Publication Date: August 19, 2016
PreOrder Today! https://goo.gl/egiSRx
When was the last time you got a love letter? When was the last time you wrote a love letter? Now that writing love letters is a lost art, what better gift can you give the one you love than an old-fashioned, authentic, hand written, love letter! The purpose of this book is twofold. One, it shares some of the most romantic love letters ever written. They act as a model to help you express your love in a profound and personal way that your partner wil treasure for the rest of their life.
But first, what is love? In the year 2012, that phrase - what is love -, was the most researched phrase on Google. Five writers from diverse backgrounds tried to define what love is. The five people were a physicist, a psychotherapist, a philosopher, a romantic novelist, and a nun.
The answers they gave were eloquent, convincing, and yes, diverse. The nun said that love is a paradox. “Love is free yet binds us.” The romantic novelist said that love is everything. The philosopher said that love is a passionate commitment. The psychotherapist identified six different types of love and said that it is unlikely to experience all six types with only one person. And the physicist? He said that “love is chemistry.”
So what is love? In this book, I have tried to show love that is as diverse as the five authors above have defined it. I also try to show love that meets the precise definition that Paul gives in his first letter to the Corinthians, below:
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” ~ The First Letter of Paul To The Corinthians 13:4-8
https://sellfy.com/p/jIvF/ (and more)
Basil, son of a father WHO values the family pedigree and WHO wouldn't let him marry below his station, falls crazy initially sight with a lady he sees on a bus. He follows her and discovers she is Margaret Sherwin, solely female offspring of a linen bargainer. He persuades her father to let him marry her on the QT. He agrees on the condition, that, as his female offspring is barely seventeen, they live apart for the primary year. initially the key works, on the other hand the mysterious Mannion, whose emotions can not be browse in his face, returns from abroad. On the last night of the year Basil follows Margaret and Mannion and discovers them in flagrante delicto. Basil attacks Mannion within the street and tries to murder him, however succeeds solely in mutilating his face by pushing it into the recent tarmacadam within the road. Mannion survives, recovers and swears revenge, and it's unconcealed that Basil's father indirectly caused Mannion's father to be hanged for forgery.
Basil repudiates Margaret, however Sherwin threatens him with exposure unless he holds to his wedding. Basil confesses to his father, WHO disowns him, however his sister Clara stands by him. Basil's brother Ralph undertakes to shop for Sherwin off, however in the meantime Margaret flees to Mannion, thereby acknowledging her guilt. Visiting Mannion in hospital, she catches rickettsial disease and dies. Basil, having been placed on her track by Ralph, visits her on her deathbed.
https://sellfy.com/p/jIvF/
This presentation is portrayal of Ophelia (Hamlet), Hester (The Scarlet Letter), Hermione (Harry Potter), and Sophie (Da Vinci Code). It will focus on the original text.
Lecture 18 - The Turn to Speculative FictionPatrick Mooney
Eighteenth lecture for my students in English 192, "Science Fiction," summer 2013 at UC Santa Barbara.
Course website: http://patrickbrianmooney.nfshost.com/~patrick/ta/m13/
This presentation has everything one needs to know about the book "Em and The Big Hoom" by Jerry Pinto. Please do not copy paste as it has already been through turn it in and your presentation or report will be shown as plagiarized.
Publication Date: August 19, 2016
PreOrder Today! https://goo.gl/egiSRx
When was the last time you got a love letter? When was the last time you wrote a love letter? Now that writing love letters is a lost art, what better gift can you give the one you love than an old-fashioned, authentic, hand written, love letter! The purpose of this book is twofold. One, it shares some of the most romantic love letters ever written. They act as a model to help you express your love in a profound and personal way that your partner wil treasure for the rest of their life.
But first, what is love? In the year 2012, that phrase - what is love -, was the most researched phrase on Google. Five writers from diverse backgrounds tried to define what love is. The five people were a physicist, a psychotherapist, a philosopher, a romantic novelist, and a nun.
The answers they gave were eloquent, convincing, and yes, diverse. The nun said that love is a paradox. “Love is free yet binds us.” The romantic novelist said that love is everything. The philosopher said that love is a passionate commitment. The psychotherapist identified six different types of love and said that it is unlikely to experience all six types with only one person. And the physicist? He said that “love is chemistry.”
So what is love? In this book, I have tried to show love that is as diverse as the five authors above have defined it. I also try to show love that meets the precise definition that Paul gives in his first letter to the Corinthians, below:
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” ~ The First Letter of Paul To The Corinthians 13:4-8
https://sellfy.com/p/jIvF/ (and more)
Basil, son of a father WHO values the family pedigree and WHO wouldn't let him marry below his station, falls crazy initially sight with a lady he sees on a bus. He follows her and discovers she is Margaret Sherwin, solely female offspring of a linen bargainer. He persuades her father to let him marry her on the QT. He agrees on the condition, that, as his female offspring is barely seventeen, they live apart for the primary year. initially the key works, on the other hand the mysterious Mannion, whose emotions can not be browse in his face, returns from abroad. On the last night of the year Basil follows Margaret and Mannion and discovers them in flagrante delicto. Basil attacks Mannion within the street and tries to murder him, however succeeds solely in mutilating his face by pushing it into the recent tarmacadam within the road. Mannion survives, recovers and swears revenge, and it's unconcealed that Basil's father indirectly caused Mannion's father to be hanged for forgery.
Basil repudiates Margaret, however Sherwin threatens him with exposure unless he holds to his wedding. Basil confesses to his father, WHO disowns him, however his sister Clara stands by him. Basil's brother Ralph undertakes to shop for Sherwin off, however in the meantime Margaret flees to Mannion, thereby acknowledging her guilt. Visiting Mannion in hospital, she catches rickettsial disease and dies. Basil, having been placed on her track by Ralph, visits her on her deathbed.
https://sellfy.com/p/jIvF/
This presentation is portrayal of Ophelia (Hamlet), Hester (The Scarlet Letter), Hermione (Harry Potter), and Sophie (Da Vinci Code). It will focus on the original text.
Lecture 18 - The Turn to Speculative FictionPatrick Mooney
Eighteenth lecture for my students in English 192, "Science Fiction," summer 2013 at UC Santa Barbara.
Course website: http://patrickbrianmooney.nfshost.com/~patrick/ta/m13/
This presentation has everything one needs to know about the book "Em and The Big Hoom" by Jerry Pinto. Please do not copy paste as it has already been through turn it in and your presentation or report will be shown as plagiarized.
Melanie Neat, Certified Tae Bo Fitness Instructormelneat
A little bit of my experience as a Tae Bo Instructor! From Iraq to Germany, to training here in at home~ teamtaebo has given me great opportunity to touch lives around the world.
Respond seperatE to each student with 100 words minimum...SEPERAT.docxcarlstromcurtis
Respond seperatE to each student with 100 words minimum...SEPERATLEY!!!!!!
Original Post- The forum for this week addresses the third learning objective: Produce an original opinion based on assigned literature.
Discuss your reaction to
Heart of Darkness.
Do not simply explain why you liked or did not like it but consider whether you agree or disagree with Conrad. Determine his purpose and critique the text. Be sure to defend your stance with cited evidence from the reading.
Points you may consider in your response include:
What does the reading have to do with you, personally?
How much does
Heart of Darkness
agree or clash with your views of the world and what you consider right and wrong or moral and immoral?
Were your views and opinions challenged or changed by this piece? How?
What was your overall reaction to this text? To whom would you recommend this reading?
What unanswered questions are you left with?
Posts-
Emma
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad was challenging to read, because of the way it was written and because of the dark themes in the piece. Conrad included strong, rich details which helped me navigate the story, though it was a little challenging for me to understand certain parts of the book. Much like many of you, I had to reread a couple of the passages to clearly understand what was happening and what Conrad wanted to be the takeaway from that specific passage. I thought it was well written, but I did not agree with the brutality the natives endured within the piece.
After hearing a shrieking scream, we see how the men on the boat’s initial reaction is to grab their guns. “Two others remained open-mouthed a whole minute, then dashed into the little cabin, to rush out incontinently and stand darting scared glances, with Winchesters at ‘ready’ in their hands” (Conrad 35). One can understand that they be fearful, but at the same time, it makes you question humanity when men are ready to shoot at anything without knowing what or who it is.
The reading personally reminded me of all of the hate, darkness, and evils in our world, through history to modern times. It made me evaluate the racism towards the natives in this story. They were viewed, stereotyped, and judged based on the simple fact that they were natives in Africa. The reading went against my views and values. I realize there is racism within society, but I will not stand for it or anyone in support of it. It deeply saddens me that it is 2018 and we’re still dealing with racism.
If I were to recommend this reading to someone, I might recommend it to someone who doesn’t realize the scope of racism. This text would definitely open their eyes up to how disgusting the treatment of people can be based on their skin color or where they are from. Heart of Darkness allows us to understand the severity of racism back then, and relate it to similar instances throughout history, up into circumstances in today’s society.
The one unanswere ...
Favorite Person Essay. My favorite person essay - We Write - essaywinrvic.x....Amanda Harris
My Favorite Person - Free Essay Example | StudyDriver.com. My Favorite Person Free Essay Example 320 words | GraduateWay. Favorite Person Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words. Essay on my favorite Personality in English | My favorite personality .... essay on my favourite person/ my favorite person essay in english/ 10 .... My favourite person short essay in 2021 | Short essay, Essay, Essay .... School essay: My favorite person essay. My favourite personality Free Essay Example 952 words | GraduateWay. My favourite personality essay in English | Essay on my favourite .... Check my Essay: My favorite person paragraph. My Favourite Personality Essay in English For 2nd Year With Quotations .... My Favourite Character - 364 Words | Free Essay Example on GraduateWay.
1.1 Connecting Entering Into a Literary ExperienceWhen you allo.docxjackiewalcutt
1.1 Connecting: Entering Into a Literary Experience
When you allow reading to unlock your imagination, your connection also sets the stage for intellectual engagement. It allows the experience of reading literature to include the pursuit of ideas and knowledge. Your literary experience—as the title of this book suggests—can become a personal journey, a quest for meaning. But connections to literature don't have to begin with deep intellectual quests. The stories themselves, those that strike a human chord, provide the greatest opportunity for connection.
From ancient times, in every culture, humans have told stories to explain their world, to honor people, to celebrate achievements, and to communicate human values. Stories are still essential in our lives: We share them with our children, look to them for entertainment, and read them because at the core of our being there's a powerful curiosity about human relationships and how to cope in the world in which we find ourselves.
This means you are already wired to explore literature. And the most immediate connection is through story. Allowing yourself to be drawn into a story—whether it's told by someone, printed in a book, or performed—unlocks your innate abilities to empathize, to laugh, to inquire, to learn, to wonder. Connecting with literature also allows you to reflect on the significance of common human experiences in your life.
For example, if you know what it's like to send your child off to school for the first time and remember how you felt when this happened, your connection to the emotions that Rachel Hadas, poet and former professor at Rutgers University, packs into "The Red Hat" will be instantaneous. Her poem captures the anxiety and disequilibrium parents feel when watching their young children drawn away from them to enter school and a world away from home. When the watching parent is described in the poem as one whose "heart stretches, elastic in its love and fear," you can feel those emotions because you have experienced them. And no one has to explain what "wavering in the eddies of change" means—you've lived through that uncomfortable experience when home seems strangely empty, routine is broken, and you are forced to accept that your child will not always be with you.
The Inclusion of "The Red Hat"
Wayne Clugston, author of Journey Into Literature, discusses his reasons for including "The Red Hat" in this textbook.
Critical Thinking Questions
· What are the underlying emotions present in "The Red Hat"?
· How do these emotions allow you to connect with the parents in the story? Do the emotions connect in any way to your own life and experiences?
The Red Hat
Rachel Hadas (1994)
Audio clips are not available in all browsers. To listen to the audio clip, please access in Firefox or Chrome.
It started before Christmas. Now our son
officially walks to school alone.
Semi-alone, it's accurate to say:
I or his father track him on the way.
He walks up on the east side of West End, ...
Exploiting Artificial Intelligence for Empowering Researchers and Faculty, In...Dr. Vinod Kumar Kanvaria
Exploiting Artificial Intelligence for Empowering Researchers and Faculty,
International FDP on Fundamentals of Research in Social Sciences
at Integral University, Lucknow, 06.06.2024
By Dr. Vinod Kumar Kanvaria
Biological screening of herbal drugs: Introduction and Need for
Phyto-Pharmacological Screening, New Strategies for evaluating
Natural Products, In vitro evaluation techniques for Antioxidants, Antimicrobial and Anticancer drugs. In vivo evaluation techniques
for Anti-inflammatory, Antiulcer, Anticancer, Wound healing, Antidiabetic, Hepatoprotective, Cardio protective, Diuretics and
Antifertility, Toxicity studies as per OECD guidelines
Safalta Digital marketing institute in Noida, provide complete applications that encompass a huge range of virtual advertising and marketing additives, which includes search engine optimization, virtual communication advertising, pay-per-click on marketing, content material advertising, internet analytics, and greater. These university courses are designed for students who possess a comprehensive understanding of virtual marketing strategies and attributes.Safalta Digital Marketing Institute in Noida is a first choice for young individuals or students who are looking to start their careers in the field of digital advertising. The institute gives specialized courses designed and certification.
for beginners, providing thorough training in areas such as SEO, digital communication marketing, and PPC training in Noida. After finishing the program, students receive the certifications recognised by top different universitie, setting a strong foundation for a successful career in digital marketing.
