The path for developing an internationally usable product with a human-machine interface is described in this textbook, from theory to conception and from design to practical implementation. The most important concepts in the fields of philosophy, communication, culture and Ethnocomputing as the basis of intercultural user interface design are explained. The book presents directly usable and implementable knowledge that is relevant for the processes of internationalization and localization of software. Aspects of software ergonomics, software engineering and human-centered design are presented in an intercultural context; general and concrete recommendations and checklists for immediate use in product design are also provided. Each chapter includes the target message, its motivation and theoretical justification as well as the practical methods to achieve the intended benefit from the respective topic. The book opens with an introduction illuminating the background necessary for taking culture into account in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) design. Definitions of concepts are followed by a historical overview of the importance of taking culture into account in HCI design. Subsequently, the structures, processes, methods, models, and approaches concerning the relationship between culture and HCI design are illustrated to cover the most important questions in practice.

This book breaks new ground in providing an in-depth critical assessment of cyborg cinema, arguing that it remains one of the most intriguing and provocative cycles to have emerged in contemporary screen culture. Tracing the cinematic cyborg's transition over the last two decades and evaluating the theoretical significance attributed to this figure, it asks what relevance the cyborg continues to have in terms of understanding human identity, as well as our relationship to technology and to one another.

"Germany's New Right as Culture and Politics" is the first full-length study in English of the New Right in Germany and it breaks new ground by considering the New Right as both a political and a cultural movement. This approach reveals the problems that arise when a political movement seeks to embrace culture as the foundation for a political programme. The book examines the often contradictory motives that feed into New Right political pronouncements and explores the cultural thinking that feeds into extreme political commitment.

If the political and social benchmarks of sustainability and sustainable development are to be met, ignoring the role of the humanities and social, cultural and ethical values is highly problematic. People's worldviews, beliefs and principles have an immediate impact on how they act and should be studied as cultural dimensions of sustainability. Collating contributions from internationally renowned theoreticians of culture and leading researchers working in the humanities and social sciences, this volume presents an in-depth, interdisciplinary discussion of the concept of cultural sustainability and the public visibility of such research. Beginning with a discussion of the concept of cultural sustainability, it goes on to explore its interaction with philosophy, theology, sociology, economics, arts and literature. In doing so, the book develops a much needed concept of 'culture' that can be adapted to various disciplines and applied to research on sustainability. Addressing an important gap in sustainability research, this book will be of great interest to academics and students of sustainability and sustainable development, as well as those studying sustainability within the humanities and social sciences, such as cultural studies, ethics, theology, sociology, literature and history.

This book reveals how France reinvented itself in the aftermath of World War Two. After foreign military interventions, the French political and intellectual elites embraced regime change and launched an urgent programme of nation building. They rebuilt French national identity with whatever material was available, and created a vibrant new cultural and intellectual life. The cost to subordinated groups, however, especially women, still casts a long shadow over French values and attitudes. In this, perhaps, there are lessons and implications for other countries, struggling to rebuild themselves after conflict.

Feast! Throughout human history, and in all parts of the world, feasts have been at the heart of life. The great museums of the world are full of the remains of countless ghostly feasts - dishes that once bore rich meats, pitchers used to pour choice wines, tall jars that held beer sipped through long straws of gold and lapis, immense cauldrons from which hundreds of people could be served. Why were feasts so important, and is there more to feasting than abundance and enjoyment? The Never-Ending Feast is a pioneering work that draws on anthropology, archaeology and history to look at the dynamics of feasting among the great societies of antiquity renowned for their magnificence and might. Reflecting new directions in academic study, the focus shifts beyond the medieval and early modern periods in Western Europe, eastwards to Mesopotamia, Assyria and Achaemenid Persia, early Greece, the Mongol Empire, Shang China and Heian Japan. The past speaks through texts and artefacts. We see how feasts were the primary arena for displays of hierarchy, status and power; a stage upon which loyalties and alliances were negotiated; the occasion for the mobilization and distribution of resources, a means of pleasing the gods, and the place where identities were created, consolidated - and destroyed. The Never-Ending Feast transforms our understanding of feasting past and present, revitalising the fields of anthropology, archaeology, history, museum studies, material culture and food studies, for all of which it is essential reading.

While the field of aesthetics has long been dominated by European philosophy, recent inquiries have expanded the arena to accommodate different cultures as well as different definitions and meanings. Aesthetics often establishes the pattern that connects culture functions in a society. In African and African American societies it functions as the keeper of the traditions. The African aesthetic is visible from popular culture to the classical cultures. In all art forms, including body adornment arts, there emerge symbols, colors, rhythms, styles, and forms that function as artistic instruments and cultural histories. While acknowledging African cultural diversity, the focus here is on the commonalities in the aesthetic that make an Ibo recognize a Kikuyu and a Jamaican recognize a Chewa and an African American recognize a Sotho. The deep structure manifest in African cultures in the diaspora is proof of the aesthetic continuity. The debate continues over the exact nature of African aesthetics, and in this volume scholars and teachers in the fields of African and African American studies approach the subject from a broad range of disciplines. Dance, music, art, theatre, and literature are examined in order fully to appreciate and delineate what the specific qualities and aspects of an African aesthetic might be. Additionally, theoretical concepts and issues are discussed in order to define more clearly what is meant by an African aesthetic. The term African here applies to all Africans, both continental and diasporan, and encompasses historically used terms such as Negro, Black, and Afro-American. This thoughtful and thought-provoking volume will be a valuable addition to the readings of scholars and students in fields ranging from African studies to general philosophy and cultural studies.

