Search results for ""Author Art, Culture"

One of the twentieth century’s greatest philosophers presents the results of his lifetime study of man’s cultural achievementsAn Essay on Man is an original synthesis of contemporary knowledge, a unique interpretation of the intellectual crisis of our time, and a brilliant vindication of man’s ability to resolve human problems by the courageous use of his mind. In a new introduction Peter E. Gordon situates the book among Cassirer’s greater body of work, and looks at why his “hymn to humanity in an inhuman age” still resonates with readers today. “The best-balanced and most mature expression of [Cassirer’s] thought.”—Journal of Philosophy “No reader of this book can fail to be struck by the grandeur of its program or by the sensitive humanism of the author.”—Ernest Nagel, The Humanist “A rare work of philosophy and a rare work of art.”—Tomorrow

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How do cities use culture today? Building on the experience of New York as a "culture capital" Sharon Zukin shows how three notions of culture - as ethnicity, aesthetic, and marketing tool - are reshaping urban places and conflicts over revitalization. She rejects the idea that cities have either a singular urban culture or many different subcultures to argue that cultures are constantly negotiated in the city's central spaces - the streets, parks, shops, museums, and restaurants - which are the great public spaces of modernity. While cultural gentrification may contribute to making our cities both safer and more civilised places to live, it has its darker side. Beneath the perceptions of "civility" and "security" nurtured by cultural strategies, Zukin shows an aggressive private-sector bid for control of public space, a relentless drive for expansion by art museums and other non-profit cultural institutions, and an increasing redesign of the built environment for the purposes of social control. Tying these developments to a new "symbolic economy" based on tourism, media and entertainment, Zukin traces the connections between real estate development and popular expression, and between elite visions of the arts and more democratic representations. Going beyond the immigrants, artists, street peddlers, and security guards who are the key figures in the symbolic economy, Zukin asks: Who really occupies the central spaces of cities? And whose culture is imposed as public culture? Combining cultural critique, interviews, autobiography and ethnography, The Culture of Cities is a compelling account of the public spaces of modernity as they are transformed into new, more troubling landscapes.

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2006 Honorable Mention for MLA Prize in US Latina and Latino and Chicana and Chicano Literary and Cultural Studies In the summer of 1995, El Vez, the “Mexican Elvis,“along with his backup singers and band, The Lovely Elvettes and the Memphis Mariachis, served as master of ceremony for a ground-breaking show, “Diva L.A.: A Salute to L.A.’s Latinas in the Tanda Style.” The performances were remarkable not only for the talent displayed, but for their blend of linguistic, musical, and cultural traditions. In Loca Motion, Michelle Habell-Pallán argues that performances like Diva L.A. play a vital role in shaping and understanding contemporary transnational social dynamics. Chicano/a and Latino/a popular culture, including spoken word, performance art, comedy, theater, and punk music aesthetics, is central to developing cultural forms and identities that reach across and beyond the Americas, from Mexico City to Vancouver to Berlin. Drawing on the lives and work of a diverse group of artists,Habell-Pallán explores new perspectives that defy both traditional forms of Latino cultural nationalism and the expectations of U.S. culture. The result is a sophisticated rethinking of identity politics and an invaluable lens from which to view the complex dynamics of race, class, gender, and sexuality.

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As South Africa’s democracy matures, this book raises pertinent questions: How does the state mediate between traditional tribal authority and constitutional law in matters such as initiation customs or the rights of women, children, and homosexuals? What are the limitations on artistic freedom in a society where sensitivities over colonial- and apartheid-era representations are acute? How does race open up discussions or close down dialogue? and What are the parameters of freedom of speech when minorities fear that hateful language may trigger actual violence against them? Examining disputes over South African art, music, media, editorial cartoons, history, public memory, and a variety of social practices, the culture wars' perspective is extended to new territory in this study, demonstrating its cross-cultural applicability and parsing critical debates within this vibrant society in formation.

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The Resurrection Plate, a Late Classic Maya dish, is decorated with an arresting scene. The Maize God, assisted by two other deities, emerges reborn from a turtle shell. At the center of the plate, in the middle of the god’s body and aligned with the point of emergence, there is a curious sight: a small, neatly drilled hole.Art historian Andrew Finegold explores the meanings attributed to this and other holes in Mesoamerican material culture, arguing that such spaces were broadly understood as conduits of vital forces and material abundance, prerequisites for the emergence of life. Beginning with, and repeatedly returning to, the Resurrection Plate, this study explores the generative potential attributed to a wide variety of cavities and holes in Mesoamerica, ranging from the perforated dishes placed in Classic Maya burials, to caves and architectural voids, to the piercing of human flesh. Holes are also discussed in relation to fire, based on the common means through which both were produced: drilling. Ultimately, by attending to what is not there, Vital Voids offers a fascinating approach to Mesoamerican cosmology and material culture.

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Western thinking has long been dominated by essence, by a preoccupation with that which dwells in itself and delimits itself from the other. By contrast, Far Eastern thought is centred not on essence but on absence. The fundamental topos of Far Eastern thinking is not being but ‘the way’ (dao), which lacks the solidity and fixedness of essence. The difference between essence and absence is the difference between being and path, between dwelling and wandering. ‘A Zen monk should be without fixed abode, like the clouds, and without fixed support, like water’, said the Japanese Zen master Dōgen. Drawing on this fundamental distinction between essence and absence, Byung-Chul Han explores the differences between Western and Far Eastern philosophy, aesthetics, architecture and art, shedding fresh light on a culture of absence that may at first sight appear strange and unfamiliar to those in the West whose ways of thinking have been shaped for centuries by the preoccupation with essence.

