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John Humphrey Noyes on Sexual Relations in the Oneida Community: Four Essential Texts
John Humphrey Noyes and Anthony Wonderly
At the height of the prudish Victorian age, the utopian Oneida Community (1848-1880) openly practiced group marriage which, it was said, freed women from unwanted pregnancy, marital bondage, and household drudgery. This radically successful social experiment was based on the teachings of the commune's leader, John Humphrey Noyes, whose key writings on gender relations are assembled here for the first time.
165 pages, ill. ; 23 cm.
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Worm Work: Recasting Romanticism
Janelle A. Schwartz
Worms. Natural history is riddled with them. Literature is crawling with them. From antiquity to today, the ubiquitous and multiform worm provokes an immediate discomfort and unconscious distancing: it remains us against them in anthropocentric anxiety. So there is always something muddled, or dirty, or even offensive when talking about worms. Rehabilitating the lowly worm into a powerful aesthetic trope, Janelle A. Schwartz proposes a new framework for understanding such a strangely animate nature. Worms, she declares, are the very matter with which the Romantics rethought the relationship between a material world in constant flux and the human mind working to understand it.
Worm Work studies the lesser-known natural historical records of Abraham Trembley and his contemporaries and the familiar works of Erasmus and Charles Darwin, William Blake, Mary Shelley, and John Keats to expose the worm as an organism not only reviled as a taxonomic terror but revered as a sign of great order in nature as well as narrative. This book traces a pattern of cultural production, a vermiculture that is as transformative of matter as it is of mind. It distinguishes decay or division as positive processes in Romantic era writings, compounded by generation or renewal and used to represent the biocentric, complex structuring of organicism.
Offering the worm as an archetypal figure through which to recast the evolution of a literary order alongside questions of taxonomy from 1740 to 1820 and on, Schwartz unearths Romanticism as a rich humus of natural historical investigation and literary creation.
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On the Hill: A Bicentennial History of Hamilton College, 1812-2012
Maurice Isserman
In 1812, the Regents of the State of New York issued a charter to the third college launched in the state, and the 31st to be established in the United States — a college named for Alexander Hamilton and tracing its origins to a school established by the Reverend Samuel Kirkland in 1793 for the children of Indians and white settlers.
On the Hill: A Bicentennial History of Hamilton College marks the occasion of that college’s 200th anniversary in 2012. It is the first official and full-scale history of Hamilton to be published since 1962, the year of the College’s sesquicentennial. The half-century between 1962 and 2012 brought great changes to the institution, as Hamilton more than doubled in size, dramatically revised its curriculum, reshaped campus social life, became coeducational, attracted a more diverse student body and rose in national prominence. At the same time, much stayed the same. In 2012, as in 1962 — and, for that matter, as in 1812 — Hamilton remains a small, selective, residential liberal arts college with a dedicated faculty of teacher-scholars.
This book is thus a history of change and continuity played out over two centuries on a hilltop overlooking the village of Clinton, New York. It is also a consideration of the myriad ways in which the evolution of the college was bound up with a much larger history — local, regional and national. And, finally and throughout, it is the story of the men and women who taught and studied at Hamilton College over the course of two centuries, and in doing so created a legacy of a vibrant, if not always harmonious, learning community, a legacy that they have passed on to their successors in the years to come.
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House Signs and Collegiate Fun: Sex, Race, and Faith in a College Town
Chaise LaDousa
It’s no secret that fun is important to American college students, but it is unusual for scholars to pay attention to how undergraduates represent and reflect on their partying. Linguist and anthropologist Chaise LaDousa explores the visual manifestations of collegiate fun in a Midwestern college town where house signs on off-campus student residences are a focal point of college culture. With names like Boot 'N Rally, The Plantation, and Crib of the Rib, house signs reproduce consequential categories of gender, sexuality, race, and faith in a medium students say is benign. Through his analysis of house signs and what students say about them, LaDousa introduces the reader to key concepts and approaches in cultural analysis.
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The Shakers through French Eyes
E. Richard McKinstry
The Shakers through French Eyes: Essays on the Shaker Religious Sect, 1799-1912 contains fourteen essays by thirteen authors originally written in French about the Shaker religious sect. Translated into English and presented in chronological order, the essays cover a wide range of topics, each author writing within the context of his or her own background and interests. For example, Henri-Baptiste Gregoire wrote as a learned theologian, while Marie Therese de Solms Blanc, wrote as a woman of letters and a critic. Some authors simply recorded facts about the Shakers as they understood them, and others penned thoughtful observations and analyses. One essay is more than 15,000 words long; some are less than 1,000 words. The essays add to the ever-growing bibliography on Shakerism, which began three centuries ago with reports in the Manchester, England, press about how Shaker leader Ann Lee and her followers challenged the culture and conventional religious practice of their time. Each essay, important in its own right, should be of interest to those already acquainted with or new to the Shakers.
212 pages
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Partake a Little Morsel: Popular Shaker Hymns of the Nineteenth Century
Carol Medlicott
Among the various forms of Shaker song, hymns have sustained the worship of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing — or Shakers — for over two hundred years. Distinguished from other song types by their lengthy texts of metrical rhymed poetry, hymns can accommodate an endless range of theological and spiritual ideas. During the nineteenth century, Shakers produced hundreds of individual hymns, which were recorded by countless individual Shakers in myriad manuscript hymn books. Yet from this enormous body of hymnody, a core group of hymns readily emerges — hymns that were used and beloved for decades across the Shaker world, from Maine to Kentucky. Remarkably, the hymns in this core group are virtually unknown today. This study helps today’s reader to “partake a little morsel” of a relatively untapped vein of American folk hymnody, revealing a fresh understanding of the Shakers’ amazing complexity and vitality.
89 p. , ill., music
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The Days of My Youth: A Childhood Memoir of Life in the Oneida Community
Corinna Ackley Noyes
"The Days of My Youth is a memoir of childhood in the utopian Oneida Community that limns the past with loving acuity. In successfully conveying what it felt like being a young girl there, it is an important source of information about one of the longest-lasting and most successful ventures in utopian living in American history." (Anthony Wonderley, Curator, Oneida Community Mansion House) This intimate memoir is made available for a third printing through the tireless efforts of Jessie Mayer who compared every word of the transcript to the original.
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A Bruised Idealist: David Lamson, Hopedale, and the Shakers
Peter Hoehnle
In 1848, David R. Lamson, published his account of the Hancock Shaker Village community, Two Years’ Experience Among the Shakers. Although written by a man who had turned against the Shaker community in which he had once lived, Lamson’s book presents accurate detail about life in a community at the height of the Shaker movement. This reprinting of Lamson’s classic account includes a biographical essay about this enigmatic Jacksonian Era reformer and his experiences. Also, it collects for the first time the entire corpus of his writing from the time of his membership in the Hopedale Community. Frequently referenced by Shaker scholars, Lamson has, until now, remained in the shadows; the present work brings the contradictory figure of David Rich Lamson in the light.
280 pages with 15 black and white illustrations
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Curious Collectors, Collected Curiosities: An Interdisciplinary Study
Janelle A. Schwartz and Nhora Lucía Serrano
Curious Collectors, Collected Curiosities: An Interdisciplinary Study asks its readers to enter into an investigation of the nature of collecting as an aesthetic exercise. Spanning the sixteenth century through today, this book gathers together the work of current scholars to re-envision the task of collectors and their collections in broad strokes. Each chapter appropriates the idea of a cabinet of curiosity in order to expand its boundaries of meaning and to complicate our understanding of the acts of display and observation. These chapters also demonstrate that collecting is a universal trope which nevertheless depends on time and place for its particular expressions. Whether the collection is made up of literary texts and criticism, visual art, including mechanical reproductions, taxidermy and photography, historical travelogues, museum exhibitions, blockbuster films, or airline in-flight briefing cards, it conveys an urgent relevance to our consumer age, in which information is abundant and attention is a commodity.
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Independency of the Mind: Aquila Massie Bolton, Poetry, Shakerism, and Controversy
Sandra A. Soule
This work traces the spiritual journey and accomplishments of Aquila Massie Bolton who had joined the Shakers at Union Village, Ohio after twenty-five years of spiritual seeking. His poetry praised Shakerism, but in time, he challenged the beliefs of Shaker leaders, which inevitably led to controversy and his apostasy. Soule's careful analysis sheds light on the struggles of Bolton to find a spiritual home and on how the Shakers responded to the challenges he raised to their theology and leadership.
105 pages
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Visiting the Shakers, 1850-1899
Glendyne R. Wergland
Visiting the Shakers, 1850-1899 : Watervliet, Hancock, Tyringham, New Lebanon is a compilation of eighty-five accounts written by visitors to four Shaker villages. The book is a companion volume to Glendyne R. Wergland's earlier work published by the Couper Press in 2007, which covered 1788-1849. Together, these two volumes will have enduring value for historians of the Shakers and American culture in general.
