Cultural studies Books
The University of Chicago Press Crossing the Postmodern Divide
Book SynopsisA guide to the meanings of the postmodern era, that charts the options before us as we seek alternatives to the joyless and artificial culture of consumption.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Closure and Transition Introduction Sullenness Hyperactivity 2. Modernism The Rise of Modernism Aggressive Realism Methodical Universalism Ambiguous Individualism 3. Postmodernism The Postmodern Critique The Postmodern Economy 4. Hypermodernism The Power and Ambiguity of Postmodernism Hyperreality Hyperactivity Hyperintelligence 5. Postmodern Realism Moral Decisions and Material Culture Focal Realism Patient Vigor Communal Celebration Notes Index
£21.00
The University of Chicago Press The Art of Being a Parasite
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£34.20
The University of Chicago Press On the Future of History The Postmodernist
Book SynopsisAnswering questions on the history of postmodernity, Ernst Breisach provides a comprehensive overview of postmodernism and its complex relationship to history and historiography.
£23.00
The University of Chicago Press Ecce Homo
Book SynopsisImages of suffering male bodies permeate Western culture, from Francis Bacon's paintings and Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs to the battered heroes of action movies. Drawing on perspectives from a range of disciplines, this title explores the complex, ambiguous meanings of the enduring figure of the male-body-in-pain.Trade Review"Imagine a book that treats religion and eroticism not as sworn enemies or cycling debaters but as twin arts. A book for which images of sexed bodies are not records or replacements so much as devices of an ecstatic redemption. You have found that book. In it, Kent Brintnall retells the Christian saga of male suffering through Hollywood action films, Mapplethorpe's most scandalous photographs, and the gurgling paintings of Francis Bacon." (Mark D. Jordan, Harvard University)"
£999.99
The University of Chicago Press Culture on Tour Ethnographies of Travel
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£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Cultural Misunderstandings The FrenchAmerican
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£18.58
The University of Chicago Press Habitations of Modernity
Book SynopsisIn 'Habitations of modernity' Dipesh Chakrabarty explores the complexities of modernism in India and seeks principles of humaneness grounded in everyday life that may elude grand political theories. These issues are pursued in a series of closely linked cultural essays.Trade Review"Habltations of Modernity forms at once an original look at daily life practices in India and a stringent critique of colonial and postcolonial history. Chakrabarty refuses to map the paradoxes of modern India according to coordinates of the modern and the traditional, the public and the private, or the secular and the religious. The result is a richly poetic work that raises numerous and compelling questions for practical politics." - David Lloyd, coeditor of The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Putting Science in Its Place
Book SynopsisOffers a study of how science bears the marks of its place of production. This title establishes the fundamental importance of geography in both the generation and the consumption of scientific knowledge, using historical examples of the many places where science has been practiced.
£19.50
The University of Chicago Press Misery and Company
Book SynopsisCandace Clark here seeks to identify the role sympathy plays in constructing the social order of American society. She explores the difference it makes for individuals, for relationships and for group solidarity if one person gives or withholds sympathy from another.
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press I Belong to This Band Hallelujah Community
Book SynopsisThe Sacred Harp choral singing tradition originated in the American South in the mid-nineteenth century, spread widely across the country, and continues to thrive this day. This title offers a portrait of several Sacred Harp groups and an insightful exploration of how they manage to maintain a sense of community.Trade Review"Clawson's study is expertly researched and elegantly written. She reveals a rich, roots-oriented musical world in which tradition, memory, and authenticity operate on a variety of levels, from the longstanding legacy of Sacred Harp to the local traditions of places from Sand Mountain, Alabama to the city of Chicago." (David Grazian, University of Pennsylvania)"
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press Modernity and Its Malcontents Ritual and Power in
Book SynopsisWhat role does ritual play in the lives of modern Africans? How are "traditional" cultural forms deployed by people seeking empowerment in a world where "modernity" has failed to deliver. In this collection of essays, the authors address such concepts as modernity, ritual, power and history.
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press Toward a Rhetoric of Insult
Book SynopsisFrom high school cafeterias to the floor of Congress, from The Daily Show to every comments section on the internet, insult is a truly universal and ubiquitous cultural practice with a long and earthy history. This title deals with the subject of insult.Trade Review"This is an original work, well crafted into flowing continuous exposition. Readers will gladly seize on this fresh contribution and find here a stimulating and heartening extended essay leading through an entertaining, virtuoso meditation to a typically constructive proposal. Conley, who holds a distinguished record of thoughtful and humane writing, has charmed me into merriment with this thoroughly engaging book." - John Henderson, University of Cambridge"
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press The Cultural Turn in U. S. History Past Present
Book SynopsisOffers a genealogy of American cultural history, tracing its multifaceted origins, defining debates, and intersections with adjacent fields. This title explores such subjects as the different strains of cultural history, its relationships with arenas from mass entertainment to public policy, and the ways it has been shaped by catastrophe.
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Toward a Geography of Art
Book Synopsis'Toward a Geography of Art' offers essays that examine the intricacies of accounting for the geographical dimension of art history during the early modern period in Europe, Latin America and Asia.
£30.40
The University of Chicago Press The Voice of Egypt
Book SynopsisUmm Kulthum was a celebrated musical performer in the Arab world, and her songs still permeate the international airwaves. This, the first English-language biography, chronicles her life and career. In particular, it examines her success in a society which discouraged women from public performance.
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Papi A Novel
Book SynopsisThroughout this text the author shows his awareness that the actual past remains fundamentally irreplicable. He asserts all histories to be culturally crafted artifacts, commensurate with folk tales, stage plays, or films.
£38.00
The University of Chicago Press Weaving the Threads of Life
Book SynopsisFor the Yaka of Southwestem Zaire, infertility is a tear in the fabric of life, and the Khita fertility ritual is a trusted way of re-weaving the damaged strands. Here, Devisch offers an extended analysis of the Khita cult and an account of the workings of ritual healing.
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Staging Tourism Bodies on Display from Waikiki to
Book SynopsisProvides an account of US tourism in Waikiki from 1900 to 1999. The book juxtaposes cultural tourism with animal tourism, suggesting that the relationship between the viewer and the viewed is ultimately based on concepts of physical difference harking back to the 19th century.
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press Making Gray Gold Narratives of Nursing Home Care
Book SynopsisThis exploration of the work of nurses and other caregivers in nursing homes is set in the context of wider political, economic and cultural forces that influence, both positively and negatively, the quality of care for America's elderly.
£27.00
The University of Chicago Press The Destiny of a King
Book SynopsisThe preeminent scholar of comparative studies of Indo-European society, Georges Dumézil theorized that ancient and prehistoric Indo-European culture and literature revolved around three major functions: sovereignty, force, and fertility. This work treats these functions as they are articulated through first king legends found in Indian, Iranian, and Celtic epics, particularly the Mahabharata. Dumézil, drawing on an extraordinarily broad range of Indo-European sources from Scandinavia to India and offering an original and provocative analytic method, set a new agenda for studies in comparative oral literature, historical linguistics, comparative mythology, and history of religions. The Destiny of a King examines one of the little epics within the Mahabharatathe legend of King Yayati, a distant ancestor of the Pandavas, the heroes of the larger epic. Dumézil compares Yayati's attributes and actions with those of the legendary Celtic king Eochaid Feidlech and also finds striking similarit
£26.00
The University of Chicago Press Power Trust and Meaning Essays in Sociological
Book SynopsisThis collection of 12 theoretical essays spans more than 40 years of research in order to explore the bases of human action and society. Framed by a new introduction and an extensive epilogue, the essays trace the major developments of contemporary sociological theory and analysis.
£52.25
The University of Chicago Press Steppin Out New York Nightlife and the
Book Synopsis
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press Chinas Gentry Essays on RuralUrban Relations
Book SynopsisThese seven essays on the structure of Chinese society are based on articles contributed by Fei to Chinese newspapers in 1947 and 1948. Six case histories from a study of the gentry by Yung-teh Chow are appended. The chief interest and charm of this book lie in the fact that it is not directed to the Western reader; these were studies written in Chinese, by an erudite Chinese, for a Chinese public. . . . Mrs. Redfield is to be complimented for her own careful research in preparing this translation for a non-Chinese public.Robert F. Spencer, American Anthropologist
£38.00
The University of Chicago Press Mixed Messages
Book SynopsisExamining a wide array of cultures, the author offers an original consideration of our dual inheritance, going deep inside an ethnographic record to outline a relationship between our genetic codes and symbolic systems. He reveals how the inherent tensions between these two modes of transmission generate many of the features of human society.Trade Review"Paul uses dual inheritance theory as a tool for ethnographic interpretation in a highly original way. Using a rich array of ethnographic evidence, he very effectively demonstrates that culture is a brawny phenomenon that is key to understanding why humans are so different from even our closest primate relatives." (Peter J. Richerson, University of California, Davis)
£26.00
The University of Chicago Press Rethinking Therapeutic Culture
Book SynopsisOffers a nuanced, empirically grounded picture of therapeutic culture. This title includes both an extended history and a series of critical interventions organized around keywords like pain, privacy, and narcissism. It will change the way we've been taught to see the landscape of therapy and self-help.Trade Review"Engaging and thought-provoking, the seventeen essays included here do a fine job of suggesting that the therapeutic is indeed best understood as a uniquely American culture-one where institutions and individuals come together to shape values and ideals. Rethinking Therapeutic Culture strikes exactly the right tone to raise cogent questions about the meaning and context of therapeutics in the twenty-first century." (Wendy Kline, author of Bodies of Knowledge: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Women's Health in the Second Wave)
£26.00
The University of Chicago Press Indian Reservations in the United States
Book SynopsisThis cultural-geographic study of the American Indian reservations in the 48 contiguous states explores the reservations as living environments rather than historical footnotes. The text seeks to discover and highlight the many possibilities for positive change.
£31.35
The University of Chicago Press Threads of Life Autobiography the Will
Book SynopsisThis work offers an account of how changing theological, philosophical and psychological accounts of the human will have been reflected in the writing of autobiography, and of how autobiography in its turn has helped to shape various understandings of the will.
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Jammin at the Margins Jazz and the American
Book SynopsisArguing that jazz films create images of racial and sexual identity, many of which have become inseparable from popular notions of the music itself, this study explores the fundamental obsessions that American culture has brought to jazz in the cinema.
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Teenage Wasteland Suburbias Dead End Kids
Book SynopsisThis volume provides portraits of rock and roll kids and analyses of their interests in heavy metal music and Satanism. It aims to draw new conclusions and to present solid reasons to admire the resilience of suburbia's dead-end kids.
£23.00
The University of Chicago Press Generations and Collective Memory
Book SynopsisWhen discussing large social trends or experiences, we tend to group people into generations. But what does it mean to be part of a generation, and what gives that group meaning and coherence? It's collective memory, say Amy Corning and Howard Schuman, and in Generations and Collective Memory, they draw on an impressive range of research to show how generations share memories of formative experiences, and how understanding the way those memories form and change can help us understand society and history. Their key finding-built on historical research and interviews in the United States and seven other countries (including China, Japan, Germany, Lithuania, Russia, Israel, and Ukraine)-is that our most powerful generational memories are of shared experiences in adolescence and early adulthood, like the 1963 Kennedy assassination for those born in the 1950s or the fall of the Berlin Wall for young people in 1989. But there are exceptions to that rule, and they're significant: Corning and
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press Identities A Critical Inquiry Book
Book SynopsisA collection of 20 essays which discusses topics such as: gypsies in the Western imagination; the mobilization of the West in Chinese television; the lesbian identity and the woman's gaze in fashion photography; and the regulation of Black women's bodies in early 20th-century urban areas.
£22.00
The University of Chicago Press Byzantium
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£42.75
The University of Chicago Press Peddlers and Princes Social Development and
Book SynopsisIn a closely observed study of two Indonesian towns, Clifford Geertz analyzes the process of economic change in terms of people and behavior patterns rather than income and production. One of the rare empirical studies of the earliest stages of the transition to modern economic growth, Peddlers and Princes offers important facts and generalizations for the economist, the sociologist, and the South East Asia specialist. Peddlers and Princes is, like much of Geertz's other writing, eminently rewarding . . . Case study and broader theory are brought together in an illuminating marriage.Donald Hindley, Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science What makes the book fascinating is the author's capacity to relate his anthropological findings to questions of central concern to the economist . . . H. G. Johnson, Journal of Political Economy
£23.00
The University of Chicago Press Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism
Book SynopsisIn the spring of 1900, British archaeologist Arthur Evans began to excavate the palace of Knossos on Crete, bringing ancient Greek legends to life just as a new century dawned amid far-reaching questions about human history, art, and culture. This title relates the story of Evans' excavation and its long-term effects on Western culture.Trade Review"A stylish and original cultural history of Knossos." (Economist) "Fascinating and consistently entertaining.... It is a tribute to the wit and clarity of Gere's style that she is able to explain all this without making the reader's brain ache." (Times Literary Supplement) "Cathy Gere re-creates a century of bizarre misreadings of the nearly unknown ancient culture of Crete, and in doing so has produced that rarest of literary surprises: a genuinely hilarious work of Minoan historiography." (Benjamin Moser, Harper's) "Gere attempts to understand the archaeologists, architects, artists, classicists, writers, and poets who reconstructed Minoan Crete in our time. And she does so brilliantly." (Library Journal) "The implications of this fascinating book extend far beyond the island that is its focus." (Science) "A brilliant study of the role of Knossos in twentieth-century culture.... Gere writes with clarity and wit, but she never sacrifices the fascinating complexity of her tale to a simple story line." (New York Review of Books)"
£36.10
The University of Chicago Press Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism
Book SynopsisIn the spring of 1900, British archaeologist Arthur Evans began to excavate the palace of Knossos on Crete, bringing ancient Greek legends to life just as a new century dawned amid far-reaching questions about human history, art, and culture. This title relates the story of Evans' excavation and its long-term effects on Western culture.Trade Review"A stylish and original cultural history of Knossos." (Economist) "Fascinating and consistently entertaining.... It is a tribute to the wit and clarity of Gere's style that she is able to explain all this without making the reader's brain ache." (Times Literary Supplement) "Cathy Gere re-creates a century of bizarre misreadings of the nearly unknown ancient culture of Crete, and in doing so has produced that rarest of literary surprises: a genuinely hilarious work of Minoan historiography." (Benjamin Moser, Harper's) "Gere attempts to understand the archaeologists, architects, artists, classicists, writers, and poets who reconstructed Minoan Crete in our time. And she does so brilliantly." (Library Journal) "The implications of this fascinating book extend far beyond the island that is its focus." (Science) "A brilliant study of the role of Knossos in twentieth-century culture.... Gere writes with clarity and wit, but she never sacrifices the fascinating complexity of her tale to a simple story line." (New York Review of Books)"
£20.43
The University of Chicago Press Genii of the River Niger
Book SynopsisThe river Niger, a source of life and danger for the people in impoverished eastern Mali, is also the origin of elaborate mythology. From his travels through Mali and down the Niger in a dugout canoe, Jean-Marie Gibbal has created a personal documentary of the cultures of the region.
