It is hard to believe that the pursuit of artificial intelligence is not a phenomenon of the twentieth century. For over three hundred years, the boundaries between bodies and machines - the natural and the artificial, the animate and the inanimate - have been passionately explored. These explorations, beginning in the seventeenth and eighteenth and increasing during the nineteenth century, have been all but forgotten, lost beneath the commotion of the modern day world. This book retrieves these lost histories, giving voice to the hopes, dreams, and fears of philosophers, medical practitioners, engineers, craftsmen and artisans who have all been fascinated by the interface between bodies and machines. The journey back in time unfolds with the mysterious advent of mechanical philosophies, which conceptualized the body and the surrounding world largely in terms of mechanistic interactions. These theories develop in intriguing directions and fuel experiments in such areas as material production and social punishment, spiritualism and mental health. From reanimating dead bodies with electricity, which led to the introduction of the electric chair, through to the use of machines to render 'hysterics' and the insane fit for reintroduction into society, this book conveys the dark truths behind our relationship with machines.This book is not only an exceptional contribution to the history of technology but also to contemporary debates about humans and machines.

The German word mauscheln is derived from the Yiddish language. It's original meaning is 'to talk like a Jewish trader' (Mausche = Yiddish word for Mose). Today the verb has a negative connotation and means 'to use dishonest tricks to reach an aim', 'to cheat'. Althaus examines the history of the word and asks how this negative connotation has developed and how the word was (and is ) applied as a weapon and defamation among artists, politicians and scientists. In this way the author depicts a fascinating picture of cultural history, - focussed in the colourful history of a single manysided word.

This book explores the changing food culture of the urban American South during the Jim Crow era by examining how race, ethnicity, class, and gender contributed to the development and maintenance of racial segregation in public eating places. Focusing primarily on the 1900s to the 1960s, Angela Jill Cooley identifies the cultural differences between activists who saw public eating places like urban lunch counters as sites of political participation and believed access to such spaces a right of citizenship, and white supremacists who interpreted desegregation as a challenge to property rights and advocated local control over racial issues. Significant legal changes occurred across this period as the federal government sided at first with the white supremacists but later supported the unprecedented progress of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which-among other things-required desegregation of the nation's restaurants. Because the culture of white supremacy that contributed to racial segregation in public accommodations began in the white southern home, Cooley also explores domestic eating practices in nascent southern cities and reveals how the most private of activities-cooking and dining- became a cause for public concern from the meeting rooms of local women's clubs to the halls of the U.S. Congress.

Who are the happiest Americans? Surveys show that religious people think they are happier than secularists, and secularists think they are happier than religious people. Liberals believe they are happier than conservatives, and conservatives disagree. In fact, almost every group thinks it is happier than everyone else. In this provocative new book, Arthur C. Brooks explodes the myths about happiness in America. As he did in the controversial Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism , Brooks examines vast amounts of evidence and empirical research to uncover the truth about who is happy in America, who is not, and-most important-why. He finds that there is a real happiness gap" in America today, and it lies disconcertingly close to America's cultural and political fault lines. The great divide between the happy and the unhappy in America, Brooks shows, is largely due to differences in social and cultural values. The values that bring happiness are faith, charity, hard work, optimism, and individual liberty. Secularism, excessive reliance on the state to solve problems, and an addiction to security all promote unhappiness. What can be done to maximize America's happiness? Replete with the unconventional wisdom for which Brooks has come to be known, Gross National Happiness offers surprising and illuminating conclusions about how our government can best facilitate Americans in their pursuit of happiness.

This book offers a full-scale study of angels and angelology in the Middle Ages. Seeking to discover how and why angels became so important in medieval society, David Keck considers a wide range of fascinating questions such as: Why do angels appear on baptismal fonts? How and why did angels become normative for certain members of the church? How did they become a required course of study? Did popular beliefs about angels diverge from the angelologies of the theologians? Why did some heretics claim to derive their authority from heavenly spirits? Keck spreads his net wide in the attempt to catch traces of angels and angelic beliefs in as many portions of the medieval world as possible. Metaphysics and mystery plays, prayers and pilgrimages, Cathars and cathedrals-all these and many more disparate sources taken together reveal a society deeply engaged with angels on all its levels and in some unlikely ways.

In From Socrates to Summerhill and Beyond: Towards a Philosophy of Education for Personal Responsibility, Ronald Swartz offers an evolving development of fallible, liberal democratic, self?governing educational philosophies. He suggests that educators can benefit from having dialogues about questions such as these: 1). Are there some authorities that can be consistently relied upon to tell school members what they should do and learn while they are in school? 2.) How should the imagination of social theorists be both used and checked in the development and implementation of innovative educational reforms? 3.) How can teachers in personal responsibility schools help their students learn? These questions are representative of problems that Swartz raises in his book. Swartz identifies four educational programs as personal responsibility schools. These are Little Commonwealth (Homer Lane); Summerhill (A.S.Neill); Orphans Home (Janusz Korczak) and Sudbury Valley School (Daniel Greenberg). Swartz then suggests that these learning environments create social institutions that are liberal, democratic, and self?governing and therefore endorse the policy of personal responsibility. This policy states: All school members, students included, are fallible authorities who should be personally responsible for determining their own school activities and many policies that govern a school. Schools which incorporate this policy can interchangeably be referred to as personal responsibility, self?governing, or Summerhill style schools. In providing an historical and philosophical understanding of Summerhill style schools, Swartz suggests that these educational alternatives have intellectual roots in the ideas associated with Socrates as portrayed in Plato's Apology. Specifically, in personal responsibility schools teachers are not viewed as authorities who attempt to transmit wisdom to their students. Rather, self?governing schools follow the Socratic tradition which claims that teachers can be viewed as fallible authorities who attempt to engage students in dialogues about questions of interest to students. The interpretation of Plato's works used by Swartz can be found in Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies. Swartz has also been significantly influenced by the educational writings of Bertrand Russell and Paul Goodman. Goodman's Compulsory Miseducation makes it clear that schools which follow in the tradition of Summerhill compete with the educational programs that are an outgrowth of John Dewey's writings. In summary, Swartz's book aims to engage educators in dialogues that will lead to improved educational theories and practices.

Anarchism and the Avant-Garde: Radical Arts and Politics in Perspective contributes to the continuing debate on the encounter of the classical anarchisms (1860s 1940s) and the artistic and literary avant-gardes of the same period, probing its dimensions and limits. Case studies on Dadaism, decadence, fauvism, neo-impressionism, symbolism, and various anarchisms explore the influence anarchism had on the avant-gardes and reflect on avant-garde tendencies within anarchism. This volume also explores the divergence of anarchism and the avant-gardes. It offers a rich examination of politics and arts, and it complements an ongoing discourse with theoretical tools to better assess the aesthetic, social, and political cross-pollination that took place between the avant-gardes and the anarchists in Europe.

An authoritative, comprehensive, and highly accessible assessment of the happiest and least happy countries and cities in the world, as well as of the happiest and least happy cities and states in the United States. Which are the happiest countries in the world and which nations are the least contented? Which cities in the world are considered the happiest and unhappiest? Which American cities and states are at the top of the list and which ones rank poorly? Presenting findings that are based on solid data and authoritative information, this book offers a bold take on the geography of happiness around the world-and presents results that are often unexpected. It enables readers to make informed cross-cultural comparisons between countries and world cities, and uniquely synthesizes global information in a way that allows us answer the important question: "What makes us happy?" A book like no other, Global Happiness: A Guide to the Most Contented (and Discontented) Places around the Globe tackles the complex equation of determining what places offer the happiest living experiences by considering quality of life, prospects for the future, social relations, confidence in good government, and many other factors that together constitute critical differences in living experience. The author-a professor of geography and urban studies as well as a world traveler-also takes into account the current events, politics, and environmental situations of specific regions, states, and cities, and considers what residents of the cities and countries say about their own places to derive accurate and fair assessments. Supplies insightful and interesting information about all of the most contented and least contented countries and cities around the globe-and the factors that make the people who live in these places notably happy or discontented Examines and explains the complexity of happiness and contentment as they apply to specific places and regions in the world Synthesizes and evaluates the maze of existing rankings of cities and countries in the world with fresh and original information to produce a novel assessment of the geography of global happiness Presents information about cities and countries in all parts of the world fairly and in both positive and negative lights

