Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin, and the Battle Between Science and Religion

Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin, and the Battle Between Science and Religion

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  • Author: Michael Taylor
  • Publisher: Liveright Publishing
  • ISBN: 1324093935
  • Category : History
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 538

“Vivid with a Mesozoic bestiary” (Tom Holland), this on-the-ground, page-turning narrative weaves together the chance discovery of dinosaurs and the rise of the secular age. When the twelve-year-old daughter of a British carpenter pulled some strange-looking bones from the country’s southern shoreline in 1811, few people dared to question that the Bible told the accurate history of the world. But Mary Anning had in fact discovered the “first” ichthyosaur, and over the next seventy-five years—as the science of paleontology developed, as Charles Darwin posited radical new theories of evolutionary biology, and as scholars began to identify the internal inconsistencies of the Scriptures—everything changed. Beginning with the archbishop who dated the creation of the world to 6 p.m. on October 22, 4004 BC, and told through the lives of the nineteenth-century men and women who found and argued about these seemingly impossible, history-rewriting fossils, Impossible Monsters reveals the central role of dinosaurs and their discovery in toppling traditional religious authority, and in changing perceptions about the Bible, history, and mankind’s place in the world.


Impossible Monsters

Impossible Monsters

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  • Author: Kasey Lansdale
  • Publisher:
  • ISBN: 9781596065055
  • Category : Horror tales
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 0

"Eschewing romantic vampires and shambling zombies, this collection presents monsters that do not merely kill, but suddenly and incomprehensibly consume, destroy, and reduce their victims to mere bones... Readers who stay up late wondering if there really is something out there will find these stories to be perfect nightmare fodder"--Publishers Weekly.


The Impossible Zoo

The Impossible Zoo

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  • Author: Leo Ruickbie
  • Publisher: Robinson
  • ISBN: 1472136454
  • Category : Fiction
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 383

'Leo Ruickbie's impeccably-written The Impossible Zoo is a menagerie like no other, as its exotic inhabitants are fabulous in every sense of the word. So for anyone who has ever wished that dragons and unicorns were real, for anyone who believes that they are, and for anyone who peruses bestiaries with unbridled joy, this magical, mystical, and truly memorable book is definitely for you - and for me!' Dr Karl Shuker, author of A Manifestation of Monsters HERE BE DRAGONS! Here you will find the things that once made the woods wild and the nights to be feared; that made ancient map-makers write, 'Here be Dragons'. The Impossible Zoo is a biology of the supernatural - a study of the life of things that never lived. This world of mermaids and unicorns, now confined to fantasy, but once believed to exist, is a world of the imagination that still affects us today. Wonderfully illustrated throughout, it also provides sources as a guide to further study and exploration. 'For anyone who has ever wished that dragons and unicorns were real, this magical, mystical and truly memorable book is definitely for you - and for me!' Dr Karl Shuker, author of A Manifestation of Monsters 'Ruickbie's level of scholarship is impressive and he presents his conclusions with great literary skill in readable and attractive prose. The results are truly fascinating. Very highly recommended.' Revd Lionel Fanthorpe, FRSA, author and President of the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena


Emblematic Monsters

Emblematic Monsters

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  • Author: A.W. Bates
  • Publisher: BRILL
  • ISBN: 9004332995
  • Category : Medical
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 340

In early modern Europe, monstrous births were significant events that were seen alive by many people, and dissected, embalmed and collected after death. Emblematic Monsters is a social history of monstrous births as seen through popular print, scholarly books and the proceedings of learned societies. Representations of monsters are considered in the context of their roles as wonders and emblems, and studies of the anatomy of monsters are discussed along with contemporary theories of their origin. By approaching accounts of monstrous births not only as a literary form but also as descriptions of real-life cases, similarities between the pre-scientific recording of wonders and the scientific case report can be explored. Most impressively, A.W. Bates draws upon his own experience of diagnosis of birth defects to summarise more than two hundred original descriptions of monstrous births and compare them with modern diagnostic categories. Emblematic Monsters is an up-to-date approach to a classical yet under-explored subject: gruesome, compelling and monstrous.


Monsters

Monsters

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  • Author: John Michael Greer
  • Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
  • ISBN: 0738716006
  • Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 155

Of course that monster hiding under your bed when you were little didn't really exist. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, demons—they're simply figments of our imagination, right? After all, their existence has never been scientifically proven. But there is one giant problem with such an easy dismissal of these creepy creatures: people keep encountering them. Join occult scholar John Michael Greer for a harrowing journey into the reality of the impossible. Combining folklore, Western magical philosophy, and actual field experience, Monsters: An Investigator's Guide to Magical Beings is required reading for both active and armchair monster hunters. Between these covers you'll find a chilling collection of fiendish facts and folklore, including: Why true vampires are the least attractive—and most destructive—of all monsters The five different kinds of ghosts Magical origins of the werewolf legends How to survive a chimera encounter (Jersey Devil, chupacabra, Mothman) The hidden connections between faery lore and UFOs Where dragons are found today How to investigate a monster sighting Natural and ritual magic techniques for dealing with hostile monsters This 10th anniversary edition of the quintessential guide to magical beings features a new preface, new chapters on chimeras and zombies, and updates on werewolves, dragons, and the fae.


