Frederick Turner

In his stirring biography, Frederick Turner, the distinguished writer and cultural historian, captures the legendary scale of the life of an American icon. Immigrant, inventor, botanist, and founder of the conservation movement, John Muir (1838-1914) truly led those of his time-and now ours-to rediscover the natural beauty of this land. From his harsh childhood in Scotland and on a Wisconsin pioneer farm, to his rugged, solitary explorations all over America and especially in the Sierras, to his passionate battle, in person and in his writings, to save and celebrate our wilderness, Muir was a heroic figure. Turner's biography is every bit as monumental and inspiring as its subject.

Soldiers by Frederick TurnerTwo sides. One struggle.Abdul and Darren grow up in the same industrial backwater, each with his own set of problems. For one of them it's racism and the misery of displacement; for the other, it's life on welfare with a mother prone to manic depression. Their paths converge in one charged moment during boyhood and seem unlikely to cross again. But time can pull all kinds of tricks. Battered by their respective upbringings, Darren is persuaded by a suave recruiting officer into the British Army while Abdul meets a charismatic but extremist imam and elects to follow the path of jihad. Perhaps, on the sun-baked streets of a Syrian conflict zone, their paths will cross again.Soldiers is an account of what drives these two young men to take up arms and do what they do - right down to the story's shocking conclusion.About the authorFred Turner is an author born and living in Stockport. He lovingly describes the town as a collection of people and buildings. He graduated with a degree in History in 2012, commenting that the experience of learning about past injustices gave him a unique and historical perspective into his own uselessness. Since then he has worked in a variety of charities in Greater Manchester, supporting people with their mental health, people who are homeless and migrants in the area.It is the injustice sanctioned by the state that gives Fred his desire to write. He explains that his fiction is an outlet to draw attention to the misery created by authorities and power holders. His stories are inspired by the voiceless experience of people oppressed, ignored and powerless.

Latter Days tells a story about the meaning of a human life in the strange new world that is emerging today.After an initial sonnet that presents the existential challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, it opens with "The Wanderer," a view of the world from the perspective of an aging world traveler seeking a summation of his more than seventy years of wayfaring. It continues with "In a Plague Season," a collection of poetic notes on the pandemic and its parallel to the changing climate of the earth. The next section, "A House Divided," extends the plague metaphor to the current state of political warfare, and the following sequence, "Toxic Manhood," examines the idea of maleness as a contested site at the center of the current struggle, suggesting an apocalyptic picture of a world in which the fertile union of sexuality has become obsolete.The next section, "Ars Poetica," is a turning point where the art of poetry, together with the other arts, especially music, is enlisted in a process of healing and recuperation. Poetry's economy and wit are called in by the next section, "Oeconomics," to outline a modestly contrarian political philosophy that might provide the basis for a cure. Three sections follow—"Observations," "You Know Who You Are," and "Valentines"—that recover poetry's sensory grasp of the world, turn to human affection as a foundation of renewed health, and celebrate a long marriage. The final section, "Second Childhood," prepares the wanderer for the conclusion of his long search for meaning.

Through the lenses of Shotokan Karate and biomedicine, sensei and biomedical scientist Alex W. Tong shows readers how body, mind, and spirit can be developed through martial arts practice. Through the practice of martial arts, a person can realize their full potential--not only in body, but in mind and spirit. The Science and Philosophy of Martial Arts shows readers how. Author, sensei, and biomedical scientist Alex W. Tong delves into the physical, mental, and spiritual components of martial arts and integrates contemporary sports psychology, kinesiology, and neuroscience into a nuanced and illuminating understanding of what martial arts practice can be. Structured into three sections, Tong discusses: - The Mind: The dao of martial arts, mental tranquility, contemporary neuroscience, and warming up the brain - The Body: Posture and stance, breathing in martial arts, and the physics of mastery and effort - The Spirit: Soul, spirit, and moving zen; nature and manifestations of the spirit Each section includes observations on martial arts origins, physiology, and tangible results on martial arts training. Blending traditional and contemporary approaches, knowledge, and research, The Science and Philosophy of Martial Arts builds a vision of practice that elevates physical performance, awareness, decisiveness, and strength of spirit.

