico della Mirandola. The ideas they discussed became central to the work of Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael, Dürer, and many other writers and artists. Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils, - no, nor the human race, as I believe, - and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.' Republic, Book V, 473D With these words Plato expressed his ideal form of government. Often dismissed as unrealisable, they have appealed down the ages to men of goodwill. Having translated all of the Dialogues from Greek into Latin, at the request of his Medici patrons, Ficino was asked to prepare summaries by Lorenzo de’ Medici, the de facto ruler of the republic of Florence, who aspired to be the kind of enlightened ruler Plato described. More

Politics

Storied Communities: Narratives of Contact and Arrival in Constituting Political Community edited by Hester Lessard, Rebecca Johnson and Jeremy Webber (UBC Press) Political communities are defined and often contested through stories and storytelling. Scholars have long recognized that two foundational sets of stories narratives of contact and narratives of arrival helped to define settler societies. We are only beginning to understand how ongoing issues of migration and settlement are linked to issues of indigenous-settler contact.
In Storied Communities, scholars from multiple disciplines disrupt the assumption in many works that indigenous and immigrant identities fall into two separate streams of analysis. The authors do not attempt to build a new master narrative they instead juxtapose narratives of contact and arrival as they explore key themes: the nature and hazards of telling stories in the political realm; the literary, ceremonial, and identity-forming dimensions of the narrative form; actual narratives of contact and arrival; and the institutional and theoretical implications of foundation narratives and storytelling. In the process, they deepen our understanding of the role of narrative in community and nation building. More

Critical Urban Studies: New Directions edited by Jonathan S. Davies and David L. Imbroscio, with an introduction by Clarence N. Stone (SUNY Press) Urban scholarship has had detractors of late, particularly in mainstream political science, where it has been accused of parochialism and insularity.
Critical Urban Studies, edited by Jonathan S. Davies, Reader in Public Policy at the University of Warwick and David L. Imbroscio, Professor of Political Science at the University of Louisville, offers a repudiation of this critique, reasserting the need for critical urban scholarship and demonstrating the fundamental importance of urban studies for understanding and changing contemporary social life. Contributors to the volume identify an orthodox perspective in the field, subject it to critique, and map out a future research agenda for the field. The result is a series of essays pointing scholars and students to the major theoretical and policy challenges facing urbanists and other critical social scientists. More

Uranium Wars: The Scientific Rivalry that Created the Nuclear Age by Amir D. Aczel (Macmillian) Set against the darkening shadow of World War II, Uranium Wars follows the time's most brilliant scientists as they race to capture nuclear power. Pioneering woman physicist Lise Meitner uncovered nuclear fission but never won the Nobel Prize. Denmark's Niels Bohr sided with the Allies when he held a secret meeting with his protégé and possible Nazi collaborator Werner Heisenberg. Years of dogged research culminated on a racquetball court at the University of Chicago as Italian physicist Enrico Fermi set off the first nuclear chain reaction that led to the building of the atom bomb. Told with flair by one of our best popular science writers, Uranium Wars is a fast paced and vivid narrative about a pivotal moment in history. Amir U. Aczel expertly connects the dots to today, when nations seek nuclear capability and scientists strive to better understand and responsibly manage the most controversial type of energy ever discovered.
Hardly a day goes by without a major news report about nuclear issues, whether it's the international community's response to Iran's nuclear program or the future of Pakistan's atomic arsenal. At the same time, some politicians and scientists envision a future in which nuclear reactors dot the country, generating electricity that will help break our dependence on fossil fuels. Nuclear energy can help us combat global warming because this power source does not entail the release of carbon into the atmosphere. But the promise of a carbon-free energy source is checked by concerns about the ill effects of nuclear waste, as well as the danger of another disaster like the 1986 meltdown of a nuclear plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, the human toll of which we have yet to fully quantify. More

