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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > General
This book is an entertaining, informative and enchanting introduction to its subject - just as those medieval banes of the farmyard, the Fox and the Vixen, were enchanting in escapades from fables and funny tales, from beastly epic poems and bestiaries, and from medieval material culture (in Danish wall-paintings and Dutch manuscript illustrations and statues, stained-glass and Italian mosaics). There exist books on medieval fox stories and on the animal's iconography, which are important themes in this study, but this book is the first holistic approach to all types of manifestations of foxes in medieval culture - from medical recipes and fur trade, to Bible commentaries and hunting manuals.
The story of life in inner-city America and the education of its
people is often recounted as a tragedy; the ending is often
predictable and usually dire, highlighting deficiency, failure, and
negative trends. As with most social problems, children and youth
in the inner cities are hit hardest. But this dismal view is only
half of the full picture. The cities of our nation are a startling
juxtaposition between the despairing and the hopeful, between
disorganization and restorative potential. Alongside the poverty
and unemployment, the street-fights and drug deals, are a wealth of
cultural, economic, educational, and social resources. Often
ignored are the resilience and the ability for adaptation which
help many who are seemingly confined by circumstance to struggle
and succeed "in the face of the odds."
The contributors to this volume examine the aspects of the cultural associations, symbolic interpretations and emotional significance of the idea of empire and, to some extent, with the post-imperial consequences. Collectively and cumulatively, their view is that sport was an important instrument of imperial cultural association and subsequent cultural change, promoting at various times and in various places imperial unity, national identity, social reform, recreational development and post-imperial goodwill.
Women's work in South Asia often remains invisible in official statistics and development research. This is partly due to the inadequacy of the national data systems and partly because existing sociocultural constraints restrict women's participation in economic activities outside the domain of the family. The pattern of female labour participation in South Asia has distinct spatial dimensions which cannot be explained in terms of economic rationale alone; the region-specific context defining women's roles remains vitally important. This book integrates different scales of analysis and methodologies with indigenous and Western contributors combining macro and micro studies. Highlighting the 'public' and 'private' domains of women's work, the book discusses both the inadequacies of nationally published data at an aggregate level and regional and locally-induced religious, cultural and societal constraints on gender relations. Setting contextually specific studies within a broader geographical framework, Women and Work in South Asia explores the real connection between female autonomy and economic independence.
Georg Simmel predicted that he would have no followers after his death. However he is now widely recognized as the father of the sociology of Modernity. His ideas on the metropolis, consumer culture, social space and aesthetics are at the crux of contemporary debate in sociology. This collection brings together the essential secondary literature on Simmel. It is selected and edited by David Frisby - a scholar who has perhaps done more than anyone else to rehabilitate Simmel's reputation in the English speaking world. What emerges is the most concise yet comprehensive view of this astonishingly prescient and penetrating sociologist. The volumes will be of interest to graduate students and anyone with a serious interest in Simmel.
FOOD AND CULTURE is the market-leading text for the cultural foods courses, providing current information on the health, culture, food, and nutrition habits of the most common ethnic and racial groups living in the United States. It is designed to help health professionals, chefs, and others in the food service industry learn to work effectively with members of different ethnic and religious groups in a culturally sensitive manner. The authors include comprehensive coverage of key ethnic, religious, and regional groups, including Native Americans, Europeans, Africans, Mexicans and Central Americans, Caribbean Islanders, South Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Southeast Asians, Pacific Islanders, People of the Balkans, Middle Easterners, Asian Indians, and regional Americans.
This book draws on world-wide experiences and valuable lessons to highlight community-ecosystem interactions and the role of traditional knowledge in sustaining biocultural resources through community-based adaptations. The book targets different audiences including researchers working on human-environment interactions and climate adaptation practices, biodiversity conservators, non-government organizations and policy makers involved in revitalizing traditional foods and community-based conservation and adaptation in diverse ecosystems. This volume is also a source book for educators advocating for and collaborating with indigenous and local peoples to promote location-specific adaptations to overcome the impacts of multiple biotic and abiotic stresses. Note: T&F does not sell or distribute the hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. This title is co-published with NIPA.
Eisenstein's reputation has long been secure as creator of the
Soviet cinema's earliest and most enduring classics, and as a
pioneer theorist and teacher. Yet the English-speaking world has
not kept pace with a rising tide of Eisenstein scholarship further
enriched by new publications emerging from the former Soviet Union.
