Bryn Mawr Authors

Primo Levi, Holocaust survivor and renowned memoirist, is one of the most widely read writers of post-World War II Italy. His works are characterized by the lean, dispassionate eloquence with which he approaches his experience of incarceration in Auschwitz. His memoirs--as well as his poetry and fiction and his many interviews--are often taught in several fields, including Jewish studies and Holocaust studies, comparative literature, and Italian language and literature, and can enrich the study of history, psychology, and philosophy.

The first part of this volume provides instructors with an overview of the available editions, anthologies, and translations of Levi's work and identifies other useful classroom aids, such as films, music, and online resources. In the second part, contributors describe different approaches to teaching Levi's work. Some, in presenting Survival in Auschwitz, The Reawakening, and The Drowned and the Saved, look at the place of style in Holocaust testimony and the reliability of memory in autobiography. Others focus on questions of translation, complicated by the untranslatable in the language and experiences of the concentration camps, or on how Levi incorporates his background as a chemist into his writing, most clearly in The Periodic Table.

Barcelona has existed as a settlement for two millennia. Early civilizations shaped the city before it achieved, in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, global power as a trading metropolis and empire capital. After a long struggle with the unifying Spanish state, the city revived, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as an industrial and commercial powerhouse. It became a center of culture, ornamented by modern planning and wondrous works by Gaudí and others. Barcelona became known as "The Rose of Fire" home to revolutionaries and anarchists. Creativity and conflict continued to shape Barcelona in the twentieth century, as its citizens faced the Spanish Republic, Civil War and Franco's dictatorship. Linking social and cultural currents to the rich architectural and experiential heritage of this multi-layered city, McDonogh and Martínez-Rigol reveal Barcelona's hidden history to modern-day visitors and residents alike.

This book tells the story of a group of kindergartners and college students as they explore what it means to grow. Reading it, children will find out that growing includes learning about their bodies, where food comes from, and beautiful places in the world. The book is a culmination of "The Growing Project," a curriculum created by college students working in partnership with a kindergarten class. It is a celebration of children's voices and learners self-worth at every stage of development -- a narrative about and by young people who embark on a journey of discovery that connects their own health and future with that of the world. "I like it!" -AL, Thorne Kindergarten Student "It's awesome!" -JM, Thorne Kindergarten Student "How can we grow a better world? This questions turns a group of children into explorers - of their neighborhood and the neighborhoods of distant continents. They learn that sharing and caring for the world take root when they grow together. Delightful illustrations spark a story that will inspire kids and the grown-ups who care for them." -J.C Todd, grandmother and Lecturer in Creative Writing, Bryn Mawr College "Children will love this fanciful and informative book about what they do best: growing! All readers will find inspiration in how the book itself grew -- a vital collaboration among college students and kindergarten creating a curriculum, and a vision, to help the world." -Alice Lesnick, PH.D., Director/Bryn Mawr/Haverford Education Program To learn more about "The Growing Project," please visit: thejourneyofgrowing.wordpress.com All proceeds from the sale of this book will benefit Titagya Schools in Northern Ghana, a pre-school and kindergarten enterprise that shares the book's vision and values. To find out more, please visit: http: //titagyaschools.org/wordpress

The movies and the masses erupted on the world stage together. In a few decades around the turn of the twentieth century, millions of persons who rarely could afford a night at the theater and had never voted in an election became regular paying customers at movie palaces and proud members of new political parties. The question of how to represent these new masses fascinated and plagued politicians and filmmakers alike.

Movies seemed to speak directly to the masses, via a form of crowd psychology that bypassed individual personality. Many political commentators believed that movies were inherently aligned with the new forms of collectivist mass politics--indeed, government control of the movie industry became a cornerstone of Communist and Fascist regimes, new political movements that embraced the crowd as the basis of social order.

Michael Tratner examines the representations of masses--the crowd scenes--in Hollywood films from The Birth of a Nation through such popular love stories as Gone with the Wind, The Sound of Music, and Dr. Zhivago. He then contrasts these with similar scenes in early Soviet and Nazi films. What emerges is a political debate being carried out in filmic style. In both sets of films, the crowd is represented as a seething cauldron of emotions. In Hollywood films, this is depicted as molding private loves, while collectivist movies present it as turning into organized mass movements. Crowd scenes do more than provide backgrounds for stories, that is: they also function as models for the crowd in the theater.

The book concludes with an examination of the films of Fritz Lang, who first in pre-Nazi Germany, then in Hollywood, created movies that can be seen as meditations on both these ways of using the crowd.