Lesbianism in literature has been dealt with rather indirectly in the past. Editors have led readers to the "artistry" of a work containing lesbianism, emphasizing instead the literary history and historical context of the work rather than the representations of lesbianism. The editor for Colette's The Pure and the Impure, for instance, affirms that Colette has a knowledge of a "strange sisterhood," but assures readers she has never strayed from the "normal." In the groundbreaking A Lure of Knowledge, Judith Roof demonstrates that representations of lesbian sexuality occupy specific locations or positions in the arguments, subject matter, and rhetoric of Western European and American literary criticism. She examines the political context of representations: how lesbian sexuality is used as a signifier an why it appears when and where it does. Roof argues that attempts to depict or explain lesbian sexuality spur anxieties about knowledge and identity. In reaction to and denial of these anxieties, lesbian sexuality is represented in film, literature, theory, and criticism as foreplay, as simulated heterosexuality, as erotic excess, as joking inauthenticity, as artful compromise, or as masculine mask in a specific repertoire of neutralization and evasion. Challenging the heterosexism of film theory and feminist theory, this book analyzes the rhetorical use of lesbian sexuality. Roof explores a range of discourses, from the woks of such authors as Anais Nin, Olga Broumas, Julia Kristeva, Jane Rule, Luce Iriguray, and Sigmund Freud, to films such as Emmanuelle, Desert Hearts, Entre Nous, and I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, to professional tennis.

Looks at the life and legacy of King Solomon, describing his temple, the nature of his wisdom, and his biblical writings.

How can an academic scientist honour knowledge for its own sake, while also using knowledge as a means to generate wealth? This text investigates the trends & effects of modern, commercialised academic science.

God has assumed a significant role in the sex lives of believers. It is God who decrees which types of sexual expression are permitted, and which forbidden. Through the Church, a patriarchal sexual landscape has been enacted to control sexual bodies which exerts its influence even in our secular culture. The Good News of the Body is a wide-ranging anthology on feminist sexual theology. Noting that Jesus, while being declared divine, took human form, the volume questions what happens when the flesh, rather than the Word, is placed at the center of theological reflection. What happens when women's bodies form the incarnational starting point for sexual politics and theology? Contributors, including Rosemary Ruether, Mary Hunt, and Melissa Raphael, examine such topics as the possibility of a Roman Catholic approach to sexuality bringing together the three aspects of Christian love of eros, philia, and agape; Jewish sexual and mystical teaching; the de-sexing of the disabled; erotic celibacy; human sexuality and the concept of the goddess; and the sometimes surprisingly similar conclusions about contraception reached by feminists and popes.

In a top-secret research facility, a team of scientists receive an unexpected message from the depths of space. At first, the blizzard of sub-nuclear particles seemed random. But soon a pattern emerges that could only have come from an alien intelligence far more advanced than our own. Now it's up to Irish mathematician Tom Petrie to decode these messages and unlock their secret—one that is believed to contain an unimaginable technological breakthrough, and has the power to change the course of human history...unless the world's superpowers succeed in suppressing the truth. Can Petrie and his team unmask the message's true intent while evading those who aim to crush its extraordinary revelations? A desperate race against time—and through space—is about to begin....in The Lure by Bill Napier.

A major reassessment of the achievements of British playwright Harold Pinter by an international group of scholars.