Beginnings

After moving with her parents to Iowa, twelve-year-old Lucy discovers a mysterious notebook that can bring stories to life and which has a link to the 1914 disappearance of her great uncle.

A capstone work from a renowned philosopher who explores how Western cultural biases may be challenged by classic texts in order to enter another way of thinking How can a person from a Western culture enter into a way of thinking as different as that of the Chinese? Can a person truly escape from his or her own cultural perspectives and assumptions? French philosopher François Jullien has throughout his career explored the distances between European and Chinese thought. In this fascinating summation of his work, he takes an original approach to the conundrum of cross-cultural understanding. Jullien considers just three sentences in their original languages. Each is the first sentence of a seminal text: the Bible in Hebrew, Hesiod's Theogony in Greek, and the Yijing (I Ching) in Chinese. By dismantling these sentences, the author reveals the workings of each language and the ways of thought in which they are inscribed. He traces the hidden choices made by European reason and assumptions, discovering among other things what is not thought about. Through the lens of the Chinese language, Jullien offers, as always, a new and surprising view of our own Western culture.

"When Redi Tlhabi is eleven years old, two years after her father's death, she meets the handsome, charming and smooth, Mabegzo. A rumoured gangster, murderer and rapist, he is a veritable 'jack roller' of the neighbourhood. Against her family's wishes, she develops a strong connection to him. Tlhabi herself doesn't understand why she is drawn to Mabegzo and why, at eleven, she feels a brokenness that only Mabegzo can fix. 'Endings & Beginnings' is Tlhabi's emotional journey back into her past to finally humanise this man whose hollowness mirrored her own and who was hated and abhorred by so many when he was alive. Through interviews and deep emotional conversations with his family, friends and those who knew him, Redi finally gets to fit together the pieces of the puzzle that was Mabegzo. Her revelations do not in any way excuse who and what he was, but they go a long way in shedding light on the scourge that is violence in our societies and why young black men are consumed by anger." -- Back cover.

"For easy printing of all activities and charts, a convenient CD-ROM is included in the book." -- p. [4] of cover.

Presents the history of Africa's rich cultural empires from the early part of the millennium through the time of Christopher Columbus.

This reissued classic traces the ramifications and diverse understandings of the concept of "beginning" in history and offers valuable insights into the role of the intellectual and the goal of criticism.

Containing an attempt to recover and reconstitute the lost origins of the myths and mysteries, types and symbols, religion and language, with Egypt for the mouthpiece and Africa as the birthplace.

Take a journey into the infinite realm of hope and possibility, of transformation and transcendence. Discover what must shift for our minds to open to heightened awareness and powers and what keeps us from knowing all we can about who we are and what we are able to do ?????? in and beyond our physical existence. Step into the continuity of life and walk on ?????? because, after all: The Life force does not die. Gain a new perspective on healing trauma, illness, and addictions, and a more positive way of looking at daily challenges and transitions. Take a journey of the heart, mind and soul into the infinite realm of hope and possibility, of transformation and transcendence, and heightened awareness. Experience and explore different, more effective ways to effect positive transitions through and beyond daily life challenges, troubled relationship patterns, addictions, physical illness, as well as physical death.

Plunging the reader into a phantasmagoric world where streets are paved with human remains and men are apocalyptically condemned to death by the fire of their loins, these short stories strike a fabulist and magical realism drawn from African traditions and present-day conditions. For all its contemporary relevance, this collection has at its core a dialogue between the living and their ancestors that creates a powerful resonance between the bones of the dead and the echoes of their survivors.