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Contributions by Cynthia Neese Bailes, Nina Batt, Lijun Bi, Hélène Charderon, Stuart Ching, Helene Ehriander, Xiangshu Fang, Sara Kersten-Parish, Helen Kilpatrick, Jessica Kirkness, Sung-Ae Lee, Jann Pataray-Ching, Angela Schill, Josh Simpson, John Stephens, Corinne Walsh, Nerida Wayland, and Vivian Yenika-AgbawChildren, Deafness, and Deaf Cultures in Popular Media examines how creative works have depicted what it means to be a deaf or hard of hearing child in the modern world. In this collection of critical essays, scholars discuss works that cover wide-ranging subjects and themes: growing up deaf in a hearing world, stigmas associated with deafness, rival modes of communication, friendship and discrimination, intergenerational tensions between hearing and nonhearing family members, and the complications of establishing self-identity in increasingly complex societies. Contributors explore most of the major genres of children's literature and film, including realistic fiction, particularly young adult novels, as well as works that make deft use of humor and parody. Further, scholars consider the expressive power of multimodal forms such as graphic novel and film to depict experience from the perspective of children. Representation of the point of view of child characters is central to this body of work and to the intersections of deafness with discourses of diversity and social justice. The child point of view supports a subtle advocacy of a wider understanding of the multiple ways of being D/deaf and the capacity of D/deaf children to give meaning to their unique experiences, especially as they find themselves moving between hearing and Deaf communities. These essays will alert scholars of children's literature, as well as the reading public, to the many representations of deafness that, like deafness itself, pervade all cultures and are not limited to specific racial or sociocultural groups.

Demonstrating the aesthetic, cultural, political and intellectual diversity of children's literature across the globe, The Routledge Companion to International Children's Literature is the first volume of its kind to focus on the undervisited regions of the world. With particular focus on Asia, Africa and Latin America, the collection raises awareness of children's literature and related media as they exist in large regions of the world to which ‘mainstream'European and North American scholarship pays very little attention.Sections cover:• Concepts and theories• Historical contexts and national identity• Cultural forms and children's texts• Traditional story and adaptation• Picture books across the majority world• Trends in children's and young adult literatures.Exposition of the literary, cultural and historical contexts in which children's literature is produced, together with an exploration of intersections between these literatures and more extensively researched areas, will enhance access and understanding for a large range of international readers. The essays offer an ideal introduction for those newly approaching literature for children in specific areas, looking for new insights and interdisciplinary perspectives, or interested in directions for future scholarship.

Rapid change in trade, demographics, culture and environment around the Indian Ocean demands a revaluation of how communities, sustainability and security are constituted in this globally strategically important region.Indian Ocean Futures: Communities, Sustainability and Security raises awareness of threats and opportunities beyond popular notions of communities through an examination of issues of concern to local, national, regional and transnational communities around the Indian Ocean Rim. This edited book is organized into three broad areas: the heritage and identity of communities, their sustainability and their security. The first section examines how heritage and identity are negotiated in establishing the basis of communities and public discussion of their futures. The second part explores different practices, technologies and communities of sustainability; from technologies being developed for sustainable coastal regions to the adoption of traditional practices for food management. The final section canvasses the changing landscapes and seascapes of the Indian Ocean in relation to the broad concerns of food, environmental and political security. As such, this volume offers the reader valuable engagement with the complex relations of communities and environments and key discourses shaping understandings of the future of the Indian Ocean region.

El esperado desenlace de la trilogía «Los Libros de los Orígenes». Descubre cómo termina la alucinante aventura de los hermanos Kate, Michael y Emma. Ahora que saben que quien consiga reunir los tres libros tendrá un poder extraordinario, Kate, Michael y Emma deben darse prisa para encontrar el tercer y último Libro de los Orígenes antes de que lo haga Magnus el Siniestro. Con ese objetivo, Emma emprenderá un viaje hacia mundos extraños donde tendrá que enfrentarse a seres mágicos, monstruos y fantasmas, pero también a sus miedos y su parte más oscura. Pronto descubrirá que es una pieza importante de un impresionante rompecabezas, y que si consigue dominar los poderes del libro más peligroso de todos, Kate, Michael y ella serán capaces de salvar el mundo y desbaratar los planes del aterrador Magnus el Siniestro La opinión de los lectores: «Consigue emocionar totalmente al lector y sobre todo hacerle sentir como uno más de los hermanos, esperando poderles ayudar en su historia.» Blog Yurika Sekai

The final book in the bestselling Books of Beginning trilogy that began with The Emerald Atlas, which the New York Times called “a new Narnia for the tween set.” The adventures of siblings Kate, Michael, and Emma come to a stunning conclusion when they must find the last Book of Beginning—the Book of Death—before the Dire Magnus does, for when all three books are united, their combined power will be unstoppable. Soon Emma is on a journey to places both worldly and otherworldly, confronting terrifying monsters and ghosts, and what is darkest within herself. As the fabric of time begins to fray, she becomes the final piece of an extraordinary puzzle. Only if she can master the powers of this most dangerous book will she, Kate, and Michael be able to save the world from the dramatic, deadly final confrontation between magical and ordinary people that the Dire Magnus has in store.

In this fascinating study, John Stephens inteprets the significance of the immense cultural change which took place in Italy from the time of Petrarch to the Reformation, and considers its wider contribution to Europe beyond the Alps. His important analysis (which is designed for students and serious general readers of history as well as the specialist) is not a straight narrative history; rather, it is an examination of the humanists, artists and patrons who were the instruments of this change; the contemporary factors that favoured it; and the elements of ancient thought they revived.

Más de 100.000 lectores ya conocen «Los libros de los Orígenes» y a sus tres héroes Emma, Kate y Michael. ¿Qué esperas para unirte a esta aventura trepidante? Emma, Kate y Michael acaban de descubrir que, después de diez años desaparecidos, sus padres podrían estar vivos. Magnus el Siniestro, la criatura más cruel que hay en la Tierra, los secuestró porque sabían mucho, incluso demasiado, sobre los Libros de los Orígenes. Ahora los hermanos también han descubierto varias cosas sobre estos libros: son tres, confieren un poder extraordinario a quienes los posee... y, según una profecía, ellos son los únicos que pueden liberar su magia y protegerla. De hecho, ya tienen uno, el Atlas Esmeralda, pero Magnus quiere ofrecerles un trueque muy tentador: sus padres a cambio del libro. Volverían a ser una familia..., pero saben que él lo quiere para dominar el mundo y sumirlo en las tinieblas. Algo muy peligroso.

The second century CE Greco-Roman sophist Aelius Aristides was a member of the cult of Asclepius, a popular religious cult of the Hellenistic world. In his diary, the Sacred Tales, Aristides presents a first-person account of the multitude of nocturnal and waking dream-visions and miraculous healings that took place in his life while belonging to this cult. An examination of Aristides'religiosity, especially the accounts of the dream-visions and spiritual healings recorded in his dream diary, helps to shed light upon the spiritual environment of the Roman world in the first and second centuries CE. Furthermore, it may elucidate some of the reasons behind Christianity's appeal to the pagan masses, especially among the educated Roman upper classes to which Aristides belonged. Previous scholarly studies have sought to explain away Aristides'religious experiences described in the Sacred Tales in various ways, viewing the text as a rhetorical composition or the product of literary invention. Aristides has been labelled as “psychopathological” and the text as a creation of a deluded mind. However, the main premise of this book is that first and foremost, Aristides is an example of “homo religiosus” and that the Sacred Tales should be seen as a religious document. This approach highlights the religious dimension of the text. Rather than explain away Aristides'religious experiences, this book incorporates a variety of methodological approaches in order to identify and elucidate the many socio-historical and psychological factors affecting the nature of Aristides'religiosity and its symbolic articulation in textual form. Attention to the religious dimension of the text and an interdisciplinary perspective towards it reveals Aristides as less neurotic and eccentric as many have supposed him to be. In fact, Aristides is the “Not-So-Anxious Pagan”.

An analysis of the religious experiences of the Greco-Roman sophist, Aelius Aristides. As a member of the cult of Asclepius, Aristides recorded his nocturnal dreams, waking visions and spiritual healings in a diary entitled the Sacred Tales. A study of this diary sheds light on the spiritual environment of the Roman world in the first and second century CE.

After the tumultuous events of last winter, Kate, Michael, and Emma long to continue the hunt for their missing parents. But they themselves are now in great danger, and so the wizard Stanislaus Pym hides the children at the Edgar Allan Poe Home for Hopeless and Incorrigible Orphans. There, he says, they will be safe. How wrong he is. The children are soon discovered by their enemies, and a frantic chase sends Kate a hundred years into the past, to a perilous, enchanted New York City. Searching for a way back to her brother and sister, she meets a mysterious boy whose fate is intricately—and dangerously—tied to her own. Meanwhile, Michael and Emma have set off to find the second of the Books of Beginning. A series of clues leads them into a hidden world where they must brave harsh polar storms, track down an ancient order of warriors, and confront terrible monsters. Will Michael and Emma find the legendary book of fire—and master its powers—before Kate is lost to them forever? Exciting, suspenseful, and brimming with humor and heart, the next installment of the bestselling Books of Beginning trilogy will lead Kate, Michael, and Emma closer to their family—and to the magic that could save, or destroy, them all.

Winner of the Children's Literature Association Honor Book AwardThis volume establishes a dialogue between East and West in children's literature scholarship. In all cultures, children's literature shows a concern to depict identity and individual development, so that character and theme pivot on questions of agency and the circumstances that frame an individual's decisions and capacities to make choices and act upon them. Such issues of selfhood fall under the heading subjectivity. Attention to the representation of subjectivity in literature enables us to consider how values are formed and changed, how emotions are cultivated, and how maturation is experienced. Because subjectivities emerge in social contexts, they vary from place to place. This book brings together essays by scholars from several Asian countries — Japan, India, Pakistan, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Australia, Thailand, and The Philippines — to address subjectivities in fiction and film within frameworks that include social change, multiculturalism, post-colonialism, globalization, and glocalization. Few scholars of western children's literature have a ready understanding of what subjectivity entails in children's literature and film from Asian countries, especially where Buddhist or Confucian thought remains influential. This volume will impact scholarship and pedagogy both within the countries represented and in countries with established traditions in teaching and research, offering a major contribution to the flow of ideas between different academic and educational cultures.

