The second of two volumes on the relationship between popular religion and the self-help tradition in American culture, this book continues chronologically where the first left off. As with the first volume, this work focuses on the intersection of American history and popular religion and is intended as an introductory interpretive guide to major self-help figures and movements with origins in popular religious movements. This volume spans from Romanticism, the Gilded Age, and the history of Christian Science, with discussions of Mary Baker Patterson, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, and Mary Baker Eddy, through Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller. Peale and Schuller, with the exception of Evangelist Billy Graham, constitute the public face of mainstream American Protestantism and bring this two-volume study to its conclusion in the second half of the 20th century.

This reference will serve as a valuable research tool for American religion and popular culture scholars. Together with the first volume, "Self-Help and Popular Religion in Early American Culture," these two meticulously researched volumes clearly define and present the broad scope of the self-help tradition as it pervades American culture and as it developed and was influenced by popular religion. An extensive bibliography is included.

In this pathbreaking study, the historical relationship between nineteenth-century spiritualism and twentieth-century surrealism is the basis for a general examination of conflicting movements in literature, art, philosophy, science, and other areas of social life. Because spiritualism delved into the world beyond humanity and surrealism was founded on the world within, the two provide a provocative frame for examining the struggles within modern culture. Cottom argues that we must conceive of interpretation in terms of urgency, desire, fierce contention, and impromptu deviation if we want to understand how things come to bear meaning for us. He demonstrates that even when Victorians holding seances and surrealists composing manifestoes were most foolish, they had much that was valuable to say about the life (and death) of reason.

Filmic constructions of war heroism have a profound impact on public perceptions of conflicts. Here, contributors examine the ways motifs of gender and heroism in war films are used to justify ideological positions, shape the understanding of the military conflicts, support political agendas and institutions, and influence collective memory.

Puerto Ricans in the United States comes at a crucial time to help us better understand Puerto Ricans, both those who live in the United States and those who live in Puerto Rico, as they debate the issue of national identity. Perez y Gonzalez, of Puerto Rican heritage, provides an information-packed volume that will become the definitive source for students and readers interested in learning about the Puerto Rican experience in the United States. With the homeland of Puerto Rico strongly evoked as background, the entire immigration and adaptation process of Puerto Ricans in this country since the early 1900s takes shape in a thoughtful analysis. This is essential reading for understanding an important American (im)migrant group and the development of our urban culture as well. Puerto Ricans in the United States begins by presenting Puerto Rico--the land, the people, and the culture. The island's invasion by U.S. forces in 1898 set the stage for our intertwined relationship to the present day. Perez y Gonzalez brings to life important historical events leading to immigration to the United States, particularly to the large northeastern cities, such as New York. The narrative highlights Puerto Ricans' adjustment and adaptation in this country through the media, institutions, language, and culture. A wealth of information is given on socioeconomic status, including demographics, employment, education opportunities, and poverty and public assistance. The discussions on the struggles of this group for affordable housing, issues of women and children, particular obstacles to obtaining appropriate health care, including the epidemic of AIDS, and race relations are especially insightful. Thefinal chapter on Puerto Ricans' impact on U.S. society highlights their positive contributions in a wide range of fields.

Mothering is a central issue for feminist theory, and motherhood is also a persistent presence in the work of Toni Morrison. Examining Morrison's novels, essays, speeches, and interviews, Andrea O'Reilly illustrates how Morrison builds upon black women's experiences of and perspectives on motherhood to develop a view of black motherhood that is, in terms of both maternal identity and role, radically different from motherhood as practiced and prescribed in the dominant culture. Motherhood, in Morrison's view, is fundamentally and profoundly an act of resistance, essential and integral to black women's fight against racism (and sexism) and their ability to achieve well-being for themselves and their culture. The power of motherhood and the empowerment of mothering are what make possible the better world we seek for ourselves and for our children. This, argues O'Reilly, is Morrison's maternal theory--a politics of the heart.

More of the best, craziest, biggest and funniest! Absolutely Awesome South Africa is an entertaining compilation on South Africa which is packed full of fun, facts and trivia. This completely new coffee table book is packed with completely new content and design on every page and is full of South African humour, history and interesting facts. The vibrant and colourful pages of Absolutely Awesome South Africa captures the heart and the soul of this magnificent country. This book is available in Hard Cover and Soft Cover. 220 page of Facts – Fun – Trivia – Humour – Quotations – Culture & so much more!

