Bøger udgivet af Beacon Press

After more than fifty years of good health, anthropologist Paul Stoller suddenly found himself diagnosed with lymphoma. The only thing more transformative than his fear and dread of cancer was the place it ultimately took him: twenty-five years back in time to his days as an apprentice to a West African sorcerer, Adamu Jenitongo.Stranger in the Village of the Sick follows Stoller down this unexpected path toward personal discovery, growth, and healing. The stories here are about life in the village of the healthy and the village of the sick, and they highlight differences in how illness is culturally perceived. In America and the West, illness is war; we strive to eradicate it from our bodies and lives. In West Africa, however, illness is an ever-present companion, and sorcerers learn to master illnesses like cancer through a combination of acceptance, pragmatism, and patience.Stoller provides a view into the ancient practices of sorcery, revealing that as an apprentice he learned to read divining shells, mix potions, and recite incantations. But it wasn't until he got cancer that he realized that sorcery embodied a more profound meaning, one that every person could use: "Sorcery is a body of knowledge and practice that enables one to see things clearly and to walk with confidence on the path of fear."

Living in an altered past that never saw the end of the Great Depression, Jeannine, a librarian, is waiting to be married. Joanna lives in a different version of reality: she's a 1970s feminist trying to succeed in a man's world. Janet is from Whileaway, a utopian earth where only women exist. And Jael is a warrior with steel teeth and catlike retractable claws, from an earth with separate-and warring-female and male societies. When these four women meet, the results are startling, outrageous, and subversive.

"Jones's great achievement is to reckon with both history and interiority, and to collapse the boundary between them."-Anna Wiener, THE NEW YORKERFrom the highly acclaimed author of Corregidora and The Healing-two epic poems, the love songs of fugitive slaves, set in 17th-century Brazil; continuing the unforgettable journey told in Gayl Jones's masterwork, Palmares (2021).Gayl Jones, the novelist Toni Morrison discovered decades ago and Tayari Jones recently called her favorite writer, offers two books in one with this volume of poetry. Jones renders the saga of Palmares, a foundational tale in the annals of colonial terrorism and Black resistance, in verse, told in the voices of the characters in her epic novel Palmares.In the late 17th century, the fugitive slave enclave of Palmares was destroyed by Portuguese colonists. Amid the flight and re-enslavement of Palmares's inhabitants emerges the love story of Almeyda and Anninho. In Song for Anninho, Almeyda moves between a dark present, in which she is once again enslaved and abused by a terrible captor, and memories of her lover, Anninho, whom she believes to have been killed. Song for Almeyda, released now for the first time, is told in the voices of Anninho and his fellow warriors.Fans of Corregidora (one of the New Yorker's "Best Books We Read in 2020" picks), which tracked the legacy of enslavement, and Palmares will especially appreciate these verses. Brimming with intimacy, history, and revolution, the poems collected serve as a declaration of decolonial love.

A revised and expanded edition of Thich Nhat Hanh's classic introduction to guided meditation for a world in search of mindfulnessIn this revised edition of The Blooming of a Lotus, one of the world's great meditation teachers offers an expanded collection of exercises for practicing mindfulness meditation that will bring both beginning and experienced practitioners into closer touch with their bodies, their inner selves, their families, and the world.In this new edition, readers will find: • A grounded introduction that provides readers with an immersive understanding of mindfulness, and includes guidance on how to use this book for mindful meditative practice • A new chapter of 30 guided meditations from Thich Nhat Hanh's 3-month Rains' Retreat, which guide readers into silent meditation rooted in directed mindfulness • A fresh organization, which groups the meditations thematically, focusing on our relationship with the body, with feelings and emotions, with existential commitment to the self and to others, and with the environment we share with living and nonliving things • A hardcover edition featuring a place-marker ribbon and a paper over board binding for easy use Compassionate and wise, Thich Nhat Hanh's healing words help us acknowledge and dissolve anger and separation by illuminating the way toward the miracle of mindfulness.

For hundreds of thousands of families, the death of their loved ones will never be forgotten, but for millions more, their memories of that year are giving way to indistinct recollections of general anxiety and anger. A Deeper Sickness is a one-of-a-kind eyewitness account that chronicles the disease, the disinformation, the frayed social fabric, and the violence that converged around the twelve astonishing months of 2020. Award-winning historians Margaret Peacock and Erik Peterson set out with a mission to preserve what they call the "focused confusion" of this fateful year. They consulted with dozens of experts and witnesses from a wide range of fields--from distinguished epidemiologists and healthcare workers to leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement, district attorneys, political scientists, philosophers, and more. Their journey revealed a sick country that believed it was well and a violent nation that believed it was peaceful, one that mistook poverty for prosperity and accountability for rebellion. Organized by almost daily entries, A Deeper Sickness will help listeners sift through the chaos and misinformation that characterized those frantic days. It is both an unflinching indictment of a nation that is still reeling and a testament to the power of human resilience and collective memory. Listeners can also share their story about the pandemic by visiting an interactive digital museum, where the authors have preserved dozens of more stories and interviews.

A personal and historical examination of white Catholic anti-Blackness in the US told through 5 generations of one family, and a call for meaningful racial healing and justice within CatholicismExcavating her Catholic family’s entanglements with race and racism from the time they immigrated to America to the present, Maureen O’Connell traces, by implication, how the larger Catholic population became white and why, despite the tenets of their faith, so many white Catholics have lukewarm commitments to racial justice.O’Connell was raised by devoutly Catholic parents with a clear moral and civic guiding principle: those to whom much is given, much is expected. She became a theologian steeped in social ethics, engaged in critical race theory, and trained in the fundamentals of anti-racism. And still she found herself failing to see how her well-meaning actions affected the Black members of her congregations. It seemed that whenever she tried to undo the knots of racism, she only ended up getting more tangled in them.Undoing the Knots weaves together narrative history, theology, and critical race theory to begin undoing these knots: to move away from doing good and giving back and toward dismantling the white Catholic identity and the economic and social structures it has erected and maintained.

A new translation of the classical Tamil masterpiece on ethics, power, and love, bringing Tiruvalluvar's poetry and practical philosophy to new generations seeking guidance and care in a stressed out world.Drawing on the poetic tradition of W. S. Merwin, Wendell Berry, and William Carlos Williams, and nurtured by 2 decades of study under Tamil scholar Dr. K. V. Ramakoti, this new translation of the Kural by Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma brings English readers closer than ever to the brilliant inner and outer music of Tiruvalluvar's work and ideas.Tiruvalluvar's Tirukkural is a masterwork of poetry and practical philosophy. On par with other world classics such as the Tao Te Ching, the Kural is a compendium of 1,330 short philosophical verses, or kurals, that together cover a wide range of personal and cosmic experience, such as-POLITICS:Harsh rule that brings idiots together-nothingBurdens the earth moreHOSPITALITY:The life that cherishes strangers each dayNever falls upon ruinFRIENDSHIP:Friendship is not a face smiling-friendshipIs a heart that smilesGREED:Those who won't give and enjoy-even with billionsThey have nothingAccompanying the translation is a foreword by the founder of the Institute for Sacred Activism, Andrew Harvey; an introduction by the translator and scholar Archana Venkatesan; and a "Commentary of Notes," in which Pruiksma elucidates key words and shares insights from important Tamil commentaries.Rich with indelible wordplay, learning, and heart, Pruiksma's translation transforms the barrier of language into a bridge, bringing the fullness of Tiruvalluvar's poetic intensity to a new generation.