Search results for ""author various"

In Everything: And Other Performance Texts from Germany, Matt Cornish gathers texts drawn from performances by five of the most renowned theater collectives working today: andcompany&Co., Gob Squad, Rimini Protokoll, She She Pop, and Showcase Beat Le Mot. Drawn from theater events variously described as documentary, post-dramatic, and live art, the texts collected in Everything seldom look or read like plays-some comprise rules for improvisation; others could best be described as theatrical scenarios; a few are transcripts; one includes a soup recipe. Yet amid these dramaturgical tests and trials, one finds poetry: heartbreaking stories of disability and triumph as well as strange, disjointed fairy tales interrupted by communist songs. This volume is an extension of the original theatrical experiments. For the reader, the texts are calls to action. They ask one to do things: watch the news, listen to music, make soup, and dance. While the groups do not mean for actors to repeat the words printed here, they invite the reader to adapt their ideas and rules to make their own entirely new productions.

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These poems report on worlds both robust and delicate, from boisterous pub-bluff to the oxygen bubble of an exquisite underwater spider. Whether situated in the quiet lanes of his native Co Cork or amid the bustle of his adopted London, Riordan's poems exist between many states, poised at once in the grip of both activity and stillness, concerned with speaking and listening to what he hauntingly describes as 'the unwonted quiet'. There are tributes to the departed and the living, the befriended and the estranged; there are also conversations with poets, in memory and in translation, from the Spanish and from the Irish. The collection concludes with 'The Pilgrim' - that hovers eerily 'in patrol of the edges', wherever they may be located. But just as these poems can be sage, they are also mischievous, fun-loving, gregarious creatures who like nothing better than to sing or to joke at your ear. The Water Stealer is a book full of invention and delight, whose hypnotic stories remind us of the variousness and the enchantment of the world.

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An intriguing case study on how popular images of Oceania, mediated through a developing culture of celebrity, contributed to the formation of British identity both domestically and as a nascent imperial power in the eighteenth century. At the end of the eighteenth century metropolitan Britain was entranced by stories emanating from the furthest edge of its nascent empire. In the experience of eighteenth-century Britain, Oceania was both a real place, evidencedby the journals of adventurers like Joseph Banks, the voyage books of Captain James Cook and the growing collection of artefacts and curiosities in the British Museum, and a realm of fantasy reflected in theatre, fashion and the new phenomenon of mass print. In this innovative study Ruth Scobie shows how these multiple images of Oceania were filtered to a wider British public through the gradual emergence of a new idea of fame - commodified, commercial, scandalous - which bore in some respects a striking resemblance to modern celebrity culture and which made figures such as Banks and Cook, Fletcher Christian and his fellow mutineers on Pitcairn Island into public icons. Bringing together literary texts, works of popular culture, visual art and theatrical performance, Scobie argues that the idea of Oceania functioned variously as reflection, ideal and parody both in very local debates over the problemsof contemporary fame and in wider considerations of national identity, race and empire. RUTH SCOBIE is a Stipendiary Lecturer at Mansfield College, University of Oxford.

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Apart from herpes and Lulu - everything is eventually swept away Just one shimmering pearl of wisdom from popstar and polymath James Maker, whose worldly observations will (like herpes) once again be on everyone's lips thanks to his award-winning memoir, remastered with new chapters. If you hadn't heard of rock bands Raymonde or RPLA - fronted by James in the 80s and 90s - you might be forgiven for mistaking AutoFellatio for fiction. But here fact is more fantastical than any novel, as we follow our hero from Bermondsey enfant terrible to Valencian grande dame, a scenic journey that stops off variously at Morrissey confidant, dominatrix, singer, songwriter and occasional actor, and is literally littered with memorable bons mots and hilarious anecdotes that make you feel like you've hit the wedding-reception jackpot of being unexpectedly seated next to the groom's flamboyant uncle. According to Wikipedia, very few men can perform the act of autofellatio. We never discover whether James is one of them but certainly, as a storyteller, he is one in a million. WINNER OF THE POLARI FIRST BOOK PRIZE 2011 'Bloody Brilliant' JULIE BURCHILL 'Glitteringly epigrammatic, it's a glam-rock Naked Civil Servant in court shoes. But funnier. And tougher.' MARK SIMPSON 'Pistol sharp, loaded with witty one-liners and peppered with Maker's scatter gun observations on life, music and the meaning of good hair.' PAUL BURSTON

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Gregory Heyworth’s Desiring Bodies considers the physical body and its relationship to poetic and corporate bodies in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Beginning in the odd contest between body and form in the first sentence of Ovid’s protean Metamorphoses, Heyworth identifies these concepts as structuring principles of civic and poetic unity and pursues their consequences as refracted through a series of romances, some typical of the genre, some problematically so. Bodies, in Ovidian romance, are the objects of human desire to possess, to recover, to form, or to violate. Part 1 examines this desire as both a literal and socio-political phenomenon through readings of Marie de France’s Lais, Chrétien de Troyes’ Cligès and Perceval, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, texts variously expressing social, economic, and political culture in romance. In part 2, Heyworth is concerned with missing or absent bodies in Petrarch’s Rime sparse, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and Milton’s Paradise Lost and the generic rupture they cause in lyric, tragedy, and epic. Throughout, Heyworth draws on social theorists such as Kant, Weber, Simmel, and Elias to explore the connection between social and literary form. The first comparative, diachronic study of romance form in many years, Desiring Bodies is a persuasive and important cultural history that demonstrates Ovid’s pervasive influence not only on the poetics but on the politics of the medieval and early modern Western tradition.

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Problem: Best friends keep giving extremely generous giftsSolution: Give better ones in return Philip has a lot on his mind. At home, in his unnecessarily large, excessively expensive house in south London, he is attempting to become a Taoist master of love with his wife Alice, but his quest is forever being interrupted by the requests of his twin daughters: Can we have a pony – please? I want to go to boarding school – please? At work, in his shed/office at the bottom of the garden, between countless games of Minesweep and FreeCell, Philip is trying to pay the mortgage by writing instruction manuals for Korean bread-making machines. And, at parties where he is concerned that he is not taken seriously (he has been variously mistaken as a doctor/waiter and sinologist) Philip tells the world he is a scriptwriter, even though all he has managed to pen is a story he calls Wang the Unlucky Scholar. But, above all, Philip is worrying about his best friends Sean and Barry. The problem is simple: they give great presents. Their gifts are exquisite: a full set of Italian crockery, a handmade corkscrew from Venice. They give them indiscriminately: on birthdays, at parties and quite often for no reason whatsoever. And, most distressingly, these presents break all bounds of generosity: two FA Cup Final tickets beside the royal box, a skiing holiday for Philip's entire family. These are gifts that hurt a man's pride, these are gifts that can never be matched.

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Foundations of Electroheat unifies an extremely diverse area ofelectricity utilisation in a coherent and concise reference. Fromlaser welding to plasma furnaces for waste treatment and inductionheating for forging to radio frequency drying textiles, the varioustopics that comprise electroheat are presented as a whole. Theunified approach concentrates on three major themes: * Electromagnetic heating, embracing direct resistance, inductionheating of metals and radio frequency and microwave heating ofdielectrics * The ionised state, dealing with laser processing, plasma torchesand furnaces, glow discharges for nitriding and arc furnaces formelting scrap * Heat and mass transfer The impact of computers on electrotechnology is explored byconsidering topics such as expert systems, neural networks andcomputational electromagnetics. Featuring industrial applicationsand case studies, as well as worked examples of the principlesinvolved, this text is essential reading for the engineeringstudent of electroheat. Professional engineers, scientists andtechnologists interested in the efficient utilisation of electricalenergy will also find this an invaluable reference.

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WINNER OF THE OCM BOCAS PRIZE FOR NON-FICTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITINGIn this astonishing collection of essays, the award-winning poet and novelist Kei Miller explores the silence in which so many important things are kept. He examines the experience of discrimination through this silence and what it means to breach it: to risk words, to risk truths. And he considers the histories our bodies inherit - the crimes that haunt them, and how meaning can shift as we move throughout the world, variously assuming privilege or victimhood. Through letters to James Baldwin, encounters with Liam Neeson, Soca, Carnival, family secrets, love affairs, white women's tears, questions of aesthetics and more, Miller powerfully and imaginatively recounts everyday acts of racism and prejudice. With both the epigrammatic concision and conversational cadence of his poetry and novels, Things I Have Withheld is a great artistic achievement: a work of beauty which challenges us to interrogate what seems unsayable and why - our actions, defence mechanisms, imaginations and interactions - and those of the world around us.

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Globalization: Key Thinkers offers a critical commentary on the leading thinkers in the contemporary globalization debate, as well as new arguments about the future direction of globalization thinking. The book guides the reader through the key arguments of leading thinkers, explaining their place in the wider globalization debate and evaluating their critical reception. Eleven thematic chapters focus on one or two key thinkers covering every aspect of the globalization debate including the theoretical arguments of Anthony Giddens and Manuel Castells, to the positive arguments of Thomas Friedman and Martin Wolf and the reforming ideas of Joseph Stiglitz. Other chapters variously address the ideas of Immanuel Wallerstein, Arjun Appadurai, Paul Hirst, Naomi Klein, Grahame Thompson, David Held, Anthony McGrew, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, Saskia Sassen and Peter Dicken. Each chapter also provides some carefully selected recommendations for further reading for the thinkers discussed. The book ends with a concluding chapter that examines how thinking about globalization is likely to develop in future. Whilst individual chapters can stand alone, the book is designed as a whole to enhance the reader's understanding of how different thinkers' ideas relate and contrast to each other.

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This book provides an overview of the extent to which the 18th-century English Landscape Garden spread through Europe and Russia. While this type of garden acted widely as an inspiration, it was not slavishly copied but adapted to local conditions, circumstances and agendas. A garden ‘in the English style’ is commonly used to denote a landscape garden in Europe, while the term ‘landscape garden’ is used for layouts that are naturalistic in plan and resemble natural scenery, though they might be highly contrived and usually large in scale. The landscape garden took hold in mainland Europe from about 1760. Due to the differing geopolitical character of several of the countries, and a distinct division between Catholic and Protestant, the notion of the landscape garden held different significance and was interpreted and applied variously in those countries: in other words, they found it a very flexible medium. Each country is considered individually, with a special chapter devoted to ‘Le Jardin Anglo-Chinois’, since that constitutes a major issue of its own. The gardens have been chosen to illustrate the range and variety of applications of the landscape garden, though they are also those about which most is known in English.

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India is widely regarded as the most celebrated case of a "failed" developmental state, seemingly the exception that belies the prediction of a triumphant Asian century. Its central political and economic institutions have been variously characterized as both "soft" and "strong"—at once weak, predatory, and interventionist. Aseema Sinha presents an innovative model that questions conventional views of economic development by showing that the Indian state is a divided leviathan: its developmental failure is the combined product of central-local interactions and political choices by regional elites. To develop this disaggregated model, she examines three regional states with sharply divergent development trajectories: Gujarat, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu. Drawing on recent work in comparative political economy, the theory of nested games, incentive theory, and an ethnographic analysis of business actors, this study directs analytical attention at the creation of micro-institutions at the subnational level, explores the role of provinces in shaping investment flows, and considers the role of federalism as a mediating institution shaping the vertical strategies of provinces. A comparative chapter applies the model to data from China, Brazil, Russia, and the former Soviet Union.

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Grounded in existing understandings of Yup’ik cosmology and worldview, this work is the first to look at how a Yup’ik community uses stories of place in social life. On the Bering coast of southwest Alaska, Cusack-McVeigh accompanied storytellers during their daily activities. Hearing many narratives repeatedly over a span of years, she came to understand how stories reflected interactions of people and places.For the Yup’ik people, places are also social actors that react to human actions and emotions. Stories tell how people learn about each other through encounters on the land, and thereby places also learn about people. Places comment on human behavior through the land's responses to specific actions. Stories variously reveal ideas about human associations and relationships between humans and nonhuman beings. Pointing to a systematic correlation between places and narrative elements that has not been previously explored, this volume makes a unique contribution to the literature on place.

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In 1978 the world’s first “test-tube baby” was born from in vitro fertilization (IVF), effectively ushering in a paradigm shift for infertility treatment that relied on partially disembodied human reproduction. Beyond IVF, the ability to extract, fertilize, and store reproductive cells outside of the human body has created new opportunities for family building, but also prompted new conflicts about rights to and control over reproductive cells. In collaborative forms of reproduction that build on IVF technologies, such as egg and embryo donation and gestational surrogacy, multiple women may variously contribute to conception, gestation/birth, and the legal and social responsibilities for rearing a child, creating intentionally fragmented maternities. Undoing Motherhood examines the implications of such fragmented maternities in the post-IVF reproductive era for generating maternity uncertainty—an increasing cultural ambiguity about what does and should constitute maternity. Undoing Motherhood explores this uncertainty in the social worlds of reproductive medicine and law.

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Dr Jean Michel Massing is a Reader in the History of Art and a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. The first volume of Studies in Imagery, Text and Images, consists of 25 "studies grouped under four sections: Classical Art and its Nachleben; Symbolic Languages; Saints and Devils; Comets, Dreams and Stars. The topics include the Celto-Roman "goddess Epona, the Calumny of Apelles and its reconstructions, the Triumph of Caesar, proverb illustration, the art of memory, emblematic and didactic imagery, the temptations of St Anthony, as well as dreams and celestial phenomena. They span a wide range of periods, from classical antiquity to the nineteenth century. Vol. 2, The World Discovered, deals variously with the relationship of European with non-European cultures, cartography in medieval and early modern times, the representation of foreign lands and people, and the collecting of exotic artefacts. A central theme involves the imagery of black Africans from the Middle Ages up to the nineteenth century.

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Described, variously, as the perfect fusion of poetry and garage band rock and roll (the original concept was "rock and Rimbaud"), Horses belongs as much to the world of literary and cultural criticism as it does to the realm of musicology. Thus, while due attention will be given to the record's origins in the nascent New York punk scene, the book's core will be a detailed analysis of Patti Smith's lyrics - the book will approach Horses as a work of performance poetry more than anything else.The book's centrepiece will be a track-by-track breakdown of the original album sequence, together with detailed discussion of outtakes and early recordings. There will be sections that focus on a specific lyrical preoccupation: love, sex, gender, death, dreams, God, metamorphosis, intoxication, apocalypse and transcendence. Philip Shaw demonstrates how Horses transformed the possibilities of both poetry and rock music; how it achieved nothing less than a complete and systematic derangement of the senses.

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Richard II is one of the most enigmatic of English kings. Shakespeare depicted him as a tragic figure, an irresponsible, cruel monarch who nevertheless rose in stature as the substance of power slipped from him. By later writers he has been variously portrayed as a half-crazed autocrat or a conventional ruler whose principal errors were the mismanagement of his nobility and disregard for the political conventions of his age. This book—the first full-length biography of Richard in more than fifty years—offers a radical reinterpretation of the king.Nigel Saul paints a picture of Richard as a highly assertive and determined ruler, one whose key aim was to exalt and dignify the crown. In Richard's view, the crown was threatened by the factiousness of the nobility and the assertiveness of the common people. The king met these challenges by exacting obedience, encouraging lofty new forms of address, and constructing an elaborate system of rule by bonds and oaths. Saul traces the sources of Richard's political ideas and finds that he was influenced by a deeply felt orthodox piety and by the ideas of the civil lawyers. He shows that, although Richard's kingship resembled that of other rulers of the period, unlike theirs, his reign ended in failure because of tactical errors and contradictions in his policies. For all that he promoted the image of a distant, all-powerful monarch, Richard II's rule was in practice characterized by faction and feud. The king was obsessed by the search for personal security: in his subjects, however, he bred only insecurity and fear.A revealing portrait of a complex and fascinating figure, the book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the politics and culture of the English middle ages.

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A history of Kantian and post-Kantian thought and of a foundational stage of German orientalism. German orientalism has been understood, variously, as a form of latent colonialism, as a quest for academic hegemony in Europe, and as an effort to diagnose and treat the ills of modern Western culture. Nicholas Germana identifiesa different impetus for orientalism in German thought, seeing it as an effort to come to grips with the Other within German society at the turn of the nineteenth century and within the dynamics of subjectivity itself. Drawing largely on work by feminist scholars, the book uncovers an anxiety at the core of Kantian and post-Kantian thought, thus shedding light on its derogation (or elevation) of Oriental cultures. Kant's philosophy of freedom is a construction of modern, Western masculinity. Reason, which alone can make freedom possible, subverts and orders chaotic nature and protects the rational subject from the enervating influences of the senses and the imagination. The feminized, sexually charged Orient is a threat to the historical achievement of Western male rationality. Germana's book emphasizes aesthetics in the German orientalist discourse, a subject that has received little attention todate. In this tradition of German thought, aesthetics became a form of spiritual anthropology, ordering and classifying societies, races, and genders in terms of their ability to master the senses and the imagination, forces thatundermine rational autonomy, the very source of human (i.e., masculine) dignity. Nicholas A. Germana is Professor of History at Keene State College, New Hampshire.

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For long-time residents of Washington, D.C.'s Shaw/U Street, the neighborhood has become almost unrecognizable in recent years. Where the city's most infamous open-air drug market once stood, a farmers' market now sells grass-fed beef and homemade duck egg ravioli. On the corner where AM.PM carryout used to dish out soul food, a new establishment markets its $28 foie gras burger. Shaw is experiencing a dramatic transformation, from "ghetto" to "gilded ghetto," where white newcomers are rehabbing homes, developing dog parks, and paving the way for a third wave coffee shop on nearly every block.Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City is an in-depth ethnography of this gilded ghetto. Derek S. Hyra captures here a quickly gentrifying space in which long-time black residents are joined, and variously displaced, by an influx of young, white, relatively wealthy, and/or gay professionals who, in part as a result of global economic forces and the recent development of central business districts, have returned to the cities earlier generations fled decades ago. As a result, America is witnessing the emergence of what Hyra calls "cappuccino cities." A cappuccino has essentially the same ingredients as a cup of coffee with milk, but is considered upscale and double the price. In Hyra's cappuccino city, the black inner-city neighborhood undergoes enormous transformations and becomes racially "lighter" and more expensive by the year.

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A twentieth-anniversary edition of this tour de force in feminism and Indigenous studies, now with a new preface The twentieth anniversary of the original publication of this influential and prescient work is commemorated with a new edition of Talkin’ Up to the White Woman by Aileen Moreton-Robinson. In this bold book, of its time and ahead of its time, whiteness is made visible in power relations, presenting a dialogic of how white feminists represent Indigenous women in discourse and how Indigenous women self-present. Moreton-Robinson argues that white feminists benefit from colonization: they are overwhelmingly represented and disproportionately predominant, play the key roles, and constitute the norm, the ordinary, and the standard of womanhood. They do not self-present as white but rather represent themselves as variously classed, sexualized, aged, and abled. The disjuncture between representation and self-presentation of Indigenous women and white feminists illuminates different epistemologies and an incommensurability in the social construction of gender.Not so much a study of white womanhood, Talkin’ Up to the White Woman instead reveals an invisible racialized subject position represented and deployed in power relations with Indigenous women. The subject position occupied by middle-class white women is embedded in material and discursive conditions that shape the nature of power relations between white feminists and Indigenous women—and the unjust structural relationship between white society and Indigenous society.

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Oceanography calls for a wide variety of mathematical andstatistical techniques, and this accessible treatment provides thebasics every oceanographer needs to know, including * Practical ways to deal with chemical, geological, and biologicaloceanographic data * Instructions on detecting the existence of patterns in whatappears to be noise * Numerous examples from the field that highlight the applicationof the methods presented Written by an oceanographer and based on his successful course atthe University of Hawaii, the volume is well suited to atwo-semester course at the graduate level. The book reviews thenecessary calculus, clarifies statistical concepts, and includesend-of-chapter problems that illustrate and expand the varioustopics. Tips on using MATLAB(r) software in matrix operationscomplement chapters that deal with the formulation of relationshipsin terms of matrices. The main body of the text covers the actual methods of dealing withdata--including least squares and linear regression, correlationfunctions and analysis of variance, means and error bounds,nonlinear techniques and weighted least squares, numericalintegration, and other modeling techniques. Unlike mostintroductory texts, Mathematical Methods for Oceanographersdiscusses regression methods in great detail, and includes ananalysis of why certain methods produce unbiased parameterestimates. Finally, the chapter on time series analysis covers anarea of particular interest to physical oceanographers. The numerous problems and solutions included in the book enablereaders to check their understanding of concepts and techniques aswell as their ability to apply what they have learned. A must-read for students of oceanography, this text/reference isalso useful for professionals in the field, as well as forfisheries scientists, biologists, and those in the environmentalsciences. A systematic introduction to the mathematics oceanographersneed Topics covered in Mathematical Methods for Oceanographers include: * A review of the necessary calculus * Model I linear regression * Correlation analysis * Model II linear regression * Polynomial curve fitting, linear multiple regression analysis,and nonlinear least squares * Numerical integration * Box models * Time series analysis

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Transhumanism is an international cultural movement which seeks to fundamentally transform the human condition through radical technological enhancement. Transhumanists claim that we are already in transition to a new phase of humanity where the limitations of mortality, ignorance, and suffering will soon be altered or even completely erased. The Philosophy of Transhumanism: A Critical Analysis presents the central ideas of transhumanist philosophy and offers a lens through which to reflect on the meaning of being human in anticipation of radical technology. The radical technologies in question variously include greater-than-human machine intelligence, mind-computer interfaces, gene-editing, and nanotechnology. The continued funding and interest generated by those associated with these projects suggest transhumanism is continued migration from a fringe concern to a central way of conceiving the future. Though a variety of positions exist within transhumanism, the unifying theme is a belief that the techno-engineering of a new type of upgraded human is both beneficial and inevitable. These ambitions raise serious questions about the appearance of a transhuman or even posthuman being, and warrants a critical analysis from alternative philosophical and religious perspectives. This book seeks to present the philosophy of transhumanism in a way that is both timely and accessible, and to challenge what will be seen as the core argument of transhumanist philosophy: that there is nothing about human beings that cannot be reconceived as a technical problem.

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It is generally accepted that Revelation’s heavenly scenes were intended to demonstrate that God continued to exercise his control even when the audience’s experience might suggest otherwise. In The Abyss in Revelation, Edward Gudeman argues that even though the scenes of the underworld and its inhabitants are describing reality from the opposite perspective, they declare God’s sovereignty and power in an equally powerful way.Examining the motif and imagery of the abyss and the sea in Old Testament, New Testament, Greco-Roman, and Second Temple Jewish writings, Gudeman identifies traditions that John appropriates in Revelation in order to create his unique vision of the abyss. Gudeman shows that the abyss and related concepts in Revelation are variously envisioned as the abode of evil creatures, the place from which they exit, and a prison that holds them captive. In all of this, John consistently demonstrates that God is in control of the activity of Satan and demonic beings and that their destruction is both planned and certain.Original and convincing, this volume sheds light on Revelation’s message about how God responds to evil and advances our understanding of several interpretive problems related to the abyss and its inhabitants. Biblical scholars especially will benefit from Gudeman’s research.

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This is a book about the politics of competing cultures and myths in a colonized nation. Elizabeth Buck considers the transformation of Hawaiian culture focusing on the indigenous population rather than on the colonizers. She describes how Hawaii's established religious, social, political, and economic relationships have changed in the past 200 years as a result of Western imperialism. Her account is particularly timely in light of the current Hawaiian demands for sovereignty 100 years after the overthrow of the monarchy in 1893. Buck examines the social transformation Hawaii from a complex hierarchical, oral society to an American state dominated by corporate tourism and its myths of paradise. She pays particular attention to the ways contemporary Hawaiians are challenging the use of their traditions as the basis for exoticized entertainment. Buck demonstrates that sacred chants and hula were an integral part of Hawaiian social life; as the repository of the people's historical memory, chants and hula practices played a vital role in maintaining the links between religious, political, and economic relationships. Tracing the ways in which Hawaiian culture has been variously suppressed and constructed by Western explorers, New England missionaries, the tourist industry, ethnomusicologists, and contemporary Hawaiians, Buck offers a fascinating "rereading" of Hawaiian history.

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How have American writers written about jazz, and how has jazz influenced American literature? In Fascinating Rhythm, David Yaffe explores the relationship and interplay between jazz and literature, looking at jazz musicians and the themes literature has garnered from them by appropriating the style, tones, and innovations of jazz, and demonstrating that the poetics of jazz has both been assimilated into, and deeply affected, the development of twentieth-century American literature. Yaffe explores how Jewish novelists such as Norman Mailer, J. D. Salinger, and Philip Roth engaged issues of racial, ethnic, and American authenticity by way of jazz; how Ralph Ellison's descriptions of Louis Armstrong led to a "neoconservative" movement in contemporary jazz; how poets such as Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, Langston Hughes, and Frank O'Hara were variously inspired by the music; and how memoirs by Billie Holiday, Charles Mingus, and Miles Davis both reinforced and redeemed the red light origins of jazz. The book confronts the current jazz discourse and shows how poets and novelists can be placed in it--often with problematic results. Fascinating Rhythm stops to listen for the music, demonstrating how jazz continues to speak for the American writer.

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A penetrating inquiry into the motives, moral dilemmas, and compromises of Walter Gropius, Emil Nolde, and other celebrated artists who chose to remain in Nazi Germany “What are we to make of those cultural figures, many with significant international reputations, who tried to find accommodation with the Nazi regime?” Jonathan Petropoulos asks in this exploration of some of the most acute moral questions of the Third Reich. In his nuanced analysis of prominent German artists, architects, composers, film directors, painters, and writers who rejected exile, choosing instead to stay during Germany’s darkest period, Petropoulos shows how individuals variously dealt with the regime’s public opposition to modern art. His findings explode the myth that all modern artists were anti-Nazi and all Nazis anti-modernist. Artists Under Hitler closely examines cases of artists who failed in their attempts to find accommodation with the Nazi regime (Walter Gropius, Paul Hindemith, Gottfried Benn, Ernst Barlach, Emil Nolde) as well as others whose desire for official acceptance was realized (Richard Strauss, Gustaf Gründgens, Leni Riefenstahl, Arno Breker, Albert Speer). Collectively these ten figures illuminate the complex cultural history of Nazi Germany, while individually they provide haunting portraits of people facing excruciating choices and grave moral questions.

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'Sharply insightful and vividly imaginative... the perfect Christmas gift for anyone asking: 'How do I get into classical music?'' - Rupert Christiansen, Mail on Sunday'A treat from the very first page... written with style and humour, this is a perfect introduction to classical music for a beginner, a companion for the music lover, and sheer entertainment for both.' - Joanna LumleyNearly all of us have the capacity to enjoy classical music but too often we are put off by not knowing where to look, or what we are actually looking for. We feel the need of a guide to help navigate such vast and varied artistic terrain.With this delightful book, historian Tim Bouverie provides just this. Drawing on his lifelong passion for music, he has created a compilation of 100 classical masterpieces sure to move and be enjoyed by almost anyone. Some are well-known, some more idiosyncratic, others hidden gems waiting to be brought into the light. All are intended to comfort and inspire. He provides a short introduction to each piece - variously anecdotal, personal, historical and quirky - and a recommended recording to try.Highly accessible and entertaining, Perfect Pitch is filled with engrossing stories and insights that bring to life 300 years of the world's greatest music.An accompanying playlist is available on Spotify.

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You would as well look for blood in a corpse as for the least shred of decency in a man . . . Without help from their wives, men are just like unlit lamps . . . Just think of them as an unreliable clock that tells you it's ten o'clock when it's in fact barely two . . . A man without a woman is like a fly without a head . . . These are but a small selection of the quips bandied about at this lively gathering of women. The broad topic at hand is the relative pros and cons of men, and the cases in point range from pick-up artists to locker-room talk, and from double standards to fragile masculinity. Yet this dialogue unfolds not among ironically misandrist millenials venting at their local dive bar, but rather among sixteenth-century women--variously married, widowed, single, and betrothed--attending a respectable Venice garden party. Written in the early 1590s by Moderata Fonte, pseudonym of the Renaissance poet and writer Modesta Pozzo, this literary dialogue interrogates men and men's treatment of women, and explores by contrast the virtues of singledom and female friendship. As the women diverge from their theme--discussing everything from astrology to the curative powers of plants and minerals--a remarkable group portrait of wisdom, wit, and erudition emerges. A new introduction by translator Virginia Cox and foreword by Dacia Maraini situate The Merits of Women in its historical context, written as it was on the cusp of Shakespeare's heyday, and straddling the centuries between the feminist works of Christine de Pizan and Mary Wollstonecraft. Elegantly presented for a general audience, this is a must-read for baby feminists and "nasty women" alike, not to mention the perfect subtle gift for any mansplaining friend who needs a refresher on the merits of women . . . and their superiority to men.

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Jean Baudrillard was perhaps the most controversial of all social and cultural theorists. He has been variously vilified as a 'postmodernist', an 'overrated French theorist' and one of the 'intellectual imposters'. In his seventies he survived global fame and a name check in The Matrix; he also contracted cancer. His comments on 9/11, Abu Ghraib and Europe's suburban riots have been eagerly sought and digested. However, his translated publications since his first book in 1968 have left a trail of confusion and misinterpretation. Jean Baudrillard is a notorious figure but few have read many examples of his entire oeuvre. There is now though a chance to read Baudrillard's texts in an overall historical, social and political context and for a cool re-assessment to be made of his life and work, after his death. This book is a central part of that project. It concentrates on what Baudrillard has written over five decades and the order in which he wrote it. The Reader comprises extracts of Baudrillard's writings from the sixties to the noughties, with an editorial introduction and a concluding reading guide. Key Features *Arranged chronologically in order of first publication in French, the Reader illustrates the development and interconnectedness of Baudrillard's work since the 1960s. *Each section has an extract of one of Jean Baudrillard's writings translated into English, prefaced by a short bibliographical introduction setting the scene. *The Reader will be of interest to students and staff in a range of university courses across the globe and to those general readers interested in public intellectuals, media events and contemporary theory.

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This book is about religious change. More particularly it is about the changes brought about when Christianity was introduced to a remote tribal group in the highlands of what is now Irian Jaya, Indonesia. These people who are members of a tribal group that has become known as the Western Dani, entered into a process, through their contact with missionaries, that has been the shared experience of hundreds of tribal groups for the past two thousand years. This process has been variously labelled as the "indigenizing of Christianity," the "inculturation of Christianity,^D> " or as the "contextualizing of Christianity." This book uses the term vernacular Christianity in order to emphasize the anthropological perspective that characterizes the study, and the socio-cultural processes that transpire when two belief systems come in contact. Through the use of ethnographical methodology, this study seeks to ascertain as accurately as possible the Dani perspective on what they do and what they believe in their religious perspectives, commonly spoken of as an emic perspective. It records both their pre-Christian beliefs, as well as their own vernacular form of Christianity. It is a study that also seeks to represent the position of the missionaries, often citing their own records at length. Chapter topics include detailed studies of Dani cosmology, myths, religious rituals, sacred paraphernalia, religious specialists, and the problem of cargoism in socio-religious change. Co-published with the American Society of Missiology.

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On August 17, 1945, Indonesia proclaimed its independence from Dutch colonial rule. Five years later, the Republic of Indonesia was recognized as a unified, sovereign state. The period in between was a time of aspiration, mobilization, and violence, in which nationalists fought to expel the Dutch while also trying to come to grips with the meaning of "independence." "Rifle Reports" is an ethnographic history of this extraordinary time as it was experienced on the outskirts of the nation among Karo Batak villagers in the rural highlands of North Sumatra. Based on extensive interviews and conversations with Karo veterans, "Rifle Reports" interweaves personal and family memories, songs and stories, memoirs and local histories, photographs and monuments, to trace the variously tangled and perhaps incompletely understood ways that Karo women and men contributed to the founding of the Indonesian nation. The routes they followed are divergent, difficult, sometimes wavering, and rarely obvious, but they are clearly marked with the signs of gender. This innovative historical study of nationalism and decolonization is an anthropological exploration of the gendering of wartime experience, as well as an inquiry into the work of storytelling as memory practice and ethnographic genre.

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Exploring the broad implications of evolutionary theorist Lynn Margulis’s work, this collection brings together specialists across a range of disciplines, from paleontology, molecular biology, evolutionary theory, and geobiology to developmental systems theory, archaeology, history of science, cultural science studies, and literature and science. Addressing the multiple themes that animated Margulis’s science, the essays within take up, variously, astrobiology and the origin of life, ecology and symbiosis from the microbial to the planetary scale, the coupled interactions of earthly environments and evolving life in Gaia theory and earth system science, and the connections of these newer scientific ideas to cultural and creative productions. Dorion Sagan acquaints the reader with salient issues in Lynn Margulis’s scientific work, the controversies they raised, and the vocabulary necessary to follow the arguments. Sankar Chatterjee synthesizes several strands of current theory for the origin of life on earth. James Strick tells the intertwined origin stories of James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis and Margulis’s serial endosymbiosis theory. Jan Sapp explores the distinct phylogenetic visions of Margulis and Carl Woese. Susan Squier examines the epigenetics of embryologist and developmental biologist C. H. Waddington. Bruce Clarke studies the convergence of ecosystem ecology, systems theory, and science fiction between the 1960s and the 1980s. James Shapiro discusses the genome evolution that results not from random changes but rather from active cell processes. Susan Oyama shows how the concept of development balances an over-emphasis on genetic coding and other deterministic schemas. Christopher Witmore studies the ways in which a concentrated animal feeding operation, or CAFO, mixes up natural resources, animal lives, and human appetites. And Peter Westbroek brings the insights of earth system science toward a new worldview essential for a proper response to global change.

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In this compelling critique Rob Wilson explores the creation of the “Pacific Rim” in the American imagination and how the concept has been variously adapted and resisted in Hawai‘i, the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, and Australia. Reimagining the American Pacific ranges from the nineteenth century to the present and draws on theories of postmodernism, transnationality, and post-Marxist geography to contribute to the ongoing discussion of what constitutes “global” and “local.”Wilson begins by tracing the arrival of American commerce and culture in the Pacific through missionary and imperial forces in the nineteenth century and the parallel development of Asia/Pacific as an idea. Using an impressive range of texts—from works by Herman Melville, James Michener, Maori and Western Samoan novelists, and Bamboo Ridge poets to Baywatch, films and musicals such as South Pacific and Blue Hawaii, and native Hawaiian shark god poetry—Wilson illustrates what it means for a space to be “regionalized.” Claiming that such places become more open to transnational flows of information, labor, finance, media, and global commodities, he explains how they then become isolated, their borders simultaneously crossed and fixed. In the case of Hawai’i, Wilson argues that culturally innovative, risky forms of symbol making and a broader—more global—vision of local plight are needed to counterbalance the racism and increasing imbalance of cultural capital and goods in the emerging postplantation and tourist-centered economy.Reimagining the American Pacific leaves the reader with a new understanding of the complex interactions of global and local economies and cultures in a region that, since the 1970s, has been a leading trading partner of the United States. It is an engaging and provocative contribution to the fields of Asian and American studies, as well as those of cultural studies and theory, literary criticism, and popular culture.

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This is the first anthology ever devoted to early modern Japanese literature, spanning the period from 1600 to 1900, known variously as the Edo or the Tokugawa, one of the most creative epochs of Japanese culture. This anthology, which will be of vital interest to anyone involved in this era, includes not only fiction, poetry, and drama, but also essays, treatises, literary criticism, comic poetry, adaptations from Chinese, folk stories and other non-canonical works. Many of these texts have never been translated into English before, and several classics have been newly translated for this collection. Early Modern Japanese Literature introduces English readers to an unprecedented range of prose fiction genres, including dangibon (satiric sermons), kibyoshi (satiric and didactic picture books), sharebon (books of wit and fashion), yomihon (reading books), kokkeibon (books of humor), gokan (bound books), and ninjobon (books of romance and sentiment). The anthology also offers a rich array of poetry-waka, haiku, senryu, kyoka, kyoshi-and eleven plays, which range from contemporary domestic drama to historical plays and from early puppet theater to nineteenth century kabuki. Since much of early modern Japanese literature is highly allusive and often elliptical, this anthology features introductions and commentary that provide the critical context for appreciating this diverse and fascinating body of texts. One of the major characteristics of early modern Japanese literature is that almost all of the popular fiction was amply illustrated by wood-block prints, creating an extensive text-image phenomenon. In some genres such as kibyoshi and gokan the text in fact appeared inside the woodblock image. Woodblock prints of actors were also an important aspect of the culture of kabuki drama. A major feature of this anthology is the inclusion of over 200 woodblock prints that accompanied the original texts and drama.

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'Delightful' A HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR / BOOK OF THE WEEK, Daily Mail'Goodwood curator James Peill writes with a wonderfully light touch . . . The Goodwood story is extraordinary and rightly celebrated' Country LifeThe history of Goodwood, England's greatest sporting estateGoodwood has been the home of English sport for centuries. The story of how a small hunting lodge became the iconic location for the globally-renowned Festival of Speed, Glorious Goodwood and Goodwood Revival events is inextricably intertwined with the tale of the Dukes of Richmond. The Dukes were, variously, patrons of the arts, political influencers, royal confidantes, architectural innovators, horticultural enthusiasts and stewards of the community. Above all, they were passionate about the sports for which Goodwood is best known: horseracing, motor sports, foxhunting, cricket, shooting and golf. Drawing upon the wealth of the Goodwood archives, James Peill vividly captures the character of each Duke, some radical and others staunchly traditional, and the wide-ranging impact they had on the Goodwood of today.The broader context is a sweeping history of England, and one family's part in it. Beginning with Charles II and his mistress Louise de Keroualle, the parents of the first Duke, Glorious Goodwood takes the reader on a journey through time, from the seventeenth century to present day, via the Jacobite Rising, the Battle of Waterloo and the First and Second World Wars. There are cameo appearances from George Stubbs, Canaletto, Alexander, Emperor of Russia, Queen Victoria, Jackie Stewart and Edward VII, who famously hosted Privy Council meetings in the Tapestry Drawing Room during race week.Glorious Goodwood is a vivid and intimate portrait of a house and its inhabitants set against a dazzling, panoramic backdrop of English history. At the heart of this colourful and compelling story is a rich sense of the British heritage Goodwood embodies.

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Concerns about censorship have once again reached a fever pitch across the liberal West. In other historical periods, such concerns may have marked reactions to book bans and burnings. Often, they followed prosecutions and subsequent jailtime for things spoken or written. During the Red Scare, they were the hushed response to chilling state-sponsored watch-lists and employer-supported blacklists designed to ensure victory against communism. Against this history, complaints about the new censorship appear differently. With respect to the new censorship, there are no books burnings, no prosecutions, no laws or committees. Indeed, there is no coercive state involvement at all. With a few notable exceptions, complaints about censorship in the 21st-century West are complaints about the behavior of private parties: social groups, employers, media conglomerates, social media platforms, and search engines. To better understand the concerns surrounding nonstate interference with speech, Private Censorship offers an account of censorship, as well as an assessment of the ethical and political issues it raises across contexts. J.P. Messina asks and variously answers questions like: what should we think when employees get fired for things they say and how might patterns of such firings create a climate of fear inimical to free inquiry? When is it appropriate for social media firms to deplatform users, and what does it mean for our democracy that those in charge of such decisions are often wealthy Silicon Valley executives? Do search engines act as massive gatekeepers to information in troubling ways, and how might they be constrained, if they do? Along the way, Messina casts a critical eye on many popular proposals for responding to these complaints. Unlike these popular approaches, Private Censorship foregrounds the importance of rights to property, association, and free expression for thinking well about 21st-century censorship concerns.

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The Duke of Wellington described the Battle of Waterloo as ‘the most desperate business I ever was in. I was never so near being beat’. The courage of British troops that day has been rightly praised ever since, but the fact that one-third of the forces which gave him his narrow victory were subjects, not of George III, but of the King of the Netherlands, has been almost completely ignored. This book seeks to correct a grave injustice through the study of Dutch sources – both primary and secondary – the majority of which have never been used by English-speaking historians.The Dutch-Belgians have been variously described as inexperienced, incompetent and cowardly, a rogue element in the otherwise disciplined Allied Army. It is only now being tentatively acknowledged that they alone saved Wellington from disaster at Quatre Bras.He had committed a strategic error in that, as Napoleon advanced, his own troops were scattered over a hundred kilometres of southern Belgium. Outnumbered three to one, the Netherlanders gave him time to concentrate his forces, and save Brussels from French occupation. At Waterloo itself, on at least three occasions when the fate of the battle ‘hung upon the cusp’ their engagement with the enemy aided British recovery. Their commander – the Prince of Orange – is viciously described as an arrogant fool, ‘a disaster waiting to happen’ and even a dangerous lunatic. According to the assessment of the Duke himself, he was a reliable and courageous subordinate.The Dutch material in this book reveals a new dimension for familiar events in the Campaign, and includes many unseen illustrations. For the first time, a full assessment is made of the challenge which Willem I faced as King of a country hastily cobbled together by the Congress of Vienna, and of his achievement in assembling, equipping and training thirty thousand men from scratch in eighteen months. This is a timely reassessment in the two hundredth anniversary year of the battle of Waterloo. The veneration which the Duke of Wellington justifiably enjoyed after the Waterloo Campaign should not be allowed to forgive his lifelong lack of acknowledgment of the debt he owed the Netherlanders. As he once said himself, ‘there should be glory enough for all’, and it is high time that they are allowed to claim their share.

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In the first major critical reading of Italian American narrative literature in two decades, Fred L. Gardaphé presents an interpretive overview of Italian American literary history. Examining works from the turn of the twentieth century to the present, he develops a new perspective—variously historical, philosophical, and cultural—by which American writers of Italian descent can be read, increasing the discursive power of an ethnic literature that has received too little serious critical attention. Gardaphé draws on Vico’s concept of history, as well as the work of Gramsci, to establish a culture-specific approach to reading Italian American literature. He begins his historical reading with narratives informed by oral traditions, primarily autobiography and autobiographical fiction written by immigrants. From these earliest social–realist narratives, Gardaphé traces the evolution of this literature through tales of “the godfather” and the mafia; the “reinvention of ethnicity” in works by Helen Barolini, Tina DeRosa, and Carole Maso; the move beyond ethnicity in fiction by Don DeLillo and Gilbert Sorrentino; to the short fiction of Mary Caponegro, which points to a new direction in Italian American writing.The result is both an ethnography of Italian American narrative and a model for reading the signs that mark the “self-fashioning” inherent in literary and cultural production. Italian Signs, American Streets promises to become a landmark in the understanding of literature and culture produced by Italian Americans. It will be of interest not only to students, critics, and scholars of this ethnic experience, but also to those concerned with American literature in general and the place of immigrant and ethnic literatures within that wide framework.

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The Japanese invasion of Shanghai in 1937 led some thirty million Chinese to flee their homes in terror, and live—in the words of artist and writer Feng Zikai—“in a sea of bitterness” as refugees. Keith Schoppa paints a comprehensive picture of the refugee experience in one province—Zhejiang, on the central Chinese coast—where the Japanese launched major early offensives as well as notorious later campaigns. He recounts stories of both heroes and villains, of choices poorly made amid war’s bewildering violence, of risks bravely taken despite an almost palpable quaking fear.As they traveled south into China’s interior, refugees stepped backward in time, sometimes as far as the nineteenth century, their journeys revealing the superficiality of China’s modernization. Memoirs and oral histories allow Schoppa to follow the footsteps of the young and old, elite and non-elite, as they fled through unfamiliar terrain and coped with unimaginable physical and psychological difficulties. Within the context of Chinese culture, being forced to leave home was profoundly threatening to one’s sense of identity. Not just people but whole institutions also fled from Japanese occupation, and Schoppa considers schools, governments, and businesses as refugees with narratives of their own.Local governments responded variously to Japanese attacks, from enacting scorched-earth policies to offering rewards for the capture of plague-infected rats in the aftermath of germ warfare. While at times these official procedures improved the situation for refugees, more often—as Schoppa describes in moving detail—they only deepened the tragedy.

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A study of the British contribution to film music, detailing the idiosyncracies of British film, and showing how the differences between it and Hollywood affected composers on both sides of the Atlantic. Jan Swynnoe's study is concerned with the special British contribution to film music, detailing how the idiosyncracies of British film, and of the British character, set it apart from its Hollywood counterpart. She shows how the differences between the two industries in all aspects of film making variously affected composers on both sides of the Atlantic. In the mid 1930s, when film composers in America were perfecting the formulae of the classical Hollywood score, film music in Britain scarcely existed; within a year or so, however, top British composers were scoring British films. How this transformation was brought about, and how established British concert composers, including Vaughan Williams and Arnold Bax, faced the challenge of the exacting and often bewildering art of scoring for feature film, is vividly described here, and the resulting scores compared with the work of seasoned Hollywood composers. JAN SWYNNOE researched the material on which her book is based over several years, at the same time pursuing her musical life as pianist, percussionist and composer.

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In Animacies, Mel Y. Chen draws on recent debates about sexuality, race, and affect to examine how matter that is considered insensate, immobile, or deathly animates cultural lives. Toward that end, Chen investigates the blurry division between the living and the dead, or that which is beyond the human or animal. Within the field of linguistics, animacy has been described variously as a quality of agency, awareness, mobility, sentience, or liveness. Chen turns to cognitive linguistics to stress how language habitually differentiates the animate and the inanimate. Expanding this construct, Chen argues that animacy undergirds much that is pressing and indeed volatile in contemporary culture, from animal rights debates to biosecurity concerns. Chen's book is the first to bring the concept of animacy together with queer of color scholarship, critical animal studies, and disability theory. Through analyses of dehumanizing insults, the meanings of queerness, animal protagonists in recent Asian/American art and film, the lead in toys panic in 2007, and the social lives of environmental illness, Animacies illuminates a hierarchical politics infused by race, sexuality, and ability. In this groundbreaking book, Chen rethinks the criteria governing agency and receptivity, health and toxicity, productivity and stillness—and demonstrates how attention to the affective charge of matter challenges commonsense orderings of the world.

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A thousand years before Isaac Asimov set down his Three Laws of Robotics, real and imagined automata appeared in European courts, liturgies, and literary texts. Medieval robots took such forms as talking statues, mechanical animals, and silent metal guardians; some served to entertain or instruct while others performed disciplinary or surveillance functions. Variously ascribed to artisanal genius, inexplicable cosmic forces, or demonic powers, these marvelous fabrications raised fundamental questions about knowledge, nature, and divine purpose in the Middle Ages. Medieval Robots recovers the forgotten history of fantastical, aspirational, and terrifying machines that captivated Europe in imagination and reality between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. E. R. Truitt traces the different forms of self-moving or self-sustaining manufactured objects from their earliest appearances in the Latin West through centuries of mechanical and literary invention. Chronicled in romances and song as well as histories and encyclopedias, medieval automata were powerful cultural objects that probed the limits of natural philosophy, illuminated and challenged definitions of life and death, and epitomized the transformative and threatening potential of foreign knowledge and culture. This original and wide-ranging study reveals the convergence of science, technology, and imagination in medieval culture and demonstrates the striking similarities between medieval and modern robotic and cybernetic visions.

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In Animacies, Mel Y. Chen draws on recent debates about sexuality, race, and affect to examine how matter that is considered insensate, immobile, or deathly animates cultural lives. Toward that end, Chen investigates the blurry division between the living and the dead, or that which is beyond the human or animal. Within the field of linguistics, animacy has been described variously as a quality of agency, awareness, mobility, sentience, or liveness. Chen turns to cognitive linguistics to stress how language habitually differentiates the animate and the inanimate. Expanding this construct, Chen argues that animacy undergirds much that is pressing and indeed volatile in contemporary culture, from animal rights debates to biosecurity concerns. Chen's book is the first to bring the concept of animacy together with queer of color scholarship, critical animal studies, and disability theory. Through analyses of dehumanizing insults, the meanings of queerness, animal protagonists in recent Asian/American art and film, the lead in toys panic in 2007, and the social lives of environmental illness, Animacies illuminates a hierarchical politics infused by race, sexuality, and ability. In this groundbreaking book, Chen rethinks the criteria governing agency and receptivity, health and toxicity, productivity and stillness—and demonstrates how attention to the affective charge of matter challenges commonsense orderings of the world.

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Over the past few centuries, as Western civilization has enjoyed an expansive and flexible geographic domain, Westerners have observed other cultures with little interest in a return gaze. In turn, these other civilizations have been similarly disinclined when they have held sway. Clearly, though, an external frame of reference outstrips introspection we cannot see ourselves as others see us. Unprecedented in its scope, What the Rest Think of the West provides a rich historical look through the eyes of outsiders as they survey and scrutinize the politics, science, technology, religion, family practices, and gender roles of civilizations not their own. The book emphasizes the broader figurative meaning of looking west in the scope of history. Focusing on four civilizations Islamic, Japanese, Chinese, and South Asian Nader has collected observations made over centuries by scholars, diplomats, missionaries, travelers, merchants, and students reflecting upon their own Wests." These writings derive from a range of purposes and perspectives, such as the seventh-century Chinese Buddhist who goes west to India, the missionary from Baghdad who travels up the Volga in the tenth century and meets the Vikings, and the Egyptian imam who in 1826 is sent to Paris to study the French. The accounts variously express critique, adoration, admiration, and fear, and are sometimes humorous, occasionally disturbing, at times controversial, and always enlightening. With informative introductions to each of the selections, Laura Nader initiates conversations about the power of representational practices.

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Little is known about Egypt’s Gypsies, called Dom by scholars, but variously referred to by Egyptians as Ghagar, Nawar, Halebi, or Hanagra, depending on their location. Moreover, most Egyptians are oblivious to the fact that there are today large numbers of Gypsies dispersed from the outskirts of villages in Upper Egypt to impoverished neighborhoods in Cairo and Alexandria. In Gypsies in Contemporary Egypt sociologist Alexandra Parrs draws on two years of fieldwork to explore how Dom identities are constructed, negotiated, and contested in the specifically Egyptian national context. With an eye to the pitfalls and evolution of scholarly work on the vastly more studied European Roma, she traces the scattered representations of Egyptian Dom, from accounts of them by nineteenth-century European Orientalists to their portrayal in Egyptian cinema as belly-dancers in the 1950s and beggars and thieves more recently. She explores the boundaries—religious, cultural, racial, linguistic—between Dom and non-Dom Egyptians and examines the ways in which the Dom position themselves within the limitations of media discourses about them and in turn differentiate themselves from the dominant population. This interplay of attitudes, argues Parrs, sheds light on the values and markers of belonging of the majority population and the paradigms of nation-state formation at the governmental level. Based on extensive interviews with government workers and ordinary individuals in routine contact with the Dom, as well with Dom engaged in a variety of trades in Cairo and Alexandria, Gypsies in Contemporary Egypt is about the search for the fragments of identity of the Egyptian Dom.

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Lawrence Paterson's groundbreaking new book is a detailed account of the now legendary Operation Colossus, the first British airborne raid of the Second World War, which took place in Basilicata, Italy on 10 February 1941. Britain was one of the last major powers of the Second World War to establish an airborne arm of service. Formed by a collection of free-thinking army and air force officers, the fledgling British paratrooper unit, known as the SAS', deployed trial and error in terms of tactics and equipment, costing the lives of several volunteers before an elite few were selected to make the first British parachute raid of the war. Alongside the paratroopers were two veterans of the First World War: an Italian SOE agent, formerly a banqueting manager in London hotels, and an RAF reserve officer who held the Military Cross for bravery. Collectively known as X-Troop', these men were parachuted by specially selected bomber crews into the heart of enemy territory, where they successfully destroyed their target, the Tragino Aqueduct, before becoming the object of an exhaustive manhunt by Italian troops and civilians. Captured, they were variously interrogated, imprisoned, and the Italian SOE agent placed on trial for treason and executed. Given the distances that had to be covered, the logistical complications and the lack of any precedent, the raid was a remarkable feat. Its success or failure depended on a group of men using methods and equipment thus far untried by the British Army. They were truly guinea pigs' for those that would follow in their footsteps. Often overlooked in British military history, Paterson brings this extraordinary episode to light, drawing on verbatim testimony and interrogating the truth of previous accounts. From the formation of the unit and the build up to its first deployment, through Operation Colossus and its aftermath, to its ongoing legacy today, this is the fascinating story of the modern day British Parachute Regiment.

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From Mondrian's bold geometric forms to Kandinsky's use of symbols to Pollock's "dripped paintings," the richly diverse movement of abstract painting challenges anyone trying to make sense of either individual works or the phenomenon as a whole. Applying his insights as an art historian and a painter, John Golding offers a unique approach to understanding the evolution of abstractionism by looking at the personal artistic development of seven of its greatest practitioners. He re-creates the journey undertaken by each painter in his move from representational art to the abstract--a journey that in most cases began with cubism but led variously to symbolism, futurism, surrealism, theosophy, anthropology, Jungian analysis, and beyond. For each artist, spiritual quest and artistic experimentation became inseparable. And despite their different techniques and philosophies, these artists shared one goal: to break a path to a new, ultimate pictorial truth. The book first explores the works and concerns of three pioneering European abstract painters--Mondrian, Malevich, Kandinsky--and then those of their American successors--Pollock, Newman, Rothko, and Still. Golding shows how each painter sought to see the world and communicate his vision in the purest or most expressive form possible. For example, Mondrian found his way into abstraction through a spiritual response to the landscape of his native Holland, Malevich through his apprehension of the human body, Kandinsky through a blend of religious mysticism and symbolism. Line and color became the focus for many of their creative endeavors. In the 1940s and 50s, the Americans raised the level of pictorial innovation, beginning most notably with Pollock and his Jung-inspired concept of action.p>Golding makes a powerful case that at its best and most profound, abstract painting is heavily imbued with meaning and content. Through a blend of biography, art analysis, and cultural history, Paths to the Absolute offers remarkable insights into how a sense of purpose is achieved in painting, and how abstractionism engaged with the intellectual currents of its time.

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The story of the nude in art in our times, told by a popular art historian with a rare gift for sharing her passions and ideas. The representation of the nude in art remained for many centuries a victory of fiction over fact. Beautiful, handsome, flawless – its great success was to distance the unclothed body from any uncomfortably explicit taint of sexuality, eroticism or imperfection. In this newly updated study, Frances Borzello contrasts the civilized, sanitized, perfected nude of Kenneth Clark’s classic, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1956), with today’s depictions: raw, uncomfortable, both disturbing and intriguing. Grittier and more subtle, depicting variously gendered bodies, the new nude asks awkward questions and behaves provocatively. It is a very naked nude, created to deal with the issues and contradictions that surround the body in our time. Borzello explores the role of the nude in twentieth- and twenty-first-century art, looking at the work of a wide range of international artists creating contemporary nudes. Her fascinating text is complemented by a profusion of well-chosen, unusual and beautifully reproduced illustrations. The story begins with a tale of life, death and resurrection – an investigation into how and why the nude has survived and flourished in an art world that prematurely announced its demise. Subsequent chapters take a thematic approach, focusing in turn on Body art and Performance art, the new perspectives of women artists, the nude in painting, portraiture and sculpture and in its most extreme and graphic expressions that intentionally push the boundaries of both art and our comfort zone. The final chapter illustrates radical developments in art and culture over the last decade, focusing in particular on artworks by women, trans artists and artists of colour. Borzello links these works to their art-historical and political predecessors, demonstrating the continually unending capacity of the nude to disrupt traditional hierarchies and gender categories in life and art.

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This is a book about what it's like being a birder in an age of natural decline. It is part autobiographical - tales of spell-binding birding encounters that left indelible memories - and it is part reflective. The travellers' tales of birding adventures are about places and events that were variously entertaining, amusing, captivating, inspiring, exciting and awesome, literally. They also feature the amazing, eccentric, dedicated, inspiring people in the birding community. Travels to Madagascar, Cambodia, India and many other places are recalled. There is birding in the Himalayas, in the Australian outback, on the Southern Oceans and in hotel gardens and city parks and there are tales of the 'big listers', 'big-lensers', professional guides, and local conservation workers who try to keep their habitats safe for us. There are lots of images to accompany these stories. Martin's experiences in becoming a birder late in life revealed some strange behaviour which he soon learnt to take for granted as a member of the birding community. Why tear off chasing the next tick when we were having such a good time in the forest we were already exploring? Why was seeing a rare parrot in a cage less significant than seeing a 'wild' one that was being hand-fed in a nature reserve? Why was he visiting all those rubbish tips and sewerage farms in search of birds when birding excursions to a forest or a natural wetland were so much more pleasing? There are chapters about all of these puzzles and oddities, and more - their origins and, in some cases, how they shape our behaviour in somewhat perverse ways - on 'authentic' birding, the origins and importance of the life list, on rarities and trophy birds, and why the idea of a 'species' is elusive yet so important. All these tales and reflections are shaped by birding during an extinction crisis and the growing biodiversity crisis. As he observed trashed habitats and vanishing bird populations during his travels, Martin's growing dismay and alarm about these issues coloured everything. So he came to ponder what birders are doing in response, whether it is for good or harm. There is the paradox of 'extinction birding' - it is not difficult today to see some vanishingly rare birds, because they are hanging on in reserved, fenced spaces, kept alive by artifices such as captive breeding. Because our visits to these places provide funds, we are also among these species' last hopes for survival. Is this the best we can do? More self-reflection among all birders is necessary. Faced with the growing crisis, we can all do better.

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