Search results for ""author art, culture"

The ubiquitous nature of mobile and pervasive computing has begun to reshape and complicate our notions of space, time, and identity. In this collection, over thirty internationally recognized contributors reflect on ubiquitous computing’s implications for the ways in which we interact with our environments, experience time, and develop identities individually and socially. Interviews with working media artists lend further perspectives on these cultural transformations.Drawing on cultural theory, new media art studies, human-computer interaction theory, and software studies, this cutting-edge book critically unpacks the complex ubiquity-effects confronting us every day.Visit the book's companion website at: http://ubiquity.dk

Read more less

The novels of Iain M. Banks have forever changed the face of modern science fiction. His Culture books combine breathtaking imagination with exceptional storytelling, and have secured his reputation as one of the most extraordinary and influential writers in the genre.'Banks is a phenomenon' William Gibson War rages across the galaxy. Billions have died, billions more are doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, face cold-blooded, brutal destruction. The Idirans ­fight for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles are at stake. There can be no surrender.Within this cosmic conflict, a crucial battle of wits is waged. Deep within a fabled labyrinth, on a Planet of the Dead forbidden to mortals, lies a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans desperately seek it. It is the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, to actually ­find it - and with it their own destruction. Praise for the Culture series 'Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution' Independent on Sunday 'Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future' Guardian 'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman 'Compulsive reading' Sunday TelegraphThe Culture series:Consider PhlebasThe Player of GamesUse of WeaponsExcessionInversionsLook to WindwardMatterSurface DetailThe Hydrogen SonataThe State of the ArtOther books by Iain M. Banks:Against a Dark BackgroundFeersum EndjinnThe AlgebraistAlso now available: The Culture: The Drawings - an extraordinary collection of original illustrations faithfully reproduced from sketchbooks Banks kept in the 1970s and 80s, depicting the ships, habitats, geography, weapons and language of Banks' Culture series of novels in incredible detail.

Read more less

America's independent films often seem to defy classification. Their strategies of storytelling and representation range from raw, no-budget projects to more polished releases of Hollywood's "specialty" divisions. Yet understanding American indies involves more than just considering films. Filmmakers, distributors, exhibitors, festivals, critics, and audiences all shape the art's identity, which is always understood in relation to the Hollywood mainstream. By locating the American indie film in the historical context of the "Sundance-Miramax" era (the mid-1980s to the end of the 2000s), Michael Z. Newman considers indie cinema as an alternative American film culture. His work isolates patterns of character and realism, formal play, and oppositionality and the functions of the festivals, art houses, and critical media promoting them. He also accounts for the power of audiences to identify indie films in distinction to mainstream Hollywood and to seek socially emblematic characters and playful form in their narratives. Analyzing films such as Welcome to the Dollhouse (1996), Lost in Translation (2003), Pulp Fiction (1994), and Juno (2007), along with the work of Nicole Holofcener, Jim Jarmusch, John Sayles, Steven Soderbergh, and the Coen brothers, Newman investigates the conventions that cast indies as culturally legitimate works of art. He binds these diverse works together within a cluster of distinct viewing strategies and invites a reevaluation of the difference of independent cinema and its relationship to class and taste culture.

Read more less

The Art of Allegiance explores the ways in which Spanish imperial authority was manifested in a compelling system of representation for the subjects of New Spain during the seventeenth century. Michael Schreffler identifies and analyzes a corpus of “source” material—paintings, maps, buildings, and texts—produced in and around Mexico City that addresses themes of kingly presence and authority as well as obedience, loyalty, and allegiance to the crown. The Art of Allegiance opens with a discussion of the royal palace in Mexico City, now destroyed but known through a number of images, and then moves on to consider its interior decoration, particularly the Hall of Royal Accord and the numerous portraits of royalty and government officials displayed in the palace. Subsequent chapters examine images in which the conquest of Mexico is depicted, maps showing New Spain’s relationship to Spain and the larger world, and the restructuring of space in and through imperial rule. Although the book focuses on material from the reign of Charles II (1665–1700), it sheds light on the wider development of cultural politics in the Spanish colonial world.

