Browse Books
Beijing Film Academy 2021
The annual Beijing Film Academy Yearbook highlights the best academic debates discussions and research from the previous year as previously published in the highly prestigious Journal of Beijing Film Academy. This volume brings together specially selected articles appearing for the first time in English to bridge the gap in cross-cultural research in cinema and media studies.
The book is the latest in the Intellect China Library series to produce work by Chinese scholars that have not previously been available to English language academia. Covering the subjects of film studies visual arts performing arts media and cultural studies the series aims to foster intellectual debate and to promote closer cross-cultural intellectual exchanges by introducing important works of Chinese scholarship to readers.
Becoming a Visually Reflective Practitioner
Professional practice is increasingly becoming more complex demanding dynamic and diverse. This important and original new book considers how self-study using arts-based methods can enable purposeful reflection toward understanding and envisioning professional practice. Ideally for visual arts practitioners on all levels this book presents a self-study model grounded in compelling research that highlights arts-based methods for examining four areas of professional practice: professional identities work cultures change and transitions and envisioning new pathways.
Chapters address the components of the self-study model artistic methods and materials and strategies for interpreting self-study written and visual outcomes with the aim of goal setting. Each chapter includes visuals references and end-of-chapter prompts to engage readers in critical and visual reflection. Appendices offer resources and guidelines for creating and assessing self-study outcomes.
The fluctuating nature of professional practice necessitates the pursuit of discernment and clarity that can be achieved through an ongoing reflective practice. Self-study is a systematic and flexible methodology for purposeful reflection on professional practice that embraces dialogic interpretive rhizomatic and visual inquiry. Self-study can occur at any level of practice and in the context of work-related professional development formal study or as a self-initiated inquiry. An arts-based self-study model for visual arts practitioners is explored and focuses on four intersectional components shaping professional practice: professional identities work cultures and communities transition and change within professional practice and envisioning new pathways for professional practice.
The self-study model is grounded in contemporary theory practice and compelling research and embraces robust strategies for understanding the complexities of professional practice that can include dual multiple overlapping hybrid and conflicting professional identities tensions within work cultures and unexpected changes within professional practice. Each chapter focuses on a component of the self-study model and an area of professional practice concluding with references and end-of-chapter prompts that are aimed to facilitate critical reflection-on-practice and the creation of written and visual responses.
With visual arts practitioners in mind various arts-based methods for self-study are discussed that highlight visual journaling as a key method for engaging in self-study. Interpretive research methods are discussed to guide readers in understanding the phases and processes for interpreting written and visual self-study outcomes. Processes are outlined to help readers determine key insights themes issues and questions from their self-study outcomes how to use them in formulating new questions and articulating new professional goals. Several levels for interpretation are presented to offer readers options relative to their professional needs and aims.
Throughout the text charts and visuals serve to summarize and visualize key chapter points. Images by visual arts practitioners appear throughout the text and represent a wide range of artistic media methods and approaches appropriate for self-study. The appendices provide additional resources for enhanced understanding of chapter concepts and key terms guidelines and rubrics for writing reflections creating visual responses and using a visual journal in the self-study process.
Primary readership will be visual arts practitioners at all levels. Ideal for university level graduate courses or as a guide for individuals and small groups of practitioners who seek to engage in arts-based self-study as professional development.
The Bitter Landscapes of Palestine
Using both photographs and written narratives The Bitter Landscapes of Palestine provides a depiction of the lives and struggles faced by Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territories on the West Bank in particular the South Hebron Hills and the Jordan Valley. It sheds light on issues including house demolitions conflicts between Palestinian shepherds or farmers and Israeli settlers soldiers and police the daily struggles brought about by the occupation's efforts to displace Palestinians from their land and the resilience and bravery required to endure these conditions. This moving book conveys the beauty of the landscape the essence of the language the value of friendships and the richness of a threatened way of life.
Voices of activists both Palestinian and Jewish are brought into focus. The historical context that generated present realities in Palestine is outlined briefly as well as the history of the authors’ partnership. Their perspective mirrors extensive years of involvement in peace and human rights activism in Palestine. It also captures the ongoing dialogue between the two authors who have experienced together the continually renewed astonishment that comes with such experiences and encounters.
Being Human Today
Education mental health and the arts all share a concern for human beings and for how they live their lives. Living one’s life and living it well has always been a challenge – life never simply happens. But what the particular challenges are differs from time to time from location to location and even from individual to individual.
In both education and mental health there is a strong pressure to think of being human as a technical problem that in some way can be ‘fixed’ by powerful research-based interventions. Also arts are quickly turned into an instrument for fixing problems. While such fixing may be possible and may appear to be quite successful from one perspective it clearly runs the risk of turning students and clients into objects – things to be acted upon rather than human beings to encounter and act with.
This book stages conversations between art education and mental health around the question of what it means to be human today. Moving beyond the suggestion that this requires ‘strong’ educational or therapeutic interventions or can be resolved by means of individual expression the chapters explore new possibilities for 'the arrival of I’.
Building Community Choirs in the Twenty-First Century
This book explores how five community choirs construct and imagine collective identity formations in Northern Ireland. Original insight is provided through ethnographic research conducted between 2013-2018. Working with five choirs in disparate locations with different repertoires and demographics resulted in the creation of an integrated comparison that drew out both diversity and commonalities of approach revealing the malleability of choral practice.
The research is framed through communities of practice a theory of learning through engaging with other people in a common endeavour. Research findings demonstrate how choirs re-imagine identity through the manner in which they organise rehearse and perform. Choirs develop a distinct choral identity and ethos highlighting both the musical and social importance of the community of practice. Research suggests that choirs re-imagine multiple conceptions of identities within their groups including gender later age religious faith inclusivity and ethnic diversity that can both influence broader structures of community in the region and be influenced by them.
Community choral practice in Northern Ireland is under-researched. As such this book provides unique insight into how members of community choirs are attempting to transcend sectarian boundaries through their practice developing academic understandings of identity formation community music-making and choral practice.
Bernhard Lang
Bernhard Lang: Critical Guides to Contemporary Composers offers a critical guide and introduction to the work of Austrian composer Bernhard Lang (b. 1957). It identifies the phenomenon of repetition as a central concern in Lang’s thinking and making. The composer’s artistic practice is identified as one of ‘loop aesthetics’: a creative poetics in which repetition serves not only as methodology but also as material language and subject matter.
The book is structured around the four central thematic nodes of philosophy music theatre and politics. After introducing Lang as a composer whose work is thoroughly influenced by philosophical thought the book develops a typology of musical repetition as it is explored and activated in Lang’s oeuvre.
Pointing towards the several repetitions within the performance of Lang’s works the book explores the heavily trans-medial nature of the repeat across domains such as literature dance and theatre. Finally the book investigates Lang’s use of textual quotation and musical borrowing.
Christine Dysers is a musicologist specialising in contemporary music aesthetics. Her research centres around repetition politics absence the liminal and the uncanny. This is the first full-length study of the works of Bernhard Lang and is a new volume in the Critical Guides to Contemporary Composers series from Intellect.
Beijing Film Academy 2020
The annual Beijing Film Academy Yearbook highlights the best academic debates discussions and research from the previous year as previously published in the highly prestigious Journal of Beijing Film Academy. This volume brings together specially selected articles appearing for the first time in English to bridge the gap in cross-cultural research in cinema and media studies.
The book is the latest in the Intellect China Library series to produce work by Chinese scholars that have not previously been available to English language academia. Covering the subjects of film studies visual arts performing arts media and cultural studies the series aims to foster intellectual debate and to promote closer cross-cultural intellectual exchanges by introducing important works of Chinese scholarship to readers.
Blank Canvas
Art school Britain in the 1960s and 1970s – a hotbed of experimental DIY creativity blurring the lines between art and music. In Blank Canvas multi-genre musician turned university lecturer Simon Strange paints a picture of the diverse range of people who broke down the barriers between art life and the creative self.
Tracing lines from the Bauhaus 'blank slate' through the white heat of the Velvet Underground and the cutting edge of the Slits Blank Canvas draws on interviews with giants of the genre across music gender and race spectrums from Brian Eno to Pauline Black Cabaret Voltaire to Gaye Advert. Illustrated is a picture of two decades erupting in a devastatingly diverse flow of outspoken originality as an eclectic range of musical styles and cultures fused.
Does modern day music education suffocate the soul and inhibit the impact of the bohemian artist?
This book asks questions of today's artists musicians and educators looking for the essence of creativity and suggests how lessons learnt in and around art school education show a path for the cultural evolution of both musicians and artists hoping to create the future.
Audience will include university students at all levels in popular music popular culture and creative arts education. Academics educators and researchers working in popular culture and creativity. May also appeal to a more general reader interested in popular culture and creativity.