Francesca Gottschalk - How can education support child empowerment.pptxEduSkills OECD
Francesca Gottschalk from the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation presents at the Ask an Expert Webinar: How can education support child empowerment?
Embracing GenAI - A Strategic ImperativePeter Windle
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Generative AI, Image Generators and Large Language Models have had a dramatic impact on teaching, learning and assessment over the past 18 months. The most immediate threat AI posed was to Academic Integrity with Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) focusing their efforts on combating the use of GenAI in assessment. Guidelines were developed for staff and students, policies put in place too. Innovative educators have forged paths in the use of Generative AI for teaching, learning and assessments leading to pockets of transformation springing up across HEIs, often with little or no top-down guidance, support or direction.
This Gasta posits a strategic approach to integrating AI into HEIs to prepare staff, students and the curriculum for an evolving world and workplace. We will highlight the advantages of working with these technologies beyond the realm of teaching, learning and assessment by considering prompt engineering skills, industry impact, curriculum changes, and the need for staff upskilling. In contrast, not engaging strategically with Generative AI poses risks, including falling behind peers, missed opportunities and failing to ensure our graduates remain employable. The rapid evolution of AI technologies necessitates a proactive and strategic approach if we are to remain relevant.
Introduction to AI for Nonprofits with Tapp NetworkTechSoup
Dive into the world of AI! Experts Jon Hill and Tareq Monaur will guide you through AI's role in enhancing nonprofit websites and basic marketing strategies, making it easy to understand and apply.
How to Make a Field invisible in Odoo 17Celine George
It is possible to hide or invisible some fields in odoo. Commonly using “invisible” attribute in the field definition to invisible the fields. This slide will show how to make a field invisible in odoo 17.
Operation “Blue Star” is the only event in the history of Independent India where the state went into war with its own people. Even after about 40 years it is not clear if it was culmination of states anger over people of the region, a political game of power or start of dictatorial chapter in the democratic setup.
The people of Punjab felt alienated from main stream due to denial of their just demands during a long democratic struggle since independence. As it happen all over the word, it led to militant struggle with great loss of lives of military, police and civilian personnel. Killing of Indira Gandhi and massacre of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and other India cities was also associated with this movement.
June 3, 2024 Anti-Semitism Letter Sent to MIT President Kornbluth and MIT Cor...Levi Shapiro
Letter from the Congress of the United States regarding Anti-Semitism sent June 3rd to MIT President Sally Kornbluth, MIT Corp Chair, Mark Gorenberg
Dear Dr. Kornbluth and Mr. Gorenberg,
The US House of Representatives is deeply concerned by ongoing and pervasive acts of antisemitic
harassment and intimidation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Failing to act decisively to ensure a safe learning environment for all students would be a grave dereliction of your responsibilities as President of MIT and Chair of the MIT Corporation.
This Congress will not stand idly by and allow an environment hostile to Jewish students to persist. The House believes that your institution is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and the inability or
unwillingness to rectify this violation through action requires accountability.
Postsecondary education is a unique opportunity for students to learn and have their ideas and beliefs challenged. However, universities receiving hundreds of millions of federal funds annually have denied
students that opportunity and have been hijacked to become venues for the promotion of terrorism, antisemitic harassment and intimidation, unlawful encampments, and in some cases, assaults and riots.
The House of Representatives will not countenance the use of federal funds to indoctrinate students into hateful, antisemitic, anti-American supporters of terrorism. Investigations into campus antisemitism by the Committee on Education and the Workforce and the Committee on Ways and Means have been expanded into a Congress-wide probe across all relevant jurisdictions to address this national crisis. The undersigned Committees will conduct oversight into the use of federal funds at MIT and its learning environment under authorities granted to each Committee.
• The Committee on Education and the Workforce has been investigating your institution since December 7, 2023. The Committee has broad jurisdiction over postsecondary education, including its compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, campus safety concerns over disruptions to the learning environment, and the awarding of federal student aid under the Higher Education Act.
• The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is investigating the sources of funding and other support flowing to groups espousing pro-Hamas propaganda and engaged in antisemitic harassment and intimidation of students. The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is the principal oversight committee of the US House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate “any matter” at “any time” under House Rule X.
• The Committee on Ways and Means has been investigating several universities since November 15, 2023, when the Committee held a hearing entitled From Ivory Towers to Dark Corners: Investigating the Nexus Between Antisemitism, Tax-Exempt Universities, and Terror Financing. The Committee followed the hearing with letters to those institutions on January 10, 202
Unit 8 - Information and Communication Technology (Paper I).pdfThiyagu K
This slides describes the basic concepts of ICT, basics of Email, Emerging Technology and Digital Initiatives in Education. This presentations aligns with the UGC Paper I syllabus.
