Material culture Books

237 products


  • Oxford University Press The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Ceramic Analysis

    15 in stock

    a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

    15 in stock

    £40.99

  • Oxford University Press Grossly Material Things

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisIn A Room of One''s Own, Virginia Woolf described fictions as ''grossly material things'', rooted in their physical and economic contexts. This book takes Woolf''s brief hint as its starting point, asking who made the books of the English Renaissance, and what the material circumstances were in which they did so. It charts a new history of making and use, recovering the ways in which women shaped and altered the books of this crucial period, as co-authors, editors, translators, patrons, printers, booksellers, and readers. Drawing on evidence from a wide range of sources, including court records, letters, diaries, medical texts, and the books themselves, ''Grossly Material Things'' moves between the realms of manuscript and print, and tells the stories of literary, political, and religious texts from broadside ballads to plays, monstrous birth pamphlets to editions of the Bible. In uncovering the neglected history of women''s textual labours, and the places and spaces in which women wenTrade ReviewSmith has produced a study that argues convincingly for the integral engagement of women with the materiality of the printed text. The strength of this work comes from the wealth of illustrative examples placed within a convincing discussion of the many facets affecting the production and use of early modern books. * Jessica Malay, Women's History Review *Far from mere handmaids to their more accomplished male contemporaries, the early modern women who people this extraordinary book are revealed not only as patrons, printers, and translators of male-authored works, but also as stationers, chapwomen, and active readers who shape those works' very meanings. A welcome corrective to the familiar emphasis on prescriptive literature, Smith's work immerses us in the dirty, noisy world of early modern England where men and women jostled for position in the burgeoning economy of London and beyond. * Christina Luckyj, Early Theatre *brings a wealth of new insights to the field of book history * Alice Eardley, Journal of the Northern Renaissance *Smith's emphasis on materiality certainly alerts us to some tantalizing glimpses of the place of women in both printing houses and Stationers' Hall. * Maureen Bell, Times Literary Supplement *Smith presents a meticulous study of the participation of women in all aspects of book production ... the volume may prove useful to anyone researching the social, economic, and intellectual composition of the book trade. * N.C. Aldred, The Library *Helen Smith's fascinating Grossly Material Things opens an important window onto the basic circumstances of the Renaissance printing house and sheds new light on the significant roles women played in early modern Englands print marketplace ... Combining elegant writing with an abundance of useful details, Smith's study demands that we pay greater attention to the colophons of our favorite Renaissance books ... When others explore the role of women in the production of books in other markets, those scholars would do well to take Helen Smith's book as a model. * Andrew Fleck, Renaissance Quarterly *Helen Smith's Grossly Material Things is a fascinating, insightful, superbly researched book on the contributions women made to manuscript and book production in the Early Modern period. Anyone interested in the history of reading or of the book will learn a great deal from her investigation ... The great strength of her work is to refocus our attention on the web of gendered relations in writing, translating, patronizing, publishing and reading in this period. * Tom Rooney, Early Modern Literary Studies *Smith prods scholars to widen their definitions of textual labor to include books' physicality - an unexamined aspect of their cultural and intellectual impact. * Kathryn Narramore, Textual Cultures: Texts, Contexts, Interpretation *This ambitious, well-researched, and timely study sets out to revise our understanding not only of early modern women's roles in book production (as its subtitle promises) but also of their myriad contributions to the entire communications circuit, including the commissioning, manufacture, distribution, and consumption of print publications in England, and between England and the Continent ... it will be of interest to a wide array of readers including, but not limited to, specialists in book history. * Natasha Korda, Joural of British Studies *This monograph will be indispensable for early modern book historians as well as scholars of women's writing in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. * Gillian Wright, SHARP News *Table of ContentsList of abbreviations ; List of illustrations ; Acknowledgments ; Note to the reader ; Introduction: 'Grossly Material Things' ; 1. 'Pen'd with double art': Women at the Scene of Writing ; 2. 'A dame, an owner, a defendresse': Women, Patronage, and Print ; 3. 'A free Stationers wife of this companye': Women and the Stationers ; 4. 'Certaine women brokers and peddlers': Beyond the London Book Trades ; 5. 'No deformitie can abide before the sunne': Imagining Early Modern Women's Reading ; Bibliography of Works Cited ; Index

    15 in stock

    £130.62

  • Oxford University Press Savoring Disgust

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisDisgust is among the strongest of aversions, characterized by involuntary physical recoil and even nausea. Yet paradoxically, disgusting objects can sometimes exert a grisly allure, and this emotion can constitute a positive, appreciative aesthetic response when exploited by works of art -- a phenomenon labelled here aesthetic disgust. While the reactive, visceral quality of disgust contributes to its misleading reputation as a relatively primitive response mechanism, it is this feature that also gives it a particular aesthetic power when manifest in art. Most treatments of disgust mistakenly interpret it as only an extreme response, thereby neglecting the many subtle ways that it operates aesthetically. This study calls attention to the diversity and depth of its uses, analyzing the emotion in detail and considering the enormous variety of aesthetic forms it can assume in works of art and --unexpectedly-- even in foods. In the process of articulating a positive role for disgust, thisTable of ContentsChapter 1 What Is Disgust? ; Chapter 2 Attractive Aversions ; Chapter 3 Delightful, Delicious, Disgusting ; Chapter 4 Varieties of Aesthetic Disgust ; Chapter 5 The Magnetism of Disgust ; Chapter 6 Hearts ; Chapter 7 The Foul and the Fair ; Bibliography

    15 in stock

    £42.74

  • Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Museums and Communities Curators Collections and Collaboration

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisViv Golding is Director of Research Students and Senior Lecturer in the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. Her most recent publication is Learning at the Museum Frontiers: Identity Race and Power and she is currently working on two Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded projects 'Behind the Looking Glass: 'Other' Cultures Within Translating Cultures' and 'Mapping Faith and Place in Leicester', and a Daiwa project 'Museum Literacy'. Wayne Modest is currently Head of the Curatorial Department at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. Previously he has been Keeper of Anthropology at the Horniman Museum and Director of the Museums of History and Ethnography at the Institute of Jamaica. Recent publications include 'Slavery and the (Symbolic) Politics of Memory in Jamaica: Rethinking the Bicentenary' in Laurajane Smith et al. (ed) Representing Enslavement and Abolition in Museums: Ambiguous Engagements.Trade Review[Museums and Communities] supplies the current state of the theoretical and practical activity in museum studies. It shows that museums have made efforts to open themselves to diverse groups interested in creating new systems of representation. The authors remind us that artists' interventions in museums urge curators to be more responsible and involved, allowing for effective dialogue with communities within disputed histories. * Perspective (Bloomsbury translation) *Museums and Communities thoroughly and unflinchingly interrogates the widely touted goal of collaborative museum work, providing a realistic assessment of the risks and pitfalls, but also the incredible rewards that come with a deep curatorial commitment to working collaboratively. * William Wood, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA *All too often museums invoke the idea of “community” in naïve and uncritical ways. Here at last is an attempt to complicate this construction, unpick its politics, and explore its dynamics in the context of museum exhibition, engagement and outreach. This book has much to teach us about how museums imagine their communities and reminds us of the need to develop more sophisticated approaches to collaborative museology. * Paul Basu , University College London, UK *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations List of Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction - Viv Golding, University of Leicester, UK Part One: Community Matters? Collaborative Museums: Curators, Communities, Collections - Viv Golding, University of Leicester, UK The City, Race, and the Creation of a Common History at the Virginia Historical Society - Eric Gable, University of Mary Washington, USA Negotiating the Power of Art: Tyree Guyton and Detroit Communities - Bradley L. Taylor, University of Michigan, USA Learning to Share Knowledge: Collaborative Projects In Taiwan - Marzia Varutti, University of Leicester, UK Community Engagement, Curatorial Practice and Museum Ethos in Alberta Canada - Bryony Onciul, Newcastle University, UK Co-Curating with Teenagers at the Horniman Museum - Wayne Modest, Tropenmuseum, the Netherlands Part Two: Sharing Authority? Museums, Migrant Communities and Intercultural Dialogue in Italy - Serena Iervolino, University of Leicester, UK Community Consultation and the Redevelopment of Manchester Museum's Ancient Egypt Galleries - Karen Exell, University College London, Qatar, Doha 'Shared Authority': Collaboration, Curatorial Voice and Exhibition Design in Canberra Australia - Mary Hutchison, Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, Australia One Voice to Many Voices?: Displaying Polyvocality in an Art Gallery - Rhiannon Mason, Chris Whitehead, and Helen Graham, Newcastle University, UK A Question of Trust: Addressing Historical Injustices with Romani-people - Åshild Andrea Brekke, Arts Council, Norway Part Three: Audiences and Social Justice? Audience Experiences? Creolising the Museum: Humour, Art and Young Audiences - Viv Golding, University of Leicester, UK Museums and Civic Engagement: Children Making a Difference - Elizabeth Wood, Indiana University-Purdue University, USA Community Consultation in the Museum: The 2007 Bicentenary of Britain's Abolition of the Slave Trade - Kalliopi Fouseki, University College London, UK and Laurajane Smith. Australian National University, Australia Interpreting the Shared Past Within the World Heritage Site of Göreme, Cappadocia Turkey - Elizabeth Carnegie, University of Sheffield, UK and Hazel Tucker, University of Otago, New Zealand Testimony, Memory and Art at the Jewish Holocaust Museum Melbourne Australia - Andrea Witcomb, Deakin University, Australia Afterword - A View from the Bridge in Conversation with Susan Pearce - Kirstin James, University of Leicester, UK, Petrina Foti, University of Leicester, UK and the Editors Index

    15 in stock

    £31.99

  • Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Food Waste Home Consumption Material Culture and Everyday Life Materializing Culture

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisDavid Evans is Lecturer in Sociology and Research Fellow of the Sustainable Consumption Institute at the University of Manchester, UK.Trade ReviewA short, lively and very stimulating book ... [and] an excellent example of recent research practices in the field of consumption and everyday lives. * Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies *Evans draws on studies of consumption and materials culture alongside social science perspectives on everyday life and the home to get to the bottom of why we waste food ... Simply put, food is wasted when people do not want to eat it anymore. However, Evans suggests that ‘food' becomes 'waste' through a complex and anxiety-laden process’, and therefore should not be taken as evidence of households not caring about the food that they waste ... Food Waste is aimed at social scientists and students, but could be of benefit to those in the waste industry wanting to take a different look at why we waste food. * Resource *Food Waste is both relevant and timely, offering new insights into ‘the role of material culture in shaping’ everyday practices of food consumption, and thereby, food waste production … Evans challenges normative views of wastefulness … demonstrating that households are undeniably aware of their production of (and discomfort with) food waste. Furthermore, he argues that food waste is more usefully conceptualised in relation to norms of caring that constitute feeding a family and loved ones than as an ‘end of pipe’ problem to be fixed by households, consumers and public waste management systems … Food Waste is a well-written and well-researched book, grappling with big questions about the transformation of food into waste. In it Evans provides an accessible account of the complexity of household food acquisition and disposal practices and offers a perceptive categorical framework upon which further academic work on food waste might build. * Sociological Review *Evans’ book provides a refreshingly non-judgmental exploration of the practices that lead consumers to waste food. ... A highly accessible, thought provoking and concise work, that offers a conceptual framework that will no doubt organize and position future studies of household food waste. * Cultural Sociology *David Evans has set a strong foundation for continuing research into waste scholarship ... Overall this book is at the forefront of looking into […] how home food takes steps into becoming waste in the environment. Evans’ has managed to provoke curiosity about other realms that lie undiscovered in the breadth of waste scholarship. * Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics *The real-life stories in the book make the messages compelling, as the reader can easily relate to the examples that we have all lived in our own families. ... The author also presents many practical solutions to this problem [of food waste] that currently is under appreciated in the agricultural and food systems community. * Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems *At last a book about waste that does not browbeat and blame consumers! Instead Evans asks fundamental questions that are usually buried under the moral weight of garbage and trash. His careful ethnography brings a blast of fresh air to a timeless and complex problem. -- Richard Wilk, Provost Professor of Anthropology, Indiana University, USAFood and waste are words that are seldom brought together in ways that do not involve morals and moralising. In this book, Evans shows why an understanding of food waste requires going beyond morality. This is material culture studies at its best, an important contribution to a growing body of work on divestment with profound implications for policy makers. -- Nicky Gregson, Professor of Human Geography, Durham University, UKEvans persuasively shows that problems with food 'waste' have little to do with poor planning and uninformed consumers and everything to do with the structures of daily life and ideas about 'proper' eating. This excellent book challenges conventional wisdom and opens up possibilities for rethinking consumer choice and responsible consumption. -- Melissa L. Caldwell, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz, USATable of ContentsAcknowledgments Prologue: The Social Life (and Death) of Food 1. Bringing Waste to the Table 2. Ordinary Domestic Practice: Conceptualizing, Researching, Representing 3. Contextualising Household Food Consumption 4. Anxiety, Routine and Over-provisioning 5. The Gap in Disposal: From Surplus to Excess? 6. Bins and Things 7. Gifting, Re-use and Salvage Conclusion: Living with Food, Reducing Waste Notes Bibliography Index

    15 in stock

    £32.41

  • Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) African Dress Fashion Agency Performance Dress Body Culture

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisKaren Tranberg Hansen is Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University, USA.D. Soyini Madison is Professor of Performance Studies with affiliate appointments in the Department of Anthropology and African American Studies at Northwestern University, USA.Trade ReviewNot only does this multidisciplinary edited volume cast its geographic sweep as broad as a continent, it jumps into the centre of a conceptual Venn diagram. -- Siobhan Magee, University of Edinburgh, UK * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *This book will appeal to those interested in how people in Africa use dress and fashion to engage relentlessly and innovatively with themselves and the world. Some papers, such as the one on wax-print cloths in colonial and post-colonial Togo, could be used as interesting case studies for business school students. * Textile Research Centre *Table of ContentsContents List of Illustrations List of contributors Acknowledgments Introduction. Karen Tranberg Hansen, Northwestern University, USA PART IDressed Bodies and Power 1. Dressing for Success: The Politically Performative Quality of an Igbo Woman's Attire. Misty L. Bastian, Franklin & Marshall College, USA 2. Fashionability in Colonial and Postcolonial Togo. Nina Sylvanus, Northeastern University, USA 3. Branding Festive Bodies: Corporate Logos and Chiefly Image T-shirts in Ghana. Lauren Adrover, Northwestern University, USA PART IIMaterial Culture, Visual Recognition, and Display 4. Bazin Riche in Dakar, Senegal: Altered Inception, Use, and Wear. Kelly Kirby, University of Michigan, USA 5. Fashioning People, Crafting Networks: Multiple Meanings in the Mauritanian Veil (Mala?fa). Katherine Wiley, Indiana University, USA 6. The Hijab as Moral Space in Northern Nigeria. Elisha P. Renne, University of Michigan, USA PART III. Connecting Worlds through Dress 7. Dressing the Colonial Body: Senegalese Rifleman in Uniform. Keith Rathbone, Northwestern University, USA 8. Ghana Boys in Mali: Fashion, Youth, and Travel. Victoria L. Rovine, University of Florida, USA 9. Forging Connections, Performing Distinctions: Youth, Dress, and Consumption in Niger. Adeline Masquelier, Tulane University, USA 10. Fashion, Transnationality, and Swahili Men. Tina Mangieri, SIT, USA PART IVTransculturated Bodies 11. Photography, Poetry, and the Dressed Bodies of Léopold Sédar Senghor. Leslie W. Rabine, University of California, Davis, USA 12. Transculturated Displays: International Fashion and West African Portraiture. Candace M. Keller, Michigan State University, USA 13. Spectacular Dress: Africanisms in the Fashions and Performances of Josephine Baker, 1925-1975. Bennetta Jules-Rosette, University of California, San Diego, USA 14. Dressing Out-of-Place: From Ghana to Obama Commemorative Cloth on the American Red Carpet. D. Soyini Madison, Northwestern University, USA Index

    15 in stock

    £32.99

  • Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Collaboration Through Craft

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisAmanda Ravetz is Senior Research Fellow at MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Alice Kettle is Senior Research Fellow at MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Helen Felcey is Programme Leader for MA Design at Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.Trade ReviewCollaboration Through Craft is a ground-breaking book. It sets out what we have known for some time but nobody has yet articulated – that the crafts are distinguished by their collaborative nature and the willingness of makers to share experience, knowledge and skills. From its insightful introduction, which eloquently sets the context for craft as a collaborative process and experience, this book’s collection of essays maps the hugely diverse territory of contemporary crafts via the framing mechanism of collaboration. -- Matthew Partington, V&A Museum Senior Research Fellow, University of West England, UKNothing is ever made without collaboration. Yet we continue to believe that every work is the product of a single hand. This book turns the belief in single-handed creation on its head. It shows that collaboration is not incidental to the crafting of things but the very power that drives it forward. Together, the contributors succeed in raising craft from its backward-looking association with traditional skills to where it belongs, as a dynamic, generative principle at the core of social and cultural life. -- Tim Ingold, University of Aberdeen, UKThis book is a compelling critical appraisal of the friction and risk in collaboration, posing new forms of collaborative expertise through craft that are both challenging and immensely productive. These 16 chapters have deep relevance to makers in art, design, and craft as well as educators and practitioners within any field where working together is essential. This is an extraordinary resource! -- Anne Wilson, Professor Department of Fiber and Material Studies, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USACollaboration through Craft adds to the growing number of publications that investigate and describe contemporary craft theory and practice […] This book would be a good acquisition for institutions or individuals wanting an overview of the breadth of contemporary ideas in collaborative craft and for artists who are interested in exploring collaborative possibilities. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. -- L. L. Kriner, Berea College * CHOICE *Table of Contents1. Collaboration Tthrough Craft: An Introduction Amanda Ravetz, Alice Kettle and Helen Felcey Part 1: Modes of collaborating 2. Collaboration: A Creative Journey or a Means to an End? Lesley Millar 3. Making Anew... Collaboration and Dynamic Change Helen Carnac 4. Triangulation Theory, Working as Three Jane Webb, David Gates, Alice Kettle 5. The Creation of a Collective Voice Brass Art: Chara Lewis, Kristin Mojsiewicz, Anneké Pettican Part 2: The Generative Power of Craft 6. Catalytic Clothing and Tactility Factory: Crafted Collaborative Connections Trish Belford 7. The Aesthetic of Waste: Exploring the Creative Potential of Re-cycled Ceramic Waste David Binns 8. Designing Collaboration: Evoking Dr Johnson Through Craft and Interdisciplinarity Jason Cleverly, Tim Shear 9. Skinship: An Exchange of Material Understanding Between Plastic Surgery and Pattern Cutting Rhian Solomon Part 3: Institutional Collaborations 10. Department 21: The Craft of Discomfort Stephen Knott 11. Skills in the Making Simon Taylor, Rachel Payne 12. Project Dialogue Barbara Hawkins and Brett Wilson 13. A Question of Value: Re-thinking the Mary Greg Collection Sharon Blakey and Liz Mitchell Part 4: Collaboration in an Emerging World 14. Expanded Battle Fields Allison Smith 15. Crafts and the Contemporary in South Asia Barney Hare Duke & Jeremy Theophilus 16. Circling Back Into That Thing We Cast Forward Judith Leemann and Shannon Stratton 17. Craft Knowledge and the Craft of Human Life: A South Asian Residency CJ O'Neill and Amanda Ravetz 18. Epilogue: A Response Glenn Adamson

    15 in stock

    £110.00

  • Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Cool Shades The History and Meaning of Sunglasses

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisVanessa Brown is a Senior Lecturer responsible for Design Culture and Context in the School of Art and Design (Department of Fashion, Knit and Textiles) at Nottingham Trent University, UK.Trade ReviewBrown delivers a fascinating explication of an iconic fashion accoutrement: sunglasses. She discusses how they have served as a popular cultural signifier, particularly since the 1920s, and explains their purportedly ‘cool’ quality … This short but insightful volume explores the influence of urban developments, the early turn to goggles and then eventually to Ray-Ban aviators, and the ultimate evolution of ‘modern cool.’ … According to Brown, sunglasses also were linked with African Americans, the femme fatale, white hipsters, the Beats, and late modernity … Likening shades to Breton’s top hat and Robinson’s bowler, Brown offers that they stand as ‘the ultimate symbol of the age.’ A thoroughly intriguing account. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. -- R. C. Cottrell, California State University, Chico * CHOICE *An original contribution to the field ... The book gives an effective discussion of the various meanings of sunglasses as signifiers and draws some interesting examples from film and photography. * Journal of Design History *Table of Contents1. Introduction 2. Sunglasses and Modernity: Why do Modern Eyes Need Shading? 3. Sunglasses and Speed 4. Sunglasses and the Hi-tech Body 5. From Sunlight to Fashbulbs: Sunglasses, Success, Celebrity and Glamour 6. Sunglasses and the Other – Race, Gender, the Blind and the Outlaw 7. The Spread of Outsider Cool: 1950s – Present 8. Sunglasses and the Absence of Meaning 9. Conclusion 10. Timeline (1750 to 1960s) Bibliography Index

    15 in stock

    £35.38

  • Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Unwrapping Ancient Egypt The Shroud the Secret and the Sacred

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisChristina Riggs is a Senior Lecturer in the department of Art History and World Art Studies, University of East Anglia, UK.Trade ReviewEach chapter of this book represents one lecture from a series delivered in 2012 at All Souls College, Oxford …With 79 pages of notes and bibliography, the extensive research behind this book is well documented … The issues discussed go beyond the art historical. Riggs covers the psychology of entombing, hiding, and revealing in artistic, religious, and political contexts. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through researchers/faculty; general readers. -- N. J. Mactague, Aurora University * CHOICE *This is a work of passion, poetically written and convincingly argued, which highlights the crucial role played by textiles, wrapping and concealment in the structuring of ancient Egyptian society. -- Sarah Griffiths * Ancient Egypt *An original and powerful volume ... Riggs provides a (very) critical history of Egyptology and related curatorial practices. The result is a book that not only wears its erudition lightly, but also challenges the legitimacy and apparent exceptionality of what it is that Egyptologists do. Opening Egyptology’s “black box,” Riggs makes a major contribution to understanding what that box might contain, in addition to how this understanding might change our perceptions of “ancient Egypt” and scholarly practices related to it. -- William Carruthers * Museum Anthropology Review *Dr Riggs’ book contains much of interest, presented in an ingenious way that raises issues that might not otherwise have easily sprung to mind and which should indeed be considered by anyone dealing with the study of the ancient world. -- Aidan Dodson * ASTENE Bulletin 63 *Riggs is, undeniably, spot-on with many of her observations. She is deliberately provocative and hopefully this book – an affordable paperback that [could] reach a wide audience – will not simply be dismissed as ‘trendy’ by the Establishment she critiques ... it should please the author that the book – perhaps the single most important on the subject of ‘Egyptology’ as a discipline of the last ten years – is already on the set reading list of archaeology students at Manchester University. -- Campbell Price * Egyptian Archaeology *Unwrapping Ancient Egypt is a riveting review and critique of Egyptological scholarship, studying a time-honored subject against a critical analysis of traditional western scientific approaches. Christina Riggs’ masterful intertwining of critical theory and thorough analysis provides important new insights. -- Willeke Wendrich, Professor of Egyptian Archeology, UCLA, USAChristina Riggs takes us on a lively exploration of Egyptology's prize finds and ably offers a fresh approach to familiar mummies and their textile bindings. As a means by which the dead and objects were sanctified and transformed, textile wrappings are presented as a structuring principle in ancient Egyptian society and discourse. -- Susanna Harris, ERC Research Associate, PROCON Project, UCL, UKThrough its focus on concealment and revelation, this beautifully written book raises ‘mummification’ from the realms of obscurity and curiosity, relocating it within a politics of the body that sheds light on both the deep past and contemporary practices of collection and display. It is an important contribution that cuts across the fields of art history, Egyptology, archaeology, anthropology, cultural heritage, material culture, and museum studies. -- David Wengrow, Professor of Comparative Archaeology, University College London, UKMore poetry than prose, embroidered with details gleaned from her extensive knowledge and experience as an Egyptologist and museum curator, Riggs’ interwoven tale of two Egypts skillfully employs the metaphor of wrapping, the past (wrapped/concealed) and the perceived past (unwrapped/revealed), as a common thread that binds both worlds. -- Lorelei H. Corcoran, Professor and Director of the Institute of Egyptian Art & Archeology, University of Memphis, USAThis book is a distinctive and significant contribution to the fields of Egyptology, anthropology, art history, and cultural studies. It is simultaneously a study of ancient Egypt and modern Western culture. In particular, the author examines the ancient Egyptian mortuary practices of wrapping and shrouding bodies, and the modern archaeological and museological practices of unwrapping bodies. -- Robert Preucel, Director of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology and Professor of Anthropology at Brown University, USATable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Preface Desecration Revelation Mummification Linen Secrecy Sanctity Afterword Notes References Index

    15 in stock

    £36.99

  • Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Inbetweenness of Things

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisWe habitually categorize the world in binary logics of animate' and inanimate', natural' and supernatural', self' and other', authentic' and inauthentic'. The Inbetweenness of Things rejects such Western classificatory traditions which tend to categorize objects using bounded notions of period, place and purpose and argues instead for a paradigm where objects are not one thing or another but a multiplicity of things at once.Adopting an object-centred' approach, with contributions from material culture specialists across various disciplines, the book showcases a series of objects that defy neat classification. In the process, it explores how things' mediate and travel between conceptual worlds in diverse cultural, geographic and temporal contexts, and how they embody this mediation and movement in their form. With an impressive range of international authors, each essay grounds explorations of cutting-edge theory in concrete case studies.An innovative, thoughTrade ReviewProvocative and absorbing, The Inbetweenness of Thingsprovides a diverse set of case studies of past and present things of our world. Taking movement or “inbetweenness” as its core analytic, Paul Basu and this volume’s contributors demonstrate how productive research on materiality can be. This volume is a vibrant addition to the interdisciplinary study of objects, and should be widely read. * Joshua A. Bell, National Museum of Natural History, USA *Paul Basu makes a unique and compelling contribution to the fields of anthropology, material culture and museology. Pioneering in cutting-edge scholarship, Basu opens up the fascinating world of "inbetween" objects to a broader audience, with an analysis of a gamut of anthropological tropes from the fetish to the exotica of the European Wunderkammer. * Alison J. Clarke, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria *Table of ContentsList of Figures List of Contributors Acknowledgements 1. The Inbetweenness of Things Paul Basu, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK Museums as Sites of Inbetweenness 2. The Inbetweenness of the Vitrine: Three Parerga of a Feather Headdress Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, Independent Artist/Curator, UK 3. The Buzz of Displacement: Liminality amongst Burmese Court Objects in Oxford, London and Yangon Sandra H. Dudley, University of Leicester, UK 4. Object and Spirit Agency: The G’psgolox Poles as Mediators within and between Colonized and Colonizer Cultures Stacey R. Jessiman, Stanford University, USA Masquerades and Mediation 5. At the Centre of Everything? A Nigerian Mask and Its Histories John Picton, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK 6. Amòdu and the Material Manifestation of Eégún Will Rea, University of Leeds, UK Syncretism, Intercession and Iconoclash 7. Desire, Imitation and Ambiguity in Asmat Sculpture Nick Stanley, British Museum, UK 8. Animating Relationships: Inca Conopa and Modern Illa as Meditating Objects Bill Sillar, University College London, UK 9. Visual Diplomacy: Art Circulation and Iconoclashes in the Kingdom of Bamum Silvia Forni, Royal Ontario Museum, Canada Hybridity in Form and Function 10. Mediating between Mayas and the Art Market: The Traditional-yet-Contemporary Carved Gourd Vessel Mary Katherine Scott, University of Wyoming, USA 11. Queen Victoria’s Samoan Bonnet Catherine Cummings, University of Exeter, USA 12. The Indigenization of the Transcultural Teacup in Colonial Canada Madeline Rose Knickerbocker, Simon Fraser University, Canada and Lisa Truong, Carleton University, Canada Between Image, Text and Object 13. ‘Curious Statues so Cunningly Contrived’: Plato’s Silenus, Inwardness and Inbetweenness Lucy Razzall, Queen Mary, University of London, UK 14, Coinage between Cultures: Mediating Power in Roman Macedonia Clare Rowan, University of Warwick, UK Index

    15 in stock

    £34.99

  • Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Art Borders and Belonging

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisArt, Borders and Belonging: On Home and Migration investigates how three associated conceptshouse, home and homelandare represented in contemporary global art. The volume brings together essays which explore the conditions of global migration as a process that is always both about departures and homecomings, indeed, home-makings, through which the construction of migratory narratives are made possible. Although centrally concerned with how recent and contemporary works of art can materialize the migratory experience of movement and (re)settlement, the contributions to this book also explore how curating and exhibition practices, at both local and global levels, can extend and challenge conventional narratives of art, borders and belonging. A growing number of artists migrate; some for better job opportunities and for the experience of different cultures, others not by choice but as a consequence of forced displacement caused economic or environmental collapse, or by poliTrade ReviewThis is a wonderfully curated collection of essays. The range of artistic material is rich, and the thematic focus on art’s unique potential to weave together experiences of migration, borders, homemaking and belonging is remarkably consistent, as is the authors’ innovative use of feminist and transnational perspectives to foreground female artists and engage with their works in close readings that are both intimate and trenchant. * Anne Ring Petersen, Professor of Modern Culture & Contemporary Art at the Department of Arts & Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark *Whether they are from Cyprus, Palestine, Spain, Kazakhstan or elsewhere, artists who have relocated often make works that not only invoke the idea of a lost home but also an impetus to achieve a sense of belonging in their new places of abode. This orientation, so important in contemporary art, is explored eloquently and compellingly in Art, Borders and Belonging. * Brenda Schmahmann, Professor and SARChI Chair in South African Art & Visual Culture, University of Johannesburg, South Africa *Table of ContentsList of Figures List of Contributors Introduction: Art, Borders and Belonging: On Home and Migration, Maria Photiou (University of Derby, UK) and Marsha Meskimmon (Loughborough University, UK) 1. Weaving Together: Narratives of Home, Exile and Belonging, Maria Photiou (University of Derby, UK) 2. Parastou Forouhar: Materialising Pain and Beauty, Lydia Wooldridge (Bristol School of Art and University of the West of England, UK) 3. Deciphering Home Through Hajra Waheed’s Archival Investigations, Sarah Fox (Carleton University, Canada) 4. Re-creating the Place of Home in Remedios Varo’s La creación de las aves, Nadia Garcia (University College Cork, Ireland) 5. Identity and (Not) Belonging: Art and the Politics of British-ness in 1980s Britain, Imogen Racz (Coventry University, UK) 6. Aftershocks and (Un)belongings: Reflecting on Home Strike, Alexandra Kokoli (Middlesex University London, UK) and Basia Sliwinska (University of the Arts London, UK) 7. Crossing literal and conceptual borders: Nepantla practices of the borderlands in performance projects by Guillermo Gomez-Peña, Eva Zetterman (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) 8. Boundaries and belonging in Kazakh art: a case study of Red Butterfly by Almagul Menlibayeva, Aliya de Tiesenhausen (Independent Scholar, UK) 9. 'Arrival city' versus 'dysfunctional nation': Exhibiting the 'migration crisis' at the 2016 Venice Architectural Biennale, Joel Robinson (The Open University, UK) Bibliography Index

    15 in stock

    £35.38

  • Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Wearing the Cheongsam Dress and Culture in a Chinese Diaspora Dress Cultures

