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This book explores the under-researched sources of the consumerist culture and the environmental damage it has brought about. The book is an outcome of the symposium on “The Ethics of Consumption” organised and hosted by the Las Casas Institute at the Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford as part of its Economics as a Moral Science Programme. It takes on two contemporary problems: the human weakness and capacity for wrong-doing, and the failure of modern economic theory to account for the moral character of human behaviour and its implicit encouragement of gluttonous life-styles. In a time when grand political schemes are proposed to revive sustainability of global economy, the authors of the papers collected in this book highlight the need for moral renewal without which the most revolutionary structural reforms are bound to fail at producing the desired outcome. Topics of the book include the meaning and sources of avarice, the attempt to define what is enough, exploration of philosophical and theological perspectives which can serve as building blocks for the ethics of consumption. This makes the book of great interest to a broad readership of economists, social scientists and philosophers.

This book involves collection of papers primarily focused on the origin and development of Chinese civilization in the concept of archaeological context from the 6000 BCE to 1300 BCE through archaeological cultural perspectives. It systematically illustrates the prehistoric cultural history of China at the period from Neolithic to the early Bronze Age during 20000-1300 BCE, composing not only the proper region around the Central Plain but also the margin areas mainly in the west, and examines the cultural relationship and exchanges nationally and internationally through thousand years of advancing social complexity in geographical and temporal genealogies. It introduces three prehistoric stages for the course of Chinese Civilization Development; the three major Civilization Development Models during the Chalcolithic period; how environmental changes and warfare functioned as the part of mechanism to make civilization evolve; the Bronze Age Revolution from the West; and the critical evaluation of the characteristics belonging to Chinese Civilization and the review of ancient legendary histories and legends through the archaeological perspectives. This book is essential reading for all those wanting more information about the foundations of Chinese history and civilization through archaeological studies.

While many of us may strive to locate a sense of identity and belonging expressed via a home or ancestral homeland; today, however, this connection is no longer, if it ever was, a straightforward identification. This collection aims at mapping narratives or artwork of home/homeland that present shared, private, multifaceted, and often contested experiences of place, especially in the context of today's migrations and upheavals, along with alarming degrees of increased nativism, racism, and anti-Asian violence. This volume includes papers by artists, filmmakers, and comparative scholars from diverse disciplines of literature, cinema, art history, cultural studies, and gender studies. Our goal is to help literary and art historian scholars in Asian diaspora studies, better decolonize and open up traditional research methodologies, curricula, and pedagogies.

­This book discusses how cities'identities are formed and developed over time and portrays architecture and the arts as the embodiment of the historical, cultural, and economic characteristics of cities. Furthermore, it explores strategies and solutions to preserve the cultural heritage along the Silk Road, representing a compilation of research addressing the economic and social opportunities and challenges related to the development of a more sustainable and responsible approach to tourism development and the preservation of heritage. As such, it covers a wide range of audiences including economists, architects, planners, tourism experts, and decision-makers interested in making use of cities'available resources and features, offering strategies to explore development opportunities through sustainable and responsible tourism along the Silk Road. ­ This book is a culmination of selected research papers from the first version of the International Conference on'Silk Road Sustainable Tourism Development and Cultural Heritage (SRSTDCH)'which was held in 2021 in collaboration with Aristotle University of ­ Thessaloniki, the European Interdisciplinary Silk Road Tourism Centre, Greece and the 5th Edition of the International Conference on “Cities'Identity ­Through Architecture and Arts (CITAA)” which was held in 2021 in collaboration with University of Pisa, Italy.

Die Herausgebenden legen mit „Globale Soziologie“ einen Band vor, der in Debatten um die Dekolonisierung der Disziplin interveniert. Sie vereinen Beiträge, die anhand dreier Fragenkomplexe die international bereits geebneten, im deutschsprachigen Raum jedoch kaum betretenen Wege zu einer Globalen Soziologie aufzeigen und erweitern. Sie stellen zunächst die Geschichte der Soziologie auf den Prüfstand und fragen, von welchen Standpunkten aus „klassische“ Theorien entworfen wurden und wessen Lebensrealitäten sie erfassen und adressieren. Insbesondere die ungleichen Voraussetzungen in der Konstruktion und Zirkulation von „Klassikern“ bei institutionell hergestellter Unsichtbarkeit anderer Werke finden Berücksichtigung. Zweitens gehen die Beiträge des Buchs der Frage nach, welche epistemologischen und methodologischen Schlüsse sich aus diesen historiographischen und theoretischen Kritiken und Rekonstruktionen ziehen lassen. Sie erarbeiten Vorschläge, die einen erkenntnistheoretischen Wandelhin zu einer reflexiven, multiperspektivischen und global verflochtenen Soziologie begründen und fortführen können. Drittens werden Schlüsselthemen identifiziert und anhand empirischer Studien aus der Arbeit-, Migrations- und Geschlechtersoziologie illustriert.

In China, heritage projects are sprouting across the countryside carrying the promise of Xi Jinping's “Chinese dream” as a call for the great revival and rejuvenation of the nation. This book unravels the workings behind these promises through the story of remaking Meili, a Dong ethnic minority village nestled along the margins of China, into a “Traditional Village” heritage site. In a past riven by deep political and societal disruptions, Meili becomes a medium for contesting, mediating and continuously inventing representations of tradition that aligns with the Chinese Communist Party's mission towards continuity and stability. The outcome is an original depiction of the compromises that shape heritage-making in a rural ethnic corner of China. Filled with rich, fine-grained narrative and analysis, Suvi Rautio offers a unique lens to the politics of inventing tradition and its far-reaching consequences in steering China's national identity under Xi Jinping rule.

This book explores the various types of Appropriate Dispute Resolution (ADR) applied in Nigeria, the UK, and the US. It critically examines the effectiveness of mediation, arbitration, restorative justice, collaborative law, and online dispute resolution (ODR) in settling disputes or conflicts, while also demonstrating the benefits of ADR and multi-door courthouses (MDCs). The book provides a concise introduction to the resolution of disputes or conflicts in Africa prior to the advent of colonial rule. It suggests that a ‘legal transplant'can also take place from a less complex society to a more complex one, contrary to the general belief that legal transplants usually proceed from a more complex society to a less complex one.The book aims to help people understand ADR mechanisms and the advantages of settling disputes using means other than litigation. It presents Traditional African Methods of Settling Disputes (TAMSD), Early Dispute Resolution (EDR), arbitration, negotiation, ODR, collaborative law, restorative justice, conciliation, ombuds, and early neutral evaluation as viable alternatives. It also highlights the need for clinical legal education and effective messaging that highlights the benefits of ADR compared to traditional litigation. In turn, it analyses the use of ADR, especially mediation and collaborative law, to settle disputes in criminal law, restorative justice, employment law, and business and human rights due diligence/violation cases. Further, the book demonstrates that criminal matters are now under the scope of ADR via Restorative Justice Door.The book discusses the skills, techniques, and relevant statutory frameworks for each field of Appropriate Dispute Resolution and provides national and international examples of the application of the relevant principles. Addressing the fields of Appropriate Dispute Resolution (ADR), criminal law, civil law, business management, psychology, employment law, humanresource management, and African studies, it will appeal to a wide readership.

This book interprets the concepts, philosophies and cultural traditions of lunli (roughly construed as “relationships and rationality”) from the perspective and domain of ‘dialogue civilization.'On the conceptual level, it expounds the common reference and different tenets of the Chinese lunli and the Western “ethic”, exploring the characteristics of lunli and'ethic'in civilization history, considering notably the difference between unification of family and state and division of the two at the embryonic stage of civilization. The book draws on the lunli-oriented culture and religion-based culture to demonstrate the difference between Chinese lunli and Western “ethic” in their respective top design and ultimate care, by exploring the issue “What the world would be like, if there were no lunli” for the Chinese and “What the world would be like, if there were no God” for westerners. Since lunli is the most prominent feature of “being Chinese”, or the most symbolic and interpretative Chinese cultural concept, this pivot provides a key introduction for Western readers not only to the concept itself, but also to modern day Chinese culture.

The National Mind argues that understanding the power of nationalism requires probing into its cognitive and emotional influence on our everyday perceptions, feelings, beliefs, and behavior. Focusing particularly on the impact of canonical national narratives on thinking and feeling norms in society, it develops an interdisciplinary cognitive approach to the question of how nationalism shapes our minds, and eventually, our world. It derives insights from longstanding philosophical and scholarly debates on the social nature of knowledge and feeling as well as recent cognitive research on emotions and the perception of reality. Grounding its theoretical investigation in empirical observations about a prominent non-Western case, namely, contemporary Turkey, The National Mind demonstrates how nationalist narratives and conceptions dominate our social and political common sense, at both societal and global levels. It offers a comprehensive and original interpretation of how the ‘national mind'operates in everyday experiences. This groundbreaking book will appeal to students and scholars of psychology, philosophy, politics, history, sociology, and nationalism studies.

This Festschrift reflects the enduring efforts of William Loader to connect Christian faith to cultural dynamics, both ancient and modern. A wide variety of scholars seek to further this conversation through critical engagement with Loader's publications. The contributions focus on three distinct areas: faith and culture at the interface of Law and Gospel; faith and culture in the context of the Johannine communities; and faith and culture in the context of the letter to the Hebrews. Specific texts are examined, various questions are raised anew in light of recent evidence and methodologies, and new connections are explored. Various contributors link their analysis not only to ancient texts, but also to enduring questions and challenges. The necessity, and even the form, of future discussion is suggested in these works. Thus, this volume honours William Loader by carrying forward the conversations that dominate his career.

This book examines the geo-racialized order of the Colombian state and its consequences for Afro-descendant territories. To do so, it employs a historical institutional approach tracing racial exclusion and subnational socioeconomic outcomes in Colombia during the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. It uses a mixed-methods and interdisciplinary qualitative and quantitative analytical approach to identify the quantitative effects of informal racial exclusion on subnational collective outcomes, as well as to show more precisely how these effects were generated. Through its exploration of Colombia's geo-racialized project, implicit exclusion of Afro-descendant territories and spatialized nature of racial diversity, this book contributes to literatures of Latin American political economy, institutional theory, racial politics and economic history.

Wem gehört die ostdeutsche Nachwendezeit? Diese Frage steht zunehmend im Zentrum politischer Polarisierungsprozesse und Wertkonflikte in Deutschland. Seitdem sich die Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) als „Stimme“ des Ostens erfunden hat – „Wende 2.0“ plakatierte die Partei im Osten bei den Landtagswahlen 2019 – erhielt der Deutungskampf um die Erinnerung an die friedliche Revolution von 1989/90 und die Transformation von DDR-Staatssozialismus zur bundesdeutschen Marktwirtschaft eine neue Qualität.Dieser Band trägt sozialwissenschaftliche Perspektiven zusammen, die die Hintergründe dieser Entwicklungen erhellen und stellt den „ostdeutschen Sonderfall“ in Relation zu ostmitteleuropäischen Transformationsprozessen.Die Nachwendezeit ist heute selbst ein Raum der Erinnerung: Schlüsselerfahrungen der 1990er Jahre werden mit Bedeutungen versehen, die über den Erfahrungshorizont von Einzelpersonen hinausweisen.

This book is a deep dive into the largely unexplored space of BBW “bashes”—multi-day gatherings of fat women and their admirers. Using a range of feminist theories of embodiment and affect, the project is guided by autoethnography and in-depth interviews with twelve participants. Participant experiences are first analyzed with a key focus on experiences that cause grief and disenfranchisement; subsequently, the book looks at experiences that may be radical or revelatory. The book does not seek to either villainize or valorize BBW spaces but instead sheds a bright light on the experience of this cultural subspace and all it may offer to analyses of fat life.

This book analyzes the culture wars as those struggles for the monopoly of the legitimate representation of the world in the normative elucidation of controversial issues linked to values. Public culture in this context would consist of a set of complex classificatory systems of symbols and meanings that constitute a semantic field in permanent dynamic tension. In this work we analyze a whole series of lines of cultural conflict such as the social and semantic genesis of the different forms of “culture war” from the thesis of “modern polytheism” pointed out by Max Weber at the beginning of the 20th century to the national culture wars and the current global culture wars; the social production of truth and the clash with the epistemological tribalisms; the struggles between the new warrior gods, daimons and demons that emerge in modern societies; the struggles of fusion and fission on the symbolic battlefield of “Europe”; the struggles between “pioneers” and “gatekeepers” to define the limits of human nature; the struggles between utopias and dystopias that colonize the present future. This book will be of great help to anybody looking for key interpretations on the nature and structure of modern conflicts in contemporary societies.

This book includes evidence-based accounts of inequities in the arts as well as a focus on systems that perpetuate and resolve inequities in this context – a topic of wide interest to researchers and practitioners in arts and culture. The chapters in this volume include both the empirical rigor and a diversity of disciplinary perspectives that makes it an essential piece of scholarship in the arts and culture. The volume is ideal for students and scholars studying areas such as sociology of the arts, cultural economics, and arts management. This collection is the result of a series the Arts, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation Lab at the Center for Cultural Affairs at Indiana University hosted in summer 2022 on the topic of “Innovating Institutions and Inequities in the Arts” co-sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Doris Duke Foundation.

The book explores the concept of ‘intimate capitalism'within the context of the rising cultural and creative industries. The assimilation of culture with capitalism has produced a mass culture that socialises people with the culture of capitalism, effectively domesticating and controlling the masses by establishing an intimate relationship between labor and working conditions. Intimate capitalism is a new form of capitalism where workers invest their labor and work overtime due to an affective connection to the cultural product they are working on or an intimacy with the cultural working conditions. It critically examines the narratives surrounding the creative economy, as well as digital innovations within cultural industries, to highlight how they are reinforcing and perpetuating exploitative working conditions. The erosion of workers'rights under intimate capitalism is examined to show how cultural industries seek to dominate the lives of those working within them, leading to an increased commodification of culture and institutionalisation of creative assets in the name of economic growth and development. This book offers a critical framework for understanding intimate capitalism and outlines its impact on workers, particularly those within developing economies. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in cultural economics, the political economy, and labour economics.

Gefühle werden in spätmodernen Gesellschaften ebenso wertgeschätzt wie in Wert gesetzt. Ein Phänomen, in dem sich die gewandelte Kulturbedeutung von Emotionen und Versuche des Verfügbarmachens von Affektivität auf geradezu paradigmatische Weise verdichten, sind Technologien emotionaler Selbstvermessung. In der digitalen (Selbst-)Vermessung der Gefühle trifft die zunehmende gesellschaftliche Emotionalisierung auf eine sich kontinuierlich ausweitende Digitalisierung der individuellen Lebensführung. Im sogenannten Mood Tracking soll die eigene Gefühlswelt mithilfe mobiler Programmanwendungen (und externer Sensoren) sowohl umfassend dokumentiert und analysiert als auch zielgerichtet modifiziert und modelliert werden können. Sarah Miriam Pritz nimmt diese neuen Gefühlstechniken als instruktiven Fall für eine Analyse der Emotionskultur der Gegenwart in den Blick. Ihre Studie liefert eine materialreiche Untersuchung aktueller emotionskultureller Entwicklungslinien, die sich als Optimierung, Expertisierung und Technisierung von Gefühlen im Mood Tracking zeigen. Darüber hinaus enthält ihr Buch die theoretische Ausarbeitung der Perspektive einer Kultursoziologie der Gefühle sowie die Entwicklung eines Forschungsprogramms zur kultursoziologischen App-Analyse.

This book presents a comprehensive and inclusive exploration of the core essence of Chinese civilization and its deeply-rooted humanistic values. It goes beyond the surface and delves into the philosophical, ethical, and historical aspects, aiming to unravel the profound characteristics and spiritual significance of Chinese culture. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the book carefully examines classical texts, traditional values, moral principles, and cultural legacies that have shaped the Chinese humanistic spirit throughout history. By doing so, it offers readers a deep understanding of the rich cultural heritage that China possesses. One of the highlights of the book is its exploration of the relevance of Chinese cultural traditions and values in today's society. It sheds new light on the significance of the Chinese humanistic spirit in the modern world, demonstrating its enduring importance and its potential to address contemporary issues.

This volume examines the role of culture in developing social, cultural and political discourses of HIV/AIDS from a contemporary viewpoint. In doing so, the memory of HIV/AIDS is a powerful tool to examine representations of the past and connect them with future debates. This reassessment of HIV/AIDS explores the most appropriate way to come to terms with a past that involved a negative, stigmatised and marginalised representation. Therefore, remembering plays a key role in generating collective memory, which allows for the exchange of mnemonic content between individual minds, creates discourses on memory and commemoration, and disseminates versions of the past that may affect the representation of HIV/AIDS in the future. Indeed, rewriting about the past also means assessing our responsibility towards the present and the potential of transmission to future generations, especially in times of pandemics.

This book, first of its kind in the Indian context, brings together both a theoretical understanding of various aspects of the humour, aesthetics and politics of stand-up comedy, and case studies of various forms of stand-up comedy in India. This volume is interdisciplinary wherein the contributors raise pertinent issues about the role of stand-up comedy in India in contemporary times. With an increased presence of OTT platforms and internet penetration that allows for easy access to this art form, stand-up comedy in India cannot be ignored anymore. The book includes chapters on Indian stand-up comedy related to the themes of: interrogating the term ‘Indian stand-up comedy'; historical lineage of stand-up in India; the politics of language and laughter; ‘charged humour'vs ‘safe'/profitable comedy; stand-up comics as parrhesiastes, performance of the self and comic personas; comedy and other forms of artistic expression; laughter clubs, urbanism and stand-up comedy; surveillance, censorship and trolling; the economy of production and consumption of stand-up comedy and the ‘silences'and limitations in the contemporary form of stand-up in India.

Jede große Transformation in der Geschichte der Menschheit wurde bisher von einer kulturellen Revolution ausgelöst und begleitet. Diese Publikation zeigt, warum dies auch für die Transformation zur Nachhaltigkeit gilt. Im Fokus stehen nicht nur Werte, Menschen- und Naturbilder, sondern auch die gesellschaftliche Verantwortung von Bildung, Wissenschaft, Kunst und Medien. Für die zweite Auflage wurden die Inhalte überarbeitet und aktualisiert, Thesen geschärft und neue Studien einbezogen.Gegenwärtig befinden wir uns zwischen zwei großen gesellschaftlichen Transformationen: Die erste ist die kapitalistisch-industrielle, die vor fünf Jahrhunderten begann, bis heute dominiert und sich am Kulturprogramm der Modernisierung orientiert. Sie hat die Gesellschaft in eine Polykrise geführt, es droht ein Zivilisationskollaps. Die zweite Transformation ist jene zur Nachhaltigkeit, die sich an „Visionen einer anderen Entwicklung“ jenseits von Wachstum und Massenkonsum orientiert. Diese beiden Transformationen verdrängen sich an einigen Stellen gegenseitig und vermischen sich an anderen. Einerseits ist es die schwächere Transformation, die oft assimiliert wird. So werden derzeit eine „ökologische Modernisierung“ und ein „nachhaltiges Wachstum“ theorisiert, obwohl solche Ansätze Widersprüche an sich sind. Andererseits ist die soziale und ökologische Umwelt ein politisches Subjekt, das immer stärker in Dynamiken und Debatten mitmischt. So oder so wird sich an den Reibungsflächen zwischen den beiden Transformationen entscheiden, wie sich die Transformation zur Nachhaltigkeit am Ende durchsetzt: by Disaster or by Design.

This book presents an analysis of the contemporary issues of philosophy, culture and value. It provides insights from both Eastern and Western perspectives on these concepts, showing that, although there are divergent views on these aspects in those traditions, there is ultimately commonality in their considerations of the aspects of harmony, peace and unity, which both traditions emphatically emphasise through cultural dialogue.

Scene affiliations can be understood as socially produced and meaningful commonalities of action in style-specific practices. They are displayed, staged, stabilized, and disseminated in the respective style formations via material artifacts and their use, the body, and media forms of expression. Although the importance of artefacts, bodies and media for stylisation processes is continuously emphasised within youth culture and scene research, the systematic analysis of the material and medial dimensions of youth cultural action beyond the description of respective styles rarely comes into focus. Based on this observation, this volume aims to explore the question of which theoretical and methodological perspectives interdisciplinary youth culture and scene research can use to adequately understand the material and medial expressions of styles. The volume brings together contributions devoted to the significance of materiality and mediality in scenes from historical, social and cultural science, and psychological perspectives.The contentYouth culture theoretical perspectives on mediality and materiality - Formations of style via media - Formations of style via artefacts - Formations of style via bodiesThe editorsTim Böder is a research assistant at the AG Jugend- und Schulforschung at the University of Duisburg-Essen.Dr. Paul Eisewicht is a research associate at the Institute of Sociology at the Technical University of Dortmund.Prof. Dr. Günter Mey teaches developmental psychology and qualitative research at the University of Applied Sciences Magdeburg-Stendal.Prof. Dr. Nicolle Pfaff is a university lecturer at the Faculty of Education at the University of Duisburg-Essen.The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.

This handbook offers an updated and comprehensive presentation of knowledge on Korean modern and contemporary food history. It covers the changes in food availability, nutrition, and the health status of Koreans, and the Korean food industry's development from the late period of Joseon dynasty in the mid-19th century, to the present. This period includes the severe poverty and food shortage of the Joseon dynasty, followed by the Japanese invasion, Independence and the South-North division, the Korean war, and rapid industrial development. The influence of national and international environments and political changes during the last 150 years on the Korean food security and the nutritional situation of the people is demarcated. In doing so, the author makes novel suggestions on possible contributions to alleviate the world food crisis in the future. Relevant to food historians and food scientists, and East Asian studies scholars with a particular interest in Korean culture and history,this is a pioneering work that elucidates the driving forces for the development and betterment of Korean society—through food acquisition.

​Taking Place: Environmental Change in Literature and Art explores how works of literature and art help us to rethink the ways that we have perceived, imagined, inhabited, explored, conquered, and shared places. The book offers chapters on India, Southern Africa, Ireland, Australia, and New York City. The literary and artistic works investigated range in time from early indigenous rock art to contemporary literary representations of place. Bonnie Kime Scott participates in ongoing interdisciplinary discussions of ecocritical, feminist, postcolonial, post-humanist and place studies.

