In "Why Night: A Scientific Description," esteemed author Tami White takes readers on an illuminating journey through the scientific intricacies of the nocturnal realm. This captivating book explores the multifaceted dimensions of the night, unraveling its mysteries and shedding light on its profound impact on our planet and its inhabitants.

This book was designed for use in a one-semester dance appreciation survey class. As such, I have attempted to limit the information provided to that which can be covered comfortably. This means that many noteworthy choreographers and dancers do not appear in this text. Teachers may wish to add other important contributors to the art of dance, particularly in Chapters five, six, and seven.Tami M. White is an adjunct faculty member with the Dance Department at Old Dominion Universit...

Throughout her history, the ballerina has been perceived as the embodiment of beauty and perfection- the feminine ideal. But the reality is another story. From the earliest ballerinas in the 17th century, who often led double lives as concubines, through the poverty of the corps de ballet dancers in the 1800’s and the anorexic and bulimic ballerinas of George Balanchine, starvation and exploitation have plagued ballerinas throughout history.Using the stories of great dancers such a...

In today's art world many strange, even shocking, things qualify as art. In this book, Cynthia Freeland explains why innovation and controversy are valued in the arts, weaving together philosophy and art theory with many fascinating examples. She discusses blood, beauty, culture, money, museums, sex, and politics, clarifying contemporary and historical accounts of the nature, function, and interpretation of the arts. Freeland also propels us into the future by surveying cutting-edge web si...

A compendium of 101 book recommendations from Booker Prize–winning author Yann Martel (Life of Pi) to Prime Minister Stephen Harper—each with an accompanying letter, together probing the question: what sort of mind, nourished by what, do we want our leaders to have?Politely and unfailingly, every two weeks for almost four years, Yann Martel sent Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper a book and accompanying letter. He completed the project in 2011 with 101...

America grows older yet stays focused on its young. Whatever hill we try to climb, we're "over" it by fifty and should that hill involve entertainment or athletics we're finished long before. But if younger is better, it doesn't appear that youngest is best: we want our teachers, doctors, generals, and presidents to have reached a certain age. In context after context and contest after contest, we're more than a little conflicted about elders of the tribe; when is it right to honor them, a...

The Blank Canvas offers solid advice for everyone who struggles with artist's block or other problems of creative expression, including: drawing subject matter from unexpected sources, mining one's daily visual responses for images, overcoming self-doubt and criticism, making choices when torn between several ideas, and getting started on assignments.

Here is a dazzling collection from Joan Acocella, one of our most admired cultural critics: thirty-one essays that consider the life and work of some of the most influential artists of our time (and two saints: Joan of Arc and Mary Magdalene). Acocella writes about Primo Levi, Holocaust survivor and chemist, who wrote the classic memoir, Survival in Auschwitz; M.F.K. Fisher who, numb with grief over her husband’s suicide, dictated the witty and classic How to Cook a Wolf;...

The invaluable grade-by-grade guide (kindergarten—sixth) is designed to help parents and teachers select some of the best books for children.Books to Build On recommends:• for kindergartners, lively collections of poetry and stories, such as The Children’s Aesop, and imaginative alphabet books such as Bill Martin, Jr.’s Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Lucy Micklewait’s I Spy: An Alphabet in Art• for first graders, fin...

In early 2005, an engineer at the Library of Congress accidentally discovered, in an unmarked box, the recording of Thelonious Monk's and John Coltrane's performance at a 1957 benefit concert at Carnegie Hall. Long considered one of the most important musical meetings in modern jazz, Monk's and Coltrane's work together during a scant few months in 1957 had, until this discovery, been thought to be almost entirely undocumented. In this book, Gabriel Solis provides an historical, cultural, a...

A guide for music: compositions, events, forms, genres, groups, history, industry, instruments, language, live music, musicians, songs, musicology, techniques, terminology , theory, music video.Music is a human activity which involves structured and audible sounds, which is used for artistic or aesthetic, entertainment, or ceremonial purposes.The traditional or classical European aspects of music often listed are those elements given primacy in European-influen...

From Adelaide in "Guys and Dolls" to Nina in "In the Heights" and Elphaba in "Wicked" female characters in Broadway musicals have belted and crooned their way into the American psyche. In this lively book Stacy Wolf illuminates the women of American musical theatre - performers creators and characters -- from the start of the cold war to the present day creating a new feminist history of the genre. Moving from decade to decade Wolf first highlights the assumptions that circulated about gen...