With a Blank Canvas anything is possible…
Bergson and Durational Performance
Humans have always marked time whether by using the earth's natural rhythms or with the clock. Unlike pre- industrial people living in an age of social acceleration is dominated by clock-time and network time presenting many more options than can possibly be achieved in a human lifespan.
This book explores the possibility of an alternative experience of time one that is closer to the pure duration described by philosopher Henri Bergson. The discussions in this book contribute to contemporary performance analysis philosophy and Bergson studies as well as exploring aspects of immersive and participatory performance walking practices ritual and online performance.
Using durational performances as case studies the author demonstrates new insights into Bergson’s philosophy alongside key theorists in psychology and anthropology. Through a series of performance analyses Bergson's philosophy of duration is coupled with ideas from Maslow Csikszentmihalyi and Victor Turner to speculate on the possibilities available in challenging an experience of the world in which time is short but the possibility of experience is abundant.
The main audience is an academic and student market. Undergraduate and postgraduate students of theatre studies performance and the performing arts doctoral researchers researchers interested in time and performance the relationship between performance and philosophy those with an interest in philosophy sociology anthropology and psychology will all find much of interest.
Potential wider readership in those who are interested in the phenomenon of social acceleration in performance philosophy as well in Bergson’s philosophy.
Beijing Film Academy 2019
The annual Beijing Film Academy Yearbook highlights the best academic debates discussions and research from the previous year as previously published in the highly prestigious Journal of Beijing Film Academy. This volume brings together specially selected articles appearing for the first time in English to bridge the gap in cross-cultural research in cinema and media studies.
The book is the latest in the Intellect China Library series to produce work by Chinese scholars that have not previously been available to English language academia. Covering the subjects of film studies visual arts performing arts media and cultural studies the series aims to foster intellectual debate and to promote closer cross-cultural intellectual exchanges by introducing important works of Chinese scholarship to readers.
Bombay Cinema's Islamicate Histories
Bombay Cinema's Islamicate Histories comprises fourteen essays on the history and influence of cultural Islam on Bombay cinema. These essays are written by major scholars of both South Asian cultural history and Indian cinema working across several continents. Following Marshal Hodgson the term ‘Islamicate’ is used to describe Muslim cultures in order to distinguish the cultural forms associated with Islam from the religion itself. Such a distinction is especially important to observe in South Asia where over a thousand-year history Muslim cultures have commingled with other local religious and cultural traditions to form a rich vein of syncretic aesthetic expression. This volume argues that the influence of Muslim cultures on Bombay cinema can only be grasped against the backdrop of this long history an argument that informs the shape of the whole.
The book is divided into two sections. The first ‘Islamicate Histories’ charts the historical roots of South Asian Muslim cultures and the precursors of Bombay cinema’s Islamicate idioms in the Urdu Parsi Theatre the Courtesan cultures of Lucknow the traditions of miniature painting poetry song and their performance and the various modes of story-telling that derive from Perso-Arabic traditions. The second section ‘Cinematic Forms’ discusses the way in which these Islamicate histories are partially constitutive of the traditions of representation performance and story-telling that give Bombay cinema its distinctive character traditions that have continued into Bollywood. It explores ‘Islamicate’ genres like the ‘Oriental’ film and the ‘Muslim Social’ as well as forms of poetry and performance like the ‘ghazal’ and ‘the qawwali’.
Bombay Cinema’s Islamicate Histories is published at a time of acute crisis in the perception and understanding of Islam where Islamophobia stereotypes Muslims as incipient fifth column and Hindu fundamentalism is ascendant. It demonstrates that Muslim and Hindu cultures in India are inextricably entwined and shows how the syncretic idioms of Islamicate cultural history inform the very identity of Bombay cinema even as that cinema has also instrumentalized Islamicate idioms to stereotype and even demonise the Muslim especially in contemporary Bollywood.
This book argues that many of the idioms of Bombay cinema that we love are derived from the historical influence of Muslim cultures as they interacted with other traditions in the Indian subcontinent. It traces the emergence of cultures of poetry dance song performance and story-telling out of the thousand-year history of Islam on Indian soil and describes the ways in which they underlie and inform the expressive forms of Bombay cinema. It is timely to be reminded of the contribution of Muslim cultures to the distinctive and widely recognized popular cinema of India at a historical moment when the cultural influence of Islam on India is being denied by forces which seek to turn the country away from cultural pluralism towards Hindu fundamentalism. Bombay Cinema’s Islamicate Histories features contributions by major scholars of both South Asian cultural history and Indian cinema working across several continents.