The Art of Fantasy

The Art of Fantasy

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  • Author: S. Elizabeth
  • Publisher: Frances Lincoln
  • ISBN: 0711279969
  • Category : Art
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 242

This beautiful, fully illustrated book presents a compendium of artworks throughout history which have been inspired by myth, fantasy and the unreal. Artists have explored imaginary worlds and fantastical creatures for centuries, expressing the unreal and impossible, the mystical and mythical, via the medium of paint. But what draws them to the imaginary, the uncharted and the unknown? Is it merely an escape from reality? Or are they seeking a greater understanding of the human experience, or perhaps the very meaning of life itself? With myriad styles and methods of expression, what links artists through the ages? And how have these visual flights of fancy and imagination changed over the course of time? The Art of Fantasy is a visual sourcebook of all that is fantastical – from fine art to illustration, and from surrealists and symbolists to the creatives working in undefined territories. While the artists in our history books (Blake, Goya, Dali, Magritte, Ernst) first brought fantasy art to the galleries, it was the twentieth century artists who brought it to the masses. It is in this book that, for the first time, they are united and equally weighted, presenting a mesmerising and thoughtful curation of the best fantasy artwork out there. This is an inspiring collection for fans of myth, magic, fantasy and art history.


Recycling Culture(s)

Recycling Culture(s)

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  • Author: Sara Martín
  • Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
  • ISBN: 1443808202
  • Category : Social Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 220

Culture survives today by means of a constant recycling, optimistically trying to overcome its own decadence in the 21st century. Recycling Culture(s) addresses from a variety of perspectives this strategy, analyzing not only a wide range of texts but also of cultural practices. As the volume shows, culture thrives on a permanent state of flux, borrowing materials for its own survival wherever they are found and always favouring hybridity. This refers not only to how texts cross genre and medium boundaries but also to how identities and the very idea of culture grow out of recycling what is at hand both synchronically and diachronically. Divided in two sections, ‘Part I: Recycling the Book and the Screen’ and ‘Part II: Recycling Identity, Consumption and History,’ the twenty essays offered here are the work of an international group of scholars dealing with different linguistic and geographical environments. A primary aim of the volume is breaking away with the compartmentalisation of Cultural Studies into non-communicating linguistic domains to offer an eclectic, engaging mixture of approaches. This is the twelfth monographic volume of the series Culture & Power edited by members of the permanent seminar on Cultural Studies ‘Culture & Power,’ which has organised an international yearly conference since 1995. "Recycling Culture(s)/ is the latest in the series of Culture and Power books to come out of Spain. It features essays not only from many of the most distinguished cultural studies scholars on the Iberian Peninsular but many from beyond its borders. What makes this volume so stimulating, relevant and exiting is that the contributors range across an impressive assortment of contexts of (and for) recycling. The book’s thematic base is impressive taking in, as it does, the relevance of recycling history, identity and a multitude of popular texts (written and audio-visual). All contributions are theoretically informed and the authors consider subjects from comic-book heroes, James Bond and /Clockwork Orange/ to African-Carribbean women, Australian national myth and mobile phones. The contributors and editor should be congratulated on producing a theoretically coherent, challenging and important intervention into contemporary cultural studies. " Dr David Walton, Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies at the Univerisity of Murcia, Spain, author Introducing Cultural Studies: Learning Through Practice /(Sage, 2008)


Monstrous Reflection

Monstrous Reflection

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  • Author: Petra Rehling
  • Publisher: BRILL
  • ISBN: 1848884079
  • Category : Social Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 236


Writing and Filming the Painting

Writing and Filming the Painting

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  • Author: Laura M. Sager Eidt
  • Publisher: Rodopi
  • ISBN: 9042024577
  • Category : Art
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 243

This innovative interdisciplinary study compares the uses of painting in literary texts and films. In developing a framework of four types of ekphrasis, the author argues for the expansion of the concept of ekphrasis by demonstrating its applicability as interpretive tool to films about the visual arts and artists. Analyzing selected works of art by Goya, Rembrandt, and Vermeer and their ekphrastic treatment in various texts and films, this book examines how the medium of ekphrasis affects the representation of the visual arts in order to show what the differences imply about issues such as gender roles and the function of art for the construction of a personal or social identity. Because of its highly cross-disciplinary nature, this book is of interest not only to scholars of literature and aesthetics, but also for scholars of film studies. By providing an innovative approach to discussing non-documentary films about artists, the author shows that ekphrasis is a useful tool for exploring both aesthetic concerns and ideological issues in film. This study also addresses art historians as it deals with the reception of major artists in European literature and film throughout the 20th century.


If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People?

If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People?

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  • Author: John Lloyd
  • Publisher: Crown
  • ISBN: 0307460673
  • Category : Reference
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 418

John Lloyd and John Mitchinson have proven themselves to be masters at digging up obscure facts, abstruse information, and amusing anecdotes and presenting them effortlessly, somewhat slyly, with either great wit or at least a little bit of tongue in cheek. Their gifts are on full display in Quote Interesting, a lively, wonderfully enjoyable anthology of hundreds of quotes you probably have never heard before, arranged thematically from A to Z. From laugh-out-loud-funny bon mots to some real headscratchers, Lloyd and Mitchinson have gathered a universe of star-studded blurbs like: “The Beatles are dying in the wrong order.” —Victor Lewis Smith “When you forget to eat, you know you’re alive.” —Henry James “I think people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.” —Nancy Reagan “You know ‘that look’ women get when they want sex? Me neither.” —Steve Martin