This volume offers a comprehensive guide to methods used in the sociocultural, linguistic and historical research of food use. This volume is unique in offering food-related research methods from multiple academic disciplines, and includes methods that bridge disciplines to provide a thorough review of best practices. In each chapter, a case study from the author's own work is to illustrate why the methods were adopted in that particular case along with abundant additional resources to further develop and explore the methods.

Nutritional Anthropology and public health research and programming have employed similar methodologies for decades; many anthropologists are public health practitioners while many public health practitioners have been trained as medical or biological anthropologists. Recognizing such professional connections, this volume provides in-depth analysis and comprehensive review of methods necessary to design, plan, implement and analyze public health programming using anthropological best practices. To illustrates the rationale for use of particular methods, each chapter elaborates a case study from the author's own work, showing why particular methods were adopted in each case.

In an age of information and new media the relationships between remembering and forgetting have changed. This volume addresses the tension between loud and often spectacular histories and those forgotten pasts we strain to hear. Employing social and cultural analysis, the essays within examine mnemonic technologies both new and old, and cover subjects as diverse as U.S. internment camps for Japanese Americans in WWII, the Canadian Indian Residential School system, Israeli memorial videos, and the desaparecidos in Argentina. Through these cases, the contributors argue for a re-interpretation of Guy Debord's notion of the spectacle as a conceptual apparatus through which to examine the contemporary landscape of social memory, arguing that the concept of spectacle might be developed in an age seen as dissatisfied with the present, nervous about the future, and obsessed with the past. Perhaps now "spectacle" can be thought of not as a tool of distraction employed solely by hegemonic powers, but instead as a device used to answer Walter Benjamin's plea to "explode the continuum of history" and bring our attention to now-time.

The social and cultural changes of the last century have transformed death from an everyday fact to something hidden from view. Shifting between the practical and the theoretical, the professional and the intimate, the real and the fictitious, this collection of essays explores the continued power of death over our lives. It examines the idea and experience of death from an interdisciplinary perspective, including studies of changing burial customs throughout Europe; an account of a"dying party" in the Netherlands; examinations of the fascination with violent death in crime fiction and the phenomenon of serial killer art; analyses of death and bereavement in poetry, fiction, and autobiography; and a look at audience reactions to depictions of death on screen. By studying and considering how death is thought about in the contemporary era, we might restore the natural place it has in our lives.

The essays collected in "Cinema and Technology" map out a new interdisciplinary terrain, combining contemporary analyses of material and visual culture, deploying the methods of film studies, media and cultural studies, media anthropology, and science and technology studies. Rather than describing a technological "crisis," or separating the technological and aesthetic halves of the cinema, they present a manifold, expansive reconsideration of the life of technologies in the cultures, theories and practices of cinematic production and consumption.

This important new book considers many of the ways in which national identity was imagined, implemented and contested within Italian culture before, during and after the period of Italian unification in the mid-nineteenth century. Taking a fresh approach towards national icons cherished by both Left and Right, the collection's authors examine the complex interaction between a perceived need for national identity and the fragmented nature of the Italian peninsula. In so doing, they draw on examples from a wide range of artistic and cultural media.
The book opens with an introduction which defines the case of the Italian 'Risorgimento' and places it within a large context of European and global nation-building and nationalism. Authors discuss how episodes from the distant past were used by nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists, musicians, and writers to recreate narratives of nationhood, as well as how the problem of Italian identity was before and during the Risorgimento. The question of who belonged in the new Italy, who remained outsiders, and how social and sexual differences entered into defining these groups is also addressed. The book concludes with an analysis of twentieth-century attempts to appropriate and reforge the 'spirit' of the Risorgimento, under Fascism and in our own time.

A first in multimodal/multisemiotic discourse studies, this collection of original articles by international scholars focuses primarily on texts from non-English speaking contexts. The illuminating insights enhance our understanding of how language and other semiotic resources construe specific cultural and social concerns.

This book, a fascinating comparison of the educational systems of East and West Germany, demonstrates how, since 1949, education has been used to create different and competing societies: East Germany has tried to create an ideal socialist state, while West Germany has sought to be a model of Western democracy. The authors argue that the German tradition of using education to attain social and political goals continues in the two Germanys of the postwar period. The authors draw a complete portrait of the constitutional and institutional differences between the systems and of the tensions that exist between theory and practice, providing a clear understanding of the general educational problems in Western democracies and Eastern communist states.

This book is the first comprehensive study of the subject of spectacular violence in British Romantic literature and print culture. It looks at the impact and influence of a series of catastrophically violent events: the transatlantic slave trade; the American war of Independence and the 'Indian' problem; the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars; the Irish rebellion of 1798; and a series of riots and 'disturbances' stretching from the Gordon riots of 1780 to the Reform Bill riots of 1831.

Claiming Diaspora explores the thriving contemporary musical culture of Asian/Chinese America. Ranging from traditional operas to modern instrumental music, from ethnic media networks to popular music, from Asian American jazz to the work of recent avant-garde composers, author Su Zheng reveals the rich and diverse musical activities among Chinese Americans and tells of the struggles and creative searches by Chinese Americans to gain a foothold in the American cultural terrain. In doing so, she not only tells their stories, but also examines the transnational and racialized experiences of this musical culture, challenging us to take a fresh look at the increasingly plural and complex nature of American cultural identity. Until recently, two intersected models have dominated studies of Asian American cultural expressions. The notion of "claiming America" has been a fundamental political strategy for the Asian American movement; while the Americanization model for European immigrants has minimized the impact of the "old country" on immigrant life and cultural expression. In Claiming Diaspora, Zheng critically analyzes the controversies surrounding these two models. She unveils the fluid and evolving nature of music in Chinese America, discussing current cultural struggles, while acknowledging an unavoidable connection to a history of Asian exclusion in the U.S. Furthermore, Zheng breaks from traditional approaches which have portrayed the music of non-Western people as rooted and immobile to examine the concept of "diaspora" in the context of Asian American experiences and cultural theories of space, place, and displacement. She calls into question the contested meaning of "Asian American" and "Asian American cultural identity" in cultural productions, and builds a comprehensive picture of community and cultural transformation in Chinese and Asian America. Zheng taps unpublished historical sources of immigrant narrative songs, extensive fieldwork in New York City and China, in-depth interviews in which musicians narrate their life stories and music experiences, and her own longstanding involvement as community member, musician, presenter, and cultural broker. The book delineates the introduction of each music genre from its homeland and its subsequent development in New York, and explains how Chinese Americans express their cultural longings and belongings. Ultimately, Zheng reveals how Chinese American musical activities both reflect and contribute to local, national, and transnational cultural politics.

Religion has experienced growing importance in recent years, and interest in the anthropological study of religion has increased as well. This reference book offers a much-needed overview of the most significant topics and concerns in the field. Chapters by expert contributors examine such matters as snake handling, magic and ritual, shamanism, and the role of religion in particular cultures. Chapters contain extensive documentation, and a bibliography concludes the volume. The anthropological study of religion is at a crossroads. While fewer textbooks on the anthropology of religion are published each year and much of what is available is decades old, religion is playing an increasingly prominent role in society. Scholars from many fields are reading anthropological works on religion with great interest, and such works are cited frequently in books and articles in a range of disciplines. Religion has been found in all societies studied by anthropologists and is one of the hallmarks of human creativity. This reference book provides a much-needed overview of the most important topics and trends in the anthropology of religion. Chapters by expert contributors examine the varied manifestations of religion in diverse cultural contexts. Among the topics surveyed are shamanism, snake handling, rituals in particular cultural traditions, religion and altered states of consciousness, and the role of science in religion and anthropology. Chapters contain extensive documentation, and a bibliography concludes the volume.

Using original religious-philosophical texts and sociological research, the author explores the various dimensions of the Virasaiva religious tradition. His sociological analyses of the monastic organization and social structure, the family and the community, the roles of women, and the future of the community emphasize the intricate relationship between religion and the social system. This study of a largely unknown religious community demonstrates how the followers of Virasaivism, known as Lingayats, have been adapting to the changing milieu in North America while retaining the religion's core values. Dr. Chekki shows the interplay between tradition and modernity as the Virasaivas attempt to maintain a distinct identity while adopting the ways of modern culture.

Biocultural and archaeological research on food, past and present, often relies on very specific, precise, methods for data collection and analysis. These are presented here in a broad-based review. Individual chapters provide opportunities to think through the adoption of methods by reviewing the history of their use along with a discussion of research conducted using those methods. A case study from the author's own work is included in each chapter to illustrate why the methods were adopted in that particular case along with abundant additional resources to further develop and explore those methods.

A colorful array of childcare and preschool options blossomed in the 1970s as the feminist movement spurred mothers into careers and community organizations nurtured new programs. Now, a small circle of activists aim to bring more order to childhood. Their battle cry, heard in a growing number of state capitals and school reform circles, seeks to create a more standard, state-run preschool system. For young children already facing the rigors of play dates and harried parents juggling the strains of work and family, government is moving in to standardize childhood. Sociologist Bruce Fuller traveled the country - sitting in preschool classrooms, delving into the birth of universal preschool in California and Oklahoma, and interviewing this robust movement's eager leaders - to understand the ideologies of childhood and the raw political forces at play. He details how these new progressives earnestly seek to extend the rigors of public schooling down into the lives of very young children. leaders, and conservatives, who hold less trust in government solutions and more faith in nonprofits and local groups in contributing to the upbringing of young children. The call for universal preschool is a new front in the culture wars, raising sharp questions about American families, cultural diversity, and the appropriate role of the state in the lives of our young children. Using the accounts of teachers, community activists, and political leaders actively shaping this debate, Standardized Childhood shows why the universal preschool movement is attracting such robust support - and strident opposition - nationwide.

In this multi-disciplinary volume, comprising the work of several established scholars from different countries, central concepts associated with the work of the Bakhtin Circle are interrogated in relation to intellectual history, language theory and an understanding of new media. The book will prove an important resource for those interested in the ideas of the Bakhtin Circle, but also for those attempting to develop a coherent theoretical approach to language in use and problems of meaning production in new media.

This book analyzes and critiques media education in the university and offers tools for developing a more critical direction. Media education should not be regarded as a job-track, but as an area of inquiry that integrates theory and practice. Media literacy and especially an awareness of the myths and misconceptions that mass media perpetrate should be part of the general education for all college students. Sholle and Denski present the premises of critical pedagogical theory as a framework for re-orienting media studies programs and the discussion of the role of the media in forming important social self-images.

This work examines the valley of the Urubamba River in terms of vertical zonation, Incan impact on the environment, plant use, the history of exploration and the notion of discovery, the idea of land reform, and cultural contact with the European world. Winding its path northward from the Andean Highlands to the Amazon, the valley has served as the stage of pre-Columbian civilizations and focal point of Spanish conquest in Peru. "Gade left behind not only a superb body of scholarly work, but a network of colleagues and students who remain indebted to his example. This book should serve as an inspiration for all scholars who wish to pursue the Sauerian, counter enlightenment or post development agendas of understanding and respecting particular places in all their historical and cultural complexity, including ambiguities and contradictions." -- The Geographical Review, American Geographical Society

Luxury has been both celebrated and condemned throughout history right up to the present day. This groundbreaking text examines luxury and its relationship with desire, status, consumption and economic value, exploring why luxury remains prominent even in the context of a global recession. Using approaches from cultural studies, semiotic research and aesthetics, Luxury presents a wide range of case studies including urban space and new technologies, travel, interior design, cars, fashion ads and jewellery to explore what luxury represents, and why, in the contemporary world. The book will be essential reading for students and scholars across a range of fashion studies, cultural studies and sociology, and anyone interested in the power and allure of luxury today.

Tourist attractions constitute the metaphorical 'heart' of tourism. This book aims to both deconstruct and construct what tourist attractions are, how we perceive them and how we can enhance our understanding of what attracts us as tourists. The volume reaches beyond current ideas about the ways tourist attractions are created, shaped and packaged. It focuses on the importance and subjective nature of identity, memory, narrative and performance in the tourist experience to find new ways of analysing and managing tourist attractions. The book will appeal to researchers and students in tourism and destination management and heritage and indigenous tourism.