By empirically assessing the competitiveness of 505 cities around the world from regional, national and other perspectives, this book not only ranks these cities but also presents a treasure trove of information with regard to each city's relative strengths and weaknesses. This unique resource draws on a wealth of data sources, all of which are described and assessed, and involve urban economics, geography, regional economics and many other fields. Using a concise indexing system, sophisticated methodology, and extensive figures and tables, it provides a comprehensive analysis of global urban competitiveness in 2015. Given the scope of its coverage, the book will be of great interest to readers such as local authorities, decision-makers and economic planners in cities throughout the world.

This ground breaking collection provides the first detailed social analysis of football within Africa. The book features case-study essays that draw heavily on detailed fieldwork to examine the distinctive football cultures that have grown up in African communities. The book should be compulsory reading, for social scientists in sport studies and African studies, and for informed football followers everywhere.

In some ways, they could not be more different: the pipe-smoking, Anglican Oxford don and the blue-collar scion of conservative Presbyterianism. But C. S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer, each in his unique way, fashioned Christian apologetics that influenced millions in their lifetimes. And the work of each continues to be read and studied today. In this book Scott Burson and Jerry Walls compare and contrast for the first time the thought of Lewis and Schaeffer. With great respect for the legacy of each man, but with critical insight as well, they suggest strengths and weaknesses of their apologetics. All the while they consider what Lewis and Schaeffer still have to offer in light of postmodernism and other cultural currents that, since their deaths, have changed the apologetic landscape. This incisive book stands as both an excellent introduction to the work of these two important figures and a fresh proposal for apologetics at the dawn of a new century.

The title of this book is, of course, inspired by the famous opening words of General de Gaulle's "Memoirs" of the Second World War: All my life I have thought of France in a certain way. Wesseling brings together his essays dealing with a great variety of subjects such as culture, society, politics, and diplomacy, with one section devoted entirely to French historians.

The first section contains an chapter on the famous painter Ary Scheffer and the France of his time, that is to say the first half of the 19th century. The second chapter continues this theme and deals with Emile Zola and the Paris of the Second Empire. Two other chapters discuss aspects of the Third Republic, sports and students, respectively. The second section is devoted to French intellectuals. It offers the first in-depth analysis of the group of intellectuals that supported Zola and Dreyfus. Chapter six deals with one of the great literary figures of the interwar period--and later a notorious collaborator--Robert Brasillach. Chapter seven contains a vivid sketch of the life and work of the famous French intellectual Raymond Aron. The third section is devoted to politics and diplomacy. French foreign policy is discussed both in its long-term perspective as well as more specifically in the period of Charles de Gaulle. De Gaulle's idea of France is compared with that of an author by whom he was greatly influenced, Charles Peguy. Finally, there is a section on French history writing, including two biographical essays, one about Gabriel Hanotaux, the once famous but now nearly forgotten historian who became Minister of Foreign Affairs, and another on Fernand Braudel, the great contemporary French historian and close friend of Wesseling. Of particular interest to scholars, students, and other researchers involved with French history, the history of ideas, and European historiography.

The longing for authenticity, on an individual or collective level, connects the search for external expressions to internal orientations. What is largely referred to as production of authenticity is a reformulation of cultural values and norms within the ongoing process of modernity, impacted by globalization and contemporary transnational cultural flows. This collection interrogates the notion of authenticity from an anthropological point of view and considers authenticity in terms of how meaning is produced in and through discourses about authenticity. Incorporating case studies from four continents, the topics reach from art and colonialism to exoticism-primitivism, film, ritual and wilderness. Some contributors emphasise the dichotomy between the academic use of the term and the one deployed in public spaces and political projects. All, however, consider authenticity as something that can only be understood ethnographically, and not as a simple characteristic or category used to distinguish some behaviors, experiences or material things from other less authentic versions.

One of the most influential anthropological works of the last two decades, Alfred Gell's Art and Agency is a provocative and ambitious work that both challenged and reshaped anthropological understandings of art, agency, creativity and the social. It has become a touchstone in contemporary artifact-based scholarship. This volume brings together leading anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians and other scholars into an interdisciplinary dialogue with Art and Agency, generating a timely re-engagement with the themes, issues and arguments at the heart of Gell's work, which remains salient, and controversial, in the social sciences and humanities. Extending his theory into new territory - from music to literary technology and ontology to technological change - the contributors do not simply take stock, but also provoke, critically reassessing this important work while using it to challenge conceptual and disciplinary boundaries.

