Search results for ""author various"

Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry' examines the question of how recent English-language poetry from Wales has responded to the diverse physical environments of Wales. The first volume to offer a sustained assessment of Welsh poetry in English within the context of recent developments in environmental literary criticism, this book also draws on aspects of human geography to explore the rich contemporary poetics of Welsh space and place. Opening with an examination of poets from the 1960s as well as the early work of R.S. Thomas, 'Welsh Environments in Contemporary Poetry' subsequently concentrates on the poetry of writers who have come to prominence since the 1970s: Gillian Clarke, Ruth Bidgood, Robert Minhinnick, Mike Jenkins, Christine Evans, and Ian Davidson.Close reading of key texts reveals the way in which these writers variously create Welsh places, landscapes, and environments - fashioning rural and urban spaces into poetic geographies that are both abundantly physical and inescapably cultural. Far from reducing Wales to mere scenery, the poetry that emerges from this book engages with the environments of Wales, not just for their own sake, but as a crucial way of exploring key issues in Welsh culture - from the negotiation of female identity in a land of masculine myths to the exploration of Welsh space in a global context.

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Hollywood certainly isn't your typical police precinct, but in Hollywood Moon, follow-up to Hollywood Station and Hollywood Crows, the cops of that surreal place seem called upon to deal with an even greater share of weirdness than normal. Drag queens in delicto flagrante behind dumpsters, dead hobos pushed around in wheelchairs, men in massage parlours receiving unspeakable injuries from Barbie dolls. That's not to say that the cops themselves don't have their own peculiarities: Hollywood Nate still dreams of movie stardom, but worries as he gets older that he's too good-looking to be a character actor. Then there's Aaron Sloane, forever lusting after his beautiful partner Sheila Montez, and Dana Vaughn, a tough no-nonsense cop who can't stand the fact that former chauvinist pig turned 'guardian angel' Lee Murillo won't stop following her around after she saved his life. But there's a darker side to all that weirdness - and when the enigmatic crook Dewey Gleason, known variously to his associates as 'Jacob Kessler' and 'Bernie Graham', hatches an audacious kidnap plan, without knowing that one of the hired help lives a double life as a serial sex attacker, things start to get very dangerous indeed.

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Serge Diaghilev was the Russian impresario who is often said to have invented the modern art form of ballet. Commissioning such legendary names as Nijinsky, Fokine, Stravinsky, and Picasso, this intriguingly complex genius produced a series of radically original art works that had a revolutionary impact throughout the western world.Off stage and in its wake came scandal and sensation, as the great artists and mercurial performers involved variously collaborated, clashed, competed while falling in and out of love with each other on a wild carousel of sexual intrigue and temperamental mayhem. The Ballets Russes not only left a matchless artistic legacy - they changed style and glamour, they changed taste, and they changed social behaviour.The Ballets Russes came to an official end after many vicissitudes with Diaghilev's abrupt death in 1929. But the achievements of its heroic prime had established a paradigm that would continue to define the terms and set the standards for the next. Published to mark the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Diaghilev's birth, Rupert Christiansen - leading critic and self-confessed 'incurable balletomane' - presents this freshly researched and challenging reassessment of a unique phenomenon, exploring passionate conflicts and outsize personalities in a story embracing triumph and disaster.

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"The poems of Anthony McCann are beautiful, brutal, and unerring. They present us with, or return us to, a complicated, violent, poignant, weird, and mysterious world--a world which is very particularly his, and also our own, re-sung. For some time now I have believed McCann to be one of the finest poets writing today."--Maggie Nelson "McCann demonstrates that the truth surrounds us all; our best way of connecting with it is through compassion and love. With equal parts exuberance and dread, the speaker encourages us to 'waste the whole day feeling these things.'"--Boston Review Thing Music is full of flesh, of creatures tangled in their worlds. Marked variously by the desert and coastal landscapes of Southern California and the intersections of phenomenology and anarchism, these poems are porous bodies, traversed by light and noise. From "Mouth Guitar": Now the pulsing afternoon takes each belly in its hands lifts it up towards some glass and all that's inside While he crawled on with his body towards vengeance or the state Anthony McCann lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the University of California-Riverside's Palm Desert MFA program. He is the "Poet Laureate" of Machine Project, and also teaches courses at the California Institute of the Arts.

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The history of projected images at the turn of the seventeenth century reveals a changing perception of chance and order, contingency and form. In Projecting Spirits, Pasi Väliaho maps how the leading optical media of the period—the camera obscura and the magic lantern—developed in response to, and framed, the era's key intellectual dilemma of whether the world fell under God's providential care, or was subject to chance and open to speculating. As Väliaho shows, camera obscuras and magic lanterns were variously employed to give the world an intelligible and manageable design. Jesuit scholars embraced devices of projection as part of their pursuit of divine government, whilst the Royal Society fellows enlisted them in their quest for empirical knowledge as well as colonial expansion. Projections of light and shadow grew into critical metaphors in early responses to the turbulences of finance. In such instances, Väliaho argues, "projection" became an indispensable cognitive form to both assert providence, and to make sense of an economic reality that was gradually escaping from divine guidance. Drawing on a range of materials—philosophical, scientific and religious literature, visual arts, correspondence, poems, pamphlets, and illustrations—this provocative and inventive work expands our concept of the early media of projection, revealing how they spoke to early modern thinkers, and shaped a new, speculative concept of the world.

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'Fascinating and illuminating' STYLIST'Perceptive and candid' IRISH TIMES'Wide-ranging, deep-dive, soul-baring interviews, full of candid, intimate, spiky meditations on inspiration, artistry, sexuality, race, love, self-doubt, abuse, defiance and everything in between' OBSERVER'Variously optimistic, troubling, joyful, illuminating, fierce and thoughtful' GUARDIANINTERVIEWS WITH WOMEN ON THE FRONTLINE OF MUSICWriter and critic Amy Raphael has interviewed some of the world's most iconic musicians, including Courtney Love, Patti Smith, Björk, Kurt Cobain and Elton John. In 1995 she wrote the critically-acclaimed Never Mind the Bollocks: Women Rewrite Rock, which included a foreword by Debbie Harry. More than two decades on, the music business has changed, but the way women are regarded has not. In this new book, A Seat at the Table, Raphael interviews eighteen women who work in the music industry about learning to speak out, #MeToo, social media, queer politics and the subtleness of everyday misogyny. Featuring interviews with:CHRISTINE & THE QUEENS, IBEYI, KAE TEMPEST, ALISON MOYET, NADINE SHAH, JESSICA CURRY, MAGGIE ROGERS, EMMY THE GREAT, DREAM WIFE, NATALIE MERCHANT, LAUREN MAYBERRY, POPPY AJUDHA, KALIE SHORR, TRACEY THORN, MITSKI, CATHERINE MARKS, GEORGIA, CLARA AMFO

