Yale University Press

In works of Western literature ranging from Homer's Odyssey to Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The giving and taking of hospitality are sometimes pleasurable, but more often perilous. Heffernan traces this leitmotiv through the history of our greatest writings, including Christ's Last Supper, Macbeth's murder of his royal guest, and Camus'...

This comprehensive and richly illustrated book explores the archaeological record of the land of the Bible from its conquest by Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C.E. until the reign of the Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century C.E. Unique in its focus on the region's archaeology during the crucial Graeco-Roman era, the book...

The Bible has always been an integral part of American political culture. Yet in the years before the Civil War, it was the Old Testament, not the New Testament, that pervaded political rhetoric. From Revolutionary times to about 1830, numerous American politicians, commentators, ministers, and laymen depicted their young nation as a new,...

Beginning with Walt Whitman singing hymns at a wounded soldier's bedside during the Civil War, this surprising and vivid anthology ranges straight through to the twenty-first century to end with Francine Prose crying tears of complicated joy at the sight of Whitman's words in Zuccotti Park during the brief days of the Occupy movement. The first...

Little is known about the early childhood of Jesus Christ. But in the decades after his death, stories began circulating about his origins. One collection of such tales was the so-called Infancy Gospel of Thomas, known in antiquity as the Paidika, or "Childhood Deeds" of Jesus. In it, Jesus not only performs miracles while at play (such as turning...

Welcome to "Encounters", a groundbreaking Chinese language programme that features a dramatic series filmed entirely in China. The programme's highly communicative approach immerses learners in the Chinese language and culture through video episodes that directly correspond to units in the textbook. By combining a compelling story line with a...