A Junky S Hallucinations

Patrick Khumandaty has a great reputation in the narcotic world as the best drug trafficker. When he used the Vatican without its knowledge, he discovered a genealogy that has been furtively hidden. Now he is on a revenge mission and a major scandal is about to be blown open.

'Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increased enjoyment in life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life.' Burrough's cult classic is a raw, semi-autobiographical account of drug addiction, which outraged America and influenced generations of writers to come. He relates with unflinching realism the highs and lows of dependency- euphoria, hallucinations, ghostly nocturnal wanderings and strange sexual encounters. Junkyis a dark, powerful and mesmerizing account of one man's challenge to turn self-destruction into art.

Hallucinations, for most people, imply madness. But there are many different types of non-psychotic hallucination caused by various illnesses or injuries, by intoxication--even, for many people, by falling sleep. From the elementary geometrical shapes that we see when we rub our eyes to the complex swirls and blind spots and zigzags of a visual migraine, hallucination takes many forms. At a higher level, hallucinations associated with the altered states of consciousness that may come with sensory deprivation or certain brain disorders can lead to religious epiphanies or conversions. Drawing on a wealth of clinical examples from his own patients as well as historical and literary descriptions, Oliver Sacks investigates the fundamental differences and similarities of these many sorts of hallucinations, what they say about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture's folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all.

William S. Burroughs is one of the twentieth century's most visible, controversial, and baffling literary figures. In the first comprehensive study of the writer, Timothy S. Murphy places Burroughs in the company of the most significant intellectual minds of our time. In doing so, he gives us an immensely readable and convincing account of a man whose achievements continue to have a major influence on American art and culture. Murphy draws on the work of such philosophers as Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Theodor Adorno, and Jean-Paul Sartre, and also investigates the historical contexts from which Burroughs's writings arose. From the paranoid isolationism of the Cold War through the countercultural activism of the sixties to the resurgence of corporate and state control in the eighties, Burroughs's novels, films, and music hold a mirror to the American psyche. Murphy coins the term "amodernism" as a way to describe Burroughs's contested relationship to the canon while acknowledging the writer's explicit desire for a destruction of such systems of classification. Despite the popular mythology that surrounds Burroughs, his work has been largely excluded from the academy of American letters. Finally here is a book that presents a solid portrait of a major artistic innovator, a writer who combines aesthetics and politics and who can perform as anthropologist, social goad, or media icon, all with consummate skill.

This easy-to-use book is designed to inform the American public about the political system that influences much of their lives

A comprehensive and thematic exploration of representations of madness in postwar British and American Fiction, this book is relevant to those with interests in literary studies and is a vital read for psychiatric clinicians and professionals who are interested in how literature can inform and enhance clinical practices.

Theatre as Human Action is the ideal textbook to introduce students to the various aspects of theatre, especially for those who may have little or no theatergoing experience. Seven diverse plays are described to the reader from the start, and then returned to throughout the book so that students can better understand the concepts being discussed. Both the theoretical and practical aspects of theatre are explored, from the classical definition of theatre to today’s most avant-garde theatre activities. Types of plays, the elements of drama, and theatre criticism are presented, as well as detailed descriptions of the different jobs in theatre, such as actor, playwright, director, designer, producer, choreographer, and more. The book concludes with a look at where and how theatre is evolving in America and the latest changes and innovations today. This fourth edition has been greatly expanded and updated, including: The introduction of four new plays—Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street; Fences; Angels in America; and Hadestown—in addition to Macbeth, You Can’t Take It With You, and Hamilton A discussion of the rise of social media in raising awareness and replacing traditional review outlets An entirely new, enhanced section on diversity and inclusion in theatre An updated selection of playwrights featured, including Terrence McNally, Lynn Nottage, Tony Kushner, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, to better reflect the diversity of those writing for the theatre today. Featuring full-color photographs, updated discussion questions, new topics for further research, and potential creative projects, the fourth edition of Theatre as Human Action is an invaluable resource to introduce students to the world of theatre.

“Marvels! Rompecabezas! And cartoons that bite into the mind appear throughout this long-awaited book that promises to reshape and refocus how we see Mexicans in the Americas and how we are taught and seduced to mis/understand our human potentials for solidarity. This is the closest Latin@ studies has come to a revolutionary vision of how American culture works through its image machines, a vision that cuts through to the roots of the U.S. propaganda archive on Mexican, Tex-Mex, Latino, Chicano/a humanity. Nericcio exposes, deciphers, historicizes, and 'cuts-up' the postcards, movies, captions, poems, and adverts that plaster dehumanization (he calls them 'miscegenated semantic oddities') through our brains. For him, understanding the sweet and sour hallucinations is not enough. He wants the flashing waters of our critical education to become instruments of restoration. In this book, Walter Benjamin meets Italo Calvino and they morph into Nericcio. Orale! -Davíd Carrasco, Harvard University A rogues' gallery of Mexican bandits, bombshells, lotharios, and thieves saturates American popular culture. Remember Speedy Gonzalez? “Mexican Spitfire” Lupe Vélez? The Frito Bandito? Familiar and reassuring-at least to Anglos-these Mexican stereotypes are not a people but a text, a carefully woven, articulated, and consumer-ready commodity. In this original, provocative, and highly entertaining book, William Anthony Nericcio deconstructs Tex[t]-Mexicans in films, television, advertising, comic books, toys, literature, and even critical theory, revealing them to be less flesh-and-blood than “seductive hallucinations,” less reality than consumer products, a kind of “digital crack.” Nericcio engages in close readings of rogue/icons Rita Hayworth, Speedy Gonzalez, Lupe Vélez, and Frida Kahlo, as well as Orson Welles' film Touch of Evil and the comic artistry of Gilbert Hernandez. He playfully yet devastatingly discloses how American cultural creators have invented and used these and other Tex[t]-Mexicans since the Mexican Revolution of 1910, thereby exposing the stereotypes, agendas, phobias, and intellectual deceits that drive American popular culture. This sophisticated, innovative history of celebrity Latina/o mannequins in the American marketplace takes a quantum leap toward a constructive and deconstructive next-generation figuration/adoration of Latinos in America.