Unit 8 - Information and Communication Technology (Paper I).pdf
God is dead
1. God Is Dead
INTRODUCTION
In his first novel, Ron Currie takes Nietzsche’s audacious pronouncement,“God is dead,” and asks whatwould
happen if God really were dead, literallyand verifiably dead? How would that fact change the way humans see
themselves and treateach other? The imaginative daring ofsuch a premise is onlythe beginning ofmanysurprises
that fill the pages of God Is Dead.
God comes to earth disguised as a Dinka woman,implores Colin Powell to help find her brother, is killed in the Darfur
desert,and then eaten by the wild dogs who follow in the wake of the genocidal Janjaweed.Such a scenario,at once
absurd butnot entirely implausible,invites readers to make an imaginative leap,to suspend their disbeliefand enter
into a world of strange possibilities and nightmare consequences.One group of young men,fearing starvation and
madness,decide to kill themselves ritualistically;another group insists thatGod still exists;and parents with no god
left to worship bestow a divine status on their children.One mightassume thatthat the religious violence thatis now
erupting around the world would disappear ifthere were no god to justify the carnage,but in Currie’s novel,humans
simplyfind other ideologies worth killing for.
The human capacityfor foolishness,self-delusion,and violence are on full displayin God Is Dead.Some people
decide that the dogs who ate God’s body have become gods themselves and decide to worship them,a situation that
any honestobserver ofhuman nature would find frighteninglyplausible and thatreveals Currie’s sly,satirical wit.
“God” is,after all,“dog” spelled backwards.
Satire is,indeed,the dominantintention ofGod Is Dead. Like Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and Kurt Vonnegut’s
Slaughterhouse Five,Currie’s novel takes the absurdities,idiocies,and cruelties thathuman beings commitand
magnifies them justenough for us to see them in all their naked foolishness.This,Currie shows us,is the world we
are creating.The book is not written out of contemptfor humanity,however, but out of an unflinching vision that
encompasses preciselythose qualities—compassion,common sense,clear-seeing—thatwe are so busilyengaged
in destroying.
ABOUT RON CURRIE JR.
Ron Currie, Jr.’s prizewinning fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train,The Sun, Other Voices, and
NightTrain. He has been short-listed for the Fish International Short Story Award and Swink
magazine’s Emerging Writer Award. He lives in Waterville, Maine.
2. A CONVERSATION WITH RON CURRIE JR.
Q. Why did you choose an episodic structure for your novel?
A. It justmade sense,given the freewheeling and eclectic topics Iwanted to tackle. It would have been difficult, if not
impossible,to tell both the story of a wild dog with divine omniscience,and the story of a regular guy who works in a
paper plate factory, within the confines of a traditional novel.One justdoes not lead directly to another.
Q. What inspired you to make a living public figure, Colin Powell, into a fictional character in your novel?
A. It’s something thatI don’tthink can be neatly summed up.All sorts of reasons,starting with the fact that Powell did
visit Darfur as secretaryof state,which was convenientfor the purposes ofthe book. Other reasons:my
disappointmentin the Bush administration in general and Powell in particular for doing next to nothing in Darfur (as
evidenced by the fact that God Is Dead is still quite topical four years after I started writing it); the excitementand
challenge offictionalizing a real person;the fun of it; and the thrill of feeling like you’re getting away with something
you probablyshouldn’t.
Q. God Is Dead displays a keenawareness of the absurdities and cruelties of human beliefs and behavior. Do
you consider it primarily a satirical work?
A. It’s funny you ask,because myaunt read the book recently and justtoday told me she didn’tthink it was funny. So
I’m guessing ifyou asked her this question,her answer would be no.But yes, there are obviously satirical elements,
but I’m hesitantto call God Is Dead satire.This could justbe my own inaccurate interpretation ofwhat the word
means,or whatit means in a literary context, but to me satire has connotations ofa certain intellectual coolness,a
detachmentfrom one’s subject.And I hope that regardless ofwhatanyone thinks of the book they won’taccuse it of
not caring.Because it’s all heart, baby. Seriously.
Q. You poke fun at Postmodernists in God Is Dead, but the novel itself could be classified as a work of
postmodern fiction. What is your relation to postmodernism and, for that matter, evolutionary psychology?
