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Busting the Myth of the Communication Metaphor: How Technical Writing Conventions Perpetuate Injustice (SUNY series, Studies in Technical Communication)
by Sarah ReadTraces the linguistic, rhetorical, historical, cultural, and economic origins of our most basic beliefs and practices for successful technical writing to initiate a reckoning about who they serve and who they harm.Busting the Myth of the Communication Metaphor is a transdisciplinary approach to making visible and explaining the multiple origins of why our most basic beliefs about what makes scientific and technical writing successful are wrong, ineffective, and harmful. These tacitly held beliefs and practices, collectively called the Communication Metaphor, stand in as symbolic for a messier, more reality-based understanding of how writing and communication works. By starting from conventional statements made by scientists, technical professionals, and standard textbooks that "successful technical writing is short and to the point, with the facts only, no opinions," the book traces the histories and structures of the multiple elements of the Communication Metaphor. The text synthesizes survey results, multiple strands of scholarship, personal experience, and original illustrations into a powerful argument for imagining a more just approach to scientific and technical writing.
Haunting the World: Essays on Film After Perkins and Cavell (SUNY series, Horizons of Cinema)
by Dominic LashArgues that the experience of the ordinary film viewer and the investigations of the film scholar or film philosopher are not necessarily so far apart.In Haunting the World, Dominic Lash tries to show that taking films seriously in no way interferes with the pleasure we get from watching them. The book draws its title from the philosopher Stanley Cavell, who saw "haunting the world" as something we are all prone to and who claimed that cinema's relationship with this tendency is both an "importance" and a "danger" of film. Specifically, Lash proposes that the work of Cavell and of the critic and scholar V. F. Perkins have valuable lessons to offer contemporary film studies, some of which are in danger of being neglected. Written in a lively and approachable style that makes philosophical ideas accessible without simplifying them, the book argues that film theory risks going awry when it dismisses or underestimates the experience of the ordinary film viewer. Haunting the World offers fresh accounts of fundamental topics, including description, experience, and agency, and examines in detail important films by Ildikó Enyedi, Paul Thomas Anderson, Ridley Scott, Werner Herzog, Andrei Tarkovsky, Kelly Reichardt, and more.
Déjà Viewed: Nation, Gender, and Genre in Bollywood Remakes of Hollywood Cinema (SUNY series, Horizons of Cinema)
by Gohar SiddiquiSituates the remake as one of the primary responses to Bollywood's globalization and corporatization.Focused on post-1990 Bollywood remakes of Hollywood films, Déjà Viewed tells a larger story of the rapidly changing Indian film industry in the wake of globalization and corporatization. It situates the remake as a gendered response to these changes, drawing on approaches from film theory, gender studies, and cultural studies. The book looks at films from a variety of genres and modes, including the Bollywood family film, romantic comedy, noir, and melodrama, and each film's close analysis is accompanied by attention to concerns related to remake theory, such as homage, anxiety of influence, defamiliarization, and pastiche. Seeking to historicize how gender and genres become translated and transformed in the Bollywood remake, the book contributes to transnational understandings of gender and genre as media texts move across various borders—geographic, cinematic, economic, and aesthetic.
Lessons from Lockport: Dispatches from the Great American Divide (Excelsior Editions)
by Jim ShultzA long-time liberal activist gets an up-close political education about conservative America when he moves to a small town in upstate New York.During a time of great national division and a growing working-class rebellion that has turned American politics on its head, a longtime liberal activist moves to a small town in the conservative northwest corner of New York State. He becomes a weekly opinion columnist for the city's two-hundred-year-old daily newspaper. His columns force light into the dark corners of local politics and provoke local debate over national issues, from guns to climate change. Dozens of people begin to speak to him about his columns, in stores, on the street, in playgrounds, and beyond. His columns also spark fierce debate in a community Facebook group that includes almost everyone in town. The result is an up-close education about what makes small-town America tick, just as small towns like this one are driving a national political upheaval. Told through stories that will entertain readers as well as make them think, Lessons from Lockport offers a unique look at one of the most misunderstood corners of American culture.
