An examination of the interplay between cultural context and artistic practice in the work of Robert Smithson. Robert Smithson (1938-1973) produced his best-known work during the 1960s and early 1970s, a period in which the boundaries of the art world and the objectives of art-making were questioned perhaps more consistently and thoroughly than any time before or since. In Robert Smithson, Ann Reynolds elucidates the complexity of Smithson's work and thought by placing them in their historical context, a context greatly enhanced by the vast archival materials that Smithson's widow, Nancy Holt, donated to the Archives of American Art in 1987. The archive provides Reynolds with the remnants of Smithson's working life—magazines, postcards from other artists, notebooks, and perhaps most important, his library—from which she reconstructs the physical and conceptual world that Smithson inhabited. Reynolds explores the relation of Smithson's art-making, thinking about art-making, writing, and interaction with other artists to the articulated ideology and discreet assumptions that determined the parameters of artistic practice of the time. A central focus of Reynolds's analysis is Smithson's fascination with the blind spots at the center of established ways of seeing and thinking about culture. For Smithson, New Jersey was such a blind spot, and he returned there again and again—alone and with fellow artists—to make art that, through its location alone, undermined assumptions about what and, more important, where, art should be. For those who guarded the integrity of the established art world, New Jersey was "elsewhere"; but for Smithson, "elsewheres" were the defining, if often forgotten, locations on the map of contemporary culture.
This book critically examines classic works of literature and film to suggest ways in which study of fictional characters, cultural themes, and vivid imagery helps us to grapple with, understand, and find resolutions for, problems that seriously concern Americans, including uniformed officers and public officials, as well as the general populace in today’s turbulent times. Chapter 1 analyzes Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Tony Scott’s Enemy of the State to support the author’s theory that contemporary police violence against young African-American men is a result of “persistence of vision” whereby the powerful Fugitive Slave Laws of the American Civil War era exert a continuing influence upon the minds of law enforcement officers and almost all African Americans. Chapter 2 “Zora Neale Hurston: Africa Transported to America” discusses Jonah’s Gourd Vine and Their Eyes Were Watching God to reveal the West African Vodun cosmological theology that informs and determines the lifelong trajectory of macho male protagonist John Buddy Pearson and feminist female protagonist Janie Mae Crawford in their quests for love and spiritual fulfillment. She suggests the Civil War disrupted a theological affinity shared by African Americans with Christian Americans, a kinship at the heart of Hurston’s oeuvre. Chapter 3 reveals the West African origin of the theological design in Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo: A Novel of Mexico and in short fiction works by several contemporary Mexican writers while also investigating the impact, in particular the toll in human suffering, of violent confrontations taking place along the border shared by Mexico and the U.S. Her critical analysis highlights the stream of consciousness narrative technique, which probes the depths of human agony exacted by violations of international boundaries. She demonstrates Shakespeare’s influence. Moreover, as a specialist in Comparative and English Literature, she contributes to Shakespeare scholarship on Hamlet, Prince of Denmark unprecedented insight into the meaning and significance of King Hamlet’s ghost, expanding traditional Christian perspectives and providing historical and textual explications that encompass West African Vodun cosmology. Dr. Watanabe diagnoses Hamlet’s madness as a funky aspect of Shakespeare’s knowledge of “voodoo.”
You will get an inside look at the personal stories behind your favorite songs as songwriters get up close and personal with exclusive stories about how and why they wrote them. Songs tell a story, and now popular singers and songwriters are sharing more of the story! These artists reveal the inspiration, influence, and background, and when and why they wrote their most famous songs, in Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Story Behind the Song. Includes great photos of the songwriters. The print edition contains the lyrics to all 101 songs, and the eBook includes lyrics to 85 of the songs.
