How do technological and cultural developments interact to affect consumption? What do ways of using household goods in specific historical contexts tell us about individual and collective identities? Do changes in consumption patterns emancipate social groups or reinforce existing structures of power?
The 'economic miracle' experienced by West Germany in the 1950s and 1960s had profound effects on everyday life and gender relations. This book reflects the growing need for historical research on leisure and consumption in the modern period and provides a very entertaining and carefully researched study of ideas about women, men, housework, consumption, and modernity. It contrasts the virtual reality presented by advertisements with the important qualitative changes in household appliances and how they affected everyday life and gender roles. New products claimed to make housework easier, but the idea of substituting money for labor contrasted with the ideal of the thrifty, hard-working housewife and a clear division of gender roles. The author examines a broad range of issues encompassing the transformation of household appliances from luxuries to necessities, the threat of consumer debt, men and housework, women and technology, and labor and leisure in the modern household.
This timely book represents a significant contribution to the following areas: material culture, German history, women's history, sociology, media/cultural studies and anthropology.

This volume examines the culture of Canadian Jews, with particular attention to their European roots. The essays address Yiddish literature, writings of authors working in French and English, as well as contemporary Jewish life. Cet ouvrage collectif examine la culture des juifs canadiens, originaires de l'Europe de l'Est. Les essais portent sur la litterature yiddish, l'ecriture des juifs de langue francaise et anglaise ainsi que la vie juive contemporaine au Canada.

This open access handbook presents a multidisciplinary and multifaceted perspective on how the 'digital' is simultaneously changing Russia and the research methods scholars use to study Russia. It provides a critical update on how Russian society, politics, economy, and culture are reconfigured in the context of ubiquitous connectivity and accounts for the political and societal responses to digitalization. In addition, it answers practical and methodological questions in handling Russian data and a wide array of digital methods. The volume makes a timely intervention in our understanding of the changing field of Russian Studies and is an essential guide for scholars, advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying Russia today.

This work explores the philosophical positions of five postmodern thinkers--Lyotard, Rorty, Schrag, Foucault, and Derrida--to show how their critiques imply that scholars are unduly limited by the belief that inquiry is fundamentally about gaining knowledge of phenomena that are assumed to exist prior to and independent of inquiry, and to persist essentially unchanged by inquiry. The author argues that there are good reasons why this constraint is both unnecessary and undesirable, and he resituates the disciplines within a more flexible foundation that would expand what counts as legitimate inquiry. This foundation would emphasize the inquirer as a cause of reality, not just an observer who aims to accurately describe and explain phenomena. Mourad proposes an intellectual and organizational form which he calls post-disciplinary research programs. These dynamic programs would be composed of scholars from diverse disciplines who collaborate to juxtapose disparate disciplinary concepts in order to create contexts for post-disciplinary inquries.

Chile's natural beauty, fascinating history, cultural traditions, and warm people are uniquely evoked in "Culture and Customs of Chile." Chilean American Castillo-Feliu effectively conveys how Chile's geography has helped to shape it into a modern, socially responsible model in Latin America. Students and other readers will learn how this small country has contributed to the hemisphere's stature, from a stable political scene to seafood-inspired cuisine. Chile's lively history forms the backdrop for a survey of a wealth of social riches. The literary lion Pablo Neruda, Andean music, and fine wine are just a few of the highlights found herein.

Because it has been such a model country, except for a troubled period in the 1970s and 1980s under the dictator Augusto Pinochet, Chile often stays out of headline news in the United States. Through chapters on history and people, religion, social customs, broadcasting and print media, literature, performing arts, and the arts and architecture, "Culture and Customs of Chile" will introduce Chile to a wider audience who can appreciate its understated charms. A chronology and appendix of the Spanish of Chile are indispensable aids.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, nation building and identity construction in the post-socialist region have been the subject of extensive academic research. The majority of these studies have taken a 'top-down' approach - focusing on the variety of ways in which governments have sought to define the nascent nation states - and in the process have often oversimplified the complex and overlapping processes at play across the region. Drawing on research on the Balkans, Central Asia, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe, this book focuses instead on the role of non-traditional, non-politicised and non-elite actors in the construction of identity. Across topics as diverse as school textbooks, turbofolk and home decoration, contributors - each an academic with extensive on-the-ground experience - identify and analyse the ways that individuals living across the post-socialist region redefine identity on a daily basis, often by manipulating and adapting state policy.In the process, Nation Building in the Post-Socialist Region demonstrates the necessity of holistic, trans-national and inter-disciplinary approaches to national identity construction rather than studies limited to a single-state territory. This is important reading for all scholars and policymakers working on the post-socialist region.

This is a discussion of the relationships between mass media and society. Topics examined include: talk radio and community; the growth of the corporate newspaper; media violence and audience behaviour; and race, ethnicity and the mass media.

This thoroughly engaging encyclopedia considers the rich diversity of unfamiliar foods eaten around the world. The title They Eat That?: A Cultural Encyclopedia of Weird and Exotic Food from around the World says it all. This fun encyclopedia, organized A-Z, describes and offers cultural context for foodstuffs people eat today that might be described as "weird"-at least to the American palate. Entries also include American regional standards, such as scrapple and chitterlings, that other regions might find distasteful, as well as a few mainstream American foods, like honey, that are equally odd when one considers their derivation. A long narrative entry on insects, for example, discusses the fact that insects are enjoyed as a regular part of the diet in some Asian, South and Central American, and African countries. It then looks at the kinds of insects eaten, where and how they are eaten, cultural uses, nutrition, and preparation. Each of the encyclopedia's 100 entries includes a representative recipe or, for a food already prepared like maggoty cheese, describes how it is eaten. Each entry ends with suggested readings. Approximately 100 entries A representative recipe for each entry Photographs and drawings Suggested readings for each entry Alphabetical and geographical lists of entries A selected bibliography

This book addresses a variety of topics within the growing discipline of Archaeoastronomy, focusing especially on Archaeoastronomy in Sicily and the Mediterranean and Cultural Astronomy. A further priority is discussion of the astronomical and statistical methods used today to ascertain the degree of reliability of the chronological and cultural definition of sites and artifacts of archaeoastronomical interest. The contributions were all delivered at the XVth Congress of the Italian Society of Archaeoastronomy (SIA), held under the rubric "The Light, the Stones and the Sacred" - a theme inspired by the International Year of Light 2015, organized by UNESCO. The full meaning of many ancient monuments can only be understood by examining their relation to light, given the effects that light radiation produces in "interacting" with lithic structures. Moreover, in addition to manifestations of the sacred through the medium of light (hierophanies), there are many ties between temples, tombs, megalithic structures, and the architecture of almost all ages and cultures and our star, the Sun. Readers will find the book to be a source of fascinating insights based on synergies between the disciplines of archaeology and astronomy.

In the final years of the Soviet Union and into the 1990s, Soviet Jews immigrated to Israel at an unprecedented rate, bringing about profound changes in Israeli society and the way immigrants understood their own identity. In this volume ex-Soviets in Israel reflect on their immigration experiences, allowing readers to explore this transitional cultural group directly through immigrants' thoughts, memories, and feelings, rather than physical artifacts like magazines, films, or books. Drawing on their fieldwork as well as on analyses of the Russian-language Israeli media and Internet forums, Larisa Fialkova and Maria N. Yelenevskaya present a collage of cultural and folk traditions--from Slavic to Soviet, Jewish, and Muslim--to demonstrate that the mythology of Soviet Jews in Israel is still in the making. The authors begin by discussing their research strategies, explaining the sources used as material for the study, and analyzing the demographic profile of the immigrants interviewed for the project. Chapters use immigrants' personal recollections to both find fragments of Jewish tradition that survived despite the assimilation policy in the USSR and show how traditional folk perception of the Other affected immigrants' interaction with members of their receiving society. The authors also investigate how immigrants' perception of time and space affected their integration, consider the mythology of Fate and Lucky Coincidences as a means of fighting immigrant stress, examine folk-linguistics and the role of the lay-person's view of languages in the life of the immigrant community, and analyze the transformation of folklore genres and images of the country of origin under new conditions. As the biggest immigration wave from a single country in Israel's history, the ex-Soviet Jews make a fascinating case study for a variety of disciplines. Ex-Soviets in Israel will be of interest to scholars who work in Jewish and immigration studies, modern folklore, anthropology, and sociolinguistics.

Whiteness is often looked upon and equated with being American, but this book seeks to discover how other American voices and experiences have been and are excluded from the American legacy. It directly addresses the notion of self and human division in a cultural climate that has historically fostered the marginalization of multiple racial identities. This is an interdisciplinary work on understanding and promoting intercultural communication and will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of communication, multicultural studies, social psychology, and sociology.