This book presents an in-depth analysis of Howard Goldblatt's translation of Mo Yan's Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (L&D). It explores how Goldblatt translates the original novel under the influence of three major manipulative powers: poetics, ideology and patronage, as well as his own subjectivity (translator subjectivity), to achieve his objectives as a literary translator. The author analyses both the translation and its paratext to gain a more complete understanding of Goldblatt's accomplishments, and examines how Goldblatt rewrites the original text under the influence of various patronage factors, such as the original author, publisher, editor, market expectancy, literary collaborator, and the target reader. This book provides a comprehensive picture of the production, reception and dissemination of Goldblatt's translation, exposing the motivations behind his translation in full measure, and it will be of interest to students and scholars of Translation Studies, Comparative Literature and Literary Studies, and Chinese Culture and Literature.

In diesem Buch wird ein interdisziplinärer Ansatz für die Welt des Konsums gewählt, der verschiedene Themen abdeckt und soziologische, wirtschaftliche und marketingbezogene Aspekte einbezieht. Der Begriff'Konsum'ist vage, und selbst in den akademischen Disziplinen wird der Begriff auf unterschiedliche Weise verwendet. Die Konsumforschung fragt, wie Einkommen und Ausgaben miteinander zusammenhängen. Ganz allgemein untersucht die Konsumforschung, wie Menschen, soziale Schichten oder Gesellschaften ihre Konsumgewohnheiten realisieren. Häufig wird die Frage gestellt, wie konsistent Präferenzstrukturen aufgrund wechselnder empirischer Hintergründe von Zeit, Raum und damit verbundener Kultur sind. Welche Kontextvariablen (historischer Zeitpunkt, geographischer Rahmen, kultureller Hintergrund) spezifizieren die Praxis des Konsums und in welcher Weise haben Merkmale wie Alter, Geschlecht, Klasse, Beruf und Lebensstil eigene Auswirkungen auf die Art und Weise, wie Konsum realisiert wird?Das Buch ist für Forscher aus den Bereichen Ökonomie, Soziologie, Marketing, Ästhetik und Design, Anthropologie und Kommunikationswissenschaft von Interesse.

This monograph represents a rare, classical-philosophical approach to culture. It is grounded in philosophical realism and emphasizes personalism as a true achievement of philosophical anthropology. Employing the apparatus of the history of philosophy, science and religion, the author demonstrates the immense scope of the drama unfolding within human culture. In a classical approach, evaluation is inevitable—with regard to various theories of culture, human culture as such, and all its main actors. Jaroszyński's work shows that realistic study of what it means to be a human person leads to the most comprehensive understanding of culture as it is and should be.

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • From New Yorker staff writer and author of The Longing for Less Kyle Chayka comes a timely history and investigation of a world ruled by algorithms, which determine the shape of culture itself.'[Filterworld] is about how algorithms changed culture…[Chayka asks] what is taste? What is a sense of aesthetics? And what happens to it when it collides with the homogenizing digital reality in which we now live.'—Ezra KleinFrom trendy restaurants to city grids, to TikTok and Netflix feeds the world round, algorithmic recommendations dictate our experiences and choices. The algorithm is present in the familiar neon signs and exposed brick of Internet cafes, be it in Nairobi or Portland, and the skeletal, modern furniture of Airbnbs in cities big and small. Over the last decade, this network of mathematically determined decisions has taken over, almost unnoticed—informing the songs we listen to, the friends with whom we stay in touch—as we've grown increasingly accustomed to our insipid new normal.This ever-tightening web woven by algorithms is called “Filterworld.” Kyle Chayka shows us how online and offline spaces alike have been engineered for seamless consumption, becoming a source of pervasive anxiety in the process. Users of technology have been forced to contend with data-driven equations that try to anticipate their desires—and often get them wrong. What results is a state of docility that allows tech companies to curtail human experiences—human lives—for profit. But to have our tastes, behaviors, and emotions governed by computers, while convenient, does nothing short of call the very notion of free will into question.In Filterworld, Chayka traces this creeping, machine-guided curation as it infiltrates the furthest reaches of our digital, physical, and psychological spaces. With algorithms increasingly influencing not just what culture we consume, but what culture is produced, urgent questions arise: What happens when shareability supersedes messiness, innovation, and creativity—the qualities that make us human? What does it mean to make a choice when the options have been so carefully arranged for us? Is personal freedom possible on the Internet?To the last question, Filterworld argues yes—but to escape Filterworld, and even transcend it, we must first understand it.

Anlass für dieses Buchs sind die zunehmende Kälte im Umgang der Bürger miteinander und ihre mangelnde Empathie: normenverletzendes Handeln zulasten der Mitmenschen, Hassausbrüche in sozialen Netzen, Übergriffigkeiten jeder Art. Oft wird vor einem Auseinanderfallen des gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhangs gewarnt, manche Protestformen gewinnen gar bürgerkriegsähnlichen Charakter. Welche Rolle spielen dabei hedonistischer Konsum, Identitätszweifel, die Suche nach Selbstwert und eskapistisches Verhalten? Wo die Ursachen dieses Sozialklimawandels zu suchen sind, untersucht das Buch anhand zeittypischen Verhaltens.

The book brings a new approach to see the art history of Hong Kong as a historical mediator and offers alternative perspective to discern the current hype of archive research and archival art practices, which informs the commitment in the constant production of socio-political meanings through arts. The book addresses the current social-political crises of Hong Kong by connecting art, memory, history, and political participation together through the site of archive and contextualises in both local and global perspectives, it also focuses on the artist archive, namely Ha Bik Chuen Archive, and archival art practices of contemporary Hong Kong, particularly in the social and political unrests, however, it ripples resonance and reflection not only in the local context but also to the region. The book is intended to the readers who are interested in both representational and interpretational nature of art and searching for alternatives means to perceive histories.

Evaluation – und in jüngster Zeit vor allem Wirkung bzw. Impact – sind wichtige Instrumente für Kulturinstitutionen. Jedoch wird dies noch immer in vielen Fällen missverstanden, falsch genutzt oder eingesetzt, vielleicht sogar gefürchtet. Das vorliegende Buch will Kulturschaffenden und Institutionen diese Bedenken nehmen und durch Beispiele aufzeigen, welches Potential in Wirkungsmessungen liegen kann. Der Schwerpunkt liegt darauf, Evaluation als langfristigen Lerneffekt für alle Beteiligten zu betrachten. Aufbauend auf einer Definitionsdiskussion werden in dem Buch die Bereiche und Faktoren erarbeitet, die zu einer erfolgreichen Wirkungsmessung führen können. Dabei finden in der 3. Auflage auch Themen Beachtung, die im Zuge der Nachhaltigkeitsdiskussionen im Rahmen einer Gemeinwohlökonomie (wie circular economy und werteorientiertes Handeln) in der Kultur angekommen sind.

What is culture? The history of our discipline – whether we call it ethnology or social anthropology – shows that there is not a constant answer to this question or even a constant object of study. How can we search for a unifying answer to what makes us human even as we observe how immensely varied we are? And how can we explain that such difference is the very core of what makes us similarly human? This book explores the idea of ethnography as a method for understanding cultural flow in particular contexts and suggests that anthropology can do its most important work by tracing the history of social formations. Nothing about culture is static, yet something best-called culture sustains itself over time. At the heart of anthropology is the attempt to understand the concept of culture, even as we continue to challenge its definition in our field. This short volume presents the Jensen Memorial Lectures delivered at the Frobenius Institute for Research in Cultural Anthropology at Goethe University, Frankfurt, in 2019. The lectures reflect on the current moment in – and the capacity of – contemporary anthropology to consider the discipline's basic premises, through the lens of its classical thinkers. Through a set of four lectures and an introduction, this book takes up anthropology's most basic question – the meaning of culture – and asks how it is that our unique method is able to elicit both fine-grained particularities about specific social orders and speak to the definition of that which makes us human.

This volume puts ambiguity and its generative power at the centre of analytical attention. Rather than being cast negatively as a source of confusion, bewilderment or as a dangerous portent, ambiguity is held as the source of the dynamic between knowledge and experience and of certainty amid uncertainty. It positions human life between the realms of mystery and mastery where ambiguity is understood as the experience and expression of life and part of navigating the human condition. In turn, the tension between the tradition in anthropology of examining cultural certitudes through ethnographic description and efforts to challenge dominant expressions of incertitude are explored. Each chapter presents ethnographic accounts of how people engage individually and collectively with the self, the other, human-made institutions and the more-than-human to navigate ambiguity in a world affected by viral contagion, climate change, economic instability, labour precarity and (geo)political tension.

This book provides an insight into the complex entanglements between African countries and India, China, and South Korea from multidisciplinary perspectives connecting approaches from cultural, anthropological, literary, and music studies and art history. The three parts present a regional focus, namely Africa-India, Africa-South Korea, and Africa-China while the single contributions speak to each other and offer complementary insights. At the same time, the chapters also link across the regional realms as they deal with similar topics, such as travelling music genres. In part I, for Pombo material culture is the starting point to investigate the connections between the islands of the Indian Ocean and India by questioning the construction of memory. It highlights various aspects of the multilayered history of connections between Africa, the islands, and India. Part II gathers contributions that are complimentary to each other and therefore contribute to the understanding of the complex entanglements in area studies. Part III (Africa-South Korea) explores the impact of African-American arts and artists on South Korea's popular culture as well as the changing perception of artists of African descent in visual popular culture. It shows the impact of Korean content in South Africa.

This book uses Norbert Elias and John L. Scotson's The Established and The Outsiders to map selected established-outsiders figurations in Poland after 1989. Looking at gender and sexual orientation, nationalism and patriotism, race and class, antifeminism and homophobia, elitist and populist imaginaries, religious and political ideals and ideologies, hate speech, and the crisis of the rule of law, this book tracks how inequalities are transformed into figurations of the have and the have-nots by way of spatial, symbolic and institutional exclusion. This edited collection is rooted in a socio-historical understanding of the trajectory of Polish society before and since the fall of Communism over thirty years ago, and a critical assessment of the dramatic turn that Polish society has taken since the beginning of the democratic backsliding in 2015.

In diesem Buch wird untersucht, wie die jüngere Fußballliteratur die entscheidenden politischen Entwicklungen im englischen Fußball nach der Veröffentlichung des'Taylor-Reports'1989/90 verhandelt hat. Als unmittelbare Reaktion auf die Hillsborough-Katastrophe von 1989 und die wachsende Besorgnis über Hooliganismus schlug der'Taylor-Bericht'eine Reihe von Maßnahmen zur strengeren Regulierung von Fanmassen vor. Infolgedessen wurden die Stadien der höchsten Spielklassen in reine Sitzplatzstadien umgewandelt und mit Videoüberwachung ausgestattet. Die Umsetzung dieser Maßnahmen führte zu einem drastischen Rückgang der gewalttätigen Vorfälle, aber auch zu einem beispiellosen Anstieg der Eintrittspreise, was wiederum die Demografie der Zuschauer erheblich veränderte. Diese Entwicklung, die auch den Einzug des Fußballs in andere kulturelle Formen des Mainstreams ermöglichte, veränderte das Spiel entscheidend. Piskurek geht den Mustern in Prosa und Film nach, um herauszufinden, wie diese Fiktionen auf die veränderten Umstände des Fußballs nach Taylor reagiert haben. Dieses Buch, das diese politischen Veränderungen mit einem kulturellen Blickwinkel betrachtet, ist bahnbrechend in seiner Analyse der Fußballfiktion als Ganzes und bietet einer Reihe von Wissenschaftlern und Studenten mit Interesse an Kulturwissenschaften, Soziologie, Freizeit und Politik eine neue Perspektive.

This educational handbook displays grassroots experiences of peace, reconciliation, and healing in the Great Lakes region of Africa, in which Burundian, Congolese, and Rwandan authors share their understandings and practices of Memory Work. They committed to do so in a joint Participatory Action Research Team together with German facilitators. The team members ‘opened their archives'on the traumatizing effects of the severe conflicts that each of these countries experienced. Their learnings and findings from this research process are collected in this book, which aims to resolve remaining tensions resulting from past experiences. Displaying a variety of strategies that lead to a Healing of Memories, it is high time to integrate such discourses into a mainly Western-European-centered scientific community. In this way, the book aims to fill the academic void regarding the German-colonial legacy of violence in the three neighboring countries, which was fueled under colonial rule. As such, this book is central to current discourses on the decolonization of science in terms of authorship, research ethics, and methods.

Die mit diesem Sonderband versammelten Beiträge schlüsseln die Kultur der Soziologie soziologiegeschichtlich auf: Im Sinne der Kultivierungspraktiken der Soziologie nehmen sie in den Blick, in welchen institutionellen Arbeits- und Gesprächszusammenhängen sich soziologische Erkenntnisprozesse vollzogen haben. Sie geben damit Einblick in das historische Gewordensein der Kultur der Soziologie, so wie sie von Soziolog•innen je im Einzelfall verstanden und praktiziert wurde und – durch Anschlüsse wie Ausschlüsse gleichermaßen – wiederum als Nach- und Weitererzählungen in das disziplinäre Gedächtnis eingeht.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. It is free to read at Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Wherever on the globe anyone sets foot, they find people immersed in matters aesthetic. In UNESCO's definition, there can be no culture that lacks an aesthetic life. Aesthetic life is in this sense a cultural universal. At the same time, aesthetic engagement has a geography. While all cultures have an aesthetic, no single aesthetic belongs to all cultures. The rules of aesthetic engagement vary by culture. How should aesthetics proceed if we take this fact of aesthetic diversity, rather than the presumption of aesthetic universality as our starting point? How should we theorize the cultural origins and cultural basis of aesthetic diversity? How should we think about the value and normativity of aesthetic diversity? To model what the turn toward diversity might look like in aesthetic inquiry, the four authors of this book each defend a different account of aesthetic diversity, and together they engage in a collective dialogue about these issues. The Geography of Taste will interest students in aesthetics courses as well as others interested in novel, global approaches to aesthetics.

Ausgehend von Roberto Llaryoras Fallstudien und seiner Kritik an dem in den Medien und der Wissenschaft vorherrschenden, historisch und ethnographisch verkürzten Mafiabild geht das Buch folgenden Fragen nach:Erstens: Was verbirgt sich eigentlich hinter dem mafiosen Dispositiv, hinter der offenbar sehr eindeutig stadtgesellschaftlich eingebetteten Form gewaltsamer Machtausübung, was macht seine “DNA” aus? Zweitens: Welchen gesellschaftlichen Konstruktionselementen verdankt sich dieses ungewöhnlich flexible und dauerhafte Dispositiv? Drittens: Warum ist das bis in die Öffentlichkeit hinein gepflegte deutlich nostalgisch-kulturalistisch geprägte Mafiabild so resilient gegen jeden Versuch, einen sachadäquaten Zugang zu gewinnen?

This edited volume is first of its kind to document and critically analyse the changes took place snice China's opening-up and reform and its impact on Dongbei, China's North-East region, known for its remote and vast landscape, unique and othered culture, rich resources, mighty infrastructures and industries, geopolitical significance. Through presenting up-to-date and multidimensional case studies, the book covers three major aspects of Dongbei, which put people at the heart of our scholarly focus, namely people's mediated life through traditional and new media; people's social, cultural, and living spaces; artistic and fictional representations of people's everyday life.

This book explores the genesis of armorial porcelain manufacture in Britain. While heraldic devices began appearing on Chinese porcelain from the sixteenth century onwards, armorials did not appear on British porcelain until the 1750s. It examines the development of porcelain in China and traces its introduction to Western Europe. The book delves into the market for armorial porcelains, from the early commissioning of Chinese armorial porcelainware to the establishment of manufactories in England capable of producing armorial porcelain. It also discusses the reasons behind the timing of armorial porcelain's manufacture in Britain. Additionally, it assesses armorial porcelain as a contemporary historical source. Building upon previous research by the authors, the book presents armorial porcelain as a distinct and highly personalized product. By integrating detailed genealogical research, cultural insights, and chemical analysis, it offers a comprehensive understanding of armorial porcelain within the context of heritage, culture, and science.

This book uses contemporary continental philosophy to develop an alternative theory of the superhero to the one currently offered by the comic book industry and comic book studies. Studying superheroes from South Asian pop culture, this book questions the definition of the superhero and the allegedly sacrosanct nature of its origin and identity in comic books. This book looks at the superhero as a performative figure and explores how the superheroic imagination opens up diverse modes of creative thinking. Superheroes studied in this book include Narayan Debnath's Bantul the Great (comics), Premendra Mitra's Ghanashyam Das or Ghanada (Tall Tale), Satyajit Ray's Professor Trilokeswar Shonku (science fiction/fantasy fiction), and one of the nine gems of Emperor Akbar's court, Raja Birbar or Birbal (mediaeval Indian history). By virtue of perpetual reconfiguration of its elements, the book argues, the concept of the superhero makes itself ‘always new'and it is always already ‘open onto elsewhere'.

Durch die Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie (ANT) ziehen sich seit ihren Anfängen zahlreiche Spuren einer intensiven Auseinandersetzung mit der Kunst und Visuellen Kultur. Annika Weinert-Brieger folgt diesen Spuren in ihrer Monografie erstmals systematisch durch die Schriften von Bruno Latour, John Law und Michel Callon, durch die von Latour kuratierten Ausstellungen und durch weitere Medien. Sie erschließt das umfangreiche Material in der international ersten Bestandsaufnahme zum Thema und kontextualisiert es kenntnisreich innerhalb bestehender Ansätze aus der Kunstgeschichte, -theorie und -soziologie. Damit gibt sie den Blick auf einen Arbeitsschwerpunkt eigenen Rangs innerhalb der ANT frei, der in ihrer Rezeption bislang einen blinden Fleck markierte. Im Anschluss entwickelt Weinert-Brieger die ANT zu einem eigenen kunsttheoretischen Zugang zu Kunstwerken, ihrer Produktion und Rezeption weiter. In einer Übersetzungsbewegung zwischen ANT und Kunsttheorie, die mit der jüngeren Theoriediskussion zum Verhältnis von Kunst und Handeln einsetzt, arbeitet sie die zentralen Elemente einer Akteur-Kunst-Theorie aus und zeigt deren Beiträge zu zeitgenössischen und historischen Theoriediskursen auf. Abschließend gibt die Autorin einen Ausblick auf theoretische und empirische Forschungspotentiale für die zukünftige Weiterarbeit mit den Ergebnissen der Bestandsaufnahme und mit der entwickelten Akteur-Kunst-Theorie.

​This book provides a newer definition of political scandal and applies it in a way to remove “ordinary corruption” from the discussion. It then defines pop culture and examines how scandal and pop culture interact. The discussion addresses the question: when does a scandal actually enter into our pop culture. The mechanisms or vehicles by which this occurs include editorial cartoons, Broadway shows, music, movies, television, and more. The first chapter lays out the two main definitions and gives a bit of historical background to the discussion that follows. This new edition builds on the previous book with analysis of January 6th, George Santos, allegations of election fraud, and Rudy Giuliani. This book works well as a supplement in a course on American Government, in American Studies, and is aimed at a wide range of readers from college freshmen to more advanced scholars and political junkies.

This book analyses the emergence and growth of the creative sector in Naples between the early modern and modern eras, focusing particularly on the development of music markets in the city. From the seventeenth century, Naples became one of the most culturally enriched regions in the Italian peninsula, with internationally known music schools, theatres and opera venues attracting visitors from across Europe in a burgeoning tourist market. This book sheds light on the driving economic factors and political contexts behind this key case study for the early growth of the opera and music sector in Europe. Starting with a discussion of the value of economic history to understanding cultural industries, the chapters approach this analysis through multiple lenses: the formation of human capital as the result of Naples'institutional urban welfare system; the role of cultural consumption as it evolved from a primarily religious activity to growing popular demand; and the rolethat central city authorities played in encouraging cultural activity through private investment and public policy. The book also draws on fascinating archival research to examine the contribution of Naples'music conservatories in the local creative economy. This book is a valuable resource to a broad range of readers, including those working in economic history, tourism history, the history of music and theatre, Italian social history and more.

This book investigates all facets of Chinese tourism in a single destination, and its fascinating rise and evolution. It provides an overview of the first two decades of twenty-first century Chinese tourism in Australia, covering the early days, when Chinese tourism was mainly guided package tours with tourists visiting standard iconic sites, and its evolution into more individualistic tourism, with younger tourists seeking out sites of particular interest. Many of these ‘new sites'are places where self-photography has particular merit, chosen in part because they are colourful, and images are distributed in real time to communicate with others and enhance social status. This quest for distinctiveness and colour has contributed to creating a distinctly Chinese tourist geography of Australia, analysed here in relation to conventional tourism geographies. The book takes a deliberately chronological approach to focus on the speed of change, discussing the more exciting and active'new tourism'in ways that integrate qualitative and quantitative research, and provide a basis for international comparison and discussion of key emerging themes in tourism studies.

'Stimulating and provocative'The Times The once-dominant philosophy of the West, defined by free expression, equal treatment of individuals, national solidarity and scientific rationality, is under threat.'Cultural socialism'– which advocates harsh restrictions on free speech, due process and national symbols in order to reduce psychological harm and bolster the esteem of formerly marginalized groups – is on the rise. Rather than focusing on Marxist revolutionaries or equality law, Eric Kaufmann concentrates on well-meaning left-liberals. He argues that the genesis of'woke'cultural socialism emerged from liberal taboos around race that arose in the 1960s and came to be weaponised and extended to other areas, such as gender. Using extensive survey data, he shows that this process is driven mainly by values, not fear, and is only going to accelerate as culturally leftist generations enter the workforce and electorate. Its rise suppresses the open debate that makes effective policy-making possible, harming the minorities cultural socialists purport to help. Only if we shift from encouraging minority fragility to building minority resilience, using state power to check institutional illiberalism, can we resist cultural socialism and restore cultural flourishing. This is the authoritative study of the radical shift in values that has turbo-charged the culture wars of our time. No-one concerned with the cultural and political conflicts of our times can afford to miss it.

This book investigates the ways in which new developments in areas of language teaching practice, such as policy-making, planning, methodology and the use of educational technology are locally adopted, adapted, initiated, and implemented in Vietnam and Cambodia. The region is responding to a large number of significant challenges, including large-scale education reforms, the effects of globalisation and the need for lifelong learning, as well as concerns about the quality of its language education system. By looking at the drivers, stakeholders, obstacles and affordances in one particular regional context, the authors examine how processes of change occur. This will help anyone involved in language development, from curriculum reform to materials development, and from programme evaluation to the setting of assessment standards. The book will be of particular interest to those involved in managing change in language education that attempts to mediate between global trends and local needs, as well as students and scholars working in language education, applied linguistics and related fields.