Popular culture Books

Book SynopsisFINALIST in the Arts & Entertainment category in the 17th NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE AWARDS.RAKUGO, the Japanese art of storytelling, evolved as a form of entertainment for ordinary people during the Edo period (1603-1867). Yet, owing to its extraordinary adaptability, it has remained a relevant art form for over 400 years. It is a live performance art that has penetrated the borders of Japan and continues to gain popularity overseas. The rakugo stage once dominated by Japanese raconteurs now features foreign storytellers, as well as Japanese performers, both amateur and professional, who endeavor to entertain us in English.The only requirements for rakugo storytelling are a folding fan, a hand towel, and your imagination!In Talking About Rakugo, learn what distinguishes rakugo from Japan''s other traditional performing arts, become acquainted with its greatest contributors, enjoy some of rakugo''s most popular classical stories, and meet the performers of today.Rakugo is entertainment for the general public and Talking About Rakugo is your easy-to-understand general guide.

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Book SynopsisIntroduction Welcome to gangland UK My goodness, how things have changed Themes So what is this all about? Part I: Gangland Claims and Gangland Realities 1. Gangs, Weapons and Violence 2.The Fists and the Fury: My Life in a Sea of Gangs Part II: On Gang Talk and Gang-Talkers 3. Deciphering Gang Talk Defining gang talk Reading gang talk as a language game The seduction of gang talk Unforeseen consequences Conclusion 4. Moral Panic and Industry Emergence From reality to gang-talking fantasy: reflections on the media inventory The journey back: reshaping reality in the image of gang fantasies The industrial logic of 'gang' production Conclusion Part III: Getting Real about Violence 5. Arborealism and Rhizomatics: A Treatise The sedentary and the nomadic Arborealism Rhizomatics Back to the street Reading the street as rhizome Rhizomatic organisation Conclusion 6. Back to the Street Beyond the gang Street imperatives Instability, trauma and street life Conclusion 7. Continuities and DiscontTrade Review"The 'gang' has become a magical word used to explain away crime, riots, sexual assault, drug dealing and almost every manifestation of violence in our society. Simon Hallsworth's book is a devastating critique: iconoclastic, hard hitting, and amusing. Read it." - Jock Young, John Jay College, City University of New York, USA and author of The Criminological Imagination "Simon Hallsworth's The Gang and Beyond is precisely the sort of boldly brilliant work that criminology badly needs but seldom sees. Strikingly original in its scholarly perspective and in its narrative orientation, this book constitutes an intellectually audacious confrontation with gangs, gang scholarship, and the assumptions that surround them." - Jeff Ferrell, Texas Christian University, USA "Provocative and stimulating, this book provides an emphatic critique of the 'common sense' surrounding youth gangs in the UK and elsewhere. From auto-ethnography to moral outrage at gang talk distortions, Simon Hallsworth provides a personal and powerful indictment of the gang industry within academia, including its convergence with rapidly expanding and inappropriate gang suppression efforts, and its failure to fully understand street culture and street violence. Not to be missed." - Rob White, University of Tasmania, Australia "This book is methodologically creative (e.g. the auto-ethnography), theoretically sophisticated (e.g. the use of Deleuze), and mostly uses good humour to good effect [...] I think it is a must read, it makes an important contribution and I am adding it to my reading list for my students." - Lorcan Byrne, CrimeTalk "This is a timely book. It is bold, contentious, provocative and provides a much needed commentary on the current state of affairs in relation to our understanding of and responses to gangs in the United Kingdom ... Whether you are a 'gang talker' or a 'gang denier', Hallsworth presents a compelling and in parts, acerbic analysis of urban street gangs." - Hannah Smithson, British Journal of CriminologyTable of ContentsIntroduction Welcome to gangland UK My goodness, how things have changed Themes So what is this all about? Part I: Gangland Claims and Gangland Realities 1. Gangs, Weapons and Violence 2.The Fists and the Fury: My Life in a Sea of Gangs Part II: On Gang Talk and Gang-Talkers 3. Deciphering Gang Talk Defining gang talk Reading gang talk as a language game The seduction of gang talk Unforeseen consequences Conclusion 4. Moral Panic and Industry Emergence From reality to gang-talking fantasy: reflections on the media inventory The journey back: reshaping reality in the image of gang fantasies The industrial logic of 'gang' production Conclusion Part III: Getting Real about Violence 5. Arborealism and Rhizomatics: A Treatise The sedentary and the nomadic Arborealism Rhizomatics Back to the street Reading the street as rhizome Rhizomatic organisation Conclusion 6. Back to the Street Beyond the gang Street imperatives Instability, trauma and street life Conclusion 7. Continuities and Discontinuities in Urban Violence Street violence in the postwar period Continuities Discontinuities: on neoliberalism and its consequences Conclusion How to have a gang problem Koyaanisqutsi

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Book SynopsisMarilyn, Like You've Never Seen Her Before.

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Book SynopsisA NEW YORK TIMES AND INDIE BESTSELLER!Now in paperback with a brand-new author introduction!Part travelogue, part culinary history, all capitalist critiquecomedian Jamie Loftus''s debut, Raw Dog, will take you on a cross-country road trip in the summer of 2021, and reveal what the creation, culture, and class influence of hot dogs says about America now.A Best Book of the Year from NPR and Vulture. Featured in: NPR Weekend Edition Bon Appétit Oprah Daily Glamour NY Mag Splendid Table The Wall Street Journal Eater Betches USA Today Boston Globe Eater Slate The Next Big Idea Club Buzzfeed and more Wise and funny ANDY RICHTER Revealing, funny, sad, horny, and insatiably curious SARAH MARSHALL A wild ride ROBERT EVANS Deeply incisive and hilariously honest JACK O'BRIEN Gonzo yet vulnerable GABE DUNN Hot dog Moby-Dick BRANSON REESE One of the freshest and most insightful new comedic voices of this decade. LINDSAY ELLIS Hot dogs. Poor people created them. Rich people found a way to charge fifteen dollars for them. They're high culture, they're low culture, they're sports food, they're kids'' food, they're hangover food, and they're deeply American, despite having no basis whatsoever in America''s Indigenous traditions. You can love them, you can hate them, but you can't avoid the great American hot dog.Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs is part investigation into the cultural and culinary significance of hot dogs and part travelogue documenting a cross-country road trip researching them as they're served today. From avocado and spice in the West to ass-shattering chili in the East to an entire salad on a slice of meat in Chicago, Loftus, her pets, and her ex eat their way across the country during the strange summer of 2021. It's a brief window into the year between waves of a plague that the American government has the resources to temper, but not the interest.So grab a dog, lay out your picnic blanket, and dig into the delicious and inevitable product of centuries of violence, poverty, and ambition, now rolling around at your local 7-Eleven.This paperback edition includes Jamie''s road trip map and illustrations by the author throughout, in addition to a brand-new author introduction.Raw Dog will leave you nourished. BuzzFeedYou will certainly never read a funnier book about taking a hot dog-themed road trip across America. GlamourA journey both silly and profound. Vulture, Best Books of 2023

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Book SynopsisMario Slugan is Postdoctoral Associate Fellow in the Department of Film and Television Studies and the Department of German Studies at the University of Warwick, UK researching film philosophy and film history. He is the author of Montage as Perceptual Experience: Berlin Alexanderplatz from Döblin to Fassbinder (2017) and the managing editor of an open-access peer-reviewed academic journal Apparatus: Film, Media and Digital Cultures of Central and Eastern Europe.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Institutional Context 2. Film Theory 3.Assessment of Theory 4. Analytic and Cognitivist Debates 5. Interpretation and Filmmaking 6. Philosophy of Art Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisMariana Liz is a Research Fellow at ICS-ULisboa, in Portugal. She is the author of Euro-Visions: Europe in Contemporary Cinema (2016) and co-editor of Women's Cinema in Contemporary Portugal (2020) and The Europeanness of European Cinema: Identity, Meaning, Globalization (2015).Trade ReviewThis collection of essays on Portuguese cinema is both proof of how studies of Portuguese cinema by now can be seen as constituting an established field, as well as an indispensable tool for further inquiries into a growing body of works ... it is certain to be considered required reading for some time to come. * Portuguese Studies *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Framing the Global Appeal of Contemporary Portuguese Cinema – Mariana Liz 1. Filming Narratives Becoming Events: Documentary and the ‘Emplotments’ of the Carnation Revolution – Luís Trindade 2. Our Beloved Month of August: Between the Filming of the Real and the Reality of Filming – Rui Gonçalves Miranda 3. Political Oliveira – Randal Johnson 4. Portugal, Europe and the World: Geopolitics and the Human Condition in Manoel de Oliveira’s Films – Carolin Overhoff Ferreira 5. Amália: Stories of a Singer and Tales of a National Cinema – Anthony de Melo 6. La Cage dorée: a Franco-Portuguese Comedy of Integration – Ginette Vincendeau 7. Portugal and Europe: Cinema and the City in a Postcolonial Context – Mariana Liz 8. Contextualizing Pedro Costa’s Digital Filmmaking – Nuno Barradas Jorge 9. Broken Links: The Cinema of Teresa Villaverde – Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin 10. Mysteries of Raúl Ruiz’s Portugal: Territory, Littoral and Memory Bridge – Michael Goddard 11. White Faces / Black Masks: The White Woman’s Burden in Pedro Costa’s Down to Earth – Hilary Owen 12. Light Drops: Portugal Critically Reviewing the Colonial Past? – Paul Melo e Castro 13. Colonialism as Fantastic Realism in Tabu – Lúcia Nagib 14. Luso-Brazilian Co-Productions: Rescue and Expansion – Natália Pinazza

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