How did physicians come to dominate the medical profession? Lyn Bennett challenges the seemingly self-evident belief that scientific competence accounts for physicians' dominance. Instead, she argues that the whole enterprise of learned medicine was, in large measure, facilitated by an intensely classical education that included extensive training in rhetoric, and that this rhetorical training is ultimately responsible for the achievement of professional dominance. Bennett examines previou...

In Edith Wharton’s works, references to architecture, interior decoration, painting, sculpture, and fashion abound. As these essays demonstrate, art and objects are for Wharton evidence of cultural belief and reflect the values, assumptions, and customs of the burgeoning consumer culture in which she lived and about which she wrote. Furthermore, her meditations about issues of architecture, design, and decoration serve as important commentaries on her vision of the literary arts.In...

The purpose of Communicating in the Anthropocene: Intimate Relations is to tell a different story about the world. Humans, especially those raised in Western traditions, have long told stories about themselves as individual protagonists who act with varying degrees of free will against a background of mute supporting characters and inert landscapes. Humans can be either saviors or destroyers, but our actions are explained and judged again and again as emanating from the individual. And yet...

Barbed wire is made of two strands of galvanized steel wire twisted together for strength and to hold sharp barbs in place. As creative advertisers sought ways to make an inherently dangerous product attractive to customers concerned about the welfare of their livestock, and as barbed wire became commonplace on battlefields and in concentration camps, the fence accrued a fascinating and troubling range of meanings beyond the material facts of its construction.In The Perfect Fen...

They say when it rains it pours, but these four brothers seem to be going through a storm.Blaze is back and ready to set fire to anything moving. With the family questioning his motives and where he has been, it seems he is now the enemy and can't be trusted. In the midst of him trying to clear his name, will he be able to handle the secrets that lies between Drea and Babyface??With Quick in jail for murdering a cop, his life hangs in the balance. Unbeknownst to him, that i...

What should be the happiest day of one's life, turned into the worst. Literally a wedding to die for, the Hoover brothers Quick, Shadow, and Babyface wait in the wind on news of Blaze's fate.While Quick blames himself, he still has to deal with the dirty cops trying to infiltrate their circle. Will he be able to hold it together as everything around him falls apart?Shadow and his brothers tear the city of Chicago up looking for the ones responsible, what he doesn't know is ...

What is Jackie Spade about? It's about a girl who tries and succeeds at almost everything, but despite her success, she fails to know where she belongs. Jackie Spade is a collection of memories and lessons that girl learned through being a Jack of all trades with no place to call home.