Cultural studies Books

Book SynopsisIndigenous and settler scholars and media artists discuss and analyze crucial questions of narrative sovereignty, cultural identity, cultural resistance, and decolonizing creative practices. Humans are narrative creatures, and since the dawn of our existence we have shared stories. Storytelling is what connects us, what helps us give shape and understanding to the world and to each other. Who tells whose stories in which particular ways leads to questions of belonging, power, relationality, community and identity. This collection explores those issues with a focus on settler-Indigenous cultural politics in the country known as Canada, looking in particular at Indigenous representation in media arts. Chapters feature roundtable discussions, interviews, film analyses, resurgent media explorations, visual culture advocacy and place-based practices of creative expression.Eclectic in scope and diverse in perspective, Indigenous Media Arts in Canada is unified by an ethic of conciliation, collaboration, and cultural resistance. Engaging deftly and thoughtfully with instances of cultural appropriation as well as the oppressive structures that seek to erode narrative sovereignty, this collection shines as a crucial gathering of thoughtful critique, cultural kinship, and creative counterpower.Trade Review“Dana Claxton and Ezra Winton’s collection of conversations between, for, and about Indigenous media makers poses vital, critical, and generative questions about Indigenous film, film festivals and institutions, residential school histories, and decolonization without providing easy answers. These conversations are at times joyful expressions of the radical possibilities of media arts and at times painful provocations about settler colonial violence and its representational apparatuses. The chapters, written by the most brilliant and creative minds in contemporary Indigenous film, are paradigm-shifting love letters to the land, lived experience, collaboration, and futurity.” —Michelle Raheja, Associate Professor, Department of English, University of California, Riverside, author of Reservation Reelism: Redfacing, Visual Sovereignty, and Representations of Native Americans in FilmTable of Contents Insiders/Outsiders: The Cultural Politics and Ethics of Indigenous Representation and Participation in Canada’s Media Arts – Edited by Dana Claxton and Ezra Winton Contributor Bios Introduction: Seeing, Knowing, Lifting – Dana Claxton and Ezra Winton Part I – Decolonizing Media Arts Institutions Part I Introduction – Dana Claxton and Ezra Winton 1. Our Own Up There: A Discussion at imagineNATIVE – Danis Goulet and Tasha Hubbard with Jesse Wente, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril and Shane Belcourt 2. And Speaking of the North: A Conversation between Ezra Winton and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril 3. Sights of Homecoming: Zacharias Kunuk’s Festival Performance of Angirattut Claudia Sicondolfo Part II – Protecting Culture Part II Introduction – Dana Claxton and Ezra Winton 4. Addressing Colonial Trauma Through Mi’kmaw Film – Margaret Robinson and Bretten Hannam 5. Not Reconciled, Repairing Justice: The Legacy of Films on Canadian Residential Schools – Brenda Longfellow 6. Indigenous Women in Québec Cinema: From Alanis Obomsawin’s Mother of Many Children to Michel Poulette’s Maïna – Karine Bertrand 7. “Our Circle Is Always Open”: Indigenous Voices, Children’s Rights, and Spaces of Inclusion in the Films of Alanis Obomsawin Joanna Hearne Part III – Methods/Practices/Knowledges/Interventions Part III Introduction Dana Claxton and Ezra Winton 8. Indigenous Documentary Methodologies: ChiPaChiMoWin / Telling Stories – Jules Arita Koostachin 9. Due North: Contemporary Indigenous Media and Ecological Knowledge – Michelle Stewart 10. Marking and Mapping Out Embodied Practices of Indigenous Women Media Artists – Julie Nagam and Carla Taunton 11. Speaking Outside: Collaboration as Strategic Intervention Toby Katrine Lawrence Part IV - Resurgent Media and its Allies Part IV Introduction - Knowledge as Territory: A Note to the Settler Academy – Sasha Crawford-Holland and Lindsay LeBlanc 12. “Making Things Our [Digital] Own”: Sovereignty in Indigenous Computational Art – Sasha Crawford-Holland and Lindsay LeBlanc 13. Careful Images: Unsettling Testimony in the Gladue Video Project – Eugenia Kisin and Lisa Jackson Conclusions We Are Only Beginning – Dana Claxton and Ezra Winton Final Thoughts: Setting the Record Straight –Lisa Jackson Index – Makers and Thinkers Contributors Alethea Arnaquq-Baril Shane Belcourt Karine Bertrand Dana Claxton Sasha Crawford-Holland Danis Goulet Bretten Hannam Joanna Hearne Tasha Hubbard Lisa Jackson Eugenia Kisin Jules Arita Koostachin Toby Katrine Lawrence Lindsay LeBlanc Brenda Longfellow Julie Nagam Margaret Robinson Claudia Sicondolfo Michelle Stewart Carla Taunton Jesse Wente Ezra Winton

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Book SynopsisThe Culture of War explores the unexpected flourishing of literature both high and low during the Siege of Paris at the end of the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871. When Prussian forces completely blockaded Paris, isolating the city from the outside world, Parisians turned to literature to resist the enemy, to fill the idle hours under siege, and to articulate their place in history. This cultural boom was a conscious effort on the part of literary institutions like newspapers, publishers, and theaters to ensure the viability of their industries during a period of political uncertainty. To do so, many publishers, editors, and directors sought legitimacy through populism, promoting literature written by anonymous and unknown authors or that spoke to populist ideas. A study of national tragedy on a local scale, The Culture of War goes beyond traditional narratives of communal or individual psychology, and studies institutional responses to financial and political instability, viewing literature as a product of economic and political forces.Trade Review"This book offers an original and intriguing look into the literature of the four-month period of the Siege (introducing some virtually unknown works to readers) as well as a novel exploration of the ways that literary institutions responded to this moment of turmoil.”Anne O'Neil-Henry, Georgetown University'Because the book shows the power of a patriotism which reactivates references to the French Revolution, to the people in arms, the work, although written by a specialist in literature, is also extremely careful to get out of textual analysis stricto sensu to question literature as a social activity, [...] gives new life to printers, publishers, owners of newspapers and theatres, who are the actors of this moment of exceptional creativity. [...] All in all, this stimulating book reinforces the value of a multidisciplinary approach to writing in times of war.'Odile Roynette, Contemporary TerritoriesTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsPart I: On StageChapter 1: The Boulevards Lose Their TheatersChapter 2: HugomaniaPart II: Off PressesChapter 3: The Feuilleton at WarChapter 4: The Dubious Battle of ReichshoffenPart III: At HomeChapter 5: Letters to No OneChapter 6: Historians of the PresentPart IV: In PrintChapter 7: De-Modernizing PublishingChapter 8: To Make the Past PublicCodaThe Siege and State ViolenceBibliography

