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Showing 2681 - 2700 of 6219 items
By Jonathan Rey Lee. 2020
This book investigates a paradox of creative yet scripted play—how LEGO invites players to build ‘freely’ with and within its…
highly structured, ideologically-laden toy system. First, this book considers theories and methods for deconstructing LEGO as a medium of bricolage, the creative reassembly of already-significant elements. Then, it pieces together readings of numerous LEGO sets, advertisements, videogames, films, and other media that show how LEGO constructs five ideologies of play: construction play, dramatic play, digital play, transmedia play, and attachment play. From suburban traffic patterns to architectural croissants, from feminized mini-doll bodies to toys-to-life stories, from virtual construction to playful fan creations, this book explores how the LEGO medium conveys ideological messages—not by transmitting clear statements but by providing implicit instructions for how to reassemble meanings it had all along.By Yasmin Ibrahim. 2021
This book offers critical perspectives on the digital ‘iconic’, exploring how the notion of the iconic is re-appropriated and re-made…
online, and the consequences for humanity and society. Examining cross-cultural case studies of iconic images in digital spaces, the author offers original and critical analyses, theories and perspectives on the notion of the ‘iconic’, and on its movement, re-appropriation and meaning making on digital platforms. A carefully curated selection of case studies illustrates topics such as phantom memory; martyrdom; denigration and pornographic recoding; digital games as simulacra; and memes as ‘artification’. Situating the notion of the iconic firmly within contemporary cultures, the author takes a thematic approach to investigate the iconic as an unstable and unfinished phenomenon online as it travels through platforms temporally and spatially. The book will be an important resource for academics and students in the areas of media and communications, digital culture, cultural studies, visual communication, visual culture, journalism studies and digital humanities.By Axel Englund. 2020
Imagine Armida, Handel’s Saracen sorceress, performing her breakneck coloraturas in a black figure-hugging rubber dress, beating her insubordinate furies into…
submission with a cane, suspending a captive Rinaldo in chains from the ceiling of her dungeon. Mozart’s peasant girl Zerlina, meanwhile, is tying up and blindfolding her fiancé to seduce him out of his jealousy of Don Giovanni. And how about Wagner’s wizard, Klingsor, ensnaring his choir of flower maidens in elaborate Japanese rope bondage? Opera, it would appear, has developed a taste for sadomasochism. For decades now, radical stage directors have repeatedly dressed canonical operas—from Handel and Mozart to Wagner and Puccini, and beyond—in whips, chains, leather, and other regalia of SM and fetishism. Deviant Opera seeks to understand this phenomenon, approaching the contemporary visual code of perversion as a lens through which opera focuses and scrutinizes its own configurations of sex, gender, power, and violence. The emerging image is that of an art form that habitually plays with an eroticization of cruelty and humiliation, inviting its devotees to take sensual pleasure in the suffering of others. Ultimately, Deviant Opera argues that this species of opera fantasizes about breaking the boundaries of its own role-playing, and pushing its erotic power exchanges from the enacted to the actual.By Theodore Jun Yoo. 2020
What history, pop culture, and diaspora can teach us about North and South Korea today.Korea is one of the last…
divided countries in the world. Twins born of the Cold War, one is vilified as an isolated, impoverished, time-warped state with an abysmal human rights record and a reclusive leader who perennially threatens global security with his clandestine nuclear weapons program. The other is lauded as a thriving democratic and capitalist state with the thirteenth largest economy in the world and a model for developing countries to emulate. In The Koreas, Theodore Jun Yoo provides a compelling gateway to understanding the divergent developments of contemporary North and South Korea. In contrast to standard histories, Yoo examines the unique qualities of the Korean diaspora experience, challenging the master narratives of national culture, homogeneity, belongingness, and identity. This book draws from the latest research to present a decidedly demythologized history, with chapters focusing on feature stories that capture the key issues of the day as they affect popular culture and everyday life. The Koreas will be indispensable to any historian, armchair or otherwise, in need of a discerning and reliable guide to the region.By Björn-Ole Kamm. 2020
This book engages non-digital role-playing games—such as table-top RPGs and live-action role-plays—in and from Japan, to sketch their possibilities and…
fluidities in a global context. Currently, non-digital RPGs are experiencing a second boom worldwide and are increasingly gaining scholarly attention for their inter-media relations. This study concentrates on Japan, but does not emphasise unique Japanese characteristics, as the practice of embodying an RPG character is always contingently realised. The purpose is to trace the transcultural entanglements of RPG practices by mapping four arenas of conflict: the tension between reality and fiction; stereotypes of escapism; mediation across national borders; and the role of scholars in the making of role-playing game practices.By Miguel Cesar. 2020
This book focuses on the theme of the transgression of life and death boundaries through its representation in Japanese contemporary…
visual media, more specifically in the manga Fullmetal Alchemist, the animated film Journey to Agartha, and the computer game Shadow of the Colossus. By addressing how the theme was constructed by three different media and what these texts say about it, the book focuses on the narrativization of Japanese ontological anxieties. The book argues that, although these texts deal with matters of afterlife through fantasy worlds, the content of their stories, the archetypes of their characters, and their existential journeys echo contextually-situated conversations. Matters of gender, societal structure and, most of all, the tensions between individuality and sociocentrism not only permeate but structure the interrogation of our relation to the afterlife. This book stands to contribute significantly to media studies, literary studies, and Japanese studies.By Daniel Greenberg, Mark L. Levine, George McNamee. 2020
Republished fifty years later to coincide with the release this fall of the film of the same title written and…
directed by Aaron Sorkin with an all-star cast, this is the classic account of perhaps the most infamous, and definitely the most entertaining, trial in recent American history.In the fall of 1969 eight prominent anti-Vietnam War activists were put on trial for conspiring to riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. One of the eight, Black Panther cofounder Bobby Seale, was literally bound and gagged in court by order of the judge, Julius Hoffman, and his case was separated from that of the others. The activists, who included Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Tom Hayden, and their attorneys, William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass, insisted that the First Amendment was on trial. Their witnesses were a virtual who&’s who of the 1960s counterculture: Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Arlo Guthrie, Judy Collins, Norman Mailer, among them. The defendants constantly interrupted to protest what they felt were unfair rulings by the judge. The trial became a circus, all the while receiving intense media coverage. The convictions that resulted were subsequently overturned on appeal, but the trial remained a political and cultural touchstone, a mirror of the deep divisions in the country. The Trial of the Chicago 7 consists of the highlights from trial testimony with a brief epilogue describing what later happened to the principal figures.This book provides an introduction to the Forge, an online discussion site for tabletop role-playing game (TRPG) design, play, and…
publication that was active during the first years of the twenty-first century and which served as an important locus for experimentation in game design and production during that time. Aimed at game studies scholars, for whom the ideas formulated at or popularized by the Forge are of key interest, the book also attempts to provide an accessible account of the growth and development of the Forge as a site of participatory culture. It situates the Forge within the broader context of TRPG discourse, and connects “Forge theory” to the academic investigation of role-playing.Creating Reality in Factual Television analyzes the uneasy interaction between economics, culture, and professional ethics in reality and documentary television…
