Search results for ""Author Art, Culture"

Written by authors who are themselves Deaf, this unique book illuminates the life and culture of Deaf people from the inside, through their everyday talk, their shared myths, their art and performances, and the lessons they teach one another. Carol Padden and Tom Humphries employ the capitalized "Deaf" to refer to deaf people who share a natural language—American Sign Language (ASL—and a complex culture, historically created and actively transmitted across generations.Signed languages have traditionally been considered to be simply sets of gestures rather than natural languages. This mistaken belief, fostered by hearing people’s cultural views, has had tragic consequences for the education of deaf children; generations of children have attended schools in which they were forbidden to use a signed language. For Deaf people, as Padden and Humphries make clear, their signed language is life-giving, and is at the center of a rich cultural heritage.The tension between Deaf people’s views of themselves and the way the hearing world views them finds its way into their stories, which include tales about their origins and the characteristics they consider necessary for their existence and survival. Deaf in America includes folktales, accounts of old home movies, jokes, reminiscences, and translations of signed poems and modern signed performances. The authors introduce new material that has never before been published and also offer translations that capture as closely as possible the richness of the original material in ASL.Deaf in America will be of great interest to those interested in culture and language as well as to Deaf people and those who work with deaf children and Deaf people.

Read more less

How did a distinct and powerful Black British identity emerge? In the 1950s, when many Caribbean migrants came to Britain, there was no such recognised entity as "Black Britain." Yet by the 1980s, the cultural landscape had radically changed, and a remarkable array of creative practices such as theatre, poetry, literature, music and the visual arts gave voice to striking new articulations of Black-British identity. This new book chronicles the extraordinary blend of social, political and cultural influences from the mid-1950s to late 1970s that gave rise to new heights of Black-British artistic expression in the 1980s. Eddie Chambers relates how and why during these decades "West Indians" became "Afro-Caribbeans," and how in turn "Afro-Caribbeans" became "Black-British" - and the centrality of the arts to this important narrative. The British Empire, migration, Rastafari, the Anti-Apartheid struggle, reggae music, dub poetry, the ascendance of the West Indies cricket team and the coming of Margaret Thatcher - all of these factors, and others, have had a part to play in the compelling story of how the African Diaspora transformed itself to give rise to Black Britain.

Read more less

A multidisciplinary, authoritative outline of the current intellectual landscape of the field. Over the past three decades, the term ‘diaspora’ has been featured in many research studies and in wider theoretical debates in areas such as communications, the humanities, social sciences, politics, and international relations. The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture explores new dimensions of human mobility and connectivity—presenting state-of-the-art research and key debates on the intersection of media, cultural, and diasporic studies This innovative and timely book helps readers to understand diasporic cultures and their impact on the globalized world. The Handbook presents contributions from internationally-recognized scholars and researchers to strengthen understanding of diasporas and diasporic cultures, diasporic media and cultural resources, and the various forms of diasporic organization, expression, production, distribution, and consumption. Divided into seven sections, this wide-ranging volume covers topics such as methodological challenges and innovations in diasporic research, the construction of diasporic identity, the politics of diasporic integration, the intersection of gender and generation with the diasporic condition, new technologies in media, and many others. A much-needed resource for anyone with interest diasporic studies, this book: Presents new and original theory, research, and essays Employs unique methodological and conceptual debates Offers contributions from a multidisciplinary team of scholars and researchers Explores new and emerging trends in the study of diasporas and media Applies a wide-ranging, international perspective to the subject Due to its international perspective, interdisciplinary approach, and wide range of authors from around the world, The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture is ideal for undergraduate and graduate students, teachers, lecturers, and researchers in areas that focus on the relationship of media and society, ethnic identity, race, class and gender, globalization and immigration, and other relevant fields.

Read more less

Fascinated by the myth of the Russian avant-garde and scornful of official art, the West has been selective in its engagement with Russian visual culture. Yet how do contemporary Russian scholars and critics themselves approach the history of visual culture in the former Soviet Union? Taking its title from a Russian word that can refer to the "texture" of life, painting, or writing, Tekstura assembles 13 key essays in art history and cultural theory by Russian-language writers. The essays erase boundaries between high and low, official and dissident, avant-garde and socialist realism. Everything visual is deemed worthy of analysis, whether painting or propaganda banners, architecture or candy wrappers, mass celebrations or urban refuse. The editors have selected works of the past 20 years by philosophers, literary critics, film scholars, and art historians as well as influential earlier essays by Bakhtin, Voloshinov, and Eisenstein. Compiled for general readers and specialists alike, Tekstura is a resource for anyone interested in Russian and Soviet cultural history or in new theoretical approaches to the visual.

Read more less

A survey of spectacular breadth, covering the history of decorative arts and design worldwide over the past six hundred years Spanning six centuries of global design, this far-reaching survey is the first to offer an account of the vast history of decorative arts and design produced in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Indian subcontinent, and the Islamic world, from 1400 to the present. Meticulously documented and lavishly illustrated, the volume covers interiors, furniture, textiles and dress, glass, graphics, metalwork, ceramics, exhibitions, product design, landscape and garden design, and theater and film design. Divided into four chronological sections, each of which is subdivided geographically, the authors elucidate the evolution of style, form, materials, and techniques, and address vital issues such as gender, race, patronage, cultural appropriation, continuity versus innovation, and high versus low culture. Leading authorities in design history and decorative arts studies present hundreds of objects in their contemporary contexts, demonstrating the overwhelming extent to which the applied arts have enriched customs, ceremony, and daily life worldwide over the past six hundred years. This ambitious, landmark publication is essential reading, contributing a definitive classic to the existing scholarship on design, decorative arts, and material culture, while also introducing these subjects to new readers in a comprehensive, erudite book with widespread appeal.Distributed for the Bard Graduate Center

Read more less

"A fascinating insight into the life and culture of the Pawnee people is achieved here by the author's presentation of carefully gathered information in the form of a narrative of one year in a Pawnee village. The first few chapters lay the groundwork of kinship lines, followed by a narration of the life of one person in the village. Customs, ceremonies, beliefs, and hard work become apparent as the author leads one through the intricacies of the activities. Although it presents a great deal of detailed anthropological material, the manner of presentation turns the book into a readable account...The book is based on years of first-hand study as well as scholarly research and is recom-mended as an in-depth study of Plains Indian life."-Reprint Bulletin-Book Reviews Gene Weltfish is coauthor, with Ruth Benedict, of The Races of Mankind. She is also the author of The Origins of Art and other books.

Read more less

Working with people from different cultural backgrounds presents practical and theoretical problems for art therapists, as well as the opportunities represented by a medium which crosses linguistic and cultural barriers. In this volume, professionals engaged in art therapy discuss aspects of practice which are affected by an environment of increasing cultural diversity. Some contributions examine the problems faced by members of ethnic minorities who are caught between assertion of their cultural identities and assimilation into a different social milieu, and the significance of the racial identity and cultural assumptions of the art therapist working with them. Others explore the effect that treating clients from other cultures has had on them, and how they have dealt with the feelings of loss, helplessness and guilt experienced when helping refugees who have suffered traumatic events in their native countries. Each chapter represents a synthesis of the scholarship and the clinical experience of its author, and the book as a whole balances case studies with academic research. While articulating the need for more cultural diversity among practitioners, all the contributors feel that contact with other traditions has enriched them as well as their clients.

Read more less

Shifting the Scene adapts words from one of the Choruses in Henry V. Its essays try, without denying authority to the text and the theater, to widen the scene of inquiry to include other institutions, such as education, politics, language, and the arts, and to juxtapose the constructions of Shakespeare and his works that have been produced by them. However, as in Henry V, there is also a geographical dimension. The collection goes beyond England and the English-speaking world and focuses on Europe (including Britain). Shakespeare's importance for European culture is documented by the role he has played, since the late eighteenth century, in national literatures and their use. Shakespeare highlights differences as well as a shared heritage, and there is no other author whose works offer as rich material for comparative study.

Read more less

Perhaps more than any other recent writer, Craig Owens explored the relations among the discourses of contemporary art, sexuality, and power. His familiarity with the New York art world and its practitioners in the 1970's and 1980's makes his writing an unparalleled guide to one of the most riveting periods of contemporary culture.

Read more less

This volume contains a large selection of the invited papers given at the Twelfth Conference of the Association of Cultural Economics International held in Rotterdam in 2002. Two sessions were devoted to what came to be called the cultural industries (movies, television, media, etc.). Two dealt with the history of art and music markets. The last two were more policy oriented. One was devoted to the management of built heritage which becomes larger every year, and will be in need of more and more public funding. The invited speakers in the last session had spent, or are still spending, some or most of their time in the "real world," and try to discuss how cultural economists can contribute to alleviate the hard life of those who have to manage culture. Choices necessarily meant that many fields in which active research is alive were not dealt with, in particular, the contemporary functioning of art markets, artists' labor markets, museums and their management, aesthetic choices and tastes, the meaning of quality in the arts, etc. In this volume, the papers given in the six sessions are reshuffled and grouped into three parts: the cultural industries, historical aspects, and policy issues including the management heritage.

Read more less

"This book serves as a celebration of the textiles made by various Tai subgroups and non-Tai minority groups encountered during the authors' journey." — Hali Magazine This lavish, large format art project is the culmination of 20 years research of Tai culture throughout Southeast Asia, beginning with Napajaree Suandduenchai's vast 1,500 piece silk collection which has remained private until now. All 230 photographs were shot on sheet film to bring out the most intricate details of the textiles. Over the last 20 years, Mrs. Suanduenchai and photographer Hans Roels visited all the major Tai subgroups in their towns and villages to document their weaving traditions, culture and individual stories - their belief of who they are and where they came from. Roels' photography captures both the intricacy of the Tai weaving arts as well as the people behind the textiles. As of 2022 at least 75% of the villages that Suanduenchai and Roels visited no longer produce traditional Tai textiles, leaving the reader as the last eye-witnesses to a spectacular culture.

Read more less

This volume spotlights the visual arts, vision, and blindness during the Enlightenment in France, Britain, and Germany. The essays range from exploring the musical and cultural impact of an eighteenth-century virtuoso violinist to analyzing lotteries as romance in eighteenth-century England. Contributors and Contents: Mary Sheriff, The King, the Trickster and the Gorgon: On the Illusions of Rococo ArtBeverly Wilcox, The Hissing of Monsieur PaginJessica Richard, Lotteries and the Romance of Chance in Eighteenth-Century EnglandEmrys D. Jones, 'Friendship like mine / Throws all Respects behind it': Male Companionship and the Cult of Frederick, Prince of WalesDavid Hagan, Threading the Needle: Problems in Reading Dennis Diderot's La lettre sur les aveuglesJosephine Touma, From the Playhouse to the Page: Some Visual Sources for Watteau's Theatrical UniverseDaniel O'Quinn, Diversionary Tactics and Coercive Acts: John Burgoyne's Fete ChampetreShelley King, Portrait of a Marriage: John and Amelia Opie and the Sister ArtsDavid Fairer, Where Fuming Trees Refresh the Thirsty AirDorothea Von Mucke, Iconic Turn and the Power of Images: Goethe's Elective AffinitiesLaure Marcellesi, Louis-Sebastien Mercier: Prophet, Abolitionist, Colonialist

Read more less

New essays on the influence of politics on 20c. German culture, not only during the Nazi and Cold War eras but in periods when the effects are less obvious. The cultural history of 20th-century Germany, more perhaps than that of any other European country, was decisively influenced by political forces and developments. This volume of essays focuses on the relationship between German politics and culture, which is most obvious in the case of the Third Reich and the German Democratic Republic, where the one-party control of all areas of life was extended to the arts; these were expected to conform to the idealsof the day. But the relationship between politics and the arts has not always been one purely of coercion, censorship, collusion, and opportunism. Many writers greeted the First World War with quite voluntary enthusiasm; others conjured up the National Socialist revolution in intense Expressionist images long before 1933. The GDR was heralded by writers returning from Nazi exile as the anti-fascist answer to the Third Reich. And in West Germany, politicsdid not dictate artistic norms, nor was it greeted with any great enthusiasm among intellectuals, but writers did tend to ally themselves with particular parties. To an extent, the pre-1990 literary establishment in the Federal Republic was dominated by a left-liberal consensus that German division was the just punishment for Auschwitz. United Germany began its existence with a fierce literary debate in 1990-92, with leading literary critics arguing that East and West German literature had basically shored up the political order in the two countries. Now a new literature was required, one that was free of ideology, intensely subjective and experimental in its aesthetic. In 1998, the author Martin Walser called for an end to the author's role as "conscience of the nation" and for the right to subjective experience. This is the first book to examine this crucial relationship between politics and culture in Germany. William Niven and James Jordan are readers in German at the University of Nottingham Trent.

Read more less

Taking to heart Ralph Ellison's remark that much in American life is "jazz-shaped," The Jazz Cadence of American Culture offers a wide range of eloquent statements about the influence of this art form. Robert G. O'Meally has gathered a comprehensive collection of important essays, speeches, and interviews on the impact of jazz on other arts, on politics, and on the rhythm of everyday life. Focusing mainly on American artistic expression from 1920 to 1970, O'Meally confronts a long era of political and artistic turbulence and change in which American art forms influenced one another in unexpected ways. Organized thematically, these provocative pieces include an essay considering poet and novelist James Weldon Johnson as a cultural critic, an interview with Wynton Marsalis, a speech on the heroic image in jazz, and a newspaper review of a recent melding of jazz music and dance, Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk. From Stanley Crouch to August Wilson to Jacqui Malone, the plurality of voices gathered here reflects the variety of expression within jazz. The book's opening section sketches the overall place of jazz in America. Alan P. Merriam and Fradley H. Garner unpack the word jazz and its register, Albert Murray considers improvisation in music and life, Amiri Baraka argues that white critics misunderstand jazz, and Stanley Crouch cogently dissects the intersections of jazz and mainstream American democratic institutions. After this, the book takes an interdisciplinary approach, exploring jazz and the visual arts, dance, sports, history, memory, and literature. Ann Douglas writes on jazz's influence on the design and construction of skyscrapers in the 1920s and '30s, Zora Neale Hurston considers the significance of African-American dance, Michael Eric Dyson looks at the jazz of Michael Jordan's basketball game, and Hazel Carby takes on the sexual politics of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith's blues. The Jazz Cadence offers a wealth of insight and information for scholars, students, jazz aficionados, and any reader wishing to know more about this music form that has put its stamp on American culture more profoundly than any other in the twentieth century.

Read more less

This illustrated book is the culmination of a project to document and conserve the tomb of Menna, one of the most beautiful and complex painted tombs of the ancient Egyptian necropolis at Luxor. Through conservation, the tomb, which previously lay open to environmental influence, was brought back to its former glory. Aided by non-invasive methods of scientific analysis, the historical and cultural importance of Menna’s paintings can now be viewed and studied and enjoyed by a worldwide audience. High-definition photography and drawings complement specialist essays by scholars, scientists, and technicians, who discuss the artistic and cultural significance of the paintings, their architectural context, and scientific importance. Directed by Dr. Hartwig and administered by the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) as part of its Egyptian Antiquities Conservation Project, the project was funded by a grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), sponsored by Georgia State University, and carried out in collaboration with Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Read more less

Margaret Stieg Dalton offers a comprehensive study of the German Catholic cultural movement that lasted from the late nineteenth century until 1933. Rapidly advancing industrialization, higher literacy rates, rising real income, and increased leisure time created a demand for intellectually accessible entertainment. Technological developments not only gave rise to new forms of entertainment, but also to the means by which they were marketed and disseminated. At the same time, the effects of modernism were being felt in all areas of high culture. Dalton’s book examines the encounter of clergy and lay Catholics with both high culture and popular culture in Germany. German Catholic culture was more than the product of an individual who happened to be Catholic; it was intellectual and artistic activity with a specifically Catholic stamp, a unique blend that offered distinctive variants of art, literature, and music. In response to the predominant Protestant, nationalistic culture, German Catholics attempted to create an alternative cultural universe that would insulate them from a world that seemed to threaten their faith. Dalton’s book provides detailed insight into the manner in which Catholics and other Germans tried to determine to what extent the new world could be accepted while still holding on to traditional values. Catholicism, Popular Culture, and the Arts in Germany, 1880-1933 will be welcomed by anyone interested in European intellectual and cultural history.

Read more less

Twenty-first century popular culture has given birth to a peculiar cultural figure: the hipster. Stereotypically associated with nerd glasses, beards and buns, boho clothing, and ironic T-shirts, hipsters represent a (post-)postmodern (post-)subculture whose style, aesthetics, and practices have increasingly become mainstream. Hipster Culture is the first comprehensive collection of original studies that address the hipster and hipster culture from a range of cultural studies perspectives. Analyzing the cultural, economic, aesthetic, and political meanings and implications of a wide range of phenomena prominently associated with hipster culture, the contributors bring their expertise and own research perspectives to bear, thus shaping the volume’s transnational and intersectional approach. Chapters address global and local manifestations of hipster culture, processes of urban gentrification and cultural appropriation, alternative foodways and eclectic fashion styles, the significance of nostalgia, retro technologies and social media, and the aesthetics and cultural politics of literature, film, art, and music marked by self-reflexivity, irony, and a simultaneous longing for an earnest authenticity. Hipster Culture explores the diversification of hipster culture, sheds light on popular constructions of the hipster as cultural Other, and critically investigates hipster culture’s entanglements with and challenges to dominant cultural discourses of gender, ethnicity, race, sexuality, age, religion, and nationality.

Read more less

This introduction to American literature and culture from 1900 to 1960 is organized around four major ideas about America: that is it "big", "new", "rich", and "free". Illustrates the artistic and social climate in the USA during this period. Juxtaposes discussion of history, popular culture, literature and other art forms in ways that foster discussion, questioning, and continued study. An appendix lists relevant primary and secondary works, including websites. An ideal supplement to primary texts taught in American literature courses.

Read more less

Subcritical: Third Culture Field Notes explores an innovative, interdisciplinary collaboration between scientists and artists. Based on a project funded by the National Science Foundation that studies how climate change influences the breakdown of rocks and the cracking of mountains, Subcritical integrates the arts with scientific research to communicate findings. Subcritical brings together scholarly and theoretical essays as well as richly illustrated artwork and case studies of design investigations. This novel work represents the type of multidisciplinary synergies possible when artists and scientists collaborate with each other.

Read more less

In the early 1400s, Iranian elites began migrating to the Deccan plateau of southern India. Lured to the region for many reasons, these poets, traders, statesmen, and artists of all kinds left an indelible mark on the Islamic sultanates that ruled the Deccan until the late seventeenth century. The result was the creation of a robust transregional Persianate network linking such distant cities as Bidar and Shiraz, Bijapur and Isfahan, and Golconda and Mashhad.Iran and the Deccan explores the circulation of art, culture, and talent between Iran and the Deccan over a three-hundred-year period. Its interdisciplinary contributions consider the factors that prompted migration, the physical and intellectual poles of connectivity between the two regions, and processes of adaptation and response. Placing the Deccan at the center of Indo-Persian and early modern global history, Iran and the Deccan reveals how mobility, liminality, and cultural translation nuance the traditional methods and boundaries of the humanities.

Read more less

The Routledge Encyclopedia of Traditional Chinese Culture offers an in-depth discussion of cultural aspects of China from the ancient period to the pre-modern era, lasting over 5,000 years, comprised of 7,000 word pieces by more than 20 world-leading academics and experts.Addressing areas such as China studies, cultural studies, cultural management, and more specific areas – such as religion, opera, Chinese painting, Chinese calligraphy, material culture, performing arts, and visual arts – this encyclopedia covers all major aspects of traditional Chinese culture.The volume is intended to be a detailed reference for graduate students on a variety of courses, and also for undergraduate students on survey courses to Chinese culture.