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Book SynopsisTransnational Portuguese Studies offers a radical rethinking of the role played by the concepts of ‘nationhood’ and ‘the nation’ in the epistemologies that underpin Portuguese Studies as an academic discipline. Portuguese Studies offers a particularly rich and enlightening challenge to methodological nationalism in Modern Languages, not least because the teaching of Portuguese has always extended beyond the study of the single western European country from which the language takes its name. However, this has rarely been analysed with explicit, or critical, reference to the ‘transnational turn’ in Arts and Humanities. This volume of essays from leading scholars in Portugal, Brazil, the USA and the UK, explores how the histories, cultures and ideas constituted in and through Portuguese language resist borders and produce encounters, from the manoeuvres of 15th century ‘globalization’ and cartography to present-day mega events such as the Rio Olympics. The result is a timely counter-narrative to the workings of linguistic and cultural nationalism, demonstrating how texts, paintings and photobooks, musical forms, political ideas, cinematic representations, gender identities, digital communications and lexical forms, may travel, translate and embody transcultural contact in ways which only become readable through the optics of transnationalism.Contributors: Ana Margarida Dias Martins, Anna M. Klobucka, Christopher Larkosh, Claire Williams, Cláudia Pazos Alonso, Edward King, Ellen W. Sapega, Fernando Arenas, Hilary Owen, José Lingna Nafafé, Kimberly DaCosta Holton, Maria Luísa Coelho, Paulo de Medeiros, Sara Ramos Pinto, Sheila Moura Hue, Simon Park, Susana Afonso, Tatiana Heise, Toby Green, Tori Holmes, Vivien Kogut Lessa de Sá and Zoltán Biedermann.Trade Review“This is easily the most complete collection produced to date to broach the issue of transnationalism in Lusophone culture and history and it will be an essential purchase for libraries where Portuguese is taught.”Stephanie Dennison, University of Leeds“Hilary Owen and Claire Williams’ volume is a superb contribution to the field of Portuguese Studies (a problematic signifier, as the editors point out in the introduction) at a time when the sometimes contentious intersections between the transnational and the global have caught the attention of scholars, students, and the reading public.”Peggy Sharpe, Florida State UniversityTable of ContentsIllustrations and TablesAcknowledgementsContributorsIntroductionHilary Owen and Claire Williams: Transnationalising Portuguese StudiesPart I: SPATIALITYChapter 1Zoltán Biedermann: Global Navigations and the Challenge of World-Making: Introducing the Study of Spatiality in the Portuguese EmpireChapter 2Anna M. Klobucka: Translational Travails of LusotropicalismChapter 3Vivien Kogut Lessa de Sá and Sheila Moura Hue: English Pirates in Brazil: Early Anglo-Portuguese Relations in the New WorldChapter 4Fernando Arenas: Soundtracks of the Lusophone and Creolophone Spheres: ‘Tanto’ by Aline Frazão (Angola), ‘Kreol’ by Mário Lúcio (Cabo Verde) and ‘N na nega bedju’ by José Carlos Schwarz (Guinea-Bissau)Chapter 5Maria Luísa Coelho: Transnational, Palimpsestic Journeys in the Art of Bartolomeu Cid dos SantosChapter 6Hilary Owen: ‘Becoming Portuguese’: New Europes for Old in Miguel Gomes’s Arabian NightsPart II: LANGUAGEChapter 7Toby Green and José Lingna Nafafé: Lusotopian or Lusophone Atlantics? The Relevance of Transnational African Diasporas to the Question of Language and CultureChapter 8Susana Afonso: Portuguese as a Transnational LanguageChapter 9Simon Park: Beyond Comprehension: Language, Identity and the Transnational in Gil Vicente’s TheatreChapter 10Sara Ramos Pinto: Dialects in Translation: Traveling in Space and Time in the Portuguese-Speaking World with Pygmalion and My Fair LadyChapter 11Tori Holmes: The Duality and Ambiguity of Mega-events in Rio de Janeiro: Local and Transnational Dimensions of Urban Transformations in the Webdocumentary Domínio PúblicoPart III: TEMPORALITYChapter 12Ellen W. Sapega: ‘Mining Memory's Archive: Two Portuguese Documentaries about the Second World War’Chapter 13Edward King: Disjunctive Temporalities of Migration in Photobooks from BrazilChapter 14Tatiana Heise: The National and the Transnational in Brazilian Postdictatorship CinemaChapter 15Ana Margarida Dias Martins: Remembering New Portuguese Letters Transnationally: Memory, Emotion, MobilityPart IV: SUBJECTIVITYChapter 16Cláudia Pazos Alonso: ‘Publish and be Damned’: Memórias da Minha Vida and the Politics of Exclusion in Nineteenth-century PortugalChapter 17Paulo de Medeiros: Transnational PessoaChapter 18Kimberly DaCosta Holton: Sound Travel: Fadocore in CaliforniaChapter 19Christopher Larkosh: ‘Can’t We All Just Be Queer?’ On Imagining Shared Translational SpaceChapter 20Claire Williams: International Departures and Transnational Texts in Contemporary Brazilian Literature: the ‘Amores Expressos’ SeriesIndex

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Book SynopsisThis book pursues the specific case of Italian travel narratives in the Far East, through a focus on the experience of Japan in works by writers who visited the Land of the Rising Sun beginning in the Meiji period (1868-1912) and during the concomitant opening of Japan’s relations with the West. Drawing from the fields of Postcolonial and Transnational Studies, analysis of these texts explores one central question: what does it mean to imagine Japanese culture as contributing to Italian culture? Each author shares in common an attempt to disrupt ideas about dichotomies and unbalanced power relationships between East and West. Proposing the notion of ‘relational Orientalism,’ this book suggests that Italian travelogues to Japan, in many cases, pursued the goal of building imaginary transnational communities, predicated on commonalities and integration, by claiming what they perceived as ‘Oriental’ as their own. In contrast with a long history of Western representations of Japan as inferior and irrational, Searching for Japan identifies a positive overarching attitude toward the Far East country in modern Italian culture. Expanding the horizon of Italian transnational networks, normally situated within the Southern European region, this book reinstates the existence of an alternative Euro-Asian axis, operating across Italian history.Trade Review"Through a sophisticated close reading of a variety of yet untapped Italian literary sources, this thought-provoking volume sheds light on a fascinating and understudied aspect of Italian foreign relations and cultural diplomacy. An exciting read for anyone interested in Japan-Italy relations, Orientalism, and East-West relations."Rebecca Suter, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Japanese Studies, The University of SydneyTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Searching for Japan1. Cosmopolitan Possibilities in Translation. Views from the Russo-Japanese War2. Mussolini in Japan: Japanese Representations in the Age of Fascism3. Little Italy, Big Japan: Patterns of Continuity and Displacement among Italian Writers in Japan4. Madama Butterfly RevisedPostscript