A. I’ve been pretty heavily influenced by postmodern approaches to fiction—thatis,what I think is the mostcommonly
accepted definition of postmodernism in regard to fiction, which is work that breaks from convention in style, in
content, in form,in language.The reason for this is fairly simple:I’m uniquelyamused and excited by this sortof
experimentation,so long as it’s notgratuitous. God Is Dead ended up being a mishmash ofstarkly postmodern forms,
as in “Interview,” and more conventional forms,as in “The Bridge.” And this odd combination is indicative,I think, of
my eclectic but spotty and certainly informal education.Writing-wise Iam very much a product of contemporary
literature,meaning I’ve read comparatively few books older than,say, fifty years, and even fewer older than one
hundred.So guys like Barthelme and Vonneguthave had a lot more opportunityto mold me than,say, Joseph
Conrad.I’ve spenta lot more time with Sherman Alexie and George Saunders than Fitzgerald or Hemingway.And so
I guess I’m shaped bywhat I’ve exposed myselfto.
Basicallywith the PoMo Anthropologists and the Evolutionary Psychologists Iwas trying to find the mostridiculous
and unlikely ideologies for people to rally behind,en masse,in a Nazi Germany sortof way. And there is,to my
3. understanding,a very real debate between academics in the postmodern anthropologyand evolutionarypsychology
camps.Apparently it’s quite heated, though I don’t believe anyone’s lostany teeth over it. Tenure,maybe. But not
teeth.
Q. It’s startling to read a work of contemporary fiction about an ongoing humanitarian crisis like the one in
Darfur. What prompted you to write about the genocide there?
A. It started with my own introduction to the crisis there,which came in the form of an article in The Believer
magazine aboutone of the famous LostBoys of Sudan.It’s horrifying, of course,but the horror of the situation wasn’t
what prompted me to write aboutit. As I read about the hundreds ofthousands murdered and the millions displaced
and starving, I thoughtabout, years before,visiting Dachau and seeing the sculpture in front of the museum there,a
wrought-iron piece depicting the bodies ofconcentration camp victims lying together in death, intertwined.I thought
specificallyof the inscription on the sculpture,the same words in halfa dozen languages:NEVER AGAIN. And then I
thoughtabout Cambodia and Rwanda and now Sudan,and I got mad,because nothing pisses me offlike hypocrisy
and empty gestures,even though I myselfam guilty of both. But that was when I was inspired to get to work. I find
anger to be a great motivator.
Q. To what extent does the novel reflect your own views of religious and secular ideologies?
A. It’s pretty much a laundry listof complaints Ihave regarding theologies and secular ideologies.It could be
considered a protestagainstgroupthink ofany kind.We’re stupid when we gather in groups.This is hardly news,and
yet it bears repeating.We stop thinking for ourselves.We demonize those who don’t subscribe to our way of not-
thinking.We believe fairy tales.We defer to the judgmentofidiots with silver tongues.We approve of, vote for, and
even engage directly in horrid behavior we would never otherwise consider.
We need to get the hell away from one another,put some space between ourselves and our neighbors,so we can
breathe and use our heads.Yet here we are, gathering in the world’s urban centers in ever-increasing,ever more
dense numbers.Ofcourse,keep in mind these are the rants of a country boy who has an instinctive allergic reaction
to large crowds.
Q. Many writers today go through MFA programs and aspire to teach in universities. Does that path interest
you? Do you think MFA programs are a good way for young writers to learn their art?
A. Well I couldn’tsay, because Ihaven’t been to one. I think, based on what I’ve read and heard,that MFA programs
provide students with one thing of tremendous value,especiallyto an apprentice writer, and that’s two solid years to
write uninterrupted.There is,of course,the super-tired debate aboutwhether or not MFA programs are churning out
cookie-cutter writers.My instinctis that that’s not true, that no matter what path you take you’ll either reach a point
where you’re writing good,original,entertaining stuff,or you won’t. And that it has more to do with how much and
how widely you read,and whether or not you arrange your life with writing as your first priority, than with whether or
not you got into Iowa.
Q. What writers have been most influential for you? What young writers would you recommend to your
readers?
4. A. Influences come from pretty much every creative discipline,from pop music to pottery (okay, maybe not pottery),
so it’s tough and sortof unproductive to single outa handful.
I would recommend anybook that readers won’tswap outfor the TV remote after two pages.Not that I have anything
againstTV. I love TV.
Q. This is your first novel. Where do you see your work heading next?
A. It’s already headed there. My next novel—which,not surprisingly,is also aboutthe end of the world—is nearly
finished and should see the lightof day sometime in the next couple years. This time,the end of the world comes in
the form of a cometand the novel’s main character knows aboutthe impending apocalypse thirty years in advance
through somewhatinexplicable circumstances thatmay or may not be divine in nature.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What is mostsurprising aboutCurrie’s depiction ofGod?
