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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies
In 1720s London, a well-known band of young ruffians gave
themselves crescent tattoos and adorned turbans in honor of their
so-called "mohamattan [Muslim]" Indian namesakes, the Mohawk. Few
Britons noticed the gang's mistaken muddling of North American and
Indian subcontinent geographies and cultures. Even fewer cared in
an age in which "Indian" was a catch-all term applied to theatre
characters, philosophies, and objects whose only common
characteristic often was that they were not European. Yet just
thirty years later, when the North American empire had entered
center stage, Londoners bought Iroquois tomahawks at auctions;
provincial newspapers debated Cherokee politics; women shopkeepers
read aloud newspaper accounts of frontier battles as their husbands
counted the takings; church congregations listened to the sermons
of American Indian converts; families toured museum exhibits of
American Indian artefacts; and Oxford dons wagered their bottles of
port on the outcome of American wars.
Home, wrote Robert Frost, is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. And yet the idea of home has, in the modern world, become extremely problematic. Robert Frost's words tellingly illustrate the centrality of home to the human experience, as an unconditional haven that one simply has, without having to earn. Yet, we live at a time when the idea of home has become extremely problematic. Our homeless fill America's streets and shelters; the comfort of home is increasingly threatened by urban violence; and the world-wide plight of those exiled or fleeing from their homelands due to civil war, starvation, or political repression seems relentless. The idea of home, bound as it is in family and in the roles of men and women, has a deep resonance that is not fully captured by its use as a social and political slogan. What is its history and ideology? What has it meant and how has its meaning changed? Home moves us perhaps most powerfully as absence or negation. Homelessness and exile are among the worst of conditions, bringing with them alienation, estrangement, and the feelings of greatest despair. This volume, based on a multi-institutional collaboration between the New School for Social Research and five major New York City museums, and its resulting conference, convenes many of America's top scholarly minds to address historical and contemporary meanings of home. Among the issues specifically addressed are the artistic rendition of home in art and propaganda; literary meanings of home; exile through the ages; homelessness past; homelessness in Dickens; the homeless in New York City history; alienation and belonging; slavery and the female discovery of personal freedom; and, more generally, the home and family in historical perspective. Contributing to the volume are Breyten Breytenbach, David Bromwich (Yale University), Sanford Budick (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Stanley Cavell (Harvard University), Mary Douglas, Tamara K. Hareven (University of Delaware), Eric Hobsbawm (Cambridge University, Emeritus), John Hollander (Yale University), Kim Hopper (Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research), George Kateb (Princeton University), Alexander Keyssar (Duke University), Steven Marcus (Columbia University), Orlando Patterson (Harvard University), Joseph Rykwert (University of Pennsylvania), Simon Schama (Harvard University), Alan Trachtenberg (Yale University), and Gwendolyn Wright (Columbia University).
The popularization and cult-like following of electronic music has provoked new relations between men and machines, art and technology, and modern shamans and disc jockeys. New technologies and multimedia tools have awakened neo-ritual practices through the emergence of Psychedelic Trance parties, evoking tribal experiences inspired by a new shamanism, mediated by high-tech guide elements. Exploring Psychedelic Trance and Electronic Dance Music in Modern Culture investigates the expansive scope of Electronic Music Dance Culture (EMDC), the rise of Psychedelic Trance culture, and their relationship with new digital platforms. Drawing from perspectives in sociology, anthropology, psychology, aesthetics and the arts, religious studies, information technologies, multimedia communication, shamanism, and ritualism, this book analyzes the impact of new technologies on individual and collective behaviors in cyberspace. This innovative reference source is ideal for use by academicians, researchers, upper-level students, practitioners, and theorists. Focusing on a variety of topics relating to sub-cultures, human behavior, and popular culture, this title features timely research on alternative culture, electronic music festivals, ethnography, music and religion, psychedelic drugs, Psytrance, rave culture, and trance parties.
This book vividly portrays the past, current, and future development of Yokohama Chinatown through the context of its Cantonese residents, grounded through a family history. It is useful for both academic and non- academic readers who are interested in migration history, transformation of urban spaces, anthropological perspectives of integration of immigrants, diasporic studies and overseas Chinese studies. It is informative when considering the role of immigrant communities in the world today in the context of globalization stimulating cross-border movements and anti-globalization forces that act as push and pull factors for migration. It is also a study of harmonious integration of the overseas Chinese community in Yokohama and its ability to retain its own cultural traits, rights, rituals, traditions and dialect language in one of the most homogenous countries in the world. This increases the attractiveness of Yokohama City in terms of ethnic diversity, cosmopolitan multiculturalism and urban space renewal.
Written for high school students and general readers alike, this insightful treatment links the storied past of various Apache tribes with their life in contemporary times. Written for high school students and general readers alike, Culture and Customs of the Apache Indians links the storied past of the Apaches with contemporary times. It covers modern-day Apache culture and customs for all eight tribes in Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma since the end of the Apache wars in the 1880s. Highlighting tribal religion, government, social customs, lifestyle, and family structures, as well as arts, music, dance, and contemporary issues, the book helps readers understand Apaches today, countering stereotypes based on the 18th- and 19th-century views created by the popular media. It demonstrates that Apache communities are contributing members of society and that, while their culture and customs are based on traditional ways, they live and work in the modern world. Takes an in-depth look at the Apache language today Discusses modern-day Apache artists, writers, musicians, and tribal leaders Contains an assortment of historical and modern photographs as well as charts and illustrations Provides a chronology of major historical events
An introductory guide to the work of Judith Butler, a major contemporary theorist, this title includes a new interview with Butler. "Judith Butler: Live Theory" is an invaluable introduction to the work of this key contemporary theorist, guiding the student through the most complex ideas of one of the most influential thinkers in contemporary culture. Concise, accessible and comprehensive, the book explores and illuminates Butler's important and ongoing contributions to gender theory, offers new insights into the central themes of her work, and considers the extent of her impact on how the discipline of gender studies has been shaped. In particular, the book considers Butler's intellectual work in relation to issues of sexuality and performance, identity and politics, language and power - themes central to Butler's thought and writing. Vicki Kirby locates Butler in the context of contemporary theorists and thinkers and the book includes a new interview with Butler herself, in which she discusses the key themes in her work as well as future writing plans. Offering a stimulating and clear account of the work and thought of this inspiring figure, "Judith Butler: Live Theory" is a key resource for anyone studying this pioneering thinker within the context of sociology, cultural studies, literary criticism, feminism and philosophy.
Oskar Lange was one of the few economists able to observe first hand the three major economic systems that have been the hallmark of the 20th century. He learned about the economic backwardness of peripheral capitalism in pre-war Poland. Later he spent more than twelve years in the bastion of modern capitalism, the United States. After returning to Poland in 1948 he linked his fate to the creation and then reform of the Communist system.This important collection of Professor Lange's work, prepared by his disciple and close friend Tadeusz Kowalik, presents his most important work on the economic theory of socialism, economic planning, Marxism and 'bourgeois' economics. The volume makes an important contribution by improving access to the papers of an economist whose work was at the very heart of the intellectual conflict between socialism and capitalism in the late twentieth century.
In 1632, the Amsterdam regents founded an Athenaeum or 'Illustrious School'. This kind of institution provided academic teaching, although it could not grant degrees and had no compulsory four-faculty system. Athenaeums proliferated in the first century after the Dutch Revolt, but few of them survived long. They have been interpreted as the manifestation of an evolving vision of the role of a higher education; this book, by contrast, argues that education at the Amsterdam Athenaeum was staunchly traditional both in methods and in substance. While religious, philosophical and scientific disputes rocked contemporary Dutch learned society, this analysis of letters, orations and disputations reveals that a traditional and Aristotelian humanism thrived at the Athenaeum until well into the seventeenth century.
Moral paragon, public servant, founding father; scoundrel, opportunist, womanizing phony: There are many Benjamin Franklins. Now, as we celebrate the tercentenary of Franklin's birth, Jerry Weinberger reveals the Franklin behind the many masks and shows that the real Franklin was far more remarkable than anyone has yet discovered. Taking the Autobiography as the key to Franklin's thought, Weinberger argues that previous assessments have not yet probed to the bottom of Ben's famous irony and elusiveness. While others take the self-portrait as an elder statesman's relaxed and playful retrospection, Weinberger unveils it as the window to Franklin's deepest reflections on God, virtue, justice, equality, natural rights, love, the good life, the modern technological project, and the place and limits of reason in politics and human experience. Along the way, Weinberger explores Franklin's ribald humor, usually ignored or toned down by historians and critics, and shows it to be charming-and philosophic. Following Franklin's rhetorical twists and turns, Weinberger discovers a serious thinker who was profoundly critical of religion, moral virtue, and political ideals and whose grasp of human folly constrained his hopes for enlightenment and political reform. This close and amusing reading of Franklin portrays a scrupulous dialectical philosopher, humane and wise, but more provocative and disturbing than even the most hardboiled interpreters have taken Franklin to be--a freethinking critic of Enlightenment freethinking, who played his moral and theological cards very close to the vest. Written for general readers who want to delve more deeply into the mind of a great man and great American, Benjamin Franklin Unmasked shows us a massively powerful intellect lurking behind the leather-apron countenance. This lively, witty, and revelatory book is indispensable for those who want to meet the real Franklin.