Closing a critical gap in the literature examining the strained relationship between the U.S. and Japan, this book synthesizes the economic, political, historical, and cultural factors that have led these two nations, both practitioners of capitalism, along quite different paths in search of different goals. Taking an objective, multidisciplinary approach, the author argues that there is no single explanation for Japan's domestic economic or foreign trade successes. Rather, his analysis points to a systemic mismatch that has been misdiagnosed and treated with inadequate corrective measures. This systemic mismatch in the corporate strategy, economic policies, and attitudes of the U.S. and Japan created and is perpetuating three decades of bilateral economic frictions and disequilibria.

As long as both the U.S. and Japan deal more with symptoms than causes, bilateral problems will persist. This book's unique analysis will encourage a better understanding on both sides of the Pacific of what has happened, is happening, and will continue to happen if corporate executives and policymakers in the two countries do not better realize the extent of their differences and adopt better corrective measures.

This volume brings together three areas of interest: the rule-based approach, the entrepreneur, and Japan as an empirical application. It highlights the advantages of the rule-based approach for economic analysis by linking different methodological underpinnings. Using these, the author exemplifies how rule-based economics allows a systematic analysis of the entrepreneur as the key figure in bringing about economic change and diversity. The book includes an empirical methodology for applied research in rule-based economics, which it puts to the test in an empirical study of entrepreneurship in contemporary Japan. The choice of entrepreneurship and Japan showcases the integrative power that rule-based economics brings to further breaking a theoretical deadlock and to analytically capturing a very particular economy investigated very little so far. By offering a body of new and original research, the monograph shows how the idea of entrepreneurship as a rule helps to resolve the Schumpeter-Kirzner divide and to develop an empirical approach to the determinants of entrepreneurial activity.

This volume presents a comparative framework in which to study the history of publishing and reading in Europe and North America during the eighteenth century. The chapters are written by leading French and American specialists in publishing during the pre-revolutionary and revolutionary eras. The book synthesizes current knowledge in the field and advances scholarship, particularly with respect to copyright legislation. It skillfully integrates the history of publishing during this period with the larger field of eighteenth-century intellectual and cultural history. The chapters are grouped in four sections devoted to publishing as a profession, publishing and the law, readership, and the collection and use of materials. Each broad area is addressed by both specialists from France and America to create a comparative context. The chapters address more particular topics from the perspectives of social, economic, and cultural history; literary criticism; law; and library history. The comparative framework yields new insights into the political cultures of eighteenth-century France and America and into the relationship of print media and political culture.

The essays in this volume offer the reader a broad, interdisciplinary perspective on the ways in which theories of alienation are influencing current debates in psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and social philosophy. In his introductory essay, Felix Geyer discusses how classical notions of alienation have been put to use to describe the dysfunctions within societies that are becoming sharply divided along racial lines and according to the disparities in power described by postmodernism. The essays that follow Geyer's introduction then take up the problems of alienation, ethnicity, and postmodernism in the contexts of increasing economic globalization and renewed racial hostility in communities both in the United States and abroad.

An engrossing review of the development of global consumerism and its impact on sociological issues. The phrase "shop till you drop" has become as American as apple pie and the trend does not appear to be slowing. Consumer Culture begins with the history of the consumer culture, which reveals that our fascination with consuming shows not only the hidden significance of everyday items, such as sugar and fashionable clothing, but also reveals the uniqueness of our way of life. Consumer Culture also presents the views of economists and sociologists who see consumption as an expression of freedom. The book covers the social impact of consumption, examining such dubious milestones as physical attacks upon McDonald's and Starbucks, and best sellers that are critical of consumption. There is coverage of important research, such as whether consumers are making rational or impulsive choices and the effect of advertising on children. Capsule biographies of key individuals, such as Aaron Montgomery Ward, who pioneered the modern catalog, and Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's; important figures in advertising, such as Helen Rosen Woodward; leaders in the consumer protection movement, such as Ralph Nader and Florence Kelley; and more Statistics on U.S. and global consumption trends including clustering and segmentation in patterns of consumption; the growth of franchises and malls; shopping behavior by age, ethnicity, and geographical location; and environmental effects such as those due to garbage production

Transcending the widespread concerns about deteriorating moral values in American society, this collection focuses on the common values of American society. Through the perspectives of philosophers, historians, political scientists, theologians, anthropologists, economists, and scientists, this book examines American social values and discusses how they are applied in current areas of public interest.

American democratic ideals are not simply rooted in the conventional structural and institutional elements of a democracy, such as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. American democracy, in fact, could not survive without a strong basis of social values that support community, tolerance, and cooperation. Since social values form the common bonds of society, and may not be supported by individual members, they are determined through a complex cultural, legal, and political process, as one of the contributors points out.

