Taking its cues from both classical and post-classical narratologies, this study explores both forms and functions of the representation of dementia in Anglophone fictions. Initially, dementia is conceptualised as a narrative-epistemological paradox: The more those affected know what it is like to have dementia, the less they can tell about it. Narrative fiction is the only discourse that provides an imaginative glimpse at the subjective experience of dementia in language. The narratological modelling of four 'narrative modes' elaborates how the paradox becomes productive in fiction: Depending on the narrative perspective taken, but also on the type of narration, the technique for representing consciousness and the epistemic strategy of narrating dementia, the respective narrative modes come with different prerequisites and possibilities for narrating dementia. The analysis of four contemporary Anglophone dementia fictions based on the developed model reveals their potential functions: Fiction allows readers to learn about the challenges of dementia, grants them perspective-taking, it trains cognitive flexibility, and explores the meaning of memory, knowledge, narrative and imagination, and thus also offers trajectories of a cultural coping with dementia.

Rosemary Wakeman's original survey text comprehensively explores modern European urban history from 1815 to the present day. It provides a journey to cities and towns across the continent, in search of the patterns of development that have shaped the urban landscape as indelibly European. The focus is on the built environment, the social and cultural transformations that mark the patterns of continuity and change, and the transition to modern urban society. Including over 60 images that serve to illuminate the analysis, the book examines whether there is a European city, and if so, what are its characteristics? Wakeman offers an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates concepts from cultural and postcolonial studies, as well as urban geography, and provides full coverage of urban society not only in western Europe, but also in eastern and southern Europe, using various cities and city types to inform the discussion. The book provides detailed coverage of the often-neglected urbanization post-1945 which allows us to more clearly understand the modernizing arc Europe has followed over the last two centuries.

To gain the most competitive edge, marketers must continually optimize their promotional strategies. While the adult population is a prominent target, there is significant market potential for young consumers as well. Analyzing Children's Consumption Behavior: Ethics, Methodologies, and Future Considerations presents a dynamic overview of the best practices for marketing products that target children as consumers and analyzes the most effective promotional strategies being utilized. Highlighting both the advantages and challenges of targeting young consumers, this book is a pivotal reference source for marketers, professionals, researchers, upper-level students, and practitioners interested in emerging perspectives on children's consumption behavior.

As researchers become increasingly interested in studying the lives of children in antiquity, this volume argues for the importance of a collaborative biocultural approach. Contributors draw on fields including skeletal biology and physiology, archaeology, sociocultural anthropology, pediatrics, and psychology to show that a diversity of research methods is the best way to illuminate the complexities of childhood. Contributors and case studies span the globe with locations including Egypt, Turkey, Italy, England, Japan, Peru, Bolivia, Canada, and the United States. Time periods range from the Neolithic to the Industrial Revolution. Leading experts in the bioarchaeology of childhood investigate breastfeeding and weaning trends of the past 10,000 years; mortuary data from child burials; skeletal trauma and stress events; bone size, shape, and growth; plasticity; and dietary histories. Emphasizing a life course approach and developmental perspective, this volume's interdisciplinary nature marks a paradigm shift in the way children of the past are studied. It points the way forward to a better understanding of childhood as a dynamic lived experience both physically and socially.

While much of the current literature on the economic consequences of an aging population focuses on the negative aspects, this enlightening book argues that seniors can bring significant benefits ? such as vitality and competitiveness ? to an urban economy.The authors illustrate the ways an aging population can have a positive impact on urban centers, including the move by large numbers of seniors from the suburbs to the city, where their disproportionate consumption of education and the arts helps rejuvenate city centers. Given this, the authors conclude that a large and active senior population has the potential to assist a city in the achievement of its strategic economic objectives. The book includes analyses of the effects of population aging on best practices in 40 cities in the US and EU, with surprising results, as well as interviews with city officials and leaders.Academics, researchers and public officials in the areas of urban development, public policy and aging will find much in this original approach to interest and provoke debate.