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Jean Baudrillard is widely recognized as one of the most important and provocative writers of our age. Variously termed “France’s leading philosopher of postmodernism” and “a sharp-shooting Lone Ranger of the post-Marxist left,” he might also be called our leading philosopher of seduction or of mass culture. Following his acclaimed America and Cool Memories, this book is the third in a series of personal records in hyperreality. Idiosyncratic, outrageous, and brilliantly original, Baudrillard here casts his net widely and combines autobiographical memories with further reflections on America, the crisis of cultural production, new ideas in fiction/theory, and the “verbal fornication” of the postmodern. In this wide-ranging discussion of events and ideas, Baudrillard moves between poetry and waterfalls, strikes and stealth bombers, Freud and La Cicciolina, shadows and simulacra, deconstruction and the zodiac, Reagan’s smile and Kennedy’s death, the “curse” on South America and the future of the West, the last tango of French intellectual life and the exemplary disappearing act of Italian politics. Writing at the site where the philosophic and the poetic merge, he once again offers us commentary in the form of the riveting insight, the short distillation of reality that establishes its truth with the force of recognition. Cool Memories II, Baudrillard’s latest commentary on the technopresent and future, an installment of his reflections on the reality of contemporary western culture, will entice all readers concerned with postmodernism and the current state of theory.

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Over the centuries, Paris has intrigued, revolted, scandalized and most of all captured the heart of many a visitor. For Dickens it is the ‘most extraordinary place in the world’, for Hazlitt, ‘a beast of a city’, and for French writers, the essence of civilization: ‘I maintain that, for people of breeding, there is no salvation out of Paris.’ claimed playwright Molière. Describing the capital variously as a city of lovers, gastronomy, fashion and filth, myriad quotations – sometimes poetic, sometimes humorous and always fizzing with insight – are collected here.

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‘When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford,’ said Samuel Johnson in 1777. Since then the capital has been characterised variously as a ‘riddle’, a ‘cesspool’ and a ‘modern Babylon’, and both Londoners and visitors alike have continued to share their candid views of a great city in a variety of literary forms. This compact gift book is packed full of witty, scandalous and entertaining quotations about this famous city from the Middle Ages to the current decade.

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The memoir of Dmitrii Ivanovich Rostislavov—a mathematician, teacher, and social critic—offers a rare firsthand view of provincial Russia in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Translated into English for the first time, these extraordinary observations reveal much about daily village life and the cultural milieu of the time. An acute observer, Rostislavov discusses social and ethnic relationships as well as matters pertaining to education, law enforcement, religious practice, and folk beliefs. Rostislavov's account of his own education is a harrowing description of coming of age in a Darwinian world of violence and cruelty. Coarse, impoverished schoolboys, brutal and corrupt teachers, and callous landlords formed a harsh environment characterized by sadistic corporal punishment and bitter class hatreds. Variously humorous, elegiac, and passionate, his narrative shows why even those from relatively privileged backgrounds came to detest the authoritarian order of the old regime. In a probing analysis of the Russian national order, Rostislavov found the twin evils facing Russia to be the coarseness of traditional society and the authoritarianism and corruption of the regime and its representatives. Russia's hope for the future, he believed, lay with cultural changes that would ultimately raise the society's moral level. Illustrations, maps, and an introduction illuminating the historical context accompany this remarkable account of life in provincial Russia.

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The concept of assemblage has emerged in recent decades as a central tool for describing, analysing, and transforming dynamic systems in a variety of disciplines. Coined by Deleuze and Guattari in relation to different fields of knowledge, human practices, and nonhuman arrangements, assemblage is variously applied today in the arts, philosophy, and human and social sciences, forming links not only between disciplines but also between critical thought and artistic practice. Machinic Assemblages focuses on the concept's uses, transpositions, and appropriations in the arts, bringing together the voices of artists and philosophers that have been working on and with this topic for many years with those of emerging scholar-practitioners. The volume embraces exciting new and reconceived artistic practices that discuss and challenge existing assemblages, propose new practices within given assemblages, and seek to invent totally unprecedented assemblages. Contributors: Gareth Abrahams (University of Liverpool), Katarina Andjelkovic (Atelier AG Andjelkovic, Belgrade), Ian Buchanan (University of Wollongong), Edward Campbell (University of Aberdeen), Iain Campbell (University of Edinburgh), Paul Dolan (Northumbria University, ), Guy Dubious (Independent sound artist, Tel-Aviv), Vanessa Farfan (Independent artist, Berlin), Silvio Ferraz (University of Sao Paulo), Jose Gil (Nova University of Lisbon), Barbara Glowczewski (National Scientific Research Centre, CNRS), Derek Hales and Spencer Roberts (University of Salford / University of Huddersfield), Yuk Hui (Bauhaus University, Weimar), Jan Jagodzinski (University of Alberta), Niall Dermot Kennedy (Trinity College Dublin), George Lewis (Columbia University), Quirijn Menken (Avans University of Applied Sciences), Thomas Nail (University of Denver), Tero Nauha and Llona Hongisto (University of the Arts Helsinki / Macquarie University), Alex Nowitz (Stockholm University of the Arts), Peter Pal Pelbart (Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo), Anne Sauvagnargues (University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Defense), David Savat (University of Western Australia), Chris Stover (Arizona State University)

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Early Anglo-Saxon Christian Reliquaries presents a corpus and discussion of a group of Anglo-Saxon copper-alloy containers dating to the seventh and possibly eighth centuries, and variously described as work boxes, needle cases, amulet containers or Christian reliquaries. Seventy-one boxes, some incomplete or fragmentary, have been recorded from forty-nine sites across Anglo-Saxon England. A typology, material specification, drawings, design and construction principles are provided, and a nomenclature applicable to these containers is outlined. Catalogue entries give details of site location, description, decorative features and references. Three box types are identified, and a concluding discussion suggests that boxes of Types I and II had a Christian function and should be considered as reliquaries. Type III boxes had a secular function, and their purpose remains enigmatic.