The audience for this book will be primarily graduate and advanced undergraduate students of film studies. The writing is accessible and lively and individual chapters will be suitable for classroom use.
It will be of value in disciplines outside film studies where the Islamicate tradition in general and its impact on film in particular is taught. It will find an audience in disciplines such as history cultural studies women's studies visual studies and South Asian area studies. It will also be of interest to anyone who wants to know how cinema negotiates the parameters of Muslim identity in response to historical and contemporary events in India.
Becoming a Visually Reflective Practitioner
Professional practice is increasingly becoming more complex demanding dynamic and diverse. This important and original new book considers how self-study using arts-based methods can enable purposeful reflection toward understanding and envisioning professional practice. Ideally for visual arts practitioners on all levels this book presents a self-study model grounded in compelling research that highlights arts-based methods for examining four areas of professional practice: professional identities work cultures change and transitions and envisioning new pathways.
Chapters address the components of the self-study model artistic methods and materials and strategies for interpreting self-study written and visual outcomes with the aim of goal setting. Each chapter includes visuals references and end-of-chapter prompts to engage readers in critical and visual reflection. Appendices offer resources and guidelines for creating and assessing self-study outcomes.
The fluctuating nature of professional practice necessitates the pursuit of discernment and clarity that can be achieved through an ongoing reflective practice. Self-study is a systematic and flexible methodology for purposeful reflection on professional practice that embraces dialogic interpretive rhizomatic and visual inquiry. Self-study can occur at any level of practice and in the context of work-related professional development formal study or as a self-initiated inquiry. An arts-based self-study model for visual arts practitioners is explored and focuses on four intersectional components shaping professional practice: professional identities work cultures and communities transition and change within professional practice and envisioning new pathways for professional practice.
The self-study model is grounded in contemporary theory practice and compelling research and embraces robust strategies for understanding the complexities of professional practice that can include dual multiple overlapping hybrid and conflicting professional identities tensions within work cultures and unexpected changes within professional practice. Each chapter focuses on a component of the self-study model and an area of professional practice concluding with references and end-of-chapter prompts that are aimed to facilitate critical reflection-on-practice and the creation of written and visual responses.
With visual arts practitioners in mind various arts-based methods for self-study are discussed that highlight visual journaling as a key method for engaging in self-study. Interpretive research methods are discussed to guide readers in understanding the phases and processes for interpreting written and visual self-study outcomes. Processes are outlined to help readers determine key insights themes issues and questions from their self-study outcomes how to use them in formulating new questions and articulating new professional goals. Several levels for interpretation are presented to offer readers options relative to their professional needs and aims.
Throughout the text charts and visuals serve to summarize and visualize key chapter points. Images by visual arts practitioners appear throughout the text and represent a wide range of artistic media methods and approaches appropriate for self-study. The appendices provide additional resources for enhanced understanding of chapter concepts and key terms guidelines and rubrics for writing reflections creating visual responses and using a visual journal in the self-study process.
Primary readership will be visual arts practitioners at all levels. Ideal for university level graduate courses or as a guide for individuals and small groups of practitioners who seek to engage in arts-based self-study as professional development.
Beyond Text
This original new book represents a variety of art forms across different professional contexts. Its focus is on the ways that educational practitioners and leaders from a range of cultures disciplines professions and organizations practice arts-based research and it explores how these can enable innovative means of learning and enhance professional and organizational development.
This vibrant project allowed for long term systematic conversations between a large and unusually diverse group of twenty-nine people from eight organisations in six countries. It was unusually diverse in many senses: for some the word ‘data’ meant little for others it was central to their daily work; for some artistic practice was core while for others the arts were a means to an end; while some were social entrepreneurs running their own companies others were researching in universities and a number were doing both; some were working within the STEM disciplines of business management engineering science technology sustainability and the built environment others were in the social sciences of social and health care education and youth work while others were engaged in rapid or long term social and cultural action as a means of resisting state violence and military occupation; some worked in one of the safest countries on the planet others in one of the most tear-gassed refugee camps in the world.
Within these professional groups there were also ranges of experience for example senior researchers early career researchers PhD students seasoned professional artists and newcomers to arts forms. Whilst the main communication of this group was English six other major languages were spoken Estonian Finish Catalan Spanish Arabic and key stakeholders bought Swedish and Japanese into the space. This meant that while the conversations in and about arts-based practice were transnational interdisciplinary and systematic they had all the messy troubled-ness that the intercultural on all of the above levels brings with it.