The United States and Public Diplomacy edited Kenneth A. Osgood, Brian C. Etheridge (Diplomatic Studies: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers) Public diplomacy is the art of cultivating public opinion to achieve foreign policy objectives. A vital tool in contemporary statecraft, public diplomacy is also one of the most poorly understood elements of a nation’s “soft power.”
The United States and Public Diplomacy adds historical perspective to the ongoing global conversation about public diplomacy and its proper role in foreign affairs. It highlights the fact that the United States has not only been an important sponsor of public diplomacy, it also has been a frequent target of public diplomacy initiatives sponsored by others. Many of the essays in this collection look beyond Washington to explore the ways in which foreign states, non-governmental organizations, and private citizens have used public diplomacy to influence the government and people of the United States. More

Toward a New Framework for Peaceful Settlement of China's Territorial and Boundary Disputes by Junwu Pan (Brill) This book provides a precious chance to take legal perspectives of China's territorial and boundary disputes against the new background of China's increasingly integrating itself into global economic, political and legal systems. Based on international law and China's new policy, the author examines the possibility of using the third party, which is notably missing in China's international engagement, to settle China's territorial and boundary disputes. This book pinpoints the problems and opportunities China is confronting in its attitude to international law and inter-national courts and tribunals. In the light of international law, especially of norms and principles used by the International Court of Justice and other international courts and tribunals, the author creatively proposes a new framework for settlement of China's territorial and boundary disputes. The author is a promising young scholars specializing in China's territorial and boundary issues. More

Jihadists and Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Growing Threat by Gary Ackerman (Editor), Jeremy Tamsett (CRC)  Written for professionals, academics, and policymakers working at the forefront of counterterrorism efforts, Jihadists and Weapons of Mass Destruction is an authoritative and comprehensive work addressing the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the hands ofjihadists, both historically and looking toward the future threat environment. Providing insight on one of the foremost security issues of the 21st century, this seminal resource effectively:

• Documents current trends in the ideology, strategy, and tactics of jihadists as these relate to WMD
• Includes a section devoted to jihadist involvement with chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons
• Explores the role of intelligence, law enforcement, and policymakers in anticipating, deterring, and mitigating WMD attacks
• Provides an overview of nonproliferation policies designed to keep WMD out of the hands of jihadists
• Conducts a groundbreaking quantitative empirical analysis of jihadist behavior Elicits leading experts' estimates of the future WMD threat from jihadists

Leading international experts clearly differentiate between peaceful Muslims and jihadists, exploring how jihadists translate their extreme and violent ideology into strategy. They also focus on WMD target selection and the spread of WMD knowledge in jihadist communities. Devoid of sensationalism, this multidimensional evaluation adds a heightened level of sophistication to our understanding of the prospects for and nature of jihadist WMD terrorism. More

What Is a Just Peace? Edited by Pierre Allan, Alexis Keller (Oxford University Press) Just War has attracted considerable attention. The words peace and justice are often used together. Surprisingly, however, little conceptual thinking has gone into what constitutes a Just Peace. This book, which includes some of the world's leading scholars, debates and develops the concept of Just Peace. The problem with the idea of a Just Peace is that striving for justice may imply a Just War. In other words, peace and justice clash at times. Therefore, one often starts from a given view of what constitutes justice, but this a priori approach leads - especially when imposed from the outside - straight into discord. This book presents conflicting viewpoints on this question from political, historical, and legal perspectives as well as from a policy perspective. The book also argues that Just Peace should be defined as a process resting on four necessary and sufficient conditions: thin recognition whereby the other is accepted as autonomous; thick recognition whereby identities need to be accounted for; renouncement, requiring significant sacrifices from all parties; and finally, rule, the objectification of a Just Peace by a "text" requiring a common language respecting the identities of each, and defining their rights and duties. This approach based on a language-oriented process amongst directly concerned parties, goes beyond liberal and culturalist perspectives. Throughout the process, negotiators need to build a novel shared reality as well as a new common language allowing for an enduring harmony between previously clashing peoples. It challenges a liberal view of peace founded on norms claiming universal scope. The liberal conception has difficulty in solving conflicts such as civil wars characterized typically by fundamental disagreements between different communities. Cultures make demands that are identity-defining, and some of these defy the "cultural neutrality" that is one of the foundations of liberalism. Therefore, the concept of Just Peace cannot be solved within the liberal tradition.