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A city with a reputation to maintain, Melbourne is famous variously for being Australia’s coffee capital, the Europe of Australia and consistently ranked amongst the top most liveable cities in the world. CultureShock! Melbourne takes both long- and short-term residents through the city’s inner workings. The city offers world-class urban landscapes and experiences, spiced with a uniquely Melburnian spirit: a stroll along the Yarra River surrounded by a glittering skyline and artisanal sandwich in hand, top-drawer entertainment, restaurants helmed by celebrity chefs, or even a simple breakfast of toast with smashed avo’ and a flat white at a legendary café along a boulevard. Get the most out of your stay in Melbourne with this essential guide to one of the jazziest, most cosmopolitan cities in the world.

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Romany Gypsies have been variously portrayed as exotic strangers or as crude, violent delinquents; this book is the first real history of the Romany people, from the inside. Jeremy Harte vividly portrays the hardships of the travelling life, the skills of woodland crafts, the colourful artistic traditions, the mysteries of a lost language and the flamboyant displays of weddings and funerals, which are all still present in this secretive culture. Travellers through Time tells the dramatic story of life on the margin of society from Tudor times to today, offering vivid insights into the hidden world of England’s large Gypsy population. It will appeal to those who are curious about other cultures, as well as those who want to understand the reality behind the prejudice.

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The monochrome - a single-colour work of art - is highly ambiguous. For some it epitomizes purity, and is art reduced to its essence. For others it is just a stunt, the emperor's new clothes. Why are monochromes so admired, yet such an easy target of scorn? In this illuminating book Simon Morley unpacks the meanings of the monochrome as it developed internationally over the twentieth century to today. In doing so he explores more general questions such as how artists have understood what they make, how critics variously interpret it and how art is encountered by viewers.

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In this era of tweets and blogs, it is easy to assume that the self-obsessive recording of daily minutiae is a recent phenomenon. But Americans have been navel-gazing since nearly the beginning of the republic. The daily planner - variously called the daily diary, commercial diary, and portable account book - first emerged in colonial times as a means of telling time, tracking finances, locating the nearest inn, and even planning for the coming winter. They were carried by everyone from George Washington to the soldiers who fought the Civil War. And by the twentieth century, this document had become ubiquitous in the American home as a way of recording a great deal more than simple accounts. In this appealing history of the daily act of self-reckoning, Molly McCarthy explores just how vital these unassuming and easily overlooked stationery staples were to those who used them. From their origins in almanacs and blank books through the nineteenth century and on to the enduring legacy of written introspection, McCarthy has penned an exquisite biography of an almost ubiquitous document that has borne witness to American lives in all of their complexity and mundanity.

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Mist and fog engender fascination and mystery, enticing with their wispy veils and vapourous moods, and they are the stuff of dreams and visions. 'The mists of time' and 'in a fog' are common expressions that substantiate the long association of mist and fog with the passage of time, the vagaries of memory and feelings of uncertainty. Mist and fog obscure, conceal and when they dissipate, reveal. Vapourous atmosphere in art and life masks evil and can elicit presentiments of death. It also has been used in art to convey the splendours of the spiritual world and the terrors of the supernatural. The metaphorical meanings that have accrued to mist and fog, encouraged by their indeterminate and transitory nature, and the emotions to which they give rise, are variously evident in the work of major artists and their contemporaries. This book focusses on mist and fog from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries in the places they most proliferated. Examples of literature that employ mist and fog as metaphor and in allegory from antiquity to Joseph Conrad serve to amplify many of the paintings discussed.

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Carmen Boullosa’s Cleopatra Dismounts tells three versions of the life of Cleopatra. In the first sequence, Marc Antony had just disemboweled himself, knowing they had lost the war against Octavian and believing that Cleopatra was dead. Hugging his corpse, Cleopatra castigates Octavian and history for its betrayal of her, recalling variously how she had herself delivered to Caesar in a roll of carpet, and bore his child (Caesarion); the twins and third child she bore to Marc Antony; the bitterness of the recent military defeat. At this point Diomedes, variously described as an informer and her official chronicler, intercedes, admitting that this version of the story is not true to the brilliant, accomplished woman who was the true Cleopatra really was. Telling of how he betrayed Cleopatra, by altering the histories of her reign and allowing Caesar and others to destroy or change her scrolls, he begins again with the story of Cleopatra’s flight from Pompey (the Roman leader who was placed in charge of Cleopatra and her brothers and sisters after Ptolemy Auletes, her father and ruler of Egypt, died). The girl queen (Cleopatra inherited the throne as a teenager) sneaks with several faithful servants out of the palace into a wagon, accompanied by a group of brightly costumed gladiators, on her way to Ascalon. She and her supporters carve the words “Queen of Kings” (Cleopatra’s motto in real history) into the boards of the wagon in which she is traveling, and leave it behind when they reach Rome. When they are beset by pirates, Cleopatra stages an elaborate show using some costumes the young gladiator Apollodorus, who has become part of her retinue, helped her buy. She convinces the pirates that she is Isis (a myth which was in reality part of her statecraft). She makes an alliance with them and is taken in peace to Cilicia. The third and longest version of the Cleopatra story is a delightful interlude in which Cleopatra goes live with the Amazons. Cleopatra is at war with the Ruling Council of her husband and brother Ptolemy (she was, historically, forced to marry her brother because she could not rule alone as a woman). The Ruling Council has sent an envoy to summon her to Alexandria to make peace, but when she realizes it is a trap, she flees with her retinue. She arrives in Pelusium, a trade center on the Mediterranean, where many merchants have been stranded by bad weather, and where, as if by magic, she sees a replica of the cart, carved with the words “Queen of Kings,” she left behind in Rome. Chased by the “reception committee” of the Ruling Council, she escapes on the back of a magical bull. He carries her across the Mediterranean to the land of the Amazons, who take her in. The Amazons welcome her into their society of women, eschewing marriage and traditional female roles to live as warriors and hunters. They sing her the stories of their joining the Amazons and of the many myths that surround them. She meets a group of aged poets, kidnapped by the Amazons to write verses for them, because they love poetry and music. She learns that one Amazon, Orthea, is in love with a god who has the power of extreme heat and cold, and who caused an earthquake that day. The Amazons go to bed, falling into each other’s arms and making love. Though initially disgusted, eventually Cleopatra falls asleep in the protective (and erotic) embrace of Hippolyta, the Amazons’ queen. The next day, the Amazons go to battle a group of rebellious male warriors who charge the Amazons and seek, ultimately, to follow the Sirens. Charging them on their horses, driving cattle at them, the Amazons battle the men. One of their prized poets, however, in an act of suicide, surrenders himself to the Sirens, who devour him before everyone. This breaks the spell and the men cease their clamoring to get to the Sirens. Cleopatra sees Orthea consummating her passion for the god, which kills her. The Cyrene male warriors, who withstood the Sirens’ onslaught in their fort by plugging the windows with rocks and mud, invite Cleopatra and the Amazons to their court to celebrate their successful protection of so many men. Hippolyta declines but sends Cleopatra with her blessing. Once there, she is joyfully reunited with the gladiator Apollodorus and her faithful maidservant and right hand Charmian. The Cyrenes offer to ally with her against her enemies in Ptolemy’s Ruling Council. The alliance between Cleopatra and Caesar (wherein she was smuggled to him rolled up in a carpet, and he assisted her in defeating her enemies in Egypt, part of history) is presaged. At the close of the piece, Cleopatra returns to bid goodbye to the Amazons. She finds them naked, covered in blood, having just sacrificed a horse. Hippolyta is holding the horse’s castrated penis. She repudiates her earlier alliance with the Amazons and returns to Cyrene alone, to her military campaign to become the queen history knows.