Over the last few decades, television programs have attempted to depict some of the more troubling elements of society with a more conscientious approach. Issues that networks were once reluctant to broadcast—such as sexual abuse, sexual assault, and rape—have become frequent plot points for many popular shows. Narratives that portray important social issues could potentially affect the ways individual viewers understand such incidents in the real world, so it is important to pay close and critical attention to the stories about rape that are broadcast to mass audiences. In Assault on the Small Screen: Representations of Sexual Violence on Prime Time Television Dramas, Molly Ann Magestro examines the ways in which police and legal dramas on network and cable channels portray rape narratives. In this discussion, the author focuses on eight successful shows—NCIS, Criminal Minds, CSI, The Closer, Rizzoli & Isles, Dexter, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, and The Good Wife. Each chapter offers a close reading and analysis of how one or more of the shows represent rape narratives and rape victims in ways that more or less address feminist understandings of rape and rape culture. The arguments in each chapter explore the specific narrative content of individual series rather than a single critical approach. Each of the eight shows considered within the book is the focus of its own argument, as the representations of rape narratives on television are as complex as issues surrounding rape can be in the real world. In a time when rape narratives are frequently making headlines, taking the time to examine and understand the messages broadcast by a medium as ubiquitous as television serves an important role in developing an understanding of rape culture. A significant step toward this understanding, Assault on the Small Screen will be of interest to scholars of film and television, media studies, gender studies, criminology, and sociology.
OSS Operation Black Mail is the story of a remarkable woman who fought World War II on the front lines of psychological warfare. Elizabeth “Betty” P. McIntosh spent eighteen months serving in the Office of Strategic Services in what has been called the “forgotten theater,” China-Burma-India, where she met and worked with characters as varied as Julia Child and Ho Chi Minh. Her craft was black propaganda, and her mission was to demoralize the enemy through prevarication and deceit, and ultimately, convince him to surrender. Betty and her crew ingeniously obtained and altered personal correspondence between Japanese soldiers and their families on the home islands of Japan. She also ordered the killing of a Japanese courier in the jungles of Burma to plant a false surrender order in his mailbag. By the time Betty flew the Hump from Calcutta to China, she was acting head of the Morale Operations branch for the entire theater, overseeing the production of thousands of pamphlets and radio scripts, the generation of fiendishly clever rumors, and the printing of a variety of faked Japanese, Burmese, and Chinese newspapers. Her strategy involved targeting not merely the Japanese soldier but the man within: the son, the husband, the father. She knew her work could ultimately save lives, but never lost sight of the fact that her propaganda was a weapon and her intended target the enemy. This is not a typical war story. The only beaches stormed are the minds of an invisible enemy. Often a great deal of time and effort was expended in conception and production, and rarely was it known if even a shred reached the hands of the intended recipient. The process was opaque on both ends: the origin of a rumor or radio broadcast obscured, the target elusive. For Betty and her friends, time on the “front lines” of psychological warfare in China-Burma-India rushed by in a cascade of creativity and innovation, played out on a stage where a colonial world was ending and chaos awaited.
Nestled on the British Columbia coast, the community of Powell River sent several Canadian men and women overseas to fight in the World War II. When all was said and done, more than forty war bride families made their home in Powell River and the nearby town of Stillwater. War Brides and Rosies compiles these families amazing stories and artfully captures the history of Powell River and Stillwater, British Columbia, during World War II. Barbara Ann Lambert recounts how the Powell River Company became a major player in war production as local girls became Rosies of the north, assembling planes for Boeing of Canada as well as running the largest pulp and paper mill in western Canada. Through their monthly newsletter, the company also became a social network. It included correspondence from Powell Rivers service men and women stationed around the world and news on overseas marriages. Using this resource, as well as accounts from war brides and their families, Lambert shows how these women influenced the communities and helped change the perspective of womens roles in Canadian society. Full of vivid detail, War Brides and Rosies is an important contribution to the local history of these Canadian communities.