This unique and exciting collection discusses how creative arts practices can have a significant impact on research across a range of international contexts drawing on their own field of research and educational experience. For instance drama music dance and visual arts can be used to understand how learners internalise concepts reflect on how decisions are made in the midst of action in leadership education or investigate the use of the intuitive alongside the rational and analytical in their educational experience. Non-textual arts-based forms of research can also provide modes of investigation into pedagogical and professional practices when applied to fields that normally lie outside of the arts.
Its greatest strengths are its focus on arts-based research as a way of learning in a variety of contexts and often in collaboration. Its consistent theoretical artistic and professional engagements make it a very readable and engaging read.
The representation of a variety of art forms across different professional contexts means that this book will have appeal to several readerships in higher education including the following groups.
Academics and practitioners using arts-based methods in organisation and business settings. Researchers in the arts and researchers generically in the social sciences humanities and arts. University students of the arts education and professional studies especially those interested in the wider international and intercultural diversity of research methodologies.
Those working in international research teams using any form of qualitative research will also find this collection very interesting. It also has potential interest for groups outside higher education with an interest in arts-based research – for example community groups looking to explore collaborative projects.
Beijing Film Academy 2018
The annual Beijing Film Academy Yearbook showcases the best academic debates discussions and research from the previous year as previously published in the highly prestigious Journal of Beijing Film Academy. This volume brings together specially selected articles appearing for the first time in English in order to bridge the gap in cross-cultural research in cinema and media studies.
The book is the latest in the Intellect China Library series to produce work by Chinese scholars that have not previously been available to English language academia. Covering the subjects of film studies visual arts performing arts media and cultural studies the series aims to foster intellectual debate and to promote closer cross-cultural intellectual exchanges by introducing important works of Chinese scholarship to readers.
The Baroque Technotext
To date most criticism of print and digital technotexts – literary objects that foreground the role of their media of inscription – has emphasized the avant-garde contexts of a text’s production. The Baroque Technotext opens new perspectives on this important and innovative literary canon analysing the role of baroque and neo-baroque aesthetics in the emergence and possible futures of technotexts. Combining the insights of poststructuralist theory of the baroque postcolonial theory of the neobaroque and insightful critique of the prevailing modernist approaches to technotexts The Baroque Technotext reframes critical debate of contemporary experiments in literary practice in the late age of print. Analyses of works from authors including Jonathan Safran Foer Chris Ware and David Clark are matched with reflections on other media texts – film visual art and interface design – that have adopted baroque aesthetic tropes.
Britpop Cinema
The Britpop movement of the mid-1990s defined a generation and the films were just as exciting as the music. Beginning with Shallow Grave hitting its stride with Trainspotting and going global with The Full Monty Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels Human Traffic Sexy Beast Shaun of the Dead and This Is England Britpop cinema pushed boundaries paid Hollywood no heed and placed the United Kingdom all too briefly at the centre of the movie universe.
Featuring exclusive interviews with key players such as Simon Pegg Irvine Welsh Michael Winterbottom and Edgar Wright Britpop Cinema combines eyewitness accounts close analysis and social history to celebrate a golden age for UK film.
Beijing Film Academy Yearbook 2017
The annual Beijing Film Academy Yearbook showcases the best academic debates discussions and research from the previous year as previously published in the highly prestigious Journal of Beijing Film Academy. This volume brings together specially selected articles appearing for the first time in English in order to bridge the gap in cross-cultural research in cinema and media studies.
The book is the latest in the Intellect China Library series to produce work by Chinese scholars that have not previously been available to English language academia. Covering the subjects of film studies visual arts performing arts media and cultural studies the series aims to foster intellectual debate and to promote closer cross-cultural intellectual exchanges by introducing important works of Chinese scholarship to readers.
Black and White Bioscope
At the same time as Hollywood was starting a film industry in Southern Africa was surging ahead in integrating production distribution and exhibition. African Film Productions Limited made silent movies using technical and acting talent from Britain the United States and Australia as well as from Africa. These included not only the original 'long trek movie' and the prototype for the movies Zulu and Zulu Dawn but also the first King Solomon's Mines and the original Blue Lagoon featuring African actors such as Goba Tom Zulu and Msoga Mwana who starred as the black revolutionary in Prester John.
