"I don't know how long before i shall have to go into the field of battle. For my part i don't care. I don't feel afraid to go. I don't believe there... are any Rebel's bullet made for me yet."--Pvt. Lyons Wakeman. Similar sentiments were expressed by tens of thousands of Civil War soldiers in their diaries and in their letters to loved ones at home. What transforms the letters of Pvt. Lyons Wakeman from merely interesting reading into a unique and fascinating addition to Civil War literature is who wrote them--for Private Wakeman was not what "he" seemed to be. The five-foot tall soldier's true identity was that of a simple young farm girl from central New York state named Sarah Rosetta Wakeman. Her letters, the only such correspondence known to exist, provide a rare glimpse of what life was like for a woman fighting as a common soldier in the Civil War under the guise of a man. Written shortly after she left home to pursue her fortune in 1862, Rosetta's letters over the next two years tell of army life in the defences of Washington, D.C. and on the march and in battle during the 1864 Louisiana Red River Campaign. She wrote frequently to her family in Afton, NY, and her letters contain feelings and observations like those expressed by the majority of her fellow soldiers. We read of her determination to perform honorably the duty required of a soldier, the trials of hard marching and combat, her pride in being able to "drill just as well as any man" in her regiment, and her eventual fatalistic attitude toward military service, and her frequent expressions of faith in God and the afterlife. Although Rosetta did not survive the war, her letters remain as an singular record of female military life in the ranks, a phenomenon largely ignored by historians and researchers. Private Wakeman was not alone in embarking on her strange adventure. Hundreds of women, from both the North and South, disguised themselves as men and enlisted in the armies of our nation's bloodiest war. The experiences of these women during the Civil War are just beginning to be recognized as elemental to understanding the life of this country during those turbulent times. Little is known about these women precisely because they enlisted and served in constant secrecy, fearful of revealing their true identities. This unique collection of letters offers a firsthand look at the personality and character of a woman who defied convention to take a man's place in the Union army.

In 1965, when psychologists Sandra and Daryl Bem met and married, they were determined to function as truly egalitarian partners and also to raise their... children in accordance with gender-liberated, anti-homophobic, and sex-positive feminist ideals. During the next ten years, they exuberantly shared the details of their daily lives in both public lectures and the mass media in order to provide at least one concrete example of an alternative to the traditional heterosexual family. In the 1990s, Sandra Bern also published an award-winning book, The Lenses of Gender, which spelled out the feminist theory behind their feminist practices.This second book by Sandra Bern, an autobiographical account of the Bems' nearly thirty-year marriage, is both a personal history, of the Bems' past and a social history of a key period in feminism's past. It is also a look into feminism's future, because the Bems' children, Emily and Jeremy, now in their early twenties, speak at length in the book as well.Bem analyzes what aspects of family background and psychological makeup led her and Daryl to bond so immediately and to become gender pioneers. She describes the egalitarianism and feminist child-rearing that they invented for their private needs and tells how these family agendas were transformed into public feminist discourse. Finally she reassesses this early feminist union now that the marriage has come to an end and the children are young adults, evaluating (with the help of lengthy interviews with Emily and Jeremy and a brief epilogue by Daryl) what the Bems' experiences -- both positive and negative -- have to say about the viability and necessity of nontraditional gender arrangements insociety today.

This engrossing book by the author of The Lenses of Gender is an account of her years as an egalitarian partner in a gender-liberated, anti-homophobic,... feminist marriage. Bem reveals how she and her husband, Daryl, became gender pioneers, how they raised their two children, and what their experiences - both positive and negative - have to say about the viability of nontraditional gender arrangements in society today.

Gender scholarship during the last four decades has shown that the exclusion of women's voices and perspectives has diminished academic disciplines in... important ways. Traditional scholarship in philosophy is no different. The 'recovery project' in philosophy is engaged in re-discovering the names, lives, texts, and perspectives of women philosophers from the 6th Century BCE to the present. Karen Warren brings together 16 colleagues for a unique, groundbreaking study of Western philosophy which combines pairs of leading men and women philosophers over the past 2600 years, acknowledging and evaluating their contributions to foundational themes in philosophy, including epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. Introductory essays, primary source readings, and commentaries comprise each chapter to offer a rich and accessible introduction to and evaluation of these vital philosophical contributions. A helpful appendix canvasses an extraordinary number of women philosophers for further discovery and study.

