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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > General
This volume pays tribute to the formidable legacy of Hena Maes-Jelinek (1929-2008), a pioneering postcolonial scholar who was a professor at the University of Liege, in Belgium. Along with a few moving and affectionate pieces retracing the life and career of this remarkable and deeply human intellectual figure, the collection contains poems, short fiction, and metafiction. The bulk of the book consists of contributions on various areas of postcolonial literature, including the work of Wilson Harris, the ground-breaking writer to whom Hena Maes-Jelinek devoted much of her career. Other writers treated include Ben Okri, Leone Ross, Kamau Brathwaite, Jamaica Kincaid, Peter Carey, Murray Bail, Patrick White, Janice Kulyk Keefer, Dan Jacobson, Joseph Conrad, and Eslanda Goode Robeson. Caryl Phillips revisits his earlier reflections on the 'European tribe'. There are wide-ranging essays analysing consanguineous authors, on such topics as Caribbean treatments of the Jewish Diaspora, Swiss-Caribbean authors, the contemporary Australian short story and the Asian connection, and 'habitation' in Australian fiction, as well as a searching examination of the socio-political fallout from the scandal of Australia's 'Stolen Generations'. Contributors are: Gordon Collier, Tim Cribb, Fred D'Aguiar, Geoffrey V. Davis, Jeanne Delbaere, Marc Delrez, Jean-Pierre Durix, Wilson Harris, Dominique Hecq, Marie Herbillon, Louis James, Karen King-Aribisala, Benedicte Ledent, Christine Levecq, Alecia McKenzie, Carine Mardorossian, Peter H. Marsden, Alistair Niven, Annalisa Oboe, Britta Olinder, Christine Pagnoulle, Caryl Phillips, Lawrence Scott, Stephanos Stephanides, Klaus Stuckert, Peter O. Stummer, Petra Tournay-Theodotou, Daria Tunca, Cynthia vanden Driesen, Janet Wilson.
Using depth psychology to develop a globally rooted psychoanalytic perspective, Jerry Kroth explores the psychological underpinnings of events, conflicts, and changes that may have deeper symbolic meanings than we generally suppose. Through his strategy of treating real occurrences as dreams arising from the collective unconscious, Kroth is able to derive clues to the significance of present happenings and identify incidents that have accurately predicted subsequent events. Beginning with a dream interpretation approach to the Jim Jones phenomenon, Kroth discusses the power of the trickster archetype in American society. In another chapter, he connects the panic following Orson Welles's 1938 radio broadcast of H.G. Wells's "War of the WorldS" to a collective dream anticipating the cataclysm of World War II, which was to unfold only eleven months later. In the remaining chapters Kroth sifts through some of the omens and oracles that confront us today, finding many of the same foreboding conclusions. His examination of the Gorbachev revolution from the standpoint of Russian national character and psychohistory yields future scenarios less optimistic than have usually been anticipated. Other topics addressed are the collective dreams and portents encoded in the mass media, the Cambodian disaster as an aspect of the American shadow, and Israel's David-and-Goliath duel with the Palestinians. This incisive work is aimed at alerting us to the fact that consciously perceived events contain vital symbolic information on the psychological state of the union and suggest a number of unsettling future scenarios. Appropriate for general readers as well as classes and studies in clinical psychology, social psychology, cultural anthropology, political science, and related fields.
The Conquest of Bread is Peter Kropotkin's famous critique of capitalism, wherein he excoriates that system in favor of anarcho-communism; a form of government he believed could ensure fairness for all. Kropotkin had an alternate vision of the way society, work, and population should be organized - in The Conquest of Bread, he interweaves his plans for a social revolution with critiques of the prevailing orthodoxy. We receive outlines of how his propositions will eliminate poverty and scarcity - conditions Kropotkin believed were artificially enforced in order to maintain control upon the working populace. As a philosopher and scientist, Peter Kropotkin abhorred the manner in which abject poverty characterized industrialized society. He also held a great resentment for centralized authority of government and the owners of capital, which he felt acted in concert to undermine the majority of humanity.
From its auspicious beginnings in the summer of 1966 to the present, the Chicago Surrealist Group-and the Surrealist Movement in the United States, which grew out of it-have continued to foment an exhilarating whirlwind of revolt while playfully igniting the sparks of Poetry, Freedom and Love in the crucible of the Unfettered Imagination. In so doing, it has brightly illuminated the pathways of absolute divergence that define the intrinsically anarchist trajectory of the surrealist adventure. Drawing on the full range of U.S. surrealist publications, from the original journal Arsenal/Surrealist Subversion to the very latest millennial communique from the front lines of the ongoing battle against miserabilism, this volume contains over 200 texts (more than two dozen appearing here for the first time) by more than fifty participants in the Surrealist Movement, making this the most comprehensive, diverse and lavishly illustrated compilation of American surrealist writings to have ever been assembled. Contributors include: Gale Ahrens, Jennifer Bean, Jen Besemer, Daniel C. Boyer, Paul Buhle, Ronnie Burk, Leonora Carrington, Laura Corsigilia, Jayne Cortez, Guy Ducornet, Rikki Ducornet, Schlechter Duvall, Alice Farley, J. Allen Fees, Beth Garon, Paul Garon, Eugenio F. Granell, Robert Green, Miriam Hansen, Diedra Harris-Kelley, Jan Hathaway, Corinna Jablonski, Joseph Jablonski, Ted Joans, Gerome Kamrowski, Robin D. G. Kelley, Don LaCoss, Philip Lamantia, Clarence John Laughlin, Mary Low, Herbert Marcuse, Tristan Meinecke, Casandra Stark Mele, Anne Olson, Nancy Joyce Peters, Charles Radcliffe, Myrna Bell Rochester, David Roediger, Franklin Rosemont, Penelope Rosemont, Ody Saban, Louise Simons, Martha Sonnenberg, Christopher Starr, Ivan Svitak, Cheikh Tidiane Sylla, Claude Tarnaud, Debra Taub, Dale Tomich, Patrick Turner, Darryl Lorenzo Wellington, Jordan West, Joel Williams, Marie Wilson, Haifa Zangana
The 16th-century conquest of Mexico and its effects are best understood as cultural manifestations of animal behavior patterns which humans share with other primates. While Nahuas and Spaniards can be distinguished on the basis of learned cultural differences, such differences only exaggerated particular expressions of the universal behavioral patterns they shared. Brutality and benevolence were used in the same way by both to establish hierarchy and cultural bonding. After the conquest, a new Mexican synthesis could be constructed because of these commonalities. Alves explores the formation of that synthesis by examining such aspects of material culture as food, clothing, and shelter-especially as they manifest such universal primate tendencies as hierarchy, reciprocity, benevolence, brutality, xenophobia, curiosity, and territoriality. Alves proposes that humans are historically best understood by using current advances in the fields of primatology and ethology. This groundbreaking book will be of great interest to Latin Americanists, historians, and anthropologists.
Japan remains one of the most intriguing yet least understood nations. In a much needed, balanced and comprehensive analysis, among other remarkable revelations, this book presents for the first time a vital key to understanding the organisation of Japan's society and the behaviour of its people. The Japanese are not driven by a universal morality based on Good and Evil, but by broad aesthetic concepts based on Pure and Impure. What they include as 'impure' will surprise many readers.
This is the first book to systematically describe the formation and historical changes of the Monpa people's area (Monyul) through its nature, society, culture, religion, agriculture and historically deep ties with Bhutan, Tibet and the Tibetan Buddhist faith. The state of Arunachal Pradesh is located in the northeastern part of India, surrounded by the borders of Assam, Bhutan, and Tibet (China). There has been a long history of conflict over the sovereignty of this area between India and China. Foreigners were prohibited from entering the state until the 1990s and the area has been veiled in secrecy until recently. Thus, there are not many academically researched works on the region. This book serves as an essential guide for anyone who would like to learn about a unique geographical area of Monpa.