D. T. Suzuki on the Unconscious in Zen Art, Meditation, and Enlightenment (SUNY series, Perspectives in Contemplative Studies)
by Steve OdinA comprehensive study of D. T. Suzuki's Zen philosophy and philosophical psychology in relation to his Buddhist understanding of the "cosmic Unconscious."This book explores how the Japanese philosopher D. T. Suzuki (1870–1966) developed an integral synthesis of Eastern and Western sources to establish a modern philosophical psychology of the "cosmic Unconscious," which he in turn used as the basis to interpret every aspect of Zen art, meditation, and enlightenment. Beyond Freud's personal unconscious and Jung's collective unconscious, according to Suzuki, is the cosmic Unconscious of Zen, which as absolute nothingness is the fountain of inexhaustible creative potentialities and the source of all Zen-inspired arts. The book demonstrates that, like the Kyoto School of modern Japanese philosophy, Suzuki's Zen endeavors to overcome the existential problem of nihilism or relative nothingness by shifting to the openness of absolute nothingness wherein emptiness is fullness and all things are disclosed in the evanescent beauty of their suchness. Suzuki, however, formulates his scheme in terms of a depth psychology where the cosmic Unconscious is the encompassing locus of absolute nothingness. Ultimately, the book argues that, by integrating both Eastern and Western views of the unconscious psyche, including the different schools of Zen and Mahayana Buddhism, as well as American, French, and German theories of the unconscious, Suzuki's Zen concept of the cosmic Unconscious constitutes a significant original contribution to philosophical psychology.
The Young Nietzsche's Education: An Interpretation of Nietzsche's Untimely Considerations
by Jozef MajerníkA new interpretation of what is arguably Nietzsche's most neglected work.This study is an interpretation of the four essays that comprise Nietzsche's Untimely Considerations (also called the Untimely Meditations) as a single, coherent whole whose focus is to educate their readers toward self-cultivation and genuine culture and ultimately to the philosophic life. Jozef Majerník engages in a close reading of each of the essays, finding in them Nietzsche's theoretical understanding of human life in general as well as the best possible kind of life and plans for large-scale cultural reform in conjunction with Wagner's Bayreuth project. The focal point of Majerník's interpretation is the complex understanding of the nature of the human soul found in the Untimely Considerations, which he terms the "erotic-historic soul" after its two main constituent parts, desiring and memory. He argues that this conception of the soul is, at its core, the same model that we find in Nietzsche's mature works.
Bioarchaeology of the Southwest: Volume 1 (Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives)
by Clark Spencer LarsenA wide-ranging synthesis of research illuminating the lives of ancient people who lived in the deserts, mountains, and river valleys of the North American SouthwestThe two volumes of Bioarchaeology of the Southwest bring together more than 100 years of research into the lives of the ancient people of the Southwest United States and Northwest Mexico. Featuring contributions from specialists working in academic, museum, and cultural resource management settings, these books make available knowledge from a variety of unpublished sources that have been difficult to access until now.The volume 1 chapters range from Colorado to central New Mexico and the Lower Pecos region of Texas, addressing the bioarchaeology of the Archaic hunters and foragers, the Basketmaker II people, and communities of the Mesa Verde region, Chaco Canyon, the Middle San Juan or Totah region, the Northern Rio Grande, and the Middle Rio Grande. Chapters discuss topics such as morphology and stature, biodistance, paleopathology, dental health, evidence of injuries and violence, and mortuary practice.With chapters representing hundreds of ancient communities dating from the Archaic to the early Historic period, Bioarchaeology of the Southwest demonstrates the range of topics that can be addressed through the contextualized study of human remains, the insights this field offers into the everyday experiences of people in the past, and the challenges and promise of collaborative approaches to this research. Together, these volumes constitute an unparalleled resource for understanding the history of bioarchaeology and critical issues impacting the future of the discipline in the region.Contributors: Anna Osterholtz | Rachael Byrd | Genevieve Woodhead | Ann L. W. Stodder| Kristin A. Kuckelman | Dawn M. Mulhern | Robin M. Cordero | Lexi O'Donnell | Cherie K. Walth | Catrina Banks Whitley | Charles Hilton | Nancy J. Akins | Ann M. PalkovichA volume in the series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen
New Histories of Village Life at Crystal River (Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series)
