Böcker av Ken Jackson

The topic of Shakespeare and religion is a perennial one, and the recent "turn to religion" in historical and literary scholarship has pushed it to the fore. Besides speculating about Shakespeare's personal religious beliefs and allegiance, historians and literary critics writing about early modern England are reexamining the religious dynamics of the period and emphasizing the ways in which old, new, and emerging religious cultures coexisted in conflicting hybrid and unstable forms. The contributors to Shakespeare and Religion: Early Modern and Postmodern Perspectives deal with the topic of Shakespeare and religion from two points of view not always considered complementary--that of the historical approach to Shakespearean drama in its early modern contexts, and that of postmodern philosophy and theology. The first illuminates the culture-specific features of the plays, whereas the second emphasizes their transhistorical qualities and the relevance of the deep religious and philosophical issues surfacing in early modern culture to contemporary religious struggles and awareness.

If this is your first time traveling abroad, "The Smugglers of the Sulu Islands" may not be the guide for you. But if you've already roamed the planet a bit, this diverse collection of travel stories is a must read. It provides such useful tips as which conversations to avoid with the head of a Philippine smuggling gang or an undercover Hong Kong vice cop. It explains how to economize on Caribbean cruises by hitching a ride on a gravel barge. Some stories include history like Imperial military conflicts along the Khyber Pass, or the East Indies spice trade, or the Cold War in the Taiwan Straits. Wining and dining vignettes advise where to follow the culinary paths of famous writers and how to cope with being locked inside an African wine bar. Cheerful tales about a Bombay beach party contrast with somber ones about an English D-Day memorial. Survival advice on Indian stadium riots and beer drinking Mexican taxi drivers may save lives. The book ends in the author's home of two decades, Hong Kong. There he gives us a gritty glimpse of its urban street life; a rail-side view of its frenetic horse racing scene; and a first-hand account of its SARS epidemic. Finally, he reflects on the city he left behind and what has happened to it since.

This is a book of poetry with poems from my feelings and a musical heart. It is about memories from the past that cannot be forgotten and feelings that soothe the heart and can just be expressed by music.

In Shakespeare and Abraham, Ken Jackson illuminates William Shakespeare's dramatic fascination with the story of Abraham's near sacrifice of his son Isaac in Genesis 22. Themes of child killing fill Shakespeare's early plays: Genesis 22 informed Clifford's attack on young Rutland in 3 Henry 6, Hubert's providentially thwarted murder of Arthur in King John, and Aaron the Moor's surprising decision to spare his son amidst the filial slaughters of Titus Andronicus, among others. However, the playwright's full engagement with the biblical narrative does not manifest itself exclusively in scenes involving the sacrifice of children or in verbal borrowings from the famously sparse story of Abraham. Jackson argues that the most important influence of Genesis 22 and its interpretive tradition is to be found in the conceptual framework that Shakespeare develops to explore relationships among ideas of religion, sovereignty, law, and justice. Jackson probes the Shakespearean texts from the vantage of modern theology and critical theory, while also orienting them toward the traditions concerning Abraham in Jewish, Pauline, patristic, medieval, and Reformation sources and early English drama. Consequently, the playwright's "e;Abrahamic explorations"e; become strikingly apparent in unexpected places such as the "e;trial"e; of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and the bifurcated structure of Timon of Athens. By situating Shakespeare in a complex genealogy that extends from ancient religion to postmodern philosophy, Jackson inserts Shakespeare into the larger contemporary conversation about religion in the modern world.