Philosophy and practices of an alternative sentencing program

When the members of the group, who had been pushed to the margins and refused a voice, began to rediscover their identity, the idea for this anthology was born." "This book will arouse interest in anyone involved in, or moved by, the "Changing Lives through Literature" program. It is truly a valuable gift for alternative learners: criminal offenders in or out of prison, displaced workers, and any reader failed by the traditional educational system."--BOOK JACKET.

A passionate, wry, and personal book about how the greatest works of literature illuminate our lives Why do we read literature? For Arnold Weinstein, the answer is clear: literature allows us to become someone else. Literature changes us by giving us intimate access to an astonishing variety of other lives, experiences, and places across the ages. Reflecting on a lifetime of reading, teaching, and writing, The Lives of Literature explores, with passion, humor, and whirring intellect, a professor’s life, the thrills and traps of teaching, and, most of all, the power of literature to lead us to a deeper understanding of ourselves and the worlds we inhabit. As an identical twin, Weinstein experienced early the dislocation of being mistaken for another person—and of feeling that he might be someone other than he had thought. In vivid readings elucidating the classics of authors ranging from Sophocles to James Joyce and Toni Morrison, he explores what we learn by identifying with their protagonists, including those who, undone by wreckage and loss, discover that all their beliefs are illusions. Weinstein masterfully argues that literature’s knowing differs entirely from what one ends up knowing when studying mathematics or physics or even history: by entering these characters’ lives, readers acquire a unique form of knowledge—and come to understand its cost. In The Lives of Literature, a master writer and teacher shares his love of the books that he has taught and been taught by, showing us that literature matters because we never stop discovering who we are.

★ Publishers Weekly starred review A Best Book of 2018 in Religion, Publishers Weekly Reading great literature well has the power to cultivate virtue, says acclaimed author Karen Swallow Prior. In this book, she takes readers on a guided tour through works of great literature both ancient and modern, exploring twelve virtues that philosophers and theologians throughout history have identified as most essential for good character and the good life. Covering authors from Henry Fielding to Cormac McCarthy, Jane Austen to George Saunders, and Flannery O'Connor to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Prior explores some of the most compelling universal themes found in the pages of classic books, helping readers learn to love life, literature, and God through their encounters with great writing. The book includes end-of-chapter reflection questions geared toward book club discussions, original artwork throughout, and a foreword by Leland Ryken. The hardcover edition was named a Best Book of 2018 in Religion by Publishers Weekly. "[A] lively treatise on building character through books.'"--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

FAIRY TALES AND MYTHS have enriched childhood for centuries. In between “Once upon a time” and “happily ever after” we embark on adventures that seem an eternity away from our everyday lives. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. In The Mysteries of Life in Children’s Literature, journey through a treasury of beloved fables and folk tales and discover the wisdom hiding within. In an age that rejects moral absolutes, children’s literature restores the meaning of good and evil, beautiful and ugly, normal and abnormal—and helps us see the nature of our world more clearly than we ever have before.

Designed for literature-based writing courses, Text Book introduces students to the idea that literary texts and ordinary spoken and written language share many of the same features. By providing imaginative methods and unique assignments that let students work with those features in their writing, Text Book involves students in the processes of exploring literature creatively, not simply consuming and analyzing it, helping them understand literature "from the inside out."

With a wealth of papers in its pages, this book examines that fundamental of human philosophy, the relationship between human beings and time. Having the human subject – the creator – at its center, literature is essentially engaged in temporality whether that of the mind or of the world of life through the creative process of writing, stage directing, or the reader’s and viewer’s reception. This text examines, among others, the work of Proust and Kafka.