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Sound Diplomacy Music and Emotions in
Book SynopsisBetween 1850 and 1910, the US was a rising star in the international arena, and several European nations sought to strengthen their ties to the republic through cultural means. France capitalized on its art, Britain on its social ties and literature, and Germany promoted classical music. This book traces these efforts to export culture.
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press Sound Diplomacy Music and Emotions in
Book SynopsisDelving into the archives that document cross-cultural interactions between America and Germany, the author retraces these efforts to export culture as an instrument of nongovernmental diplomacy, paying particular attention to the role of conductors and uncovers the history of the musician as a cultural symbol of German cosmopolitanism.
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press The Lady and the Virgin Image Attitude and
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£28.00
The University of Chicago Press Beyond Glasnost Paper The PostTotalitarian Mind
Book SynopsisBeyond Glasnost is a thoughtful exploration of the past decade's cultural and political ferment in Eastern Europe. It is also something else: an argumentin a deceptively unassuming, anti-ideological voiceabout how to conceive of and move toward freedom; an argument that could hardly be more relevant to the roiling debates on the Western left.Ellen Willis, Village Voice
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Capturing the German Eye American Visual
Book SynopsisShedding light on the American campaign to democratize Western Germany after World War II, this book covers the importance of cultural policy and visual propaganda to the US occupation. It evokes Germany's political climate between 1945 and 1949, adding an unexpected dimension to the confrontation between the United States and the USSR.
£42.75
The University of Chicago Press The Collected Essays and Criticism Volume 3
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£30.00
University of Chicago Press The Collected Essays and Criticism Volume 4
Book SynopsisThe third volume in the series of Greenberg's writings covers the period between 1950 and 1956, while Volume 4: Modernism with a Vengeance, gathers essays and criticism of the years 1957 to 1969. The selection demonstrates the development and direction of Greenberg's criticism.
£31.35
The University of Chicago Press Governing Sound
Book SynopsisCalypso music is an integral part of Trinidad's national identity. But in a nation as diverse as Trinidad, why is it that calypso has emerged as the emblematic music? This book examines conditions that have enabled calypso to be valorized, contested, and targeted as a field of cultural politics in Trinidad.Trade Review"Interrogating all the mythologies of the nation-state, authorship, individual and collective agency, Governing Sound is the first effort at bringing key concepts of Foucauldian thought to bear on an ethnomusicological topic. This book will be received as a milestone in ethnomusicology." - Veit Erlmann, University of Texas at Austin"
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press Inside Culture Art and Class in the American Home
Book SynopsisThis volume takes the reader on a tour of 160 homes in and around New York City, from affluent townhouses on Manhattan's Upper East Side and rowhouses in blue-collar Brooklyn to the middle- and upper-class suburbs of Long Island.
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press New York and Los Angeles Politics Society and
Book SynopsisThis volume presents advanced studies that consider the fundamental difference of urban center versus decentralization that operates in the cities of New York and Los Angeles, while comparing politics and culture in each area.
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press The Great Brain Suck
Book SynopsisMore and more information is pumped into our media-saturated world every day, yet Americans seem to know less and less. In a society where who you are is defined by what you buy, and where we prefer to experience reality by watching it on TV, the author argues something has clearly gone wrong.Trade Review"Witty, acerbic, and brilliant. Halton takes on truly basic philosophical issues, but unlike the great majority of cultural critics today, he is philosophically prepared and highly competent to do so. Halton's extraordinary work is nearly unique among current writers in its relevance, incisiveness, and philosophical power." - Bruce Wilshire, Rutgers University"
£30.40
The University of Chicago Press The Lost Promise of Patriotism
Book SynopsisJonathan Hansen tells the story of a group of American intellectuals who believed the solution to the crisis of American identity leading up to World War I lay in rethinking the meaning of liberalism.
£28.00
