Author: Sam A. Mustafa File Type: pdf With a careful blend of concision and rich detail, Sam A. Mustafas readable and lively text traces German history from Roman times to the present, placing particular emphasis on the past three centuries. Balanced and clearly written, the book guides readers expertly through the complex tangle of Germanys past. Mustafa provides a judicious mix of narrative history and historiography, tracing the influential individuals and broad social currents, myths and legends, and political and cultural elements that have shaped the country. In addition, the book is unique in bringing the story fully to the present with a chapter on the past twenty years that explores the nations reunification and its struggles with history and memory. Generously illustrated with photos, artwork, and maps, the book also includes text boxes to allow readers to pause and consider key concepts in greater detail. Each chapter offers a list of further suggested readings, with a mixture of classic and recent scholarship, to provide a range of coverage of important issues. All those with an interest in Germany will find Germany in the Modern World an engaging and rewarding read. It is an ideal text for a college course or for anyone with a general interest in the history of Europes largest nationality. **Review A concise and lucid primer. Easily accessible to students, the book clearly explains the central issues related to the development of Germany as a cultural and national identity over the centuries. Mustafa weaves political and social history together with ease, offering a solid and informed approach to the study of German history. (Frederick C. Schneid) Sam Mustafas ability to present a range of complex material in an accessible manner to students is impressive. I especially appreciate his emphasis on regionalism in German history and dynamism in German nationalism, as many texts are overly teleological in their goal to arrive at the German nation state. I look forward to using this fine book in my introductory German history classes. (Katherine Aaslestad) About the Author Sam A. Mustafa is associate professor of history at Ramapo College of New Jersey.
Author: Brian Cogan
File Type: pdf
Deconstructing South Park Critical Examinations of Animated Transgression is an edited collection by Brian Cogan that looks at the long and controversial run of one of the most subversive programs on television. South Park, while denounced by many as simply scatological, is actually one of the most nuanced and thoughtful programs on television. The contributors to South Park reveal that, through the lens of four foul-mouthed nine year olds, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have created one of the most astute forms of social and political commentary in television history. Deconstructing South Park, itself the most ambitious deconstruction of popular culture to date, analyzes how South Park is not only entertainment, but a commentary on American culture that tackles controversial issues far beyond the depth of most television. Specifically, the medium of animated sitcom allows the shows creators to contribute to cultural conversations regarding disability studies, religion, sexuality, celebrity, and more. If South Park deconstructs American culture, then Cogan and his contributors deconstruct the deconstructionists and reveal South Park in all its hilarious and often contradictory complexity. **
Author: Richard Anderson
File Type: pdf
This book offers a comprehensive account of Russias architectural production from the late nineteenth century to the present, explaining how its architecture was both shaped by and came to embody Russias rapid cultural, economic, and social revolutions over the past century. Richard Anderson looks at Russias complex relationship to global architectural culture, exploring the countrys central presence in the Rationalism and Constructivism movements of the 1920s, as well as its role as a key protagonist during the Cold War. Looking deeply at Soviet Russia, he brings the relationship between architecture and socialism into focus through detailed case studies that situate buildings and architectural concepts within the socialist milieu of Soviet society. He tracks the way Russian architectural institutions departed from the course of modernism being developed in capitalist countries, and he reappraises the architecture of the Stalin era and the final decades of the USSR. Finally, he traces the influence of Soviet conventions on contemporary Russian architecturewhich is now a more heterogeneous mix of approaches and styles and how itmade a lasting and little-known impact on territories extending from the Middle East, to Central Asia, and into China. A bold new assessment of Russias architectural legacy and contemporary contributions, this book is a fascinating exploration of a tumultuous placeand the creativity that has come from it. **
Author: John Creighton
File Type: pdf
This book deals with Britain in the centuries immediately before the Roman conquest a period when the first individuals appeared in British history, and when a series of dynasties emerged to take control of much of Southern Britain. Combining archaeological, literary and numismatic evidence, it paints a vivid picture of how people in Late Iron Age Britain reacted to the changing world around them, and how rulers bolstered their power through use of imagery on coins, myths, language, and material culture. It includes illustrations of 246 Iron Age coins and a separate coin index.ReviewThis book represents a major shift in interpretation away from the traditional picture ... this is a book which will merit much picking over and debate ... it is one which could fundamentally change our view of the Late Iron Age and the beginning of Roman Britain. Cambridge Archaeological Journal Book DescriptionThis book deals with Britain in the centuries immediately before the Roman conquest a period when the first individuals appeared in British history, and when a series of dynasties emerged to take control of much of Southern Britain. Combining archaeological, literary and numismatic evidence, it paints a vivid picture of how people in Late Iron Age Britain reacted to the changing world around them, and how rulers bolstered their power through use of imagery on coins, myths, language, and material culture. It includes a full index of Iron-Age coins.
