Robert Payne

During the 2003 Iraq War invasion called Operation Iraqi Freedom, the 3D Infantry Division led the effort starting March 19, 2003. They pushed three days straight into the fight to take Baghdad with major combat operations lasting several months. 3D Infantry Division's 1st Brigade, the main effort, was supported by the 126th Forward Surgical Team known as "Phantom FaST". This is a story about a newly married bride and her husband, a young officer in "Phantom FaST", trying to make sense of war and separation. During the initial combat phase, there were no methods of communication other than good old letter writing like veterans of past wars. This book is a compilation of those letters and is a story about LOVE shared, the effects of WAR, and the FAITH to survive.

Drawn into the circuit of men cruising for sex in and around a train station, restless adolescent Henri begins a frenzied pursuit of a dangerously charismatic older man, with sometimes violent and ultimately tragic consequences. Premiering at Cannes in 1983, Patrice Chéreau’s L’Homme blessé (The Wounded Man) was one of France’s first major cinematic releases to depict homosexual desire and queer sexual cultures in an unapologetic and complex way. It is a film that continues to resonate to this day.L’Homme blessé generated controversy with its dark tone and its treatment of an adolescent’s obsessive homoerotic desire, as well as Chéreau’s denial that the film is about homosexuality. Robert Payne guides readers through the powerfully erotic underworld of L’Homme blessé, where the film sidesteps fixed identities and draws viewers into the ambiguous spaces of queer desire, and argues that its visual composition depicts queer ways of seeing and generates queer ways of feeling. A look into the production’s historical and cultural backdrop uncovers a behind-the-scenes story of power and desire between its two screenwriters and the presence of HIV/AIDS hovering ominously and inevitably off screen. Original interviews trace the lives of L’Homme blessé across three continents and three decades and measure the film’s enduring value beyond its prestigious debut.Payne cements L’Homme blessé in its rightful place within queer cultural history and introduces the film to a new generation of viewers.

Drawn into the circuit of men cruising for sex in and around a train station, restless adolescent Henri begins a frenzied pursuit of a dangerously charismatic older man, with sometimes violent and ultimately tragic consequences. Premiering at Cannes in 1983, Patrice Chéreau’s L’Homme blessé (The Wounded Man) was one of France’s first major cinematic releases to depict homosexual desire and queer sexual cultures in an unapologetic and complex way. It is a film that continues to resonate to this day.L’Homme blessé generated controversy with its dark tone and its treatment of an adolescent’s obsessive homoerotic desire, as well as Chéreau’s denial that the film is about homosexuality. Robert Payne guides readers through the powerfully erotic underworld of L’Homme blessé, where the film sidesteps fixed identities and draws viewers into the ambiguous spaces of queer desire, and argues that its visual composition depicts queer ways of seeing and generates queer ways of feeling. A look into the production’s historical and cultural backdrop uncovers a behind-the-scenes story of power and desire between its two screenwriters and the presence of HIV/AIDS hovering ominously and inevitably off screen. Original interviews trace the lives of L’Homme blessé across three continents and three decades and measure the film’s enduring value beyond its prestigious debut.Payne cements L’Homme blessé in its rightful place within queer cultural history and introduces the film to a new generation of viewers.

«Reimagining the Family is a ground-breaking volume that brings together important literary voices. Robert Payne explores literary representations of lesbian mothering with sensitivity, depth and rigour. This highly innovative, well-researched and well-written book will be essential reading for researchers across a wide spectrum of fields.»(Professor Natalie Edwards, The University of Adelaide) «Reimagining the Family: Lesbian Mothering in Contemporary French Literature is the first study of lesbian mothering in French literature, providing a valuable contribution to studies in LGBT+ literature, women’s writing, and mothering among others. The book is thoughtful, well-researched, and creates a foundation upon which future explorations of lesbian or queer parenting in French literature will be built.» (Jessica Garcés Jensen, H-France Review Vol. 23 (March 2023), No. 42) Reimagining the Family is the first book-length study of representations of lesbian mothering in French literature. Focusing on female-authored texts published between 1970 and 2013, the book explores how literature reflects, engages with and even anticipates the recent, highly charged debates on the rights of same-sex couples and parents in France. Centred around the notion of «reimagining», the book examines how literature interrogates the normative definition of the family as a heterosexual, biological unit. It discusses a range of themes, including the difficulty of reconciling lesbianism with mothering, the role of the father, the identity of the co-mother and issues of difference and equality. The corpus includes both well-known and previously unstudied authors, and covers a range of genres, from autobiography to popular fiction. Collectively, the texts offer privileged insights into the increasingly relevant experiences of lesbian mothers and illustrate the changing face of the family in twenty-first-century France.

"Three-Dimensional Team Building: Building Teams to Succeed in Every Aspect of the Game is culmination of a series of "Three-Dimensional" books by Robert Payne Jr following his insights on Leadership and Followership and further builds on his experience building and working in teams after 24 years of military service and 20 years of ordained ministry. As the importance of people working together increases, organizers must focus not only the outcomes of those teams but the intricacies of putting those teams together. Three-Dimensional Team Building addresses the details of putting teams together that are able to complete the assigned task, provide a positive working environment for the team and provide development and growth opportunities for the individual members of those team. This balanced approach will assure team builders successfully handle the challenges inherent to bringing disparate individuals together to accomplish a singular task and ultimately benefit the organization and the members of the team.

"Three-Dimensional Leadership: A Balanced Approach to Leadership Success" is the leadership perspective of the author born out of 24 years of military service and 18 years of ordained ministry. The call for better leaders transcends environment and organization and despite all the books, presentations and theories given, the call continues to go forth and to even get louder. "Three-Dimensional Leadership" answers this call by asserting the need for leaders to balance their focus between completing the task, managing the team and taking care of themselves. This balanced approach will assure leaders successfully handle the challenges inherent to each dimension of a leader's responsibilities and ultimately benefit the organization, the members of the team and the leader.

In a world clamoring for more and better leaders, many leaders are clamoring for better followers, people willing to make the leader's vision a reality. While "follower" is a dirty word to many people, the dedicated efforts of followers are essential to the successful completion of any task and the productive work of any team. On the heels of Three-Dimensional Leadership, Three-Dimensional Followership: Finding Success when Others are Driving, provides simple and actionable guidance on how men and women can find success on their tasks, within their team and for themselves, even when someone else is in the leadership position.

Liking, sharing, friending, going viral: what would it mean to recognize these current modes of media interaction as promiscuous? In a contemporary network culture characterized by a proliferation of new forms of intimate mediated sociality, this book argues that promiscuity is a new standard of user engagement. Intimate relations among media users and between users and their media are increasingly structured by an entrepreneurial logic and put to work for the economic interests of media corporations. But these multiple intimacies can also be understood as technologies of promiscuous desire serving both to liberalize mediated social connection and to contain it within normative frames of value. Payne brings crucial questions of gender, sexuality, intimacy, and attention back into conversation with recent thinking on network culture and social media, identifying the queer undercurrents of these current media dynamics.

Liking, sharing, friending, going viral: what would it mean to recognize these current modes of media interaction as promiscuous? In a contemporary network culture characterized by a proliferation of new forms of intimate mediated sociality, this book argues that promiscuity is a new standard of user engagement. Intimate relations among media users and between users and their media are increasingly structured by an entrepreneurial logic and put to work for the economic interests of media corporations. But these multiple intimacies can also be understood as technologies of promiscuous desire serving both to liberalize mediated social connection and to contain it within normative frames of value. Payne brings crucial questions of gender, sexuality, intimacy, and attention back into conversation with recent thinking on network culture and social media, identifying the queer undercurrents of these current media dynamics.