James Miller

The films of Pedro Almodóvar teem with characters who at once are and are not alter egos of the director. In film after film, the Spanish auteur mines his past for alternative selves, telling and retelling formative stories from his own life, plumbing the depths of his memory while exploring other lives he might have led. What can Almodóvar’s work tell us about the quest for self-knowledge—for understanding who we are and who we might yet become? James Miller considers seven of Almodóvar’s most personal films, arguing that together they offer a revealing self-portrait of the director and his search for meaning. Beginning with Volver, Miller traces Almodóvar’s signature obsessions backward and forward through the director’s filmography. Deeply shaped by the counterculture of the 1960s—which arrived belatedly in Franco’s Spain—Almodóvar has long been fascinated by the exhilarating power and devastating limitations of artistic and sexual transgression. In rich readings, Miller shows how Almodóvar tests the blurry line between fiction and reality, the bounds of individual freedom, and the durability of a sense of self. In so doing, the director turns cinema into a form of philosophical investigation and self-exploration. A keenly observed, masterfully written portrait of one of world cinema’s greatest creative forces, The Passion of Pedro Almodóvar finds in film new ways to tell the story of a life.

How can Daoism, China's indigenous religion, give us the aesthetic, ethical, political, and spiritual tools to address the root causes of our ecological crisis and construct a sustainable future? In China's Green Religion, James Miller shows how Daoism orients individuals toward a holistic understanding of religion and nature. Explicitly connecting human flourishing to the thriving of nature, Daoism fosters a "green" subjectivity and agency that transforms what it means to live a flourishing life on earth. Through a groundbreaking reconstruction of Daoist philosophy and religion, Miller argues for four key, green insights: a vision of nature as a subjective power that informs human life; an anthropological idea of the porous body based on a sense of qi flowing through landscapes and human beings; a tradition of knowing founded on the experience of transformative power in specific landscapes and topographies; and an aesthetic and moral sensibility based on an affective sensitivity to how the world pervades the body and the body pervades the world. Environmentalists struggle to raise consciousness for their cause, Miller argues, because their activism relies on a quasi-Christian concept of "saving the earth." Instead, environmentalists should integrate nature and culture more seamlessly, cultivating through a contemporary intellectual vocabulary a compelling vision of how the earth materially and spiritually supports human flourishing.

How can Daoism, China's indigenous religion, give us the aesthetic, ethical, political, and spiritual tools to address the root causes of our ecological crisis and construct a sustainable future? In China's Green Religion, James Miller shows how Daoism orients individuals toward a holistic understanding of religion and nature. Explicitly connecting human flourishing to the thriving of nature, Daoism fosters a "green" subjectivity and agency that transforms what it means to live a flourishing life on earth. Through a groundbreaking reconstruction of Daoist philosophy and religion, Miller argues for four key, green insights: a vision of nature as a subjective power that informs human life; an anthropological idea of the porous body based on a sense of qi flowing through landscapes and human beings; a tradition of knowing founded on the experience of transformative power in specific landscapes and topographies; and an aesthetic and moral sensibility based on an affective sensitivity to how the world pervades the body and the body pervades the world. Environmentalists struggle to raise consciousness for their cause, Miller argues, because their activism relies on a quasi-Christian concept of "saving the earth." Instead, environmentalists should integrate nature and culture more seamlessly, cultivating through a contemporary intellectual vocabulary a compelling vision of how the earth materially and spiritually supports human flourishing.

From academic essays to blogs, magazine articles to social media posts, newspaper editorials to public service announcements, advertisements to emails, The Real World Reader, Brief Edition, brings together a wide collection of formal writing with an equally diverse array of popular writing from everyday life. This innovative rhetorical reader for first-year composition courses divides the process of rhetorical analysis into logically sequenced steps that focus on five key concepts-purpose, audience, argument, voice, and credibility. Author James Miller encourages students to use this step-by-step process in order to identify, analyze, and master the multiple modes of writing that they will encounter at school, work, and home. Features * Uses a rhetorical framework to teach writing--rather than examining different modes of writing in isolation--and reveals what all forms of writing have in common* Introduces rhetorical concepts through a variety of informal and formal writing examples, showing students how rhetorical patterns intersect * Combines step-by-step writing instruction with a scaffold of sixty-seven diverse readings, allowing students to critically write and read four distinct types of selections: informal, formal, and academic selections and sample student essays* Connects rhetorical analysis to cultural analysis with content that ranges from debates on multiculturalism to discussions of online privacy and from critiques of modern political campaigning to analyses of modern consumerism* Focuses on familiar, real world writing, demonstrating the important role that writing plays in everyday life

This book is both practical and challenging It has been carefully designed to present both university and high school students with a large set of programming problems and introduce the student to five different programming languages. The text includes over 300 problems, which have been collected over a period of thirty years by author Dr. James Miller for use in computer problem solving competitions - a professor of mathematics and computer science at Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky., Dr. Miller has supervised teams of students who competed in university and high school computer problem solving. Dr. Miller's forty-year experience in teaching mathematics and computer science is especially helpful to the reader - the purpose is to assist the reader in testing, reinforcing and building programming skills. This skilled mathematician has drawn from his experiences in teaching basic math, complex analysis and computer courses, to basic language courses and compiler construction courses to present the reader with a carefully crafted primer of five programming languages: BASIC and FORTRAN, Pascal, C and C++

How and why has the city of Florence, one of the great treasure houses of western civilization, been reduced to little more than a Renaissance Disneyland for tourists? Florence, once a center of national intellectual creativity, has become a city with two separate lives. Its historic center caters to and profits from tourists, while the periphery houses a population that endures overcrowding, decaying infrastructure, and an exorbitant cost of living. In Politics in a Museum, James Miller investigates Florence's losing struggle with modern times. He traces the city's story from its bloody liberation in 1944 through a reconstruction led by Communist and Catholic saints, the flood of 1966, the booms and busts of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. In the process, Miller provides an analysis of the defects of Italy's national political system, as well as a meticulous reconstruction of the men and events that have placed Florence alongside Venice in the unenviable status of museum city.

This title presents news about sleep, wakefulness, and alertness that can save pilot lives. It features: why motivation and discipline fail to overcome the physiological mechanisms of fatigue; the two most dangerous times of the day; how to use power napping - the fifteen-minute breakthrough; the science of getting more rest from your sleeping hours; countermeasures to apply when you burn the candle at both ends; and, expert tips for handling jet lag, cumulative fatigue, and just plain tough days. Reduce the terror of pilot error. The most effective aviation safety tools ever, "Controlling Pilot Error" guides give you expert protection against the causes of up to 80 per cent of aviation accidents - pilot mistakes. Each title provides: real-life pilot stories; valuable "save-yourself" techniques and safety tips; and, clear and concise analysis of error sets best for pilots. It helps to build your knowledge base - increase your confidence - sharpen your skills - and learn lifesaving tips.

A startling look at one of this century's most influential philosophers, the book chronicles every stage of Foucault's personal and professional odyssey, from his early interest in dreams to his final preoccupation with sexuality and the nature of personal identity.

From the Introduction:The present essay provides an introduction to the treatment of human existence and individuality in Marxist thought. The work will be primarily concerned with two related topics: the evaluation by Marxists of individual emancipation and their assessment of subjective factors in social theory. By taking up these taking up these topics within a systematic and historical framework, I hope to generate some fresh light on several familiar issues. First, I pursue a reading of Marx focused on his treatment of subjectivity, individuation, and related methodological and practical matters; second, I apply this interpretation to analyzing the dispute between Marxist orthodoxy and heterodoxy over such matters as class consciousness and the philosophy of materialism; finally, I employ this historical context to clarify the significance of "existential Marxism," Maurice Merleau-Ponty's and Jean-Paul Sartre's contribution to Marxist thought.

Starting as an experimental Super 8 filmmaker in the '70s, Pedro Almod var quickly became recognised as one of Spain's most original filmmakers. His distinctive and immediately recognisable aesthetic of sumptuous, disorienting, richness changed how both ideas of satire and of melodrama could be communicated on screen. His films use modernist techniques - but at their best, they feel like a roller coaster ride - dizzying in the extreme range of emotions they convey. At the same time, as his filmmaking evolved, Almod var's narrative concerns expanded, deepening his understanding of the human condition, and specifically of freedom and its limits, and of memory and its consolations. James Miller explores the depth of philosophical and psychological meaning in the Almod var ouevre. More than beautiful, and sometimes, shocking displays of colour and energy, Almod var asks endless questions without answers about matters of the most profound human concern: the meaning of life, the value of love, the relationship of being and time.

Starting as an experimental Super 8 filmmaker in the '70s, Pedro Almod var quickly became recognised as one of Spain's most original filmmakers. His distinctive and immediately recognisable aesthetic of sumptuous, disorienting, richness changed how both ideas of satire and of melodrama could be communicated on screen. His films use modernist techniques - but at their best, they feel like a roller coaster ride - dizzying in the extreme range of emotions they convey. At the same time, as his filmmaking evolved, Almod var's narrative concerns expanded, deepening his understanding of the human condition, and specifically of freedom and its limits, and of memory and its consolations. James Miller explores the depth of philosophical and psychological meaning in the Almod var ouevre. More than beautiful, and sometimes, shocking displays of colour and energy, Almod var asks endless questions without answers about matters of the most profound human concern: the meaning of life, the value of love, the relationship of being and time.