Ohio Books

The Sands of Rhyme is an easy to understand book of inspirational poetry. It offers hope and comfort. There are some poems that apply to the present catastrophic situation since Semptember 11, 2001. Poems of peace and character and morals. It's a great read!

If you love poetry, this book is for you! Floriana is a natural at writing poetry. Her poems are very inspirational, about every topic imaginable. Once you begin reading the poems, you can't put the book down. Enjoy!

Dr Philip Blosser of Lenoir-Rhyne College has truly arranged a definitive study of Max Scheler's critique of Kantian ethics. Not only does this book elucidate Kantian formalism and Schelerian axiology, it also provides a necessary historical context for the Kantian legacy and Scheler's assessment of Kant's formalism. Moreover, Blosser's expertise in phenomenological thought and value theory shines through in this distinctive and peerless work. I have read the book twice and still often consult it in my studies when trying to comprehend Kantian ethics. Pick up this monograph and add it to your library. It is a phenomenological event!

The pure and awe-inspiring brilliance of Dr. Philip Blosser bursts forth from these pages like academic napalm. This book is a true gem penned in excellence by one of the greatest minds to ever grace the realm of philosophy. It should be thankfully discovered by one and all.

Richard Altick's book was required reading for a graduate school course I had in the mid 70's. This was my first introduction to the world of "detective" work within the framework of literature and I found all the stories fascinating. I kept the book for many years, loaning it out to friends for their enjoyment.

Not until a friend recently asked me about the world of the bibliographer (via reading John Dunning's books about the world of book collecting) that I remembered Altick's book and, when I looked for my copy, discovered that I had loaned it once too often and it hadn't been returned. I was delighted to find that the book is still in print and I look forward to re-reading it once again before I loan it out.

Altick's The Scholar Adventurers is a book full of adventure and detective work. When I first read it in the early 80's (the first edition), not only could I not put it down, but I immediately bought two more copies as gifts. Very soon thereafter, the book went out of print. Today I thought of The Scholar Adventurers again as I wondered if I could part with my copy: a scholar friend recently fell off his roof, breaking multiple bones. His hospitalization means a meager Christmas for his family, so I've been deciding what books I could pass along to make the holiday brighter. I decided I could not give up this book, however, even under these circumstances, unless I had some assured way of replacing my copy. Happily I do. So, after you've finished calling me selfish, check the book out for yourself. It's a great read.

A very readable memoir of challenges faced with courage and willingness to change lifestyle behavior. A gift for anyone coping with middle age and wanting to embrace "second chances" and choices! Upbeat!

Great read and very insightful and believable--would be a joy to know this woman personally as she appears to be most real.

In Seeking the One Great Remedy, Lorien Foote offers a compelling picture of nineteenth century reformer, Frank Shaw, and reveals the antebellum roots of late nineteenth century reform movements. Challenging the epistemological contours of traditional scholarship, Foote argues that the complex partnership between Shaw and his associate, Henry George, demonstrates the link between mid-nineteenth century reformist tendencies and the radical movements of the 1880s and 1890s. Foote's careful scholarship, masterful prose, and evocative style, make Seeking the One Great Remedy a necessary read for anyone attempting to understand post-Civil War reformist history.

This is the most immediately accessible work on history I have ever read. Though comprehensive and innovative enough for connisseurs, it is equally enlighteneing and enjoyable to the layperson. In talking about reform, Foote also touches on many fascinating aspects of 19th century life - such as contemporary issues facing women, interracial relations, and the intricate relationship between the north and south. Foote's writing is excellent and her explanations and analyses of her topics clear. She will also personally engage and move you in her chapter on the civil war. A must read for any history or biography lover.

It's hard to believe that Howells was a contemporary of Mark Twain. They seem to belong to different centuries: Twain to ours and Howells to Abraham Lincoln's. Howell's voice sounds necessarily a bit strange to a modern reader, but that strangeness gives him a special power.

He is inclined to narrate things from a distance. Even the agonies of a woman who has lost her lover in a war are told at a remove. In extreme cases, the narrator is telling the story as it was told by someone else who is relating events in the past. This style costs some immediacy, but it also keeps us from being totally distracted by personality. We don't root for these protagonists, but we listen to them.