The contributors to this book were assembled from a variety of disciplines and professions to examine social values and analyze their application in specific areas of current controversy. Through the perspectives of philosophy, anthropology, history, economics, political science, biomedical ethics, and religion, these discussions cover not only disciplinary perspectives but cover topics such as the environment, intergenerational interaction, social welfare policies, gender, and genetic engineering.

The tension between nature and culture, which accompanies the rise of any large society, has become a subject of great concern in our time. In this compelling study, Gunther Barth, acclaimed author of City People: The Rise of Modern City Culture in Nineteenth-Century America, identifies fleeting moments of concord between nature and culture in the course of American history. During the search for the Wilderness Passage, the progress of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and the building of park cemeteries and big city parks, Americans realized that nature was not merely a force to be reckoned with, not merely a resource to be exploited, but also an integral component of their lives. Through the engineering of nature and culture in the urban environment, the energetic attempts to conserve large-scale nature in the United States emerged as an offspring of the big city. Heightening our understanding of the historical complexity of the relationship between nature and culture, and suggesting that harmony between the two is a mark of civilization, this original study will be an invaluable guide to anyone concerned with the quality of life in America, past and future.

In Assessing the Landscape of Taiwan and Korean Studies in Comparison, the chapters offer a reflection on the state of the field of Taiwan and Korea Studies. For the editors, the volume's purpose was to identify not just their similarities, but also a reflection on their differences. Both have national identities formed in a colonial period. The surrender of Japan in 1945 ignited the light of independence for Korea, but this would be ideologically split within five years. For Taiwan, that end forced it into a born-again form of nationalism with the arrival of the Chinese Nationalists. Taiwan and South Korea's economic development illustrate a progressive transition and key to understanding this is the relationship between 'modernization' and 'democracy'. By looking at Korea and Taiwan, the chapters in the volume broaden an understanding of the interconnectivity of the region.

This book is dedicated to the research of the "pleasure phenomenon" as the most important factor in individual and socio-cultural development. In a society of mass consumption, pleasure-having turned into a commodity and a means of manipulation-defines civilizational development. The authors theorize that the pursuit of pleasure can destroy one's self, culture, and environment. The recent rapid technological expansion has turned pleasure into a societal challenge. This study emphasizes the necessity of intrinsic transformation of marketing in the 21st Century which would shift the focus from seeking pleasure to controlling desires in a way that would benefit self, society, and the world.

This book offers a first rate selection of academic articles on Latin American bioethics. It covers different issues, such as vulnerability, abortion, biomedical research with human subjects, environment, exploitation, commodification, reproductive medicine, among others. Latin American bioethics has been, to an important extent, parochial and unable to meet stringent international standards of rational philosophical discussion. The new generations of bioethicists are changing this situation, and this book demonstrates that change. All articles are written from the perspective of Latin American scholars from several disciplines such as philosophy and law. Working with the tools of analytical philosophy and jurisprudence, this book defends views with rational argument, and opening for pluralistic discussion.

God, Space, and City in the Roman Imagination is a unique exploration of the relationship between the ancient Romans' visual and literary cultures and their imagination. Drawing on a vast range of ancient sources, poetry and prose, texts, and material culture from all levels of Roman society, it analyses how the Romans used, conceptualized, viewed, and moved around their city. Jenkyns pays particular attention to the other inhabitants of Rome, the gods, and investigates how the Romans experienced and encountered them, with a particular emphasis on the personal and subjective aspects of religious life. Through studying interior spaces, both secular (basilicas, colonnades, and forums) and sacred spaces (the temples where the Romans looked upon their gods) and their representation in poetry, the volume also follows the development of an architecture of the interior in the great Roman public works of the first and second centuries AD. While providing new insights into the working of the Romans' imagination, it also offers powerful challenges to some long established orthodoxies about Roman religion and cultural behaviour.

Transitional justice and national inquiries may be the most established means for coming to terms with traumatic legacies, but it is in the more subtle social and cultural processes of "memory work" that the pitfalls and promises of reconciliation are laid bare. This book analyzes, within the realms of literature and film, recent Australian and Canadian attempts to reconcile with Indigenous populations in the wake of forced child removal. As Hanna Teichler demonstrates, their systematic emphasis on the subjectivity of the victim is problematic, reproducing simplistic narratives and identities defined by victimization. Such fictions of reconciliation venture beyond simplistic narratives and identities defined by victimization, offering new opportunities for confronting painful histories.