All national identities are somewhat fluid, held together by collective beliefs and practices as much as official territory and borders. In the context of the Palestinians, whose national status in so many instances remains unresolved, the articulation and `imagination' of national identity is particularly urgent. This book explores the ways that Palestinian intellectuals, artists, activists and ordinary citizens `imagine' their homeland, examining the works of key Palestinian thinkers and writers such as Edward Said, Mahmoud Darwish, Mourid Barghouti, Ghassan Kanafani and Naji Al Ali. Deploying Benedict Anderson's notion of `Imagined Communities' and Edward Soja's theory of `Third Space', Tahrir Hamdi argues that the imaginative construction of Palestine is a key element in the Palestinians' ongoing struggle. An interdisciplinary work drawing upon critical theory, postcolonial studies and literary analysis, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Palestine and Middle East studies and Arabic literature.
Taking seriously Jacques Lacan's claim that 'the unconscious is politics', this volume proposes a new understanding of political power, interrogating the assumption that contemporary capitalism functions by tapping into forms of unconscious enjoyment, rather than providing transcendental conditions for the articulation of political meanings and desires. Whether we're aware of it or not, political communication today targets the audience's libidinal response through political and institutional language: in policies, speeches, tweets, social media appearances, gestures and images. Yet does this mean that current power structures no longer need symbolic or ideological frameworks? The authors in this volume think not. Far from demonstrating a shift to a post-ideological age, they argue instead that such methods inaugurate an altogether novel approach to political power. Written by leading scholars from around the world, including Roberto Esposito and Slavoj Zizek, each chapter reflects on contemporary power and inspires consideration of new political potentialities, which our focus on politics in transcendental rather than immanent terms has thus far obscured. In so doing, Capitalism and the New Political Unconscious provides an original and forceful exploration of the centrality of both psychoanalytic theory and the philosophy of immanence to an alternative understanding of the political.
Christianity has been spread in Africa by Africans. It is the story of peoples seizing control of their own spiritual destinies-rather than the commonplace notion that the continent's Christian churches represent colonial and capitalist powers that helped subdue Africans to European domination. In short, once introduced, Christianity took on a powerful life of its own and spun out of the control of those who would retain ownership of doctrine and practice. East African Expressions of Christianity examines the experiences of African Christians as they explored the new faith, interpreted it in the context of their own values, appropriated it for themselves, and forged their own distinctive churches. Prominent Tanzanian and American historians, anthropologists, political scientists, and church people examine the translation of religious meanings across cultural boundaries; the religious and social appeal of the new faith; and the vital roles played by African evangelists, teachers, and translators in the spread of Christianity and the development of an African church.
Stephen Castles provides a deeper understanding of recent 'migration crises' in this fascinating and highly topical work. The book links theory and methodology to real-world migration experiences, with a truly global perspective and in-depth analysis of the links between economics, migration and asylum and refugee issues. Key features surrounding this complex and often controversial field are examined through five thematic sections: the sociological theories and methodologies most appropriate for understanding the migratory process, including the changing nature of international migration in an era of globalization analysis of contemporary types of migration and the cruciality of understanding migration as a dynamic social process - inability to do so may lead to policy failure and unintended consequences the relationship between migration and development asylum and refugees the effects of international migration on citizenship and identity, providing a critical perspective on the emergence of transnationalism. Migration, Citizenship and Identity will appeal to graduate students, senior undergraduates and lecturers in international migration, globalization, sociology, political science, demography and geography. Government officials, civil society activists, social workers, medical personnel, lawyers and other professional groups whose work is concerned with migrants and refugees will also find much to engage them.
Deciding what to eat and how to eat it are two of the most basic acts of everyday life. Yet every choice also implies a value judgement: 'good' foods versus 'bad', 'proper' and 'improper' ways of eating, and 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' bodies. These food decisions are influenced by a range of social, political and economic bioauthorities, and mediated through the individual 'eating body'. This book is unique in the cultural politics of food in its exploration of a range of such bioauthorities and in its examination of the interplay between them and the individual eating body. No matter whether they are accepted or resisted, our eating practices and preferences are shaped by, and shape, these agencies. Abbots places the body, materiality and the non-human at the heart of her analysis, interrogating not only how the individual's embodied eating practices incorporate and reject the bioauthorities of food, but also how such authorities are created by the individual act of eating. Drawing on ethnographic case studies from across the globe, The Agency of Eating provides an important analysis of the power dynamics at play in the contemporary food system and the ways in which agency is expressed and bounded. This book will be of great benefit to any with an interest in food studies, anthropology, sociology and human geography.
