Strange Pilgrimages

This anthology "decolonizes" the voices of Latin Americans who travel abroad and engage in cultural critiques of their homelands in counterpoint to foreigners' better known accounts of Latin America. The 17 contributions by North and South American academics examine--including entertaining first person accounts--the themes of constructing nations/a national identity post- independence, touring modernity, taking sides, and the art of living and working abroad. References include suggested films (e.g. Carmen Miranda: Bananas is My Business, 1994) as well as readings. Lacks an index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

From the award-winning pen of Achmat Dangor comes a subtle and multi-layered collection of short stories that showcases an unusual and illuminating take on ‘the struggle years’, and how the past impacts on us in a variety of ways. The journeys, which are the subject matter of the stories, operate on both a literal and metaphorical level. The reader is introduced to various characters in a variety of situations; the link between them is that each undertakes a ‘pilgrimage’ into the past and shows the impact this has on their lives. Central to much of this are ‘the struggle years’. This has seen some sent into exile, but few ever forget their ‘South Africanness’, for the pull of ‘nostalgia’ is an ever-present force. Some question the value of what they did during those years, others see it in a rather ambivalent light, while others want to forget, want to move on, want to be relieved of the ‘baggage’ of their past. For many of them, sex becomes the means of escape from the shackles of memory. This is not just another encomium to the ‘struggle’ years; instead, what makes this book stand out is the author’s unusual and illuminating take on that period of our history. It is not viewed, then, in a way we’ve become accustomed to, but from a different perspective. Additionally, each story is decidedly ‘relevant’ and, most importantly, all make for easy and engrossing reading.

Pilgrimages can be analysed as acts of conflict - such as the Crusades - or also as platforms for relationship building and rapprochement between religions. With a set of contributions from leading experts in the field, this book explores the concept of pilgrimage in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Some specific examples of pilgrimages that helped to strengthen links between different religions or civilisations are explored, ranging from Europe to Asia and from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Even though every pilgrimage that is investigated here has helped to link different worlds, the case studies show that this relationship rarely led to a better in inter-understanding. Nowadays, peaceful coexistence seems to be its greatest achievement.

From the award-winning pen of Achmat Dangor comes a subtle and multi-layered collection of short stories that showcases an unusual and illuminating take on ‘the struggle years’, and how the past impacts on us in a variety of ways. The journeys, which are the subject matter of the stories, operate on both a literal and metaphorical level. The reader is introduced to various characters in a variety of situations; the link between them is that each undertakes a ‘pilgrimage’ into the past and shows the impact this has on their lives. Central to much of this are ‘the struggle years’. This has seen some sent into exile, but few ever forget their ‘South Africanness’, for the pull of ‘nostalgia’ is an ever-present force. Some question the value of what they did during those years, others see it in a rather ambivalent light, while others want to forget, want to move on, want to be relieved of the ‘baggage’ of their past. For many of them, sex becomes the means of escape from the shackles of memory. This is not just another encomium to the ‘struggle’ years; instead, what makes this book stand out is the author’s unusual and illuminating take on that period of our history. It is not viewed, then, in a way we’ve become accustomed to, but from a different perspective. Additionally, each story is decidedly ‘relevant’ and, most importantly, all make for easy and engrossing reading.

Transatlantic Travels in Nineteenth-Century Latin America: European Women Pilgrims retraces the steps of five intrepid “lady travelers” who ventured into the geography of the New World—Mexico, the Southern Cone, Brazil, and the Caribbean—at a crucial historical juncture, the period of political anarchy following the break from Spain and the rise of modernity at the turn of the twentieth century. Traveling as historians, social critics, ethnographers, and artists, Frances Erskine Inglis (1806–82), Maria Graham (1785–1842), Flora Tristan (1803–44), Fredrika Bremer (1801–65), and Adela Breton (1849–1923) reshaped the map of nineteenth-century Latin America. Organized by themes rather than by individual authors, this book examines European women’s travels as a spectrum of narrative discourses, ranging from natural history, history, and ethnography. Women’s social condition becomes a focal point of their travels. By combining diverse genres and perspectives, women’s travel writing ushers a new vision of post-independence societies. The trope of pilgrimage conditions the female travel experience, which suggests both the meta-end of the journey as well as the broader cultural frame shaping their individual itineraries.

In a variety of interesting dimensions in both historical and contemporary Japanese culture, this exciting new book examines pilgrimages in Japan, including the meanings of travel, transformation, and the discovery of identity through encounters with the sacred.

This book investigates the millennial history of the Indian subcontinent. Through the various methods adopted, the objects and moments examined, it questions various linguistic, literary and artistic appropriations of the past, to address the conflicting comprehensions of the present and also the figuring/imagining of a possible future. The volume engages with this general cultural condition, in relation both to the subcontinent’s current “synchronic” reality and to certain aspects of the culture’s underlying diachronic determinations. It also reveals how the multiple heritages are negotiated through the subcontinent’s long-term sedimentational history. It scrutinizes both conservative interpretations of heritage and a possibly incremental enrichment, and the additional possibility of a mode of appropriation open to a dialectic of creative destruction, in which the patrimonial imperative is challenged, leaving room for processes of renewal and rejuvenation. The collection is organized around four major topics: Orientalism, addressed by way of the Tamil Epic Manimekalai, through the evocation of the Hastings Circle and views on a possible Hindu-Muslim unity sketched out by Sayyid Ahmed Khan; modernism in Indian and Burmese texts written in English; pictorial art, through a consideration of the work of British Asian and Indian film directors; and, finally, the current state of a body of critical thinking on gender.

This carefully crafted ebook: "THE WEIRD TALES - Horror & Macabre Collection" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. The Great God Pan was widely denounced by the press as degenerate and horrific because of its decadent style and sexual content, although it has since garnered a reputation as a classic of horror. H. P. Lovecraft praised the story, saying: "No one could begin to describe the cumulative suspense and ultimate horror with which every paragraph abounds"; he added that "the sensitive reader" reaches the end with "an appreciative shudder." Lovecraft also noted, however, that "melodrama is undeniably present, and coincidence is stretched to a length which appears absurd upon analysis." Bennett Cerf described the story as a "masterpiece". The Three Impostors is an episodic novel incorporating several weird stories, including "The Novel of the White Powder" and "The Novel of the Black Seal", and culminates in a final denouement of deadly horror, connected with a secret society devoted to debauched pagan rites. The three impostors of the title are members of this society who weave a web of deception in the streets of London—relating the aforementioned weird tales in the process—as they search for a missing Roman coin commemorating an infamous orgy by the Emperor Tiberius and close in on their prey: "the young man with spectacles". The White People is a fantasy-horror book. A discussion between two men on the nature of evil leads one of them to reveal a mysterious Green Book he possesses. It is often described as one of the greatest of all horror stories. Arthur Machen (1863-1947) was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. Table of Contents: The Three Impostors The Terror The Secret Glory A Fragment of Life The White People The Great God Pan The Inmost Light The Shining Pyramid The Red Hand The Great Return