I was born illegitimate, with eye sight problems. I was adopted from a Catholic infant home. Because of the constant early separations that resulted from being bounced back and forth between the infant home, and my home, I developed emotional problems. My insecure, volatile, mother reacted badly to my problems. She often abused me, physically, and verbally. My father, a timid, man, who adored his wife, offered me very little support. By the time I was seven I embarked on a path that would take me from one institution to another, occasionally spending several months at home, which made me worse. The authorities didnt know what went on in the home, but they did know that a visually impaired, run away made them nervous. When I was twelve I was diagnosed as semi autistic. Because of this and my compulsion to run away, I wound up in a very controversial treatment center in Maine. Then at age seventeen my life began to improve. I was enrolled in the Perkins School for the blind in Massachusetts. I fell in love with the school, and wanted to spend a long time there. However, Perkins was seen as a finishing school for me. After two years I reluctantly graduated, and entered the world totally unprepared for what life had to offer. It wasnt until I was in my forties that I followed through on something I had always wondered about. My adoption records were opened, allowing me to learn many things about my birth mother, and family. Together with the few details my adopted father gave me, I was able to make contact with my family.

Jenifer, Muriel and I were led downstairs and through the darkened house. The dining room was just as dark. I knew it was full of students. I could barely make out teenagers in the front row. Soon the whispering started. It was hard to make out what they were saying but as their voices rose in volume I heard “Kill them!” They said this repeatedly, getting louder each time. When they were shouting “Kill them!” the lights were suddenly turned on. All the students jumped up and charged at us. They slammed us against the wall and screamed obscenities and threats at us.

Jenifer, Muriel and I were led downstairs and through the darkened house. The dining room was just as dark. I knew it was full of students. I could barely make out teenagers in the front row. Soon the whispering started. It was hard to make out what they were saying but as their voices rose in volume I heard “Kill them!” They said this repeatedly, getting louder each time. When they were shouting “Kill them!” the lights were suddenly turned on. All the students jumped up and charged at us. They slammed us against the wall and screamed obscenities and threats at us.

A former college president offers a framework for sustainability on campus, describing initiatives that range from renewable energy to a revamped curriculum to sustainable investment. Colleges and universities offer our best hope for raising awareness about the climate crisis and the other environmental threats. But most college and university administrations need guidance on the path to sustainability. In The Nine Elements of a Sustainable Campus, Mitchell Thomashow, a former college president, provides just that. Drawing on his experiences at Unity College in Maine, he identifies nine elements for a sustainability agenda: energy, food, and materials (aspects of infrastructure); governance, investment, and wellness (aspects of community); and curriculum, interpretation, and aesthetics (aspects of learning). He then describes how Unity put these elements into practice. Connecting his experiences to broader concerns, Thomashow links the campus to the planet, reminding us that local efforts, taken together, can have a global impact.

Since the publication of the bestselling Sounding the Seasons, Malcolm Guite has repeatedly been asked for more sonnets. This new collection offers a sequence of 50 sonnets that focus on many passages in the Gospels: the Beatitudes, parables and miracles, teachings on the Kingdom, and the ‘hard sayings’ - Jesus’ challenging demands with which we wrestle. In addition this collection includes: •A sequence of seven sonnets on 'The Wilderness', exploring mysterious stories of divine encounter such as Jacob’s wrestling with the angel. •Poetic reflections on music, hospitality and ecology. •Seven short poems celebrating the days of creation. •A biblical index pairing the poems with scripture readings for use in worship.

DIVA collection of writings from the influential feminist art journal M/E/A/N/I/N/G, with a forward by Johanna Drucker./div

Despite the very obvious differences between looking at Manet’s Woman with a Parrot and listening to Elgar’s Cello Concerto, both experiences provoke similar questions in the thoughtful aesthete: why does the painting seem to express reverie and the music, nostalgia? How do we experience the reverie and nostalgia in such works of art? Why do we find these experiences rewarding in similar ways? As our awareness of emotion in art, and our engagement with art’s emotions, can make such a special contribution to our life, it is timely for a philosopher to seek to account for the nature and significance of the experience of art’s emotions. Damien Freeman develops a new theory of emotion that is suitable for resolving key questions in aesthetics. He then reviews and evaluates three existing approaches to artistic expression, and proposes a new approach to the emotional experience of art that draws on the strengths of the existing approaches. Finally, he seeks to establish the ethical significance of this emotional experience of art for human flourishing. Freeman challenges the reader not only to consider how art engages with emotion, but how we should connect up our answers to questions concerning the nature and value of the experiences offered by works of art.