Adéntrate en el mundo de «Los Libros de los Orígenes» y acompaña a Kate, Michael y Emma en su apasionante aventura. Kate es la mayor y más responsable. A sus catorce años, es la única que recuerda a sus padres, especialmente las últimas palabras de su madre pidiéndole que cuidara de sus hermanos. Michael, de doce años, es el empollón y el despistado de la familia. Ha perdido más gafas de las que pueda imaginar, aunque a veces el problema es que ni se acuerda de que las lleva puestas. Libro que encuentra, libro que devora, especialmente si habla de sus queridos Elfos. Emma, con solo once años, es pura dinamita. Decidida y directa, dice siempre lo que piensa, sin importarle las consecuencias. Suya es la frase: «Si quieres que te respeten, pelea». Desde que les apartaron de sus padres, diez años atrás, la vida de Kate, Michael y Emma ha transcurrido de orfanato en orfanato. Ahora acaban de llegar al último de su larga colección: situado en lo alto de una colina, parece un enorme castillo a punto de derrumbarse. Pero las sorpresas no acaban aquí: el orfanato está dirigido por el excéntrico doctor Pym -Michael no tiene ninguna duda de que es un mago- ¡y ellos son los únicos niños del centro! Por eso, muertos de curiosidad y sin nada que perder, dedican el primer día a inspeccionar todas y cada una de las habitaciones, y descubren pasadizos secretos, escaleras subterráneas y, lo más importante, un libro de color esmeralda que cambiará sus vidas para siempre... Juntos, los tres hermanos descubrirán que: La magia existe (Michael ya lo sabía). Hay libros muy, pero que muy peligrosos. Les guste o no, deben salvar el mundo. La crítica ha dicho... «Algunos lectores pensarán que es un libro muy largo..., pero cuando lo acaben desearán que lo hubiese sido más.» Kirkus Reviews «Con guiños a Harry Potter y a Narnia, los lectores esperarán impacientes el siguiente libro.» School Library Journal

'A strong... trilogy, invoking just a little Harry Potter and Series of Unfortunate Events along the way.'—Realms of FantasySiblings Kate, Michael, and Emma have been in one orphanage after another for the last ten years, passed along like lost baggage. Yet these unwanted children are more remarkable than they could possibly imagine. Ripped from their parents as babies, they are being protected from a horrible evil of devastating power, an evil they know nothing about. Until now. Before long, Kate, Michael, and Emma are on a journey through time to dangerous and secret corners of the world... a journey of allies and enemies, of magic and mayhem. And—if an ancient prophesy is true—what they do can change history, and it's up to them to set things right.'A new Narnia for the tween set.'—The New York Times'[A] fast-paced, fully imagined fantasy.'—Publishers Weekly'Echoes of other popular fantasy series, from'Harry Potter'to the'Narnia'books, are easily found, but debut author Stephens has created a new and appealing read...'—School Library Journal, Starred Review

Given the substantial impact of feminism on children's literature and culture during the last quarter century, it comes as no surprise that gender studies have focused predominantly on issues of female representation. The question of how the same patriarchal ideology structured representations of male bodies and behaviors was until very recently a marginal discussion. Now that masculinity has emerges as an overt theme in children's literature and film, critical consideration of the subject is timely, if not long overdueWays of Being Male addresses this new concern in an unprecedented collection of essays examining how contemporary debates about masculinity are reflected in fiction and film for young adults. An outstanding team of scholars elucidates the ways in which different versions of male identity are constructed and presented to young audiences. The contributors, drawn from a variety of academic disciplines, employ international discourses in literary criticism, feminism, social sciences, film theory, psychoanalytic criticism, and queer theory in their wide-ranging exploration of male representation. With its illuminating array of perspectives, this pioneering survey brings a long neglected subject into sharp focus.

What happens to traditional stories when they are retold in another time and cultural context and for a different audience? This first-of-its-kind study discusses Bible stories, classical myths, heroic legends, Arthurian romances, Robin Hood lore, folk tales,'oriental'tales, and other stories derived from European cultures. One chapter is devoted to various retellings of classics, from Shakespeare to'Wind in the Willows.'The authors offer a general theory of what motivates the retelling of stories, and how stories express the aspirations of a society. An important function of stories is to introduce children to a cultural heritage, and to transmit a body of shared allusions and experiences that expresses a society's central values and assumptions. However, the cultural heritage may be modified through a pervasive tendency of retellings to produce socially conservative outcomes because of ethnocentric, androcentric and class-based assumptions in the source stories that persist into retellings. Therefore, some stories, such as classical myths, are particularly resistant to feminist reinterpretations, for example, while other types, such as folktales, are more malleable. In examining such possibilities, the book evaluates the processes of interpretation apparent in retellings. Index included.