storytelling. Through the "frankenbite," an editorial tool that extracts and re-orders the salient elements or single words of a statement, interview, or exchange into a revealing confession or argument, the book explores how and why editors manipulate truth in factual television. The author considers how the editing of documentary television is increasingly following reality television’s dictate to entertain instead of inform, how the "real" and the "truth" fall victim to the demand to "tell entertaining stories," and how editors must compromise their professional ethics as a result. Drawing on interviews with 75 North American and European editors that explore their experiences and opinions of reality and documentary television practices, and their views on their responsibilities and loyalties in the field, Creating Reality in Factual Television illuminates the real and potential ethical dilemmas of editorial decision making, the context in which decisions are made, and how editors themselves validate the editing choices to themselves and others. Addressing a dramatic development in contemporary media ecology – the age of "alternative facts" – this book is a useful research tool for scholars and students of documentary film, media literacy, genre studies, media ethics, affect theory, and audience perception.By Markus Spöhrer, Harald Waldrich. 2020
Der Band greift einen vorherrschenden wissenschaftlichen Trend zur Prozessualisierung, Relationierung und Situierung von gegenwärtigen Medien bzw. medialen Konstellationen auf und…
erprobt und exemplifiziert diesen an Videospielarrangements. Er vereint unter der Perspektivierung von digitalen Spielen als „Situationen und Prozesse“ internationale Forscher*innen aus dem Bereich der Computerspielforschung und zeigt in diesem Zuge auch, dass eine derartige theoretische Prämisse interdisziplinäre Herangehensweisen ermöglicht bzw. zusammenführen lässt.By Chet Flippo. 1991
A collection of magazine articles, many from the Rolling Stone, by the American music journalist and biographer Chet Flippo, mostly…
from the 1980s. People covered or interviewed include: John Lennon, Al Green, Tony Bennett, Les Paul, Chet Atkins, Bobby Bare, Bill Haley, Phil Ochs, David Geffen, Jimmy Buffett, Elvis, Mick Jagger,, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings.By Sujatha Fernandes. 2020
In The Cuban Hustle, Sujatha Fernandes explores the multitudinous ways artists, activists, and ordinary Cubans have hustled to survive and…
express themselves in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Whether circulating information on flash drives as a substitute for the internet or building homemade antennas to listen to Miami’s hip hop radio stations, Cubans improvise alternative strategies and workarounds to contend with ongoing isolation. Throughout these essays, Fernandes examines the emergence of dynamic youth cultures and social movements as Cuba grappled with economic collapse, new digital technologies, the normalization of diplomatic ties with the United States during the Obama administration, and the regression of US-Cuban relations in the Trump era. From reflections on feminism, new Cuban cinema, and public art to urban slums, the Afro-Cuban movement, and rumba and hip hop, Fernandes reveals Cuba to be a world of vibrant cultures grounded in an ethos of invention and everyday hustle.By Oss Oeric. 1986
In the 1970s two of the most influential thinkers of the psychedelic era gathered what was then known about psilocybin…
botany and culture and presented it in Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide. Writing under pseudonyms, the McKenna brothers provided simple, reliable, and productive methods for magic mushroom propagation, including black-and-white photographs that showed the techniques of the time. The development of more modern cultivation techniques does not eclipse the cultural contributions of this book. Philosophical asides, whimsical illustrations evoking the mystical nature of mushrooms, and speculations about the relationship of these organisms to humankind provide a lasting legacy. Truly the classic manual on home cultivation, the wisdom of Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Grower's Guide continues to inspire new students of psycho-mycology-and refreshes psychedelic memories for others.By Kerry Ogame, L. G Nicholas. 2006
Here is a practical step-by-step guide to cultivating four species of psilocybin-containing mushrooms, indoors and outside. Anyone with a clean…
kitchen, some basic equipment, and a closet shelf or shady flowerbed will be able to grow a bumper crop. This Handbook also includes an introduction to mushroom biology, a guide for supplies, and advice on discreetly integrating psychedelic mushrooms into outdoor gardens.Hand-drawn illustrations and full-color and black-&-white photographs provide the reader with steps in the cultivation process and exact identification of desired species.The four species detailed include two species that have previously had very little coverage: Psilocybe mexicana (a tiny mushroom used for millennia by indigenous Mexican shamans) and Psilocybe azurescens (a newly described species native to the Pacific Northwest and easily grown outdoors on woodchips).This innovative book also offers a wealth of information about the use of psilocybin-containing mushrooms in both traditional and modern contexts. Contributing ethnobotanist Kathleen Harrison highlights the history, ritual and mythology of sacred Psilocybe mushrooms used in indigenous shamanic settings. The book's authors offer insights into how these principles might be put into practice by the modern voyager, to provide, safe, healing and fruitful journeys.By Ruth Heholt, Holly-Gale Millette. 2020
This collection explores global dystopic, grotesque and retold narratives of degeneration, ecological and economic ruin, dystopia, and inequality in contemporary…
fictions set in the urban space. Divided into three sections—Identities and Histories, Ruin and Residue, and Global Gothic—The New Urban Gothic explores our anxieties and preoccupation with social inequalities, precarity and the peripheral that are found in so many new fictions across various media. Focusing on non-canonical Gothic global cities, this distinctive collection discusses urban centres in England’s Black Country, Moscow, Detroit, Seoul, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Dehli, Srinigar, Shanghai and Barcelona as well as cities of the imaginary, the digital and the animated. This book will appeal to anyone interested in the intersections of time, place, space and media in contemporary Gothic Studies. The New Urban Gothic casts reflections and shadows on the age of the Anthropocene.By R. Eric Thomas, Helena Andrews-Dyer. 2019
In the tradition of Notorious RBG, a lively, beautifully designed, full-color illustrated celebration of the life, wisdom, wit, legacy, and…
fearless style of iconic American Congresswoman Maxine Waters.“Let me just say this: I’m a strong black woman, and I cannot be intimidated. I cannot be undermined. I cannot be thought to be afraid of Bill O’Reilly or anyone.”—Maxine Waters To millions nationwide, Congresswoman Maxine Waters is a hero of the resistance and an icon, serving eye rolls, withering looks, and sharp retorts to any who dare waste her time on nonsense. But behind the Auntie Maxine meme is a seasoned public servant and she’s not here to play. Throughout her forty years in public service and eighty years on earth, U.S. Representative for California’s 43rd district has been a role model, a crusader for justice, a game-changer, a trailblazer, and an advocate for the marginalized who has long defied her critics, including her most vocal detractor, Donald J. Trump. And she’s just getting started. From her anti-apartheid work and support of affirmative action to her passionate opposition to the Iraq War and calls to hold Trump to account, you can count on Auntie Maxine to speak truth to power and do it with grace and, sometimes, sass. As ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee and one of the most powerful black women in America, she is the strong, ethical voice the country has always needed, especially right now.Reclaiming Her Time pays tribute to all things Maxine Waters, from growing up in St. Louis “too skinny” and “too black,” to taking on Wall Street during the financial crisis and coming out on top in her legendary showdowns with Trump and his cronies. Featuring inspiring highlights from her personal life and political career, beloved memes, and testimonies from her many friends and fans, Reclaiming Her Time is a funny, warm, and admiring portrait of a champion who refuses to stay silent in the face of corruption and injustice; a powerful woman who is an inspiration to us all.By Alisa Freedman, Toby Slade. 2018
Specifically designed for use on a range of undergraduate and graduate courses Introducing Japanese Popular Culture is a comprehensive…
textbook offering an up-to-date overview of a wide variety of media forms It uses particular case studies as a way into examining the broader themes in Japanese culture and provides a thorough analysis of the historical and contemporary trends that have shaped artistic production as well as politics society and economics As a result more than being a time capsule of influential trends this book teaches enduring lessons about how popular culture reflects the societies that produce and consume it With contributions from an international team of scholars representing a range of disciplines from history and anthropology to art history and media studies the book s sections include Television Videogames Music Popular Cinema Anime Manga Popular Literature Fashion Contemporary Art Written in an accessible style by a stellar line-up of international contributors this textbook will be essential reading for students of Japanese culture and society Asian media and popular culture and Asian Studies in generalBy Amanda J. Lucia. 2020
