This collection of Emerson's essays covers the contents of two volumes originally published in 1841 and 1844. Annotation. Our most eloquent champion of individualism, Emerson acknowledges at the same time the countervailing pressures of society in American life. Even as he extols what he called "the great and crescive self," he dramatizes and records its vicissitudes. Here is a collection of his classic essays, including the exhortation to "Self-Reliance"...

Radical Ambivalence is the first book-length study of Flannery O'Connor's attitude toward race in her fiction and correspondence. It is also the first study to include controversial material from unpublished letters that reveals the complex and troubling nature of O'Connor's thoughts on the subject. O'Connor lived and did most of her writing in her native Georgia during the tumultuous years of the civil rights movement. In one of her letters, O'Connor...

A vital collection of interdisciplinary essays that illuminates the significance of Marian shrines and promises to teach scholars how to "read" them for decades to come. American Patroness: Marian Shrines and the Making of US Catholicism is a collection of twelve essays that examine the historical and contemporary roles of Marian shrines in US Catholicism. The essays in this collection use historical, ethnographic, and comparative methods to explore...

For many Christians, the Apocalypse of John (Book of Revelation) remains a closed book. Yet it provides one of the richest resources for christological reflection in the whole New Testament, and for centuries functioned as the Church's Easter book par excellence, presenting in vivid imagery the victory of the Paschal Lamb. Engaging narrative, historical-critical and reception-historical tools, this volume introduces readers to the multiple dimensions...