The author, a psychiatrist and writer, explores the results of more than 30 years of talking and listening to children around the world about their inner lives. He evokes their thoughts and feelings about the meaning of life, and at the same time their insights into the religious beliefs of adults.

The Spiritual Life of Children

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Coles, Robert

Psychology & Counseling

UNKNO

James Agee's literary legacy has continued to influence the intellectual and moral climate of the nation. He belongs with that select handful of twentieth-century writers - F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dylan Thomas, and Nathanael West are others who immediately come to mind - who brought such excessive intensity to their work that their private lives and health often suffered as a consequence. 184 pages. 78 black &amp; white photographic illustrations.

Agee: His Life Remembered

Spears, Ross

Biographies & Memoirs

Henry Holt Co.

Uprooted Children: The Early Life of Migrant Farm Workers [paperback] Coles, Robert [Jan 01, 2000]

Uprooted Children: The Early Life of Migrant Farm Workers

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

HarperCollins (paper)

A Harvard psychiatrist and expert on human sexuality shares some of his most fascinating cases, covering sexual behavior, drugs, trauma, and religious repression.

The Pornographer's Grief: And Other Tales of Human Sexuality

Self-Help

Glenmullen, Joseph

Perennial

Sex and the American Teenager

Stokes, Geoffrey

Harpercollins

The old ones of New Mexico

These narratives by storytellers in New Mexico examine life’s big questions of what truly matters and why. The timeless wisdom and contemplations of these “old ones” will resonate with those studying literature, philosophy, or religion, as well as anyone who enjoys explorations of the human spirit.

The Old Ones of New Mexico

Harcourt

Sitting in his study, William Carlos Williams once revealed to Robert Coles what he considered to be his greatest problem in writing a documentary about his patients in New Jersey. "When Im there, sitting with those folks, listening and talking," he said to Coles, "I'm part of that life, and I'm near it in my head, too.... Back here, sitting near this typewriter--its different. I'm a writer. I'm a doctor living in Rutherford who is describing 'a world elsewhere.'" Williams captured the great difficulty in documentary writing--the gulf that separates the reality of the subject from the point of view of the observer . Now, in this thought-provoking volume, the renowned child psychiatrist Robert Coles, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Children in Crisis series, offers a penetrating look into the nature of documentary work. Utilizing the documentaries of writers, photographers, and others, Coles shows how their prose and pictures are influenced by the observers frame of reference: their social and educational background, personal morals, and political beliefs. He discusses literary documentaries: James Agee's searching portrait of Depression-era tenant farmers, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, and George Orwell's passionate description of England's coal-miners, The Road to Wigan Pier. Like many documentarians, Coles argues, Agee and Orwell did not try to be objective, but instead showered unadulterated praise on the "noble" poor and vituperative contempt on the more privileged classes (including themselves) for "exploiting" these workers. Documentary photographs could be equally revealing about the observer. Coles analyzes how famous photographers such as Walker Evans and Dorthea Lange edited and cropped their pictures to produce a desired effect. Even the shield of the camera could not hide the presence of the photographer. Coles also illuminates his points through his personal portraits of William Carlos Williams; Robert Moses, one of the leaders of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee during the 1960s; Erik H. Erikson, biographer of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther; and others. Documentary work, Coles concludes, is more a narrative constructed by the observer than a true slice of reality. With the growth in popularity of films such as Ken Burns's The Civil War and the controversial basketball documentary Hoop Dreams, the question of what is "real" in documentary work is more pressing than ever. Through revealing discussions with documentarians and insightful analysis of their work, complemented by dramatic black-and-white photographs from Lange and Evans, Doing Documentary Work will provoke the reader into reconsidering how fine the line is between truth and fiction. It is an invaluable resource for students of the documentary and anyone interested in this important genre.

Doing Documentary Work (New York Public Library Lectures in Humanities)

Oxford University Press

Sitting in his study, William Carlos Williams once revealed to Robert Coles what he considered to be his greatest problem in writing a documentary about his patients in New Jersey. "When I'm there, sitting with those folks, listening and talking," he said to Coles, "I'm part of that life, and I'm near it in my head, too.... Back here, sitting near this typewriter--its different. I'm a writer. I'm a doctor living in Rutherford who is describing 'a world elsewhere.'" Williams captured the great difficulty in documentary writing--the gulf that separates the reality of the subject from the point of view of the observer . Now, in this thought-provoking volume, the renowned child psychiatrist Robert Coles, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Children in Crisis series, offers a penetrating look into the nature of documentary work. Utilizing the documentaries of writers, photographers, and others, Coles shows how their prose and pictures are influenced by the observer's frame of reference: their social and educational background, personal morals, and political beliefs. He discusses literary documentaries: James Agee's searching portrait of Depression-era tenant farmers, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, and George Orwell's passionate description of England's coal-miners, The Road to Wigan Pier. Like many documentarians, Coles argues, Agee and Orwell did not try to be objective, but instead showered unadulterated praise on the "noble" poor and vituperative contempt on the more privileged classes (including themselves) for "exploiting" these workers. Documentary photographs could be equally revealing about the observer. Coles analyzes how famous photographers such as Walker Evans and Dorthea Lange edited and cropped their pictures to produce a desired effect. Even the shield of the camera could not hide the presence of the photographer. Coles also illuminates his points through his personal portraits of William Carlos Williams; Robert Moses, one of the leaders of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee during the 1960s; Erik H. Erikson, biographer of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther; and others. Documentary work, Coles concludes, is more a narrative constructed by the observer than a true slice of reality. With the growth in popularity of films such as Ken Burns's The Civil War and the controversial basketball documentary Hoop Dreams, the question of what is "real" in documentary work is more pressing than ever. Through revealing discussions with documentarians and insightful analysis of their work, complemented by dramatic black-and-white photographs from Lange and Evans, Doing Documentary Work will provoke the reader into reconsidering how fine the line is between truth and fiction. It is an invaluable resource for students of the documentary and anyone interested in this important genre.

Arts & Photography

Photography & Video

New York Public Library

A wonderful biography of Simone Weil (1909 - 1943), a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. After her graduation from formal education, Weil became a teacher. She taught intermittently throughout the 1930s, taking several breaks due to poor health and to devote herself to political activism, work that would see her assisting in the trade union movement, taking the side of the Anarchists known as the Durruti Column in the Spanish Civil War, and spending more than a year working as a laborer, mostly in auto factories, so she could better understand the working class. Taking a path that was unusual among twentieth-century left-leaning intellectuals, she became more religious and inclined towards mysticism as her life progressed. Weil wrote throughout her life, though most of her writings did not attract much attention until after her death. The exact cause of her death remains a subject of debate. She died in August 1943 from cardiac failure at the age of 34 but whether it was from a lifetime of battling illness and frailty, or from refusing to eat remains unanswered. In the 1950s and 1960s, her work became famous on continental Europe and throughout the English-speaking world. Her thought has continued to be the subject of extensive scholarship across a wide range of fields. A meta study from the University of Calgary found that between 1995 and 2012 over 2,500 new scholarly works had been published about her. Albert Camus described her as "the only great spirit of our times". The author, Robert Coles (b. 1929) is an American author, child psychiatrist, and professor emeritus at Harvard University.

Simone Weil: A modern pilgrimage (Radcliffe biography series)

Travel

Europe

Addison-Wesley

Drawing on many years of friendship and correspondence, the eminent psychiatrist and author offers an intellectual and psychological portrait of the controversial writer and social activist, with insights into her social and religious conservatism and her radical politics

Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion (Radcliffe Biography Series)

Da Capo Press

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