Nothing's Mat

Nothing's Mat PDF Author: Erna Brodber
Publisher: University of West Indies Press
ISBN: 9789766404949
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 106

Get Book

Book Description
Nothing?s Mat is told by a black British teenager ? ?every black girl? ? for she has no name until the very last chapters when she is teasingly called ?Princess? by her husband. Somewhere in the 1950s London-based Princess is allowed to complete her sixthform final exams by writing a long paper on the West Indian family instead of sitting an exam. She thinks this a godsend and that all she has to do is to interview her parents. Her father tries to help her with his side but they both find that their kin will not fit into the standard anthropological template. Her father thinks it a good time for her to go to Jamaica and meet her grandparents, who can better help her with her study.In Jamaica, much as her middle-class black Jamaican grandparents and her parents in England might not have liked it, Princess meets and spends time with her obscure cousin Nothing, called Conut. Conut introduces Princess to a plant that obeys certain divine principles and is available to humans to make artefacts for their comfort. Accordingly, they begin to make a mat and as they twist straw and bend it into intricate shapes, Conut tells her the family history so that their creation becomes for her a mat of anthropological template. The resulting shape presented to her teacher earns her an A and the comment that she has managed to project the West Indian family as a fractal rather than fractured as the published literature sees it.Her studies and subsequent academic career take her to London University and then back to Jamaica, but understimulated by the academy, she chooses to continue the family study from high school and to do so by crafting the information into the mat, which becomes for her a shield against spiritual and physical evil. Making the mat of ancestors takes her into myriad histories of young Englishmen in Jamaica, of Jamaican women in Panama, and of African Americans in Virginia, among others.This work is at once a fictional family history and a comment on anthropological methodology and African systems of thought.

Nothing's Mat

Nothing's Mat PDF Author: Erna Brodber
Publisher: University of West Indies Press
ISBN: 9789766404949
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 106

Get Book

Book Description
Nothing?s Mat is told by a black British teenager ? ?every black girl? ? for she has no name until the very last chapters when she is teasingly called ?Princess? by her husband. Somewhere in the 1950s London-based Princess is allowed to complete her sixthform final exams by writing a long paper on the West Indian family instead of sitting an exam. She thinks this a godsend and that all she has to do is to interview her parents. Her father tries to help her with his side but they both find that their kin will not fit into the standard anthropological template. Her father thinks it a good time for her to go to Jamaica and meet her grandparents, who can better help her with her study.In Jamaica, much as her middle-class black Jamaican grandparents and her parents in England might not have liked it, Princess meets and spends time with her obscure cousin Nothing, called Conut. Conut introduces Princess to a plant that obeys certain divine principles and is available to humans to make artefacts for their comfort. Accordingly, they begin to make a mat and as they twist straw and bend it into intricate shapes, Conut tells her the family history so that their creation becomes for her a mat of anthropological template. The resulting shape presented to her teacher earns her an A and the comment that she has managed to project the West Indian family as a fractal rather than fractured as the published literature sees it.Her studies and subsequent academic career take her to London University and then back to Jamaica, but understimulated by the academy, she chooses to continue the family study from high school and to do so by crafting the information into the mat, which becomes for her a shield against spiritual and physical evil. Making the mat of ancestors takes her into myriad histories of young Englishmen in Jamaica, of Jamaican women in Panama, and of African Americans in Virginia, among others.This work is at once a fictional family history and a comment on anthropological methodology and African systems of thought.

Nothing Mat(t)ers

Nothing Mat(t)ers PDF Author: Somer Brodribb
Publisher: James Lorimer & Company
ISBN: 9781550284102
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Get Book

Book Description
Nothing Mat(t)ers is a feminist critique of the theories of Foucault, Derrida, and Lacan, among others. Somer Brodribb analyzes the texts and the arguments that post-structuralism has nominated as central, in the process exposing the misogyny at their core. Brodribb provides a history of definitions of structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, and postmodernism. She considers feminist encounters with structuralism and existentialism. She evaluates the originality of Foucault's contributions and discusses feminist responses to his work. Turning to Derrida, she considers his fixation with dissemination and demeaning versus conception and new embodiment. She contrasts the work of Lacan and Irigaray on ethics before turning to the work of de Beauvoir, O'Brien, and other feminists as an authentic alternative to postmodern critical theory.