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisCheryl Sim is Managing Director and Curator at Phi Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal, Canada.Trade ReviewProvides a thorough and nuanced analysis, of both the cheongsam's place in a globalized world, and what the garment represents to and on the bodies of women of Chinese descent all over the world. * The Journal of Dress History *By skillfully stitching race, gender and identity onto the cheongsam, Sim reveals the craft of the diasporic community and the multiplicity of this ethnic garment. * Wessie Ling, Northumbria University, UK *In the first study of its kind, Cheryl Sim adds original and valuable insights to existing knowledge of the cheongsam. Weaving a path between personal and national histories, she establishes the garment as a signifier of identity, belonging and agency. * Hazel Clark, Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA *Wearing the Cheongsam pulls a wily thread on this traditional Chinese dress, unravelling its complexity as exquisite adornment and cross-cultural signifier. Its power to encode women’s bodies is seamlessly explored by Cheryl Sim. * Monika Kin Gagnon, Concordia University, Canada *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgements 1 Introduction: One size does not fit all 2 Determining the 'fabric' 3 The Cheongsam: A complex garment 4 Wearing practices in Canada: Ambivalence, Authenticity, and Agency 5 Getting inside The Fitting Room 6 Conclusion: Cheongsam 2.0 / Making alterations Index

    15 in stock

    £31.99

  • Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Amateur Craft History and Theory

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisStephen Knott is Director of the Crafts Study Centre in Farnham, a museum and research centre that is part of the University of the Creative Arts, UK. As a writer, researcher and lecturer in craft theory, design history and material culture, he has taught at Kingston University, UK and the Royal College of Art, UK and is one of the editors of The Journal of Modern Craft. He is author of Amateur Craft: History and Theory (Bloomsbury, 2015), and has written articles and reviews for Design and Culture, Performance Research, West 86th, Crafts and Craft Research. In 2018 he curated Tendenser at Galleri F15 in Moss, Norway, a showcase of contemporary craft and edited the accompanying catalogue, and was co-curator for Presence and Absence at the Crafts Study Centre (2021-22), an exhibition which responds to the lack of diversity within the Centre's collections.Trade ReviewAmateur Craft is one of several craft-related titles published by Bloomsbury. Knott (independent scholar) strives to show how amateur and professional crafters can thrive in the same space and how their work can feed off the thoughts and processes of each other. Specifically, Amateur Craft is written to demonstrate that amateur need not indicate ‘inadequacy or shoddy work.’ The book is organized into three well-illustrated chapters. Chapter 1, "Surface," discusses the agents needed for amateur surface intervention—‘bases, carriers, and arbiters.’ Bases are the objects that provide the blank surface. Carriers are the goods that make intervention—or the craft making—possible. Finally, arbiters, e.g., handbooks and encyclopedias, provide guidance. Chapter 2, "Space," focuses on the role of space in everyday life, the organization of space, and aesthetics. The design and organization of space is essential for crafting of any type. Chapter 3, "Time," looks at amateur time, or free time, and its uses and benefits. Some amateur craft is derived from workplace time; at other times, it comes about because of nostalgia, desire, and sociability. Extensive endnotes and a detailed index support the text. Overall, this is a worthy resource for historians, artists, or amateur hobbyists interested in studying the development and breadth of amateur crafting. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above; general readers. * CHOICE *Knott (who is undoubtedly an important up-and-coming voice in the world of craft criticism) does produce some fascinating stuff. He makes a number of salient points about the often-neglected value of amateur making while at the same time investigating arcane subjects ... Ultimately what Knott proves, in this politely disruptive book, is that the amateur and professional don't exist in separate silos. Instead, their practices bleeds into one another - one couldn't survive without the other ... Knott's book is a timely reminder of craft's breadth and everyday importance. -- Grant Gibson * Crafts Magazine *This book is a very interesting 'take' on amateur craft and the model railway hobby ... [and] potentially a standard reference for future social history students and researchers. -- Grahame Hedges * N Gauge Society Journal *Amateur Craft is an erudite and entertaining account of the foundations of craft practice. It tackles a subject too often ignored as lowbrow. Stephen Knott’s clear, resonant voice marks him out at the forefront of new craft writing. He makes us look at craft in the round. It is a fine, lucid study. -- Simon Olding, Director, Crafts Study Centre, University for the Creative Arts, UKStephen Knott casts his net wide for examples of the intelligence, wildness and, yes, professionalism possible in the realm of amateur making. His thorough, thoughtful history and analyses make the case for the significance of “the amateur” in modern cultural history. -- Maria Elena Buszek, University of Colorado Denver, USAThoughtful, sustained and multifaceted... a welcome addition to existing academic literature on the topic. Rarely has craft practice been considered with the same intellectual weight as either fine art or design, and Amateur Craft demonstrates that its namesake practices are deserving of the rigorous analysis it delivers. * Anya Kurennaya, part-time art and design lecturer at Parsons School of Design, USA *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Illustrations Introduction 1. Surface 2. Space 3. Time Bibliography Index

    15 in stock

    £35.38

  • Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Fashion Studies

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisHeike Jenss is Associate Professor of Fashion Studies, Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York, USA. Foreword by Christopher Breward, Principal of Edinburgh College of Art, UK and Vice Principal for the Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Edinburgh, UK.Trade ReviewWith an emphasis on material culture and ethnographic approaches in fashion studies, this groundbreaking volume offers fascinating insights into the complex dynamics of research and fashion. * ADDRESS: Journal for Fashion Criticism *For anyone teaching fashion from practice and theory perspectives, as well as those actively engaged in research and reflecting on their own research journeys and projects, this book is an invaluable addition to their library shelves. * Costume *Never before has the diverse panorama of research methods in fashion studies been brought together in one volume. From object to image and from design to consumer, our field’s leading scholars thoughtfully share the unique ways in which they collect and theorize data in fashion. This is the essential text for all fashion studies research methods courses and the latest addition to all of our personal reference libraries. * Ben Barry, Associate Professor of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, School of Fashion, Ryerson University, Canada *Heike Jenss has done an outstanding job in compiling an insightful and inspiring book that covers a range of important research on fashion as a material object and a practice. This book demonstrates the depth and the richness of the discipline and its creative methodological strategies. It is an invaluable contribution to the field and a must-read for all fashion scholars, practitioners, and students. * Yuniya Kawamura, Professor of Sociology at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, USA *Focusing on research methods and practices in fashion studies, and demonstrating how both fashion and research are in fact situated practices, this much welcome collection will prove a necessity for anyone teaching fashion studies and/or doing fashion research. The rich array of case studies all elegantly manage to bridge theory and practice, and while outlining and exemplifying a variety of methodologies, they also ultimately prove the interdisciplinarity of fashion studies as a field. * Louise Wallenberg, Associate Professor and Establishing Director of the Centre for Fashion Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden *Table of ContentsForeword, Christopher Breward, Edinburgh College of Art, UK Introduction - Locating Fashion/Studies: Research Methods, Sites and Practices, Heike Jenss, Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA SECTION ONE: APPROACHING FASHION AND DRESS AS MATERIAL CULTURE Introduction, Heike Jenss, Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA 1. In Search of the Everyday: Museums, Collections and Representations of Fashion in London and New York, Cheryl Buckley, University of Brighton, UK, and Hazel Clark, Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA 2. ‘Humble’ Blue Jeans: Material Culture Approaches to Understanding the Ordinary, Global, and the Personal, Sophie Woodward, University of Manchester, UK SECTION TWO: EXPLORING FASHION PRACTICES THROUGH ETHNOGRAPHY Introduction, Heike Jenss, Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA 3. Ethnographic Entanglements: Memory and Narrative in the Global Fashion Industry, Christina Moon, Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA 4. Urban Fieldnotes: An Auto-Ethnography of Street Style Blogging, Brent Luvaas, Drexel University, USA 5. Recasting Fashion Image Production: An Ethnographic and Practice-Based Approach to Investigating Bodies as Media, Stephanie Sadre-Orafai, University of Cincinnati, USA 6. Exploring Creativity: An Ethnographic Approach to Studying Fashion Design Pedagogy, Todd Nicewonger, University of Gothenburg, Sweden SECTION THREE: MIXED METHODS Introduction, Heike Jenss, Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA 7. Fitting Sources – Tailoring Methods: A Case-Study of Martin Margiela and the Temporalities of Fashion, Francesca Granata, Parsons School of Design, The New School, USA 8. Mixing Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Fashion Studies: Philosophical Underpinnings and Multiple Masculinities, Susan B. Kaiser, University of California, Davis, USA, and Denise N. Green, Cornell University, USA 9. Action! Or, Exploring Diffractive Methods for Fashion Research, Otto von Busch, Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Sweden 10. Editing Fashion Studies: Reflections on Methodology and Interdisciplinarity in The Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, Joanne B. Eicher, University of Minnesota, USA Index

    15 in stock

    £120.00

  • Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) The Language of War Monuments

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisDavid Machin, Department of Media and Communication Studies, Örebro Unversity, Sweden. His books include Global Media Discourse (2007), Introduction to Multimodal Analysis (2007) Analysing Popular Music (2010) and The Language of Crime and Deviance (2012). He is co-editor of the journal Social Semiotics. Gill Abousnnouga works in the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University, UK. She has published numerous papers in international peer reviewed journals on war memorials using a multimodal approach.Trade ReviewFew studies in multimodality have a social critical edge. Few studies in critical discourse analysis tackle multimodal discourse. This book shows how to bridge the gap. -- Theo van Leeuwen, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney, AustraliaThanks to Abousnnouga and Machin, we can no longer keep our eyes wide shut. Their sophisticated yet accessible theoretical framework brings war memorials to life for us like no other study. And like all good books about war should, it makes a timely and indisputable case against it. Highly recommended. -- Adam Jaworski, Professor of Language and Communication, The University of Hong Kong, Hong KongI can't speak highly enough of this book. The Language of War Monuments is a rare thing in that it represents a true advance in semiotic and discourse analysis. Abousnnouga and Machin demonstrate the theoretical rigour and analytic vitality of Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis and - most importantly - offer a thorough empirical examination of commemorative war monuments, the ways they cover over or ignore appalling effects of war, and so the ways they function to legitimise war discourses. Packed with contextual and comparative detail throughout, Abousnnouga and Machin's systematic analysis simultaneously demystifies the features and materials of war memorials (and whose interests they support) and offers a toolbox we can apply when examining the semiotics of material objects more generally. Readers will not be able to view war memorials in the same way ever again. -- John Richardson, Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies, Loughborough University, UKTable of Contents1. Introduction 2. Researching Monuments 3. A Social Semiotic Approach to Three Dimensional Objects 4. The Social Goings on Behind Monuments 5. The Iconography of the War Monument 6. Form and Materials 7. Roles and Actions: the Case of Women 8. Word, Image and Materiality: The Role of the Inscription Conclusion Bibliography Index

    15 in stock

    £37.99

  • Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Stuff Theory: Everyday Objects, Radical Materialism

    15 in stock

    Book SynopsisStuff, the hoard of minor objects which have shed their commodity glamor but which we refuse to recycle, flashes up in fiction, films and photographs as alluring, unruly reminder of how people and matter are intertwined. Stuff is modern materiality out of bounds that refuses to be contained by the western semiotic system. It declines its role as the eternal sidekick of the subject, and is thus the ideal basis for a counter-narrative of materiality in flux. Can such a narrative, developed by the new materialism, reinvigorate the classical materialist account of human alienation from commodities under capital? By shifting the discussion of materiality toward the aesthetic and the everyday, the book both embraces and challenges the project of new materialism. It argues that matter has a politics, and that its new plasticity offers a continued possibility of critique. Stuff Theory's five chapters illustrate the intermittent flashes of modern 'minor' materiality in twentieth-century modernity as fashion, memory object, clutter, home décor, and waste in a wide range of texts: Benjamin's essays, Virginia Woolf's and Elfriede Jelinek's fiction, Rem Koolhaas' criticism, 1920s German photography and the cinema of Tati, Bertolucci, and Mendes. To call the commodified, ebullient materiality the book tracks stuff, is to foreground its plastic and transformative power, its fluidity and its capacity to generate events. Stuff Theory interrogates the political value of stuff's instability. It investigates the potential of stuff to revitalize the oppositional power of the object. Stuff Theory traces a genealogy of materiality: flashpoints of one kind of minor matter in a succession of cultural moments. It asserts that in culture, stuff becomes a rallying point for a new critique of capital, which always works to reassign stuff to a subaltern position. Stuff is not merely unruly: it becomes the terrain on which a new relation between people and matter might be built.Trade ReviewBoscagli’s readings of objects are genuinely exciting ... For anyone interested in consumer capitalism, mediation, the cultural transition from modernity to postmodernity, or objects in art, however, Stuff Theory is a necessary read. Boscagli’s writing throughout has verve, and the analyses are sharp, incisive, and often surprising. * U.S. Studies Online *The hinge between [modernist and new materialism] is supplied by the endlessly suggestive writing of Walter Benjamin who acts as the richest example of what can be gleaned when these two worlds are entangled ... Boscagli both follows Benjamin and pushes his work into new arenas ... Stuff Theory’s engagement with ‘new materialism’ is wide ranging. * New Foundations *New materialism meets historical materialism, to the expansion and improvement of both. With enviable nuance and sophistication, imaginative verve and critical acuity, Maurizia Boscagli explores the complex, dynamic life of the stuff of capitalism, producing an innovative and original materialism for the twenty-first century. Essential reading. -- Imre Szeman, Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies, University of Alberta, CanadaAt one point in David Fincher's 1999 cult film Fight Club, Brad Pitt's rascally Tyler Durden mocks a minor character who states vaguely that in college he studied "stuff." Maurizia Boscagli’s dazzling Stuff Theory: Everyday Objects, Radical Materialism shows how Tyler might have taken this utterance seriously: "stuff" is indeed worthy of study. Each page brimming with fresh examples drawn from literature, art, and culture, and carefully informed by intellectual precursors from Marx to the new materialists, Boscagli's theory ultimately illuminates the practice of stuff, and suggests that this practice may be due for revision. -- Christopher Schaberg, Associate Professor of English & Environment at Loyola University New Orleans, USA, and author of The Textual Life of Airports: Reading the Culture of FlightMatter is desire. Whether conceived as an object that can be represented and appropriated or as force whose unpredictability and vitality throws life wide open, matter never leaves us in peace. In this wonderful book Maurizia Boscagli explores how the everyday is shaped by these tantalizing movements of matter. Beyond the capitalocentricism of historical materialism and the detached hype of new materialism Stuff Theory proposes an experimental materialist practice that works with matter to remake the stuff that power and politics are made of. * Dimitris Papadopoulos, Reader in Sociology and Organisation, University of Leicester, UK, author of Escape Routes: Control and Subversion in the 21st Century *Boscagli offers an exhilarating genealogy of the commodity in order to open up a questions that neither presuppose the old distinction between subject and object nor revel in the sheer plasticity of things. I especially admire the case that Stuff Theory makes for dialectic as the necessary means of thinking our way through and beyond the 19th-century opposition of materialism (which now includes cyborgian hybrids) to idealism (which has always included aesthetic expression). Bocagli's "radical materialism" shows that only a critique of post-commodity things can tell us how to read them as transformations of "stuff" that expresses the people and selves to which neo-liberalism denies subjectivity. * Nancy Armstrong, Gilbert, Louis, and Edward Lehrman Professor of English, Duke University, USA *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Of Jena Glassware and Potatoes—Matter in the Moment 1. Homeopathic Benjamin: A Flexible Poetics of Matter 2. For the Unnatural Use of Clothes: Fashion as Cultural Assault 3. Paris Circa 1968: Cool Spaces, Decoration, Revolution 4. “You Must Remember this:” Memory Objects in the Age of Erasable Memory 5. Garbage in Theory: Waste Aesthetics Envoi: What Should We Do With Our Stuff? Notes Index

    15 in stock

    £29.44

  • Arena Books Civilizing Cities

    15 in stock

    15 in stock

    £18.04

  • A History of Cheltenham in 100 Objects

    The History Press Ltd A History of Cheltenham in 100 Objects

    5 in stock

    Book SynopsisFamous for its spa heritage, Regency architecture, schools and colleges and annual Festivals, Cheltenham was also once home to many notable inhabitants, including Gustav Holst, composer of ''The Planets'', Edward Jenner, the pioneer of the smallpox vaccine and Edward Wilson, the Antarctic explorer. Compiled by the former Museum and Collections Manager at Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, and based on the Museum''s rich collections, this new book features 100 objects that each help to tell the fascinating story of Cheltenham and demonstrate the importance of objects in understanding our past. This book will appeal to everyone interested in finding out more about the people, places and past life of Cheltenham through the objects and printed ephemera of times gone by.