An interdisciplinary scholar, devotee of the classics, and leading practitioner of Expansive Poetry, Frederick Turner asks in the introduction to Hadean Eclogues, “Suppose there could be a poetry, even a scientific description of reality, that left undamaged the principles, the honor, the history and myth, the ritual, the intellectual criteria of believers and unbelievers—as long as they were people of depth and thought and imagination?”

An interdisciplinary scholar, devotee of the classics, and leading practitioner of Expansive Poetry, Frederick Turner asks in the introduction to Hadean Eclogues, “Suppose there could be a poetry, even a scientific description of reality, that left undamaged the principles, the honor, the history and myth, the ritual, the intellectual criteria of believers and unbelievers—as long as they were people of depth and thought and imagination?”

In The Kid and Me Frederick Turner deftly re-creates the Lincoln County War in what was then New Mexico Territory. The 1878 war pitted an established faction led by James Dolan against new arrivals in the county led by John Tunstall and Alexander McSween. When Tunstall and McSween opened a dry-goods store in 1876 in a direct challenge to Dolan’s monopoly on the dry-goods business, trouble was inevitable. Both the Dolan and the Tunstall-McSween factions garnered supporters, including lawmen, criminal gangs, and ranch hands. The ambush and murder of Tunstall by a local sheriff’s posse loyal to Dolan sparked a wave of revenge killings and bloody reprisals in which Billy the Kid-one of Tunstall’s ranch hands-played a prominent role. Narrated by George Coe, an aged veteran of New Mexico’s Lincoln County War but now a devout painter of village churches, The Kid and Me tells what it felt like to ride alongside Billy the Kid, whom Coe both admired and greatly feared. Gang loyalty, extreme violence, political corruption in the highest places, and profound moral ambiguity characterize this tale of what made the American West wild.

Epic does many things. Among others, it defines the nature of the human storyteller; recalls the creation of the world and of the human race; describes the paradoxical role of the hero as both the Everyman and the radical exception; and establishes the complex quest underlying all human action. Epic illustrates that these ingredients of epic storytelling are universal cultural elements, in existence across multiple remote geographical locations, historical eras, ethnic and linguistic groups, and levels of technological and economic development.Frederick Turner argues that epic, despite being scoffed at and neglected for over sixty years, is the most fundamental and important of all literary forms and thereby deserves serious critical attention. It is the source and originof all other literature, the frame within which any story is possible. The mission of this book is to repair gaps in the literary understanding of epic studies and offer permission to future epic writers and composers.The cultural genres of Marvel Comics, gothic, anime, manga, multi-user dungeon gaming, and superhero movies reprise all the epic themes and motifs. Consider The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Lost, The Matrix, Superman, Harry Potter, and Narnia. Here can be found the epic beast-man, the miraculous birth of the hero, the creation myth, the founding of the city, the quest journey, the descent into the land of the dead, the monsters, and the trickster. This book will be of interest to all readers fascinated by folklore, oral tradition, religious studies, anthropology, mythology, and enthusiastic about literature in general.

In this groundbreaking interdisciplinary work, Frederick Turner presents a new theory of aesthetics based on the argument that beauty is an objective reality in the universe. He identifies the experience of beauty as a pancultural, neurobiological phenomenon. Drawing on a wide range of fields - ritual and dramatic performance, the oral tradition, paleoanthropology and human evolution, neurobiology, cosmology and theoretic physics, chaos theory and fractal mathematics - the book describes evolution as a self-organizing, emergent process that generates increasingly advanced forms of self-reflection, and proposes that the experience of beauty is the recognition of this evolutionary process and the reward for participating in it.

