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Books > Sport & Leisure > Travel & holiday > Travel & holiday guides > Museum, historic sites, gallery & art guides
In the Middle Ages, it was thought that praying at the right shrine could save you from just about anything, from madness and famine to false imprisonment and even shipwreck. Kingdoms, cities, and even individual trades had patron saints that would protect them from misfortune and bring them wealth and prosperity, and their feast days were celebrated with public holidays and pageants. With saints believed to have the ear of God, veneration of figures such as St Thomas Becket, St Cuthbert, and St Margaret brought tens of thousands of pilgrims from all walks of life to sites across the country. Saints, Shrines and Pilgrims takes the reader across Britain, providing a map of the most important religious shrines that pilgrims would travel vast distances to reach, as well as descriptions and images of the shrines themselves. Featuring over 100 stunning photographs and a gazetteer of places to visit, it explains the history of pilgrimage in Britain and the importance that it played in medieval life, and describes the impact of the unbridled assault made on pilgrimage by the Reformation.
In his examination of the excavation of ancient Assyria by Austen Henry Layard, Shawn Malley reveals how, by whom, and for what reasons the stones of Assyria were deployed during a brief but remarkably intense period of archaeological activity in the mid-nineteenth century. His book encompasses the archaeological practices and representations that originated in Layard's excavations, radiated outward by way of the British Museum and Layard's best-selling Nineveh and Its Remains (1849), and were then dispersed into the public domain of popular amusements. That the stones of Assyria resonated in debates far beyond the interests of religious and scientific groups is apparent in the prevalence of poetry, exhibitions, plays, and dioramas inspired by the excavation. Of particular note, correspondence involving high-ranking diplomatic personnel and museum officials demonstrates that the 'treasures' brought home to fill the British Museum served not only as signs of symbolic conquest, but also as covert means for extending Britain's political and economic influence in the Near East. Malley takes up issues of class and influence to show how the middle-class Layard's celebrity status both advanced and threatened aristocratic values. Tellingly, the excavations prompted disturbing questions about the perils of imperial rule that framed discussions of the social and political conditions which brought England to the brink of revolution in 1848 and resurfaced with a vengeance during the Crimean crisis. In the provocative conclusion of this meticulously documented and suggestive book, Malley points toward the striking parallels between the history of Britain's imperial investment in Mesopotamia and the contemporary geopolitical uses and abuses of Assyrian antiquity in post-invasion Iraq.
For more than three decades, Louise Erdrich has enthralled readers with dazzling novels that paint an evocative portrait of Native American life. In Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country, Erdrich takes us on an illuminating tour through the terrain her ancestors have inhabited for centuries: the lakes and islands of southern Ontario. Summoning to life the Ojibwe's sacred spirits and songs, their language and sorrows, she considers the many ways in which her tribe--whose name derives from the word ozhibii'ige, "to write"--have influenced her. Her journey links ancient stone paintings with a magical island where a bookish recluse built an extraordinary library, and she reveals how both have transformed her. A blend of history, mythology, and memoir, Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country is an enchanting meditation on modern life, natural splendor, and the ancient spirituality and creativity of Erdrich's native homeland--a long, elemental tradition of storytelling that is in her blood.
This multidisciplinary companion offers a comprehensive overview of the global arena of public art. It is organised around four distinct topics: activation, social justice, memory and identity, and ecology, with a final chapter mapping significant works of public and social practice art around the world between 2008 and 2018. The thematic approach brings into view similarities and differences in the recent globalisation of public art practices, while the multidisciplinary emphasis allows for a consideration of the complex outcomes and consequences of such practices, as they engage different disciplines and communities and affect a diversity of audiences beyond the existing 'art world'. The book will highlight an international selection of artist projects that illustrate the themes. This book will be of interest to scholars in contemporary art, art history, urban studies, and museum studies.
First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Sentient Relics explores museums through cinema and challenges the dominant focus of museum theory as an inclusion-exclusion debate. The author responds to the Enlightenment, 'rational' museum of reason contrasting this with the museum of affect and reveals these 'two museums' operating alongside one another in a productive paradox. In structuralist-orientated museum theory the affective realm is often subsumed within the imperatives of Marxist theory and practice, identity politics, semiology and psychoanalysis. Sentient Relics, while valuing the insights of ideologically focused meaning-making, turns to the capacity of the affective realm of experience to transform the passive subject and object relation. The author uses museum encounters and cinematic affect to engage with problems of difference, temporality, emotion and the sublime. In so doing the book advances research in museum studies by demonstrating what is at stake in pragmatically working toward a deeper understanding of the museum socially, culturally and philosophically.
First published in 1999. This book, in compliance with the aims of the series, attempts to provide a comprehensive and critical account of Nietzsche's thought. The present study is an examination of his philosophical thinking; and while this already makes it selective (as well as interpretive), it is of necessity selective in other ways as well.
First Published in 1999. The purpose of this series is to provide a contemporary assessment and history of the entire course of philosophical thought. Each book constitutes a detailed, critical introduction to the work of a philosopher of major influence and significance. In this volume, the author offers what she believes to be a somewhat different over-all reading of Descartes' philosophy, and particularly of the Meditations, from other commentators-especially those written in English.
First published in 1999. The purpose of this series is to provide a contemporary assessment and history of the entire course of philosophical thought. Each book constitutes a detailed, critical introduction to the work of a philosopher of major influence and significance. The arguments of the philosophers take on many differing forms. Those of George Santayana bear little similarity to what we find today in the Journal of Philosophy: indeed, some have been misled by his imagery and splendid prose style to believe that no arguments are being made at all in Santayana's many books. Timothy Sprigge's gift is an ability to draw clear ties between these writings and important contemporary issues, and to show that Santayana makes a contribution to today's arguments.
It is widely believed that the practice of ancient Egyptian religion ceased with the end of pharaonic culture and the rise of Christianity. However, an organised reconstruction and revival of the authentic practice of Egyptian, or Kemetic religion has been growing, almost undocumented, for nearly three decades. Profane Egyptologists is the first in-depth study of the now-global phenomenon of Kemeticism. Presenting key players in their own words, the book utilises extensive interviews to reveal a continuum of beliefs and practices spanning eight years of community growth. The existence of competing visions of Egypt, which employ ancient material and academic resources, questions the position of Egyptology as a gatekeeper of Egypt's past. Exploring these boundaries, the book highlights the politised and economic factors driving the discipline's self-conception. Could an historically self-imposed insular nature have harmed Egyptology as a field, and how could inclusive discussion help guard against further isolationism? Profane Egyptologists is both an Egyptological study of Kemeticism, and a critical study of the discipline of Egyptology itself. It will be of value to scholars and students of archaeology and Egyptology, cultural heritage, religion online, phenomenology, epistemology, pagan studies and ethnography, as well as Kemetics and devotees of Egyptian culture.
The scientific and technological advances that influence the protection of cultural heritage are developing at an ever-increasing pace. Systems to explore, research and analyse their materiality, to control the different scopes, or to represent and model them have reached an unprecedented dimension in recent decades. The Network of Science and Technology for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage aims to promote collaboration between the agents of these systems, in order to facilitate the sharing of experiences and to foster technology transfer, with the common goal of contributing to the conservation of Cultural Heritage. In the context of the TechnoHeritage Network, the fourth edition of the International Congress on Science and Technology for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage was held March 26-30, 2019, in Seville, Spain. This Congress was an international meeting of researchers and specialists from multiple areas, whose line of work is the knowledge and conservation of Cultural Heritage. Among all the topics discussed, the role and impact of digital technologies for the knowledge, maintenance, management and dissemination of cultural heritage should be highlighted. Digital media modify the way of understanding this heritage, of perceiving it and transmitting it, and offer a new horizon of strategies to make decision-making more sustainable over time.
Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire analyzes the history of the negotiations that led to the atypical return of colonial-era cultural property from the Netherlands to Indonesia in the 1970s. By doing so, the book shows that competing visions of post-colonial redress were contested throughout the era of post-World War II decolonization. Considering the danger this precedent posed to other countries, the book looks beyond the Dutch-Indonesian case to the "Elgin (Parthenon) Marbles" and "Benin Bronzes" controversies, as well as recent developments relating to returns in France and the Netherlands. Setting aside the "universalism versus nationalism" debate, Scott asserts that the deeper meaning of post-colonial cultural property disputes in European history has more to do with how officials of former colonial powers negotiated decolonization, while also creating contemporary understandings of their nations' pasts. As a whole, the book expands the field of cultural restitution studies and offers a more nuanced understanding of the connections drawn between postcolonial national identity making and the extension of cultural diplomacy. Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire offers a new perspective on the international influence of the UNGA and UNESCO on the return debate. As such, the book will be of interest to scholars, students and practitioners engaged in the study of cultural property diplomacy and law, museum and heritage studies, modern European history, post-colonial studies and historical anthropology.
Art in Science Museums brings together perspectives from different practitioners to reflect on the status and meaning of art programmes in science centres and museums around the world. Presenting a balanced mix of theoretical perspectives, practitioners' reflections, and case-studies, this volume gives voice to a wide range of professionals, from traditional science centres and museums, and from institutions born with the very aim of merging art and science practices. Considering the role of art in the field of science engagement, the book questions whether the arts might help curators to convey complex messages, foster a more open and personal approach to scientific issues, become tools of inclusion, and allow for the production of totally new cultural products. The book also includes a rich collection of projects from all over the world, synthetically presenting cases that reveal very different approaches to the inclusion of art in science programmes. Art in Science Museums should be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students working in the fields of museum studies, cultural heritage management, material culture, science communication and contemporary art. It should also be essential reading for museum professionals looking to promote more reflective social science engagement in their institutions.
Whether the art form is theater, dance, music, festival, or the visual arts and galleries, the arts manager is the liaison between the artists and their audience. Bringing together the insights of educators and practitioners, this groundbreaker links the fields of management and organizational management with the ongoing evolution in arts management education. It especially focuses on the new directions in arts management as education and practice merge. It uses cases studies as both a pedagogical tool and an integrating device. Separate sections cover Performing and Visual Arts Management, Arts Management Education and Careers, and Arts Management: Government, Nonprofits, and Evaluation. The book also includes a chapter on grants and raising money in the arts.
Where, how, by whom and for what were the first museums of contemporary art created? These are the key questions addressed by J. Pedro Lorente in this new book. In it he explores the concept and history of museums of contemporary art, and the shifting ways in which they have been imagined and presented. Following an introduction that sets out the historiography and considering questions of terminology, the first part of the book then examines the paradigm of the Musee des Artistes Vivants in Paris and its equivalents in the rest of Europe during the nineteenth century. The second part takes the story forward from 1930 to the present, presenting New York's Museum of Modern Art as a new universal role model that found emulators or 'contramodels' in the rest of the Western world during the twentieth century. An epilogue, reviews recent museum developments in the last decades. Through its adoption of a long-term, worldwide perspective, the book not only provides a narrative of the development of museums of contemporary art, but also sets this into its international perspective. By assessing the extent to which the great museum-capitals - Paris, London and New York in particular - created their own models of museum provision, as well as acknowledging the influence of such models elsewhere, the book uncovers fascinating perspectives on the practice of museum provision, and reveals how present cultural planning initiatives have often been shaped by historical uses.
Whether the art form is theater, dance, music, festival, or the visual arts and galleries, the arts manager is the liaison between the artists and their audience. Bringing together the insights of educators and practitioners, this groundbreaker links the fields of management and organizational management with the ongoing evolution in arts management education. It especially focuses on the new directions in arts management as education and practice merge. It uses cases studies as both a pedagogical tool and an integrating device. Separate sections cover Performing and Visual Arts Management, Arts Management Education and Careers, and Arts Management: Government, Nonprofits, and Evaluation. The book also includes a chapter on grants and raising money in the arts.
This title was first published in 2000. London in the nineteenth century saw the founding of the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Other, less permanent, organisations flourished, among them the British Institution, water-colour societies and the Society of Female Artists. These worked alongside the schools such as the Royal Academy and the Slade School of Art. In this volume, eleven scholars, experts on the individual institutions, analyse their complex histories to investigate such issues as: How did they generate and redesign their publics? What identities did they create? What practice of art making, connoisseurship and spectatorship did they enshrine? These reports elucidate the values associated with the key institutions and describe the responses and adaptation over time to major cultural developments: new movements, political change and the development of the Empire. The volume as a whole offers a fascinating account of the interconnections between these key institutions. Challenging conventional readings of the subject, the Introduction, by Paul Barlow and Colin Trodd, offers a definition of public art during the Victorian period.
Mega-events have long been used by cities as a strategy to secure global recognition and attract future economic investment. However, while cultural mega-events like the European Capital of Culture have become increasingly popular, cities have begun questioning the traditional model of other events such as the Olympic Games with many candidate cities cancelling bids in recent years. This approach to planning and developing cities through mega-events introduces a broad range of physical effects and nuanced institutional changes for cities, particularly for the more sensitive heritage areas of cities. This book explores these issues by first examining the dynamics of cities' attempts to reduce overall costs and increase the sustainability of these large events by further embedding them within the existing fabric of the city and second by studying in depth the impact on the heritage of host cities. This book investigates three World Heritage Cities: Genoa, Liverpool and Istanbul, each of which have hosted the European Capital of Culture and introduced a variety of opportunities and risks for their heritage. The book highlights the potential benefits and challenges of integrating event and heritage planning to provide lessons that can help future historic cities and heritage decision makers better prepare for such events.
Shakespeare and Venice is the first book length study to describe and chronicle the mythology of Venice that was formulated in the Middle Ages and has persisted in fiction and film to the present day. Graham Holderness focuses specifically on how that mythology was employed by Shakespeare to explore themes of conversion, change, and metamorphosis. Identifying and outlining the materials having to do with Venice which might have been available to Shakespeare, Holderness provides a full historical account of past and present Venetian myths and of the city's relationship with both Judaism and Islam. Holderness also provides detailed readings of both The Merchant of Venice and of Othello against these mythical and historical dimensions, and concludes with discussion of Venice's relevance to both the modern world and to the past.
There has been much academic interest in the role of museums as places where understanding of the past is shaped and legitimised for a wide and increasingly diverse public. This book focuses on the museum representations of the Highland Clearances - a much neglected aspect of one of the most disputed and politically-charged issues in modern Scottish history. Drawing together a range of inter-disciplinary themes and notions, it considers the cultural legacy of the period, brings to light the socially and historically conditioned meanings and values encapsulated in museum narratives of the Clearances, and shows the significance of collective memory in the negotiations inherent in heritage work. Examining both national and local museums in Scotland and concluding with comparisons with Australian museums of migration, Dynamics of Heritage contributes to our understanding of the processes of heritage construction, and its relationship to issues of memory and other modes of engagement with the past.
In October 1860, at the culmination of the Second Opium War, British and French troops looted and destroyed one of the most important palace complexes in imperial China-the Yuanmingyuan. Known in the West as the "Summer Palace," this site consisted of thousands of buildings housing a vast art collection. It is estimated that over a million objects may have been taken from the palaces in the Yuanmingyuan-and many of these are now scattered around the world, in private collections and public museums. With contributions from leading specialists, this is the first book to focus on the collecting and display of "Summer Palace" material over the past 150 years in museums in Britain and France. It examines the way museums placed their own cultural, political and aesthetic concerns upon Yuanmingyuan material, and how displays-especially those at the Royal Engineers Museum in Kent, the National Museum of Scotland and the Musee Chinois at the Chateau of Fontainebleau-tell us more about European representations and images of China, than they do about the Yuanmingyuan itself.
