Washington University Books

This is one of those books that you cant fly through! You will have to take this page by page to under and overstand the role(s) of the Aje. What/who the aje are, and their manifestations in the universe. I find this a difficult read. (Though very good one)

After reading this book, you will agree that the name Witch, is very limiting, and incorrect in addressing the Aje!

In the west, where the knowledge of the sacred techonology of the mother is almost non-existant, this book is a blessing. Gives a great introductory understanding of the dynamic force/being/ability/power that is Ájé.

In the early 19th century, Washington City was a new political frontier by the time Thomas Jefferson was elected to the President's House. The new political and social elites were both taken aback by Washington's crude facilities and (at first) socially barren lifestyle yet were somewhat anxious to create a new political and social capital. The male politicians who came to Washington City were accompanied by their wives, sisters, and other female relatives and counterparts who saw enormous opportunity for not only social gain but political influence as well. Catherine Allgor's book, "Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Build a City and Government", convincingly portrays women as important movers and shakers in both Jeffersonian and Jacksonian society. The increasing influence that women were making in social life was beginning to play an important role in politics as well. The republican ideals of womanhood brought increasing responsibility to mothers and wives to train younger generations in civic duties. Women then used this domestic role to effectively make their presence known in the male-dominated milieu of politics. Allgor uses the examples of Dolley Payne Todd Madison, Elizabeth Cortwright Monroe, and Catherine Adams (all First Ladies) to brilliantly point out that women could make or break a person's reputation in Washington. Women were ardent lobbyists; busily preparing and grooming their husbands' careers and making sure that they were introduced to the proper people in Washington. The practice of "calling", for example, on the city's social elite illustrates a complicated network of contacts which was a way of life in the social circles of the nation's capital. While it is easy for upper-class women to busy themselves with politics and social matters (they did have servants to perform most domestic chores) they nevertheless were provided more opportunities for political advancement. Allgor's analyses of the various levees and "drawing rooms" that were held in Washington City illustrate complex social situations in which women played a vital part. Dolley Madison, for example, realized how even the most intricate of details like the color of curtains, for example, could determine if a levee would be successful or not. Allgor's monograph is short yet detailed look at social life in early Washington. So much can be gleaned from this book that can be pertained to modern times (the Jackson scandals, for example). Overall, an interesting behind-the-scenes look at Washington political and social life.

I was lucky enough to be student of Dr. Allgor's for three years and the book was everything I would expect from her. She is at times funny and serious, and capable of explaining history in academic terms that aren't so esoteric as to be incomprehensible to the non-historian while giving a fresh spin on a well documented time period.

In Parlor Politics, Allgor documents the vital role that women played in the creation of a society during (arguably) the most fragile period in our history. One wrong move and the whole deomcracy concept could've gone out the window. Women were able to step in and do things that men couldn't, and under the guise of furthering their family became real movers and shakers in the early washington scene. Allgor documents the time of Jefferson through the Jackson presidency and does so with a style that is often missing in academic texts. It is easy to see why this book is quickly becoming an influential work in the history of Washington and the construction of america.

If you enjoy this book, you may want to also read "good wives" by laurel thatcher ulrich...more dry, but also interesting.

This first-rate scholarly study of the relationship between Marc Szeftel and Vladimir Nabokov has been endorsed by such heavyweight academics as Brian Boyd and Robert Alter, and I can only add that if there is such a thing as required reading for non-specialists in Nabokovopolis, this should be at the top of the list.
Galya Diment provides a fairly conclusive argument that Mark Szeftel was an important model for the Russian Master's third novel written in English, the second in America (if it had ever been in doubt, a matter on which I'm not clear).

The heart of the book consists of five chapters and a conclusion, and also contains appendixes from Marc Szeftel's archive and own writings. The latter includes of selections from his diaries, which make it pretty obvious that Szeftel wasn't nearly as comfortable a solipsist as the alter ego fate appears to have dealt him. And man, did he ever know it. Some of the passages included in Diment's study read like outtakes from a rough draft of Kinbote's, without the miniscule amount of self-awareness the fictive scholar was able to muster. They certainly exhibit nothing like the former king's rather heady imagination, in which readers have taken so much delight. What is there, and what Diment makes all to clear, is a great deal of sadness. The sadness of an émigré, the sadness of a scholar, and perhaps even the sadness of a century.

Szeftel seems to have toiled long and hard in the academic vineyards, at times with scholars as notable as Roman Jacobsen, and for reasons that perhaps only Nabokov himself knows never really achieved his due regard as an academic. More to the point, he seems to have settled just outside the realm of humiliation and some grand joke at the hands of everyone from the great writer to colleagues and even his students. The operative paradox here is that Szeftel would have remained one of life's unknown little tragedies had it not been for his immortalization as the Russian specialist at Waindell, but as Diment evinces he may well have never felt himself to be quite so tragic a character at all if he hadn't crossed paths with the accomplished poet-lepodiatrist-teacher-scholar-writer from St. Petersberg. One of Szeftel's books was praised by Nabokov, he was once on the verge of actually working with Nabokov, and he long contemplated scholarly studies of Lolita even after he became one of the models for Pnin. In the end he produced a few anecdotes about exchanges with Nabokov during the time they shared together at Cornell.

