Search results for ""author annabel jane wharton""
The University of Chicago Press Selling Jerusalem: Relics, Replicas, Theme Parks
Jerusalem currently stands at the center of a violent controversy that threatens the stability of both the Middle East and the world. This volatility, observes Annabel Jane Wharton, is only the most recent manifestation of a centuries-old obsession with the control of the Holy City - military occupation and pilgrimage being two familiar forms of "ownership." Wharton makes the innovative argument, here, that the West has also sought to possess Jerusalem by acquiring its representations. From relics of the True Cross and Templar replicas of the Holy Sepulchre to Franciscan recreations of the Passion to nineteenth-century mass-produced prints and contemporary theme parks, Wharton describes the evolving forms by which the city has been possessed in the West. She also maps those changing embodiments of the Holy City against shifts in the western market. From the gift-and-barter economy of the early Middle Ages to contemporary globalization, both money and the representations of Jerusalem have become progressively incorporeal, abstract, illusionistic, and virtual. "Selling Jerusalem" offers a penetrating introduction to the explosive combination of piety and capital at work in religious objects and global politics. It is sure to interest students and scholars of art history, economic history, popular culture, religion, and architecture, as well as those who want to better understand Jerusalem's problematic place in history.
£40.00
University of Minnesota Press Architectural Agents: The Delusional, Abusive, Addictive Lives of Buildings
Buildings are not benign; rather, they commonly manipulate and abuse their human users. Architectural Agents makes the case that buildings act in the world independently of their makers, patrons, owners, or occupants. And often they act badly. Treating buildings as bodies, Annabel Jane Wharton writes biographies of symptomatic structures in order to diagnose their pathologies. The violence of some sites is rooted in historical trauma; the unhealthy spatial behaviors of other spaces stem from political and economic ruthlessness. The places examined range from the Cloisters Museum in New York City and the Palestine Archaeological Museum (renamed the Rockefeller Museum) in Jerusalem to the grand Hostal de los Reyes Católicos in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and Las Vegas casino resorts. Recognizing that a study of pathological spaces would not be complete without an investigation of digital structures, Wharton integrates into her argument an original consideration of the powerful architectures of video games and immersive worlds. Her work mounts a persuasive critique of popular phenomenological treatments of architecture. Architectural Agents advances an alternative theorization of buildings’ agency—one rooted in buildings’ essential materiality and historical formation—as the basis for her significant intervention in current debates over the boundaries separating humans, animals, and machines.
£26.99
The University of Chicago Press Building the Cold War: Hilton International Hotels and Modern Architecture
In postwar Europe and the Middle East, Hilton hotels were literally "little Americas," offering travelers cheeseburgers, air-conditioning, and respite from alien cultures. Conrad Hilton claimed that his hotels were constructed for profit and political impact, "to show the countries most exposed to Communism the other side of the coin." In Building the Cold War, Annabel Jane Wharton examines the architectural means by which this vision was executed, and then goes on to offer a sophisticated critique of one of the Cold War's first international businesses. Wharton demonstrates that the role of the Hilton hotels in the struggle against Communism was, as Conrad Hilton declared, significant, though in ways that he could not have imagined.
£36.04
