unity. By challenging those who consider religion to be the primary phenomenon and art the secondary arena for the apprehension of religious meanings, these essays reveal the collapse of other dichotomies as well. Touching on works produced at every social level, they explore a fascinating set of connections within Japanese culture and move to re-envision such usual distinctions as religion and art, sacred and secular, Buddhism, and Shinto, theory and substance, elite and popular, and even audience and artist. The essays range from visual and literary hagiographies to No drama, to sermon-ballads, to a painting of the Nirvana of Vegetables. The contributors to the volume are James H. Foard, Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, Frank Hoff, Laura S. Kaufman, William R. LaFleur, Susan Matisoff, Barbara Ruch, Yoshiaki Shimizu, and Royall Tyler.  (less)

examines geographical, historical, economic, and cultural issues in 16 Middle Eastern countries. For each nation, information about peoples, natural resources and geography, economy, and religion is included. A section on everyday life considers education, leisure activities, dress, holidays, the arts, and food--including sample recipes. Tables, charts, illustrations, timelines, and fact sheets provide visual references to support the written material. Volume 1: Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt Volume 2: Iran, Iraq, Israel Volume 3: Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman Volume 4: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria Volume 5: Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen Set Features: endL 720 pages in 5 volumes 7 x 10 2-color interior 350 Photographs, Maps, Charts, and Graphs Sidebars and Fact boxes Timelines Biographical sketches of important people Primary Documents Glossary Cumulative Index (in each volume). Curriculum Themes: History of each country Past and present government Religion and culture (and how one influences the other) The arts Cuisine and a sample recipe Clothing Land & resources Economy Education. Reading Level: Grades 6-8  (less)

I>Elizabethan World Reference Library< /I> covers the broad sweep of the culture of the times, from Elizabeth's court to rural life, and from the New World explorations to the remarkable flowering of literature and drama for which the era is renowned. Perfect for both history and literatures studies, this set was designed with the student in mind: numerous illustrations for key visuals, chronology to maintain perspective, sidebars to add interest, words to know for additional clarification, subject index for easy navigation and many other features, such as research and activity ideas and further reading suggestions. The Library is divided into three separate volumes. < P>The < I>Almanac< /I> focuses on major topics such as religion and politics, war and conflict, science and education, as well as the Elizabethan worldview, Elizabethan court, daily life and the culture of music, art and literature. < P>< I>Biographies< /I> includes Shakespearean contemporaries and notables such as Walter Raleigh, Francis Drake, Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I, Jane Grey, Francis Bacon, Catherine of Medici, James I, as well as Shakespeare himself. < P>< I>Primary Sources< /I> is a hand-picked collection of some of the most significant and studied documents of the era, among them Elizabeth I: Speeches, excerpts from The Book of Common Prayer, Pope Pius V's Bull against Elizabeth and Shakespeare's Richard II.  (less)

battles, laws, and ideological notions. This volume goes beyond its primary focus on Germany to include articles on other nations and their citizens who were touched by the Third Reich, whether through occupation, alliance, resistance, or collaboration. Sample entries include: abortion, anti-Semitism, architecture, Leo Baeck, Bertolt Brecht, Buchenwald, degenerate art, Marlene Dietrich, Albert Einstein, euthanasia, Anne Frank, Gypsies, Reinhard Heydrich, Hilter Youth, Kristallnacht, Benito Mussolini, neo-Nazism, Olympic Games, Pope Pius XII, Albert Speer, the SS, Stalingrad, Volkswagen, and much more. Over 1200 uncommon photographs, posters, and drawings add a visual dimension that makes this an essential pictorial record of the era as well as an outstanding example of scholarship.  (less)

Jones''s stories and in his own illuminating commentary John Harvey has made a fascinating, enjoyable and scholarly contribution to the field. --www.gwales.comDIVDIVBJohn Harvey/Bis Professor of Fine Art, Head of the School of Art, and Director of the Centre for Studies in the Visual Culture of Religion at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He is an art practitioner and art historian, and the author ofIThe Art of Piety: The Visual Culture of Welsh Nonconformity/I(1995) andIThe Image of the Invisible: The Visualization of Religion in the Welsh Nonconformist Tradition/I(1999)./DIV/DIV  (less)

