![]() |
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
||
|
Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > General
Charles Dickens in Cyberspace opens a window on a startling set of literary and scientific links between contemporary American culture and the nineteenth-century heritage it often repudiates. Surveying a wide range of novelists, scientists, filmmakers, and theorists from the past two centuries, Jay Clayton traces the concealed circuits that connect the telegraph with the Internet, Charles Babbage's Difference Engine with the digital computer, Frankenstein's monster with cyborgs and clones, and Dickens' life and fiction with all manner of contemporary popular culture--from comic books and advertising to recent novels and films. In the process, Clayton argues for two important principles: that postmodernism has a hidden or repressed connection with the nineteenth-century and that revealing those connections can aid in the development of a historical cultural studies. In Charles Dickens in Cyberspace nineteenth-century figures--Jane Austen, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Ada Lovelace, Joseph Paxton, Mary Shelley, and Mary Somerville--meet a lively group of counterparts from today: Andrea Barrett, Greg Bear, Peter Carey, Helene Cixous, Alfonso Cuaron, William Gibson, Donna Haraway, David Lean, Richard Powers, Salman Rushdie, Ridley Scott, Susan Sontag, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, and Tom Stoppard. The juxtaposition of such a diverse cast of characters leads to a new way of understanding the "undisciplined culture" the two eras share, an understanding that can suggest ways to heal the gap that has long separated literature from science. Combining storytelling and scholarship, this engaging study demonstrates in its own practice the value of a self-reflective stance toward cultural history. Its personal voice, narrative strategies, multiple points of view, recursive loops, and irony emphasize the improvisational nature of the methods it employs. Yet its argument is serious and urgent: that the afterlife of the nineteenth century continues to shape the present in diverse and sometimes conflicting ways.
In the past decade, psychology has increasingly acknowledged the importance of considering the role of culture for understanding human development. One of the major issues now confronting those interested in this issue is how cultural meanings, values, and practices are appropriated by persons growing up and living in concrete contexts. The general theme addressed in this volume concerns how enactments of cultural understandings in social interactions form the fabric of individual experience and the specificities of individual development.
This volume explores the complex aesthetic, cultural, and memory politics of urban representation and reconfiguration in neo-Victorian discourse and practice. Through adaptations of traditional city tropes - such as the palimpsest, the labyrinth, the femininised enigma, and the marketplace of desire - writers, filmmakers, and city planners resurrect, preserve, and rework nineteenth-century metropolises and their material traces while simultaneously Gothicising and fabricating 'past' urban realities to serve present-day wants, so as to maximise cities' potential to generate consumption and profits. Within the cultural imaginary of the metropolis, this volume contends, the nineteenth century provides a prominent focalising lens that mediates our apperception of and engagement with postmodern cityscapes. From the site of capitalist romance and traumatic lieux de memoire to theatre of postcolonial resistance and Gothic sensationalism, the neo-Victorian city proves a veritable Proteus evoking myriad creative responses but also crystallising persistent ethical dilemmas surrounding alienation, precarity, Othering, and social exclusion.
The local experiences of foreigners in China in the 19th and early 20th centuries exemplify the often latent or tacit patterns of social encounters, individually or in groups, with certain cultural boundedness, stability, and homogeneity. This book takes into account virtual, mediated, imaginative contact zones and looks back at much slower and delimited times and focuses primarily on some selective experiences by Italians and Germans. In doing so it accounts for trajectories from individual and small groups with local, territorial, physical and fully sensual interfaces to fully programmed and highly steered contact zones in the 21st century.
This book presents a study of remembrance practices emerging after the 2005 London bombings. Matthew Allen explores a range of cases that not only illustrate the effects of the organisation of remembrance on its participants, but reveal how people engaged in memorial culture to address difficult and unbearable conditions in the wake of 7/7.
