Cultural studies: customs and traditions Books

Book SynopsisThe popularity of the musical, Hamilton, featuring the death of Alexander Hamilton in a duel with Aaron Burr, then Vice President of the United States, has revived interest in duelling, but also aroused incredulity that such events could ever have occurred. Where did the custom originate, and why did it spread so quickly all over Europe and the Americas? Duelling was once commonplace. Prime ministers and poets, artists and journalists, and even some ladies went out to the 'field of honour'. Casanova fought with a Polish nobleman in Warsaw, the Duke of Wellington duelled with an English earl in Hyde Park and the Russian poet Pushkin died in a duel in St Petersburg. There were many enigmas associated with the phenomenon. As well as displaying skills with the sword or the pistol, a duellist had to silence problems of conscience. Could duelling be squared with the commandment against killing one's neighbour? Did the fact that both parties were inspired by a gentlemanly code of Honour make the duel superior to a vulgar brawl? The moral justification of duelling intrigued thinkers and intellectuals. Dr Johnson returned to the issue several times, while Rousseau was baffled by the question. Duels added drama to mediocre novels or plays, but featured in the theatre of Shakespeare and later in the work of such masters as Walter Scott, Conrad, Chekhov and Pirandello. Duelling has been too long regarded as an embarrassing sideline in western culture, but for centuries it was an integral part of history. Joseph Farrell attempts to clarify what the duel actually was and why men ever behaved that way. Exploring the social and cultural forces that encouraged what now seems an extraordinary anachronism, he traces the international evolution of the duel - and its many representations in literature and art - from Renaissance Italy to the whole of Europe, including Britain, and onto the US.Trade Review'This splendid book, rich in examples of courage and folly, provokes thought. Read it once for pleasure. Then ponder its significance in our time of false news and slanderous speech.'--The Scotsman

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Book SynopsisINVITE MORE LUCK INTO YOUR LIFE, attract greater fortune and positive energy 60 GOOD LUCK CARDS featuring lucky symbols from all around the worldGIFT A LITTLE BIT OF LUCK for weddings, exams, birthdays, interviews, first dates, moving home and many other occasionsBEAUTIFULLY PACKAGED GIFT BOX WITH FOIL DETAIL and original illustrationsCOMPLETE WITH BOOKLET AND LUCKY FORTUNESWorried about an interview? Want to ace a presentation? Or perhaps you've got the jitters about a first date? Let The Box of Luck help you attract greater fortune and positive energy into your life with 60 good luck symbols from all around the world. Invite more luck into your life or gift good fortune to a friend with this beautifully packaged boxed set of cards, complete with booklet and lucky fortunes.

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Book SynopsisWinner of Best Food Literature (Canada) at the 2012 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards In this intimate guide to Alberta''s sustainable food scene, writer, poet, professional chef, and food advocate Dee Hobsbawn-Smith profiles more than seventy-five of the province''s growers and producers. Learn the A to Z''s of each producer, from Asparagus growers to Zizania cultivators, and enjoy the twenty-six original recipes, one for each type of produce.The book also examines the ground that farmers stand on: government involvement, sustainability and the environment, animal welfare, farm labour, and organizations from Slow Food to the grassroots Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement.An (agri)cultural examination of modern farming that offers a clear look at current government policies and sustainable growers'' best practices, Foodshed sets forth some of the issues that modern farmers face, as seen by the growers themselves.

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Book SynopsisFrom the sculptured peaks of Mount Rushmore to the Coloradan prairie lands at Sand Creek to the idyllic islands of the Pacific, the West's signature environments add a new dimension to the study of memorials. In such diverse and often dramatic landscapes, how do the natural and built environments shape our emotions?In Memorials Matter, author Jennifer Ladino investigates the natural and physical environments of seven diverse National Park Service (NPS) sites in the American West and how they influence emotions about historical conflict and national identity. Chapters center around the region's diverse inhabitants (Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, African, and Native Americans) and the variously traumatic histories these groups endured—histories of oppression, exploitation, incarceration, slavery, and genocide. Drawing on material ecocritical theory, Ladino emphasizes the ideological and political importance of memorials and how they evoke visceral responses that are not always explicitly 'storied,' but nevertheless matter in powerful ways. In this unique blend of narrative scholarship and critical theory, Ladino demonstrates how these memorial sites and their surrounding landscapes, combined with written texts, generate emotion and shape our collective memory of traumatic events. She urges us to consider our everyday environments and to become attuned to features and feelings we might have otherwise overlooked.Table of ContentsTable of Contents Preface xi Introduction: Feeling Like a Mountain: Scale, Patriotism, and Affective Agency at Mount Rushmore National Memorial 1 1. “Fears Made Manifest”: Desert Creatures and Border Anxiety at Coronado National Memorial 41 2. Placing Historical Trauma: Guilt, Regret, and Compassion at Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site 82 3. Performing Patriotism: Reenactment, Historicity, and Thing-Power at Golden Spike National Historic Site 121 4. Remembering War in Paradise: Grief, Aloha, and Techno-patriotism at WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument 157 5. Mountains, Monuments, and other Matter: Reckoning with Racism and Simulating Shame at Manzanar National Historic Site 195 6. “We have died. Remember us.”: Fear, Wonder, and Overlooking the Buffalo Soldiers at Golden Gate National Recreation Area 227 Postscript: Going Rogue with the Alt-NPS: Managing Love and Hate for an Alternative Anthropocene 261 Acknowledgments 275 Bibliography 277 Index 287 About the Author 297

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Book SynopsisWe’re losing our culture… our heritage… our traditions… everything is being swept away. Such sentiments get echoed around the world, from aging Trump supporters in West Virginia to young villagers in West Africa. But what is triggering this sense of cultural loss, and to what ends does this rhetoric get deployed? To answer these questions, anthropologist David Berliner travels around the world, from Guinea-Conakry, where globalization affects the traditional patriarchal structure of cultural transmission, to Laos, where foreign UNESCO experts have become self-appointed saviors of the nation’s cultural heritage. He also embarks on a voyage of critical self-exploration, reflecting on how anthropologists handle their own sense of cultural alienation while becoming deeply embedded in other cultures. This leads into a larger examination of how and why we experience exonostalgia, a longing for vanished cultural heydays we never directly experienced.Losing Culture provides a nuanced analysis of these phenomena, addressing why intergenerational cultural transmission is vital to humans, yet also considering how efforts to preserve disappearing cultures are sometimes misguided or even reactionary. Blending anthropological theory with vivid case studies, this book teaches us how to appreciate the multitudes of different ways we might understand loss, memory, transmission, and heritage.Trade Review“Losing Culture is about nostalgia, combining self-reflection and rich ethnographic examples from Africa and Asia with a critical view of the disciplinary anxieties of anthropology. Nostalgia, in this wonderful book, is treated as one more thing that is, in our tormented world, no longer what it used to be.” -- Arjun Appadurai * author of The Future as Cultural Fact: Essays on the Global Condition *"David Berliner stands at the crossroads, observing the natives, the philosophers, the heritage bureaucrats, the tourists, and other anthropologists as well, from all nationalities, when they come to look at – or even live – the past in the present. But what does he become himself? A cultural chameleon? When you have read Losing Culture, perhaps your anthropology will never be the same again." -- Ulf Hannerz * author of Writing Future Worlds: An Anthropologist Explores Global Scenarios *“By linking the chameleon figure of the anthropologist with the theme of nostalgia, Berliner demonstrates anthropologists’ important role in disabusing the general public of the illusion that “cultures” can be rebuilt in their original form. This subtle departure from conventional studies of heritage places a new and desirable emphasis on the ethical choices facing anthropologists when confronted with the politics of contested pasts. Of particular value is the unusual but well-grounded comparative perspective that Berliner draws from his findings in West Africa and Southeast Asia.” -- Michael Herzfeld * author of Siege of the Spirits: Community and Polity in Bangkok *"What Berliner sets out to do in this concisely insightful little book is to 'refine our understanding of how cultural loss manifests today in different contexts' with a special view to 'the rhetorical forms that lead to this diagnosis.' This ambitious task of addressing such a tremendous, worldwide problematic without losing touch with ethnography is anything but simple....Impressive." * Anthropos *"Losing Culture speaks to us both through its fascinating ethnographic cases and the lucid eye it poses onto ourselves, the plastic and nostalgic anthropologists. Its insight can apply to numerous cultural contexts, as diverse as they may be, by situating participant observers in contradictory and complex globalized cultural networks… Berliner offers a lucid study of the heterogeneity and multiplicity of participants in the accelerated times of a rapidly changing world." -- Francisco Rivera * Anthropologica *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Loss of Culture and the Desire to Transmit It Onward Chapter 1: Transmission Impossible in West Africa Chapter 2: UNESCO, Bureaucratic Nostalgia, and Cultural Loss Chapter 3: Toward the End of Societies? Chapter 4: The Plastic Anthropologist Conclusion: For a cultural and patrimonial diplomacy Acknowledgements Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisWe’re losing our culture… our heritage… our traditions… everything is being swept away. Such sentiments get echoed around the world, from aging Trump supporters in West Virginia to young villagers in West Africa. But what is triggering this sense of cultural loss, and to what ends does this rhetoric get deployed? To answer these questions, anthropologist David Berliner travels around the world, from Guinea-Conakry, where globalization affects the traditional patriarchal structure of cultural transmission, to Laos, where foreign UNESCO experts have become self-appointed saviors of the nation’s cultural heritage. He also embarks on a voyage of critical self-exploration, reflecting on how anthropologists handle their own sense of cultural alienation while becoming deeply embedded in other cultures. This leads into a larger examination of how and why we experience exonostalgia, a longing for vanished cultural heydays we never directly experienced.Losing Culture provides a nuanced analysis of these phenomena, addressing why intergenerational cultural transmission is vital to humans, yet also considering how efforts to preserve disappearing cultures are sometimes misguided or even reactionary. Blending anthropological theory with vivid case studies, this book teaches us how to appreciate the multitudes of different ways we might understand loss, memory, transmission, and heritage.Trade Review“Losing Culture is about nostalgia, combining self-reflection and rich ethnographic examples from Africa and Asia with a critical view of the disciplinary anxieties of anthropology. Nostalgia, in this wonderful book, is treated as one more thing that is, in our tormented world, no longer what it used to be.” -- Arjun Appadurai * author of The Future as Cultural Fact: Essays on the Global Condition *"David Berliner stands at the crossroads, observing the natives, the philosophers, the heritage bureaucrats, the tourists, and other anthropologists as well, from all nationalities, when they come to look at – or even live – the past in the present. But what does he become himself? A cultural chameleon? When you have read Losing Culture, perhaps your anthropology will never be the same again." -- Ulf Hannerz * author of Writing Future Worlds: An Anthropologist Explores Global Scenarios *“By linking the chameleon figure of the anthropologist with the theme of nostalgia, Berliner demonstrates anthropologists’ important role in disabusing the general public of the illusion that “cultures” can be rebuilt in their original form. This subtle departure from conventional studies of heritage places a new and desirable emphasis on the ethical choices facing anthropologists when confronted with the politics of contested pasts. Of particular value is the unusual but well-grounded comparative perspective that Berliner draws from his findings in West Africa and Southeast Asia.” -- Michael Herzfeld * author of Siege of the Spirits: Community and Polity in Bangkok *"What Berliner sets out to do in this concisely insightful little book is to 'refine our understanding of how cultural loss manifests today in different contexts' with a special view to 'the rhetorical forms that lead to this diagnosis.' This ambitious task of addressing such a tremendous, worldwide problematic without losing touch with ethnography is anything but simple....Impressive." * Anthropos *“Losing Culture is about nostalgia, combining self-reflection and rich ethnographic examples from Africa and Asia with a critical view of the disciplinary anxieties of anthropology. Nostalgia, in this wonderful book, is treated as one more thing that is, in our tormented world, no longer what it used to be.” -- Arjun Appadurai * author of The Future as Cultural Fact: Essays on the Global Condition *"David Berliner stands at the crossroads, observing the natives, the philosophers, the heritage bureaucrats, the tourists, and other anthropologists as well, from all nationalities, when they come to look at – or even live – the past in the present. But what does he become himself? A cultural chameleon? When you have read Losing Culture, perhaps your anthropology will never be the same again." -- Ulf Hannerz * author of Writing Future Worlds: An Anthropologist Explores Global Scenarios *“By linking the chameleon figure of the anthropologist with the theme of nostalgia, Berliner demonstrates anthropologists’ important role in disabusing the general public of the illusion that “cultures” can be rebuilt in their original form. This subtle departure from conventional studies of heritage places a new and desirable emphasis on the ethical choices facing anthropologists when confronted with the politics of contested pasts. Of particular value is the unusual but well-grounded comparative perspective that Berliner draws from his findings in West Africa and Southeast Asia.” -- Michael Herzfeld * author of Siege of the Spirits: Community and Polity in Bangkok *"What Berliner sets out to do in this concisely insightful little book is to 'refine our understanding of how cultural loss manifests today in different contexts' with a special view to 'the rhetorical forms that lead to this diagnosis.' This ambitious task of addressing such a tremendous, worldwide problematic without losing touch with ethnography is anything but simple....Impressive." * Anthropos *"Losing Culture speaks to us both through its fascinating ethnographic cases and the lucid eye it poses onto ourselves, the plastic and nostalgic anthropologists. Its insight can apply to numerous cultural contexts, as diverse as they may be, by situating participant observers in contradictory and complex globalized cultural networks… Berliner offers a lucid study of the heterogeneity and multiplicity of participants in the accelerated times of a rapidly changing world." -- Francisco Rivera * Anthropologica *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Loss of Culture and the Desire to Transmit It Onward Chapter 1: Transmission Impossible in West Africa Chapter 2: UNESCO, Bureaucratic Nostalgia, and Cultural Loss Chapter 3: Toward the End of Societies? Chapter 4: The Plastic Anthropologist Conclusion: For a cultural and patrimonial diplomacy Acknowledgements Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe simple fabric face mask is a key agent in the fight against the global spread of COVID-19. However, beyond its role as a protective covering against coronavirus infection, the face mask is the bearer of powerful symbolic and political power and arouses intense emotions. Adopting an international perspective informed by social theory, The Face Mask in COVID Times: A Sociomaterial Analysis offers an intriguing and original investigation of the social, cultural and historical dimensions of face-masking as a practice in the age of COVID. Rather than Beck’s ‘risk society’, we are now living in a ‘COVID society’, the long-term effects of which have yet to be experienced or imagined. Everything has changed. The COVID crisis has generated novel forms of sociality and new ways of living and moving through space and time. In this new world, the face mask has become a significant object, positioned as one of the key ways people can protect themselves and others from infection with the coronavirus. The face mask is rich with symbolic meaning as well as practical value. In the words of theorist Jane Bennett, the face mask has acquired a new ‘thing-power’ as it is coming together with human bodies in these times of uncertainty, illness and death. The role of the face mask in COVID times has been the subject of debate and dissension, arousing strong feelings. The historical and cultural contexts in which face masks against COVID contagion are worn (or not worn) are important to consider. In some countries, such as Japan and other East Asian nations, face mask wearing has a long tradition. Full or partial facial coverings, such as veiling, is common practice in regions such as the Middle East. In many other countries, including most countries in the Global North, most people, beyond health care workers, have little or no experience of face masks. They have had to learn how to make sense of face masking as a protective practice and how to incorporate face masks into their everyday practices and routines. Face masking practices have become highly political. The USA has witnessed protests against face mask wearing that rest on ‘sovereign individualism’, a notion which is highly specific to the contemporary political climate in that country. Face masks have also been worn to make political statements: bearing anti-racist statements, for example, but also Trump campaign support. Meanwhile, celebrities and influencers have sought to advocate for face mask wearing as part of their branding, while art makers, museums, designers and novelty fashion manufacturers have identified the opportunity to profit from this sudden new market. Face masks have become a fashion item as well as a medical device: both a way of signifying the wearer’s individuality and beliefs and their ethical stance in relation to the need to protect their own and others’ health. The Face Mask in COVID Times: A Sociomaterial Analysis provides a short and accessible analysis of the sociomaterial dimensions of the face mask in the age of COVID-19. The book presents seven short chapters and an epilogue. We bring together sociomaterial theoretical perspectives with compelling examples from public health advice and campaigns, anti-mask activism as well as popular culture (news reports, blog posts, videos, online shopping sites, art works) to illustrate our theoretical