Tag Archives: professional development

Bhavabhuti

Posted on May 19, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Bhavabhuti: (8th century AD) Indian playwright. Bhavabhuti is praised for his subtle handling of poignant scenes and his mastery of Sanskrit as a poetic language. Two of his plays, Mahaviracarita (tr Portrait of a Hero, 1871) and Uttararamacarita (tr Rama’s Later Story, 1915), retell the Ramayana story in highly dramatic and sometimes sentimentalized form; a third, Malati-madhava (Fr tr 1885) deals with a legendary tale.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , , ,

Rabindranath Tagore

Posted on May 19, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Rabindranath Tagore: Bengali poet, writer, composer, and painter. The son of Debendranath Tagore, he published several books of poetry, including Manasi, in his twenties. His later religious poetry was introduced to the West in Gitanjali (1912). Through international travel and lecturing, he introduced aspects of Indian culture to the West and vice versa. He spoke ardently in favor of Indian independence; as a protest against the Massacre of Amritsar, he repudiated the knighthood he had received in 1915. He founded an experimental school in Bengal where he sought to blend Eastern and Western philosophies; it became Vishva-Bharati University (1921). He was awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged , , , ,

Joruri

Posted on May 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Joruri: Originally a genre of popular song in Japan, accompanied first by the biwa (Japanese lute) and later by the samisen (Japanese banjo), it was adapted as the musical narrative for the Japanese puppet theater (Bunraku). The person who chants the joruri is known as the giddayu, Joruri is not a dramatic form, but rather is the chanted narration of tales often dramatic in nature.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , , ,

Mohenjo Daro

Posted on May 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Mohenjo Daro: Ancient city on the bank of the Indus River, in present-day southern Pakistan. At about 3 miles (5 kilometers) in circuit, it was the largest city of the Indus civilization in the 3rd-2nd millennium BC, and it probably served as the capital of and extensive state. It was fortified and its citadel contained, according to archaeological finds, an elaborate bath, a granary, and two halls of assembly.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Leave a comment

Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged ,

Fables of Bidpai

Posted on May 5, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Fables of Bidpai: An Arabic version of a collection of Indian fables common to Buddhism and Brahminism, also known as Kalilah and Dimnah. They were collected in the Sanskrit Panchatantra and translated into Persian about AD 55. Bidpai means court scholar, and the allegorical animal stories are told as a wise man’s advice to a young Indian price.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Leave a comment

Posted in Quotes, Reference

Tagged , , ,

Maxine Hong Kingston

Posted on May 5, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Maxine Hong Kingston originally Maxine Hong: (b.1940) U.S. writer. Born to an immigrant family in Stockton, California, she has taught at various schools and universities. Her novels and nonfiction works explore the myths, realities, and cultural identities of Chinese and American families and the role of women in Chinese culture. Her widely admired The Woman Warrior (1976) and China Men (1980) blend fact and fantasy to tell aspects of her family’s history; Tripmaster Monkey (1988) concerns a young Chinese-American man.”

Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , , , , ,

Descartes, Famously, on Ontology and Epistemology

Posted on April 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

“I think, therefore I am.”

Rene Descartes,  Le Discours de la Method (1637)

Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.

Leave a comment

Posted in Quotes, Reference

Tagged ,

Book of Answers: Tennessee Williams

Posted on April 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

“How long was the first run of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)? The play opened in New York in 1947 and ran for 855 performances.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , ,

The Doubter’s Companion: Amorality

Posted on April 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Amorality: A quality admired and rewarded in modern organizations, where it is referred to through metaphors such as professionalism and efficiency.

Amorality is corporatist wisdom. It is one of the terms which highlights the confusion in society between what is officially taught as a value and what is actually rewarded by the structure.

Immorality is doing wrong of our own volition. Amorality is doing it because a structure or an organization expects us to do it. Amorality is thus worse than immorality because it involves denying our responsibility and therefore our existence as anything more than animal.”

Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.

Leave a comment

Posted in Quotes

Tagged , , ,

Term of Art: Sound/Symbol Association

Posted on April 21, 2023 | Leave a comment

“sound/symbol association: The idea that certain sounds are paired with specific symbols.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , ,