Watership Down (Martin Rosen, 1978) is as controversial as it is beloved. Whether due to the tear-jerking hit song 'Bright Eyes' or its notorious representation of violence inflicted by and upon animated rabbits, the film retains the ability to move and shock audiences of all ages, remaining an important cultural touchstone decades after its original release. This open access collection unites scholars and practitioners from a diversity of perspectives to consider the ongoing legacy of this landmark of British cinema and animation history. The authors provide nuanced discussions of Watership Down's infamous animated depictions of violence, death and its contentious relationship with child audiences, as well as examinations of understudied aspects of the film including its musical score, use of language, its increasingly relevant political and environmental themes and its difficult journey to the screen, complete with behind-the-scenes photographs, documents and production artwork. As the first substantial work on Watership Down, this book is a valuable companion on the film for scholars, students and fans alike.The eBook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.
"Explores and articulates Jean-Luc Nancy's profound impact on our understanding of artistic and literary modernism"--
Using cine-ethnomusicology as a focus, Cineworlding introduces readers to ways of thinking eco-cinematically. Screens are omnipresent, we carry digital cinema production equipment in our pockets, but this screen-based technological revolution has barely impacted social science scholarship. Mixing existential phenomenological fiction about social science digital cinema research practice followed by theoretical reflection and discussion of methods, this book has emerged from a decade-long inquiry into cineworlding and a desire to help others produce digital media to engage creatively with the digital networks that surround us.
When the Enlightenment thinker Gotthold Ephraim Lessing wrote his treatise Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry in 1766, he outlined the strengths and weaknesses of each art. Painting was assigned to the realm of space; poetry to the realm of time. Space and Time in Artistic Practice and Aesthetics explores how artists since the eighteenth century up to the present day have grappled with the consequences of Lessing's theory and those that it spawned. As the book reveals, many artists have been - and continue to be - influenced by Lessing-like theories, which have percolated into the art education and art criticism. Artists from Jean Raoux to Willem de Kooning and Frances Bacon, and art critics such as Clement Greenberg, have felt the weight of Lessing's theories in their modes of creation, whether consciously or not. Should we sound the death knell for the theories of Lessing and his kind? Or will conceptions of temporality, spatiality and artistic competition continue to unfold? This book - the first to consider how Lessing's writings connect to visual art's production - brings these questions to the fore.
How does cultural context affect the interpretation of art? What makes artists' work transnational or national in character, and how will their visibility be impacted by either label? Art and the Politics of Visibility questions these dynamics, asking how the dissemination of visual culture on a global scale affects art and its institutions. Taking Shanghai-based artist Yang Fudong's practice as a point of departure, this volume focuses on how politically charged images produced in contemporary art, cinema, literature, news media and fashion become widely consumed or marginalised. Through case studies of artists including Titus Kaphar, Sara Maple, Shirin Neshat, J.M. Coetzee, Barbara Walker and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the book illuminates the relationship between visibility, politics and identity in contemporary visual culture.
Art is produced, circulated, consumed and disseminated within an economic system - it depends on money for its creation, for the livelihood of its makers, and for its distribution. In this sense, art can be understood as an enterprising activity. However, profit-making is rarely the primary goal of artists, and indeed the entanglement of art with enterprise generates significant aesthetic, conceptual, philosophical and ethical challenges for contemporary art practice. Social enterprise has emerged from this complex terrain with the promise of an alternative model of economic organisation in the arts. Grace McQuilten and Anthony White argue that artists can, and have, engaged critically in the commercial market, by way of this model. Art as Enterprise brings a fresh perspective to the debate about the roles of contemporary art in consumer capitalist society.
"This volume provides the first critical comparison of Michel Foucault's aesthetics of existence and Richard Shusterman's somaesthetics. Introduced by a comprehensive overview of the concepts by the editors, the ensuing chapters build on the interdisciplinary character of both ideas, beyond a narrow focus on art and beauty, exploring a wide range of topics ranging from politics to the philosophy of sexuality. This volume reveals not only the important role Foucault's philosophy has played in Shusterman's work, but also how recent developments in somaesthetics and somapower present a complement, or even alternative, to Foucault's notions of biopower and biopolitics"--
"This book analyzes the relation between dominant frameworks of LGBTQ+ identity in India and non-elite, non-metropolitan communities such as kothis, dhuranis and hijras, a spectrum of feminine-identified people usually assigned male at birth. Going beyond the well-known 'third gender' hijra community, this is the first book to study the discourses and practices of related but underrepresented groups like kothis and dhuranis in small-town and rural India while simultaneously examining their relation to and role within LGBT identity politics"--
"Featuring case studies, essays, and conversation pieces by scholars and practitioners, this volume explores how Indian cinematic adaptations outside the geopolitical and cultural boundaries of India are revitalizing the broader landscape of Shakespeare research, performance, and pedagogy. Essays in this volume address practical and thematic concerns and opportunities that are specific to studying Indian cinematic Shakespeares in the West. For instance, how have intercultural encounters between Indian Shakespeare films and American students inspired new pedagogic methodologies? How has the presence and popularity of Indian Shakespeare films affected policy change at British cultural institutions? How can disagreement between eastern and western perspectives on the politics of a Shakespeare film become the site for productive cross-cultural dialogue? This is the first book to explore such complex interactions between Indian Shakespeare films and Western audiences to contribute to the assessment of the new networks that have emerged as a result of Global Shakespeare studies and practices. The volume argues that by tracking critical currents from India towards the West new insights are afforded on the wider field of Shakespeare Studies - including feminist Shakespeares, translation in Shakespeare, or the study of music in Shakespeare - and are shaping debates on the ownership and meaning of Shakespeare itself. Contributing to the current studies in Global Shakespeare, this book marks a discursive shift in the way Shakespeare on Indian screen is predominantly theorised and offers an alternative methodology for examining non-Anglophone cinematic Shakespeares as a whole"--
Cinema in the Arab world has been the subject of varied and rigorous studies, but most have focused on films as text, providing in-depth analyses of plot, style, ideologies, or examination of the biographies of prominent directors or actors.This innovative new volume shifts the focus on Arab cinema off-screen, to examine the histories, politics, and conditions of distribution, exhibition, and cinema-going in the Arab world. Through broadening the frame of study beyond the screen, the book widens understanding of the cinema, not merely as a collection of films-as-texts, but as a site of cultural and political contestation in the Arab world. Divided into two sections, and guided by interdisciplinary considerations, the contributors examine historical and contemporary issues of Arab cinema in terms of the experience of movie-going and filmmaking. They examine the networks of distribution and exhibition, as well as the contested and multiple meanings that the cinema embodied through diverse historical periods and geographical locations. Part I focuses on new histories of Arab cinema in terms of film production, distribution, exhibition and audience's experiences of cinema-going. Part II deals with more recent issues within scholarship on Arab cinema such as issues of politics, economics, ideologies, as well as issues related to Arab movies' international circulation and screenings at festivals. Together, the chapters enrich our understanding of the cinema in the Arab world, showing how deeply embedded it is within its social, political, and economic contexts.
Cookbooks. Menus. Ingredients. Dishes. Pots. Kitchens. Markets. Museum exhibitions. These objects, representations, and environments are part of what the volume calls the material cultures of food. The book features leading scholars, professionals, and chefs who apply a material cultural perspective to consider two relatively unexplored questions: 1) What is the material culture of food? and 2) How are frameworks, concepts, and methods of material culture used in scholarly research and professional practice? This book acknowledges that materiality is historically and culturally specific (local), but also global, as food both transcends and collapses geographical and ideological borders. Contributors capture the malleability of food, its material environments and "stuff," and its representations in media, museums, and marketing, while following food through cycles of production, circulation, and consumption. As many of the featured authors explore, food and its many material and immaterial manifestations not only reflect social issues, but also actively produce, preserve, and disrupt identities, communities, economic systems, and everyday social practices. The volume includes contributions from and interviews with a dynamic group of scholars, museum and information professionals, and chefs who represent diverse disciplines, such as communication studies, anthropology, history, American studies, folklore, and food studies.
This reference work covers the cuisine and foodways of India in all their diversity and complexity, including regions, personalities, street foods, communities and topics that have been often neglected. The book starts with an overview essay situating the Great Indian Table in relation to its geography, history and agriculture, followed by alphabetically organized entries. The entries, which are between 150 and 1,500 words long, combine facts with history, anecdotes, and legends. They are supplemented by longer entries on key topics such as regional cuisines, spice mixtures, food and medicine, rites of passages, cooking methods, rice, sweets, tea, drinks (alcoholic and soft) and the Indian diaspora. This comprehensive volume illuminates contemporary Indian cooking and cuisine in tradition and practice.
In Between the Seas, Deborah Paci takes a comparative view of islandness in island identities through case studies of islands in the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas. These case studies primarily include, in the Baltic case, the Åland Islands, Gotland, Saaremaa, Hiiumaa and Ruhnu; and in the Mediterranean case, Sicily, Malta, Sardinia and Corsica. Examining multiple sites of these islands' identities such as history, environmental concerns and governance systems, this book provides a historical perspective into the relations between islands and the larger geopolitical regions around them, as well as historicizing 'insularist' rhetoric deployed by pro-independence groups within them. Paci examines the changing role and increasing political importance of islands in the European Union against the history of island insularity and offers a significant contribution to the wider field of island studies.
Metaphor, which allows us to talk about things by comparing them to other things, is one of the most ubiquitous and adaptable features of language and thought. It allows us to clarify meaning, yet also evaluate and transform the ways we think, create and act. While we are alert to metaphor in spoken or written texts, it has, within the visual arts, been critically overlooked. Taking into consideration how metaphors are inventively embodied in the formal, technical, and stylistic aspects of visual artworks, Mark Staff Brandl shows how extensively artists rely on creative metaphor within their work. Exploring the work of a broad variety of artists - including Dawoud Bey, Dan Ramirez, Gaëlle Villedary, Raoul Deal, Sonya Clark, Titus Kaphar, Charles Boetschi, and more- he argues that metaphors are the foundation of visual thought, are chiefly determined by bodily and environmental experiences, and are embodied in artistic form. Visual artistic creation is philosophical thought. By grounding these arguments in the work of philosophers and cultural theorists, including Noël Carroll, Hans Georg Gadamer, and George Lakoff, Brandl shows how important metaphor is to understanding contemporary art. A Philosophy of Visual Metaphor in Contemporary Art takes a neglected feature of the visual arts and shows us what a vital role it plays within them. Bridging theory and practice, and drawing upon a capacious array of examples, this book is essential reading for art historians and practitioners, as well as analytic philosophers working in aesthetics and meaning.
Establishing science fiction as its own distinct and increasingly important narrative form, this book explores how the genre challenges pervasive perceptions of society as they appear in the conventional modern novel. Inspired by, and building upon, Georg Lukács's criticism of the orthodox novel for its depiction of life as alienating and disjointed, Milner, Murphy and Roberts demonstrate that science fiction steps beyond this contemporary form to be a more constructive form of literature, one able to conceive of society as complete, integrated and well-rounded. Taking stock of three kinds of science fiction which lie outside the scope of the modern novel - theological/ ontological science fiction, the science fiction of future history and epic science fiction - this book demonstrates the genre's unique capacity to encapsulate the whole world, persons and events, things and objects in a glance, and address the motive behind the longing for meaningful totality. With reference to a vast array of works by authors such as Michel Houellebecq, Elias Canetti, Isaac Asimov, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, Marge Piercy, Iain M. Banks, Margaret Atwood, Ursula K. Le Guin, William Gibson, Dirk C. Fleck, Philip K. Dick, George Orwell and Kazuo Ishiguro, this book offers a compelling argument for rethinking the position and potential of the science fiction novel and to challenge the way we perceive our culture.
In 18th-century Germany philosophers were occupied with questions of who we are and what we should be. Can the individual fulfill its vocation or is this possible only for humanity as a whole? Is significant progress towards perfection in any way possible for me or just for me as part of humanity? By following the origin and nature of these debates, this collection sheds light on the vocation of humanity in early German philosophy.Featuring translations of Spalding's Contemplation on the Vocation of the Human Being in its first version from 1748 and an extended translation of Abbt's and Mendelssohn's epistolary discussion around the Doubts and the Oracle from 1767, newly-commissioned chapters cover Johann Gottfried Herder's inherently cultural concept of the human being, Immanuel Kant's transformative interplay of moral and natural aspects, and the notion of metempsychosis in Fichte's work inspired by two neglected philosophers, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Johann Georg Schlosser. Opening further lines of inquiry, contributors address questions about the adaptations of Spalding's work that focus on the vocation of women as wife, mother or citizen.Exploring the multitude of ways 18th-century German thinkers understand our position in the world, this volume captures major changes in metaphysics and anthropology and enriches current debates within modern philosophy.
Focusing on representations of Celtic motifs and traditions in post-1980s adult fantasy literature, this book illuminates how the historical, the mythological and the folkloric have served as inspiration for the fantastic in modern and popular culture of the western world. Bringing together both highly-acclaimed works with those that have received less critical attention, including French and Gaelic fantasy literature, Imagining the Celtic Past in Modern Fantasy explores such texts as Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Alan Garner's Weirdstone trilogy, the Irish fantasies of Jodi McIsaac, David Gemmell's Rigante novels, Patricia Kennealy-Morrison Keltiad books, as well as An Sgoil Dhubh by Iain F. MacLeòid and the Vertigen and Frontier series by Léa Silhol. Lively and covering new ground, the collection examines topics such as fairy magic, Celtic-inspired worldbuilding, heroic patterns, classical ethnography and genre tropes alongside analyses of the Celtic Tarot in speculative fiction and Celtic appropriation in fan culture. Introducing a nuanced understanding of the Celtic past, as it has been informed by recent debates in Celtic studies, this wide-ranging and provocative book shows how modern fantasy is indebted to medieval Celtic-language texts, folkloric traditions, as well as classical sources.
The preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) is one of the most widely-read texts in Hegel's corpus, and yet we still lack a clear understanding of its aims. Providing a fresh perspective on Hegel's preface, Andrew Davis contends that it should be read as an overview of what philosophy is not. Contesting previous investigations that have assumed Hegel's purpose in the preface is to introduce the reader to his own philosophical method, Davis moves Hegel's positive comments about the nature of philosophy to the background. This is, after all, where they belong in a preface, according to Hegelian philosophy, as Hegel contends that the actual nature of philosophy cannot be presented in advance of specific inquiries. Examining the nature of philosophy through negation, each chapter in the book explores a different form of pseudo-philosophy that Hegel addresses in his preface. Together, they allow Hegelian philosophy to appear in relief as precisely what cannot be achieved through explanation, edification, formalism, phenomenology, mathematical proof, propositional truth, or personal revelation. With an appendix featuring synopses of every paragraph of the preface, Hegel on Pseudo-Philosophy not only offers a jargon-free introduction to Hegel's thought, but it also yields crucial insights into the organisation of a preface that has long been decried as haphazard or incomprehensible.
In this open access book, Carlos Montemayor illuminates the development of artificial intelligence (AI) by examining our drive to live a dignified life.He uses the notions of agency and attention to consider our pursuit of what is important. His method shows how the best way to guarantee value alignment between humans and potentially intelligent machines is through attention routines that satisfy similar needs. Setting out a theoretical framework for AI Montemayor acknowledges its legal, moral, and political implications and takes into account how epistemic agency differs from moral agency.Through his insightful comparisons between human and animal intelligence, Montemayor makes it clear why adopting a need-based attention approach justifies a humanitarian framework. This is an urgent, timely argument for developing AI technologies based on international human rights agreements.The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Carlos Montemayor and San Francisco State University.
Drawing heavily from the State Papers of the King, Henry VIII and the Merchants traces Stephen Vaughan's careers as a servant of Thomas Cromwell and of Henry VIII in the 16th century. Stephen Vaughan, a Londoner with an international outlook, was a member of the Company of Merchant Taylors, as well as a Merchant Adventurer in the Low Countries. As a young man Vaughan was drawn into the employ of Thomas Cromwell and worked in his private office. Thus, Vaughan became heavily involved in the world of government and court politics at a time when the style, tempo and effectiveness of official life in London was changing rapidly and the world was quickly opening up as his travels to Europe drew him into the enticing world of business and finance. For the first time, this notable study uncovers the secrets of Vaughan's life from his relatively humble beginning to his high power career as an ambassador, spy, and financial agent of the crown on the Bourse at Antwerp. What is more, on a wider canvas this intimate tale shows how individuals were affected by and reacted to the drastic changes in religion, politics and everyday life under the tumultuous reign of Henry VIII.
"The opponents of Epicureanism in antiquity, including Cicero, Plutarch and Lactantius, succeeded in establishing a famous clichâe: the theoretical and practical disinterest of Epicurus and the Epicureans in political communities. However, this anti-Epicurean literature did not provide considerations of Epicurean political theory or the testimonies about Epicurean lifestyle. Therefore, the purpose of this book is to shed light on the contribution of Epicurean thought to political life in the ancient world. Incorporating the most up-to-date archaeological material, including papyri which have been recovered from Herculaneum and the Greek epigraphy of the Roman Epicureans, this volume will bring to the foreground new testimonies surrounding the public activities of the Epicureans. In this way, the reader will learn that Epicurean political theory is, in fact, a crucial ingredient of its philosophy. As a result, this connection creates an ongoing dialogue with the Greek philosophical tradition, revealing the presence of Plato in the Epicurean political model"--
Despite pervading all aspects of educational practice and theory, little scholarship focuses on time in education. This book addresses that lacuna questioning our assumptions about time and their ramifications on theories of learning, issues of equity and diversity, and on the purposes of education itself. The authors examine ideas about time in a wide variety of contexts, from ancient Greek fiction to 19th century theories of evolution and from 20th century indigenous stories to 20th century afro-futurist fiction. They show how pervasive the image of 'time as an arrow' has become, an image of time that is one-way, singular and teleological. Through exploring other theories of time, the authors propose alternatives for time in education. They argue that time is one of the key biopolitical tools we think and operate with, but rarely address as a historical, cultural and pedagogical category with which schools reproduce oppressive structures around race, class, and gender in society. The book draws on ideas from the arts and the sciences to illustrate and trouble assumptions of time drawing on artistic and theoretic work from Édouard Glissant, Henri Lefebvre, Giordano Nanni, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Bonnie Honig and others.
What is fascism? Is it an anomaly in the history of modern Europe? Or its culmination? In Anti-Colonialism and the Crises of Interwar Fascism, Michael Ortiz makes the case that fascism should be understood, in part, as an imperial phenomenon. He contends that the Age of Appeasement (1935-1939) was not a titanic clash between rival socio-political systems (fascism and democracy), but rather an imperial contest between satisfied and unsatisfied empires.Historians have long debated the extent to which Western imperialisms served as ideological and intellectual precursors to European fascisms. To date, this scholarship has largely employed an "inside-out" methodology that examines the imperial discourses that pushed fascist regimes outward, into Africa, Asia, and the Americas. While effective, such approaches tend to ignore the ways in which these places and their inhabitants understood European fascisms. Addressing this imbalance, Anti-Colonialism adopts an "outside-in" approach that analyses fascist expansion from the perspective of Indian anti-colonialists such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Bose, and Mohandas Gandhi. Seen from India, the crises of Interwar fascism-the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, Spanish Civil War, Second Sino-Japanese War, Munich Agreement, and the outbreak of the Second World War-were yet another eruption of imperial expansion analogous (although not identical) to the Scramble for Africa and the Treaty of Versailles. Whether fascist, democratic, or imperialist, Europe's great powers collectively negotiated the fate of smaller nations.
"This book considers cultural identity and power relations in early fourth-century BCE Greece through a reading of Xenophon's historical narratives, the Hellenica, Anabasis and Cyropaedia. These texts depict conflicts between Greek states, conflicts between Greeks and non-Greeks, and relations between the elite individual and society. In all three texts, politically significant moments are imagined in visual terms. We witness spectacles of Spartan military victory, vistas of Asian landscape or displays of Persian imperial pomp, and historical protagonists are presented as spectators viewing and responding to events. Through this visual form of narration, the reader is encouraged imaginatively to place themselves in the position of the historical protagonists. In viewing events from different perspectives, and therefore occupying multiple, often conflicting political positions, the reader not only experiences the problems faced by historical actors, but becomes engaged in the political conflicts acted out in the narratives. The reader is prompted to take pleasure in the sight of Panhellenic achievement, but also to witness the divisions and conflicts between Greeks on class and ethnic lines. Similarly the reader is invited to identify with spectacular Greek and non-Greek figures of power as emblems of Greek imperial potential, but also to see through the eyes of those communities subjugated at their hands. The depiction of spectacles and spectators draws the reader into an active participation in the ideological contradictions of their time, in a period when Panhellenic aspiration co-existed with hegemonic competition between Greek states, and when Greeks could be both beneficiaries and victims of imperialism"--
What was the role of elected legislators? Was it to represent the opinions of constituents or to vote according to their informed opinions reflecting the needs of the kingdom? Most authorities have accepted Edmund Burke's depiction of 18th-century MPs, insisting it was their right to form their opinions without reference to the instructions of constituents. This study provides answers to these important questions and, in doing so, reveals that Burke's vision does not represent how the House of Commons functioned during the last two decades of the 18th century. Rather than focusing on specific issues or demographic groups, English MPs brings to the fore the legislative activity of a broad segment of late 18th-century English MPs. This book shows they were diligent legislators who attended to the needs of constituents, in the process developing strong connections with them. It demonstrates that these connections did not rest on shared beliefs in reformist ideologies except in, and around, the metropolis. Instead, they grew out of the members' timely and effective tending, session after session, to the host of measures brought forward by constituents and neighbours. McCahill explores, in fascinating detail, the consequences of this bond. In this book, McCahill draws from an impressive array of primary sources and secondary literature to combine a structural analysis with broad surveys and detailed case-studies. The result is an illuminating and a comprehensive account of the House of Commons between 1760 and 1790.
Providing an up-to-date, multi-perspective and cross-linguistic account of the centrality of the expressive function in communication, this book explores the conceptualization of emotions in language and the high emotional 'temperature' of a variety of contemporary discourses.Adopting a number of methodological angles, both qualitative and quantitative, the chapters present insights from cognitive linguistics, (critical) discourse analysis, corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics, as well as those resulting from the combination of these approaches. Using a wide variety of data types, from song lyrics and TV series to Twitter posts and political speeches, and through the analysis of a range of languages, including Arabic, English, Polish, Italian, Hungarian, and Turkish, the book offers a panoramic view of the multi-faceted interaction between language, expressivity and cognition.
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