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Book SynopsisIn this brilliant introduction to trans politics, journalist Shon Faye gives an incisive overview of systemic transphobia and argues that the struggle for trans rights is necessary to any struggle for social justice.So often, Faye argues, trans people are understood as a "side issue," the subjects of a toxic and increasingly polarized debate which generates reliable controversy for newspapers and talk shows. This media frenzy conceals a simple fact: that we are having the wrong conversation, a conversation in which trans people themselves are reduced to a talking point and denied a meaningful voice.With skill, rigor, and heart, Faye uncovers the reality of what it means to be trans in a transphobic society. In this compellingly readable study, she explores issues of class, family, housing, healthcare, sex work, the prison system, and trans participation in the LGBTQ+ and feminist communities. What she finds, ultimately, is that when we fight for trans liberation, we fight for a better world for us all.Trade ReviewA clear, intelligent, experience-based explanation of why the scapegoating of trans people must stop, while enthusiastically encouraging more trans people to join feminist, anti-racist movements for economic and social change. -- Sarah SchulmanShon Faye has written a book that models clarity in its writing and its moral vision... One learns here how to distinguish between arguments that merit a response and those which should be refused because they are either cruel or stupid. This is a monumental work and utterly convincing - crystal clear in its understanding of how the world should be. -- Judith ButlerA powerful new call for trans liberation. -- Amia Srinivasan * The New Yorker *A cold, hard, and, most importantly, convincing look into the facts surrounding trans rights both past and present, as well as a moving and impressively comprehensive overview of trans life... As well as being a manifesto of sorts, arguing for the benefits of trans liberation to society at large, The Transgender Issue is a vital resource for readers outside of the U.K. to understand just what is happening there in terms of trans rights-and how to bring about a long-overdue change to the conversation. * Vogue *An inspiring call for coalition ... Shon Faye shows with courage and clarity that the struggle of trans people is the struggle of us all. This book is a game-changer. -- Owen JonesFrom the very first words... it is clear the reader is in the hands of someone with absolute clarity about the world we live in, and the one we deserve. Shon refutes those who seek to turn trans people's lives into a subject of debate. Instead, she shows us that liberation for trans people is intimately tied to the struggle for workers' rights, an end to the violent systems of policing and prisons, and bodily autonomy through universal healthcare. Refusing to water down the radicalism and urgency of her demands, Shon's argument for justice is both a heartfelt outcry against injustice, and an utterly convincing vision for change rooted in analysis and research. -- Florence Welch * @BetweenTwoBooks *Shon Faye makes a compelling case that transgender issues are inexorably linked with other social justice causes. The result is a bold and pragmatic guide for challenging societal transphobia comprehensively and intersectionally. -- Julia Serano, author of Sexed UpMy god, this book couldn't be more timely here in the USA. I hope that all of my trans family come to understand from this book that no matter how hard others try to make us an issue, we are first and always people, individuals, and brave ones at that. -- Kate Bornstein, author of Gender OutlawWriting with astonishing patience, clarity, and ethical force, Shon Faye has gifted us an essential primer for our times. The Transgender Issue calls us into a much-needed solidarity, and makes the project of constructing and inhabiting a more free and just world for everyone feel urgent, possible, and exhilarating. -- Maggie Nelson, author of On FreedomFaye writes with admirable clarity, and, accordingly, her book is accessible to general readers....It sheds essential light on a subject that is widely misunderstood-driven, unfortunately, by too many people's ignorance, which, one hopes, this volume will help correct. * Booklist *

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Book SynopsisCultured Violence explores contemporary South African culture as a test case for the achievement of democracy by constitutional means in the wake of prolonged and violent conflict. The book addresses key ethical issues, normally addressed from within the discourses of law, the social sciences, and health sciences, through narrative analysis. The book draws from and juxtaposes narratives of profoundly different kinds to make its point: fictional narratives, such as the work of Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee; public testimony, such as that of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Jacob Zuma’s (the former Deputy President’s) 2006 trial on charges of rape; and personal testimony, drawn from interviews undertaken by the author over the past ten years in South Africa. These narratives are analysed in order to demonstrate the different ways in which they illuminate the cultural “state of the nation”: ways that elude descriptions of South African subjects undertaken from within discourses that have a historical tendency to ignore cultural dimensions of lived experience and their material particularity. The implications of these lived experiences of culture are underlined by the book’s focus on the violation of human rights as comprising practices that are simultaneously discursive and material. Cases of such violations, all drawn from the South African context, include humans’ use of non-human animals as instruments of violence against other humans; the constructed marginalization and vulnerability of women and children; and the practice of stigma in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.Trade ReviewRecommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. * Choice, vol. 48 No 9 *Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction: Testifying in and to Cultures of Spectacular Violence 1. ‘Going to the Dogs’: ‘Humanity’ in J. M. Coetzee’s Disgrace,The Lives of Animals and South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission 2. The State of/and Childhood: Engendering Adolescence in Contemporary South Africa 3. Spectral Presences: Women, Stigma, and the Performance of Alienation 4. Men ‘Not Feeling Good’: The Dilemmas of Hypermasculinity in the Era of HIV/AIDS Conclusion: Constituting Dishonour Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIn this engaging and humorous book, eminent social psychologist Robert Levine explores a dimension of our experience that we take for granted – our experience of time. Taking us on an enchanting tour through the ages and around the world, we travel to Brazil, where to be three hours late is perfectly acceptable, and to Japan, were he finds a sense of the long-term that is unheard of in the West, as well as to remote places in the world where long-term that is unheard of in the West, as well as to remote places in the world where ‘nature time’, the rhythms of the sun and the seasons, is the only time to live by. From the sundials of ancient Greece to the origins of ‘clock time’ in the Industrial Revolution, Levine asks, how do we use our time? Are we ruled by the clock? What does this do to our cities, our bodies? Perhaps, he argues, time as a human construct has come to define and constrain cultures, while instead we ought to function ‘multitemporally’, each of us charting our own geography of time.Trade Review'Packed with interesting observations and information.' - Anthony Storr, Washington Times 'An elegant gem. Levine combines brilliant observations, original field experiments, and wide ranging scholarship to generate an original view.' - Philip Zimbardo, Stanford University

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Book SynopsisFrom the pet that we live with and care for, to news items such as animal cloning, and the use of various creatures in film, television and advertising, animals are a constant presence in our lives. Animal is a timely overview of the many ways in which we live with animals, and assesses many of the paradoxes of our relationships with them: for example, why is the pet that sits by the dinner table never for eating? Examining novels such as Charlotte's Web, films such as Old Yeller and Babe, science and advertising, fashion and philosophy, Animal also evaluates the ways in which we think about animals and challenges a number of the assumptions we hold. Why is it, for example, that animals are such a constant presence in children's literature? And what does it mean to wear fake fur? Is fake fur an ethical avoidance of animal suffering, or merely a sanitized version of the unacceptable use of animals as clothing? Neither evangelical nor proselytizing, Animal invites the reader to think beyond the boundaries of a subject that has a direct effect on our day-to-day lives.Trade Review'A brilliant analysis of the ambiguous boundaries that separate and bind humans and animals.' - The Irish Times, Dublin

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Book SynopsisA senior editor at Mother Jones dives into the lives of the extremely rich, showing the fascinating, otherworldly realm they inhabit—and the insidious ways this realm harms us all.Have you ever fantasized about being ridiculously wealthy? Probably. Striking it rich is among the most resilient of American fantasies, surviving war and peace, expansions and recessions, economic meltdowns and global pandemics. We dream of the jackpot, the big exit, the life-altering payday, in whatever form that takes. (Americans spent $81 billion on lottery tickets in 2019, more than the GDPs of most nations.) We would escape “essential” day jobs and cramped living spaces, bury our debts, buy that sweet spread, and bail out struggling friends and relations. But rarely do we follow the fantasy to its conclusion—to ponder the social, psychological, and societal downsides of great affluence and the fact that so few possess it. What is

