The term Ursulines refers to a number of religious institutes of the Catholic Church. The best known group was founded in 1535 at Brescia, Italy, by Angela Merici, for the education of girls and the care of the sick and needy, their patron saint is Saint Ursula. They are divided into two branches, one being the monastic Order of St. Ursula, among whom the largest group is the Ursulines of the Roman Union, described in this article; the other branch is the Company of St. Ursula called the "Angelines", who follow the original form of life established by their foundress. Merici, a member of the Third Order of St. Francis, was a woman of deep mystical belief, which she combined with the service of the poor and needy, she believed. From men and women who labored with her, she selected 28 women who wished to commit their lives to this endeavor; these women, along with Merici, made a commitment of their lives to the service of the church and of the poor on 25 November 1535, the feast day of Catherine of Alexandria, a major female spiritual figure in the Middle Ages.

The women called themselves the Company of St. Ursula, taking as their patroness the medieval patron saint of education. Continuing to live in their family homes, they would meet for conferences and prayer in common. Merici drew up a Rule of Life for them. In 1538 the company held its first General Chapter. In 1539 she added a book of Counsels to regulate the life of the group. Merici's vision was that they were to live among the people they served without any distinguishing feature, such as a religious habit; the company grew being joined by women from throughout her hometown of Desenzano. They came to be organized in groups, according to the parish in which they lived, the company spread throughout the Diocese of Brescia. One of the early works of the new Company was to give religious instruction to the girls of the town at the parish church each Sunday, an innovation for the period, having traditionally been left to the local parish priest, their work spread to other dioceses in the region. Angela Merici died on 27 January 1540.

The company was formally recognized in 1546 by Pope Paul III. Merici's death in 1540, had left the company without a clear leader. Organized loosely, questions about their future began to surface. Additionally, pressure began to come from the officials of the church, who were uncomfortable with a group of consecrated women living independently, not under the direct authority of the clergy. In 1572 in Milan, at the insistence of Charles Borromeo, the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, the Ursulines agreed to become an enclosed religious order. Pope Gregory XIII approved this step, putting them under the Rule of St. Augustine, in place of Merici's rule. In France, groups of the company begin to re-shape themselves as cloistered nuns, under solemn vows, dedicated to the education of girls within the walls of their monasteries. In the following century, the Ursuline nuns were encouraged and supported by Francis de Sales, they were called the "Ursuline nuns" as distinct from the "federated Ursulines" of the company, who preferred to follow the original way of life.

Both forms of life continued to spread throughout Europe and beyond. At the beginning of the 18th century, the period of its greatest growth, the order was represented by 20 congregations, 350 convents and from 15,000 to 20,000 nuns; the Ursuline sisters were not the first Catholic nuns to land in the new world. They were preceded by the Heironymite order in 1585 in Mexico City, who established the convent of San Jerónimo y Santa Paula. In 1639, Mother Marie of the Incarnation, two other Ursuline nuns, a Jesuit priest left France for a mission to Canada; when they arrived in the summer of 1639, they studied the languages of the native peoples and began to educate the native children. They taught reading and writing as well as needlework, embroidery and other domestic arts; the Ursuline convent in Quebec City is the oldest educational institution for women in North America. Their work helped to preserve a religious spirit among the French population and to Christianize native peoples and Métis.

The first Ursulines arrived at Mobile, Alabama, in 1719. In 1727, 12 Ursulines from France landed in; the entire group of Ursulines were the first Roman Catholic nuns in. Both properties were part of the French colony of Louisiana, they came to the country under the sanctions of Pope Pius Louis XV of France. Following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, their charter came under the jurisdiction of the United States, they instituted a school, both of which continue today. Ursuline Academy is the oldest continually operating Catholic school in the United States and the oldest girls school in the United States; the Ursuline tradition holds many United States firsts in its dedication to the growth of individuals, including the first female pharmacist, first woman to contribute a book of literary merit, first convent, first free school and first retreat center for ladies, first classes for female slaves, free women of color and Native Americans. In the Mississippi Valley region, Ursuline provided the first social welfare center.

The Old Ursuline Convent is located in the Vieux Carre. It is the oldest building in the Mississippi River Valley; the building now houses the Archdiocese of New Orleans' Archives as

N'Dea Davenport is the self-titled studio album by American singer and songwriter N'Dea Davenport, released on June 30, 1998, by V2 Records. The album peaked at number 56 on the Billboard R&B Albums chart and number 14 on the Heatseekers Albums chart. After defecting from The Brand New Heavies in 1995, Davenport signed with V2 Records and began recording her first album in 1996; the album features music production from Daniel Lanois. The lead single. Following the album's release, Davenport released three more singles: "Bullshittin'", "Underneath a Red Moon", "Whatever You Want". In addition to promoting the album, Davenport performed at the Lilith Fair in 1998. "Whatever You Want" - 4:31 "Underneath a Red Moon" - 4:16 "Save Your Love for Me" - 4:07 "When the Night Falls" - 4:50 "Bring It On" - 4:22 "No Never Again" - 5:14 "In Wonder" - 4:06 "Bullshittin'" - 3:34 "Real Life" - 3:06. Daniel Lanois "Old Man" - 4:00 "Placement for the Baby" - 6:25 "Oh Mother Earth" - 3:52 "Getaway" - 3:30. "Bullshittin'" - 4:18.

