- Table View
- List View
Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children
by Ann HulbertHulbert uses biography and critical analysis to examine the personal dramas, scientific theories, and social visions of 20th-century child-rearing experts including L. Emmett Holt, G. Stanley Hall, and Benjamin Spock. Hulbert explores the political and social forces that influenced child-care experts, describes the shifting (and often confusing) formulas and dogmas of their ambitious quest to predict and perfect children's futures, and concludes that a hundred years of expert advice have failed to ease modern child-rearing anxieties. Hulbert is the author of Annotation. (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Raising Brooklyn: Nannies, Childcare, and Caribbeans Creating Community
by Tamara R. MoseStroll through any public park in Brooklyn on a weekday afternoon and you will see black women with white children at every turn. Many of these women are of Caribbean descent, and they have long been a crucial component of New York’s economy, providing childcare for white middle- and upper-middleclass families. Raising Brooklyn offers an in-depth look at the daily lives of these childcare providers, examining the important roles they play in the families whose children they help to raise. Tamara Mose Brown spent three years immersed in these Brooklyn communities: in public parks, public libraries, and living as a fellow resident among their employers, and her intimate tour of the public spaces of gentrified Brooklyn deepens our understanding of how these women use their collective lives to combat the isolation felt during the workday as a domestic worker.Though at first glance these childcare providers appear isolated and exploited—and this is the case for many—Mose Brown shows that their daily interactions in the social spaces they create allow their collective lives and cultural identities to flourish. Raising Brooklyn demonstrates how these daily interactions form a continuous expression of cultural preservation as a weapon against difficult working conditions, examining how this process unfolds through the use of cell phones, food sharing, and informal economic systems. Ultimately, Raising Brooklyn places the organization of domestic workers within the framework of a social justice movement, creating a dialogue between workers who don’t believe their exploitative work conditions will change and an organization whose members believe change can come about through public displays of solidarity.
Raising Cane: The World of Plantation Hawaii
by Ronald T. TakakiDiscusses the history of Asian plantation workers in Hawaii.
Raising Children With Grit: Parenting Passionate, Persistent, and Successful Kids
by Laila SangurasGrit, the combination of passion and perseverance, has more of an influence on success than cognitive ability, and parents want nothing more than to raise happy, successful children. Raising Children With Grit: Parenting Passionate, Persistent, and Successful Kids provides the strategies that parents need to teach, motivate, and inspire children to pursue their passions with grit—and succeed. By focusing on self-discipline, parenting strategies, and personality traits, parents can cultivate perseverance in their children. By coupling that with an emphasis on curiosity and interest-building activities, parents can help their children define their passions. Additionally, this book offers tips for parents about working with school personnel, how to model grit in their own lives, and how social factors can influence the development of grit.
Raising Children: Surprising Insights from Other Cultures
by David F. LancyWhy in some parts of the world do parents rarely play with their babies and never with toddlers? Why in some cultures are children not fully recognized as individuals until they are older? How are routine habits of etiquette and hygiene taught - or not - to children in other societies? Drawing on a lifetime's experience as an anthropologist, David F. Lancy takes us on a journey across the globe to show how children are raised differently in different cultures. Intriguing, and sometimes shocking, his discoveries demonstrate that our ideas about children are recent, untested, and often contrast starkly with those in other parts of the world. Lancy argues that we are, by historical standards, guilty of over-parenting, of micro-managing our children's lives. Challenging many of our accepted truths, his book will encourage parents to think differently about children, and by doing so to feel more relaxed about their own parenting skills.
Raising Cooperative Kids: Proven Practices for a Connected, Happy Family
by Marion Forgatch Gerald Patterson Tim FriendSecrets To Becoming The Very Best Parent You Can BeBe there for your children every step of the way and give them memorable experiences.What's the recipe for a happy family? It’s collaboration and communication. Instilling a spirit of cooperation in your children is the real secret to providing the gift of a happy childhood, being a "good" parent, and building the family you have always wanted.Perfect your parenting techniques. Research psychologists Marion Forgatch and Gerald Patterson have over 40 years of practice and tested clinical and prevention trials. Their Raising Cooperative Kids provides a universal and easy to use manual no matter where you live or how your family is structured. Discover the formula for overcoming family struggles and inspiring children to cooperate-from toddlerhood into their teens.Change unwanted behaviorsTeach your children new behaviorsReduce family conflictsSpecific guidance is included for issues ranging from how to share the bathroom during the morning rush to what to do when a child misbehaves. The authors also remind us of the importance of play-enjoying each other and sharing time and activities together is the cornerstone of a connected, happy family.If you enjoyed books like The Whole-Brain Child, What to Expect When You're Expecting, or The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, then you’ll want to read Raising Cooperative Kids.
Raising Creative Teams: Practical Leadership for an Emotional Business
by Kevin FrankThere are a lot of books out there on how to be a creative professional. And a lot of schools where you can learn to be a creative professional. But let&’s say you find success on your chosen path, and they put you in charge of other creative professionals. Nobody tells you what to do then. Now they do. This book is a step-by-step guide to leading creative teams. You&’ll learn what a creative leader&’s job is (helping your team be more successful) and what it&’s not (telling people what to change about their work). How to have one-to-ones. What a one-to-one is in the first place. How to build creative culture. How to hire the right people. How to give feedback in a way that teams will listen. How to sell work. How to establish your creative vision. And most importantly, how to say thank you. What You Will Learn How to build relationships through one-to-ones How to create opportunities for team members to be successful How to build a culture that supports creativity How to build and manage teams How to give creative feedback How to sell work How to establish your creative vision and build your personal brand Who This Book is For New and aspiring leaders in creative fields such as advertising, design, production, and marketing, as well as experienced leaders looking to improve their skills.
Raising Empowered Daughters: A Dad-to-Dad Guide
by Mike AdamickA fists-up handbook for helping dads help their daughters resist the patriarchy, written by popular feminist dad blogger Mike AdamickAs a primary male role model in a girl's life, a father influences his daughter in profound ways, from the way she defines her female identity to what she expects from men. In Raising Empowered Daughters, Mike Adamick offers a wise and witty handbook for dads, suggesting ways to raise girls who won't settle for second-class-citizenship. Examining the extraordinary array of sexisms-both subtle and not-so-subtle-girls encounter, Adamick highlights not just the ways that girls and boys are treated differently but how the roles of moms and dads are shaped by society, too. Full of eye-opening anecdotes and dad-relatable humor, this is a necessary guide for every father who wants to raise a confident daughter.
Raising Generation Rx: Mothering Kids with Invisible Disabilities in an Age of Inequality
by Linda M. BlumWinner, 2016 Outstanding Publication in the Sociology of Disability, American Sociological Association, Section Disability and SocietyExamines the experiences of mothers coping with their children’s “invisible disabilities” in the face of daunting social, economic, and political realitiesRecent years have seen an explosion in the number of children diagnosed with “invisible disabilities” such as ADHD, mood and conduct disorders, and high-functioning autism spectrum disorders. Whether they are viewed as biological problems in brain wiring or as results of the increasing medicalization of childhood, the burden of dealing with the day-to-day trials and complex medical and educational decisions falls almost entirely on mothers. Yet few ask how these mothers make sense of their children’s troubles, and to what extent they feel responsibility or blame. Raising Generation Rx offers a groundbreaking study that situates mothers’ experiences within an age of neuroscientific breakthrough, a high-stakes knowledge-based economy, cutbacks in public services and decent jobs, and increased global competition and racialized class and gender inequality. Through in-depth interviews, observations of parents’ meetings, and analyses of popular advice, Linda Blum examines the experiences of diverse mothers coping with the challenges of their children’s “invisible disabilities” in the face of daunting social, economic, and political realities. She reveals how mothers in widely varied households learn to advocate for their children in the dense bureaucracies of the educational and medical systems; wrestle with anguishing decisions about the use of psychoactive medications; and live with the inescapable blame and stigma in their communities.
Raising Global IQ: Preparing Our Students for a Shrinking Planet
by Carl HobertA groundbreaking roadmap for improving global literacy and conflict-resolution skills in middle and high schools across the United States In Raising Global IQ, Carl Hobert calls on K-12 teachers, administrators, parents, and students alike to transform the educational system by giving students the tools they need to become responsible citizens in a shrinking, increasingly interdependent world. Drawing on his nearly thirty years teaching, developing curricula, and leading conflict-resolution workshops here and around the world, he offers creative, well-tested, and understandable pedagogical ideas to help improve our children's GIQ-- Global Intelligence Quotient. Cognizant of many U.S. schools' limited budgets and time, Hobert advocates teaching foreign languages early in life, honing students' conflict-resolution skills, providing creative-service learning opportunities, and offering cultural-exchange possibilities in students' own communities, as well as nationally and abroad--all before they graduate from high school.
