Light Shed on Women's History

The National Women’s History Museum presents the newest installment of their mini-documentary series about women’s history. The 20-minute video titled, Keepers of History: Women Who Protected One Half of our Nation’s Story, spotlights various women in American history, all of whom are otherwise undetected in everyday school lessons.

Two women in focus are Mercy Otis Warren and Mary Ritter Beard. Mercy Otis Warren aided the American Revolution with her anonymous anti-British plays. She also kept records of the war’s history in three handwritten volumes. Mary Ritter Beard lent her hand during the Suffrage Movement and also published works in the topic of women’s history as early as 1915.

The idea behind the documentary series is to expose women like Mercy Otis Warren and Mary Ritter Beard and their valiant strides to make the woman’s voice heard. This visual series is not unlike Women’s History For Beginners. The book concentrates on the question, who are the great women of history and why don’t we know more about them? To further prove how little we know about these female leaders, the introduction of the book poses as a fifty-question test on the great women of the past. The reader is invited to take the test— with the expectation that most will fail, having been undereducated in women’s history.

With the increased production of tools like, Women’s History For Beginners and Keepers of History: Women Who Protected One Half of our Nation’s Story, women’s history will soon be as valued, exposed and understood as the history presented to us on a daily.

To view Keepers of History: Women Who Protected One Half of our Nation’s Story, please visit http://www.nwhm.org/about-nwhm/press/featured-press/keepers.

For more information about Women’s History For Beginners, and other For Beginners books, please visit http://www.forbeginnersbooks.com/.

Thanks You Thank You and again Thank You

The month of November brings remarkable fall colors, hot chocolate and cozy nights by the fire. It's also a time of Thanksgiving - a period for Thank You’s. In reflection, we all have established what it means to be thankful by appreciating our friends and family - even the beauty that surrounds us every day becomes reason to give thanks. So this is a big thank you for everyone who took time away from their overwhelmingly busy lives and spent a few moments within our online community, privileged us by sharing their works.  As well as offering feedback and comments on others manuscripts and interaction with authors, members and public. Thank you for following our social media, joining our reading, meeting us at book festivals and commenting, sharing and reading our books. You guys are the best community a person can ask for!

So as you sit with your family over Thanksgiving dinner, remember your family you have in your computer desk and give thanks for all the accomplishments we have been able to achieve as a community.

Philosophical Thursday

World Philosophy Day is annually observed on the third Thursday of November to honor philosophical figures and ideas around the world since 2002. The day involves the share of thoughts and discussions of new ideas and motivates public debate and dialogue on society’s challenges. World Philosophy Day is funded and promoted through United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) initiative that attracts people around the world to engage in shared reflection on contemporary issues. This year’s discussions would include:

-          The International Panel: “Philosophy and Spirit of Justice: the Equitable Sharing of Scientific Benefits”

-          11th International Meeting on New Philosophical Practices – Philosophical Practices and Development of Critical Thinking

-          A symposium tribute entitled “Relevance of Mohammed Arkoun’s Thought”

-          Round table on “Philosophy in the Public Space”

-          A symposium: “Equal Opportunities at School: What Kind of Equality? What Kind of Opportunities? Knowledge sharing in question”

Philosophy has opened the door for new concepts and innovative ideas. Philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle have laid the foundations of critical thinking, independence and creativity across the world and this day will surely inspire our great thinkers of the future.   To learn more about philosophy and the greats of the field read: Chomsky for Beginners, Philosophy For Beginners, Deconstruction For Beginners, Derrida For Beginners, Eastern Philosophy For Beginners and many other philosophically based books in our collection

Woody Harrelson Looks to Carl Jung for Stability

Woody Harrelson is much more dynamic than we thought. The actor who once played the beloved bartender Woody Boyd in the eighties sitcom, Cheers, has long surpassed his reputation on the small screen. Harrelson has played characters that are seemingly beyond his scope. He played a murderer in the 1994 film, Natural Born Killers and was a military officer in the 2009 film, The Messenger. In the same year, Harrelson played a zombie hunter in Zombieland. It’s not easy to make those types of character switches; one minute you’re a homicidal maniac and the next you’re a straight-laced military officer. That has to rack the brain. Apparently, this is not the case for Harrelson.

In the article Why Everybody Knows His Name by David Carr for the New York Times (October 30^th edition), Harrelson explains how it is simple for him to mentally get into the roles he takes on. He looks to the works of Carl Jung to maintain a level head. By referring to Jung, Harrelson is able to make his connection between the ‘individual psyche’ and the ‘collective unconscious.’ Jung For Beginners (written by Jon Platania, Ph. D. and illustrated by Joe Lee) explains Jung’s theories and concepts in depth. Harrelson directly refers to the concept of ‘shadow,’  which is the “unconscious part of the personality characterized by traits that the conscious ego wants to rejects or ignore,” (Platania 72).

In Harrelson’s latest film, Rampart, (due to release December 2011) he plays a corrupt LA police officer. This may not be much of a switch from some other roles he’s played, but it’s a switch from his everyday life. Harrelson is a vegan who practices Yoga and is generally at ease. He’ll look to Jung again for mental balance throughout the project.