Philosophy and literature involves the literary treatment of philosophers and philosophical themes, the philosophical treatment of issues raised by literature. Speaking, the philosophy of literature is a branch of aesthetics, the branch of philosophy that deals with the question, "what is art"? Much of aesthetic philosophy has traditionally focused on the plastic arts or music, however, at the expense of the verbal arts. In fact, much traditional discussion of aesthetic philosophy seeks to establish criteria of artistic quality that are indifferent to the subject matter being depicted. Since all literary works by definition, contain notional content, aesthetic theories that rely on purely formal qualities tend to overlook literature; the existence of narrative raises philosophical issues. In narrative, a creator can embody, readers be led to imagine, fictional characters, fantastic creatures or technologies; the ability of the human mind to imagine, to experience empathy with, these fictional characters is itself revealing about the nature of the human mind.

Some fiction can be thought of as a sort of a thought experiment in ethics: it describes fictional characters, their motives, their actions, the consequences of their actions. It is in this light that some philosophers have chosen various narrative forms to teach their philosophy. Plato, for instance, believed that literary culture and the lyrics of popular music had a strong impact on the ethical outlook of its consumers. In The Republic, Plato displays a strong hostility to the contents of the literary culture of his period, proposes a strong censorship of popular literature in his utopia. More however, philosophers of various stripes have taken different and less hostile approaches to literature. Since the work of the British Empiricists and Immanuel Kant in the late eighteenth century, Western philosophy has been preoccupied with a fundamental question of epistemology: the question of the relationship between ideas in the human mind and the world existing outside the mind, if in fact such a world exists.

In more recent years, these epistemological issues have turned instead to an extended discussion of words and meaning: can language in fact bridge the barrier between minds? This cluster of issues concerning the meaning of language and of "writings" sometimes goes by the name of the linguistic turn; as such and tools developed for literary criticism and literary theory rose to greater prominence in Western philosophy of the late twentieth century. Philosophers of various stripes paid more attention to literature; some sought to examine the question of whether it was in fact possible to communicate using words, whether it was possible for an author's intended meaning to be communicated to a reader. Others sought to use literary works as examples of contemporary culture, sought to reveal unconscious attitudes they felt present in these works for the purpose of social criticism. Literary works pose issues concerning truth and the philosophy of language. In educated opinion, at least, it is reputed as true that Sherlock Holmes lived in London.

It is considered true that Samuel Pepys lived in London. Yet Sherlock Holmes never lived anywhere at all. Samuel Pepys, contrarily, is judged to have been a real person. Contemporary interest in Holmes and in Pepys share strong similarities; these two statements would appear to belong to two different orders of truth. Further problems arise concerning the truth value of statements about fictional worlds and characters that can be implied but are nowhere explicitly stated by the sources for our knowledge about them, such as Sherlock Holmes had only one head or Sherlock Holmes never travelled to the moon. A number of poets have written poems on philosophical themes, some important philosophers have expressed their philosophy in verse; the cosmogony of Hesiod and the De Rerum Natura of Lucretius are important philosophical poems. The genre of epic poetry was used to teach philosophy. Vyasa narrated the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata in order to teach Indian philosophy and Hindu philosophy. Homer presented some philosophical teachings in his Odyssey.

Many of the Eastern philosophers worked out their thought in poetical fashion. Some of the important names include: Vyasa Laozi Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi Omar Khayyám Nizami Ganjavi Sheikh Saadi Hafiz Shirazi Muhammad Iqbal Matsuo Bashō Farid ud-Din Attar Salah Abd El-sabur Mahmoud Darwish Karim ElsaiadNotable Western philosophical poets include: Samuel Taylor Coleridge St. John of the Cross T. S. Eliot Hildegard von Bingen Homer G. K. Chesterton John Milton Percy Bysshe Shelley James Wright Marianne Moore Pablo Neruda William Carlos Williams Mary Oliver Rainer Maria Rilke Leslie Marmon Silko Robert Creeley Fernando Pessoa Søren Kierkegaard Friedrich Nietzsche Georges Bataille Lucretius Some philosophers have undertaken to write philosophy in the form of fiction, including novels and short stories; this is apparent early on in the literature of philosophy, where philosophers such as Plato wrote dialogues in which fictional or fictionalized characters discuss philosophical subjects.