Read more less

Although one of the world’s smallest countries, Qatar punches well above its weight in terms of art and culture. It is home to innovative and striking pieces of public art as well as art-filled museums designed by world-famous architects. This is all part of a far-reaching plan to focus on becoming a culture-based, rather than carbon-based, economy – a plan which Sheikha Mayassa has spearheaded on every level. It is this which makes The Power of Culture so informative and readable. Sheikha Mayassa’s personality shines through every page, whether discussing the delights to be found in museums and galleries, or commenting on her favourite place to see wild life and where to find the best abayas. Part easy-to-read guide and part memoir, The Power of Culture offers a completely original insight into the Qatar of today, enhanced with in-depth interviews by Sheikha Mayassa with some of the leading architects and artists who have contributed to its success. Text in English, Arabic, Mandarin, Hindi and Spanish.

Read more less

This book explores the significance of Julius Caesar to different periods, societies and people from the 50s BC through to the twenty-first century. This interdisciplinary volume explores the significance of Julius Caesar to different periods, societies and people. Ranges over the fields of religious, military, and political history, archaeology, architecture and urban planning, the visual arts, and literary, film, theatre and cultural studies. Examines representations of Caesar in Italy, France, Germany, Britain, and the United States in particular. Objects of analysis range from Caesar’s own commentaries on the Gallic wars, through Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and images of Caesar in Italian fascist popular culture, to contemporary cinema and current debates about American empire. Edited by a leading expert on the reception of ancient Rome. Includes original contributions by international experts on Caesar and his reception.

Read more less

Meyer makes a valuable statement on aesthetics, criteria for assessing great works of music, compositional practices and theories of the present day, and predictions of the future of Western culture. His postlude, written for the book's twenty-fifth anniversary, looks back at his thoughts on the direction of music in 1967.

Read more less

A public art movement initiated by the postrevolutionary state, Mexican muralism has long been admired for its depictions of popular struggle and social justice. Mary K. Coffey revises traditional accounts of Mexican muralism by describing how a radical art movement was transformed into official culture, ultimately becoming a tool of state propaganda. Analyzing the incorporation of mural art into Mexico's most important public museums—the Palace of Fine Arts, the National History Museum, and the National Anthropology Museum—Coffey illuminates the institutionalization of muralism and the political and aesthetic issues it raised. She focuses on the period between 1934, when José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera were commissioned to create murals in the Palace of Fine Arts, through the crisis of state authority in the 1960s. Coffey highlights a reciprocal relationship between Mexico's mural art and its museums. Muralism shaped exhibition practices, which affected the politics, aesthetics, and reception of mural art. Interpreting the iconography of Mexico's murals, she focuses on representations of mestizo identity, the preeminent symbol of postrevolutionary Mexico. Coffey argues that those gendered representations reveal a national culture project more invested in race and gender inequality than in race and class equality.

Read more less

These essays examine Iran’s place in the world--its relations and cultural interactions with its immediate neighbors and with empires and superpowers from the beginning of the Safavid period in 1501 to the present day. The book provides important historical background on recent political and social developments in Iran and on its contemporary foreign relations. The topics explored include Iranian influence abroad on political organization, religion, literature, art, and diplomacy, as well as Iran's absorption of foreign influences in these areas. A special focus is the prevailing political culture of Iran throughout its early modern and contemporary periods. The authors combine approaches from history, political science, anthropology, international relations, and culturalstudies. Some essays address Iran’s interactions with various Arab and Turkic ethnicities in the region stretching from India to Egypt. Others examine its relations with the West during the Qajar and Pahlavi eras, women's issues, culture inside Iran during the Islamic Republic, and the Shi`ite theocracy of Iran as compared with other Muslim states.

Read more less

MashUp: The Birth of Modern Culture traces the inexorable rise of collage, montage, sampling and the cut-up. Tracing its roots from the multiple-perspectives, montages and readymades of Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters and Hannah Hoch, to the present - with its postmodern network culture, where remixing and co-production are the norm and the New Aesthetic seeks to harmonise the now-everyday crossover of the digital and the actual. The book addresses the development of detournement and deconstruction in art, architecture, music and society. Each chapter is a detailed, inclusive look at a cross-section of the main artists and thinkers that have embraced and developed all forms of 'mashup' culture, since its inception in the late nineteenth century with Braque and Picasso's experiments into perspective. MashUp: The Birth of Modern Culture finds parallels between the works of luminaries such as Jean-Luc Godard, Joseph Cornell, Elizabeth Price, Joyce Wieland and Jeff Wall, tracing the lasting impact of such seemingly disparate cultural phenomena as voguing, hacking and the use of audio and film as a kind of a globally available, open source language in vidding, hip hop and dub, and in art that deals with the mass proliferation and dissemination of images and knowledge brought on by digital technologies. MashUp: The Birth of Modern Culture situates the work of Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton and Guy Debord alongside the likes of Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau, Superstudio, Brian Eno and Cory Arcangel, and more generally within a culture where the new is necessarily re-made and re-modelled, and quotation and re-appropriation are an integral part of the way we talk about it. Published in collaboration with the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Read more less

Providing a fresh evaluation of Alberti’s text On Painting (1435), along with comparisons to various works of Nicholas Cusanus - particularly his Vision of God (1450) - this study reveals a shared epistemology of vision. And, the author argues, it is one that reflects a more deeply Christian Neoplatonic ideal than is typically accorded Alberti. Whether regarding his purpose in teaching the use of a geometric single point perspective system, or more broadly in rendering forms naturalistically, the emphasis leans toward the ideal of Renaissance art as highly rational. There remains the impression that the principle aim of the painter is to create objective, even illusionistic images. A close reading of Alberti’s text, however, including some adjustments in translation, points rather towards an emphasis on discerning the spiritual in the material. Alberti’s use of the tropes Minerva and Narcissus, for example, indicates the opposing characteristics of wisdom and sense certainty that function dialectically to foster the traditional importance of seeing with the eye of the intellect rather than merely with physical eyes. In this sense these figures also set the context for his, and, as the author explains, Brunelleschi’s earlier invention of this perspective system that posits not so much an objective seeing as an opposition of finite and infinite seeing, which, moreover, approximates Cusanus’s famous notion of a coincidence of opposites. Together with Alberti’s and Cusanus’s ideals of vision, extensive analysis of art works discloses a ubiquitous commitment to stimulating an intellectual perception of divine, essential, and unseen realities that enliven the visible material world.

Read more less

"History painting," for many people, conjures up Washington Crossing the Delaware and other paintings of heroic historical events. But history has made its way into considerably more American art than such obvious examples, in the view of Michael Kammen. In three thought-provoking and innovative essays, Kammen ranges from the Renaissance to the twentieth century, from central Europe to the western United States, and from elegant oil painting to folk sculpture to show the transformations of Old World icons of time into New World images of social memory and tradition.In the first essay, Kammen demonstrates how American artists and artisans modified European emblems of time in response to their New World setting. In the second essay concerning nineteenth-century landscape art, he explores how artists used space to represent the movement of American culture through time. In the final essay, he looks at two distinctively American motifs of collective memory and tradition—old houses and elm trees. Throughout this interdisciplinary study, Kammen draws his examples from well-known and lesser-known artists, as well as from diverse American writers. Over 100 black-and-white illustrations accompany the text.Of interest to all students of American culture, Meadows of Memory raises intriguing questions about the American paradox of desiring to conquer mutability while yearning for emblems of a (perhaps imagined?) past.

Read more less

This extraordinary collection celebrates the dazzling worldbuilding of Iain M. Banks, one of the most important and influential writers in modern science fiction.Faithfully reproduced from notebooks he kept in the 1970s and 80s, these annotated original illustrations depict the ships, habitats, geography, weapons and language of Banks' Culture series of novels in incredible detail.'Superb - well worth it for the hardcore fans. This is an incredibly well put-together collection of drawings, diagrams, notes and schematics from one of the all-time greats of science fiction and space opera. This book looks absolutely stunning and the quality is extraordinarily high. It was well worth the wait' Waterstones bookseller review'The Culture: The Drawings pulls together his art work for the first time, and it's clear he was a very good draughtsman. Maps of alien archipelagos. Sketches of spaceships and guns and castles and tanks . . . This isn't an archive of ideas so much as the melting pot from which ideas came' The Times'Banks was a dude who loved his whisky and his amateur draftsmanship has some of the character of cask spirit: raw and unrefined but heady and intoxicating' Eurogamer'The Culture series is incredible and this book goes to show how the books could be so intricate and consistent. He designed the whole universe by hand' Reader reviewPraise for the Culture series:'Epic in scope, ambitious in its ideas and absorbing in its execution' Independent on Sunday 'Few of us have been exposed to a talent so manifest and of such extraordinary breadth' New York Review of Science Fiction 'Jam-packed with extraordinary invention' Scotsman 'Banks has created one of the most enduring and endearing visions of the future' GuardianThe Culture series: Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata Other books by Iain M. Banks: Against a Dark Background Feersum Endjinn The Algebraist***Also, look out for the Deluxe 'Special Circumstances' Edition of The Culture: The Drawings. This ultimate, limited collector's edition includes an exclusive, numbered, cloth-bound edition of The Culture: The Drawings in a sumptuous presentation case, a booklet of original Culture-inspired artwork, specially commissioned 3D printing files and many other Culture-inspired features***

