Author: Katherine Clark Walter File Type: pdf The Profession of Widowhood explores how the idea of true widowhood was central to pre-modern ideas concerning marriage and of female identity more generally. The medieval figure of the Christian vere vidua or good widow evolved from and reinforced ancient social and religious sensibilities of chastity, loyalty and grief as gendered work. The ideal widow was a virtuous woman who mourned her dead husband in chastity, solitude, and most importantly, in perpetuity, marking her as a widow indeed (1 Tim 55). The widow who failed to display adequate grief fulfilled the stereotype of the merry widow who forgot her departed spouse and abused her sexual and social freedom. Stereotypes of widows good and bad served highly-charged ideological functions in pre-modern culture, and have remained durable even in modern times, even as Western secular society now focuses more on a womans recovery from grief and possible re-coupling than the expectation that she remain forever widowed. The widow represented not only the powerful bond created by love and marriage, but also embodied the conventions of grief that ordered the response when those bonds were broken by premature death. This notion of the widow as both a passive memorial to her husband and as an active rememberer was rooted in ancient traditions, and appropriated by early Christian and medieval authors who used good widowhood to describe the varieties of female celibacy and to define the social and gender order. A tradition of widowhood characterized by chastity, solitude, and permanent bereavement affirmed both the sexual mores and political agenda of the medieval Church. Medieval widowsboth holy women recognized as saints and ordinary women in medieval daily liferecognized this tradition of professed chastity in widowhood not only as a valuable strategy for avoiding remarriage and protecting their independence, but as a state with inherent dignity that afforded opportunities for spiritual development in this world and eternal merit in the next. **

Author: Milton Mueller File Type: pdf In Ruling the Root, Milton Mueller uses the theoretical framework of institutionaleconomics to analyze the global policy and governance problems created by the assignment of Internetdomain names and addresses. The root is the top of the domain name hierarchy and the Internetaddress space. It is the only point of centralized control in what is otherwise a distributed andvoluntaristic network of networks. Both domain names and IP numbers are valuable resources, andtheir assignment on a coordinated basis is essential to the technical operation of the Internet.Mueller explains how control of the root is being leveraged to control the Internet itself in suchkey areas as trademark and copyright protection, surveillance of users, content regulation, andregulation of the domain name supply industry.Control of the root originally resided in aninformally organized technical elite comprised mostly of American computer scientists. As theInternet became commercialized and domain name registration became a profitable business, a six-yearstruggle over property rights and the control of the root broke out among Internet technologists,business and intellectual property interests, international organizations, national governments, andadvocates of individual rights. By the late 1990s, it was apparent that only a new internationalinstitution could resolve conflicts among the factions in the domain name wars. Mueller recounts thefascinating process that led to the formation of a new international regime around ICANN, theInternet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. In the process, he shows how the vauntedfreedom and openness of the Internet is being diminished by the institutionalization of theroot.ReviewIf you care about the prospect of losing your rights...this books for you - perhaps even on a beach. Anick Jesdanun LA TimesIf you care about the prospect of losing your rights...this books for you. Anick Jesdanun LA TimesThe Internet is in the midst of a kind of constitutional crisis, with contending parties struggling, largely out of public view, for control of the root, the one central point of authority on which the functioning of the Internet depends. It is a complicated story, but Mueller tells it well, demystifying the complex web of technical and policy questions at the very heart of this struggle anyone interested in whether, and how, the Internet might continue its remarkable growth into the future would be well advised to start here.--David Post, Temple University Law SchoolAbout the AuthorMilton L. Mueller is Professor at Syracuse Universitys School of Information Studies. He is the author of * Ruling the Root Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace* (MIT Press, 2002) and other books.

Author: James Allen File Type: pdf James Allens classic AS A MAN THINKETH. The Bestselling Classic That Inspired The Secret. AS A MAN THINKETH, Allens most famous book, today is considered a classic self-help book. Its underlying premise is that noble thoughts make a noble person, while lowly thoughts make a miserable person. In As a Man Thinketh, James Allen reveals how our thoughts determine reality. Whether or not we are conscious of it, our underlying beliefs shape our character, our health and appearance, our circumstances, and our destinies. Allen shows how we can master our thoughts to create the life we want, lest we drift through life unconscious of the inner forces that keep us mired in failure and frustration. The Vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart-this you will build your life by, this you will become. This principle, which others have called THE SECRET or the LAW OF ATTRACTION, was clearly and convincingly stated for the first time in As a Man Thinketh. As a being of Power, Intelligence, and Love, and the lord of his own thoughts, man holds the key to every situation, and contains within himself that transforming and regenerative agency by which he may make himself what he wills.**

Author: Jeroen Boomgaard File Type: pdf