    5 in stock

    £12.34

  • Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) The Religious Life of Dress Global Fashion and Faith Dress Body Culture

    1 in stock

    a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

    1 in stock

    £26.99

  • Memories of Dress

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Memories of Dress

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisAlison Slater is Senior Lecturer in Design History at Manchester School of Art, Dept. of Art & Performance, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. She has contributed to the journal Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty and her PhD research features in the BBC Radio 4 documentary Rags to Riches.Susan Atkin is Deputy Division Head for Fashion Design at Manchester Fashion Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. She was previously the designer-owner of womenswear label Electricity.Elizabeth Kealy-Morris is Senior Lecturer in Dress and Belonging at Manchester Fashion Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Her research into body dressing work has featured in The Guardian.Trade ReviewThis exciting and interdisciplinary collection of new essays pursues and develops a neglected theme: the presence, role, and importance of individual and cultural memory in the tings we wear ... The essays are individual, substantial, and represent a serious and valuable contribution to the critical theorization and practice of remembrance in and through fashion, clothing, and textiles. * Malcom Barnard, Loughborough University, UK *A diverse and insightful set of perspectives, this anthology reinforces the relevance of auto/biographical memories as a method to explore the motivations and meanings of everyday garments. Profound and poignant insights unfold as the past reverberates in the present through material engagement with clothes. * Hazel Clark, Parsons School of Design, New York, USA *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations List of Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction by Alison Slater, Susan Atkin, and Elizabeth Kealy-Morris Concepts 1. Personal Objects and Dress as Instruments for Anchoring the Self, Remembering the Past, and Enhancing Well-Being by Soljana Çili Histories 2. Remembering Respectability: Collective Memories of Working-Class Dress in Wartime Lancashire by Alison Slater 3. Memories of Making: Home Sewing in Socialist Hungary by Zsofia Juhasz 4. Nostalgia, Myth and Memories of Dress: The Cultural Memory of Madchester by Susan Atkin Objects 5. Wardrobes and Soundtracks: Resources for Memories of Youth by Jo Jenkinson 6. Ken Tynan’s Tommy Nutter Jacket as ‘Materialized Memory’ by Ben Whyman 7. Soft Murmurings: Sensing Memories in Collections of Dress by Jane Webb Practices 8. ‘The American Look’: Memories of Not Fitting In by Elizabeth Kealy-Morris 9. Black/White/Yellow by Elizabeth Chin 10. Cloth(ing) Memories: Rituals of Grieving by Lesley Beale References Index

    1 in stock

    £80.75

  • The Arden Handbook of Shakespeare and Early

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Arden Handbook of Shakespeare and Early

    5 in stock

    Book SynopsisHow does our understanding of early modern performance, culture and identity change when we decentre Shakespeare? And how might a more inclusive approach to early modern drama help enable students to discuss a range of issues, including race and gender, in more productive ways?Underpinned by these questions, this collection offers a wide-ranging, authoritative guide to research on drama in Shakespeare's England, mapping the variety of approaches to the context and work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. By paying attention to repertory, performance in and beyond playhouses, modes of performance, and lost and less-studied plays, the handbook reshapes our critical narratives about early modern drama. Chapters explore early modern drama through a range of cultural contexts and approaches, from material culture and emotion studies to early modern race work and new directions in disability and trans studies, as well as contemporary performance. Running through the collection is a sharedTrade ReviewThe volume offers a very valiant and successful attempt to solve perhaps the biggest problem facing people who write about early modern drama today: now we know so much how do we distil it? There is not a weak essay to be seen. The book will prove an invaluable resource. * Lisa Hopkins, Sheffield Hallam University, UK *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Series Preface Acknowledgements Note on the Text 1 Introduction Michelle M. Dowd (University of Alabama, USA) and Tom Rutter (University of Sheffield, UK) 2 Material and Institutional Contexts of Early Modern Drama: an A-Z Edward Gieskes (University of South Carolina, USA) RESEARCH METHODS AND PROBLEMS 3.1 Did Early Modern Drama Actually Happen? Kurt Schreyer (University of Missouri, USA) 3.2 Drama and Society in Shakespeare’s England Jean E. Howard (Columbia University, USA) CURRENT RESEARCH AND ISSUES 4.1 Ancient and Early Modern European Contexts of Early Modern English Drama Ton Hoenselaars (Utrecht University, Netherlands) 4.2 Playing Companies and Repertories Elizabeth E. Tavares (University of Alabama, USA) 4.3 Playhouses and Performance Laurie Johnson (University of Southern Queensland, Australia) 4.4 Drama Beyond the Playhouses Tracey Hill (Bath Spa University, UK) 4.5 Material Culture Chloe Porter (University of Sussex, UK) 4.6 Engendering the Stage: Women and Dramatic Culture Clare McManus (University of Roehampton, UK) and Lucy Munro (King’s College, London, UK) 4.7 Matter, Nature, Cosmos: the Scientific Art of the Early Modern English Stage Jean Feerick (John Carroll University, USA) 4.8 Early Modern Race-work: History, Methodology and Politics Jane Hwang Degenhardt (University of Massachusetts, USA) 4.9 Sexualities, Emotions and Embodiment Holly Dugan (George Washington University, USA) 4.10 Religion and Religious Cultures Benedict S. Robinson (Stony Brook University, USA) NEW DIRECTIONS 5.1 Diversifying Early Modern Drama Part One: Early Modern Disability Studies and Trans Studies Genevieve Love (Colorado College, USA) Part Two: Gaining Perspective: Race, Diversity and Early Modern Studies Farah Karim-Cooper (King's College, London, UK) 5.2 Performing Shakespeare’s Contemporaries Harry McCarthy (Jesus College, University of Cambridge, UK) CHRONOLOGY AND RESOURCES 6 Rethinking the Early Years of the London Playhouses: An Essay in Chronology Andy Kesson (University of Roehampton, UK) 7 Resources Catherine Evans (University of Manchester, UK) and Amy Lidster (Jesus College, University of Oxford, UK) 8 Further Reading Michelle M. Dowd (University of Alabama, USA) and Tom Rutter (University of Sheffield, UK) Index

    5 in stock

    £123.50

  • Design Culture

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Design Culture

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisDesign culture foregrounds the relationships between the domains of design practice, design production and everyday life. Its focus is on contemporary designed objects and the networks between the multiple actors engaged in their shaping, functioning and reproduction. It acknowledges the rise of design and the role of the designer as key components and key challenges of the modern world.Featuring an impressive range of international case studies, ranging from examples of everyday design such as IKEA furniture and amateur graphic design, to the role of the design professional and the functioning of design within organisations, Design Culture interrogates what this emergent discipline is, its methodologies, its scope and its relationships with other fields of study. The volume's interdisciplinary approach brings fresh thinking to this fast-evolving field of study.Trade ReviewOffers the reader an excellent deep dive into the concepts of design culturing in a very accessible way ... Overall this authoritative book instills a great sense of the many attributes and values of design culture. * The Design Journal *Reinvigorates the study of design by offering an alternative to other cross-disciplinary terms such as ‘design studies’ or ‘design thinking’. * Journal of Design History *This stimulating introduction to the approaches and ideas which inform design culture should do much to promote new ways of thinking about both design and culture, and the dialectic between them. * Pat Kirkham, Professor Emerita at the Bard Graduate Center, USA and Professor of Design History at Kingston University, UK *Design Culture is an essential contribution to the field of design studies. It addresses the ubiquity of the term 'design' from a cross sectional perspective, while introducing a precise, conceptual and methodological focus. * Claudia Mareis, Professor of Design Studies at the Academy of Art and Design, Basel, Switzerland *A stimulating, must-read overview of the interdisciplinary debates around Design Culture as a discipline and object of study for all those interested in the phenomenon of Design. * Mónica Farkas, Professor of Visual Communication Design at the Universidad de la República, Uruguay *Design Culture manages to break through the noise, providing an enlightening view of design as a dominating feature of everyday life. From the influence of Turkish paper doilies to the rise of the global sex toy industry, it gives a multi-layered account of seemingly insignificant designs. Filled as it is with impressive philosophical insights and amusing historical connections, Design Culture offers much to ponder. Indeed, designers, historians as well as many non-specialists will find this book both enriching and enjoyable. * Elizabeth Guffey, Professor of Art and Design History at the State University of New York at Purchase, USA *Designers often claim they seek to “improve or maintain the habitability of the world of their fellow citizen”. Design Culture may well be the appropriate theoretical framework I am longing for to better understand and explain what “habitability” is about. * Alain Findeli, Professor of Industrial Design at the University of Montreal, Canada *Table of ContentsIntroducing Design Culture Section 1: Developing Design Culture Introduction Design Culturing: Making Design History Matter, Kjetil Fallan Taste and Attunement: Design Culture as World Making, Ben Highmore Embedding Design in the Organisational Culture: Challenges and Perspectives, Alessandro Deserti and Francesca Rizzo Use in Design Culture, Toke Riis Ebbesen Section 2: Addressing Market and Society Introduction A Brand for Everyone, Sara Kristoffersson Buying into the Future: A Case Study of a Danish Brand of Fashionable Children’s Clothing, Trine Brun Petersen The Glowing Black of fritz-kola. Aestheticisation in Design Culture, Mads Nygaard Folkmann Section 3: Positioning Design Professions Introduction Design Culture in the Sex Toy Industry: a new phenomenon, Judith Glover Working from Home: Fashioning the Professional Designer in Britain, Leah Armstrong On the Professional and Everyday Design of Graphic Artifacts, Sarah Owens The Fixing I: Repair as Prefigurative Politics, Gabriele Oropallo Section 4: Locating Design Culture Introduction Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed: Relocating Kähler’s brand heritage, Niels Peter Skou Performing Turkish Design in Products, Collections and Exhibitions: Expanding the Archive, Seeking Depth, Harun Kaygan A Theoretical Straddle: Design Culture between National Structures and Transnational Networks, Joana Ozorio de Almeida Meroz and Katarina Serulus The Challenges and Opportunities of introducing Design Culture in Jordan, Danah Abdulla Epilogue: Design Culture as Practice Index

    1 in stock

    £25.99

  • Art Borders and Belonging

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Art Borders and Belonging

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisArt, Borders and Belonging: On Home and Migration investigates how three associated conceptshouse, home and homelandare represented in contemporary global art. The volume brings together essays which explore the conditions of global migration as a process that is always both about departures and homecomings, indeed, home-makings, through which the construction of migratory narratives are made possible. Although centrally concerned with how recent and contemporary works of art can materialize the migratory experience of movement and (re)settlement, the contributions to this book also explore how curating and exhibition practices, at both local and global levels, can extend and challenge conventional narratives of art, borders and belonging. A growing number of artists migrate; some for better job opportunities and for the experience of different cultures, others not by choice but as a consequence of forced displacement caused economic or environmental collapse, or by poliTrade ReviewThis is a wonderfully curated collection of essays. The range of artistic material is rich, and the thematic focus on art’s unique potential to weave together experiences of migration, borders, homemaking and belonging is remarkably consistent, as is the authors’ innovative use of feminist and transnational perspectives to foreground female artists and engage with their works in close readings that are both intimate and trenchant. * Anne Ring Petersen, Professor of Modern Culture & Contemporary Art at the Department of Arts & Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark *Whether they are from Cyprus, Palestine, Spain, Kazakhstan or elsewhere, artists who have relocated often make works that not only invoke the idea of a lost home but also an impetus to achieve a sense of belonging in their new places of abode. This orientation, so important in contemporary art, is explored eloquently and compellingly in Art, Borders and Belonging. * Brenda Schmahmann, Professor and SARChI Chair in South African Art & Visual Culture, University of Johannesburg, South Africa *Table of ContentsList of Figures List of Contributors Introduction: Art, Borders and Belonging: On Home and Migration, Maria Photiou (University of Derby, UK) and Marsha Meskimmon (Loughborough University, UK) 1. Weaving Together: Narratives of Home, Exile and Belonging, Maria Photiou (University of Derby, UK) 2. Parastou Forouhar: Materialising Pain and Beauty, Lydia Wooldridge (Bristol School of Art and University of the West of England, UK) 3. Deciphering Home Through Hajra Waheed’s Archival Investigations, Sarah Fox (Carleton University, Canada) 4. Re-creating the Place of Home in Remedios Varo’s La creación de las aves, Nadia Garcia (University College Cork, Ireland) 5. Identity and (Not) Belonging: Art and the Politics of British-ness in 1980s Britain, Imogen Racz (Coventry University, UK) 6. Aftershocks and (Un)belongings: Reflecting on Home Strike, Alexandra Kokoli (Middlesex University London, UK) and Basia Sliwinska (University of the Arts London, UK) 7. Crossing literal and conceptual borders: Nepantla practices of the borderlands in performance projects by Guillermo Gomez-Peña, Eva Zetterman (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) 8. Boundaries and belonging in Kazakh art: a case study of Red Butterfly by Almagul Menlibayeva, Aliya de Tiesenhausen (Independent Scholar, UK) 9. 'Arrival city' versus 'dysfunctional nation': Exhibiting the 'migration crisis' at the 2016 Venice Architectural Biennale, Joel Robinson (The Open University, UK) Bibliography Index

    1 in stock

    £100.00

  • The The Social Life of Kimono

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The The Social Life of Kimono

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisSheila Cliffe is Professor at Jumonji Gakuen Women's University, Japan. She has lectured at conferences, museums and events in Japan, England, Hawaii and Korea and she is one of the first non-native Japanese people to hold an official kimono dressing and teaching licence.Trade ReviewThe Social Life of Kimono does cover well-trodden ground in parts, but it mixes in new information and hints at future projects by (Sheila) Cliffe, making it as tantalizing as the glimpse of a hidden collar on a kimono wearer as they run to catch their train in downtown Tokyo. * H-Net *[A] delightful and comprehensive feast of kimono cultural knowledge ... In addition to its wonderful historical sweep, [Cliffe's volume] offers immense and often personal detail about the intricate stages of making, finishing and accessorising a kimono ... The achievement of a true aficionado. * Times Higher Education *Shatters antiquated views of Japan's traditional garment ... Cliffe's passion for kimono is infectious, and her deep knowledge on the subject – both academically and aesthetically – is nothing less than inspiring. * Tokyo Weekender *The Social Life of Kimono gives a unique insight into [the] making and meaning of this complex garment. * Love Sewing *Tracing the history, economic role, cultural impact, and social uses of kimono, Sheila Cliffe’s valuable contribution to the sociology of fashion is a real treat. Comprehensive yet detailed, this book, with its generous collection of beautiful and colorful plates of kimono, should grace the shelf of anyone who appreciates this icon of Japanese aesthetics. -- Brian J. McVeigh, author of Wearing Ideology: State, Schooling and Self-Presentation in JapanSheila Cliffe has made invaluable empirical as well as theoretical contributions to the field of fashion studies through her in-depth research on kimono and by making comparisons between the kimono system and the Western fashion system. This is a must-read for anyone interested in ethnic or non-Western dress and fashion. -- Yuniya Kawamura, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, USA.An abundance of illustrations and solid research gives readers a new and exciting look at kimonos and their wearers. Cliffe demonstrates that Japan has long had a fashion system based on the indigenous garment quite apart from Western influence. Cultural interviews provide a fascinating look at contemporary interpretations of this tradition. -- Michaele HaynesThe Social Life of Kimono gives a unique insight into making and meaning of this complex garment. * ADDRESS: Journal for Fashion Criticism *The Social Life of the Kimono animates the flat textile that the western world is used to seeing on display in clothing collections as works of craftsmanship and art, demonstrating how it is, in fact, fashion with styles that change and reflect the social, industrial, and economic influences of the moment. In conjunction with textile art resources on kimono and guides for dressing, the reader would gain a solid base of information with which to understand the Japanese kimono. * The Journal of Dress History *Table of ContentsPreface Introduction 1. Think Fashion or Tradition? 2. Tracing Trends in Heian and Edo 3. Mode Becomes Modern: Meiji to 21st Century 4. In Press and Picture: The Published Kimono 5. Makers and Marketers 6. Wearers and Wardrobes 7. Returning Kimono to the Streets Glossary Bibliography Index

    1 in stock

    £24.99

  • Weaving Europe Crafting the Museum

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Weaving Europe Crafting the Museum

    5 in stock

    Book SynopsisWeaving Europe, Crafting the Museum delves into the history and the changing material culture in Europe through the stories of a basket, a carpet, a waistcoat, a uniform, and a dress. The focus on the objects from the collection of the Museum of European Cultures in Berlin offers an innovative and challenging way of understanding textile culture and museums. The book shows that textiles can be simultaneously used as the material object of research, and as a lens through which we can view museums. In doing so, the book fills a major gap by placing textile knowledge back into the museum.Each chapter focuses on one object story and can be read individually. Swooping from 19th-century wax figure cabinets, Nazi-era collections, Cold War exhibitions in East and West Berlin, and institutional reshuffling after German unification, it reveals the dramatically changing story of the museum and its collection. Based on research with museum curators, makers and users of the textiles in ItalyTrade ReviewComplex, enriching and beautifully written, Weaving Europe, Crafting the Museum is a key, interdisciplinary text composed of compelling stories, distinctive case studies and unique archival materials, entwined with textiles as carriers of meaning, migration and politics. * Janis Jefferies, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK *A pioneering effort of museum studies craftwork that weaves together Europe’s West and East and its histories of colonialism, nazism and socialism; disentangles shifting notions of ‘folk culture’; and highlights the challenging task faced by curators inheriting ambivalent historical collections. * Erica Lehrer, Concordia University, Canada *Weaves together a fascinating series of textile stories, narrated through the woven fabrics housed in German ethnographic collections … This book expands our understanding of museums, collections and materiality, and will definitely appeal to a wide range of scholars, including anthropologists, museum curators and textile historians. * Graeme Were, University of Bristol, UK *Table of ContentsList of Figures Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction Textiles beyond the folkloric Fieldwork trajectory Textural ethnography The problem of crafting collections Outline of the book 1. Sample collection: Dreams and archives Encounter A place for the museum Textile archives World stage Conclusion 2. Carpets: Knotted histories, recurrent patterns Nationalist folklore School and museum Regained Territories Post-war reconstruction Truly Polish craft Scraps Recurrent patterns Conclusion 3. Woven basket: Untethered art Trader in exotica Survivors Waiting Thread On demand Valuing work Stubborn survival 4. Waistcoat: Colour and Cold War Language island Go West Perforating the Iron Curtain? Vestige Conclusion 5. Cook’s uniform: Refashioning the social fabric Renewal Reorientation Blue-collar museum House ghosts Costume/fashion Conclusion Conclusion: From unification to prefiguration Collection reconceptualized Other futures Prefigurative acquisition Conclusion Bibliography Index

    5 in stock

    £80.75

  • Material Cultures of the Global Eighteenth

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Material Cultures of the Global Eighteenth

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisThings change. Broken and restored, reused and remade, objects transcend their earliest functions, locations, and appearances. While every era witnesses change, the eighteenth century experienced artistic, economic, and demographic transformations that exerted unique pressures on material cultures around the world. Locating material objects at the heart of such phenomena, Material Cultures of the Global Eighteenth Century expands beyond Eurocentric perspectives to discover the mobile, transcultural nature of eighteenth-century art worlds. From porcelain to betel leaves, Chumash hats to natural history cabinets, this book examines how objects embody imperialism, knowledge, and resistance in various ways. By embracing things both elite and everyday, this volume investigates physical and technological manipulations of objects while attending to the human agents who shaped them in an era of accelerating global contact and conquest. Featuring ten essays, the volume foregrounds diverTrade ReviewWith ten vibrant studies that treat a striking array of media across an ambitious geographic scope, this volume charts some of the liveliest directions in today’s eighteenth-century art history, which has decisively embraced the everyday object and the dynamism of change as a generative critical lens. * Nancy Um, Associate Director for Research and Knowledge Creation, Getty Research Institute, USA *A new history of eighteenth-century art is being written in books like Material Cultures of the Global Eighteenth Century. Ten highly original, meticulously researched, and conceptually exciting essays encourage us to think expansively about material culture’s role in shaping global history. * Stacey Sloboda, Paul H. Tucker Professor of Art History, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA *This important volume puts material culture and its protean meaning-making at the center of eighteenth-century art history. Bellion's and Smentek's lucid introduction, and the innovative scholars they bring into conversation, are united by their admirable attentiveness to objects and voices from around the globe. * Amy Freund, Associate Professor and The Kleinheinz Family Endowed Chair in Art History, Southern Methodist University, USA *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction, “Things Change”, Wendy Bellion, University of Delaware, USA; Kristel Smentek, MIT, USA 1. ‘A Sort of Picture or Image of my Self’: Amoy Chinqua’s Almost Ancestral Portrait of Joseph Collet, Winnie Wong, University of California, Berkeley, USA 2. Shooting for Freedom: Examining the Material World of Self-Emancipated Persons, Tiffany Momon, Sewanee: The University of the South, USA 3. Something Old, Something New: Repurposing and the Production of Ephemeral Festival Architecture in 18th-Century Paris, Matthew Gin, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA 4. Botanical Fantasy in Silk: Transformations of A Rococo Floral Design from England to China, Mei Mei Rado, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, USA 5. Making Marble Edible: Madame de Pompadour, Friendship, and the Multiple Lives of Porcelain, Susan M. Wager, University of New Hampshire, Durham, USA 6. The Sovereign Betel in Eighteenth-Century Bengal and Bihar, Zirwat Chowdhury, University of California, Los Angeles, USA 7. Isaiah Thomas’s Stamp Acts at the Halifax Gazette: Printers and Tacit Protest in Revolutionary America, Jennifer Y. Chuong, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany 8. Between Art and Nature: The Dauphin’s Treasure at the Royal Cabinet of Natural History in Madrid, Tara Zanardi, Hunter College, CUNY, USA 9. California Indian Basket Weavers, Spanish Imperialism, and Eighteenth-Century Global Networks, Yve Chavez, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA 10. British Prints between Caricature and Ethnography, Douglas Fordham, University of Virginia, USA Index

    1 in stock

    £80.75

  • Transformative Jars

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Transformative Jars

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisAnna Grasskamp is Lecturer at the School of Art History at University of St Andrews, UK. She is the author of Objects in Frames: Displaying Foreign Collectibles in Early Modern China and Europe (2019) and Art and Ocean Objects of Early Modern Eurasia: Shells, Bodies, and Materiality (2021).Anne Gerritsen is Professor of History at the University of Warwick, UK, and Chair of Asian Art at University of Leiden, Netherlands. She is the author of Ji'an Literati and the Local (2007), and The City of Blue and White: Chinese Porcelain and the Early Modern World (2020). At Warwick, she co-directs the Global History and Culture Centre.Trade ReviewThis fascinating, multidisciplinary collection of essays on ceramic jars from, and in, global contexts illuminates ceramic trade, consumption, production and reception through the lens of a single form, demonstrating the agency of vessels as both containers and cultural objects. * Stacey Pierson, Reader in the History of Chinese Ceramics, SOAS, University of London, UK *A brainstorm of a book, with scholars from a wide range of different fields, Transformative Jars gathers fresh studies on Asian ceramics. It not only totally reshapes our ideas on these most common and practical vessels but also greatly contributes to the interdisciplinary nature of material culture studies. * Ching-fei Shih, Professor, Graduate Institute of Art History, National Taiwan University, Taiwan *Table of ContentsList of Contributors List of Illustrations Transformative Jars: An Introduction Anna Grasskamp, University of St Andrews, UK; Anne Gerritsen, University of Warwick, UK, and Leiden University, Netherlands Part I. Transformative Matters: Ceramic Vessels, Chemistry and Socio-Economic Change Chapter 1. Dreams of Transformation: A 14th-century Flask from Cizhou Anne Gerritsen, University of Warwick and Leiden University Chapter 2. Jars that Cheered: Alcohol and Stoneware Containers in Java before 1500 Jiri Jakl, University of Heidelberg Part II. Transformative Spaces: Ceramic Vessels and Asian Locations Chapter 3. Siamese Jars and their Significance in Southeast-Asian Trade from the 14th to the 18th Century Atthasit Sukkham, Bangkok University Chapter 4. Weaving Networks: Production and Exchange of Ceramic Jars in South China and Vietnam from the 14th to the 16th Century Wong Wai-yee Sharon, Chinese University of Hong Kong Part III. Transcultural Enclosures: Containers and their Contents in Global Context Chapter 5. For Oil, Date Syrup and the Tomb of a Chinese Queen: The Reciprocal Trade in Chinese and West Asian Jars in the Late Tang/Early Abbasid Periods Eva Ströber, Curator Emerita, National Museum of Ceramics Princessehof Leeuwarden Chapter 6. Translocation and Transformation: The Lives of Chinese Fishbowls in the Early Modern Period Wen-ting Wu, National Taiwan University Part IV. Transformative Containers: Individual Jars and Modes of Agency Chapter 7. The Jars Have Ears: Circulation and Proliferation of Chinese Prototype Container Jars and their Offspring in Asia Louise Cort, Curator Emerita for Ceramics, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution Chapter 8. Dragons in Flux: A Changing Relationship between People and Jars in the Kelabit Highlands, Borneo, from the 19th to the 21st century Borbala Nyiri, independent scholar Chapter 9. Jar Interventions: Ceramic Containers as Disobedient Objects in Contemporary Asian Art Sooyoung Leam, The Courtauld Institute of Art, UK; Anna Grasskamp, University of St Andrews, UK Chapter 10. Concluding Thoughts on Transformative Jars: Asian Ceramic Vessels as Transcultural Enclosures Anna Grasskamp, University of St Andrews, UK; Anne Gerritsen, University of Warwick, UK, and Leiden University, Netherlands Index

    1 in stock

    £80.75

  • The Bloomsbury Handbook of Material Religion in

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Bloomsbury Handbook of Material Religion in

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisNicola Laneri is Director of the Museum of Archeology and Professor of Archeology and Art History of the Ancient Near East at the University of Catania, Italy. He is also Director of the School of Religious Studies at CAMNES, Italy.Sharon R. Steadman is SUNY Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Rozanne Brooks Museum at SUNY Cortland, USA.Trade ReviewThis original, ambitious, and fascinating handbook utilizes the archaeological and textual record to materialize ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian religious beliefs through the entangled and co-dependent elements of the human body, architecture, written word, animals, and landscape. The 35 contributors to this volume convincingly argue for the essential importance of a material approach for reconstructing the diverse forms of religiosity practiced over millennia by these ancient communities. * Ann E. Killebrew, Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Jewish Studies, and Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, USA *This volume will be an invaluable read for students and scholars interested in the ancient Near East and Egypt or the history and nature of religion more generally. * Douglas Baird, Chair of Archaeology, University of Liverpool, UK *Table of ContentsIntroduction, Nicola Laneri (University of Catania, Italy) and Sharon R. Steadman (SUNY Cortland, USA) Part I: Material Religion 1. Chance and Lived Religion: The Material Culture of Transforming Randomness into Purpose, David Morgan (Duke University, USA) Part II: The Human Body 2. Material Religion and the Body in the Ancient Near East, Brenna Hassert (University College London, UK) 3. Jewelry as a Powerful Tool in the Ritual Discourse between Humans and the Supernatural in the Ancient Near East, Zuzanna Wygnanska (Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland) 4. Body Politic: Body-Objects and Necropolitics Past and Present, Melissa S. Cradic (Badé Museum of Biblical Archaeology at Pacific School of Religion, USA) 5. Behind the Cultic Statue: The Materiality of Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia, Davide Nadali (Sapienza University of Rome, Italy) and Lorenzo Verderame (Sapienza University of Rome, Italy) 6. Meanings and Practices in the Design of Objects: What Does Design Reveal about Experiences?, Michael S. Chen 7. The Brief but Spectacular Lives of Figurines in Hittite Ritual, Billie Jean Collins (Emory University, USA) Part III: Architecture 8. Religious Life, Urban Fabric and Regeneration Processes in Mari During the Second Half of the Third Millennium BCE, Pascal Butterlin (Sorbonne University, France) 9. Sacred Space and Immigrant Identity in the Middle Bronze Age: The Case of Tell el Dab’a, Danielle Candelora (SUNY Cortland, USA) 10. Evidence for an Urartian Belief System: The Institutionalization of Religion in the Mountainous Eastern Anatolian Highland––The Case of Ayanis, Mehmet Isikli 11. The Price of Devotion: Costly Signals in Neolithic and Chalcolithic Architecture on the Anatolian Plateau, Sharon R. Steadman (SUNY Cortland, USA) 12. Building Temples in the Northern Levant, Stefania Mazzoni (University of Florence, Italy) 13. Sacred Architecture in Iron II Southern Levant, Ido Koch (Tel Aviv University, Israel) Part IV: The Written Word 14. Scribes in the Temple: Materializing Missing Monuments in Mesopotamia, Jennifer C. Ross (Hood College, USA) 15. The Heraldry of Early Iranian Religion, Jacob Dahl 16. The Materials of Hittite Magic and Religion, Gregory McMahon (University of New Hampshire, USA) 17. Experiencing Ancient Egyptian the Book of the Dead: A Funerary Text Corpus as a Material Object, Christina Geisen (University of Cambridge, UK) 18. Pottery and Magic. A Glimpse into Late-Antique Mesopotamian Religious Tradition and its Materiality, Marco Moriggi 19. The Biblical Priestly Tradition as Material Religion: A Comparative Ancient Mediterranean Approach , Seth Sanders (University of California, Davis, USA) Part V: The Animals 20. Man, Animal, and Gods: Animal Remains as Indicators of Beliefs in the Ancient Near East, Jwana Chahoud (CNRS, Lebanese University, Lebanon) and Emmanuelle Vila (Lebanese University, Lebanon) 21. Resting on Strong Shoulders: The Power of Animal Scapulae in the Near Eastern Neolithic, Nerissa Russell (Cornell University, USA) 22. Animals and Ideology in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of the Southern Levant, Max Price (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA) and Jaqcueline Meier 23. Sharing Animals: Animal Imagery as Late Antique Intercultural Dialogue, Marica Cassis, Sydney Burton, and Sanaz Safari 24. The Theriomorphic Images of the Hittite Gods, Stefano de Martino (University of Torino, Italy) Part VI: The Landscape 25. Material Religion and the Perception of the Sacred Landscape in Ancient Mesopotamia, Anna Perdibon (Independent Scholar) 26. Imagining the Supernatural: The Landscape of Kura-Araxes Sacred Funerary Mounds, Nicola Laneri (University of Catania, Italy) and Chiara Pappalardo (University of Catania, Italy) 27. Cult Aspects of the Egyptian Desert, Laurel D. Hackley (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA) 28. Deconstructing the Shrine: An Essay in Understanding Desert Cult, Steven A. Rosen (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel) 29. Maritime Viewscapes and the Material Religion of Levantine Seafarers, Aaron Brody (Pacific School of Religion, USA) Bibliography Index

