Best of
Cultural-Studies

1985

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business


Neil Postman - 1985
    In this eloquent, persuasive book, Neil Postman alerts us to the real and present dangers of this state of affairs, and offers compelling suggestions as to how to withstand the media onslaught. Before we hand over politics, education, religion, and journalism to the show business demands of the television age, we must recognize the ways in which the media shape our lives and the ways we can, in turn, shape them to serve out highest goals.

The Granite Pail: The Selected Poems


Lorine Niedecker - 1985
    Edited by Cid Corman. The section headings in this book of poems are all vintage Niedecker, but they stake out the poems in three large masses. The earlier work-apprentice to Zukofsky but finding her voice; the central work--when she discovers her range and depth; the final work--much of it known posthumously--showing how she was probing other voices into a larger plenum. One's first impulse, after awe, on reading THE GRANITE PAIL is a double dose of shame: shame at not being more familiar with her work; shame at ever having complained of the narrowness of one's life--Carolyn Kizer.

Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire


Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick - 1985
    Hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most influential texts in gender studies, men's studies and gay studies," this book uncovers the homosocial desire between men, from Restoration comedies to Tennyson's Princess.

Wine Of Endless Life: Taoist Drinking Songs from the Yuan Dynasty


J.P. Seaton - 1985
    Seaton's colloquial English renderings are a sheer pleasure to read, so much so that the reader is apt to forget he is enjoying translations..."--Choice

The Medieval Imagination


Jacques Le Goff - 1985
    "Le Goff is one of the most distinguished of the French medieval historians of his generation . . . he has exercised immense influence."—Maurice Keen, New York Review of Books"The whole book turns on a fascinating blend of the brutally materialistic and the generously imaginative."—Tom Shippey, London Review of Books"The richness, imaginativeness and sheer learning of Le Goff's work . . . demand to be experienced."—M. T. Clanchy, Times Literary Supplement

Correspondence, 1926-1969


Hannah Arendt - 1985
    It is interrupted by Arendt's emigration and Jaspers's "inner emigration, " and it is resumed immediately after World War II. The initial teacher-student relationship develops into a close friendship, in which Jasper's wife, Gertrud, is soon included and then Arendt's husband, Heinrich Blucher. These letters show not only the way both philosophers lived, thought, and worked but also how they experienced the postwar years. Since neither ever dreamed that this correspondence would be published, and each had absolute trust in the other, they reveal themselves here - for the first time - in a personal and spontaneous way. Brilliant, vulnerable, forthright, Arendt speaks about America, her adopted country. About American universities, American politics from McCarthyism to Kennedy, American urban decay. She speaks about Germany, the country she left: its anti-Semitism, its guilt for the Holocaust, its politics. And about Israel, which she always supported as a Jew but also criticized, especially in her controversial book about the trial and execution of Adolf Eichmann in 1961. In his dialogue with Arendt, the thoughtful, generous, concerned Jaspers considers the question of the German essence, and of the Jewish character. He speaks about philosophers past and present - Spinoza, Heidegger. About old age and retirement. Corrupt journalism. Suicide. Man's future on this planet. Here is a fascinating dialogue between a woman and a man, a Jew and a German, a questioner and a visionary, both uncompromising in their examination of our troubledcentury.

The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850-1914


Janet Oppenheim - 1985
    The book explores the variety of social background, education, and professional expertise that characterized the men and women who attended seances and investigated psychic phenomena, and places them in the context of their times without ridiculing their beliefs.

Bound Over: Indentured Servitude and American Conscience


John van der Zee - 1985
    

"Race," Writing, and Difference


Henry Louis Gates Jr. - 1985
    This collection demonstrates the variety of critical approaches through which one may discuss the complexities of racial "otherness" in various modes of discourse. Now, fifteen years after their first publication, these essays have managed to escape the cliches associated with the race-class-gender trinity of '80s criticism, and remain a provocative overview of the complex interplay between race, writing, and difference.

Shadow Dancing in the U.S.A.


Michael Ventura - 1985
    

Babe Didrikson: Athlete of the Century


R.R. Knudson - 1985
    Contains black-and-white illustrations. "Written with gusto and enthusiam.... Most welcome."—School Library Journal “A thoughtful, well-rounded, and highly readable portrait guaranteed to spark interest in Babe Didrikson and other women athletes, past and present.”—Booklist About the Women of Our Time series:International in scope, the Women of Our Time series of biographies cover a wide range of personalities in a variety fields. More than a history lesson, these books offer carefully documented life stories that will inform, inspire, and engage.

Another Name for Madness


Marion Roach - 1985
    

Words That Must Somehow Be Said: Selected Essays, 1927-1984


Kay Boyle - 1985
    Included are essays on writers and writing, on the body politic, and on the human condition, as well as a personal recollection of her family beginnings. From the expatriate years in France, when she published in the now-legendary literary magazines of the epoch, through the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960's, to her continuing work for Amnesty International today, Miss Boyle has 'spent a lifetime speaking for the voiceless and acting for the inactive, as this collection impressively attests' (New York Times Book Review).

Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form


Marina Warner - 1985
    Drawing on the evidence of public art, especially sculpture, and painting, poetry, and classical mythology, she ranges over the allegorical presence of the woman in the Western tradition with a sharply observant eye and a piquant and engaging style.

Remembering Who We Are: Observations of a Southern Conservative


M.E. Bradford - 1985
    

Image Worlds: Corporate Identities at General Electric, 1890-1930


David E. Nye - 1985
    General Electric was one of the first modern industrial corporations to use photographs and other media resources to create images of itself; and the GE archives, comprising well over a million images, form one of the largest privately held collections in the world. To produce this venturesome book, David Nye has used these vast archives to develop a new approach to corporate ideology through corporate iconography.Image Worlds embraces symbols, intentional signs, and photographs on the one hand and the history of institutional and technological development on the other. It views photography as a developing technology with a history of its own, and presents the corporation as a communicator as well as a producer and employer.Illustrated with nearly 60 photographs from the archives, the book identifies five "image markets" that GE sought to organize and address. Company engineers, workers, and managers received publications designed to appeal to their presumed interests. Some of these grew into public journals with a scientific-educational mission; others were restricted in circulation even within the company. At the same time, illustrated mass-media advertising was created to reach potential consumers of GE products. Advertising that presented an image of GE as a place where "progress was the most important product." While GE was promoting this enlightened image, the company was also using its resources to reach the voting public, hoping to gain their support for private electrification in the national debate over municipal power.David E. Nye is Associate Professor of American History at Odense University in Denmark.

Women, Work and Protest: A Century of U.S. Women's Labor History


Ruth Milkman - 1985
    This book will be valuable for scholars, students and general readers alike.

Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism


Jonathan Dollimore - 1985
    Ten years on, this second edition presents additional essays by Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield.