Inspired by Raymond Williams' cultural materialism, H.F. Pimlott explores the connections between political practice and cultural form through Marxism Today's transformation from a Communist Party theoretical journal into a 'glossy' left magazine. Marxism Today's successes and failures during the 1980s are analysed through its political and cultural critiques of Thatcherism and the left, especially by Stuart Hall and Eric Hobsbawm, innovative publicity and marketplace distribution, relationships with the national UK press, cultural coverage, design and format, and writing style. Wars of Position offers insights for contemporary media activists and challenges the neglect of the left press by media scholars.

The Angel and the Cholent: Food Representation from the Israel Folktale Archives by Idit Pintel-Ginsberg, translated into English for the first time from Hebrew, analyzes how food and foodways are the major agents generating the plots of several significant folktales. The tales were chosen from the Israel Folktales Archives' (IFA) extensive collection of twenty-five thousand tales. In looking at the subject of food through the lens of the folktale, we are invited to consider these tales both as a reflection of society and as an art form that discloses hidden hopes and often subversive meanings. The Angel and the Cholent presents thirty folktales from seventeen different ethnicities and is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 considers food and taste-tales included here focus on the pleasure derived by food consumption and its reasonable limits. The tales in Chapter 2 are concerned with food and gender, highlighting the various and intricate ways food is used to emphasize gender functions in society, the struggle between the sexes, and the love and lust demonstrated through food preparations and its consumption. Chapter 3 examines food and class with tales that reflect on how sharing food to support those in need is a universal social act considered a ""mitzvah"" (a Jewish religious obligation), but it can also become an unspoken burden for the providers. Chapter 4 deals with food and kashrut-the tales included in this chapter expose the various challenges of ""keeping kosher,"" mainly the heavy financial burden it causes and the social price paid by the inability of sharing meals with non-Jews. Finally, Chapter 5 explores food and sacred time, with tales that convey the tension and stress caused by finding and cooking specific foods required for holiday feasts, the Shabbat and other sacred times. The tales themselves can be appreciated for their literary quality, humor, and profound wisdom. Readers, scholars, and students interested in folkloristic and anthropological foodway studies or Jewish cultural studies will delight in these tales and find the editorial commentary illuminating.

The Spatial Practices series is premised on the observation that places are inscribed with cultural meaning, not least of all in terms of collective constructions of identity. Such space-based constructions can manifest in material and immaterial, explicit and implicit forms of heritage, and they are crucial factors in the promotion of a group's wellbeing. It is this intersection of spaces, heritage and wellbeing that the present volume takes at its object. It considers ways in which institutional spaces in their materiality as well as in their cultural inscriptions impact on the wellbeing of the subjects inhabiting them and explores how heritage comes to bear on these interrelations within specific institutions, such as prisons, hospitals or graveyards.

The English translation of this bestselling graphic novel tells the story of Nok, an old blind man who sells lottery tickets in Bangkok, as he decides to leave the city and return to his native village. Through reflections on contemporary Bangkok and flashbacks to his past, Nok reconstructs a journey through the slums of migrant workers, the rice fields of Isaan, the tourist villages of Ko Pha Ngan, and the Red Shirt protests of 2010. Based on a decade of anthropological research, The King of Bangkok is a story of migration to the city, distant families in the countryside, economic development eroding the land, and violent political protest. Ultimately, it is a story about contemporary Thailand and how the waves of history lift, engulf, and crash against ordinary people.

This volume resents key contributions to scholarship in biblical studies that engages or is influenced by cultural studies. Robert Seesengood selects on foundational pieces that are ordinarily hard to locate and presents them in line with more recent studies, situating and tracing the revolution in biblical studies that led to the wealth of work in reception history and the study of cultural engagements with the bible. As a result, this selection provides a grounding in key theoretical perspectives, and history of scholarship as well as an orientation to the discipline as it is now. Beginning with a general introduction, as well as introductions each section of the book, this collection explores theoretical underpinnings, characters and passages in popular culture, motifs and methods, film and television. These introductions situate and frame the readings for readers and researchers, and at the end of each section is an annotated bibliography of further readings, which will prompt further research and discussion.

In the nineteenth century, most American farms had a small orchard or at least a few fruit-bearing trees. People grew their own apple trees or purchased apples grown within a few hundred miles of their homes. Nowadays, in contrast, Americans buy mass-produced fruit in supermarkets, and roughly 70 percent of apples come from Washington State. So how did Washington become the leading producer of America's most popular fruit? In this enlightening book, Amanda L. Van Lanen offers a comprehensive response to this question by tracing the origins, evolution, and environmental consequences of the state's apple industry. Washington's success in producing apples was not a happy accident of nature, according to Van Lanen. Apples are not native to Washington, any more than potatoes are to Idaho or peaches to Georgia. In fact, Washington apple farmers were late to the game, lagging their eastern competitors. The author outlines the numerous challenges early Washington entrepreneurs faced in such areas as irrigation, transportation, and labor. Eventually, with crucial help from railroads, Washington farmers transformed themselves into "growers" by embracing new technologies and marketing strategies. By the 1920s, the state's growers managed not only to innovate the industry but to dominate it. Industrial agriculture has its fair share of problems involving the environment, consumers, and growers themselves. In the quest to create the perfect apple, early growers did not question the long-term environmental effects of chemical sprays. Since the late twentieth century, consumers have increasingly questioned the environmental safety of industrial apple production. Today, as this book reveals, the apple industry continues to evolve in response to shifting consumer demands and accelerating climate change. Yet, through it all, the Washington apple maintains its iconic status as Washington's most valuable agricultural crop.

Communicating Across Differences: Negotiating Identity, Privilege, and Marginalization in the 21st Century presents research and scholarship from a broad range of contributing authors who represent the voices and perspectives of traditionally marginalized and uniquely underrepresented groups. The anthology explores the intersectionality of intercultural communication and cultural studies, blending social science approaches with critical perspectives. Each chapter examines how marginality and privilege pertain to issues surrounding race, gender, sexuality, class, dis/ability, language, inter/nationality, and instruction that are negotiated through the process of communication and media messaging while being framed in hegemonic cultural dynamics. Readers gain insight into the breadth and depth of the intergroup identities that impact our ability to communicate effectively across differences today. Dedicated chapters examine cross-racial communication, racial representation and grouping in news coverage, cultural influences and variations in language usage, power dynamics surrounding disability discourse, instructor immediacy behaviors from the perspective of international students, and more. Designed to help us better understand and respect the cultural, social, and political implications that surround power, privilege, marginalization, and oppression, Communicating Across Differences is a timely and essential resource for courses focusing on diversity, multiculturalism, cultural studies, and intercultural communication.

What has been the significance of sport for the European avant-garde in the first half of the 20th century? From an international and interdisciplinary perspective we show the extent to which avant-garde art and culture was shaped by the dynamic encounter with modern sports. Our focus lies on avant-garde artists, groups, movements and institutions across Europe (including Cubism, Futurism, Vorticism, Purism, Expressionism, Dada, the Bauhaus, Constructivism in Central and Eastern Europe), thereby unfolding the diversity of avant-garde responses to modern sports. The book in front of you includes fascinating readings in the fields of aesthetics, visual cultures, cultural history and politics and highlights why specific kinds of sport such as cycling, boxing and football became important for avant-garde movements and artists.

The political responsibility of artists in a globalized society is debated in this collection of articles by authors from Africa, Australia, South America, Europe, and Scandinavia. Bemoaning the competition for tourist dollars among the world's great cities and the commodification of cultural artifacts, these artists propose real and imagined places where art might resist capitalism, such as failed urban developments, among refugees, and in rural outposts.

The Cultural Political Economy of the Construction Industry in Turkey analyses the growth of the popularity of the 'Justice and Development Party' (official acronym: AK Parti or AKP) of Turkey's president Erdogan, through the lens of the construction sector. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the question of hegemony and the electoral success of the AKP - despite frequent economic downturns and ferocious political conflicts including a coup d'etat attempt and rekindled armed struggles. In this book, Ismail Doga Karatepe critically examines the AKP's ability to satisfy the needs and wishes of different social classes and groups. By taking the construction sector as an example, the book analyses these in the context of the changes in the urban landscape of modern Turkey.