Transformational festivals, from Burning Man to Lightning in a Bottle, Bhakti Fest, and Wanderlust, are massive events that attract thousands…
of participants to sites around the world. In this groundbreaking book, Amanda J. Lucia shows how these festivals operate as religious institutions for "spiritual, but not religious" (SBNR) communities. Whereas previous research into SBNR practices and New Age religion has not addressed the predominantly white makeup of these communities, White Utopias examines the complicated, often contradictory relationships with race at these events, presenting an engrossing ethnography of SBNR practices. Lucia contends that participants create temporary utopias through their shared commitments to spiritual growth and human connection. But they also participate in religious exoticism by adopting Indigenous and Indic spiritualities, a practice that ultimately renders them exclusive, white utopias. Focusing on yoga’s role in disseminating SBNR values, Lucia offers new ways of comprehending transformational festivals as significant cultural phenomena.Claudio Naranjo&’s psychedelic autobiography with previously unpublished interviews and research papers • Explores Dr. Naranjo&’s pioneering work with MDMA, ayahuasca,…
cannabis, iboga, and psilocybin • Shares his personal accounts of psychedelic sessions and experimentation, including his work with Alexander &“Sasha&” Shulgin and Leo Zeff • Includes the author&’s reflections on the spiritual aspects of psychedelics and his recommended techniques for controlled induction of altered states In the time of the psychedelic pioneers, there were psychopharmacologists like Alexander &“Sasha&” Shulgin, psychonauts like Aldous Huxley, and psychiatrists like Humphrey Osmond. Claudio Naranjo was all three at once. He was the first to study the psychotherapeutic applications of ayahuasca, the first to publish on the effects of ibogaine, and a long-time collaborator with Sasha Shulgin in the research behind Shulgin&’s famous books. A Fulbright scholar and Guggenheim fellow, he worked with Leo Zeff on LSD-assisted therapy and Fritz Perls on Gestalt therapy. He was a presenter at the 1967 University of California LSD Conference and, 47 years later, gave the inaugural speech at the First International Conference on Ayahuasca in 2014. Across his career, Dr. Naranjo gathered more clinical experience in individual and group psychedelic treatment than any other psychotherapist to date. In this book, his final work, Dr. Naranjo shares his psychedelic autobiography along with previously unpublished interviews, session accounts, and research papers on the therapeutic effects of psychedelics, including MDMA, ayahuasca, cannabis, iboga, and psilocybin. The book includes Naranjo&’s reflections on the spiritual aspects of psychedelics and the healing transformations they bring, his philosophical explorations of how psychedelics act as agents of deeper consciousness, and his recommended techniques for controlled induction of altered states using different visionary substances. Naranjo&’s work shows that psychedelics have the strongest potential for transforming and healing people over all therapeutic methods currently in use.From Merry Jane, the leading voice in cannabis culture launched by world-renowned rap icon Snoop Dogg.Merry Jane's The CBD Solution:…
Wellness is an authoritative guide to using cannabis to improve wellness. This book reveals how CBD affects mood and can be used generally in health routines: in bath oils, balms, tinctures, and more.• Explains how cannabis, CBD, and other plants can change your everyday• Helps relieve everything from headaches and achy joints to stress and anxiety• Features dozens of illustrations and striking photographyThe book features an authoritative breakdown of CBD research—the history, the science, the politics, uses, forms, and effects—as well as answers to common questions and myths.Merry Jane's The CBD Solution: Wellness makes a great book for anyone curious about incorporating CBD into their life, or those looking to learn more about CBD and its health benefits.• CBD can be used to enhance physical and mental wellness.• A great book for those who enjoy using CBD or are curious about learning more, marijuana smokers, and anyone interested in wellness and enhancing their health routines• You'll love this book if you love books like CBD Oil: Everyday Secrets: A Lifestyle Guide to Hemp-Derived Health and Wellness by Gretchen Lidicker, Healing with CBD: How Cannabidiol Can Transform Your Health without the High by Eileen Konieczny RN and Lauren Wilson, and Bong Appétit: Mastering the Art of Cooking with Weed by Editors of MUNCHIES.