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This pathbreaking work reveals the pivotal role of music--musical works and musical culture--in debates about society, self, and culture that forged European modernity through the "long nineteenth century." Michael Steinberg argues that, from the late 1700s to the early 1900s, music not only reflected but also embodied modern subjectivity as it increasingly engaged and criticized old regimes of power, belief, and representation. His purview ranges from Mozart to Mahler, and from the sacred to the secular, including opera as well as symphonic and solo instrumental music. Defining subjectivity as the experience rather than the position of the "I," Steinberg argues that music's embodiment of subjectivity involved its apparent capacity to "listen" to itself, its past, its desires. Nineteenth-century music, in particular music from a north German Protestant sphere, inspired introspection in a way that the music and art of previous periods, notably the Catholic baroque with its emphasis on the visual, did not. The book analyzes musical subjectivity initially from Mozart through Mendelssohn, then seeks it, in its central chapter, in those aspects of Wagner that contradict his own ideological imperialism, before finally uncovering its survival in the post-Wagnerian recovery from musical and other ideologies. Engagingly written yet theoretically sophisticated, Listening to Reason represents a startlingly original corrective to cultural history's long-standing inhibition to engage with music while presenting a powerful alternative vision of the modern.

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Tracing the leading role of emotions in the evolution of the mind, a philosopher and a psychologist pair up to reveal how thought and culture owe less to our faculty for reason than to our capacity to feel.Many accounts of the human mind concentrate on the brain’s computational power. Yet, in evolutionary terms, rational cognition emerged only the day before yesterday. For nearly 200 million years before humans developed a capacity to reason, the emotional centers of the brain were hard at work. If we want to properly understand the evolution of the mind, we must explore this more primal capability that we share with other animals: the power to feel.Emotions saturate every thought and perception with the weight of feelings. The Emotional Mind reveals that many of the distinctive behaviors and social structures of our species are best discerned through the lens of emotions. Even the roots of so much that makes us uniquely human—art, mythology, religion—can be traced to feelings of caring, longing, fear, loneliness, awe, rage, lust, playfulness, and more.From prehistoric cave art to the songs of Hank Williams, Stephen T. Asma and Rami Gabriel explore how the evolution of the emotional mind stimulated our species’ cultural expression in all its rich variety. Bringing together insights and data from philosophy, biology, anthropology, neuroscience, and psychology, The Emotional Mind offers a new paradigm for understanding what it is that makes us so unique.

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Many universities in South Africa have acquired new works of art for key spaces on their campuses. These works convey messages about the advantages of cultural diversity, but recently acquired sculptures, paintings and tapestries also critically engage with histories of racial intolerance and conflict. A current concern among tertiary South African institutions is the influence of British imperialism or Afrikaner nationalism on aspects of their inherited visual culture. Discussions from within the art world around the curatorship of art, memorials, insignia and regalia has shed light on these outmoded colonial value systems which universities now wish to distance themselves from. In Picturing Change, Brenda Schmahmann explores the implications of deploying the visual domain in the service of transformative agendas. In other words, how do universities reflect, through the visual objects on their campuses, on their revisionist aims and endorsements of cultural diversity? While most new commissions are innovative, there have been instances in which universities in South Africa have acquired works of art with potentially traditionalist – even backward-looking – implications. And while imperatives to remove inherited imagery may be underpinned by a wish to unsettle white privilege, there have in fact been occasions in which such actions have served to maintain the status quo. Further, while many expected that a post-apartheid era would have freed artists from censorship, some images produced or shown under the auspices of universities have in fact been susceptible to proscription for supposedly articulating hate speech. Schmahmann identifies and analyses a range of approaches taken by universities and commissioned artists towards these ‘troublesome’ visual objects .This study is the first to consider imagery at a range of tertiary institutions in the country, and it is unique in its exploration of a transformative ethos in the visual domain at universities. It will be invaluable to readers interested in public art and the politics of curating and collecting, and also to those concerned with the challenges involved in transforming contemporary universities into spaces welcoming of diversity in South Africa.

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Forty years after China’s tumultuous Cultural Revolution, this book revisits the visual and performing arts of the period – the paintings, propaganda posters, political cartoons, sculpture, folk arts, private sketchbooks, opera, and ballet. Probing deeply, it examines what these vibrant, militant, often gaudy images meant to artists, their patrons, and their audiences at the time, and what they mean now, both in their original forms and as revolutionary icons reworked for a new market-oriented age. Chapters by scholars of Chinese history and art and by artists whose careers were shaped by the Cultural Revolution offer new insights into works that have transcended their times.

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Nostalgia, they say, is not what it used to be. Once a witticism, this statement about the past has come to pass. Nostalgia really isn’t what it used to be. Less than a generation ago, it was regarded as reactionary, as regressive, as reprehensible. Now, it is considered conducive to health, wealth, and human wellbeing. It is something that helps sell products and move merchandise, an underexploited critical resource with emancipatory potential. Nowhere is this transformation better illustrated than in the neo-burlesque community, whose members not only embrace the art-form’s golden age, and happily acquire heritage goods and vintage services, but turn their nostalgic leanings to emancipatory effect. They are retro revolutionaries, feather boa-wearing insurgents who find women’s liberation in sequins and stilettos. This book shines a spotlight on weapons-grade nostalgia, indicating how it is integral to insurrections throughout history, be they political, technological, or cultural. It reveals, through a combination of empirical ethnographic research and revolutionary literary criticism, the part nostalgia plays in a subversive consumer collective that uses fans, fishnets, and frivolity to fight for the right to party against patriarchy and find a fourth-wave form of female emancipation that foregoes old-school feminist fault-finding for good old-fashioned fun, fun, fun.

