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Books > Arts & Architecture > The arts: general issues > General
Defining photography is impossible. Revealing it is another matter,
and that's what The Concise Focal Encyclopedia of Photography does,
with each turn of the page. History: The technical origins and
evolution of photography are half of the story. The other half
consists of the ways that cultural forces have transformed
photography into a constellation of practices more diverse than any
other mode of representation. Photographers can tell a more
in-depth story through a photo like Dorothea Lange's "Migrant
Mother than a journalist ever could with the written word alone.
Major themes and practitioners: Over 25 entries, many with
supporting illustrations, examine the figures, trends, and ideas
that have contributed most heavily to the history and current state
of photography. Contemporary issues: The issues influencing
photography today are more complex than at any other time in its
history. Questions of ethics, desire, perception, digitization, and
commercialization all vie for attention. Hear what the experts have
to say about crucial issues such as whether or not the images we
take today will last the test of time, and if so, how? When
material is covered this skillfully, "concise is no compromise. The
Concise Focal Encyclopedia of Photography is packed with useful
information, compelling ideas, and - best of all - pure pleasure.
Abjection and Representation is a theoretical investigation of the
concept of abjection as expounded by Julia Kristeva in Powers of
Horror (1980) and its application in various fields including the
visual arts, film and literature. It examines the complexity of the
concept and its significance as a cultural category.
One hundred years ago in Brazil the rituals of Candomble were
feared as sorcery and persecuted as crime. Its cult objects were
fearsome fetishes. Nowadays, they are Afro-Brazilian cultural works
of art, objects of museum display and public monuments. Focusing on
the particular histories of objects, images, spaces and persons who
embodied it, this book portrays the historical journey from weapons
of sorcery looted by the police, to hidden living stones, to public
works of art attacked by religious fanatics that see them as images
of the Devil, former sorcerers who have become artists, writers,
and philosophers. Addressing this history as a journey of
objectification and appropriation, the author offers a fresh,
unconventional, and illuminating look at questions of syncretism,
hybridity and cultural resistance in Brazil and in the Black
Atlantic in general.
Roger Sansi is a Lecturer in Anthropology at Goldsmith's
College, London .He has conducted research on Afro-Brazilian art
and culture in Brazil. Recently he has worked on the history of the
term "fetish" in the Lusophone Black Atlantic."
View the Table of Contents.
Read the Introduction.
Winner of a 2006 American Book Award from the Before Columbus
Foundation
"Ferraro maintains a breezy, journalistic style that has
produced an easy and entertaining read. His work may give hope to
people of other ethnicities who presently suffer from isolation and
alienation on the part of the general American public."
--"Multicultural Review"
"Ferraro traces the 'evolution and persistence' of an
identifiable Italian American identity, from the time of widespread
Italian immigration in the late 1800s through popular mediated
portrayals of Italian Americans such as those found in "The
Sopranos" television series. The book is an important contribution
not only to Italian American studies, but to the understanding of
ethnicity in the 21st-century US."
--"Choice"
aFeeling Italian is a smart book, one that makes the reader
think beyond the usual ways of looking at whatas Italian about the
US.a
-- American Book Review
"This inspired, sophisticated, provoking book should command the
attention of anybody interested in American Italianness in
particular or the cultural consequences of ethnicity in general.
Joseph Stella and Frank Sinatra, Maria Barbella and Giancarlo
Esposito, Madonna and the good people who brought you the Corleones
and Sopranos--they and others appear here, often seen in
startlingly fresh ways, as creators and exemplars of the aesthetic
Tom Ferraro calls 'feeling Italian.' Wise, funny, contagiously
enthusiastic, Ferraro takes us far beyond the narrow pieties of the
identity police or anti-defamation types as he traces the
development of a widely accessible American cultural style that
still bearsthe marks of distinctively Italian ways of making do and
making sense."
--Carlo Rotella, author of "Good With Their Hands: Boxers,
Bluesmen, and Other Characters from the Rust Belt"
aOriginal and deeply right. There is no other book that digs so
deeply into the matter at hand, and does so with such eloquence and
ferocity of intellect.a
--Jay Parini, author of "Passage to Liberty: The Story of Italian
Immigration and the Rebirth of America"
"The lesson that each of us must choose of the narratives
carefully: You can let the Olive Garden sum you up; or you can,
like Ferraro, remind yourself that it'sj ust another version of
mass-culture reductivism and stereotyping. Being Italian (or Polish
or Jewish or African American), Ferraro reminds us, is not about
the all-you-can eat breadsticks."
