The Romans were a superstitious bunch with public portents forming an integral role in most political and social ceremonies and rituals. This detailed analysis of prodigia (unusual events that were reported to the Senate who then proclaimed that event as an unfavourable portent) does not look at what these events reveal about Roman psychology but, instead, focuses on the sociological consequences of this complete integration of politics and religion during the Republican period. Much of the book comprises a table of prodigies, gathered from primary sources, notably Livy's Ab urbe condita and Julius Obsequens' Ab anno-urbis conditae DV prodigium liber . This data is supported by detailed discussions of Cicero and public divination, the relationship between divination and science, the types of portents and the nature of religio-politics. Danish summary.

Renowned cultural theorist reveals the deeper meanings of popular cultural phenomena in post-9/11 life in America.

Chapters include the following: Lawsuits: These are actual lawsuits allowed into our nation's courts. The only way this chapter would be stranger is if it listed lawsuits so absurd they were not allowed into the courts. Hunting and Fishing: I live in a small drinking town with a hunting and fishing problem. Weather: This includes a column on the benefits of climate change, a subject that most news reports ignore, and why we in Walden, Colorado, are in favor of global warming. Politics: The first column is my abortive attempt to run for president of the United States. Another is on what we should learn from the Greeks, and another on state stereotyping. Yes, that happened. Internet English: This is the Age of the Text. So why do so many of these texters not know basic English? Sadly, examples abound. Technology: I've suggested a number of new inventions. You'll like the Fleshomatic. EEKs: Hope you're not one. Health: You don't realize the value of an eye until you've lost one. Advertising: Dilbert once observed that if marketing worked, it would be illegal. But it must work on some of us. Bureaucracies: If learning about what our government workers are actually doing doesn't drop you into a state of depression, you might be heavily medicated. Human Behavior: None of these columns seemed to fit anywhere else, like what if the passage of an asteroid made us all smarter?

The War on Terror and American Popular Culture is a collection of original essays by academics and researchers from around the world that examines the complex interrelation between the Bush administration's "War on Terror" and American popular culture. Written by experts in the fields of literature, film, and cultural studies, this book examines in detail how popular culture reflects concerns and anxieties about the September 11 attacks and the war those attacks generated, how it interrogates the individual and collective impacts that war has wrought, how it might challenge or critique current policy, and how it might reinforce or endorse the war and its sociopolitical paradigms.

The China of the Ming and Qing dynasties was well populated with foxes, shape-changing creatures who transgressed the boundaries of species, gender and the metaphysical realm. Each section of this book traces a particular boundary violated by the fox and examines how manoeuvres across that boundary change over time.

What Jesus taught through his preaching made an unforgettable impression upon his disciples. But it was the many succinctly formulated sayings of Jesus that stood out from the start because of their clear structure and vividness. In The Most Important Words of Jesus, renowned scholar Gerhard Lohfink focuses on the power, beauty, and seriousness of these seventy central sayings of the Lord. When the Church confesses that Jesus is not only truly human but also truly God, that means he is the perfect image of God, God’s definitive word. It rests on the majestic claim that revealed itself, modestly, discreetly, and yet clearly, in every one of the seventy “sayings” or logia of Jesus. In this book, Lohfink helps us to understand what Jesus is talking about in these sharply defined words.