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Historically speaking, theology can be said to operate “materiaphobically.” Protestant Christianity in particular has bestowed upon theology a privilege of the soul over the body and belief over practice, in line with the distinction between a disembodied God and the inanimate world “He” created. Like all other human, social, and natural sciences, religious studies imported these theological dualisms into a purportedly secular modernity, mapping them furthermore onto the distinction between a rational, “enlightened” Europe on the one hand and a variously emotional, “primitive,” and “animist” non-Europe on the other. The “new materialisms” currently coursing through cultural, feminist, political, and queer theories seek to displace human privilege by attending to the agency of matter itself. Far from being passive or inert, they show us that matter acts, creates, destroys, and transforms—and, as such, is more of a process than a thing. Entangled Worlds examines the intersections of religion and new and old materialisms. Calling upon an interdisciplinary throng of scholars in science studies, religious studies, and theology, it assembles a multiplicity of experimental perspectives on materiality: What is matter, how does it materialize, and what sorts of worlds are enacted in its varied entanglements with divinity? While both theology and religious studies have over the past few decades come to prioritize the material contexts and bodily ecologies of more-than-human life, Entangled Worlds sets forth the first multivocal conversation between religious studies, theology, and the body of “the new materialism.” Here disciplines and traditions touch, transgress, and contaminate one another across their several carefully specified contexts. And in the responsiveness of this mutual touching of science, religion, philosophy, and theology, the growing complexity of our entanglements takes on a consistent ethical texture of urgency.

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First published in 1974, The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock grew out of a magazine article coauthored by Jan Reid. His first book was a sensation in Texas. It portrayed an Austin-based live music explosion variously described as progressive country, cosmic cowboys, and outlaw country. The book has been hailed as a model of how to write about popular music and the life of performing musicians. Written in nine months, Reid's account focuses on predecessors of the 1960s and the swarm of newborn venues, the most enduring one the justly famed Armadillo World Headquarters; profiles of singer-songwriters that included Jerry Jeff Walker, Michael Martin Murphey, Steven Fromholz, B.W. Stevenson, Willis Alan Ramsey, Bobby Bridger, Rusty Wier, Kinky Friedman, and the one who became an international star and one of America's most treasured performers, Willie Nelson; and the rowdy heat-stricken debut of Willie's Fourth of July Picnics.Though Reid has resisted the writerly trend of specialization in his career, his debut brought him back to popular music and musicians' lives in Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, Texas Tornado: The Music and Times of Doug Sahm, and now a related novel, The Song Leader. The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock is a landmark of popular culture in Texas and the Southwest. Readers will be glad to once more have it back.

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Philip Hook takes the lid off the world of art dealing to reveal the brilliance, cunning, greed and daring of its practitioners. In a richly anecdotal narrative he describes the rise and occasional fall of the extraordinary men and women who over the centuries have made it their business to sell art to kings, merchants, nobles, entrepreneurs and museums. From its beginnings in Antwerp, where paintings were sometimes sold by weight, to the rich hauteur of the contemporary gallery in London, Paris and New York, art dealing has been about identifying what is intangible but infinitely desirable, and then finding clients for whom it is irresistible. Those who have purveyed art for a living range from tailors, spies and the occasional anarchist to scholars, aristocrats, merchants and connoisseurs, each variously motivated by greed, belief in their own vision of art and its history, or simply the will to win. The cast of characters includes Paul Durand-Ruel, the Impressionists' champion; Herwath Walden, who first brought Modernism into the limelight; Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, high priest of Cubism; Leo Castelli, dealer-midwife to Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art; and Peter Wilson, the charismatic Sotheby's chairman who made the auction room theatre. Philip Hook's history is one of human folly, greed and duplicity, interspersed with ingenuity, inspiration and acts of heroism. Rogues' Gallery is learned, witty and irresistibly readable.

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For much of cycling's "Fabulous Fifties" it was Brian Robinson alone who flew the flag for Britain abroad - that is until three young men set out to emulate his success, starting from ground zero. This book tells the story of how, along with fellow Yorkshireman Vic Sutton and South Londoner John Andrew, the intrepid Tony Hewson set off to conquer the European racing scene, first off in an old, battered, converted ex-WD ambulance, then in an oil-leaking pre-war Wolseley with a caravan in tow. Variously mistaken for gypsies, terrorists, undertakers, even market traders, these were our original cash-starved, have-a-go pioneers, whose inspiration prompted Tom Simpson and succeeding generations of would-be stars to cross the Channel. It is an often hilarious sometimes sad but never bitter saga of daring-do that found the trio rubbing shoulders with Coppi, Anquetil, Van Looy and the other greats of the era. It tells of how Andrews won a place in the prestigious Mercier-BP trade team and of how Sutton conquered the headlines with a brilliant display of climbing in the mountaains of the 1959 Tour and its relates Hewson's own pickings of primes and placings in after-Tour criteriums.It also provides a wonderfully evocative insight into what life was like in France and Belgium back in that far-off era.

