Read about my incredible disadvantaged environment for which I had no control over at times. A mean spirited woman, severely insecure, a sensitive, compassionate person who use her immense industriousness, focused dedication, positivity, and courage to forge ahead through it all to achieve a stable, mental, emotional and spiritual balance to an established, college-degreed professional.

Read about my incredible disadvantaged environment for which I had no control over at times. A mean spirited woman, severely insecure, a sensitive, compassionate person who use her immense industriousness, focused dedication, positivity, and courage to forge ahead through it all to achieve a stable, mental, emotional and spiritual balance to an established, college-degreed professional.

The Theater of Transformation: Postmodernism in American Drama offers a fresh and innovative reading of the contemporary experimental American theater scene and navigates through the contested and contentious relationship between postmodernism and contemporary drama. This book addresses gender and class as well as racial issues in the context of a theoretical discussion of dramatic texts, textuality, and performance. Transformation is contemporary drama's answer to the questions of postmodernism and a major technique in the development of a postmodern language for the stage. In order to demonstrate the multi-faceted nature of the postmodern theater of transformation, this study draws on a wide range of plays: from early experimental plays of the 1960s by Jean-Claude van Itallie through feminist plays by Megan Terry and Rochelle Owens to more recent drama by the African-American playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. The Theater of Transformation: Postmodernism in American Drama is written for anyone interested in contemporary American drama and theater as well as in postmodernism and contemporary literary theory. It appeals even more broadly to a readership intrigued by the ubiquitous aspects of popular culture, by feminism and ethnicity, and by issues pertaining to the so-called 'society of spectacle' and the study of contemporary media.

Female seminaries in nineteenth-century America offered middle-class women the rare privilege of training in music and the liberal arts. A music background in particular provided the foundation for a teaching career, one of the few paths open to women. Jewel A. Smith opens the doors of four female seminaries, revealing a milieu where rigorous training focused on music as an artistic pursuit rather than a social skill. Drawing on previously untapped archives, Smith charts women's musical experiences and training as well as the curricula and instruction available to them, the repertoire they mastered, and the philosophies undergirding their education. She also examines the complex tensions between the ideals of a young democracy and a deeply gendered system of education and professional advancement. An in-depth study of female seminaries as major institutions of learning, Transforming Women's Education illuminates how musical training added to women's lives and how their artistic acumen contributed to American society.

An engaging guide for future best-practice, this book provides an illuminating account of how the innovative programs of education and research at one Centre for Aboriginal Studies made a demonstrably positive difference in the lives of Indigenous students. Written by the experts involved, the book provides detailed descriptions of these ground-breaking education and research programs that saw an increase in the number of Indigenous graduates emerging from the Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin University. Each chapter documents a different stage in the development and delivery of these programs and demonstrates how innovative and culturally appropriate principles of teaching, learning and organizational processes empowered participants to make a real difference in the lives of their families and communities. The book also addresses the challenges faced by such programs and the counterproductive pressures of market-based economic policies, highlighting the need to create an environment attuned to Aboriginal desires for social justice, self-management and self-determination. As a celebration of genuine success in higher education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, and a guide on how to improve practice in the future, this book is an essential resource for all professionals and policy makers looking to make a real difference in the lives of Indigenous peoples.

This volume traces transitions in British literature from 1960 to 1980, illuminating a diverse range of authors, texts, genres and movements. It considers innovations in form, emergent identities, changes in attitudes, preoccupations and in the mind itself, local and regional developments, and shifts within the oeuvres of individual authors.

Today's rapid, deep, and pervasive changes in North American culture present myriad challenges for faith communities now and in the years ahead. Oswald explores the use of rituals as spiritually healing practices for the home, congregation, and broader community. He teaches congregational leaders how individuals and groups can use familiar new rituals to name, evaluate, live out, celebrate, and grow through change.