Beyond Portia

A resource to help judges, lawyers, scholars, and students gain insight into the real lives of women whom the law purports to represent but whose self-representations have historically been excluded from legal discourse.

When a chimpanzee stockpiles rocks as weapons or when a frog sends out mating calls, we might easily assume these animals know their own motivations--that they use the same psychological mechanisms that we do. But as Beyond the Brain indicates, this is a dangerous assumption because animals have different evolutionary trajectories, ecological niches, and physical attributes. How do these differences influence animal thinking and behavior? Removing our human-centered spectacles, Louise Barrett investigates the mind and brain and offers an alternative approach for understanding animal and human cognition. Drawing on examples from animal behavior, comparative psychology, robotics, artificial life, developmental psychology, and cognitive science, Barrett provides remarkable new insights into how animals and humans depend on their bodies and environment--not just their brains--to behave intelligently. Barrett begins with an overview of human cognitive adaptations and how these color our views of other species, brains, and minds. Considering when it is worth having a big brain--or indeed having a brain at all--she investigates exactly what brains are good at. Showing that the brain's evolutionary function guides action in the world, she looks at how physical structure contributes to cognitive processes, and she demonstrates how these processes employ materials and resources in specific environments. Arguing that thinking and behavior constitute a property of the whole organism, not just the brain, Beyond the Brain illustrates how the body, brain, and cognition are tied to the wider world.

Step into the fascinating realm of 'Echoes Beyond Curtain,' where the emerging writers skillfully combine innovation and tradition to create contemporary one-act masterpieces that recreate the Bard's works with unrelenting originality and precise attention to detail. More than merely a compilation of tales, 'Echoes Beyond Curtain' is an inscription to the timeless appeal of writing and the boundless potential of young minds. Join in on this literary journey and explore the captivating retellings that uphold Shakespeare's legacy.

For students and writers alike, a brilliant guide to the craft of writing by the National Book Award–winning author of Spartina. National Book Award winner John Casey is a masterful novelist who is also an inspiring and beloved teacher. In Beyond the First Draft he offers essential and original insights into the art of writing—and rewriting—fiction. Through anecdotes about other writers’ methods and habits (as well as his own) and close readings of literature from Aristotle to Zola, the essays in this collection offer “suggestions about things to do, things to think about when your writing has got you lost in the woods.” In “Dogma and Anti-dogma” Casey sets out the tried-and-true advice and then comments on when to apply it and when to ignore it. In “What's Funny” he considers the range of comedy from pratfalls to elegant wit. In “In Other Words” he discusses translations and the surprising effects that translating can have on one’s native language. In “Mentors” he pays tribute to those who have guided him and other writers. Throughout the fourteen essays there are notes on voice, point of view, structure, and other crucial elements. This book is an invaluable resource for aspiring writers and a revitalizing companion for seasoned ones.

Despite the success of her sultry Red Choo sex blog,it would take serious buzz to put Mercedes Brooks'sfirst book of erotic fantasies on the bestseller list. Andthat meant agreeing to another showdown with her nemesis, the super-sexy TV pundit Sam Porter. This time, though, the on-air innuendos were just a dressrehearsal. What happened later between the sheets wasactually the main event. If the tabloids got wind of theirnight together, Sam's career would self-destruct. But thereal shocker was that even with a prime-time scandalhanging over their heads, one night was not enough!

Forty-year-old Portia Fraser practices law in Cascade City, a small Washington State community. For the past fifteen years, she's built up a substantial client base and has managed to balance her job with her family. But the upcoming months will test her limits, both professionally and personally . Portia finds herself involved in a multitude of lawsuits, each one bringing its own challenge. When a sleazy lawyer named Seth Thompson hatches an evil scheme to cheat four orphans out of their inheritance, Portia calls on all her years of training to thwart him. But after successfully winning the case, she faces a personal dilemma brought on by her troubled marriage and her unfaithful husband. Facing mental and physical exhaustion, Portia travels to Paris to recuperate. There she meets and falls captive to the charms of a virile Frenchman, Henri, who makes her feel young again. Her month-long sabbatical quickly ends when her husband is involved in an accident. Portia returns to America, divorces her husband, and dives back into her workload. But she cannot forget those few days in Paris that radically changed her perception of the world, and she wonders if life will ever be the same again .

No one exemplifies the angst of the Depression era street kid more than The Dead End Kids. They were the stars of Sidney Kingsley’s 1935 play, Dead End, and reprised their roles in Samuel Goldwyn’s 1937 Hollywood film version. The movie defined the theme of slum dramas for the juvenile rebellion films of subsequent decades. The Dead End Kids were Billy Halop, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Gabriel Dell, and Bernard Punsly. The best of their films were the gangster movies where the boys collided with the likes of Humphrey Bogart in Dead End and Crime School, James Cagney in Angels with Dirty Faces and John Garfield in They Made Me a Criminal. They bandied about lightweights like Ronald Reagan in lackluster efforts like Hell’s Kitchen and Angels Wash Their Faces before being reformed by a military academy in On Dress Parade. Their original reign was short-lived, not because they ran out of steam but because they had to be toned down due to criticisms. It didn’t matter because The Dead End Kids mutated into several splinter groups that starred in various configurations of the original members for the next quarter century, carving out a unique niche in motion picture history. One of the uncharted tributaries of this history is the solo careers of the actors who played the Dead End Kids. There were careers of mixed blessings after the initial stardom and each member faced and dealt with the typecasting dilemma in different ways and various degrees of success. There was plenty of heartbreak and disappointment along a way that started with Dead End in 1935 and ended with Dr. Bernard Punsly’s death in 2004. Joseph Fusco's Beyond Dead End: The Solo Careers of The Dead End Kids chronicles a saga of mixed blessings, where each member faced and dealt with the typecasting dilemma in different ways and various degrees of success. 388 pages. Illustrated.

Strange Son is the powerful tale of two mothers from opposite sides of the world who, united by their fierce determination to help their severely autistic sons, have challenged everything we thought we knew about autism. Tito Mukhopadhyay, an autistic boy from India who spends most of his time flapping his fingers in front of his eyes, has an IQ of 185. He favors the writings of Wordsworth and Ibsen. He loves philosophy, reads People, and worries about conflict in the Middle East. He also writes beautiful poetry.That Tito can communicate at all is due to his mother, Soma, who single-handedly developed a revolutionary method of teaching him in their one-room apartment in Bangalore, a "classroom" that lacked even running water. Iversen weaves the twin stories of Soma and Tito (and how Soma's methods mystified experts) together with her own story of how she and her family came to understand Dov. The result is a book suffused with uplifting human drama.