Along the way, Diment notes that a case has been made for considering Pnin an even greater work than the now monolithic Lolita, and by no less a scholar than Michael Wood in `The Magician's Doubts.' The reason for this originates in the rather more organically developed theme of the Double, a theme Szeftel himself consciously noted and, like several others (to Nabokov's own consternation) tied to Doeseovsky. She expertly employs the work of other scholars to illuminate what is particularly special, if not unique, about Pnin's relation to the novel he inhabits:

"The most dramatic declaration of Pnin's independence and VN's [the self-identified narrator of the novel] "just deserts" comes from Charles Nicol... Nicol actually goes as far as to describe the two men as atgonists and their relationship as a struggle between the "devilish" narrator and the innocent protagonist, in which Pnin "has confronted Nabokov and won." (p.56)

It seems to me that Nicol overstates his case a little here, but I do think that Diment's account of the narratological ambiguity that grew as the novel progressed and its roots in the brief conjunction of the fates of Szeftel and Nabokov is illuminating.

Diment is entirely evenhanded in her treatment of everyone involved, and the only particular bias consistently shown is her high regard for the Northwest, Szeftel's final home and where she herself teaches (at the University of Washington, sponsors of the press that published this book). She notes that Szeftel never much enjoyed the region himself, and perhaps even saw it as the true boondocks, one of the many injuries to be suffered in a long and yet disappointing life. In its way, this is one of the saddest books ever written. But it is gracefully written, and, as she says in the conclusion, a real tribute to the model, to the author, and to our ability to transform life through fiction. Marc Szeftel certainly did his best to partake of that transformation.

Professor Diment's book moves from biography to literary intrigue quickly and delightfully. The intrigue itself, of course, has been out in the open for quite a while---that Pnin, the stodgy and stumbling professor, was inspired by one of Vladimir Nabokov's colleagues at Cornell, Marc Szeftel.

There's plenty of material on that in the book, but the real treat are the stories on university politics, the strange and shimmering links between art and the "real", the compassionate sketches of very odd characters (including Szeftel himself, as well as Nabokov's first biographer, a Kinbote-like figure), and some seriously funny endnotes. _Pnin_ ends triumphantly, and so does Diment's _Pniniad_, with the reader discovering the life-story of a man who would otherwise be an interesting side-note---what the reader gets is a sort of roman a clef written on the margins of fiction.

I studied in London during college as a literature major and while there discovered that I needed a dictionary to complete my assignments and turn them in with the proper British spelling. I picked up this little dictionary to get me through the semester and loved it so much I carried it home with me. My family quickly realized how useful it was and I've spent a lot of time since searching to discover who "borrowed" it last. My mother is especially attached and has acquired a collection of other oxford dictionaries that either are too big to carry around or "just don't have the word she's looking for." If you have a copy, hang on to it.

Most ESL(English as a Second Language) teachers recommend Oxford Advanced Lerner's or Longman Contemporary, but they are too much verbose and require great stamina to reach the right definition. POD is concise.

The most needed feature for ESL dictionaries is a broad recordings of idioms. At this point, all American ESL or paperback dictionaries are weak.(The papaerback ones are not designed for foreigners, of cource.) POD has decent number of idioms.

The second required feature is the coverage. POD has a little Americanisms - it's an apparent defect. But it contains few geographical or proper names, so it has much more common vocabulary than any other paperbacks.

I enjoy the easy-for-eyes typeface, also essential to old-aged-prone-to-eyestrain learners like me.

The Sikh DIASPORA, is a very thourgh and excellent written book, not only for academics alike but for our future generations, Tatla explains fully within context to the reader, a past, present and future look of Sikh movements, an excellent book and well contributed to the series of Diasporas around the world.

For Darshan Singh Tatla, Operation Bluestar--the Indian Army's 1984 storming of the Golden Temple in order to flush out the militant leader Bhindranwale and his followers--was the 'crucial' (p 210) event that transformed Sikhs' understanding of their identity: 'From a self-confident religious community, the Sikhs rapidly acquired many characteristics of a persecuted minority' (p 1). In particular, argues Tatla, the threat of an overly centralised and overtly Hindu India practising 'ethnocracy' (p 36) rather than democracy led the one million-strong Sikh diaspora to take up the role of popularisers-and chief fund-raisers-for Khalistan. Their reaction to Operation Bluestar also 'enabled them to redraw a strict definition of Sikh identity, highlighting the religious tradition and collective symbols of the community instead of the geography, language and cultural traits' (p 210). Tatla adds that support for Khalistan fed on the alienation which many Sikhs living abroad had long felt but rarely articulated.

Tatla's excellent work underscores the 'situational' (p 210) nature of ethnic consciousness. Why then does he only grudgingly admit that, for the Sikh diaspora, 'a broader loyalty towards India probably still exists' (p210)? With the return of peace to Punjab and the entrance of the Akali Dal (the main Sikh political party) into the recent national coalition government of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, support for Khalistan has become a slogan rather than a belief.

