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Author: Italo Calvino
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 1988
Total Pages: 100
ISBN-13: 9780156927949
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →One of Italy's greatest and most popular writers offers three witty, fantastical stories, each dominated by one of three senses--taste, hearing, or smell.
Author: Italo Calvino
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2013
Total Pages: 231
ISBN-13: 0544146468
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Published for the first time in English, a final collection of essays by the renowned fabulist writer tours the visual world through explorations of subjects ranging from cuneiform and antique maps to Mexican temples and Japanese gardens.
Author: Rebecca R. Stone
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2012-09-21
Total Pages: 244
ISBN-13: 0292749503
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →An important new way of viewing the prehistoric art of the Americas, The Jaguar Within demonstrates that understanding a work of art’s connection with shamanic trance can lead to an appreciation of it as an extremely creative solution to the inherent challenge of giving material form to nonmaterial realities and states of being. Shamanism—the practice of entering a trance state to experience visions of a reality beyond the ordinary and to gain esoteric knowledge—has been an important part of life for indigenous societies throughout the Americas from prehistoric times until the present. Much has been written about shamanism in both scholarly and popular literature, but few authors have linked it to another significant visual realm—art. In this pioneering study, Rebecca R. Stone considers how deep familiarity with, and profound respect for, the extra-ordinary visionary experiences of shamanism profoundly affected the artistic output of indigenous cultures in Central and South America before the European invasions of the sixteenth century. Using ethnographic accounts of shamanic trance experiences, Stone defines a core set of trance vision characteristics, including enhanced senses; ego dissolution; bodily distortions; flying, spinning, and undulating sensations; synaesthesia; and physical transformation from the human self into animal and other states of being. Stone then traces these visionary characteristics in ancient artworks from Costa Rica and Peru. She makes a convincing case that these works, especially those of the Moche, depict shamans in a trance state or else convey the perceptual experience of visions by creating deliberately chaotic and distorted conglomerations of partial, inverted, and incoherent images.
Author: Italo Calvino
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2014-09-16
Total Pages: 367
ISBN-13: 0544231937
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The complete collection of “nimble and often hilarious” short stories exploring the cosmos by the acclaimed author of Invisible Cities (Colin Dwyer, NPR). Italo Calvino’s beloved cosmicomics cross planets and traverse galaxies, speed up time or slow it down to the particles of an instant. Through the eyes of a “cosmic know-it-all” with the unpronounceable name of Qfwfq, Calvino explores natural phenomena and tells the story of the origins of the universe. Relating complex scientific and mathematical concepts to our everyday world, they are an indelible and delightful literary achievement. Originally published in Italian in three separate volumes—including the Asti d’Appello Prize-winning first volume, Cosmicomics—these thirty-four dazzling stories are collected here in one definitive English-language anthology. “Trying to describe such a diverse and entertaining mix, I have to admit, just as Calvino does so often, that my words fail here, too. There’s no way I—or anyone, really—can muster enough of them to quite capture the magic of these stories . . . Read this book, please.” —Colin Dwyer, NPR
Author: Sandy Fussell
Publisher: Walker Books Australia
Published: 2014-07-01
Total Pages: 141
ISBN-13: 1921977353
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Imprisoned in a box, Atl waits for death. He is not afraid. Anger burns too deeply within him. Then, unexpectedly, he is released. Released to deliver an urgent message. But it is not the mission that sets him running. It is the sudden chance for freedom. Nothing can stop this Jaguar Warrior. Not even the one who hunts him. Jaguar Warrior is a thrilling page-turner for younger readers by award-winning Australian author Sandy Fussell. Set in ancient Aztec times, this historical adventure novel is about a slave boy trying to protect his people from Spanish invasion, while avoiding being sacrificed himself. It was a Notable Book at the 2011 Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year Awards. For more junior fiction reads check out Sandy’s other books, Polar Boy and the Samurai Kids series. “From the opening pages to the climax, Jaguar Warrior will have your heart thumping. The hunt throughout is expertly paced and well-balanced with character reveals and historical information … Fussell has a special prowess in recreating bygone civilisations and filling them with realistic, thought-provoking characters so the past leaps into life. She did it in her Samurai Kids series and achieves it well in Jaguar Warrior.” The Sun Herald “What a page-turner: Aztec blood sacrifices, a ravenous crocodile, feisty companions, secret passages and a heart-stopping pursuit. Indiana Jones move over! … It is not only the fascinating details of Aztec life in Mexica and the Spanish invasion of that civilisation that hold the reader captive – Atl and Lali are resourceful and engaging and their lively bickering provides welcome touches of humour as a counterpoint to their terror. Fussell manages to integrate facts without ever breaking the tension of the narrative. Atl and the Captain speak alternatively, their voices vivid and compelling. The language is poetic yet riveting.” Magpies magazine “Fussell, a gifted writer, has again created outstanding characters and a suspenseful, informative and well-crafted storyline.” Good Reading magazine “A gripping historical novel for children, set in Aztec times … Set in a well-researched, thoroughly believable world, this is a thrilling adventure which will appeal to upper primary and secondary readers. Brilliant.” Aussie Reviews
Author: Jon Voelkel
Publisher: Darby Creek
Published: 2010-04
Total Pages: 437
ISBN-13: 1606840711
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →When his archaeologist parents go missing in Central America, fourteen-year-old Max embarks on a wild adventure through the Mayan underworld in search of the legendary Jaguar Stones, which enabled ancient Mayan kings to wield the powers of living gods. Includes cast of characters, glossary, facts about the Maya cosmos and calendar, and a recipe for chicken tamales.
Author: Lisa Sousa
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2017-01-11
Total Pages: 423
ISBN-13: 1503601110
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book is an ambitious and wide-ranging social and cultural history of gender relations among indigenous peoples of New Spain, from the Spanish conquest through the first half of the eighteenth century. In this expansive account, Lisa Sousa focuses on four native groups in highland Mexico—the Nahua, Mixtec, Zapotec, and Mixe—and traces cross-cultural similarities and differences in the roles and status attributed to women in prehispanic and colonial Mesoamerica. Sousa intricately renders the full complexity of women's life experiences in the household and community, from the significance of their names, age, and social standing, to their identities, ethnicities, family, dress, work, roles, sexuality, acts of resistance, and relationships with men and other women. Drawing on a rich collection of archival, textual, and pictorial sources, she traces the shifts in women's economic, political, and social standing to evaluate the influence of Spanish ideologies on native attitudes and practices around sex and gender in the first several generations after contact. Though catastrophic depopulation, economic pressures, and the imposition of Christianity slowly eroded indigenous women's status following the Spanish conquest, Sousa argues that gender relations nevertheless remained more complementary than patriarchal, with women maintaining a unique position across the first two centuries of colonial rule.
Author: Melissa Stewart
Publisher: Peachtree
Published: 2014-04-01
Total Pages: 32
ISBN-13: 9781561457335
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This lyrical tour of a variety of habitats offers young readers vivid glimpses of animals as they live out the hot season under the blazing sun. When the sun is shining brightly, people put on sunscreen or scurry inside to cool off. But how do wild animals react to the sizzling heat? Journey from your neighborhood to a field where an earthworm loops its long body into a ball underground, to a desert where a jackrabbit loses heat through its oversized ears, to a wetland where a siren salamander burrows into the mud to stay cool, and to a seashore where a sea star hides in the shade of a seaweed mat. Constance R. Bergum's glowing watercolors perfectly capture the wonder of a hot, sunny environment.
Author: Rebecca Roanhorse
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2022-04-19
Total Pages: 416
ISBN-13: 1534437754
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →USA TODAY Bestseller Return to The Meridian with New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Roanhorse’s sequel to the most critically hailed epic fantasy of 2020 Black Sun—finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Lambda, and Locus awards. There are no tides more treacherous than those of the heart. —Teek saying The great city of Tova is shattered. The sun is held within the smothering grip of the Crow God’s eclipse, but a comet that marks the death of a ruler and heralds the rise of a new order is imminent. The Meridian: a land where magic has been codified and the worship of gods suppressed. How do you live when legends come to life, and the faith you had is rewarded? As sea captain Xiala is swept up in the chaos and currents of change, she finds an unexpected ally in the former Priest of Knives. For the Clan of Matriarchs of Tova, tense alliances form as far-flung enemies gather and the war in the heavens is reflected upon the earth. And for Serapio and Naranpa, both now living avatars, the struggle for free will and personhood in the face of destiny rages. How will Serapio stay human when he is steeped in prophecy and surrounded by those who desire only his power? Is there a future for Naranpa in a transformed Tova without her total destruction? Welcome back to the fantasy series of the decade in Fevered Star—book two of Between Earth and Sky from one of the “Indigenous novelists reshaping North American science fiction, horror, and fantasy” (The New York Times) and the “epic voice of our continent and time” (Ken Liu, award-winning author of The Grace of Kings).
Author: Terence Turner
Publisher: Hau
Published: 2017
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780997367546
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Not since Clifford Geertz's "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight" has the publication of an anthropological analysis been as eagerly awaited as this book, Terence S. Turner's The Fire of the Jaguar. His reanalysis of the famous myth from the Kayapo people of Brazil was anticipated as an exemplar of a new, dynamic, materialist, action-oriented structuralism, one very different from the kind made famous by Claude L vi-Strauss. But the study never fully materialized. Now, with this volume, it has arrived, bringing with it powerful new insights that challenge the way we think about structuralism, its legacy, and the reasons we have moved away from it. In these chapters, Turner carries out one of the richest and most sustained analysis of a single myth ever conducted. Turner places the "Fire of the Jaguar" myth in the full context of Kayapo society and culture and shows how it became both an origin tale and model for the work of socialization, which is the primary form of productive labor in Kayapo society. A posthumous tribute to Turner's theoretical erudition, ethnographic rigor, and respect for Amazonian indigenous lifeworlds, this book brings this fascinating Kayapo myth alive for new generations of anthropologists. Accompanied with some of Turner's related pieces on Kayapo cosmology, this book is at once a richly literary work and an illuminating meditation on the process of creativity itself.
