These striking poems take the powerful themes of the Psalms and transpose them from a distant and ancient culture to a contemporary one with recognizable images and metaphors. Combining raw honesty with beauty and depth, they explore every human experience from rage at life’s cruelty to joy at life’s blessings.

Traces the history of the golem legend and its appropriations in German texts and film as well as in post-Holocaust Jewish-American fiction, comics, graphic novels, and television. First mentioned in the Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible, the golem is a character in an astonishing number of post-Holocaust Jewish-American novels and has served as inspiration for such varied figures as Mary Shelley’s monster in her novel Frankenstein, a frightening character in the television series The X-Files, and comic book figures such as Superman and the Hulk. In The Golem Redux: From Prague to Post-Holocaust Fiction, author Elizabeth R. Baer introduces readers to these varied representations of the golem and traces the history of the golem legend across modern pre- and post-Holocaust culture. In five chapters, The Golem Redux examines the different purposes for which the golem has been used in literature and what makes the golem the ultimate text and intertext for modern Jewish writers. Baer begins by introducing several early manifestations of the golem legend, including texts from the third and fourth centuries and from the medieval period; Prague’s golem legend, which is attributed to the Maharal, Rabbi Judah Loew; the history of the Josefov, the Jewish ghetto in Prague, the site of the golem legend; and versions of the legend by Yudl Rosenberg and Chayim Bloch, which informed and influenced modern intertexts. In the chapters that follow, Baer traces the golem first in pre-Holocaust Austrian and German literature and film and later in post-Holocaust American literature and popular culture, arguing that the golem has been deployed very differently in these two contexts. Where prewar German and Austrian contexts used the golem as a signifier of Jewish otherness to underscore growing anti-Semitic cultural feelings, post-Holocaust American texts use the golem to depict the historical tragedy of the Holocaust and to imagine alternatives to it. In this section, Baer explores traditional retellings by Isaac Bashevis Singer and Elie Wiesel, the considerable legacy of the golem in comics, Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and, finally, "Golems to the Rescue" in twentieth- and twenty-first-century works of film and literature, including those by Cynthia Ozick, Thane Rosenbaum, and Daniel Handler. By placing the Holocaust at the center of her discussion, Baer illustrates how the golem works as a self-conscious intertextual character who affirms the value of imagination and story in Jewish tradition. Students and teachers of Jewish literature and cultural history, film studies, and graphic novels will appreciate Baer’s pioneering and thought-provoking volume.

- Colorful presentation of 150more than a hundred rings from the Susan Grant Lewin Collection- A who's who of contemporary art jewelry- Selected artists include: Claire Falkenstein and Arline Fisch (USA); Wendy Ramshaw (UK); Bruno Martinazzi, Giampaolo Babetto, and Annamaria Zanella (Italy); Friedrich Becker, Karl Fritsch, and Daniel Kruger (Germany); and David Bielander (Switzerland)- "Artists' Voices" section gives insight into individual approaches for creating each ringRing Redux presents more than a hundred avant-garde rings by renowned international artists who explore this age-old jewelry form with great vitality and relevance to society today. In the essay "Riffs on Rings," Ursula Ilse-Neuman provides valuable insights into the astonishing variations on one of the most intimate and enduring forms of body adornment, revealing the profound and subtle differences in how these artists evoke the ring's potential to express ideas that extend beyond its ornamental role. The skill and audacity infused in these intimate sculptural forms is captured in stunning new color photographs. In the "Artists' Voices" section, the jewelers provide valuable perspectives on the conception and execution of their works. The collection of rings presented here has been acquired over five decades by Susan Grant Lewin and will be exhibited at the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia.

From its earliest days to today, poetry has always been a spoken art. On the page and out loud, poetry is the home for the brilliant, the rebellious, the artists and performers who are changing the world. Today's spoken word revolution is the literary equivalent to grabbing a culture by the collar and shaking it...hard. In the tradition of The Spoken Word Revolution, Redux brings more of the gripping, moving, innovative, often hilarious poetry in the oral tradition. This redefining collection gathers multiple forms of "spoken word" under the same motley tent—slam, hip-hop, musical interpretations, and youth movements among them. The resulting brew is both satisfying and world-expanding. One audio CD features some of the best poems and poets, immediately live in their own electrifying words and voices. The Spoken Word Revolution Redux includes: Singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley Slam Poetry founder Marc Smith Ethan Hawke reading Beat Poet Gregory Corso Jazz pianist Patricia Barber adapting ee cummings Former US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser, Bill Collins and Mark Strand Four-time national poetry slam champion Patricia Smith Jeff Tweedy of Wilco Hip-Hop founder Gil Scott-Heron Indy National Poetry Slam Champions, including Mayda da Ville Viggo Mortensen and Hank Mortensen Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins