Although many of the practical and intellectual traditions that make up modern science date back centuries, the category of “science” itself is a relative novelty. In the early eighteenth century, the modern German word that would later mean “science,” naturwissenschaft, was not even included in dictionaries. By 1850, however, the term was in use everywhere. Acolytes of Nature follows the emergence of this important new category within German-speaking Europe, tracing its rise from an insignificant eighteenth-century neologism to a defining rallying cry of modern German culture. Today’s notion of a unified natural science has been deemed an invention of the mid-nineteenth century. Yet what Denise Phillips reveals here is that the idea of naturwissenschaft acquired a prominent place in German public life several decades earlier. Phillips uncovers the evolving outlines of the category of natural science and examines why Germans of varied social station and intellectual commitments came to find this label useful. An expanding education system, an increasingly vibrant consumer culture and urban social life, the early stages of industrialization, and the emergence of a liberal political movement all fundamentally altered the world in which educated Germans lived, and also reshaped the way they classified knowledge.

Tara Thompson cannot be injured. Since the night her parents died in a tragic accident, she hasn’t felt pain of any kind, not so much as a papercut. And she has no idea why. Though her body healed quickly, her heart and soul took its time. Luckily, a loving foster mom and an unwanted best friend stepped in to speed up the process. Despite Tara’s best efforts, her new BFF, Shelly Smith, just wouldn’t go away. By their senior year, the girls were thick as thieves and would probably become thieves if Shelly had anything to say about their future. Thankfully, fate intervenes in the form of a high school recruiter, Elias Creed, who works for a mysterious geological testing company. Cue the dreamy music and soft lighting as he walks in slow motion toward her. Then Elias opens his mouth and Tara laments the fact that the first guy she’s ever been seriously attracted to...is a complete and utter butthead. Still, she can’t seem to shake him, and she and Shelly are both intrigued by the company he works for. Little do they know it’s not a company at all. It’s an academy for those gifted with elemental powers and she’s already been enrolled. And Elias isn’t Tara’s only suitor. The hottest guy in school--Tucker Adams--has been asking Tara out for the past three years and each time she’s shot him down. Now, he’s finally broken down her walls. But when Elias and Tucker both warn Tara the other is dangerous, she doesn’t know who to believe. When the truth is finally revealed, Tara finds out both men know more about her past than she does, including what caused the accident that took her parents' lives.

Passionate Medicine is a compelling record of the journeys of five doctors and two veterinary surgeons from conventional medicine to homeopathy. The contributors challenge the shortcomings of conventional medical training and methods, in particular the notion that effective clinicians should be objective and emotionally detached.

Although he belonged to an American generation of writers deeply influenced by the high modernist revolt "against nature" and against the self-imposed limits of realism to a palpable world, William Faulkner reveals throughout his work an abiding sensitivity to the natural world. He writes of the big woods, of animals, and of the human body as a ground of being that art and culture can neither transcend nor completely control. The eleven essays that make up this volume, including a paper written by the acclaimed novelist William Kennedy, explore the place of "the unbuilt world" in Faulkner's fiction. They give particular attention to the social, mythic, and economic significance of nature, to the complexity of racial identity, and to the inevitable clash of gender and sexuality. These essays were presented in 1996 as papers at the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, held annually at the University of Mississippi. Included are the following: Lawrence Buell's "Faulkner and the Claims of the Natural World"; Thomas L. McHaney's "Oversexing the Natural World"; Theresa M. Towner's "Color, Race, and Identity in Faulkner's Fiction"; Jay Watson's "The Art of the Literal in "Light in August""; Mary Joanne Dondlinger's "The Matter of Race and Gender in Faulkner's "Light in August""; Louise Westling's "Sutpen's Marriage to the Dark Body of the Land"; Myra Jehlen's "Faulkner and the Unnatural"; Diane Roberts's "Eula, Linda, and the Death of Nature"; David H. Evans's "'The Bear' and the Incarnation of America"; Wiley C. Prewitt, Jr.'s "Hunting and Habitat in Yoknapatawpha"; and William Kennedy's "Learning from Faulkner: The Obituary of Fear." Donald M. Kartiganer, Howry Chair of Faulkner Studies in the Department of English, and Ann J. Abadie, Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, teach at the University of Mississippi.

Longlisted for the National Book Award. Where did the ideas come from that became the cornerstone of American democracy? America’s founders intended to liberate us not just from one king but from the ghostly tyranny of supernatural religion. Drawing deeply on the study of European philosophy, Matthew Stewart brilliantly tracks the ancient, pagan, and continental ideas from which America’s revolutionaries drew their inspiration. In the writings of Spinoza, Lucretius, and other great philosophers, Stewart recovers the true meanings of “Nature’s God,” “the pursuit of happiness,” and the radical political theory with which the American experiment in self-government began.