Is true love a physical element, or can it be something above and beyond the human experience in the physical world? This is a collection of poetry describing a love outside the box, outside human logic, and outside human interpretation due to fear of ones own sexuality. Is true love sexual due to the physical need? Is it possible one suffers because of labels and the lack of understanding of the true meaning of Gods love? The poet walks us through a pure paradise on earth untouched by Adam and Eve, untouched by judgment and criticism. The soul is untouched by masculinity and femininity. The soul, which is bodiless, knows no boundaries once it is connected with another soul. This is a pure dance that can be eternal once its touched by the intangible eros.

What does theology have to say about the place of eroticism in the salvific transformation of men and women, even of the cosmos itself? How, in turn, does eros infuse theological practice and transfigure doctrinal tropes? Avoiding the well-worn path of sexual moralizing while also departing decisively from Anders Nygren’s influential insistence that Christian agape must have nothing to do with worldly eros, this book explores what is still largely uncharted territory in the realm of theological erotics. The ascetic, the mystical, the seductive, the ecstatic—these are the places where the divine and the erotic may be seen to converge and love and desire to commingle. Inviting and performing a mutual seduction of disciplines, the volume brings philosophers, historians, biblical scholars, and theologians into a spirited conversation that traverses the limits of conventional orthodoxies, whether doctrinal or disciplinary. It seeks new openings for the emergence of desire, love, and pleasure, while challenging common understandings of these terms. It engages risk at the point where the hope for salvation paradoxically endangers the safety of subjects—in particular, of theological subjects—by opening them to those transgressions of eros in which boundaries, once exceeded, become places of emerging possibility. The eighteen chapters, arranged in thematic clusters, move fluidly among and between premodern and postmodern textual traditions—from Plato to Emerson, Augustine to Kristeva, Mechthild to Mattoso, the Shulammite to Molly Bloom, the Zohar to the Da Vinci Code. In so doing, they link the sublime reaches of theory with the gritty realities of politics, the boundless transcendence of God with the poignant transience of materiality.

Informed by the belief that critical pedagogy must move beyond the classroom if it is to be truly effective, this essay collection makes clear how cultural practices--as portrayed in film, sports, and in the classroom itself--enable cultural studies to deepen its own political possibilities and to construct diverse geographies of identity, representation and place. Contributors: Henry A. Giroux, Ava Collins, Nancy Fraser, Carol Becker, bell hooks, Michael Eric Dyson, Roger I. Simon, Chandra Talpede Mohanty, Simon Watney, Michele Wallace, Peter McLaren, David Trend, Abdul R. JanMohamed and Kenneth Mostern.

The second collection of poetry by Chelsea Jahaliel is a dive into sensuality. A chocolate-box collection of poetry celebrating the physical exploration of desire and love.

Marcella Althaus-Reid was one of the most fascinating and controversial theologians of the twentieth and early twenty-first century. Her strong personality and her iconoclastic work inspired a whole generation of theologians in the UK and worldwide. Marcella's creative life was cut short by her death from cancer in 2009. Yet she lives on, not least in those who have been inspired by her work and continue to engage with it. "Dancing Theology in Fetish Boots" draws together a number of world-class scholars and others who engage with the main themes of Marcella's work and show how the critical and controversial conversations which Marcella has begun can and do continue. It is therefore far more than a Festschrift, but a celebration of an intellectual life Marcella-style.

Modern biblical scholarship interprets the Song as a collection of love lyrics. For Edmée Kingsmill, on the contrary, the essence of the Song is mystical. A principal concern of this study, however, is to uncover the relationship between the 117 verses of the Song and those biblical books to which they point. Beneath the metaphors a network of allusions is being woven, conveying a picture opposite to that we find in the prophets who, confronted with the continual 'adultery' of Israel, poured forth their condemnations with unwearying passion. In dramatic contrast, the Song presents a paradisal picture: 'For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear in the land, and the time of singing is come' (Song 2: 11-12). Thus, in presenting the ideal, the intention of the Song's author is shown to be encouragement. The inclusion of this poem in the biblical canon is understood, therefore, to be central to the purpose of the biblical literature: to bring all people to love the God of love. The book is in two parts. The first and longer part is concerned with themes, including the relationship of the Song to the early Jewish mystical literature. The second part is a short commentary intended for the reader interested in the text as much as in the related questions to which the text gives rise.

Have you ever believed in a life after death? Do want to know what the most rattling secrets of the existence of mankind are? If questions such as these stir a sense of curiosity in your mind then this book is for you. Come with me as I take you to a journey in which we will see what life after existence really feels like. Along the way we will be coming across some of the most renowned geniuses that have embraced our planet ever since the beginning of time. Not only will we have in depth discussions on all of the biggest questions that have confused mankind over the years with these geniuses, but we will also be uncovering some of the most mindboggling secrets along the way. "Eros and Thanatos" follows the story of "DEM" and how I travelled the gates of hell and paradise with Dante. The stories we find in this book provide an interesting outlook on many of the most heated debates that the greats have long discussed but come to no conclusion despite thinking about countless concepts and ideas.

2022 Whiting Award Winner for Nonfiction Finalist • National Book Critics Circle Award (Criticism) Best Books of the Year: TIME, Kirkus Reviews "This is a very smart and soulful book. Jesse McCarthy is a terrific essayist." —Zadie Smith A supremely talented young critic’s essays on race and culture, from Toni Morrison to trap, herald the arrival of a major new voice in American letters. Ranging from Ta-Nehisi Coates’s case for reparations to Toni Morrison’s revolutionary humanism to D’Angelo’s simmering blend of R&B and racial justice, Jesse McCarthy’s bracing essays investigate with virtuosic intensity the art, music, literature, and political stances that have defined the twenty-first century. Even as our world has suffered through successive upheavals, McCarthy contends, “something was happening in the world of culture: a surging and unprecedented visibility at every level of black art making.” Who Will Pay Reparations on My Soul? reckons with this resurgence, arguing for the central role of art and intellectual culture in an age of widening inequality and moral crisis. McCarthy reinvigorates the essay form as a space not only for argument but for experimental writing that mixes and chops the old ways into new ones. In “Notes on Trap,” he borrows a conceit from Susan Sontag to reveal the social and political significance of trap music, the drug-soaked strain of Southern hip-hop that, as he puts it, is “the funeral music that the Reagan Revolution deserves.” In “Back in the Day,” McCarthy, a black American raised in France, evokes his childhood in Paris through an elegiac account of French rap in the 1990s. In “The Master’s Tools,” the relationship between Spanish painter Diego Velázquez and his acolyte-slave, Juan de Pareja, becomes the lens through which Kehinde Wiley’s paintings are viewed, while “To Make a Poet Black” explores the hidden blackness of Sappho and the erotic power of Phillis Wheatley. Essays on John Edgar Wideman, Claudia Rankine, and Colson Whitehead survey the state of black letters. In his title essay, McCarthy takes on the question of reparations, arguing that true progress will not come until Americans remake their institutions in the service of true equality. As he asks, “What can reparations mean when the damage cannot be accounted for in the only system of accounting that a society recognizes?” For readers of Teju Cole’s Known and Strange Things and Mark Greif’s Against Everything, McCarthy’s essays portray a brilliant young critic at work, making sense of our disjointed times while seeking to transform our understanding of race and art, identity and representation.

Dominant views about sex have in most churches been distorted by centuries of negative accretions and become travesties of what we find in the Bible. - Dr. Reidulf Molvaer In this book Dr. Reidulf Molvaer attempts to recapture the joyful, cheerful abandon in legitimate sexual relationships that we see in the Bible-yes, the Bible From the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament to Saint Paul's advice on intimacy in the New Testament, you are presented with the real meanings of these ancient texts and learn why the Church has interpreted the Song as an allegory rather than as a description of the joyous sexual experience it truly is. Could there be any greater glorification of sex than to let ideal love between man and woman illustrate the union between the devout and the divine? Dr. Molvaer demystifies fairytale images of the Virgin Mary, compares biblical sexual ethics to various cultures and discusses tales of eccentrics who have been elevated to sainthood. This book rediscovers what has been misrepresented for generations and encourages Christians and others to think afresh about one of the greatest and most disputed acts of devotion found in the Holy Bible. Dr. Reidulf Molvaer attended university in Oslo, Norway, and received his Ph.D. from London University, England. He spent 20 years in development work for churches and the U.N. in Africa and was a senior researcher in Oslo until his retirement. Publisher's website: http: //www.eloquentbooks.com/TwoMakingOne.htm