by Victor D. Thompson Thomas J. PluckhahnAn in-depth study of a Woodland period archaeological site that was occupied for over 1,000 years This volume explores how native peoples of the Southeastern United States cooperated to form large and permanent early villages using the site of Crystal River on Florida’s Gulf Coast as a case study. Crystal River was once among the most celebrated sites of the Woodland period (ca. 1000 B.C. to A.D. 1050), consisting of ten mounds and large numbers of diverse artifacts from the Hopewell culture. But a lack of research using contemporary methods at this site—and nearby Roberts Island—limited a full understanding of what these sites could tell scholars. Thomas Pluckhahn and Victor Thompson reanalyze previous excavations and conduct new field investigations to tell the whole story of Crystal River from its beginnings as a ceremonial center through its growth into a large village to its decline at the turn of the first millennium while Roberts Island and other nearby areas thrived. Comparing this community to similar sites on the Gulf Coast and in other areas of the world, Pluckhahn and Thompson argue that Crystal River is an example of an “early village society.” They illustrate that these early villages present important evidence in a larger debate regarding the role of competition versus cooperation in the development of human societies. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series
Sensational Joyce: The Psychology of Ulysses (The Florida James Joyce Series)
by John GordonExploring how Ulysses imitates the human mind at work, connecting close readings to psychological theories of Joyce’s time In this book, John Gordon uses historically oriented close readings to demonstrate that Ulysses is a book that mimics the workings of the human mind. Gordon highlights James Joyce’s exceptional ability to capture and represent lived experiences, showing how Joyce’s writings display the ways specific minds interact with their environments. Ulysses is portrayed here as having its own evolving consciousness. Sensational Joyce is the first book on Joyce’s psychology to engage deeply with theorists beyond Freud, Jung, or Lacan. Gordon explains how Joyce used other psychological theories, like William James’s ideas on stimulus and response, Gestalt psychology, John Watson’s behaviorism, and trauma research. The book also includes discussions of phenomena considered experimental at the time, such as telepathy, telekinesis, precognition, and spiritualism. Gordon examines the characters of sensitive intellectual Stephen Dedalus and advertising professional Leopold Bloom, following the book’s centers of consciousness into the visionary, hallucinatory, and prophetic final chapters. Gordon highlights how Joyce’s unique writing style transforms sensations and stimuli into thoughts and responses. As Ulysses progresses, the sensational—meaning sensory data—becomes sensationalistic. In tracing the contemporary theories of psychology evidenced in the novel, Sensational Joyce presents many new and original interpretations that can be applied to other works by Joyce, especially Finnegans Wake. A volume in the Florida James Joyce Series, edited by Sam Slote
Racing Uphill: Confronting a Life with Epilepsy
by Stacia KalinoskiThe candid, inspiring story of a woman&’s experience with a chronic, unpredictable neurological condition When twenty-nine-year-old reporter Stacia Kalinoski regained consciousness on a couch at the TV station where she worked, she assumed that she&’d had another seizure. But the electrical storm that had just torn through her brain was more destructive than she could have imagined, and the broadcast journalism career she loved swiftly came to an end. Forced to confront the reality of her medical condition, Kalinoski made the risky decision to undergo brain surgery, targeting the epilepsy that was ravaging her life. In Racing Uphill, Kalinoski describes the seizures that occurred while she was running, which led to her pursuit of an uncertain cure. Rallying the grit she developed as an athlete and engaging the research and reporting skills she acquired as a journalist, she gives us a rare inside look at the ways epilepsy can change a life. Moving beyond her own personal experience, Kalinoski interviews prominent epileptologists to understand how seizures can spread, steal memories, and create strange behaviors and mood disorders. She seamlessly joins what she learned from her research with her own story, offering valuable insight into the experience of grappling with a relentless neurological disease. The vivid auras that preceded seizures and the damage that followed; the toll of her epilepsy on her family and loved ones; the extraordinary determination her reckoning required—these are all part of Kalinoski&’s story of adversity, denial, acceptance, and resilience. In sharing the remarkable opportunity that epilepsy presented for her courage and growth, Stacia Kalinoski speaks to anyone facing an uphill battle and offers inspiration for taking control of one&’s own health.
