The queer recluse, the shambling farmer, the clannish hill folk—white rural populations have long disturbed the American imagination, alternately revered as moral, healthy, and hardworking, and feared as antisocial or socially uncouth. In Peculiar Places, Ryan Lee Cartwright examines the deep archive of these contrary formations, mapping racialized queer and disability histories of white social nonconformity across the rural twentieth-century United States. Sensationalized accounts of white rural communities’ aberrant sexualities, racial intermingling, gender transgressions, and anomalous bodies and minds, which proliferated from the turn of the century, created a national view of the perversity of white rural poverty for the American public. Cartwright contends that these accounts, extracted and estranged from their own ambivalent forum of community gossip, must be read in kind: through a racialized, materialist queercrip optic of the deeply familiar and mundane. Taking in popular science, documentary photography, news media, documentaries, and horror films, Peculiar Places orients itself at the intersections of disability studies, queer studies, and gender studies to illuminate a racialized landscape both profoundly ordinary and familiar.

Through a high-interest narrative and eye-catching images, readers journey to some of Earth's most peculiar places. They will uncover the secrets behind Stonehenge in England and the Nazca Lines in Peru. They will explore what is known about Area 51 and Roswell, New Mexico. They will learn what scientists have to say about who or what is responsible for disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle. They'll view some of the most bizarrely colored mountains, lakes, and beaches on the planet. Intriguing sidebars and a further reading section with recent books and educational websites encourage students to dive deeper into these and other mysteries.

For over thirty years, John Simpson has travelled the world to report on the most significant events of our time. From being punched in the stomach by Harold Wilson on one of his first days as a reporter, to escaping summary execution in Beirut, flying into Teheran with the returning Ayatollah Khomeini, and narrowly avoiding entrapment by a beautiful Czech secret agent, Simpson has had an astonishingly eventful career. In 1989 he witnessed the Tiananmen Square massacre, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communism throughout Eastern Europe and, only weeks later, in South Africa, the release of Nelson Mandela. With Simpson's uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time, this autobiography is a ring-side seat at every major event in recent global history. 'So vivid I could feel my heart beating' Jonathan Mirsky, Spectator 'great stories, sometimes harrowing, sometimes hilarious' Daily Telegraph

Lessons Learned in Strange Places is an intriguing, yet true, account of author Jane Cooper's travels to various places around the world. Chronicling her numerous adventures, Jane provides a fascinating picture of many different countries, some of which are now closed to tourism, and especially to American tourists. The most important aspects of her stories are the lessons that were learned along with the answers to many prayers, which she and her mother experienced as they entered and exited these countries. For example, their trip to Iraq in 1974 not only required patience but also a great deal of prayer. It was at this time that Jane learned the importance of yielding to God's will. Arriving in Iraq with her mother for a Christmas holiday with no lodging secured, by chance they met an American woman and her German husband at the airport. The couple offered them a place to stay that turned out to be a blessing. In addition to the wonder of various lessons learned along the way, the amazing answers to prayer were just as impressive. Lessons Learned in Strange Places offers the anticipation of what the next problem might be, how the author handled each one, and the astonishing end results-and the part that prayer and faith played in each adventure.

"Art in Odd Places (AiOP) is a thematic, annual festival that presents visual and performance art in public spaces along 14th Street in Manhattan, NYC each October. In 2011, over sixty artists and performers created public art interventions as part of Art in Odd Places 2011: RITUAL. This richly illustrated catalogue is both a document of, and critical extension on, the diverse projects that were presented. Including commentary by leading practitioners in contemporary art and urban design including: AiOP Founder and Director, Ed Woodham, co-curators Kalia Brooks and Trinidad Fombella, Juliana Driever, Victoria Marshall, Adam Brent, Ernesto Pujol, and Linda Mary Montano.AiOP is an artist-led initiative that uses 14th Street as a laboratory to locate cracks in public space policies, question the dehumanization of the urban landscape, and celebrate the theater of civic space"--Art in Odd Places Website http://www.artinoddplaces.org

In April 2012, Endicott College hosted the world famous New York City public arts festival, "Art in Odd Places" (AiOP) on its scenic oceanfront Beverly, MA campus. While AiOP is well established on the New York cultural calendar, each October turning the length of 14th Street in Manhattan into an open air gallery and performance space, this was the first time the event had taken place on a college campus. The aim was to encourage students, faculty, staff, and the greater local community to interact with their environment and each other in thoughtful and thought provoking ways; to disrupt the deadening habits of routine, reveal unnoticed spaces and patterns, and foster a sense of appreciation of the privilege of place. Guy DeBord's term for this interaction of physical and human context was psychogeography, and for 3 springtime weeks, Endicott College was the site of this Situationist experiment. This catalogue documents the exercise, with images of the various installations and commentary by the curators.

Art in Odd Places 2011: RITUAL Ceremony. Habituation. Myth. Obsession. Superstition. Liturgy. Art in Odd Places (AiOP) is a thematic, annual festival that presents visual and performance art in public spaces along 14th Street in Manhattan, NYC each October. In 2011, over sixty artists and performers created public art interventions as part of Art in Odd Places 2011: RITUAL. This richly illustrated catalogue is both a document of, and critical extension on, the diverse projects that were presented. Including commentary by leading practitioners in contemporary art and urban design including: AiOP Founder and Director, Ed Woodham, co-curators Kalia Brooks and Trinidad Fombella, Juliana Driever, Victoria Marshall, Adam Brent, Ernesto Pujol, and Linda Mary Montano. AiOP is an artist-led initiative that uses 14th Street as a laboratory to locate cracks in public space policies, question the dehumanization of the urban landscape, and celebrate the theater of civic space.

Is your prayer life as exciting as a funeral service? If given the choice between praying and a root canal, would you choose the latter? If asked what part of prayer you enjoy the most, would you reply, "When it's finished?" Seeing God in Strange Places offers a mixture of humorous and sobering stories that help lead the reader toward intimacy with the Creator. The book answers the age-old question, how does one become conscious of God's presence in the daily grind of life? A stagnant prayer life can evolve into a stirring and enriching experience, where the awareness of God's presence brings about hope to whatever you face. Max W. Jackson attended Ohio State University, and completed the course of study at Garret Theological Seminary in Chicago. His ministry began in 1984 as a part-time local pastor before he was ordained as Deacon in the United Methodist church. He presently is serving three churches in Ohio. The Jacksons have two children, a son and daughter, and four grandchildren.