And these are stories that are meant to get our ears. They demand our attention by their lack of polemic and the graceful nature of the narrative. Howells is a master.

Lynn Hoffman

This is a good book. Please buy it! (Christmas Every Day is good as a read-aloud for children)

Part III (75-124) includes Chapters 5 and 6. Chapter 5 (77-105) revisits the economic, cultural and geographic landscape of the village. Portis-Winner offers a detailed account of historical events of the Slovene people. She draws on official records, community's view of future, and survey of cultural texts (recollections, beliefs, tales, myths, autobiographies, and changing beliefs and object meanings), to successfully extrapolate the inner point of view. Chapter 5 concludes with an account of a changing value system in the peasant village.
Chapter 6 (106-124) discusses the immigrant community in Cleveland, Ohio, and should be of great interest to a linguist as it addresses the bilingual aspect of Slovene American culture. The immigrant population shows great attachment to their mother tongue, which has undergone phonological, lexical, and grammatical changes under the influence of a new environment. Portis-Winner delineates member attitudes toward the Slovene language over several migrant generations. Much of Slovene American communication is marked by code switching especially within second generation immigrants. The third generation immigrants however are said to have initially shown embarrassment at their grandparents speaking Slovenian, but later that there was some indication of the younger generation's interest in the revival of the language.
The rest of Chapter 6 elaborates on the survival and upward movement of the Slovene community. The success is ascribed to the traditional values the immigrants brought with them: stubbornness, ingenuity, hard work, loyalty to their tradition, generosity, discipline, honesty and responsibility toward family, kin, and country. Portis-Winner recounts several immigrant narratives, which, she persuasively argues, shed light on the ethnic culture as a part of a larger cultural context. The stories are significant in that they provide reference to the experience and points of view of the Slovene migrant. The indication of transformation is present in a variety of signs, verbal and non-verbal, and may be evidenced in the meaning and significance change for the original signs, the change that points to the similarities and differences between one's ethnic culture and the new environment.
Part IV (125-155) subsumes Chapters 7 and 8. Chapter 7 (127-151) surveys the major social and economic changes that bear heavily on the social and psychological state of the two communities in juxtaposition. Portis-Winner shows that global modernization has had an opposing impact on the elder generations between the two communities, while showing much affinity in the impact on the youth. Changes in values and traditions between and within these ethnic communities serve to support Portis-Winner's claim about the dynamic nature of ethnicity, boundaries of which are expanded, crossed, and re-evaluated on constant basis. By analogy, ethnic narrators in this study are seen as human signs indexing ethnicity -- an intertextual and interwoven phenomenon that comprises a complexity of identities. The author further equates ethnic actors with actors in a theater, both of which, she claims, are able to move from one world to another and therefore become transfigured or transnational.
Portis-Winner concludes the book in Chapter 8 (153-155) with a discussion of polysemous and polyfunctional nature of cultural texts. The two main points, which I derive from her study, can be encapsulated in the following thought: 1.) in order for ethnographic studies to be of value, ethnographers must work to unearth the inner point of view and formulate their conclusions after having considered a network of cultural texts, and 2.) every culture and its ethnic identity are amalgams of polysemous and polyfunctional properties of its cultural texts, which are dynamic in nature, and no view of `society' holds permanently true across time and space. Which way a tradition is going to be impacted is unpredictable. Some values and traditions may be maintained, other lost, and still many simply altered to reflect and adapt to the changes of the new environment and the new times.
This book provides a fine synopsis of the essential aspects of a thorough ethnographic study. Portis-Winner set out to conduct a heuristic ethnographic fieldwork study, which in turn provided her with the necessary experience to help define criteria for a better way of conducting ethnographic research. She accomplishes this by intimately studying two related ethnic groups during a span of 30 years. The longitudinal study affords her a quasi-insider perspective of the ethnic group and provides access to invaluable ethnic sources. This is exactly the strength of her approach and only enhances our trust in her evaluation. Because of its multi-disciplinary nature, "Semiotics of Peasants in Transition: Slovene Villagers and Their Ethnic Relatives in America" should be of interest to semioticians, ethnographers, as well as linguists and linguistic anthropologists. I also highly recommend this book to a common reader, who will find the nostalgic essence of the migrants all too familiar.
[Tamara Grivièiæ, University of Colorado, Boulder]