Erna Brodber and Velma Pollard

Erna Brodber and Velma Pollard PDF Author: Violet Harrington Bryan
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496836243
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Get Book

Book Description
Erna Brodber and Velma Pollard, two sister-writers born and raised in Jamaica, re-create imagined and lived homelands in their literature by commemorating the history, culture, and religion of the Caribbean. Velma Pollard was born in St. Catherine, Jamaica. By the time she was three, her parents had moved to Woodside, St. Mary, in northeast Jamaica, where her sister, Erna, was born. Even though they both travel widely and often, the sisters both still live in Jamaica. The sisters write about their homeland as a series of memories and stories in their many works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. They center on their home village of Woodside in St. Mary Parish, Jamaica, occasionally moving the settings of their fiction and poetry to other regions of Jamaica and various Caribbean islands, as well as other parts of the diaspora in the United States, Canada, and England. The role of women in the patriarchal society of Jamaica and much of the Caribbean is also a subject of the sisters’ writing. Growing up in what Brodber calls the kumbla, the protective but restrictive environment of many women in the Anglo-Caribbean, is an important theme in their fiction. In her fiction, Pollard discusses the gender gaps in employment and the demands of marriage and the special contributions of women to family and community. Many scholars have also explored the significance of spirit in Brodber’s work, including the topics of “spirit theft,” “spirit possession,” and spirits existing through time, from Africa to the present. Brodber’s narratives also show communication between the living and the dead, from Jane and Louisa (1980) to Nothing’s Mat (2014). Yet, few scholars have examined Brodber’s work on par with her sister’s writing. Drawing upon interviews with the authors, this is the first book to give Brodber and Pollard their due and study the sisters’ important contributions.

Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold PDF Author: Hugh Kingsmill
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Critics
Languages : en
Pages : 358

Get Book

Book Description


Fornander Collection of Hawaiian Antiquities and Folk-lore ...

Fornander Collection of Hawaiian Antiquities and Folk-lore ... PDF Author: Thomas George Thrum
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Folklore
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book

Book Description
Literature collection of Hawaiian antiquities, legends, traditions, mele, and genealogies that were gathered by Abraham Fornander, S. M. Kamakau, J. Kepelino, S. N. Haleole and others. The original collection of manuscripts was purchased from the Fornander estate following his death in 1887 by Charles R. Bishop for preservation, and became part of the Bishop Musem collection. The papers were published from 1916-1919 as volume IV, V, and VI of the series Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History. The manuscripts were translated, revised and edited by Dr. W. D. Alexander and Thomas G. Thrum.

Meditations from the Mat

Meditations from the Mat PDF Author: Rolf Gates
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307773949
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 448

Get Book

Book Description
365 daily reflections offering a way to integrate the mindfulness that yoga teaches into everyday life, from the acclaimed yoga teacher, Rolf Gates. As more and more people in the West pursue yoga in its various forms, whether at traditional centers, in the high-powered atmosphere of sports clubs, or on their own, they begin to realize that far from being just another exercise routine, yoga is a discipline of the body and the mind. Whether used in the morning to set the tone for the day, during yoga exercise itself, or at the end of the day, during evening reflection, the daily reflections in Meditations from the Mat will support and enhance anyone’s yoga journey.

The Epistemology of Desire and the Problem of Nihilism

The Epistemology of Desire and the Problem of Nihilism PDF Author: Allan Hazlett
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198889844
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Get Book

Book Description
Most people have wondered whether anything really matters, some have temporarily thought that nothing really matters, and some philosophers have defended the view that nothing really matters. However, if someone thinks that nothing matters--if they are a "nihilist about value"--then it seems that it is irrational for them to care about anything. It seems that nihilism about value mandates total indifference. This is the "problem of nihilism" Allan Hazlett addresses in The Epistemology of Desire and the Problem of Nihilism. Hazlett argues that the problem of nihilism arises because desire--and thus caring--is a species of evaluation that admits of irrationality. This contradicts the influential Humean view that desire does not admit of irrationality, which has a ready solution to the problem of nihilism: since desire does not admit of irrationality, it cannot be irrational to care about something that you believe does not matter. However, following G.E. Anscombe, Hazlett argues that desire has the same relationship to goodness as belief has to truth: just as truth is the accuracy condition for belief, goodness is the accuracy condition for desire. This reveals desire as an appropriate target of epistemological inquiry, in the same way that belief is an appropriate target of epistemological inquiry. Desires can amount to knowledge (in the same way that beliefs can amount to knowledge) and, crucially for the problem of nihilism, desire admits of irrationality (in the same way that belief admits of irrationality). Nevertheless, although it is obviously irrational to believe something that you believe is not true, Hazlett argues that it is not irrational to desire something you believe is not good, despite the fact that goodness is the accuracy condition for desire. This provides a solution to the problem of nihilism, and shows that nihilism about value can coherently be combined with the anti-Humean view that desire is a species of evaluation.

Nothing Takes the Place of Leather

Nothing Takes the Place of Leather PDF Author: Newark Museum Association
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Leather
Languages : en
Pages : 36

Get Book

Book Description


Nothing Like Example, and George Ranford's Happy Christmas Eve, Or, Facts for Young Working Men. [With Illustrations.]

Nothing Like Example, and George Ranford's Happy Christmas Eve, Or, Facts for Young Working Men. [With Illustrations.] PDF Author: Ellen Ross (formerly Brook.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 96

Get Book

Book Description


The Aramaic Covenants

The Aramaic Covenants PDF Author: RavYaakov BarYosef
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1329161106
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Get Book

Book Description