The Anthropology of Retirement: Life Beyond Work (Life Course, Culture and Aging: Global Transformations)
by Daniel Miller Pauline GarveyAs a result of growing life expectancy, the period of retirement is likely to surpass the entire period of working life in many countries. There is little acknowledgement that retirement is not an event but an extended period of life that unfolds over several decades. Experiences vary considerably across the globe, from areas where most people cannot afford to retire to places where a multitude of new possibilities are being developed for retirees. This book is an anthropological approach to consider life beyond retirement in a wide range of contexts and consequences.
From Hard Rock to Heavy Metal: Metal Tool Production and Use by Indigenous Hunter-Gatherers of North America
by Christopher B. Wolff Michelle R. BebberThe discovery and development of metals as tool media is a topic of global interest. This phenomenon is generally associated with sedentary, agricultural societies; however, in North America metal use by hunter-gatherer populations began as early as 9,000 years ago and continued into modern times. The regional and cultural diversity of research in this volume contributes to how we conceptualize hunter-gatherer innovation, technological proficiency, and complex decision-making in the past. Readers are challenged to reconsider long-held assumptions about how, when, and under what conditions metal became a part of humanity’s story.
Language and Political Subjectivity: Stancemaking, Power and Politics in Chile and Venezuela (Studies in Linguistic Anthropology)
by Miki Makihara Juan L. RodríguezPolitics and power are understood as interconnected yet opposed forms of agency that do not exist without each other and depend on transgressions and the upholding of social boundaries. Language and Political Subjectivity is an ethnographic and historical piece of research that considers how Indigenous and diasporic communities, with their political subjectivities, expand over significant sociohistorical changes, debates, and struggles in the transformation of Chilean democracy and Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution. It offers an innovative approach to stancemaking as a rhetorical semiotic process that produces truth, beliefs, and certainties about social realities and relations.
The Duty of Memory: Changing Language in the Era of Memory, 1970 – 2010 (Worlds of Memory)
by Sébastien LedouxWithin France, the expression “duty of memory” (le devoir de mémoire)speaks to a complex and ever-evolving relationship with the past. Emerging in the 1970s, this term raised questions about memorialization which dominated public debates in the 1990s, highlighting France’s entanglements with colonialism and the Holocaust. Drawing on a variety of interviews, archival sources, and data surveys, author Sébastien Ledoux spotlights how the trajectory of this term offers a lens for understanding contemporary societies’ relationship with the past on a global scale.
Fabrics of Anthropological Knowledge: Changing Perspectives in Europe and Beyond
by Fabiana Dimpflmeier Hande Birkalan-GedikWeaving together a collection of original essays, this book looks at the transnational circulations of people, concepts and practices in anthropology, revealing the many ways that they cross borders. The essays focus on European anthropological traditions and beyond, including broader transnational interactions, to uncover the intricate fabrics of interconnected influences that have shaped anthropology. By presenting these diverse threads, the volume challenges the notion of singular, separated traditions of anthropology and demonstrates how the field has been shaped by a rich plurality of transnational connections, negotiations and entanglements in the past and today.
Not the Troubles: Alternative Narratives from Belfast (Material Mediations: People and Things in a World of Movement)
by Karen LaneBelfast is often analysed as a divided society, anchored in ethno-politico-religious differences amid a long history of conflict. However, shifting the focus of academic attention reveals a range of alternative narratives of city life. Using storytelling as a leitmotif, this ethnographic account explores the epistemological validity of engaging with strangers in a range of settings, such as street corners, a hairdresser’s and a storytelling evening. It considers how creative writers represent life in Belfast. The author employs a variety of methods, including a dog as a research assistant and storytelling on location which demonstrates how people can re-shape and re-narrate life in Belfast.
