Trickster Travels

Author: Natalie Zemon Davis
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466829303
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 659

Book Description
An engrossing study of Leo Africanus and his famous book, which introduced Africa to European readers Al-Hasan al-Wazzan--born in Granada to a Muslim family that in 1492 went to Morocco, where he traveled extensively on behalf of the sultan of Fez--is known to historians as Leo Africanus, author of the first geography of Africa to be published in Europe (in 1550). He had been captured by Christian pirates in the Mediterranean and imprisoned by the pope, then released, baptized, and allowed a European life of scholarship as the Christian writer Giovanni Leone. In this fascinating new book, the distinguished historian Natalie Zemon Davis offers a virtuoso study of the fragmentary, partial, and often contradictory traces that al-Hasan al-Wazzan left behind him, and a superb interpretation of his extraordinary life and work. In Trickster Travels, Davis describes all the sectors of her hero's life in rich detail, scrutinizing the evidence of al-Hasan's movement between cultural worlds; the Islamic and Arab traditions, genres, and ideas available to him; and his adventures with Christians and Jews in a European community of learned men and powerful church leaders. In depicting the life of this adventurous border-crosser, Davis suggests the many ways cultural barriers are negotiated and diverging traditions are fused.

Trickster Travels

Author: Natalie Zemon Davis
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0809094347
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 449

Book Description
"The man whom historians know as Leo Africanus, author of the first geography of Africa, was born al-Hasan al-Wazzan to a Muslim family that in 1492 moved from Granada to Morocco. In this new book, the historian Natalie Zemon Davis offers a study of the fragmentary, partial, and often contradictory traces that this celebrated figure left behind him, and a superb interpretation of his extraordinary life and work." "As a young man, al-Hasan traveled extensively on behalf of the sultan of Fez, until he was captured in 1518 by Christian pirates in the Mediterranean and imprisoned by Pope Leo X, then released when he converted to Christianity. For the next decade he lived in Italy as the Christian scholar Giovanni Leone; it was then that he wrote his famous Descriptions of Africa. After the sack of Rome in 1527, it is likely that he returned to North Africa. Davis describes each sector of this dramatic life in rich detail, scrutinizing the evidence of al-Hasan's movement between cultural worlds, the Islamic and Arab traditions and ideas available to him, and his adventures with Christians and Jews in a European community of learned men and powerful church leaders." "Drawing on all his manuscripts - including ones previously unknown - Davis explores the places and people al-Hasan encountered and the books that shaped his work. We see him studying law and theology in a Fez madrasa; talking with nomads and merchants; reciting poetry; teaching Arabic to a cardinal in Rome; creating an Arabic-Hebrew-Latin dictionary with a scholarly Jew in Bologna. And we see him emerge as an author, using Arabic genres but writing in Italian and Latin for European readers." "Davis's work suggests that the experiences and writings of this adventurous border-crosser bear witness to the possibilities for connection, exchange, and even intimacy among peoples living in a divided world, and to the many ways that they negotiate cultural barriers and fuse divergent traditions."--BOOK JACKET.

Trickster Makes This World

Author: Lewis Hyde
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429930837
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 580

Book Description
In Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde brings to life the playful and disruptive side of human imagination as it is embodied in trickster mythology. He first visits the old stories—Hermes in Greece, Eshu in West Africa, Krishna in India, Coyote in North America, among others—and then holds them up against the lives and work of more recent creators: Picasso, Duchamp, Ginsberg, John Cage, and Frederick Douglass. Twelve years after its first publication, Trickster Makes This World—authoritative in its scholarship, loose-limbed in its style—has taken its place among the great works of modern cultural criticism. This new edition includes an introduction by Michael Chabon.

Travels to the Otherworld and Other Fantastic Realms

Author: Claude Lecouteux
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620559439
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
A collection of tales from the Middle Ages that reveal voyages to Heaven and Hell, the realm of the Faery, mystical lands, and encounters with mythic beasts • Shares travelers’ accounts of voyages into the afterlife, alarming creatures of unparalleled strangeness, encounters with doppelgangers and angels, chivalric romantic misadventures, and legends of heroes • Explains how travelers’ tales from the Middle Ages drew on geographies, encyclopedias, travel accounts, bestiaries, and herbals for material to capture the imagination of their audiences • Includes rare illustrations from incunabula and medieval manuscripts Heading off to discover unknown lands was always a risky undertaking during the Middle Ages due to the countless dangers lying in wait for the traveler--if we can believe what the written accounts tell us. In the medieval age of intercontinental exploration, tales of sea monsters, strange hybrid beasts, trickster faeries, accidental trips to the afterlife, and peoples as fantastic and dangerous as the lands they inhabited abounded. In this curated collection of medieval travelers’ tales, editors Claude and Corinne Lecouteux explain how the Middle Ages were a melting pot of narrative traditions from the four corners of the then-known world. Tales from this period often drew on geographies, encyclopedias, travel accounts, bestiaries, and herbals for material to capture the imagination of their audiences, who were fascinated by the wonders being discovered by explorers of the time. Accompanied by rare illustrations from incunabula and medieval manuscripts, the stories in this collection include voyages into the afterlife, with guided tours of Hell and glimpses of Heaven, as well as journeys into other fantastic realms, such as the pagan land of the Faery. It also includes accounts from travelers such as Alexander the Great of alarming creatures of unparalleled strangeness, encounters with doppelgangers and angels, legends of heroes, and tales of chivalric romantic misadventures, with protagonists swept to exotic new places by fate or by quest. In each story, the marvelous is omnipresent, and each portrays the reactions of the protagonist when faced with the unknown. Offering an introduction to the medieval imaginings of a wondrous universe, these tales reflect the dreams and beliefs of the Middle Ages’ era of discovery and allow readers to survey mythic geography, meet people from the far ends of the earth, and experience the supernatural.

Tales of Tricksters

Author: Pleasant DeSpain
Publisher: august house
ISBN: 9780874836691
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 88

Book Description
Contains nine short folktales about tricksters, featuring selections from Persia, India, Poland, France, and other places.

Raven

Author: Gerald McDermott
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547351194
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 37

Book Description
Raven, the trickster, wants to give people the gift of light. But can he find out where Sky Chief keeps it? And if he does, will he be able to escape without being discovered? His dream seems impossible, but if anyone can find a way to bring light to the world, wise and clever Raven can!

Travel Narratives from the Age of Discovery

Author: Peter C. Mancall
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195155971
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 431

Book Description
This is a primary source collection of narratives about the travel and discovery in North and South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe in the 16th century.

Slaves on Screen

Author: Natalie Zemon Davis
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307368858
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
People have been experimenting with different ways to write history for 2,500 years, yet we have experimented with film in the same way for only a century. Noted professor and historian Natalie Zemon Davis, consultant for the film The Return of Martin Guerre, argues that movies can do much more than recreate exciting events and the external look of the past in costumes and sets. Film can show millions of viewers the sentiments, experiences and practices of a group, a period and a place; it can suggest the hidden processes and conflicts of political and family life. And film has the potential to show the past accurately, wedding the concerns of the historian and the filmmaker. To explore the achievements and flaws of historical films in differing traditions, Davis uses two themes: slavery, and women in political power. She shows how slave resistance and the memory of slavery are represented through such films as Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus, Steven Spielberg's Amistad and Jonathan Demme's Beloved. Then she considers the portrayal of queens from John Ford's Mary of Scotland and Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth to John Madden's Mrs. Brown and compares them with the cinematic treatments of Eva Peron and Golda Meir. This visionary book encourages readers to consider history films both appreciatively and critically, while calling historians and filmmakers to a new collaboration.

The Charlatan's Boy

Author: Jonathan Rogers
Publisher: WaterBrook
ISBN: 0307458237
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
“I only know one man who might be able to tell me where I come from, and that man is a liar and a fraud.” As far back as he can remember, the orphan Grady has tramped from village to village in the company of a huckster named Floyd. With his adolescent accomplice, Floyd perpetrates a variety of hoaxes and flimflams on the good citizens of the Corenwald frontier, such as the Ugliest Boy in the World act. It’s a hard way to make a living, made harder by the memory of fatter times when audiences thronged to see young Grady perform as “The Wild Man of the Feechiefen Swamp.” But what can they do? Nobody believes in feechies anymore. When Floyd stages an elaborate plot to revive Corenwalders’ belief in the mythical swamp-dwellers known as the feechiefolk, he overshoots the mark. Floyd’s Great Feechie Scare becomes widespread panic. Eager audiences become angry mobs, and in the ensuing chaos, the Charlatan’s Boy discovers the truth that has evaded him all his life—and will change his path forever.

Sorcerer's Apprentice

Author: Tahir Shah
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing Inc.
ISBN: 1611450578
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 533

Book Description
Tahir Shah has a genius for surreal travelling, finding or creating situations and people. Doris...