Chocolate and sugar, alcohol and tobacco, peyote and hallucinogenic mushrooms—these seductive substances have been a nexus of desire for both pleasure and profit in Mesoamerica since colonial times. But how did these substances seduce? And when and how did they come to be desired and then demanded, even by those who had never encountered them before? The contributors to this volume explore these questions across a range of times, places, and peoples to discover how the individual pleasures of consumption were shaped by social, cultural, economic, and political forces. Focusing on ingestible substances as a group, which has not been done before in the scholarly literature, the chapters in Substance and Seduction trace three key links between colonization and commodification. First, as substances that were taken into the bodies of both colonizers and colonized, these foods and drugs participated in unexpected connections among sites of production and consumption; racial and ethnic categories; and free, forced, and enslaved labor regimes. Second, as commodities developed in the long transition from mercantile to modern capitalism, each substance in some way drew its enduring power from its ability to seduce: to stimulate bodies; to alter minds; to mark class, social, and ethnic boundaries; and to generate wealth. Finally, as objects of scholarly inquiry, each substance rewards interdisciplinary approaches that balance the considerations of pleasure and profit, materiality and morality, and culture and political economy.

Chocolate and sugar, alcohol and tobacco, peyote and hallucinogenic mushrooms—these seductive substances have been a nexus of desire for both pleasure and profit in Mesoamerica since colonial times. But how did these substances seduce? And when and how did they come to be desired and then demanded, even by those who had never encountered them before? The contributors to this volume explore these questions across a range of times, places, and peoples to discover how the individual pleasures of consumption were shaped by social, cultural, economic, and political forces. Focusing on ingestible substances as a group, which has not been done before in the scholarly literature, the chapters in Substance and Seduction trace three key links between colonization and commodification. First, as substances that were taken into the bodies of both colonizers and colonized, these foods and drugs participated in unexpected connections among sites of production and consumption; racial and ethnic categories; and free, forced, and enslaved labor regimes. Second, as commodities developed in the long transition from mercantile to modern capitalism, each substance in some way drew its enduring power from its ability to seduce: to stimulate bodies; to alter minds; to mark class, social, and ethnic boundaries; and to generate wealth. Finally, as objects of scholarly inquiry, each substance rewards interdisciplinary approaches that balance the considerations of pleasure and profit, materiality and morality, and culture and political economy.

The League of Second Sons A secret society of younger sons, sworn to aid and abet each other, no matter the scandal or cost . . . After the scandalous demise of her marriage, Lady Olivia Carlow knows the rakes of the ton will think her fair game. So when a letter arrives bearing an indecent offer from the incorrigible Roland Devere, she seizes the opportunity. Turning the tables on the notorious rogue, she blackmails him into playing her betrothed for the season. But no matter how broad his shoulders or chiseled his features, she will never fall prey to his suave charm. When Roland boasted he'd be the first into Lady Olivia's bed, he couldn't have imagined that behind those brilliant blue eyes lurked a vixen with a scheme of her own. Still, Roland is not about to abandon his original wager. If anything, learning that the lovely Olivia is as bold as she is beautiful makes him more determined to seduce her into never saying "never" again.

Seduction and Spice is not only the perfect gift, but a fabulous and authoritative cookbook as well. The delicious compilation of 130 recipes is guaranteed to have you nibbling-- on Lobster Risotto, Chocolate Mousse...or on your lover's neck! As the executive chef for two world-class cruise-ship kitchens-- the QE2 and, currently, the Royal Caribbean lines-- Rudolf Sodamin is a modern-day Cupid, uniquely qualified to make any meal into a special occasion. A book for the cook, or that special someone, Seduction and Spice promises flavorful, sensual encounters.

Augustine's Confessions is a text that seduces. But how often do its readers respond in kind? Here three scholars who share a longstanding fascination with sexuality and Christian discourse attempt to do just that. Where prior interpreters have been inclined either to defend or to criticize Augustine's views, Virginia Burrus, Mark Jordan, and Karmen MacKendrick set out both to seduce and to be seduced by his text. Often ambivalent but always passionately engaged, their readings of the Confessions center on four sets of intertwined themes--secrecy and confession, asceticism and eroticism, constraint and freedom, and time and eternity. Rather than expose Augustine's sexual history, they explore how the Confessions conjoins the erotic with the hidden, the imaginary, and the fictional. Rather than bemoan the repressiveness of his text, they uncover the complex relationship between seductive flesh and persuasive words that pervades all of its books. Rather than struggle to escape the control of the author, they embrace the painful pleasure of willed submission that lies at the erotic heart not only of the Confessions but also of Augustine's broader understanding of sin and salvation. Rather than mourn the fateful otherworldliness of his theological vision, they plumb the bottomless depths of beauty that Augustine discovers within creation, thereby extending desire precisely by refusing satisfaction. In unfolding their readings, the authors draw upon other works in Augustine's corpus while building on prior Augustinian scholarship in their own overlapping fields of history, theology, and philosophy. They also press well beyond the conventional boundaries of scholarly disciplines, conversing with such wide-ranging theorists of eroticism as Barthes, Baudrillard, Klossowski, Foucault, and Harpham. In the end, they offer not only a fresh interpretation of Augustine's famous work but also a multivocal literary-philosophical meditation on the seductive elusiveness of desire, bodies, language, and God.

This book explores the possibility that Friedrich Nietzsche simulated his madness as a form of "voluntary death," and thus that his madness functioned as the symbolic culmination of his philosophy. The book weaves together scholarly, mytho-poetic, literary critical, biographical, and dramatic genres not only to explore specifics of Nietzsche's "madness," but to question the "reason/madness" opposition in nineteenth and twentieth century thinking. A rational and scholarly study of this period of Nietzsche's "breakdown"—presented through his writings, letters, and poetry in combination with relevant historical documents and other critics' writings—is simultaneously disrupted and questioned by several non-traditional discourses or voices that break in on it. Thus, Ariadne's voice frames and unframes the research context and plays alongside it. Ariadne's voice is poetic, revelatory, rhapsodic, and prophetic, sounding much like Nietzsche's own voice during his "breakdown." Ariadne's discourse attempts to seduce through a non-rational, mytho-poetic love story which culminates in the wedding of Dionysus and Ariadne. Other non-rational discourses, critically developed and based upon the work of Nietzsche, Jean Baudrillard, and Gilles Deleuze, are given voice and work together with Ariadne to counter the usual interpretations of Nietzsche's "madness" and of what "mad" discourse is. These discourses are given the names "catastrophe," "phantasm," and "seduction." The experiment of the book is not only to offer an entirely different perspective on Nietzche's "madness" but to offer and perform new and challenging forms of affirmative discourse.