"A powerful document of the inner lives and creative visions of men and women rendered invisible by America’s prison system. More than two million people are currently behind bars in the United States. Incarceration not only separates the imprisoned from their families and communities; it also exposes them to shocking levels of deprivation and abuse and subjects them to the arbitrary cruelties of the criminal justice system. Yet, as Nicole Fleetwood reveals, America’s prisons are filled with art. Despite the isolation and degradation they experience, the incarcerated are driven to assert their humanity in the face of a system that dehumanizes them. Based on interviews with currently and formerly incarcerated artists, prison visits, and the author’s own family experiences with the penal system, Marking Time shows how the imprisoned turn ordinary objects into elaborate works of art. Working with meager supplies and in the harshest conditions—including solitary confinement—these artists find ways to resist the brutality and depravity that prisons engender. The impact of their art, Fleetwood observes, can be felt far beyond prison walls. Their bold works, many of which are being published for the first time in this volume, have opened new possibilities in American art. As the movement to transform the country’s criminal justice system grows, art provides the imprisoned with a political voice. Their works testify to the economic and racial injustices that underpin American punishment and offer a new vision of freedom for the twenty-first century."

An engaging, encyclopedic account of the material world of early modern Britain as told through a unique collection of dated objects The period from 1500 to 1800 in England was one of extraordinary social transformations, many having to do with the way time itself was understood, measured, and recorded. Through a focused exploration of an extensive private collection of fine and decorative artworks, this beautifully designed volume explores that theme and the variety of ways that individual notions of time and mortality shifted. The feature uniting these more than 450 varied objects is that each one bears a specific date, which marks a significant moment—for reasons personal or professional, religious or secular, private or public. From paintings to porringers, teapots to tape measures, the objects—and the stories they tell—offer a vivid sense of the lived experience of time, while providing a sweeping survey of the material world of early modern Britain.

For fans of Downton Abbey, the second volume of the critically acclaimed Cazalet saga takes readers into the lives of an extended British family and their devoted retinue It is 1939, and Hitler has just invaded Poland. The exigencies of wartime will force the Cazalets to make difficult choices as the older children are evacuated from London and settled in Home Place, their longtime Sussex summer estate. Narrated primarily through the voices of three Cazalet cousins—sixteen-year-old Louise and fourteen-year-old Polly and Clary—Marking Time details the continuing saga of their fathers. With the outbreak of war, Edward is determined to do his part for England. Hugh, crippled in World War I, must sit back and watch other men fight for their country, including his brother Rupert, who enlists and goes missing in action. The Cazalets’ story plays out against the greater drama unfolding on the world stage. Three young girls yearn for the freedom they believe adulthood will confer upon them in this tale of struggle and sacrifice, love and loss, as a new generation of Cazalets makes itself heard. With strong female characters such as the stoic Kitty; her daughter, Rachel, who’s in a relationship with another woman; and the loyal governess Miss Milliment, Marking Time explores the role of women during the war amid early stirrings of feminism.

"If you lie awake worrying about the overnight transition from December 31, 1 b.c., to January 1, a.d. 1 (there is no year zero), then you will enjoy Duncan Steel's Marking Time."--American Scientist "No book could serve as a better guide to the cumulative invention that defines the imaginary threshold to the new millennium."--Booklist A Fascinating March through History and the Evolution of the Modern-Day Calendar . . . In this vivid, fast-moving narrative, you'll discover the surprising story of how our modern calendar came about and how it has changed dramatically through the years. Acclaimed author Duncan Steel explores each major step in creating the current calendar along with the many different systems for defining the number of days in a week, the length of a month, and the number of days in a year. From the definition of the lunar month by Meton of Athens in 432 b.c. to the roles played by Julius Caesar, William the Conqueror, and Isaac Newton to present-day proposals to reform our calendar, this entertaining read also presents "timely" tidbits that will take you across the full span of recorded history. Find out how and why comets have been used as clocks, why there is no year zero between 1 b.c. and a.d. 1, and why for centuries Britain and its colonies rang in the New Year on March 25th. Marking Time will leave you with a sense of awe at the haphazard nature of our calendar's development. Once you've read this eye-opening book, you'll never look at the calendar the same way again.

The preacher is too often caught between biblical and contemporary time. Residing first in one, then in the other, the preacher must somehow find a way to bring the two times -- separate as they might seem -- together. The temptation of course is to capitulate to one side or the other of this tension. The preacher can reside solely in the biblical time, offering the congregation what amounts to weekly lectures on history and archeology, spiced up with the occasional moralistic conclusion. Or, setting up shop permanently in contemporary time, she or he can offer commentaries on society and culture that occasionally tip their hats in the direction of Scripture. A third way, contends Barbara Lundblad, lies in marking time, a way of allowing biblical time to speak to the contemporary world and vice versa. When the preacher marks time, he or she admits that there can be no one-to-one correspondence between the world of the text and the world of the congregation. Nevertheless, the preacher demonstrates that when the biblical text is let loose upon our day to day existence, it challenges and judges, redeems and sanctifies it, infusing it with new meaning. Likewise, contemporary situations, needs, and experiences open up new possibilities within Scripture, allowing the congregation to see truth in the text they had never before discovered there, allowing them to discern the leading of the Spirit through the text and into the present moment. In this volume, which grows out of Lundblad's 2000 Beecher Lectures delivered at Yale Divinity School, the author presents both an argument for the ongoing intersection of the biblical and contemporary worlds, and examples of how that intersection might take place.

Scholars have long studied the impact of Charles Darwin’s writings on nineteenth-century culture. However, few have ventured to examine the precursors to the ideas of Darwin and others in the Romantic period. Marking Time, edited by Joel Faflak, analyses prevailing notions of evolution by tracing its origins to the literary, scientific, and philosophical discourses of the long nineteenth century. The volume’s contributors revisit key developments in the history of evolution prior to The Origin of Species and explore British and European Romanticism’s negotiation between the classic idea of a great immutable chain of being and modern notions of historical change. Marking Time reveals how Romantic and post-Romantic configurations of historical, socio-cultural, scientific, and philosophical transformation continue to exert a profound influence on critical and cultural thought.