In her book "Semiotics of Peasants in Transition: Slovene Villagers and Their Ethnic Relatives in America," Irene Portis-Winner presents a significant semiotic study that, unlike many previous semiotic studies limited to the analysis of discourse alone, traverses multiple dimensions of cultural texts. Portis-Winner's study comprises a three-decade long fieldwork analysis of transnational and ethnic qualities binding two communities: that of the little peasant village of Žerovnica, Slovenia, and its emigrant population in Cleveland, Ohio and Hibbing, Minnesota. Special attention is also awarded to the question of ethnicity and ethnographer's or author's voice in ethnographic studies. The study considers a broad range of polysemous, multi-vocal, and polyindexical values of cultural texts unbound by time-space continuum, which in turn prompt the author to redefine ethnicity as a dynamic entity not limited by "timeless essence" of individuals but rather free of eternal verity too often ascribed to societies.
The complexity that defines ethnic culture and transnationalism is illustrated through a variety of cultural texts throughout the book. These texts range from: official to non-official history of the area and the villagers, everyday life, beliefs, traditions, economy, power and domination struggle, continuous revival and change of traditions and customs, and how they index the significance of signs. Portis-Winner's study is heuristic in nature because it employs a method that involves finding out what happens within a cultural text, rather then merely being told. The theme of Lotman's unconquerable boundary-crossing cultural hero is carried throughout the book as it is uncovered from personal interviews of reflexive narratives, and interpretive, double-voicing, accounts of the extended human sign.
Chapter 1 (3-27) provides a brief introduction to the economic, social, and geographic properties of Žerovnica, as well as of its landscape, landmarks and inhabitants during the first fieldwork study in the 1960s. The question of inner versus outer (non-member) point of view immediately surfaces as the author warns that the immediate peaceful impression of a harmonious village and its inhabitants is positively deceptive. Tension-ridden relations amongst villagers are discussed and traced to the communist rule and its goal to obliterate peasant autonomy and traditions that were considered a threat to the conglomerate whole. The Chapter also informs of the pervasive hardship and exploitation of the peasants, as well as the imminent impact of global modernization on the village structure following the Slovenia's declaration of independence in 1991.
The author's initial impression of a harmonious community changes after she has spent time within the ethnic community and has gained insight into their traditions and practices. Portis-Winner fervently argues that accuracy of an ethonographer's research relies heavily upon his or her ability to become a quasi-member of the group under investigation. She effectively accomplishes this task through a continuous exposure to a variety of ethnic texts, amongst others, modeling her conclusions after many member perspectives. I consider "Semiotics of Peasants in Transition: Slovene Villagers and Their Ethnic Relatives in America" a testament to the importance of efficient ethnographic work and applaud Portis-Winner's efforts to provide us with such a valuable study.
The last part of Chapter 1 offers a taste of juxtaposition between the member-perceived vibrant and active life of the Slovene emigrant community in Cleveland, their clearly marked attachments to their Slovene village, and the deteriorating, tension-ridden, and mistrustful community of Žerovnica. An initial introduction is made to the changing semiotic aspects of objects and signs brought along by the migrants to the New World. Portis-Winner argues that semiotic changes, from practical to emotive and aesthetic, serve to reinforce the ethnic identity of Slovene Americans.
Part II (28-74) comprises of Chapters 2 through 4. In this section, Portis-Winner provides a rich account of issues pertaining to traditional terminology (with respect to culture, ethnicity, identity and transnationalism) relevant for the understanding of the study at hand. Chapter 3 (43-49) is dedicated to a significant and recurring issue of non-member interpretation of cultural texts and modes of unearthing the communicative objects that are significant in the construction of an inner point of view. Portis-Winner warns about the problem of authorial interpretation of traditions and customs, their usage and changes. She advocates the inner point of view as essential in ethnographic research because it may have different realities and coherence, therefore rendering the uni-dimensional authorial view at best inaccurate and at worst overly simplistic.
Chapter 4 (50-74) offers a detailed overview and discussion of theoretical and practical issues pertaining to ethnographic studies over the decades. It spans views and attitudes of many semiotically-oriented scholars from Saussure, Peirce, The Prague Linguistic Circle headed by Jakobson, Moscow-Tartu School and Bakhtin, to Lotman and others. Each subsection of the chapter introduces a new stance of one of the above-mentioned authors with respect to the analysis and attitudes toward cultural texts. Special attention is afforded to the concepts of sign, symbol, and index; polysemy or mutlivocality of texts; everyday behavior; context (heteroglossia); perception and interpretation of history; as well as the undeniable role of power, which often forces cultural significance onto signs. Portis-Winner substantiates her synopsis with a much-needed critique of the semioticians' attitudes, their respective problems or benefits toward a more wholesome ethnographic study. Reader should be warn that previous knowledge and familiarity with the subject matter are indispensable in understanding of Part II, which is not suited for an average reader.

When is a prose memoir nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry? When it is written by the talented Mr. Murphy and punctuated with poems that arise out of the narrative like crops from the earth, concentrating it into a sweet or bitter nourishment. The memoir tells how Murphy's family came to farm in the Red River Valley bordering Minnesota and North Dakota, starting with his grandfather from New York, who broke the virgin bluestem with a two-bottom plough. Full of both personal memories and the sweep of history, the narrative depicts a way of life at the mercy of drought and flood and constrained by national politics and now global economics. In this environment, strength of character is not a virtue but a given. With vivid portraits of his grandparents, parents, and neighbors, Murphy humanizes an often unforgiving landscape. It is amazing to come upon his poems-each one distilling the literal truth with acute accuracy. Anyone interested in the distinct power of poetry will want to see how prose and poetry interact. Six color woodcuts by artist Charles Beck make this book glow.

When I was young, my father farmed for a time. I had almost forgotten how it feels for one's livelyhood to be so closely tethered to the weather and economy, so much that one storm (or lack of) can throw one's life into chaos. Say it doesn't rain for a month, starting today, so you're not going to get a third of your regular salary. That's farming; very arbitrary. Set the Ploughshare Deep reminded me of how this feels.

Murphy's writing is simple, spare and excellent. He has a wry sense of humor that injects itself into his stories and poems occasionally, and an amiable voice. He also inspires incredible emotion, especially when he writes of the lives, manners and deaths of his beloved hunting dogs. An elegy for one of his dogs, Dee, broke my heart. An account of another dog's reaction to her puppy's death is equally moving. Murphy is excellent at what he does.

This is a terrific book that I return to over and over. While the writing itself is not dramatic, it is filled with his love of the river and shantyboating. To paraphrase Wendell Barry, Hubbard makes practical what Thoreau made theoretical. Read it with Payne Hollow.

Shantyboat chronicles the adventures of Harlan and Anna Hubbard, who in the early 1950's, built a wooden houseboat (or shantyboat) out of a demolished house and drifted down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans. Spanning several years, the book describes winters spent drifting freely with the current and summers foraging for or growing what was needed. Much more than a travelogue, the journey is an experiment in living just outside the confines of a newly emerging technological civillization, but still in a fully "civillized" way. Their lives were hardly lived in seclusion. Instead they preferred the richness of friends, good meals gathered from abandoned or empty lands, and art: Harlan was a painter, Anna a concert pianist. The story of their days drifting is often filled with anecdotes about weather, fishing, or dogs, and slowly draws the reader in with a steady seasonal rhythm. Their time on the river represents the last days of the shantyboater, a breed of free spirit that quickly dissappeared after the second world war. Industrial growth along the waterways, large new dams, and toxic pollutants ensured the end of a tradition of free living. Today, our world continues to grapple with issues of technology and its impact on what makes us human. "Shantyboat" offers an alternative, or perhaps a perspective on what is really important.

This book is a must for any Shawnee collector. The information and pictures are extensive and laid out in easy to read chapters. She covers all Shawnee, from cookie jars to ashtrays. I take this with me on all Shawnee excursions. It is large and somewhat heavy, definitely not a "pocket guide".

Everything you ever wanted to know about collecting this fine pottery is in here. Very impressed about the history and how complete it is. Pam did an EXCELLENT job in researching. Easy to follow with great pictures. You will never regret getting a copy of this book. It is WONDERFUL.