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Aperitivo: from the Latin aperire, to open, as in open the door to friends, open conversation around the table, and open the appetite. Aperitivo is about coming together over drinks and snacks before dinner. It's a quintessentially Italian concept, and one that's worth emulating. Originating in the bars and cafes of northern cities such as Venice, Milan, and Turin, the custom has spread all over the country. Aperitivo takes the reader on a spirited ride through this cocktail culture, stopping at all the chicest and most classic bars and restaurants that have elevated this ritual to an art form. Many of the drinks are structured around vermouths and citrus- and botanical infused liqueurs, which offer a new world of complex flavours. They yield enticingly simple cocktails that refresh-without stunning the palate (thanks to a lighter alcohol content). But Aperitivo is just as much about the food because in Italy, you can't drink without eating. Recipes feature peppers stuffed with tuna, the legendary croquettes from Harry's Bar, and polenta squares with baccala, as well as endless variations of crostini and focaccia. Whether planning a party or just having a friend over, Aperitivo brings a whole new spirit of conviviality and lets you host in true Italian style.

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How culture transformed human evolution Humans possess an extraordinary capacity for cultural production, from the arts and language to science and technology. How did the human mind--and the uniquely human ability to devise and transmit culture--evolve from its roots in animal behavior? Darwin's Unfinished Symphony presents a captivating new theory of human cognitive evolution. This compelling and accessible book reveals how culture is not just the magnificent end product of an evolutionary process that produced a species unlike all others--it is also the key driving force behind that process. Kevin Laland shows how the learned and socially transmitted activities of our ancestors shaped our intellects through accelerating cycles of evolutionary feedback. The truly unique characteristics of our species--such as our intelligence, language, teaching, and cooperation--are not adaptive responses to predators, disease, or other external conditions. Rather, humans are creatures of their own making. Drawing on his own groundbreaking research, and bringing it to life with vivid natural history, Laland explains how animals imitate, innovate, and have remarkable traditions of their own. He traces our rise from scavenger apes in prehistory to modern humans able to design iPhones, dance the tango, and send astronauts into space. This book tells the story of the painstaking fieldwork, the key experiments, the false leads, and the stunning scientific breakthroughs that led to this new understanding of how culture transformed human evolution. It is the story of how Darwin's intellectual descendants picked up where he left off and took up the challenge of providing a scientific account of the evolution of the human mind.

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"Penultimate Adventures with Britannia" is the sixth volume in Wm. Roger Louis' "Adventures with Britannia" series and, as in the earlier volumes, this is not a sedate guided tour but an exciting journey by a range of distinguished writers and academics through British cultural, intellectual, literary and political life, in its contact with other cultures and with international politics; and the tour is conducted by one of our greatest historians of empire. War and empire dominated the twentieth century and beyond. They continue to shape international history, both politically and culturally. Bernard Porter shows the importance of culture on British imperial history, Priaya Satia's writes on the cultural foundation of British power in Iraq and Geoffrey Wheatcroft deals with the perennial problems of partition, here as experienced in India and Ireland.Dane Kennedy's "The New American Empire" covers the dominating theme in modern international relations. International politics remain centre stage but there are illuminating literary and artistic glances behind the scenes. These include Susan Pedersen's portrait of Frances Stevenson and her influence on Lloyd George even at the height of the First World War, Martin Gilbert on Tolkien and English culture and Hilary Spurling's "Reassessing Paul Scott" - vital for students of modern Indian history. There are fascinating vignettes of the art of Larry Carver on Felix Topolski and Martin Francis on Cecil Beaton. Felipe Fernandez Armesto's "An Accidental Criminal" rounds off a remarkable and rewarding volume and maintains the delightful tradition of Wm. Roger Louis' "Adventures" series.

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Contemporary society has seen an unprecedented rise in both the demand and the desire to be creative, to bring something new into the world. Once the reserve of artistic subcultures, creativity has now become a universal model for culture and an imperative in many parts of society.In this new book, cultural sociologist Andreas Reckwitz investigates how the ideal of creativity has grown into a major social force, from the art of the avant-garde and postmodernism to the ‘creative industries’ and the innovation economy, the psychology of creativity and self-growth, the media representation of creative stars, and the urban design of ‘creative cities’. Where creativity is often assumed to be a force for good, Reckwitz looks critically at how this imperative has developed from the 1970s to the present day. Though we may well perceive creativity as the realization of some natural and innate potential within us, it has rather to be understood within the structures of a very specific culture of the new in late modern society. The Invention of Creativity is a bold and refreshing counter to conventional wisdom that shows how our age is defined by radical and restrictive processes of social aestheticization. It will be of great interest to those working in a variety of disciplines, from cultural and social theory to art history and aesthetics.

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Contemporary society has seen an unprecedented rise in both the demand and the desire to be creative, to bring something new into the world. Once the reserve of artistic subcultures, creativity has now become a universal model for culture and an imperative in many parts of society.In this new book, cultural sociologist Andreas Reckwitz investigates how the ideal of creativity has grown into a major social force, from the art of the avant-garde and postmodernism to the ‘creative industries’ and the innovation economy, the psychology of creativity and self-growth, the media representation of creative stars, and the urban design of ‘creative cities’. Where creativity is often assumed to be a force for good, Reckwitz looks critically at how this imperative has developed from the 1970s to the present day. Though we may well perceive creativity as the realization of some natural and innate potential within us, it has rather to be understood within the structures of a very specific culture of the new in late modern society. The Invention of Creativity is a bold and refreshing counter to conventional wisdom that shows how our age is defined by radical and restrictive processes of social aestheticization. It will be of great interest to those working in a variety of disciplines, from cultural and social theory to art history and aesthetics.

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In this epic history-cum-anthology, Megan Vaughan tells the story of the theatre blogosphere from the dawn of the carefully crafted longform post to today’s digital newsletters and social media threads. Contextualising the key debates of fifteen years of theatre history, and featuring the writings of over 40 theatre bloggers, Theatre Blogging brings past and present practitioners into conversation with one another. Starting with Encore Theatre Magazine and Chris Goode in London, George Hunka and Laura Axelrod in New York, Jill Dolan at Princeton University, and Alison Croggon in Melbourne, the work of these influential early adopters is considered alongside those who followed them. Vaughan explores issues that have affected both arts journalism and the theatre industry, profiling the activist bloggers arguing for broader representation and better working conditions, highlighting the innovative dramaturgical practices that have been developed and piloted by bloggers, and offering powerful insights into the precarious systems of labour and economics in which these writers exist. She concludes by considering current threats to the theatre blogosphere, and how the form continues to evolve in response to them.

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A clear, concise and detailed analysis of the eclectic and beautiful visual and material culture of Catholicism. Focusing on a carefully curated selection of Catholic art and artefacts, this book explains the meaning of the iconography and the mystic power of the faith's ritual objects. A wealth of often hidden symbols are identified and examined close up, building into a catalogue of key visual symbols for readers to use to interpret all Catholic visual and material culture. The book is organized into three parts - Tenet, Locus and Spiritus - each containing three themed chapters. The first part introduces the centrepieces of the faith, explaining the symbolism in the artistic representation of the holy family, apostles and saints, and in stories from scripture. The second part examines places of worship, identifying the constituent parts of the cathedral and presenting evocative images of roadside shrines. The third part explores celebrations and traditions, including personal devotional tools and jewelry. For each of the nine themed chapters, illustrated introductory text is followed by a spread-by-spread presentation of the key figures, the key stories and the key iconography relevant to each theme. Paintings and artefacts are examined in detail, identifying and explaining the symbolism and the stories depicted in each. As the book progresses, readers will build up knowledge of the entire Catholic visual code - the symbols that define Catholic practice, the attributes of the saints, the parts of the cathedral - allowing them to interpret Catholic imagery and objects wherever they find them and to understand the tenets, sites and rituals of the faith.

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An introduction to the study of visual culture, this book offers a view of 'visual culture' that includes not only images, but also other visual media and forms of expression, from architecture to fashion, design and the human body. The book is organised around three broad themes, exploring key ideas and debates that have occurred during the last 20 or so years: *the meanings of the term 'visual culture' and of the various practices that form its basis *conceptual approaches to the contemporary analysis of visual culture *the cultural, social and historical contexts informing its production, distribution and consumption. Drawing on a wide range of examples from the last 100 years, the book adopts a cross-disciplinary perspective; it also explores, however, the limits of visual culture as an interdisciplinary field of study, engaging in current debates about the uses and value of the study of visual culture. It will therefore be of value both for readers new to the subject and also for those seeking fresh interventions into contemporary discussions within the field. Features *Accessibly written by a team of experts in the field *Illustrated throughout *Includes chapters on a wide range of visual forms, including architecture and urban design, film, crafts, fashion, design, fine art and the media.

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The international controversy over who "owns" antiquities has pitted museums against archaeologists and source countries where ancient artifacts are found. In his book Who Owns Antiquity?, James Cuno argued that antiquities are the cultural property of humankind, not of the countries that lay exclusive claim to them. Now in Whose Culture?, Cuno assembles preeminent museum directors, curators, and scholars to explain for themselves what's at stake in this struggle--and why the museums' critics couldn't be more wrong. Source countries and archaeologists favor tough cultural property laws restricting the export of antiquities, have fought for the return of artifacts from museums worldwide, and claim the acquisition of undocumented antiquities encourages looting of archaeological sites. In Whose Culture?, leading figures from universities and museums in the United States and Britain argue that modern nation-states have at best a dubious connection with the ancient cultures they claim to represent, and that archaeology has been misused by nationalistic identity politics. They explain why exhibition is essential to responsible acquisitions, why our shared art heritage trumps nationalist agendas, why restrictive cultural property laws put antiquities at risk from unstable governments--and more. Defending the principles of art as the legacy of all humankind and museums as instruments of inquiry and tolerance, Whose Culture? brings reasoned argument to an issue that for too long has been distorted by politics and emotionalism. In addition to the editor, the contributors are Kwame Anthony Appiah, Sir John Boardman, Michael F. Brown, Derek Gillman, Neil MacGregor, John Henry Merryman, Philippe de Montebello, David I. Owen, and James C. Y. Watt.

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eTextbooks are now available to purchase or rent through VitalSource.com! Please visit VitalSource for more information on pricing and availability. Faces of Contemporary Russia is a one-semester textbook for high-intermediate to advanced level Russian students that aims to develop students' linguistic proficiency by examining significant personalities in current Russian culture. In addition to introductory and concluding chapters, the book features twelve individuals (one per chapter), drawing from a range of areas such as arts, sports, journalism, and business. While upper-level Russian textbooks tend to emphasize grammar and reading more traditional works of Russian literature, this book instead seeks to primarily engage students in learning about and discussing the breadth of contemporary Russian culture while weaving the study of grammar and vocabulary into those discussions. In addition to readings and in-class communicative activities, the book also features guided research assignments that encourage students to make use of the many personality interviews and YouTube clips available online. For Instructors: Exam copies of the textbook are available free of charge to instructors and can be ordered on this page. To request a print sample, please use the "print" exam copy button. To request a digital sample, instructors should log onto VitalSource.com, select "Faculty Sampling" in the upper right-hand corner, and select the desired product.

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Dean Borgman, a nationally known youth ministry expert, offers a new edition of his influential classic. Reaching a broadly ecumenical audience, this book challenges readers to think about the theological nature of youth ministry. Questions for discussion and reflection are included. This thoroughly updated edition was previously published as When Kumbaya Is Not Enough. Praise for the first edition "Writing with the lens of a theologian, the heart of a pastor, and welcome doctrinal breadth, Borgman has provided a 'field book' of pastoral theologies that takes seriously the social systems shaping the lives of adolescents. This book is a significant step toward the long-awaited conversation about theology and youth ministry in postmodern culture."--Kenda Creasy Dean, Princeton Theological Seminary; author of Almost Christian "In this excellent work Borgman brings theological integrity, depth, and years of wisdom like nothing else I have seen in our field."--Jim Burns, author of Teenology: The Art of Raising Great Teenagers

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This sweeping work, at once a panoramic overview and an ambitious critical reinterpretation of European modernism, provides a bold new perspective on a movement that defined the cultural landscape of the early twentieth century. Walter L. Adamson embarks on a lucid, wide-ranging exploration of the avant-garde practices through which the modernist generations after 1900 resisted the rise of commodity culture as a threat to authentic cultural expression. Taking biographical approaches to numerous avant-garde leaders, Adamson charts the rise and fall of modernist aspirations in movements and individuals as diverse as Ruskin, Marinetti, Kandinsky, Bauhaus, Purism, and the art critic Herbert Read. In conclusion, Adamson rises to the defense of the modernists, suggesting that their ideas are relevant to current efforts to think through what it might mean to create a vibrant, aesthetically satisfying form of cultural democracy.

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National Matters investigates the role of material culture and materiality in defining and solidifying national identity in everyday practice. Examining a range of "things"—from art objects, clay fragments, and broken stones to clothing, food, and urban green space—the contributors to this volume explore the importance of matter in making the nation appear real, close, and important to its citizens. Symbols and material objects do not just reflect the national visions deployed by elites and consumed by the masses, but are themselves important factors in the production of national ideals. Through a series of theoretically grounded and empirically rich case studies, this volume analyzes three key aspects of materiality and nationalism: the relationship between objects and national institutions, the way commonplace objects can shape a national ethos, and the everyday practices that allow individuals to enact and embody the nation. In giving attention to the agency of things and the capacities they afford or foreclose, these cases also challenge the methodological orthodoxies of cultural sociology. Taken together, these essays highlight how the "material turn" in the social sciences pushes conventional understanding of state and nation-making processes in new directions.

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Explores the rise of animated documentary and non-fiction in the 21st century Examines the digitalisation and virtualisation of culture as the backdrop for the rise of contemporary animated documentaries Focuses on the techno-cultural setting and explores multiple areas of non-fiction Offers a wide view of visual culture case studies including film, art, journalism, gaming, scientific and data visualization Confronting shifts in the status and aesthetics of the real, Nea Ehrlich analyses how contemporary technoculture has transformed the relationship of animation to documentary by mapping out two parallel trends: the increased use of animation within documentary or non-fiction contexts, and the increasingly pervasive use of non-photorealistic animation within digital media. As the virtual becomes another aspect of our contemporary mixed reality (physical and virtual), the book aims to understand how this visual paradigm shift influences viewers, both ethically and politically, and questions the wider ramifications of this transformation in non-fiction aesthetics.

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What is the internet doing to us? What is college for? What are the myths and metaphors we live by? These are the questions that William Deresiewicz has been pursuing over the course of his award-winning career. The End of Solitude brings together more than forty of his finest essays, including four that are published here for the first time. Ranging widely across the culture, they take up subjects as diverse as Mad Men and Harold Bloom, the significance of the hipster, and the purpose of art. Drawing on the past, they ask how we got where we are. Scrutinising the present, they seek to understand how we can live more mindfully and freely, and they pose two fundamental questions: What does it mean to be an individual, and how can we sustain our individuality in an age of networks and groups?

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This collection brings together some of the important minds in both contemporary art history and theory, and law and legal history. The result is a discussion of the diverse relationships between law and the artistic image. The essays draw on the critical procedures of law, art history and cultural studies in order to create an interdisciplinary field of visual culture and law. In exploring the hidden interdependence of law and art, the writings refute the generally held conception that law is fixed and rational while the judgement of art is autonomous and ambiguous. Among the topics addressed are the history of the relationship between art and law, the ways in which the visual is made subject to the force of the law, and the complex relations between law, the image and identity.

