Distant Relation

The Distant Relation breaks down the artificial division between philosophy and literature by weaving contemporary philosophic arguments through close readings of Carpentier, Rulfo, Paz, and Garcia Marquez. Thomson draws the reader into the largely uninhabited space between philosophy and literature, providing new critical strategies that allow text and reader to respond to the very distance they share. These strategies involve a reconceptualization of distance that recognizes the productive and affirmative nature of separation. The Distant Relation will attract anyone interested in the ongoing struggle to overcome conventional interpretations of language, time, and identity within the broader context of philosophical trends and Spanish American studies.

In his short life (1865–1921), Mikhah Yosef Berdichevsky was a versatile and influential man of letters: an innovative Hebrew prose stylist; a collector of Jewish folklore; a scholar of ancient Jewish and Christian history. He was at once a peer of Friedrich Nietzsche, the Brothers Grimm, and a diverse circle of Jewish writers in the Russian Empire and German-speaking countries. As a Yiddish writer, however, he remains unknown to general readers. Written in 1902-1906, but not published in full until the 1920s, his stories were dismissed by prominent critics and viewed as out of step with the literary taste of his own time. Yet these vivid portraits of a small Jewish town (shtetl) in the southern Russian Empire can speak powerfully to new audiences today. With enchanting humor, social satire, and verbal dexterity, From a Distant Relation captures the world of the shtetl in a sharp realist prose style. Themes of repressed desire, poverty, relations with non-Jews, and historic upheavals echo in a cast of memorable characters. Many of the stories and monologues feature strong female protagonists, while others shed light on misogyny in the culture of the shtetl. At the border between fiction and reportage, with a gritty underbelly and a deceptive naïveté, Berdichevsky’s stories explore dynamics of wealth, power, and gender in an intimate setting that resonates profoundly with contemporary Jewish life.

As a North American of European ancestry, Victoria Freeman sought to answer the following question: how did I come to inherit a society that has dispossessed and oppressed the indigenous people of this continent? After seven years of research into her own family’s involvement in the colonization of North America, she uncovered a story that begins in England, in 1588, and concludes in Ontario, in the 1920s. Among many others, we meet Puritan fur-trader and interpreter Thomas Stanton, who in 1637 participated in a genocidal war against the Pequots of New England, and nine-year-old Elisha Searl, who was captured in Massachusetts in 1704 by Native allies of the French, eventually becoming a “white Indian,” but was eventually “deprogrammed” by the Puritans. Through both the ordinary and remarkable episodes in her ancestors’ lives, and her own travels to the places where her ancestors lived, she illuminates the process of North American colonization. Freeman neither demonizes nor whitewashes her ancestors, but instead attempts to understand their actions and choices both in the context of their time and with the benefit of hindsight.

In highly mobile America, not enough attention has been paid to the increasingly common relationship between parents and adult children who live far apart, argues Climo, an anthropologist at Michigan State University. While his study of 40 faculty members and their spouses turns up some useful information, it is hampered by turgid academic language and a preoccupation with the banal. He detects three types of children: the "displaced," who wish they were physically closer to their parents, the "well-adapted," who have a secure relationship with their parents and the "alienated," who are happy to live far away from their parents because they lack emotional closeness. Using that typology, Climo analyzes his subjects' memories of leaving home, their communication via letters and phone calls, routine visits (he probes the five phases of a visit, including preparation and settling in) and their responses to their parents' health problems and to transitions such as death and remarriage. Finally, he advises ways children can improve the relationship: work on communication skills and believe that parents can change and grow through self-help.

The nine-volume set constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Neural Information Processing, ICONIP 2023, held in Changsha, China, in November 2023. The 1274 papers presented in the proceedings set were carefully reviewed and selected from 652 submissions. The ICONIP conference aims to provide a leading international forum for researchers, scientists, and industry professionals who are working in neuroscience, neural networks, deep learning, and related fields to share their new ideas, progress, and achievements.

A whip-smart and “fast-paced mystery” (The Daily Telegraph, London) from the internationally bestselling author of The Twyford Code and The Appeal about a true crime journalist who revives a long-buried case about a cult—and finds herself too close to the story. Everyone knows the story of the Alperton Angels: the cult who brainwashed a teenage girl into believing her baby was the anti-Christ. When the girl came to her senses and called the police, the Angels committed suicide and mother and baby disappeared. Now, true crime author Amanda Bailey is looking to revive her career by writing a book on the case. The Alperton baby has turned eighteen; finding them will be the scoop of the year. But rival author Oliver Menzies is just as smart, better connected, and also on the baby’s trail. As Amanda and Oliver are forced to collaborate, they realize that the truth about the Angels is much darker and stranger than they’d ever imagined, and in pursuit of the story they risk becoming part of it.

Contains a translation of the first three books of the author's "L'EÌ tat moderne et ses fonctions"."Translated by A.C. Morant."