Bringing together a variety of critical approaches and interdisciplinary perspectives, this work reflects the continuing vitality and breadth of George Sand scholarship around the world. It contains twenty-eight papers and a keynote address presented at the Seventh International George Sand Conference. Contributors include leading European, American, and Asian scholars in the field. The volume opens with essays by Henri Peyre and Marilyn French focusing on George Sand's relation to her own period and society and her continuing relevance to modern readers. The next three sections are devoted to an examination of Sand's work in specific genres: the novel, travel writing, and autobiography. Other subject areas addressed include the relation of text to personal ideology, political views, and sexual politics and identity. The remaining chapters explore Sand's relationships with her contemporaries, including Alfred de Musset, Balzac, Flaubert, and Alexandre Dumas fils. Presenting the best in current scholarship in the field, this work will be of interest for studies and courses relating to nineteenth century women writers, French literature, women's studies, cultural and social history, and related subjects.
Propaganda--so crucial to winning the battle of hearts and minds in
warfare--witnessed a transformation during World War II, when film
was fast becoming the most popular form of entertainment.In Film
Propaganda in Britain and Nazi Germany, Jo Fox compares how each
country exploited their national cinema for political purposes.
Through an investigation of shorts and feature films, the author
looks at how both political propaganda films and escapist cinema
were critical in maintaining the morale of both civilians and the
military and how this changed throughout the war. While both
countries shared certain similarities in their wartime propaganda
films - a harking back to a glorious historic past, for example -
the thematic differences reveal important distinctions between
cultures.This book offers new insight into the shifting pattern of
morale during World War II and highlights a key moment in
propaganda film history.
A key introductory philosophy textbook, making use of an innovative, interactive technique for reading philosophical texts Reading Philosophy: Selected Texts with a Method for Beginners, Second Edition, provides a unique approach to reading philosophy, requiring students to engage with material as they read. It contains carefully selected texts, commentaries on those texts, and questions for the reader to think about as they read. It serves as starting points for both classroom discussion and independent study. The texts cover a wide range of topics drawn from diverse areas of philosophical investigation, ranging over ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, aesthetics, and political philosophy. This edition has been updated and expanded. New chapters discuss the moral significance of friendship and love, the subjective nature of consciousness and the ways that science might explore conscious experience. And there are new texts and commentary in chapters on doubt, self and moral dilemmas. Guides readers through the experience of active, engaged philosophical reading Presents significant texts, contextualized for newcomers to philosophy Includes writings by philosophers from antiquity to the late 20th-century Contains commentary that provides the context and background necessary for discussion and argument Prompts readers to think through specific questions and to reach their own conclusions This book is an ideal resource for beginning students in philosophy, as well as for anyone wishing to engage with the subject on their own.
The Measure of America, 2010-2011, is the definitive report on the overall well-being of all Americans. How are Americans doing-compared to one another and compared to the rest of the world? This important, easy-to-understand guide will provide all of the essential information on the current state of America. This fully illustrated report, with over 130 color images, is based on the groundbreaking American Human Development Index, which provides a single measure of the well-being for all Americans, disaggregated by state and congressional district, as well as by race, gender, and ethnicity. The Index rankings of the 50 states and 435 congressional districts reveal huge disparities in the health, education, and living standards of different groups. For example, overall, Connecticut ranked first among states on the 2008-2009 Index, and Mississippi ranked last, suggesting that there is a 30-year gap in human development between the two states. Further, among congressional districts, New York's 14th District, in Manhattan, ranked first, and California's 20th District, near Fresno, ranked last. The average resident of New York's 14th District earned over three times as much as the average resident of California's 20th District, lived over four years longer, and was ten times as likely to have a college degree. The second in the American Human Development Report series, the 2010-2011 edition features a completely updated Index, new findings on the well-being of different racial and ethnic groups from state to state, and a closer look at disparities within major metro areas. It also shines a spotlight on threats to progress and opportunity for some Americans as well as highlighting tested approaches to fosteringresilience among different groups. Using a revelatory framework for explaining the very nature of humanprogress, this report can be used not only as a way to measure America but also to build upon past policy successes, protect the progress made over the last half century from new risks, and create an infrastructure of opportunity that can serve a new generation of Americans. Beautifully illustrated with stunning four-color graphics that allow for a quick visual understanding of often complex but important issues, The Measure of America is essential reading for all Americans, especially for social scientists, policy makers, and pundits who want to understand where Americans stand today.
Routledge Library Editions: Revolution in England examines the turbulent times that led to the English revolution and civil war as new political and religious ideas led to the overthrow of the king and establishment of a republic. Modern ideas of democracy were established then, and are analysed here in a series of books that look at the various radical sects such as the Nonjurors and Levellers that espoused new political thought and ways of living. |
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