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Book SynopsisIn this “crisp, engaging, and very smart” (The New York Times Book Review) work, The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book critic digs into books of the Trump era and finds that our response to this presidency often reflects the same polarization, contradictions, and resentments that made it possible.It is an irony of our age that a man who rarely reads has unleashed an onslaught of books about his tenure and his time. Dissections of the white working class. Manifestos of political resistance. Works on identity, gender, and migration. Memoirs on race and protest. Revelations of White House mayhem. Warnings over the future of conservatism, progressivism, and of American democracy itself. As a book critic for The Washington Post, Carlos Lozada has read just about all of them. In What Were We Thinking, he draws on some 150 recent volumes to explore how we understand ourselves in the Trump era. Lozada’s characters are not the president, his advisers, or his antagonists but the political and cultural ideas at play—and at stake—in America. Just as Trump’s election upended the country’s political establishment, it shocked its intellectual class. Though some of the books of the Trump era skillfully illuminate the challenges and transformations the nation faces, too many works are more defensive than incisive, more righteous than right. Lozada offers a provocative argument: Whether written by liberals or conservatives, activists or academics, true believers or harsh critics, the books of Trump’s America are vulnerable to the same failures of imagination that gave us this presidency in the first place. In What Were We Thinking, Lozada’s selections range from bestselling titles to little-known works, from thoroughly reported accounts of the administration to partisan polemics, from meditations on the fate of truth to memoirs about enduring—or enabling—the Trump presidency. He also identifies books that challenge entrenched assumptions and shift our vantage points, the books that best help us make sense of this era. The result is an “elegant yet lacerating” (The Guardian) intellectual history of our time, a work that transcends daily headlines to discern how we got here and how we thought here. What Were We Thinking will help today’s readers understand America, and will help tomorrow’s readers look back and understand us.Trade Review“What Were We Thinking is crisp, engaging and very smart...There is a simple, piercing clarity to many of Lozada's observations.” —New York Times Book Review "A book that solemnly analyses 150 often trashy books about someone who is not known to have read a single book and hired stooges to write the 20 self-puffing volumes published in his name? Yes, Carlos Lozada’s survey of what he archly calls 'Trump Studies' is all of those paradoxical things and it is an utter marvel: sober though frequently very funny, fairer minded than the subject deserves, in the end profoundly troubling even as it looks ahead to America’s recovery from the Trump malaise.” — The Guardian “An immensely valuable book... Thoughtful, clever and engaging... Lozada offers a brilliant, wrenching analysis." —The Washington Post "An elegant yet lacerating volume... In a low period for American democracy, Lozada aims high" — The Guardian "The meta Trump book you didn't know you wanted (and needed) to read... Lozada’s book is in conversation with the best books he touches on, by authors like Jill Lepore and Timothy Snyder, drawing out an American narrative that encompasses all its complexity and unmet promise." —The Los Angeles Times "A must-read." —Political Wire "[An] engrossing, insightful book."— The National Book Review “A Rosetta Stone for anyone trying to make sense of the last few years of public debate and discourse.” –Vanity Fair "Lozada has written the ultimate hot take on the Trump era of American politics. Unquestionably, the years ahead will be filled with history books about the Trump legacy, but for right now, leaders would be smart to start with this book." — Forbes “Probably the best book about the Trump presidency so far is Carlos Lozada’s What Were We Thinking, in which the author, The Washington Post’s excellent book critic, read 150 books written during the Trump years and analyzed what their perspectives told us about the man and his time in the White House. His conclusions, and I share them, are that in essence the Trump presidency was uniquely chaotic and yet at the same time a reflection of deeply embedded characteristics of American society." — Peter Osnos"A fine reduction of complexity that serves any interested reader as a compass, enabling them to navigate through the rough seas of recent American politics... The strength of this book lies in the fact that it questions taken-for-granted assumptions and catch-all, simplistic conceptualisations such as 'neoliberalism', 'populism' and even 'fascism'. Instead the author reads between the lines. He detects not only some finer points that often get lost in the noise of all the scandals but also sees in the Trump administration a kind of dialectic between continuity and rupture."— Dublin Review of Books “Lozada is. . . one of the rising stars in Washington's cultural, political, and journalistic world, which he knows and describes with depth and finesse. His book is not just an editorial guide to the Trump era, but a lucid analysis of the time in which we live. Its usefulness, therefore, transcends the limits of American democracy.” — El País "Washington Post book critic Lozada debuts with an incisive survey of the 150 nonfiction books he’s read on the Trump era....Readers will appreciate this useful guide." —Publisher's Weekly "A nimble overview of the library of Trumpiana" —Kirkus Review "Kudos to Carlos Lozada for his wide-ranging survey of the many books written about the Trump era. Being able to digest more than 150 books on this topic is itself a literary feat, but he managed to write with a degree of objectivity most of us find difficult to attain during this conflicted time." — Letter to the editor, The Washington Post "No matter who wins in November, 'What were we thinking?' will be a pertinent question for years." — Washingtonian Magazine "Lozada highlights where these books succeed and where they fail, providing a comprehensive perspective on contemporary America." — Book Trib

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Book SynopsisMax Pechstein (1881–1955) is one of the most prominent German artists of the twentieth century, not least because of his crucial role in the breakthrough of German Expressionism. This long overdue biography combines the portrayal of an outstanding artistic personality with the story of an individual German who struggled through the political upheavals of his time. Pechstein's work is presented in the cultural context of museum politics and art associations, art dealers and critics, market forces and cultural trends.

