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The Culture of Contentment
by John Kenneth GalbraithA concise, contumacious critique of the complacent class that rules America in the interest of its own comfort, by distinguished economist Galbraith (emeritus, Harvard U.).
The Culture of Copying in Japan: Critical and Historical Perspectives (Japan Anthropology Workshop Series)
by Rupert CoxThis book challenges the perception of Japan as a ‘copying culture’ through a series of detailed ethnographic and historical case studies. It addresses a question about why the West has had such a fascination for the adeptness with which the Japanese apparently assimilate all things foreign and at the same time such a fear of their skill at artificially remaking and automating the world around them. Countering the idea of a Japan that deviously or ingenuously copies others, it elucidates the history of creative exchanges with the outside world and the particular myths, philosophies and concepts which are emblematic of the origins and originality of copying in Japan. The volume demonstrates the diversity and creativity of copying in the Japanese context through the translation of a series of otherwise loosely related ideas and concepts into objects, images, texts and practices of reproduction, which include: shamanic theatre, puppetry, tea utensils, Kyoto town houses, architectural models, genres of painting, calligraphy, and poetry, ‘sample’ food displays, and the fashion and car industries.
The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery
by Wolfgang Schivelbusch Jefferson ChaseHow defeated nations have handled it.
The Culture of Democracy: A Sociological Approach to Civil Society (Cultural Sociology)
by Bin XuAgainst the bleak backdrop of pressing issues in today&’s world, civil societies remain vibrant, animated by people&’s belief that they should and can solve such issues and build a better society. Their imagination of a good society, their understanding of their engagement, and the ways they choose to act constitute the cultural aspect of civil society. Central to this cultural aspect of civil society is the &“culture of democracy,&” including normative values, individual interpretations, and interaction norms pertaining to features of a democratic society, such as civility, independence, and solidarity. The culture of democracy varies in different contexts and faces challenges, but it shapes civic actions, alters political and social processes, and thus is the soul of modern civil societies. The Culture of Democracy provides the first systematic survey of the cultural sociology of civil society and offers a committed global perspective. It shows that, as everyone is eager to have their voice heard, cultural sociology can serve as an &“art of listening,&” a thoroughly empirical approach that takes ideas, meanings, and opinions seriously, for people to contemplate significant theoretical and public issues.
The Culture of Digital Fighting Games: Performance and Practice (Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture)
by Todd HarperThis book examines the complex network of influences that collide in the culture of digital fighting games. Players from all over the world engage in competitive combat with one another, forming communities in both real and virtual spaces, attending tournaments and battling online via internet-connected home game consoles. But what is the logic behind their shared playstyle and culture? What are the threads that tie them together, and how does this inform our understanding of competitive gaming, community, and identity? Informed by observations made at one of the biggest fighting game events in the world – the Evolution Series tournament, or "EVO" – and interviews with fighting game players themselves, this book covers everything from the influence of arcade spaces, to the place of gender and ethnicity in the community, to the clash of philosophies over how these games should be played in the first place. In the process, it establishes the role of technology, gameplay, and community in how these players define both themselves and the games that they play.
The Culture of Education
by Jerome BrunerThis is a book of essays about education. In this commentary on the possibilities of education, eminent psychologist Jerome Bruner explains how education can usher children into their culture, though it often fails to do so. Bruner explores new and rich ways of approaching many of the classical problems that perplex educators.
The Culture of Enterprise in Neoliberalism: Specters of Entrepreneurship (Routledge Advances in Sociology #87)
by Tomas MarttilaThis book provides an empirical study of the increasing importance of the concept of the entrepreneur in the context of the neoliberal cultural paradigm. Using the theoretical framework of the post-structural discourse theory and methods of qualitative discourse analysis, the book describes the changes in political discourse that resulted in the increasing dominance of the figure of the entrepreneur after the late 1980s.
The Culture of Exception: Sociology Facing the Camp (International Library of Sociology)
by Bulent Diken Carsten B. LaustsenWe live in an ever-fragmenting society, in which distinctions between culture and nature, biology and politics, law and transgression, mobility and immobility, reality and representation, seem to be disappearing. This book demonstrates the hidden logic beneath this process, which is also the logic of 'the camp'. Social theory has traditionally interpreted the camp as an anomaly, as an exceptional site situated on the margins of society, aiming to neutralize its 'failed citizens' and 'enemies'. However, in contemporary society, 'the camp' has now become the rule and consequently a new interrogation of its logic is necessary.In this exceptional volume, the authors explore the paradox of the camp, as representing both an old fear of enclosure and a new dream of belonging. They illustrate their arguments by drawing on contemporary sites of exemption - such as refugee camps, rape camps and favelas - as well as sites of self-exemption including gated communities, party tourism and celebrity cultures.
The Culture of Feedback: Ecological Thinking in Seventies America
by Daniel BelgradWhen we want advice from others, we often casually speak of “getting some feedback.” But how many of us give a thought to what this phrase means? The idea of feedback actually dates to World War II, when the term was developed to describe the dynamics of self-regulating systems, which correct their actions by feeding their effects back into themselves. By the early 1970s, feedback had become the governing trope for a counterculture that was reoriented and reinvigorated by ecological thinking. The Culture of Feedback digs deep into a dazzling variety of left-of-center experiences and attitudes from this misunderstood period, bringing us a new look at the wild side of the 1970s. Belgrad shows us how ideas from systems theory were taken up by the counterculture and the environmental movement, eventually influencing a wide range of beliefs and behaviors, particularly related to the question of what is and is not intelligence. He tells the story of a generation of Americans who were struck by a newfound interest in—and respect for—plants, animals, indigenous populations, and the very sounds around them, threading his tapestry with cogent insights on environmentalism, feminism, systems theory, and psychedelics. The Culture of Feedback repaints the familiar image of the ’70s as a time of Me Generation malaise to reveal an era of revolutionary and hopeful social currents, driven by desires to radically improve—and feed back into—the systems that had come before.
The Culture of Homelessness
by Megan RavenhillDespite an extensive literature on homelessness there is surprisingly little work that investigates the roots of homelessness by tracking homeless people over time. In this fascinating and much-needed ethnographic study, Megan Ravenhill presents the results of ten years' research on the streets and in the hostels and day-centres of the UK, incorporating intensive interviews with 150 homeless and formerly homeless people as well as policy makers and professionals working with homeless people. Ravenhill discusses the biographical, structural and behavioural factors that lead to homelessness. Amongst the important and unique features of the study are: the use of life-route maps showing the circumstances and decisions that lead to homelessness, a systematic study of the timescales involved, and a survey of people's exit routes from homelessness. Ravenhill also identifies factors that predict those most vulnerable to homelessness and factors that prevent or considerably delay the onset of homelessness.
The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations
by Christopher LaschWhen The Culture of Narcissism was first published, it was clear that Christopher Lasch had identified something important: what was happening to American society in the wake of the decline of the family over the last century. The book quickly became a bestseller. This edition includes a new afterword, "The Culture of Narcissism Revisited."
The Culture of Nature: North American Landscape from Disney to Exxon Valdez
by Alexander WilsonSince it was first published in 1991, few books have come close to capturing the depth and breadth of Alexander Wilson’s innovative ecocultural compendium The Culture of Nature. His work was one of the first of its kind to investigate the ideology of the environment, to critique the future according to Disney, and illustrate that the ways we think, teach, talk about, and construct the natural world are as important a terrain as the land itself. Extensively illustrated and meticulously researched, this edition is exquisitely revised and reissued for the Anthropocene.
The Culture of Pain
by David MorrisThis is a book about the meanings we make out of pain. The greatest surprise I encountered in discussing this topic over the past ten years was the consistency with which I was asked a single unvarying question: Are you writing about physical pain or mental pain? The overwhelming consistency of this response convinces me that modern culture rests upon and underlying belief so strong that it grips us with the force of a founding myth. Call it the Myth of Two Pains. We live in an era when many people believe--as a basic, unexamined foundation of thought--that pain comes divided into separate types: physical and mental. These two types of pain, so the myth goes, are as different as land and sea. You feel physical pain if your arm breaks, and you feel mental pain if your heart breaks. Between these two different events we seem to imagine a gulf so wide and deep that it might as well be filled by a sea that is impossible to navigate.
