The understanding of shamanism in its variety of forms and manifestations has become vital in our understanding of the origins and development of ideological systems of the human family. Though not a religion, shamanism is the first formalization of the human quest for meaning, understanding and participation in the mysteries of the cosmic drama. It is a global phenomenon; cultural specific practices and beliefs reflecting and embodying universal "truths." This book is a collection of the papers presented at the 6th Conference of the International Society for Shamanistic Research held at the Viljandi Kultuurikolledz, Viljandi, Estonia in August of 2001. It represents the contemporary work of international scholarship in its attempt to understand the complexities of shamanism, both anc...

There is a difference between providing students with an art experience and teaching art. Classroom teachers as well as art specialists will appreciate information on art basics, classroom management, criteria and rubric for evaluating art work and a strategy for learning to draw. Click here to preview the first 25 pages in Acrobat PDF format.

Chesley Bonestell has been called the "Father of Space Art." His photorealistic paintings of the Moon and planets, and other worlds beyond, have awed us since they were first published, over half a century ago. Moreover, he showed, long before Gagarin or Glenn, what it would be like for humans to explore the vastness of space. As author Howard E. McCurdy has written in his book, Space and the American Imagination: "No artist had more impact on the emerging popular culture of space in America than Chesley Bonestell. . . . Through his visual images, he stimulated the interest of a generation of Americans and showed how space travel would be accomplished." Considering his great influence on both the public interest in space flight and the actual development of a national space program, ...

The number of incidents and crimes carried out by terrorists and criminals, such as physical threats, violent attacks, assassinations, kidnapping and hostage situations are increasing by the minute worldwide. Each incident is a constant and ever demanding challenge to the law enforcement and the personal security professionals in particular. A detailed, but understandable manual for the Executive Protection Officer is a priority and the answer to those challenging situations. The Fine Art of Executive Protection is a detailed, but understandable manual for the Executive Protection Officer providing answers to those challenging situations. See also Advanced Skills in Executive Protection, Understanding International Counter Terrorism: A Professional’s Guide to the Operational Art, and ...

The examination and interpretation of tissue sections seen under the light microscope in a laboratory setting is an example of student-directed, independent problem solving. The proper reading of a histologic section is an acquired art that can only be developed through practice, close observation and repetition. This laboratory manual was designed as a guide for students to aid them in this endeavor. The laboratory study guide/manual was designed to be used as a supplement to any current textbook and/or atlas of Histology. Learning objectives provide the overall goals for each chapter. The narrative of the study guide explains how to systematically breakdown, examine and interpret each tissue and/or organ encountered, without regard to a given histologic slide from a specific slide collec...

Whether you're new to the business or you've been a server for years, The Art of Hosting will give you the tools you need to walk, talk and act like a seasoned pro.Filled with insider tips and info, this book will show you in clear, concise and easy-to-understand terms how to be an outstanding server in even the finest restaurants-and get the biggest tips!Includes sections on Table Set-up, Taking Guest Orders, Serving Drinks and Wine, Increasing Your Tips and more.

Success Stories of African Americans in the Nonprofit Sector presents the stories of 6 executives whose stories define African-American business success. Thriving in spite of multiple obstacles, they have enjoyed extraordinary careers at (and helped build the fortunes of) nonprofit organizations. In remarkably candid interviews, these exemplary professionals reveal not only the secrets of their successes, but the sources of their fears, their most difficult challenges, and their hopes for the future. Their experiences are presented according to what they reveal about the black experience in the white-centric workplace, from uncertainty to confidence, from struggle to strength, and from enjoying success to giving back in the name of those whose ...

Some unwritten stories only exist in fragments. In this book, for the first time, the histories of the injunction against idolatry and the dread of infinity are uniquely woven into one. The spectre of idolatry has haunted the three Western religions since the biblical prohibition. The story of iconoclasm runs from ancient times, where Jews largely ignored the ban on images, through the iconoclastic episodes in Islam and Christianity, and into modern times during the French Revolution. A perhaps surprising thesis of this book is that a conceptual and secular form of iconoclasm continued as the revulsion of illusionism in Modern Art. More recently it flared-up in the dynamiting of two large statues of the Buddha by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. The phobia of infinity arose from P...

The purpose of this dissertation is to introduce a general reading audience to the major themes found in the fiction of Richard Powers with an emphasis on his use of science. For Powers, science is something more than the accumulation of technical data and the proliferation of theories developed to explain physical phenomena. It is an evolving body of knowledge which has important insights to contribute into the conditions which ground human experience The close and often detailed discussions of contemporary issues in science which Powers incorporates into his fiction indicate the extent to which he sees science as an inseparable component in any attempt to understand the complexities of human experience. The common ground Powers uses to link the interests of science and those of fiction ...

To avoid preparing to wage battles against our opponents in future wars, we should proactively and continuously influence the narrative identity structures of our potential opponents by using Strategic Communications (StratCom). This book argues that nations and societies of tolerance and pluralism (the so-called wonderful societies) should utilize StratCom to seduce their enemies, opponents, and potential opponents not only to behave in more tolerant ways, but above all to internalize peace, tolerance, and pluralism as essential values and guiding mental institutions of their identity structures. Winning Wars Before They Emerge will be of interest to students, lecturers and researchers of international relations and world politics, peace researchers, and information operations practiti...

Understanding International Counter Terrorism is one serious effort to lay out a comprehensive strategy of how to deal with a whole gamut of possible terrorist incidents by using a language that any person or first responders like policemen, security personnel, firemen, paramedics, etc. can understand. This guide covers everything from bombings and hostage- taking, to NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) Terrorism, what needs to be done before, during, and after an event. This manual combines what minimally needs to be understood about Operational Counter- Terrorism by the government- level policy maker, while at the same time helping the personnel on the first responder level who are planning to cope with what must at least initially seem like an overwhelming attack. Terrorism i...

With over thirty-five years in the making, hip-hop has grown and developed into a global phenomenon. Despite its global expansion from the Bronx, New York, in the 1970s, the hip-hop arts confront criticism, both aesthetically and culturally. Repeatedly criticized as an art that glorifies misogyny, pimping, prostitution, objectification of women, crime, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination, scholars denounce the hip-hop arts as ignorant, offensive garbage, devoid of any aesthetics and culture. However, this is a limited, one-sided view of the hip-hop arts and culture. From local urban streets to global metropolitan stages, the hip-hop arts and culture continue to evolve many artistic and cultural traditions from across the globe, which are in opposition with the image of commercial...

This fourth in a series continues this non-academic author’s ground-breaking word by word analysis of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. This volume covers all of chapters 1.7, 1.8 and 2.1 with the intent to explore them as art objects. In chapters 1.7 and 1.8 Aesthetics meets Theosophy meets Metaphysics. Together they share a common subject—how one part or whole treats another part. These two chapters move from shun to share, hurt to help, male to female. In aesthetics, from bad art to good art. In theosophy, from TZTZ god to ES god. In metaphysics a la Arthur Schopenhauer, from male to female aspects of Will. Featuring an all male cast, chapter 1.7 is a stinging criticism of Shem by Shaun—brother against brother. Chapter 1.7 is intentionally bad art. In aesthetic terms, the whole of...

In this unique new book, The Heart of Drawing, 59 artists from 22 countries exhibit their art and talk about their process of creation to inspire readers and help them find inspiration for their own creative efforts. The book is about what happens during the creation of a drawing, NOT just about the final result. Drawing is described as an act of cognition that can help you develop eye-brain-hand coordination, conceptualize and analyze ideas, think creatively, and express yourself and communicate with others. It’s about Drawing to Learn, which is the main focus of the book. The words and images you see express a journey, and the artists are exploring their internal and external realities with shape, line and value. The book promotes gestural or expressive drawing, not necessarily a pe...

Since its publication in 1860, critics have questioned the artistic value of Hawthorne's The Marble Faun. A revival of critical interest during the 1950's and 1960's has done little to change a generally unfavorable opinion of the work. With a few notable exceptions, most recent critics believe The Marble Faun to be inferior to Hawthorne's other completed romances. Such opinions, however, usually seem to be based upon the personal taste of the individual critic rather than upon any sort of objective artistic standards. The purpose of this study is to examine and evaluate the various critical approaches to The Marble Faun. These interpretations provide the basis for a re-appraisal of the work. A study of the structure, the main themes, and the characters of The Marble Faun reveals tha...

Sculpture Off the Pedestal is a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process of 25 leading sculptors from the Renaissance to the present through their own words or those who knew them. Aiming to avoid dry-as-dust art histories, Sculpture Off the Pedestal puts old and modern master sculptors by the reader's side, emptying their heads about their work and their ways of thinking. The book is intended not only for the art student or art lover, but also for the untutored and those who think of art as a remote subject. Most art histories focus on painting. Chronicling the lives of sculptors in and out of their studios fills a gap.

How to Paint Tropical Sunsets is the first and only instructional book about the art of painting tropical sunsets. The book will be of interest to art enthusiasts of all ages. No previous painting experience is required. A list of all necessary materials is included, along with detailed step-by-step instructions and plenty of painting tips, beautiful samples, and colorful references. How to Paint Tropical Sunsets is a great tool for art therapy, art classes, self enjoyment, and stress relief. "Anyone may enjoy a stunning sunset moment, but only an artist can always create one." --Gina De Gorna

How to Paint Abstract Sunsets: Step by Step is the first and only instructional book about the art of painting abstract sunsets. The book will be of interest to art enthusiasts of all ages. No previous painting experience is required. A list of all necessary materials is included, along with detailed step by step instructions and plenty of painting tips and beautiful samples. How to Paint Abstract Sunsets is a great tool for art therapy, art classes, and stress relief.

Any professional actively engaged in the executive protection field, novice or veteran, whether in a team or as team leader, must train for, and be able to pinpoint, even the most unexpected security concerns. The continuation of The Fine Art of Executive Protection - Handbook for the Executive Protection Officer (2007), Advanced Skills in Executive Protection contains carefully selected and illustrated material for the executive protection and security enforcement professional. All available training and study material, individual case studies, and real scenarios, combined with professional experience, serve as the foundation for this specialist's manual. For the client, as a prospective principal, it provides important details that will assure lifesaving protection. Comprehensive, d...

This work focuses on contemporary Zimbabwean Stone Sculpture - widely known until the early 1990s as "Shona Sculpture" - from the perspective of a critical anthropological analysis of cultural identity and representation. The analysis frames the inception of this art movement within the colonial socio-historical circumstances of its genesis, where discourse about the producers of this art form ("Shona discourse") was created. Drawing from the social context of inequality and racial (spatial) segregation, and from the concepts of the "primitive" in art and anthropology, the author aims to show how "Shona discourse" entails a primitivist construction of the Other (i.e., the sculptors' cultural identity) that is directly linked to modernist primitivism. "Shona discourse," as a temporalising d...

This is a reader’s guide to Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness as art, not as a page-turner but as art. As he has done with other works of Conrad, Anderson traces Conrad’s art in a line-by-line analysis of most of this short novel.Anderson traces the unifying theme of the novel to Nietzsche’s ideas in The Birth of Tragedy. Nietzsche interpreted ancient Greek tragedy as a reflection of Dionysian and Apollinian life experiencesof the Greek audience. Apollo was a Greek god of the higher orders of civilization and the civilized restraint and control that is necessary for getting along with others. Dionysus, on the other hand, was agod of nature and fertility and is associated with unrestrained, orgiastic worship.This author shows how Conrad used the contrast betwe...

This third in a series continues this non-academic author's ground-breaking word by word analysis of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, Joyce's last blessing on mankind. This volume covers chapters 1.5 and 1.6 with the intent to explore them as art objects, to examine how they work as art. By contrast with previous reduction-based chapters, Chapter 1.5 features expansion, One becoming Many. The spirit of the female principle registered in ALP's letter or "mamafesta" hatches the expansion. This chapter honors creativity in literature along with the human female instinct for giving birth to new human potential. An academically-oriented Professor explores but misses the meaning of the letter. Aristotle's concept of the infinite and the legend of Krishna injecting independence in Gopi milk w...

The Dutch-born English Baroque portrait painter Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680) is chiefly known for his drowsy, sensual beauties and bewigged courtiers associated with the Restoration court of Charles II. He is often seen as merely successor or "imitator" of Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641), with a common resemblance in all his sitters and an inability to capture a true likeness, as well as an absence of any personal characterization or psychological interest. Alternately, this dissertation aims to reveal Lely's genius of superb draughtsmanship, fine color and lively composition, as well as to examine and reinstate the artist's impact and deep impress on British painting. Lely's early style owes much to his Dutch origin and training with the pioneers of Dutch classicism, and the distinctive...

Creating a life vision for oneself is something that can have a significant and profound impact in one's life. It can influence and direct choices, environments, and occupations. Very little has been written in occupational therapy literature about this important aspect of life. In this paper, a heuristic and organic new paradigm research approach is used to uncover in-depth the implicit and explicit qualities, processes, and themes. The study includes life vision narratives from the researcher and seven participants, as well as a group process and a creative synthesis. Findings indicate that there are two journeys that participants go on- an outer journey that is more worldly and linear, and an inner journey that comes from an intuitive place within and speaks to existential, spiritual, a...

Banished presents a detailed review of the sex offender; the pedophile and the child molester, and directly explores his thinking processes, reasoning and related issues that offer a clear and concise exposé in these most hated people. In addition to covering the adult offender, this work also exemplifies the thought processes of child and adolescent offenders in order to offer cues for parents and educators of possible abuse or illicit behavior. Through direct examples of client art, case histories and offender testimonies, the book’s purpose will surely educate, as well as in purposing methods for positive change in the process. The research and findings are based on a journalistic foundation, as well as from an experiential point-of-view, where the author had worked with and had int...

An in depth study of the most superlative violin performers and teachers in history. The result of more than eleven years of deep investigation on the subject, this New History is by far the best available in the 21st century. It studies specifically the vibrato and its evolution. A study of the main violin schools of the world, with special emphasis in their evolution, and the direct conexión teacher-pupil. In the course of this history we will see how the great performers became, often, the great masters of new great violinists, who, in their turn, became the teachers of new superlative performers, and so on, in an uninterrupted chain of teacher-pupil intercommunication, the interrelation of whom is carefully studied, to higlight the evolution of the main violin playing school...

The impact of continuous coastal development, reclamation, destruction of corals, overfishing and increased maritime traffic places all of us on the front lines of preserving our oceans. Marine biologists, who share a common language that cuts across political, economic and social differences, recognize that the sea’s remarkable coral reefs, which provide food, jobs and protection against storms and floods, have suffered unprecedented rates of destruction in recent decades. Dispatches from the South China Sea’s blend of participatory research and field reportage paves the way for a transformation of policy and, provides a basis for the eventual resolution of some of today’s major maritime conflicts. From overfishing, illegal and unregulated fishing, coral reef destruction and re...

Agent technology is a novel approach for the development of distributed systems. In particular, mobile agents can provide much greater flexibility and robustness than the traditional distributed system methodologies since they provide mobility from platform to platform. Thus, they form a vast area of research. One key problem faced by the mobile agent systems is security. A migrating agent can face many threats while migrating to a host/ agent platform. Similarly the platform can be maliciously affected by an agent. A number of different approaches have been suggested in the literature to deal with security of mobile agents. In this thesis, we present an overview of such threats and present an "agent threat model" for mobile agent systems. Based on this model, we survey and evaluate the te...

Fresh from the twilight zone of Kafka's The Metamorphosis, this non-academic author treats on a line by line basis two of Kafka's last stories, stories written while he was wheezing with tuberculosis. Not surprisingly, these stories features pipes, just what Kafka was thinking about all the time while he was bed ridden, his sore pipes. Kafka experienced the threat of death at the same time as he experienced the love of his life with Dora Diamant. In these two stories Kafka spot-lights fear and love, the most basic human issues and those that had taken possession of Kafka's life. Fear and love in the lives of a mole-like creature alone in a burrow and mice in a crowded colony. In stories with no humans, Kafka teaches us what is most important in being human. The Burrow examines fear-based...

Megalithism, or the art of using huge boulders to create sacred, pagan monuments and sites, still fascinates us today. How did Prehistoric man cut, transport, and place such enormous stones, some weighing up to 200 metric tons, without bulldozers, drills, and cranes? Yet primitive man, without the written word or wheel, created structures which still stupefy us in the 21st century, both due to their components and the precision used in positioning them. This book takes us back in time to the 5th-2nd millennia B.C. and helps us visualise the Stone Age world and its constructions - menhirs, dolmens, rows and circles of standing stones. Undoubtedly they were sacred places, used for pagan rituals and funerary purposes, but the author also gives us details of their astronomic and physical...