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The ten chapters of «Proverbs Speak Louder Than Words» present a composite picture of the richness of proverbs as significant expressions of folk wisdom as is manifest from their appearance in art, culture, folklore, history, literature, and the mass media. The first chapter surveys the multifaceted aspects of paremiology (the study of proverbs), with the second chapter illustrating the paremiological work by the American folklorist Alan Dundes. The next two chapters look at the effective role that proverbs play in the mass media, where they are cited in their traditional wording or as innovative anti-proverbs. The fifth chapter discusses proverbs as expressions of the worldview of New England. This is followed by two chapters on the proverbial prowess of American presidents, to wit the proverbial style in the correspondence between John and Abigail Adams and a discussion of Abraham Lincoln’s apocryphal proverb «Don’t swap horses in the middle of the stream.» The eighth chapter traces the tradition of proverb iconography from medieval woodcuts to Pieter Bruegel the Elder and on to modern caricatures, cartoons, and comic strips. The last two chapters deal with the origin and history of the proverbial expression «to tilt at windmills» as an allusion to Cervantes’ Don Quixote and the many proverbial utterances in Mozart’s letters. The book draws attention to the fact that proverbs as metaphorical signs continue to play an important role in oral and written communication. Proverbs as socalled monumenta humana are omnipresent in all facets of life, and while they are neither sacrosanct nor saccharine, they usually offer much common sense or wisdom based on recurrent experiences and observations.

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Enemy – Stranger – Neighbour: The Image of the Other in Moche Culture is dedicated to artistic renderings of the Recuay people in Moche art, in all available and preserved media. The Moche and the Recuay were the creators of the two main cultures of northern Peru in the Early Intermediate Period (approx. 100-750 CE). They were both illiterate and they left no written documents concerning the nature of their mutual contacts. The Moche, however, represented the Recuay quite extensively in their ceremonial art, which served as a powerful ideological tool of social influence and control. Its iconography gives an exceptional opportunity to study the mechanisms of perceiving and presenting the ‘other’ in a traditional society. This study offers an analysis of a set of several dozen complex, painted and bas-relief scenes, as well as several hundred mould-pressed, sculpted depictions of foreigners in Moche art. It tries to answer the questions of how the message regarding the ‘other’ was created and communicated, what its concept may have been and what social functions it may have served among the groups living in the Southern Moche Region. The attitude to foreigners – as reconstructed on the basis of Moche iconography – was not unidimensional. It was characterized by a combination of extreme feelings and emotions such as fear and admiration, resentment and interest, repulsion and fascination. It has many features of a typical approach to all ‘others’ studied by specialists of different disciplines in various contexts and cultures. The observations made in this book will prove of interest not only to Moche scholars, Andean archaeologists or, people interested in the pre-Columbian cultures of South America, but also – if only as an analogy – to historians, art historians, sociologists and anthropologists dealing with the issue of alterity.

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"An indispensable guide to Japanese cinema and culture." --Library Journal "Viewed any which way, Japan through the eyes of Donald Richie is an interesting and rewarding place to read about. This is...yet another reminder that he is a master of the short essay and a thought-provoking guide to his subject." --Jeff Kingston, The Japan Times This definitive new collection of essays by the writer Time calls "the dean of arts critics in Japan" ranges from Kyogen drama to the sex shows of Shinjuku, from film and Buddhism to Butoh and retro rock 'n' roll, from wasei eigo (Japanese/English) to mizushobai, the fine art of pleasing. Spanning some fifty years, these thirty-seven essays--most never anthologized before--offer cross-sections of Japan's enormous cultural power. They reflect the unique perspective of a man attempting to understand his adopted home. The writings of Donald Richie--film critic, reviewer, novelist, and essayist--have influenced generations of Japan observers around the world.

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Ah, the Wild West! Wide open plains, beautiful sunsets, and thundering herds. Days when the cowboy was king, and good guys always wore white. The love affair with the American West has stood the test of time and survived competition from sports, electronic gadgets, and reality.Wanted Dead or Alive presents the first-ever comprehensive look at how the American West has been depicted in popular culture. Following Richard Aquila's introduction, which examines the birth and growth of the pop culture West in the context of American history, noted experts explore developments in popular Western fiction, major forms of live Western entertainment, trends in Western movies and television shows, images of the West in popular music, and visual images of the West in popular art and advertising. For the reader on the trail of even more information, each section of the book concludes with suggestions for further reading.

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This collection brings together some of the important minds in both contemporary art history and theory, and law and legal history. The result is a discussion of the diverse relationships between law and the artistic image. The essays draw on the critical procedures of law, art history and cultural studies in order to create an interdisciplinary field of visual culture and law. In exploring the hidden interdependence of law and art, the writings refute the generally held conception that law is fixed and rational while the judgement of art is autonomous and ambiguous. Among the topics addressed are the history of the relationship between art and law, the ways in which the visual is made subject to the force of the law, and the complex relations between law, the image and identity.

