Culture-on-Demand

Culture-on-Demand

This highly original, thought-provoking book written by a pioneer of communication studies is the first to analyze the post 9/11 world in terms of global media and popular culture.

Culture-on-Demand

Bodies, Politics and African Healing

Bodies, Politics and African Healing

This subtle and powerful ethnography examines African healing and its relationship to medical science. Stacey A. Langwick investigates the practices of healers in Tanzania who confront the most intractable illnesses in the region, including AIDS and malaria. She reveals how healers generate new therapies and shape the bodies of their patients as they address devils and parasites, anti-witchcraft medicine, and child immunization. Transcending the dualisms between tradition and science, culture and nature, belief and knowledge, Langwick tells a new story about the materiality of healing and postcolonial politics. This important work bridges postcolonial theory, science, public health, and anthropology.

Bodies, Politics and African Healing

Empire of the Seas

Empire of the Seas

The year 1588 marked a turning point in our national story. Victory over the Spanish Armada transformed us into a seafaring nation and it sparked a myth that one day would become a reality that the nation’s new destiny, the source of her future wealth and power lay out on the oceans. This book tells the story of how the navy expanded from a tiny force to become the most complex industrial enterprise on earth; how the need to organise it laid the foundations of our civil service and our economy; and how it transformed our culture, our sense of national identity and our democracy.

Empire of the Seas

Whose History?

Whose History?

Somebody once quipped that any work of Australian historical fiction is a ‘burning fuse’, travelling over decades through Australian culture and society. In some manner, every newly published Australian historical novel is connected to what it has preceded. Each work belongs to a proud history. Through multiple examples, Grant Rodwell encourages readers to see how a work of historical fiction has evolved. Thus, under various themes, WHOSE HISTORY? examines the traditions in Australian historical fiction, and ponders how Australian historical novels can engage teachers and student teachers. WHOSE HISTORY? aims to illustrate how historical novels and their related genres may be used as an engaging teacher/learning strategy for student teachers in pre-service teacher education courses. It does not argue all teaching of History curriculum in pre-service units should be based on the use of historical novels as a stimulus, nor does it argue for a particular percentage of the use of historical novels in such courses. It simply seeks to argue the case for this particular approach, leaving the extent of the use of historical novels used in History curriculum units to the professional expertise of the lecturers responsible for the units.

Whose History?

From Literature to Biterature

From Literature to Biterature

From Literature to Biterature is based on the premise that in the foreseeable future computers will become capable of creating works of literature. Among hundreds of other questions, it considers: Under which conditions would machines become capable of creative writing? Given that computer evolution will exceed the pace of natural evolution a million-fold, what will such a state of affairs entail in terms of art, culture, social life, and even nonhuman rights? Drawing a map of impending literary, cultural, social, and technological revolutions, Peter Swirski boldly assumes that computers will leap from mere syntax-driven processing to semantically rich understanding. He argues that acknowledging biterature as a species of literature will involve adopting the same range of attitudes to computer authors (computhors) as to human ones and that it will be necessary to approach them as agents with internal states and creative intentions. Ranging from the metafiction of Stanislaw Lem to the ‘Turing test’ (familiar to scientists working in Artificial Intelligence and the philosophers of mind) to the evolutionary trends of culture and machines, Swirski’s scenarios lay the groundwork for a new area of study on the cusp of literary futurology, evolutionary cognition, and philosophy of the future.

From Literature to Biterature

Finding Faith

Finding Faith

Despite the masses still lining up to enter mega-churches with warehouse-like architecture, casually dressed clergy, and pop Christian music, the Post-Boomer generationthose ranging in age from twenty to fortyis having second thoughts. In this perceptive look at the evolving face of Christianity in contemporary culture, sociologists Richard Flory and Donald E. Miller argue that we are on the verge of another potential revolution in how Christians worship and associate with one another.

Finding Faith

The Small Screen

The Small Screen

Television is one of the most important socializing forces in contemporary culture. This book is a cultural history of prime-time television in America during the 1990s.

The Small Screen

Time and the Moment in Victorian Literature and Society

Time and the Moment in Victorian Literature and Society

Sudden changes, opportunities or revelations have always carried a special significance in western culture, from the Greek and later the Christian kairos to Evangelical experiences of conversion. This fascinating book explores the ways in which England, under the influence of industrializing forces and increased precision in assessing the passing of time, attached importance to moments and events that compress great significance into small units of time. Sue Zemka questions the importance that modernity invests in momentary events, from religion to aesthetics and philosophy. She argues for a strain in Victorian and early modern novels critical of the values the age invested in moments of time, and suggests that such novels also offer a correction to contemporary culture and criticism, with its emphasis on the momentary event as an agency of change.

Time and the Moment in Victorian Literature and Society

Interpreting the Images of Greek Myths

Interpreting the Images of Greek Myths

From the age of Homer until late antiquity the culture of ancient Greece and Rome was permeated by images of Greek myths. Gods and heroes were represented as statues, on vase and wall paintings, on temples, on sarcophagi as well as on other media. This book offers, for the first time, a concise introduction into the interpretation of images of Greek myths. Its main aim is to make the pictorial versions of the myths comprehensible on their own terms. Ancient artists were well aware of the potential – but also the limitations – of these ‘silent’ images and of the strategies that made them ‘speak’ to the audience/viewer. The book combines detailed explanation of theoretical and methodological issues with exhaustive discussion of case studies. It will be useful and stimulating for all undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in classical mythology and ancient art.

Interpreting the Images of Greek Myths

Elizabethan Popular Culture

Elizabethan Popular Culture

Leonard R. N. Ashley delights readers with a collection of facts and folklore of the people of Queen Elizabeth I’s era. He describes sports and pastimes, religion and superstition, cooking, life in town and country, and the rising bourgeois class. In chapters titled as ‘Cakes and Ale,’ ‘The Playhouse and the Bearbaiting Pit,’ and ‘Hey nonny nonny,’ Ashley paints an enlightening portrait of a time made memorable by Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

Elizabethan Popular Culture

The Ainu of Japan

The Ainu of Japan

Taking an in-depth look at distinct aboriginal cultures, these comprehensive volumes balance information about both traditional and modern lifeways. From their history and cultural practices to their religions and the landscapes they call home, discover the intricacies of each featured native culture. Supports the national curriculum standards Culture; Time, Continuity, and Change; People, Places, and Environments; Individuals, Groups, and Institutions; Power, Authority, and Governance; Production, Distribution, and Consumption; Science Technology and Society; and Global Connections as outlined by the National Council for the Social Studies. The Ainu of Japan have shared their homeland with the Japanese people for centuries. Although the two cultures were very different in ancient times, the Ainu have since been forced to adopt many Japanese customs. After years of discrimination, the Ainu still strive to be treated as equals in modern Japanese society while retaining their independent culture.

The Ainu of Japan

A Vision of Modern Science

A Vision of Modern Science

Ursula DeYoung examines a pivotal moment in the history of science through the career and cultural impact of the Victorian physicist John Tyndall, one of the leading figures of his time and a participant in many highly publicized debates that extended well beyond the purely scientific realm. This book argues that as a researcher, public lecturer, and scientific popularizer, Tyndall had a sizable impact on the establishment of the scientist as an authoritative figure in British culture. As a promoter of science in education and one of the foremost advocates of freeing scientific study from the restraints of theology, Tyndall was both a celebrated and a notorious figure, who influenced areas of Victorian society from governmental policy to educational reform to the debates over Darwin’s theory of natural selection. In contextualizing Tyndall’s varying fields of research and involvement, DeYoung explores many different aspects of nineteenth-century culture, including the development of public science, the role of popular media, and the growth of university research. It engages with the latest scholarship on Victorian culture and the history of science while at the same time exploring the reasons for Tyndall’s heretofore neglected reputation. This book aims to establish John Tyndall as an important and influential figure of the Victorian period whose scientific discoveries and philosophy of science in society are still relevant today.

A Vision of Modern Science

Cambridge Handbook of Culture, Organizations and Work

Cambridge Handbook of Culture, Organizations and Work

It is now widely recognized that countries around the world are becoming increasingly interconnected, and that both public and private organizations are of necessity becoming increasingly global. As political, legal, and economic barriers recede in this environment, cultural barriers emerge as a principal challenge to organizational survival and success. It is not yet clear whether these global realities will cause cultures to converge, harmonize, and seek common ground or to retrench, resist, and accentuate their differences. In either case, it is of paramount importance for both managers and organizational scholars to understand the cultural crosscurrents underlying these changes. With contributions from an international team of scholars, this 2009 book reviews, analyzes, and integrates available theory and research to give the best information possible concerning the role of culture and cultural differences in organizational dynamics.

