Examining performers from the ancient Mediterranean world to the modern Islamic Middle East, including India and Pakistan, Shay explores the careers, artistic performances, and legacies of these individuals who were forced to produce entertainment and art for, and have sex with, any and all patrons.

In Conspiracy U, Shay presents a case study of his alma mater, Northwestern University, in order to challenge the proliferation of anti-Zionist conspiracy theories championed on college campuses by both the far right and far left.Shay tackles the thorny question of how otherwise brilliant minds willingly come to embrace and espouse such patent falsehoods. He explains why Zionism, the movement for Jewish national self-determination, has become the focal point for both far-r...

Prominent atheists claim the Bible is a racist text. Yet Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. read it daily. Then again, so did many ardent segregationists. Some atheists claim religion serves to oppress the masses. Yet the classic text of the French Revolution, What is the Third Estate?, was written by a priest. On the other hand, the revolutionaries ended up banning religion. What do we make of religion’s confusing role in history?And what of religion’s relationship to science? Some scient...

This volume is a critical introduction to the poetry of Irish writer Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. Writing poetry exclusively in Irish but allowing and overseeing translations of her work into several languages, primarily English, Ní Dhomhnaill is the first Irish-language poet to gain an international following. She is also a pioneer in fostering a renewed relationship between the two languages of Ireland’s literary traditions. Ní Dhomhnaill is unflinching in her interventions into problematic soci...

It's 1902 and Daniel has left a life of luxury in New York to run his late uncle's bakery in Milford, Pennsylvania. Though he's made many friends in the small town, not everything has been rosy. His uncle's outstanding loan has fallen upon his shoulders and he could lose the bakery if he doesn't pay it back in time. Additionally, Daniel feels that lecherous loan officer Simon Prickson is actively trying to make it harder for him to repay his debt.Furthermore, not everyone in Milfor...

To the public, Harper Miller is nothing more than a mild mannered, socially awkward English professor with a slight stutter and some control issues. She knows her public persona isn't glamorous, but she doesn't care if people see her as milquetoast. She prefers it that way because it means no one would ever suspect her secret.Harper never intended to run a phone sex line long term. It was meant to help her pay off her student loans before landing a job with a decent paycheck. Of co...

Andreas Keller is a certified trainwreck. He's young, emancipated, broke, and has a budding criminal record. When a judge mercifully sentences him to community service instead of jail time, Keller is faced with the most horrible thing he can imagine -- three hundred hours of mandatory volunteer work with the minister's son.Cameron's job at the library is interrupted when he's assigned to supervise the town troublemaker. He has no idea what to expect when he begins working with Kell...

This never should have happened.This never has happened before.Yet here they are, connected under the most unusual and baffling circumstances, with only brands on their ring fingers and the shadow-memory of a man in their subconscious to prove it's real.As if the feeling like their organs are being strung from their bodies, their ribs and spines threatening to snap if they dare step too far apart aren't indicators enough...They're really Bonded....

The Nazis and their collaborators buried over 100,000 victims at Babyn Yar, a ravine in modern-day Ukraine. Most of the individuals were Jewish, making this area one of the most infamous mass murder sites in history. The Ravine of Memory starts when the travesty ends, telling the story of the ravine’s memory and forgetting in Soviet literature and culture—in Russian as well as in Yiddish. This book challenges the prevailing binary conceptions of Babyn Yar as exclusively a Holocaus...

The Book of Seconds"So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun; for he will come like a rushing stream, which the wind of the Lord drives."And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression," declares the Lord."And as for me, this is my covenant with them," says the Lord: "My Spirit that is upon you and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out o...

THE UNEXPLAINABLE IS HAPPENINGV4641 Sgr, a microquasar in the Milky Way, has become associated with a pattern of astronomical and terrestrial anomalies affecting Earth and the rest of our solar system in inexplicable ways. In trying to determine how such a thing could happen, Danny Adamson, a physicist turned science editor for NHQ Broadcast Services, discovers not only an inconceivable connection between Earth and the V4641 signature, but also a critical miscalcul...

The Third Edition of RUT Management builds upon a realization that first reshaped the book. When I wrote the original edition, I made a dangerous assumption that most people understood they were in a RUT and what that represented. I discovered instead that most folks had little to no clue about their RUT, where they were along their trek, or why knowing such information mattered. That realization led to two additional chapters and expanded ideas in the Second Edition, illuminating the sign...