For decades, the traditional "four skills" approach to language learning and teaching has focused on listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The one huge omission, the all-important thinking skill, has been left out of most methodological approaches. But all learners, teachers, and workers in the field know the vital importance of the humanist skills. Interpretation, sympathy and empathy, affect, cultural awareness, and context are indispensable. Metaphors and representational uses of l...

Elvis Presley was one of the most famous pop musicians of the 20th century. If you check an official biography, you will learn that he was born on January 8, 1935, and died on August 16, 1977. During his life, he wrote and performed many hit songs and record albums, and he starred in 31 movies.Now, everybody agrees that he was born in 1935. But as for his death... well, everybody does not agree about that! Some people believe that he did not die in 1977; and in fact, that ...

Huineng (638–713), author and hero of the Platform Sutra, is often credited with founding the Southern school of Chan Buddhism and its radical doctrine of “sudden enlightenment.” However, manuscripts discovered at Dunhuang at the beginning of the twentieth century reveal that the real architect of the Southern school was Huineng’s student Shenhui (684–758). An ardent evangelist for his master’s teaching and a sharp critic of rival meditation teachers of his day, Shenhui was respon...

The tradition of Chan Buddhism—more popularly known as Zen—has been romanticized throughout its history. In this book, John R. McRae shows how modern critical techniques, supported by recent manuscript discoveries, make possible a more skeptical, accurate, and—ultimately—productive assessment of Chan lineages, teaching, fundraising practices, and social organization. Synthesizing twenty years of scholarship, Seeing through Zen offers new, accessible analytic models for the interpr...

The Routledge History of Literature in English covers the main developments in the history of British and Irish literature, with accompanying language notes which explore the interrelationships between language and literature at each stage. With a span from AD 600 to the present day, it emphasises the growth of literary writing, its traditions, conventions and changing characteristics, and includes literature from the margins, both geographical and cultural. Extensive quotations f...

Now Read On brings together literatures in English from around the world, combining an excellent choice of texts with sound methodological guidance.It contains approximately eighty texts and extracts from countries andcontinents including:*Africa*Australia*Great Britain*India*Malaysia*New Zealand*Philippines*SingaporeDesigned as course for both native and non-native English-speakers in how to read literature, this anth...

Literature of the Stuart Successionsisan anthology of primary material relating to the Stuart successions. The six Stuart successions (1603, 1625, 1660, 1685, 1688-9, 1702) punctuate this turbulent period of British history. In addition, there were two accessions to the role of Lord Protector (those of Oliver and Richard Cromwell). Each succession generated an outpouring of publications in a wide range of forms and genres, including speeches, diary-entries, news reports, letters a...

'Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith. He was even called the friend of God.' (James 2.23)Abraham is the only character in the Bible to be described as a 'friend of God', and John C. Lennox shows us why. Throughout the Bible, Abraham is seen as a pivotal figure in God's plan of salvation, and, in Friend of God, Professor Lennox helps us to see through the mists of the past to the real flesh-and-blood man with all his ...

'Then King Darius sent this message to the people of every race and nation and language throughout the world: "I decree that everyone throughout my kingdom should tremble with fear before the God of Daniel. For he is the living God, and he will endure forever."' (Daniel 6.25-6)The book of Daniel tells the story of four teenage friends, born in the tiny state of Judah about twenty-six centuries ago, who were captured by Nebuchadnezzar, emperor of Babylon. Although f...

A wide-ranging, first-of-its-kind selection of Berryman’s correspondence with friends, loved ones, writers, and editors, showcasing the turbulent, fascinating life and mind of one of America’s major poets.The Selected Letters of John Berryman assembles for the first time the poet’s voluminous correspondence. Beginning with a letter to his parents in 1925 and concluding with a letter sent a few weeks before his death in 1972, Berryman tells his story in his...

Jean Francois-Revel, a pillar of French intellectual life in our time, became world famous for his challenges to both Communism and Christianity. Twenty-seven years ago, his son, Matthieu Ricard, gave up a promising career as a scientist to study Tibetan Buddhism -- not as a detached observer but by immersing himself in its practice under the guidance of its greatest living masters.Meeting in an inn overlooking Katmandu, these two profoundly thoughtful men explored the questions th...

The story follows Leopold Bloom on a seemingly ordinary day in Dublin, during which Bloom's wife, Molly, commits adultery. This experimental novel is among the most important works of Modernist literature. It was initially deemed obscene in England and the USA for its scandalously frank, life-changing reading experience.