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The Companion combines a broad grounding in the essential texts and contexts of the modernist movement with the unique insights of scholars whose careers have been devoted to the study of modernism. An essential resource for students and teachers of modernist literature and culture Broad in scope and comprehensive in coverage Includes more than 60 contributions from some of the most distinguished modernist scholars on both sides of the Atlantic Brings together entries on elements of modernist culture, contemporary intellectual and aesthetic movements, and all the genres of modernist writing and art Features 25 essays on the signal texts of modernist literature, from James Joyce’s Ulysses to Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God Pays close attention to both British and American modernism

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Dead Pledges is the first book to explore the ways that U.S. culture—from novels and poems to photojournalism and horror movies—has responded to the collapse of the financialized consumer credit economy in 2008. Connecting debt theory to questions of cultural form, this book argues that artists, filmmakers, and writers have re-imagined what it means to owe and to own in a period when debt is what makes our economic lives possible. Encompassing both popular entertainment and avant-garde art, the post-crisis productions examined here help to map the landscape of contemporary debt: from foreclosure to credit scoring, student debt to securitized risk, microeconomic theory to anti-eviction activism. A searing critique of the ideology of debt, Dead Pledges dismantles the discourse of moral obligation so often invoked to make us repay. Debt is no longer a source of economic credibility, it contends, but a system of dispossession that threatens the basic fabric of social life.

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Containing over one hundred selections—most of them published in English for the first time—The Colombia Reader presents a rich and multilayered account of this complex nation from the colonial era to the present. The collection includes journalistic reports, songs, artwork, poetry, oral histories, government documents, and scholarship to illustrate the changing ways Colombians from all walks of life have made and understood their own history. Comprehensive in scope, it covers regional differences; religion, art, and culture; the urban/rural divide; patterns of racial, economic, and gender inequalities; the history of violence; and the transnational flows that have shaped the nation. The Colombia Reader expands readers' knowledge of Colombia beyond its reputation for violence, contrasting experiences of conflict with the stability and significance of cultural, intellectual, and economic life in this plural nation.

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The first edition of The Promotion of Devotion: Religion, Culture, and Communication pioneered the nexus of spirituality and public relations, exploring religious-spiritual tourism and church-state partnerships; devotional-promotional campaigning; sports and religion; and art and the promotion of devotion. It provided readers with an A-list look at Elvis Presley, Princess Diana, and other celebrity "saints," fans and their love for Smokey Bear and superstar racehorse Barbaro, and cultural phenoms Marilyn Monroe and Pharaoh Tutankhamun.In this revised second edition, the author revisits some of these topics with updates, expands others, and ventures into new territory. New chapters explore the death of Argentinian "soccer god" Diego Maradona, the resurrection of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris following extensive fire damage, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic upon worship and social media. Underscoring the important and influential nature of spirituality in society and exploring the many ways in which communication and faith intersect, The Promotion of Devotion is an ideal text for courses and programs in communication, religion, international studies, and culture.

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The 2009 quadricentennial celebrations commemorating the discovery of the Hudson River by Henry Hudson will also spotlight one of our deepest and most enduring national legacies—the Dutch presence that has shaped not just the Hudson Valley but four centuries of American life. This lavishly illustrated book, a companion to the exhibition opening in June 2009 at the Hudson River Museum, takes needed stock of the remarkable past created by the settlers of New Netherlands. Although the Dutch controlled the Hudson Valley only until ceding it to the British in 1664, the Dutch established the towns and cities that today define the region—from New Amsterdam upriver to Fort Orange, today’s Albany. The Dutch heritage lives on, not only in historic estates or Dutch-named places like the Bronx or Yonkers but also in commerce, law, politics, religion, art, and culture. In thirteen original essays, this book traverses those four centuries to enrich and expand our understanding of America’s origins. The essays, written by a superb team of distinguished scholars, are grouped into five chronological frames—1609, 1709, 1809, 1909, and 2009—each marking a key point in the history of the Dutch in the valley. The topics range widely, from patterns of settlement and the Dutch encounter with slavery and Native America to Dutch influences in everything from architecture and religion to material culture, language, and literature. Based on fresh research, this book is at once a fascinating introduction to a remarkable past and a much-needed new look at the Dutch role in the region, in the story of America’s origins, and in creating the habits, styles, and practices identified as quintessentially New York’s.

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What good is art? What is the point of a university education? Can philosophers contribute anything to social liberation? Such questions, both ancient and urgent, are the pulse of reformational philosophy. Inspired by the vision of the Dutch religious and political leader Abraham Kuyper, reformational philosophy pursues social transformation for the common good. In this companion volume to Religion, Truth, and Social Transformation, Lambert Zuidervaart presents a socially engaged philosophy of the arts and higher education. Interacting with the ideas of leading Kuyperian thinkers such as Calvin Seerveld and Nicholas Wolterstorff, Zuidervaart shows why renewal in the arts needs to coincide with political and economic transformation. He also calls for education and research that serve the common good. Deeply rooted in reformational philosophy, his book brings a fresh and inspiring voice to current discussions of religious aesthetics and Christian scholarship. Art, Education, and Cultural Renewal is a testament to the practical and intellectual richness of a unique religious tradition, compelling in its call for social solidarity and cultural critique.