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Carry Walt Whitman’s wisdom with you in this inspirational guide that features 60 selections from his most insightful poems. Walt Whitman, the great American poet of the 19th century (1819–1892), celebrated his body, the land, the commonest of people, the plants and leaves, and the cosmos in Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855. Working variously as a printer, journalist, teacher, and Civil War nurse, Whitman traveled across the continent, soaking the ink of the wilds and the urban into his pen. His poetry is an invitation into the wilds of Nature and human nature. In Meditations of Walt Whitman, editor Chris Highland pairs 60 short selections from Whitman’s poetry with a relevant quote from a historical or contemporary writer and thinker, from Aristotle to Alice Walker, Lord Byron to Arthur C. Clarke. Take this pocket-size guide with you on backpacks, nature hikes, and camping trips. Let Whitman’s words enrich your experience as you ponder the wilderness from riverbank, mountaintop, or as you relax beside your campfire. Inside you’ll find: 60 inspiring selections of poetry from Walt Whitman Relevant text from other philosophical minds Short excerpts for convenient reading This sampler from Whitman’s poems draws from the heart of each passage. Let Whitman’s words accompany you on your own trails of discovery and help you discover the earth, your likeness.

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"I was following orders." The answer most commonly quoted by SS men accused of atrocious crimes after Germany had surrendered in 1945. But who gave those orders? Who was the mastermind behind the sophisticated machinery which allowed men from normal family backgrounds to kill on such a scale? The right man at the right time, fate steered Heinrich Himmler to take control of an organisation destined to carry out Hitler's racial policies. This study not only sets out in detail how Heinrich Himmler's daily routine allowed him to implement Nazi strategy, but it also provides illustrations of the man behind much of it, both at work and at home. Of all the personalities of history demonized by post-war writers, Heinrich Himmler ranks among the most reviled. His legacy is one of hatred, violence and cold blooded murder on a vast scale. A Jekyll and Hyde character, variously described by his generation and those who followed as charming, loyal, polite, a pedant, an eccentric, an organizational genius, a fool, a desk killer and a loving father.The camera allows us into his world, albeit temporarily, and we can equate his busy, but mostly mundane schedule with contemporary images frozen in time. What makes this book unique is the astonishing amount of photographic material, following Himmler on his day to day routine. It is a must read for anyone interested in the enigmatic man and the operations of the Third Reich.

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An extensive look at historical, literary, and media representations of '68 in Germany, challenging the way it has been instrumentalized. In Germany, the concept of "1968" is enduring and synonymous with the German Student Movement, and is viewed, variously, as a fundamental liberalization, a myth, a second foundation, or an irritation. The movement's aims - radicalre-imagination of the political and economic order and social hierarchy - have been understood as requiring a "long march." While the movement has been judged at best a "successful failure," cultural elites continue to engage inthe construction of 1968. Ingo Cornils's book argues that writing about 1968 in Germany is no longer about the historical events or the specific objectives of a bygone counterculture, but is instead a moral touchstone, a marker ofsocial group identity meant to keep alive (or at bay) a utopian agenda that continues to fire the imagination. The book demonstrates that the representation of 1968 as a "foundational myth" suits the needs of a number of surprisingly heterogeneous groups, and that even attempts to deconstruct the myth strengthen it. Cornils brings together for the first time the historical, literary, and media representations of the movement, showing the motivation behindand effect of almost five decades of writing about 1968. In so doing, Cornils challenges the way 1968 has been instrumentalized: as a powerful imaginary that has colonized every aspect of life in Germany, and as symbolic capitalin cultural and political debates. Ingo Cornils is Professor of German Studies at the University of Leeds.

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A word conventionally imbued with melancholy meanings, "diaspora" has been used variously to describe the cataclysmic historical event of displacement, the subsequent geographical scattering of peoples, or the conditions of alienation abroad and yearning for an ancestral home. But as Daniel Boyarin writes, diaspora may be more constructively construed as a form of cultural hybridity or a mode of analysis. In A Traveling Homeland, he makes the case that a shared homeland or past and traumatic dissociation are not necessary conditions for diaspora and that Jews carry their homeland with them in diaspora, in the form of textual, interpretive communities built around talmudic study. For Boyarin, the Babylonian Talmud is a diasporist manifesto, a text that produces and defines the practices that constitute Jewish diasporic identity. Boyarin examines the ways the Babylonian Talmud imagines its own community and sense of homeland, and he shows how talmudic commentaries from the medieval and early modern periods also produce a doubled cultural identity. He links the ongoing productivity of this bifocal cultural vision to the nature of the book: as the physical text moved between different times and places, the methods of its study developed through contact with surrounding cultures. Ultimately, A Traveling Homeland envisions talmudic study as the center of a shared Jewish identity and a distinctive feature of the Jewish diaspora that defines it as a thing apart from other cultural migrations.

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'I did not regard myself as a slacker. Even in childhood I taught myself to carry out tasks entrusted conscientiously and carefully. In war, it is no secret that the casual don't survive'. Evgeni Nikolaev was one of Russia s leading snipers of World War II and his memoir provides and unparralled account of frontline action in crucial theatres of war. Nikolaev is credited with a remarkable 324 kills and his wartime service included time in the siege of Leningrad in 1941/1942. His memoir is not an neutral, apolitical account. Far from it. Nikolaev asserts, for example, that Finland attached Russia. As a member of the NKVD is it not surprising that his memoir full of historical misinterpretation and justification of the agency s actions. Equally, Nikoalev is dismissive of his Nazi opponents. He variously describes his Nazi counterparts as bandits and scum and implores the reader to take a look, fellows, at the beast of a bastard I ve laid low . In vivid, arresting recollections he paints his actions in a saintly heroic light. He describes the comfort of the German foxholes, wired with telephone connections, relative to the Russians who fasted without food or water awaiting the moment for a perfect shot. He claimes the Russian soldier was a moral warrior, killing only with head or heart shots. In addition to describing details of his kills, Nikolaev explains how his life was saved when an explosive rifle bullet struck a watch that he kept in his jacket pocket. His life was saved by a surgeon who extracted all the watch parts.

