Books

Land of Many Shores: Perspectives from a Diverse Newfoundland and Labrador

Edited by Ainsley Hawthorn

$24.95 CAD | Paperback | 236 pages

Published by Breakwater Books

Available from: Breakwater BooksThe Bee's KneesAmazon.caAmazon.comChapters/Indigo/Coles

Seeing through the eyes of others brings new perspective on the place we call home.

In Land of Many Shores, writers share their perspectives about life in Newfoundland and Labrador from often-neglected viewpoints. In this collection, Indigenous people, cultural minorities, 2SLGBTQ+ people, people living with mental or physical disabilities, workers in the sex industry, people from a variety of faiths, people who have experienced incarceration, and other marginalized and under-represented voices are brought to the forefront, with personal, poignant, celebratory, and critical visions of the land we live on.

Land of Many Shores is a collection of pieces that paint a vibrant picture of a province most of us don’t know as well as we think we do. The variety of experience against the backdrop of Newfoundland and Labrador broadens readers’ perspectives on Canada’s youngest province, helping us reimagine both who we are today and who we have the potential to become.

"Land of Many Shores: Perspectives from A Diverse Newfoundland and Labrador covers terrain that ought to be required reading for residents and tourists alike.... a myth-buster of a book that breaks down the misperception that diversity is an import good in the province." – Jenn Thornhill Verma, Atlantic Books Today

"The stories are as rich and varied as the voices.... altogether the chapters compose an eye–opening, illuminating, and necessary read." – Joan Sullivan, The Telegram

"This collection shows Newfoundland contains multitudes, as writers observe the province through the lens of their identities. From NunatuKavut Inuk spoken-word artist and professor Julie Bull’s poem weaving together the strands of their identity to queer disabled playwright Paul David Power’s meditation on the magnetic lure of home, Land of Many Shores debunks the myth of a homogenous Newfoundland." – Ryan Porter, Quill & Quire

Cover image of the book Distant Impressions: The Senses in the Ancient Near East. The cover is yellow with red and black text and blue geometric decoration.

Distant Impressions: The Senses in the Ancient Near East

Edited by Ainsley Hawthorn and Anne-Caroline Rendu Loisel

$96.95 USD | Hardcover | 216 pages

Published by Eisenbrauns

Available from: EisenbraunsAmazon.caAmazon.com

Nihil est in intellectu quod non sit prius in sensu – “There is nothing in the intellect that is not first in the senses.” 

Although we often treat the senses as though they are immutable, fundamental properties of our physiology, the way we parse our sensory experiences is dictated by our cultural context. Accordingly, the essays in Distant Impressions explore the social aspects of sensation in the ancient Near East, inviting the reader to move beyond the physiological study of sensation to an examination of its cultural meanings.

The essays in this book approach the question of sensory experience in ancient Near Eastern societies from philological, literary, art historical, and archaeological perspectives. They address the means of sense perception (such as vision, hearing, and smell) and the objects of perception (such as light, noise, and odor), examining the senses within religious, political, and social frameworks. The first part looks at the monumental architecture, bas-reliefs, and tablets of the Neo-Assyrian period, while the second explores sensory dimensions of the built environment and textual representations of sensation in other times and places, such as Neolithic northern Mesopotamia and Hittite Anatolia. Building on recent scholarship that focuses on the social aspects of sensation in history, Distant Impressions brings this approach to bear on ancient Near Eastern studies for the first time.

In addition to the editors, the contributors include Elke Friedrich, Sara Manasterska, Alice Mouton, Kiersten Neumann, Ludovico Portuese, and Diana Stein.