Austria's Difficult Past: Memory of National Socialism and the Filmization of Television (1960-1980) (Austrian and Habsburg Studies)
by Jakub Gortat GortatThe role played by film in reshaping Austria’s post-war national identity is often studied within narrow historical and geographical margins. Film history traditionally focuses on either the work of a sole director, German cinematography, or the immediate aftermath of World War II, and neglects the link that exists between historical television films and Austria’s distinct culture of remembrance. In Austria’s Difficult Past, Jakub Gortat addresses this gap by providing a comprehensive analysis of television films produced by Austrian (ORF) and German television studios between 1961 and 1980. In doing so, he explores the way films mediated the burden of memory and the legacy of Austria’s complicity in the Nazi regime.
A German General and the Armenian Genocide: Otto Liman von Sanders Between Honor and State
by Muriel Mirak-WeissbachThe legacy of the German General, Otto Liman von Sanders, remains highly contested in the history of twentieth-century Europe and the Middle East. Noted for leading the 5th Ottoman army’s successful defence of the Dardanelles and Gallipoli in 1915, his role in opposing the Young Turks’ genocide policy and safeguarding Greeks, Armenians, and Jews is overshadowed by his imprisonment for war crimes in 1919. In this enlightening reassessment of Liman von Sanders’ life, Muriel Mirak-Weissbach uses previously-unpublished archival materials to uncover new dimensions to this story and, in doing so, explores wider ethical questions concerning the role of the individual in global crises, the nature of morality in military conflict, and the limitations of justice.
Lessons of History: Learning from Catastrophe and Crisis in Twentieth-Century Europe
by Klas-Göran Karlsson and Maria KarlssonHistorical lessons are useful or even necessary for our guidance and orientation in time. These lessons, however, have often been overlooked in historical reflections on watershed moments, such as genocides, treaties, and global movements. Focusing on how cataclysmic events, primarily within Central and Eastern Europe, have been transmitted across borders and generations, this volume interrogates how the theory of historical lessons has evolved, ultimately providing a useful framework for understanding contemporary conflicts and issues. Spanning topics from the mediation of history within film to the influence of historical oppression on student activism, this volume re-evaluates historiography’s potential for analyzing the past and engaging with the present.
Elsdon Best (Anthropology's Ancestors)
by Jeffrey Paparoa Holman Frederico Delgado RosaNew Zealander ethnographer, Elsdon Best is a key figure in the history of anthropology due to his involuntary triggering of a fundamental and long-lasting anthropological debate on the Māori concept of hau. This volume is dedicated to this important scholar, who at the same time was shadowed by metropolitan anthropology and became an excluded ancestor, along with his Māori interlocutors and ethnographic collaborators. By recentering his place as one of anthropology’s ancestors, the volume contributes to a new perception of the discipline’s past.
The Haunted Cinema of Pedro Costa
by James Naremore Darlene J. SadlierFor over three decades, Portuguese director Pedro Costa has been widely admired for his unusual and innovative body of work, which has earned accolades and wide acclaim. The Haunted Cinema of Pedro Costa is the most complete treatment of his work, exploring Costa's feature films from Blood to Vitalina Varela, and from the documentaries to the short films, museum exhibitions, and the forthcoming Daughters of Fire. Authors James Naremore and Darlene J. Sadlier situate Costa within the history and culture of Portugal, at the same time providing insightful close readings and stylistic analysis of the films. Their work explores the unusual features of his artistry and illuminates his unique contribution to cinema. An accessible portrait of an important artist, The Haunted Cinema of Pedro Costa is an indispensable companion for scholars, students, and cinephiles everywhere.
The Voice of the Century: Kirsten Flagstad
by Ingeborg SolbrekkenIn 1935, the Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad made her United States debut in a live radio broadcast that went across the country and made her an overnight success. Flagstad went on to enjoy an astounding career at the Metropolitan Opera, becoming one of the most well-known singers of the twentieth century.The Voice of the Century tells Flagstad's story–one of triumph and tragedy. The shy and stubborn Norwegian singer rescued the New York Metropolitan from bankruptcy in the 1930s, revitalizing interest in Richard Wagner's operas in the United States. She was also a sensation in Europe, performing at Covent Garden in London, at festivals in Zurich, and at La Scala in Milan. In music history, she is considered one of the foremost Wagner interpreters ever. Yet during and after the Second World War, a campaign to discredit her was launched by leading officials in the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, and she was unjustly accused of harboring Nazi sympathies, of singing to Hitler, and of profiting greatly from the war. This smear campaign resulted in major demonstrations at her performances in the United States. Her fortune was seized, and she had to live under police protection. Finally translated into English, this biography looks into the darkest corners of Norwegian intelligence history, scandals that jeopardized both the police and the prosecution's credibility. As creepy and riveting as any thriller, The Voice of the Century is a thoroughly documented account of how a foreign ministry organized a years-long persecution of a world-renowned female artist.
Caught in the Crosshairs: Feminist Comedians and the Culture Wars (Comedy & Culture)
by Amber DayThe landscape of comedy has undergone a seismic shift in recent years with an increasing number of female comedians breaking through to mainstream audiences. Women are claiming high-profile roles as late-night hosts, sketch comedians, television producers, and standup stars. As they disrupt industry norms and transgress cultural boundaries, they have also become lightning rods for controversy, eliciting flares of anger, amazement, revulsion, or hope.Caught in the Crosshairs delves not only into the work of feminist icons like Samantha Bee, Amy Schumer, Leslie Jones, Michelle Wolf, and Hannah Gadsby, but also into the discourse surrounding their comedy. Author Amber Day argues that these debates transcend mere entertainment; they are cultural battlegrounds for larger philosophical and political conflicts, interrogating ideals of gender, race, power, and public space. We see conflicts over what should be considered scandalous or beyond the pale, who should be in the intended audience, what is appropriate behavior for which performing bodies, and what the boundaries of comedy ultimately are. Caught in the Crosshairs is an examination of how feminist comedy reflects the tensions of our times, disrupting established narratives and challenging traditional power structures.
Creating Culture, Performing Community: An Angahuan Wedding Story (Underground Cultures)
by Mintzi Auanda Martínez-RiveraCreating Culture, Performing Community explores the ways in which the people of Santo Santiago de Angahuan, a P'urhépecha community in the state of Michoacán, México, create and curate their cultural practices and how, by doing so, they perform what it means to be an active member of the P'urhépecha community. Through a deep ethnographic account of ritual practices, author Mintzi Auanda Martínez-Rivera focuses on the tembuchakua, or wedding rituals, analyzing their creation, performance, and transformation within the P'urhépecha community. By proposing alternative approaches to understanding indigeneity, Martínez-Rivera showcases how people carefully transform their cultural practices and rearticulate and perform their identities.Thus Creating Culture, Performing Community has three main aims: to analyze how people create their own culture; to showcase how cultural practices are performed to reflect particular ideas of what it means to be a member of a community; and to move beyond limited understandings of indigenous identity and cultural practices.
Not Quite White: A Memoir
by Laila WoozeerNeither here, nor there; neither one, nor the other. What does it feel like to be an indescribable shade somewhere in between? Can you even exist in a binary world that seems so black-and-white? Why is there no easy way to describe someone who is a Welsh-French-Scottish-American-Indian-Mauritian?Laila Woozeer, a mixed-race 28-year-old London-born writer and musician, shares a personal story of growing up in a rural white village in North Wales. Laila takes readers on a funny, vivid, and profoundly moving journey of discovering one's own identity and belonging through her travels between Mauritius, the US, and the UK, to make sense of the world and one's place within it. This is the real-life story of Laila Woozeer trying desperately to understand how to exist, how to survive, and what it might mean to thrive. From childhood memories of self-discovery to an identity crisis of adolescence, to a misunderstood existence in adult life, Not Quite White charts Laila's struggle to finally find a meaningful place in the world.