Portrait Of A Community

Portrait of a Community examines emerging kinship structures as embedded in the social and cultural history of a river valley in a central coastal Fujian province from the ninth through thirteenth centuries. The book demonstrates how cultural innovation often begins at a local level.

The Bengalis are the third largest ethno-linguistic group in the world, after the Han Chinese and the Arabs. A quarter of a billion strong and growing, the community has produced three Nobel laureates, world-class scientists, legendary political leaders and revolutionaries, iconic movie stars and directors, and an unending stream of writers, philosophers, painters, poets and musicians of the first rank. But, bald facts aside, just who are the Bengalis? What is the community all about, stereotypically and beyond stereotype? In order to find the answers to these and related questions, the author (a Bengali born and steeped in his own culture but objective enough to give us a balanced reckoning of his fellows) delves deep into the culture, literature, history and social mores of the Bengalis. He writes with acuity about the many strengths of the community but does not flinch from showing us its weaknesses and tormented history. He points out that Bengalis are among the most civilized and intellectually refined people on earth but have also been responsible for genocide and racism of the worst kind. Their cuisine is justly celebrated but few remember the cause and effect of millions of Bengalis dying of famine. Renowned for their liberal attitudes, they are also capable of virulent religious fundamentalism. Argumentative and meditative, pompous and grounded, hypocritical and wise, flippant and deep... Bengalis are all this and much, much more. With erudition, wit and empathy, this book manages to capture their very essence.

A piercing portrait of the struggles and triumphs of one of America's renowned Jewish neighborhoods in the wake of unspeakable tragedy that highlights the hopes, fears, and tensions all Americans must confront on the road to healing. Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, is one of the oldest Jewish neighborhoods in the country, known for its tight-knit community and the profusion of multigenerational families. On October 27, 2018, a gunman killed eleven Jews who were worshipping at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill--the most deadly anti-Semitic attack in American history. Many neighborhoods would be understandably subsumed by despair and recrimination after such an event, but not this one. Mark Oppenheimer poignantly shifts the focus away from the criminal and his crime, and instead presents the historic, spirited community at the center of this heartbreak. He speaks with residents and nonresidents, Jews and gentiles, survivors and witnesses, teenagers and seniors, activists and historians. Together, these stories provide a kaleidoscopic and nuanced account of collective grief, love, support, and revival. But Oppenheimer also details the difficult dialogue and messy confrontations that Squirrel Hill had to face in the process of healing, and that are a necessary part of true growth and understanding in any community. He has reverently captured the vibrancy and caring that still characterize Squirrel Hill, and it is this phenomenal resilience that can provide inspiration to any place burdened with discrimination and hate.

Based on a nationwide survey of the giving habits of Pakistani-Americans, this study, the first of its kind, not only examines the history, demography, and institutional geography of Pakistani-Americans but also looks at how this immigrant community manages its multiple identities through charitable giving and volunteering.

In 1934, the year Calvin Littlejohn came to Fort Worth, the city was a sleepy little burg. This was the Jim Crow era, when mainstream newspapers wouldn't publish pictures of black citizens and white photographers wouldn't take pictures in black schools. In Fort Worth, Littlejohn began what would become a lifelong career of documenting the black community. And there would be nothing remotely related to the white culture's depictions of Amos 'n' Andy or black kids grinning over a slice of watermelon in Littlejohn's portrayal of his adopted home and the people he came to appreciate and love. Littlejohn's natural aptitude for drawing had been honed by correspondence courses in graphic design and a stint in a photo shop where he learned about the camera, lighting, and the use of shadows. When Littlejohn was assigned to be the official photographer at I. M. Terrell--the city's only black high school at the time--his professional career was launched. Unlike many segregated cities, where blacks lived only in one section, blacks in Cowtown lived in every quadrant of the city. There was a thriving black business district, with hotels, restaurants, a movie theater, a bank, and a major hospital, pharmacy, and nursing school. And of course, there were the schools and churches. All would eventually be seen through Littlejohn's lens. Although he never set out to be the documentarian of Fort Worth's black community, he did what he set out to do: to capture the best of a community, focusing on its good times. This book features more than 150 shots Littlejohn captured over the course of his career.

James Joyce’s deeply personal and “most memorable novel” (H. G. Wells) detailing the spiritual and artistic awakening of Stephen Dedalus, now freshly repackaged for the Union Square & Co. Signature Classics line. James Joyce’s semi-autobiographical first novel explores the author’s own love-hate relationship with Ireland through Stephen Dedalus, Joyce’s literary alter ego. Dedalus yearns to be an artist, but must first overcome the aspects of Irish society, like school and the church, that he feels restrains his creativity and stifles his soul. Joyce’s use of experimental literary techniques, including stream of consciousness, is on full display in his first novel, which he further develops in his later works, Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake.