Goods made or designed in Italy enjoy a profile which far outstrips the country's modest manufacturing output. Italy's glorious design heritage and reputation for style and innovation has 'added value' to products made in Italy. Since 1945, Italian design has commanded an increasing amount of attention from design journalists, critics and consumers. But is Italian design a victim of its own celebrity? Made in Italy brings together leading design historians to explore this question, discussing both the history and significance of design from Italy and its international influence. Addressing a wide range of Italian design fields, including car design, graphic design, industrial and interior design and ceramics, well-known designers such as Alberto Rosselli and Ettore Sottsass, Jr. and iconic brands such as Olivetti, Vespa and Alessi, the book explores the historical, cultural and social influences that shaped Italian design, and how these iconic designs have contributed to the modern canon of Italian-inspired goods.

Presentations of offerings to the emperor-king on anniversaries of his accession became an important imperial ritual in the court of Franz Joseph I. This book explores for the first time the identity constructions of Orthodox Jewish communities in Jerusalem as expressed in their gifts to the Austro-Hungarian Kaisers at the time of dramatic events. It reveals how the beautiful gifts, their dedications, and their narratives, were perceived by gift-givers and recipients as instruments capable of acting upon various social, cultural and political processes. Lily Arad describes in a captivating manner the historical narratives of the creation and presentation of these gifts. She analyzes the iconography of these gifts as having transformative effect on the self-identification of the Jewish communities and examines their reception by the Kaisers and in the Austrian and the Palestinian Jewish press. This groundbreaking book unveils Jewish cultural and political strategies aimed to create local Eretz-Israel identities, demonstrating distinct positive communal identification which at times expressed national sentiments and at the same time preserved European identification.

It is evident that modernity is a popular mountain for analysis and reflection of a largely controversial nature. Numerous theories have also been written about the beginning as well as the end of modernity. The aim of Modernologies is to achieve an account of the state of artistic research and to discuss selected contributions to the subject matter that appears central after two to three decades of an ever intensely blazing conflict over the legacy of modernity and modernism.

Melanie Smith: Farce and Artifice is the publication that takes up the idea of the exhibition organised by the MACBA, jointly with the MUAC Museo Universitario Arte Contemporaneo and UNAM, in Mexico City, and the Museo Amparo, in Puebla, Mexico. It is the largest organised to date in Europe about the work of an artist who defies easy classification, born in England (Poole, 1965) but active on the Mexican art scene since the nineties.

Design and the Question of History is not a work of Design History. Rather, it is a mixture of mediation, advocacy and polemic that takes seriously the directive force of design as an historical actor in and upon the world. Understanding design as a shaper of worlds within which the political, ethical and historical character of human being is at stake, this text demands radically transformed notions of both design and history. Above all, the authors posit history as the generational site of the future. Blindness to history, it is suggested, blinds us both to possibility, and to the foreclosure of possibilities, enacted through our designing. The text is not a resolved, continuous work, presented through one voice. Rather, the three authors cut across each other, presenting readers with the task of disclosing, to themselves, the commonalities, repetitions and differences within the deployed arguments, issues, approaches and styles from which the text is constituted. This is a work of friendship, of solidarity in difference, an act of cultural politics. It invites the reader to take a position - it seeks engagement over agreement.

Deco dandy contests the supposedly exclusive feminine aspect of the style moderne (art deco) by exploring how alternative, parallel and overlapping experiences of decorative modernism, nationalism, gender and sexuality in the years surrounding World War I converge in the protean figure of the 'deco dandy'. The book suggests a broader view of art deco by claiming a greater place for the male body, masculinity and the dandy in this history than has been given to date. Important and productive moments in the history of the cultural life of Paris presented in the book provide insights into the changing role performed by consumerism, masculinity, design history and national identity. -- .

From the late 1940s, until shortly before his death in 2007, John Devitt was one of Dublin's most avid and discerning theatre-goers. For John, attending the theatre was something more than an evening out: it was a passion, a commitment, almost a vocation. A born raconteur, John could talk about productions from the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s as if he had just stepped out of the theatre, fresh from the experience that meant so much to him. This book is much more than a record of the oral history of Dublin theatre-going that his memories contained - it is a glimpse into a life that was witty, argumentative, and vigorous, but never dull.

Art is a multi-faceted part of human society, and often is used for more than purely aesthetic purposes. When used as a narrative on modern society, art can actively engage citizens in cultural and pedagogical discussions. Convergence of Contemporary Art, Visual Culture, and Global Civic Engagement is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly material on the relationship between popular media, art, and visual culture, analyzing how this intersection promotes global pedagogy and learning. Highlighting relevant perspectives from both international and community levels, this book is ideally designed for professionals, upper-level students, researchers, and academics interested in the role of art in global learning.

Contemporary theatre is going through a period of unparalleled excitement and challenge. Terms like 'postmodern' and 'postdramatic' have their own contested and defended histories, while notions of truth in verbatim theatre are open to serious critical challenge. Theatre writing can result in no words being spoken and nothing appearing on the page, and productions are stretching the boundaries of space, place and context like never before. This revised and significantly expanded edition of New Performance/New Writing explores immersive and solo theatre, autoethnography, applied drama, performance writing, plot, story, narrative and devising. It presents an invaluable response to questions that arise from new theatre, prompting active reading that enhances classroom and workshop learning, and improves productivity in rehearsal. Each chapter explores a key aspect of theatre study, while an extensive timeline of theatre events gives a broad overview of its evolution. Case studies on practitioners as diverse as Kneehigh, Punchdrunk, Mark Ravenhill and Forced Entertainment are scattered throughout the book, along with detailed suggestions for workshops, which encourage readers to test some of the book's ideas in practice.