Taiwanese society is in the midst of an immense, exciting effort to define itself, seeking to erect a contemporary identity upon the foundation of a highly distinctive history. This book provides a thorough overview of Taiwanese cultural life. The introduction familiarizes students and interested readers with the island's key geographical and demographic features, and provides a chronological summary of Taiwanese history. In the following chapters, Davison and Reed reveal the uniqueness of Taiwan, and do not present it simply as the laboratory of traditional Chinese culture that some anthropologists of the 1950s through the 1970s sought when mainland China was not accessible. The authors examine how religious devotion in Taiwan is different from China in that the selected deities are those most relevant to the needs of the Taiwanese people. Literature and art, particularly of the 20th century, reflect the Taiwanese quest for identity more than the grand Chinese tradition. The Taiwanese architecture, festivals and leisure activities, music and dance, cuisine and fashion, are also highlighted topics. The final chapter presents the most recent information regarding children and education, and explores the importance of the Taiwanese family in the context of meaningful relationships amongst acquaintances, friends, and institutions that make up the social universe of the Taiwanese. This text is a lively treatment of one of the world's most dynamic societies.

The geopolitical history of the Middle East in the twentieth century, which falls into three relatively distinct phases, is best understood when approached simultaneously from the global and the regional perspectives. The imperialist phase, which began in the nineteenth century and lasted until the end of World War II, was followed by the cold war between the Soviet Union and the West that continued to the beginning of the 1990s. The last phase, which began with the demise of the Soviet Union, is still taking shape. These stages may overlap and, in some instances, unfold simultaneously, developments within the region being shaped and constrained by extra-regional forces for extra-regional purposes.

The sovereignty and independence of the states of the region has been limited in varying degrees by the wishes, needs, interests, and ambitions of the major powers. The geopolitical considerations have varied over time, being very different in the period between the world wars than in the period of intense East-West rivalry that followed, with the present post-cold war era being radically different from what preceded it. These changing geopolitical realities constitute the framework for this examination of the Middle East in the twentieth century, and the organizing principle for the selection of materials from the truly vast amount of information available. An important resource for scholars, students, and researchers involved with Middle Eastern history and international relations.

This insightful volume explores the experiences of ethnic migrants returning to Hong Kong, Singapore, and Israel. Return migrants who were exposed to the western culture and society undergo personal transformations that significantly impact their views on values such as gender, individualism, democracy, tradition, and individual autonomy. To evaluate how well these individuals are able to reintegrate back into their native countries, the authors conducted a thorough comparative study between returnees in the three research sites through in-depth interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, and analyses of government policies. Among the topics discussed: Family as a strategic middle ground between the individual and society The social psychology of coping and adaptation Public, outer historical, and macro forces that shape returnees' experiences Comparisons and contrasts between two primarily Chinese societies, along with one racially and culturally different Western society Cost-and-benefit analyses of decision-making in migration Return Migrants in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Israel is a compelling new perspective on the migrant experience drawn from in-depth research on returnees across three countries and a variety of circumstances.

Decades of Western Cold War propaganda were designed to depict socialism as inimical to genuine aesthetic acheivement. Now, in the wake of the Cold War, it is becoming possible to reassess the past and present cultural productions of artists with socialist inclinations. The essays in this volume begin such a reassessment, finding that socialist cultural production in the 20th century, both as the official culture of the socialist East and as an oppositional culture in the capitalist West, has been rich and varied.

The volume focuses on socialist culture in the industrialized world, primarily Eastern Europe and the West. An introductory essay overviews socialist cultural productions of the 20th century, while the chapters that follow address a wide range of topics. These include Soviet socialist realist fiction and film musicals, the socialist drama of Bertolt Brecht, and British and American leftist fiction. The volume demonstrates that propagandistic Cold War depictions of socialism as a threat to artistic expression were inaccurate and misleading.

A comprehensive bibliographic survey of the West Indian presence in the United States, this book covers over 500 articles, books, and other studies on the West Indian immigrant experience. The primary goal is to cite titles examining both the impact of the immigration experience on West Indians and the way West Indians have changed the nature of many communities in the United States. The work outlines the long history in the United States economic life, education, ethnicity and race relations, family relationships, health care, patterns of immigration and settlement, and political expression.

Drawing on books, scholarly journal articles, dissertations, research reports, and significant articles from general interest magazines and newspapers, the book's goal is to lead interested students to material that examines how the United States does and does not meet the hopes and dreams of Caribbean immigrants of African descent. Providing bibliographic leads for exploring new avenues of research on West Indian Americans, the book will be especially valuable for those seeking to expand their knowledge base on this major component of our country's urban landscape.

During the Cold War, the West typically represented socialism as a threat to genuine aesthetic achievement. Nonetheless, socialist cultures have produced a rich and varied body of creative works, and socialism continues to be a living force in China and in many regions of the Third World. The essays in this volume begin to reassess the legacy of socialist cultural production in such areas of the world, which were outside the specific scope of influence of either the United States or the Soviet Union during the Cold War era.

The contributors give special attention to the strong anticolonial legacy of socialism and the important role played by socialism in subsequent attempts to build viable postcolonial cultural identities. Included are chapters on creative works from China, Africa, and the Caribbean, as well as the works of multicultural artists from the United States who stand in relation to Third World cultures. The essays show that global socialist cultural production was rich and varied during the twentieth century and continues to be so, despite the tribulations experienced by socialism itself. While some of the chapters address theoretical concerns central to all socialist cultures, the volume focuses primarily on socialist cultures in those parts of the globe that were never fully inside either the Soviet or the American bloc.

Is jazz a universal idiom or is it an African-American art form? Although whites have been playing jazz almost since it first developed, the history of jazz has been forged by a series of African-American artists whose styles caught the interest of their musical generation--masters such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and Charlie Parker. Whether or not white musicians deserve their secondary status in jazz history, one thing is clear: developments in jazz have been a result of black people's search for a meaningful identity as Americans and members of the African diaspora. Blacks are not alone in being deeply affected by these shifts in African-American racial attitudes and cultural strategies. Historically in closer contact with blacks than nearly any other group of white Americans, white jazz musicians have also felt these shifts. More importantly, their careers and musical interests have been deeply affected by them. The author, an active participant in the jazz world as composer, performer, and author of several books on jazz and Latin music, hopes that this book will encourage jazz lovers to take a rhetoric-free look at the charged issue of race as has affected the world of jazz.

A work about the formulation of identity in the face of racial difference, the book considers topics such as the promotion of black Southern culture and inner-city styles like rhythm and blues and rap as a means of achieving black racial solidarity. It discusses the body of music fostered by an identification to Africa, the conversion of black jazz musicians to Islam and other Eastern religions, and the impact of a jazz community united by heroin use. White jazz musicians who identify with black culture in an unsettling form by speaking black dialect and calling themselves African-American is examined, as is the assimilation of jazz into the wider American culture.

Ninety-nine years ago, a new form of storytelling emerged from the ruins of World War I. Different in scope and power from theater or literature, and unlike any film that had come before, F. W. Murnau's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari addressed a direct challenge to its audience, demanding to be viewed as something other than what was immediately presented. Unfortunately, criticism has not risen to the challenge. Relegating the film condescendingly to the horror genre, or treating it merely as a case study in style, critics have failed to look at it with due seriousness. On the other hand, the film's ambiguity, structural devices, and psychological depth gave cinema a number of tools that other filmmakers were quick to start using. This book examines a spectrum of narrative films that can be seen in new ways with methods derived and evolved from the techniques of Caligari. The intention is not only to offer new interpretations of classic and neglected films, but to open further discussion and exploration. It is written with optimism that movie lovers will see more in the movies they love, that critics will find new paths of investigation, and that filmmakers will benefit from greater awareness of what movies can do. Secrets of Cinema began in 1994, in discussions among friends after weekly movie nights hosted by the late Lawrence N. Fox on the 73rd floor of the John Hancock Center in Chicago. The movies selected are not necessarily the greatest ever made (although some of them surely are), but rather movies that offer new and useful lessons in how movies work. Among the secrets of cinema revealed in this book are at least three movies that are stealth remakes of The Wizard of Oz, hidden meanings behind films made under political repression, and why Hitchcock's Psycho is a remake of his Vertigo. Persistent enigmas are clarified, including the logic of Persona, the riddle of Last Year at Marienbad, and the endings of Blow-Up and The Shining. More importantly, by showing how much there is to discover in movies, the book encourages its readers to continue in their own ways the quest to see movies whole.

This guide helps readers to engage with the major critical debates surrounding literary modernism.
A judicious selection of key critical works on literary modernism
Presents a critical history from the earliest reviews to the most recent theoretical assessments
Shows how modernist writers understood and constructed modernism.
Shows how succeeding generations have developed those constructions and brought new interpretations to bear on the subject
Discusses how modernism relates to modernity and odernization, and to other literary and cultural movements
Texts have been selected for their relevance to the questions surrounding modernism, and for their accessibility to readers with a limited knowledge of the modernist canon
Includes a glossary and an annotated bibliography.

This book explores the emerging concept of cultural DNA, considering its application across different fields and examining commonalities in approach. It approaches the subject from four different perspectives, in which the topics include theories, analysis and synthesis of cultural DNA artefacts. After an opening section which reviews theoretical work on cultural DNA research, the second section discusses analysis & synthesis of cultural DNA at the urban scale. Section three covers analysis & synthesis of cultural DNA artefacts, and the final section offers approaches to grammar-based cultural DNA research. The book places emphasis on two specific axes: one is the scale of the object under discussion, which ranges from the small (handheld artefacts) to the very large (cities); and the other is the methodology used from analysis to synthesis. This diverse approach with detailed information about grammar-based methodologies toward cultural DNA makes the book unique. This book will serve as a source of inspiration for designers and researchers trying to find the essence, archetype, and the building blocks of our environment for the incorporation of social and cultural factors into their designs.

This volume asks how the current Information Technology Revolution influences archaeological interpretations of techno-social change. Does cyber-archaeology provide a way to breathe new life into grand narratives of technological revolution and culture change, or does it further challenge these high-level theoretical explanations? Do digital recording methods have the potential to create large, regional-scale databases to ease investigation of high-level theoretical issues, or have they simply exposed deeper issues of archaeological practice that prevent this? In short, this volume cuts beyond platitudes about the revolutionary potential of the Information Technology Revolution and instead critically engages both its possibilities and limitations. The contributions to this volume are drawn from long-term regional studies employing a cyber-archaeology framework, primarily in the southern Levant, a region with rich archaeological data sets spanning the Paleolithic to the present day. As such, contributors are uniquely placed to comment on the interface between digital methods and grand narratives of long-term techno-social change. Cyber-Archaeology and Grand Narratives provides a much-needed challenge to current approaches, and a first step toward integrating innovative digital methods with archaeological theory.

"Priest and Parish in Vienna, 1780 to 1880 is a bold, new social and cultural history of religion in modern Europe. By establishing some of the most important parameter of religious life, such as parish demographics, the economics of parish life, the social and national background of priests, and the world of Catholic sacrament and feastdays, this book contextualizes for the first time the contentious social and cultural relationship between religion and society in nineteenth-century Vienna.
In the nineteenth century, parish priests confronted tumultuous social changes such as industrialization and urbanization, which eroded clerical influence in Austria. Priests did not react well to this development and by the 1880s turned to party political activity in defense of their position within Austrian society. Eventually, many of the parish priests were mobilized into Karl Lueger's Christian Social movement. Parish priests, a very important and influential group in Austria, were therefore changed from servants of the state into political activists.