This book highlights new developments in the field of building pathology and rehabilitation, taking an in-depth look into current approaches to the surveying of buildings and the study of defect diagnosis, prognosis and remediation. Including a number of real-world case studies and a detailed set of references for further reading, the book will appeal to a wide readership of scientists, practitioners, students and lecturers.

University racial quotas have caused strong reactions in Brazil, where ideals of racial and cultural mixture are crucial components of national identity. Focusing on an in-depth ethnographic study of a Rio de Janeiro public university and its students, Andre Cicalo examines the practical and symbolic potential that affirmative action has to redress historically-produced and territorialized inequalities in the urban space. By engaging with the relevant literature on Brazilian race relations, this volume discloses novel considerations, crucial for a possible future reading of race relations, racial classification, and affirmative action in Brazil.

In the relations between colonial European traders and the Indians of the southern backcountry, trade was a powerful manipulative tool used by both sides in their attempts to control each other. This anthropological and sociological study examines how European traders sought out native women as cultural instructors, translators, and sexual companions. The network of native women, fur traders, and colonial diplomats functioned as an invisible social, political, and economic web throughout the backcountry. Although this web was an integral part of the colonial struggle for the region, it is often overlooked or ignored in conventional histories.

Women played a key role in this system of economic exchange. They benefitted materially from this arrangement, while the traders enjoyed increased political power as a result of the cohabitation. These Anglo-Indian unions helped to impose Euroamerican values on native societies, and, in part, the women functioned as unofficial diplomats for their people. Colonial governments hoped that the efforts of these frontier traders would impose stability on the tribes, but the profit-seeking of many such traders often resulted in bloody conflict instead.

This book calls for a new iconography of region that unseats New England’s status as cultural center of the United States and originary metaphor for national identity. No single territorial or political axis can adequately describe the complex regional relationships that comprise the nation, Anne Goldman argues. Goldman's arguments question critical sectionalism as extensively as they do regional divisions, by blurring generic distinctions, by reading across literary periods, and by juxtaposing writers who explore the same set of social issues during the same historical moment, but who are conventionally located in separate literary traditions: sentimental literature, the African American novel, literary modernism, early Mexican fiction.

This groundbreaking work explores media scholar Sut Jhally's thesis that advertising functions as a religion in late capitalism and relates this to critical theological studies. Sheffield argues that advertising is not itself a religion, but that it contains religious dimensions - analogous to Durkheim's description of objects as totems.

Americans are constantly debating issues of space: the space we are, the space we occupy, and the way we treat others in or close to our spaces. The exploration of these ideas is the core of this book. The author argues that human beings, as spatial entities, are very adept at manipulating and using space. In the process, we often intrude on the space of others and ignore our impact on them. For example, the founders of the United States sought to safeguard the right of freedom of speech, but did not offer ways to defend ourselves against abuses of such rights. The book considers issues such as the balance between an individual's right to smoke and another's right not to be affected by that activity. The discussion offers implications for education, children's and women's issues, environmental issues, minority and ethnic concerns, and human rights.

"Like national identity, national days involve a process of 'othering', saying who you are, as much as who you are not. If some countries (such as Scotland and Ireland) celebrate them far more strongly than their neighbour, England, why is that? Why is there no British day? Why should near-neighbours, Sweden, Norway and Finland, have such different traditions of national remembering? What if a national day and its associations are so tied into a previous political regime that they have become an embarrassment? Germany, Italy and South Africa have undergone radical political changes in the last 60 years, and with these, complex processes of forgetting and remembering. If national days have considerable political significance, whether positive or negative, they are also of major economic worth. Just as 'heritage' is not simply a matter of history, but of markets, so 'national days' have the potential to be major icons of national tourism. "--Book cover.

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.

Despite the wide interest in material culture, art, and aesthetics, few studies have considered them in light of the importance of the social imagination - the complex ways in which we conceptualize our social surroundings. This collection engages the "material turn" in the arts, humanities, and social sciences through a range of original contributions on creativity in diverse global and contemporary social settings. The authors engage with everyday objects, art, rituals, and ethnographic exhibitions to analyze the relationship between material culture and the social imagination. What results is a better understanding of how the material embodies and influences our idea of the social world.

Despite the wide interest in material culture, art, and aesthetics, few studies have considered them in light of the importance of the social imagination - the complex ways in which we conceptualize our social surroundings. This collection engages the "material turn" in the arts, humanities, and social sciences through a range of original contributions on creativity in diverse global and contemporary social settings. The authors engage with everyday objects, art, rituals, and ethnographic exhibitions to analyze the relationship between material culture and the social imagination. What results is a better understanding of how the material embodies and influences our idea of the social world.