The Jewish practice of bar mitzvah dates back to the twelfth century, but this ancient cultural ritual has changed radically since then, evolving with the times and adapting to local conditions. For many Jewish-American families, a child's bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah is both a major social event and a symbolic means of asserting the family's ongoing connection to the core values of Judaism. Coming of Age in Jewish America takes an inside look at bar and bat mitzvahs in the twenty-first century, examining how the practices have continued to morph and exploring how they serve as a sometimes shaky bridge between the values of contemporary American culture and Judaic tradition. Interviewing over 200 individuals involved in bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies, from family members to religious educators to rabbis, Patricia Keer Munro presents a candid portrait of the conflicts that often emerge and the negotiations that ensue. In the course of her study, she charts how this ritual is rife with contradictions; it is a private family event and a public community activity, and for the child, it is both an educational process and a high-stakes performance. Through detailed observations of Conservative, Orthodox, Reform, and independent congregations in the San Francisco Bay Area, Munro draws intriguing, broad-reaching conclusions about both the current state and likely future of American Judaism. In the process, she shows not only how American Jews have forged a unique set of bar and bat mitzvah practices, but also how these rituals continue to shape a distinctive Jewish-American identity.

Many Americans still envision India as rigidly caste-bound, locked in traditions that inhibit social mobility. In reality, class mobility has long been an ideal, and today globalization is radically transforming how India's citizens perceive class. Living Class in Urban India examines a nation in flux, bombarded with media images of middle-class consumers, while navigating the currents of late capitalism and the surges of inequality they can produce. Anthropologist Sara Dickey puts a human face on the issue of class in India, introducing four people who live in the ""second-tier"" city of Madurai: an auto-rickshaw driver, a graphic designer, a teacher of high-status English, and a domestic worker. Drawing from over thirty years of fieldwork, she considers how class is determined by both subjective perceptions and objective conditions, documenting Madurai residents' palpable day-to-day experiences of class while also tracking their long-term impacts. By analyzing the intertwined symbolic and economic importance of phenomena like wedding ceremonies, religious practices, philanthropy, and loan arrangements, Dickey's study reveals the material consequences of local class identities. Simultaneously, it highlights the poignant drive for dignity in the face of moralizing class stereotypes. Through extensive interviews, Dickey scrutinizes the idioms and commonplaces used by residents to justify class inequality and, occasionally, to subvert it. Along the way, Living Class in Urban India reveals the myriad ways that class status is interpreted and performed, embedded in everything from cell phone usage to religious worship.

This book is about skateboard video and experimental ways of thinking about cities. It makes a provocative argument to consider skate video as an archive of the city from below. Here 'below' has a dual meaning. First, below refers to an unofficial archive, a subaltern history of urban space. Second, below refers to the angle from which skateboarders and filmers gaze upon, capture, and consume the city-from the ground up. Since taking to the streets in the early 1980s, skateboarding has been captured on film, video tape and digital memory cards, edited into consumable forms and circulated around the world. Videos are objects amenable to ethnographic analysis while also archiving exercises in urban ethnography by their creators. I advocate for taking skate video seriously as a (fragile) archive of the urban backstage, collective memory across time and space, creative urban practice, urban encounters (people-to-people and people-to-object/s), and the globalization of a subculture at once delinquent and magnificent.

Current demographic developments and change due to long life expectancies, low birth rates, changing family structures, and economic and political crises causing migration and flight are having a significant impact on intergenerational relationships, the social welfare system, the job market and what elderly people (can) expect from their retirement and environment. The socio-political relevance of the categories of 'age' and 'ageing' have been increasing and gaining much attention within different scholarly fields. However, none of the efforts to identify age-related diseases or the processes of ageing in order to develop suitable strategies for prevention and therapy have had any effect on the fact that attitudes against the elderly are based on patterns that are determined by parameters that or not biological or sociological: age(ing) is also a cultural fact. This book reveals the importance of cultural factors in order to build a framework for analyzing and understanding cultural constructions of ageing, bringing together scholarly discourses from the arts and humanities as well as social, medical and psychological fields of study. The contributions pave the way for new strategies of caring for elderly people.

1. Analyzing the conflicting meanings of the term ‘cultural heritage’, this book outlines a framework that will allow the reader to better grasp the theoretical and practical complexities of this fascinating notion. 2. Gathering together a range of existing views on cultural heritage and summarizing the strong and weak points of the current discourse in a clear, direct way, the book will be accessible to academics and students, as well as heritage professionals. 3. There are a large number of books out there about heritage, but many are quite dated and very few provide a coherent and structured view of the theoretical tenets behind the notion of cultural heritage and its practices, as the proposed book will.