Kirjahaku

In the decades after the Civil War, how did Americans see the world and their place in it? In this text, Kendall Johnson argues that Henry James appealed to his readers' sense of vision to dramatise the ambiguity of American citizenship in scenes of tense encounter with Europeans. By reviving the eighteenth-century debates over beauty, sublimity, and the picturesque, James weaves into his narratives the national politics of emancipation, immigration, and Indian Removal. For James, visual experience is crucial to the American communal identity, a position that challenged prominent anthropologists as they defined concepts of race and culture in ways that continue to shape how we see the world today. To demonstrate the cultural stereotypes that James reworked, the book includes twenty illustrations from periodicals of the nineteenth century. This study reaches startling conclusions not just about James, but about the way America defined itself through the arts in the nineteenth century.

In the decades after the Civil War, how did Americans see the world and their place in it? In this text, Kendall Johnson argues that Henry James appealed to his readers' sense of vision to dramatise the ambiguity of American citizenship in scenes of tense encounter with Europeans. By reviving the eighteenth-century debates over beauty, sublimity, and the picturesque, James weaves into his narratives the national politics of emancipation, immigration, and Indian Removal. For James, visual experience is crucial to the American communal identity, a position that challenged prominent anthropologists as they defined concepts of race and culture in ways that continue to shape how we see the world today. To demonstrate the cultural stereotypes that James reworked, the book includes twenty illustrations from periodicals of the nineteenth century. This study reaches startling conclusions not just about James, but about the way America defined itself through the arts in the nineteenth century.

Post-traumatic stress disorder -- aka PTSD or simply "trauma" -- is a growing problem, with adults and children today affected by threats of terror; combat in the Middle East; and social, economic, and personal crises. It is a hidden disease affecting ten percent of the population -- many whether they know it or not. This book explains how PTSD arises, how to recognize its effects, and how to stabilize and recover from it, focusing on three areas: how to cope, how to help children and other loved ones, and how to recover happiness. Based on 18 years of field experience and practice, the author provides specific suggestions for handling trauma reactions like anger, anxiety, and withdrawal; discusses how to work through long-term effects; and includes numerous case examples and guidelines for self-help. Accessible and timely, his book speaks to healthcare professionals, military families, and anyone seeking coping strategies in the current world climate.

Post-traumatic stress disorder -- aka PTSD or simply "trauma" -- is a growing problem, with adults and children today affected by threats of terror; combat in the Middle East; and social, economic, and personal crises. It is a hidden disease affecting ten percent of the population -- many whether they know it or not. This book explains how PTSD arises, how to recognize its effects, and how to stabilize and recover from it, focusing on three areas: how to cope, how to help children and other loved ones, and how to recover happiness. Based on 18 years of field experience and practice, the author provides specific suggestions for handling trauma reactions like anger, anxiety, and withdrawal; discusses how to work through long-term effects; and includes numerous case examples and guidelines for self-help. Accessible and timely, his book speaks to healthcare professionals, military families, and anyone seeking coping strategies in the current world climate.

Kendall Johnson's Fireflies against Darkness is in the end a bright spot in a world that could seem endlessly painful. The author has seen more evil than any one person should have to see from his tour of Vietnam where young men were asked to savage a country and murder strangers to New York City during the days of 9/11. Between and after that time, he has made a career of confronting evil through his practice as a trauma psychotherapist. What is extraordinary about him is that rather than being dragged down into that evil, he has fought to see the spots of light in an otherwise chaotic universe and to make them his practice. He has maintained his essential self, and this book is a guide for us to do the same. -John Brantingham, Inaugural Poet Laureate, Sequoia Kings Canyon National Park In life and in print, Kendall Johnson IS this title and believes in its tiny promises. His words are both heart-breaking and heart-mending-but most of all they encourage hope. No matter how dark the circumstance, man-caused or natural, his beautifully-wrought words are spare beacons, truly Fireflies Against Darkness. -Tracey Meloni, Writer, Nursing Education In this collection, Kendall Johnson displays his keen sense of observation in our human condition during our current chaotic times of darkness. Even when writing about how things couldn't possibly seem worse, the power of his words and the beauty of his haiku portray how the actions of others produce fireflies of hope in all of us. -Annie Bien, Author of Plateau Migrations and Under Shadows of Stars Kendall Johnson is no stranger to pain and chaos. As a former firefighter, Vietnam veteran, and psychologist specializing in crisis management and the treatment of traumatic stress, he has mastered the art of wrestling with tangled lives. He's perfected that art in this latest volume. He unflinchingly shows us the darkness while at the same time revealing exquisite, small tales of individual perseverance, generosity, and strength. The contrast is stunningly inspiring. -Kate Flannery, Writer of Ekphrasis for the Sasse Museum of Art, poetry, and memoir When times are tough, like they have been lately, we sometimes need help to get through. Kendall Johnson gives us that in Fireflies Against Darkness. Short hard news pieces are followed by tiny verses that, like fireflies, light the path connecting us to quietly courageous people who, using art or music or nature, bring us hope. Bring us out of the darkness. I love this book -Louella Lester, author of Glass Bricks This remarkable, highly original chapbook juxtaposes bulletins from the COVID-pandemic, out of control wildfires, natural disasters, mass shootings, and climate change chaos with glimpses of the famous (and not so famous) denizens of the art world and their struggles, including Chuck Close, Georgia and Ida O'Keeffe, and Vincent Van Gogh. I could not stop reading this mesmerizing collection. I didn't want it to end. Kendall Johnson has written something important, holding up a mirror to our tarnished reality. -Alexis Rhone Fancher, author of EROTIC: New & Selected, poetry, editor, Cultural Daily Note to the Reader When 2020 rolled to a close I was grateful, scarcely imagining that the new year could get worse. Yet media spectacle bombards us every hour with new more frightening atrocities and threat. We fight over what is right, real, or true. We find ourselves driving a rough road through dark night. In the face of the grinding uncertainty that is today, what can we look toward for the courage to continue?