Read more less

Most would agree that American culture changed dramatically from the 1960s to the 1980s. Yet the 1970s, the decade “in between,” is still somehow thought of as a cultural wasteland. In The Seventies Now Stephen Paul Miller debunks this notion by examining a wide range of political and cultural phenomena—from the long shadow cast by Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal to Andy Warhol and the disco scene—identifying in these phenomena a pivotal yet previously unidentified social trend, the movement from institutionalized external surveillance to the widespread internalization of such practices.The concept of surveillance and its attendant social ramifications have been powerful agents in U.S. culture for many decades, but in describing how during the 1970s Americans learned to “survey” themselves, Miller shines surprising new light on such subjects as the women’s movement, voting rights enforcement, the Ford presidency, and environmental legislation. He illuminates the significance of what he terms “microperiods” and analyzes relevant themes in many of the decade’s major films—such as The Deer Hunter, Network, Jaws, Star Wars, and Apocalypse Now—and in the literature of writers including John Ashbery, Toni Morrison, Adrienne Rich, and Sam Shepard. In discussing the reverberations of the 1969 Stonewall riots, technological innovations, the philosophy of Michel Foucault, and a host of documents and incidents, Miller shows how the 1970s marked an important period of transition, indeed a time of many transitions, to the world we confront at the end of the millennium.The Seventies Now will interest students and scholars of cultural studies, American history, theories of technology, film and literature, visual arts, and gay and lesbian studies.

Read more less

Through examining more than 120 organizations on a global scale, this work shows how almost every human expression involves performing culture. Atlas of Performing Culture is an illustrated voyage across five continents Asia, Africa, Europe, Oceania, and the Americas involving the study of venues and events related to performance, the dynamic and unrepeatable mode of artistic activity capable of uniting the audience who becomes the protagonist with artists and works of art, architecture, and nature. The volume is organized around five thematic sections related to the physical spaces, venues, and typologies of events. The unique experience of performing art can involve an island museum in Japan, the Rio Carnival, a Brussels theatrical debut, a rave party in the British countryside, and a cultural center housed in a former funeral home in the outskirts of Paris. Alongside theaters, concert halls, and festivals, we also find museums, sculpture parks, and hybrid cultural centers that elude any attempt of cataloging. By breaking down the traditional frontiers between performance art, visual art, and performing arts, this volume takes the reader whether specialist, practitioner, academic, or simply art aficionado on a journey to some of the main cultural sites and performative experiences around the world. Each section offers a specific overview into leading cultural organizations, as well as a selection of similar international institutions.

Read more less

Edges of Empire is a timely reassessment of the history and legacy of Orientalist art and visual culture through its focus on the intersection between modernization, modernism and Orientalism. Covers indigenous art and agency, contemporary practices of collection and display, and a survey of key Orientalist tropes Contains original essays on new perspectives for scholars and students of art history, architecture, museum studies and cultural and postcolonial studies Highlights contested identities and new definitions of self through topics such as 19th century monuments to Empire, cultural cross-dressing, performance and display at the international exhibitions, and contemporary museological practice.

Read more less

The degree to which shopping, or, more broadly, consumerism, is both critiqued and defended in American society confirms the role that commercial goods play in our daily lives. This collection of essays provides case studies depicting selected aspects of this engaging activity. The authors include several historians with diverging specialties: an art historian, an anthropologist, an environmental journalist, a geographer and urban planner, and practicing artists. Each author demonstrates how a material culture perspective—a focus on the relationship between people and their things—can illuminate a specific corner of consumption. Connecting the essays are concerns about the spaces in which shopping occurs; about the experience of shopping itself, both individual and social; and about its economic, environmental, and personal downsides. Collectively, these essays demonstrate how a material culture perspective on shopping yields insights into multiple aspects of American culture.Published by University of Delaware Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

Read more less

The art and literature of our time is pregnant with catastrophe, with weather and water, wildness and weirdness. The Anthropocene - the term given to this geological epoch in which humans, anthropos, are wreaking havoc on the earth - is to be found bubbling away everywhere in contemporary cultural production. Typically, discussions of how culture registers, figures and mediates climate change focus on 'climate fiction' or 'cli-fi', but The Anthropocene Unconscious is more interested in how the Anthropocene and especially anthropogenic climate destabilisation manifests in texts that are not overtly about climate change - that is, unconsciously. The Anthropocene, Mark Bould argues, constitutes the unconscious of 'the art and literature of our time'.Tracing the outlines of the Anthropocene unconscious in a range of film, television and literature - across a range of genres and with utter disregard for high-low culture distinctions - this playful and riveting book draws out some of the things that are repressed and obscured by the term 'the Anthropocene', including capital, class, imperialism, inequality, alienation, violence, commodification, patriarchy and racial formations. The Anthropocene Unconscious is about a kind of rewriting. It asks: what happens when we stop assuming that the text is not about the anthropogenic biosphere crises engulfing us? What if all the stories we tell are stories about the Anthropocene? About climate change?

Read more less

"North or South, the soul of Belgium is in its cafés. I don't know of any book that captures their soul more beautifully and accurately than this one." - Joe Stange, CAMRA's Good Beer Guide Belgium This book is an ode to Belgium's traditional beer cafés, to their landlords and -ladies, and to the regular customers who have become part of the interior. It is also a plea to handle the café patrimony of Belgium with the greatest care. Because we have been taking these little cafés for granted for far too long and now their existence has become fragile, despite the fact that they are an important part of our social and cultural heritage. Regula Ysewijn is a Belgian culinary historian, writer, and photographer. She focuses on food and social history or Britain and the Low countries and consults for organisations such as the UK's National Trust, TV programmes and museums. Ysewijn is the author of six books among which: Pride and Pudding and Oats in the North, Wheat From the South have received international acclaim. She is also a judge on the Flemish version of the Great British Bake Off. For this book Regula visited 45 traditional cafés in Belgium. From the oldest café in the country (it opened in 1515) to the oldest Belgian café landlady, Juliette, who is 96. She visited cafés with beautiful Art Deco interiors, and cafés with the charm and warmth of a living room. In each of these establishments she talked to the landlords and -ladies and to the people who have become part or the soul of these cafés, and she managed to capture all of this in beautiful, touching photographs.

Read more less

A sweeping account of one of the cultural centers of Latin America, Specular City tells the history of Buenos Aires during the interregnum after Juan Peron's fall from power and before his restoration. During those two decades, the city experienced a rapid metamorphosis at the behest of its middle class citizens, who were eager to cast off the working-class imprint left by the Peronists. Laura Podalsky discusses the ways in which the proliferation of skyscrapers, the emergence of car culture, and the diffusion of an emerging revolution in the arts helped transform Buenos Aires, and, in so doing, redefine Argentine collective history. More than a cultural and material history of this city, this book also presents Buenos Aires as a crucible for urban life. Examining its structures through films, literatures, new magazines, advertising and architecture, Specular City reveals the prominent place of Buenos Aires in the massive changes that Latin America underwent for a new, modern definition of itself. Author note: Laura Podalsky is Assistant Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Ohio State University.

Read more less

This introduction to American literature and culture from 1900 to 1960 is organized around four major ideas about America: that is it "big", "new", "rich", and "free". Illustrates the artistic and social climate in the USA during this period. Juxtaposes discussion of history, popular culture, literature and other art forms in ways that foster discussion, questioning, and continued study. An appendix lists relevant primary and secondary works, including websites. An ideal supplement to primary texts taught in American literature courses.

Read more less

This collection of original essays examines debates on how written, printed, visual, and performed works produced meaning in American culture before 1900. The contributors argue that America has been a multimedia culture since the eighteenth century. According to Sandra M. Gustafson, the verbal arts before 1900 manifest a strikingly rich pattern of development and change. From the wide variety of indigenous traditions, through the initial productions of settler communities, to the elaborations of colonial, postcolonial, and national expressive forms, the shifting dynamics of performed, manuscript-based, and printed verbal art capture critical elements of rapidly changing societies. The contributors address performances of religion and government, race and gender, poetry, theater, and song. Their studies are based on texts—intended for reading silently or out loud—maps, recovered speech, and pictorial sources. As these essays demonstrate, media, even when they appear to be fixed, reflected a dynamic American experience. Contributors: Caroline F. Sloat, Matthew P. Brown, David S. Shields, Martin Brückner, Jeffrey H. Richards, Phillip H. Round, Hilary E. Wyss, Angela Vietto, Katherine Wilson, Joan Newlon Radner, Ingrid Satelmajer, Joycelyn Moody, Philip F. Gura, Coleman Hutchison, Oz Frankel, Susan S. Williams, Laura Burd Schiavo, and Sandra M. Gustafson

Read more less

The latest work in eighteenth-century studies.Showcasing exciting new research across disciplines, Volume 52 of Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture explores how history's dominant narratives have been challenged and reframed.Anne Lafont shows how early writings about Black art questioned the cultural negation of enslaved peoples' humanity. A cluster of essays on "Decolonizing Eighteenth-Century Studies" connects the current conditions under which we produce scholarship to the forms of exploitation that defined the eighteenth century. Erica Johnson Edwards chronicles how self-liberated people in colonial Haiti resisted their recapture by using advertisements for unclaimed runaways, while Allison Cardon argues that Ottobah Cugoano's critiques of abolitionist discourse were more radical than we have recognized. Another cluster recenters Native epistemologies in the interactions between Indigenous Peoples and settlers in the American South.Alison DeSimone compares love songs to didactic and erotic literature. Carolina Blutrach recovers the contributions that diplomats' spouses made to cultural life, while Jolene Zigarovich unearths evidence of women who transmitted property to other women. Two clusters focus on the "Female Wunderkind in the Eighteenth Century" and "Biography and the Woman Writer Revisited."Jeffrey Ravel investigates the use of playing cards in the French Revolution, while Christopher Hendricks recovers the history of the jumbal, a proto-cookie. A collaboratively written essay explores the movements of four commodities through the global supply chain. Mattie Burkert focuses on the invisible labor of women. Andrew Black considers Alexander Pope's use of the oral. Volume 52 concludes with a cluster on Oliver Goldsmith's "The Deserted Village" that studies the poem's acoustics, history of illustration, and intertextual resonance.CONTRIBUTORS: Kathleen Tamayo Alves, Nicole Balzer, Andrew Black, Carolina Blutrach, Mónica Bolufer, Mattie Burkert, Allison Cardon, Emily Casey, Tita Chico, Sarah R. Cohen, Rebecca Crisafulli, Pichaya Damrongpiwat, Alison DeSimone, Alejandra Dubcovsky, Erica Johnson Edwards, Robbie Ethridge, Timothy Erwin, Lise Gaston, Michael Griffin, Christopher E. Hendricks, Elizabeth Hutchinson, Cynthia Kok, Anne Lafont, Brittany Luberda, Waltraud Maierhofer, Patrícia Martins Marcos, Jennifer Monroe McCutchen, Elizabeth Neiman, David O'Shaughnessy, Jürgen Overhoff, Jeffrey S. Ravel, Bryan C. Rindfleisch, Robbie Richardson, Yael Shapira, Kaitlin Tonti, Sophie Tunney, Denys Van Renen, Andrew O. Winckles, Joshua Wright, Chi-Ming Yang, Jolene Zigarovich, Tim Zumhof

Read more less

Combatants from one or other of the "two cultures" (Science versus the arts and humanities) in the so-called "Science Wars" have launcehed bitter attacks but have seldom engaged in constructive dialogue about central issues. This book is about an exchange of opinions and ideas rather than a trading of insults. The contributors find areas of broad agreement in a conversation about science, its legitamacy and authority as a means of understanding the world and whether science studies undermines the practice and finding of science and scientists. The first part of "The One Culture?" consists of papers written by scientists and sociologists, which were distributed to the participants. The second part presents commentaries on the papers and discusses their central themes and arguments. The final part has the participants in the discussion responding to these critiques, offering defenses, clarifications and modifications of their positions. This book shows the reader what is at stake in the "Science Wars" and provides a framework for how to go about seeking the answers to vital questions raised within the debate.

Read more less

This book questions the sociocultural dimensions of remembering. It offers an overview of the history and theory of memory studies through the lens of sociology, political science, anthropology, psychology, literature, art and media studies; documenting current international and interdisciplinary memory research in an unprecedented way.

Read more less

This book questions the sociocultural dimensions of remembering. It offers an overview of the history and theory of memory studies through the lens of sociology, political science, anthropology, psychology, literature, art and media studies; documenting current international and interdisciplinary memory research in an unprecedented way.

Read more less

Winner of the Shimada Prize for Outstanding Work of East Asian Art History By the end of the sixth century CE, both the royal courts and the educated elite in China were collecting works of art, particularly scrolls of calligraphy and paintings done by known artists. By the time of Emperor Huizong (1082-1135) of the Song dynasty (960-1279), both scholars and the imperial court were cataloguing their collections and also collecting ancient bronzes and rubbings of ancient inscriptions. The catalogues of Huizong's painting, calligraphy, and antiquities collections list over 9,000 items, and the tiny fraction of the listed items that survive today are all among the masterpieces of early Chinese art. Patricia Ebrey's study of Huizong's collections places them in both political and art historical context. The acts of adding to and cataloguing the imperial collections were political ones, among the strategies that the Song court used to demonstrate its patronage of the culture of the brush, and they need to be seen in the context of contemporary political divisions and controversies. At the same time, court intervention in the art market was both influenced by, and had an impact on, the production, circulation, and imagination of art outside the court. Accumulating Culture provides a rich context for interpreting the three book-length catalogues of Huizong's collection and specific objects that have survived. It contributes to a rethinking of the cultural side of Chinese imperial rule and of the court as a patron of scholars and the arts, neither glorifying Huizong as a man of the arts nor castigating him as a megalomaniac, but rather taking a hardheaded look at the political and cultural ramifications of collecting and the reasons for choices made by Huizong and his curators. The reader is offered glimpses of the magnificence of the collections he formed and the disparate fates of the objects after they were seized as booty by the Jurchen invaders in 1127. The heart of the book examines in detail the primary fields of collecting -- antiquities, calligraphy, and painting. Chapters devoted to each of these use Huizong's catalogues to reconstruct what was in his collection and to probe choices made by the cataloguers. The acts of inclusion, exclusion, and sequencing that they performed allowed them to influence how people thought of the collection, and to attempt to promote or demote particular artists and styles. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Chinese art history, social history, and culture, as well as art collectors. Published with the assistance of The Getty Foundation.

Read more less

A collection of forty-two articles, Society, Culture, Leisure, and Play takes on different facets of leisure from the perspective of an anthropologist with almost thirty years experience in the field. The essays range in length and tone, and cover topics from adornment to weaving. The author goes into considerable depth while discussing music and the arts. Utilizing empirical observation and recent theories, the book is a sweeping overview of an integral part of culture. Anthropologists, students of sociology and culture, as well as the general reader, will be interested in Salamone's latest work.