points, and use Images to support our analysis. Table of ContentsChapter 1: Introduction: The Face Mask as Sociomaterial Artefact This chapter will introduce the rationale for the book, addressing the question of why sociomaterial theories are so important to make sense of the meanings and practices related to the face mask in the age of COVID. It will provide the context for understanding the face mask as a sociocultural artefact, discussing the history of the face mask (and other facial coverings, such as veiling practices) internationally. This chapter also provides an overview of the theoretical perspectives we are using in our analysis. We draw particularly on the vital materialism offered in the work of feminist new materialist scholars and Indigenous and First Nations philosophies as well as domestication theory. These perspectives position material objects such as face masks as contributing to assemblages of people with nonhuman things. It is with and through these combinations of humans and nonhumans that agencies and forces are generated. We ‘think with’ vital materialism in the following chapters to consider how the face mask has taken on the extraordinary meanings, values and affective intensities. This chapter, therefore, provides the basis for elucidating the divergent cultural responses to face masks in contemporary political and geographical contexts that follows in the book. Chapter 2: The Micro and Macro Politics of Masks This chapter will trace the anti-mask and #masks4all movements during the COVID crisis, examining the meanings both groups attached to the mask. We interrogate the process by which masks came to be regarded as a necessity in many countries that had previously been apathetic to mask-wearing as a public health strategy, and how this played out at the level of everyday practices. We interrogate how masks came to be a key site of contestation during the pandemic and a significant symbol of the event. Focusing on several high-profile case studies involving public conflicts around masks, this chapter employs Karen Barad’s concept of intra-action to examine the discourses, objects, bodies, habits, relations of power and affects that intra-act to constitute the divergent meanings of masks that came about during the early months of the pandemic. This chapter draws connections between the micro-level everyday anxieties surrounding mask-wearing in shops to public health messaging at the national level to international tensions surrounding their manufacture and purchase. Chapter 3: Ordinary Objects, Extraordinary Times This chapter explores the way face masks and their (contested) emergence during the pandemic offer us an opportunity to think about our intimacy with ordinary objects. Though intimacy is often conceptualised as emerging in inter-personal relationships, taking up a vital materialist perspective we consider the way it emerges in the relations between humans and nonhuman objects, such as the face mask. Drawing on scholarship from science and technology studies, we contextualise face masks within a history of intimate objects that have become ‘domesticated’, such as glasses and clothing, and, more recently, smartphones and smart watches. In tracing this domestication, this chapter examines establishing of everyday routines and habits, as well as attempts to normalise masks through public health messaging. This chapter will explore the way this intimacy is connected to some initial discomfort with widespread mask wearing during the pandemic. Chapter 4: Bodies, Breath, Boundaries This chapter examines the embodied and affective aspects of wearing a mask and considers how these experiences shift in relation to the sociomaterial contexts and conditions in which they are worn. By attending to the entangled materialities of objects, breath and bodies, this chapter will explore the indeterminacy of bodily boundaries in order to illuminate the often-overlooked leakiness of social life and underline its collective dimensions. Drawing on Karen Barad’s concepts of entanglement and intra-action and Stacy Alaimo’s transcorporeality, we extend understandings of bodies as bounded entities and trace their interconnectedness. We then consider how this interconnectedness matters specifically in pandemic times. Paying attention to the specificities of face masks and the embodied practice of mask wearing, we trace the affective and material flows that move across bodies and environments. Chapter 5: DIY Cultures and the Making of Masks Face masks have quickly emerged as a fashion accessory and key selling point for many retailers, from luxury companies including Louis Vuitton to boutique crafters via platforms such as Etsy. However, due to production delays, issue of cost and accessibility, and limited supplies of available Personal Protective Equipment being necessarily directed to frontline service workers, a notable do-it-yourself (DIY) culture of mask making has emerged. This chapter explores the relational politics and distributed agencies of DIY face masks. With several case studies on the creative exchange of accessible tools and techniques and grassroots social justice supply campaigns, it considers the significance of how face masks are made to matter in the COVID context. This chapter positions these making practices within the broader landscape of contemporary DIY cultures, focusing on the ways in which the profit-resistant, creativity- and community-oriented aesthetic and political ethos of DIY shapes the meaning, materiality and multiplicity of the mask. Chapter 6: Face Masking as An Act of Care As masks and the practices associated with them (wearing, refusing, creating) were positioned at the centre of the COVID crisis in many countries, we consider the ways that mask-wearers and makers emphasise the act of wearing the mask as an act care for others, as well as self-protection. At the same time, those who refuse masks are positioned in opposition, as careless – or potentially hostile to others. We engage the work of Maria Puig de la Bellacasa to think how masks and mask wearing and creation become implicated in the ethical, political and material dimensions of care. Locating ourselves in the rapidly shifting and emerging conditions of the COVID pandemic, masks become central to our ethical and careful responses. Here we consider the way that care and being careful extends towards the minute level of one’s breath. Epilogue Here we offer some concluding comments, reflecting on the themes that thread together the chapters in the book.

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Book SynopsisThe simple fabric face mask is a key agent in the fight against the global spread of COVID-19. However, beyond its role as a protective covering against coronavirus infection, the face mask is the bearer of powerful symbolic and political power and arouses intense emotions. Adopting an international perspective informed by social theory, The Face Mask in COVID Times: A Sociomaterial Analysis offers an intriguing and original investigation of the social, cultural and historical dimensions of face-masking as a practice in the age of COVID. Rather than Beck’s ‘risk society’, we are now living in a ‘COVID society’, the long-term effects of which have yet to be experienced or imagined. Everything has changed. The COVID crisis has generated novel forms of sociality and new ways of living and moving through space and time. In this new world, the face mask has become a significant object, positioned as one of the key ways people can protect themselves and others from infection with the coronavirus. The face mask is rich with symbolic meaning as well as practical value. In the words of theorist Jane Bennett, the face mask has acquired a new ‘thing-power’ as it is coming together with human bodies in these times of uncertainty, illness and death. The role of the face mask in COVID times has been the subject of debate and dissension, arousing strong feelings. The historical and cultural contexts in which face masks against COVID contagion are worn (or not worn) are important to consider. In some countries, such as Japan and other East Asian nations, face mask wearing has a long tradition. Full or partial facial coverings, such as veiling, is common practice in regions such as the Middle East. In many other countries, including most countries in the Global North, most people, beyond health care workers, have little or no experience of face masks. They have had to learn how to make sense of face masking as a protective practice and how to incorporate face masks into their everyday practices and routines. Face masking practices have become highly political. The USA has witnessed protests against face mask wearing that rest on ‘sovereign individualism’, a notion which is highly specific to the contemporary political climate in that country. Face masks have also been worn to make political statements: bearing anti-racist statements, for example, but also Trump campaign support. Meanwhile, celebrities and influencers have sought to advocate for face mask wearing as part of their branding, while art makers, museums, designers and novelty fashion manufacturers have identified the opportunity to profit from this sudden new market. Face masks have become a fashion item as well as a medical device: both a way of signifying the wearer’s individuality and beliefs and their ethical stance in relation to the need to protect their own and others’ health. The Face Mask in COVID Times: A Sociomaterial Analysis provides a short and accessible analysis of the sociomaterial dimensions of the face mask in the age of COVID-19. The book presents seven short chapters and an epilogue. We bring together sociomaterial theoretical perspectives with compelling examples from public health advice and campaigns, anti-mask activism as well as popular culture (news reports, blog posts, videos, online shopping sites, art works) to illustrate our theoretical points, and use Images to support our analysis. Table of ContentsChapter 1: Introduction: The Face Mask as Sociomaterial Artefact This chapter will introduce the rationale for the book, addressing the question of why sociomaterial theories are so important to make sense of the meanings and practices related to the face mask in the age of COVID. It will provide the context for understanding the face mask as a sociocultural artefact, discussing the history of the face mask (and other facial coverings, such as veiling practices) internationally. This chapter also provides an overview of the theoretical perspectives we are using in our analysis. We draw particularly on the vital materialism offered in the work of feminist new materialist scholars and Indigenous and First Nations philosophies as well as domestication theory. These perspectives position material objects such as face masks as contributing to assemblages of people with nonhuman things. It is with and through these combinations of humans and nonhumans that agencies and forces