Students and other interested readers finally have a solid resource that describes the breadth of the evolving modern Australian society. "Culture and Customs of Australia" is the first general introduction to the rugged continent, written by an Australian novelist with particular insight. Clancy focuses on the Anglo-Irish and more recent immigrants, but the Aboriginal context is also presented. Americans' generally superficial familiarity with the Australian continent stems mostly from recent films. Particular images stand out: the Outback, sheep shearing, surfing, the Sydney Opera House, Aborigines, and the Walkabout. Yet Europeans arrived in the late 18th century, followed by convict transports from England that started the colonization. Today, Australia remains a land of immigrants, and its ethnically diverse population has increased dramatically since World War II. Students and other interested readers finally have a solid resource that describes the breadth of the evolving modern Australian society. "Culture and Customs of Australia" is the first general introduction to the rugged continent, written by an Australian novelist with particular insight. Clancy focuses on the Anglo-Irish and more recent immigrants, but the Aboriginal context is also presented. Readers will learn about the Australian identity, with its male mythology of the Bush. The mateship is the core element of a myth of independent, self-sufficient, freedom-loving citizens in a harsh land. This myth is set against multiculturalism and feminism. Other highlights include discussion of the weak hold that Christianity has over the population; the drastic urbanization of the last century and the suburban dream; adventure and the beach culture, with tourism; the importance of sports; the changing roles of men; the evolving cuisine, from the national barbeque to European and Asian influences; strong and long literary, artistic, and performing arts traditions; film industry talent; and the power of media in a sparsely populated country.
Against a backdrop of contemporary social and sexual concerns, and potent fears surrounding the moral and physical 'degeneration' of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century society, "'The Cruel Madness of Love'" explores a critical period in the developing relationship between syphilis and insanity. General paralysis of the insane (GPI), the most commonly diagnosed of the neurosyphilitic disorders, has been devastating both in terms of its severity and incidence. Using the rich laboratory and asylum records of lowland Scotland as a case study, Gayle Davis examines the evolution of GPI as a disease category from a variety of perspectives: social, medical, and pathological. Through exploring case notes and the impact of new diagnostic techniques and therapies, such as the Wassermann Test and Malarial Therapy, the reader gains a unique insight into both patients and practitioners. Significant insights are gained into the socio-sexual background and medical experience of patients, as well as the clinical ideas and judgmental behaviour of the practitioners confronting this disease. "'The Cruel Madness of Love'" will be of interest to anyone wishing to explore the historical relationship between sexuality, morality and disease. Gayle Davis is a Wellcome Trust University Award Holder at the University of Edinburgh. She has published on various aspects of the social history of medicine and sexuality in twentieth-century Britain, and is undertaking a Wellcome-funded research project on the history of infertility in Scotland. She is reviews editor for History of Psychiatry.
Drawing on a wide range of case studies, Cultures of Financialization argues that, in our age of crisis, the global economy is more invested than ever in culture and the imagination. We must take the idea of 'fictitious capital' seriously as a way to understand the power of finance, and what might be done to stop it.
Although enormous industrial advances were made in the USSR, the country still lagged behind the West in the post-industrial age. What the Soviets could not build or manufacture, they had to get from the West. The final outcome was a culture developed in which there was no regard for consumerism and no respect for the environment. The author traces the development of the Soviet malaise, but warns that a future authoritarian regime could still revive the technological race. Conversely, he also replies to the academic debate on the excesses of modern technology in the West, with a sharp criticism of feminist and post-modernist perspectives.
Due to the recent advances in computers and technology as a whole, Knowledge Management has taken on a whole new importance. In our society we need KM to ensure that we apply knowledge correctly to differing situations and effectively use that information at the correct times. Global Aspects and Cultural Perspectives on Knowledge Management: Emerging Dimensions presents new technologies, approaches, issues, solutions, and cases that can help an organization implement a knowledge management (KM) initiative or provide a knowledge base for the practitioner/academic researcher. This book presents the issues that drive the technologies, processes, methodologies, techniques, and practices used to implement KM in a variety of ways and in the multi-faceted modern environment that we find ourselves in today.
Anthropologist and social critic Ghassan Hage explores one of the most complex and troubling of modern phenomena: the desire for a white nation.
This book is the first in a series on Chinese management based on the Global Chinese Management Conferences (from 2015 to 2017), an annual conference organized by the Sun Tzu Art of War Institute. The first volume is by FOO Check Teck, professor at Fudan and Hunan University and founding editor of Chinese Management Studies (SSCI), who encourages readers to broaden their minds to embrace the Universe as a Community. The book argues that the lives of all beings are worth preserving and urges the academic community to recognize the ideologies at heart of management and to see research as a deep, reflective thinking process that goes far beyond the testing of hypotheses - great works, lasting 2,500 years are the result of deep reflection upon experiences. It also calls for the re-framing of management integration of a variety of ideological strands, typically in topics in MBA or MPA programs: earnings, mobility of human capital, complex adaptive systems, HRM (in small high-tech firms), technology standardization, Xin (trust: labor relations), multi-leveling, re-forming (hospitals), He-Xie (doctoral work), upgrading (automobile industry). The major consequential consideration must be what it means for people.
Culture, understood broadly, lay at the heart of contrasting right-wing strategies for government in France during the pivotal decade of 2002-2012. Looking at issues of secularism, education, televisual performance, public memory and nation-branding Ahearne analyses how presidents Chirac and Sarkozy sought to redefine contemporary French identity.
A collection of essays that explore the effects of modernization on Jewish self-understanding. Over the last three centurles, the Jewish experience has been profoundly affected by modernity, which Meyer defines as not only technological advance, cultural innovation, and reliance upon human reason but also as the adaptation of Jews to a modern framework within non-Jewish economies, societies, and cultures. Judaism within Modernity begins with an exploration of Jewish historiography and the problems of periodization in modern Jewish history. In these beginning essays we see the range of Meyer's thinking about what constitutes modernization and how to determine its beginning. He discusses the role of history in defining identity among Jews and suggests that finding an adequate paradigm of continuity is essential to the historian's task. The essays in the second section focus on the Jews of Germany. Here Meyer writes about the influence of German Jews on Jews in the United States, comparing the historical experience of the two communities. These essays also address the intersection of religion, scholarship, and history with politics in nineteenth- and twentiety-century Germany. A third section deals with the European Reform movement, which brought a liberal Judaism to the majority of German Jews. Here Meyer likewise presents a fresh perspective on the way the Reform movement was viewed by those outside of it, especially by non-Jews. The essays in the final section explore Judaism in the United States. In particular, they show how reform Judaism and Zionism were able to recondle their initial differences. Judaism within Modernity is an impressive collection of essays written by a renowned Jewish historian and will be a standard volume for students and scholars of the modern Jewish experience.
Now that the political correctness controversy has cooled, a time for sober reflection on the field of English has arrived. In this insightful overview of English, and of literary studies, Fleishman employs both historical perspective and pragmatic sense about choices for the future. His approach is to apply recent strategies of contextual understanding to English itself. What can a class analysis tell us about the influence on the profession of the changing American socioeconomic system? What are the likely intellectual and professional outcomes of the curricular embrace of minority literatures, neglected authors, and popular culture? Beyond stimulating self-evaluation by English educators, this study prepares readers outside the field to selectively encourage new curricular and methodological opportunities.
Josephine Lang (1815-80) was one of the most gifted, respected,
prolific, and widely published song composers of the nineteenth
century, yet her life and works have remained virtually unknown.
Now, this carefully researched, compelling, and poignant study
recognizes the composer for her remarkable accomplishments.
Names such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi have been emerging in the world's eye over the past decade as exotic hotspots, wealthy from oil production and advanced in the means of technology. However, at the same time, the Arab Gulf States have managed to maintain their traditional culture, adapting it to modern life. With complete coverage on Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, Culture and Customs of the Arab Gulf States is a must-have for every high school and public library shelf. Clear and vivid descriptions of contemporary life in the Arab Gulf help students discover how traditions of the past have evolved into customs today. This exhaustive volume covers topics such as religion, festivals, cuisine, fashion, family life, literature, the media, and music, among many others. Up-to-date and comprehensive, this volume offers a unique and contemporary depiction of culture in some of the world's wealthiest, up-and-coming nations.
Reflecting the currently growing eco-movement, this book presents to western readers Tao Yuanming, an ancient Chinese poet, as a representative of classical oriental natural philosophy who offered lived experience of "dwelling poetically on earth." Drawing on Derrida's specter theory, it interprets Tao Yuanming in a postmodern and eco-critical context, while also exploring his naturalist "kindred spirits" in other countries, so as to urge the people of today to contemplate their own existence and pursuits. The book's "panoramic" table of contents offers readers a wonderful reading experience.
Drawing on contemporary critical work on colonialism and the cross-cultural encounter, this is a study of the emergence of Utilitarianism as a new political language in Britain in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, and focuses on the relationship between this language and the complexities of British Imperial experience in India at the time. Examining the work of Mill and Sir William Jones, and also that of the poets Robert Southey and Thomas Moore, Javed Majeed highlights the role played by aesthetic and linguistic attitudes in the formulation of British views on India, and reveals how closely these attitudes were linked to the definition of cultural identities. To this end, Mill's utilitarian study of India is shown to function both as an attack on the conservative orientalism of the period, and as part of a larger critique of British society itself. In so doing, Majeed demonstrates how complex British attitudes to India were in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and how this might be explained in the light of domestic and imperial contexts.
"Story Circle" is the first collection ever devoted to a
comprehensive international study of the digital storytelling
movement, exploring subjects of central importance on the emergent
and ever-shifting digital landscape.Covers consumer-generated
content, memory grids, the digital storytelling youth movement,
participatory public history, audience reception, videoblogging and
microdocumentary
During the past century, the interpretation given by the various directors staging Greek drama has varied, and the critical reception accorded the productions has also altered. While the texts of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides remain constant, the meanings drawn from their plays do not. The director who decides to offer a Greek tragedy in the modern American commercial theater believes in the ability of the text to reach the contemporary audience, and the reviewers assess the success of the venture: their words become a record of both a particular performance and the time in which it played. Hartigan explores how drama and society interact and witnesses the continued vitality of the Greek tragedy.
Arguing against the postmodern claim that systematic theory is unable to account for difference, "Difference in Time: A Critical Theory of Culture" adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of cultural judgement and social change. With music as her model for theory, Hanrahan explores the role of time, the creation of meaning, the identification of difference, and the basis for judgements in cultural life, and in doing so provides a foundation for the critique of cultural objects and practices that avoids both the elitism of traditional aesthetics and the unwavering relativism of so much contemporary cultural analysis. A broad-ranging and deeply philosophical work building on the scholarship of the Frankfurt School, "Difference in Time: A Critical Theory of Culture "drives home the need for critique in the evaluation and revision of the social knowledge and institutions of democratic civic life. In Hanrahan's analysis, the dualism of critique--that of universal judgement and relative standpoint--is false when critique is understood as a dynamic process in which both judgement and standpoint are emergent and contingent. Differences are not given or static but are articulated in time; therefore, both the categories of critique and of social theory in general must be temporalized. Hanrahan's musical model draws attention to the fundamental temporality of social life and social structure, and integrates that understanding into the structure of a new dynamic in which difference is compatible with both system and structure. Thus, Hanrahan demonstrates that it is possible to construct critical categories that do not become orthodoxies.
"Kawaii" is a Japanese word that denotes "cute," "lovable," or "charming" although it does not have exactly the same meaning as those adjectives. This book proposes engineering methodologies for systematic measurement of the affective perception of kawaii, by using virtual reality and biological signals, and discusses the effectiveness of kawaii engineering for designing industrial products and services. Kawaii can draw sympathy from people and can embody a special kind of cute design, which reduces fear and makes dull information more acceptable and appealing. Following the introduction of the background of kawaii engineering in Chapter 1, Chapters 2 and 3 describe experiments on the systematic measurement and evaluation methods for kawaii products and affective evaluation experiments. Chapter 4 proposes a mathematical model to identify the physical attributes that determine kawaii in motion. Chapters 5 and 6 explain research that uses biological signals and eye-tracking. After a brief survey of psychological research on kawaii and cuteness in Chapter 7, Chapters 8 and 9 introduce the use of spoons designed to stimulate the appetite of the elderly and the practical implementation of an emotion-driven camera. Chapters 10-14 explain experimental research that examines kawaii perception of people from various cultural backgrounds. Kawaii Engineering will appeal to those who work on affective computing, product design, user experience design, virtual reality, and biological signals. |
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