In this lavishly illustrated book fifty movies are reconstructed with graphic photographs and plot synopses – plus quotations from reviews – so that readers can rediscover this long-lost treasure trove of silent cinema.
By Accident or Design
Building Successful and Sustainable Film and Television Businesses
This edited collection focuses on the production cultures of successful small and medium-sized (SME) film and television companies in Norway Denmark the Netherlands and the UK based on a three-year research project ‘Success in the Film and Television Industries’ (SiFTI) funded by the Norwegian Research Council. It explores case studies of multiple businesses that have thrived over a period of at least five years and have made several successful productions: both in terms of popularity and critical acclaim. Chapters investigate their histories and evolution contextualising these companies and the people who work for them within macro-economic and cultural conditions. This anthology goes further – to compare and contrast these companies cross-nationally in order to seek common elements that may explain how they have been able to survive and thrive.
Beijing Film Academy Yearbook 2016
The Beijing Film Academy Yearbook is a collection of specially selected articles chosen from issues of the Journal of Beijing Film Academy. This volume collates articles published in the journal throughout 2016 and are translated for an English-speaking readership. Due to the increased academic focus on Chinese cinema the Beijing Film Academy Yearbook project aims to contribute to this research with a first-hand perspective in order to narrow the gap for cross-culture scholarly dialogue.
Broadcasting and National Imagination in Post-Communist Latvia
This book uses the case study of public television in post-communist Latvia to explore the question of how audiences respond to TV offerings and how their choices can be seen as an act of agency. Jānis Juzefovičs builds his book around Albert O. Hirschman’s classic concepts of exit voice and loyalty – the options available to a person within any system. He uses Hirschman’s ideas along with tools from social constructionism to assess how the publics of both the Latvian-speaking majority and the large Russian-speaking minority have responded to the role of public television in the nation-building efforts of the new Latvian state. Along the way he develops our understanding of public broadcasting more generally and the way it can be used to define a national 'we'.
Beijing Film Academy Yearbook 2015
The Blind
Images of animals are all around us. Yet the visibility offered by wildlife photography can't help but contribute to an image of the animal as fundamentally separate from the human. But how can we get closer to animals without making them aware of us or changing their relationship to their environment?
The Blind might be the answer. Developed for naturalists by the Institute of Critical Zoologists the Blind is a camouflage cloak that works on the principle that an object vanishes from sight if light rays striking it are not reflected but are instead forced to flow around as if it were not there. In fifty stunning colour photographs this volume shows the cloak tested in nature reserves grasslands and urban environments. By taking the human out of the picture The Blind offers an opportunity to explore how we see animals in photography.
Body and Mind in Motion
Bangladesh’s Changing Mediascape
With contributions from a diverse group of media and communications scholars from around the globe Bangladesh’s Changing Mediascape presents a pioneering study of the trends patterns and prospects shaping the contemporary Bangladeshi media. Among the many topics discussed here are the difference among specific media formats including television newspapers radio film and photography; policy issues; and the challenge that new media poses to governance in a developing nation faced with innumerable economic social and political problems. Eschewing the currently dominant development communication model the editors argue that market forces rather than planned state interventions will contribute to a more equitable communication environment.
Brian Ferneyhough
One of contemporary music’s most significant and controversial figures Brian Ferneyhough's complex and challenging music draws inspiration from painting literature and philosophy as well as music from the recent and distant past. His dense multi-layered compositions intrigue musicians while pushing performer and instrument to the limits of their abilities. A wide-ranging survey of his life and work to date Brian Ferneyhough examines the critical issues fundamental to understanding the composer as both musician and thinker. Debuting in celebration of Ferneyhough’s 70th birthday in 2013 this book balances critical analysis of the music and close scrutiny of its aesthetic and philosophical contexts making possible a more rounded view of the composer than has been available hitherto.
Broadcasting Diversity
Berlin School Glossary
Berlin School Glossary is the first major publication to mark the increasing international importance of a group of contemporary German and Austrian filmmakers initially known by the name the Berlin School: Christian Petzold Thomas Arslan Christoph Hochhäusler Jessica Hausner and others. The study elaborates on the innovative strategies and formal techniques that distinguish these films specifically questions of movement space spectatorship representation desire location and narrative. Abandoning the usual format of essay-length analyses of individual films and directors the volume is organized as an actual glossary with entries such as bad sex cars the cut endings familiar places forests ghosts hotels interiority landscapes siblings surveillance swimming pools and wind. This unique format combined with an informative introduction will be essential to scholars and fans of the German New Wave.