This chapbook is composed of ramages - an 8 line poem with a (syllabic) sound as the unifying factor. The "sort of" in the title review is to indicated that in some of the poems, I was uncertain which sound was the chosen one - Bly clearly uses near matches as well as exact matches.

The poems themselves are vintage Bly - some excellent poems, some good poems with memorable lines and a few just okay poems. A favorite image: "... Slowly the mountain / Enters the man ..." from "A Ramage for the Mountain" A favorite poem combines images from multiple religions "... Husbands feel uneasy tonight. Their wives / Have gathered with Krishna in the river, / Their bodies sweetened by glad bones. / While David sings, stars fall into the sea; Uriah / Dies ... It is the madness of the dark-faced God."

Previously only available to a select group of readers in a limited letterpress edition, the Eastern Washington University Press has republished "Turkish Pears In August: Twenty-Four Ramages", an enthusiastically recommended collection of memorable poetry by the Minneapolis-based poet Robert Bly. 'Ramage' is from the French word 'rameau' and echoed in the English word 'ramify'. Bly created a new poetic form and chose to call it 'Ramage' to signify the sensual, earthy, mystical, and vigorous life force of his new poetry. 'Lovers in the River': Peony blossoms open in starlight. The lovers/Cross the river carefully, secretly, secretly./All night horses stamp on the sandy island./Husbands feel uneasy tonight. Their wives/have gathered with Krishna in the river,/their bodies sweetened by glad bones./While David sings, stars fall into the sea; Uriah/Dies...It is the madness of the dark-faced God.

This book provides an important glimpse into the early years of Washington politics when the Congress and executive branch were beginning to organize their political institutions. Even though this book was first published in the late 1960s,it remains an important study in American political history. Individuals interested in politics or American history will find this to be an interesting and unique book.

I read this book in college, and it is one of the few books I remember from those years. What sticks in my mind most is the analysis of how early Washington DC's rooming houses became the site of nascent party-building. Congressman and Senators who came to Washington in those early years stayed in boarding houses, and Young's historical analysis showed how like-minded Congressman and Senators eat at the same table and slept in the same buildings. "Human beings design buildings, and the buildings they design also design us."

The history of food fascinates me, and early american history is no exception. This is a very good recounting of early cooking and preservation methods in the pacific northwest. Note some people who glimpsed it on my desk were disappointed, thinking it a cookbook. It isn't intended to be one. It is, however, a very good review of how people ate given the times in which they lived. Some basic information about early preservation, pickling, flour processing and sugar. Let's just say that we should all be really glad our modern staples are regulated by the government somewhat!

I quite enjoyed it. Even if you don't typically like history books, if food fascinates you, give this a whirl. It's full of tasty trivia.

Jackie Williams is a friend of ours, a fellow collector of spud-abilia and appreciator of the potato, who has written several cookbooks as well as a fine food history work, Wagon Wheel Kitchens, Food on the Oregon Trail. Happily we can say that her newest book is a superb sequel, looking in on the pioneers once they reached their new home bases. Jackie has researched this subject down to the last eggless cake and translates all her findings into pleasing prose.

Starting with all-essential water, then moving from early kitchens--every woman wanted a proper cookstove, but many made do with Dutch ovens over hot coals--to the perils of pickling , Jackie Williams paints an engaging picture of the improvisational skills of early settlers and their appreciation for the bounty of the land when it came their way.

Ellen Dissanayake has influenced my art teaching philosophy. She tries to connect art making to the biological evolution of human kind, and it gets a little wacky, but I got very interested in the idea that making and responding to art are part of human nature. I think teaching kids about art is part of teaching them to be human.

Although there may be flaws in Dissanayake's first presentation on this topic, her ideas are revolutionary and (in their more developed form) will influence ideas about the genesis of art and its evolutionary role in human experience and culture for years to come. Her ideas are pioneering and will be quoted, argued, further developed, expanded, and expounded upon.

Best of all...this is a very readable book. In fact, its an exciting read; you may be challenged but you won't be bored.

This book is a must-read for anyone studying the development of modern art in Seattle or the Pacific Northwest. A very important figure. Kangas provides some enlightening background and interesting details about the artist's life. Beautiful paintings illustrate the book.

"For this publication, Kangas charts the evolution of William Cumming's work from socialist realism...to a socially relevant but less instrumental art that Kangas terms 'figurative formalism'...Cumming later merged his passion for populist figuration with an increasing focus on color, shape, and form." The biographical approach Kangas takes is particularly appropriate for following the evolution of this artist's career. Cumming is often seen as a member of the Northwest School for his association with other painters such as Tobey and Graves who make up this group so named because they were from the U. S. northwest. But Kangas proffers that for Cumming's deft skill and subtleties with color and shape he can be compared with Bonnard and Vuillard. This is probably stretching it--but one can see what Kangas is getting at. Surely Cumming is a better artist than to be routinely consigned to a school, though many of his subjects identify him with the west and northwest. The color plates of Cumming's work run from pages 78 to 143. These are followed by the section "Chronology, Exhibitions, and Collections." Kangas, the author for this book in conjunction with the exhibition in the Seattle Frye Museum, is a corresponding editor for Art in America and author of books and articles on art.