Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture
John Storey - 1993
The book also provides a map of the development of cultural studies through discussion of its most influential approaches. Organized around a series of case studies, each chapter focuses on a different media form and presents a critical overview of the methodology for the actual study of popular culture. Individual chapters cover topics such as television, fiction, film, newspapers and magazines, popular music, and consumption (fan culture and shopping).For students new to the field, the book provides instantly usable theories and methods; for those more familiar with the procedures and politics of cultural studies, it provides a succinct and accessible overview.This edition has been revised, rewritten, and expanded throughout. The book now includes new sections on television audiences, reception theory, and globalization.
Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century
John Brookshire Thompson - 2010
For nearly five centuries the methods and practices of book publishing remained largely unchanged, but at the dawn of the twenty-first century the industry finds itself faced with perhaps the greatest challenges since Gutenberg. A combination of economic pressures and technological change is forcing publishers to alter their practices and think hard about the future of the books in the digital age.In this book - the first major study of trade publishing for more than 30 years - Thompson situates the current challenges facing the industry in an historical context, analysing the transformation of trade publishing in the United States and Britain since the 1960s. He gives a detailed account of how the world of trade publishing really works, dissecting the roles of publishers, agents and booksellers and showing how their practices are shaped by a field that has a distinctive structure and dynamic. This new paperback edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to take account of the most recent developments, including the dramatic increase in ebook sales and its implications for the publishing industry and its future.
Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture
Julia T. Wood - 1994
With the most up-to-date research, balanced perspectives of masculinity and femininity, a personal introduction to the field, and a conversational first-person writing style, GENDERED LIVES provides students with an engaging text that encourages them to think critically about gender and our society.
The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization
Peter M. Senge - 1990
As Senge makes clear, in the long run the only sustainable competitive advantage is your organization’s ability to learn faster than the competition. The leadership stories in the book demonstrate the many ways that the core ideas in The Fifth Discipline, many of which seemed radical when first published in 1990, have become deeply integrated into people’s ways of seeing the world and their managerial practices. In The Fifth Discipline, Senge describes how companies can rid themselves of the learning “disabilities” that threaten their productivity and success by adopting the strategies of learning organizations—ones in which new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, collective aspiration is set free, and people are continually learning how to create results they truly desire. The updated and revised Currency edition of this business classic contains over one hundred pages of new material based on interviews with dozens of practitioners at companies like BP, Unilever, Intel, Ford, HP, Saudi Aramco, and organizations like Roca, Oxfam, and The World Bank. It features a new Foreword about the success Peter Senge has achieved with learning organizations since the book’s inception, as well as new chapters on Impetus (getting started), Strategies, Leaders’ New Work, Systems Citizens, and Frontiers for the Future. Mastering the disciplines Senge outlines in the book will:• Reignite the spark of genuine learning driven by people focused on what truly matters to them• Bridge teamwork into macro-creativity• Free you of confining assumptions and mindsets• Teach you to see the forest and the trees• End the struggle between work and personal time
A Crooked Line: From Cultural History to the History of Society
Geoff Eley - 2005
I found A Crooked Line engrossing, insightful, and inspiring."--Lizabeth Cohen, author of A Consumers' Republic"A Crooked Line brilliantly captures the most significant shifts in the landscape of historical scholarship that have occurred in the last four decades. Part personal history, part insightful analysis of key methodological and theoretical historiographical tendencies since the late 1960s, always thoughtful and provocative, Eley's book shows us why history matters to him and why it should also matter to us."--Robert Moeller, University of California, Irvine"Part genealogy, part diagnosis, part memoir, Eley's account of the histories of social and cultural history is a tour de force."--Antoinette Burton, Professor of History and Catherine C. and Bruce A. Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies, University of Illinois"Eley's reflections on the changing landscape of academic history in the last forty years will interest and benefit all students of the discipline. Both a native informant and an analyst in this account, Eley combines the two roles superbly to produce one of most engaging and compelling narratives of the recent history of History."--Dipesh Chakrabarty, author of Provincializing EuropeUsing his own intellectual biography as a narrative device, Geoff Eley tracks the evolution of historical understanding in our time from social history through the so-called "cultural turn," and back again to a broad history of society.A gifted writer, Eley carefully winnows unique experiences from the universal, and uses the interplay of the two to draw the reader toward an organic understanding of how historical thinking (particularly the work of European historians) has evolved under the influence of new ideas. His work situates history within History, and offers students, scholars, and general readers alike a richly detailed, readable guide to the enduring value of historical ideas.Geoff Eley is Professor of History at the University of Michigan.
Common Sense and Other Writings
Thomas Paine - 1776
Common Sense, the instantly popular pamphlet he published in January 1776, argued that the goal of the struggle against the British should be not simply tax reform, as many were calling for, but complete independence. His rousing, radical voice was balanced by the equally independence-minded but more measured tones of Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence later that year. In later works, such as The Rights of Man, The Age of Reason, & other selections included in this volume, he proved himself a visionary moralist centuries ahead of his time. He believed that every human has the natural right to life's necessities & that government's role should be to provide for those in dire need. An impassioned opponent of all forms of slavery, he understood that no one in poverty is truly free--a lesson still to be learned by many of our leaders today.