Raising Government Children: A History of Foster Care and the American Welfare State
by Catherine E. RymphIn the 1930s, buoyed by the potential of the New Deal, child welfare reformers hoped to formalize and modernize their methods, partly through professional casework but more importantly through the loving care of temporary, substitute families. Today, however, the foster care system is widely criticized for failing the children and families it is intended to help. How did a vision of dignified services become virtually synonymous with the breakup of poor families and a disparaged form of "welfare" that stigmatizes the women who provide it, the children who receive it, and their families? Tracing the evolution of the modern American foster care system from its inception in the 1930s through the 1970s, Catherine Rymph argues that deeply gendered, domestic ideals, implicit assumptions about the relative value of poor children, and the complex public/private nature of American welfare provision fueled the cultural resistance to funding maternal and parental care. What emerged was a system of public social provision that was actually subsidized by foster families themselves, most of whom were concentrated toward the socioeconomic lower half, much like the children they served. Analyzing the ideas, debates, and policies surrounding foster care and foster parents' relationship to public welfare, Rymph reveals the framework for the building of the foster care system and draws out its implications for today's child support networks.
Raising Mixed Race: Multiracial Asian Children in a Post-Racial World
by Sharon H ChangResearch continues to uncover early childhood as a crucial time when we set the stage for who we will become. In the last decade, we have also seen a sudden massive shift in America’s racial makeup with the majority of the current under-5 age population being children of color. Asian and multiracial are the fastest growing self-identified groups in the United States. More than 2 million people indicated being mixed race Asian on the 2010 Census. Yet, young multiracial Asian children are vastly underrepresented in the literature on racial identity. Why? And what are these children learning about themselves in an era that tries to be ahistorical, believes the race problem has been “solved,” and that mixed race people are proof of it? This book is drawn from extensive research and interviews with sixty-eight parents of multiracial children. It is the first to examine the complex task of supporting our youngest around being “two or more races” and Asian while living amongst “post-racial” ideologies.
Raising Robots to be Good: A Practical Foray into the Art and Science of Machine Ethics
by Rebecca RaperIn 1941 Isaac Asimov famously introduced us to the idea of Robots with the ability to tell between right and wrong. However, as his stories go on to show, the ‘Laws of Robotics’ weren’t quite able to govern robots in a way that we would deem acceptable for humanity. In recent years, scientists have worked to try to understand how we might create robots with this capability – robots with morals – and as Robots and Artificial Intelligence Systems become more integrated into society and our lives, it seems that achieving this aim is as pertinent as ever. This book introduces this pursuit, known as Machine Ethics, and aims to outline some of the art and science behind the field – including the philosophy, psychology and computer science that underpins much of the research into this area. After the necessary background, and an exploration of the problem, a new theory is proposed inspired how we might envisage moral agency developing in a child. The proposal is that we need to cultivate moral development in a robot, in pretty much the same way we might parent a child: Raising Robots to be Good.
Raising Them Right: The Untold Story of America's Ultraconservative Youth Movement and Its Plot for Power
by Kyle SpencerA riveting behind-the-scenes account of the new stars of the far right—and how they’ve partnered with billionaire donors, idealogues, and political insiders to build the most powerful youth movement the American right has ever seen In the wake of the Obama presidency, a group of young charismatic conservatives catapulted onto the American political and cultural scenes, eager to thwart nationwide pushes for greater equity and inclusion. They dreamed of a cultural revolution—online and off—that would offer a forceful alternative to the progressive politics that were dominating American college campuses. In Raising Them Right, a gripping, character-driven read and investigative tour de force, Kyle Spencer chronicles the people and organizations working to lure millions of unsuspecting young American voters into the far-right fold—revealing their highly successful efforts to harness social media in alarming ways and capitalize on the democratization of celebrity culture.These power-hungry new faces may look and sound like antiestablishment renegades, but they are actually part of a tightly organized and heavily funded ultraconservative initiative to transform American youth culture and popularize fringe ideas. There is Charlie Kirk, the swashbuckling Trump insider and founder of the right-wing youth activist group Turning Point USA, who dreams of taking back the country’s soul from weak-kneed liberals and becoming a national powerbroker in his own right. There is the acid-tongued Candace Owens, a Black ultraconservative talk-show host and Fox News regular who is seeking to bring Black America to the GOP and her own celebritydom into the national forefront. And there is the young, rough-and-tumble libertarian Cliff Maloney, who built the Koch-affiliated organization Young Americans for Liberty into a political force to be reckoned with, while solidifying his own power and pull inside conservative circles.Chock-full of original reporting and unprecedented access, Raising Them Right is a striking prism through which to view the extraordinary shifts that have taken place in the American political sphere over the last decade. It establishes Kyle Spencer as the premier authority on a new generation of young conservative communicators who are merging politics and pop culture, social media and social lives, to bring cruel economic philosophies, skeletal government, and dangerous antidemocratic ideals into the mainstream. Theirs is a crusade that is just beginning.