That a Jew living in Nazi Berlin survived the Holocaust at all is surprising. That he was a homosexual and a teenage leader in the resistance and yet... survived is amazing. But that he endured the ongoing horror with an open heart, with love and without vitriol, and has written about it so beautifully is truly miraculous. This is Gad Beck’s story.

(Meredith Music Resource). Designed to enhance the expressive ability of instrumentalists of every age, this concise, easy-to-understand guide written... by Kenneth Laudermilch presents 22 musical concepts that remove the mystery from and provide proficiency in the art of musical expression.

While JFK remains the subject of endless media attention and national fascination more than 40 years after his assassination, Dallek's book provides... fresh revelations and perspective.

    After her lover--a famous conductor--dies unexpectedly, a professional musician is blackmailed into completing the score for his unfinished viola... concerto. As Suzanne struggles to keep her double life a secret from her husband, from her best friend, and from the other members of her quartet, she is consumed by memories of a rich love affair saturated with music. Increasingly manipulated by her lover's widow and tormented by the concerto's many layers, Suzanne realizes she may lose everything she's spent her life working for.     A story of love, loss, sex, class, and betrayal, this psychologically compelling novel explores the ways that artists' lives and work interact, the nature of relationships among women as friends and competitors, and what it means to make a life of art.

It must have come as quite a shock to her patients to be told by their therapist that she had been suffering from manic depression herself for over... thirty years. Perhaps an even greater shock was felt by many of her colleagues, since Dr. Jamison is one of the leading scholars and authorities on manic depression.

An Unquiet Pedagogy argues for a new approach to teaching English in the high school and college classroom, one that reconceives the relationship of... literacy and the learner. The title is taken from an essay by Paulo Freire in his book with Donaldo Macedo entitled Literacy: Reading the Word and the World. Like Freire, the authors believe that pedagogy must be critical -- that it must examine the assumptions that teachers and students bring to any educational enterprise, that it must take into account the contexts of learners' lives, and that it must question, rather than quietly accept, existing practices. Voices of beginning and experienced teachers are heard often in the book, exploring how such an unquiet pedagogy might come to be. The authors examine the experiences of these teachers, as well as their own, showing how the classroom can become a place of inquiry for both teachers and students and how theory and research that provide an integrated perspective on language, literacy, and culture must inform teaching practice. Their aim is to transform the English classroom into a place where the imagination becomes central and where learners construct knowledge in the development of real literacy.

In the pages of the Hebrew Bible, ancient Israel gave witness to its encounter with a profound and uncontrollable reality experienced through... relationship. This book, drawn from the heart of foremost Old Testament theologian Walter Brueggemann's Theology of the Old Testament, distills a career's worth of insights into the core message of the Hebrew Bible. God is described there, Brueggemann observes, as engaging four "partners" - Israel, the nations, creation, and the human being - in the divine purpose. This volume presents Brueggemann at his most engaging, offering profound insights tailored especially for the beginning student of the Hebrew Bible.

Williams weaves her observations in the naturalist field and her personal experience--as a woman, a Westerner, and a Mormon--into a resonant manifesto... on behalf of the landscapes she loves, making clear as well that, through our disregard of this world, we have lost an essential connection to our deepest selves.

Handsome Cambridge dropout Mark Callender died hanging by the neck with a faint trace of lipstick on his mouth. When the official verdict is suicide,... his wealthy father hires fledgling private investigator Cordelia Gray to find out what led him to self-destruction. What she discovers instead is a twisting trail of secrets and sins, and the strong scent of murder. An Unsuitable Job for a Woman introduces P. D. James's courageous but vulnerable young detective, Cordelia Gray, in a "top-rated puzzle of peril that holds you all the way" (The New York Times).