I can see them in my dreams, flashes of the stars falling from the heavens, blood soaking the ground. I can feel it slithering under my skin through my veins, boiling, burning me from the inside out like lava. Humanity lost and monsters now roam the streets, while those who once ruled this paradise cower in the shadows defeated by the beasts that call themselves Angels. And those who would save them damned as if they were the Devils. A song to save the souls of the lost, a Horn that destroyed their world, and a war to last a century who will be victorious.

The Companion to Music in the Age of the Catholic Monarchs, edited by Tess Knighton, offers a major new study that deepens and enriches our understanding of the forms and functions of music that flourished in late medieval Spanish society. The fifteen essays, written by leading authorities in the field, present a synthesis based on recently discovered material that throws new light on different aspects of musical life during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabel (1474-1516): sacred and secular music-making in royal and aristocratic circles; the cathedral music environment; liturgy and power; musical connections with Rome, Portugal and the New World; theoretical and unwritten musical practices; women as patrons and performers; and the legacy of Jewish musical tradition. Contributors are Mercedes Castillo Ferreira, Giuseppe Fiorentino, Roberta Freund Schwartz, Eleazar Gutwirth, Tess Knighton, Kenneth Kreitner, Javier Marín López, Ascensión Mazuela-Anguita, Bernadette Nelson, Pilar Ramos López, Emilio Ros-Fábregas, Juan Ruiz Jiménez, Richard Sherr, Ronald Surtz, and Jane Whetnall.

Religion has always played a special role in the life of the United States. This has been true at Puritan times and it is still true today. Apocalypse Soon? charts the sometimes open, sometimes hidden connections between US popular culture and religion. The book's essays offer a closer look on a wide variety of cultural phenomena that reach from Puritan millennialism to George Bush's appeal to the Christian right, from Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar to the Christian metal band Saviour Machine, and from TV series like Family First, Dead Like Me, and Lost, to Christian diet and chastity programs. (Series: MasteRResearch - Vol. 3)

A complete concordance or verbal index to words, phrases and passages in the dramatic works of Shakespeare. There is also a supplementary concordance to the poems. This is an essential reference work for all students and readers of Shakespeare.

New York Times bestselling author and Nashville legend Loretta Lynn tells the story of her rise from deep poverty in Butcher Holler, Kentucky, to the top of the male-dominated country music industry. Reissued for the 40th Anniversary of the Oscar-winning, Sissy Spacek-starring film of the same name, Coal Miner's Daughter recounts Loretta Lynn's astonishing journey to become one of the original queens of country music. Loretta grew up dirt poor in the mountains of Kentucky, she was married at thirteen years old, and became a mother soon after. At the age of twenty-four, her husband, Doo, gave her a guitar as an anniversary present. Soon, she began penning songs and singing in front of honky-tonk audiences, and, through years of hard work, talent, and true grit, eventually made her way to Nashville, the Grand Ole Opry, eventually securing her place in country music history. Loretta's prolific and influential songwriting made her the first woman to receive a gold record in country music, and got her named the first female Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association. This riveting memoir introduces readers to all the highs and lows on her road to success and the tough, smart, funny, and fascinating woman behind the legend.

Defiant Sounds: Heavy Metal Music in the Global South brings together authors working from and/or with the Global South to reflect on the roles of metal music throughout their respective regions. The essays position metal music at the epicenter of region-specific experiences of oppression marked by colonialism, ethnic extermination, political persecution, and war. More importantly, the authors stress how metal music is used throughout the Global South to face these oppressive experiences, foster hope, and promote an agenda that seeks to build a better world.

Nowadays references to the afterlife-angels strumming harps, demons brandishing pitchforks, God enthroned on heavenly clouds-are more often encountered in New Yorker cartoons than in serious Christian theological reflection. Speculation about death and its sequel seems to embarrass many theologians; however, as Greg Garrett shows in Entertaining Judgment, popular culture in the U.S. has found rich ground for creative expression in the search for answers to the question: What lies in store for us after we die? The lyrics of Madonna, Los Lonely Boys, and Sean Combs; the plotlines of TV's Lost, South Park, and The Walking Dead; the implied theology in films such as The Dark Knight, Ghost, and Field of Dreams; the heavenly half-light of Thomas Kinkade's popular paintings; the ghosts, shades, and after-life way-stations in Harry Potter; and the characters, situations, and locations in the Hunger Games saga all speak to our hopes and fears about what comes next. In a rich survey of literature and popular media, Garrett compares cultural accounts of death and the afterlife with those found in scripture. Denizens of the imagined afterlife, whether in heaven, hell, on earth, or in purgatory, speak to what awaits us, at once shaping and reflecting our deeply held-if often somewhat nebulous-beliefs. They show us what rewards and punishments we might expect, offer us divine assistance, and even diabolically attack us. Ultimately, we are drawn to these stories of heaven, hell, and purgatory--and to stories about death and the undead--not only because they entertain us, but because they help us to create meaning and to learn about ourselves, our world, and, perhaps, the next world. Garrett's deft analysis sheds new light on what popular culture can tell us about the startlingly sharp divide between what modern people profess to believe and what they truly hope and expect to find after death--and how they use those stories to help them understand this life.