2. God Is Dead takes the form of separate but interconnected stories.Whateffect does Ron Currie create by
structuring the novel in this way? How are the stories connected?
3. What ironies are involved in God taking the form of a Dinka woman,being killed by the Janjaweed,and then
eaten by wild dogs? Why is God powerless,in Currie’s novel,to stop the slaughter in Darfur or to save her
own life? What are the larger implications ofthis powerlessness?
4. Dostoevskysaid that “If God is dead, everything is permissible.” How does the death of God affect peop le in
the novel? How do they react? How do their lives change because ofit?
5. Professor Oswalt says that “One of our great dilemmas . . . is how to strike a balance between our principles,
as Postmodern Anthropologists,and our security.” What are the principles ofthe Postmodern
Anthropologists? Whyare those principles incompatible with maintaining their own security? Why are the
PoMo Anthropologists atwar with the Evolutionary Psychologists? Whatis Currie satirizing here?
6. In what ways does God Is Dead illuminate our currentsocial,political,and religious milieu? In whatways
can it be read as a kind of satirical fable or commentaryon our time?
7. Rick says that “by the time they told us God was dead and all hell broke loose,itseemed like kind of a
blessing to me.. . . I understood those guys who climb clock towers or walk into a McDonald’s with guns
blazing. I felt more like them than the people who stand around after the rampages crying and asking why,
why, why. Because I understood there is no why. There’s the impulse,and the act. But nothing else” [p. 49].
Why does Rick see God’s death as “a blessing”? Is he rightin implying that withoutGod there are only
meaningless impulses and meaningless acts?
8. What are some ofthis novel’s more surprising features? In whatways —formallyand thematically—does it
differ from mostcontemporaryfiction? What is the value of Currie’s breaking ofconvention?
9. How do the Biblical passages Currie places atthe beginning ofeach chapter illuminate whatfollows? What
is the effect of quoting the Bible in a novel aboutthe death of God?
10. At the end of the novel, Arnold and Ty drive “through the bombs and the fire and the people in the streets
who didn’tseem to notice that their world was being destroyed.” What is the significance ofpeople not
noticing their world is being destroyed, having been drugged into forgetting there is a war going on? Why
would Currie end the novel this way?
5. 11. Before we get to God Is Dead, Ron Currie, Jr.’s first book, I’d like to mention a few
authors and their work for some historical context. Think of the following: Dostoevsky
and his character Ivan Karamazov, who might or might not have suggested that God’s
disappearance would create a moral universe that permitted anything; Nietzsche and his
madman, who announced God’s death in The Gay Science; Sartre and his criminally thick
Being and Nothingness; and outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens, who recently wrote
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.
12. We’re fascinated with the whether or not of God’s existence; it is a question that
everyone seems to consider at one point or another, and no matter how one answers that
question, consequences arise, both good and bad. But in God Is Dead, Currie doesn’t
concern himself with the question. He just assumes that God is dead and writes of
consequences, the imaginative scenarios they create, and the deep sense of loss from
which we seem to suffer now more than ever. As a result, his collection is a moving,
intelligent work of fiction that gives us a refreshing, if dismal, perspective on our modern
plight.
13. When Currie sat down to write “False Idols,” a short story in which adults religiously
worship their children, he didn’t expect to publish a book. In a guest post on Ron
Hogan’s lit-blog, Beatrice, Currie said, “I ran into what was for me an unexpected
problem. . . . Why exactly did people start worshipping their kids in the first place? What
the hell was the catalyst here? And then the solution occurred to me instantly: It’s a
transference of the innate human need to worship something. God died, so kids took His
place. Simple. Easy.” The innate human need to worship something; seven words, and
Currie defines existential dread. If only it were that easy to solve.
14. When Currie wrote this first story, it naturally generated plenty of other concerns: How
did God die? How might believers react upon hearing the news? Over what will humans
wage war in this Godless era? Does suicide cease to be a sin? What happens if animals
chew upon his divine corpse? Such a series of tough questions might’ve proven too much
had Currie been working in the philosophical discipline, but as fictional devices they
provided inspiration for the nine loosely related stories in this book.
15. God Is Dead reads like a modern apocalyptic work; God dies during the opening pages,
thus depriving the world of an ancient revelatory source. This void causes a panicked
humanity to act out some profane sort of revelation; Currie’s characters must lift their
own veils. Disaster ensues. Not surprisingly, Currie’s post-God world looks a lot like the
God-filled one described by John the Apostle, with the biggest difference being the
source of suffering: in the Book of Revelation God causes all the mayhem, but in God Is
Dead, humans do. If we take Currie’s statement about our need to worship something and
combine it with an apocalyptic sensibility, then we can read the stories in this book as
minor revelations of loss. They are stories about how humans cope with the sudden
emptiness loss creates.
16. The first story here, the titular “God Is Dead,” bears the weight of being first and
succeeding in a number of ways: it orients the reader to the universal laws of the book; it
sets up the basic premise; it introduces the guiding themes of loss and transference.
Although all of this is important, this story’s most important job is to lay the groundwork
for the integrity of the entire work. If the reader cannot accept the world Currie has
created then this book is finished.
6. 17. Currie confidently solves the problem in the opening sentences of the book by redefining
our concept of God. He writes, “Disguised as a young Dinka woman, God came at dusk
to a refugee camp in the North Darfur region of Sudan. He wore a flimsy green cotton
dress, battered leather sandals, hoop earrings, and a length of black-and-white beads
around his neck.” Next we learn that God has manifested a wound in his right calf. “The
purpose of the wound was twofold. First it enabled him to blend in with the residents of
the camp, many of whom bore injuries from the slashing machetes of Janjaweed raiding
parties.” Why would God have to do such a thing? He is God, after all. “The intense
burning ache helped to mitigate the guilt he felt at the lot of the refugees, over which he
was, due to an implacable polytheistic bureaucracy, completely powerless.” Now we
understand how desperate God’s situation has become; Currie’s confident narrative voice
first grounds us in the reality of God’s plight before stripping away God’s power.
18. And then God dies. He travels to the refugee camp in order to find a boy named Thomas
Mawien, to whom He must apologize, but when Thomas cannot be located, God, we
come to understand, suffers a tremendous loss, the loss of His ability to seek forgiveness
and cleanse Himself of guilt. God receives a second chance, though; in an epiphanic
moment, He transfers His apology to another boy. “He realized with sudden certainty that
this boy, or any of the people in the camp—the men suddenly alone in their old age, the
young women with disappeared husbands and hungry children—were as deserving as
Thomas of his apology, would serve just as well as the altar for him to confess his sins of
omission and beg forgiveness.” When shortly after God falls to His knees to ask
forgiveness, planes bomb the refugee camp and Janjaweed horsemen murder the injured
survivors, thus killing God and setting in motion a series of apocalyptic events.
19. The remaining stories in this book further explore the consequences of God’s absence
and tell how certain characters react to this alarming new world. These stories vary in
their degree of formal inventiveness: the collection has its share of realistic tales,
including “The Bridge,” a story told from the close, third-person point of view of a high
school graduate who witnesses a priest jump to his death. In “Indian Summer” a group of
teenagers act out the violent nightmare of a suicide pact—instead of worshipping their
futures, which have disappeared with the collapse of modern society, the boys worship
the never-ending now of death.
20. The collection also includes representatives of the more experimental, satirical modes,
such as “Interview with the Last Remaining Member of the Feral Dog Pack Which Fed
on God’s Corpse,” in which an enlightened feral dog struggles with its loss of innocence.
In this story, the playfulness of Currie’s imagination adds another delightful element,
making this one of the strongest pieces in the book. The skillfully evoked feral dog stands
out against the overwritten character of Colin Powell (from “God is Dead”), with whom I
felt that Currie was having too much fun.
21. Currie’s writing seems most successful when the inventiveness supports the emotional
currents of the work. In the final story, “Retreat,” a soldier flees down a road choked with
dead bodies, his army having lost the final battle of Armageddon, and all he can think of
is returning home to his mother, who is dying of dementia. But sadly, the soldier has
forgotten what she looks like. Currie writes, “It was exhausting work, scaling corpses. To
distract himself from the fatigue, the thirst and hunger, the sharp flare of pain that
occurred each time he moved his leg, Arnold thought of his mother. First he tried, with
the usual lack of success, to picture her in his mind’s eye. Then he concentrated on
7. willing her lucid, so that when he arrived home she would be who she always had been,
not some bewildered stranger who merely looked like his mother, and she would hear
what he had to say.” Despite the unfamiliarity of the world that Currie has created, we
feel the emotional weight of this moment in Arnold’s life; in a way, it seems to be a
connection with our own, as we too fumble to remember the faces of our family, the
voices of our friends.
22. Ultimately, these connections give this book its sad charm. We understand the
connections easily enough, because in some way they exist for all of us whether or not
we believe in God: the terrible reality of genocide, the pleasant sense of anticipation we
feel before seeing a loved one, the hope we carry for better times in the coming years.
And these connections hide away in the depths of Currie’s revelation text and wait for us
to discover them, to take them up as our own, thus transferring our need to worship
something, anything, either pleasant or painful, across the entirety of our lives.