are generated. We ‘think with’ vital materialism in the following chapters to consider how the face mask has taken on the extraordinary meanings, values and affective intensities. This chapter, therefore, provides the basis for elucidating the divergent cultural responses to face masks in contemporary political and geographical contexts that follows in the book. Chapter 2: The Micro and Macro Politics of Masks This chapter will trace the anti-mask and #masks4all movements during the COVID crisis, examining the meanings both groups attached to the mask. We interrogate the process by which masks came to be regarded as a necessity in many countries that had previously been apathetic to mask-wearing as a public health strategy, and how this played out at the level of everyday practices. We interrogate how masks came to be a key site of contestation during the pandemic and a significant symbol of the event. Focusing on several high-profile case studies involving public conflicts around masks, this chapter employs Karen Barad’s concept of intra-action to examine the discourses, objects, bodies, habits, relations of power and affects that intra-act to constitute the divergent meanings of masks that came about during the early months of the pandemic. This chapter draws connections between the micro-level everyday anxieties surrounding mask-wearing in shops to public health messaging at the national level to international tensions surrounding their manufacture and purchase. Chapter 3: Ordinary Objects, Extraordinary Times This chapter explores the way face masks and their (contested) emergence during the pandemic offer us an opportunity to think about our intimacy with ordinary objects. Though intimacy is often conceptualised as emerging in inter-personal relationships, taking up a vital materialist perspective we consider the way it emerges in the relations between humans and nonhuman objects, such as the face mask. Drawing on scholarship from science and technology studies, we contextualise face masks within a history of intimate objects that have become ‘domesticated’, such as glasses and clothing, and, more recently, smartphones and smart watches. In tracing this domestication, this chapter examines establishing of everyday routines and habits, as well as attempts to normalise masks through public health messaging. This chapter will explore the way this intimacy is connected to some initial discomfort with widespread mask wearing during the pandemic. Chapter 4: Bodies, Breath, Boundaries This chapter examines the embodied and affective aspects of wearing a mask and considers how these experiences shift in relation to the sociomaterial contexts and conditions in which they are worn. By attending to the entangled materialities of objects, breath and bodies, this chapter will explore the indeterminacy of bodily boundaries in order to illuminate the often-overlooked leakiness of social life and underline its collective dimensions. Drawing on Karen Barad’s concepts of entanglement and intra-action and Stacy Alaimo’s transcorporeality, we extend understandings of bodies as bounded entities and trace their interconnectedness. We then consider how this interconnectedness matters specifically in pandemic times. Paying attention to the specificities of face masks and the embodied practice of mask wearing, we trace the affective and material flows that move across bodies and environments. Chapter 5: DIY Cultures and the Making of Masks Face masks have quickly emerged as a fashion accessory and key selling point for many retailers, from luxury companies including Louis Vuitton to boutique crafters via platforms such as Etsy. However, due to production delays, issue of cost and accessibility, and limited supplies of available Personal Protective Equipment being necessarily directed to frontline service workers, a notable do-it-yourself (DIY) culture of mask making has emerged. This chapter explores the relational politics and distributed agencies of DIY face masks. With several case studies on the creative exchange of accessible tools and techniques and grassroots social justice supply campaigns, it considers the significance of how face masks are made to matter in the COVID context. This chapter positions these making practices within the broader landscape of contemporary DIY cultures, focusing on the ways in which the profit-resistant, creativity- and community-oriented aesthetic and political ethos of DIY shapes the meaning, materiality and multiplicity of the mask. Chapter 6: Face Masking as An Act of Care As masks and the practices associated with them (wearing, refusing, creating) were positioned at the centre of the COVID crisis in many countries, we consider the ways that mask-wearers and makers emphasise the act of wearing the mask as an act care for others, as well as self-protection. At the same time, those who refuse masks are positioned in opposition, as careless – or potentially hostile to others. We engage the work of Maria Puig de la Bellacasa to think how masks and mask wearing and creation become implicated in the ethical, political and material dimensions of care. Locating ourselves in the rapidly shifting and emerging conditions of the COVID pandemic, masks become central to our ethical and careful responses. Here we consider the way that care and being careful extends towards the minute level of one’s breath. Epilogue Here we offer some concluding comments, reflecting on the themes that thread together the chapters in the book.

