Author: Eve Linkletter File Type: mobi Were they pranks of nature? Or were they the third sex--the gay ones?

Author: Gundula Kreuzer File Type: pdf In this innovative book, Gundula Kreuzer argues for the foundational role of technologies in the conception, production, and study of nineteenth-century opera. She shows how composers increasingly incorporated novel audiovisual effects in their works and how the uses and meanings of the required apparatuses changed through the twentieth century, sometimes still resonating in stagings, performance art, and popular culture today. Focusing on devices (which she dubs Wagnerian technologies) intended to amalgamate operas various media while veiling their mechanics, Kreuzer offers a practical counternarrative to Wagners idealist theories of total illusionism. At the same time, Curtain, Gong, Steams multifaceted exploration of the three titular technologies repositions Wagner as catalyst more than inventor in the history of operatic production. With its broad chronological and geographical scope, this book deepens our understanding of the material and mechanical conditions of historical operatic practice as well as of individual works, both well known and obscure. **From the Inside Flap Curtain, Gong, Steamis exemplary in the way it allies meticulous historical evidence with operatic interpretation, and what results is one of the most exciting books on nineteenth-century opera to appear in decades, one that will become a touchstone for further work in this field. Kreuzer takes the issue of material reality in operatic stagings to another level. She does not just transcend familiar academic debates surrounding studies in media and technology, but returns us, with a sense of relish and verve, to all the ways in which sensory impactswhat was seen, heard, scented on the air, and felt viscerally when nineteenth-century theatergoers encountered new staging technologieswere central to the experience of operatic performance.Carolyn Abbate,Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor,Harvard University At last Gundula Kreuzer has given operatic technologies a voice of their own. Wagners secret machines and hidden wires are themselves the actors, telling of their Baroque origins and their reincarnation as part of twenty-first-century immersive media, particularly in new productions of the Ring. A fabulously well-researched contribution to Wagner scholarship and a landmark in theater and opera studies.John Deathridge, Emeritus King Edward Professor of Music, Kings College London Kreuzers book combines the sustained sweep of a well-researched study with the conceptual boldness of an essay it is both learned and brilliantly argued. By drawing on diverse theoretical sources with roots in the work of Benjamin and Heidegger as well as on the current historically informed discourse about technology, the detailed case studies in Curtain, Gong, Steam set an exemplary standard for the critical analysis of opera staging.Stephen Hinton, Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities, Stanford University Curtain, Gong, Steam probes the fraught but immensely fruitful relationship between opera composers and staging technologies in the nineteenth century. Gundula Kreuzers innovative and exciting approach yields many fresh insights into canonic works while also throwing revealing light on rather obscure corners of operatic history. This original book will be read with profit and pleasure not only by musicologists, but also by historians of theater, technology, and science, as well as anybody interested in the connections between art, culture, and society.Emanuele Senici, Professor of Music, University of Rome La Sapienca About the Author Gundula Kreuzer is Associate Professor of Music at Yale University. She is the author of the award-winning Verdi and the Germans From Unification to the Third Reich and editor of Verdis instrumental chamber music for The Works of Giuseppe Verdi.

Author: Bennett M. Berger File Type: pdf The result of 35 years of thought and research on culture by one of the best and most literate writers in sociology, this wide-ranging review of the meaning and study of culture is Bennett Berger at his best. Drawing on his unsurpassed knowledge of the scholarly literature and on his wealth of personal experience, Berger reviews and synthesizes recent work in cultural sociology from a materialist perspective. His essay culminates in a call for an empirical research program focused on the relation between symbolic choices and social locations, rather than on interpretive accounts of the meanings of texts or performances.Among his unusual insights are a defense of reductionism, sympathetic accounts of peer pressure and special interests, an attempt to restore some dignity to the word ideology, and a fresh perspective on conspiracy theory.Scholars and students of culture alike will find here stunning discussions and theoretical insights on ideological work, morality and culture, and on the relations between social structure and cultural structure. The result of 35 years of thought and research on culture by one of the best and most literate writers in sociology, this wide-ranging review of the meaning and study of culture is Bennett Berger at his best. Drawing on his unsurpassed knowledge of the scholarly literature and on his wealth of personal experience, Berger reviews and synthesizes recent work in cultural sociology from a materialist perspective. His essay culminates in a call for an empirical research program focused on the relation between symbolic choices and social locations, rather than on interpretive accounts of the meanings of texts or performances.Among his unusual insights are a defense of reductionism, sympathetic accounts of peer pressure and special interests, an attempt to restore some dignity to the word ideology, and a fresh perspective on conspiracy theory.Scholars and students of culture alike will find here stunning discussions and theoretical insights on ideological work, morality and culture, and on the relations between social structure and cultural structure.

Author: Scott E. Page File Type: epub How anyone can become a data ninja From the stock market to genomics laboratories, census figures to marketing email blasts, we are awash with data. But as anyone who has ever opened up a spreadsheet packed with seemingly infinite lines of data knows, numbers arent enough we need to know how to make those numbers talk. In The Model Thinker, social scientist Scott E. Page shows us the mathematical, statistical, and computational models--from linear regression to random walks and far beyond--that can turn anyone into a genius. At the core of the book is Pages many-model paradigm, which shows the reader how to apply multiple models to organize the data, leading to wiser choices, more accurate predictions, and more robust designs. The Model Thinker provides a toolkit for business people, students, scientists, pollsters, and bloggers to make them better, clearer thinkers, able to leverage data and information to their advantage.