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Explores the meaning of Jewishness in light of the increasing assimilation of America's Jews and suggests ways to preserve Jewish identity.

"This masterful use of Inquisition records and other sources reveals the roles of Portuguese Jews in colonial Brazil and, more broadly, in networks that spanned the Atlantic from Brazil to Amsterdam, Africa, the Caribbean, New York, and other places."--Andrew Sluyter, author of Colonialism and Landscape: Postcolonial Theory and Applications The diaspora of Portuguese Jews and New Christians, known as Gente da Nação (People of the Nation), is considered the largest European diaspora of the early modern period. Portuguese Jews not only founded the first congregations and synagogues in Brazil (Recife and Olinda), but when they left Brazil they played an imperative role in establishing the first Jewish communities in Suriname, throughout the Caribbean, and in North America. Drawing on nearly twenty thousand digitized dossiers of the Portuguese Inquisition, this volume offers a comprehensive, critical overview informed by both relatively inaccessible secondary sources and a significant body of primary sources.

In this second of three volumes which survey the dynamic interplay of Christianity and Western thought from the earliest centuries through the twentieth century, Steve Wilkens and Alan Padgett tell the story of the monumental changes of the nineteenth century.

An extraordinarily accessible, illuminating chronicle of the great moments of scientific discovery in the 20th century, and an exploration into the minds of the remarkable men and women behind them. We know and read the literary masterpieces; how many of us have had the opportunity not only to read but understand the masterpieces of science that describe the very moment of discovery? The last century has seen an explosion of creativity and insight that led to breakthroughs in every field of science: from the theory of relativity to the first quantum model of the atom to the mapping of the structure of DNA, these discoveries profoundly changed how we understand the world and our place in it. Alan Lightman tells the stories of two dozen breakthroughs made by such brilliant scientists as Einstein, Bohr, McClintock and Pauling, among others, drawing on his unique background as a scientist and novelist to reveal the process of scientific discovery at its greatest. He outlines the intellectual and emotional landscape of each discovery, portrays the personalities and human drama of the scientists involved, and explains the significance and impact of the work. Finally, he gives an unprecedented and exhilarating guided tour through each of the original papers.

The Internet Revolution in the Sciences and Humanities takes a new look at C.P. Snow's distinction between the two cultures, a distinction that provides the driving force for a book that contends that the Internet revolution has sown the seeds for transformative changes in both the sciences and the humanities. It is because of this common situation that the humanities can learn from the sciences, as well as the sciences from the humanities, in matters central to both: generating, evaluating, and communicating knowledge on the Internet. In a succession of chapters, the authors deal with the state of the art in web-based journal articles and books, web sites, peer review, and post-publication review. In the final chapter, they address the obstacles the academy and scientific organizations face in taking full advantage of the Internet: outmoded tenure and promotion procedures, the cost of open access, and restrictive patent and copyright law. They also argue that overcoming these obstacles does not require revolutionary institutional change. In their view, change must be incremental, making use of the powers and prerogatives scientific and academic organizations already have.

Knowledge work is now the reigning business paradigm and affects even the world of higher education. But what perspective can the knowledge of the humanities and arts contribute to a world of knowledge work whose primary mission is business? And what is the role of information technology as both the servant of the knowledge economy and the medium of a new technological cool? In The Laws of Cool, Alan Liu reflects on these questions as he considers the emergence of new information technologies and their profound influence on the forms and practices of knowledge.

"Porphyrius Calliopas was the greatest of all the heroes of the sixth century Byzantine hippodrome, celebrated in the Anthology and in monumental reliefs. Only two bases of monuments to Porphyrius survive, the second found in 1963. This book, first published in 1973, presented the first published study of this second base, elucidating the iconography and explaining the inscriptions, and also reassessing the first base in the light of the new evidence. Matching the epigrams of the bases to those in the anthology, Cameron infers that there were a further five monuments to Porphyrius and contemporary charioteers, now lost, and reconstructs the careers of the charioteers, their fame and material rewards. He also discusses the changing fortunes of the hippodrome under the emperors Anastasius and Justinian, the vexed issue of faction violence, and the important way in which the victorious charioteer was seen as a reflection of the victorious Emperor." -- Book jacket

Alan Wilde identifies and defends what he calls "midfiction," which rejects both the extremes of realism and experimental, self-reflexive fiction. He offers as examples the best works of Apple, Berger, Barthelme, Pynchon, and Paley.

This book contains essays that focus on the profound issues and the philosophical significance of the Holocaust.