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Book SynopsisFür die Menschen der vorindustriellen Zeit war die Natur trotz weitreichender Handelsbeziehungen ein wilder und manchmal auch gefährlicher Ort. Wälder, Sümpfe und Gebirge hielt man für die Heimstätte magischer Kreaturen und fabelhafter Tiere. Wesen, deren Faszination noch heute ungebrochen ist. Lindwürmer und Einhörner, Hausdrachen und Wolpertinger lebten weiter in Sagen und Erzählungen, die im 19. Jahrhundert durch die Brüder Grimm und viele andere zusammengetragen und schriftlich fixiert wurden.Das Buch unternimmt eine Reise in die Welt der Fabeltiere des deutschsprachigen Raumes. Die Autor:innen haben das umfangreiche, vielfältige in der Literatur überlieferte Material gesichtet, sortiert und aufbereitet. Florian Schäfer schuf auf dieser Basis zahlreiche lebensnahe Nachbildungen von Fabeltieren basierend auf historischen Beschreibungen und macht damit diese mythologischen Wesen auf einzigartige und faszinierende Weise zugänglich.

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Book SynopsisJapanese Legends and Folklore invites English speakers into the intriguing world of Japanese folktales, ghost stories and historical eyewitness accounts. With a fascinating selection of stories about Japanese culture and history, A.B. Mitford—who lived and worked in Japan as a British diplomat—presents a broad cross section of tales from many Japanese sources. Discover more about practically every aspect of Japanese life—from myths and legends to society and religion. This book features 30 fascinating Japanese stories, including: The Forty-Seven Ronin—the famous, epic tale of a loyal band of Samurai warriors who pay the ultimate price for avenging the honor of their fallen master. The Tongue-Cut Sparrow—a good-hearted old man is richly rewarded when he begs forgiveness from a sparrow who is injured by his spiteful, greedy wife. The Adventures of Little Peach Boy—a tale familiar to generations of Japanese children, a small boy born from a peach is adopted by a kindly childless couple. Japanese Sermons—a selection of sermons written by a priest belonging to the Shingaku sect, which combines Buddhist, Shinto and Confucian teachings. An Account of Hara-Kiri—Mitford's dramatic first person account of a ritual Samurai suicide, the first time it had been reported in English. Thirty-one reproductions of woodblock prints bring the classic tales and essays to life. These influential stories helped shape the West's understanding of Japanese culture. A new foreword by Professor Michael Dylan Foster sheds light on the book's importance as a groundbreaking work of Japanese folklore, literature and history.Trade Review"One of the first and in many ways still one of the best books on Japan." --The Japan Times"An excellent introduction to Japanese literature." --Mainichi Daily News"Mitford's collection and observations have held through to today, a century and a half later. His reporting is accurate and reflects the mindset of Japanese people then and now. This book is not only extremely interesting to read but also should be required reading for anyone studying Japanese culture." --Journal of Folklore Research

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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