imagery, music, and the spoken language with text and narrative that are grounded in the latest scholarship.pMinimum System Requirements:pPC:pWindows95 Pentium 100, 32 MB RAM, 16-bit color display, 2X CD-ROMpMacintosh:pSystem 7.5 68040 processor, 32 MB RAM, 16-bit color display, 2X CD-ROMFor students, businesspeople, or anyone planning to travel to China, here is multimedia presentation of the diversity of modern China in the context of its traditional roots. As both an integrated curriculum and virtual introduction, this new CD-ROM combines imagery, music, and the spoken language with text and narrative that are grounded in the latest scholarship.pTraversing from map to linked image, from video footage to a summoned explanation, from glossary to spoken pronunciation, the user's journey of knowledge is quickly underway. The CD-ROM even logs the progress! Six Thematic Modules collectively incorporate the perspectives of economics, politics, history, sociology, literature, the visual and performing arts, anthropology, religion, and education:p- Unity in Diversityp- Views of Time and Spacep- The Individual and the Collectivityp- Adapting to a Changing Worldp- Shaping Conformity and Dissentp- Political CulturepUsers can also opt to use the program's Three Pathways, a more traditional, disciplinary approach to learning about China:p- Life and Societyp- Economy, Power, and Politicsp- Chinese PerspectivespOr find topics of interest directly, using the Search Mode. Whichever mode of access you choose, a rich experience of contemporary Chinese culture awaits.pMinimum System Requirements:pPC:pWindows95 Pentium 100, 32 MB RAM, 16-bit color display, 2X CD-ROMpMacintosh:pSyst@P†fffffÿ¾Û€  (less)

Greek sculpture to that of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the pervasive tradition in depicting human or superhuman perfection has been that of a male physique defined primarily by its conspicuous muscularity. The aim of this book is to explore the origins of this Western ideal of physical development and to trace its evolution through the centuries. In so doing, it asks some fundamental questions which have, until now, been generally left unexplored. Why did the West develop a symbolic language of muscularity which in most Eastern civilisations would have been meaningless? How was it that Renaissance Christianity could so readily adopt the pagan bodily ideals of ancient Greece, and by what process did they evolve into the visual language of bodybuilding, hulk calendars and male strippers? The Perfectible Body is written for the intelligent general reader rather than the academic specialist. It is a lay person's introduction to the field of Human Social Anatomy - the analysis of the body in terms of its symbolic or emblematic meanings. Bringing together the insights of art history, theology, cultural studies, ethology and communications theory, it sets out to explore the complex ways in which our society has come to 'read' the physically developed body. In an age when the feminist movement has put the male body under closer public scrutiny than ever before, this book analyses the contemporary re-evaluation of the traditional muscular hero-figure, and asks whether he maywell be a dying breed.  (less)

the peculiar genius of the Celts in their religion, literature, and visual arts.brbr br  (less)

in present-day Syria.In each of these poems, taken from his long workiThe Interpreter of Desire,/ithe Sufi master Ibn 'Arabi (1165–1240) evokes the transcendent experience of spiritual love—provoked by his encounter with a young Persian woman named Nizham, "harmony." Nizham becomes the emblem of the perfect expression of love, of beauty, of divinity. He discovers her and loves her in desert sand dunes, in the beneficent shades of rare groves, in the cool wind, in the dazzling sun—in all the movements of nature. Calligraphy (from the Greek for "beautiful writing") is an art where word and image meet, where the artist strives to give visual expression to the meaning of words in a way that transcends the text while remaining completely faithful to it. It is a discipline that has been invested with spiritual significance wherever it has arisen—and it has arisen throughout the world in every age, in virtually every language, culture, and religion. The Shambhala Calligraphy series is a collection of books devoted to contemporary expressions of this "art of the word," featuring contemporary calligraphers' striking new interpretations of texts that have been traditional subjects for calligraphic interpretation. Whether in Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, or Chinese pictographs, the characters, words, and sentences are brought to life anew here in a choreography of mind, hand, and heart by which letter and spirit fuse in a single stroke."Ibn 'Arabi's impassioned poetry, a dizzying testament to love as a transcendent experience, is uniquely sanctified through Massoudy's sweeping characters and burning desert colors."—iNAPRA Review/i@ë…¸Qìÿ¾Û€  (less)

music and narration, and hypertext-linked notes. The narrated slide-show lectures are divided into five thematic units. This disc includes the following narrated slide-show lectures: Lecture XX. Rural Russia in Art: Seasons Lecture XXI. Rural Russia in Art: Land and Water Lecture XXII. Peasant Life in Art Lecture XXIII. Russian History in Art Lecture XXIV. Social Conscience in Art Lecture XXV. Religion in Art Lecture XXVI. Russians in Art Lecture XXVII. Russian Portraits Lecture XXVIII. Foreign, Striking, Exotic Lecture XXIX. The Russian Avant Garde In this audio-visual course you will be taken on a journey from the high culture of Moscow and Petersburg architecture to the everyday ...  (less)