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Variously described as ‘the average pilgrim’, a ‘wanderer’, and ‘a Buddha preaching in European clothes’, Charlie Marlow is the voice behind Joseph Conrad’s ‘Youth’ (1898), Heart of Darkness (1899), Lord Jim (1900) and Chance (1912). Conrad’s Marlow offers a comprehensive account and critical analysis of one of Conrad’s most celebrated creations, asking both who and what is Marlow: a character or a narrator, a biographer or an autobiographical screen, a messenger or an interpreter, a bearer of truth or a misguided liar?Reading Conrad’s fiction alongside the work of Walter Benjamin, Maurice Blanchot, Jacques Derrida and Martin Heidegger, and offering an investigation into the connection between narrative and death, this book argues that Marlow’s essence is located in his liminality – in his constantly shifting position – and that the emergence of meaning in his stories is at all points bound up with the process of his storytelling.

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"The chronology of the Italian Renaissance, its character, and context have long been a topic of discussion among scholars. Some date its beginnings to the fourteenthcentury work of Giotto, others to the generation of Masaccio, Brunelleschi, and Donatello that fl ourished from around 1400. The close of the Renaissance has also proved elusive. Mannerism, for example, is variously considered to be an independent (but subsidiary) late aspect of Renaissance style or a distinct style in its own right."

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The crusades influenced western European society in the middle ages far beyond the military campaigns themselves. Reactions and involvement did not always follow the assumptions of ideology or supporters, medieval or modern. In this wide ranging collection of articles spanning thirty years, Christopher Tyerman explores the relationships between action and perception, ambition and practice, propaganda and support. One section concentrates on the role the crusade played in the politics and elite culture of the early fourteenth century, particularly in France. A further series of essays examines the nature of crusading as a phenomenon from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, notably the contrasts between official, literary and popular reception, and how it was variously understood by contemporaries and promoted by apologists in England, continental Europe and the Baltic. Finally, the structure of crusading armies is explored in a sequence that analyses the organisation of expeditions, including communal decision-making on the First Crusade, the sociology of recruitment and, in a previously unpublished major study, the importance of pay to crusaders from 1096 onwards.The crusades influenced western European society in the middle ages far beyond the military campaigns themselves. Reactions and involvement did not always follow the assumptions of ideology or supporters, medieval or modern. In this wide ranging collection of articles spanning thirty years, Christopher Tyerman explores the relationships between action and perception, ambition and practice, propaganda and support. One section concentrates on the role the crusade played in the politics and elite culture of the early fourteenth century, particularly in France. A further series of essays examines the nature of crusading as a phenomenon from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, notably the contrasts between official, literary and popular reception, and how it was variously understood by contemporaries and promoted by apologists in England, continental Europe and the Baltic. Finally, the structure of crusading armies is explored in a sequence that analyses the organisation of expeditions, including communal decision-making on the First Crusade, the sociology of recruitment and, in a previously unpublished major study, the importance of pay to crusaders from 1096 onwards.

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They range from theMull of Galloway to Shetland, and from sea level to the country's highestmountains. 349 Views of Scotland isa comprehensive and intriguing listing of these indicators, providinginformation about their physical description, designer, date and the varioustrusts, groups, councils, etc. that built them. Thirty-two maps show where theindicators are located and there are over 130 photographs, some of which dateback many years, providing a fascinating historical aspect to the book. Thisbook will be an inspiration and essential companion for anyone visiting theviewpoints and wishing to know more about their history. . Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE

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Wry humour and small-town crime, in the acclaimed Lucian Wing series. Lucian Wing is the sheriff of a backwoods county in Vermont, a hardscrabble place far from the picture-postcard gaze. He is also a man with a problem. Multiple problems, in fact, including a threatening superior; a wandering wife; a hard-drinking father-in-law; a demented mother; a squad of deputies variously overzealous and moronic; a mysterious vigilante band operating in his jurisdiction; and a formidably bloodthirsty local carnivore... Wing needs to draw on all his patience, knowledge, and (especially) humor to resolve things. Not least, to honour what one ambiguous ally refers to as Old Number Five.

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Making Place for Muslims in Contemporary India looks at how religion provides an arena to make place and challenge the majoritarian, exclusionary, and introverted tendencies of contemporary India. Places do not simply exist. They are made and remade by the acts of individuals and communities at particular historical moments. In India today, the place for Muslims is shrinking as the revanchist Hindu Right increasingly realizes its vision of a Hindu nation. Religion enables Muslims to re-envision India as a different kind of place, one to which they unquestionably belong. Analyzing the religious narratives, practices, and constructions of religious subjectivity of diverse groups of Muslims in Old Delhi, Kalyani Devaki Menon reveals the ways in which Muslims variously contest the insular and singular understandings of nation that dominate the sociopolitical landscape of the country and make place for themselves. Menon shows how religion is concerned not just with the divine and transcendental but also with the anxieties and aspirations of people living amid violence, exclusion, and differential citizenship. Ultimately, Making Place for Muslims in Contemporary India allows us to understand religious acts, narratives, and constructions of self and belonging as material forces, as forms of the political that can make room for individuals, communities, and alternative imaginings in a world besieged by increasingly xenophobic understandings of nation and place.

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Making Place for Muslims in Contemporary India looks at how religion provides an arena to make place and challenge the majoritarian, exclusionary, and introverted tendencies of contemporary India. Places do not simply exist. They are made and remade by the acts of individuals and communities at particular historical moments. In India today, the place for Muslims is shrinking as the revanchist Hindu Right increasingly realizes its vision of a Hindu nation. Religion enables Muslims to re-envision India as a different kind of place, one to which they unquestionably belong. Analyzing the religious narratives, practices, and constructions of religious subjectivity of diverse groups of Muslims in Old Delhi, Kalyani Devaki Menon reveals the ways in which Muslims variously contest the insular and singular understandings of nation that dominate the sociopolitical landscape of the country and make place for themselves. Menon shows how religion is concerned not just with the divine and transcendental but also with the anxieties and aspirations of people living amid violence, exclusion, and differential citizenship. Ultimately, Making Place for Muslims in Contemporary India allows us to understand religious acts, narratives, and constructions of self and belonging as material forces, as forms of the political that can make room for individuals, communities, and alternative imaginings in a world besieged by increasingly xenophobic understandings of nation and place.

