Social and cultural anthropology Books
Michigan State University Press Animals as Neighbors: The Past and Present of
Book SynopsisIn this fascinating book, Terry O’Connor explores a distinction that is deeply ingrained in much of the language that we use in zoology, human-animal studies, and archaeology - the difference between wild and domestic.For thousands of years, humans have categorized animals in simple terms, often according to the degree of control that we have over them, and have tended to see the long story of human-animal relations as one of increasing control and management for human benefit. And yet, around the world, species have adapted to our homes, our towns, and our artificial landscapes, finding ways to gain benefit from our activities and so becoming an important part of our everyday lives. These commensal animals remind us that other species are not passive elements in the world around us but intelligent and adaptable creatures.Animals as Neighbors shows how a blend of adaptation and opportunism has enabled many species to benefit from our often destructive footprint on the world. O’Connor investigates the history of this relationship, working back through archaeological records. By requiring us to take a multifaceted view of human-animal relations, commensal animals encourage a more nuanced understanding of those relations, both today and throughout the prehistory of our species.
£999.99
Michigan State University Press The Forge and the Funeral: The Smith in
Book SynopsisThroughout Africa one craft among many stands out: that of the blacksmith. In many African cultures, smiths occupy a significant position, not just as artisans engaging in a difficult craft but also as special people. Often they perform other crafts, as well, and make up a somewhat separate group inside society.The Forge and the Funeral describes the position of the smith in the culture of the Kapsiki/Higi of northern Cameroon and northeastern Nigeria. Situated in the Mandara Mountains and straddling the border of these two countries, Kapsiki culture forms a specific and highly relevant example of the phenomenon of the smith in Africa. As an endogamous group of about 5 per cent of the population, Kapsiki smiths perform an impressive array of crafts and specializations, combining magico-religious functions with metalwork, in particular as funeral directors, as well as with music and healing.The Forge and the Funeral gives an intimate description and analysis of this group, based upon the author’s four decades-long involvement with the Kapsiki/Higi. Description and analysis are set within the more general scholarly debates about the dynamics of professional closure - including the notions of caste and guild—and also consider the deep history of iron and brass in Africa.
£999.99
Michigan State University Press How We Became Human: Mimetic Theory and the
Book SynopsisFrom his groundbreaking Violence and the Sacred and Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, René Girard’s mimetic theory is presented as elucidating “the origins of culture”. He posits that archaic religion (or “the sacred”), particularly in its dynamics of sacrifice and ritual, is a neglected and major key to unlocking the enigma of “how we became human”. French philosopher of science Michel Serres states that Girard’s theory provides a Darwinian theory of culture because it “proposes a dynamic, shows an evolution and gives a universal explanation”.This major claim has, however, remained underscrutinized by scholars working on Girard’s theory, and it is mostly overlooked within the natural and social sciences. Joining disciplinary worlds, this book explores this ambitious claim, invoking viewpoints as diverse as evolutionary culture theory, cultural anthropology, archaeology, cognitive psychology, ethology, and philosophy.The contributors provide major evidence in favour of Girard’s hypothesis. Equally, Girard’s theory is presented as having the potential to become for the human and social sciences something akin to the integrating framework that present-day biological science owes to Darwin - something compatible with it and complementary to it in accounting for the still remarkably little understood phenomenon of human emergence.
£999.99
Michigan State University Press Slovenes in Michigan
Book SynopsisThe Slovenes represent a small but important microcosm of Michigan history. Thousands followed the pioneering missionary Frederic Baraga and settled in the mining regions and forests of the Upper Peninsula before many of them scattered to the auto industry of the Lower Peninsula in the early twentieth century. Everywhere they travelled and settled, they left a detectable imprint that was clearly Slovene. The first Slovene in Michigan, Bishop Frederic Baraga, travelled extensively throughout the state. In his wake, families such as the Vertins and Ruppes followed, each playing an important role in their communities.In many regions of the state, the most recognizable names, buildings, and businesses bear their names and illustrate the long-lasting influences of Slovenes on the history of Michigan. To understand the history of Slovene immigration in the Great Lakes is to better understand Michigan history.
£999.99
Chicago Review Press Monster Hunters
Book SynopsisDo ghosts exist? What about the Bigfoot, or Skinwalkers? And how will we ever know? Journalist Tea Krulos spent over a year traveling nationwide to meet individuals who have made it their life’s passion to hunt down evidence of entities that they believe exist, but that others might shrug off as nothing more than myths, fairytales, or overactive imaginations. Follow along with Krulos as he joins these believers in the field, exploring haunted houses, trekking through creepy forests, and scanning skies and lakes as they collect data on the unknown—poltergeists, Chupacabras, Skunk Apes (Bigfoot’s stinky cousins), and West Virginia’s Mothman. Along the way, he meets a diverse cast of characters—true believers, skeptics, and hoaxers—from the credible to the quirky. And in the end, Krulos leaves it to the reader to decide: are these people tilting at supernatural windmills, or are they onto something?Trade Review"Tea Krulos's Monster Hunters is not your average 'seen-it-all-before' study of Sasquatch, aliens, and creepy critters. It's an eye-opening, witty, and insightful look at the people who have dedicated their lives to solving some of the world's biggest mysteries. In many ways, the characters Krulos crosses paths with are as unique and fascinating as the 'things' they seek!" Nick Redfern, author of Monster Diary and Monster Files"Everyone has their own idea of what a ghost or Bigfoot may look like, but what about those that dedicate themselves to the pursuit of these stories? Krulos strikes out in the dark, expertly shining a flashlight not on legends or creatures of folklore, but on the very human individuals who seek their own personal truths." Aaron Sagers, Travel Channel host, ParanormalPopCulture.com founder, Blastr.com editor-at-large"[H]is approach seems to be not that these are wacky people with weird beliefs, but that these are ordinary people with beliefs most of us don't understandall of which adds up to an informative book for skeptics and believers alike." Booklist"This work is bound to be fascinating to those already interested in these fields and even to readers who are seeking an easy way to learn about people who work in these specialized areas." Library Journal
£14.20
Martino Fine Books The Gift
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£13.93
Experiment A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The
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£999.99
Experiment The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture,
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£12.34
Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale The Mask of Masculinity: How Men Can Embrace
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£20.79
University of Massachusetts Press Negotiating Culture: Heritage, Ownership, and
Book SynopsisRival claims of ownership or control over various aspects of culture are a regular feature of our twenty-first-century world. Such debates are shaping disciplines as diverse as anthropology and archaeology, art history and museum studies, linguistics and genetics.This provocative collection of essays a series of case studies in cultural ownership by scholars from a range of fields explores issues of cultural heritage and intellectual property in a variety of contexts, from contests over tangible artefacts as well as more abstract forms of culture such as language and oral traditions to current studies of DNA and genes that combine nature and culture, and even new, nonproprietary models for the sharing of digital technologies. Each chapter sets the debate in its historical and disciplinary context and suggests how the approaches to these issues are changing or should change. One of the most innovative aspects of the volume is the way each author recognises the social dimensions of group ownership and demonstrates the need for negotiation and new models. The collection as a whole thus challenges the reader to reevaluate traditional ways of thinking about cultural ownership and to examine the broader social contexts within which negotiation over the ownership of culture is taking place. In addition to Laetitia La Follette, contributors include David Bollier, Stephen Clingman, Susan DiGiacomo, Oriol Pi-Sunyer, Margaret Speas, Banu Subramaniam, Joe Watkins, and H. Martin Wobst.
£999.99
Bridge21 Publications, LLC Family, Ethnicity and State in Chinese Culture
Book SynopsisThis collection of papers from a project of the National Museum of Ethnology in Japan, unites anthropologists in an international collaborative effort to reexamine the dynamics of family, ethnicity, and the nation-state in China and in overseas Chinese society. Using ethnographic fieldwork, this book sheds light on the interactions between state, society, and identity through a variety of channels, such as family, lineage, kinship or quasi-kinship network, national frameworks such as religion association, Minority Autonomous Regions, and ethnic dress. This research demonstrates that even for the same cultural phenomenon, the discourses at the common, the elite, and the institutional levels will be adjusted based on the needs of the social context, market economy, and global networks.
£49.50
WW Norton & Co American Messiahs: False Prophets of a Damned
Book SynopsisMania surrounding messianic prophets has defined the national consciousness since the American Revolution. From Civil War veteran and virulent anticapitalist Cyrus Teed, to the dapper and overlooked civil rights pioneer Father Divine, to even the megalomaniacal Jim Jones, these figures have routinely been dismissed as dangerous and hysterical outliers. After years of studying these emblematic figures, Adam Morris demonstrates that messiahs are not just a classic trope of our national culture; their visions are essential for understanding American history. As Morris demonstrates, these charismatic, if flawed, would-be prophets sought to expose and ameliorate deep social ills—such as income inequality, gender conformity, and racial injustice. Provocative and long overdue, this is the story of those who tried to point the way toward an impossible “American Dream”: men and women who momentarily captured the imagination of a nation always searching for salvation.Trade Review"Scholar and journalist Morris examines the theological, ideological, and personal relationships among a series of American spiritual leaders over the course of two centuries in his captivating debut.... Morris's research is extensive, and his reconstruction of his subjects' complex personal histories is impressive.... A fine examination of a series of Americans whose lives and missions shed light on the dominant institutions and values they sought to subvert." -- Publishers Weekly"[A] gripping narrative…Morris shows that these oddball spiritual liberators are not just historical footnotes. They reveal society’s fundamental themes and contradictions." -- Molly Worthen, New York Times Book Review
£21.84
Prometheus Books The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of
Book SynopsisWinner of the 2017 Nautilus Silver Award! This fresh perspective on crucial questions of history identifies the root metaphors that cultures have used to construct meaning in their world. It offers a glimpse into the minds of a vast range of different peoples: early hunter-gatherers and farmers, ancient Egyptians, traditional Chinese sages, the founders of Christianity, trail-blazers of the Scientific Revolution, and those who constructed our modern consumer society. Taking the reader on an archaeological exploration of the mind, the author, an entrepreneur and sustainability leader, uses recent findings in cognitive science and systems theory to reveal the hidden layers of values that form today's cultural norms. Uprooting the tired cliches of the science-religion debate, he shows how medieval Christian rationalism acted as an incubator for scientific thought, which in turn shaped our modern vision of the conquest of nature. The author probes our current crisis of unsustainability and argues that it is not an inevitable result of human nature, but is culturally driven: a product of particular mental patterns that could conceivably be reshaped. By shining a light on our possible futures, the book foresees a coming struggle between two contrasting views of humanity: one driving to a technological endgame of artificially enhanced humans, the other enabling a sustainable future arising from our intrinsic connectedness with each other and the natural world. This struggle, it concludes, is one in which each of us will play a role through the meaning we choose to forge from the lives we lead.Trade Review""This fascinating, page-turning exploration of the human journey from the stone age to the space shuttle gives us powerful new ways to see ourselves. Deeply researched, and written with great clarity and style, this book is also full of hope about humanity’s possibilities in the twenty-first century.” —Rick Hanson, PhD, author of Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom “A tour de force on the biological and psychological background of the human predicament. If you are concerned about our future, you should know about our past. This amazing, well-documented book should be read by every college student and every congressman.” —Paul R. Ehrlich, author of Human Natures “A brilliant deep dive into the history of human cultures that brings us to today’s cultural dysfunctions that threaten the planet. Insight, illumination, and potential ways out of the seeming dead end that we’ve walked ourselves into. I would recommend it!” —Thom Hartmann, author of The Last Hours of Agent Sunlight “In prose that is a joy to read, Lent takes us on a tour of human history, guided by systems theory and cognitive science, to argue for the prominence of culture and the habits of the mind in shaping our collective destiny. If you’ve been too busy for the last twenty years to pay attention to the big ideas about the nature of the human animal, the engines of history, our place in the biosphere, and the shape of things to come, Lent can bring you up to date painlessly.” —J. R. McNeill, University Professor, Georgetown University, and author of Something New Under the Sun “The Patterning Instinct is a must-read for anyone concerned about the future of humanity. The book delves beneath the surface of problems facing our world today to examine the dominant cultural assumptions that lie at their root. The book thoughtfully traces how views about human nature and the natural world in both Eastern and Western culture have shaped history and how the emerging global culture of connectedness and the systems view of life may hold the key to humanity’s evolution and future survival.” —Atossa Soltani, Amazon Watch founder and president “This breathtaking book is already a classic. With its unique synthesis of thought history, actual historical events, and cultural patterns, it does what no other work has achieved since Lovejoy’s The Great Chain of Being. Lent explains in one sweeping argument why global civilization has separated from life. And he shows how we can find our way back into it. Lent narrates the history of humanity’s growing alienation from a shared biosphere and from our own feeling bodies with the suspense and art of a novelist. It is heart-wrenching to see to what degree thought patterns can form not only our worldview, but the actual world, handing it over to destruction. The good message though is Lent proves that humanity’s destructiveness is not God-given; it is, as any cultural pattern, reversible. That is our chance.” —Andreas Weber, author of The Biology of Wonder: Aliveness, Feeling, and the Metamorphosis of Science “Shell-shocked liberals and progressives are casting around to explain the political setbacks of 2016. The Patterning Instinct tells us that seeking answers from recent history is likely to prove forlorn; deep-seated patterns in the way we both think and behave have predisposed us to acting in ways that are self-evidently irrational and against our own interests. To have any hope of transforming this perverse and potentially apocalyptic worldview, we will need to dig much deeper into our own history—and this extraordinary book provides an authoritative and inspirational guide.” —Jonathon Porritt, environmentalist and author
£19.99
Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale What Doesn't Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme
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£14.00
Counterpoint Now You're Talking: Human Conversation from the
Book SynopsisA history of how humans developed our capacity for conversation—and what might happen now that computers are catching up.Trevor Cox has been described by The Observer as a David Attenborough of the acoustic realm. In Now You're Talking, he takes us on a journey through the wonders of human speech, starting with the evolution of language and our biological capability to speak (and listen), and bringing us up to date with the latest computer technology.Language is what makes us human, and how we speak is integral to our personal identity. But with the invention of sound recording and the arrival of the electrified voice, human communication changed forever; now advances in computer science and artificial intelligence are promising an even greater transformation. And with it come the possibilities to reproduce, manipulate, and replicate the human voice—sometimes with disturbing consequences.Now You're Talking is the fascinating story of our ability to converse. It takes us back to the core of our humanity, asking important questions about what makes us human and how this uniqueness might be threatened. On this illuminating tour we meet vocal coaches and record producers, neuroscientists and computer programmers, whose experience and research provide us with a deeper understanding of something that most of us take for granted—our ability to talk and listen.