The 1960s counterculture challenged the mainstream practices that dominated the 1950s, producing such groups as the hippies, Diggers, the National Organization for Women, and the American Indian Movement, all of which demanded societal change. The A-Z entries in this volume provide fascinating details on notable persons who stirred alternative ideas such as Betty Friedan, Abbie Hoffman, Andy Warhol, and Stokely Carmichael; events such as Woodstock, the Moratorium, and various be-ins; and new directions in music, art, clothing, and language.
This tribute collection reflects the wide range and diversity of James Gibbs's academic interests. The focus is on Africa, but comparative studies of other literatures also receive attention. Fiction, drama, and poetry by writers from Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Ireland, England, Germany, India, and the Caribbean are surveyed alongside significant missionaries, scientists, performers, and scholars. The writers discussed include Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Kobina Sekyi, Raphael Armattoe, J.E. Casely Hayford, Michael Dei-Anang, Kofi Awoonor, Ayi Kwei Armah, John Kolosa Kargbo, Dele Charley, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Okot p'Bitek, Jonathan Sajiwandani, Samuel E. Krune Mqhayi, A.S. Mopeli-Paulus, Kelwyn Sole, Anna Seghers, Raja Rao, and Arundhati Roy. Other essays treat the black presence in Ireland, anonymous rap artists in Chicago, the Jamaican missionary Joseph Jackson Fuller in the Cameroons, the African-American actor Ira Aldridge in Sweden, the Swedish naturalist Anders Sparrman in South Africa, and the literary scholar and editor Eldred Durosimi Jones in Sierra Leone. Interviews with the Afro-German Africanist Theodor Wonja Michael and the Irish-Nigerian dramatist Gabriel Gbadamosi are also included. Also offered are poems by Jack Mapanje and Kofi Anyidoho, short stories by Charles R. Larson and Robert Fraser, plays by Femi Osofisan and Martin Banham, and an account of a dramatic reading of a script written and co-performed by James Gibbs. Contributors: Anne Adams, Sola Adeyemi, Kofi Anyidoho, Awo Mana Asiedu, Martin Banham, Eckhard Breitinger, Gordon Collier, James Currey, Geoffrey V. Davis, Chris Dunton, Robert Fraser, Raoul J. Granqvist, Gareth Griffiths, C.L. Innes, Charles R. Larson, Bernth Lindfors, Leif Lorentzon, Jack Mapanje, Christine Matzke, Mpalive-Hangson Msiska, Femi Osofisan, Eustace Palmer, Jane Plastow, Lynn Taylor, and Pia Thielmann.
This book presents pedagogical strategies for today's diverse Israel Studies classrooms. It offers Israel-specific innovations for online teaching, tested methods for organizing global virtual exchanges that uplift marginalized voices in Israel, including Palestinian voices, and an intellectual and political overview of the field. Informed by the author's experiences in the classroom and principles shared with her by fellow instructors, the book provides a guide to developing an Israel Studies syllabus or integrating Israel Studies units into an existing curriculum
Foods are changed not only by those who produce and supply them, but also by those who consume them. Analyzing food without considering changes over time and across space is less meaningful than analyzing it in a global context where tastes, lifestyles, and imaginations cross boundaries and blend with each other, challenging the idea of authenticity. A dish that originated in Beijing and is recreated in New York is not necessarily the same, because although authenticity is often claimed, the form, ingredients, or taste may have changed. The contributors of this volume have expanded the discussion of food to include its social and cultural meanings and functions, thereby using it as a way to explain a culture and its changes.
Foremost scholars explore new directions in communication research in the light of social, economic, and technological changes in recent years. They analyze differing perspectives historically, problems and opportunities in terms of information flows and filters, and new public policy and social issues and challenges. They raise major questions about future needs and trends. This interdisciplinary study delves into a number of basic concerns, such as how public agendas are formed, how shifting groups in society interpret messages differently, and how technology has changed profoundly the ways in which we communicate in the world today. This overview of the state of communication research is designed for scholars, professionals, and for student use in research methods courses.
What is the real nature of television, and what is its place in contemporary society and culture? In a provocative rethinking of the medium and its ensuing effects, this book argues that we have misunderstood television and have thus contributed to a distorted view of art and culture in the 20th century. During the final quarter of this century both in academic and popular circles, we have spread wildly exaggerated claims about television's undermining of human consciousness and behavior. Television has become a scapegoat for all sorts of societal and cultural ills. The arguments presented by many researchers on behalf of the ill-effects of TV are fundamentally weak and flawed. On the eve of the 21st century, the claimed distinctions between high art and popular culture have become a final, hopeless repository of pedantry. Television can be understood only by viewing it as an art form, and measuring its role in society and culture in concert with the first principles of human reason and liberty.
Dancer, Nun, Ghost, Goddess explores the story of the dancers Gio and Hotoke, which first appeared in the fourteenth-century narrative Tale of the Heike. The story of the two love rivals is one of loss, female solidarity, and Buddhist salvation. Since its first appearance, it has inspired a stream of fiction, theatrical plays, and visual art works. These heroines have become the subjects of lavishly illustrated hand scrolls, ghosts on the noh stage, and Buddhist and Shinto goddesses. Physical monuments have been built to honor their memories; they are emblems of local pride and centerpieces of shared identity. Two beloved characters in the Japanese literary imagination, Gio and Hotoke are also models that have instructed generations of women on how to survive in a male-dominated world.
The study of resistance developed here, by Dr Esther Rowlands, consists of a fresh interrogation of the notion of resistance discourse. Here, for the first time, this detailed study of selected, wartime texts produced by Francis Ponge, Benjamin Peret, Henri Michaux and Antonin Artaud, compiled between 1936 and 1946, presents a specific critique of resistance which investigates the possibility for opposition and subversion to take place without direct allusion to the object of resistance. This investigation questions the criteria according to which literature is perceived as being 'resistant' and suggests that historical and political referentiality may be deemed retaliative and reactionary, thereby risking replication of the dominant order. The relationship between language and power structures is elucidated through allusion to modern theorists Michel de Certeau, Michel Foucault, Ross Chambers and Francoise Proust. The necessary framework for a study of the poetic voice draws upon aspects of the post-structuralist work of Jacques Derrida and Giles Deleuze, incorporating specific theories expounded by the Surrealist leader, Andre Breton. The works of the above theorists are foundational to this new critique of poetic discourse which, when applied by Dr Esther Rowlands, to the wartime works of the four named writers, suggests that language itself may be recognised as a locus of resistance. This book is designed to be of interest both to undergraduates and to researchers studying Surrealism, Second World Wartime Literature and Critical Theory.
"World Cinema's 'Dialogues' with Hollywood" looks at the way Hollywood has interacted with a range of national and transnational cinemas, from German Expressionism to Bollywood and Chinese film. While Hollywood has had a profound impact upon the history of the medium - suggesting that if there is 'dialogue' to be identified it is one where Hollywood has done all the talking - it is impossible to understand this history without examining the impact of World Cinema's economic, aesthetic and political relationship with Hollywood.
The fourteenth-century Egyptian cookbook, Kanz al-fawa'id fi tanwi' al-mawa'id, is a treasure trove of 830 recipes of dishes, digestives, refreshing beverages, and more. Here, for the first time, it has been meticulously translated into English and supplemented with a comprehensive introduction, glossary, illustrations, and twenty-two modern adaptations of its recipes.
Crime and criminals are a pervasive theme in all areas of our culture, including media, journalism, film and literature. This book explores how crime is constructed and culturally represented through a range of areas including Spanish, English Language and Literature, Music, Criminology, Gender, Law, Cultural and Criminal Justice Studies.