This book engages with the experience of space and time in youth cultures across the world. Putting together contemporary case studies on young transnationalists, young glocals and young protesters in cities on the five continents, it analyzes new agoras and chronotopes in global cities. It is based on a selection of papers first presented to the International Sociological Association (ISA) Research Committee 34 session on Youth Cultures, Space and Time that took place during the ISA World Congresses of Sociology in Gothenburg, Sweden (2010), and in Yokohama, Japan (2014). The value of this volume for youth researchers worldwide is twofold. Firstly, the chapters exemplify innovative approaches to understanding the fluid and dynamic urban space-time dimension in which young people's cultural and bodily practices are located. Secondly, the volume offers a transnational perspective. Chapter contributors come from countries across the world, and give account of very diverse youth culture phenomena. They represent both established researchers and new voices in youth research. Contributors are: Oscar Aguilera Ruiz, Ilenya Camozzi, Carles Feixa, Vitor Sergio Ferreira, Liliana Galindo Ramirez, Elham Golpoush-Nezhad, Leila Jeolas, Jeffrey J. Juris, Hagen Kordes, Sofia Laine, Carmen Leccardi, Pam Nilan, Jordi Nofre, Ndukaeze Nwabueze, Luca Queirolo Palmas, Yannis Pechtelidis, Geoffrey Pleyers, Jose Sanchez Garcia, Mahmood Shahabi. Youth, Space and Time is now available in paperback for individual customers.

This reference work covers the cuisine and foodways of India in all their diversity and complexity, including regions, personalities, street foods, communities and topics that have been often neglected. The book starts with an overview essay situating the Great Indian Table in relation to its geography, history and agriculture, followed by alphabetically organized entries. The entries, which are between 150 and 1,500 words long, combine facts with history, anecdotes, and legends. They are supplemented by longer entries on key topics such as regional cuisines, spice mixtures, food and medicine, rites of passages, cooking methods, rice, sweets, tea, drinks (alcoholic and soft) and the Indian diaspora. This comprehensive volume illuminates contemporary Indian cooking and cuisine in tradition and practice.

Tucked into the files of Iowa State University's Cooperative Extension Service is a small, innocuous looking pamphlet with the title Lenders: Working through the Farmer-Lender Crisis. Cooperative Extension Service intended this publication to improve bankers' empathy and communication skills, especially when facing farmers showing "Suicide Warning Signs." After all, they were working with individuals experiencing extreme economic distress, and each banker needed to learn to "be a good listener." What was important, too, was what was left unsaid. Iowa State published this pamphlet in April of 1986. Just four months earlier, farmer Dale Burr of Lone Tree, Iowa, had killed his wife, and then walked into the Hills Bank and Trust company and shot a banker to death in the lobby before taking shots at neighbors, killing one of them, and then killing himself. The unwritten subtext of this little pamphlet was "beware." If bankers failed to adapt to changing circumstances, the next desperate farmer might be shooting.This was Iowa in the 1980s. The state was at the epicenter of a nationwide agricultural collapse unmatched since the Great Depression. In When a Dream Dies, Pamela Riney-Kehrberg examines the lives of ordinary Iowa farmers during this period, as the Midwest experienced the worst of the crisis. While farms failed and banks foreclosed, rural and small-town Iowans watched and suffered, struggling to find effective ways to cope with the crisis. If families and communities were to endure, they would have to think about themselves, their farms, and their futures in new ways. For many Iowan families, this meant restructuring their lives or moving away from agriculture completely. This book helps to explain how this disaster changed children, families, communities, and the development of the nation's heartland in the late twentieth century. Agricultural crises are not just events that affect farms. When a Dream Dies explores the Farm Crisis of the 1980s from the perspective of the two-thirds of the state's agricultural population seriously affected by a farm debt crisis that rapidly spiraled out of their control. Riney-Kehrberg treats the Farm Crisis as a family event while examining the impact of the crisis on mental health and food insecurity and discussing the long-term implications of the crisis for the shape and function of agriculture.

In African Somaesthetics: Cultures, Feminisms, Politics, Catherine F. Botha brings together original research on the body in African cultures, specifically interrogating the possibilities of the contribution of a somaesthetic approach in the context of colonization, decolonization, and globalization in Africa. The innovative contributions that consider the somaesthetic dimensions of experience in the context of Africa (centred broadly around the themes of politics, feminisms, and cultures) reflect a diversity of perspectives and positions. The book is a first of its kind in gathering together novel and focused analyses of the body as conceived of from an African perspective.

Coupling powerful personal narratives with incisive observations, The Reality of Diversity, Gender, and Skin Color: From Living Room to Classroom reveals the myriad complexities and challenges related to diversity. The book gives voice to the experiences of marginalized individuals, illuminating the impact of oppression, ostracism, and hate on mental health and wellness. Each chapter features a theme that explores a particular issue related to diversity, including colorism among African American women, the stigma of incarceration, and the aggression shown to American atheists. In the chapter introduction, contributing authors present a general framework, according to their given theme, on the impact of life experiences and bias on an individual's behavior and health. This discussion is followed by personal interviews, then an analysis of the interviews, emphasizing the impact of oppression and marginalization on health and wellness. Through this unique format, readers hear from Mexican American women, biracial individuals, white women, black professors in predominately white institutions, and other populations generally overlooked in conversations on diversity. Designed to foster cultural humility, The Reality of Diversity, Gender, and Skin Color is an ideal resource for students, social workers, psychologists, therapists, organizational trainers, or anyone looking to understand social diversity.

European Perceptions of China and Perspectives on the Belt and Road Initiative is a collection of fourteen essays on the way China is perceived in Europe today. These perceptions - and they are multiple - are particularly important to the People's Republic of China as the country grapples with its increasingly prominent role on the international stage, and equally important to Europe as it attempts to come to terms with the technological, social and economic advances of the Belt and Road Initiative. The authors are, on the whole, senior academics specializing in such topics as International Relations and Security, Public Diplomacy, Media and Cultural Studies, and Philosophy and Religion from more than a dozen different European countries and are involved in various international projects focussed on Europe-China relations.

Communication plays a critical role in enhancing social, cultural, and business relations. Research on media, language, and cultural studies is fundamental in a globalized world because it illuminates the experiences of various populations. There is a need to develop effective communication strategies that will be able to address both health and cultural issues globally. Dialectical Perspectives on Media, Health, and Culture in Modern Africa is a collection of innovative research on the impact of media and especially new media on health and culture. While highlighting topics including civic engagement, gender stereotypes, and interpersonal communication, this book is ideally designed for university students, multinational organizations, diplomats, expatriates, and academicians seeking current research on how media, health, and culture can be appropriated to overcome the challenges that plague the world today.

Chinese Family Culture: Change, Continuity, and Counseling Implications enhances social sciences and counseling students' cultural understanding, sensitivity, and communication skills so they can provide competent and appropriate care for Chinese families around the world. The text focuses on cultural and historical characteristics of Chinese families and features illustrative stories and examples to facilitate greater cultural understanding. Readers examine Chinese families from indigenous perspectives of lived experiences of Chinese individuals and their families. Chinese meanings of family life, such as marriage, sexuality, love, gender, reproduction, intergenerational relations, disability, and death, are covered. Dedicated chapters explore cultural links between family collectivism, ancestor worship, and families' intimate relationship with the land; marriage's social role in expanding social networks and ensuring family continuity; the impact of China's one-child policy on reproductive behavior; the rule of rituals in handling family and clan disputes and conflict; illness and death in Chinese families; and more. Each chapter includes counseling implications to connect student learning with practice. Chinese Family Culture is a timely and essential textbook for programs and courses in the social sciences and counseling.

What is the ocean's role in human and planetary history? How have writers, sailors, painters, scientists, historians, and philosophers from across time and space poetically envisioned the oceans and depicted human entanglements with the sea? In order to answer these questions, Soren Frank covers an impressive range of material in A Poetic History of the Oceans: Greek, Roman and Biblical texts, an Icelandic Saga, Shakespearean drama, Jens Munk's logbook, 19th century-writers such as James Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melville, Jules Michelet, Victor Hugo, Jules Verne, Jonas Lie, and Joseph Conrad as well as their 20th and 21st century-heirs like J. G. Ballard, Jens Bjorneboe, and Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen. A Poetic History of the Oceans promotes what Frank labels an amphibian comparative literature and mobilises recent theoretical concepts and methodological developments in Blue Humanities, Blue Ecology, and New Materialism to shed new light on well-known texts and introduce readers to important, but lesser-known Scandinavian literary engagements with the sea.