The untold story of Henry Miller’s explosive 1934 novel, banned in America for more than a quarter century Though branded as pornography for its graphic language and explicit sexuality, Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer is far more than a work that tested American censorship laws. In this riveting book, published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Tropic of Cancer's initial U.S. release, Frederick Turner investigates Miller’s unconventional novel, its tumultuous publishing history, and its unique place in American letters.Written in the slums of a foreign city by a man who was an utter literary failure in his homeland, Tropic of Cancer was published in 1934 by a pornographer in Paris, but soon banned in the United States. Not until 1961, when Grove Press triumphed over the censors, did Miller’s book appear in American bookstores. Turner argues that Tropic of Cancer is “lawless, violent, colorful, misogynistic, anarchical, bigoted, and shaped by the same forces that shaped the nation.” Further, the novel draws on more than two centuries of New World history, folklore, and popular culture in ways never attempted before. How Henry Miller, outcast and renegade, came to understand what literary dynamite he had within him, how he learned to sound his “war whoop” over the roofs of the world, is the subject of Turner’s revelatory study.

Epic does many things. Among others, it defines the nature of the human storyteller; recalls the creation of the world and of the human race; describes the paradoxical role of the hero as both the Everyman and the radical exception; and establishes the complex quest underlying all human action. Epic illustrates that these ingredients of epic storytelling are universal cultural elements, in existence across multiple remote geographical locations, historical eras, ethnic and linguistic groups, and levels of technological and economic development.Frederick Turner argues that epic, despite being scoffed at and neglected for over sixty years, is the most fundamental and important of all literary forms and thereby deserves serious critical attention. It is the source and originof all other literature, the frame within which any story is possible. The mission of this book is to repair gaps in the literary understanding of epic studies—and offer permission to future epic writers and composers.The cultural genres of Marvel Comics, gothic, anime, manga, multi-user dungeon gaming, and superhero movies reprise all the epic themes and motifs. Consider The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Lost, The Matrix, Superman, Harry Potter, and Narnia. Here can be found the epic beast-man, the miraculous birth of the hero, the creation myth, the founding of the city, the quest journey, the descent into the land of the dead, the monsters, and the trickster. This book will be of interest to all readers fascinated by folklore, oral tradition, religious studies, anthropology, mythology, and enthusiastic about literature in general.

A faded newspaperman downs a double Maker's Mark and contemplates life as a "ham-and-egger," a hack. Then one day he finds the scoop of a lifetime in a Chicago basement: diaries belonging to the infamous Judith Campbell Exner. Right, that Judy, the game girl who waltzed into the midst of America's most powerful politicians, entertainers, and criminals as they conspired to rule America.When Frank Sinatra flew Judy to Hawaii for a weekend of partying, she could hardly have imagined where it would lead her: straight to the White House and the waiting arms of Jack Kennedy. And then came the day that JFK and his brother Bobby asked her to carry a black bag to Chicago, where she was to hand it off to the boss of bosses, Sam Giancana. As our Narrator pieces the notebooks into a coherent story, he finds mob connections, rigged primaries, assassination plots, and trysts--and begins to see beyond the tabloid fare to a real woman, adrift and defenseless in a dangerous world where the fates of nations are at stake. As one by one the men Judy loved betrayed her and disappeared, and as the FBI pursued her into a living hell, her diary entries disintegrate along with the beautiful, tough, sweet woman the Narrator has come to know. Who was Exner, after all? Just a gangster's moll? Or a bighearted woman who believed the sky-high promises of the New Frontier--and paid the price?

Frederick Jackson Turner’sThe Frontier in American History dominated the historical profession for almost half a century after it was delivered in 1893. The “frontier thesis” offered a compelling interpretation of how the frontier played the decisive role in shaping a distinctly American identity. Traditionally, most historians argued that America’s important institutions derived from English and European sources, and when they did look for the origins of an “American” character, they focused on eastern groups, such as the Puritans of New England. Completely rejecting the reigning orthodoxy, Turner argued that the crucial element transforming Europeans into Americans was the process of settling the continent. Today his essay remains a profound influence on how Americans imagine themselves as individuals and as a nation.