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Book SynopsisThis volume explores the relationship between temporality and presence in medieval artworks from the third to the sixteenth centuries. It is the first extensive treatment of the interconnections between medieval artworks' varied presences and their ever-shifting places in time. The volume begins with reflections on the study of temporality and presence in medieval and early modern art history. A second section presents case studies delving into the different ways medieval artworks once created and transformed their original viewers' experience of the present. These range from late antique Constantinople, early Islamic Jerusalem and medieval Italy, to early modern Venice and the Low Countries. A final section explores how medieval artworks remain powerful and relevant today. This section includes case studies on reconstructing presence in medieval art through embodied experience of pilgrimage, art historical research and museum education. In doing so, the volume provides a first dialog between museum educators and art historians on the presence of medieval artifacts. It includes contributions by Hans Belting, Keith Moxey, Rika Burnham and others.

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Book SynopsisBeyond Art Spiegelmanâs MAUS, there is a plethora of Holocaust comics that is waiting to be discovered.

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Book Synopsis2009 marked the 60th anniversary of the diplomatic relations of the Republic of India and the Republic of Austria. The Conservation Department of the University of Applied Arts Vienna presents this volume largely based on papers reported at the conference Cultural Heritage Counts - Research, Conservation and Management held in New Delhi in August, 2009. The conference was a crucial contribution initiated by the Austrian Cultural Forum New Delhi to celebrate this important jubilee. The successful and intensive cooperation of both countries in the fields of the research and conservation of cultural heritage is reflected in numerous research and conservation projects presented in this book.

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Book SynopsisThe work presents -- as far as is now possible -- the language spoken by Lutsk Karaims in the second half of the 19th and in the first two decades of the 20th centuries. This is attempted by means of editing eleven private letters and five open letters written in Lutsk Karaim -- with Hebrew interpolations. The letters were written by different authors in Hebrew script.The present publication appears to be the first critical edition of this type of text written in this particular dialect. Previous editions of south-western Karaim manuscripts either concerned very short texts from Halych or were prepared with no intention of being professional.The linguistic description of the texts aims to present a grammar of the manuscripts' language. It is complemented with a separate chapter dealing with the Slavonic structural influences exerted on the authors' idiolects, and with the lexicon of the texts. A separate part deals with the orthography and the features of the writing itself. The transcription and translation of each manuscript are preceded with a concise palaeographic description and a summary of the content. The work closes with a glossary, several indexes, maps, and the facsimile of the manuscripts.Trade ReviewMichael Nemeth brings both new edition of philological science previously unknown archival sources for the history of everyday Karaim language in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as developing their language in terms of new information that these sources contribute to Karaim knowledge. -- Marek Stachowski, Professor, Jagiellonian University

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Book SynopsisIt is common wisdom that language is culturally embedded. Cultural change is often accompanied by a change in idiom, in language or in ideas about language. No period serves as a better example of the formative influence of language on culture than the Renaissance. With the advent of humanism new modes of speaking and writing arose. But not only did classical Latin become the paradigm of clear and elegant writing, it also gave rise to new ideas about language and the teaching of it. Some scholars have argued that the cultural paradigm shift from scholasticism to humanism was causally determined by the rediscovery, study and emulation of the classical language, for learning a new language opens up new possibilities for exploring and describing one's perceptions, thoughts and beliefs. However, the vernacular traditions too rose to prominence and vied with Latin for cultural prestige.This volume, number XXIV in the series "Groningen Studies in Cultural Change", offers the papers presented at a workshop on language and cultural change held in Groningen in February 2004. Ten specialists explore the multifarious ways in which language contributed to the shaping of Renaissance culture. They discuss themes such as the relationship between medieval and classical Latin, between Latin and the vernacular, between humanist and scholastic conceptions of language and grammar, translation from Latin into the vernacular, Jewish ideas about different kinds of Hebrew, and shifting ideas on the power and limits of language in the articulation of truth and divine wisdom. There are essays on major thinkers such as Nicholas of Cusa and Leonardo Bruni, but also on less well-known figures and texts. The volume as a whole hopes to contribute to a deeper understanding of the highly complex interplay between language and culture in the transition period between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA masterpiece and rare achievement; a completely new and convincing reading of a body of politicized knowledge that has dominated much of the field in the last thirty years. The entire concept of Orientalism will have to be totally rethought following Boone's book. -- Moshe Sluhovsky, Vigevani Chair in European Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem This book offers an erudite and timely interpretation of the phenomenon of homoeroticism in orientalism in the Near and Middle East. Treating a broad range of Western representations of the "Orient", Boone provides an important corrective to Edward Said's Orientalism by addressing the powerful ways in which Europeans writers' and artists' representations of homoeroticism in the "Orient" have covertly enabled the appeal of orientalism as a predominantly male mode of discourse. -- Ali Behdad, John Charles Hillis Professor of Literature at UCLA; author of Belated Travelers and A Forgetful Nation. Joseph Boone has opened a triple dialogue between Western perceptions (and fantasies) of Middle-Eastern homoeroticism, queer theory as it has evolved over the past decade, and the growing field of sexual studies in the Islamic world. Read The Homoerotics of Orientalism and discover that Boone has taken the necessary steps in offering oneself up to unsuspected, multiple ways of being. As he says, "how might the terms 'homoeroticism' and 'Orientalism', the two operative words of my title, each find itself refigured, wrenched apart and re-conjoined to create new meanings? -- Richard Howard, Poet, Columbia University A veritable tour de force. Boone's groundbreaking, timely book challenges us to revisit a wide range of orientalist visual and textual artifacts produced over the last four hundred and fifty years in which the recurrence of homoerotic desire contests heterosexual norms, colonial control, and race and gender hierarchies. The wealth of textual and visual materials and the broad selection of figures are, in and of themselves, extraordinary contributions to scholarship. A must read for scholars both of Anglo-European-American and Middle-Eastern and Islamicate gender and sexuality studies. -- Sahar Amer, Professor of Arabic and Islamic studies, University of Sydney Orientalism will never be the same after Boone's extraordinary book, which disrupts the heterosexual template implicit in Edward Said's and refashions the cultural traffic between East and West as inescapably reciprocal, dialectical, and multiple-in a word, global. As much an intervention in visual culture as it is a revelatory history of the literatures of both West and East, The Homoerotics of Orientalism with its staggering erudition and critical finesse courageously recasts the stark divide of Occident and Orient that produced Orientalism as mutually constitutive, creative, and informing as it has been destructive, and it does so in the form of a critical gift-a book of utmost generosity, judiciousness, and political imagination- that carries its own charge of love. -- Jennifer Wicke, Professor of English, University of Virginia Boone shatters the old binaries of Western Orientalist discourses AND the field of postcolonial studies and offers much needed insight for the field of sexuality studies in the Muslim world. A remarkable achievement! -- Janet Afary, Mellichamp Chair in Global Religion and Modernity and Professor of Religious Studies and Feminism, University of California, Santa Barbara Once every decade or so, a book appears that revolutionizes the field of GLBT studies... [The Homoerotics of Orientalism] is a book that post-colonialists will seize immediately and argue over endlessly--but one that will also permeate the wider GLBT intellectual landscape. Every reader will benefit. Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide This remarkable study models an ethics of cross-cultural reading that exposes, with nuance and economy, the crucial role played by the homoerotics of Orientalism in shaping the world as we know it today. -- Christopher Harrity The Advocate [A] substantial and fascinating book. -- Robert Aldrich H-Histsex The Homoerotics of Orientalism is an outstanding and bold intellectual discussion of transgressive sexualities in both the Islamic and the Western worlds... A well-researched book that puts forth a new thinking on Orientalism... Highly recommended. Choice Important and engaging volume. Journal of Modern History Meticulously researched. Modern PhilologyTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Preface: Re-Orienting Sexuality Part I: Theory and History 1. Histories of Cross-Cultural Encounter, Orientalism, and the Politics of Sexuality 2. Beautiful Boys, Sodomy, and Hamams: A Textual and Visual History of Tropes Part II: Geographies of Desire 3. Empire of 'Excesse,' City of Dreams: Homoerotic Imaginings in Istanbul and the Ottoman World 4. Epic Ambitions and Epicurean Appetites: Egyptian Stories I 5. Colonialism and Its Aftermaths, Gide to Chahine: Egyptian Stories II Part III: Modes and Genres 6. Queer Modernism and Middle Eastern Poetic Genres: Appropriations, Forgeries, and Hoaxes 7. Looking Backward: Homoeroticism in Miniaturist Painting and Orientalist Art 8. Looking Again: Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Visual Cultures Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThis text explores the relationship between dancing bodies and sexual identity on the concert stage, in nightclubs, in film, in the courts and on the streets and tracks the intersections of dance and human sexuality in the twentieth century as the definition of each has shifted and expanded.Trade ReviewThis break-through volume opens a long overdue discussion of dance and sexuality. - Joan L. Erdman, Columbia College ""Dancing Desires brings together some of the most influential minds in dance cultural studies. This important book will find an enthusiastic readership among scholars and students of dance studies, performance studies, cultural studies, American studies, and queer studies."" - David Roman, University of Southern California

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