Throughout history, people have been intrigued with spirits, angels, or devas as sources of wisdom and guidance. They are not only interesting as those who possess an insight into events and circumstances, but also as proof of life after death. In this clear and useful reference guide, Bjorling presents a listing of the literature on the various ways in which people of different cultures have consulted spirits--through shamans and oracles, magic, mediums, Voodoo, and psychics. Each chapter contains a general introduction to the respective topic as well as a listing of pertinent books, articles, and dissertations. His survey also includes early spirit contacts in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

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Culture is the lens through which we make sense of the world. In any conflict, from petty disputes to wars between nation-states, the players invariably view that conflict through the filter of their own cultural experiences. This innovative volume prompts us to pause and think through our most fundamental assumptions about how conflict arises and how it is resolved.

Even as certain culturally based disputes, such as the high-profile cases in which an immigrant engages in conduct considered normal in the homeland but which is explicitly illegal in his/her new country, enter public consciousness, many of the most basic intersections of culture and conflict remain unexamined. How are some processes cultured, gendered, or racialized? In what ways do certain groups and cultures define such concepts as "justice" and "fairness" differently? Do women and men perceive events in similar fashion, use different reasoning, or emphasize disparate values and goals?

Spanning a wide array of disciplines, from anthropology and psychology to law and business, and culling dozens of intriguing essays, The Culture and Conflict Reader is edited for maximum pedagogical usefulness and represents a bedrock text for anyone interested in conflict and dispute resolution.

Contributors include: Kevin Avruch, Peter W. Black, Jeffrey Z. Rubin, Frank E. A. Sander, John Paul Lederach, Heather Forest,"" Sara Cobb, Janet Rifkin, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Laura Nader, Pat Chew, Stella Ting-Toomey, Harry C. Triandis, Christopher McCusker, C. Harry Hui, Anita Taylor, Judi Beinstein Miller, Carol Gilligan, Trina Grillo, James W. Grosch, Karen G. Duffy, Paul V. Olczak, Michele Hermann, MarthaChamallas, Loraleigh Keashly, Phil Zuckerman, Tracy E. Higgins, Howard Gadlin, Janie Victoria Ward, Kyeyoung Park, Taunya Lovell Banks, Margaret Read MacDonald, Mary Patrice Erdmans, Manu Aluli Meyer, Doriane Lambelet Coleman, Bruce D. Bonta, Paul E. Salem, Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Marc H. Ross, Z.D. Gurevitch, Mari J. Matsuda, Charles R. Lawrence III, Hsien Chin Hu, Glenn R. Butterton, Walter Otto Weyrauch, Maureen Anne Bell, Martti Gronfors, Thomas Donaldson, Marjorie Shostak, and Heather Forest.

Selected proceedings from the 6th International Conference on Culture and Communication, held at Temple U., 1986. The eight sections cover language and politics; sociolinguistics; performance as cultural reflection; sales, promotion, and organization; technology in its social context; mass media and

Trollope and the Magazines examines the serial publication of several of Trollope's novels in the context of the gendered discourses in a range of Victorian magazines - including Cornhill, Good Words, Saint Pauls , and the Fortnightly Review . It highlights the importance of the periodical press in the literary culture of Victorian Britain, and argues that readers today need to engage with the lively cultural debates in the magazines, in order better to appreciate the complexity of Trollope's popular fiction.

Focusing on the so far insufficiently considered concept of "long modernity," this volume brings together contributions by leading European and American scholars in the fields of Literature, Cultural Studies, Intellectual and Cultural History. Behind it are research, debates and academic events organized by the Centre of Excellence for the Study of Cultural Identity, University of Bucharest, on "modernity as a Western project." The book distinguishes phases in its unfolding, from the "early," via the "classic" and "high" to the "late" modern period. Each chapter reveals a marked interdisciplinary approach to the various aspects of this century-old process. The theoretical introduction provides the conceptual scaffolding further fleshed out by individual chapters and case studies meant as illustrations. Staff and students interested in "cultural identity" are expected to find this collection useful and relevant.

A Companion to American Cultural History offers a historiographic overview of the scholarship, with special attention to the major studies and debates that have shaped the field, and an assessment of where it is currently headed.*30 essays explore the history of American culture at all analytic levels* Written by scholarly experts well-versed in the questions and controversies that have activated interest in this burgeoning field* Part of the authoritative Blackwell Companions to American History series* Provides both a chronological and thematic approach: topics range from British America in the Eighteenth Century to the modern day globalization of American Culture; thematic approaches include gender and sexuality and popular culture

How can I know something? How can I convince someone of the rightness of my position? How does reality function? What is artistic creativity? What is the role of the state? It is well known that people from various cultures give dissimilar answers to such philosophical questions. After three decades in the cross-cultural study of ideas and values, Thomas Kasulis found that culture influences not only the answers to these questions, but often how one arrives at the answers. In generalizing cultural difference, Kasulis identifies two kinds of orientation: intimacy and integrity. Both determine how we think about relations among people and among things, and each is reasonable, effective, and consistent. Yet the two are so incompatible in their basic assumptions that they cannot successfully engage each other.

Cultural difference extends beyond nations. Cultural identities crystallize in relation to religion, occupation, race, gender, class. Rather than attempt to transcend cultural difference, Kasulis urges a deeper awareness of its roots by moving beyond mere cultural relativism toward a cultural bi-orientationality that will allow us to adapt ourselves to different cultural contexts as the situation demands.

Wonderfully clear and unburdened by jargon, Intimacy or Integrity is accessible to readers from a variety of perspectives and backgrounds. By analyzing the synergy between thought and culture, it increases our understanding of cultural difference and guides us in developing strategies for dealing with orientations different from our own.

The first book to examine how the ancient Maya defined gender. Contributors explain what it meant to be male and female. They show how gender was experienced and what the bases were for gender designations. They demonstrate how gender relations affected other areas of Mayan life, such as the arts, cosmology, economics, politics, religion, and social structure. And they analyze the changes in Mayan gender relations and identities that were fostered by evolving historical systems.

There was no single Mayan polity nor was there a unitary cultural approach. Certain similarities in culture account for the observation of a general commonality among the ancient Maya, but there clearly were significant differences between Mayan sites, within the same site over time, and even between social sectors at the same site in any given time--this is no less true for ancient Maya gender identity and relations. Thus, the authors seek to explain why emphasis upon bilateral inheritance of power and prerogative was emphasized in artwork at some periods and some sites and not at others. Avoiding the vain attempt to provide a single explanation, they seek to offer a clearer sense of the richness of their topic.

Costa Rica After Coffee explores the political, social, and economic place occupied by the coffee industry in contemporary Costa Rican history. In this follow-up to the 1986 classic Costa Rica Before Coffee, Lowell Gudmundson delves deeply into archival sources, alongside the individual histories of key coffee-growing families, to explore the development of the co-op movement, the rise of the gourmet coffee market, and the societal transformations Costa Rica has undergone as a result of the coffee industry's powerful presence in the country. While Costa Rican coffee farmers and co-ops experienced a golden age in the 1970s and 1980s, the emergence and expansion of a gourmet coffee market in the 1990s drastically reduced harvest volumes. Meanwhile, urbanization and improved education among the Costa Rican population threatened the continuance of family coffee farms, because of the lack of both farmland and a successor generation of farmers. As the last few decades have seen a rise in tourism and other industries within the country, agricultural exports like coffee have ceased to occupy the same crucial space in the Costa Rican economy. Gudmundson argues that the fulfillment of promises of reform from the co-op era had the paradoxical effect of challenging the endurance of the coffee industry.

Beginning with his first film Reconstruction, released in 1970, Theo Angelopoulos's notoriously complex cinematic language has long explored Greece's contemporary history and questioned European culture and society. The Cinematic Language of Theo Angelopoulos offers a detailed study and critical discussion of the acclaimed filmmaker's cinematic aesthetics as they developed over his career, exploring different styles through which Greek and European history, identity, and loss have been visually articulated throughout his oeuvre, as well as his impact on both European and global cinema.

This book examines the ideal of wilderness preservation in the United States from the antebellum era to the first half of the twentieth century, showing how the early conception of the wilderness as the place where Indians lived (or should live) gave way to the idealization of uninhabited wilderness. It focuses on specific policies of Indian removal developed at Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Glacier national parks from the early 1870s to the 1930s.

This book investigates China's demands for the repatriation of Chinese cultural relics 'lost' during the country's modern history. It addresses two main research questions: Can the original owners, or their rightful successors, of cultural objects looted, stolen, or illicitly exported before the adoption of the 1954 Hague Convention and the 1970 UNESCO Convention reclaim their cultural objects pursuant to remedies provided by international or national law? And what are the philosphical, ethical, and cultural considerations of identity underlying the international conventions protecting cultural objects and claims made for repatriating them? The first part of the book explores current positive legal regimes, while the second part focuses on the philosphical, ethical, and cultural considerations regarding repatriation of cultural objects. Consisting of seven chapters and an introduction, it outlines the loss of Chinese cultural relics in modern history and the normative framework for the protection of cultural heritage. It presents case studies designed to assess the possibility of seeking legal remedies for restitution under contemporary legal regimes and examines the cultural and ethical issues underpinning the international conventions protecting cultural heritage and claims for the repatriation of cultural heritage. It also discusses issues of cultural identity, the right to cultural identity and heritage, multiculturalism, the politics of recognition, cosmopolitanism, the right to cultural heritage, and other related issues. The concluding chapter answers the two research questions and offers suggestions for future research.

This book philosophically explores a wide range of subjects relating to evil and human wickedness, including the nature of evil, explaining evil, evil and moral responsibility, and responding to evil.

Bringing together contributions from top specialists in Hispanic studies - both Peninsular and Latin American - this volume explores a variety of critical issues related to the historical, political, and ideological configuration of the field. Dealing with Hispanism in both Latin America and the United States, the book's multidisciplinary essays range from historical studies of the hegemonic status of Castillian language in Spain and America to the analysis of otherness and the uses of memory and oblivion in various nationalist discourses on both sides of the Atlantic. Wide-ranging though they are, these essays are linked by an understanding of Hispanism as a cultural construction that originates with the conquest of America and assumes different intellectual and political meanings in different periods, from the time of national cultural consolidation, to the era of modernization, to the more recent rise of globalization.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind: An Anthology on the Intersection of Prejudice and Discrimination provides students with a carefully curated selection of readings that analyze, break down, and work through the barriers that highlight cultural appropriation, stigma, and inequity. The anthology is divided into four distinct units that focus on various issues in society as they relate to prejudice and discrimination. Unit I focuses on theories of inequity and includes readings that examine theories on discrimination, colorism, families of color, and anomie, strain, and subcultural theories. In Unit II, students learn about social categorization. They read about personality and prejudice in interracial interactions, the importance of family, race, and gender for multiracial adolescent well-being, and social enterprise for poverty alleviation. Unit III explores discrimination in the contexts of education and finances, as well as the effects of discrimination on the United States. The final unit contains readings related to race and covers issues related to internationalism and race-based preferences. A timely and illuminating anthology, Out of Sight, Out of Mind is an ideal resources for courses in sociology, ethnic studies, and cultural studies.

The origins and deeds of the old Goths were constructed by Roman historians in fear of the Goth as a barbarian outsider; at the same time, the Goths were themselves the heroic subject of their own histories, constructed by their supporters as stories of their mythical origin and the deeds that led them to be rulers of their own kingdoms in post-Roman Late Antiquity. Who the old Goths were, their origins and their deeds, was a product of history, historiography and myth-making. In this book, Spracklen and Spracklen use the idea of collective memory to explore the controversies and boundary-making surrounding the genesis and progression of the modern gothic alternative culture. Spracklen and Spracklen argue that goth as sub-culture in the eighties was initially counter cultural, political and driven by a musical identity that emerged from punk. However, as goth music globalised and became another form of pop and rock music, goth in the nineties retreated into an alternative sub-culture based primarily on style and a sense of transgression and profanity. By this century goth became the focus of teenage rebellions, moral panics and growing commodification of counter-cultural resistance, so that by the goth has effectively become another fashion choice in the late-modern hyper-real shopping malls, devoid generally of resistance and politics. Goth, like punk, is in danger of being co-opted altogether by capitalism. This book suggests that the only way for goth culture to survive is if it becomes transgressive and radical again.