Raising the Acceptance of Rank Reversing Redistributions: The Role of Need Considerations
by Patricia F. ZauchnerRedistribution is a major objective of welfare states. In certain cases, redistribution not only reduces the financial differences between some individuals or groups but also changes their positions in a financial ranking. Prior studies have indicated that such rank reversals can reduce support for redistribution. This book addresses this issue by arguing that if redistribution is aimed at meeting needs rather than promoting equality, the negative effect of rank reversals on the acceptance of redistribution can be reduced. The argument is first supported by a theoretical exploration, which, among others, endeavors to incorporate a no-reranking principle into the well-established list of distributive justice principles. It shows that although individuals may apply the no-reranking principle, the principle is normatively weak, especially compared to the need principle. The argument is further supported by evidence from an online third-party dictator game in which each decision-maker had to redistribute money between two other participants. It varied whether those participants were above or below a specific needs threshold and whether a transfer would reverse ranks or not. The results showed that when redistribution was required to satisfy the poorer person’s needs, the negative effect of rank reversals on the acceptance of redistribution almost vanished.
Raising the Race: Black Career Women Redefine Marriage, Motherhood, and Community
by Professor Riché J. BarnesPopular discussions of professional women often dwell on the conflicts faced by the woman who attempts to "have it all," raising children while climbing up the corporate ladder. Yet for all the articles and books written on this subject, there has been little work that focuses on the experience of African American professional women or asks how their perspectives on work-family balance might be unique. Raising the Race is the first scholarly book to examine how black, married career women juggle their relationships with their extended and nuclear families, the expectations of the black community, and their desires to raise healthy, independent children. Drawing from extensive interviews with twenty-three Atlanta-based professional women who left or modified careers as attorneys, physicians, executives, and administrators, anthropologist Riché J. Daniel Barnes found that their decisions were deeply rooted in an awareness of black women's historical struggles. Departing from the possessive individualistic discourse of "having it all," the women profiled here think beyond their own situation--considering ways their decisions might help the entire black community. Giving a voice to women whose perspectives have been underrepresented in debates about work-family balance, Barnes's profiles enable us to perceive these women as fully fledged individuals, each with her own concerns and priorities. Yet Barnes is also able to locate many common themes from these black women's experiences, and uses them to propose policy initiatives that would improve the work and family lives of all Americans.
Raising the World: Child Welfare in the American Century
by Sara FieldstonAfter World War II, American organizations launched efforts to improve the lives of foreign children, from war orphans in Europe and Japan to impoverished youth in the developing world. Providing material aid, education, and emotional support, these programs had a deep humanitarian underpinning.<P><P> But they were also political projects. Sara Fieldston’s comprehensive account Raising the World shows that the influence of child welfare agencies around the globe contributed to the United States’ expanding hegemony. These organizations filtered American power through the prism of familial love and shaped perceptions of the United States as the benevolent parent in a family of nations.
Raja Serfoji II: Science, Medicine and Enlightenment in Tanjore (Pathfinders)
by Savithri Preetha NairIn the early nineteenth century, the south Indian kingdom of Tanjore, which had come under the control of the East India Company, flourished as a ‘centre’ of enlightenment. This book traces the contours of the Tanjore enlightenment, which produced a knowledge that was at once modern and deeply rooted in the indigenous tradition. The chief protagonist of this first ever full-length study on Tanjore at the turn of the nineteenth century is Raja Serfoji II (r. 1798–1832), in whose world science and God coexisted comfortably. Tanjore at this time was a thriving contact-zone, linked to several centres through extensive local and global networks. Its court attracted a great number of visitors, including Christian missionaries, high-ranking Company officials, princely contemporaries, naturalists, and medical practitioners. Dwelling on the locatedness of science and enlightenment modernity in the context of the colonial periphery, the book describes how the Raja deployed certain ‘vectors of assemblage’ — an array of practices, instruments, theories and people, including his vast collection of manuscripts, books and scientific instruments, a Devanagari printing press, a menagerie, health establishments and a large retinue of trained experts and artists — to invent Tanjore as a contemporary ‘centre’. Shunning reductionist and diffusionist explanations of the transmission of Western science in colonial settings, the study uses hitherto unexplored archival sources to reconstruct the Tanjore enlightenment as the outcome of globally situated cross-cultural exchanges. It celebrates the openness and confidence with which European science was engaged with, assimilated, translated and reinvented in a ‘contact-zone’ located in the colonial backwaters of south India. The book will be of interest to historians, sociologists and those interested in history of science and medicine, anthropologists, cultural studies scholars, as well as the general reader.
