Myths have long been considered the prime linkage between nature and culture, but we hold that they are more than this. The mythogene, which is our conceptualization of a connecting structure, links subject and object, history and transcendence, but above all is the blueprint for creativity. The volume deals, therefore, with the innovative conception of the author as to the process of creativity. Van Gogh had a revelation as to how the whirling cypresses and dancing stars would look at night. These structures, which contain a complementarity between his experiences and longings, are then ingrained in the artistic medium. Since his artistic efforts were authentic, his ecstatic (in the Greek sense) state of mind, extricated itself from diachronic history and soared onto synchronic eternity. This is how we perceive his work as fresh, exhilarating and meaningful as if painted today; it is the communication within eternity of authentic art from artist to audience. The volume also presents a classification of types of artists as related to their art and presents and innovative theory as to the link between madness and creativity.

“[A] dark D.C. tale with . . . an addictive neo-noir sensibility” by the award-winning journalist and New York Times–bestselling author of Tattoos & Tequila (Publishers Weekly). With a pretty wife, a new baby, and a job reporting for the Washington Herald, Jonathan Seede is the picture of urban respectability. But a secret freelance project is drawing him into places most people never dare to go. Just ten blocks from the White House, on the notorious Fourteenth Street strip, a war is raging over drugs, prostitution, and other deviant behaviors—and Seede is on the front lines. When his family abruptly leaves him, Seede embarks on a journey into his own dark urges. Along the way, he encounters pimps and hustlers, an accidental hooker, an honest cop, a storefront prophet who deals marijuana, a beautiful teenage runaway, a crack-addicted music legend, an A-list gay activist, and a diminutive billionaire who is searching for the answers to life’s greatest questions in a crystal skull. “Mike Sager’s keen, journalistic eye and unique voice transfer to fiction with highly entertaining results. Deviant Behavior is a street-level, symphonic portrait of an American city.” —George Pelecanos, author of The Night Gardener

The fish are biting . . . everyone!Billy Deep and his sister Sheena are spending another summer in the Caribbean on their uncle's totally cool floating lab. The weather is beautiful. And there are lots of neat places to go swimming and snorkeling.Billy and Sheena are great swimmers. But even great swimmers get into trouble -- especially this year. This year there's something really scary going on under the sea. The fish all seem to be growing. Bigger and bigger. Into monster-sized sea creatures. With monster-sized appetites...

Carter explores early modern culture's reception of Ovid through the manipulation of Ovidian myth by Shakespeare, Middleton, Heywood, Marlowe and Marston. With a focus on sexual violence, homosexuality, incest and idolatry, Carter analyses how depictions of mythology represent radical ideas concerning gender and sexuality.

This volume brings together work by authors who draw upon sociological and criminological methods, theory, and frameworks, to produce research that pushes boundaries, considers new questions, and reshape the existing understanding of "art crimes", with a strong emphasis on methodological innovation and novel theory application. Criminologists and sociologists are poorly represented in academic discourse on art and culture related crimes. However, to understand topics like theft, security, trafficking, forgery, vandalism, offender motivation, the efficacy of and results of policy interventions, and the effects art crimes have on communities, we must develop the theoretical and methodological models we use for analyses. The readership of this book is expected to include academics, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of criminology, sociology, law, and heritage studies who have an interest in art and heritage crime.

This first volume examines how sexual mores and behavior, religious dogma and practice, and artistic creativity and authenticity have influenced, and been influenced by, the existentialist thought of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Nietzsche, Husserl and Buber, and the writings of Camus, Dostoevsky, Beckett, Kafka and Shestov. It compares the author’s personality theory with those of Freud, Jung, Fairbairn, Karl Abraham and Melanie Klein, and Buddhist, Gnostic, Christian and Muslim mysticism with Jewish Kabbalah. It explains society’s harsh treatment of Carlo Gesualdo, Vincent van Gogh and Antonin Artaud, and analyzes the existentialist approach to existence, absurdity, human dialogue, and suicide. It will appeal to students and professionals in fields as diverse as philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, religion, law, music, art, drama, literature and biology.