Places of Privilege examines dynamics of privilege and power in the construction of place in a period of the rapid social transformation of places, borders and boundaries. Drawing on inter-disciplinary perspectives, the book examines place as a site for the making and re-making of privilege, while considering new meanings of community, and examining spaces for cultural identity and resistance. Chapters point to a range of conceptual resources that can be utilised to produce critical analyses of place-making. As the authors point out, power and privilege shape place but these dynamics are in turn shaped by the specific place based histories and social dynamics within which they are located. Contributors are: Lutfiye Ali, Alison M. Baker, Paola Bilbrough, Tony Birch, Jora Broerse, Sally Clark, Josephine Cornell, Yon Hsu, Lou Iaquinto, Karen Jackson, Shose Kessi, Rebecca Lyons, Chris McConville, Nicole Oke, Amy Quayle, Alexandra Ramirez, Kopano Ratele, Christopher C. Sonn, and Ramon Spaaij.

This volume introduces a new concept that boldly breaks through the traditional dichotomy of high and low culture while offering a fresh approach to both: unpopular culture. From the works of David Foster Wallace and Ernest Hemingway to fanfiction and The Simpsons, from natural disasters to 9/11 and beyond, the essays find the unpopular across media and genres, analysing the politics and aesthetics of a side to culture that has been overlooked by previous theories and methods in cultural studies.

This book explores the aesthetic and ethical ways in which history and daily life are filmically represented and witnessed in Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien's movies. From the era of the Japanese Occupation to the White Horror and then to the lifting of martial law, the author shows how Hou Hsiao-hsien uses visual media to evoke the rhythms of daily life through the emotional memory of the characters and communities he explores. In particular, the book focuses on the ways in which Hou Hsiao-hsien seeks to reflect the strong dilemmas of identity and the traumatic emotions associated with witnessing history. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, it investigates the concepts of daily life, representation and historical trauma in order to focus on how these films represent history and political trauma through the nature of daily life and personal memories, and the resulting historical responsibility and ethics. This is the first academic monography about Hou Hsiao-hsien's films.

Defining 'Australian metal' is a challenge for scene members and researchers alike. Australian metal has long been situated in a complex relationship between local and global trends, where the geographic distance between Australia and metal music's seemingly traditional centres in the United States and United Kingdom have meant that metal in Australia has been isolated from international scenes. While numerous metal scenes exist throughout the country, 'Australian metal' itself, as a style, as a sound, and as a signifier, is a term which cannot be easily defined. This book considers the multiple ways in which 'Australianness' has been experienced, imagined, and contested throughout historical periods, within particular subgenres, and across localised metal scenes. In doing so, the collection not only explores what can be meant by Australian metal, but what can be meant by 'Australian' more generally. With chapters from researchers and practitioners across Australia, each chapter maps the distinct ways in which 'Australianness' has been grappled with in the identities, scenes, and cultures of heavy metal in the country. Authors address the question of whether there is anything particularly 'Australian' about Australian metal music, finding that often the 'Australianness' of Australian metal is articulated through wider, mythologised archetypes of national identity. However, this collection also reveals how Australianness can manifest in metal in ways that can challenge stereotypical imaginings of national identity, and assert new modes of being metal 'downungerground'.

As witnessed by a tremendous upsurge in medieval research, academic meetings, innovative interpretive approaches, enrolment numbers, and public interest, Medieval Studies are proving once again to be a vibrant field of investigations both inside and outside of academia. Nevertheless, there is a tendency among colleagues and administrators in the field of Germanistik/German Studies to exclude the earlier period as an exotic and irrelevant subject matter. The contributors to this volume, all of whom teach at North American universities, make a strong case for the paradigmatic function of medieval German literature for the general field of Germanistik, and argue that many of the most recent changes in our discipline related to the German Studies paradigm have been foreshadowed by Medieval Studies where interdisciplinarity, comparative approaches, the consideration of Mentalitatsgeschichte, theology, history, art history, even gender studies, and the history of everyday life have often constituted the conditio sine qua non. Some of the authors in this volume argue for the relevance of medieval German literature by investigating concrete cases taken from the Middle Ages, others show how modern German literature has been deeply influenced by medieval texts. The purpose of this volume is not to privilege medieval literature over modern literature, but instead to reclaim the premodern period as an important and relevant field of investigation within contemporary German Studies.

Nudity features regularly in all major media. So why is it illegal to appear naked in public? Nudity has always been paradoxical. In modern consumer culture, it is actively encouraged in some contexts, but criminal or deviant in others. Images of nudity are everywhere. Advertising uses nudity to sell everything from housing loans to appliances, perfume to cars. Nudity has, in fact, become the latest fashion. This is not surprising. Advertising and fashion need a constant stream of novelty and there's nothing so new as nudity, the oldest fashion of all. Aside from being big business, nudity is a legal and moral minefield, the object of psychological study, and a mundane fact of everyday life. We alternately think of it as a perversion and a state of absolute innocence. Why does nudity mean so many contradictory things, and why is it treated so differently in different contexts? Drawing on a wealth of examples from popular culture, literature, philosophy and religion, as well as first-hand interviews, Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy goes deep into the naked underworld to answer these questions. Barcan encounters morticians, nudists, strippers, nurses, tattooists, artists and makers of pornography. She demonstrates that ordinary people, popular culture and high philosophy are all sources of wisdom about the naked body. Nudity is one of the most fundamental metaphors in the Western tradition - indeed, it is a metaphor for human nature itself - and yet this book is one of the first to explore its paradoxes in depth. Barcan's mission is to shine a light on a topic that has been largely ignored, even within cultural studies, despite its ability to titillate, shock or entertain. From pubic hair fashions through to a Royal "full monty," Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy is a fascinating blend of meaningful minutiae and big philosophical questions about the most unnatural state of nature in the modern West.

Routledge Library Editions: Revolution in England examines the turbulent times that led to the English revolution and civil war as new political and religious ideas led to the overthrow of the king and establishment of a republic. Modern ideas of democracy were established then, and are analysed here in a series of books that look at the various radical sects such as the Nonjurors and Levellers that espoused new political thought and ways of living.

Business is the religion of the contemporary world. We now live in a business culture, in which business plays the major role in determining how we encounter and interpret the world around us. So argues John Deeks in a provocative book that highlights the influence of business on culture and traces the increasingly dominant role that business has played in shaping social and cultural experience. The book's general thesis is that the focus of business activity has broadened to encompass not only the traditional exploitation of resources and the manufacture of artifacts, but also the exploitation and manufacture of language, images, symbols and consciousness--- the very substance of the idea of culture. It argues that in the contemporary world, the dividing line between commerce and culture is becoming increasingly blurred and that business practices and values now dominate the material, intellectual and spiritual life of the community.

The book is structured around the idea of an extended business culture. This provides the focal points for an analysis of cultural developments related to the activities and values of the world of business. These focal points are: the development of the market economy; the control of technology; the manipulation of language, images and symbols; the shaping of consciousness; and the transmission of ideology. The book's general thesis is illustrated by an eclectic and entertaining range of material drawn from economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, history, art, biography, literature, film, theater, television, technology, and computer science--- material drawn together by the common thread of business. By utilizing literary, dramatic and visual texts together with material on entrepreneurship and business management, the author looks at the world of business imaginatively as well as analytically--- an approach that reinforces his ideas about the relationship among business, society and culture. The book will be of particular value to those with an interest in business and social and cultural issues, and to business teachers and students. It will provide ideal supplemental reading for courses on Business and Society.