Nudity features regularly in all major media. So why is it illegal to appear naked in public? Nudity has always been paradoxical. In modern consumer culture, it is actively encouraged in some contexts, but criminal or deviant in others. Images of nudity are everywhere. Advertising uses nudity to sell everything from housing loans to appliances, perfume to cars. Nudity has, in fact, become the latest fashion. This is not surprising. Advertising and fashion need a constant stream of novelty and there's nothing so new as nudity, the oldest fashion of all. Aside from being big business, nudity is a legal and moral minefield, the object of psychological study, and a mundane fact of everyday life. We alternately think of it as a perversion and a state of absolute innocence. Why does nudity mean so many contradictory things, and why is it treated so differently in different contexts? Drawing on a wealth of examples from popular culture, literature, philosophy and religion, as well as first-hand interviews, Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy goes deep into the naked underworld to answer these questions. Barcan encounters morticians, nudists, strippers, nurses, tattooists, artists and makers of pornography. She demonstrates that ordinary people, popular culture and high philosophy are all sources of wisdom about the naked body. Nudity is one of the most fundamental metaphors in the Western tradition - indeed, it is a metaphor for human nature itself - and yet this book is one of the first to explore its paradoxes in depth. Barcan's mission is to shine a light on a topic that has been largely ignored, even within cultural studies, despite its ability to titillate, shock or entertain. From pubic hair fashions through to a Royal "full monty," Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy is a fascinating blend of meaningful minutiae and big philosophical questions about the most unnatural state of nature in the modern West.

This book investigates the complex and unpredictable temporalities of waste. Reflecting on waste in the context of sustainability, materiality, social practices, subjectivity and environmental challenges, the book covers a wide range of settings, from the municipal garbage crisis in Beirut, to food rescue campaigns in Hong Kong and the toxic by-products of computer chip production in Silicon Valley. Waste is one of the most pressing issues of the day, central to environmental challenges and the development of healthier and more sustainable futures. The emergence of the new field of discard studies, in addition to expanding research across other disciplines within the social sciences, is testament to the centrality of waste as a crucial social, material and cultural problem and to the need for multi- and transdisciplinary approaches like those provided in this volume. This edited collection seeks to develop a framework that understands the material properties of different kinds of waste, not as fixed, stable or singular but asdynamic, relational and often invisible. It brings together new and cutting-edge research on the temporalities of waste by a diverse range of international authors. Collectively, this research presents a persuasive argument about the need to give more credence to the capacities of waste to provoke us in materially and temporally complex ways, especially those substances that complicate our understandings of life as bounded duration. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the environmental humanities, cultural studies, anthropology and human geography.

This book investigates the complex and unpredictable temporalities of waste. Reflecting on waste in the context of sustainability, materiality, social practices, subjectivity and environmental challenges, the book covers a wide range of settings, from the municipal garbage crisis in Beirut, to food rescue campaigns in Hong Kong and the toxic by-products of computer chip production in Silicon Valley. Waste is one of the most pressing issues of the day, central to environmental challenges and the development of healthier and more sustainable futures. The emergence of the new field of discard studies, in addition to expanding research across other disciplines within the social sciences, is testament to the centrality of waste as a crucial social, material and cultural problem and to the need for multi- and transdisciplinary approaches like those provided in this volume. This edited collection seeks to develop a framework that understands the material properties of different kinds of waste, not as fixed, stable or singular but asdynamic, relational and often invisible. It brings together new and cutting-edge research on the temporalities of waste by a diverse range of international authors. Collectively, this research presents a persuasive argument about the need to give more credence to the capacities of waste to provoke us in materially and temporally complex ways, especially those substances that complicate our understandings of life as bounded duration. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the environmental humanities, cultural studies, anthropology and human geography.