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This is the first book to explore the global influence of Maoism on modern and contemporary art. Featuring eighteen original essays written by established and emerging scholars from around the world, and illustrated with fascinating images not widely known in the west, the volume demonstrates the significance of visuality in understanding the protean nature of this powerful worldwide revolutionary movement. Contributions address regions as diverse as Singapore, Madrid, Lima and Maputo, moving beyond stereotypes and misconceptions of Mao Zedong Thought's influence on art to deliver a survey of the social and political contexts of this international phenomenon. At the same time, the book attends to the the similarities and differences between each case study. It demonstrates that the chameleonic appearances of global Maoism deserve a more prominent place in the art history of both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

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The most compelling art form to emerge from the United States in the second half of the twentieth century, rock & roll stands in an edgy relationship with its own mythology, its own musicological history and the broader culture in which it plays a part. In Present Tense, Anthony DeCurtis brings together writers from a wide variety of fields to explore how rock & roll is made, consumed, and experienced in our time.In this collection, Greil Marcus creates a collage of words and pictures that evokes and explores Elvis Presley's grisly fate as an American cultural image, while Robert Palmer tells the gripping tale of the origins and meanings of the electric guitar. Rap music, MTV, and the issue of gender identity in the work of Bruce Springsteen all undergo thorough examination; rock & roll's complex relationship with the forces of censorship gets a remarkably fresh reading; and the mainstreaming of rock & roll in the 1980s is detailed and analyzed. And, in an interview with Laurie Anderson and an essay by Atlanta musician Jeff Calder, the artists speak for themselves.Contributors. Jeff Calder, Anthony DeCurtis, Mark Dery, Paul Evans, Glenn Gass, Trent Hill, Michael Jarrett, Alan Light, Greil Marcus, Robert Palmer, Robert B. Ray, Dan Rubey, David R. Shumway, Martha Nell Smith, Paul Smith

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Siegfried Kracauer (1889-1966), friend and colleague of Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, was one of the most influential film critics of the mid-twentieth century. In this book, Johannes von Moltke and Kristy Rawson have, for the first time assembled essays in cultural criticism, film, literature, and media theory that Kracauer wrote during the quarter century he spent in America after fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe. In the decades following his arrival in the United States, Kracauer commented on developments in American and European cinema, wrote on film noir and neorealism, examined unsettling political trends in mainstream cinema, and reviewed the contemporary experiments of avant-garde filmmakers. As a cultural critic, he also ranged far beyond cinema, intervening in debates regarding Jewish culture, unraveling national and racial stereotypes, and reflecting on the state of arts and humanities in the 1950s. These essays, together with the editors' introductions and an afterward by Martin Jay offer illuminating insights into the films and culture of the postwar years and provide a unique perspective on this eminent emigre intellectual.

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There is a new quality of idiocy today. While the old idiot derived knowledge from isolation, the new idiot refuses all understanding of the world. A figure of systematic incompetence, the new idiot is impacting global culture and politics alike, giving rise to surprising, often absurd competences. Yesterday’s “fake news” or “post-truths” can be read today as evidence of an ongoing transformation of self-politics in which the idiotic impulse is redefining our experience of the world. Despite talk of global awareness, the isolated self of the many is all the more effective. It brings about a culture of happy singletons strolling towards a black hole that has become their substitute for society. Zoran ​Terzić’s wide-ranging essay takes up the figure of the idiot and follows its numerous appearances throughout intellectual history in an examination of the “art of the idiotic” that both reflects and transcends the freneticism of the present.

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Thinking of getting a Japanese-style tattoo? Want to avoid a permanent mistake? Japanese Tattoos is an insider's look at the world of Japanese irezumi (tattoos).Japanese Tattoos explains the imagery featured in Japanese tattoos so that readers can avoid getting ink they don't understand or, worse, that they'll regret. This photo-heavy book also traces the history of Japanese tattooing, putting the iconography and kanji symbols in their proper context so readers will be better informed as to what they mean and have a deeper understanding of irezumi. Featured tattoos range from traditional tebori (hand-poked) and kanji tattoos to anime-inspired and modern works—as well as everything in between. For the first time, Japanese tattooing is put together in a visually attractive, informative, and authoritative way. Along with the 350+ photos of tattoos, Japanese Tattoos also features interviews with Japanese tattoo artists on a variety of topics. What's more, it contains interviews with clients, who are typically overlooked in similar books, allowing them to discuss what their Japanese tattoos mean to them. Those who read this informative tattoo guide will be more knowledgeable about Japanese tattoos should they want to get inked or if they are merely interested in Japanese art and culture.

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The act of remaking one's history into a heritage, a conscientiously crafted narrative placed over the past, is a thriving industry in almost every postcolonial culture. This is surprising, given the tainted role of heritage in so much of colonialism's history. Yet the postcolonial state, like its European predecessor of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, deploys heritage institutions and instruments, museums, courts of law, and universities to empower itself with unity, longevity, exaltation of value, origin, and destiny. Bringing the eye of a philosopher, the pen of an essayist, and the experience of a public intellectual to the study of heritage, Daniel Herwitz reveals the febrile pitch at which heritage is staked. In this absorbing book, he travels to South Africa and unpacks its controversial and robust confrontations with the colonial and apartheid past. He visits India and reads in its modern art the gesture of a newly minted heritage idealizing the precolonial world as the source of Indian modernity. He traverses the United States and finds in its heritage of incessant invention, small town exceptionalism, and settler destiny a key to contemporary American media-driven politics. Showing how destabilizing, ambivalent, and potentially dangerous heritage is as a producer of contemporary social, aesthetic, and political realities, Herwitz captures its perfect embodiment of the struggle to seize culture and society at moments of profound social change.

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