As Just War has attracted considerable attention for centuries, the words peace and justice have been, and are still, often used together. While an old doctrine of Just War exists, surprisingly little conceptual thinking has gone into what constitutes a peace that is a just one. This book debates this problématique and develops the concept of a Just Peace. More

Sentencing: A Reference Handbook by Dean Champion, Mildred Vasan (Contemporary World Issues: ABC-CLIO) examines the sentencing process in detail. The initial chapter on history and development defines sentencing and its goals. Sentencing is the application of one or more punishments / sanctions following a criminal conviction. These punishments include fines and / or incarceration, or placement under the super­vision of probation officers. The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 restated a number of sentencing objectives that have guided sentencing judges in their leniency or harshness toward convicted defendants. More

Pot Politics: Marijuana and the Costs of Prohibition edited by Mitch Earleywine (Oxford University Press) Marijuana use continues to attract interest and fuel controversy. Big, green pot leaves have adorned the covers of Time, National Review, and Forbes. Almost 100 million Americans have tried marijuana at least once. Groups such as The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana (NORML) and The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) have tens of thousands of members. Polls suggest that 70-80% of Americans support medicinal marijuana. At least 11 U.S. states have experimented with decriminalization and medical marijuana laws, with new initiatives appearing each year. Meanwhile, other groups such as Partnership for a Drug Free America and Mothers Against Drugs protest legalization. Clearly, debate about marijuana policy shows no sign of abating. More

Guide to U.S. Elections 5th Edition 2 volumes (CQ Press) In Volume One, part one examines the evolution of the U.S. electoral system and includes material on the franchise and voting rights. It also explores the impact of major post–World War II political issues. Part two examines the evolution of campaign finance, traces the development of political parties, profiles major and minor parties, and discusses the historical significance of southern primaries. Part three features an overview and chronology of presidential elections along with information and data on presidential primaries, nominating conventions, popular and electoral voting, and the Electoral College. More

Guide To Political Campaigns In America by Paul S. Herrnson (CQ Press) is the first complete resource for scholarly and practical insight into every important aspect of political campaigns and campaign activities. Campaigns are a critical part of the political process in the United States, and this unique volume provides students, researchers, scholars, and others interested in campaigns and politics with a broad foundation of knowledge about the history of campaigns and the issues, people, processes, and types and levels of races involved. More

Religion

Spirituality in the Modern World: Within Religious Tradition and Beyond 4 volume set by Paul Heelas (Critical Concepts in Religious Studies: Routledge) It would not be an exaggeration to say that during the last century, most especially during and since the 1960s, the language of spirituality has become one of the most significant ways in which the sacred has come to be understood and judged in the West, and, increasingly, elsewhere. Whether it is true that ‘spirituality’ has eclipsed ‘religion’ in Western settings remains debatable. What is incontestable is that the language of spirituality, together with practices (most noticeably spiritual, complementary, and alternative medicine), has become a major feature of the sacred dimensions of contemporary modernity. Equally incontestably, spirituality is a growing force in all those developing countries where its presence is increasingly felt among the cosmopolitan elite, and where spiritual forms of traditional, complementary, and alternative medicine are thriving.
This new four-volume, 1,856 page, Spirituality in the Modern World: Within Religious Tradition and Beyond collection from Routledge provides a coherent compilation of landmark texts which cannot be ignored by those intent on making sense of what is happening to the sacred as spirituality—more exactly what is taken to be spirituality—develops as an increasingly important lingua franca, series of practices, and as a humanistic ethicality. More