Read more less

In recent years scholars in a range of disciplines have begun to re-evaluate the history of the Society of Jesus. Approaching the subject with new questions and methods, they have reconsidered the importance of the Society in many sectors, including those related to the sciences and the arts. They have also looked at the Jesuits as emblematic of certain traits of early modern Europeans, especially as those Europeans interacted with 'the Other' in Asia and the Americas. Originating in an international conference held at Boston College in 1997, the thirty-five essays here reflect this new historiographical trend. Focusing on the Old Society- the Society before its suppression in 1773 by papal edict- they examine the worldwide Jesuit undertaking in such fields as music, art, architecture, devotional writing, mathematics, physics, astronomy, natural history, public performance, and education, and they give special attention to the Jesuits' interaction with non-European cultures, in North and South America, China, India, and the Philippines. A picture emerges not only of the individual Jesuit, who might be missionary, diplomat, architect, and playwright over the course of his life in the Society, but also of the immense and many-faceted Jesuit enterprise as forming a kind of 'cultural ecosystem'. The Jesuits of the Old Society liked to think they had a way of proceeding special to themselves. The question, Was there a Jesuit style, a Jesuit corporate culture? is the thread that runs through this interdisciplinary collection of studies.

Read more less

Long a topic of intricate political and social debate, Canadianidentity has come to be understood as fragmented, amorphous, andunstable, a multifaceted and contested space only tenuously linked totraditional concepts of the nation. As Canadians, we are endlesslydefining ourselves, seeking to locate our sense of self in relation tosome Other. By examining how writers and performers have conceptualizedand negotiated issues of personal identity in their work, the essayscollected in Selves and Subjectivities investigate emergingrepresentations of self and other in contemporary Canadian arts andculture. Included are essays on iconic poet and musician Leonard Cohen,Governor General award–winning playwright Colleen Wagner,feminist poet and novelist Daphne Marlatt, film director DavidCronenberg, poet and writer Hédi Bouraoui, author and media scholarMarusya Bociurkiw, puppeteer Ronnie Burkett, and the Aboriginal rapgroup War Party. As critic Diana Brydon has argued, contemporary Canadian writers are“not transcending nation but resituating it.” Drawingtogether themes of gender and sexuality, trauma and displacement,performativity, and linguistic diversity, Selves andSubjectivities offers an exciting new contribution to themultivocal dialogue surrounding the Canadian sense of identity.

Read more less

Explores the role of magic and the occult in art and culture from ancient times to today • Examines key figures behind esoteric cultural developments, such as Carl Jung, Anton LaVey, Paul Bowles, Aleister Crowley, and Rudolf Steiner • Explores the history of magic as a source of genuine counter culture and compares it with our contemporary soulless, digital monoculture Art, magic, and the occult have been intimately linked since our prehistoric ancestors created the first cave paintings some 50,000 years ago. In this deep exploration of “occulture”--the liminal space where art and magic meet--Carl Abrahamsson reveals the integral role played by magic and occultism in the development of culture throughout history as well as their relevance to the continuing survival of art and creativity. Blending magical history and esoteric philosophy with his more than 30 years’ experience in occult movements, Showing how art and magic were initially one and the same, the author reveals how the magic of art can be restored if art is employed as a means rather than an end--if it is intense, emotional, violent, and expressive--and offers strategies for creating freely, magically, even spontaneously, with intent unfettered by the whims of trends, a creative practice akin to chaos magick that assists both creators and spectators to live with meaning. He also looks at intuition and creativity as the cornerstones of genuine individuation, explaining how insights and illuminations seldom come in collective forms. Exploring magical philosophy, occult history, the arts, psychology, and the colorful grey areas in between, Abrahamsson reveals the culturally and magically transformative role of art and the ways the occult continues to transform culture to this day.

Read more less

From couture fashion to opulent perfumes and decadent food, the luxury goods and services industry has grown at an unprecedented rate even in the context of a global recession. But in contemporary digital culture does luxury still reside in material things, or rather the look of things? In this first study of luxury through the lens of visual culture, Armitage argues that luxury is undergoing a shift from material culture to the immaterial culture of the visual, offering new forms of luxury engagement and unparalleled levels of pleasure never before offered to the senses. Calling for a new understanding of luxury in the changing visual landscape of contemporary society, Luxury and Visual Culture embraces an extraordinary range of cultural forms, including fashion, photography, social media, television, and art. From the masterpieces of Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, to Richard Avedon’s photography and Louis Vuitton's Flagship stores, the book explores key issues of globalization, digitization, consumer identity, “mass” luxury, and the role of art. This text is ideal for all students of contemporary luxury studies, as well as scholars and researchers in the field of visual culture.

Read more less

". . . the specificity and breadth of this [work] makes it unique. . . . lively reading . . . particularly recommended for academic collections with a strong focus in Russian history." —Library Journal". . . a remarkable new collection of essays . . . The book reads like a literary hybrid of cookbook, historical treatise, and novella; its subject is, literally, the essence of life itself. . . . Glants and Toomre deserve further praise for the book's consistent, animated directness of style." —The Boston PhoenixThis sparkling collection of thirteen original essays gives surprising insights into what foodways reveal about Russia's history and culture, from Kievan times to post Soviet Russia. Some of the chapters focus on historical topics while others consider images of food in literature and art.

Read more less