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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > General
Using a wide variety of concrete cases, van Beek outlines sensitivities, awarenesses, and skills fundamental to cross-cultural counseling issues such as identity, sense of belonging, worldview, identification, family counseling, and use of biblical resources.
From the late eighteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, the British incarcerated tens of thousands of prisoners in South Asian jails and transported tens of thousands of convicts to penal settlements overseas in South East Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Islands. Legible Bodies explores the treatment of these native criminals and sheds light on a largely overlooked practice of empire. British penal administrators created a series of elaborate mechanisms to render criminal bodies legible. They introduced visual tags to identify prisoners and convicts, seeking to mark and/or read them both as individuals and as members of broader penal categories. The first broad theme of the book discusses the introduction of these new modes of identification - penal and decorative tattooing, clothing, photography, anthropometry and fingerprinting - exploring their frequent failures and prisoner and convict resistance against them. The second theme of the book considers the ways in which the colonial authorities atempted to use the Indian body to construct broader social groupings, both in relation to penal hierarchies and in the making of soiological categories of 'criminal types'. Thirdly, the author looks at the ways in which incarcerated communities comprised a convenient sample for colonial explorations of the nature and significance of race and caste in the Indian subcontinent. Scientists and ethnographers used prisoners to explore biological and social manifestations of the Indian other. Through a careful reading of convicts legible bodies, the author provides a new perspective on colonial history.
Over time, the role of nature in anthropology has evolved from being a mere backdrop for social and cultural diversity to being viewed as an integral part of the ontological entanglement of human and nonhuman agents. This transformation of the role of nature offers important insight into the relationships between diverse anthropological traditions. By highlighting natural-cultural worlds alongside these traditions, Multiple Nature-Cultures, Diverse Anthropologies explores the potential for creating more sophisticated conjunctions of anthropological knowledge and practice.
The collapse of the supposedly 'civilized' German nation into the 'barbarism' of Hitler's Third Reich has cast a long shadow over interpretations of German culture and society. In the remarkable work of Norbert Elias, himself a refugee from Nazi Germany, a deep concern with the distinctiveness of 'the Germans' is linked with an ambitious attempt to work out more general relations between broad historical processes - patterns of state formation, changing social structures - and the character of the individual self, as evidenced in changing thresholds of shame and embarrassment. In critical engagement with Elias's notion of the 'civilizing process', the essays collected here explore moments of excess and transgression, moments when the very boundaries of 'civilization' are both constructed and challenged. Inter-disciplinary contributions - on topics ranging from medieval laughter, cursing and swearing, through to music, the bourgeois self, and aspects of modern violence - highlight the complexity of inter-relations between the individual imagination and creativity, on the one hand, and the brute facts of political power and social structural inequalities, on the other; and develop new insights into the changing patterns of culture and society in Germany from the Middle Ages to the present.
The detective, as a preeminent figure in all forms of American popular culture, has become the subject of a variety of theoretical exploration. By investigating that figure, these essays demonstrate how the genre embodies all the contradictions of American society and the ways in which literature and the media attempt to handle those contradictions. Issues of class, gender, and race; the interaction of film and literature; and generic evolution are fundamental to any understanding of the American detective in all of his or her forms. Beginning with essays about Raymond Chandler's treatment of women, Part I concentrates on writers of the genre whose detectives embody aspects of American culture in the 20th century. Through examination of the work of Elmore Leonard, Chester Himes, Sue Grafton, and others, these essays look at the influence of film on literature, how ethnicity affects the genre's conventions, and gender issues. Part II looks closely at specific detectives in the media and demonstrates how the film detective has gone from one who upholds the moral order to one who contributes to the continuation of evil. A study of television detectives confirms the necessity of formula and variation to sustain a detective over many seasons.
In 1989, 1998, and 2005, fifteen Gullah speakers went to Sierra Leone and other parts of West Africa to trace their origins and ancestry. Their journey frames this exploration of the extraordinary history of the Gullah culture-characterized by strong African cultural retention and a direct influence on American culture, particularly in the South-described in this fascinating book. Since long before the Revolution, America has had hidden pockets of a bygone African culture with a language of its own, and long endowed with traditions, language, design, medicine, agriculture, fishing, hunting, weaving, and the arts. This book explores the Gullah culture's direct link to Africa, via the sea islands of the American southeast. The first published evidence of Gullah went almost unrecorded until the 1860s, when missionaries from Philadelphia made their way, even as the Civil War was at its height, to St. Helena Island, South Carolina, to establish a small institution called Penn School to help freed slaves learn how to read and write and make a living in a world of upheaval and distress. There they noticed that most of the islanders spoke a language that was only part English, tempered with expressions and idioms, often spoken in a melodious, euphonic manner, accompanied by distinctive practices in religion, work, dancing, greetings, and the arts. The homogeneity, richness, and consistency of this culture was possible because the sea-islanders were isolated. Even today, there are more than 300,000 Gullah people, many of whom speak little or no English, living in the remoter areas of the sea islands of St. Helena, Edisto, Coosay, Ossabaw, Sapelo, Daufuskie, and Cumberland. Gullah Culture inAmerica explores not only the history of Gullah, but takes the reader behind the scenes of Gullah culture today to show what it's like to grow up, live, and celebrate in this remarkable and uniquely American community.