A Study of the Life and Works of Athanasius Kircher, 'Germanus Incredibilis': With a Selection of His Unpublished Correspondence and an Annotated Translation of His Autobiography by John Edward Fletcher and Elizabeth Fletcher (Aries Book: Brill Academic) Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit in 17th-century Rome, was an enigma. Intensely pious and a prolific author, he was also a polymath fascinated with everything from Egyptian hieroglyphs to the tiny creatures in his microscope. His correspondence with popes, princes and priests was a window into the restless energy of the period. It showed first-hand the seventeenth-century’s struggle for knowledge in astronomy, microscopy, geology, chemistry, musicology, Egyptology, horology… The list goes on. Kircher’s books reflect the mind-set of 17th-century scholars - endless curiosity and a … read more substantial larding of naiveté: Kircher scorned alchemy as the wishful thinking of charlatans, yet believed in dragons. His life and correspondence provide a key to the transition from the Middle Ages to a new scientific age. This book, though unpublished, has been long quoted and referred to. Awaited by scholars and specialists of Kircher, it is finally available with this edition. More

The Existence of God: An Exposition and Application of Fregean Meta-Ontology by Stig Børsen Hansen (Quellen Und Studien Zur Philosophie: De Gruyter) This study breaks new ground on the question of the existence of God. It innovatively combines biblical scholarship with an analysis of existence drawn from the writings of the philosopher Gottlob Frege. It shows that the strength of Frege's approach is its emphasis on the notions of proper name and predicate; this in turn sheds new light on important elements of theological language. Finally, the Fregean approach in this book is defended against objections drawn from readings of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.  More

A Companion to Greek Mythology by Ken Dowden and Niall Livingstone (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World: Wiley-Blackwell) approaches the richly diverse phenomenon of Greek myth from a distinctive new angle -- one that delves deeply into its origins in shared Indo-European story patterns and the Greeks’ contacts with their Eastern Mediterranean neighbours. Contributions from a team of international experts trace the development of Greek myth into a shared language, heritage, and way of thinking throughout the entire Greco-Roman world.
Individual essays address such topics as how myths were presented in stories, poems, dramas and all forms of visual art, as well as the role of myth in philosophy, learning, religion, mystery-cult, and Greek self identity. Other essays explore contemporary reception of Greek myth and the potential of modern theoretical approaches. A Companion to Greek Mythology offers invaluable insights into the ancient world that will help to shape our understanding of the wide ranging appeal and influence of Greek myth across the ages. More

The Silent God by Marjo C. A. Korpel and Johannes C. De Moor (Brill Academic) The silence of God is a recurring theme in modern reflection. It is not only addressed in theology, religious studies and philosophy, but also in literary fiction, film and theatre. The authors show that the concept of a silent deity emerged in the ancient Near East (including Greece). What did the Ancients mean when they assumed that under circumstances their deities remained silent? What reasons are discernable for silence between human beings and their gods? For the first time the close interrelation between the divine and the human in the revelatory process is demonstrated here on the basis of a wealth of translated ancient texts. In an intriguing epilogue, the authors explore the theological consequences of what they have found. More

Paradise in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Views by Markus Bockmuehl and Guy G. Stroumsa (Cambridge University Press) The social and intellectual vitality of Judaism and Christianity in antiquity was in large part/ a function of their ability to articulate a viably transcendent hope for the human condition. Narratives of paradise — based on the concrete symbol of the Garden of Delights —came to play a central role for Jews, Christians, and eventually Muslims too.
These collected essays highlight the multiple hermeneutical perspectives on biblical paradise from Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins to the systematic expositions of Augustine and rabbinic literature, and show that while early Christian and Jewish sources draw on texts from the same Bible, their perceptions of paradise often reflect the highly different structures of the two sister religions. Dealing with a wide variety of texts, these essays explore major themes such as the allegorical and literal interpretations of paradise, the tension between heaven and earth, and paradise's physical location in space and time.
MARKUS BOCKMUEHL is Professor of Biblical and Early Christian Studies and a Fellow of Keble College at the University of Oxford. He is the editor of the The Cambridge Companion to Jesus  (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and the co-editor (with Donald A. Hagner) of The Written Gospel  (Cambridge University Press, 2005).
GUY G. STROUMSA is Professor of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions and a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall at the University of Oxford, and Martin Buber Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religion, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations in Late Antiquity (2009) and A New Science: The Discovery of Religion in the Age of Reason (2010), as well as the co-editor (with Graham N. Stanton) of Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity (Cambridge University Press, 1998). More

Constructing Tradition: Means and Myths of Transmission in Western Esotericism by Andreas Kilcher, Antoine Faivre, Matthias Heiduk, and Philipp Theisohn (Aries Book Series: Brill Academic) The question of constructing tradition, concepts of origin, and memory as well as techniques and practices of knowledge transmission, are central for cultures in general. In esotericism, however, such questions and techniques play an outstanding role and are widely reflected upon, in its literature. Esoteric paradigms not only understand themselves in elaborated mytho-poetical narratives as bearers of "older", "hidden", "higher" knowledge. They also claim their knowledge to be of a particular origin. And they claim this knowledge has been transmitted by particular (esoteric) means, media and groups. Consequently, esotericism not only involves the construction of its own tradition; it can even be understood as a specific form of tradition and transmission. The various studies of the present volume, which contains the papers of a conference held in Tubingen in July 2007, provide an overview of the most important concepts and ways of constructing tradition in esotericism. More

Plato and the Talmud by Jacob Howland (Cambridge University Press) This innovative study sees the relationship between Athens and Jerusalem through the lens of the Platonic dialogues and the Talmud. Howland argues that these texts are animated by comparable conceptions of the proper roles of inquiry and reasoned debate in religious life, and by a profound awareness of the limits of our understanding of things divine. Insightful readings of Plato's Apology, Euthyphro, and chapter three of tractate Ta'anit explore the relationship of prophets and philosophers, fathers and sons, and gods and men (among other themes), bringing to light the tension between rational inquiry and faith that is essential to the speeches and deeds of both Socrates and the Talmudic sages. In reflecting on the pedagogy of these texts, Howland shows in detail how Talmudic aggadah and Platonic drama and narrative speak to different sorts of readers in seeking mimetically to convey the living ethos of rabbinic Judaism and Socratic philosophizing. More

Horoscopes and Public Spheres: Essays on the History of Astrology Edited by Günther Oestmann, / H. Darrel Rutkin, / Kocku von Stuckrad (Walter de Gruyter) examines the specific role of horoscopic astrology in Western culture from antiquity to the nineteenth century. Focusing on the public appearance of astrological rhetoric, the essays break new ground for a better understanding of the function of horoscopes in public discourse. The volume's three parts address the use of imperial horoscopes in late antiquity, the transformation of doctrines and rhetorics in Islamic medieval contexts, and the important status of astrology in early modern Europe. The combination of in-depth historical studies and methodological considerations results in an important contribution to religious and cultural studies.

Kant und Swedenborg: Zugänge zu einem umstrittenen Verhältnis by Friedemann Herausgeber v. Stengel (Max Niemeyer Verlag) Kant as the leading representative of the philosophical enlightenment and the seer Swedenborg, regarded as the father of modern esotericism, would appear at first sight to be two diametrically opposed 18th century figures. At the same time, Swedenborg was one of the few authors to whom Kant dedicated a work of his own – the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. Since then, controversy has surrounded Swedenborg’s significance for Kant’s philosophical biography and the history of his works. In the present volume, philosophers, religious scholars, theologians and literary scholars from six countries present their – far from consensual – interpretations of the relationship between Kant’s critical philosophy and Swedenborg’s “visionary realism”.

The Secret History of Western Sexual Mysticism: Sacred Practices and Spiritual Marriage by Arthur Versluis  (Destiny Books) Beginning with the ancient Greek Mystery traditions, Gnosticism, and the practices in early Christianity, Arthur Versluis uncovers the secret line of Western sexual mysticism that, like the Tantra of the East, seeks transcendence or union with God through sexually charged practices. Throughout antiquity, and right into the present day, sexuality has played an important, if largely hidden, role in religious traditions and practices. This includes not only Christian but also kabbalistic, hermetic, and alchemical currents of sexual mysticism, many discussed together here for the first time. More

Hidden Intercourse: Eros and Sexuality in the History of Western Esotericism edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Jeffrey J. Kripal (Aries: Brill Academic) From rumours about gnostic orgies in antiquity to the explicit erotic symbolism of alchemical texts, from the subtly coded eroticism of medieval kabbalah to the sexual magic practiced by contemporary occultists and countercultural translations of Asian Tantra, the history of Western esotericism is rich in references to the domains of eros and sexuality. This volume, which brings together an impressive array of top-level specialists, is the first to analyze the eroticism of the esoteric without sensationalism or cheap generalizations, but on the basis of expert scholarship and attention to textual and historical detail. While there are few other domains where the imagination may so easily run wild, the various contributions seek to distinguish fact from fiction--only to find that historical realities are sometimes even stranger than the fantasies. In doing so, they reveal the outlines of a largely unknown history spanning more than twenty centuries.  More

Asian Religions

Popular Religion and Shamanism by Edited by Ma Xisha and Meng Huiying (Religious Studies in Contemporary China Collection: Brill Academic) addresses two areas of religion within Chinese society; the lay teachings that Chinese scholars term folk or `popular' religion, and shamanism. Each area represents a distinct tradition of scholarship, and the book is therefore split into two parts.
PART I: Popular Religion discusses the evolution of organized lay movements over an arc often centuries. Its eight chapters focus on three key points: the arrival and integration of new ideas before the Song dynasty, the coalescence of an intellectual and scriptural tradition during the Ming, and the efflorescence of new organizations during the late Qing.
PART II: Shamanism reflects the revived interest of scholars in traditional beliefs and culture that reemerged with the 'open' policy in China that occurred in the 197os. Two of the essays included in this section address shamanism in northeast China where the traditions played an important role in the cultures of the Manchu, Mongol, Sibe, Daur, Oroqen, Evenki, and Hezhen. The other essay discusses divination rites in a local culture of southwest China.
Both sections of Popular Religion and Shamanism will introduce Western readers to the ideas of Chinese scholars, not just their data. More

An Introduction to Tantric Philosophy: The Paramarthasara of Abhinavagupta and the Commentary by Yogaraja translated by Lyne Bansat-Boudon and Kamalesha Tripathi, Introduction, notes, cricitally revised Sanskrit text, appendix, indices byLyne Bansat-Boudon (Routledge Studies in Tantric Traditions: Routledge) The Paramarthasara, or 'Essence of Ultimate Reality', is a work of the Kashmirian polymath Abhinavagupta (tenth—eleventh centuries). It is a brief treatise in which the author outlines the doctrine of which he is a notable exponent, namely non-dualistic Saivism, which he designates in his works as the Trika, or 'Triad' of three principles: Siva, Sakti and the embodied soul (nara).
The main interest of the Paramarthasara is not only that it serves as an introduction to the established doctrine of a tradition, but also advances the notion of jivanmukti, 'liberation in this life', as its core theme. Further, it does not confine itself to an exposition of the doctrine as such but at times hints at a second sense lying beneath the evident sense, namely esoteric techniques and practices that are at the heart of the philosophical discourse. Its commentator, Yogaraja (eleventh century), excels in detecting and clarifying those various levels of meaning.
An Introduction to Tantric Philosophy presents, along with a critically revised Sanskrit text, the first annotated English translation of both Abhinavagupta's Paramarthasara and Yogaraja's commentary.
This book will be of interest to dologists, as well as to specialists and students of Religion, Tantric studies and Philosophy. More