Cultural studies Books

Book SynopsisRobert Pfaller advances a general theory of interpassivity as the wish for delegated consumption and enjoyment in both art and in everyday life, tackling a vast range of phenomena: culture, art, sports and religion.Trade Review'New concepts are rare in social thinking and interpassivity is arguably the only true concept to have emerged in the last two decades... So let's not beat around the bush, Interpassivity is simply one of the great founding texts of social thought, on a par with classic works by Max Weber - Slavoj Zizek

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Book SynopsisAt the age of eighteen Lucy Wadham ran away from English boys and into the arms of a Frenchman. Twenty-five years later, having married in a French Catholic Church, put her children through the French educational system and divorced in a French court of law, Wadham is perfectly placed to explore the differences between Britain and France.Using both her personal experiences and the lessons of French history and culture, she examines every aspect of French life - from sex and adultery to money, happiness, race and politics - in this funny and engrossing account of our most intriguing neighbour.

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Book SynopsisIn this important new book, leading cultural theorist and philosopher Bernard Stiegler re-examines the relationship between politics and art in the contemporary world. Our hyper-industrial epoch represents what Stiegler terms a 'katastroph of the sensible'.Trade Review"What links Andy Warhol, Bela Bartok, Glenn Gould and Joseph Beuys? This, says Stiegler: each in his own way understood the decisive changes brought about in the arts by their entanglement in networks of industrial production and commercial consumption, and each also realized that this entanglement called into question whether any of us - actual or merely potential artists - could any longer be said to participate in the creation and circulation of symbols. This is the question of what Stiegler terms �symbolic misery�, and he answers it with characteristic defiance. If we are indeed excluded from such participation, then the possibility of overturning this state of affairs is everywhere around us: in precisely those technical forms we more usually experience as feeding our addiction to alienation. All that is needed is to transform these from poison into cure, which is to say: to learn how to use them! This is a work of sober, impassioned understanding." Martin Crowley, Queens� College, Cambridge "In Symbolic Misery one of Europe�s leading contemporary thinkers offers indispensable insights into modern technology and its influence on the ways we come to think and feel. Stiegler does not simply diagnose a collective malaise, however; his writing is a call to arms and a programme for a total rethinking of our relationship to technical objects." Ian James, Downing College, CambridgeTable of ContentsCall to Adventure Notice to the Reader Prologue with Chorus Sensibility’s Machinic Turn and Music’s Privilege I Sensing through Participation Or the Art of Acting Out II Setting Out From Warhol and Beuys III Us All Individuation as Trans-formation and Trans-formation as Social Sculpture IV Freud’s Repression Where the Living Seize the Dead and Vice Versa V The Disjunctive Conjunction Mais où est donc Ornicar?

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewJapan and the Culture of the Four Seasons provides a compelling account of how Japan has appropriated, interpreted, and valued nature over the centuries. Haruo Shirane's wide-ranging study tracks the culture of nature in Japan and especially the central role of waka in constructing a vision of nature that influenced all the arts. In its breadth, depth, and accessibility, his book is of great value not only to scholars and students of Japan but also to anyone interested in the intersections of art and nature. -- Andrew M. Watsky, Princeton University A tour de force. Haruo Shirane synthesizes the long and complicated encoding of flora, fauna, toponyms, and annual events of the Japanese landscape and calendar, untangling their synchronic connections and their historical development from the eighth to the nineteenth centuries, from the small cuckoo (hototogisu) as a harbinger of summer in the Kokinshu to the lovemaking of cats as a topic for comic haikai verse in the Edo period. Shirane's book is essential for anyone interested in virtually any genre of the traditional Japanese arts: poetry, costume, painting, noh theater, architecture, tea ceremony, flower arranging-or even Japanese sweets (wagashi)! -- Joshua Mostow, University of British Columbia 'Sensitivity to nature' is one of those commonplaces about Japanese tradition that, because of its all-too-easy association with cultural nationalism, tends to set many people's teeth on edge. This engaging and impressive study provides a welcome antidote. Drawing from literary, visual, historical, and religious sources, Haruo Shirane cuts through the cliches to uncover multiple, evolving, and sometimes surprising dimensions of the Japanese relationship with nature from early times to the present. -- Kate Wildman Nakai, professor emerita, Sophia University A comprehensive view of the subject, replete with fascinating detail, and full scholarly apparatus. -- David Burleigh Japan Times As accessible as it is erudite, this volume will appeal to those with interest in any aspect of the arts...Highly recommended. Choice A vital contribution to our understanding of the literature, art, and daily practices of Japan over the centuries. -- Elizabeth Oyler Monumenta Nipponica Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons... enables us, for the first time in English, to gain a comprehensive, systematic, and authoritatively scholarly view on how very pervasive this seasons culture is and has been since the Nara and Heian periods. Japan Review Shirane is a reliable guide and reading this book will enrich one's understanding of almost any Japanese artifact. Journal of Japanese StudiesTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Historical Periods, Romanization, Names, Titles, and Illustrations Introduction: Secondary Nature, Climate, and Landscape 1. Poetic Topics and the Making of the Four Seasons 2. Visual Culture, Classical Poetry, and Linked Verse 3. Interiorization, Flowers, and Social Ritual 4. Rural Landscape, Social Difference, and Conflict 5. Trans-Seasonality, Talismans, and Landscape 6. Annual Observances, Famous Places, and Entertainment 7. Seasonal Pyramid, Parody, and Botany Conclusion: History, Genre, and Social Community Appendix: Seasonal Topics in Key Texts Notes Bibliography of Recommended Readings in English Selected Bibliography of Secondary and Primary Sources in Japanese Index of Seasonal and Trans-Seasonal Words and Topics Index of Authors, Titles, and Key Terms

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Book SynopsisThe golden age of cultural theory (the product of a decade and a half, from 1965 to 1980) is long past. We are living now in its aftermath, in an age which, having grown rich in the insights of thinkers like Althusser, Barthes and Derrida, has also moved beyond them. What kind of new, fresh thinking does this new era demand? Eagleton concludes that cultural theory must start thinking ambitiously again - not so that it can hand the West its legitimation, but so that it can seek to make sense of the grand narratives in which it is now embroiled.Trade Review'Showily, and wittily, Eagleton yearns for a species of salvation or transcendence from cultural theories' Prospect'...An original thinker whose passion and zest for life, and writing, remain, after years in the famously desiccating groves of academe, undiminished' the Independent Magazine'After Theory's huge achievement is to show just how formidable a presence the Marxist cultural critic can be, even here in the thronged and dismaying universe of Bush, Blair, Derrida and the celebrated M Jean Baudrilland' Independent on Sunday

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Book SynopsisA sweeping examination of the core issues of sexual politics by one of feminism’s most important and critical voicesTrade Review'An intelligently critical, inclusive, personal and very accessible feminist polemic' -- Theory.orgTable of ContentsAbbreviations Introduction 1. The Subversive Image 2. Inner Experience 3. Sovereignty 4. The Tears of Eros 5. The Accursed Share Conclusion Notes and References Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisBeautifully illustrated with an array of Japanese art, this book offers a closer look at the rich variety of styles, decoration, motifs and patterns and the sheer craftsmanship of Japanese culture.

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Book SynopsisSurrendered by Islanders, captured as a trophy in a burst of missionary zeal, then shipped to England to begin a new life as an object of curiosity and fascination - this is the story of a constantly transforming idol.

