Download or read book The Disappearing Spoon written by Sam Kean and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2010-07-12 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table. Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters? The Periodic Table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. The Disappearing Spoon masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, and discovery -- from the Big Bang through the end of time. Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.

Download or read book Stigmata written by Hélène Cixous and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-01-31 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hèléne Cixous -- author, playwright and French feminist theorist -- is a key figure in twentieth-century literary theory. Stigmata brings together her most recent essays for the first time. Acclaimed for her intricate and challenging writing style, Cixous presents a collection of texts that get away -- escaping the reader, the writers, the book. Cixous's writing pursues authors such as Stendhal, Joyce, Derrida, and Rembrandt, da Vinci, Picasso -- works that share an elusive movement in spite of striking differences. Along the way these essays explore a broad range of poetico-philosophical questions that have become characteristic of Cixous' work: * love's labours lost and found * feminine hours * autobiographies of writing * the prehistory of the work of art Stigmata goes beyond theory, becoming an extraordinary writer's testimony to our lives and times.

Download or read book Universe of the Mind written by Юрий Михайлович Лотман and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Universe of the Mind A Semiotic Theory of Culture Yuri M. Lotman Introduction by Umberto Eco Translated by Ann Shukman A major book by one of the initiators of cultural studies. "Universe of the Mind is an ambitious, complex, and wide-ranging book that semioticians, textual critics, and those interested in cultural studies will find stimulating and immensely suggestive." --Journal of Communication "Soviet semiotics offers a distinctive, richly productive approach to literary and cultural studies and Universe of the Mind represents a summation of the intellectual career of the man who has done most to guarantee this." --Slavic and East European Journal Universe of the Mind addresses three main areas: meaning and text, culture, and history. The result is a full-scale attempt to demonstrate the workings of the semiotic space or intellectual world. Part One is concerned with the ways that texts generate meaning. Part Two addresses Lotman's central idea of the semiosphere--the domain in which all semiotic systems can function--presented through an analogy with the global biosphere. Part Three focuses on semiotics from the point of view of history. A seminal text in cultural semiotics, the book's ambitious scope also makes it applicable to disciplines outside semiotics. The book will be of great interest to those concerned with cultural studies, anthropology, Slavic studies, critical theory, philosophy, and historiography. Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman is the founder of the Moscow-Tartu School and the initiator of the discipline of cultural semiotics.

Download or read book Purkinje s Vision written by Nicholas J. Wade and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2001-04-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life of Jan Evangelista Purkinje (1787-1869) has fascinated students from many disciplines. Histologists marvel at his early descriptions of cells; physiologists admire his attempts to relate structure to function; pharmacologists view in awe his heroic experiments on self-administered drugs; forensic scientists acknowledge his role in the use of fingerprints for identification; and Czech patriots salute his awakening of pride in their nation. Yet all these achievements followed his initial enquiries into vision. It is this psychological dimension that fostered this collaboration. As the title suggests, the present volume is bifocal. In the narrow sense it refers to Purkinje's studies of vision, but in its broader view it concerns Purkinje's anticipation of neuroscience. Purkinje provided evidence to support both its cellular and its conceptual base. At the cellular level his acute vision is immortalized within our bodies. At the conceptual level, he sought to relate subjective phenomena to their objective underpinnings--to link psychology to physiology. Vision provides a bond that unites psychology and physiology, and it is this bond that was strengthened by Purkinje's enquiries. The authors have tried to provide a context in which Purkinje's descriptions of visual phenomena can be placed. In some cases this exposes clear precursors of research for which Purkinje has been credited. In others, there was nothing to suggest the phenomena that he exposed. The book translates Purkinje's initial masterpiece on subjective vision and places it in the context of emerging views of neuroscience.

Download or read book Poems for the Millennium Volume Four written by Jerome Rothenberg and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 792 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Global anthology of twentieth-century poetry"--Back cover.

Download or read book Material Feminisms written by Stacy Alaimo and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2008-01-02 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harnessing the energy of provocative theories generated by recent understandings of the human body, the natural world, and the material world, Material Feminisms presents an entirely new way for feminists to conceive of the question of materiality. In lively and timely essays, an international group of feminist thinkers challenges the assumptions and norms that have previously defined studies about the body. These wide-ranging essays grapple with topics such as the material reality of race, the significance of sexual difference, the impact of disability experience, and the complex interaction between nature and culture in traumatic events such as Hurricane Katrina. By insisting on the importance of materiality, this volume breaks new ground in philosophy, feminist theory, cultural studies, science studies, and other fields where the body and nature collide.

Download or read book Medicine Science and Dreams written by David A. Schwartz and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-10-17 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Physician-scientists are unusual creatures. While we are drawn to the clinical challenges of our patients, we are also drawn to the opportunities that our patients’ medical problems bring to science. This book contains the unique experiences and encounters that drew 20 accomplished physician-scientists to this profession. These personal stories are those of people and circumstances that have had profound effects on our career decisions, our creative opportunities, and our lives. These stories also serve to highlight the lessons learned along the way and the distinct attributes of these women and men of medicine and science. Our combined hope is that our collective biographies will enhance the public understanding of our profession, will move people from medicine to science and from science to medicine, and will inspire those who are contemplating this extraordinary profession. “It is a rare gift to benefit from the collective wisdom of so many individuals at the same time. These physician scientists have provided readers with helpful advice and thoughtful encouragement. The interesting and thought provoking essays in Medicine Science and Dreams can be read and digested one at a time or all at once in sequence. They provide lessons to be learned by any physician-scientist, whether just starting out or in the middle of a research career. Schwartz has done readers a great service and has added to the legacy of these prominent and successful physician-scientists.” Book review in JAMA, September 7, 2011—Vol 306, No. 9 by Derek S. Wheeler, MD

Download or read book The Geography of the Imagination written by Guy Davenport and published by David R. Godine Publisher. This book was released on 1997 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 40 essays that constitute this collection, Guy Davenport, one of America's major literary critics, elucidates a range of literary history, encompassing literature, art, philosophy and music, from the ancients to the grand old men of modernism.

Download or read book Red Pedagogy written by Sandy Grande and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-09-28 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ground-breaking text explores the intersection between dominant modes of critical educational theory and the socio-political landscape of American Indian education. Grande asserts that, with few exceptions, the matters of Indigenous people and Indian education have been either largely ignored or indiscriminately absorbed within critical theories of education. Furthermore, American Indian scholars and educators have largely resisted engagement with critical educational theory, tending to concentrate instead on the production of historical monographs, ethnographic studies, tribally-centered curricula, and site-based research. Such a focus stems from the fact that most American Indian scholars feel compelled to address the socio-economic urgencies of their own communities, against which engagement in abstract theory appears to be a luxury of the academic elite. While the author acknowledges the dire need for practical-community based research, she maintains that the global encroachment on Indigenous lands, resources, cultures and communities points to the equally urgent need to develop transcendent theories of decolonization and to build broad-based coalitions.

Download or read book The 100 written by Michael H. Hart and published by Citadel Press. This book was released on 1978 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Listing of 100 people from around the world and from many different fields of endeavor, whose actions--the author has determined--have had, or will have, the greatest influence on the course of history.

Download or read book Anatomy of Criticism written by Northrop Frye and published by . This book was released on 2002-03 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Sound States written by Adalaide Morris and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2018-06-15 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By investigating the relationship between acoustical technologies and twentieth-century experimental poetics, this collection, with an accompanying compact disc, aims to 'turn up the volume' on printed works and rethink the way we read, hear, and talk about literary texts composed after telephones, phonographs, radios, loudspeakers, microphones, and tape recorders became facts of everyday life. The collection's twelve essays focus on earplay in texts by James Joyce, Ezra Pound, H.D., Samuel Beckett, William Burroughs, Amiri Baraka, Bob Kaufman, Robert Duncan, and Kamau Brathwaite and in performances by John Cage, Caribbean DJ-poets, and Cecil Taylor. From the early twentieth-century soundscapes of Futurist and Dadaist 'sonosphers' to Henri Chopin's electroacoustical audio-poames, the authors argue, these states of sound make bold but wavering statements--statements held only partially in check by meaning. The contributors are Loretta Collins, James A. Connor, Michael Davidson, N. Katherine Hayles, Nathaniel Mackey, Steve McCaffery, Alec McHoul, Toby Miller, Adalaide Morris, Fred Moten, Marjorie Perloff, Jed Rasula, and Garrett Stewart.

Download or read book Technically Alive written by J. Archer and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-12-05 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on the later writings of Martin Heidegger, the book traces the correspondence between the philosopher's concept of technology and Shakespeare's poetics of human and natural productivity in the Sonnets.

Download or read book The Kingdom of the Cults written by Walter Martin and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2003-10 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Newly updated, this definitive reference work on major cult systems is the gold standard text on cults with nearly a million copies sold.

Download or read book Buckland s Complete Book of Witchcraft written by Raymond Buckland and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 1986 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This complete self-study course in modern Wicca is a treasured classic - an essential and trusted guide that belongs in every witch's library."---Back cover

Download or read book Images of Enchantment written by Sherifa Zuhur and published by American Univ in Cairo Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This original and multidimensional book brings a refreshing new approach to the study of the arts of the Middle East. By dealing in one volume with dance, music, painting, and cinema, as experienced and practiced not only within the Middle East but also abroad, Images of Enchantment breaks down the artificial distinctions--of form, geography, 'high' and 'low' art, performer and artist--that are so often used to delineate the subjects and processes of Middle Eastern artistic culture. The eighteen essays in this book cover themes as diverse as Bedouin dance, the music of Arab Americans, cinema in Egypt and Iran, Hollywood representations of the Middle East, and contemporary Sudanese painting. The contributions come from scholars and critics and from the artists themselves. Together, they present a wide-ranging and holistic view of the arts in their social, political, anthropological, and gender contexts. Contributors: Walter Armbrust, Farida Ben Lyazid, Kay Hardy Campbell, Virginia Danielson, Marjorie Franken, Sondra Hale, Carolee Kent, Hamid Naficy, Salwa Mikdadi Nashashibi, Anne K. Rasmussen, Selim Sednaoui, Simon Shaheen, Rebecca Stone, Chaïbia Talal, Karin Van Nieuwkerk, William Young, Sherifa Zuhur.

Download or read book What Is Your Dangerous Idea written by John Brockman and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world's leading scientific thinkers explore bold, remarkable, perilous ideas that could change our lives—for better . . . or for worse . . . From Copernicus to Darwin, to current-day thinkers, scientists have always promoted theories and unveiled discoveries that challenge everything society holds dear; ideas with both positive and dire consequences. Many thoughts that resonate today are dangerous not because they are assumed to be false, but because they might turn out to be true. What do the world's leading scientists and thinkers consider to be their most dangerous idea? Through the leading online forum Edge (www.edge.org), the call went out, and this compelling and easily digestible volume collects the answers. From using medication to permanently alter our personalities to contemplating a universe in which we are utterly alone, to the idea that the universe might be fundamentally inexplicable, What Is Your Dangerous Idea? takes an unflinching look at the daring, breathtaking, sometimes terrifying thoughts that could forever alter our world and the way we live in it. Contributors include Daniel C. Dennett • Jared Diamond • Brian Greene • Matt Ridley • Howard Gardner and Freeman Dyson, among others