The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses
Juhani Pallasmaa - 1996
This new, revised and extended edition of this seminal work will not only inspire architects and students to design more holistic architecture, but will enrich the general reader's perception of the world around them. The Eyes of the Skin has become a classic of architectural theory and consists of two extended essays. The first surveys the historical development of the ocular-centric paradigm in western culture since the Greeks, and its impact on the experience of the world and the nature of architecture. The second examines the role of the other senses in authentic architectural experiences, and points the way towards a multi-sensory architecture which facilitates a sense of belonging and integration.
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
Clay Shirky - 2008
'Here Comes Everybody' is an examination of how the spread of new forms of social interaction enabled by technology is changing the way humans form and exist within groups, with profound long-term economic and social effects, for good and for ill.
The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling
Arlie Russell Hochschild - 1983
But what happens when this system of adjusting emotions is adapted to commercial purposes? Hochschild examines the cost of this kind of "emotional labor." She vividly describes from a humanist and feminist perspective the process of estrangement from personal feelings and its role as an "occupational hazard" for one-third of America's workforce.
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
Howard Rheingold - 2002
The coming wave, says Rheingold, is the result of super-efficient mobile communications-cellular phones, personal digital assistants, and wireless-paging and Internet-access devices that will allow us to connect with anyone, anywhere, anytime. From the amusing ("Lovegetty" devices in Japan that light up when a person with the right date-potential characteristics appears in the vicinity) to the extraordinary (the overthrow of a repressive regime in the Philippines by political activists who mobilized by forwarding text messages via cell phones), Rheingold gives examples of the fundamentally new ways in which people are already engaging in group or collective action. He also considers the dark side of this phenomenon, such as the coordination of terrorist cells, threats to privacy, and the ability to incite violent behavior. Applying insights from sociology, artificial intelligence, engineering, and anthropology, Rheingold offers a penetrating perspective on the brave new convergence of pop culture, cutting-edge technology, and social activism. At the same time, he reminds us that, as with other technological revolutions, the real impact of mobile communications will come not from the technology itself but from how people use it, resist it, adapt to it, and ultimately use it to transform themselves, their communities, and their institutions.
Thoughtful Interaction Design: A Design Perspective on Information Technology
Jonas Löwgren - 2004
The shaping of digital artifacts is a design process that influences the form and functions of workplaces, schools, communication, and culture; the successful interaction designer must use both ethical and aesthetic judgment to create designs that are appropriate to a given environment. This book is not a how-to manual, but a collection of tools for thought about interaction design.Working with information technology--called by the authors the material without qualities--interaction designers create not a static object but a dynamic pattern of interactivity. The design vision is closely linked to context and not simply focused on the technology. The authors' action-oriented and context-dependent design theory, drawing on design theorist Donald Sch�n's concept of the reflective practitioner, helps designers deal with complex design challenges created by new technology and new knowledge. Their approach, based on a foundation of thoughtfulness that acknowledges the designer's responsibility not only for the functional qualities of the design product but for the ethical and aesthetic qualities as well, fills the need for a theory of interaction design that can increase and nurture design knowledge. From this perspective they address the fundamental question of what kind of knowledge an aspiring designer needs, discussing the process of design, the designer, design methods and techniques, the design product and its qualities, and conditions for interaction design.
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals
Katie Salen - 2003
In Rules of Play Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman present a much-needed primer for this emerging field. They offer a unified model for looking at all kinds of games, from board games and sports to computer and video games. As active participants in game culture, the authors have written Rules of Play as a catalyst for innovation, filled with new concepts, strategies, and methodologies for creating and understanding games. Building an aesthetics of interactive systems, Salen and Zimmerman define core concepts like play, design, and interactivity. They look at games through a series of eighteen game design schemas, or conceptual frameworks, including games as systems of emergence and information, as contexts for social play, as a storytelling medium, and as sites of cultural resistance.Written for game scholars, game developers, and interactive designers, Rules of Play is a textbook, reference book, and theoretical guide. It is the first comprehensive attempt to establish a solid theoretical framework for the emerging discipline of game design.
The Naked Diplomat: Understanding Power and Politics in the Digital Age
Tom Fletcher - 2016
Distrust and inequality are fuelling political and economic uncertainty. The scaffolding built around the global order is fragile, and the checks and balances created over centuries to protect liberty are being tested, maybe to destruction. Tom Fletcher, the youngest senior British ambassador for two hundred years, considers how we – as governments, businesses, individuals – can survive and thrive in the twenty first century. And how we can ensure that technology can make it easier of citizens truly to take back control.
Development as Freedom
Amartya Sen - 1999
Freedom, Sen argues, is both the end and most efficient means of sustaining economic life and the key to securing the general welfare of the world's entire population. Releasing the idea of individual freedom from association with any particular historical, intellectual, political, or religious tradition, Sen clearly demonstrates its current applicability and possibilities. In the new global economy, where, despite unprecedented increases in overall opulence, the contemporary world denies elementary freedoms to vast numbers—perhaps even the majority of people—he concludes, it is still possible to practically and optimistically regain a sense of social accountability. Development as Freedom is essential reading.
Fortunes of Feminism. From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal Crisis
Nancy Fraser - 2013
But feminism’s subsequent immersion in identity politics coincided with a decline in its utopian energies and the rise of neoliberalism. Now, foreseeing a revival in the movement, Fraser argues for a reinvigorated feminist radicalism able to address the global economic crisis. Feminism can be a force working in concert with other egalitarian movements in the struggle to bring the economy under democratic control, while building on the visionary potential of the earlier waves of women’s liberation. This powerful new account is set to become a landmark of feminist thought.