--"Duke Magazine"
Southern Italian emigration to the United States peaked a full
century ago--descendents are now fourth and fifth generation,
dispersed from their old industrial neighborhoods,
professionalized, and fully integrated into the amelting pot.a
Surely the social historians are right: Italian Americans are
fading into the twilight of their ethnicity. So, why is the
American imagination enthralled by "The Sopranos," and other
portraits of Italian-ness?
Italian American identity, now a mix of history and fantasy,
flesh-and-bone people and all-too-familiar caricature, still has
something to teach us, including why each of us, as citizens of the
U.S. twentieth century and its persisting cultures, are to some
extent already Italian. Contending that the media has become the
primary vehicle of Italian sensibilities, Ferraro explores a series
of books, movies, paintings, andrecords in ten dramatic vignettes.
Featured cultural artifacts run the gamut, from the paintings of
Joseph Stella and the music of Frank Sinatra to "The Godfather"as
enduring popularity and Madonnaas Italian background. In a prose
style as vivid as his subjects, Ferraro fashions a sardonic love
song to the art and iconography of Italian America.
Looking at representations of the Irish landscape in contemporary
literature and the arts, this volume discusses the economic,
political and environmental issues associated with it, questioning
the myths behind Ireland's landscape, from the first Greek
descriptions to present day post Celtic-Tiger architecture.
This is a new edition of Laura Mulvey's groundbreaking
collection of essays, originally published in 1989. in an extensive
introduction to this second edition, Mulvey looks back at the
historical and personal contests for her famous article "Visual
Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, "and reassesses her theories in the
light of new technologies.
This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It
contains classical literature works from over two thousand years.
Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore
shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the
cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical
literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the
mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from
oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of
international literature classics available in printed format again
- worldwide.
A continuation of 1994's groundbreaking Cartoons, Giannalberto
Bendazzi's Animation: A World History is the largest, deepest, most
comprehensive text of its kind, based on the idea that animation is
an art form that deserves its own place in scholarship. Bendazzi
delves beyond just Disney, offering readers glimpses into the
animation of Russia, Africa, Latin America, and other
often-neglected areas and introducing over fifty previously
undiscovered artists. Full of first-hand, never before
investigated, and elsewhere unavailable information, Animation: A
World History encompasses the history of animation production on
every continent over the span of three centuries. Volume I traces
the roots and predecessors of modern animation, the history behind
Emile Cohl's Fantasmagorie, and twenty years of silent animated
films. Encompassing the formative years of the art form through its
Golden Age, this book accounts for animation history through 1950
and covers everything from well-known classics like Steamboat
Willie to animation in Egypt and Nazi Germany. With a wealth of new
research, hundreds of photographs and film stills, and an
easy-to-navigate organization, this book is essential reading for
all serious students of animation history. Key Features Over 200
high quality head shots and film stills to add visual reference to
your research Detailed information on hundreds of never-before
researched animators and films Coverage of animation from more than
90 countries and every major region of the world Chronological and
geographical organization for quick access to the information
you're looking for
Judith Kapferer and her collaborators present an insightful volume
that interrogates relations between the state and the arts in
diverse national and cultural settings. The authors critique the
taken-for-granted assumption about the place of the arts in liberal
or social democratic states and the role of the arts in supporting
or opposing the ideological work of government and non-government
institutions. This innovative volume explores the challenges posed
by the state to the arts and by the arts to the state, focusing on
several transformations of the interrelations between state and
commercial arts policies in the current era. These ongoing
challenges include the control of repressive tolerance, complicity
with and resistance to state power, and the commoditization of the
arts, including their accommodation to market and state
apparatuses. While endeavouring to avoid the currently dominant
pragmatic and didactic priorities of officialdom, the contributors
tackle social and cultural policy and practice in the arts as well
as connections between national states and dissenting art from a
range of genres.
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