Download or read book The Writing and Publishing Journey written by Mark J. Curran and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2023-02-22 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Writing and Publishing Journey" is a summary and catalogue of all of Professor Curran's writings. It includes the academic books before retirement, the academic and cultural books during retirement, the experiments with fiction based on the former, and a brief addendum of academic articles in research journals. Each volume is introduced by the cover image in full color. The abiding objective is to recall in a conversational way the when, why and how of each book, that is, when it was written, the circumstances of how and why it was written, and perhaps most interesting the odyssey of getting it into print. Any professor in Academia will relate to this endeavor, and amateur writers and interested readers should enjoy the journey as well.

Download or read book Adventure Travel A New Partnership written by Mark J. Curran and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2024-01-08 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "ADVENTURE TRAVEL" - A NEW PARTNERSHIP The Royal Princess is a return to the author's "Adventure Travel" series, now the 6th. It is based on real travel but made fiction. Professor Mike Gaherty and Assistant Expedition Leader Amy Carrier, long time friends and collegues and some time lovers, reconnect in a new venture for AT - a Partnership with Princess Lines. AT in effect will add to the passenger list of an itinerary already planned by Princess for Fall, 1989. "The Mediterranean - A Voyage into History" is ambitious with stops in ten destinations. The author has chosen to follow the Greek and Roman Classic Epics in his plan for the book - 10 Chapters or "Cantos." 1. Rome 2. Venice 3. Dubrovnik 4. Crete and Heraklion 5. Ephesus 6. Istanbul 7. Yalta and Odessa 8. The Bosporos and on Board the Royal Princess 9. The Greek Cyclades - Delos and Mykonos 10. Anthens and Sounion. The book aims to inform and entertain, in effect, to introduce the reader to the basics of history and culture of a significant part of Western Civilization and have fun at the same time.

Download or read book Travel and Teaching in Portugal and Spain a Photographic Journey written by Mark J. Curran and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2014-04-04 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Travel and Teaching in Portugal and SpainA Photographic Journey is another in the series Stories I Told My Students. It follows the pattern of books listed above on Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico, and Colombia. The book tells the tale of travel in Portugal and travel and summer teaching in the Arizona State University summer program in Spain in 1987. The format of the book combines notes from the travel diary, vignettes on the history of the places visited, and in particular notes, on major literary figures like Lus de Cames or Miguel de Cervantes. Major universities like the University of Coimbra in Portugal and the University of Salamanca in Spain are highlighted. Emphasis is also given to places and figures of the Catholic tradition, like the Cistercian Monastery of Alcobaa in Portugal and the stories of Santa Teresa de Jess, San Juan de la Cruz, and Ignacio de Loyola in Spain. All are represented in the 256 photos in the book. Cities and places in Portugal are Lisbon, Belm, Sintra, Nazar, Batalha, Ftima, Leiria, Coimbra, O Porto, Viana do Castelo, and Guimares. In Spain one sees Mlaga, Crdoba, Mijas, Sevilla, Mrida, Salamanca, Santiago de Compostela, Pontevedra, Len, vila, Madrid, Segovia, Burgos, El Escorial, and Valle de los Cados. A side trip to the sanctuaries of Spain and France emphasizes Zaragoza, Barbastro of Opus Dei fame, Lourdes in France, and Loyola in the Basque Country. The book is written in a colloquial style, the author conversing with the reader, perhaps over a Vinho Verde from Portugal or a Clarete from La Rioja in Spain. One discovers adventures in travel time in Portugal, in Mlaga, and Madrid for classes and social life, and travel in other parts of Spain, all accompanied by a nice overview of history and culture.

Download or read book Two written by Mark J. Curran and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2022-10-17 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: TWO BY MARK J. CURRAN ASU Days as well as The Guitars – A Music Odyssey are a return to the autobiographical. Book I ASU Days tells the story beginning with graduate study for the Ph.D in Spanish and Latin American Studies and the account of Mark’s years at Arizona State University. It is comprised of memories of teaching and research days at ASU but also a description of campus life dating to 1968. Book II The Guitars - A Music Odyssey recounts the role of music in Mark’s life from age 14 in 1955 to the present. The main characters are the guitars: a simple steel stringed Stella in 1955, an electric Kay and amplifyer in high school, 1955 - 1959 and college days, a Brazilian Rosewood Classic from Rio de Janeiro in 1966 and a Manuel Rodríguez Classic from Madrid, electrified for performance, 2002. The study, learning, practice and the performing range from early pop and Rock n’ Roll from Elvis Presley days, to serious home study of classic guitar, to the folk tunes of the 1960s, Classic Country and Western, Irish, “Oh Brother Where Art Thou” and Classic Guitar and Contemporary Catholic Songs for meditation at church. The final chapter is a work in process: practice and performance at home.

