Against Everyone With Conner Habib

'Cold iron' is a phrase that is used by fishermen as a euphemism to avoid misfortune at sea. This book provides a lively and compelling insight into the use of such euphemisms, which form a part of the work culture and occupational lore of Irish fishermen. The included material is based to a large extent on personal accounts and anecdotes from fishermen, and from historical sources. Specifically, it focuses on the belief that certain entities should not be mentioned while at sea, or while engaged in the business of fishing, for fear of attracting misfortune. Often, stock euphemisms or circumlocutions are used for the entities in question. Objects of ill omen typically involve animals, such as foxes, hares, pigs etc., and certain categories of people, such as red-haired women. This study attempts to place these beliefs in their historical context-an exercise that reveals a pedigree somewhat more impressive than the material itself might initially suggest-while also discussing the way in which knowledge of the beliefs has persisted. The book touches on issues such as group identity and social cohesion, and on the notion that the name avoidances might have served (as one of their primary functions) to focus the fisherman on the business at hand. As well as addressing questions of origin and function, this study examines the material as an element of contemporary folklore. Factors such as economic context and the risks inherent in the fishing industry are considered. The psychological and sociological dimensions of the material are also examined from a folkloristic perspective, with due emphasis on the essentially collective nature of the tradition. The study draws, to a considerable degree, on interviews conducted with fishermen and others involved in the industry from the late twentieth century to the present. It includes previously unpublished material from the archives at the National Folklore Collection in UCD. (Series: Scribhinni Bealoidis / Folklore Studies) [Subject: Folklore, Celtic Studies, History, Maritime History Memoir, Anthropology, Irish Studies]

A bold and uncompromising feminist manifesto that shows women and girls how to defy, disrupt, and destroy the patriarchy by embracing the qualities they’ve been trained to avoid. Seizing upon the energy of the #MeToo movement, feminist activist Mona Eltahawy advocates a muscular, out-loud approach to teaching women and girls to harness their power through what she calls the “seven necessary sins” that women and girls are not supposed to commit: to be angry, ambitious, profane, violent, attention-seeking, lustful, and powerful. All the necessary “sins” that women and girls require to erupt. Eltahawy knows that the patriarchy is alive and well, and she is fed the hell up: Sexually assaulted during hajj at the age of fifteen. Groped on the dance floor of a night club in Montreal at fifty. Countless other injustices in the years between. Illuminating her call to action are stories of activists and ordinary women around the world—from South Africa to China, Nigeria to India, Bosnia to Egypt—who are tapping into their inner fury and crossing the lines of race, class, faith, and gender that make it so hard for marginalized women to be heard. Rather than teaching women and girls to survive the poisonous system they have found themselves in, Eltahawy arms them to dismantle it. Brilliant, bold, and energetic, The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls is a manifesto for all feminists in the fight against patriarchy.

The definitive history of how witchcraft and black magic have survived, through the modern era and into the present day Cursed Britain unveils the enduring power of witchcraft, curses and black magic in modern times. Few topics are so secretive or controversial. Yet, whether in the 1800s or the early 2000s, when disasters struck or personal misfortunes mounted, many Britons found themselves believing in things they had previously dismissed – dark supernatural forces. Historian Thomas Waters here explores the lives of cursed or bewitched people, along with the witches and witch-busters who helped and harmed them. Waters takes us on a fascinating journey from Scottish islands to the folklore-rich West Country, from the immense territories of the British Empire to metropolitan London. We learn why magic caters to deep-seated human needs but see how it can also be abused, and discover how witchcraft survives by evolving and changing. Along the way, we examine an array of remarkable beliefs and rituals, from traditional folk magic to diverse spiritualities originating in Africa and Asia. This is a tale of cynical quacks and sincere magical healers, depressed people and furious vigilantes, innocent victims and rogues who claimed to possess evil abilities. Their spellbinding stories raise important questions about the state’s role in regulating radical spiritualities, the fragility of secularism and the true nature of magic.

Every porn scene is a record of people at work. But on-camera labor is only the beginning of the story. Porn Work takes readers behind the scenes to explore what porn performers think of their work and how they intervene to hack it. Blending extensive fieldwork with feminist and antiwork theorizing, Porn Work details entrepreneurial labor on the boundaries between pleasure and tedium. Rejecting any notion that sex work is an aberration from straight work, it reveals porn workers' creative strategies as prophetic of a working landscape in crisis. In the end, it looks to what porn has to tell us about what's wrong with work, and what it might look like to build something better.

This English translation of Gebser’s major work, Ursprung und Gegenwart (Stuttgart, Deutsche Verlag, 1966), offers certain fundamental insights which should be beneficial to any sensitive scientist and makes it available to the English-speaking world for the recognition it deserves. “The path which led Gebser to his new and universal perception of the world is, briefly, as follows. In the wake of materialism and social change, man had been described in the early years of our century as the “dead end” of nature. Freud had redefined culture as illness—a result of drive sublimation; Klages had called the spirit (and he was surely speaking of the hypertrophied intellect) the “adversary of the soul,” propounding a return to a life like that of the Pelasgi, the aboriginal inhabitants of Greece; and Spengler had declared the “Demise of the West” during the years following World War I. The consequences of such pessimism continued to proliferate long after its foundations had been superseded. It was with these foundations—the natural sciences—that Gebser began. As early as Planck it was known that matter was not at all what materialists had believed it to be, and since 1943 Gebser has repeatedly emphasized that the so-called crisis of Western culture was in fact an essential restructuration.… Gebser has noted two results that are of particular significance: first, the abandonment of materialistic determinism, of a one-sided mechanistic-causal mode of thought; and second, a manifest “urgency of attempts to discover a universal way of observing things, and to overcome the inner division of contemporary man who, as a result of his one-sided rational orientation, thinks only in dualisms.” Against this background of recent discoveries and conclusions in the natural sciences Gebser discerned the outlines of a potential human universality. He also sensed the necessity to go beyond the confines of this first treatise so as to include the humanities (such as political economics and sociology) as well as the arts in a discussion along similar lines. This was the point of departure of The Ever-Present Origin. From In memoriam Jean Gebser by Jean Keckeis

“‘War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength’―these are the three slogans of the ‘Ministry of Truth.’ Much of what Orwell described in a visionary way [in his book 1984] has since become reality. Our entire society is indeed a surveillance state, and millions of people willingly entrust all their personal data to the controls of ‘Big Brother’―that is, the World Wide Web. We live in a ‘smart reality’ that on the surface doesn’t appear nearly as brutal or in human as the one George Orwell described. But is this ‘smart dictatorship’ actually any less threatening to the future of humanity?” ― Steffen Hartmann (from the foreword)In a series of vibrant and lively essays, Steffen Hartmann focuses on a little-known but critically important theme relating to the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, who described the collaboration between human souls connected to the Platonic and Aristotelian “schools,” or “groupings,” both on Earth and in the spiritual world. These groups of souls work in a wider metaphysical collective known as the “Michael School,” led by the Archangel Michael, the ruling Spirit of our age. Prior to birth, millions of human souls were prepared in this school to face the challenges of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We might have forgotten these preexistence experiences, but they can be awakened within us, says Hartmann. Indeed, it’s possible to reconnect consciously with earlier incarnations and to perceive our karma. The book begins with this theme and leads to Rudolf Steiner’s “Michael Prophecy” of 1924, his vision of the millennium and the era in which we live, especially the crucial period between 2012 and 2033. Dealing with the “anthroposophic block” in the emerging holistic building of humanity, the author contextualizes the topic in connection with direct personal experiences. Sharing such experiences can stimulate self-reflection in the anthroposophic movement and contribute real spiritual substance to contemporary culture. This book provides stimulation to spiritual seekers who carry profound questions about life in the modern world.