Contours of Culture

Contours of Culture

Author: Paul Atkinson

Publisher: Rowman Altamira

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9780759107069

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In Contours of Culture, the authors discuss the uses of various ethnographic methods in the study of culture, drawing on their field research with an opera company, Welsh artists, and classes on the popular Brazilian martial art capoeira. In their practical research and in the research of other scholars, they encounter complex problems and themes that often require new ways of organizing and conceiving cultural material, and even new ways of giving expression to phenomena that are only partially understood. This book is not only about the inherent complexities involved in ethnography, it is also about the kinds of opportunities available to researchers immersed in this complexity and how they might grasp cultural settings in their entirety. Book jacket.


Book Synopsis Contours of Culture by : Paul Atkinson

Download or read book Contours of Culture written by Paul Atkinson and published by Rowman Altamira. This book was released on 2008 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Contours of Culture, the authors discuss the uses of various ethnographic methods in the study of culture, drawing on their field research with an opera company, Welsh artists, and classes on the popular Brazilian martial art capoeira. In their practical research and in the research of other scholars, they encounter complex problems and themes that often require new ways of organizing and conceiving cultural material, and even new ways of giving expression to phenomena that are only partially understood. This book is not only about the inherent complexities involved in ethnography, it is also about the kinds of opportunities available to researchers immersed in this complexity and how they might grasp cultural settings in their entirety. Book jacket.


Contours of Culture

Contours of Culture

Author: Robbie B.H. Goh

Publisher: Hong Kong University Press

Published: 2005-03-01

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 9789622097315

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This volume discusses the urban history and cultural landscape of Singapore in relation to theories of textual dialogics, multiculturalism and the cultural and political unconscious. Multidisciplinary in approach, it takes as its data not only government policy and official discourses, and the more quantitative elements of population census information on religion, income, race and nationality, but also a wide range of related cultural discourses in film, literature, media texts, social behaviour and other interventions and interpretations of the city. The main parameters of Singapore’s socio-national construction—public housing, social elitism, racial and linguistic plurality and their management, colonial remnants and their transformation—are explained and analysed in terms of Singapore’s colonial past, its rapid modernization, and its current push to compete as a global city and tourist destination. This multidisciplinary book should be of interest to a correspondingly wide readership, including architects and urban planners, political scientists, cultural analysts and theorists, colonial discourse scholars, urban geographers and sociologists, Asian studies specialists, graduate and undergraduate students in the above areas, and a general readership interested in cities and cultures. “This is a remarkable book. By taking a series of readings of Singapore’s urban culture, it chronicles the emergence of a new city form which, through the coming together of quite particular narratives of modernity, nationhood and identity may well be providing a much more general spatial model for Asian cities. Simultaneously, it provides a gripping account of how to read the possibilities and tensions that this model throws up.” —Nigel J. Thrift, Oxford University “Goh’s theoretically sophisticated and creative analysis of Singapore’s society, space and culture and his brilliant critique of the city’s official policies of self-representation is a marvellous tour de force. An astute urban semiotician and interpreter of cultural signs, Goh draws on films, figures and fiction to provide a fascinating reading of a city preparing for global competition. Questions of ethnicity, class, sexuality, national identity, architecture and space are brought together in an imaginative—as well as provocative—exercise of symbolic explication and analysis. Essential for studies of Asian urbanism and a model for students of the (so-called) ‘global city’.” —Anthony King, State University of New York at Binghamton “In Contours of Culture Robbie Goh has achieved what many specialists in cultural studies have attempted only metaphorically, by successfully fusing the materiality of spatiality with the symbolic realm of cultural processes. The result is an absorbing and nuanced interpretation of the meaning of the landscapes of Singapore, where space serves as a text that reflects and reproduces the political cultures of a global city in a state of constant re-invention.” —David Ley, University of British Columbia, Canada


Book Synopsis Contours of Culture by : Robbie B.H. Goh

Download or read book Contours of Culture written by Robbie B.H. Goh and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2005-03-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume discusses the urban history and cultural landscape of Singapore in relation to theories of textual dialogics, multiculturalism and the cultural and political unconscious. Multidisciplinary in approach, it takes as its data not only government policy and official discourses, and the more quantitative elements of population census information on religion, income, race and nationality, but also a wide range of related cultural discourses in film, literature, media texts, social behaviour and other interventions and interpretations of the city. The main parameters of Singapore’s socio-national construction—public housing, social elitism, racial and linguistic plurality and their management, colonial remnants and their transformation—are explained and analysed in terms of Singapore’s colonial past, its rapid modernization, and its current push to compete as a global city and tourist destination. This multidisciplinary book should be of interest to a correspondingly wide readership, including architects and urban planners, political scientists, cultural analysts and theorists, colonial discourse scholars, urban geographers and sociologists, Asian studies specialists, graduate and undergraduate students in the above areas, and a general readership interested in cities and cultures. “This is a remarkable book. By taking a series of readings of Singapore’s urban culture, it chronicles the emergence of a new city form which, through the coming together of quite particular narratives of modernity, nationhood and identity may well be providing a much more general spatial model for Asian cities. Simultaneously, it provides a gripping account of how to read the possibilities and tensions that this model throws up.” —Nigel J. Thrift, Oxford University “Goh’s theoretically sophisticated and creative analysis of Singapore’s society, space and culture and his brilliant critique of the city’s official policies of self-representation is a marvellous tour de force. An astute urban semiotician and interpreter of cultural signs, Goh draws on films, figures and fiction to provide a fascinating reading of a city preparing for global competition. Questions of ethnicity, class, sexuality, national identity, architecture and space are brought together in an imaginative—as well as provocative—exercise of symbolic explication and analysis. Essential for studies of Asian urbanism and a model for students of the (so-called) ‘global city’.” —Anthony King, State University of New York at Binghamton “In Contours of Culture Robbie Goh has achieved what many specialists in cultural studies have attempted only metaphorically, by successfully fusing the materiality of spatiality with the symbolic realm of cultural processes. The result is an absorbing and nuanced interpretation of the meaning of the landscapes of Singapore, where space serves as a text that reflects and reproduces the political cultures of a global city in a state of constant re-invention.” —David Ley, University of British Columbia, Canada


The Dialogic Emergence of Culture

The Dialogic Emergence of Culture

Author: Dennis Tedlock

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9780252064432

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Major figures in contemporary anthropology present a dialogic critique of ethnography. Moving beyond sociolinguistics and performance theory, and inspired by Bakhtin and by their own field experiences, the contributors revise notions of where culture actually resides. This pioneering effort integrates a concern for linguistic processes with interpretive approaches to culture. Culture and ethnography are located in social interaction. The collection contains dialogues that trace the entire course of ethnographic interpretation, from field research to publication. The authors explore an anthropology that actively acknowledges the dialogical nature of its own production. Chapters strike a balance between theory and practice and will also be of interest in cultural studies, literary criticism, linguistics, and philosophy. CONTRIBUTORS: Deborah Tannen, John Attinasi, Paul Friedrich, Billie Jean Isbell, Allan F. Burns, Jane H. Hill, Ruth Behar, Jean DeBernardi, R. P. McDermott, Henry Tylbor, Alton L. Becker, Bruce Mannheim, Dennis Tedlock


Book Synopsis The Dialogic Emergence of Culture by : Dennis Tedlock

Download or read book The Dialogic Emergence of Culture written by Dennis Tedlock and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Major figures in contemporary anthropology present a dialogic critique of ethnography. Moving beyond sociolinguistics and performance theory, and inspired by Bakhtin and by their own field experiences, the contributors revise notions of where culture actually resides. This pioneering effort integrates a concern for linguistic processes with interpretive approaches to culture. Culture and ethnography are located in social interaction. The collection contains dialogues that trace the entire course of ethnographic interpretation, from field research to publication. The authors explore an anthropology that actively acknowledges the dialogical nature of its own production. Chapters strike a balance between theory and practice and will also be of interest in cultural studies, literary criticism, linguistics, and philosophy. CONTRIBUTORS: Deborah Tannen, John Attinasi, Paul Friedrich, Billie Jean Isbell, Allan F. Burns, Jane H. Hill, Ruth Behar, Jean DeBernardi, R. P. McDermott, Henry Tylbor, Alton L. Becker, Bruce Mannheim, Dennis Tedlock


Cultural Contours of India

Cultural Contours of India

Author: Vijai Shankar Śrivastava

Publisher: Abhinav Publications

Published: 1981

Total Pages: 736

ISBN-13: 9780391023581

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Comprises articles on the life and work of Satya Prakash, b. 1914, Indologist, and papers, most on the history and culture of Rajasthan, India.


Book Synopsis Cultural Contours of India by : Vijai Shankar Śrivastava

Download or read book Cultural Contours of India written by Vijai Shankar Śrivastava and published by Abhinav Publications. This book was released on 1981 with total page 736 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comprises articles on the life and work of Satya Prakash, b. 1914, Indologist, and papers, most on the history and culture of Rajasthan, India.


Reinventing Political Culture

Reinventing Political Culture

Author: Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Publisher: Polity

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0745646379

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The way people think and act politically is not set in stone. People can and do change the fundamental cultural contours of their political situation. Their political culture does not only restrict imagination and action - it is also a resource for political creativity and invention. In Reinventing Political Culture, this resource is uncovered and explored. Analyzed as a tension between the power of culture and the culture of power, the concept of political culture is reinvented and applied to understanding the practice of people transforming their own political culture in very different circumstances. Three instances of such reinvention are closely examined: one historic, during the twilight of the Soviet empire; one actively in process and actively opposed, ‘the Obama revolution'; and one an apparent distant dream, the power of culture and the culture of power that would avoid ‘the clash of civilizations' in the Middle East. In accessible and engaging prose, Goldfarb clearly and forcefully presents students and scholars of sociology, comparative politics, and cultural studies with an original position on political culture, showing how the political cultures of our times pose not only grave dangers, but also opportunities for creative alternatives.


Book Synopsis Reinventing Political Culture by : Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Download or read book Reinventing Political Culture written by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb and published by Polity. This book was released on 2012 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The way people think and act politically is not set in stone. People can and do change the fundamental cultural contours of their political situation. Their political culture does not only restrict imagination and action - it is also a resource for political creativity and invention. In Reinventing Political Culture, this resource is uncovered and explored. Analyzed as a tension between the power of culture and the culture of power, the concept of political culture is reinvented and applied to understanding the practice of people transforming their own political culture in very different circumstances. Three instances of such reinvention are closely examined: one historic, during the twilight of the Soviet empire; one actively in process and actively opposed, ‘the Obama revolution'; and one an apparent distant dream, the power of culture and the culture of power that would avoid ‘the clash of civilizations' in the Middle East. In accessible and engaging prose, Goldfarb clearly and forcefully presents students and scholars of sociology, comparative politics, and cultural studies with an original position on political culture, showing how the political cultures of our times pose not only grave dangers, but also opportunities for creative alternatives.


Culture, Class, Distinction

Culture, Class, Distinction

Author: Tony Bennett

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-01-21

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1134101058

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Drawing on the first systematic study of cultural capital in contemporary Britain, Culture, Class, Distinction examines the role played by culture in the relationships between class, gender and ethnicity. Its findings promise a major revaluation of the legacy of Pierre Bourdieu’s account of the relationships between class and culture.


Book Synopsis Culture, Class, Distinction by : Tony Bennett

Download or read book Culture, Class, Distinction written by Tony Bennett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-01-21 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on the first systematic study of cultural capital in contemporary Britain, Culture, Class, Distinction examines the role played by culture in the relationships between class, gender and ethnicity. Its findings promise a major revaluation of the legacy of Pierre Bourdieu’s account of the relationships between class and culture.