Author: Rosalind Miles
File Type: pdf
Men dominate history because men write history. There have been many heroes, but no heroines. This is the book that overturns that phallusy of history, giving voice to the true history of the world which, always and forever, must include the contributions of millions of unsung women. Here is the history you never learned but should have! Without politics or polemics, this brilliant and witty book overturns centuries of preconceptions to restore women to their rightful place at the center of culture, revolution, empire, war, and peace. Spiced with tales of individual women who have shaped civilization, celebrating the work and lives of women around the world, distinguished by a wealth of research, Who Cooked the Last Supper? redefines our concept of historical reality.**
Author: Louis Schwartz
File Type: pdf
ReviewSchwartz has a deep knowledge of critical history as well as of Miltons works...the close readings here are compelling. They bring out the strangeness of images and episodes such as Eves creation and the birth of violent hounds after Sin and Deaths incestuous union. -Elizabeth Scott-Baumann, TLS, 2009[Schwartz] has indeed chosen a dauntingly complex project, but here it is, tenaciously and convincingly executed...he pieces together a carefully evocative account of the ritual-magical female subculture that enclosed and concealed the mysteries of the birth chamber, that curtained, candlelit space at the heart of the house from which men were consistently excluded....For taking the argument ever further beyond the old received image of Milton the misogynist, Schwartz earns his place alongside Diane McColley, James Grantham Turner, and William Kerrigan. Our understanding has been enlarged, and thats a fine achievement. -Geoffrey Wall, The Cambridge Quarterly, 2010 Book DescriptionChildbirth in seventeenth-century England was associated with fear, suffering and death, and this melancholy preoccupation found its most articulate expression in John Miltons poetry. This landmark study examines the impact of maternal mortality on Miltons life and work, and provides important readings of his major poems, including Paradise Lost.
Author: Vijaya Ramaswamy
File Type: pdf
The cultural heritage of the Tamils dates back two thousand years. As a language, Tamil has existed since the pre-Christian era, around the same time as the early classical languages Hebrew and Sankrit. The first book on Tamil grammar, the Tolkappiyam, was written around the fifth century BCE. Today, Tamil cuisine has captured the imagination of the vegetarian world, and Tamil cinema, with its heavy political allegories and opera style music, is popular across the globe. Not confined to their homeland of Tamil Nadu, the Tamils constitute a powerful diaspora in Sri Lanka (where they are fighting for their political rights), Singapore (where Tamil is one of the national languages), and Malaysia. The diaspora extends to places as far flung as the U.K., the U.S., and Australia. Tamil temples and cultural centers can be found everywhere from Pittsburgh to San Francisco and from Texas to Toronto. The Historical Dictionary of the Tamils presents a vivid picture of the Tamils cultural and literary traditions, both the historic past and the vibrant present. This is done through a list of acronyms and abbreviations, a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, black and white photos, maps, and over 500 cross-referenced dictionary entries covering Tamil history from the megalithic age to present day and Tamil personalities, economics, literature, music, politics, and cinema. This one-volume reference is an excellent entry point into a deeper understanding of the cultural milieu of the Tamils.(Historical Dictionaries of Peoples and Cultures)
Author: Sabine Marienberg
File Type: pdf
In a unique cooperation between philosophy, linguistics, art history, and ancient studies, this volume focuses on ways in which the entangled and embodied nature of image and language enables us to symbolically articulate the world and our experience in a great variety of forms. It lays the foundation for a new cultural anthropology of symbolic processes. **
Author: Leif E. Vaage
File Type: pdf
In Borderline Exegesis, Leif Vaage presents an alternative approach to biblical interpretation, or exegesisan approach that bends the boundaries of the traditional North American methodology to analyze the meaning of biblical texts for a wider audience. To accomplish this, Vaage engages in a practice he calls borderline exegesis. Adapting anthropological notions of borderlands, borderline exegesis writes biblical scholarship peripherally, unearthing the Bibles textual and discursive borderlands and allowing biblical texts to be at play with the utopian imagination. The books main chapters comprise four case studies that engage in a divergent reading of the book of Job, the Gospel of Matthew, the Epistle of James, and the book of Revelation. Informed by the authors time in war-torn Peru, these chapters take on themes that the poor and disenfranchised have historically claimedthemes of social justice, the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of prevailing social practices, and, most importantly, utopian demand for another possible world. The chapters are held together by the presentation of a greater theoretical framework that provides reflection on the exegetical practices within and confronts biblical scholars with important questions about the aims of the work they do. Taken as a whole, Borderline Exegesis seeks to disclose what the professional practice of textual interpretation might become if we refuse the conventional distances between academic practice and lived experience. **Review With his proposal of a borderline exegesis, Leif Vaage challenges traditional biblical scholarship, opening the possibility of reading the Bible with a utopian imagination. Such a reading is a conversation with the biblical texts that takes place in the margins of well-being, where the good life cannot be taken for granted and life itself is often threatened. Stimulated by his long-term contact with borderline experiences of life in the outskirts of Lima, Peru, Vaages reading of various biblical texts shows how this kind of exegesis can help imagine a better world. Santiago Guijarro, Pontifical University of Salamanca, president of the Spanish Biblical Association Leif Vaage produces a series of daring intellectual border crossings that are shaped by both academic biblical scholarship and his long-standing experience with Latin American Christianity. While never taking his eye off the text, he offers rich biblical readings designed to prod us to think about the larger question of how to know a life worth living. This work will appeal to students of Job, the Matthean Jesus, James, and Revelation. It will also appeal to those interested in the problem of reading the Bible, and living, ethically and politically in these troubled times. Shawn Kelley, Daemen College Leif Vaages borderline exegesis works on the edges and in the crevices of biblical texts and biblical scholarship to engage life questions that are particularly urgent for those who are living on the edge or on the margins. This edgy and yet balanced book does not assume the Christian triumphalism that has plagued many liberational readings of the Bible. I find it accessible and admirable. Tat-siong Benny Liew, College of the Holy Cross With Borderline Exegesis, Leif Vaage takes us back to where interpretation started, to the encounter between texts and life. Borderline Exegesis is a significant innovation in biblical exegesis in which the distinction between academic reading of texts and the experience of human life disappears, where the questions of the meaning of texts and the meaning of life are one and the same. Based on encounters from his time in Peru, Vaage moves exegesis from the comfort zone of Western exegetes into the experience of human life in extremis, where reading biblical texts by necessity becomes a work of utopian imagination. Halvor Moxnes, University of Oslo About the Author Leif E. Vaage is Associate Professor of the New Testament at Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto.