Download or read book Meritocracy and Its Discontents written by Zachary M. Howlett and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-15 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meritocracy and Its Discontents investigates the wider social, political, religious, and economic dimensions of the Gaokao, China's national college entrance exam, as well as the complications that arise from its existence. Each year, some nine million high school seniors in China take the Gaokao, which determines college admission and provides a direct but difficult route to an urban lifestyle for China's hundreds of millions of rural residents. But with college graduates struggling to find good jobs, some are questioning the exam's legitimacy—and, by extension, the fairness of Chinese society. Chronicling the experiences of underprivileged youth, Zachary M. Howlett's research illuminates how people remain captivated by the exam because they regard it as fateful—an event both consequential and undetermined. He finds that the exam enables people both to rebel against the social hierarchy and to achieve recognition within it. In Meritocracy and Its Discontents, Howlett contends that the Gaokao serves as a pivotal rite of passage in which people strive to personify cultural virtues such as diligence, composure, filial devotion, and divine favor.
Download or read book Cosmic Beginnings written by Soyinka I. Ogunbusola and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2010-12-23 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This genre falls under the category of Sci-fi fantasy thriller a works that is just as exciting as the adventures of Lora Croft in “Tomb Raiders” I chose this genre to create characters that exist outside of the everyday urban-scape theme. One of the main characters is a black woman; a seasoned sea captain for example. I wanted to create another kind of hero, in another part of the world, on another kind of mission based on another mindset; more of a West African theme influenced by the folklore of the ancient Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria which is deeply submerged in cosmological and celestial influences and is viewed as individual characteristic energies expressing themselves universally in allegorical narratives. These legends tend to be older then Western civilization. I wanted the story to be unique and the characters just as unique. This is a story told by the ancestors of the war in heaven before the creation of man...this a story of the battle of illumination and darkness the fight to maintain balance between good and evil.
Download or read book Haunting Stories From Unseen World written by Hseham Amrahs and published by Mahesh Dutt Sharma. This book was released on 2024-01-27 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology is a collection of spine-chilling narratives drawn from the darkest corners of the cosmos, where the laws of reality bend and twist, and the veil between the mundane and the macabre is perilously thin. Each tale serves as a portal to an otherworldly realm, where the inexplicable and the terrifying converge to weave a tapestry of cosmic horror. These stories are not bound by the limitations of our known universe; instead, they propel readers into the cosmic unknown, where the echoes of dread and the whispers of the eldritch dance in the shadows. As the curator of this ethereal compendium, I invite you, dear reader, to embark on a journey into the realms beyond the stars. Prepare to encounter malevolent entities, ancient forces, and unspeakable horrors that defy earthly comprehension. These stories are not for the faint of heart; they are tales that grip the soul and elicit a primal fear—a fear that resonates not only with the unknown lurking in the cosmos but also with the depths of the human psyche. In the following pages, you will traverse desolate planets shrouded in perpetual darkness, confront entities that defy the laws of nature, and witness the awakening of malevolent forces that have slumbered for eons. Each story is a portal to a different dimension, a glimpse into the cosmic nightmares that await those who dare to peer beyond the veil.
Download or read book Cosmic Retribution written by Joe Coleman and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Infernal Art of Joe Coleman Packed with superb colour and b & w reproductions of Coleman's paintings and drawings, this is the first published collection devoted to the work of this American artist who has been compared to Dix and Bosch. Includes an introduction by Robert Crumb and an extensive interview with the artist by Adam Parfrey.
Download or read book The Year That Trembled written by Scott Lax and published by Gray and Company, Publishers. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Both a love story and a wartime chronicle, this powerful novel reveals the effects of the Vietnam War on a group of friends living in a small town in Ohio. As the 1970 draft lottery nears, the young men must examine their views of war and consider the fate that awaits them; the young women face the possibility of losing their husbands, boyfriends, and friends. Each member of the group embarks on a personal search that will bring very real and very adult conflict and pain and strip away their youthful naiveté. The enormity of this war contrasted with the microcosm of one small town exposes the ambivalence of characters who are at war with themselves.
Download or read book Religion and Charity written by Robert P. Weller and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book challenges our assumptions about morality by explaining how industrialized philanthropy and universalized goodness came to dominate Chinese religious engagement.
Download or read book God Reinvented written by Johannes A. van der Ven and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-12-18 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everywhere in the western world the process of secularization leads to the decline of faith in God. The concept of secularization itself, however, has come under attack by critics who believe that it does not adequately account for processes which may be part of a certain renascence, as marginal and unrecognized as it may be, of belief in God. Whether these processes are actually taking place, and whether this renascence, if such it is, will bring about a transformation of that belief are questions still waiting to be answered. Are we witnessing the (re)creation of God images, or the (re)discovery of God? The tension between (re)creation and (re)discovery lies at the root of this book and its title, which has been framed very intentionally as a question: God Reinvented?
Download or read book JFK s Death and the Kabbalah written by Joseph Scovitch and published by Fultus Corporation. This book was released on 2009 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Basic psycho-pop retelling of the JFK-Dallas story of 1963. We find here strong emphasis on alternative aspects and elements of the Sefirotic Kabbalah, mystic esoterica, meta-history, crypto-spiritualism, quasi-eidetic imagery, secret arcane formula, and related akashic trivia. A remarkable and unforgettable reading assignment and literary investigation, with many new insights, noetic asides, and unexpected surprises.
Download or read book Debating the Death Penalty written by Hugo Adam Bedau and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-03-24 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts on both side of the issue speak out both for and against capital punishment and the rationale behind their individual beliefs.
Download or read book Short Stories Vol 1 4 written by Bill Valiontis and published by Bill Valiontis. This book was released on 2023-12-10 with total page 792 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 52 Short Stories.
Download or read book The Canon of Supreme Mystery by Yang Hsiung written by Michael Nylan and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2014-02-01 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a translation, with a commentary and a long contextualizing introduction, of the only major work of Han (206 B.C. to 220 A.D.) philosophy that is still available in complete form. It is the first translation of the work into a European language and provides unique access to this formative period in Chinese history. Because Yang Hsiung's interpretations drew upon a variety of pre-Han sources and then dominated Confucian learning until the twelfth century, this text is also a valuable resource on early Chinese history, philosophy, and culture beyond the Han period. The T'ai hsüan is also one of the world's great philosophic poems comparable in scale and grandeur to Lucretius' De rerum naturum. Nathan Sivin has written that this is one of the titles on the short list of Chinese books every cultivated person should read. Han thinkers saw in this text a compelling restatement of Confucian doctrine that addressed the major objections posed by rival schools including Mohism, Taoism, Legalism and Yin-Yang Five Phase Theory. Since this Han amalgam formed the basis for the state ideology of China from 134 B.C. to 1911, an ideology that in turn provided the intellectual foundations for the Japanese and Korean states, the importance of this book can hardly be overestimated.
Download or read book Pandemonium Tremendum written by James E. Huchingson and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2010-02-01 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James E. Huchingson takes computer and information science seriously in this constructive theology. Central to his reflection is an understanding of the primordial chaos--Pandemonium Tremendum--not as destructive, but as the source out of which God creates, sustains, and empowers creatures to become co-creators.
Download or read book Trusting Viktor written by Lee Mims and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 2014-02-08 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Betting her life savings on a risky offshore natural gas enterprise, brilliant geologist Cleo Cooper has high hopes for a big payday. But a violent attack onboard the drillship darkens Cleo's optimism. Days later, a man washes up on the coast near the drill sight, but is it the man who assaulted Cleo? When Viktor, a promising young Russian geologist is hired as the dead man's replacement, Cleo isn't sure if he's friend or foe. The truth seems to be lurking beneath the surface, and as she gets closer to it, Cleo begins to wonder if she's standing between a murderer and a treasure worth killing for. Praise: "A breezily entertaining whodunit."—Publishers Weekly "[A] fun read."—Mystery Scene
Download or read book It s Not Me written by Sumita Chandani Rekhi and published by Allied Publishers. This book was released on 2020-07-15 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's not me is a light-hearted satire on the arranged marriage, childbirth, motherhood, tiring relationships and a search for the elusive truth, a myriad of thoughts and life experiences from the real to the seemingly unreal, unravelled in this captivating fusion of offbeat poetry and prose. A delightful read... you are sure to rediscover yourself in this very book.
Download or read book Love for Sale written by Colleen Lucey and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-15 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Love for Sale is the first study to examine the ubiquity of commercial sex in Russian literary and artistic production from the nineteenth century through the fin de siècle. Colleen Lucey offers a compelling account of how the figure of the sex worker captivated the public's imagination through depictions in fiction and fine art, bringing to light how imperial Russians grappled with the issue of sexual commerce. Studying a wide range of media—from little-known engravings that circulated in newspapers to works of canonical fiction—Lucey shows how writers and artists used the topic of prostitution both to comment on women's shifting social roles at the end of tsarist rule and to express anxieties about the incursion of capitalist transactions in relations of the heart. Each of the book's chapters focus on a type of commercial sex, looking at how the street walker, brothel worker, demimondaine, kept woman, impoverished bride, and madam traded in sex as a means to acquire capital. Lucey argues that prostitution became a focal point for imperial Russians because it signaled both the promises of modernity and the anxieties associated with Westernization. Love for Sale integrates historical analysis, literary criticism, and feminist theory and conveys how nineteenth-century beliefs about the "fallen woman" drew from medical, judicial, and religious discourse on female sexuality. Lucey invites readers to draw a connection between rhetoric of the nineteenth century and today's debate on sex workers' rights, highlighting recent controversies concerning Russian sex workers to show how imperial discourse is recycled in the twenty-first century.
Download or read book Nietzsche and The Antichrist written by Daniel Conway and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-24 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection both reflects and contributes to the recent surge of philosophical interest in The Antichrist and represents a major contribution to Nietzsche studies. Nietzsche regarded The Antichrist, along with Zarathustra, as his most important work. In it he outlined many epoch-defining ideas, including his dawning realisation of the 'death of God' and the inception of a new, post-moral epoch in Western history. He called the work 'a crisis without equal on earth, the most profound collision of conscience, a decision that was conjured up against everything that had been believed, demanded, hallowed'. One certainly need not share Nietzsche's estimation of his achievement in The Antichrist to conclude that there is something significant going on in this work. Indeed, even if Nietzsche overestimated its transformative power, it would be valuable nonetheless to have a clearer sense of why he thought so highly of this particular book, which is something of an outlier in his oeuvre. Until now, there has been no book that attempts to account with philosophical precision for the multiple themes addressed in this difficult and complex work.
Download or read book The Words of the Wise Are like Goads written by Mark J. Boda and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2013-03-12 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless.” The word “meaningless” (hebel) appears more than 40 times in the book of Ecclesiastes and raises the question why a book that appears to deny meaning or purpose is included in the Bible. Many questions of interpretation as well as relevance surround the book of Ecclesiastes, including indeed the proper translation and understanding of the word hebel. If, after all, the book does examine the question of the meaning of life, what could be more important? The present volume explores Ecclesiastes/Qohelet on many different levels: linguistic, text-critical, theological, historical, and literary. The contributors, chosen from many of the leading and emerging experts on the book, present both the state of the field and their own assessment of the varied interpretive issues of Ecclesiastes. They include scholars, preachers, and philosophers. It should be helpful not only to scholars but also to all who want to study this book seriously. The first section of this volume deals with the history of interpretation. The second section is concerned with issues of history, form, and rhetoric. Section three is about key concepts and passages. The fourth section focuses on the language and grammar of Qohelet. The last section engages practical issues of interpretation. The volume is designed to provide exposure to a variety of readers who seek to engage Qohelet in fresh ways in the twenty-first century—from historians of interpretation to biblical exegetes to linguists to theological students.