Download or read book A Rural Odyssey Ii written by Mark J. Curran and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2020-04-15 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A RURAL ODYSSEY – Abilene – Digging Deeper” is the continuation of the story of Mick O’Brien, now a college graduate and back in his home town of Abilene, Kansas teaching at the new Junior College. He settles into daily life in Abilene and spends time with girlfriend Mariah Palafox a professor of English at the Juco. Family, friends, teaching, research and work on Mick’s “History of Abilene” take up most of his time. Mick and Mariah become close friends, then romantically involved. This leads to visits to her family and summer travel in Mexico and Spain, tips and hints aided by her relatives. Family ethnicity – Irish and Jewish – color the relationship. Life in Abilene gets dicey and dangerous with repercussions from previous problems with local criminals, then KKK activists and a return to violence and now larger threats to the citizens and town of Abilene.

Download or read book The Collection written by Mark J. Curran and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2021-08-25 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Collection" is meant as an introduction to and summary of Curran's primary and secondary holdings on Brazil's "Literatura de Cordel" now at the Latin American Library of Tulane University. The book relates the story of how the "cordel" collection was put together including telling of its primary sources, the poets themselves and "cordel" stands or "barracas" in cities or towns that sold the broadsides from the mid - 1960s to 2013. Photos and short biographic entries of the poets, printers and publishers are a big part of the story. The lengthy second part of the book is comprised of the lists of the broadsides themselves (accordng to title by the author's choice, author following when known), xeroxed copies of historic titles, and Curran's library of secondary sources dealing with the collection. The author believes that this book has most everything a prospective researcher or "aficionado" needs to know about the Mark J. Curran Collection of "A Literatura de Cordel."

Download or read book A Rural Odyssey written by Mark J. Curran and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2019-07-02 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Rural Odyssey: Living Can Be Dangerous is the story of Mick O’Brien’s growing-up years on a small wheat farm in Central Kansas in the 1940s and 1950s. It tells of his Catholic Irish American pioneering farm parents, the religious and moral beliefs of their traditions, and the consequences of living the same way. Mick and his siblings inherited their traditions. The growing of their own food, the farm chores, the raising and caring of livestock, the field work on the tractor, and the harvest that provides the family subsistence, but not without danger. School, sports, having fun with buddies, and imaginary games filled Mick’s teenage years. Music, singing, playing the guitar, and a special friendship are an important chapter of that time as well but with unplanned consequences. Unforeseen challenges and the unpredictable dangers of life filled O’Brien’s days. Work and play, joy and sadness, Mick tells it all as it happened.

Download or read book Rural Odyssey Iii Dreams Fulfilled and Back to Abilene written by Mark J. Curran and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2021-04-28 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: RURAL ODYSSEY III Dreams Fulfilled and Back to Abilene, A Fictional and Historical Narrative” is the third in the series of fictionalized stories based on Mark Curran’s autobiography “The Farm.” Mike O’Brien and Mariah Palafox fulfill their dreams of graduate education, travel and research in Mexico, and return to Abilene where life offers new adventures.

Download or read book The Master of the Literatura De Cordel Leandro Gomes De Barros written by Mark J. Curran and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2022-03-03 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Master of the 'Literatura de Cordel' - Leandro Gomes de Barros. A Bilingual Anthology of Selected Works" is Professor Curran's return to research and writing from his first days in Brazil in 1966-1967 on a Fulbright Hays Fellowship for Ph.D. dissertation work. This book treats "Cordel's" best known and arguably best poet, a translation to English of his selected works, and a commentary on his pioneering days of the "Literatura de Cordel." Among the poet's topics were the changing times, foreigners in Brazil, government-politics-and war, mothers-in-law, sugar cane rum, religion and satire, banditry, the oral poetic duel, and the long narrative poems from the European popular tradition. Curran in addition gives a synopsis of the "Literatura de Cordel" as it was in its heyday in his initial research in the 1960s. The translation was a challenge but also a great pleasure.

Download or read book Diary of a North American Researcher in Brazil Iii written by Mark J. Curran and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2016-10-21 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Diary of a North American Researcher in Brazil III is the last in the series Stories I Told My Students. It is the continuation of the authors love affair and odyssey in Brazil, this time from 1988 to 2005. The volume brings to the present moments lived in Brazil and is written much more in the framework of a travel diary in Brazil. Short vignettes about people and places flavor the book. There is emphasis on academic conferences with many Brazilian Stories, the publication of works in Brazil, and more important, times shared with cordel poets, professors and researchers of Brazilian literature, folklore and popular literature in verse. Something new in this final phase of research, writing and professional life was the time spent in the city of So Paulo, at first glance an unlikely place for a student of folklore. A special moment was the participation in a unique event: 100 Years of Cordel sponsored by the SESC-POMPEIA in 2001 in that city. Others were with cordel poets and poet-singers in the Northeastern Cultural Center in So Paulo, and with Srgio Miceli of the University of So Paulo Press and Plnio Martins of Ateli Press, dealing with the publication of Currans final research efforts in Brazil. And lastly the book recalls fondly the time spent with friends who were with me in moments of happiness but also of solitude and some loneliness. I dedicate the book to all of them: cordel poets, researchers, professors, writers, friends, and to the person who sustained me most, my wife Keah.

Download or read book Letters from Brazil written by Mark J. Curran and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2017-11-09 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Letters from Brazil: A Cultural-Historical Narrative Made Fiction recounts the adventures of young researcher Mike Gaherty in Brazil in the turbulent 1960s. It tells the story of his research on Brazilian folklore and folk-popular literature (with inevitable amorous moments along the way) while dodging encounters and threats from agents of the DOPS, Brazils chief espionage and anti-communist, anti-subversion agency. The nations military revolution of 1964 and subsequent evolution to dictatorship are the background for Gahertys ups and downs in Brazils Northeast, the Northeast Interior, Salvador da Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, Braslia, the Amazon, and a final harrowing time in Recife. The thread of the narrative is the series of letters requested of Gaherty by James Hansen of the New York Times (international section) and his later involvement with Stanley Iverson of the INR (Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the United States Department of State)-WHA (Western Hemisphere Affairs) reporting on Gahertys own research activities in Brazil and his discoveries of political and social sentiment in northeastern Brazil. The young American researcher reports as well on meetings with major Brazilian cultural figures, encounters with Brazilian Afro-Brazilian phenomena like Xango, Candomble, and Capoeira, impressive times during New Years Eve and the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, and cultural-travel highlights throughout Brazil. The fly in the ointment was the DOPS.

Download or read book Letters from Brazil Iv written by Mark J. Curran and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Letters from Brazil IV" is the most recent in the series of Professor Mike Gaherty's travel and research in Brazil. He has returned in 1984 after an "invited" hiatus since 1971 by the General heading Brazil's Pre-Censorship Board, this due to Mike's friendship, research, collaboration with, and defense of singer-composer Chico Buarque de Hollanda. He is reporting on current events and politics for the International Section of the "New York Times," in liason with the Institute of International Research, Latin American Sector. This includes the volatile climate of "Direct Elections Now" for the presidency. He is shadowed by the DOPS (the Brazilian Security Agency) but has become great friends with the Captain in charge of keeping an eye on him. Mike renews many old friendships and finds time to update his research specialty "The Literatura de Cordel" as folk - popular journalism since censorship ended in 1979. He also has to maneuver between some and side step other former romantic liasons in Brazil. Further collaboration in a Chico Buarque concert and dealing with Brazilian security forces gets dicey. Brazilian literature, religion, music, food and his own nostalgia for "Black Orpheus" complete the adventure.

Download or read book Around Brazil on the International Adventurer written by Mark J. Curran and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Around Brazil on the “International Adventurer” – a Fictional Panegyric is the story of Professor Mike Gaherty in a new “gig” as Cultural Speaker for Adventure Travel’s small ship expedition around Brazil, a thirty-plus day trip from Manaus in the Amazon Basin to Rio Grande in the South with major stops in Belém do Pará, Recife, Salvador, Ilhéus, Rio de Janeiro and Parati. Adventurers will experience nature on the entire trip, birds, animals and plant life, but will be exposed to the history and culture of a good part of Brazil. The date is 1972 and the political undercurrent of Brazil’s Military Regime and its battle against Leftist Subversion affects the expedition. This however is the old, fun, colorful and entertaining Brazil of years past. Mike and his new colleagues of staff and crew of “Adventurer” mesh well, and there is time for an amorous relationship with Amy, the Assistant Adventure Leader on the ship. Surprises are in tow.