Short-listed for the North American Society for Sport History Book Award 2003Alcohol is never far from sporting events. Although popular thinking on the effects of drinking has changed considerably over time, throughout history sport and alcohol have been intimately linked. The Victorians, for example, believed that beer helped to build stamina, whereas today any serious athlete must abstain from the 'demon drink'. Yet despite current prohibitions and the widespread acceptance of alcohol's deleterious effects, the uneasy alliance of sport with alcohol remains culturally entrenched. It is common for sporting celebrities to struggle with alcoholism, and teams are often encouraged to 'bond' by drinking together. Indeed, many of today's major sporting sponsors are breweries and manufacturers of alcoholic drinks.From hooliganism to commerce, from advertising and sponsorship to health and fitness, if there is one thing that brings athletes, fans and financial backers together it must be beer. This cultural history of drinking and sport examines the roles masculinity, class and regional identity play in alcohol consumption at a broad range of matches, races, courses and competitions. Offering a fresh perspective on the culture and commerce of sporting events, this book will be essential reading for cultural historians, anthropologists and sociologists, and anyone interested in sport.
What does the modern era look like to those labeled "not modern" or "traditional"? Refuting claims that their art was "old world" and "primitive," African, Native, and Jewish American writers in the early twentieth century instead developed experimental strategies of self-representation that reshaped the very form of the novel itself. Uncovering the connections and confrontations among three ethnic groups not often read in relation to one another, Kent maps out the historical contexts that have shaped ethnic American writing in the Modernist era, a period of radical dislocation from homelands and increased migration for these three ethnic groups. Rather than focus on the ways others have represented these groups, Kent restores the voices of these multicultural writers to the debate about what it means to be modern.
Manson's study . . . is devoted to retrieving Kardiner from the limbo into which he lapsed some 30 years ago. The author offers a historical reconstruction of the classic psychocultural seminars and reassesses the theoretical and methodological innovations that emerged from them. As a historian Manson displays an impressive command of his materials. He does an admirable job of summarizing the ethnographic data on which Kardiner based his psychodynamic formulations and interpretations. He even manages to evoke something of the emotional flavor of the seminar sessions and the very different personalities involved. This is a consequence of his judicious use of rich primary sources: the exhaustive unpublished reminiscences of Kardiner himself, the private papers of Margaret Mead, and the recollections and/or seminar notes of Aberle, Barnouw, Du Bois and others. . . . a most worthwhile volume, one that should be read by specialists in culture and personality. American Anthropologist While a number of anthropologists in the 1930s and 1940s incorporated isolated elements of Freudian theory into their studies of the interplay of culture and personality, the psychoanalyst Abram Kardiner transcended disciplinary boundaries to forge a genuine psychocultural synthesis. Although the importance of Kardiner's pathbreaking The Individual and His Society is sometimes acknowledged, William Manson argues that Kardiner's work has often been overlooked or misinterpreted by social scientists and psychiatrists. In this first comprehensive study of Kardiner's theoretical contributions, Manson traces the development of Kardiners's psychodynamic formulations and evaluates the impact of his model on neo-Freudian culture-and-personality research and psychological anthropology in general. The author discusses Kardiner's extended collaboration with leading anthropologists, which resulted in the creation of a psychocultural model for personality formation in different societies. He examines Kardiner's theory of culturally conditioned basic personality and the psychocultural technique for studying the interrelationships of specific cultural practices, personality adaptation, and supernatural belief systems. Manson's analysis places Kardiner's theories in the wider context of concurrent neo-Freudian approaches in anthropology and parallel developments in culturalist psychoanalysis and interdisciplinary social science. A balanced and lucid assessment of a major figure in psychological anthropology, this work will be of interest for psychoanalytic studies, cultural and psychological anthropology, psychodynamics, cross-cultural psychology, and the history of the social/behavioral sciences.
