We’re delighted to offer a selection of latest releases from our core subjects of Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Gender Studies and History, along with our New in Paperback titles.
CREATIVITY IN TRANSITION
Politics and Aesthetics of Cultural Production Across the Globe
Edited by Maruška Svašek and Birgit Meyer
Volume 6, Material Mediations: People and Things in a World of Movement
In an era of intensifying globalization and transnational connectivity, the dynamics of cultural production and the very notion of creativity is in transition. Exploring creative practices in various settings, the book does not only call attention to the spread of modernist discourses of creativity, from the colonial era to the current obsession with ‘innovation’ in neo-liberal capitalist cultural politics, but also to the less visible practices of copying, recycling and reproduction that occur as part and parcel of creative improvisation.
Read Introduction: Creativity and Innovation in a World of Movement
THE STATE WE’RE IN
Reflecting on Democracy’s Troubles
Edited by Joanna Cook, Nicholas J. Long, and Henrietta L. Moore
Volume 3, WYSE Series in Social Anthropology
What makes people lose faith in democratic statecraft? The question seems an urgent one. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, citizens across the world have grown increasingly disillusioned with what was once a cherished ideal. Setting out an original theoretical model that explores the relations between democracy, subjectivity and sociality, and exploring its relevance to countries ranging from Kenya to Peru, The State We’re In is a must-read for all political theorists, scholars of democracy, and readers concerned for the future of the democratic ideal.
Read Introduction: When Democracy ‘Goes Wrong’
LIVING ON THIN ICE
The Gwich’in Natives of Alaska
Steven C. Dinero
The Gwich’in Natives of Arctic Village, Alaska, have experienced intense social and economic changes for more than a century. In the late 20th century, new transportation and communication technologies introduced radically new value systems; while some of these changes may be seen as socially beneficial, others suggest a weakening of what was once a strong and vibrant Native community. Using quantitative and qualitative data gathered since the turn of the millennium, this volume offers an interdisciplinary evaluation of the developments that have occurred in the community over the past several decades.
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ECONOMIC CITIZENSHIP
Neoliberal Paradoxes of Empowerment
Amalia Sa’ar
With the spread of neoliberal projects, responsibility for the welfare of minority and poor citizens has shifted from states to local communities. Businesses, municipalities, grassroots activists, and state functionaries share in projects meant to help vulnerable populations become self-supportive. Ironically, such projects produce odd discursive blends of justice, solidarity, and wellbeing, and place the languages of feminist and minority rights side by side with the language of apolitical consumerism. Using theoretical concepts of economic citizenship and emotional capitalism, Economic Citizenship exposes the paradoxes that are deep within neoliberal interpretations of citizenship and analyzes the unexpected consequences of applying globally circulating notions to concrete local contexts.
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NEW USES OF BOURDIEU IN FILM AND MEDIA STUDIES
Edited by Guy Austin
Through his influential work on cultural capital and social mobility, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has provided critical insights into the complex interactions of power, class, and culture in the modern era. Ubiquitous though Bourdieu’s theories are, however, they have only intermittently been used to study some of the most important forms of cultural production today: cinema and new media. With topics ranging from film festivals and photography to constantly evolving mobile technologies, this collection of essays demonstrates the enormous relevance that Bourdieu’s key concepts hold for the field of media studies, deploying them as powerful tools of analysis and forging new avenues of inquiry in the process.
Read Introduction: Bourdieu on Media and Film
MADE IN EGYPT
Gendered Identity and Aspiration on the Globalised Shop Floor
Leila Zaki Chakravarti
This ground-breaking ethnography of an export-orientated garment assembly factory in Egypt examines the dynamic relationships between its managers – emergent Mubarak-bizniz (business) elites who are caught in an intensely competitive globalised supply chain – and the local daily-life realities of their young, educated, and mixed-gender labour force. Constructions of power and resistance, as well as individual aspirations and identities, are explored through articulations of class, gender and religion in both management discourses and shop floor practices. Leila Chakravarti’s compelling study also moves beyond the confines of the factory, examining the interplay with the wider world around it.
THE TOTAL WORK OF ART
Foundations, Articulations, Inspirations
Edited by David Imhoof, Margaret Eleanor Menninger, and Anthony J. Steinhoff
Volume 12, Spektrum: Publications of the German Studies Association
For two centuries, Gesamtkunstwerk—the ideal of the “total work of art”—has exerted a powerful influence over artistic discourse and practice, spurring new forms of collaboration and provoking debates over the political instrumentalization of art. Despite its popular conflation with the work of Richard Wagner, Gesamtkunstwerk’s lineage and legacies extend well beyond German Romanticism, as this wide-ranging collection demonstrates. In eleven compact essays, scholars from a variety of disciplines trace the idea’s evolution in German-speaking Europe, from its foundations in the early nineteenth century to its manifold articulations and reimaginings in the twentieth century and beyond, providing an uncommonly broad perspective on a distinctly modern cultural form.
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NATIONAL POLICY, GLOBAL MEMORY
The Commemoration of the “Righteous” From Jerusalem to Paris, 1942-2007
Sarah Gensburger
Translated by Katharine Throssell
Volume 15, Berghahn Monographs in French Studies
Since 1963, the state of Israel has awarded the title of “Righteous among the Nations” to individuals who risked their lives sheltering Jews during the Holocaust. This distinction remained solely an Israeli initiative until the late 1990s, when European governments began developing their own national categories, the most prominent of which was the “Righteous of France,” honoring those who protected Jews during the Vichy regime. In National Policy, Global Memory, Sarah Gensburger uses this dramatic episode to lend a new perspective to debates over memory and nationhood. In particular, she works to combine two often divergent disciplines—memory studies and political science—to study “memory politics” as a form of public policy.
Read Introduction: From “The Righteous among Nations” to the “‘Righteous of France”
THE NATURE OF GERMAN IMPERIALISM
Conservation and the Politics of Wildlife in Colonial East Africa
Bernhard Gissibl
Volume 9, Environment in History: International Perspectives
Today, the East African state of Tanzania is renowned for wildlife preserves such as the Serengeti National Park, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and the Selous Game Reserve. Yet few know that most of these initiatives emerged from decades of German colonial rule. This book gives the first full account of Tanzanian wildlife conservation up until World War I, focusing upon elephant hunting and the ivory trade as vital factors in a shift from exploitation to preservation that increasingly excluded indigenous Africans. Analyzing the formative interactions between colonial governance and the natural world, The Nature of German Imperialism situates East African wildlife policies within the global emergence of conservationist sensibilities around 1900.
Read Introduction: Doorsteps in Paradise
New in Paperback
WHAT IS HISTORY FOR?
Johann Gustav Droysen and the Functions of Historiography
Arthur Alfaix Assis
Volume 17, Making Sense of History
“Assis offers the reader a wide panorama of German historiography during the nineteenth century, centering on the debates about historicism, a dominant paradigm for German historical knowledge in the nineteenth century, and in the reformulation of pragmatic value for historiography. Arthur Assis’ work is therefore not only directed at specialists or at researchers of Droysen’s work, but at all those who study German and general historiography, intellectual history, and even political historiography, since it highlights the political influences of Droysen’s thought.” · Revista Brasileira de História
GERMANY AND THE BLACK DIASPORA
Points of Contact, 1250-1914
Edited by Mischa Honeck, Martin Klimke, and Anne Kuhlmann
Volume 15, Studies in German History
“In this exciting volume, Honeck, Klimke, and Kuhlmann put forward a unique resource for the burgeoning study of the African diaspora in Germany. Comprising essaysf rom scholars working in a variety of fields, the collection fills significant gaps in the current scholarship… In detailing a phenomenon long ignored within mainstream German culture and history, this collection will be of use to a variety of readers, including those working in African and African American studies, art history, German studies, and history…Highly recommended.” · Choice