Go Southwest, Old Man,, a sort of personal remake of 'Go West, Young Man', the founding episteme of the American nineteenth century, conciliates these two souls (well, not to be pretentious, let's simply say two sides) that have actually always lived in harmony. This is a book generated by a quarter of a century spent wandering around the canyons and deserts of Arizona, Colorado, Utah and, above all New Mexico, with a view to penetrating the by now universal legend of the West, approaching the cultures (English, Hispanic and native American), and mastering the literature. The slant is composite: melding the scholarly with the informative and the travel journal, and the writing is composite too, because the book speaks English and Italian. It talks about cinema (lots of John Ford) and about detective stories, the most popular genre here, about visual arts and Latino folklore, about the legend of the West, the so-called 'Soul of the Southwest', and the kitsch style of Santa Fe. And it talks about (and with) some of the greatest writers that the Southwest has spawned: Rudolfo Anaya, Stanley Crawford, John Nichols and Hillerman. So what we have is a first-hand experience of the Southwest; where the ego is not entrenched within a precise disciplinary role but opens up - and exposes itself - to the thrilling risk of the discovery that can renew it.

The Routledge Handbook of Chicana/o Studies is a unique interdisciplinary resource for students, libraries, and researchers interested in the largest and most rapidly growing racial-ethnic community in the United States and elsewhere which can either be identified as Chicano, Latino, Hispanic, or Mexican-American. Structured around seven comprehensive themes, the volume is for students of American studies, the Social Sciences, and the Humanities. The volume is organized around seven critical domains in Chicana/o Studies: Chicana/o History and Social Movements Borderlands, Global Migrations, Employment, and Citizenship Cultural Production in Global and Local Settings Chicana/o Identities Schooling, Language, and Literacy Violence, Resistance, and Empowerment International Perspectives The Handbook will stress the importance of the historical origins of the Chicana/o Studies field. Starting from myth of origins, Aztlán, alleged cradle of the Chicana/o people lately substantiated by the findings of archaeology and anthropology, over Spanish/Indigenous relations until the present time. Essays will explore cultural and linguistic hybridism and showcase artistic practices (visual arts, music, and dance) through popular (folklore) or high culture achievements (museums, installations) highlighting the growth of a critical perspective grounded on key theoretical formulations including borderlands theories, intersectionalities, critical race theory, and cultural analysis.

It's a familiar story: a beautiful woman is abducted and her husband journeys to recover her. This story’s best-known incarnation is also a central Greek myth—the abduction of Helen that led to the Trojan War. Stealing Helen surveys a vast range of folktales and texts exhibiting the story pattern of the abducted beautiful wife and makes a detailed comparison with the Helen of Troy myth. Lowell Edmunds shows that certain Sanskrit, Welsh, and Old Irish texts suggest there was an Indo-European story of the abducted wife before the Helen myth of the Iliad became known. Investigating Helen’s status in ancient Greek sources, Edmunds argues that if Helen was just one trope of the abducted wife, the quest for Helen’s origin in Spartan cult can be abandoned, as can the quest for an Indo-European goddess who grew into the Helen myth. He explains that Helen was not a divine essence but a narrative figure that could replicate itself as needed, at various times or places in ancient Greece. Edmunds recovers some of these narrative Helens, such as those of the Pythagoreans and of Simon Magus, which then inspired the Helens of the Faust legend and Goethe. Stealing Helen offers a detailed critique of prevailing views behind the "real" Helen and presents an eye-opening exploration of the many sources for this international mythical and literary icon.

When Hudson’s Bay Company surveyor Peter Fidler made contact with the Ktunaxa at the Gap of the Oldman River in the winter of 1792, his Piikáni guides brought him to the river’s namesake. These were the playing grounds where Napi, or Old Man, taught the various nations how to play a game as a way of making peace. In the centuries since, travellers, adventurers, and scholars have recorded several accounts of Old Man’s Playing Ground and of the hoop-and-arrow game that was played there. Although it has been destroyed, much can be learned from an interdisciplinary study of Old Man’s Playing Ground. Oral traditions of the Piikáni and other First Nations of the Northwest Plains and Interior Plateau, together with textual records spanning centuries, show it to be a place of enduring cultural significance irrespective of its physical remains. Knowledge of the site and the hoop-and-arrow game played there is widespread, in keeping with historic and ethnographic accounts of multiple groups meeting and gambling at the site. In this work, oral tradition, history, and ethnography are brought together with a geomorphic assessment of the playing ground’s most probable location—a floodplain scoured and rebuilt by floodwaters of the Oldman—and the archaeology of adjacent prehistoric campsite DlPo-8. Taken together,the locale can be understood as a nexus for cultural interaction and trade,through the medium of gambling and games, on the natural frontier between peoples of the Interior Plateau and Northwest Plains.

"Taiping Guangji" （太平广记） is the first collection of ancient classical Chinese documentary novels. The book has 500 volumes with 10 catalogues . It is a kind of book based on the documentary stories of the Han Dynasty and the Song Dynasty. 14 people including Li Fang, Hu Mongolian ﹑ Li Mu , Xu Xuan , Wangke Zhen , Song white , Lv Wenzhong worked under Song Taizong Emperor’s command for the compilation. It began in the second year of Taiping Xingguo (977 A.D) and was completed in the following year (978 Ad.). This book is basically a collection of ancient stories compiled by category. The book is divided into 92 categories according to the theme, and is divided into more than 150 details. The story of the gods and spirits in the book accounts for the largest proportion, such as the fifty-five volumes of the gods, the fifteen volumes of the female fairy, the twenty-five volumes of the gods, the forty volumes of the ghosts, plus the Taoism, the alchemist, the aliens, the dissidents, the interpretation and Spirit vegetation of birds and so on, basically belong to the weird story of nature, represents the mainstream of Chinese classical story. The book includes the volume of Immortals and Fairies (Vol. 1 - 70) from Tai Ping Guang Ji.

I was born in Mount Gilead, Ohio, on the 19th of December, 1844. Father moved his family to Lawrence, Kansas, in the spring of 1857. That summer we occupied the historical log cabin that J. H. Lane and Gaius Jenkins had trouble over,—resulting in the tragic death of the latter. Shortly prior to the killing of Jenkins, we moved to Peru, Indiana, where we remained until the latter part of March, 1861, when the family returned to Kansas. Myself and oldest brother traveled overland by team and wagon. We had three head of horses. We left the State line of Indiana at Danville, and crossed the Mississippi to Hannibal, Missouri, the day that General Beauregard fired on Fort Sumter. And the War of the Rebellion was on. As we were driving up a street, in the evening of that great day, an old gentleman standing at the gate in front of a cottage hailed us and asked where we were going. "To Kansas," was brother's reply. The old gentleman walked out to where we had stopped, and said: "Boys, you are goin' into a peck of trouble. Gineral Buregard cannonaded Fort Sumter to-day, and is at it yit. Boys, I'd turn round and go back to whar ye come frum." Brother said: "No, Uncle, we could never think of such a thing. Our father and mother are now at Lawrence, Kansas, and we must go to them." He replied: "That place you are going to will be a dangerous place. There has already been a power of trouble out thar whar you are goin', and thar's bound to be a heap more; and all over the nigger, too. I own nineteen of 'em, but if it would stop the spillin' of blood I would free every one of 'em to-night." This old gentleman had a kind, pleasant-looking face, wore the typical planter's hat, and seemed to take a fatherly interest in us; directed us to a certain farm house on our road where we could get accommodations for the night. And we passed on, having for the first time in our lives seen and talked with the owner of human chattels. Some neighbors came to the house where we stayed that night, and in earnest fireside talk conveyed the idea that there would be no war; for, said they, when the North finds out that we are in earnest they will not fight us. My brother, being four years older than I, took part in the evening's talk, and told them that it was but fair to leave the negro out of the question, and to consider the Union as our forefathers left it to us, and that he did not think that twenty-odd millions of people would consent to have the Union of our forefathers dismembered. The next day, as we were passing through a densely timbered region, an old negro came out from behind a large tree near the wagon-track. His wool was white as snow; his head was bared, and, holding in one hand an apology for a hat, he gave us a courteous bow, and said: "Please, Mars, is we gwine to be free?" (Their underground telegraph was already bringing word from South Carolina to Missouri.) My brother, being more diplomatic than I could or would have been at the time, said to him, "Why, you surprise me, Grandpop. You look fat and sleek and I know you have more freedom this minute than I have."