This book examines cultural participation from three different, but interrelated perspectives: participatory art and aesthetics; participatory digital media, and participatory cultural policies and institutions. Focusing on how ideals and practices relating to cultural participation express and (re)produce different "cultures of participation", an interdisciplinary team of authors demonstrate how the areas of arts, digital media, and cultural policy and institutions are shaped by different but interrelated contextual backgrounds. Chapters offer a variety of perspectives and strategies for empirically identifying "cultures of participation" and their current transformations and tensions in various regional and national settings. This book will be of interest to academics and cultural leaders in the areas of museum studies, media and communications, arts, arts education, cultural studies, curatorial studies and digital studies. It will also be relevant for cultural workers, artists and policy makers interested in the participatory agenda in art, digital media and cultural institutions.
Cross the Alps in a cable car, cruise Lake Geneva, and tour a medieval chateau: with Rick Steves, Switzerland is yours! Inside Rick Steves Switzerland you'll find: Comprehensive coverage for spending a week or more exploring Switzerland Rick's strategic advice on how to get the most out of your time and money, with rankings of his must-see favorites Top sights and hidden gems, from bustling Zurich to the cozy small-town atmosphere of Appenzell How to connect with culture: Chat with friendly Swiss locals at a mountain retreat, swim in the alpine waters of the Aare River, and treat yourself to delicious cheese fondue Beat the crowds, skip the lines, and avoid tourist traps with Rick's candid, humorous insight The best places to eat, sleep, and relax over wine and Swiss chocolate Self-guided walking tours of lively neighborhoods and mountain towns Detailed maps for exploring on the go Scenic railroad journeys such as the Golden Pass, Gotthard Panorama Express, Bernina Express, Glacier Express, and Chur Useful resources including a packing list, German, French, and Italian phrase guides, a historical overview, and recommended reading, plus tips for visiting Switzerland in the winter Over 400 bible-thin pages include everything worth seeing without weighing you down Complete, up-to-date information on Zurich, Luzern, Central Switzerland, Bern, Murten, Avenches, Gimmelwald and the Berner Oberland, Zermatt and the Matterhorn, Appenzell, Lausanne, Chateau de Chillon, Montreux, Gruyeres, Lugano, Pontresina, Samedan, St. Moritz, and more Make the most of every day and every dollar with Rick Steves Switzerland.
Peter Harrop offers a reappraisal of mummers' plays, which have long been regarded as a form of 'folk' or 'traditional' drama, somehow separate from the mainstream of British theatre. This fresh view of folk and tradition explores how mummers' plays emerged in an 18th century theatrical environment of popular spouting clubs and private theatricals, yet quickly transformed into 'traditionary' drama with echoes of an ancient past. Harrop suggests that by the late 19th century the plays had been appropriated by antiquarians and folklorists, leaving mummer's plays as a strangely separate and categorised form. This book considers how that happened, and the ways in which these late 19th century ideas were absorbed into the mummers' plays, providing a new lease of life for them in the 20th and 21st centuries. Ideal for anyone with a specialised interest in this unique form, Mummers' Plays Revisited spans recent work in theatre history, performance studies and folklore to offer a comprehensive and engaging study.
This book is a personal, photographic diary-record of twenty years of the London art world, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the London Art and Artists Guide. John Russell Taylor has written an illuminating introduction, showing how these photographs are a personal record of who was who and what was what on the London art scene of the 1980s and the 1990s. These photographs will be seen in the future as a social document, showing how exhibitions have changed over twenty years. This book is an insider's visual diary to the London art world, showing how it can be like the theater stage, with players waiting in the wings: having deadaches, hangovers, heartache and coping with gossip, pressure, competition and occasionally auditioning for the limelight, which can be brief or of long duration depending on passing trends. Center stage are David Hockney, Allen Jones and other lesser known artists, beside art dealers, critics, curators who appear in and out of exhibitions, studios and at art fairs. "Even putting aside the frequent beauty of these images as images, for anyone who needs to look beyond easy nostalgia and use them as a learning tool, the collection should be a treasure trove indeed. - John Russell Taylor, Times, London |
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