Black Swan Lake
Being Human
This feels like a time of environmental and moral crisis without parallel.... Not only do human beings seem not to believe in anything but despite exponential advances in information production we do not appear to know much either. This book is a guide for everyone who feels understandably perplexed.
The book considers issues as diverse as:
- the lure of alternative religions and belief systems
- the use of the rhetoric of economics to justify amoral decisionmaking
- Green politics and genetically-modifies crops
- New technology's power to preserve the status quo and
- the true impetus behind the Human Genome Project.
Presenting an explanation of recent findings in science and their relationship with society and politics this book seeks to give guidance towards responsible political action. Starting from themes developed in the companion volume The Search for Mind the author attempts to provide intellectual roots for the 'anti-capitalist' or 'anti-globalization' movement and in particular treats social protest as a form of knowledge-seeking.
The author brings to very topical and controversial concerns some much-needed clarity. Complete with reader-friendly summaries of current thought in the biological physical and social sciences this book is designed primarily for the popular market but will also appeal to those working or studying in these fields.
Beyond the Dance Floor
A pathbreaking study of the women who create electronic dance music Beyond the Dance Floor focuses on the largely neglected relationship between these women and the conceptions of gender and technology that continue to inform the male-dominated culture surrounding electronic music. In this volume Rebekah Farrugia explores a number of important issues including the politics of identity and representation the bonds formed by women within the DJ community and the role female DJs and producers play in this dance music culture as well as in the larger public sphere.
Though Farrugia primarily focuses on women's relationship to music-related technologies – including vinyl mp3s and digital production software – she also deftly extends her argument to the strategic use of the Internet and web design skills for purposes tied to publicity networking and music distribution.
Brit Wits
Humour as much as any other trait defines British cultural identity. It is 'crucial in the English sense of nation' argues humour scholar Andy Medhurst; 'To be properly English you must have a sense of humour' opines historian Antony Easthope. Author Zadie Smith perceives British humour as a national coping mechanism stating 'You don’t have to be funny to live here but it helps.' Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten concurs commenting 'There’s a sense of comedy in the English that even in your grimmest moments you laugh.' Although humour invariably functions as a relief valve for the British it is also often deployed for the purposes of combat. From the court jesters of old to the rock wits of today British humorists – across the arts – have been the pioneers of rebellion chastising society’s hypocrites exploiters and phonies while simultaneously slighting the very institutions that maintain them.
The best of the British wits are (to steal a coinage from The Clash) 'bullshit detectors' with subversion on their minds and the jugulars of their enemies in their sights. Such subversive humour is held dear in British hearts and minds and it runs deep in their history. Historian Chris Rojek explains how the kind of foul-mouthed abusive language typical of British (punk) humour has its antecedents in prior idioms like the billingsgate oath: 'Humour often of an extraordinary coruscating and vehement type has been a characteristic of the British since at least feudal times when the ironic oaths against the monarchy and the sulfurous ‘Billingsgate’ uttered against the Church and anyone in power were widespread features of popular culture. Rojek proceeds to fast forward to 1977 citing the Sex Pistols’ 'Sod the Jubilee' campaign as a contemporary update of the Billingsgate oath. For Rojek the omnipresence of British caustic humour accounts for why the nation has historically been more inclined toward expressions of subversive rebellion than to violent revolution. 'Protest has been conducted not with guns and grenades but with biting comedy and graffiti' he observes.
As an outlet for venting and as an alternative means of protest Brit wit not surprisingly has developed distinctive communicative patterns with linguistic flair and creative flourishes starring as its key features. Far more than American humour for example British humour revels in colourful language in lyrical invective in surrogate mock warfare. One witnesses such humour daily in the Houses of Parliament where well-crafted barbs are traded across the aisle the thinly veiled insults cushioned by the creativity of the inherent humour. Such wit is equally evident throughout the history of British rock where rebellion has defined the rock impulse and comedic dissent has been a seemingly instinctual activity.
Berliner Chic
Since becoming the capital of reunited Germany Berlin has had a dose of global money and international style added to its already impressive cultural veneer. Once home to emperors and dictators peddlers and spies it is now a fashion showplace that attracts the young and hip. Moving beyond descriptions of Berlin's fashion industry and its ready-to-wear clothing Berliner Chic charts the turbulent stories of entrepreneurially-savvy manufacturers and cultural workers striving to establish their city as a fashion capital and being repeatedly interrupted by politics ideology and war. There are many stories to tell about Berlin's fashion industry and Berliner Chic tells them all with considerable expertise.
Beauty and the Beast
Recent years have seen an increased interest in issues of national identity and representation and cinema is a major medium where strands and layers of representational systems come together in cross-cultural dialogues. Beauty and the Beast provides an account of the specific development of depictions of Italy and the Italians in British cinema. Girelli draws upon cultural and social history to assess the ongoing function of “Italianness” in British film and its crucial role in defining and challenging British national identity. Drawing on British literary and filmic tradition to analyse the rise of specific images of the Italian Other this book makes original use of archival material such as WWII footage – and a selected corpus of significant British films.
Bringing Down the House
Beyond Auteurism
Broadcasters and Citizens in Europe
European media is experiencing a paradoxical form of growth: as media outlets surge and new technologies develop major broadcasting companies are consolidating like never before. In Broadcasters and Citizens in Europe an esteemed group of contributors look at what this paradox might mean for the European community. Are broadcasting audiences better informed than they were twenty years ago? And how has the advent of the European Union changed media practices? This essential volume explores a new media world in the context of a continent in flux.
“The book is a good source of information about institutional arrangements developed in European countries in the field of audio-visual policy. It gives an interesting and well-written account of how particular European countries and the European Union try to deal with different problems deriving from the ethical dilemma inscribed in the construction of media systems.”—Magdalena Rek Journal of Contemporary European Studies “Communication scholars will benefit from the focus on research from across Europe along with the theoretical implications. For media policy-makers and members of civic organisations the taxonomy of instruments will provide an overview for possible policy development. Finally the clarity with which this book is written will help college students understand the field of media and social responsibility.”— Jarim Kim Media International AustraliaBritish TV and Film Culture in the 1950s
Brecht in L.A.
Additionally Brecht in L.A. winner of the 2002 SWTA National New Play Contest (US) is already a critically acclaimed play which suggests that the work has the potential to be widely (and successfully) produced. And such productions will enhance the marketability of the book. A play influenced by Brecht is in itself not unique since many leading contemporary dramatists--such as Caryl Churchill Edward Bond Tony Kushner Heiner Muller and Howard Barker--have been affected by Brechtian dramaturgy. But a Brechtian-influenced play with Brecht as the lead character is unique. The play represents the only dramatic work in English which features Brecht himself as the title character.
Brecht in L.A. centering on Brecht while adapting/critiquing Brechtian dramatic form also provides a unique opportunity for the instructor who is teaching Brechtian theatre since--with just one text (which will includes endnotes and appendices)--the instructor can cover epic theatre the "Brecht debate" Brecht's biography and contradictions between Brecht's theatrical practices and his everyday life.
The book's wide-ranging audience will include theatre artists; playgoers; students of drama theatre English and performance studies; scholars; and readers interested in Brecht Hollywood and/or biography. Brecht in L.A. will also be an important addition to the considerable collections of books about Brecht which are carried by countless libraries.
Being Human
This feels like a time of environmental and moral crisis without parallel.... Not only do human beings seem not to believe in anything but despite exponential advances in information production we do not appear to know much either. This book is a guide for everyone who feels understandably perplexed.
The book considers issues as diverse as:
- the lure of alternative religions and belief systems
- the use of the rhetoric of economics to justify amoral decisionmaking
- Green politics and genetically-modifies crops
- New technology's power to preserve the status quo and
- the true impetus behind the Human Genome Project.
Presenting an explanation of recent findings in science and their relationship with society and politics this book seeks to give guidance towards responsible political action. Starting from themes developed in the companion volume The Search for Mind the author attempts to provide intellectual roots for the 'anti-capitalist' or 'anti-globalization' movement and in particular treats social protest as a form of knowledge-seeking.
The author brings to very topical and controversial concerns some much-needed clarity. Complete with reader-friendly summaries of current thought in the biological physical and social sciences this book is designed primarily for the popular market but will also appeal to those working or studying in these fields.
Becoming Designers
Design Research is an area that is both current and growing but texts on the subjects are in short supply. This book is a response to the vitality of discussion within journals and at conferences and it intends to place Design Research in its rightful place at the heart of studio-based education and practice.
Offering a valuable context within which to understand the educational needs and aspirations of the designer Becoming Designers is also a vital resource for students in this field whose access to books on the subject is currently very limited.