    1 in stock

    £161.50

  • Islamicate Textiles

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Islamicate Textiles

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisFaegheh Shirazi is a Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at The University of Texas at Austin, USA. She is the author of Brand Islam: The Marketing and Commodification of Piety (2016), Velvet Jihad: Muslim Women's Quiet Resistance to Islamic Fundamentalism (2009), The Veil Unveiled: Hijab in Modern Culture (2001) and the Editor of Muslim Women in War and Crisis: From Reality to Representation(2010). Her research interests include textiles, dress, gender identity discourse, and material culture in the Middle East; the meanings of veiling; rituals and rites of passage as they relate to material culture.Trade ReviewReflects Islam’s wide-ranging and profound impact on fabric, fashion and ritual beyond the Middle East. Stunning images illuminate every chapter and with detailed analysis, this book shifts and deepens our understanding of what the West understands of Islamic textiles and cultures. Essential reading. -- Janis Jefferies, Goldsmiths, University of London, UKThis book illuminates fascinating aspects of cultural and religious signifiers in textiles and dress with themed chapters, linking together local practices with broader traditions throughout the Islamic world. An excellent addition to reference library collections and reading lists for graduate seminars in global dress. -- Nazanin Hedayat Munroe, Director of Textile Technology and Assistant Professor, Business and Technology of Fashion, NYC College of Technology, City University of New YorkTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Textiles and Symbols: A Mélange of Cultural Signifiers Kanga: Cloth with a Message Lion of Persia: pre-Islamic to Contemporary Iran Felt and Fabrics under Domination: Central Asia Ram’s Horn: Central Asia and Iran 2. Talismanic Textiles: Gender, Status, and the Supernatural Protecting Fiber and Livelihood: the Ladakh Blessed Looms, Blessed Fibers Sacred Colors: Red, White, and Light Blue Beyond the Loom Amulets: Protection Against the Unseen Inscribed Talismanic Shirts Gendered Looms 3. The Politicization of Textiles: Colonialism to the Present India and Cotton: Rejecting Colonial Rule United We Stand: India’s Muslim Weavers West African Wax Cloth Calico: the Forbidden Indian Cotton Indian Cloth in Southeast Asia Keffiyeh: from Functional to Symbolic The Russian Colonial Effect on Central Asian Textiles Russian Political Symbolism on Woven Carpets 4. Textiles and Crisis: Displacement & Occupation Rohingya of Burma Syria Iraq Afghanistan Siddis, Afro Indians Pakistan/India separation: Becoming two nations Indonesia Palestine 5. Textiles and Death Rituals in Islamicate Societies Burial Garment for Muslims: the Kafan Piecing Together the Past: Tiraz and Halaqa Tomb Covers for the Prophet Muhammed: Kiswa Tomb Covers: Signifiers of Status Indian and South Asian Tomb Covers Haji Ali Dargah Ajmer Sharif Dargah Egyptian Funeral Tents: The Art of Khayamiya Conclusion

    1 in stock

    £80.75

  • Craft Economies

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Craft Economies

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisSusan Luckman is Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries and Director of the Creative People, Products and Places Research Centre at the University of South Australia. Her work is concerned with the intersections of creativity, place, making and technology.Nicola Thomas is Professor of Historical and Cultural Geography at the University of Exeter, UK. Her research addresses craft geographies and situating contemporary and 20th-century craft practice within the broader creative economy.Trade ReviewSusan Luckman and Nicola Thomas have drawn deeply and carefully from the world’s well of the contemporary craft economy. Their pluralistic, international approach makes for a complex and counterpointed book of essays. Craft emerges from statistics as a still humanistic practice: hovering with creative intelligence in the body politic of culture and the economy. * Simon Olding, Director of the Craft Study Centre at the University for the Creative Arts, UK *This collection offers a comprehensive overview of the craft economy as a viable force in opposition to existing systems of production through the humanization of work and commerce. It is critical to examine concepts such as disruptive collaboration, commodity activism and individualized consumption to ensure that highly networked societies of makers will continue to successfully position themselves within a consumer base no longer satisfied with the stuff of mass production. * Heidi Schwegler, Chair of the MFA in Applied Craft and Design at Oregon College of Art and Craft, USA *A rich collection of essays that reveal cultural economies of craft to be subtle, complex and pervasive – craft is a social and material practice that drives the most cutting-edge technology, innovation and design, yet also brings life to people and places, makes human relations, and gives form to imagined futures and worlds. This book shows us that the ‘tactile turn’ not only has global resonance but many diverse expressions – and is a perfect introduction to all those who care about craft, material-making, and the likely prospects for sustainable economies of tomorrow. * Mark Banks, Director of the CAMEo Research Institute for Cultural and Media Economies, University of Leicester, UK *A collection of essays taking a scholarly look at contemporary craft production around the world, placing professional and amateur practice within the broader creative economy. Look out for contributions by Ezra Shales and the Craft Council's head of research and policy, Julia Bennett. * UK Craft Council / Crafts magazine *Table of Contents1. Crafting Economies: Contemporary Cultural Economies of the Handmade, Susan Luckman (University of South Australia) and Nicola Thomas (University of Exeter, UK) Part One: Craft, Making and the Creative Economy 2. Crafts Community: Physical and Virtual, Xin Gu (Monash University, Australia) 3. Fast Forward: Design Economies and Practice in the Near Future, Marzia Mortati (Politecnico di Milano, Italy) 4. Craft, Collectivity and Event-time, Katve-Kaisa Kontturi (University of Turku, Finland) 5. "Buy a Hat, Save a Life": Commodity Activism, Fair Trade, and Crafting Economies of Change, Lisa A. Daily (NYU Gallatin, USA) Part Two: Craft, the ‘Handmade’ and Contested Commodification 6. Towards a Politics of Making: Re-framing Material Work and Locating Skill in the Anthropocene, Chris Gibson and Chantel Carr (University of Wollongong, Australia) 7. Dichotomies in Textile Making: Employing Digital Technology and Retaining Authenticity, Sonja Andrew (University of Leeds, UK) and Kandy Diamond (Nottingham Trent University, UK) 8. People Have the Power?: Appropriate Technology and the Implications of Design for Labour-intensive Making, Gabriele Oropallo (London Metropolitan University, UK) 9. The Ghost Potter: Vital Forms and Spectral Marks of Skilled Craftsmen in Contemporary Tableware, Ezra Shales (Massachusetts College of Art and Design, USA) Part Three: The Work of Craft 10. Our Future is in the Making: Trends in Craft Education, Practice and Policy, Julia Bennett (Crafts Council, UK) 11. Establishing the Crafting Self in the Contemporary Creative Economy, Susan Luckman and Jane Andrew (University of South Australia) 12. Handmaking your Way out of Poverty?: Craftwork’s Potential and Peril as a Strategy for Poverty Alleviation in Rockford, Illinois, Jessica Barnes (Northern Arizona University, USA) Part Four: Craft-driven Place-making and Transnational Circuits of Craft Practice 13. Interrogating Localism: What Does “Made in Portland” Really Mean? Stephen Marotta and Charles Heying (Portland State University, USA) 14. Policy, Locality and Networks in a Cultural and Creative Countryside: The Case of Jingdezhen, China, Troy Zhen Chen (University of the Arts London, UK) 15. Design Recycle Meets the Product Introduction Hall: Craft, Locality and Agency in Northern Japan, Sarah Teasley (RMIT University, Australia) 16. Crafted Places/Places for Craft: Pop-up and the Politics of the “Crafted” City, Ella Harris (Birkbeck University of London, UK) Part Five: Technology, Innovation and Craft 17. Knitting and Crochet as Experiment: Exploring Social and Material Practices of Computation and Craft, Gail Kenning (University of Technology Sydney, Australia) and Jo Law (University of Wollongong, Australia) 18. Towards New Modes of Knowledge Production: Makerspaces and Emerging Maker Practices, Angelina Russo (Global Centre for Modern Ageing, Australia) 19. The Post-digital: Contemporary Making and the Allure of the Genuine, Keith Doyle, Hélène Day Fraser and Philip Robins (Emily Carr University of Art + Design) 20. Crafting Code: Gender, Coding and Spatial Hybridity in the Events of PyLadies Dublin, Sophia Maalsen (University of Sydney, Australia) and Sung-Yueh Perng (Maynooth University, Republic of Ireland) References Index

    1 in stock

    £26.99

  • Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Key Terms in Material Religion

    5 in stock

    Book SynopsisS. Brent Plate is a writer, lecturer and Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Hamilton College, USA. He is co-founder and managing editor of Material Religion: The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief. His publications include The History of Religion in 5 1/2 Objects, Religion and Film, and The Religion and Film Reader. Trade ReviewBrent Plate has marshalled an ambitious, and wide-ranging, lexicon of regularly deployed terms (37 in all) which help 'to show us the importance of the material world in the making and practising of religion'. * Art and Christianity *This is a treasure chest, full of unexpected riches. Leading international scholars offer a range of lucid, sparkling and thought-provoking essays that shine new light on Key Terms in Material Religion. Enriched by a wealth of examples, memorable chapters combine to create an engaging, original and imaginative contribution to the study of material religion. -- Jolyon Mitchell, Professor of Communications, Arts and Religion, The University of Edinburgh, UK, and author of Promoting Peace, Inciting Violence (2013)Over the past decade or so, material religion has solidified into one of the most productive discursive spaces within the study of religion's. By assembling a stimulating series of vivid entries on obvious and less obvious keywords, this volume displays the many handy affordances of this analytical screen. Especially noteworthy and timely is this anthology‘s attention to the senses, which will enrich readers’ perception of religion. -- Michael Stausberg, Professor, University of Bergen, NorwayAt our interdisciplinary moment of candidness, creativity, and confusion, nothing is more useful than a methodological lexicon, in other words: keywords. Explained, illustrated, and put to work, these key terms in material religion gel together as a fresh guideline for how-to-do cultural analysis at a time when many are floundering by lack of leading thoughts, yet rightly resistant to old dogmas. The essays are succinct but substantial; the topics relevant; the authors the best around. I wish more fields produced books like this. -- Mieke Bal, Founding director of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA), University of Amsterdam, The NetherlandsThe study of material religion is at the cutting edge of religious studies. Plate (Hamilton College) sets the lay of the land in the introduction. Usefully he, as he puts it, "sets the stage" for the field of material religion in the following parameters: bodies meet objects, the senses, time and space, orientation and disorientation of communities and individuals, and strictures and structures of tradition. Some examples of entries are belief, collection, dress, icon, memory, sign, thing, words. Entries are presented through stories and case studies. The book began as a series of discussions with Plate's fellow editors at the journal Material Religion to work out a special issue on key words in the field. The special issue had 19; these are included here in revised form, as are an additional 18. The purpose is to create a "working lexicon" for the field, not an exhaustive encyclopedia. The international contributors come from diverse academic fields. In addition to religious studies, these include criminology and anthropology. Each entry is about five to six pages long and has a bibliography with ten or so items. Not meant to be a traditional reference book in that its entries are exploratory and not definitive, it will be a valuable adjunct to other material religion texts. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through researchers/faculty; general readers; professionals/practitioners. * CHOICE *Table of ContentsIntroduction to Material Religion, S. Brent Plate 1. Aesthetics, Inken Prohl (Professor of Religious Studies, University of Heidelberg, Germany) 2. Belief - Robert A. Orsi (Professor of Religion, Northwestern University, USA) 3. Body - Angela Zito (Professor of Anthropology and Religious Studies, New York University, USA) 4. Brain/mind - Ann Taves (Professor of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA) 5. City - Francis Dodsworth (Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Kingston University London, UK), Elena Vacchelli (Senior Research Fellow in Gender and Migration, Middlesex Univesrity London, UK) and Sophie Watson (Professor of Sociology, The Open University, UK) 6. Collection - Crispin Paine (Honorary Lecturer, UCL, UK) 7. Digital - Gregory Price Grieve (Associate Professor, University of North Carolina Greensboro, USA) 8. Display – Ivan Gaskell (Professor of Cultural History and Museum Studies; Curator and Head of the Focus Gallery Project, Bard Graduate Centre, USA) 9. Dress - Annelies Moors (Professor at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) 10. Emotion – Anna M. Gade (Professor in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA) 11. Fetish - Bruno Latour (Professor at Sciences Po Paris, France) 12. Food - Nora L. Rubel (Associate Professor, University of Rochester, USA) 13. Gender - Deborah Whitehead (Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, University of Colorada, Boulder, USA) 14. Icon/image - Robert Maniura (Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Birkbeck, University of London, UK) 15. Magic - Peter Pels (Professor at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leiden University, the Netherlands) 16. Maps – Anita Patil-Deshmukh (Executive Director of PUKAR, India) 17. Mask - Allen F. Roberts, Professor, University of California, Los Angeles, USA) 18. Medium - Birgit Meyer (Professor of Religious Studies, University of Utrecht, the Netherlands) 19. Memory – Oren Stier (Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Florida International University, USA) 20. Movement - Ann Pellegrini (Associate Professor of Religious Studies, New York University, USA) 21. Prayer - Anderson Blanton (Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Studies of the American South, UNC, USA) 22. Race - Roberto Lint-Sagarena (Associate Professor of American Studies, Middlebury College, USA) 23. Ritual - Ron Grimes (Director of Ritual Studies International and Professor Emeritus of Religion and Culture at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada) 24. Sacred - David Chidester (Professor of Comparative Religion, University of Cape Town, South Africa) 25. Screen - S. Brent Plate (Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Hamilton College, USA) 26. Sensation - David Howes (Professor of Anthropology at Concordia University, Canada) 27. Sign - Wei-Cheng Lin (Assistant Professor in the Department of Art, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA) 28. Smell - James McHugh (Assistant Professor of Religion, University of Southern California, USA) 29. Sound - Isaac Weiner (Assistant Professor in Religious Studies, Ohio State University, USA) 30. Space - Tom Tweed (Professor, Harold and Martha Welch Endowed Chair in American Studies, University of Notre Dame, USA) 31. Spirit - Peter van der Veer (Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity at Göttingen, Germany) 32. Taste - Rich Freeman (Visiting Assistant Professor of History and Religious Studies, USA) 33. Technology - Kathryn Lofton (Professor of Religious Studies, Yale University, USA) 34. Thing - David Morgan (Professor of Religious Studies, Duke University, USA) 35. Touch - Marleen de Witte (University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands) 36. Vision - Robert S. Nelson (Professor, Yale University, USA) 37. Words - S. Brent Plate (Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Hamilton College, USA) Bibliography Index

    5 in stock

    £36.99

  • Craft Communities

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Craft Communities

    5 in stock

    Book SynopsisCraft Communities addresses the social groups, old and new, which have developed around craft production and consumption, exploring the social and cultural impact of contemporary practices of making. Addressing a wide range of crafting practice, from yarnbombs to Shetlands shawls, brassware to paper crafting, in a variety of regional and national contexts, the contributors consider how craft practices operate collectively in the home, communities, businesses, workshops, schools, social enterprises, and online. It further identifies how social media has emerged as a key driver of the ''Third Wave'' of craft. From Etsy to Instagram, Twitter to Pinterest, online communities of the handmade are changing the way people buy and sell, make and meet.Trade ReviewCraft Communities brings together an exciting and international array of writers whose ideas and examples are of central importance for thinking about craft as a collective, generative experience. The themes and chapters provide much-needed explorations and insights to help readers think through and unravel some of the complexities of decolonising craft. * Professor Juliette MacDonald, Director of Faculty at Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland *Craft Communities gathers in one publication is a breadth of particular case studies that reveal the dynamism, but also the sheer complexity, of craft’s place in contemporary community building. * Jessica Hemmings. University of Gothenburg, Professor of Craft, Sweden *Table of ContentsIntroduction - Craft Communites: Continuity and discontinuity across time and place, Susan Luckman. The commercial entanglements of craft communities 1. Do it yourself, with me: Workshops as a site of interaction between professional and amateur makers, Amy Twigger Holroyd. 2. ‘Out of time and out of money’: How handicraft tourism micro-entrepreneurs in Greece negotiate gender and economic roles in an economic crisis, Fiona Bakas 3. The Pleasures of Feminine Paper Crafting, Kathleen McCollough 4. Commodification, collection and community: Negotiating craft consumption and craft capitalism, Richard Yarwood Craft communities in place 5. Innovation or preservation?: Craft’s post-capitalist identity crisis, Joanna Mann 6. A place-based approach to regional fiber economies, Oona Morrow 7. Walking as sisters: The social dimension of group-based craft production in the Peruvian Andes, Kathrin Forstner 8. Sri Lankan artistic brassware industry: A manifestation of local community values, Sri Rohana Rathnayake and Carl Grodach 9. Recognising craft and creativity as political governance innovation: Activating people and place through civic activism and creative enterprise, Clare Mouat and Bronwyn Adams 10. Make, do and mend: A patchwork economy of UK crafting for health, Sarah Desmarais Activist craft communities 11. Better together: Co-creating living heritage, community assets and enterprise, Fiona Hackney, Deirdre Figueiredo and Mary Loveday 12. Material girls: The intangible and tangible of women’s weaving groups in Australia, Kirsten McGavin and Hannah Swee 13. Crafting employment for marginalized women: The remaking of social enterprise, Mia Hunt 14. The craft of reuse: Making communities at charity secondhand shops, Melisa Duque and Aneta Podkalicka 15. Crafting asylum: Text, textiles and asylum seekers in detention, Margaret Mayhew Craft communities online 16. Disposition and taste: DIY craft's star system, cultural intermediaries and the influence of Etsy, Jacqueline Wallace 17. New geographies of domesticity: Work, space and community in the virtual arts and crafts, Shannon Black, Chloe Fox Miller and Deborah Leslie 18. Media practices and social arrangements on DaWanda: Reflections on the appropriation of a social commerce platform, Dagmar Hoffmann and Wolfgang Reißmann List of Figures List of Contributors

    5 in stock

    £80.75

  • The Design of Race

    Bloomsbury Publishing PLC The Design of Race

    5 in stock

    Book SynopsisPeter Fine''s innovative study traces the development of a mass visual culture in the United States, focusing on how new visual technologies played a part in embedding racialized ideas about African Americans, and how whiteness was privileged within modernist ideals of visual form. Fine considers the visual and material manifestations of this process through the history of three important technologies of the art of mechanical reproduction typography, lithography, and photography, and then moves on to consider how racialized representation has been configured and contested within contemporary film and television, fine art and digital design.Trade ReviewThis profound, arresting, and beautiful study makes us see things differently. Made for graphic designers and accessible to fascinated readers far beyond that field, it demonstrates how deeply influenced by embedded relationships of race and power that creative and commercial work in design has long been. The resulting familiarities with images of racial hierarchies become less so as we read, look, and come to view matters through the brilliant critiques provided by contemporary Black artists. -- David Roediger, Foundation Distinguished Professor of American Studies at the University of Kansas, USATo really understand how race shapes US culture past and present, we must get to grips with the ways it patterns everyday life. Peter Claver Fine demonstrates the centrality of race to US graphic design, and the ways in which the visual language of commercial culture remains a key site for the reproduction - and the contestation - of racism. The Design of Race will be of great value to students of design, fine art, and popular culture. -- Ben Pitcher, Reader in the Sociology of Race at the University of Westminster, UKFine’s book is a ground-breaking analysis of the power of graphic design and its culpability in the constructions of race in America. The Design of Race is a timely and well-researched work that eloquently unpacks the complexities of visual culture, racial identity and the affordances of race as a designed object for consumption. -- John Jennings, Critical race design scholar and Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, UC Riverside, USATable of ContentsAcknowledgements Preface Introduction 1. Vestiges in Word and Image 2. Typography and Type 3. First Impressions: Lithography and the Packaging of Race 4. Photography by Design 5. Racialized Play, Caught in Real Time Conclusion

    5 in stock

    £22.99

  • Victorian Liberalism and Material Culture

    Edinburgh University Press Victorian Liberalism and Material Culture

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisVictorian Liberalism and Material Culture' assesses the unexplored links between Victorian material culture and political theory.

    1 in stock

    £90.25

  • Fake

    Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Fake

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.The electric candle and faux fur, coffee substitutes and meat analogues, Obama impersonators, prosthetics. Imitation this, false that. Humans have been replacing and improving upon the real thing for millennia from wooden toes found on Egyptian mummies to the Luxor pyramid in Las Vegas. So why do people have such disdain for so-called fakes? Kati Stevens''s Fake discusses the strange history of imitations, as well as our ever-changing psychological and socioeconomic relationships with them. After all, fakes aren''t going anywhere; they seem to be going everywhere. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewFake aims to interrogate what it is we think we’re getting from the ‘real’ thing and what we’re searching for either by clamoring for ‘real’ things or by accepting their imitation … If you revel in the critical examination of objects around you and criticism of commonly accepted attitudes, this book will be your new friend. * Seattle Book Review *Fake is fascinating, clever, and utterly perspective-altering. Kati Stevens is the genuine article. * Emily Anthes, author of Frankenstein’s Cat (2013) *Table of Contents1. The Start of Something Fake 2. That Which Is Fake May Never Die 3. Quorn for Lunch; Oreos for Dessert 4. What Was Never Real Can(not) Be Faked 5. Hippopotamus Teeth 6. Davids 7. Ovid and the Real Girl 8. The Start of Something Fake, Part 2 Acknowledgments Notes Index

    1 in stock

    £9.49

  • New Directions in Print Culture Studies

    Bloomsbury Publishing Plc New Directions in Print Culture Studies

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisNew Directions in Print Culture Studies features new methods and approaches to cultural and literary history that draw on periodicals, print culture, and material culture, thus revising and rewriting what we think we know about the aesthetic, cultural, and social history of transnational America. The unifying questions posed and answered in this book are methodological: How can we make material, archival objects meaningful? How can we engage and contest dominant conceptions of aesthetic, historical, and literary periods? How can we present archival material in ways that make it accessible to other scholars and students? What theoretical commitments does a focus on material objects entail? New Directions in Print Culture Studies brings together leading scholars to address the methodological, historical, and theoretical commitments that emerge from studying how periodicals, books, images, and ideas circulated from the 19th century to the present. Reaching beyond national boTrade ReviewNew Directions in Print Culture Studies delivers on the promise to make its reader see the field anew. This volume's illuminating case studies are deeply researched and theoretically sophisticated, intellectually honest and, at moments, delightfully weird. A wonderful overview for seasoned and curious scholars alike. * Jordan Alexander Stein, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Fordham University, USA *This rich collection both argues for and amply demonstrates the centrality of print culture to scholarship and pedagogy in the 21st century. In this volume, Schwartz and Worden give us an edgily political, unabashedly nerdy, and theoretically capacious conception of what print culture studies is and can be. The engaging and provocative essays found therein take up objects of inquiry from cartes de visites to bullet journals, from story papers to multimodal websites. They consider capitalism and counterpublics, comics and collections, sound and medium, celebrity and canonicity, multilingualism and hemispheric studies, pedagogy and activism. The clarity and precision of the chapters make this collection classroom-ready. These provocations will also serve as inspirations and entry points for scholars in the field hungry for just such an invitation to connect the print artifacts of the past in all their formal and material specificity to the urgent matters of the present. These “new directions” are awfully fun to explore. * Catherine Keyser, Professor of English, University of South Carolina, USA *An indispensable guide, New Directions in Print Culture Studies gathers 16 case studies that feature inventive enactments of and critical reflections on the methodologies that have enabled this radically interdisciplinary mode of analysis to transform scholarly production across the humanities and social sciences. * Donald E. Pease, Ted & Helen Geisel Professor of the Humanities, Dartmouth College, USA *Table of ContentsList of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction: Archives, Materiality, and Modern American Culture (Jesse W. Schwartz, LaGuardia Community College, USA, and Daniel Worden, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA) I. Print Culture's Past and Presents 1. Story-Paper Origins in the US: The Unknown Public and The New York Ledger (Ayendy Bonifacio, University of Toledo, USA) 2. “And They Think A Strike Is War”: John Reed, Metropolitan Magazine, and Radical Seriality Against the Editors (Jesse W. Schwartz, LaGuardia Community College, USA) 3. Laying the Type of Revolution: Historicizing US Feminism in and through Print Culture (Agatha Beins, Texas Woman’s University, USA) 4. The Instant Classic in the Age of Digital Print Culture: Claude McKay’s Romance in Marseille (Gary Edward Holcomb, Ohio University, USA) 5. The Real Productivity: Creative Refusal and Cultish Tendencies in Online Print Journal Communities (Michelle Chihara, Whittier College, USA) II. Archives, Exhibits, Images, and Sounds of Print Culture 6. Hold Still: "Redeemed" and Coming Undone (Monica Huerta, Princeton University, USA) 7. Engraving Class: Gender, Race, and the Pictorial Politics of the 1877 General Strike (Justin Rogers-Cooper, LaGuardia Community College, USA) 8. Sounding: Black Print Culture at the Edges of the Black Atlantic (Kristin Moriah, Queen’s University, Canada) 9. “A Traveling Exhibition”: Magazines and the Display and Circulation of Art in the Americas (Lori Cole, New York University, USA) 10. Comics in the Archive: Approaches to the April 1956 Newsstand (Daniel Worden, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA, and Rebekah Walker) 11. Icons and Archives: James Baldwin and the Practice of Celebrity (Robert F. Reid-Pharr, Harvard University, USA) III. Print Culture Studies in Practice 12. Reimagining Literary History and Why It Matters Now (Kelley Kreitz, Pace University, USA) 13. Anthologizing Alternatives: June Jordan and Toni Cade Bambara’s Publishing Pedagogies (Danica Savonick, SUNY Cortland, USA) 14. Hybrid Scholarly Publishing Models in a Digital Age (Krystyna Michael, The CUNY Graduate Center, USA, Jojo Karlin, The CUNY Graduate Center, USA, and Matthew K. Gold, The CUNY Graduate Center, USA) Index

    1 in stock

    £90.25

  • Perfume

    Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Perfume

    Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.Our sense of smell is crucial to our survival. We can smell fear, disease, food. Fragrance is also entertainment. We can smell an expensive bottle of perfume at a high-end department store. Perhaps it reminds us of our favorite aunt. A memory in a bottle is a powerful thing. Megan Volpert''s Perfume carefully balances the artistry with the science of perfume. The science takes us into the neurology of scent receptors, how taste is mostly smell, the biology of illnesses that impact scent sense, and the chemistry of making and copying perfume. The artistry of perfume involves the five scent families and symbolism, subjectivity in perfume preference, perfume marketing strategies, iconic scents and perfumers, why the industry is so secretive, and Volpert''s own experiments with making perfume. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic<Trade ReviewFascinating. * Zoomer *Perfume is an enthusiastic exploration worthy of its complex subject, pointing to mysteries related to the art and science of fragrance and welcoming newcomers to revel in them — with the understanding that some may never be solved. * Elizabeth Barrial, Founder and Head Perfumer, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab *A well-researched delight. * Glam Adelaide *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Science 2. Literature 3. Space 4. Time 5. Technology 6. Performance 7. Self 8. Other Selected Bibliography Index

    £9.49

  • Golf Ball

    Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Golf Ball

    5 in stock

    Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Harry Brown explores the composition, history, kinetic life, and the long deterioration of golf balls, which as it turns out may outlive their hitters by a thousand years, in places far beyond our reach. Golf balls embody our efforts to impose our will on the land, whether the local golf course or the Moon, but their unpredictable spin, bounce, and roll often defy our control. Despite their considerable technical refinements, golf balls reveal the futility of control. They inevitably disappear in plain sight and find their way into hazards. Golf balls play with people. Harry Brown's short treatise on the golf ball serves up surprising lessons about the human desire to tame and control the landscape through technology. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewGolf Ball is a funny, smart, and charming meditation on an unlikely subject. Who knew that the story of this humble little white sphere could tell us so much about our history and culture? Brown weaves cultural history, literary criticism, physics, and philosophy into this wonderful book. His meditation on the golf ball deserves a place on the reading list of the curious golfer and cultural critic alike. * Orin Starn, Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Duke University, USA, and author of The Passion of Tiger Woods *Brown starts where the curious amongst us always seem to—by taking things apart. Departing from the physical dissection of a single ball, performed as a boy, Brown rollicks through a detailed and highly entertaining exploration of the history of the game of golf. Golf Ball will fill the air of the 19th Hole with questions answered and stories told. * Tom Chiarella, Visiting Writer, Esquire Magazine, and Award-Winning Member of the Golf Writers Association of America *An intriguing mix of history, personal anecdote and cutting-edge philosophy, carrying the reader aloft over a range of courses and discourses past and present … In Golf Ball, Brown has some fun with contemporary thinking whilst never getting too bogged down in the sand trap of theory … leaving us with some intriguing questions to ponder about the objects we use, lose and overlook every day. * Neil Fitzgerald, LapsedHermit.com *Golf Ball… begins with Harry Brown explaining how his object chose him. As an eight-year-old homegrown Heideggerian of a boy, he claims, he sliced a golf ball in two to inquire into its hardness. The book derives from this severing. It inhabits the ‘glimpse of internal structure’ that it offered, unfolding in two parts: ‘Out: Thing,’ and ‘In: Phenomenon.' -- Julian Yates * Los Angeles Review of Books *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Part One: Out: Thing 1. How I cut a golf ball in half, and found a lot of things inside 2. How the golf ball keeps holy the Lord's day 3. How an empire made the golf ball, and the golf ball made an empire 4. How the golf ball blew up America and made golf more fun 5. How the golf ball went ballistic 6. How the golf ball reached détente 7. How the court decided custody of the golf ball 8. How the golf ball became the #1 ball in golf 9. How the golf ball got so cool Part Two: In: Phenomenon 10. How the golf ball vanishes before your eyes 11. How the golf ball makes us feel fulfilled, for a millisecond 12. How to control the unruly golf ball 13. How to hit the golf ball by not hitting it 14. How the golf ball looks into the abyss, and the abyss looks back 15. How the golf ball won the Golden Fleece 16. How the golf ball went to the moon 17. How the golf ball makes friends with animals 18. How the golf ball prepares for doomsday Notes Index

    5 in stock

    £9.49

  • Phone Booth

    Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Phone Booth

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. The phone booth exists as a fond but distant memory for some people, and as a strange and dysfunctional waste of space for many more. Ariana Kelly approaches the phone booth as an entity that embodies diverse attitudes about privacy, freedom, power, sanctuary, and communication in its various forms all around the world. Through portrayals of phone booths in literature, film, personal narrative, philosophy, and religion, Phone Booth offers a definitive account of an object on the cusp of obsolescence. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewAn entertaining and enlightening exploration of the cultural history of the phone booth and a lament for the loss of these spaces. * WPR: BETA *In this delightful set of mini-essays, Ariana Kelly has created a paen, rather than an elegy, in celebration of the many dimensions of the vanishing phone booth. Her text gleans images and sensations from our collective memory of the once (if briefly) ubiquitous structure. Site of superhero transformations, crimes, communications, quick changes, and other coins of the social realm, the phone booth and the kiosk served as small theaters of intimate activity in full view of the public eye, a curious combination of enclosed and exposed space. She shifts scale from the minutiae of physical observation—hanging wires and scratched glass—to the larger cultural issues of communication and longing, mixing personal experience with historical, literary, and film references throughout. * Johanna Drucker, Professor of Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, USA *Fascinated and attuned, I was cabled into Phone Booth. Ariana Kelly replenishes the work on speculative telephony in an altogether compelling way. * Avital Ronell, University Professor in the Humanities, New York University, USA, and author of The Telephone Book *[Phone Booth] inclines us towards nostalgia, toward urgent questions of what remains when objects disappear, of re-use, and shelter. If phone booths today have receded into the interstices of our built worlds… then that freeing of the object from its use enables Arianna Kelly to tell a different story, a story about what these telephonic leftovers might become, what they now are and what they anchor. -- Julian Yates * Los Angeles Review of Books *Table of Contents1. Disconnected 2. Hermit’s Hut 3. Our Speed 4. The Phantom Phone Booth 5. Say Anything 6. Fortress of Solitude 7. Significant Portals 8. A Fine and Private Place 9. Glass Case of Emotion 10. The God Booth 11. Only Connect Acknowledgements Notes Index

    1 in stock

    £9.49

  • Refrigerator

    Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Refrigerator

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. It may be responsible for a greater improvement in human diet and longevity than any other technology of the last two thousand years—but have you ever thought seriously about your refrigerator? That box humming in the background displays more than you might expect, even who you are and the society in which you live. Jonathan Rees examines the past, present, and future of the household refrigerator with the aim of preventing its users from ever taking it for granted again. No mere container for cold Cokes and celery stalks, the refrigerator acts as a mirror—and what it reflects is chilling indeed. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewDoes life exist without refrigerators? For most of us, the answer is no. How this common kitchen appliance achieved its indispensable status in less than a century is an amazing tale filled with surprising twists and unexpected connections. Refrigerator is a delight to read. Bravo! * Andrew F. Smith, Editor-in-Chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America *Allow Jonathan Rees to re-introduce you to the most underappreciated appliance in your kitchen: the refrigerator. Despite its recent and as yet patchy arrival on the world stage, the humble fridge has transformed how and what we eat, for better and for worse. This concise overview should be required reading for the 99.5 percent of Americans who own a refrigerator. * Nicola Twilley, author of Edible Geography and contributing writer at The New Yorker *Jonathan Rees’s Refrigerator offers a meticulously observed history of the ‘cold chain’ of industrialized food webs, explains how refrigeration works; and goes so far as to imagine life with and without it. Beyond this mini-historical account, the real heft to this title lies in the implied ecological impact of what doing without refrigeration might mean for those in the West for whom it has become taken for granted. -- Julian Yates * Los Angeles Review of Books *Object Lessons’ describes themselves as ‘short, beautiful books,’ and to that, I'll say, amen. … [I]t is in this simplicity that we find insight and even beauty. … In Refrigerator, historian Jonathan Rees asks us to look again at an object many of us take for granted as it hums away in our kitchens. When's the last time you looked at that thing? Did you contemplate how the refrigerator may have done more to extend the human lifespan than any other piece of technology? … If you read enough ‘Object Lessons’ books, you'll fill your head with plenty of trivia to amaze and annoy your friends and loved ones — caution recommended on pontificating on the objects surrounding you. More importantly, though, in the tradition of McPhee's Oranges, they inspire us to take a second look at parts of the everyday that we've taken for granted. These are not so much lessons about the objects themselves, but opportunities for self-reflection and storytelling. They remind us that we are surrounded by a wondrous world, as long as we care to look. * Chicago Tribune *Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter One: How Refrigerators Work Chapter Two: How to Make Your Refrigerator Stand Out Chapter Three: Are the Benefits of Refrigeration Worth the Costs? Chapter Four: Waste and Wants Chapter Five: Freezing and Freezers Conclusion Notes Index

    1 in stock

    £9.49

  • Driver's License

    Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Driver's License

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. A classic teenage fetish object, the American driver’s license has long symbolized freedom and mobility in a nation whose design assumes car travel and whose vastness rivals continents. It is youth’s pass to regulated vice—cigarettes, bars, tattoo parlors, casinos, strip joints, music venues, guns. In its more recent history, the license has become increasingly associated with freedom’s flipside: screening. The airport’s heightened security checkpoint. Controversial ID voting laws. Federally mandated, anti-terrorist driver’s license re-designs. The driver’s license encapsulates the contradictory values and practices of contemporary American culture—freedom and security, mobility and checkpoints, self-definition and standardization, democracy and exclusion, superficiality and intimacy, the stable self and the self in flux. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.Trade ReviewRanging across the 20th century and between continents, Castile teaches a fundamental 'lesson' about the license: what's meant to fix an identity in fact generates competing meanings and values. Freedom and control, security and vulnerability, authenticity and fakery, youth and maturity. The book's Kerouacian opening and mix of pop culture references, personal anecdote, and philosophical musings invite attention to this overlooked but ever-present object. * Heather Houser, Assistant Professor of English, University of Texas at Austin, USA, and author of Ecosickness in Contemporary U.S. Fiction *In Driver’s License, Meredith Castile… draws six lessons: on national identity, on the culture of faked documents, on design, teen culture, identity, and civics. -- Julian Yates * Los Angeles Review of Books *Driver’s License is almost two short books in one. One part contains several personal stories, which evoke the much-mythologized independence of American teenagers now free to drive themselves. The other part becomes, like Hood, a condemnation of racial injustice. This section describes the de facto disenfranchisement of minority groups in the U.S. It explains how this disenfranchisement – not only when it comes to voting, but also for accessing basic social services – depends on the bureaucratic mechanics of the driver’s license and other forms of ID. Being undocumented or unable to afford driving lessons are just two of the obstacles to exercising full citizenship, and Driver’s License takes some interesting left turns to arrive at this message. Verdict: Buy. American culture so heavily fetishizes the car, yet the driver’s license is also hugely important to a sense of identity and possibility. * Book Riot *Table of ContentsAmerica Fake Design Teen Identity Civics

    1 in stock

    £9.49

  • The Lives of the Objects: Collecting Design

    V & A Publishing The Lives of the Objects: Collecting Design

    Book SynopsisIn this intriguing insight into the work and history of a museum, V&A director and historian Dr Tristram Hunt brings together ten renowned V&A curators to tell the stories behind ten of their most treasured objects. 'Tipu's Tiger' (an almost life-size wooden semi-automaton mauling a European soldier), the 'Great Bed of Ware' (an Elizabethan bed for 8 people) and a Shakespeare First Folio are among the featured highlights whose route to the V&A collections are entertainingly revealed. Through these stories, this insightful history of museum curation - a world of careful study and sometimes remarkable fortuity - shows how the priorities of a museum are shaped and change over time. Published to explore in more depth some of the stories featured in the BBC six part series Secrets of the Museum.Trade Review'...full of fascinating, if occasionally tragic and controversial, tales of acquisitions.' Ciara Dossett, Daily Mail, 6th February 2020Table of ContentsThe Lives of the Objects, Tristram Hunt / Copy of Trajan's Column, Rebecca Knott / The Raphael Cartoons, Ana Debenedetti / Tipu's Tiger, Susan Stronge / First Folio, Geoffrey Marsh / The Rodin Gift, Alicia Robinson / The Great Bed of Ware, Nick Humphrey / Fold-up Chair, Johanna Agerman Ross / Evening Ensemble, Sonnett Stanfill / Rangoon: Signal Pagoda, Martin Barnes / Robin Hood Gardens, Christopher Turner

    £25.50

  • Food and Material Culture: Proceedings of the

    Prospect Books Food and Material Culture: Proceedings of the

    20 in stock

    Book SynopsisTopics covered by the papers include: Aesthetics and politics of the kitchen in fascist Italy, The bamboo tea whisk in Japanese tea culture, Cooking under fire, 1914-1918, Sugar sculpture in Italian court banquets, Mongolian milk spoons, Perfuming the table in old Baghdad.

    20 in stock

    £27.00

  • Other Things

    The University of Chicago Press Other Things

    1 in stock

    Book Synopsis

    1 in stock

    £76.00

  • Ethnicity Inc.

    University of Chicago Press Ethnicity Inc.

    Book SynopsisPresents an account of the ways in which ethnic populations are remaking themselves in the image of the corporation - while corporations coopt ethnic practices to open up fresh markets and regimes of consumption.Trade Review"The Comaroffs are among the very finest anthropologists working anywhere in the world today. As genuine leaders of the discipline, every new book they publish is an event and this one is no exception. Ethnicity, Inc. will be a watershed for anyone looking for new ways to explain our neoliberal world. This extraordinarily lucid book is one of the most ambitious, wide-ranging, and thought-provoking pieces of anthropological scholarship written over the last few decades; it sets a standard other scholars can only hope to emulate." - Matti Bunzl, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"

    £76.00

  • The Hoarders  Material Deviance in Modern

    The University of Chicago Press The Hoarders Material Deviance in Modern

    Book SynopsisThe verb declutter has not yet made it into the Oxford English Dictionary, but its ever-increasing usage suggests that it's only a matter of time. The author finds that both the idea of organization and the role of the clutterologist are deeply ingrained in our culture, and that there is a fine line between clutter and deviance in America.Trade Review"My high expectations were fulfilled and indeed exceeded by Herring's brilliant, groundbreaking, fascinating, and lucid book. In traversing his rich and well-researched archive in the series of case studies that make up the book, Herring examines how and why hoarders have been stigmatized in a number of different contexts through the twentieth century. In doing so, he mounts a sustained and significant challenge to the pathologizing discourses about hoarding." (Jonathan Flatley, Wayne State University)"

    £76.00

  • Ruling Culture

    The University of Chicago Press Ruling Culture

    Book SynopsisThrough much of its history, Italy was Europe's heart of the arts, an artistic playground for foreign elites and powers who bought, sold, and sometimes plundered countless artworks and antiquities. This loss of artifacts looted by other nations once put Italy at an economic and political disadvantage compared with northern European states. Now, more than any other country, Italy asserts control over its cultural heritage through a famously effective art-crime squad that has been the inspiration of novels, movies, and tv shows. In its efforts to bring their cultural artifacts home, Italy has entered into legal battles against some of the world's major museums, including the Getty, New York's Metropolitan Museum, and the Louvre. It has turned heritage into patrimony capitala powerful and controversial convergence of art, money, and politics. In 2006, the then-president of Italy declared his country to be the world's greatest cultural power. With Ruling Culture, Fiona Greenland traces Trade Review"The famous Art Squad police unit is pitted against thieves and smugglers in this broad-ranging study, which shows how Italy has transformed its rich heritage into global cultural capital." * Apollo, "Off the shelf" *"In this thought-provoking book, Greenland walks us through a couple of centuries of evolving cultural heritage policy in Italy. . . . The book offers a ground-breaking discussion of developing Italian policy for cultural heritage, ending with the inevitable neo-liberal entanglements of private capital, but it also contains a wealth of raw material and pointers for further research." -- Neil Brodie * Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Book Reviews *"Fiona Greenland’s Ruling Culture: Art Police, Tomb Robbers, and the Rise of Cultural Power in Italy is a meticulous and insightful work inviting the reader to look closer at the construction of Italian cultural power . . . This book is a model in terms of methodology and analysis for its depth and kaleidoscopic approach. It can also serve as a way to reflect on western cultural powers and legal systems in place for the preservation of artefacts and archaeological practices." * Cultural Sociology *“In this beautifully written and insightful study of the mutual entanglement between Italy’s national art police squad and the deeply entrenched tradition of tomb robbing, Greenland’s portrayal of the robbers—in whom Italians see heroic tricksters and traitorous villains by turns—is both sharply analytical and descriptively captivating. She deftly articulates historical and legal detail with a rattling good story.” -- Michael Herzfeld, author of Evicted from Eternity: The Restructuring of Modern Rome“Ruling Culture is groundbreaking. Greenland addresses the problem of how culture is used by states and various non-state actors to foster allegiance to nations, investigating culture as a key building block of national identity and making a convincing case for the difference between cultural power and ideological power.” -- Richard Lachmann, author of First Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship: Elite Politics and the Decline of Great Powers“Ruling Culture provides a detailed and thought-provoking analysis of the construction of Italian national identity. It promises to be a major contribution to our understanding of Italian national identity, the institutional and legal dimensions of heritage, and the disciplinary history of archaeology. Greenland has written a first-rate piece of work and a valuable scholarly contribution.” -- Joshua Arthurs, author of Excavating Modernity: The Roman Past in Fascist Italy"Tomb robbing is not the typical sociological fare, and thanks to Fiona Greenland’s expertise and beautiful writing, Ruling Culture: Art Police, Tomb Robbers, and the Rise of Cultural Power in Italy emerges as a fresh, fascinating work of cultural analysis." * Contemporary Sociology *"[Greenland's] methods and analysis reflect her positionality as a social scientist with a deep appreciation for and understanding of the humanities. Ruling Culture is a model for how to incorporate multiple sources of data within sociological analysis." * American Journal of Sociology *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The World’s Greatest Cultural Power 1 Art Squad Agonistes 2 The American Price 3 Distributing Sovereignty: From Fascism to the Art Squad 4 Tomb Robbers and Cultural Power from Below 5 Made in Italy 6 Farewell to the Tomb Robber Acknowledgments Appendix: Methodology Notes References Index

    £91.00

  • Modern Things on Trial Islams Global and Material

    Columbia University Press Modern Things on Trial Islams Global and Material

    1 in stock

    Book SynopsisLeor Halevi tells the story of the Islamic trials of technological and commercial innovations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Shedding light on culture, commerce, and consumption in Cairo and other colonial cities, Modern Things on Trial is a groundbreaking account of Islam's material transformation in a globalizing era.Trade ReviewLeor Halevi's original study offers important perspectives on turn of the twentieth-century Islamic reformist thought in the context of changing relations between law and material history. He matches up instructive readings in legal opinions delivered in Cairo by Rashid Rida with innovative background research on the new products and technologies that prompted questions to him from around the Muslim world. -- Brinkley Messick, author of Sharīʿa Scripts: A Historical AnthropologyThis nuanced, meticulously researched, yet accessible study illuminates how significant early-twentieth-century debates on Islamic law often revolved around some surprisingly ordinary objects and how local anxieties and input shaped a reformist Islam with transregional appeal. Halevi's focus on the material dimensions of modern Islamic thought adds a very welcome and promising dimension to the scholarship in this field. -- Muhammad Qasim Zaman, author of Islam in Pakistan: A HistoryBy tracing the evolution of 'laissez-faire Salafism' in response to consumer concerns about the religious status of new commodities and technologies, Halevi positions Islam's modern reformation as driven more by materialist than ideational forces. This is a highly original rethinking of the old question of religion and modernity by looking at the material transformations—the 'modern things'—that Muslims acquired from the industrializing West. -- Nile Green, Ibn Khaldun Endowed Chair in World History, University of California, Los AngelesThis is a remarkable intervention by a pioneering scholar of Islamic law and material culture. Focusing on Rashid Rida, a leading light of modern Islamic reform, it highlights the material entanglements that catalyzed his legal rulings on novel commodities, technologies, and financial instruments. In place of dogmatism and idealism, what emerges is a riveting narrative of pragmatic and materialist accommodations in a period marked by the impact of capitalism, consumerism, and colonialism. This is revisionist history in the best sense. -- Finbarr Barry Flood, director of Silsila: Center for Material Histories, New York UniversityAn outstanding work that sets a new standard for the writing of modern Islamic intellectual history...this book will prove of enduring interest to researchers in Islamic law and modern Islamic thought, historians of the late imperial and early nation-state Muslim worlds, and students of the processes of globalization more generally. * American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences *Halevi sheds light on Islam’s relationship with modernity by offering an account of how Islamic revivalists first responded to modern transformations through religious and legal rulings. * Middle East Journal *This excellent book is paradigm shifting. . . Essential. * Choice *Halevi’s work contributes to the larger understanding of how Islamic reform in this period was often driven through thehistorical narrative of Riḍā as a reformer, illustrating a bottom-up process. * Arab Studies Quarterly *A fresh, lively, and materialist intervention against reductive readings of modern Islam. * Jadaliyya *By rejecting abstractions like “Westernization” and turning instead to how tangible things were weighed on the moral scale of sharia, Leor Halevi presents a bold and lucid new analysis of the making of modern Islam. * Los Angeles Review of Books *Halevi’s book charts the way for other scholars of law and history to write history grounded in an eclectic mix of materials in several languages from various archives around the world. * Law and Social Inquiry *Halevi’s compelling monograph is relevant to a large audience and should interest global historians and historians of empire as much as scholars of modern Islam. * American Historical Review *He not only weaves intellectual and economic history together but comes forth with a contribution that is as ground breaking and original regarding the development of a consumer culture as it is concerning legal reform. * Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies *The writing is clear, engaging, and accessible. In addition to classes on Islam, the arguments advanced heremay be pertinent to courses on theory in religious studies. * International Journal of Middle East Studies *It is a new way of looking at the issue of religion and modernity. Among other things, this book would be an excellent focus for graduates reading law and change in the modern Muslim world. * Technology and Culture *Table of ContentsList of Maps and FiguresAcknowledgmentsPrologue: The Parable of the Montgolfière and the Translation of Haleby’s CorpseIntroduction: Good Things Made Lawful: Euro-Muslim Objects and Laissez-Faire Fatwas1. The Toilet Paper Fatwa: Hygienic Innovation and the Sacred Law in the Late Imperial Era2. Fatwas for the Partners’ Club: A Global Mufti’s Enterprise3. In a Material World: European Expansion from Tripoli to Cairo4. Paper Money and Consummate Men: Capitalism and the Rise of Laissez-Faire Salafism5. The Qurʾan in the Gramophone: Sounds of Islamic Modernity from Cairo to Kazan6. Telegraphs, Photographs, Railways, Law Codes: Tools of Empire, Tools of Islam7. Arabian Slippers: The Turn to Nationalistic Consumption8. Lottery Tickets, Luxury Hotels, and Christian Experts: Economic Liberalism Versus Islamic Exclusivism in a Territorial FrameworkConclusionsNotesSelected BibliographyIndex

    1 in stock

    £91.52

© 2026 Book Curl

    • American Express
    • Apple Pay
    • Diners Club
    • Discover
    • Google Pay
    • Maestro
    • Mastercard
    • PayPal
    • Shop Pay
    • Union Pay
    • Visa

    Login

    Forgot your password?

    Don't have an account yet?
    Create account