£18.04
Regal House Publishing LLC Your Black Friend Has Something to Say: A Memoir
Book SynopsisYour Black Friend Has Something To Say is a powerful debut and an intimate examination of race and identity. For thirty years Melva Graham has lived and worked in neighborhoods that are predominantly white and wealthy. Just to be clear, she is neither. The only thing that makes her more uncomfortable than talking about herself is talking about race—and she has decided to do both. In this bold and brutally honest memoir Melva answers back to the bias and bigotry she has experienced from childhood to adulthood, as she attends private school in a Pittsburgh suburb, studies acting at NYU, works as a nanny for the one percent, and balances a social life in between. This narrative depicts one woman’s journey to own her truth, find her voice, and take back her power.Trade Review"In Your Black Friend Has Something to Say , Melva Graham digs deep into the dangers of being labeled a token and the insidious ways racism creeps into everyday interactions. These poignant essays are an insightful and honest exploration of race relations, providing context and history as to how a seemingly innocuous comment can turn into a harmful microaggression. This should be required reading." Brandy Colbert, award-winning author, The Revolution of Birdie Randolph
£13.25
Catapult The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with our
Book SynopsisA masterful hybrid of nature writing and cultural studies that investigates our connection with deer?from mythology to biology, from forests to cities, from coexistence to control and extermination?and invites readers to contemplate the paradoxes of how humans interact with and shape the natural worldDeer have been an important part of the world that humans occupy for millennia. They?re one of the only large animals that can thrive in our presence. In the 21st century, our relationship is full of contradictions: We hunt and protect them, we cull them from suburbs while making them an icon of wilderness, we see them both as victims and as pests. But there is no doubt that we have a connection to deer: in mythology and story, in ecosystems biological and digital, in cities and in forests.Delving into the historical roots of these tangled attitudes and how they play out in the present, Erika Howsare observes scientists capture and collar fawns, hunters show off their trophies, a museum interpreter teaching American history while tanning a deer hide, an animal-control officer collecting the carcasses of deer killed by sharpshooters, and a woman bottle-raising orphaned fawns in her backyard. As she reports these stories, Howsare?s eye is always on the bigger picture: Why do we look at deer in the ways we do, and what do these animals reveal about human involvement in the natural world? For readers of H is for Hawk and Fox & I, The Age of Deer offers a unique and intimate perspective on a very human relationship.
£22.40
Catapult Dialogue with a Somnambulist: Stories, Essays & A
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£21.60
University Press of Colorado Olmec Lithic Economy at San Lorenzo
Book SynopsisOlmec Lithic Economy at San Lorenzo examines the specialized craft production, manufacturing, adoption, and spread of obsidian cutting tools at San Lorenzo, Mexico, the first major Olmec center to develop in the southern Gulf Coast region of Mesoamerica.
£999.99
University Press of Colorado Engaged Archaeology in the Southwestern United
Book SynopsisThis volume of proceedings from the fifteenth biennial Southwest Symposium makes the case for engaged archaeology, an approach that considers scientific data and traditional Indigenous knowledge alongside archaeological theories and methodologies.
£999.99
University Press of Colorado Maya Gods of War
Book SynopsisMaya Gods of War investigates the Classic period Maya gods who were associated with weapons of war and the flint and obsidian from which those weapons were made.
£999.99
University Press of Colorado The Dawn of Industrial Agriculture in Iowa:
Book SynopsisIn The Dawn of Industrial Agriculture in Iowa E. Paul Durrenberger recounts the transformation of Iowa's family farms into today's agricultural industry through the lens of the lives and writings of Iowa novelist Paul Corey and poet Ruth Lechlitner. This anthropological biography analyzes Corey's fiction, Lechlitner's poetry, and their professional and personal correspondence to offer a new perspective on an era (19251947) that saw the collapse and remaking of capitalism in the United States, the rise of communism in the Soviet Union, the rise and defeat of fascism around the world, and the creation of a continuous warfare state in America. Durrenberger tells the story that Corey aimed to record and preserve of the industrialization of Iowa's agriculture and the death of its family farms. He analyzes Corey's regionalist focus on Iowa farming and regionalism's contemporaneous association in Europe with rising fascism. He explores Corey's adoption of naturalism, evident in his resistance to heroes and villains, to plot structure and resolution, and to moral judgment, as well as his ethnographic tendency to focus on groups rather than individuals. An unusual and wide-ranging study, The Dawn of Industrial Agriculture in Iowa offers important insight into the relationships among fiction, individual lives, and anthropological practice, as well as into a pivotal period in American history.
£999.99
University Press of Colorado Where Did the Eastern Mayas Go?: The Historical,
Book SynopsisIn Where Did the Eastern Mayas Go?Brent E. Metz explores the complicatedissue of who is Indigenous by focusing on the sociohistorical transformations over thepast two millennia of the population currently known as the Ch orti Maya.
£999.99
University Press of Colorado Life at the Margins of the State: Comparative
Book SynopsisLife at the Margins of the State examines thesociopolitical and cultural nuances, negotiations, and strategies of resistance developed by marginal communitiesincluding frontiers, borderlands, borders, and other locations where there was a substantive difference in scale from more hegemonic political entities. The volume explores not just the nature of interactions in the political margins but the political, social, and economic trajectories of the societies that formed there. Case studies from the New and Old Worldsincluding historic California, medieval Iceland, ancient Mesoamerica, ancient Nubia, colonial El Salvador, the prehistoric Levant, pre-Columbian Amazon, Africa's historic central Sahel, and ancient Peruoffer novel perspectives on how borderland societies adapted to the unique human and natural environments of these liminal spaces. Contributors draw on archaeological evidence as well as historical documents and linguistic data to facilitate the documentation of local histories and the strategies employed by communities living in or near ancient states and empires. This close study of groups on the margins shows that peripheral polities are not simply the by-products of complexity emanating from a political core and demonstrates that traditional assumptions and models need to be reconsidered. Contributors: Tara D. Carter, Mikael Fauvelle, Elena A.A. Garcea, Esteban Gomez, Scott MacEachern, Claire Novotny, Bradley J Parker, Erin Smith, John H. Walker
£63.44
University Press of Colorado The Power of Nature: Archaeology and
Book SynopsisClimatic events, pathogens, and animals as nonhuman agents, ranging in size from viruses to mega-storms, have presented our species with dynamic conditions that overwhelm human capacities.
£999.99
University Press of Colorado Power and Identity at the Margins of the Ancient
Book SynopsisPower and Identity at the Margins of the Ancient Near East rethinks the dichotomy between antiquated terms such as core and periphery, explores lived realities in the margins of central authority, and centers those margins as places of resistance and power in their own right.
£999.99
University Press of Colorado The Transnational Construction of Mayanness:
Book SynopsisThe Transnational Construction of Mayanness explores how US academics, travelers, officials, and capitalists contributed to the construction of the Maya as an area of academic knowledge and affected the lives of the Maya peoples who were the subject of generations of anthropological research from the mid-nineteenth century to the present.
£999.99
University of Alaska Press The Upper Tanana Dene: People of This Land
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£999.99
University Press of Colorado Temporalities in Mesoamerican Ritual Practices
Book SynopsisTemporalities inMesoamericanRitual Practicesexamines the time-based dimensions of ritual activities in past and present Mesoamerican societies, including the prehispanic, colonial, and modern periods. The authors explore ritual around three principal categories of action?creating, transforming, and destroying?as significant cultural manifestations of the temporal dimension of transition processes. Based on specific case studies, new analysis of fieldwork data, and long-term collaboration between authors,chaptersengage empirically and theoretically with the multiple temporalities of ritual in relation to both the unfolding of ritual performance and its external and symbolic anchors.Taking rituals as a series of specific, formalized actions that produce transitory changes within an initial context, the authors examine activities that generate change linked to artifact production, life cycles, healing, conflict resolution, crisis management, the enthronement of rulers and transfers of responsibilities, and practices relating to the occupation, abandonment, reuse, or conversion of socialized spaces. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach in archaeology, ethnohistory, anthropology, and linguistic anthropology,Temporalities inMesoamericanRitual Practicesoffers new insights into ritual time approached through multi-semiotic, material, sensorial, and pragmatic perspectives that encourage further interdisciplinary dialogue.
£999.99
Melville House Publishing The Future of the Self
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£12.40
Center for Humans and Nature Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations, Vol.
Book Synopsis*Part of the 5-Volume Set 2022 Nautilus Book Award Gold Medal Winner: Ecology & Environment and Special Honors as Best of Anthology Volume 2 of the Kinship series revolves around the question of place-based relations: To what extent does crafting a deeper connection with the Earth’s bioregions reinvigorate a sense of kinship with the place-based beings, systems, and communities that mutually shape one another? We live in an astounding world of relations. We share these ties that bind with our fellow humans—and we share these relations with nonhuman beings as well. From the bacterium swimming in your belly to the trees exhaling the breath you breathe, this community of life is our kin—and, for many cultures around the world, being human is based upon this extended sense of kinship. Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations is a lively series that explores our deep interconnections with the living world. The five Kinship volumes—Planet, Place, Partners, Persons, Practice—offer essays, interviews, poetry, and stories of solidarity, highlighting the interdependence that exists between humans and nonhuman beings. More than 70 contributors—including Robin Wall Kimmerer, Richard Powers, David Abram, J. Drew Lanham, and Sharon Blackie—invite readers into cosmologies, narratives, and everyday interactions that embrace a more-than-human world as worthy of our response and responsibility. Given the place-based circumstances of human evolution and culture, global consciousness may be too broad a scale of care. “Place,” Volume 2 of the Kinship series, addresses the bioregional, multispecies communities and landscapes within which we dwell. The essayists and poets in this volume take us around the world to a variety of distinctive places—from ethnobiologist Gary Paul Nabhan’s beloved and beleaguered sacred U.S.-Mexico borderlands, to Pacific islander and poet Craig Santos Perez’s ancestral shores, to writer Lisa María Madera’s “vibrant flow of kinship” in the equatorial Andes expressed in Pacha Mama’s constitutional rights in Ecuador. As Chippewa scholar-activist Melissa Nelson observes about kinning with place in her conversation with John Hausdoerffer: “Whether a desert mesa, a forested mountain, a windswept plain, or a crowded city—those places also participate in this serious play with raven cries, northern winds, car traffic, or coyote howls.” This volume reveals the ways in which playing in, tending to, and caring for place wraps us into a world of kinship. Proceeds from sales of Kinship benefit the nonprofit, non-partisan Center for Humans and Nature, which partners with some of the brightest minds to explore human responsibilities to each other and the more-than-human world. The Center brings together philosophers, ecologists, artists, political scientists, anthropologists, poets and economists, among others, to think creatively about a resilient future for the whole community of life.Trade Review“This collection is a passionate call to turn towards the living Earth with reverence and respect, and in so doing to cultivate new and old forms of curiosity, of understanding, and of responsibility. Across five captivating volumes, Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations brings together a rich diversity of voices and perspectives. Contributions range in form from poetry to interviews and essays, drawing on and engaging with the insights of Indigenous stories, philosophy, the natural sciences, and much more. Ultimately, this is a collection that does much more than simply describe the webs of relationship that are our world of kin. At the same time, it invites and at times pulls the reader into a sense of the fundamental sharedness of all life and our profound obligations, perhaps now more than ever, to hold open room for others to be and to become in their own unique and precious ways.”