My Mum always told me to make friends with the folks in my lifeboat. I shall always wish Kendall Johnson were among them With his initial Fireflies Against Darkness, he reminded us in his beautiful, poetic way that hope may not conquer all, but it is the most powerful armor we have against adversity. In this equally affecting sequel, he shows us the power, unwitting-perhaps unwilling-and everyday heroes possess in very small boats with hope at the helm.-Tracey Meloni, Writer, Nursing Education I was so heartened by reading More Fireflies, a continuation of the first collection. We really do need more of these uplifting stories and poem snippets to help counteract the tough news we've been hearing eve-ryday.-Louella Lester, author of Glass Bricks What a joy to read More Fireflies, Kendall Johnson's sequel to his remarkable chapbook Fireflies Against Darkness. As someone who savored the first offering, I eagerly read this new volume. I was not disappointed.-Alexis Rhone Fancher, author of EROTIC: New & Selected, poetry, editor, Cultural Daily BiographyKendall Johnson, recently retired from his work in teaching, psychotherapy, and consulting on scene with emergency and disaster agencies, now he paints and writes in Southern California. He is the author of Dear Vincent: An Artist and Psychologist Writes Back to Van Gogh; the nonfiction Chaos & Ash, and Black Box Poetics: Short Memoirs of Chaos.

Note to the ReaderI wrote Fireflies Against Darkness two years ago, and More Fireflies last year. My hope is that they could gently remind readers that while the barrage of newscasts we receive tell about the spectacularly bad things happening worldwide, the hysterical anti-science "false news" claims, the threats to democracy, the slide to war, the breakdown of evironment through our own toxic life style, those aren't the only stories. We would do well to occasionally turn off our sets, curb our fight or flight responses, and look around us. There are wonders everywhere, and people doing wondrous things. I couldn't help a third collection. Fireflies, I call them. They light my darkness.

Each of the black boxes contains white pages, typed, one or two pages each, stapled at the top left corner. 300-500 word stories; all quite true, unfortunately. These are poetics of chaos.These are the stories I said I'd never write. The kind of stories, once heard, you can't erase from your mind. Scenes you wish you'd never seen. Sensations you wish never to feel again. When I began writing, photography, and painting, I adopted what is rightly or wrongly termed the Hippocratic Oath that medical people are bound by: simply, do no harm. I've held these stories back.

Chaos and Ash records one consultant's views from the inside of some of the largest critical incidents over the past twenty-five years--many front page headliners, that stand out in the nation's memory. From 1987 to 2012 Kendall Johnson served as traumatic stress consultant to emergency service agencies and the military. He has driven into remote locations in both wildland and urban emergencies, convoyed through fire lines, has been airlifted into disasters, and was honored to deal with some of our countries finest firefighters, law enforcement officers, and incident managers in their most trying hours. It is within the extremes of life experience that important lessons can be learned, that character comes to the fore, and that human nature--for better and for worse--is most clearly revealed. The stories in this book are, in reality, nothing more than the stories of this particular author, within the incidents that he, fortunately or not, stumbled himself into.