The debate on whether or not people are born homosexual (biological essentialist theory) or become homosexual during the course of their lives (social constructionist theory) continues as each side claims to prove the truth through research and clinical findings. This breakthrough book shows the fissures in concepts of the gay and lesbian identity and the one-sidedness of both biological essentialist and social constructionist versions of both sexual and gender identity. The editors present an alternative view--sexual and gender expression is a product of complementary biological, personal, and cultural influences in If You Seduce a Straight Person, Can You Make Them Gay?Through theoretical analysis, ethnographic and empirical data, and case studies, the editors show how the one-sidedness of both biological essentialist and social constructionist versions of sexual and gender identity make it difficult, if not impossible, to conceptually determine the origin of an individual s sexual expression. This thought-provoking book covers many topics that are sure to cause readers to re-evaluate their thinking about the origins of gay and lesbian identity. Among the topics examined with this fresh perspective are: Childhood Cross-Gender Behavior and Adult Homosexuality Gay and Lesbian Teachers and Coming Out Homosexuality, Marriage, Fidelity, and the Gay Community: Case of Gay Husbands Can Seduction Make Straight Men Gay? Gay and Lesbian Identities in Non-industrialized Societies--Surinam (Dutch New Guinea), Turkey, Nicaragua, and Argentina Political-Economic Construction of Gay Male IdentitiesReaders will clearly see that the controversy over the being born gay or becoming gay debate is far from resolved. From the beginning, the book explores how human beings are less constrained by biology than many would like to believe. Social circumstances and economics cause some determination of identity, but not exclusively. Theoretical introductions to each chapter attempt to synthesize elements on both sides of this most contemporary debate.
With themes ranging from passion and romance to murder and psychological disturbance, popular British film in the 1940s found little favour with the critics, but provided thrills and entertainment for millions of people during a time of austerity and danger. "Realism and Tinsel" looks beyond the established histories of Ealing Comedies and realist classics to excavate a rich but neglected tradition of melodrama, gangster films, morbid thrillers and costume pictures. Discussing cinema in the context of the major social, economic, and political changes that were taking place, Robert Murphy examines the period's most popular films, including "Madonna of the Seven Moons", "The Way Ahead" and "The Wicked Lady". The picture that emerges challenges the reassuring, cosy view of Britain presented in realist cinema, and throws new light on the British film industry of the time and on our idea of the war era itself. This book should be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and academics of film, media and cultural studies.
This book addresses the social, political and economic turbulence in which the UK is embroiled. Drawing on Cultural Studies, it explores proliferating crises and conflicts, from the multiplying varieties of social dissent through the stagnation of rentier capitalism to the looming climate catastrophe. Examining arguments about Brexit, class and 'race', and the changing character of the state, the book is underpinned by a transnational and relational conception of the UK. It traces the entangled dynamics of time and space that have shaped the current conjuncture. Questioning whether increasingly anti-democratic and authoritarian strategies can provide a resolution to these troubles, it explores how the accumulating crises and conflicts have produced a deepening 'crisis of authority' that forms the terrain of the Battle for Britain.
In "English Inside Out" prominent proponents of literary studies take a close look at the current state of the discipline and envisage its future. How has the rise of "political correctness" or "the closing of the American mind" affected the study of literature? Amid diverse theoretical debates about the canon in the media and in academia, these essays explore where the profession is going and what its responsibilities are. The collected essays range through a variety of topical issues: the problem of negotiating between intellectual and political forces; current controversies within Afro-American and feminist criticism; the influence of cultural and gay studies on the profession. Together they explore the interaction of literary studies with modern cultural developments and present the state of the art in literary criticism. Selected contributors are Henry Louis Gates Jr, Jane Gallop, Jonathon Goldberg, Stanley Fish, Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick, Geoffrey Hartman.
The present work is an elaboration of the author's previous efforts in "Emile Durkheim and the Reformation of Sociology" (1988) and "The Coming Fin de Sicle" (1991) to demonstrate Durkheim's neglected relevance to the postmodern discourse. The aims include finding affinities between our fin de sicle and Durkheim's fin de sicle, and connecting the contemporary themes of rebellion against Enlightenment narratives found in postmodern culture with similar concerns found in Durkheim's sociology as well as in his fin de sicle culture, contributing to Durkheimian scholarship as well as to the postmodern discourse. The distinctive aspects of the present study flow from the focus on culture, communication, and the feminine voice in culture. Durkheim is approached as a fin de sicle student of culture, and his insights applied to our fin de sicle culture. Furthermore, because Durkheim claimed that culture is comprised primarily of collective representations, he was a forerunner of the current, postmodern concerns with communication. Because Durkheim shall be read in the context of his fin de sicle, this book shall lead to the conclusion that Durkheim was a kind of psychoanalyst such that society is the patient, culture comprises the symptoms, and the sociologist must decipher, decode, and even "deconstruct" collective representations. Yet, the Durkheimian deconstruction proposed here is unlike the postmodern deconstructions, which criticize and tear apart a text without substituting a better meaning or interpretation. Postmodern discourse has made respectable again the synthesis of multidisciplinary insights that was fashionable in Durkheim's fin de sicle. In following this postmodern strategy, this book is more than a book about Durkheim. It is also a book about his contemporaries, among them, Carl Justav Jung, Thorstein Veblen, Henry Adams, Georg Simmel, and Max Weber. The author does not follow the postmodern strategy completely, because he finds common strands that bind these and other thinkers and their theories. "Stjepan G. Meutrovic" was born in Zagreb, Croatia, and is professor of sociology at Texas A & M University. Widely published in scholarly journals, he is the author of "Emile Durkheim and the Reformation of Sociology" (1988), "The Coming Fin de Sicle," and "Genocide After Emotion: The Postemotional Balkan War."