The Culture of Religious Pluralism (Explorations: Contemporary Perspectives on Religion)
by Richard WentzReligious pluralism has been a defining characteristic of the American experience since colonial times. In the twentieth century, as American society has become more radically pluralistic, the issue of religious identity is once again in flux. Providing a historical context, Richard Wentz examines the challenges that pluralism presents to denominationalism and civil religion and considers the contributions secularism and the New Age movement have made to the culture of religious pluralism. Finally, Wentz calls for a new pluralism based on civility and respect, a reimmersion into our religious traditions, and an extension of ourselves into the traditions of others.
The Culture of Science: How the Public Relates to Science Across the Globe (Routledge Studies in Science, Technology and Society)
by Rajesh Shukla Martin W. Bauer Nick AllumThis book offers the first comparative account of the changes and stabilities of public perceptions of science within the US, France, China, Japan, and across Europe over the past few decades. The contributors address the influence of cultural factors; the question of science and religion and its influence on particular developments (e.g. stem cell research); and the demarcation of science from non-science as well as issues including the ‘incommensurability’ versus ‘cognitive polyphasia’ and the cognitive (in)tolerance of different systems of knowledge.
The Culture of Speed: The Coming of Immediacy (Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society)
by John Tomlinson"John Tomlinson's book is an invitation to an adventure. It contains a precious key to unlock the doors into the unmapped and unexplored cultural and ethical condition of 'immediacy'. Without this key concept from now on it will not be possible to make sense of the social existence of our times and its ambivalences." - Ulrich Beck, University of Munich "A most welcome, stimulating and challenging exploration of the cultural impact and significance of speed in advanced modern societies. It successfully interweaves theoretical discourse, historical and contemporary analyses and imaginative use of literary sources, all of which are mobilised in order to provide an original, intellectually rewarding and critical account of the changing significance of speed in our everyday experience." - David Frisby, London School of Economics and Political Science Is the pace of life accelerating? If so, what are the cultural, social, personal and economic consequences? This stimulating and accessible book examines how speed emerged as a cultural issue during industrial modernity. The rise of capitalist society and the shift to urban settings was rapid and tumultuous and was defined by the belief in 'progress'. The first obstacle faced by societies that were starting to 'speed up' was how to regulate and control the process. The attempt to regulate the acceleration of life created a new set of problems, namely the way in which speed escapes regulation and rebels against controls. This pattern of acceleration and control subsequently defined debates about the cultural effects of acceleration. However, in the 21st century 'immediacy', the combination of fast capitalism and the saturation of the everyday by media technologies, has emerged as the core feature of control. This coming of immediacy will inexorably change how we think about and experience media culture, consumption practices, and the core of our cultural and moral values. Incisive and richly illustrated, this eye-opening account of speed and culture provides an original guide to one of the central features of contemporary culture and everyday life.
The Culture of Welfare Markets: The International Recasting of Pension and Care Systems (Routledge Advances in Sociology)
by Ingo BodeThis book examines the rise of welfare markets in Western societies and explores their functioning, regulation and embeddedness by addressing the particular field of old age provision, including both retirement provision and elderly care. It goes beyond a mere social policy analysis by investigating major cultural underpinnings of the new (quasi-)markets, with these underpinnings embracing collective normative representations of how societies (should) institutionally handle old age. The book looks at whether pension and care systems are converging under the influence of globalization – with marketization being a key phenomenon – and to what extent this is creating a transnational culture of welfare markets. This book, the first book to systematically describe and analyse the phenomenon of welfare markets, elucidates the complex cultural underpinnings of care and pensions systems in an era of marketization, arguing that we are facing a cultural struggle over the way late modern societies conceptualize institutional old-age provision.
