Beyond the Infinite: The Ascent to Dionysus is the first fruit of what Bushashia calls the Post-Scientific Revolution. Bushashia opens with an attack on science's belief in cause and effect, while he puts forth his own anti-causal world-logic, which declares that the world is music. He seeks a world-understanding that not only comes to terms with time, but also fully embraces the becoming nature of actuality. Against both free will and scientific determinism, Bushashia is a fatalist, yet a fatalist who affirms the will-to-power. Against both conservatism and liberalism, Bushashia embarks upon a Dionysian view of life that includes belief in aristocracy. His book also includes new insights into the sublime and the beautiful, a spectacular interpretation of European history, and a strong critique of rationalism. All this is done instructively and with great clarity, making his work a very pleasant and delectable read.

The role of the women's movement in transforming American society is explored fully in this colorful chronicle of a social revolution, weaving together years of research and dozens of interviews to cover events from the publication of The Feminine Mystique in the 1960s to the present. Reprint.

The success of storytelling in games depends on the entire development team game designers, artists, writers, programmers and musicians, etc. working harmoniously together towards a singular artistic vision. Interactive Stories and Video Game Art is first to define a common design language for understanding and orchestrating interactive masterpieces using techniques inherited from the rich history of art and craftsmanship that games build upon. Case studies of hit games like The Last of Us, Journey, and Minecraft illustrate the vital components needed to create emotionally-complex stories that are mindful of gaming s principal relationship between player actions and video game aesthetics. This book is for developers of video games and virtual reality, filmmakers, gamification and transmedia experts, and everybody else interested in experiencing resonant and meaningful interactive stories.

The role of mythology in ritual and in the origins of customs, cults, and hero worship are covered by this comparative survey. Discusses legends of the Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Canaanites, more.

The history of erotic literature is long and distinguished. It holds valuable insights and lessons for the general reader, the sociologist and the student of sexual behaviour. Because of the inherent value to all students of the human condition of these classic erotic works, these books have not been altered in any way, shape or form. These stories are presented to the reader exactly as they first appeared in print and all the subtleties are exposed to the readers' view.

What does the practice of torture presuppose about human beings and human society? How does one explain a society in which institutional torture persists despite massive changes in government and class structure? What, indeed, are the social foundations of modern torture? In Culture and Modernity, Darius M. Rejali investigates torture in Iran in order to understand and critically reconsider the politics and psychology of modern torture. In a world in which one out of every three governments uses torture, Rejali points to a common past, one shared by Iranians and non-Iranians alike, that supports this practice. My aim, Rejali writes, is to use the study of torture, and of punishment more generally, to unearth deep and important assumptions about society, history, politics, and the good life' that I believe underpin the life of a torturer. Exploring the four principle explanations of modern torture those offered by human rights activists, modernization theorists, state terrorist theorists such as Noam Chomsky, and post-structuralists, especially Michel Foucault Rejali asks, Do the accounts of political violence that we have developed over the past century have any real explanatory or even moral significance in today's world, or are they just consolations in the face of events we cannot fully understand? His answers lead him to reconsider how Middle Eastern and European history are written and move him to question cherished assumptions about state formation, modernization, and postmodernism. Torture and Modernity is a deeply unsettling book it contains not only graphic verbal passages, but an extensive photographic essay yet it is intended to serve as a guide to rethinking current attitudes and reshaping political policies. How people are punished necessarily invokes conceptions of what human beings are and what they might become. A work such as this offers an understanding of what it means to become modern, and it is only when this notion of modernity is made manifest and analyzed that one can firmly grasp the prospects for a world without torture.