"The Sexual Subject" brings together writing on sexuality which has
appeared in "Screen" over the past two decades. It reflects the
journal's continuing engagement with questions of sexuality and
signification in the cinema, an engagement which has had a profound
influence on the development of academic study of film and on
alternative film and video practice.
Questioning the primacy of class in socialist movements, this journal provides examples that debunk this myth, from the Yiddish-speaking subculture within the British Social Democratic Federation to the squatters' movements of the mid-20th century. Historians Meg Allen, Paul Burnham, and David M. Young, and the poet and biographer Charles Hobday, discuss social movements from the distant past connected to the legend of Robin Hood. Also featured is an exchange between Andy Croft and John Newsinger on the nature of George Orwell's socialism. An alternative selection of greatest Britons chosen by poets Benjamin Zephaniah and Adrian Mitchel, among others, is also provided.
The Dreyfus Affair's Literary Politics offers a new interpretation of writers' political engagements in the crisis that ended the French nineteenth century, following the wrongful treason conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Emile Zola and three writers connected to him - Ferdinand Brunetiere, Henry Ceard and Saint-Georges de Bouhelier - drew on their affinities and antagonisms concerning Zola's naturalist fiction to shape their political discourse in the Dreyfus Affair. Zola and Bouhelier were Dreyfusard, Brunetiere and Ceard anti-Dreyfusard, yet in each case they transformed a vision of what literature should be into arguments about French national identity, the proper relationship between literary and political thought, and the tensions between individual rights and raison d'etat. Developing a method entitled 'microhistories of ideas,' Cooke shows that a longitudinal approach to each writer's career yields a set of central unit-ideas that reappear in the new, emotive context of the Affair. Through close readings of material such as pamphlets, newspaper columns and aesthetic essays, the significance of often ephemeral writing to the larger questions of intellectual history - and to the outcome of the Dreyfus Affair itself - becomes clear.
In a revised edition of this work, now a standard text, John Ellis combines an examination of the cinema and television industries with a detailed analysis of their aesthetic and semiotic characteristics. He uses new developments in theory of narrative and the place of the spectator to re-explore his definition of cinema and broadcast TV as interdependent rather than interchangeable cultural forms, with their own distinct social roles. Ellis draws on his own experience to examine subtle negotiations taking place in the relationship between viewer, programme and programme-maker in the face of satellite television and multiple channels. In a new chapter, he discusses the "meaning routines" fundamental to television broadcasting in TV news and soaps, and explores the legacy of the home video boom of the 1980s and the replacement of the drive-in with the "stay-in". Considering whether, as its cultural importance diminishes, television is now about to experience a kind of liberation, he expresses his notion of an unfolding and unpredictable revolution in broadcasting. This book should be of interest to undergraduates and postgraduates in media, film and cultural studies.
In contemporary shopping sites new modes of subjectivity, inter-personal relationships and models of social totality are being "tried on", "taken off" and "displayed" in much the same way that one might shop for clothes. These are not the modernist spaces of goal-directed individuals and utopian projects. Rather it is a space of carnivalesque inversions of the present order of things. The multiple masks of the postmodern person "who wears many hats" in different groups and surroundings form a veritable "dramatis personae". In such masks of the individual and the social world may be found a new spatialization and new intuitive perceptions of time and space. This representation of contemporary social life grows out of the work of Henri Lefebvre, Michel Maffesoli, Walter Benjamin and Mikhail Bakhtin. It is an attempt to take seriously the idea that we live in a postmodern consumer culture and to follow through the implications and possibilities of this idea. Cases are drawn from Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and Singapore to illustrate the new intersections between people, mass culture and consumption.
This book attempts to provide an understanding of current thought and enquiry in the study of popular culture and communication media. The popular sentiments and impulses underlying neo-Gramscian cultural studies and its postmodernist variants are explored and criticized sympathetically. An uncritical and exclusively consumptionist trend of analysis is identified and shown to be an unsatisfactory means of accounting for the complex material conditions and mediations that shape ordinary people's pleasures and opportunities for personal and political expression. Through consideration of the work of Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall and "the Birmingham School", John Fiske, youth subcultural analysis, popular television study, and issues generally concerned with public communication (including advertising, arts and broadcasting policies, children's television, tabloid journalism, feminism and pornography, the Rushdie affair, and the collapse of communism) the author sets out a distinctive case for recovering critical analysis of popular culture in a rapidly changing, conflict ridden world.
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