Legendary director, actor, author, and provocateur Werner Herzog has incalculably influenced contemporary cinema for decades. Until now there has been no sustained effort to gather and present a variety of diverse philosophical approaches to his films and to the thinking behind their creation. The Philosophy of Werner Herzog, edited by M. Blake Wilson and Christopher Turner, collects fourteen essays by professional philosophers and film theorists from around the globe, who explore the famed German auteur's notions of "ecstatic truth" as opposed to "accountants' truth," his conception of nature and its penchant for "overwhelming and collective murder," his controversial film production techniques, his debts to his philosophical and aesthetic forebears, and finally, his pointed objections to his would-be critics--including, among others, the contributors to this book themselves. By probing how Herzog's thinking behind the camera is revealed in the action he captures in front of it, The Philosophy of Werner Herzog shines new light upon the images and dialog we see and hear on the screen by enriching our appreciation of a prolific--yet enigmatic--film artist.

In Staging and Re- cycling , John Keefe and Knut Ove Arntzen re-visit and reappraise a selection of their work to explore how the retrieval, re-approaching and re-framing of material can offer pathways for new work and new thinking. The book includes a collection of reprinted and first-published (although previously presented) textual material interspersed with editorial material - reflective essays from John and Knut on these pieces from the archives and original essays from invited scholars that explore the theme of repetition and re-cycling. The project has a number of aims: to suggest how the status of 'new' with regard to academic and staged dramaturgical materials may be reframed; to re-examine these through certain lenses and concepts (re-cycling; re-working; the spectator; landscape, post- and other dramaturgies); to explore the possibilities of critique offered by particular modes of juxtaposition, dialogue and dialectic; to offer further provocations to received ideas; and to retrieve and re-approach material, once published or presented, that becomes 'lost' in archives or on library shelves. As shown here, the role of the hyphen acts as an indicator to the status of 're-' in relation to the 'new'. Written for scholars and academics, researchers, undergraduate and postgraduate students, and practitioners working in all forms for theatre and performance, Staging and Re-cycling suggests a new form of dialogue between work, authors and readers, and draws out threads that extend back into the past and potentially forward into the future.

This book provides a framework by which a global audience might think theologically about contemporary films produced in mainland China by Chinese directors. Up to this point the academic discipline of Christian theology and film has focussed predominantly on Western cinema, and as a result, has missed out the potential insights offered by Chinese spirituality on film. Mainland Chinese films, produced within the nation's social structure, offer an excellent lingua franca of China. Illuminating the spiritual imagination of Chinese filmmakers and their yearning for transcendence, the book uses Richard A. Blake's concept of afterimage to analyse the potential theological implications of their films. It then brings Jurgen Moltmann's "immanent-transcendence" and Robert K. Johnston's "God's wider Presence" into conversation with Confucianist and Daoist ideas of there being, spirituality-speaking, "More in Life than Meets the Eye" than simply material existence. This all combines to move beyond film and allow for a Western audience to gain a new perspective on Chinese culture and traditions. One that uses familiar Western terms, while avoiding the imposition of a Western mindset. This is a new perspective on cinema, religion and Chinese culture that will be of keen interest to scholars of Religion and Film, Religious Studies, Theology, Sociology of Religion and Chinese Studies.

This edited collection brings together a range of essays that examine the maze of Chinese postmodernity. The essays explore the global expansion of capital as a structural crisis represented in art and literature. It ultimately acknowledges the ambiguity of Chinese postmodernity, the overlapping cultural paradigms of Confucian ethics and a capitalist economy, residual of Maoism, socialist relations, and individualist philosophy.

Antonio Lopez Garcia's Everyday Urban Worlds: A Philosophy of Painting is the first book to give the famed Spanish artist the critical attention he deserves. Born in Tomelloso in 1936 and still living in the Spanish capital today, Antonio Lopez has long cultivated a reputation for impressive urban scenes-but it is urban time that is his real subject. Going far beyond mere artist biography, Benjamin Fraser explores the relevance of multiple disciplines to an understanding of the painter's large-scale canvasses. Weaving selected images together with their urban referents-and without ever straying too far from discussion of the painter's oeuvre, method and reception by critics-Fraser pulls from disciplines as varied as philosophy, history, Spanish literature and film, cultural studies, urban geography, architecture, and city planning in his analyses. The book begins at ground level with one of the artist's most recognizable images, the Gran Via, which captures the urban project that sought to establish Madrid as an emblem of modernity. Here, discussion of the artist's chosen painting style-one that has been referred to as a 'hyperrealism'-is integrated with the central street's history, the capital's famous literary figures, and its filmic representations, setting up the philosophical perspective toward which the book gradually develops. Chapter two rises in altitude to focus on Madrid desde Torres Blancas, an urban image painted from the vantage point provided by an iconic high-rise in the north-central area of the city. Discussion of the Spanish capital's northward expansion complements a broad view of the artist's push into representations of landscape and allows for the exploration of themes such as political conflict, social inequality, and the accelerated cultural change of an increasingly mobile nation during the 1960s. Chapter three views Madrid desde la torre de bomberos de Vallecas and signals a turn toward political philosophy. Here, the size of the artist's image itself foregrounds questions of scale, which Fraser paints in broad strokes as he blends discussions of artistry with the turbulent history of one of Madrid's outlying districts and a continued focus on urban development and its literary and filmic resonance. Antonio Lopez Garcia's Everyday Urban Worlds also includes an artist timeline, a concise introduction and an epilogue centering on the artist's role in the Spanish film El sol del membrillo. The book's clear style and comprehensive endnotes make it appropriate for both general readers and specialists alike.

Offering a roadmap for practicing verbatim theatre (plays created from oral histories), this book outlines theatre processes through the lens of oral history and draws upon oral history scholarship to bring best practices from that discipline to theatre practitioners. This book opens with an overview of oral history and verbatim theatre, considering the ways in which existing oral history debates can inform verbatim theatre processes and highlights necessary ethical considerations within each field, which are especially prevalent when working with narrators from marginalised communities. It provides a step-by-step guide to creating plays from interviews and contains practical guidance for determining the scope of a theatre project: identifying narrators and conducting interviews, developing a script from excerpts of interview transcripts and outlining a variety of ways to create verbatim theatre productions. By bringing together this explicit discussion of oral history in relationship to theatre based on personal testimonies, the reader gains insight into each field and the close relationship between the two. Supported by international case studies that cover a wide range of working methods and productions, including The Laramie Project and Parramatta Girls, this is the perfect guide for oral historians producing dramatic representations of the material they have sourced through interviews, and for writers creating professional theatre productions, community projects or student plays.

Axe Bahia examines the unique cultural role played by Salvador, the coastal capital of the Brazilian state of Bahia. An internationally renowned center of Afro-Brazilian culture, Salvador has been a vibrant and important hub of African-inspired artistic practices in Latin America since the 1940s. This volume represents the most comprehensive investigation in the United States of Bahian arts to date and features essays by eighteen international scholars. While adding to popular understandings of core expressions of African heritage, such as the religion Candomble, the essays explore in depth the complexities of race and cultural affiliation in Brazil and the provocative ways in which artists have experienced and responded creatively to prevailing realities of Afro-Brazilian identity in Bahia. Lavishly illustrated, the book features works by artists ranging from modernists, among them Mario Cravo Neto, Rubem Valentim, and Pierre Verger, to contemporary artists Rommulo Vieira Conceicao, Caetano Dias, Helen Salomao, Ayrson Heraclito, and others-including a stunning array of sculpture, painting, photography, video, and installation art. The exhibition was part of the Getty's Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative.

A leading female sculptor and figure in Chinese contemporary art, Yin Xiuzhen (b. 1963, Beijing, China) began her career in the early 1990s following her graduation from Capital Normal University in Beijing where she received a B.A. from the Fine Arts Department in 1989. Best known for her works that incorporate second-hand objects, Yin uses her artwork to explore modern issues of globalization and homogenization. By utilizing recycled materials such as sculptural documents of memory, she seeks to personalize objects and allude to the lives of specific individuals, which are often neglected in the drive toward excessive urbanization, rapid modern development and the growing global economy. The artist explains, "In a rapidly changing China, 'memory' seems to vanish more quickly than everything else. That's why preserving memory has become an alternative way of life."

