Author: Cesar R. Torres File Type: pdf The Bloomsbury Companion to the Philosophy of Sport features specially commissioned essays from a team of leading international scholars. The book, by providing an overview of the advances in the philosophical understanding of sport (and related practices), serves as a measure of the development of the philosophy of sport but it also constitutes an expression of the disciplines state of the art. The book includes a critical analysis of the historical development of philosophic ideas about sport, three essays on the research methods typically used by sport philosophers, twelve essays that address vital issues at the forefront of key research areas, as well as four essays on topics of future disciplinary concern. The book also includes a glossary of key terms and concepts, an essay on resources available to researchers and practitioners, an essay on careers opportunities in the discipline, and an extensive annotated bibliography of key literature.

Author: Amelia Jones File Type: pdf A Companion to Contemporary Art is a major survey covering the major works and movements, the most important theoretical developments, and the historical, social, political, and aesthetic issues in contemporary art since 1945, primarily in the Euro-American context. ul l l Collects 27 original essays by expert scholars describing the current state of scholarship in art history and visual studies, and pointing to future directions in the field. l l Contains dual chronological and thematic coverage of the major themes in the art of our time politics, culture wars, public space, diaspora, the artist, identity politics, the body, and visual culture. l l Offers synthetic analysis, as well as new approaches to, debates central to the visual arts since 1945 such as those addressing formalism, the avant-garde, the role of the artist, technology and art, and the society of the spectacle. l ul **

Author: William Gibson File Type: pdf 2lst century Tokyo, after the millennial quake. Neon rain. Light everywhere blowing under any door you might try to close. Where the New Buildings, the largest in the world, erect themselves unaided, their slow rippling movements like the contractions of a sea-creature. Colin Laney is here looking for work. He is not, he is careful to point out, a voyeur. He is an intuitive fisher of patterns of information, the signature a particular individual creates simply by going about the business of living. But Laney knows how to sift for the interesting (read dangerous) bits. Which makes him very useful--to certain people. Chia McKenzie is here on a rescue mission. Shes fourteen. Her idol is the singer Rez, of the band LoRez. When the Seattle chapter of the LoRez fan club decided that he might be in trouble, in Tokyo, they sent Chia to check it out. Rei Toei is the beautiful, entirely virtual media star adored by all Japan. The idoru. And Rez has declared that he will marry her. This is the rumor that brought Chia to Tokyo. But the things that bother Rez are not the things that bother most people. Is something different here, in the very nature of reality? Or is it that something violently New is about to happen? Its possible the idoru is as real as she wants or needs to be--or as real as Rez desires. When Colin Laney looks into her dark eyes, trying hard to think of her as no more than a hologram, he sees things hes never seen before. He sees how she might break a mans heart. And, whatever else may be true, the idoru and the powerful interests surrounding her are enough to put all their lives in danger. Amazon.com ReviewThe author of the ground-breaking science-fiction novels Neuromancer and Virtual Light returns with a fast-paced, high-density, cyber-punk thriller. As prophetic as it is exciting, Idoru takes us to 21st century Tokyo where both the promises of technology and the disasters of cyber-industrialism stand in stark contrast, where the haves and the have-nots find themselves walled apart, and where information and fame are the most valuable and dangerous currencies. When Rez, the lead singer for the rock band LoRez is rumored to be engaged to an idoru or idol singer--an artificial celebrity creation of information software agents--14-year-old Chia Pet McKenzie is sent by the bands fan club to Tokyo to uncover the facts. At the same time, Colin Laney, a data specialist for Slitscan television, uncovers and publicizes a network scandal. He flees to Tokyo to escape the networks wrath. As Chia struggles to find the truth, Colin struggles to preserve it, in a futuristic society so media-saturated that only computers hold the hope for imagination, hope and spirituality. From Publishers WeeklyThe founding father of cyberpunk again returns to the techno-decadent 21st century mapped in his other major works (Virtual Light, Neuromancer, etc.). As usual, Gibson offers a richly imagined tale that finds semi-innocents wading hip-deep into trouble. Colin Laney has taken a job in Japan to escape the revenge of his former employer, Slitscan, a kind of corporate gossip-mongerer on the Net that he has crossed out of scruples. Meanwhile, Chia Pet McKenzie is active in the fan clubs for LoRez, a Japanese superstar rock duo while visiting Japan to investigate some new rumors about the group, she is used to smuggle illegal nanoware to the Russian criminal underground. Both Laney and Chia get caught up in the intrigues swirling about the plans of Rez, one half of the band, to marry Rei Toei, an idoru (idol) who exists only in virtual reality. Gibson excels here in creating a warped but comprehensible future saturated with logical yet unexpected technologies. His settings are brilliantly realized, from high-tech hotel rooms and airplanes to the infamous Walled City of Kowloon. The pacing is slower than Virtual Light, but Gibson exhibits his greatest strength intense speculation, expressed in dramatic form, about the near-term evolution and merging of cultural, social and technological trends, and how they affect character. Dark and disturbing, this novel represents no new departure for Gibson, but a further accretion of the insights that have made him the most precise, and perhaps the most prescient, visionary working in SF today. 100,000 first printing $100,000 adpromo author tour. 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Author: Shakti Gawain File Type: pdf In this profoundly exciting and challenging time, individuals may find they are involved in a difficult yet fascinating learning process -- both their personal evolution and the evolution of human consciousness. In this book, best-selling author Shakti Gawain describes the four levels of human existence -- spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical -- and explains the importance of developing all four. She also provides the meditations and exercises readers need to begin their own healing journeys.From Library JournalA best-selling author, frequent talk-show guest, and renowned speaker and workshop leader, Gawain here offers a new workbook for healing. She claims that humans are living spiritually and emotionally empty lives that are dangerously unbalanced. Only by balancing the four aspects?spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical?can people be successful and fulfilled. Each chapter investigates one of these aspects and ends with appropriate spiritual exercises. A minister for over 30 years who has conducted seminars on spiritual healing, Grayson by contrast stresses 13 principles for self-healing. Emphasizing that everyone has the ability to lead a happy, fulfilled life, Grayson claims that most peoples lives are instead run by lack, loss, and limitation as well as resistance, rejection, and rebellion. Likening it to training for a marathon, Grayson discusses the great effort required to release past negativity and to prepare the path for spiritual healing. The appendix is complete with positive affirmations for spiritual treatments and a glossary of terms. Gawains work is essential for public library collections for general readers Graysons book may be more satisfying for academics and could be considered additional reading for public library patrons.?Lisa S. Wise, Broome Cty. P.L., Binghamton, N.Y. 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.