Writing against the prevailing narrativization of suicide in terms of why it happened, Whitehead turns instead to the questions of when, how, and where, calling attention to suicide's materiality as well as its materialization. By turns provocative and deeply affecting, this book brings suicide into conversation with the critical medical humanities, extending beyond individual pathology and the medical institution to think about subjective and social perspectives, and to open up the various sites, scenes and interactions with which suicide is associated. Suicide is related forward from the point of death, rather than taking a retrospective view. Combining critical and textual analysis with personal reflection based on her own experience of her sister's suicide, Whitehead examines the days, months, and years following a death by suicide. This pivoting of attention to what happens in the wake of suicide brings to light the often-surprising ways in which suicide is woven into the everyday places that we inhabit, and in which it is related to all of us, albeit with varying degrees of proximity and kinship.
In creating interpretive strategies for maritime sites, archaeologists and resource managers often are required to think creatively to overcome challenges and problems. These issues include interpreting sites in inaccessible locations and extremely deep water, enabling and controlling access to fragile sites and restricted areas, monitoring visitor behavior, making information interesting to a wide audience, and creating opportunities for public engagement, among other concerns. Meeting Challenges presents cutting-edge interpretation and public education strategies for maritime resources, both on land and underwater, with emphasis on solving the unique problems often associated with presenting these fragile, limited-access sites as heritage attractions and on developing effective visitation and civic engagement opportunities. The examples presented ideally can serve as models for resource managers, archaeologists engaged in interpretation, and site administrators. This volume brings together a diverse group of heritage professionals to discuss issues they've encountered and to present ideas and case studies for adapting, improvising, and overcoming them.
Alexis de Tocqueville once described the national character of Americans as one question insistently asked: "How much money will it bring in?" G.K. Chesterton, a century later, described America as a "nation with a soul of a church." At first glance, the two observations might appear to be diametrically opposed, but this volume shows the ways in which American religion and American business overlap and interact with one another, defining the US in terms of religion, and religion in terms of economics. Bringing together original contributions by leading experts and rising scholars from both America and Europe, the volume pushes this field of study forward by examining the ways religions and markets in relationship can provide powerful insights and open unseen aspects into both. In essays ranging from colonial American mercantilism to modern megachurches, from literary markets to popular festivals, the authors explore how religious behavior is shaped by commerce, and how commercial practices are informed by religion. By focusing on what historians often use off-handedly as a metaphor or analogy, the volume offers new insights into three varieties of relationships: religion and the marketplace, religion in the marketplace, and religion as the marketplace. Using these categories, the contributors test the assumptions scholars have come to hold, and offer deeper insights into religion and the marketplace in America.
Professors Murphy and Choi use postmodern philosophy to expose an important source of racism and cultural domination. They examine foundationalism, which they see at the core of the Western intellectual tradition and which is shown to foster a metaphysics of domination. By contrast, postmodernism undermines this root of racism. They demonstrate that foundationalism is not needed to support identity, institutions, or political order. Indeed, they assert that true pluralism is possible once foundationalist approaches to knowledge and order are set aside. Special attention is directed to two current modes of discrimination: institutional racism and symbolic violence. Murphy and Choi provide an intriguing look at ways to undercut the justification for racism and other threats to cultural difference. This volume will be of particular interest to scholars and other researchers in the areas of race relations, cultural studies, and political theory.
The enormous growth of evangelicalism is one of the major developments in recent American life. Like other scholars, Jorstad acknowledges that evangelicalism has grown because it is theologically attractive. But Jorstad also attributes the growth of the evangelical movement to its relationship with American popular culture. According to the author, the evangelical movement was able to integrate populist, democratic traditions with a cultural inclusiveness, a mastery of high technology, and a willingness to use mass media to spread its views. The book contains three sections. The first traces the development of evangelical subculture between 1960 and 1990. The second part discusses the evangelical movement and social and individual values. The third part explores popular religion and the media. The book considers the involvement of evangelicals in popular religion, the appeal of popular religion to many but not to all evangelicals, the similarities between popular religion and more traditional religious organizations, and the means by which evangelicalism effectively utilizes the many genres and styles of popular culture.
How and why do people "frame" animals so pervasively, and what are the ramifications of this habit? For animals, being put into a cultural frame (a film, a website, a pornographic tableau, an advertisement, a cave drawing, a zoo) means being taken out of their natural contexts, leaving them somehow displaced and decontextualized. Human vision of the animal equates to power over the animal. We envision ourselves as monarchs of all we survey, but our dismal record of polluting and destroying vast swaths of nature shows that we are indeed not masters of the ecosphere. A more ethically accurate stance in our relationship to animals should thus challenge the omnipotence of our visual access to them.
Serving students and general readers alike, this encyclopedia addresses the myriad and profound ways foods have shaped the world we inhabit, from prehistory to the present. Written with the needs of students in mind, Foods That Changed History: How Foods Shaped Civilization from the Ancient World to the Present presents nearly 100 entries on foods that have shaped history-fascinating topics that are rarely addressed in detail in traditional history texts. In learning about foods and their importance, readers will gain valuable insight into other areas such as religious movements, literature, economics, technology, and the human condition itself. Readers will learn how the potato, for example, changed lives in drastic ways in northern Europe, particularly Ireland; and how the potato famine led to the foundation of the science of plant pathology, which now affects how scientists and governments consider the dangers of genetic uniformity. The entries document how the consumption of tea and spices fostered global exploration, and how citrus fruits led to the prevention of scurvy. This book helps students acquire fundamental information about the role of foods in shaping world history, and it promotes critical thinking about that topic. Overviews the foods that have changed the world from prehistory to the present Gives attention to the relationships between foods and religious movements, such as the connections between fish, bread, and wine and the rise of Christianity Enables readers to grasp the connections between the history of foods and the Columbian Exchange
"Sympathetic Sentiments "develops an innovative interdisciplinary framework to explore the implications of living in a 'culture of feeling' that seems ill at ease with itself, one in which 'sentiments' are frequently denounced for being 'sentimental' and self-indulgent. This is traced back to the inheritance of the eighteenth century, enabling us to identify a distinctive 'spectacle of sympathy' in which sympathy seems inherently to entail public forms of expression whereby being 'on show' is both a condition of the authenticity of such affects "and" of their capacity to be masked and simulated - hence stimulating controversy, but also the exploration of the vicarious dimensions of modern experience so central to modern literature, art and culture. The implications of all this are further explored in the context of current debates over the display of trauma as the language of sympathetic engagement, and the alleged prevalence of 'compassion fatigue' in the era of media sensationalism. Overall, the book uncovers the patterns that both reproduce our capacity for 'sympathetic sentiments' while revealing the inherent underlying tensions.
This book is the first critical genealogy of Jacques Derrida's philosophy of technology. It traces the evolution of what Derrida calls "originary technicit"' via an appraisal of his own philosophy of technology together with that of key interlocutors including Marx, Freud, Lacan, Heidegger and Bernard Stiegler.
The adventures and antics of James Bond have provided the world with many of the most gripping story lines of the last half-century. Fleming's novels were best-sellers in their day, and the Bond films have been even more popular, becoming the most enduring and successful film franchise in history. By some estimates, half of the world's population--billions of people--have seen a James Bond movie, thus viewing an image of global struggle through Western eyes and obtaining a particular perception of Britain and the world. This fascinating and accessible account of the global phenomenon uses the plots and characterizations in the novels and the blockbuster films to place Bond in a historical, cultural, and political context. Black charts and explores how the settings and the dynamics of the Bond adventures have changed over time in response to shifts in the real-world environment in which the fictional Bond operates. Sex, race, class, and violence are each important factors as 007 evolves from Cold Warrior to foe of SPECTRE and eventually to world defender pitted against megalomaniacal foes. The development of Bond, his leading ladies, and the major plots all shed light on world political attitudes and reflect elements of the real espionage history of the period. This look at Bond's world and his lasting legacy offers an intriguing glimpse into both cultural history and popular entertainment.
Academic discussions of ethnic food have tended to focus on the attitudes of consumers, rather than the creators and producers. In this ground-breaking new book, Krishnendu Ray reverses this trend by exploring the culinary world from the perspective of the ethnic restaurateur. Focusing on New York City, he examines the lived experience, work, memories, and aspirations of immigrants working in the food industry. He shows how migrants become established in new places, creating a taste of home and playing a key role in influencing food cultures as a result of transactions between producers, consumers and commentators. Based on extensive interviews with immigrant restaurateurs and students, chefs and alumni at the Culinary Institute of America, ethnographic observation at immigrant eateries and haute institutional kitchens as well as historical sources such as the US census, newspaper coverage of restaurants, reviews, menus, recipes, and guidebooks, Ray reveals changing tastes in a major American city between the late 19th and through the 20th century. Written by one of the most outstanding scholars in the field, The Ethnic Restaurateur is an essential read for students and academics in food studies, culinary arts, sociology, urban studies and indeed anyone interested in popular culture and cooking in the United States.
This practical guide for developing and using culture-centered counseling and interviewing skills is by well-known authorities on the subject. This guide examines culturally learned assumptions that all of us employ in managing and interacting with others and uses models of synthetic cultures for students, teachers, professional counselors, and interviewers in raising questions, interpreting, focusing on and mediating in multicultural situations.
Tourism Discourse offers new insights into the role of spoken, written and visual discourse in representating and producing tourism as a global cultural industry. With a view to the interplay between the symbolic and economic orders of global mobility, the book is grounded in empirically-based studies of key tourism genres.
The Culture of Immodesty in American Life and Politics is a collection of thirteen essays from a broad range of scholars and independent authors, evaluating the prevalence of immodesty in various aspects of American life and culture. Contributors diagnose immodesty through the lens of corporations that are 'too big to fail, ' consumption inspired by excessive greed, art and fashion that lack beauty and taste, government budgets resulting in perennial deficits, and foreign policy that meddle in the affairs of other nations. Going beyond mere diagnosis of societal ills, The Culture of Immodesty in American Life and Politics provides a prescription for cultural impropriety: promoting a framework for the rejection of immodesty and greed in contemporary life.
Literary Theories is the first reader and introductory guide in one volume. Divided into 12 sections covering structuralism, feminism, marxism, reader-response theory, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, post-structuralism, postmodernism, new historicism, postcolonialism, gay studies and queer theory, and cultural studies, Literary Theories introduces the reader to the most challenging and engaging aspects of critical studies in the humanities today. Classic essays representing the different theoretical positions and offering striking examples of close readings of literature are preceded by new introductions which present the theory in question and discuss its main currents. With a full glossary and detailed bibliography, Literary Theories is the perfect introductory guide and reader in one volume. Included are essays by Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, Homi K. Bhabha, Judith Butler, Terry Castle, Iain Chambers, Rey Chow, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, Jonathan Dollimore, Terry Eagleton, Catherine Gallagher, Stephen Heath, Wolfgang Iser, Fredric Jameson, Hans Robert Jauss, Claire Kahane, Gail Ching Liang Low, Mary Lydon, Jean-François Lyotard, James M. Mellard, D.A. Miller, J. Hillis Miller, Louis Adrian Montrose, Michael Riffaterre, Avital Ronell, Nicholas Royle, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Alan Sinfield, and Raymond Williams.
Paying attention to the historically specific dimensions of objects such as the photograph, the illustrated magazine and the collection, the contributors to this volume offer new ways of thinking about nineteenth-century practices of reading, viewing, and collecting, revealing new readings of Wordsworth, Shelley, James and Wilde, among others.
The figure of the beautiful but lethal woman has haunted the Western imagination from ancient myth to contemporary film. Looking at news media, cinema, drama and other cultural forms, this study considers the interaction between representations of 'real life' 'femmes fatales' and their fictional counterparts.
In the last twenty years, there has been growing evidence of discontent with the social and behavioral sciences, both from outside and inside these fields of study. Problems and criticisms include the accumulation of unrelated and unrelatable research results, lack of unification among the disciplines, inability to conceptually distinguish one discipline from another, and conversely, excessive fragmentation. Quin McLoughlin proposes a new set of disciplines for a human science, based on a relativist view of knowledge and a naturalist view of human nature. In his attempt to integrate the historical, cross-cultural, and life-span developmental dimensions of human behavior, McLoughlin begins with a discussion of the issues of the nature of knowledge. He then presents the general outlines of a new psychological theory, and offers major considerations for a new sociological theory as well. The book concludes with a structure and general indications for method of the new human science and its function in society. McLoughlin addresses the major current issues of the philosophy of social science and designs his theory for cross-cultural application. He also offers an explanation of the relationships among the biological, psychological, and sociological sciences. Philosophers of science, especially social science, will appreciate this work, as will all scholars interested in the understanding and explanation of past and present human behavior. |
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