In selecting The Lists of the Past as her nomination for reissue, Cheryl Strayed was moved by "the intelligent, emotional depth and breadth" of the stories, all but two of which originally appeared in The New Yorker. Julie Hayden's New York hums with eccentric observation, humor and grit. Her leisurely Connecticut countryside is fresh with tilled soil, distant lapping waves and the summer breeze. Whether describing a child astonished with new perceptions, a distraught woman walking on Fifth Avenue with her concealed liquor flask, or a pair of lovers on a country picnic, her writing is ardent and precise, placing us at the center of her characters' lives and destinies. Her masterful voice and distinctive clarity show us the often concealed ways our pain and joy turn into knowledge.

Renowned Eastern European author Adam Michnik was jailed for more than six years by the communist regime in Poland for his dissident activities. He was an outspoken voice for democracy in the world divided by the Iron Curtain and has remained so to the present day. In this thoughtful and provocative work, the man the Financial Times named “one of the 20 most influential journalists in the world” strips fundamentalism of its religious component and examines it purely as a secular political phenomenon. Comparing modern-day Poland with postrevolutionary France, Michnik offers a stinging critique of the ideological “virus of fundamentalism” often shared by emerging democracies: the belief that, by using techniques of intimidating public opinion, a state governed by “sinless individuals” armed with a doctrine of the only correct means of organizing human relations can build a world without sin. Michnik employs deep historical analysis and keen political observation in his insightful five-point philosophical meditation on morality in public life, ingeniously expounding on history, religion, moral thought, and the present political climate in his native country and throughout Europe.

Lists, one of the most archaic literary genres, stand behind many of our complex mental or rhetorical structures and they often influence the way we conceptualize the world (even if we are unaware of it). They seem plain but may conceal a complicated inner logic. They are agrammatical but may tell a story. Their basic features – selection, order, and layout – may be enough to give them enormous power: by including they exclude, by ordering they create a hierarchy, by taking on particular physical aspects they place themselves into a specific context. These and other issues are discussed in the present transdisciplinary volume collecting the best revised contributions to a workshop on lists held at the Center for Theoretical Study in Prague in November 2008. Each of the 13 articles by researchers from seven countries provides a case study on the subject of list. The fields covered include late antique, medieval and early modern history, philology, philosophy, cognitive and computer science. The contributors aim both at presenting particular cases – specific lists or list-types – and, at the same time, at addressing methodological issues: exploring the ways of researching lists in their particular disciplines, formulating relevant research themes and questions, contextualizing the subject. Since theoretical discourse on lists has not been established yet, this volume should be seen as a first step in the process, showing the variety of possible research directions on a transdisciplinary level, and raising interest in the topic, which, although it may seem a bit obscure at first, has indeed a lot to offer.

This book is a comprehensive examination of Olympic victor lists. The origins, development, content, and structure of Olympic victor lists are explored and explained, and a number of important questions, such as the source and reliability of the year of 776 for the first Olympics, are addressed.

In this history of new media technologies, leading media and cultural theorists examine new media against the background of traditional media such as film, photography, and print in order to evaluate the multiple claims made about the benefits and freedom of digital media.

This book provides a concise introduction to lists in literature from the early modern period to the twenty-first century. Tracing the changing functions of the literary list across time, it offers a broad range of case studies which situate selected enumerations in their respective contexts and demonstrate the versatility and creative potential of the list form. Starting with a review of previous research on the literary list, the book discusses four main constellations of enumeration: series and the great chain of being; itemization and enumerative realism; ‘letteracettera’ and experimental list-making; ‘white noise’ and creative exploits of enumeration between formal playfulness and existential exploration. The epilogue offers an analytical toolkit for the study of literary lists based on rhetorical theory.

This text explores four major features of human society in their ecological and historical context: the origins of priests and organised religion; the rise of military men in an agrarian society; economic expansion and growth; and civilising and decivilising trends over time.