The Cultured Man
by Ashley Montagu“THIS BOOK’S purpose is to tell you what a cultivated person is, what the value of the cultured person is to himself, his fellows, and his society, and finally, the kind of things the cultured person knows, thinks, and feels. The point of the book is that it may succeed in giving you a fair idea of where you stand in relation to the continuum of culture, and help you understand in what further direction you need to proceed.”—Ashley Montagu, Ph. D.This provocative book, first published in 1958, is an inquiry into, and an answer to, three very important questions:1) What is a cultured man?2) What does “culture” mean in America?3) What is YOUR “culture quotient”?Dr. Montagu analyzes and evaluations the first two questions above in a brilliant opening essay. He then provides 50 tests (1,500 questions with answers) which explore YOUR knowledge and attitudes and which enable you not only to determine where you stand as a truly cultured person but also to find out precisely in what directions you need to move to improve your “culture quotient.”From ballet to biology, from psychology to sex, this is an instructive test of your own intellectual status, a challenge and a guide to self-improvement.Dr. Montagu was a professor of anthropology at Rutgers University before retiring in order to devote all his time to writing. He was well-known for his TV and radio appearances, and became a renowned author.
The Cunning of History: The Holocaust and the American Future
by Richard L. RubensteinTheologian Richard L. Rubenstein writes of the Holocaust, why it happened, why it happened when it did, and why it may happen again and again."Few books possess the power to leave the reader with the feeling of awareness that we call a sense of revelation. The Cunning of History seems to me to be one of these . . . Rubenstein is forcing us to reinterpret the meaning of Auschwitz—especially, though not exclusively, from the standpoint of its existence as part of a continuum of slavery that has been engrafted for centuries onto the very body of Western civilization. Therefore, in the process of destroying the myth and the preconception, he is making us see that that encampment of death and suffering may have been more horrible than we had ever imagined. It was slavery in its ultimate embodiment. He is making us understand that the etiology of Auschwitz—to some, a diabolical, perhaps freakish excrescence, which vanished from the face of the earth with the destruction of the crematoria in 1945—is actually embedded deeply in a cultural tradition that stretches back to the Middle Passage from the coast of Africa, and beyond, to the enforced servitude in ancient Greece and Rome. Rubenstein is saying that we ignore this linkage, and the existence of the sleeping virus in the bloodstream of civilization, at risk of our future." — William Styron, from the Introduction.
The Cure That Works: How to Have the World's Best Health Care -- at a Quarter of the Price
by Sean M. FlynnWhat’s the Most Important Fact About the Heathcare Crisis? That We Already Know the Cure! Whole Foods Markets, the State of Indiana, and innovators around the world have used forgotten American ideas to slash healthcare costs by 75 percent while simultaneously delivering true universal access, coverage for preexisting conditions, and an ironclad safety net. Economics for Dummies author Sean Flynn explains that simple things—like price tags, competition, and plentiful health savings contributions—crush costs while granting everyone equal access to the world’s best healthcare services.
The Curious Case of Usable Privacy: Challenges, Solutions, and Prospects (Synthesis Lectures on Information Security, Privacy, and Trust)
by Simone Fischer-Hübner Farzaneh KaregarThis book journeys through the labyrinth of usable privacy, a place where the interplay of privacy and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) reveals a myriad of challenges, solutions, and new possibilities. Establishing a solid understanding of usable privacy research, practices, and challenges, the book illuminates for readers the often shadowy corridors of such a multifaceted domain and offers guidelines and solutions to successfully traverse the challenging maze. The book does not simply focus on data protection or legislative frameworks but also on what it takes for privacy to be safeguarded, understood, embraced, and easily practiced by all. It begins with a thorough exploration of the background of privacy tools and technologies, the evolution of privacy rules and regulations, and the backdrop upon which this narrative unfolds. After establishing this context, its next important focus is the current state and future directions of the field, including thefrontiers of usable privacy research in relation to the Internet of Things (IoT), usability of PETs, and usable privacy for UX and software developers. The book also considers the often-overlooked privacy narratives of marginalized communities and delves into the complexities of user-centric privacy. Readers are provided with a blueprint for addressing these hurdles and establishing pathways for a more privacy-conscious world. The text will be of interest to students studying Computer Science, Information Systems, or Law, as well as researchers and practitioners working in the fields of usable privacy, privacy by design, Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs), or HCI. All will benefit from the book’s central deliberation of a question that echoes through time and technological advancements: why does usable privacy matter?