The Routledge Companion to Performance Philosophy is a volume of especially commissioned critical essays, conversations, collaborative, creative and performative writing mapping the key contexts, debates, methods, discourses and practices in this developing field. Firstly, the collection offers new insights on the fundamental question of how thinking happens: where, when, how and by whom philosophy is performed. Secondly, it provides a plurality of new accounts of performance and performativity - as the production of ideas, bodies and knowledges - in the arts and beyond. Comprising texts written by international artists, philosophers and scholars from multiple disciplines, the essays engage with questions of how performance thinks and how thought is performed in a wide range of philosophies and performances, from the ancient to the contemporary. Concepts and practices from diverse geographical regions and cultural traditions are analysed to draw conclusions about how performance operates across art, philosophy and everyday life. The collection both contributes to and critiques the philosophy of music, dance, theatre and performance, exploring the idea of a philosophy from the arts. It is crucial reading material for those interested in the hierarchy of the relationship between philosophy and the arts, advancing debates on philosophical method, and the relation between Performance and Philosophy more broadly.

Western Theatre in Global Contexts explores the junctures, tensions, and discoveries that occur when teaching Western theatrical practices or directing English-language plays in countries that do not share Western theatre histories or in which English is the non-dominant language. This edited volume examines pedagogical discoveries and teaching methods, how to produce specific plays and musicals, and how students who explore Western practices in non-Western places contribute to the art form. Offering on-the-ground perspectives of teaching and working outside of North American and Europe, the book analyzes the importance of paying attention to the local context when developing theatrical practice and education. It also explores how educators and artists who make deep connections in the local culture can facilitate ethical accessibility to Western models of performance for students, practitioners and audiences. Western Theatre in Global Contexts is an excellent resource for scholars, artists, and teachers that are working abroad or on intercultural projects in theatre, education and the arts.

Official art book of the Marvel's Midnight Suns video game, packed with interviews with the creative team behind the game, as well as stunning concept art created during the development process. When the demonic Lilith and her fearsome horde unite with the evil armies of Hydra, it's time to unleash Marvel's dark side. As The Hunter, your mission is to lead an unlikely team of seasoned Super Heroes and dangerous supernatural warriors to victory. Can legends such as Doctor Strange, Iron Man, and Blade put aside their differences in the face of a growing apocalyptic threat? If you're going to save the world, you'll have to forge alliances and lead the team into battle as the legendary Midnight Suns-Earth's last line of defence against the underworld. Marvel's Midnight Suns - The Art of the Game captures the creative process of this much-anticipated game. The exclusive concept art and in-game renderings created by the talented development team-creating the game in collaboration with Marvel-are shown in glorious detail in this lush, hardback volume. Characters, locations, gadgets, weapons, monsters, enemies, and much more are all accompanied by unique insights from the artists and developers behind the game. So step into the world of Marvel's Midnight Suns - and rise up against the darkness!

This collection begins with two premises: that our understanding of the nature and forms of creativity in later life remains limited and that dialogue between specialists in gerontology, the arts and humanities can produce the crucial new insights that are so obviously needed. Representing the outcome of ongoing dialogue across the disciplinary divide, the contributions of this volume reflect anew on what we share and how we differ; creating new narratives so as to build an understanding of late-life creativity that goes far beyond the narrow confines of the pervasively received idea of 'late style'. Creativity in Later Life encompasses a range of personal reflections and discussions of the boundaries of creativity, including: Canonical artistic achievements to community art projects Narratives of carers for those living with dementia Analyses of creative theory Through these insightful chapters, the authors consequently offer an understanding of creativity in later life as varied, socialised and - above all - located in the cultural and economic circumstances of the here and now. This title will appeal to academics, practitioners and students in the various gerontological, arts and humanities fields; and to anyone with an interest in the nature of creativity in later life and the forms it takes.

Enacting History is a practical guide for educators that provides methodologies and resources for teaching the Holocaust through a variety of theatrical means, including scripted texts, verbatim testimony, devised theater techniques and process-oriented creative exercises. A close collaboration with the USC Shoah Foundation I Witness program and the National Jewish Theater Foundation Holocaust Theater International Initiative at the University of Miami Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies resulted in the ground-breaking work within this volume. The material facilitates teaching the Holocaust in a way that directly connects students to individual people and historical events through the art of theater. Each section is designed to help middle and high school educators meet curricular goals, objectives and standards and to integrate other educational disciplines based upon best practices. Students will gain both intellectual and emotional understanding by speaking the words of survivors, as well as young characters in scripted scenes, and developing their own performances based on historical primary sources. This book is an innovative and invaluable resource for teachers and students of the Holocaust; it is an exemplary account of how the power of theater can be harnessed within the classroom setting to encourage a deeper understanding of this defining event in history.

J.R.R. Tolkien's complete artwork for "The Hobbit," presented for the first time in celebration of the 75th anniversary
When J.R.R. Tolkien wrote "The Hobbit," he was already an accomplished amateur artist, and drew illustrations for his book while it was still in manuscript. "The Hobbit" as first printed had ten black-and-white pictures, two maps, and binding and dust jacket designs by its author. Later, Tolkien also painted five scenes for color plates, which comprise some of his best work. His illustrations for "The Hobbit" add an extra dimension to that remarkable book, and have long influenced how readers imagine Bilbo Baggins and his world.
Written and edited by leading Tolkien experts Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, "The Art of The Hobbit""by J.R.R. Tolkien" showcases the complete artwork created by the author for his story--including related pictures, more than one hundred sketches, drawings, paintings, maps, and plans. Some of these images are published here for the first time, others for the first time in color, allowing Tolkien's "Hobbit" pictures to be seen completely and more vividly than ever before.

Based on the seventh instalment of the biennial Renwick Invitational, this striking volume, presents the work of Steven Young Lee, Kristen Morgin, Jennifer Trask, and Norwood Viviano. The four selected artists work in a remarkable variety of media including porcelain, raw clay, bone, gold, glass, metal, found objects and mineral pigments. Their visual sensibilities draw on sources ranging from traditional Asian pottery to vintage Americana, and from the romance of the Victorian Era to the algorhythmic precision of the computer. Together, they engage a current fascination in American craft with change, transformation, ruin, and reinvention.

Art Deco style, with its modern forms, rich colors, and brilliant glazes, appeared on the scene by 1910, exploded into great heights of popularity by 1925, and remained popular throughout the 1930s. In 475 brilliant color images worthy of the movement, the Art Deco decorated porcelains from Limoges, France, are displayed. While centering on the work of the talented artist Camille Tharaud, examples from Robj, Edouard Marcel Sandoz, Suzanne Lalique, and Royal Limoges are also included. Among the wares presented are over 500 delicate vases, tea sets, figurines, covered boxes and bowls, plates, and night lights. Additionally, Art Deco patterns and company names, direct from the pattern books of Gerard, Dufraisseix, Abbot, are on display.\nThe detailed text provides an indepth look at Camille Tharaud and his work, with an extensive bibliography, and index. Value ranges for the wares displayed are found in the captions.

A sumptuous single-volume edition of Phaidon's acclaimed overview of one of the greatest painters of our time Larger-than-life British artist Lucian Freud enjoyed a career lasting over seven decades. He worked almost until the day he died, when he left a portrait of friend and studio assistant David Dawson unfinished. Now available for the first time in one elegantly combined edition, this acclaimed celebration of Freud's work from the 1930s to his death in 2011 includes hundreds of paintings, drawings, sketches, and etchings - even personal photographs and illustrated private letters. A comprehensive overview of his life and work in one luxurious volume, this book is a gorgeous addition to the shelves of art lovers everywhere. Created in collaboration with the Lucian Freud Archive and David Dawson, Director of the Archive, and edited by Mark Holborn.

Belgian artist Rene Magritte's biography is a key element of his art. His life is infused with bizarre moments: a surreal journey oscillating between fact and fiction that he always conducted as the straight-faced bowler-hatted man. The events of Magritte's childhood played an important part in creating the surrealist, but it was his popular culture borrowings from crime fiction, advertising and postcards that has made his work instantly recognizable. The often unreliable nature of Magritte's accounts of his own life have transformed his public image into a kind of fictional character rather than a 'real person'. He would shape his own life story to be its own surreal work of art.

In this book, Vera Dika rewrites the story of the Pictures Generation from the perspective of the Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, NY. Her work is based on interviews with living artists, archival research and personal collections, including films, videotapes and sound recordings. At once aesthetic, cultural and political, this renewed perspective asks new questions and rewrites past assumptions about the artists' work. The legendary members of the East Coast Pictures Generation emerged at Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center in Buffalo in the mid-1970s. These young people had started Hallwalls, an artist-run organization that invited artists from a variety of mediums to show their work. It also featured productions by the founding members themselves: Robert Longo, Charlie Clough, Cindy Sherman, Nancy Dwyer, and Michael Zwack. The works discussed in the volume include performance, video, films, painting, music and literature, and have been chosen because of the way they foreground states of the body in relationship to conditions of their medium. As a distinguishing feature of Hallwalls artists' work, the practice uses these traces to make metaphors on the process of mechanical reproduction itself. The Hallwalls artists' work also gives testament to Buffalo and to New York City, the cities that formed their historical contexts. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, performance studies, film studies, and gender studies.

* A Times and New Statesman Book of the Year * * BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week * * Illustrated with over 130 colour photographs and drawings * 'A masterpiece.' Edmund de Waal 'Commanding, intelligent, gripping.' The Times From 1910 to 1930 Gropius was at the very centre of European modern art and design, as the founder of the German art school, the Bauhaus. Yet Gropius's beliefs and affiliations left him little choice but to leave Germany when Hitler came to power. In this riveting book, Fiona MacCarthy draws on new research to re-evaluate Gropius's work and life. From his shattering experiences in the First World War to his turbulent marriage to the notorious Alma Mahler and the tragic early death of their daughter, MacCarthy leads us through his disorientating years in London, to his final peaceful and productive life in America. This is biography at its finest and most vivid.

Dances of Jose Limon and Erick Hawkins examines stagings of masculinity, whiteness, and Latinidad in the work of US modern dance choreographers, Jose Limon (1908-1972) and Erick Hawkins (1908-1994). Focusing on the period between 1945 to 1980, this book analyzes Limon and Hawkins' work during a time when modern dance was forming new relationships to academic and governmental institutions, mainstream markets, and notions of embodiment. The pre-war expressionist tradition championed by Limon and Hawkins' mentors faced multiple challenges as ballet and Broadway complicated the tenets of modernism and emerging modern dance choreographers faced an increasingly conservative post-war culture framed by the Cold War and Red Scare. By bringing the work of Limon and Hawkins together in one volume, Dances of Jose Limon and Erick Hawkins accesses two distinct approaches to training and performance that proved highly influential in creating post-war dialogues on race, gender, and embodiment. This book approaches Limon and Hawkins' training regimes and performing strategies as social practices symbiotically entwined with their geo-political backgrounds. Limon's queer and Latino heritage is put into dialogue with Hawkins' straight and European heritage to examine how their embodied social histories worked co-constitutively with their training regimes and performance strategies to produce influential stagings of masculinity, whiteness, and Latinidad.

In Imaginary Performances in Shakespeare, visionary modernist theatre director Aureliu Manea analyses the theatrical possibilities of Shakespeare. Through nineteen Shakespeare plays, Manea sketches the intellectual parameters, the visual languages, and the emotional worlds of imagined stage interpretations of each; these nineteen short essays are appended by his essay 'Confessions,' an autobiographical meditation on the nature of theatre and the role of the director. This captivating book which will be attractive to anyone interested in Shakespeare and modern theatre.

This facsimile edition of a 1922 children's book features seventy-three dynamic and whimsical woodcut illustrations-the first woodcuts that the famed American craftsman Wharton Esherick produced. A high-quality replica authorized by the Wharton Esherick Museum, this book reveals the foundation of Esherick's direction as an artist. Edited by Museum director Paul Eisenhauer, it also features a foreword by Museum assistant curator Laura Heemer. The illustrations frame verses that introduce children to the principles of evolution, a highly controversial topic at the time: the book was published three years before the famous Scopes "Monkey" trial of 1925 that resulted in the inclusion of the teaching of evolution in public schools. Drawn by the excitement of the controversy, Esherick threw his passion into these illustrations. Afterward he would go on to carve over 300 woodcuts, leading to decorative carving, and ultimately, to Esherick's realization that he was a sculptor rather than a painter.

Lee Miller: Photography, surrealism, and beyond offers a major new critical discussion of the work of one of the most significant twentieth-century photographers. Applying art-theoretical analyses and insights afforded by previously unseen material in archives and collections, Patricia Allmer undertakes revisionary readings of many of Miller's works, including Portrait of Space, Severed Breast from Radical Mastectomy and the famous series of war photographs produced for Vogue. At the same time she sheds new light on Miller's relations with surrealist groups and American avant-gardes, on her experiences in Paris, Egypt and World War II Europe and on her critically neglected post-war activities. Above all, Lee Miller: Photography, surrealism, and beyond focuses critical attention on the works themselves. As a result it will be of great interest to students and scholars of twentieth-century photography, modernism and surrealism. -- .