During and especially after World War I, the millions of black-clad widows on the streets of Europe's cities were a constant reminder that war caused carnage on a vast scale. But widows were far more than just a reminder of the war's fallen soldiers; they were literal and figurative actresses in how nations crafted their identities in the interwar era. In this extremely original study, Erika Kuhlman compares the ways in which German and American widows experienced their postwar status, and how that played into the cultures of mourning in their two nations: one defeated, the other victorious. Each nation used widows and war dead as symbols to either uphold their victory or disengage from their defeat, but Kuhlman, parsing both German and U.S. primary sources, compares widows' lived experiences to public memory. For some widows, government compensation in the form of military-style awards sufficed. For others, their own deprivations, combined with those suffered by widows living in other nations, became the touchstone of a transnational awareness of the absurdity of war and the need to prevent it.
The publication of ""Lost Worlds"" introduces to English-speaking readers one of the most original and engaging historians in Germany today. Known for his work in historical demography, Arthur E. Imhof here branches out into folklore, religion, anthropology, psychology and the history of art. Originally published in Germany in 1984, ""Lost Worlds"" is similar in approach to Natalie Davis's ""The Return of Martin Guerre"" and Carlo Ginzburg's ""Cheese and the Worms"". Imhof begins by reconstructing the world and worldview of Johannes Hooss, a farmer in a remote Hessian village. The everyday life of such a man was particular to his region; he spoke a local dialect and shared a regional culture. By exploring the various systems that made sense out of this circumscribed existence - astrology, the folklore of the seasons, and Christian interpretations of birth, confirmation, marriage and death - Imhof expands the book into a speculation on why life in the late 20th century can seem meaningless and difficult.
How do the Kara, a small population residing on the eastern bank of the Omo River in southern Ethiopia, manage to be neither annexed nor exterminated by any of the larger groups that surround them? Through the theoretical lens of rhetoric, this book offers an interactionalist analysis of how the Kara negotiate ethnic and non-ethnic differences among themselves, the relations with their various neighbors, and eventually their integration in the Ethiopian state. The model of the "Wheel of Autonomy" captures the interplay of distinction, agency and autonomy that drives these dynamics and offers an innovative perspective on social relations.
"Aversion to Honor" (retitled from "In the Rockville Manner") is a story of sexual harassment -- and its cover-up -- within a branch of the very institution which is charged with the protection of the victim: the U.S. Federal Government. Though this book is fiction, it has been subpoenaed by the Department of Justice.
"How can we make sense of being born and growing up in the shadows of the Shoah without being able to speak about the unspeakable terror that killed so many in our families? As the second generation we were rarely to hear stories of love and loss or to participate in the mourning of so many who had been brutally murdered. Rather we were to grow up 'normally', and to learn to turn our backs on the past as we struggled towards future identities while imagining ourselves 'like everyone else'. Fearful of difference we were often ambivalent about Jewish identities that could threaten a sense of 'Englishness'." Exploring the painful dynamics of personal identity and belonging, Victor Jeleniewski Seidler shares the difficulties of memory. How is it possible ever really to belong and feel safe and yet remember what happened to Jewish families in Poland? How can one remember without feeling overwhelmed by the terror? Crossing boundaries in a journey to Poland enabled the author to rethink a relationship between Judaism and modernity, as well as to reflect on the painful histories between Poles and Jews. Questions about memory, identity and belonging touch the lives of many people who live in the shadows of historical trauma. Learning to think in new ways about the Shoah as a defining crisis within modernity, Seidler also helps us imagine an ethics for a postmodern time.
Historian Vincent Casaregola examines the portrayal of WWII in popular culture and how that protrayal has changed over time. By examining WWII films, literature, theatre and art from the Cold War era, the Vietnam War, the Reagan years, and present day, he seeks to understnad the part played by current politics, events and conflicts. |
You may like...
Big Picture Bioethics: Developing…
Susan Dodds, Rachel A. Ankeny
Hardcover
R1,435
Discovery Miles 14 350
Blue Lily, Lily Blue - The Raven Cycle…
Maggie Stiefvater
Paperback
(1)
|