Imperfect Histories puts "imperfection" at the heart of a theory of historical representation. Ann Rigney shows how historical writing involves dealing with intractable subjects that resist our efforts to know and to shape them. Those who write history, she says, engage in an ongoing struggle to match up what they find relevant in the past with the information and interpretive models at their disposal. Chronic dissatisfaction is at the heart of historical practice. This is especially evident in the various attempts made over the last two centuries to write an "alternative" history of everyday experience. Focusing on historical writing in the last decades of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, Rigney analyzes a wide range of works by Walter Scott, Jules Michelet, Augustin Thierry, and Thomas Carlyle. She shows how the attempt to write an alternative history brought historical writing into a close yet fraught relationship with literature. The result is a new account of that relationship as it took shape in the romantic period and as it continues to influence contemporary practices.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) was one of the most important political figures in 19th century Britain. However, before rising to political prominence he had established himself as a major literary figure. This set takes a critical look at Disraeli's early work. Volume 6 includes Venetia (1837).
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) was one of the most important political figures in 19th century Britain. However, before rising to political prominence he had established himself as a major literary figure. This set takes a critical look at Disraeli's early work.
The guide to creating engaging web content and building a loyal following, revised and updated Blogs, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other platforms are giving everyone a "voice," including organizations and their customers. So how do you create the stories, videos, and blog posts that cultivate fans, arouse passion for your products or services, and ignite your business? Content Rules equips you for online success as a one-stop source on the art and science of developing content that people care about. This coverage is interwoven with case studies of companies successfully spreading their ideas online—and using them to establish credibility and build a loyal customer base. Find an authentic "voice" and craft bold content that will resonate with prospects and buyers and encourage them to share it with others Leverage social media and social tools to get your content and ideas distributed as widely as possible Understand why you are generating content—getting to the meat of your message in practical, commonsense language, and defining the goals of your content strategy Write in a way that powerfully communicates your service, product, or message across various Web mediums Boost your online presence and engage with customers and prospects like never before with Content Rules.
Here are dozens of surprising aspects of the life and writings of C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, and Dante. (George MacDonald loved the writings of Dante, and C. S. Lewis loved the writings of both Dante and MacDonald.) Contents range from the quick, surprising fun of "Who Is This Man?" to the practical, down-to-earth instruction of "C. S. Lewis's Free Advice to Hopeful Writers" and the adventurous scholarship of "Spring in Purgatory" and "Mining Dante".
In this interdisciplinary study, Ann Bermingham explores the complex, ambiguous, and often contradictory relationship between English landscape painting and the socio-economic changes that accompanied enclosure and the Industrial Revolution.
History has been central to a number of heated public debates in recent years. As Indigenous people have sought redress through the law, the role of history in the courts has become highly charged. Rights and Redemption is a detailed investigation of the uses of history and historians in high-profile cases involving Indigenous litigants, something not previously attempted. Ann Curthoys, Ann Genovese and Alexander Reilly look at cases before the Federal Court during the era of the Howard government, a time when Indigenous rights and the place of Aboriginal people in the national story were undermined in government laws and policies. They investigate how the courts have made use of historians as expert witnesses, and how the colonial past has been framed and understood by the courts. Rights and Redemption is an important record of a unique period of litigation in Indigenous affairs in Australia and a meditation on ways in which law and history might improve Indigenous rights. Book jacket.
Children's literature isn't just for children anymore. This original study explores the varied forms and roles of children's literature—when it's written for adults. What do Adam Mansbach's Go the F**k to Sleep and Barbara Park's MA! There's Nothing to Do Here! have in common? These large-format picture books are decidedly intended for parents rather than children. In No Kids Allowed, Michelle Ann Abate examines a constellation of books that form a paradoxical new genre: children's literature for adults. Distinguishing these books from YA and middle-grade fiction that appeals to adult readers, Abate argues that there is something unique about this phenomenon. Principally defined by its form and audience, children's literature, Abate demonstrates, engages with more than mere nostalgia when recast for grown-up readers. Abate examines how board books, coloring books, bedtime stories, and series detective fiction written and published specifically for adults question the boundaries of genre and challenge the assumption that adulthood and childhood are mutually exclusive.
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