Cultures in Motion

Cultures in Motion

Author: Daniel T. Rodgers

Publisher: Publications in Partnership wi

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780691159096

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"Publication in partnership with the Shelby Cullom Davis Center at Princeton University."


Book Synopsis Cultures in Motion by : Daniel T. Rodgers

Download or read book Cultures in Motion written by Daniel T. Rodgers and published by Publications in Partnership wi. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Publication in partnership with the Shelby Cullom Davis Center at Princeton University."


The Post-Human Society

The Post-Human Society

Author: Rajani Kanth

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2015-01-01

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 3110455463

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The Post-Human Society is a rich, unique, path-breaking, belletristic and literary 'crie de coeur' work - a lyrical expose of all the internal infelicities (social, political, aesthetic) of the United States of America. In its vivid contrasting of the mores of competition, avarice, and greed to communitarian, co-respecting and co-operative values, it abounds with colorful, vibrant, breathtaking images and tropes. Utilizing a novel, First Person Narrative, the author Rajani Kanth offers a poignant critique of the rabid, runaway materialism that has been the bane of all modernist, European societies, to date. It is evocative in its approach to the fading genre of the iconic anthropology/sociology classics of the yesteryear. Ultimately, it is a critique of the ruling ethos of our times: Eurocentrism - i.e., selfish and acquisitive materialism, of which the contemporary USA is the trend-setter and the unchallenged gold standard. DR. RAJANI KANTH has an MA in Social Anthropology from the Delhi School of Economics, India, and a PhD in Economics from the New School for Social Research, New York, USA. After serving as Economic Advisor to the UN in New York, he taught as University Professor, and is currently based at Harvard University.


Book Synopsis The Post-Human Society by : Rajani Kanth

Download or read book The Post-Human Society written by Rajani Kanth and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Post-Human Society is a rich, unique, path-breaking, belletristic and literary 'crie de coeur' work - a lyrical expose of all the internal infelicities (social, political, aesthetic) of the United States of America. In its vivid contrasting of the mores of competition, avarice, and greed to communitarian, co-respecting and co-operative values, it abounds with colorful, vibrant, breathtaking images and tropes. Utilizing a novel, First Person Narrative, the author Rajani Kanth offers a poignant critique of the rabid, runaway materialism that has been the bane of all modernist, European societies, to date. It is evocative in its approach to the fading genre of the iconic anthropology/sociology classics of the yesteryear. Ultimately, it is a critique of the ruling ethos of our times: Eurocentrism - i.e., selfish and acquisitive materialism, of which the contemporary USA is the trend-setter and the unchallenged gold standard. DR. RAJANI KANTH has an MA in Social Anthropology from the Delhi School of Economics, India, and a PhD in Economics from the New School for Social Research, New York, USA. After serving as Economic Advisor to the UN in New York, he taught as University Professor, and is currently based at Harvard University.


Transcultural English Studies

Transcultural English Studies

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2008-01-01

Total Pages: 485

ISBN-13: 904202884X

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What is most strikingly new about the transcultural is its sudden ubiquity. Following in the wake of previous concepts in cultural and literary studies such as creolization, hybridity, and syncretism, and signalling a family relationship to terms such as transnationality, translocality, and transmigration, ‘transcultural’ terminology has unobtrusively but powerfully edged its way into contemporary theoretical and critical discourse. The four sections of this volume denote major areas where ‘transcultural’ questions and problematics have come to the fore: theories of culture and literature that have sought to account for the complexity of culture in a world increasingly characterized by globalization, transnationalization, and interdependence; realities of individual and collective life-worlds shaped by the ubiquity of phenomena and experiences relating to transnational connections and the blurring of cultural boundaries; fictions in literature and other media that explore these realities, negotiate the fuzzy edges of ‘ethnic’ or ‘national’ cultures, and participate in the creation of transnational public spheres as well as transcultural imaginations and memories; and, finally, pedagogy and didactics, where earlier models of teaching ‘other’ cultures are faced with the challenge of coming to terms with cultural complexity both in what is being taught and in the people it is taught to, and where ‘target cultures’ have become elusive. The idea of ‘locating’ culture and literature exclusively in the context of ethnicities or nations is rapidly losing plausibility throughout an ‘English-speaking world’ that has long since been multi- rather than monolingual. Exploring the prospects and contours of ‘Transcultural English Studies’ thus reflects a set of common challenges and predicaments that in recent years have increasingly moved centre stage not only in the New Literatures in English, but also in British and American studies.


Book Synopsis Transcultural English Studies by :

Download or read book Transcultural English Studies written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is most strikingly new about the transcultural is its sudden ubiquity. Following in the wake of previous concepts in cultural and literary studies such as creolization, hybridity, and syncretism, and signalling a family relationship to terms such as transnationality, translocality, and transmigration, ‘transcultural’ terminology has unobtrusively but powerfully edged its way into contemporary theoretical and critical discourse. The four sections of this volume denote major areas where ‘transcultural’ questions and problematics have come to the fore: theories of culture and literature that have sought to account for the complexity of culture in a world increasingly characterized by globalization, transnationalization, and interdependence; realities of individual and collective life-worlds shaped by the ubiquity of phenomena and experiences relating to transnational connections and the blurring of cultural boundaries; fictions in literature and other media that explore these realities, negotiate the fuzzy edges of ‘ethnic’ or ‘national’ cultures, and participate in the creation of transnational public spheres as well as transcultural imaginations and memories; and, finally, pedagogy and didactics, where earlier models of teaching ‘other’ cultures are faced with the challenge of coming to terms with cultural complexity both in what is being taught and in the people it is taught to, and where ‘target cultures’ have become elusive. The idea of ‘locating’ culture and literature exclusively in the context of ethnicities or nations is rapidly losing plausibility throughout an ‘English-speaking world’ that has long since been multi- rather than monolingual. Exploring the prospects and contours of ‘Transcultural English Studies’ thus reflects a set of common challenges and predicaments that in recent years have increasingly moved centre stage not only in the New Literatures in English, but also in British and American studies.


Cultural Approaches To Parenting

Cultural Approaches To Parenting

Author: Marc H. Bornstein

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2013-02-01

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 1134766572

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This volume is concerned with elucidating similarities and differences in enculturation processes that help to account for the ways in which individuals in different cultures develop. Each chapter reviews a substantive parenting topic, describes the relevant cultures (in psychological ethnography, rather than from an anthropological stance), reports on the parenting-in-culture results, and discusses the significance of cross-cultural investigation for understanding the parenting issue of interest. Specific areas of study include environment and interactive style, responsiveness, activity patterns, distributions of social involvement with children, structural patterns of interaction, and development of the social self. Through exposure to a wide range of diverse research methods, readers will gain a deeper appreciation of the problems, procedures, possibilities, and profits associated with a truly comparative approach to understanding human growth and development.


Book Synopsis Cultural Approaches To Parenting by : Marc H. Bornstein

Download or read book Cultural Approaches To Parenting written by Marc H. Bornstein and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is concerned with elucidating similarities and differences in enculturation processes that help to account for the ways in which individuals in different cultures develop. Each chapter reviews a substantive parenting topic, describes the relevant cultures (in psychological ethnography, rather than from an anthropological stance), reports on the parenting-in-culture results, and discusses the significance of cross-cultural investigation for understanding the parenting issue of interest. Specific areas of study include environment and interactive style, responsiveness, activity patterns, distributions of social involvement with children, structural patterns of interaction, and development of the social self. Through exposure to a wide range of diverse research methods, readers will gain a deeper appreciation of the problems, procedures, possibilities, and profits associated with a truly comparative approach to understanding human growth and development.