Cambridge Handbook of Culture, Organizations and Work

Silence

Silence

Silence, John Cage’s first book and epic masterpiece, was published in October 1961. In these lectures, scores, and writings, Cage tries, as he says, to find a way of writing that comes from ideas, is not about them, but that produces them. Often these writings include mesostics and essays created by subjecting the work of other writers to chance procedures using the I Ching. Fifty years later comes a beautiful new edition with a foreword by eminent music critic Kyle Gann. A landmark book in American arts and culture, Silence has been translated into more than forty languages and has sold over half a million copies worldwide. Wesleyan University Press is proud to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the book’s publication with this special hardcover edition.

Silence

The Ultimate Guide to Business Process Management

The Ultimate Guide to Business Process Management

In this step by step guide, former Management Consultant and change management expert Theodore Panagacos walks you through the entire discipline of Business Process Management. Learn how to fast track your orgnaization’s strategy to govern processes, create a process culture, and measure business performance. Best of all, this crystal-clear, convenient sized book can be put to work in your organization immediately!

The Ultimate Guide to Business Process Management

Criticism and Truth

Criticism and Truth

Roland Barthes (1915-1980) was a major French writer, literary theorist and critic of French culture and society. His classic works include Mythologies and Camera Lucida.

Criticism and Truth

Managing Creativity in Science and Hi-Tech

Managing Creativity in Science and Hi-Tech

Addressing the issues unique to managers of creative technical staff, this guide reflects not only Ronald Kays long experience observing and teaching successful management techniques, but also treats the expanding challenges due to increasingly globally-based projects and staff. As before, Kays guide helps readers to prepare themselves, graduate students and others to understand and improve their managerial skills and covers such practical, yet sometimes overlooked, steps such as: individual and team behavior of creative technical staff; managing their own and others R&D projects; hiring, evaluating and compensating technical staff; R&D proposals and administrative functions; and presentations, meetings and organizational culture. New to this edition are a chapter on the global impact of high-tech enterprises and sections on the roles of foundations and government funding and task-force participation. Also tackled are the basics of starting, financing and staffing venture-capital-funded enterprises. Whats more, this book also serves to increase the awareness and knowledge base of anyone who needs to meet the challenge of managing people with the creative energies that drive technologically-based economic growth.

Managing Creativity in Science and Hi-Tech

Globalization of Language and Culture in Asia

Globalization of Language and Culture in Asia

The impact of globalization processes on language is an emergent field in sociolinguistics. To date there has not been an in-depth look at this in Asia, although Asia includes the two most populous globalizing economies of the world, India and China.

Globalization of Language and Culture in Asia

Language Culture and Identity

Language Culture and Identity

How language shapes and is shaped by identity is a key topic within sociolinguistics. An individual’s identity is constituted through a variety of different factors, including the social, linguistic, cultural and ethnic contexts.

Language Culture and Identity

Victorian Freaks

Victorian Freaks

While freaks have captivated our imagination since well before the nineteenth century, the Victorians flocked to shows featuring dancing dwarves, bearded ladies, missing links, and six-legged sheep. Indeed, this period has been described by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson as the epoch of consolidation for freakery: an era of social change, enormously popular freak shows, and taxonomic frenzy. Victorian Freaks: The Social Context of Freakery in Britain, edited by Marlene Tromp, turns to that rich nexus, examining the struggle over definitions of freakery and the unstable and sometimes conflicting ways in which freakery was understood and deployed. As the first study centralizing British culture, this collection discusses figures as varied as Joseph Merrick, The Elephant Man; Daniel Lambert, King of the Fat Men; Julia Pastrana, The Bear Woman; and Laloo The Marvellous Indian Boy and his embedded, parasitic twin. The Victorian Freaks contributors examine Victorian culture through the lens of freakery, reading the production of the freak against the landscape of capitalist consumption, the medical community, and the politics of empire, sexuality, and art. Collectively, these essays ask how freakery engaged with notions of normalcy and with its Victorian cultural context.

Victorian Freaks