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Book SynopsisAre the “culture wars” over? When did they begin? What is their relationship to gender struggle and the dynamics of class? In her first full treatment of postcolonial studies, a field that she helped define, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, one of the world’s foremost literary theorists, poses these questions from within the postcolonial enclave.Trade ReviewGayatri Spivak’s most recent text, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, brings together in a single volume a wide range of her work in postcolonial studies… She weaves together these multiple levels of critique brilliantly, presenting a rigorous reading of the discourses of imperialism… A Critique of Postcolonial Reason presents a scrupulous discussion of imperialism in European philosophy, literature, history, and culture. -- Rachel Riedner * American Studies International *Gayatri Spivak’s long-awaited book…sets out to challenge the very fields Spivak has herself been most associated with—postcolonial studies and third world feminism… [A Critique of Postcolonial Reason] is remarkable for the warnings it provides—powerful critiques of diverse positions structure the author’s stance—as guardian in the margin. Spivak forcefully interrogates the practices, politics and subterfuges of intellectual formations ranging from nativism, elite poststructuralist theory, metropolitan feminism, cultural Marxism, global hybridism, and ‘white boys talking postcoloniality.’ -- Yogita Goyal * New Formations *A Critique of Postcolonial Reason is almost above all else self-conscious, self-aware, self-deprecating. In 139 brilliant footnotes to ‘Culture,’ Spivak carries on a running engagement with the flotsam and jetsam (what Walter Benjamin called the ‘detritus’ of culture or ‘Trash of History’) of what passes for public life and the attendant information and culture industry in this global thing we live in: ad campaigns by clothing designers, articles and stories from the New York Times or ‘Good Morning America’… Spivak’s tone makes the book a constant pleasure. A mocking smile seems always present, along with sincere engagement with important issues… From the first page of the preface to her footnote almost 400 pages later about the exchange with the World Bank official at the European Parliament, Spivak focuses on the ignorant, arrogant Eurocentric destruction of people and the environment and the enabling practices of culture that make it possible… This is a most important and significant book. -- David S. Gross * World Literature Today *Spivak focuses on the relationship of debates in philosophy, history, and literature to the emergence of a postcolonial problematic. Overall, she seeks to distance herself from mainstream postcolonial literature and to reassert the value of earlier theorists such as Kant and Marx… Those already interested in the postmodern and postcolonial debates may find her style invigorating. -- Kent Worcester * Library Journal *Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, one of the foremost thinkers in postcolonial theory, looks at the place of her discipline in the academic ‘culture wars.’ A Critique of Post-Colonial Reason includes a reworking of her most influential essay, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ which has previously appeared in only one anthology. * Publishers Weekly *Gayatri Spivak works with remarkable complexity and skill to evoke the local details of emergent agency in an international frame. Her extraordinary attention to the texts she reads and her ability to track the reach of global power make her one of the unparalleled intellectuals of our time. -- Judith Butler, author of The Psychic Life of PowerA founder of postcolonial studies surveys the current state of the field and finds much to criticize. This is vintage Spivak—dazzling, often exasperating, but unfailingly powerful. -- Partha Chatterjee, author of The Nation and Its FragmentsIn these pages Gayatri Spivak performs what often seems either impossible or purely gestural—a critique of transnational globalization which manages to be equally attuned to its cultural and economic effects. This book deserves to be read for its modulated defense of Marxism and feminism alone. It will be welcomed as the clearest statement to date of Spivak’s own relationship to the postcolonial theory with which she herself—wrongly, as she forcefully argues here—is so often identified. With a brilliance that is uniquely hers, Spivak issues a challenge which will be very hard to avoid to the limits of theory and of academic institutions alike. -- Jacqueline Rose, author of States of FantasyGayatri Spivak tells us that here she charts her progress from colonial discourse studies to transnational cutlural studies. She does so brilliantly. And she does so much more. She constructs this extraordinary progress through an intricate labyrinth, but one with blazing lights in every corner. -- Saskia Sassen, author of Globalization and Its DiscontentsTable of Contents* Preface *1. Philosophy *2. Literature *3. History *4. Culture * Appendix: The Setting to Work of Deconstruction * Index

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Book SynopsisThis sweeping comparative decolonial framework for visual culture studies, a field the author helped shape, casts modernity as a contest between visuality and countervisuality, or the right to look.Trade Review“[V]isual studies will no longer be the same before and after this book. . . . Mirzoeff's work does it all: offering new perspectives, blurring the boundaries between disciplines, disclosing what had been hidden, and shooting trouble.” - Jan Baetens, Leonardo Reviews“The Right to Look offers the fledgling discipline, and the thriving interdiscipline [of visual studies], a historical narrative against which it must now measure its claims to grasp the present. It marks a coming of age that has brought cultural studies past the variability and the enchantments of its postmodern moment. It highlights the need for responsibility toward actual pasts, and toward the actual demands of contemporary realities. These are significant achievements.” - Terry Smith, Public Books“This volume advances and enhances Mirzoeff's reputation as one of the intellectual leaders of visual culture studies. Highly recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.” - C. J. Lamb, Choice“The Right to Look is a brilliant book—original, ambitious, and constantly surprising. Nicholas Mirzoeff is at the center of the most advanced thinking in visual culture studies, and The Right to Look is a very important project within the field. It is a genuinely postcolonial text that places visual culture studies on broad historical and political footing for the first time.”—Terry Smith, co-editor of Antinomies of Art and Culture: Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity“Nicholas Mirzoeff’s The Right to Look is a passionate and magisterial intervention in the field of visual culture studies. Emphatically arguing that the human visual experience, with all its technical prostheses and metaphorical extensions, is a fundamentally ethical and political domain, Mirzoeff ranges over amazingly varied historical and geographical terrain. From the administration of the colonial plantation to missionary and military adventurism, to drone attacks and counterinsurgency flowcharts, to the latest tactics of spectacle and surveillance, everything is analyzed with a sure sense of the crucial detail and the revelatory anecdote. This is a brilliant contribution to visual culture studies, one that sets a very high standard for this emergent discipline.”—W. J. T. Mitchell, author of Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present and What Do Pictures Want?“The Right to Look offers the fledgling discipline, and the thriving interdiscipline [of visual studies], a historical narrative against which it must now measure its claims to grasp the present. It marks a coming of age that has brought cultural studies past the variability and the enchantments of its postmodern moment. It highlights the need for responsibility toward actual pasts, and toward the actual demands of contemporary realities. These are significant achievements.” -- Terry Smith * Public Books *“[V]isual studies will no longer be the same before and after this book. . . . Mirzoeff's work does it all: offering new perspectives, blurring the boundaries between disciplines, disclosing what had been hidden, and shooting trouble.” -- Jan Baetens * Leonardo Reviews *“[T]his monograph functions as an important historiographical intervention, revealing how the field of the visual has been constituted as modernity’s central epistemic field. Providing detailed historical analysis, this book is a valuable and important addition to the emergent field of visual cultural studies as well as to visual anthropologists seeking to understand and teach how the visual methods they deploy or theorize are circumscribed within a larger historical context of the visual.” -- Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan * Visual Anthropology Review *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ix Preface. Ineluctable Visualities xiii Acknowledgments xvii Introduction. The Right to Look, or, How to Think With and Against Visuality 1 Visualizing Visuality 35 1. Oversight: The Ordering of Slavery 48 2. The Modern Imaginary: Anti-Slavery Revolutions and the Right to Existence 77 Puerto Rican Counterpoint I 117 3. Visuality: Authority and War 123 4. Abolition Realism: Reality, Realisms, and Revolution 155 Puerto Rican Counterpoint II 188 5. Imperial Visuality and Countervisuality, Ancient and Modern 196 6. Anti-Fascist Neorealisms: North-South and the Permanent Battle for Algiers 232 Mexican-Spanish Counterpoint 271 7. Global Counterinsurgency and the Crisis of Visuality 277 Notes 311 Bibliography 343 Index 373

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Book SynopsisIn the OXFORD HISTORY OF ART series, a look at innovative and avant-garde sculpture in relation to contemporary events, festivals, commissions and the changing functions of museums. Explores Anti-form, minimalism, Earth Art, Performance Art and other forms, presenting a holistic picture of post-war sculpture which will stimulate future debate.Trade ReviewAndrew Causey weaves his way adroitly through the labyrinth of post-War sculpture, carefully identifying the main directions and balancing clear theoretical exposition with his concern for the quality of the individual works. No one else has charted the territory so comprehensively, and his study is bound to be helpful to all who have an interest in this dominant strand of contemporary art. * Professor Stephen Bann, University of Kent at Canterbury *This is a stimulating and persuasive definition of significant trends in avant-garde sculpture during the last fifty years, which balances a searching analysis of the impact of institutional change, issues of site and environment and key critical debates with revealing commentaries on individual artists and works of art. Accessible without being simplistic, it is a discerning guide for anyone interested in contemporary art and culture. * Elizabeth Cowling, University of Edinburgh *Andrew Causey's Sculpture Since 1945 is a comprehensive account of sculpture in the years leading up to and following the explosion of sculpture in the 1960s and 70s. This book is a clear guide to the various directions of sculpture and the work of sculptors in the years when modern sculpture has begun to stand in its own right as a, or perhaps the, major art form. * Sir Anthony Caro Sculptor *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. European Sculpture at End of the Second World War ; 2. The New Sculpture ; 3. Sculpture and the Everyday ; 4. Modernism and Minimalism ; 5. 'Anti-Form' ; 6. Natural Materials ; 7. Public Spaces ; 8. Object and Figure: Sculpture Since 1980 ; Notes, List of Illustrations, Bibliographic Essay, Timeline, Index

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Book SynopsisDiscusses such matters as the generation gap, the student uproar, the New Left, the beats and hippies, the psychedelic movement, rock music, the revival of occultism and mysticism, the protest against our involvement in Vietnam, and the seemingly odd reluctance of the young to buy the affluent technological society, with constructive criticism.Table of ContentsIntroduction to the 1995 Edition Preface I. Technocracy's Children II. An Invasion of Centaurs III. The Dialectics of Liberation: Herbert Marcuse and Norman Brown N. Journey to the East . .. and Points Beyond: Allen Ginsberg and Alan Watts V. The Counterfeit Infinity: The Use and Abuse of Psychedelic Experience VI. Exploring Utopia: The Visionary Sociology of Paul Goodman VII. The Myth of Obiective Consciousness VIII. Eyes of Flesh, Eyes of Fire Appendix: Obiectivity Unlimited Bibliographical Notes Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisAn anthropological account of how rankings, statistics and numbers are reshaping the world we live inTrade Review'A new and compelling argument for why so many institutions continue to be spellbound by rankings and metrics - despite the cultural carnage they cause in schools, hospitals, universities, corporations and governmental agencies. How can we halt this 'death by audit' craze that has swept through modern society like a deadly virus? In this thought provoking book, the authors develop a radical agenda that will strike fear into number-loving technocrats around the world.' -- Peter Fleming, author of 'Dark Academia: How Universities Die''If you want to go and see a film, choose a university or find the best restaurant, you are likely to consult some sort of ranking ... In this timely work, Shore and Wright ask us to question this contemporary common sense and the market managerialism that lies behind it. Can we imagine a world without audit, one in which our choices are not counted, and trust does not rely on numbers?' -- Professor Martin Parker, University of Bristol Business School'The expansion of audits, indicators and rankings has become a pressing issue for governance and democracy. Cris Shore and Susan Wright build on decades of work to provide a powerful and definitive critical diagnosis of the effects of this audit culture on individuals, public organisations and society. Their book should be essential reading for scholars and policy makers.' -- Michael Power, Professor of Accounting, London School of Economics and Political Science'A visionary book. Two anthropologists piece together a global jigsaw: how for 25 years practices of accountability have been transforming almost every aspect of organisational and personal life. A brilliantly lucid, vigorously argued critique, clear-eyed about the structures that undermine us.' -- Marilyn Strathern, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology, University of CambridgeTable of ContentsList of Figures Abbreviations Acknowledgements Series Preface Preface 1. Introduction: Audit Culture and the New World (Dis)Order 2. Rankings as Populist Project: Governing by Numbers and Hollowing out Democracy 3. The Big Four Accountancy Firms and the Evolution of Contemporary Capitalism 4. Global Governance through Standards, Seduction and Soft Power 5. Metrics, Managerialism and Market Making: Unlocking Value in Healthcare 6. Reforming Higher Education: The Kafkaesque Pursuit of ‘World Class’ Status 7. The New Subjects of Audit: Performance Management and Quantified Selves 8. Conclusion: Repurposing Audit – Restoring Trust, Accountability and Democracy Bibliography Index

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Book Synopsis"There is nothing quite like this well-researched book."—Library JournalTrade Review"This book will certainly become one of the key sources for tracing symbols and their meanings." -- American Libraries

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Book SynopsisIn this new book, David Harvey seeks to determine what is meant by the term in its different contexts and to identify how accurate and useful it is as a description of contemporary experience.Trade Review"Devastating. The most brilliant study of post-modernity to date. David Harvey cuts beneath the theoretical debates about postmodernist culture to reveal the social and economic basis of this apparently free-floating phenomenon. After reading this book, those who fashionably scorn the idea of a 'total' critique had better think again." Terry Eagleton "Few people have penetrated the heartland of contemporary cultural theory and critique as explosively or insightfully as David Harvey." Edward Soja "David Harvey's book is probably the best yet written on the link between ... economic and cultural transformations." Financial Times "David Harvey's engrossing book is probably the most readable, ambitious, and intelligent work on postmodernism yet published." Voice Literary Supplement "In Harvey's skilful hands various strands of contemporary life, normally held far apart by specialized scholarly interests, come together again and are shown to fit with each other ... a marvellous, enjoyable and mind-opening book." Times Literary SupplementTable of ContentsThe argument. Preface. Acknowledgements. Part I: The Passage from Modernity to Postmodernity in Contemporary Culture: . 1. Introduction. 2. Modernity and Modernism. 3. Postmodernism. 4. Postmodernism in the City: Architecture and Urban Design. 5. Modernization. 6. POSTmodernISM or postMODERNism?. Part II: The Political-Economic Transformation of late Twentieth-Century Capitalism: . 7. Introduction. 8. Fordism. 9. From Fordism to Flexible Accumulation. 10. Theorizing the Transition. 11. Flexible Accumulation - Solid Transformation or Temporary Fix?. Part III: The Experience of Space and Time: . 12. Introduction. 13. Individual Spaces and Times in Social Life. 14. Time and Space as Sources of Social Power. 15. The Time and Space of the Enlightenment Project. 16. Time-space Compression and the Rise of Modernism as a Cultural Force. 17. Time-Space Compression and the Postmodern Condition. 18. Time and Space in the Postmodern Cinema. Part IV: The Condition of Postmodernity:. 19. Postmodernity as a Historical Condition. 20. Economics with Mirrors. 21. Postmodernism as the Mirror of Mirrors. 22. Fordist Modernism versus Flexible Postmodernism, or the Interpenetration of Opposed Tendencies in Capitalism as a Whole. 23. The Transformative and Speculative Logic of Capital. 24. The Work of Art in an Age of Electronic Reproduction and Image Banks. 25. Responses to Time-Space Compression. 26. The Crisis of Historical Materialism. 27. Cracks in the Mirrors, Fusions at the Edges. References. Index.

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Book SynopsisAnyone who works or interacts regularly with people from other cultures needs to understand the basics of intercultural communication. In this accessible, completely revised edition, readers can teach themselves the intercultural essentials. This is the training anyone who works across cultures needs.An invaluable resource for students and educators alike, this self-study workbook is used as a primary text and basis of intercultural communication curricula. Understanding the World''s Cultures is organized to create an immersion experience for readers. Culture is directly addressed through 40 activities that can be worked through in a classroom or a coffee shop.In five chapters, Craig Storti: Defines culture and explains how cultural differences threaten successful interaction Identifies four fundamental ways that cultures differ and describes the implications for everyday interactions Describes cultural differences in communi

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Book Synopsis‘Fascinating’ Guardian‘Brilliant’ Evening Standard‘Electrifying’ Financial Times‘So interesting I literally couldn’t put it down’ Sunday TimesWe are living in an age of heightened individualism. Success is a personal responsibility. Our culture tells us that to succeed is to be slim, rich, happy, extroverted, popular – flawless.The pressure to conform to this ideal has changed who we are. We have become self-obsessed. And our expectation of perfection comes at a cost. Millions are suffering under the torture of this impossible fantasy.It was not always like this. To explain how we got here, Will Storr takes us on a journey across continents and centuries. Full of thrilling and unexpected connections between history, psychology, economics, neuroscience and more, Selfie is an unforgettable book that makes sense of who we have become.Trade ReviewFar more ambitious than its title might suggest . . . Selfie illuminates much of what feels peculiar about the world in 2017 . . . Storr has put in a formidable amount of work, he is irascibly good company, and he has something approaching genius for marshalling his material . . . This could be a pessimistic book. In fact, its insights are timely and welcome -- Richard Godwin * Sunday Times *As entertaining as it is provocative and disquieting . . . His breezy prose is bedded down in intensive research, much of it immersive . . . his closing thoughts can’t help but be comforting * Mail on Sunday *Storr has done huge amounts of research for this book . . . he conveys it with a gifted lightness of touch that is wry and funny (his investigative mode has been compared to those of Jon Ronson and Louis Theroux, with which I wouldn’t disagree) . . . entertaining . . . fascinating * The Times *Thoughtful and engaging . . . wonderfully funny . . . Storr’s cultural history is fascinating * Guardian *An ambitious argument . . . Storr is an electrifying analyst of internet culture, documenting the rise of connectivity in prose that crackles with the energy of the early 21st century . . . an excellent antidote to time-wasting on social media * Financial Times *Storr is a magnificent reporter in the mould of Jon Ronson or Louis Theroux . . . Selfie is profound, uncomfortable, joyful, frustrating, fascinating, fragmented, inspired, heartbreaking, and occasionally riven with internal contradictions. Just like a person, really. -- Helen Lewis * New Statesman *Brilliant . . . There aren’t many authors who can range so confidently across disciplines and, if you go with the flow, you’ll encounter some fascinating nuggets along the way . . . inspiring -- Rohan Silva * Evening Standard *This book is IMMENSE; like reading an Adam Curtis documentary -- Stuart Heritage‘Compelling, terrifying and a total must-read . . . Selfie is a fascinating investigation into the intersection of history, psychology, culture and the economy, and how our brains, our egos – and our constructed sense of self – are products of these interconnecting spaces . . . Reading Selfie is like seeing links light up on a switchboard. Everything is connected; everything makes sense. Yet the most incredible thing about Storr’s book is how it stays with you long after you've read it . . . In both an equally troubling and comforting way, Selfie’s insights can’t been unseen’ -- Marisa Bate * The Pool *This book is fascinating, illuminating, terrifying and reaffirming . . . As a mum of three, it’s a must-read -- Davina McCallA hellishly good book about the new hell: ourselves * Daily Express *A fascinating, timely exploration of our drive for status, perfection and self-esteem, and a consideration of where such obsessions lead * Esquire *It’s easy to look at Instagram and "selfie-sticks" and shake our heads at millennial narcissism. But Will Storr takes a longer view. He ignores the easy targets and instead tells the amazing 2,500-year story of how we’ve come to think about our selves. A top-notch journalist, historian, essayist, and sleuth, Storr has written an essential book for understanding, and coping with, the 21st century -- Nathan Hill, author of The Nix Smart, serious and ultimately reassuring * Psychologies *Will Storr crafts an entertaining history of the self, from Narcissus to Kardashian to Trump * Observer *A hugely important subject, and a compelling one . . . always entertainingly delivered thanks to Storr’s rich reporting. More than that, by taking a hammer to the sacred idea of the self – by putting culture back in the picture – Storr provides a much-needed corrective to our understanding of who we are. For that reason alone, Selfie should be welcomed. * Literary Review *A timely, inspiring book about self-obsession in modern life * Harper’s Bazaar *A broad-ranging history of the western self, from the age of Aristotle to the age of Instagram . . . Storr builds a convincing case that free will is an illusion, change is impossible and our entire political system is built on a lie. But he’s funny with it -- Richard Godwin * Evening Standard *A journey that is both personal and political . . . at once hilarious and horrifying . . . it’s dynamite . . . This book should by rights bring down the entire house of cards that is the self-esteem industry * Saturday Paper (Australia) *Selfie is an entertaining, concise and highly personal examination of the history of the Self. When did we all become narcissists? And how has it turned us into a society of dissatisfied perfectionists? Combining history, journalistic research and acute personal memoir, Storr brilliantly and candidly explores what may be the most pressing question of our - or any - time. I loved it -- Tim LottMoving, wise, compelling and timely, this brilliant and absorbing book investigates the faultline between our oldest human needs and the terrible pressures of technology -- Marcel TherouxOne of my absolute favourite writers -- Decca AitkenheadEminently suitable for readers of both Yuval Noah Harari and Daniel Kahneman, Selfie also has shades of Jon Ronson in its subversive humour and investigative spirit . . . Selfie, without being remotely fluffy, just might be the ultimate in post-truth comfort reading -- Caroline Sanderson * Bookseller *In this riveting account of how our culture has defined who we feel we should be, from Aristotle to Ayn Rand, Storr charts the rise of our age of perfectionism, and our resulting addictions to selfies and social media. It's profoundly eye-opening, and not a little chastening. Arresting mirrored jacket too . . . * Bookseller *You’ll find yourself repeating entire sections of Selfie to your friends, and passing them off as your own. -- Amy Grier * Cosmopolitan *I've come to consider Will Storr the best writer out there in terms of writing about human experience and the concepts and complexities of psychology. I've never seen such a well-thought-through and well-argued piece of work as Selfie, really taking ideas around self-esteem back to their philosophical and historical origins - and pulling them all to pieces. I loved it. -- Professor Sophie Scott, Deputy Director, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College LondonA very well written book. I enjoyed it greatly! -- Professor Danny Dorling, author of A Better Politics: How Government Can Make Us HappierStorr starts in Ancient Greece and masterfully pulls us through time, arriving at today's Silicon Valley. And on this journey he asks so many fascinating questions . . . An important, fascinating and mind-expanding read that examines the cultural, societal, psychological and political forces that have led to the Selfie generation. I can't recommend it enough. * The Pool *There are some real insights about how stories, social rules, cultural norms and role models affect our attitude to ourselves . . . because he puts it into a long, historical perspective, even nitwits with selfie sticks become a bit more interesting to think about . . . a good read -- Libby Purves * Daily Mail *This book is no life hack. Rather, in this fascinating psychological and social history, Storr reveals how biology and culture conspire to keep us striving for perfection, and the devastating toll that can take . . . the book takes readers on a long and complicated journey through centuries of religion, literature and economics, but Storr navigates the material with remarkable clarity, frequently recapping and synthesizing -- Sam Eckel * Washington Post *The other celebrity podcast I’ve been enjoying is Russell Brand’s Under the Skin . . . He wants Answers with a capital A: the meaning of life, the short cut to spiritual awakening, the revolution that will overthrow the president, the place of economic and political systems within history, how terrorism works and if it can be stopped, ditto religion . . . Not much small talk here. High-profile guests such as Adam Curtis, Naomi Klein, Yanis Varoufakis and Yuval Noah Harari join Brand in trying to unpick humanity’s most tangled knots . . . The latest episode has Will Storr discussing why the selfie is an indication of the narcissistic western approach to individuality, and it’s fascinating. -- Miranda Sawyer * Observer *Table of ContentsSection - i: A note on the text Chapter - Book Zero: The Dying Self Chapter - Book One: The Tribal Self Chapter - Book Two: The Perfectible Self Chapter - Book Three: The Bad Self Chapter - Book Four: The Good Self Chapter - Book Five: The Special Self Chapter - Book 6: The Digital Self Chapter - Book Seven: How To Stay Alive in the Age of Perfectionism Acknowledgements - ii: Acknowledgements Section - iii: A note on my methods Section - iv: Notes and references Index - v: Index

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Book SynopsisThe internet and the mobile phone have disrupted many of our conventional understandings of ourselves and our relationships, raising anxieties and hopes about their effects on our lives.Trade Review"New communications technologies are always hyped by some people and denounced by others. Nancy Baym’s brilliant book explodes myths and challenges stereotypes. Her clear-sighted and penetrating analysis provides the mental toolkit needed to reach a more nuanced view of the social impact of digital media."Tom Standage, Digital Editor, The Economist"In this lucid yet learned book, Nancy Baym covers a breadth of analysis on whether and how the internet and mobile communication are reconfiguring our identities and personal relationships. While recognising the many continuities in our social life from offline to online, she also notes some signs of optimism, showing how we may yet build new, perhaps better, personal connections in the digital age."Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics and Political ScienceTable of Contents1. New forms of personal connection 2. Making new media make sense 3. Communication in digital spaces 4. Communities and networks 5. New relationships, new selves? 6. Digital media in everyday relationships Conclusion: the myth of cyberspace

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Book SynopsisFor Tommie Shelby, the persistence of ghettos raises many thorny questions of morality, and he offers practical answers framed in terms of what justice requires of government and its citizens. His social vision and political ethics calls for putting the abolition of ghettos at the center of reform.Trade ReviewTommie Shelby’s Dark Ghettos is, in a word, brilliant! His thoughtful philosophical discourse on issues of race and urban poverty will engage and inform not only his fellow philosophers, but social scientists and educated lay readers as well...This book sets a standard that will be hard to equal. -- William Julius Wilson, author of The Truly Disadvantaged[Shelby] doesn’t lay out a jobs program or a housing initiative...What he aims to do instead is both more abstract and more radical: to challenge the assumption, common to liberals and conservatives alike, that ghettos are ‘problems’ best addressed with narrowly targeted government programs or civic interventions. For Shelby, ghettos are something more troubling and less tractable: symptoms of the ‘systemic injustice’ of the United States. They represent not aberrant dysfunction but the natural workings of a deeply unfair scheme. The only real solution, in this way of thinking, is the ‘fundamental reform of the basic structure of our society.’ -- James Ryerson * New York Times Book Review *Dark Ghettos will not let us forget that racial discrimination has not been eradicated and inequality is now greater and more entrenched. Shelby has issued a timely reminder that the status quo in the United States is unacceptable. -- Glenn Altschuler * Florida Courier *If you have ever bristled at discussions of marriage promotion strategies, the cultural roots of urban poverty, or the pointlessness of so-called political rap, only to decide that the real disagreement was buried too far under too many myths about Black humanity or assumptions about fairness and justice to unravel in one lifetime, then this book is for you. For anyone who hopes to engage productively with the assumptions and claims circulating among our most influential policymakers and ‘thought leaders,’ this book represents philosophy at its most helpful and edifying. -- Paul C. Taylor * Black Perspectives *This bold and incisive book reframes the racial justice debate roiling the United States today…The gestalt shift Shelby’s systemic-injustice perspective invites and supports constitutes a frontal assault on ‘personal responsibility’ and ‘politics of respectability’ approaches to the plight of poor blacks, according to which problems that disproportionately afflict blacks (such as crime and racialized mass incarceration) must be attributed to their bad choices, lack of personal responsibility, and moral deficiencies rather than to social oppression…Dark Ghettos drives a stake through the heart of this diehard but wrongheaded perspective on black criminals. -- Jody D. Armour * Los Angeles Review of Books *In a field with dizzying amounts of data, sensationalistic reporting, controversial policymaking, and strident protest, Dark Ghettos boldly offers deep and ethical thought that illuminates a just path toward eradicating race-, class-, and place-based inequalities. -- Mary Pattillo, author of Black on the BlockA major, groundbreaking contribution to both philosophical and public policy discourse about the ghetto poor. Shelby radically challenges an approach to thinking about black poverty that is deeply embedded in American intellectual and political life. And through his idea of a political ethics of the oppressed, he has more or less invented a new area of philosophical inquiry. -- Robert Gooding-Williams, author of In the Shadow of Du Bois[Shelby's] book tackles some of the thorniest issues in urban social policy—residential integration, the so-called ‘culture of poverty,’ reproduction, family, joblessness, crime and punishment, and cultural expressions of dissent—from a principled egalitarian position. He is consistently informed by a determination to show respect for inner-city residents and their actual and potential agency as equal citizens. The result is instructive and pathbreaking… Policymakers and politicians should take his moral message of abolitionism to heart. To fail to do so is to acquiesce to the persistence of deep injustice—economic and racial—for yet another generation. -- Thad Williamson * Boston Review *It is rare to find a book in political philosophy whose arguments successfully utilize both ideal and non-ideal theory. Rarer still does one find a book in political philosophy that takes seriously the proposition that the oppressed are not merely passive victims to injustice, but rather rational and moral agents, capable of making meaningful and informed choices concerning those things they have reason to value. Dark Ghettos does both. -- Michael S. Merry * Theory and Research in Education *The publication of this book is a significant event in contemporary political philosophy…The book presents a coherent and radical position, explaining why the denizens of dark ghettos are, in present circumstances, justified in their rejection of many mainstream norms. It will immediately be a required text for the philosophical study of racial injustice. -- Jonathan Wolff * Ethics *[This] is an original, powerful, passionately argued, and philosophically stimulating contribution to discussions of the black ghetto and how it can best be abolished…Throughout its pages Shelby matches his great respect and esteem for the black poor with the philosophical intensity and sophistication with which he defends and spells out the demands of their humanity. The black poor have not had so devoted and able a champion since W. E. B. Du Bois. -- Bernard R. Boxill * The Journal of Philosophy *This measured yet powerful philosophical and moral analysis of African American ghetto life and the injustices suffered by its denizens deserves to be widely read…While Shelby advocates abolishing the ghetto, he does not mean abolishing black neighborhoods. Rather, he urges a fundamental reform of the basic structure of society. This has implications for policing and the creation of employment opportunities, and much more. * Choice *Dark Ghettos is the first philosophical treatise on the ghetto…Shelby’s voice is clear, original, and insightful. -- Erin I. Kelly * Criminal Law and Philosophy *

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Book SynopsisIn this blistering book, David Andress shows how the West has abandoned its history and lost its memory. The former great powers of the historic 'West' have abandoned themselves to senile daydreams of recovered youth. They have stirred up old hatreds given disturbing voice to destructive rage, and risked the collapse of their capacity for decisive, effective and just government. At the core of this is an abandonment of political attention to history, understood as a clear empirical grounding in how we reached our present condition. In Britain, France and the USA, historical stories are deployed in public debate as little more than dangerous fantasies.Trade ReviewTo understand our current political situation [...] this book is to be recommended as a handy primer - particularly on France's postwar political travails * Spectator *A stimulating look at the way in which history shapes events * History Revealed *[Andress] repudiates a collective failure to come to terms with the collapse of a historical bubble, when racist empire underwrote domestic achievement and granted international prestige * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisFrank Furedi returns to the theme of Fear in our society and culture.In 1997, Frank Furedi published a book called Culture of Fear. It was widely acclaimed as perceptive and prophetic. Now Furedi returns to his original theme, as most of what he predicted has come true. In How Fear Works, Furedi seeks to explain two interrelated themes: why has fear acquired such a morally commanding status in society today and how has the way we fear today changed from the way that it was experienced in the past? Furedi argues that one of the main drivers of the culture of fear is unravelling of moral authority. Fear appears to provide a provisional solution to moral uncertainty and is for that reason embraced by a variety of interests, parties and individuals. Furedi predicts that until society finds a more positive orientation towards uncertainty the politicisation of fear will flourish. Society is continually bombarded with the message that the threats it faces are incalculabTable of ContentsIntroduction 1 Changing Stories of Fear 2 Waiting for the Time Bomb to Explode 3 Moral Confusion - the Main Driver of the Culture of Fear 4 The Perspective of Fear - How it Works 5 Creation of the Fearful Subject 6 The Quest for Safety in a Dangerous World Conclusion: Towards a Less Fearful Future Acknowledgements Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisWritten collectively by a team of leading qualitative and quantitative sociologists of culture, Measuring Culture provides both the definitive introduction to the sociological literature on culture as well as a critical set of case studies for methods courses across the social sciences.Trade ReviewMeasuring Culture is the canonical text we have been waiting for in the sociology of culture. It is a massive achievement that will be the definitive account on the topic for a long time to come. I'll be thinking with it, teaching with it, and recommending it. -- Clayton Childress, author of Under the Cover: The Creation, Production, and Reception of a NovelAlthough books that emerge from conferences often have little value beyond showing funders some 'product,' Measuring Culture is a brilliant exception. Some of the best and brightest twenty-first century cultural sociologists have both synthesized and extended the state-of-the-art in applying the rigor of scientific inquiry to the fluidity of culture. Measuring Culture is more than valuable; it is vital. -- Wendy Griswold, author of American Guides: The Federal Writers’ Program and the Casting of American CultureDestined to leave its mark on the social sciences, this wonderful book offers phenomenologically-inflected multilevel approaches to analyzing meanings, cultural objects, and relationships. The splendid cast of authors, each of them midcareer stars, combine their distinct strengths to offer an innovative pluralistic state-of-the-art agenda that will appeal to many. -- Michèle Lamont, Harvard UniversityNine coauthors have created one slim, graceful, exhilarating book. An analytic tour de force, Measuring Culture is a theoretical overview of what sociologists of culture might measure, culminating in engrossing narratives of three important research endeavors. We see creative scholars combining interpretation and innovative measurement strategies to deepen cultural analysis. If you’ve wondered whether innovations in measuring culture have a payoff, this book is your answer. Measuring Culture is a perfect tribute to John Mohr’s brilliance, his sparkle, and his humanity. -- Ann Swidler, coauthor of A Fraught Embrace: The Romance and Reality of AIDS Altruism in AfricaCan culture be measured—and if so, how? This collectively authored volume develops a learned and critical response to these questions, describing myriad ways sociologists have measured culture at multiple levels. Taking its own full measure of cultural meaning, and managing to reflect intelligently on the meaning of measurement itself, Measuring Culture is astute, open-minded, and eminently readable. -- Robin Wagner-Pacifici, author of What Is an Event?This is a truly excellent book. It’s a reflection of the intellectual firepower the individual authors brought, but all the more so the magic a deep, generous collaboration can release. The core insight of culture is that the outcome of collective activity can exceed the combination of the individuals accomplishing it; this book is, therefore, a prime example of its object and a valuable gift to the next generation of culture scholars. * Social Forces *An impressive achievement and is likely to provide guidance on empirical research in the sociology of culture for a long time to come. While situated in cultural sociology, Measuring Culture tackles questions of great importance to the discipline overall and will benefit readers from other sociology areas too. * Canadian Journal of Sociology *An extraordinary piece of work. The authors managed to incorporate a wealth of insights into a short and highly readablebook, which students can use to navigate the current state of the art in cultural sociology, and which accomplished researchers will admire for the seamless integration of various theoretical and methodological discussions. * Culture Section Newsletter *A well-written, well-researched, and well-conceived volume. It is an engaging read, packed with theoretical and methodological understandings that enrich one another. * Administrative Science Quarterly *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Why Measure Culture?1. Measuring Culture in People2. Measuring Culture in Objects3. Measuring Culture in Social Relationships4. Pivots and Choices in the Process of ResearchConclusion: The Future of Measuring CultureNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Hindley paints a picture of magic’s place in medieval England, producing an eye-opening study of ‘words at their most powerful’ . . . that promise[s] to change the way we think about magic in the medieval world.” -- Mary Flannery * Times Literary Supplement *"A thought-provoking look at the distinctive ways medieval English people viewed language [that] intrigues. It’s an enlightening deep dive." * Publishers Weekly *“Hindley carefully and fruitfully rethinks what charms tell us about written and oral aspects of culture, drawing on a wonderfully abundant collection of source material from a period in which charms proliferated but were often kept secret. A valuable contribution to the history of magic, her book sheds light on both an impressively diverse archive and the implications of their textuality.” -- Richard Kieckhefer, Northwestern University“Hindley guides readers through the complete history of spoken and written charms in medieval England with seasoned ease. Through close readings and the latest archaeological insights, Textual Magic offers an indispensable introduction to medieval English charms, packed with examples in both their original language and modern English translation.” -- Lea Olsan, University of Louisiana at Monroe“Textual Magic is a significant new work in medieval studies, generously illustrated with images and transcriptions of charm texts. In particular, Hindley’s focus on the instructions accompanying charms and her awareness of their multilingual contexts are welcome additions to the literature on verbal charms.” -- Jonathan Roper, University of TartuTable of ContentsList of Boxes Note on Translation and Transcription Abbreviations Introduction Reading, Writing, and Charming Chapter 1 The Powers of Charm-Words and Relics Chapter 2 Before 1100: “Textual Magic” in Pre-Conquest England Chapter 3 1100 to 1350: Charm Language and the Boundaries of Text Chapter 4 1350 to 1500: “A Fayre Charme on Englysh” Conclusion The Changing Power of Words Acknowledgments Manuscripts Cited Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisA NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2022'Well-researched and readable' - Financial Times'An absorbing, pacy read' - New Statesman'The story of lycra-clad feminism' Stylist'Canny and informative' - The New YorkerThe untold history of women's exercise culture, from jogging and Jazzercise to Jane Fonda.Author of The Cut's viral article shared thousands of times unearthing the little-known origins of barre workouts, Danielle Friedman explores the history of women's exercise, and how physical strength has been converted into other forms of power.Only in the 60s, thanks to a few forward-thinking fitness pioneers, did women begin to move en masse. In doing so, they were pursuing not only physical strength, but personal autonomy.Exploring barre, jogging, aerobics, weight training and yoga, Danielle Friedman tells the story of how, with the rise of late-20th century feminism, women discovered the joy of physical competence - and how, going forward, we can work to transform fitness from a privilege into a right.Trade ReviewA well-researched and readable account of how female pioneers broke the taboos that stopped most women exercising until at least the 1960s. Friedman, a journalist, emphasises that fitness has remained accessible primarily to white women with time and resources. Now some pioneers are trying to break those exclusionary barriers too. * Financial Times, best summer books of 2022 *An absorbing, pacy read - and her enthusiasm for exercise is contagious. * New Statesman *Fact-packed but bouncy ... Most enjoyable is when Friedman shines light on less hallowed figures, like Judi Sheppard Missett, the relentlessly upbeat founder of Jazzercise, whose classes "changed the rhythm of women's days"; and Bonnie Prudden, "the lady in the leotite" and a descendant of Davy Crockett...[Friedman's] book is very much "pro" exercise, but for the right reasons: not slimming down but mood management, community, spirituality in the corporal. * The New York Times *Astute and entertaining ... With an emphasis on barrier breakers, business dynamos, and exceptional athletes, Friedman explores how physical training can be a means of personal liberation ... This zippy history is bursting with energy. * Publishers Weekly *Canny and informative. * The New Yorker *The story of Lycra-clad feminism and how women went from being banned at races to dominating fitness. * Stylist, the best non-fiction health and fitness books for women to read *There are few areas of American culture as complicated-and as understudied-as women's exercise. Which is why I feel like I've been waiting for a book like Let's Get Physical for decades: something that takes the history and importance of fitness seriously, but is also incisive and curious and readable and fun. -- Anne Helen Petersen, author of Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly WomanFriedman's study of modern fitness culture is as illuminating as it is enthralling. She reveals the wild characters, political agendas, and social movements that changed not only our exercise behaviors but our understanding of exercise itself. Behind every workout there is a story, and it's usually a good one. -- Kelsey Miller, author of I’ll Be There for You: The One About FriendsA fascinating and complicated history, masterfully shared. Let's Get Physical made me grateful to the women of the past and hopeful about the future of fitness. My favorite read of the year! -- Kelly McGonigal, author of The Joy of MovementIt's easy to critique the class, race, and gender stereotypes perpetuated by many fitness industry advertising campaigns, but Friedman reminds us how revolutionary it was, not so long ago, to encourage women to do strenuous physical exercise. An engaging account of the complicated, unconventional individuals who pioneered today's fitness culture for women. -- Stephanie Coontz, author of A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960sDon't read this book because it's 'good for you.' Read it because it's an eye-opening cultural history of the fitness pioneers who put the 'move' into the feminist movement. Let's Get Physical reminded me of why feeling strong feels so good. -- Brooke Hauser, author of Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single WomanHow did we get from the notion that exercise was unladylike, even dangerous for women, to the 1980s fitness craze and beyond that has totally transformed women's lives? In this lively book, Danielle Friedman uses fitness pioneers and icons, from Bonnie Prudden to Jane Fonda to Lilias Folan, to trace how regular exercise became central to millions of women's pursuit of vitality, confidence, and happiness. Full of fun and inspiring stories, Let's Get Physical reminds us that this is not just a history of sports bras or leg warmers, but also of how feminism itself enabled and drew from women finding empowerment in the strength of their own bodies. -- Susan J. Douglas, author of In Our Prime: How Older Women are Reinventing the Road AheadDanielle Friedman's wildly engaging Let's Get Physical answered the questions I didn't even know I had about the origins of women's fitness (Jane Fonda sold how many copies of her Workout?!), and left me with a huge debt of gratitude to the trailblazing women who had the foresight to do things like sneak into the Boston Marathon and invent the sports bra so that we could swan into the gym without a second thought. A fascinating, meticulously researched read that left me with a much greater appreciation for the burn of barre class. -- Doree Shafrir, author of Thanks for Waiting and Startup: A NovelWith lively writing and compelling storytelling-tales of bamboo swords, spandex, and a sexy gerbil included-Danielle Friedman teases out the complicated relationship between exercise culture and feminism in this engaging exploration of modern fitness history. You'll want to hit the barre afterward. -- Haley Shipley, author of Strong Like Her: A Celebration of Rule Breakers, History Makers, and Unstoppable AthletesIt is all too easy to look at the history of women's fitness as an unconnected timeline of fads and celebrities. In Let's Get Physical, Danielle Friedman weaves together the cultural history of a movement that is nothing less than the story of the modern American woman-and she does it with fascinating and fun storytelling that will appeal to anyone who has ever wondered why thighs need to be mastered or buns should be made of steel. -- Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World and Every Minute Is a Day: A Doctor, an Emergency Room, and a City Under SiegeLet's Get Physical is a delicious deep dive into fitness culture that features an eclectic cast of women who deviously ran men-only marathons in the 1960s, turned Jazzercise, aerobics, and barre into mainstream mega fads, and who power-lifted notions of femininity until they included muscles and strength. Author Danielle Friedman tracks exercise culture into the 21st century, debunking myths and delighting readers with diamond-sharp prose, wry humor and rigorous research. -- Sarah Everts, author of The Joy of Sweat: The Strange Science of PerspirationFriedman's engaging stories of the women who created and transformed the fitness industry illustrate an evolution built upon strong female shoulders. * The Washington Post *

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Book SynopsisThis new and updated edition of Culture Smart! Britain unpacks all this and more. Penetrate the polite veneer of the people, learn about their customs and traditions, become acquainted with their values and attitudes, and your experience of this green and pleasant land will be greatly enriched.

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Book Synopsis A stunning bilingual, illustrated, and photographic account of a celebrated Mexican tradition The lively Mexican holiday of Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) brings together sorrow and laughter, drawing from indigenous traditions of celebrating one’s ancestors and loved ones who have been lost. It’s a day of serenity, family, and exuberant creativity, where sugar and skulls can exist side by side. In this bilingual book, beloved Mexican art and culture magazine Artes de México creates a stunning written, illustrated, and photographic account that takes readers through the tradition’s origins, its history and evolution, and the many ways it is celebrated today. Alongside the visually stunning displays of altars, cemeteries, costumes, and festivities, a group of renowned Mexican writers has contributed essays that cover topics including the holiday’s rural and urban distinctions, occult ancestry, and Indigenous

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Book SynopsisThe first full exploration of the accusations of malicious witchcraft that plagued the lives of four royal women, and the Woodville line, for centuriesTrade ReviewThis introduces new readers, in the most accessible and colourful way, to a group of royal women who certainly deserve more public notice than they have hitherto received -- Professor Ronald Hutton, author of author of The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present

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Book SynopsisMarc Chagall’s remarkable oeuvre spans a variety of media; from painting, ceramics, and stained glass to illustration, tapestry, and stage sets. Regardless of the format, his singular narrative style embraced the memories of his happy childhood in Vitebsk, Russia and his roots in Jewish culture. This engaging examination of the artist and his life features stunning full- page illustrations of Chagall’s works, along with illuminating biographical details. On every page, Chagall’s genius with color and composition spring to life. Comparisons and contrasts are made to the works of other Fauve and Cubist artists among whom he lived and worked, as well as to the poetry of the era. Although he depicted the harsh anti-Semitism that his countrymen faced, Chagall nevertheless embraced a vision of humanism and tolerance that remains refreshingly poignant decades after his death.

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Book SynopsisAt once historical and allegorical, Light in Dark Times is an illustrated ride crossing time, space, and place as the characters walk a difficult path while grasping a lifeline of hope on a journey through knowledge.Trade Review"Light in Dark Times contributes to our understanding of why the US is facing similar strategies of ‘conflating opinion with truth’ and the rise of ‘alternative facts’ that were used in Germany during the rise of the Nazi party. It also offers a number of important remedies to counter them: be introspective, avoid the trivial, participate in envisioning an alternative world, and engage in activities without exaggerated self-importance." -- Rachel Breunlin, University of New Orleans * Anthropology and Humanism *“Light in Dark Times is one of the few books, anthropological or otherwise, I would call transcendent. Rarely has a volume been timelier, more engaging, or more accessible.” -- Robert Myers, Alfred University * General Anthropology *"This is a unique, non-fiction graphic novel that focuses on what anthropology study can lend to society. The artwork is particularly illuminating." -- 2020 VLA Graphic Novel Diversity Award Committee“If I were teaching graduate students in anthropology about the alluring, messy complexities within and about the discipline, this book would be a fine introduction. If I were teaching qualitative research methods and other means of narrating experience, the format and content would undoubtedly expand the student’s repertoires of representation.” -- Sue E. Estroff, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill * Perspectives in Biology and Medicine Journal *Table of ContentsPreface A Note on Anthropology Characters Reflections On Being Introspective On Thinking in Dark Times On Truth, Lies, and the Danger of the Trivial On Envisioning an Alternative World A Lament To the Present To Posterity

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Book SynopsisWhat makes the English English? Is it their eccentricity, their passionate love (or, indeed, hatred) of Marmite or is it something less easily defined?Beginning at the top of a muddy Gloucestershire slope at the Coopers Hill cheese-rolling contest and traversing a landscape of lawns and queues, coastlines and sporting arenas, Ben Fogle takes us on a journey through the peculiarly English: a country of wax jackets, cricket, boat races and jellied eels, by way of national treasures such as the shipping forecast, fish and chips and the Wellington boot. Not to mention the Dunkirk spirit of relentless optimism in the face of adversity, be it the heroic failure of Captain Scott's doomed Antarctic expedition, or simply the perennial hope for better weather.The archetypal Englishman lover of labradors and Land Rovers yet holder of two passports Ben applauds all things quintessentially English while also paying tribute to the history, culture and ideas adopted with such gusto that they have Trade Review‘A pleasant and lyrical read’ Guardian ‘Written with wit and affection, this light-hearted, yetstirring narrative entertains and inspires with equal measure’ Countryside Magazine Praise for Ben Fogle: ‘Funny, entertaining and really rather inspiring, too’ Daily Mail 'A great escapade told with refreshing frankness' Independent on Sunday ‘Passionate and well-researched’ Tatler ‘Fogle's typical adventure-style storytelling keeps the narrative light and entertaining’ Independent

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Christopher Rufo is in fact one of the most effective journalists and filmmakers in the country.” — Tucker Carlson “Christopher Rufo … has done more than anybody else in our country on exposing CRT.” — Governor Ron DeSantis “The most important and effective conservative activist in the country.” — Bari Weiss “International-class troublemaker and policy advisor on the culture war.” — Dr. Jordan Peterson “One of the most important journalists in the country.” — Ben Shapiro “Christopher Rufo has had an extremely significant impact on our political discourse.” — Glenn Greenwald “The country’s pre-eminent critic of critical race theory.” — The New York Times “The most important intellectual entrepreneur on the political right today.” — Vox “One of the most gifted conservative polemicists of his generation.” — The Atlantic

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Sayo Masuda''s story is an extraordinary portrait of rural life in japan and an illuminating contrast to the fictionalised lives of glamorous geishas.At the age of sis Masuda''s poverty-stricken family sent her to work as a nursemaid. At the age of twelve, she was indentured to a geisha house. In Autobiography of a Geisha, Masuda chronicles a harsh world in which young women faced the realities of sex for sale and were deprived of their freedom and identity. She also tells of her life after leaving the geisha house, painting a vivid panorama of the grinding poverty of rural life in wartime Japan. Many years later Masuda decides to tell her story. Although she could barely read or write she was determine to tell the truth about life as a geisha and explode the myths surrounding their secret world. Remarkably frank and incredibly moving, this is the record of one woman''s survival on the margins of Japanese society.

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Book Synopsis''A brilliant, unlikely book'' SpectatorHow can we celebrate, challenge and change our remarkable world? In 2012, the world arrived in London for the Olympics...and Ann Morgan went out to meet it. She read her way around all the globe''s 196 independent countries (plus one extra), sampling one book from every nation. It wasn''t easy. Many languages have next to nothing translated into English; there are tiny, tucked-away places where very little is written down; some governments don''t like to let works of art escape their borders.Using Morgan''s own quest as a starting point, Reading the World explores the vital questions of our time and how reading across borders might just help us answer them. ''Revelatory... While Morgan''s research has a daunting range...there is a simple message: reading is a social activity, and we ought to share books across boundaries'' Financial TimesTrade ReviewA wonderful book * Red *An enjoyable book that brings a world of literature into our homes * Daily Telegraph *A great way into literature in translation * Red Online *A truly inspiring read * Lady *If you, like me, are a fan of fiction in translation then I would suggest this is a must-read, or at the very least a really-should-read * Me And My Big Mouth (Blog) *

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Book SynopsisIn The English Jeremy Paxman sets out to find about the English. Not the British overall, not the Scots, not the Irish or Welsh, but the English. Why do they seem so unsure of who they are?Jeremy Paxman is to many the embodiment of Englishness yet even he is sometimes forced to ask: who or what exactly are the English? And in setting about addressing this most vexing of questions, Paxman discovers answers to a few others. Like: Why do the English actually enjoy feeling persecuted?What is behind the English obsession with games?How did they acquire their odd attitudes to sex and to food?Where did they get their extraordinary capacity for hypocrisy?Covering history, attitudes to foreigners, sport, stereotypyes, language and much, much more, The English brims over with stories and anecdotes that provide a fascinating portrait of a nation and its people.''Intelligent, well-written, informative and funny...A book to chew on, dip into, quote from and exploit in arguments'' Andrew Marr, Observer ''Bursting with good things'' Daily Telegraph Jeremy Paxman is a journalist, best known for his work presenting Newsnight and University Challenge. His books include Empire, On Royalty, The English and The Political Animal. He lives in Oxfordshire.Trade ReviewIntelligent, well-written, informative and funny…A book to chew on, dip into, quote from and exploit in arguments -- Andrew Marr * Observer *Bursting with good things * Daily Telegraph *Bursting with good things * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisThe story of Jewish literature is a kaleidoscopic one, multilingual and transnational in character, spanning the globe as well as the centuries. In this broad, thought-provoking introduction to Jewish literature from 1492 to the present, cultural historian Ilan Stavans focuses on its multilingual and transnational nature. Stavans presents a wide range of traditions within Jewish literature and the variety of writers who made those traditions possible. Represented are writers as dissimilar as Luis de Carvajal the Younger, Franz Kafka, Bruno Schulz, Isaac Babel, Anzia Yezierska, Elias Canetti, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Irving Howe, Clarice Lispector, Susan Sontag, Philip Roth, Grace Paley, Amos Oz, Moacyr Scliar, and David Grossman. The story of Jewish literature spans the globe as well as the centuries, from the marrano poets and memorialists of medieval Spain, to the sprawling Yiddish writing in Ashkenaz (the Pale of Settlement'' in Eastern Europe), to the probing narratives of Jewish immigrants to the United States and other parts of the New World. It also examines the accounts of horror during the Holocaust, the work of Israeli authors since the creation of the Jewish State in 1948, and the ingathering of Jewish works in Brazil, Bulgaria, Argentina, and South Africa at the end of the twentieth century. This kaleidoscopic introduction to Jewish literature presents its subject matter as constantly changing and adapting.Trade ReviewReading Jewish literature becomes a stimulating journey; Stavans jumps from one author to another without clinging to either time or space. * Tessa Calders i Artís, Escola de libreria *Table of ContentsChapter One: People of the Book Chapter Two: After the Expulsion Chapter Three: The Age of Anxiety Chapter Four: Into the Abyss Chapter Five: Into the Mainstream Chapter Six: The Ingathering Chapter Seven: The Promised Land Chapter Eight: The Letterless Canon References Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisA reception history of William Blake's 'Jerusalem' that traces the hymn's increasing associations with national identity and explores how different social and political factions, both left and right, have sought to impose their own meaning on building Jerusalem.Trade ReviewThis book is fascinating ... Blake the revolutionary was never more relevant * Michael Church *Jerusalem is a wonderfully researched, enjoyable work about a cultural phenomenon of the utmost familiarity, and it performs its task very successfully...Whittaker proves an excellent, lucid guide to realms of almost unimagined obscurity. * Philip Hensher, The Spectator *Whittaker produces fascinating and surprising insights. His analysis of the different ways that "Jerusalem" has been decontextualized and recontextualized serves as a comprehensive case study in reception history and highlights the complexities of national identity. * Choice *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Arrows of Desire 1: And Did Those Feet? Blake and Milton, 1800-1827 2: Our Clouded Hills: Before 'Jerusalem', 1827-1915 3: Mental Fight: Parry, the Great War and its Aftermath, 1916-1922 4: Dark Satanic Mills: Peace and War, 1923-1945 5: Bring Me My Bow: Empire's End, 1945-1976 6: Chariot of Fire: Thatcher's Britain and the End of the Cold War, 1977-1996 7: Green and Pleasant Land: From Blair to Brexit, 1997-2016 Epilogue: Albion

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Book SynopsisFor four hundred years--from the first Spanish assaults against the Arawak people of Hispaniola in the 1490s to the US Army''s massacre of Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee in the 1890s--the indigenous inhabitants of North and South America endured an unending firestorm of violence. During that time the native population of the Western Hemisphere declined by as many as 100 million people. Indeed, as historian David E. Stannard argues in this stunning new book, the European and white American destruction of the native peoples of the Americas was the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world. Stannard begins with a portrait of the enormous richness and diversity of life in the Americas prior to Columbus''s fateful voyage in 1492. He then follows the path of genocide from the Indies to Mexico and Central and South America, then north to Florida, Virginia, and New England, and finally out across the Great Plains and Southwest to California and the North Pacific Coast. Stannard rTrade Reviewhighly informative book * Socialist Standard *vivid and relentless ... meticulous analysis ... a devastating reassessment of the Conquest as nothing less than a holy war * Kirkus Reviews *Table of ContentsPrologue Part I: Before Columbus Part II: Pestilence and Genocide Part III: Sex, Race, and Holy War Appendixes Appendix I: On Pre-Columbian Settlement and Population Appendix II: On Racism and Genocide Acknowledgments Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsChapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. Culture defined Chapter 3. Who are the deaf people? Chapter 4. Deafhood: A personal journey toward self-actualization Chapter 5. Early definitions of deaf culture Chapter 6. Deaf culture redefined Chapter 7. American Sign Language: The language of the American Deaf Community Chapter 8. Deaf literature Chapter 9. Deaf art Chapter 10. Rules of social interaction Chapter 11. Technological advancements: A boon or bane for the Deaf Community? Chapter 12. The vibrant deaf community Chapter 13. Diversity in the Deaf Community Chapter 14. Multiple identities of Deaf Individuals Chapter 15. The collision between culture and disability Chapter 16. The universality of the deaf experience Chapter 17. The future of the Deaf Community Chapter 18. HEARING-BUT: Allyship in the Deaf Community

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Book SynopsisIn Menergy, author Louis Niebur offers a fascinating new look at gay history through the sounds of San Francisco's queer nightlife. In doing so he also reveals new insights in the history of electronic music and dance music.Trade ReviewThis book's title, Menergy, evokes the gay culture that Niebur (musicology, Univ. of Nevada, Reno) seeks to restore and narrate, but the title also borrows Patrick Cowley's song "Menergy" (1981), which Nieber writes "is probably the defining track of the high energy San Francisco sound" (p. 8). Disco was more a part of a cultural scene than a specific musical genre in San Francisco's Castro, inextricably linked with gay male clone culture. The author is especially effective when presenting cultural phenomena and context for disco-its drugs, sex, reflections on gay liberation, hypermasculinity, materialism, exclusions, racism, and ultimately-in the early 1980s-the devastation and horror of HIV/AIDS. * Choice *The deepest dig into San Francisco disco and Hi-NRG music history yet! Riding high off gay liberation, Menergy takes the reader on a rollercoaster of a ride through a magically creative time in Castro and SoMa clubs and recording studios. Most profoundly, this detailed journey shows the influence the 'San Francisco Sound' had on the world. * Josh Cheon, Dark Entries Records *Niebur's pioneering, deeply researched history reveals what queer pleasure, loss, identity, and tenacity sound like in their own time and place. A rich reminder that we can't stop dancing. * Joshua Gamson, author of The Fabulous Sylvester *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction: Setting Up the Sound Chapter One: Disco, the Castro and Gay Liberation Chapter Two: Liberation for Some: The Continued Expansion of Gay San Francisco in the late 1970s Chapter Three: Sylvester's Fantasy Comes True Chapter Four: The First Wave of the San Francisco Sound Chapter Five: Blecman and Hedges Chapter Six: Disco's Dead/Not Dead Chapter Seven: The San Francisco Sound Thrives Chapter Eight: New Heights Chapter Nine: Trouble in Paradise Chapter Ten: Dancing with AIDS Chapter Eleven: Everything Falls Apart Chapter Twelve: In Retrospect Suggested Reading Selected Discography Index

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Book SynopsisAn in-depth look at one of the film industry''s most audacious working actorsIn 1982, a gangly teenager named Nicolas Coppola made his film debut and changed his name to Nicolas Cage, determined to distance himself from his famous family. Once he achieved stardom as the rebel hunk of 1983''s Valley Girl, Cage began a career defined by unorthodox risks and left turns that put him at odds with the stars of the Brat Pack era. How Coppola Became Cage takes readers behind the scenes of the beloved cult movies that transformed this unknown actor into an eccentric and uncompromising screen icon with a wild-eyed gift for portraying weirdos, outsiders, criminals-and even a romantic capable of seducing Cher. Author Zach Schonfeld traces Cage''s rise through the world of independent cinema and chronicles the stories behind his career-making early performances, from the method masochism of Birdy to the operatic torment of Moonstruck and abrasive expressionism of Vampire''s Kiss, culminating with tTrade ReviewDelightful. * The Wall Street Journal *A must-read for both Cage obsessives and agnostics: this is a fascinating, consistently bizarre, thoroughly entertaining early-years portrait of a true Hollywood original. * Empire, 5* *Thorough, considered and entertainingly written. * James Mottram, Total Film, 4* *Zach Schonfeld's compulsively readable, well-researched book on Nicolas Cage, How Coppola Became Cage, gets to the heart of the unique, multitalented actor. * PopMatters *A lively, anecdote-filled look into the actor's shape-shifting, storied career. Even the most ardent Cage fans will learn something new. * Publishers Weekly *Fascinating details and entertaining provocative backstories make this an important, captivating read for Cage fans and cinephiles alike. * Library Journal *I learned so much from Zach's deep, deep dive into Cage's foundational years and how he came to be the experimental Hollywood A-lister we know today. Zach's thoroughness is remarkable. * Lindsay Gibb, author of National Treasure: Nicolas Cage *Before Nicolas Cage was a national treasure, he was Nicky Coppola, an eccentric young actor trying to break out from the long shadow of his family name. In this thorough look at Cage's seldom documented early years, Zach Schonfeld draws on original interviews with siblings, classmates, and colleagues to chronicle his journey from high school theater kid to Valley Girl heartthrob to household name. A must read for Cage fans. * Dan Ozzi, author of SELLOUT *Charting an authoritative middle path between scholar and superfan, Schonfeld breaks down the life and works of a beguiling figure with a careful balance of critical rigor and curious open-mindedness. His writing is exhaustively researched and inexhaustibly entertaining, as singularly committed to its project as Cage himself. * Charles Bramesco, author of Colors of Film: The Story of Cinema in 50 Palettes *Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter One: From Coppola to Cage Chapter Two: Punk Romeo Chapter Three: Pulling Teeth Chapter Four: Uncle Francis Chapter Five: Baby Fever Chapter Six: A Nick at the Opera Chapter Seven: Kiss Me Deadly Chapter Eight: Cage and the Curious Case of the Big Rubber Nose Chapter Nine: Goofing on Elvis Chapter Ten: The Sunshine Trilogy Chapter Eleven: Drunk in Love Epilogue Index

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Book SynopsisThe stories we tell and show, in whatever medium, play varied roles in human cultures. One such role is to contribute to moral understanding. Moral understanding goes beyond moral knowledge; it is a complex cognitive achievement that may consist of one or more of the following: the ability to understand why, to ask the right questions, categorization, the application of models to specific incidents, or the capacity to make connections between morally charged situations that have a common underlying meaning. While the disciplines of communication, psychology, philosophy, and film and media studies have all made significant scholarly progress on this issue, they make different grounding assumptions and use different terminologies. Screen Stories and Moral Understanding approaches the topic from an interdisciplinary perspective and explores the conditions under which stories we view on screens-movies, streamed series, and television-can lead to moral understanding in viewers.In five secti

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Book SynopsisThe human body is thought of conventionally as a biological entity, with its longevity, morbidity, size and even appearance determined by genetic factors immune to the influence of society or culture. Since the mid-1980s, however, there has been a rising awareness of how our bodies, and our perception of them, are influenced by the social, cultural and material contexts in which humans live.Drawing on studies of sex and gender, education, governance, the economy, and religion, Chris Shilling demonstrates how our physical being allows us to affect the material and virtual world around us, yet also enables governments to shape and direct our thoughts and actions. Revealing how social relationships, cultural images, and technological and medical advances shape our perceptions and awareness, he exposes the limitations of traditional Western traditions of thought that elevate the mind over the body as that which defines us as human. Dealing with issues ranging from cosmetic and transplant surgery, the performance of gendered identities, the commodification of bodies and body parts, and the violent consequences of competing conceptions of the body as sacred, Shilling provides a compelling account of why body matters present contemporary societies with a series of urgent and inescapable challenges.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. Natural bodies or social bodies? ; 2. Sexed bodies ; 3. Educating bodies ; 4. Governing bodies. ; 5. Bodies as commodities ; 6. Bodies matter! Dilemmas and controversies ; References and Further Reading ; Index

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Book SynopsisMarina Warner's study of the products of fantasy deepens our understanding of the supernatural in relation to self and society. This surprising story explores the metaphors and media that have been the stock in trade of poets, scientists, magicians, and visionaries, including wax and cloud, smoke and mirrors, ether, ectoplasm, and celluloid.Trade ReviewRigorous research, dazzling cross-disciplinary leaps ... her passion seeps right through to the last page. * Observer Review. *The sprawl of Warner's thesis is slightly overwhelming but her passion seeps right through to the last page. * Observer. *Review from previous edition ...often manages splendidly vivid pictorial evocations ... a bold, imaginative and provocative study, with a range few other writers would dare. * Carolyne Larrington, Times Literary Supplement *The general effect is rather like that of reading through a first-class encyclopedia. * Nigel Barley, Times Higher Education Supplement *Frighteningly literate and well-informed * Roz Kaveney, Time Out *Marina Warner is particularly well-equipped to conduct this investigation * Steven Connor, The Independent *She is exquisitely alive not just to ideas and arguments, but also to the jag and whiff and tang of things * Steven Connor, The Independent *Phantasmagoria is a cabinet of familiar wonders: a jetting, generous, humane spree of thought, richly quickened by the life it finds within us and adroad, in our media and machineries of mind. * Steven Connor, The Independent *As always Warner's scholarship, eclecticism and inventiveness dazzle. * Bel Mooney, The Times *It is a book of wonders. * Hilary Mantel,The Guardian *Phantasmagoria is a fascinating history of spirited bodies and haunted machines, but a reminder too of why the metaphors still get under our skin * Brian Dillon, Daily Telegraph *This book's enquiries are wide-ranging, pertinent and up-to- date. All Marina Warner's material is freshly and enticingly presented. * The Guardian, Hilary Mantel *This book is a powerful statement. * Hilary Mantel,The Guardian *Marina Warner is particularly well-equipped to conduct this investigation. * Stephen Connor, The Independent *A densely layered book * Mike Dash, Sunday Telegraph *She is exquisitely alive not just to ideas and arguments, but also to the jag and whiff and tang of things. * Stephen Connor, The Independent *Phantasmagoria is a cabinet of familiar wonders: a jetting, generous, humane spree of thought, richly quickened by the life it finds within us and abroad, in our media and machineries of mind. * Stephen Connor, The Independent *Table of ContentsI. WAX; II. AIR; III. CLOUDS; IV. LIGHT; V. SHADOW; VI. MIRROR; VII. GHOST; VIII. ETHER; IX. ECTOPLASM; X. FILM

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