Read more less

Fragments of culture often become commodities when the tourism and heritage business showcases local artistic and cultural practice. And frequently, this industry develops without the consent of those whose culture is commercialized. What does this say about appropriation, social responsibility, and intercultural relationships? And what happens when communities become more involved in this cultural marketplace? Incorporating Culture examines how Indigenous artists and entrepreneurs are cultivating more equitable relationships with the companies that reproduce their designs on everyday objects, slowly modifying a capitalist market to make room for Indigenous values and principles. Moving beyond an interpretation of cultural commodification as necessarily exploitative, Solen Roth discusses how communities can treat culture as a resource in a way that nurtures rather than depletes it. She deftly illustrates the processes by which Indigenous people have been asserting control over the Northwest Coast art industry by reshaping it to reflect local models of property, relationships, and economics.

Read more less

Exploring the myths and realities of the origins of the “modern artist” in Britain The artist has been a privileged figure in the modern age, embodying ideals of personal and political freedom and self-fulfillment. Does it matter who gets to be an artist? And do our deeply held beliefs stand up to scrutiny? Making the Modern Artist gets to the root of these questions by exploring the historical genesis of the figure of the artist. Based on an unprecedented biographical survey of almost 1,800 students at the Royal Academy of Arts in London between 1769 and 1830, the book reveals hidden stories about family origins, personal networks, and patterns of opportunity and social mobility. Locating the emergence of the “modern artist” in the crucible of Romantic Britain, rather than in 19th-century Paris or 20th-century New York, it reconnects the story of art with the advance of capitalism and demonstrates surprising continuities between liberal individualism and state formation, our dreams of personal freedom, and the social suffering characteristic of the modern era.Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

Read more less

Thomas K Holcomb's highly successful textbook on Deaf culture has been fully revised and updated in this second edition. The changes reflect those in the field and include three new chapters focusing on the impact of technology on the Deaf experience, the roles of allies in supporting the Deaf community, and the diversity that exists in the Deaf community. Also new to this edition is an ASL summary of each chapter, making the book accessible in two languages that are important in the Deaf community, ASL and English. The book provides a broad yet in-depth exploration of how Deaf people are best understood from a cultural perspective. It explores the tension between the Deaf and disabled communities, the cultural norms of the Deaf community, Deaf art and literature, the solutions being offered by the medical and Deaf communities for effective living as Deaf individuals, and an analysis of the universality of the Deaf experience. As a member of a multigenerational Deaf family with a lifetime of experience living bi-culturally among Deaf and hearing people, author Thomas K. Holcomb enhances the academic discussions with engaging stories and the poetry and art of Deaf individuals. In addition to being used in college-level courses, this book can also help parents and educators of Deaf children understand the world of Deaf culture. It offers a beautiful introduction to the ways Deaf people effectively manage their lives in a world full of people who hear.

Read more less

Brings together Scruton's best essays from many sources, arranging them thematically. The book has four sections: Language and Art, Writers in Context, Architecture, and Culture and Anarchy. Though the essays are diverse, certain themes are developed in particular and then in general ways, and there are several important essays on writers and critics, that contribute to the reappraisal of their work -- among them Dante, Andre Breton, Graham Greene, James Joyce, Sylvia Plath, Jacques Lacan, and Yukio Mishima.

Read more less

A history of the rich culture of the Gullah people–a story of upheaval, endurance, and survival in the Lowcountry of the American South.Gullah Culture in America chronicles the history and culture of the Gullah people, African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of the American South. This book, written for the general public, chronicles the arrival of enslaved West Africans to the sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia; the melding of their African cultures, which created distinct creole language, cuisine, traditions, and arts; and the establishment of the Penn School, dedicated to education and support of the Gullah freedmen following the Civil War. Original author Wilbur Cross, writing in 2008, describes the ongoing Gullah story: the preservation of the culture sheltered in a rural setting, the continued influence of the Penn School (now called the Penn Center) in preserving and documenting the Gullah Geechee cultures. Today, more than 300,000 Gullah people live in the remote areas of the sea islands of St. Helena, Edisto, Coosay, Ossabaw, Sapelo, Daufuskie, and Cumberland, their way of life endangered by overdevelopment in an increasingly popular tourist destination. For the second edition of this popular book, Eric Crawford, Gullah Geechee scholar, has updated the text with new information and a fresh perspective on the Gullah Geechee culture.

Read more less

What we don't know about learning could fill a book--and it might be a schoolbook. In a masterly commentary on the possibilities of education, the eminent psychologist Jerome Bruner reveals how education can usher children into their culture, though it often fails to do so. Applying the newly emerging "cultural psychology" to education, Bruner proposes that the mind reaches its full potential only through participation in the culture--not just its more formal arts and sciences, but its ways of perceiving, thinking, feeling, and carrying out discourse. By examining both educational practice and educational theory, Bruner explores new and rich ways of approaching many of the classical problems that perplex educators.Education, Bruner reminds us, cannot be reduced to mere information processing, sorting knowledge into categories. Its objective is to help learners construct meanings, not simply to manage information. Meaning making requires an understanding of the ways of one's culture--whether the subject in question is social studies, literature, or science. The Culture of Education makes a forceful case for the importance of narrative as an instrument of meaning making. An embodiment of culture, narrative permits us to understand the present, the past, and the humanly possible in a uniquely human way.Going well beyond his earlier acclaimed books on education, Bruner looks past the issue of achieving individual competence to the question of how education equips individuals to participate in the culture on which life and livelihood depend. Educators, psychologists, and students of mind and culture will find in this volume an unsettling criticism that challenges our current conventional practices--as well as a wise vision that charts a direction for the future.

Read more less

By turns creative and destructive, wind spreads seeds, fills sails and disperses the energy of the sun. Worshipped since antiquity, wind has moulded planets, decided the outcome of innumerable battles and shaped the evolution of humans and animals – yet it remains intangible and unpredictable. In this book Louise M. Pryke explores the science behind wind, as well as how it has been imagined and portrayed in myth, religion, art and literature since ancient times. Its formative effect on the Earth’s environment is reflected in its prominent role in myths and religions of antiquity. In the modern day, wind has inspired ground-breaking scientific innovations, and appeared in artistic works as diverse as the art of Van Gogh, the poetry of Keats and the blockbuster film Twister.

Read more less

The 2021 Capitol Hill Riot marked a watershed moment when the ‘old world’ of factbased systems of representation was briefly overwhelmed by the emerging hyper-individual politics of aestheticized emotion. In The Trump Effect in Contemporary Art and Visual Culture, Kit Messham-Muir and Uroš Cvoro analyse the aesthetics that have emerged at the core of 21st-century politics, and which erupted at the US Capitol in January 2021. Looking at this event’s aesthetic dimensions through such aspects as QAnon, white resentment and strongman authoritarianism, they examine the world-wide historical trends towards ethno-nationalism and populism that emerged following the end of the Cold War in 1989 and the dawning of the current post-ideological age. Building on their ground-breaking research into how trauma, emotion and empathy have become well-worn tropes in contemporary art informed by conflict, Messham-Muir and Cvoro go further by highlighting the ways in which art can actively disrupt an underlying drift in society towards white supremacism and ultranationalism. Utilising their outsiders’ perspective on a so-called American phenomenon, and rejecting American exceptionalism, their theorising of the ‘Trump Effect' rejects the idea of Trump as a political aberration, but as a symptom of deeper and longer-term philosophical shifts in global politics and society. As theorists of contemporary art and visual culture, Messham-Muir and Cvoro explore the ways in which these features of the Trump Effect operate through aesthetics, in the intersection of politics and contemporary art, and provide valuable insight into the current political context.

Read more less

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

Read more less

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

Read more less

Offers insight into the links between the development of print culture and the many dynamic strains of nationalism in dialogue during the Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947. How did inexpensive posters influence nationalism in the decades leading up to and succeeding the Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947? If mechanically reproduced images that occupy public spaces reflect the aesthetics of the “masses,” what can a critical interpretation of subcontinental popular visual culture in the mid-twentieth century reveal about the formation of communal identities? In this essay, Yousuf Saeed studies the selective deification of leaders fighting for Indian independence. He highlights the biased representation within the domain of “patriotic” posters of the time and the evolving portrayal of religious minority communities in India’s popular print culture over subsequent decades. Also charts the turn popular print culture took in post-Partition Pakistan, Saeed focuses on the country’s thriving industry of Sufi-saint posters. Partitioning Bazaar Art is a timely exploration of how nationalism can be defined through popular imagery.

Read more less

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

Read more less

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

Read more less

Examines the ways diasporic Iranian Armenian authors and artists negotiate their identities in Iran and in the US Highlights a defining characteristic of Iranian Armenian diaspora which concerns Armenians' ability to negotiate their identity within a codified legal hierarchy in Iran within a codified legal ethno-religious hierarchy and in the US via a legally codified racial hierarchy Theorizes a concept specific to Iranian Armenian diaspora named verants'ughi (??????????) a transformational passageway Studies a variety of literary works written in Persian, Armenian and English, as well as other cultural pieces in music, art and film As an Iranian Armenian living in the US, the author includes first-hand life experiences as a minoritized member of Iranian Armenian population Problematizes our understanding of concepts such as multiculturalism and transnationalism in Iran and in the U.S., comparatively. Contributes to the broader topic of Iranian nationalism and the historical marginalization of Iranian minoritized populations, resulting in their global migration, but also examines multiculturalism and transnationalism within Iran. Transnational Culture studies the ways that diasporic Iranian Armenian authors and artists negotiate their identities as minoritized population within a liminal space that includes religious, ethnic, national, racial, cultural, gender, and sexual factors. Yaghoobi argues that this liminal state of fluidity helps them to develop a resilience towards ambiguity and handling ambivalence in dealing with various cultures as well as resisting dualistic thinking. This in turn allows them to move beyond national boundaries to transnationalism, yet simultaneously display the collective Armenian identity characterized by flexibility, adaptability, and continuity as a result of both multiple uprooting and a Genocide that continues to this day. They serve as a bridge between the homeland and the host nation, occupying what the author theorizes as verants'ughi the transformational passageway, which requires them to not only risk being in a transitory space and give up the safe space of home and the power that comes with it, but also through doing so, they create transformative works of literature and art.

Read more less

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

Read more less

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

Read more less

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

Read more less

An expert explains and analyzes the beloved art form An iconic symbol of Spain, flamenco has become a global phenomenon. Peter Manuel offers English-language readers a rare portrait of the music’s history, styles, and cultural impact. Beginning with flamenco’s Moorish and Roma influences, Manuel follows the music’s evolution through its consolidation in the mid-1800s and on to the vibrant contemporary scene. An investigation of flamenco’s major song-types looks at rhythm and compás, guitar technique, and many other aspects of the music while Manuel’s description and analysis of the repertoire range from soleares and bulerías to tangos. His overview of contemporary flamenco culture provides insight into issues that surround the music, including globalization, gender dynamics, notions of ownership, and the ongoing debates on purity versus innovation and the relative roles played by Gitanos and non-Gitanos. Multifaceted and entertaining, Flamenco Music is an in-depth study of the indelible art form that inspires enthusiasts and practitioners around the world.

Read more less

Throughout the eighteenth century, shifts in political power and social structures were making their way across Europe and into the New World. In this volume of Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, editors Ourida Mostefai and Catherine Ingrassia have brought together four clusters of related essays that explore the complexities of national and international identity in light of these changes, integrating such diverse fields of scholarship as women's studies, literary theory, and art history. Topics addressed range from gambling and the relationship between money and power to the way that portrayals of peasantry in art and literature helped to shape the French national identity. Contents:James E. Evans, "'A Sceane of Uttmost Vanity': The Spectacle of Gambling in Late Stuart Culture" Beth Kowaleski Wallace, "A Modest Defense of Gaming Women"Catherine Keohane, "'Spare from your Luxuries': Women, Charity, and Spending in the Eighteenth Century" Brijraj Singh, "'One Soul, tho' not one Soyl': International Protestantism and Ecumenism at the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century"Daniel J. Ennis, "Poetry and American Revolutionary Identity: The Case of Phillis Wheatley and John Paul Jones"Leanne Maunu, "Quelling the French Threat in Frances Burney's Evelina Reginald McGinnis: "The Critique of Originality in French Letters"John R. Iverson, "The First French Literary Centenary: National Sentiment and the Moliere Celebration of 1773"Joe Johnson, "Philosophical Reflection, Happiness and Male Friendship in Prevost's Manon Lescaut"J. David Macey, Jr., " Et in Arcadia Ego?: Thomas Amory, Mary Hamilton, and the (Re)Construction of Arcadia"Howard Irving, "John Marsh and the Ancient-Modern Polemic"Amy Wyngaard, "Revising Rousseau: Young Legrand d'Aussy and the Challenge to Enlightenment Constructions of the Peasantry, 1787-1794"

Read more less

Contemporary Portugal: Politics, Society and Culture is an introduction to the evolution of Portuguese politics, society and culture in the twentieth century. Eminent historians, political scientists and experts in literature and art explore a wide spectrum of topics: international relations, authoritarianism, transition to democracy, social change, economic development, colonialism and decolonization, patterns of emigration, problems of national identity and the main trends of twentieth century Portuguese literature and art.

Read more less

This book challenges critical assumptions about the way Aestheticism responded to anxieties about nationality, sexuality, identity, influence, originality and morality. This book, the first fully sustained reading of Henry James' and Oscar Wilde's relationship, reveals why the antagonisms between both authors are symptomatic of the cultural oppositions within Aestheticism itself. The book also shows how these conflicting energies animated the late 19th century's most exciting transatlantic cultural enterprise. Richly illustrated and historically detailed, this study of James' and Wilde's intricate, decades-long relationship brings to light Aestheticism's truly transatlantic nature through close readings of both authors' works, as well as 19th-century art, periodicals and rare manuscripts. As Mendelssohn shows, both authors were deeply influenced by the visual and decorative arts, and by contemporary artists such as George Du Maurier and James McNeill Whistler. Henry James, Oscar Wilde and Aesthetic Culture offers a nuanced reading of a co 19th-century British and American literary culture. This is the first study devoted exclusively to Wilde and James. It rewrites standard assumptions about James' and Wilde's relationship and traces its implications for British and American Aestheticism. It redefines Aestheticism and offers full re-readings of late 19th-century literature, visual and material culture, theatre, as well as psychology and sexual identity. It refers to several previously unpublished letters by Henry James.

Read more less

For myriad reasons, breastfeeding is a fraught issue among mothers in the U.S. and other industrialized nations, and breastfeeding advocacy in particular remains a source of contention for feminist scholars and activists. Breastfeeding raises many important concerns surrounding gendered embodiment, reproductive rights and autonomy, essentializing discourses and the struggle against biology as destiny, and public policies that have the potential to support or undermine women, and mothers in particular, in the workplace. The essays in this collection engage with the varied and complicated ways in which cultural attitudes about mothering and female sexuality inform the way people understand, embrace, reject, and talk about breastfeeding, as well as with the promises and limitations of feminist breastfeeding advocacy. They attend to diffuse discourses about and cultural representations of infant feeding, all the while utilizing feminist methodologies to interrogate essentializing ideologies that suggest that women’s bodies are the “natural” choice for infant feeding. These interdisciplinary analyses, which include history, law, art history, literary studies, sociology, critical race studies, media studies, communication studies, and history, are meant to represent a broader conversation about how society understands infant feeding and maternal autonomy.

Read more less

Volume 44 of Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture acknowledges recent changes in the field of eighteenth-century studies while reaffirming SECC's commitment to interdisciplinary approaches that unite the wide array of fields in history, literature, art history, women's and gender studies, political science, musicology, dance, theater, and religious studies. With contributions from Kelly E. Battles, Adam R. Beach, Samara Anne Cahill, Jonathan Blake Fine, Lucas Hardy, Julie Candler Hayes, Paul Kelleher, Rachael Scarborough King, Heidi E. Kraus, Teresa Michals, Andrew M. Pisano, and Yann Robert, this collection of essays highlights new research in disability studies, debates on slavery and literary history, and analyses of literary genre and form.

Read more less

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

Read more less

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

Read more less

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

Read more less

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

Read more less

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

Read more less

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

Read more less