Ralf Dahrendorf: Between Social Theory and Political Practice
by Olaf Kühne Laura LeonardiRalf Dahrendorf (1929 to 2009) has worked in sociology, political practice and political philosophy, and is associated with significant impulses in role theory and conflict theory. This book presents the first synthesis of his extensive oeuvre in English. Dahrendorf's political commitment was driven largely by his desire to maximize life chances, thus contributing to the further development of liberalism. In the tradition of Karl Popper, his work in all areas was aimed at defending the open society, and he saw conflicts, if they were settled, as being suitable in principle for contributing to social progress. This book provides insights into the various methodological and theoretical aspects and critiques of Ralf Dahrendorf's work, as well as his reflections on the position of sociology in the system of sciences and in relation to political practice. The current crisis of liberal politics has made Dahrendorf’s work more relevant than ever, and this overview will be of great interest to students and researchers across sociology, political science, political ideologies and European integration.
Rally the Scattered Believers: Northern New England's Religious Geography
by Shelby M. Balik“An important new interpretation of how religious change shaped American cultural identity in the early republic.” —Journal of American HistoryNorthern New England, a rugged landscape dotted with transient settlements, posed challenges to the traditional town church in the wake of the American Revolution. Using the methods of spatial geography, Shelby M. Balik examines how migrants adapted their understanding of religious community and spiritual space to survive in the harsh physical surroundings of the region. The notions of boundaries, place, and identity they developed became the basis for spreading New England’s deeply rooted spiritual culture, even as it opened the way to a new evangelical age.“I strongly recommend Balik’s book for those studying colonial religious landscapes and heritages not only in New England, but in the nineteenth-century religious diasporas that swept the continent with varying mixes of European colonials and also African and Asian heritages.” —Stanley D. Brunn, University of Kentucky“In this beautifully written and richly researched work, Shelby Balik shows how the travels of early nineteenth century Methodists, Universalists and freewill Baptist itinerant missionaries and congregations recreated the geography of New England Protestantism, setting in motion (literally) a tension between religious rootedness and religious uprootedness, center and periphery, that endures to today. Early American religious history in Balik’s retelling of it is one of bodies in constant movement in and out and around the city on the hill. The delight Balik takes in maps and journeys is infectious. This is a wonderful addition to American religious historiography.” —Robert Orsi, Northwestern University
Ralph Edwards: The Inside Story of a Worldwide Quest for Safer Medicines (Springer Biographies)
by Ian HembrowMedical treatments designed to help people can also be harmful or fatal. Around 2.5 million people die this way each year. So if any kind of medicine makes someone unwell, they or their doctor should report it. Those reports, from nearly every country in the world, go to the Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC) in Sweden. As the Centre’s first director, Professor Ivor Ralph Edwards transformed it from a tiny operation with limited horizons into an internationally acclaimed scientific organization at the heart of the World Health Organization’s Programme for International Drug Monitoring. He was then succeeded by his wife, Dr Marie Lindquist.This is the story of how a new science developed and a passionate and dedicated pursuit of worldwide medicines safety, with an unerring focus on the welfare of patients. The pioneering work of Ralph, Marie and their collaborators on every continent protected the lives of millions of people. It may yet improve the lives of billions more.
Rammsteins „Deutschland“: Pop – Politik – Provokation (Essays zur Gegenwartsästhetik)
by Thomas Ernst Melanie Schiller Christoph Jürgensen Moritz Baßler Lea Espinoza Garrido Kerstin Wilhelms Immanuel Nover Eva Stubenrauch Anna Seidel Matthias Schaffrick Jan-Peter HerbstRammstein provozieren. In ihren Songs und Musikvideos spielt die Band mit Doppeldeutigkeiten rund um die deutsche Geschichte und testet die Grenzen des Sag- und Singbaren. Besonders deutlich wird das in ihrer Single „Deutschland“, einer (Anti?)Hymne auf die Nation. Im cineastisch-bombastischen Musikvideo präsentieren sich die Bandmitglieder unter anderem als KZ-Insassen und SS-Offiziere. Alles nur Spektakel? Oder doch politisch? Das Verhältnis von Politik und Pop zeigt sich bei Rammstein in seinen verschiedenen Dimensionen.
Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia
by Steven Stoll<p>In Ramp Hollow, Steven Stoll offers a fresh, provocative account of Appalachia, and why it matters. He begins with the earliest European settlers, whose desire for vast forests to hunt in was frustrated by absentee owners―including George Washington and other founders―who laid claim to the region. Even as Daniel Boone became famous as a backwoods hunter and guide, the economy he represented was already in peril. Within just a few decades, Appalachian hunters and farmers went from pioneers to pariahs, from heroes to hillbillies, in the national imagination, and the area was locked into an enduring association with poverty and backwardness. Stoll traces these developments with empathy and precision, examining crucial episodes such as the Whiskey Rebellion, the founding of West Virginia, and the arrival of timber and coal companies that set off a devastating “scramble for Appalachia.” <p>At the center of Ramp Hollow is Stoll’s sensitive portrayal of Appalachian homesteads. Perched upon ridges and tucked into hollows, they combined small-scale farming and gardening with expansive foraging and hunting, along with distilling and trading, to achieve self-sufficiency and resist the dependence on cash and credit arising elsewhere in the United States. But the industrialization of the mountains shattered the ecological balance that sustained the households. Ramp Hollow recasts the story of Appalachia as a complex struggle between mountaineers and profit-seeking forces from outside the region. Drawing powerful connections between Appalachia and other agrarian societies around the world, Stoll demonstrates the vitality of a peasant way of life that mixes farming with commerce but is not dominated by a market mind-set. His original investigation, ranging widely from history to literature, art, and economics, questions our assumptions about progress and development, and exposes the devastating legacy of dispossession and its repercussions today.</p>
Ranch of Dreams: The Heartwarming Story of America's Most Unusual Animal Sanctuary
by Cleveland AmoryAfter reading Black Beauty as a child, Cleveland Amory dreamed that some day he would have a ranch where animals would not be abused, but instead would, like the famous horse, end their days roaming proud and free. Many people know that Amory has worked tirelessly for decades on behalf of animals: the founder of the Fund for Animals in 1967, he first confessed to being adopted by a stray cat himself in The Cat Who Came for Christmas, the best-selling cat book of all time. But few know that Amory did in fact realize his childhood ambition by establishing the Black Beauty Ranch in East Texas. Now he shares, in his all-but-patented combination of humor and warmth, the remarkable stories of these rescues. Over the years, countless animals who have been mistreated or simply found “inconvenient” have been saved from death’s door at this unique sanctuary. Wild burros from the Grand Canyon have been saved from massacre. Goats from San Clemente Island have been delivered from the sights of U.S. Navy guns. Nim the “talking” chimpanzee, perhaps the most famous animal in the country, was rescued from a laboratory. Creatures great and small, from elephants and buffalo to prairie dogs and, yes, cats, have found their haven at the ranch, where they can live out their lives with dignity, knowing, as the last line of Blacky Beauty puts it, “My troubles are all over, and I am at home.” At times heartbreaking, at times hilarious, always moving and engrossing. Ranch of Dreams is sure to capture the hearts and minds of Amory’s countless readers.
Random Acts of Culture: Reclaiming Art and Community in the 21st Century
by Clarke MackeyIn our society, cultural activity—or the arts—usually refers to the high culture of the elites and popular mass culture. Clarke Mackey argues for a third category that is as old as human society itself but seldom discussed: vernacular culture. Vernacular culture comprises all those creative, non-instrumental activities that people engage in daily, activities that provide meaning in life: conversations between friends, social gatherings and rituals, play and participatory sports, informal storytelling, musical jam sessions, cooking and gardening, homemade architecture, and street festivals. In this lively and eclectic discussion, Mackey maintains that practising and celebrating such activities at the expense of passive, consumer culture have far-reaching benefits. Mackey further examines how literacy, imperialism, industrialization and electronic technologies have produced a culture of spectatorship, apathy and powerlessness. This is a timely, considered, and provocative response to the popularity of amateur, participatory, and do-it-yourself culture available on the internet.