Download or read book It Happened in Brazil Chronicle of a North American Researcher in Brazil Ii written by Mark J. Curran and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2015-05-07 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It Happened in Brazil: Chronicle of a North American Researcher in Brazil II is the English version of Aconteceu no Brasil: Crnica de um Pesquisador Norte - Americano II. The book is a continuation of the first volume in the series published in 2012 in both Portuguese and English: Adventures of a Gringo Researcher in Brazil in the 1960s. It continues Currans love affair with Brazil and the Brazilians and work in Brazil from 1969 to 1985; a third volume to be published in coming years will bring everything to the present. This volume deals with various researches and travel trips to Brazil, the author now professor at Arizona State University. Themes will be continued research on the Literatura de Cordel, conferences, important moments with authors of cordel and Brazilian Literature, the odyssey of publishing in Brazil, journeys to new parts of Brazil, and fine moments of tourism with wife, Keah. Among academic moments and high points will be 1973 and the First International Congress on Portuguese and Brazilian Philology in Rio de Janeiro where the author is introduced to the Luso-Brazilian Academic World and especially in 1981 when Curran took part in the 50 Years of Literature of Jorge Amado Commemoration in Salvador da Bahia. Among other memorable moments over the years was the trip with wife Keah to Brazil in 1985. The occasion was to receive a literary prize combined with new tourism to various parts of the country. Written in the spirit and style of the genre of short chronicles in Brazil, the book will comment as well on the political, economic and social scene over the years and will note the many changes in the dynamic Brazil of the late twentieth century.

Download or read book Letters from Brazil Iii written by Mark J. Curran and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2020-01-02 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Letters from Brazil III" is a continuation of Professor Mike Gaherty's adventures in Brazil. It chronicles in fiction Mike's initiation into the Portuguese-Brazilian academic world in the milieu of a major international "congress." The academic affair is followed by Mike's friendship and involvement with singer-composer Chico Buarque de Hollanda, the reporting for the New York Times of his songs jousting with Brazil's "prior censorship" board, and Mike's participation in one of Chico's LP's and successive concerts in Sao Paulo and Rio. The latter experience becomes dicey and dangerous with interference, surprising cooperation and then bad times with the military regime's enforcement agency - the "Department of Public Security." Mike, still a bachelor, is entertained and then becomes enmeshed in fun times turned complicated with beautiful "carioca" women.

Download or read book ADVENTURE TRAVEL IN COLOMBIA MOMENTS OF MAYHEM written by Mark J. Curran and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2023-07-26 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "ADVENTURE TRAVEL" IN COLOMBIA - MOMENTS OF MAYHEM Or, Colombia Revisited is a return to the author's travel and research in Colombia years ago, but now revised and made into "historical and cultural fiction." Professor Michael Gaherty and "Adventure Travel" Assistant Expedition Leader Amy Carrier travel to Colombia to research and scope out the country for a possible Expedition Trip by the Company. They experience wonderful travel moments, some moments of mayhem, and scary, dangerous surprises while on the journey. Medellín, Santa Fé de Antioquia, Bogotá, Cali, Popayán, Silvia, Tunja, Places of Interest in Boyacá State including Villa de Leiva, and finally, Cartagena de Índias and Colombia's "Microcosm of the Caribbean", Isla San Andrés round out the itinerary.

Download or read book A Portrait of Brazil in the Twentieth Century written by MARK J. CURRAN and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2013-09-27 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Portrait of Brazil in the Twentieth Century: The Universe of the Literatura de Cordel is Currans most recent project. The book, in effect, is the English version of a major work published in Brazil in Portuguese in 2011, Retrato do Brasil em Cordel. Curran returns to Portrait for several reasons: primary is his strong feeling that the amazingly broad view of Brazil in the twentieth century seen in the thousands of booklets in verse from the Cordel represents a major aspect of Brazilian culture in that century. Second, because there are many important bodies of folk-popular verse in the Western tradition, all distant relatives of the Greek and Roman epic traditions, and because Brazils folk-popular poetry is one among them. And because a very large reading public interested in such things does not know Portuguese, this volume in English strives to make the tradition available to such readers. Finally, the book in two volumes represents the cumulative efforts of research and writing of Professor Curran in a career of forty-three years of scholarly research and teaching. It reveals a unique portrait of Brazil and its people, informative, instructive, and mainly, entertaining.