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In The Leopard’s Spots, Gerrit J. Dimmendaal discusses the interaction between language, cognition, and culture in an African context with special focus on the cultural construction of meaning through language. Such constructions are constrained by our cognitive system, but leave lots of space for culture-specific interpretations and thereby for tremendous typological diversity between languages. This variation reflects the adaptive nature of human language in the same way that the spots of the leopard reflect selective advantages for its natural habitat. But whereas science has essentially one explanation for the rosettes of the leopard, the non-scientific mind may attach meaning to his or her cultural environment by way of language through a plethora of strategies.
Do genes explain life? Can advances in evolutionary and molecular biology account for what we look like, how we behave, and why we die? In this powerful intervention into current biological thinking, Brian Goodwin argues that such genetic reductionism has important limits. Drawing on the sciences of complexity, the author shows how an understanding of the self-organizing patterns of networks is necessary for making sense of nature. Genes are important, but only as part of a process constrained by environment, physical laws, and the universal tendencies of complex adaptive systems. In a new preface for this edition, Goodwin reflects on the advances in both genetics and the sciences of complexity since the book's original publication.
In this lush compendium illustrated with full-color images, the author of The Burlesque Handbook chronicles the history of one of the world’s most beloved fashion patterns—leopard print—celebrating its beauty and place in couture, and the women who have dared to wear it. In nature, the distinctive markings on big cats served as camouflage, helping them to blend into their surroundings when hunting prey. Unlike these magnificent predators, humans have donned this distinctive animal pattern to be noticed; leopard print demands an audience. Jo Weldon, an expert in the world of burlesque, reveals how this sexy, playful, decadent, and vibrant pattern once reserved for royalty came into vogu...
This book philosophically explores how changing conceptions of race and equality have affected Supreme Court interpretations of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution over the years. In the years since the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, in its decisions interpreting the Equal Protection Clause, the Supreme Court has switched from using a sociocultural concept of race to using a biological concept of race, and during the same time period has switched from using a social to a legal concept of equality. One result of these trends is the recent emergence of something called 'reverse discrimination.' Another result is that the Equal Protection Clause no l...
The Life and Songs of Stephen Foster offers an engaging reassessment of the life, politics, and legacy of the misunderstood father of American music. Once revered the world over, Foster’s plantation songs, like “Old Folks at Home” and “My Old Kentucky Home,” fell from grace in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement due to their controversial lyrics. Foster embraced the minstrel tradition for a brief time, refining it and infusing his songs with sympathy for slaves, before abandoning the genre for respectable parlor music. The youngest child in a large family, he grew up in the shadows of a successful older brother and his president brother-in-law, James Buchanan, and walked a fine l...
This monograph is an original study of what is commonly termed the American "myth of Ham". It examines black and white Americans' recourse to the biblical character of Ham as a cultural strategy for explaining racial origins. Previous studies in the area have been restricted to associating the Hamitic idea with pro-slavery arguments, whereas the thesis of this project reveals a fundamental irony: black American Christians who reinforced the meanings of illegitimacy by appealing to Ham as the ancestor of the race.
The Jacksonian period under review in this dictionary served as a transition period for the United States. The growing pains of the republic’s infancy, during which time Americans learned that their nation would survive transitions of political power, gave way to the uncertainty of adolescence. While the United States did not win its second war, the War of 1812, with its mother country, it reaffirmed its independence and experienced significant maturation in many areas following the conflict’s end in 1815. As the second generation of leaders took charge in the 1820s, the United States experienced the challenges of adulthood. The height of those adult years, from 1829 to 1849, is the focu...
Leopard's Spots: Part Three - a box set 9 &– Nischal There are many ways a man can be held captive. 10 &– Justice Recovering from his past might cost Paul Hardy his life. 11 &– Sabin Sabin just wants his powdered sugar donuts, until he meets a man that tastes better than any sweets Sabin's ever tried... 12 &– Cliff Cliff thinks he's too tough for love and too mean for a mate, but he has a lot to learn about the way the Fates work. Snow leopards in Holton, Colorado-who'd have thought it? Yet on the large, sprawling acreage nestled between mountains, a family of snow leopard shifters not only lives but thrives. With little to no information about their past, how they came to be or what they are capable of, these shifters struggle to understand who and what they are. Held together by the tough and loving matriarch, Grandma Marybeth, Levi and his siblings, along with their cousins, must find their way in the world. Forgotten truths and familial ties are discovered as the snow leopard men find their mates.
This tells the story of a Native American family with a long kept secret: one branch is of African descent. Focusing on five generations from 1780 to 1920, Saunt shows how Indians disowned their black relatives to survive in the shadow of the expanding American republic.
With a focus on nineteenth century Cuba, this volume examines understudied forms of mobility and networks that emerged during Second Slavery. After being forcibly taken across the Atlantic, enslaved Africans were moved within Cuba, and sometimes sold to owners in other Caribbean islands or the U.S. South. The chapters included in this book, written by historians and literary critics, pay special attention to debates between abolitionists and proslavery ideologues, the ways in which people and ideas moved from the countryside to the city, from one Caribbean Island to the next, and from the United States or the coasts of West Africa to the sugarcane fields. They examine how enslaved persons ra...