456 pages with 45 black and white illustrations
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Lives of Confucius: Civilization's Greatest Sage Through the Ages
Thomas A. Wilson and Michael Nylan
Confucius—“Master Kung” (551–479 BCE), the Chinese thinker and social philosopher—originated teachings that have deeply influenced Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese thought and life over many centuries. His philosophy emphasized personal and governmental morality, justice, and appropriateness in social relationships. In time these values gained prominence in China over other doctrines, such as Taoism and even Buddhism. His thoughts later developed into a system of philosophy known as Confucianism.
Today there remain many mysteries about the actual circumstances of his life, and the development of his influence has yet to be encapsulated for the general reader. But with Michael Nylan and Thomas Wilson’s Lives of Confucius, many mysteries are laid to rest about his historical life, and fascinating details emerge about how his mythic stature evolved over time, right up to the present day. -
Robert White Jr.
Sandra A. Soule
Sandra Soule's Robert White Jr.: "Spreading the Light of the Gospel" provides a detailed examination of the role White played in spreading and defending the Shaker message. His activities ranged from persuading the Shaker leadership to publish certain important works, to funding their publication, and actively taking part in their distribution. Although White toiled tirelessly to advance the cause of Shakerism in the mid-nineteenth century, little has been written about him and his endeavors in the area of Shaker publication. Soule fills that void with her meticulous research based on Shaker manuscript records.
79 pages with 32 black and white illustrations
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Building is a Process / Light is an Element: Essays and Extensions for Myung Mi Kim
Michael Cross and Andrew Rippeon
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Local Integrity Systems: World Cities Fighting Corruption and Safeguarding Integrity
Leo Huberts, Frank Anechiarico, and Frederique E. Six
This book is the first international comparative study of local integrity systems, paying attention to the policies, practices, and actors at the local government level that aim to fight corruption and safeguard integrity. It provides critical up-to-date reports of the local integrity systems in seven world cities - Sydney/New South Wales, New York, Hong Kong, London, Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Antwerp. For each city, a description of the integrity system is given by the head of the key integrity agency, followed by an evaluation by an ethics researcher who is familiar with the city's integrity system. In the introductory chapter, an overview is provided of relevant ethics and integrity institutions and policies at the national and international level. The final chapter presents a cross-city comparison of the results, proposes a framework for analysis and assessment of local integrity systems, and provides an ambitious outline for future research and practice. With its unique combination of theory and practice, Local Integrity Systems will appeal to academics and practitioners in the area of ethics and integrity in local government.
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Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes
Maurice Isserman and Stewart Weaver
The first successful ascent of Mount Everest in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa teammate Tenzing Norgay is a familiar saga, but less well known are the tales of many other adventurers who also came to test their skills and courage against the world’s highest and most dangerous mountains. In this lively and generously illustrated book, historians Maurice Isserman and Stewart Weaver present the first comprehensive history of Himalayan mountaineering in fifty years. They offer detailed, original accounts of the most significant climbs since the 1890s, and they compellingly evoke the social and cultural worlds that gave rise to those expeditions.
The book recounts the adventures of such figures as Martin Conway, who led the first authentic Himalayan climbing expedition in 1892; Fanny Bullock Workman, the pioneer explorer of the Karakoram range; George Mallory, the romantic martyr of Mount Everest fame; Charlie Houston, who led American expeditions to K2 in the 1930s and 1950s; Ang Tharkay, the legendary Sherpa, and many others. Throughout, the authors discuss the effects of political and social change on the world of mountaineering, and they offer a penetrating analysis of a culture that once emphasized teamwork and fellowship among climbers, but now has been eclipsed by a scramble for individual fame and glory.
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The Megachurch and the Mainline: Remaking Religious Tradition in the Twenty-First Century
Stephen Ellingson
Religious traditions provide the stories and rituals that define the core values of church members. Yet modern life in America can make those customs seem undesirable, even impractical. As a result, many congregations refashion church traditions so they may remain powerful and salient. How do these transformations occur? How do clergy and worshipers negotiate which aspects should be preserved or discarded?
Focusing on the innovations of several mainline Protestant churches in the San Francisco Bay Area, Stephen Ellingson’s The Megachurch and the Mainline provides new understandings of the transformation of spiritual traditions. For Ellingson, these particular congregations typify a new type of Lutheranism—one which combines the evangelical approaches that are embodied in the growing legion of megachurches with American society’s emphasis on pragmatism and consumerism. Here Ellingson provides vivid descriptions of congregations as they sacrifice hymns in favor of rock music and scrap traditional white robes and stoles for Hawaiian shirts, while also making readers aware of the long history of similar attempts to Americanize the Lutheran tradition.
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The Prison Diary and Letters of Chester Gillette: September 18, 1907 through March 30, 1908
Chester Gillette, Jack Sherman, and Craig Brandon
Chester Gillette was accused of the murder of Grace Brown in 1906. After a sensational trial, covered by newspapers across the country, Gillette was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to die in the electric chair. This case was the basis for Theodore Dreiser’s classic novel An American Tragedy, the 1951 Academy-award-winning movie A Place in the Sun, and a 2006 opera. Revealed here for the first time are Chester’s private thoughts in his final months as he recorded them in his diary from September 1907 through March 1908. The diary was believed lost for nearly a century and only came to light in 2007 when Marlynn McWade-Murray, the grandniece of Chester Gillette, donated it to Hamilton College. In addition to the diary, the publication contains twelve letters Chester wrote from prison: eleven to Bernice Ferrin, a friend of the family; and one to his sister Hazel, written the day before his execution.
193 pages with 32 black and white illustrations
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Wet Apples, White Blood
Naomi Guttman
Naomi Guttman's new poetry collection was inspired by the role of nursing in human evolution and culture. The first cycle of poems, "Wet Apples, White Blood," offers lyric glimpses into archetypes of breastfeeding women in history and myth. The dramatic action in the second cycle, "Galactopoesis," centers around the experience of a mother whose young child is hospitalized.
Galactopoesis is the medical term for the continued secretion and production of milk. It derives from the Greek radicals for 'milk' (galacto) and 'making' (poesis), which is also 'poetry.' In Wet Apples, White Blood, nursing, as a constant creative act dependent on the baby's demand, is a trope for the creative process and for questions of biology, psychology, and spirituality.
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Clothing Gandhi's Nation: Homespun and Modern India
Lisa Trivedi
In Clothing Gandhi’s Nation, Lisa Trivedi explores the making of one of modern India’s most enduring political symbols, khadi: a homespun, home-woven cloth. The image of Mohandas K. Gandhi clothed simply in a loincloth and plying a spinning wheel is familiar around the world, as is the sight of Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and other political leaders dressed in “Gandhi caps” and khadi shirts. Less widely understood is how these images associate the wearers with the swadeshi movement—which advocated the exclusive consumption of indigenous goods to establish India’s autonomy from Great Britain—or how khadi was used to create a visual expression of national identity after Independence. Trivedi brings together social history and the study of visual culture to account for khadi as both symbol and commodity. Written in a clear narrative style, the book provides a cultural history of important and distinctive aspects of modern Indian history.
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Visiting the Shakers, 1778-1849
Glendyne R. Wergland
Visiting the Shakers, 1778-1849: Watervliet, Hancock, Tyringham, New Lebanon is a compilation of ninety-eight accounts written by visitors to four Shaker villages. According to the preface by Elizabeth De Wolfe, “This volume gathers together these period observations, ranging from short diary entries to lengthy periodical articles. The majority of these sources have not been seen in print for more than 150 years. An award-winning independent scholar, Wergland guides the contemporary reader through the phenomenon of ‘visiting the Shakers,’ providing the social and historical context for the praise and criticism offered by these numerous and diverse visitors.”
382 pages with 15 black and white illustrations
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Eliminating Racial Disparities in College Completion and Achievement: Current Initiatives, New Ideas, and Assessment
David Harris, Marin Clarkberg, Raymond Dalton, Jorge Lee, Christian Roman, Pauline Yi, Charles Banner-Haley, Jennifer Nolan, Andrea Harrison, Anthony Reyna, A. Todd Franklin, Berenecea Johnson, Aidee Acosta, Donna Albro, James Burruto, Adam Malitz, Ellen Hall, Kelly Moselle, Treecia Rocvil, and Vanessa Spears
In order to close racial and ethnic gaps in educational attainment, it is necessary to focus on closing gaps in both college enrollment, and college achievement and graduation. Recent court cases and volumes of research have focused on preparing, recruiting, and admitting diverse cohorts. In this report, we focus on what colleges and universities can do to ensure that among the students they admit, achievement and graduation rates are comparable across racial and ethnic groups.
With generous support from the Teagle Foundation, faculty, staff, and students from Cornell University, Colgate University, Hamilton College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and Wells College have worked together to:- Use existing literature to review the key determinants of racial and ethnic disparities in college completion and achievement;
- Inventory our existing diversity initiatives, and those of our peers;
- Identify particularly promising diversity initiatives; and
- Consider assessment options for diversity initiatives.
We believe that this report will be a critical resource for administrators, faculty, staff, and students who are committed to the difficult work of implementing effective strategies for closing racial and ethnic gaps on campus. As our nation and our campuses grow ever more diverse, this is a need that we cannot afford to ignore.
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