—Thom van Dooren, author of The Wake of Crows: Living and Dying in Shared Worlds“Essential reading about the question of our time: how to belong. A chorus of beautiful, wise, grieving, exulting, and generative voices, guiding us into true ‘family values’ for a wild living Earth. These collections offer rare and rich insight into how to find, honor, and heal the bonds of blood, place, time, and ethics that knit us to all other beings.”—David George Haskell, author of The Forest Unseen and The Songs of Trees"Sometimes when we are working with a document, when it’s growing and changing, we call it “live.” Likewise, this book is live. It’s full of life. It’s living inside you as you read it and you are living inside it. It’s changing you and you’re changing it. May this book be a living document that guides us toward love and care for all kin."—Janisse Ray, author of Wild Spectacle"The Kinship series of books is an ensemble of outstanding essays that reveal the truth that reality is rooted in relationships. After reading these marvellous essays, it becomes crystal clear that there is no reality outside relationships. These books shatter the old story of separation between humans and Nature and explode the belief that nature is a machine and the planet Earth is a dead rock. Here is the new story of the living Earth and a celebration of deep connectivity of life; human as well as more-than-human life. These are inspiring and enlightening essays. They will change your perception of Nature. I recommend these books wholeheartedly!"—Satish Kumar, Founder, Schumacher College, Editor Emeritus, Resurgence & Ecologist“What a joyful series this is, this family of books, crafted with love, clarity, and compassion by a family of poets, scholars, and sages. Together the volumes form a five-part harmony, converging beautifully around notions of kinship and kinning. The authors ask, how do we rightly relate? How may we learn to live well with our kin? Can we listen with sensitivity to the voices and languages of others, the beings with fur, claws, wings, scales, and fins with whom we share the mountains, rivers, seas, grasslands, and forests, places that ring with spirit and meaning, too, who are family, too? The chapters are stories as much as studies, narratives born from experience, wisdom, and observations over many generations. I can’t wait to share this family with my students and colleagues in conservation and anthropology, and with my friends and kin everywhere.”—Dr. Amanda Stronza, Anthropologist and Professor of Ecology and Conservation Biology, Texas A&M University“Kinship is essential reading. Five books of elemental grace and charm, beginning with a spider's web. Each strand glistens in the sunlight, dreaming, catch and release, a journey through the multiverse. Each gathering of words, a page, a tribe, a story of who we are, who we have been, and who we've yet to become, shiny, bright, new, and very old. The DNA of rock and stone, of all our relations, the chemistry of breathing, letting go, and Love. Again, again, and again.”—John Francis, PhD, author of Planetwalker: 17 Years of Silence, 22 Years of Walking “At a time when divisive politics and human-first ideologies dominate public discourse, Kinship provides a deeply-moving, soul-rejuvenating, and course-correcting primer for recognizing and building relationships among all living things. Here readers will find solace in essays and poems about what we’re losing, as well as inspiration for how to live well with other humans—and with our other-than-human kin. But Kinship is more than instructive. Taken together, these exquisite volumes are a balm for the soul.”—Dr. Amy Brady, Executive Director of Orion magazine"Kinship is the type of series I would want to gift to my wild, untamed, and unschooled children, for from its pages springs an education at the end of homogenous time, a crack in the tarmac of ascension, an insurgency of the hitherto invisible. At a time when the human is no longer tenable as a category unto itself, we will need the prophetic voices of these poets, philosophers, mothers, fathers, scientists, thinkers, public intellectuals, artists, and awestruck fugitives to kindle a politics of humility, to help us fall down to earth from our gilded perches, to help us stray from the threatening familiarity of our own image. It is time to meet the others we imagined we left behind: this constellation of stars will guide us."—Bayo Akomolafe, Ph.D., author of These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home “The Kinship series upends colonial paradigms around humans and our relationship with more-than-human nature. These paradigms have driven mainstream environmental movements to engage in myopic efforts that at times have exacerbated ecological imbalances. Through stories, essays, art, poetry, and more, contributors chip away at the layers that bind our collective colonial ethos. Rather than owning nature, we are urged to think about our kinship with all that is nonhuman. Rather than controlling our environments using methods rooted in human exceptionalism (i.e., we know best), we are urged to learn from our kin. Rather than “using” land, water, and wildlife as “natural resources,” we are urged to be in reciprocity and right relationship with our kin. Rather than labeling birds, rocks, and rivers as “it,” we are urged to think of them as persons who have their own rights. Rather than being static, we are urged to be kinetic (Kin-etic?). Decolonization begins with unlearning, and this is a good place to begin.”—Aparna Rajagopal (she/her), founding partner of the Avarna Group and cofounder of PGM ONE Summit"The wonderful essays gathered here will stir minds and open hearts with the reminder that kinship is about how all things are connected, and that these relationships are best when acknowledged, attended to, and above all, savored."—Florence Williams, author of The Nature Fix: How Being in Nature Makes us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative
£999.99
Nimbus Publishing Limited Évangéline: The Many Identities of a Literary
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£25.16
Greenhill Books Going Rogue (At Hebrew School)
Book SynopsisTen-year-old Avery Green loves science. He loves football. He is crazy about Star Wars. But Hebrew school? No, thank you. Avery would rather have his arms sliced off with a lightsaber than sit through one more day of Hebrew School. He’s only asked about a million times why he has to go, but no one in his family has managed to convince him. And then one day, Rabbi Bob shows up. He is strange, but how strange? And strange how? Piecing together some unusual clues, Avery begins to suspect that this new rabbi might be a Jedi master. Armed with something more powerful than a lightsaber, he sets out to reveal the surprising truth. Going Rogue (at Hebrew School) is a hilarious tale about the deep passions of a ten-year-old boy, Judaism, family, big questions and the surprising journey one can have in pursuit of truth and understanding. A book for any child who questions the purpose of religious school and any parent who has run out of answers.
£11.69
Verso Books Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and
Book Synopsis"Latinx" (pronounced 'La-teen-ex) is the gender-neutral term that covers the largest racial minority in the United States, 17 percent of the country. This is the fastest-growing sector of American society, containing the most immigrants. It is the poorest ethnic group in the country, whose political empowerment is altering the balance of forces in a growing number of states. And yet, Latin barely figure in America's racial conversation-the US census does not even have a category for "Latino." In this groundbreaking discussion, Ed Morales explains how Latin political identities are tied to a long Latin American history of mestizaje, translatable as "mixedness" or "hybridity", and that this border thinking is both a key to understanding bilingual, bicultural Latin cultures and politics and a challenge to America's infamously black/white racial regime. This searching and long-overdue exploration of a crucial development in American life updates Cornel West's bestselling Race Matters with a Latin inflection.Trade ReviewAn important contribution. * Morning Star *The book's deep dive into the crosscurrents of Latinx identity is a powerful reminder that, as Americans wrestle with questions about who is and who is not 'American' - and, indeed, questions about what it means to be an American in the 21st century - the nation can benefit immensely from the robust inclusion and understanding of a community that has spent generations grappling with nearly every facet of its own identity. -- Julian Castro * The New York Times *The term Latinx is here to stay, and according to journalist and author Ed Morales, it's reflective of the mixed-race and multicultural history of Latinos - and our country's future.Ed Morales examines how Latinx people figure into America's conversations about race and ethnicity, while exploring the contradictions surrounding Latino American identity. -- Raul A. Reyes * NBC News *A sprawling study of Hispanic identity in the United States.Ed Morales stresses the "in-between space" that Latinos inhabit, crossing racial, national, cultural and gender identities and sometimes falling into the cracks. -- Carlos Lozada * Washington Post *
£19.00
Oxbow Books Antiquarianisms: Contact, Conflict, Comparison
Book SynopsisAntiquarianism and collecting have been associated intimately with European imperial and colonial enterprises, although both existed long before the early modern period and both were (and continue to be) practiced in places other than Europe. Scholars have made significant progress in the documentation and analysis of indigenous antiquarian traditions, but the clear-cut distinction between “indigenous” and “colonial” archaeologies has obscured the intense and dynamic interaction between these seemingly different endeavours. This book concerns the divide between local and foreign antiquarianisms focusing on case studies drawn primarily from the Mediterranean and the Americas. Both regions host robust pre-modern antiquarian traditions that have continued to develop during periods of colonialism. In both regions, moreover, colonial encounters have been mediated by the antiquarian practices and preferences of European elites. The two regions also exhibit salient differences. For example, Europeans claimed the “antiquities” of the eastern Mediterranean as part of their own, “classical,” heritage, whereas they perceived those of the Americas as essentially alien, even as they attempted to understand them by analogy to the classical world. These basic points of comparison and contrast provide a framework for conjoint analysis of the emergence of hybrid or cross-bred antiquarianisms. Rather than assuming that interest in antiquity is a human universal, this book explores the circumstances under which the past itself is produced and transformed through encounters between antiquarian traditions over common objects of interpretation.Trade Review[…] a collection of ten papers that approach the complex question of antiquarianism in a variety of ways. * Antiquity *Antiquarianisms is a significant contribution to current scholarship on antiquarian traditions. Not only does the volume add to Schnapp’s blueprint for comparing varying antiquarian practices, it also challenges its own goals and asks the reader to do the same in existing and future scholarship. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *...a demonstration of the historical dynamism within two discrete locales of antiquarian endeavour is very welcome, particularly as it underscores an important truth: that antiquarianism can provide a more conducive space to explore, in concert with people who are not specialists, the diverse connections between past and present. * European Journal of Archaeology *
£33.25
Verso Books Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the
Book SynopsisJust as Donald Trump's victorious campaign for the US presidency shocked liberal Americans, the seemingly sudden national prominence of white supremacists, xenophobes, militia leaders, and mysterious "Alt-Right" leaders mystifies many. But the extreme Right has been growing steadily in the US since the 1990s, with the rise of patriot militias. Following 9/11, conspiracy theorists found fresh life; and in virulent reaction to the first black president of the country, militant racists have come out of the woodwork. Nurtured by a powerful right-wing media sector in radio, TV, and online, the Far Right, Tea Party movement conservatives, and Republican activists found common ground - an alternative America that is resurgent, even as it has been ignored by the political establishment and mainstream media.Investigative reporter David Neiwert has been tracking extremists for more than two decades, and here he provides a deeply reported and authoritative report on the background, mindset, and growth of Far Right movements across the country. The product of years of reportage, and including the most in-depth investigation of Trump's ties to Far Right figures, this is a crucial book about one of the most disturbing sides of American society.Trade ReviewThe seemingly sudden reemergence of the far right in America has left many in a state of panic and bewilderment. Alt-America will be essential in helping us to comprehend the depth of its foundations in national life. -- Angela Nagle, author of Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4Chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-RightOver the last two decades, David Neiwert has been one of our finest analysts of the American far right, paying sustained, serious and careful attention to the seemingly fringe movements of conspiracy theorists and insurrectionists. Now it turns out these movements are not so fringe after all but have helped elect Donald Trump as president. This crisply written book, grounded in his solid reporting, tells the whole sordid story with clarity and force. More than anyone else, Neiwert understands that Trumpism has deep roots in American culture and history. In this book, he lays out those roots for all to see. -- Jeet Heer, Senior Editor at the New RepublicFor over a decade, David Neiwert has been America's canary in the coal mine-our national early-warning system on the spread of corrosive, eliminationist, right-wing hatred in our midst. -- Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of AmericaDavid Neiwert is among the most astute analysts of the contemporary right. -- Joe Conason, author of Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the TruthNeiwert has not only earned his investigative chops over the past decade or so by exploring the dangerous side of right-wing extremism-he's proven himself to be one of the more lyrical and elegant writers on the beat. * Daily Kos *An alarming, well-researched account of how the far-right extremist underground became empowered in the era of Trump . A prescient discussion of one of the darkest issues facing America today. -- KirkusOffers the most comprehensive account of the United States' renewed extremist cultures . Alt-America excites in its ability to connect the seemingly extraordinary alt-right to the broader culture of wing-nut conservatism, drawing white nationalism, 4chan, Donald Trump, Alex Jones and Fox News together into a wonky negaverse version of political life. -- John Semley * Globe and Mail *Neiwert's book masterfully exposes so many of the interstices between Trump, the far-right nationalists and the toxic manipulators of social media, each feeding off the others. -- Michael Hirsch * The Indypendent *Tracing the ebbs and flows of this far-right extremism in the United States over the last 20 years, Neiwert argues that white nationalist activity in the age of Trump is simply the latest flare-up of what he calls 'Alt-America,' or the segment of the American population that has fed on conspiracy theories, racist misinformation, and deep distrust of federal institutions for decades. -- J.C. Pan * New Republic *
£20.00
Reaktion Books Fat: A Cultural History of the Stuff of Life
