The second of the two great epic poems attributed to Homer, The Odyssey takes place after the Trojan War and tells the story of Odysseus's voyage home to Ithaca and his wife, Penelope. Odysseus's journey is a perilous one, filled with precarious adventures and strange mythical creatures. Supported by numerous full-length essays, this updated volume offers various critical approaches to exploring this powerful tale of magic and heroism.

Klaus Kenneth is an Orthodox Christian and spiritual child of Elder Sophrony of Essex. He was born into extremely unfortunate circumstances at the end of World War II: his father abandoned his family not long after they settled in their new home, his mother rejected him, and he was abused, mentally and physically, by a priest who promised to "educate" him. As Klaus sought to escape the hell of being unloved, he began to look for a way out of his misery, which took him on a journey through the manifold pleasures and promises of "this world": rock music, sex, drugs, the Occult, Transcendental Meditation, the religious traditions of North and South America, Africa and the Middle East (including Israel), India and the Orient. His quest literally took him around the world several times over. He tried it all. But as Klaus himself relates in this remarkable story, the longest and hardest journey of them all was the one that goes from head to heart.

Our greatest certainty and greatest mystery is our mortality. In this book, Steven M. Rosen explores the profound mystery of death and rebirth from psychological, philosophical, and alchemical perspectives. To model, embody, and contain the paradoxical transformations involved in the death-rebirth enigma, Rosen employs a paradoxical form of mathematics: the topology of the Moebius strip and Klein bottle. As we follow this alchemical odyssey, the author makes himself transparent through his dreams and brings himself tangibly into his text so as to enact a dialectic of ego and Self. "In tackling the subject of death and rebirth Steven Rosen writes about our modern state of mind, how we got like this and where we need to go from here. He does all this with a psychotherapeutic insight that begins with his own subjectivity-and his own dreams-and ends with the subjectivity of the modern world. Using myths, dreams, and alchemical symbolism as well as psychological research and Jungian insights, Rosen speaks to us all from the self and the Self. A book to be read immediately, and then read again." -Christopher Hauke, Jungian analyst and author of Jung and the Postmodern: The Interpretation of Realities "How does a mental-spiritual ego, the creation of our post-Renaissance world, embrace the body as a living partner? In Dreams, Death, Rebirth, Steven M. Rosen offers a topological analysis that meets the challenge of this daunting endeavor. It is a remarkable accomplishment, and vital for the advancement of psychotherapy." -Nathan Schwartz-Salant, Jungian analyst and author of The Black Nightgown: The Fusional Complex and the Unlived Life Steven M. Rosen is professor emeritus of psychology at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York. After receiving his PhD in psychology in 1971, he began exploring the foundations, frontiers, and poetics of science, and his work became transdisciplinary and philosophical in nature. His essays have appeared in journals and collections spanning the fields of psychology, philosophy, theoretical physics, education, semiotics, and ecology. He is the author of Science, Paradox, and the Moebius Principle (1994), Dimensions of Apeiron (2004), Topologies of the Flesh (2006), and The Self-Evolving Cosmos (2008).

Next stop on the OdysseyÑPlanet Cyborg! The space-faring Justice League travels to a new world that worships Cyborg, and meets a population thatÕs obsessed with body modification in preparation for a galactic war. Cyborg and Azrael clash over whether to stop the simmering standoff or continue following the clues left behind by Darkseid. Elsewhere, Starfire and Green Lantern Jessica Cruz infiltrate the societyÕs upper crust in order to decipher the second language on the codex.

Parents often feel at a loss with popular culture and how it fits in with their families. They want to love their children well, but it can be overwhelming to navigate the murky waters of television, movies, games, and more that their kids are exposed to every day. Popular culture doesn’t have to be a burden. The Pop Culture Parent equips mothers, fathers, and guardians to build relationships with their children by entering into their popular culture–informed worlds, understanding them biblically, and passing on wisdom. This resource by authors Ted Turnau, E. Stephen Burnett, and Jared Moore, provides Scripture-based, practical help for parents to enjoy the messy gift of popular culture with their kids. By engaging with their children’s interests, parents can explore culture while teaching their children to become missionaries in a post-Christian world. By providing realistic yet biblical encouragement for parents, the coauthors guide readers to engage with popular culture through a gospel lens, helping them teach their kids to understand and answer the challenges raised by popular culture. The Pop Culture Parent helps the next generation of evangelicals move beyond a posture of cultural ignorance to one of cultural engagement, building grace-oriented disciples and cultural missionaries.

The Unknown Odysseus is a study of how Homer creates two versions of his hero, one who is the triumphant protagonist of the revenge plot and another, more subversive, anonymous figure whose various personae exemplify an entirely different set of assumptions about the world through which each hero moves and about the shape and meaning of human life. Separating the two perspectives allows us to see more clearly how the poem's dual focus can begin to explain some of the notorious difficulties readers have encountered in thinking about the Odyssey. In The Unknown Odysseus, Thomas Van Nortwick offers the most complete exploration to date of the implications of Odysseus' divided nature, showing how it allows Homer to explore the riddles of human identity in a profound way that is not usually recognized by studies focusing on only one "real" hero in the narrative. This new perspective on the epic enriches the world of the poem in a way that will interest both general readers and classical scholars. ". . .an elegant and lucid critical study that is also a good introduction to the poem." ---David Quint, London Review of Books "Thomas Van Nortwick's eloquently written book will give the neophyte a clear interpretive path through the epic while reminding experienced readers why they should still care about the Odyssey's unresolved interpretive cruces. The Unknown Odysseus is not merely accessible, but a true pleasure to read." ---Lillian Doherty, University of Maryland "Contributing to an important new perspective on understanding the epic, Thomas Van Nortwick wishes to resist the dominant, even imperial narrative that tries so hard to trick, beguile, and even bully its listeners into accepting the inevitability of Odysseus' heroism." ---Victoria Pedrick, Georgetown University Thomas Van Nortwick is Nathan A. Greenberg Professor of Classics at Oberlin College and author of Somewhere I Have Never Travelled: The Second Self and the Hero's Journey in Ancient Epic (1992) and Oedipus: The Meaning of a Masculine Life (1998). Jacket art: Head of Odysseus from a sculptural group representing Odysseus killing Polyphemus in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Sperlonga, Italy. Photograph by Marie-Lan Nguyen.