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In contemporary debates, communication is variously invoked as a panacea for the problems of both democracy and love, as a dream of a new information society brought about by new technologies, and as a wistful ideal of human relations. How, and why, did communication come to shoulder the load it carries? In John Durham Peters's work, the teachings of Socrates and Jesus, the theology of Saint Augustine, the political philosophy of Locke, and the American tradition from Emerson through William James all become relevant for understanding communication in our age. Peters finds that thinkers across the centuries have struggled with the same questions - how we can hope for contact with others, what has become of human beings in increasingly technological times, how new modes of communication have altered the ways the world is imagined and how we relate to others - and he weaves intellectual history and communications history together. The book traces the yearning for contact not only through philosophy and literature but also by exploring the cultural reception of communication technologies from the telegraph to the radio. The history of communication, Peters shows, is not a triumphant progress toward global harmony but rather a collection of uncanny devices that conjure angels, spirits and alien intelligences. His is an account of a complex concept that has both shaped us and been shaped by us.

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Gene Therapy Technologies, Applications and Regulations From Laboratory to Clinic Edited by Anthony Meager Division of Immunobiology, The National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, South Mimms, UK The development of gene-based technologies has been rapid over the past decade and has consequently resulted in a surge of interest in human gene therapy, the deliberate transfer of genes to somatic cells to cure or alleviate disease symptoms. Hundreds of clinical protocols involving variously designed vectors for efficient gene transfer have been developed. However, the use of such complex 'gene medicines' containing potentially heritable genes has raised numerous concerns regarding quality, efficacy and safety. Encompassing recent developments in the field and addressing current concerns this book: * surveys many of the current technologies for preparing vectors for use in gene therapy protocols * reviews the application of gene-mediated therapies to a range of medical conditions * considers the regulatory aspects of gene therapy including product quality and safety requirements * appraises the transfer of technologies from laboratory to clinic with regard to the attendant requirements and facilities for: * good laboratory practice (GLP) conditions in the R&D laboratory * large-scale production methods and good manufacturing practice (GMP) * current in-process and final product testing Written by international experts knowledgeable about many aspects of human somatic gene therapy, this book will be an essential guide for those embarking on gene therapy technologies relevant to specifications of production and testing of products (and procedures) required to meet existing regulations, including quality, efficacy and safety considerations.

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Leadership is a slippery concept. Researchers disagree on its essence, describing it variously as behaviours, character traits or styles. Effective leaders understand that we make meaning of our experiences by creating stories we believe to be true, but which are largely based on fragmentary evidence filtered through our biases, beliefs and dispositions. Rewriting Leadership with Narrative Intelligence draws on a range of disciplines and scholarly traditions to build a compelling case for a new perspective on leadership, seeing it as a deeply embodied, intuitive skill of curating shared narratives, in influence relationships. Defining narrative intelligence as 'our ability to evaluate the efficacy of the stories we create to serve our needs, our capacity to rewrite them, and the practical skill to take effective action', this book methodically outlines how leaders cultivate their own narrative intelligence to: Become the person they seek to be by aligning narratives and core values with actions Navigate through the challenging leadership space of populism and the erosion of traditional values Ethically curate the narrative others hold of them Strengthen self-efficacy, take more effective actions, and avoid stories which inadvertently undermine goals Communicate with trust and influence Build energy and alignment within teams by generating shared narratives Cultivate a culture of narrative intelligence This book will prepare leaders to reshape their own and others' stories to be more aligned with achieving goals and wellbeing. It will prove a useful resource to undergraduates and post-graduates in courses on leadership and management, as well as organizational development consultants and senior executives.

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An eyewitness to profound change affecting marine environments on the Newfoundland coast, Antony Adler argues that the history of our relationship with the ocean lies as much in what we imagine as in what we discover.We have long been fascinated with the oceans, seeking “to pierce the profundity” of their depths. In studying the history of marine science, we also learn about ourselves. Neptune’s Laboratory explores the ways in which scientists, politicians, and the public have invoked ocean environments in imagining the fate of humanity and of the planet—conjuring ideal-world fantasies alongside fears of our species’ weakness and ultimate demise.Oceans gained new prominence in the public imagination in the early nineteenth century as scientists plumbed the depths and marine fisheries were industrialized. Concerns that fish stocks could be exhausted soon emerged. In Europe these fears gave rise to internationalist aspirations, as scientists sought to conduct research on an oceanwide scale and nations worked together to protect their fisheries. The internationalist program for marine research waned during World War I, only to be revived in the interwar period and again in the 1960s. During the Cold War, oceans were variously recast as battlefields, post-apocalyptic living spaces, and utopian frontiers.The ocean today has become a site of continuous observation and experiment, as probes ride the ocean currents and autonomous and remotely operated vehicles peer into the abyss. Embracing our fears, fantasies, and scientific investigations, Antony Adler tells the story of our relationship with the seas.

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This unique book captures the rise of New York's passionately musical Irish-Catholics and provides a compelling history of early New York City. The Unstoppable Irish follows the changing fortunes of New York's Irish Catholics, commencing with the evacuation of British military forces in late 1783 and concluding one hundred years later with the completion of the initial term of the city's first Catholic mayor. During that century, Hibernians first coalesced and then rose in uneven progression from being a variously dismissed, despised, and feared foreign group to ultimately receiving de facto acceptance as constituent members of the city's population. Dan Milner presents evidence that the Catholic Irish of New York gradually integrated (came into common and equal membership) into the city populace rather than assimilated (adopted the culture of a larger host group). Assimilation had always been an option for Catholics, even in Ireland. In order to fit in, they needed only to adopt mainstream Anglo-Protestant identity. But the same virile strain within the Hibernian psyche that had overwhelmingly rejected the abandonment of Gaelic Catholic being in Ireland continued to hold forth in Manhattan and the community remained largely intact. A novel aspect of Milner's treatment is his use of song texts in combination with period news reports and existing scholarship to develop a fuller picture of the Catholic Irish struggle. Products of a highly verbal and passionately musical people, Irish folk and popular songs provide special insight into the popularly held attitudes and beliefs of the integration epoch.

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Whilst Richard I is one of medieval England’s most famous kings he is also the most controversial. He has variously been considered a great warrior but a poor king, a man driven by the quest for fame and glory but also lacking in self-discipline and prone to throwing away the short-term advantages that his military successes brought him. In this reassessment W. B. Bartlett looks at his deeds and achievements in a new light. The result is a compelling new portrait of ‘the Lionheart’ which shows that the king is every bit as remarkable as his medieval contemporaries found him to be. This includes his Muslim enemies, who spoke of him as their most dangerous and gallant opponent. It shows him to be a man badly let down by some of those around him, especially his brother John and the duplicitous French king Philip. The foibles of his character are also exposed to the full, including his complicated relationships with the key women in his life, especially the imposing contemporary figure of his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and his wife, Berengaria, with whom he failed to produce an heir, leading to later suggestions of homosexuality. This is a new Richard, one for the twenty-first century, and a re-evaluation of the life story of one of the greatest personalities of medieval Europe.

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The volume contains the revised papers of an interdisciplinary conference held at the University of Goettingen in May 2012, which focused on ancient and medieval receptions of the Book of Isaiah in their interconnectedness. Among Jews and Christians, Isaiah was the most frequently transmitted, most often employed, and most variously interpreted of the prophetic books. In early and classic Islam, moreover, Isaianic traditions carried considerable weight as well. In fact, the Book of Isaiah was appropriated in diverse cultural contexts by many distinct yet interrelated groups and communities. The process of interpretation - and the delineation of the interpreter's identity that was bound up with it - involved both differentiation from others as well as sharing of convictions, methods and traditions with them. By bringing together studies of Jewish, Christian and Islamic interactions with this book and undertaking a comparative analysis of their findings, the volume opens up important new perspectives for research.

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''How beauteous mankind is! O brave new worldThat has such people in''t!''Performed variously as escapist fantasy, celebratory fiction, and political allegory, The Tempest is one of the plays in which Shakespeare''s genius as a poetic dramatist found its fullest expression. Significantly, it was placed first when published in the First Folio of 1623, and is now generally seen as the playwright''s most penetrating statement about his art.The New Oxford Shakespeare offers authoritative editions of Shakespeare''s works with introductory materials designed to encourage new interpretations of the plays and poems. Using the text from the landmark The New Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition, these volumes offer readers the latest thinking on the authentic texts (collated from all surviving original versions of Shakespeare''s work) alongside innovative introductions from leading scholars. The texts are accompanied by a comprehensive set of critical apparatus to give read

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Sex, intrigue and adultery in the world of high politics and huge wealth in late eighteenth-century England. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire was one of the most flamboyant and influential women of the eighteenth century. The great-great-great-great aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales, she was variously a compulsive gambler, a political savante and operator of the highest order, a drug addict, an adulteress and the darling of the common people. This authoritative, utterly absorbing book presents a mesmerizing picture of a fascinating world of political and sexual intrigues, grand houses, huge parties, glamour and great wealth – always on the edge of being squandered by the excesses and scandals of individuals.

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Most people have a story to tell about a remarkable coincidence that in some instances changed the course of their lives. These uncanny occurrences have been variously interpreted as evidence of divine influence, fate, or the collective unconscious. Less common are explanations that explore the social situations and personal preoccupations of the individuals who place the most weight on coincidences. Drawing on a variety of coincidence stories, renowned anthropologist Michael Jackson builds a case for seeing them as allegories of separation and loss—revealing the hope of repairing sundered lives, reconnecting estranged friends, reuniting distant kin, closing the gap between people and their gods, and achieving a sense of emotional and social connectedness with others in a fragmented world.

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This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the work of Robert Bresson, one of the most respected and acclaimed directors in the history of cinema.. The first monograph on his work to appear in English for many years dealing not only with his thirteen feature-length films but also his little-seen early short Affaires publiques and his short treatise Notes on cinematography.. The films are considered in chronological order, using a perspective that draws variously on spectator theory, Catholic mysticism, gender theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis.. The major critical responses to his work, from the adulatory to the dismissive, are summarized and analyzed.. The work includes a full filmography and a critical bibliography.

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William Powell wrote The Anarchist Cookbook in 1969 at the age of nineteen. It included everything from making bombs to brewing LSD in the bathroom. On publication, it was hailed variously as "outrageous," "extremely dangerous," "communist," and "the most irresponsible publishing venture in American history." It also became an overnight bestseller. Powell's memoir chronicles the atmosphere of the 1960's counterculture—the Civil Rights Movement was at its height and the federal government was engaged in a brutal and entirely unnecessary war in Southeast Asia. The zeitgeist was radicalization, and the watchword was revolution, and Powell left an enduring record of his thoughts and anger in the shape of The Anarchist Cookbook . The Cookbook: Coming of Age in Turbulent Times portrays Powell's rebellious adolescence, political radicalization, the publication of the book, the firestorm of controversy that followed, and how it shadowed his entire life. He explores his feelings and the lessons learned, and how he went on to help hundreds of children all over the world in education.

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‘Tanbûr Long-Necked Lutes Along the Silk Road and Beyond’ explores the origin, history, construction, and playing techniques of tanbûrs, a musical instrument widely used over vast territories and over many centuries. The diffusion of the tanbûr into the musical cultures along the Silk Road resulted in a variety of tanbûrs with two or more, occasionally doubled or tripled courses, a varying number and variously tuned frets, each having its own characteristic sound, playing technique, and repertory. Since the last century, tanbûrs spread beyond the Silk Road while new versions continue to appear due to changing musical and tonal demands made on them. Similar or identical instruments are also known by other names, such as saz or bağlama, dotâr or dutâr, setâr, dömbra, and dambura.

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An Open Access edition of this book is available on the Liverpool University Press website and through Knowledge Unlatched. The world-famous French singer Édith Piaf (1915-63) was never just a singer. Dozens of biographies of her, of variable quality, have seldom got beyond the well known and usually contested ‘facts’ of her life. This book suggests new ways of understanding her. A ‘cultural history’ of Piaf means exploring her cultural, social and political significance as a national and international icon, looking at her shifting meanings over time, at home and abroad. How did she become a star and a myth? What did she come to mean in life and in death? At the centenary of her birth and more than fifty years after her passing, why do we still remember her work and commemorate her through the work of others, from Claude Nougaro and Elton John to Ben Harper and Zaz, as well as in films, musicals, documentaries and tribute acts around the world? What does she mean today? The book proposes the notion of an imagined Piaf. To a large extent, she was her own invention, not only by virtue of her talent but because she produced narratives about herself, building a mystery. But she was also the invention of others: of those she worked with but above all of her audiences, who made their own meanings from her carefully staged performances. Since her death, the world has been free to imagine new Piafs. From the 1930s until today, she has variously embodied conceptions of the ‘popular’ and of ‘chanson’ as a new kind of middlebrow, of gender, sexuality, national identity and the human condition.

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