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An engaging collection of essays ruminating on conundrums of contemporary life.

The two thought-provoking, extended essays that make upStories We Tell Ourselvesdraw from the author's richly diverse experiences and history, taking the reader on a deeply pleasurable walk to several unexpectedly profound destinations. A steady accumulation of fascinating science, psychoanalytic theory, and cultural history-ranging as far and wide as neuro-ophthalmology, ancient dream interpretation, and the essential differences between Jung and Freud-is smoothly intermixed with vivid anecdotes, entertaining digressions, and a disarming willingness to risk everything in the course of a revealing personal narrative. \"Dream Life\" plumbs the depth of dreams-conceptually, biologically, and as the nursery of our most meaningful metaphors-as it considers dreams and dreaming every whichway: from the haruspicy of the Roman Empire to contemporary sleep and dream science, from the way birds dream to the way babies do, from our longing to tell them to the reasons we wish other people wouldn't. \"Seeing Things\" recounts a journey of mother and daughter-a Holmes-and-Watson pair intrepidly working their way through the mysteries of a disorder known as Alice in Wonderland Syndrome-even as it restlessly detours into the world beyond the looking glass of the unconscious itself. In essays that constantly offer layers of surprises and ever-deeper insights, the author turns a powerful lens on the relationships that make up a family, on expertise and unsatisfying diagnoses, on science and art and the pleasures of contemplation and inquiry-and on our fears, regrets, hopes, and (of course) dreams.

Post-Mandarin offers an engaging look at a cohort of Vietnamese intellectuals who adopted European fields of knowledge, a new Romanized alphabet, and print media-all of which were foreign and illegible to their fathers. This new generation of intellectuals established Vietnam's modern anticolonial literature.The term \"post-mandarin\" illuminates how Vietnam's deracinated figures of intellectual authority adapted to a literary field moving away from a male-to-male literary address toward print culture. With this shift, post-mandarin intellectuals increasingly wrote for and about women.Post-Mandarin illustrates the significance of the inclusion of modern women in the world of letters: a more democratic system of aesthetic and political representation that gave rise to anticolonial nationalism. This conceptualization of the \"post-mandarin\" promises to have a significant impact on the fields of literary theory, postcolonial studies, East Asian and Southeast Asian studies, and modernist studies.

An exemplary collection of work from one of the world's leading scholars of intellectual history László F. Földényi is a writer who is learned in reference, taste, and judgment, and entertaining in style. Taking a place in the long tradition of public intellectual and cultural criticism, his work resonates with that of Montaigne, Rilke, and Mann in its deep insight into aspects of culture that have been suppressed, yet still remain in the depth of our conscious. In this new collection of essays, Földényi considers the fallout from the end of religion and how the traditions of the Enlightenment have failed to replace neither the metaphysical completeness nor the comforting purpose of the previously held mythologies. Combining beautiful writing with empathy, imagination, fascination, and a fierce sense of justice, Földényi covers a wide range of topics that include a meditation on the metaphysical unity of a sculpture group and an analysis of fear as a window into our relationship with time.

This collection of essays pays tribute to Philip Levine as teacher and mentor. Throughout his fifty-year teaching career, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Levine taught scores of younger poets, many of whom went on to become famous in their own right. These forty essays honor and celebrate one of our most vivid and gifted poets. Whether in Fresno, New York, Boston, Detroit, or any of the other cities where Levine taught, his students benefited from his sharp, humorous honesty in the classroom. In these personal essays, poets spanning a number of generations reveal how their lives and work were forever altered by studying with Levine. The heartfelt tributes illuminate how one dedicated teacher's intangible gifts can make a vast difference in the life of a developing poet, as well as providing insight into the changing tenor of the poetry workshop in the American university setting. Here, poets as diverse as Nick Flynn and David St. John, Sharon Olds and Larry Levis, Ada Limon and Mark Levine, Malena Morling and Lawson Fusao Inada are united in their deep regard for Philip Levine. The voices echo and reverberate as each strikes its own honoring tone. Contributors: Aaron Belz, Ciaran Berry, Paula Bohince, Shane Book, B. H. Boston, Xochiquetzal Candelaria, Colin Cheney, Michael Clifton, Michael Collier, Nicole Cooley, Kate Daniels, Blas Manuel De Luna, Kathy Fagan, Andrew Feld, Nick Flynn, Edward Hirsch, Sandra Hoben, Ishion Hutchinson, Lawson Fusao Inada, Dorianne Laux, Joseph O. Legaspi, Mark Levine, Larry Levis, Ada Limón, Elline Lipkin, Jane Mead, Dante Micheaux, Malena Mörling, John Murillo, Daniel Nester, Sharon Olds, January Gill O'Neil, Greg Pape, Kathleen Peirce, Sam Pereira, Jeffrey Skinner, Tom Sleigh, David St. John, Brian Turner, Robert Wrigley

\"I've never believed that living in one place means being one thing all the time, condemned like Minnie Pearl to wear the same hat for every performance.Life is more complicated than that.\" In this remarkable book of days, John Hildebrand charts the overlapping rings--home, town, countryside--of life in the Midwest.Like E.B.

In these two American literary classics, Henry David Thoreau offers readers his experiences and thoughts on how to live a more fulfilling life and stand up for what is right. Having spent two years living in solitude at Walden Pond, he stresses the importance of a quiet, reflective life and the rewards of a nonmaterialistic existence in Walden. His essay \"On the Duty of Civil Disobedience\" discusses his belief in nonviolent protests against an unjust government-in particular, he attacks the US government's approval of slavery and support for the Mexican-American War. These unabridged versions were first published in 1854 and 1849, respectively, but their ideas are timeless.

With contributions from leading Romanticist scholars who draw on literary history, performance studies, philosophy, linguistics, and anthropology, Spheres of Action examines the significant intersections between language and performance during the Romantic period. These essays consider cultural phenomena such as elocution and political oratory, newspaper journalism, public mourning, the function of gesture and clothing in theatre - even a long-distance walking contest. They examine the problematic relationships among action, agency, and language in a variety of cultural institutions and media from the era. Exploring aspects of public speaking and body language, these essays propose that understanding the culture and institutions of the Romantic period requires nuanced approaches to performance and agency. The collection also studies the ways in which the Romantics discovered both the potency and limitations of performativity. Presenting a boldly multifaceted portrait of Romantic culture, Spheres of Action is essential reading for Romanticists, historians, and scholars with interests in language and performance.

It happens to us all: we think we've settled into an identity, a self, and then out of nowhere and with great force, the traces of our parents appear to us, in us-in mirrors, in gestures, in reaction and reactivity, at weddings and funerals, and in troubled thoughts that crouch in dark corners of our minds. In this masterful collection of new essays, the apple looks at the tree. Twenty-five writers deftly explore a trait they've inherited from a parent, reflecting on how it affects the lives they lead today-how it shifts their relationship to that parent (sometimes posthumously) and to their sense of self. Apple, Tree's all-star lineup of writers brings eloquence, integrity, and humor to topics such as arrogance, obsession, psychics, grudges, table manners, luck, and laundry. Contributors include Laura van den Berg, S. Bear Bergman, John Freeman, Jane Hamilton, Mat Johnson, Daniel Mendelsohn, Kyoko Mori, Ann Patchett, and Sallie Tisdale, among others. Together, their pieces form a prismatic meditation on how we make fresh sense of ourselves and our parents when we see the pieces of them that live on in us.

Beginning with Walt Whitman singing hymns at a wounded soldier's bedside during the Civil War, this surprising and vivid anthology ranges straight through to the twenty-first century to end with Francine Prose crying tears of complicated joy at the sight of Whitman's words in Zuccotti Park during the brief days of the Occupy movement. The first anthology of its kind,Radiant Truthsgathers an exquisite selection of writings by both well-known and forgotten American authors and thinkers, each engaged in the challenges of writing about religion, of documenting \"things unseen.\" Their contributions to the genre of literary journalism-the telling of factual stories using the techniques of fiction and poetry-make this volume one of the most exciting anthologies of creative nonfiction to have emerged in years.Jeff Sharlet presents an evocative selection of writings that illuminate the evolution of the American genre of documentary prose. Each entry may be savored separately, but together the works enrich one another, engaging in an implicit and continuing conversation that reaches across time and generations.Including works by:Walt Whitman • Henry David Thoreau • Mark Twain • Meridel Le Sueur • Zora Neale Hurston • Mary McCarthy • James Baldwin • Norman Mailer • Ellen Willis • Anne Fadiman • John Jeremiah Sullivan • Francine Prose • Garry Wills •and many others