After the American Revolution, the Detroit River marked the boundary between the American frontier outpost of Detroit and the British Canadian communities of Sandwich (present-day Windsor, Ontario) and Fort Amherstburg. For more than a generation, American citizens, British subjects, French settlers, Native Americans, and African slaves and freedmen routinely crossed the border while living and working together in one of the most diverse regions in North America. That tranquility ended suddenly with the War of 1812. Cross-river neighbors transformed into enemies as the previously ignored border became fraught with new political significance. 
The result of a year-long community history partnership between the Detroit Historical Society and Wayne State University, Border Crossings uncovers the personal and group interactions often ignored in standard histories of the War of 1812. In August 1812, U.S. General William Hull surrendered Detroit to the British under General Isaac Brock. For more than a year, until September 1813, Detroit remained in the hands of the British. Americans then occupied settlements on the Canadian side of the Detroit River until July 1815-well past the official end of the war. These multiple "border crossings" had profound implications for the diverse inhabitants of the Detroit River region, including widespread privation, imprisonment, enemy attacks, and dispossession of homes and land.

Border Crossings: The Detroit River Region in the War of 1812

History

Detroit Historical Society

Americas

Wayne State University

Astronomy 2011 Laboratory Manual - 2004-2005 Department of Physics & Astronomy

Science & Math

J. Scott Payson

Astronomy & Space Science

One Hundred Armenian Tales

These tales from the ancient land of Noah are the largest known collection of Armenian folktales to appear in book form in the American language. Although particularly rich in the hekiat or fairytale, the collection also contains moralistic tales, stories of trickery and wit, anti-feminine tales, legends, and cumulative stories.
The author, who is of Armenian parentage, collected the stories from friends and relatives in an Armenian community in Detroit, Michigan. In translating the tales told by Armenian immigrants in their native language, Mrs. Villa attempted to maintain the folk flavor and to avoid revising the tales into literary works.
These stories of an ancient people derive from pre-Christian millenia when cannibalism, human sacrifice, and sun worship were common. Sisters of the Armenian Cinderella kill and devour their mother; adored sons are murdered so that their blood can be used to cure an ailing family friend; a hero curses the sun who in return condemns him to live only at night.
In standard folktale tradition brave heroes surmount great obstacles with the aid of superhuman companions of magic objects. Beautiful maidens marry snakes and bears or perhaps devote years to caring tenderly for enchanted heroes.
Readers will learn of a seven-headed giant who lives at the top of Mt. Ararat, of a saber dashee which bursts when it cannot bear to hear the sorrows told to it, of a man-eating dev, of a giantess who craves the flesh of her human daughter-in- law, of a princess who has collected ninety-nine heads of suitors who failed to answer her riddles.
But among the tales are many less monstrous such as those of Mundig, the irrepressibly naughty chick-pea child; of the poor Armenian who changes places with a dead pasha and thereby inherits the Turk's wealth and wife; of the traveler who tricks the devil into carrying him on a long journey; and of a desperate man who disposes of a chattering, nagging wife by dropping her into a deep well. And at a palace gala is a hero who slyly transforms the celebrants into braying donkeys.
Armenia, a Christianized Indo- European land, has been regarded as a crossroads between East and West in the transmission of folklore. Because insufficient material has been available to scholars, to the present collection are added a brief summary of Armenian history, an examination of the ways in which the tales and lore have been handed down, a study of the major motifs in the tales, and a comparative study of the tales with variants from other Armenian collections scattered throughout the world and from tales of countries related historically and geographically to Armenia.
The influence of migrations into Armenia and by Armenians to other lands are considered as they have influenced the distribution of the tales. Full data are given about the collecting activity and the informants.
The 100 Armenian Tales will be of particular interest to folklorists, to students of Armenian and American culture, to those interested in the process of assimilation of foreign-language-speaking groups, as well as to those who will enjoy the tales as a part of Indo-European lore.

100 Armenian Tales: And Their Folkloristic Relevance

Literature & Fiction

Hoogasian-Villa, Susie, collected and edited

Short Stories & Anthologies

1969, First Paperback Printing, 402 pages

Intentionality, Minds, and Perception

castaneda, hector

Walt Whitman

Biographies & Memoirs

Smuts, Jan Christian

Wilson Allen, Gay

Arts & Literature

With a focus both historical and literary, Enrique Anderson-Imbert surveys the literature of Hispanic America. His study is not merely an historical synthesis of names, titles, and dates; it is, rather, a critical analytical appraisal of the verse, prose, and drama written in Spanish in the Americas in the contemporary period.

Spanish-American Literature: A History, Vol. 2 (Waynebooks Series, No. 29)

Anderson-Imbert, Enrique

History & Criticism

An ambitious study if myth patterns in literature from the Book of Job to the existentialists. Dr. Slochower provides a systematic reexamination of our major literary classics that combines anthropological, psychoanalytic, and literary critical perspectives. His major thrust implies a denial of the ever increasing specialization of humanistic studies that treats the great classics of our literary tradition as either literature or psychology or sociology or religion or philosophy. His analysis considers Freudian motifs as determining factors in the modern intellectual drama. But its over-all perspective is the view of Mythopoesis as the center in which the various cultural forms meet and form an organic fusion. Dr. Slochower's multi-faceted perspectives lead him to a re-view of the entire scope of Western consciousness. He connects the contemporary revival of myth with man's enormous creative potential which points to the possibility of a unified world.

Mythopoesis: Mythic Patterns in the Literary Classics

Slochower, Harry

This is a book about the impact of religion on everyday life. The study was focused on the distinct characteristics of the religious ideology of American Lutheranism and the impact of this ideology on an individual's total world view and life organization. An individual's degree of religious commitment was compared with his social, political, and moral attitudes. Religion, despite claims of securalization in American society, was found to continue to be an important factor influencing the attitudes, values, and behavior of Lutherans. These results were found from interviews and questionnaires completed with Lutheran laymen and clergy, along with a random sample of college students of all major religious faiths.The Lutheran ethic, an ideologicial system accompanying an individual's total world view, was found to continue as a viable orientation in twentieth century urban America. A distinctly Lutheran orientation toward man, God, life, and religion was found to exist when comparisons were made with other Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Jews.Vast differences in terms of belief, attitudes, and values were found among individuals belonging to the four major Lutheran bodies in the United States. Little consensus appears to exist. There is also a growing division between laymen and the more theologically liberal clergy in terms of basic beliefs and views regarding the proper role and function of the church. Younger clergymen particularly have dramatically differing views regarding the mission of the church than older clergymen. This is reflected in a trend away from a salvation religion emphasizing "supernaturalism" to one concerned with the social reform of the world emphasizing humanism.

The Lutheran Ethic: The Impact of Religion on Laymen and Clergy

Kersten, Lawrence K.

Roman Realities

A history of the ancient Romans based on major primary sources.

Hooper, Finley P.

Ancient Civilizations

Greek Realities: Life and Thought in Ancient Greece

"The study of the Greeks can never be a closed account. The wide variety of critical and descriptive works written about them . . . . bears witness to man's continuing preoccupation with himself. Other ages might talk of God or machines; the Greeks, from Homer to Diogenes, were fascinated with man. Plato's emphasis on the spiritual world and Diogenes' unheroic retreat may seem to be departures from the Greek way. But that would be true if there were a single Greek way. Obviously, there was not. It is the variety of ideas about man, who he is and who he hopes to be, which is the real Greek legacy . . . . This book [begins] with the rich tombs of Mycenaean kings who tried desperately to preserve what they had won. It ends with Diogenes and his fellow Cynics who say that it is better to let it all go. In between are the heroes, the art, the history which belong to the ancient Greeks. The questions they raised and the answers they offered are still the concern of us all."-Finley Hooper

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