Book SynopsisFat. Such a little word evokes big responses. While "fat" describes the size and shape of bodies--their appearance--our negative reactions to corpulence also depend on something tangible and tactile. As this book argues, there is more to fat than meets the eye. Fat: A Cultural History of the Stuff of Life offers reflections on how fat has been perceived and imagined in the West since antiquity. Featuring fascinating historical accounts as well as philosophical, religious, and cultural analyses--including discussions of status, gender, and race--the book digs deep into the past for the roots of our current notions and prejudices. Two central themes emerge: how we have perceived and imagined corpulent bodies over the centuries, and how fat--as a substance as well as a description of body size--has been associated with vitality and fertility as well as perceptions of animality. By exploring the complex ways in which fat, fatness, and fattening have been perceived over time, this book provides rich insights into the stuff our stereotypes are made of.Trade Review"Fat is the definitive overview of what bodily excess means and has meant in Western society. . . . Forth's dramatic account of how we got to this point, written with grace and a touch of irony, points out that no other bodily state, not sexual orientation, not addiction, not mental illness, remains so totally demonized as the world of the XXXXL. A vital and critical addition to the cultural history of the body by a master of the genre."--Sander Gilman, author of "Fat: The Biography"
£999.99
Intellect Books The Lure of the Social: Encounters with
Book SynopsisThis new and original book is a creative practice ethnography, which navigates a spectrum where at one end the author works closely with socially engaged artists as part of her ethnographic research, and at the other she tries to find a critical distance to write about their art projects and the institutional structures that support their work, such as art schools and conferences. Artists increasingly find themselves working in participatory settings where skills in social engagement are as essential as their creative skills. The author was involved in the field of social practices from its early stages and stayed engaged with the primary movers in the field for nearly two decades as a witness, participant and critical observer. Her writing evokes the people and places she discusses, and her writing style is personal and accessible. Over the course of the book, readers are introduced to artists and their work, and to the key debates and issues facing this fast-growing and emergent field. The author navigates the contradictions and paradoxes of this field of practice through description and analysis and, importantly, gives voice to the artists who are working to make art relevant in times of social and political uncertainty. The problems addressed by social practices, as well as their contradictions, very much reflect our troubled political global moment. This book is a significant contribution to the field – few people have followed the development of social practices for as long as Coombs, and her dual perspective as an art critic and anthropologist make her ideally placed to describe and evaluate the institutions and practices. While there are many books already in this growing field, the experimental and intensely personal nature of this book sets it apart. It could be a useful teaching tool to generate debate around the tensions and paradoxes inherent in the field of social practices and politically engaged art. Students will appreciate the author’s attempt to convey what it was really like to be there at certain key events and insights gained from direct conversations with the artists, curators and writers shaping the field. Relevant to academics working in, and students studying, art and social practice, community arts programmes, contemporary anthropology, cultural historians and those with an interest in the sociology of art, protest or activism. Will appeal to artists, writers and students interested in the history of how social practices developed as a field through its practitioners, discourse and lived experience. Trade Review"What story do you want to hear about social practices?’ was the opening question Coombs posed to the artists she met. The responses are fleshed out in this engaging ethnography of a complex, contested field of arts practice. [...] We can never get a real sense of the places, people and processes involved in social practices unless we were there, but thankfully Coombs was listening in, taking notes. The result is a collection of encounters that trace the ideas that have informed these socially engaged artists. The whispers between delegates, the discussions over lunches have informed Coombs’ own positionality and understanding of the stories artists tell. The way she has written these up allows for the contradictions felt in these practices to be aired. The book presents hope in these ‘pockets of resistance’, that these processes and ways of working can effect change.' -- Sophie Hope, Cultural Sociology“A modern-day Vasari’s The Lives of The Artists for the era of socially engaged art, The Lure of the Social is an intimate journey with key individuals into the gatherings and institutions that make up the field. Coombs' voice is insightful and knowledgeable, and the writing is moving and often strikingly beautiful. While there are many, many books on Socially Engaged Art, the experimental and intensely personal nature of this book sets it apart. It is a book of and for the field.” -- Stephen Duncombe, professor of media and culture at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study and the department of media, culture and communication at the Steinhardt School of New York University. Author of Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy“Gretchen Coombs’s important, engaging book puts the ‘social’ back into the often institutionalized medium of social practice. Through a series of studio visits, Coombs takes the reader behind the scenes, creating nuanced and telling portraits of some of today’s leading practitioners. Coombs’s approach—at once critical and anthropological—is blissfully unrhetorical. The Lure of the Social captures the heart of one of the most important artistic movements to emerge in the 21st century, and one that is here to stay.” -- Chris Kraus, author of Social Practices and After Kathy Acker: A Literary Biography“Artists and activists lured to the social—anyone interested in leaping the walls between art and life—will find this book a smart, accessible, and eye-opening treasure trove. It is full of fascinating projects, many new to me, presented on a first-name basis through the author's intimate discussions with the artists and facilitating organizations. The pros and cons of social practice art have rarely been so intelligently examined.” -- Lucy R. Lippard, author of Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics and Art in the Changing WestTable of ContentsAcknowledgements A Letter to the Preeminent Feminist Art Critic Lucy Lippard Introduction: Art and Social Practice Art & Social Practice: A Constellation of Influences Encounters Contemporary Artists (and One Curartor) Ted Purves Come Together (Harrell Fletcher) Jen Delos Reyes Amy Spiers Aaron Hughes Gregory Sholette Fallen Fruit: Austin Young and David Allen Burns Chloë Bass Gabrielle de Vietri Carol Zou Astra Taylor Bek Conroy Aaron Gach Marisa Jahn Nato Thompson Institutions California College of the Arts Otis Public Practice The Shape of a Conference Come Together On and Off Stage Field Notes Spectres of Evaluation, Rethinking: Art/Community/Value Open Engagement: Life/Work Queens Museum, New York City, May 2014 A Lived Practice Creative Time Summit: The Curriculum Open Engagement: Place and Revolution Creative Time Summit: The Curriculum Civic Actions: Artists’ Practices Beyond the Museum Creative Time Summit: The Curriculum ENGAGE MORE NOW! A Symposium on Artists, Museums, and Publics Open Engagement: Power Creative Time Summit: Occupy the Future College Art Association Creative Time Summit: Of Homelands and Revolutions Open Engagement: Sustainability Denouement Notes
£999.99
Hodder & Stoughton General Division Watching the English The Hidden Rules of English
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£19.62
Spinifex Press The Day Kadi Lost Part of Her Life
Book SynopsisA moving photo-story of four-year-old Kadi, subjected to female genital mutilation in accordance with the traditions of her community.Trade Review"Spinifex Press should be congratulated for having the courage to publish this book and subsequently promoting a greater awareness of FGM in the community." --"Healthsharing Women"
£13.46
ISI Books Plagues of the Mind
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£999.99
University of Alaska Press The Sami People
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£999.99
University of Alaska Press Alaska Eskimo Footwear
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£999.99
University of Alaska Press Social Life in Northwest Alaska: The Structure of
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£999.99
Fons Vitae,US The Thread-Spirit: The Symbolism of Knotting and
Book SynopsisBased on comprehensive research of textile arts and traditional symbolism, this compendium explores how societies, in the absence of writing, imparted wisdom to the next generation through the use of objects and practices of daily life, namely fibre arts - knotting, weaving, spinning, basketry, among others.
£32.09
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research Rainforest Foraging and Farming in Island
Book SynopsisThe cathedral-like Niah Caves of Sarawak (Borneo) have iconic status in the archaeology of Southeast Asia, due to the excavations by Tom and Barbara Harrisson in the 1950s and 1960s which revealed the longest sequence of human occupation in the region, from (we now know) 50,000 years ago to the recent past. This book is the first of two volumes describing the results of new work in the caves by a multi-disciplinary team of archaeologists and geographers aimed at clarifying the many questions raised by the earlier work. This volume is a closely integrated account of how the old and new work combines to provide profound new insights into the prehistory of the region: the strategies developed by our species to live in rainforests from the time of first arrival; how rainforest foragers engaged in forms of ‘vegeculture’ thousands of years before rice farming; and how rice farming represented profound transformations in the social (and spiritual?) lives of rainforest dwellers, far more than being the dietary staple that it is today.
£94.90
Triarchy Press Deserted Devices and Wasted Fences: Everyday
Book SynopsisHow can we imagine a technologized life that deviates from globalized norms and standardization and from our collective obsession with endless growth? In 'Deserted Devices and Wasted Fences', artist and cultural critic Dani Ploeger examines everyday technologies found in places and circumstances that are usually unforeseen by their designers, manufacturers and marketers. He travels through second-hand markets in sub-Saharan Africa, the frontline in the Russo-Ukrainian War, desert landscapes in the Middle East, anti-immigration fences on the EU border and many other sites of turmoil, disruption and surprising convergences. Examining the ways in which technologies that were intended for use in everyday consumer culture start to (mal)function, gain new meanings and are appropriated in these liminal spaces can give us hints at what alternative techno-cultures could look like. This collection of essays provokes unusual perspectives on how technologies might be developed, used and reappropriated in support of people’s personal, local and regional lifeworlds and lifestyles.Trade Review“Highly recommended for all scholars, thinkers, artists… well for anyone with an interest in stuff, things, technology, waste, bodies, consumerism, and so much else that’s going in our crazy, divided and imperilled world. Delivered in wonderfully erudite and insightful, not to mention often plainly hilarious, bite-sized chunks of smart observation and edgy practice across a myriad quotidian but often less visible lives and situations - and all entangled with enough theoretical sophistication to inspire critical reflection in any reader, without drowning them. In this book Ploeger and his diverse collaborators offer an exciting, and sometimes disturbing reflection upon some of the key issues of our time. Not to be missed.”; Joost Fontein, Professor of Anthropology, University of Johannesburg; "I very much recommend this very captivating read of Ploeger’s endeavour to highlight not only the wastages of our ‘throwaway’ society, but also globally explore and posit innovative ways that already exist or could exist to rethink and reappropriate technology, at the same time producing new significatory ways of technological being."; Susan Broadhurst, Professor Emerita of Performance and Technology, Brunel University London / Chair, Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts (DRHA); “This book is gritty and provocative, asking us to review technologies through a radical vision. The festival, the event and the everyday come together in an enticing assemblage. Exceptional in terms of intellectual contributions and vantage point.”; Yasmin Ibrahim, Professor of Digital Economy and Culture, Queen Mary, University of LondonTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Tactical Transgressions: Bashar al-Assad’s phone 2. E-Waste in Cling Film: The symbolic order of technological progress 3. Hi-Tech Everything: A report from the heart of techno-consumerism 4. Eerie Prostheses and Kinky Strap-Ons: Mori’s uncanny valley and ableist ideology 5. The Dirt Inside: Computers and the performance of dust 6. Orodha: The ultimate fetish commodity and its reversal 7. Frugal Phone / Material Medium 8. Positioning the Middle of Nowhere: GPS technology and the desert 9. Sounds of Violence: The affective tonality of high-tech warfare 10. Smart Bombs, Bulldozers and the Technology of Hidden Destruction 11. Smart Technologies and Soviet Guns: The dialectics of postdigital warfare 12. Techno-Mythology on the Border: The pandemic risk society 13. Camera Surveillance and Barbed Wire 14. The Smart Fence is the Message: EU border barriers as violent media 15. The Deluxe Anti-Terrorist Barrier 16. Struggle and Expand: The Delta Works as colonial technology Postscript: Artificial techno-myths
£11.88
Baraka Books Inuit and Whalers on Baffin Island Through German
Book SynopsisTold from an ordinary man’s perspective, these are the journal and letters of Wilhelm Weike as he accompanied Franz Boas—the father of modern anthropology—on his journey to the arctic from 1883 to 1884. This extraordinary document of early arctic history provides a plain, direct view of the Inuit and the whalers in their arctic environment at the end of the 19th century. With invaluable contextual and complementary information, this book contributes key insights during the recent wave of scientific assessment of Franz Boas’s legacy in all social sciences.Trade ReviewWeike's journal and letters do not stand alone. Introductory material and extensive background on both Boas and Weike and on the Arctic during the period add to and amplify the first-person account. Inuit and Whalers on Baffin Island through German Eyes greatly enriches our picture of the intermingling of indigenous and European cultures in the late nineteenth-century Arctic." —www.ForewordReviews.com (November 2011)"[A] German servant's 1883 Arctic journal details challenges of daily living. . . . Weike's descriptions of the Arctic weather and terrain, his precise observations of life and impressions of his encounters with Inuit, whalers and wildlife bring you back to a time when winter started in late August." —www.NunatsiaqOnline.ca"As servant to Franz Boas 'Weike finally gets his day in the limelight, and it is a cause for reflection on the social blind spots of even the greatest of men, as well as the scientific habit of monopolizing all of the credit for oneself, as if assistants, informants, and other hangers-on contributed nothing to the accomplishments of the scientist.'" —Jack David Eller, Community College of Denve"Weike's journal is a fascinating text and an exceptional piece of working-class literature." —www.IASSA.org
£23.96
