Author: Naomi Seidman File Type: pdf For nineteenth-century Eastern European Jews, modernization entailed the abandonment of arranged marriage in favor of the love match. Romantic novels taught Jewish readers the rules of romance and the choreography of courtship. But because these new conceptions of romance were rooted in the Christian and chivalric traditions, the Jewish embrace of the love religion was always partial. In The Marriage Plot, Naomi Seidman considers the evolution of Jewish love and marriage though the literature that provided Jews with a sentimental education, highlighting a persistent ambivalence in the Jewish adoption of European romantic ideologies. Nineteenth-century Hebrew and Yiddish literature tempered romantic love with the claims of family and community, and treated the rules of gender complementarity as comedic fodder. Twentieth-century Jewish writers turned back to tradition, finding pleasures in matchmaking, intergenerational ties, and sexual segregation. In the modern Jewish voices of Sigmund Freud, Erica Jong, Philip Roth, and Tony Kushner, the Jewish heretical challenge to the European romantic sublime has become the central sexual ideology of our time. **

Author: Leger Grindon File Type: pdf Knockout The Boxer and Boxing in American Cinema is the first book-length study of the Hollywood boxing film, a popular movie entertainment since the 1930s, that includes such classics as Million Dollar Baby, Rocky, and Raging Bull. The boxer stands alongside the cowboy, the gangster, and the detective as a character that shaped Americas ideas of manhood. Leger Grindon relates the Hollywood boxing film to the literature of Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, and Clifford Odets the influence of ring champions, particularly Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali and controversies surrounding masculinity, race, and sports. Knockout breaks new ground in film genre study by focusing on the fundamental dramatic conflicts uniting both documentary and fictional films with compelling social concerns. The boxing film portrays more than the rise and fall of a champion it exposes the body in order to reveal the spirit. Not simply a brute, the screen boxer dramatizes conflicts and aspirations central to an American audiences experience. This book features chapters on the conventions of the boxing film, the history of the genre and its relationship to famous ring champions, and self-contained treatments of thirty-two individual films including a chapter devoted to Raging Bull. ** Knockout The Boxer and Boxing in American Cinema is the first book-length study of the Hollywood boxing film, a popular movie entertainment since the 1930s, that includes such classics as Million Dollar Baby, Rocky, and Raging Bull. The boxer stands alongside the cowboy, the gangster, and the detective as a character that shaped Americas ideas of manhood. Leger Grindon relates the Hollywood boxing film to the literature of Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, and Clifford Odets the influence of ring champions, particularly Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali and controversies surrounding masculinity, race, and sports. Knockout breaks new ground in film genre study by focusing on the fundamental dramatic conflicts uniting both documentary and fictional films with compelling social concerns. The boxing film portrays more than the rise and fall of a champion it exposes the body in order to reveal the spirit. Not simply a brute, the screen boxer dramatizes conflicts and aspirations central to an American audiences experience. This book features chapters on the conventions of the boxing film, the history of the genre and its relationship to famous ring champions, and self-contained treatments of thirty-two individual films including a chapter devoted to Raging Bull. **html

Author: Eric Stoddart File Type: pdf This book looks at contemporary surveillance practices and ideologies from a Christian theological perspective. Surveillance studies is an emerging, inter-disciplinary field that brings together scholars from sociology, criminology, political studies, computing and information studies, cultural studies and other disciplines. Although surveillance has been a feature of all societies since humans first co-operated to watch over one another whilst hunting and gathering it is the convergence of information technologies within both commerce and the state that has ushered in a surveillance society. There has been little, if any, theological consideration of this important dimension of social organisation this book fills the gap and offers a contribution to surveillance studies from a theological perspective, broadening the horizon against which surveillance might be interpreted and evaluated. This book is also an exercise in consciousness-raising with respect to the Christian community in order that they may critically engage with a surveillance society by drawing on biblical and theological resources. Being the first major theological treatment in the field it sets the agenda for more detailed considerations. **

Author: John Caputo File Type: pdf John D. Caputo explores the very roots of religious thinking in this thought-provoking book. Compelling questions come up along the way What do I love when I love my God? and What can Star Wars tell us about the contemporary use of religion? (are we always trying to find a way of saying God be with you?) Why is religion for many a source of moral guidance in a postmodern, nihilistic age? Is it possible to have religion without religion?Drawing on contemporary images of religion, such as Robert Duvalls film The Apostle, Caputo also provides some fascinating and imaginative insights into religious fundamentalism.Amazon.com ReviewIts conventional wisdom not to bring up religion in casual conversation. The subject tends to polarize people into believers and skeptics. While one camp adduces little more than personal experience in support of their claims, the other is unwilling to admit much beyond the revelations of science. Neither is a satisfactory alternative for Caputo, who infuses his meditations in On Religion with ambiguity, uncertainty, and hopefulness. Caputos book is not the fodder of tired collegiate debates. That is, it is neither a pro forma defense of religious belief nor a proof that God is not possible. It is a slender volume that is full of insights and an occasional touch of the profound. Listen Religion is for lovers, for men and women of passion, for real people who believe in something, who hope like mad in something, who believe in something, who love something with a love that surpasses understanding. Its no wonder Caputo has carved out a niche for himself as one of the most sincere and thoughtful writers in todays continental philosophy. Among elitist thinkers who seem to pride themselves on jargon and labyrinthine writing, Caputo is a refreshing complement, refusing to believe that intellectual substance is at odds with clarity. His predilection for ethics and religion is manifest in his half dozen or so books on the subjects. On Religion, part of the Thinking in Action series, does justice to his depth. --Eric de PlaceFrom Library JournalCaputo (Radical Hermeneutics philosophy, Villanova Univ.) claims that religion is not for the faint of heart. The radical instability of a life filled with faith and hope is transformational in the extreme, he cautions If safe is what you want, forget religion and find yourself a conservative investment counselor. Caputo writes with the immediacy and conviction of one who can fully understand his topic only by immersing himself in it. Intellectual without being overly academic, he considers ideas such as what it means to have a loving God, what is religion without religion, and how the postmodern returns to religion by positing a reality beyond the real. When he writes that claims to religious truth are only interpretation at best and that humility should lead the way, one cheers his vigor and relishes his insights into the paradoxical, ambiguous nature of religion and religious belief. Recommended. Sandra Collins, Duquesne Univ. Lib., Pittsburgh 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.