What does it mean to be an academic today? What kinds of experiences do students have, and how are they affected by what they learn? Why do so many students and their teachers feel like frauds? Can we learn to teach and research in ways that foster hope and deflate pretension? Academic Life and Labour in the New University: Hope and Other Choices addresses these big questions, discussing the challenges of teaching and researching in the contemporary university, the purpose of research and its fundamental value, and the role of the academy against the background of major changes to nature of the university itself. Drawing on a range of international media sources, political discourse and many years' professional experience, this volume explores approaches to teaching and research, with special emphasis on the importance of collegiality, intellectual honesty and courage. With attention to the intersection of large-scale institutional changes and intellectual shifts such as the rise of transdisciplinarity and the development of a pluralist curriculum, this book proposes the pursuit of more ethical, compassionate and critical forms of teaching and research. As such, it will be of interest not only to scholars of cultural studies and education, but to all those who care about the fate of the university as an institution, including young scholars seeking to join the academy.

Alternative medicine therapies have evolved from the province of the hippy counterculture movement in the 1960s to be firmly established in mainstream healthcare in the 21st century. This book critcally examines the alternative medicine phenomenon by asking Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) practitioners what makes these therapies so appealing, drawing on comprehensive interviews and the author's longstanding participation in this field. Providing a wealth of information from both within the CAM community and around the CAM culture, this text explains the medical and economic sensation of alternative medicine, at once spiritual, medical, recreational and physical. It also examines different viewpoints on the subject from denouncements of alternative medicine as "the triumph of superstition over reason" to a "popular cultural phenomenon that fits the pleasure-seeking drive of consumerism with spiritual and neo-liberal undertones." "Complementary and Alternative Medicine" is essential reading for students and scholars of cultural studies, anthropology, sensory studies and sociology.

Alternative medicine therapies have evolved from the province of the hippy counterculture movement in the 1960s to be firmly established in mainstream healthcare in the 21st century. This book critcally examines the alternative medicine phenomenon by asking Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) practitioners what makes these therapies so appealing, drawing on comprehensive interviews and the author's longstanding participation in this field. Providing a wealth of information from both within the CAM community and around the CAM culture, this text explains the medical and economic sensation of alternative medicine, at once spiritual, medical, recreational and physical. It also examines different viewpoints on the subject from denouncements of alternative medicine as "the triumph of superstition over reason" to a "popular cultural phenomenon that fits the pleasure-seeking drive of consumerism with spiritual and neo-liberal undertones." "Complementary and Alternative Medicine" is essential reading for students and scholars of cultural studies, anthropology, sensory studies and sociology.

What does it mean to be an academic today? What kinds of experiences do students have, and how are they affected by what they learn? Why do so many students and their teachers feel like frauds? Can we learn to teach and research in ways that foster hope and deflate pretension? Academic Life and Labour in the New University: Hope and Other Choices addresses these big questions, discussing the challenges of teaching and researching in the contemporary university, the purpose of research and its fundamental value, and the role of the academy against the background of major changes to nature of the university itself. Drawing on a range of international media sources, political discourse and many years' professional experience, this volume explores approaches to teaching and research, with special emphasis on the importance of collegiality, intellectual honesty and courage. With attention to the intersection of large-scale institutional changes and intellectual shifts such as the rise of transdisciplinarity and the development of a pluralist curriculum, this book proposes the pursuit of more ethical, compassionate and critical forms of teaching and research. As such, it will be of interest not only to scholars of cultural studies and education, but to all those who care about the fate of the university as an institution, including young scholars seeking to join the academy.

Based on her earlier ground-breaking axiomatization of quantified modal logic, the papers collected here by the distinguished philosopher Ruth Barcan Marcus cover much ground in the development of her thought, spanning from 1961 to 1990. The first essay here introduces themes initially viewed as iconoclastic, such as the necessity of identity, the directly referential role of proper names as "tags," the Barcan Formula about the interplay of possibility and existence, and alternative interpretations of quantification. Marcus also addresses the putative puzzles about substitutivity and about essentialism. The collection also includes influential essays on moral conflict, on belief and rationality, and on some historical figures. Many of her views have been incorporated into current theories, while others remain part of a continuing debate.