The Curious World of Drugs and Their Friends
by Ingo Niermann Adriano SackRead Adriano Sack's posts on the Penguin Blog. "Curiouser and curiouser" --fun and fascinating facts from the world of drugs. Following in the tradition of The Ultimate Book of Useless Information, The Curious World of Drugs and Their Friends is a wry potpourri of interesting information about every conceivable kind of drug. Readers can feed their heads with anecdotes, facts, lists, statistics, and illustrations, including: * The test results of animals on LSD--cats lose their fear of dogs, and goats walk in geometric patterns * Drugs found in nature, from magic mushrooms to St. John's wort to beaver secretions * Celebrities who overdosed at age 27--Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, and Jean Michel-Basquiat * Imaginary drugs in literature and film, from spice the mélange in Dune to Moloko plus in A Clockwork Orange * Nicknames for a joint--from doobie to giggly stick to Mr. Boom Bizzle * The global percentages of adults who have used cannabis--.004 percent in Singapore and 12.6 percent in the United States * The uses of opium in ancient Rome--from treatments for insomnia and epilepsy to colic and deafness * The most glamorous rehab clinics and their celebrity alumni * Mini-biographies of the biggest drug kingpins around the world Wacky but well-researched, unbiased and shameless, The Curious World of Drugs and Their Friends dares to take readers on a long, strange trivia trip.
The Current Economy: Electricity Markets and Techno-Economics
by Canay Özden-SchillingElectricity is a quirky commodity: more often than not, it cannot be stored, easily transported, or imported from overseas. Before lighting up our homes, it changes hands through specialized electricity markets that rely on engineering expertise to trade competitively while respecting the physical requirements of the electric grid. The Current Economy is an ethnography of electricity markets in the United States that shows the heterogenous and technologically inflected nature of economic expertise today. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among market data analysts, electric grid engineers, and citizen activists, this book provides a deep dive into the convoluted economy of electricity and its reverberations throughout daily life. Canay Özden-Schilling argues that many of the economic formations in everyday life come from work cultures rarely suspected of doing economic work: cultures of science, technology, and engineering that often do not have a claim to economic theory or practice, yet nonetheless dictate forms of economic activity. Contributing to economic anthropology, science and technology studies, energy studies, and the anthropology of expertise, this book is a map of the everyday infrastructures of economy and energy into which we are plugged as denizens of a technological world.
The Curriculum of the Body and the School as Clinic: Histories of Public Health and Schooling (Critical Studies in Health and Education)
by Helen Proctor Kellie BurnsThis collection brings together cutting-edge research on the history of embodiment, health and schooling in an international context. The book distinguishes a set of educational technologies, schooling practices and school-based public health programmes that organise and influence the bodies of children and young people, defining the curriculum of the body. Taking a historical approach, with a focus on the period in which mass schooling became an international phenomenon, the book is organised according to four major themes. The first positions the school as a modern clinical space, followed by the second that explores programmes and curricula which influence the discipline of and care for the body. The third section examines the role of the built environment on the organisation and experience of children’s bodies, and the final section outlines the pedagogies, rules and routines that determine how the body is treated and experienced in school. International and multidisciplinary in scope, this unique collection is of interest to postgraduate students and researchers in education and public health, as well as history, policy studies and sociology.
The Curriculum of the Body and the School as Clinic: Histories of Public Health and Schooling (Critical Studies in Health and Education)
by Helen ProctorThis collection brings together cutting-edge research on the history of embodiment, health and schooling in an international context. The book distinguishes a set of educational technologies, schooling practices and school-based public health programmes that organise and influence the bodies of children and young people, defining the curriculum of the body.Taking a historical approach, with a focus on the period in which mass schooling became an international phenomenon, the book is organised according to four major themes. The first positions the school as a modern clinical space, followed by the second that explores programmes and curricula which influence the discipline of and care for the body. The third section examines the role of the built environment on the organisation and experience of children’s bodies, and the final section outlines the pedagogies, rules and routines that determine how the body is treated and experienced in school.International and multidisciplinary in scope, this unique collection is of interest to postgraduate students and researchers in education and public health, as well as history, policy studies and sociology.