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Cannibal Culture: Art, Appropriation, and the Commodification of Difference (Icon Editions)
Deborah Root
Manufacturer: Westview Press
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The Location of Culture (Routledge Classics)
ASIN: 0813320895 |
Customer Reviews:
helped shape my thinking.......2001-07-05
This important book helped shape my own thinking and writing. She describes clearly and compellingly how the dominant culture destroys the hearts of other cultures while cannibalizing them aesthetically. Thus we kill indigenous cultures and hang dream catchers from our rear view mirrors. Thus we consider ourselves sophisticated because we eat at ethnic restaurants and at the same time we do not seem to mind that the real cultures of Ethiopia, India, Mexico, are destroyed, turned into cheap imitations of mainstream capitalism. She details this process. It is an extraordinary book.
Disappointing.......2001-03-20
This is a very interesting subject, and the author raises a lot of thought-provoking questions, but the book has a number of weaknesses that made it difficult for me to really enjoy. Most obvious (and admittedly most superficial) is the amount of trendy jargon Root employs. The word "elide," for instance, is a synonym of "omit" and is not unique enough in its meaning to warrant being used on every other page.
Similarly (though pointing to deeper issues), there seems to be an unduly heavy reliance on the flow of language - on the drawing of elegant if relatively unsubstantiated connections and the making of neat, sweeping generalizations - over the presentation of actual evidence and a structured argument. This may be a problem of the genre, and it's not that she's off the mark on her pronouncements, but when the writer's only obvious expertise is in comparative literature, I'd prefer that historical generalizations be left out of the text. As a side note, the use of the "cannibal" theme is not, to me, justified by the arguments made in the book. It just sounds good. Overall, I felt that a lot of interesting threads were begun and never followed through, another consequence of the form-over-substance style.
I do have one serious issue with the book's intellectual honesty. Specifically, the sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit focus on what white Western males are doing to everyone else, and the elision (hah!) of any analysis of how museums, and the appropriation of elements of other cultures in general, operate in non-Western societies. Take Japanese society in relation to the US, for starters. How about an analysis of how elements of American culture are fetishized/commodified in other countries? This is actually highly relevant to whether Root's relatively political thesis of the Western colonial impulse obtains across the board, or whether a different kind of analysis (more psychological and anthropological) is required.
The themes investigated in this book, problems notwithstanding, are certainly worth the time of any thinking person. In sum, I recommend reading it with a grain of salt (or a simultaneous dose of something a little more scientific and a little less focused on stringing phrases together), and I wouldn't put it at the top of my list.
A powerful, stop and make every American think "Book".......2000-11-15
Cannibal Culture: by Deborah Root focuses on the study of Appropriation of culture and social norms. This book makes everyone hopefully stop to think about their part in contributing to the foundations of the social culture that we live in today. It is not a downer on Americans it is the facts of how cultural history was formed in many instances, not all. The focus on Art is related to the appropriation of functional art in different cultures & how their ideas and traditions have lost much of the significance once held.This is an amazingly well written book as well as very informative, if you like to "Think" you will love this read...
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Society's Child: Identity, Clothing, and Style
Ruth P. Rubinstein
Manufacturer: Westview Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0813366712 |
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Edward Gorey's first book in 25 years, The Haunted Tea-Cosy is a classic work from that magnificently morbid master. The plot of this "dispirited and distasteful diversion for Christmas" revolves around one Edmund Gravel, an Edwardian Scrooge whose attempt to slice a stale fruitcake unleashes an assortment of guilt-inducing ghosts. There's the Spectre of Christmas That Never Was, who directs our hero's attention to a cowering orphan in a graveyard (along with some other, lower-key bits of pathos: "In the high street of the village Reverend Flannel lost his tuning-fork.") The Spectre of Christmas That Isn't also chips in with a kidnapping, a domestic dispute, and a return to the aforementioned graveyard: "To the south, in the cemetery a wrong coffin in a newly dug grave was found to contain rolls of used wallpaper." Like the Dickensian miser upon whom he's based, Gravel is transformed by this ghoulish guided tour. He renounces his life of solitude and invites all of Lower Spigot to a party, featuring "a cake taller than anything else in the room, a conflation of Chartres Cathedral and the Stupa at Borobudur iced in dazzling white sugar" (not pictured, alas). Gorey's illustrations for The Haunted Tea-Cosy are looser and less elaborately cross-hatched than some of his earlier creations. But like the text, these oddly stilted and very Anglophiliac scenes remain a model of delicious, deadpan hilarity. --James Marcus
Book Description
Gorey has never been funnier or more “impossible to resist” (Boston Herald) than in this peculiar retelling of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
Customer Reviews:
not his best.......2004-05-26
I really enjoy most of Gorey's works, usually because the pictures are wonderfully creepy. In this book, the images lack teh detail that you find in so many of Gorey's other works. The story, a strange "Christmas Carol"-like thing, doesn't make the book worth getting, without better pictures to back it up.
Gorey gone wild.......2004-01-17
There is a curious subgenre of psedo-Victorian British macabre writing penned by Americans with little or no ties to Mother England. Lemony Snicket is the most recent example, though the patron saint of the style is the indelible Edward Gorey. In Gorey's "The Haunted Tea-Cosy", we find a very oddly written story made with more than its fair share of humor. Even the title is funny. How many Americans own tea-cosies today, I wonder. And is the plural of cosy "cosies" or "cosys"? Such answers will not be found in this book. It is still worth a gander.
The plot, such as it is, follows a somewhat "Christmas Carol"ish venue. In it Edmund Gravel is enjoying his yearly fruitcake and letter-writing when a large Bahhum Bug leaps from under Gravel's tea-cosy to proclaim, "I am here to diffuse the interests of didacticism". I wish more characters in books would say this. The bug and Gravel are joined by three spirits that show him (in this order) Affecting Scenes, Distressing Scenes, and Heart-Rending Scenes. These scene include things like Alberta Stipple returning home to find the wallpaper in her drawing room gone. In the end Gravel decides to throw a party (yay) and the show ends with some suggested pornographic dealings (possibly leading into Gorey's more disturbing story "The Curious Sofa").
Gorey is very much an adult's picture book author. Kids will probably not be too terribly entranced by his fine pen-and-ink drawings or his cumbersome words. But he's the best, Gorey is. No one writes of disaffected despair more lightly or amusingly. This book won't exactly become a Christmas classic, but its worth a perusal when you find yourself on a overcast Sunday in your home with nothing to do.
How to dispose of 30 minutes of the 12 Days of Christmas.......2003-02-19
Edmund Gravel traverses through this quick but enjoyable read by Edward Gorey, including his great illustrations. A bug-like creature leaps from Edmunds tea-cozy and takes him on a Dickens-like "Christmas Carol"-like journey. The stories are sad, depressing, and amusing all in one. Great holiday entertainment, and a great gift for the scrooge who has everything but this book.
The "JOY" that is Christmas.......2003-01-06
This story gave me a happy warm fuzzy feeling about a holiday that tries to kill us all with stress. It made me giggle my way through the holidays...
Amusing diversion for Christmas.......2002-11-06
Three ghosts, a recluse and an initial apparition. Dickens, right? Wrong: Edward Gorey does his own take on "Christmas Carol" in "The Haunted Tea Cosy." Delightfully verbose and filled with Gorey's surreal drawings, this is a picture book that adults will adore.
Recluse Edward Gravel is going about dreary tasks before Christmas. Then sudden an enormous insectile creature leaps from beneath the tea cosy. (Never mind what a tea cosy is) It is the Bahhum Bug, which has come to "diffuse the interests of didacticism." To escort the Bahhum Bug and Mr. Gravel, three subfuse but transparent personages appear to show him the Christmas That Never Was, The Christmas That Isn't, and The Christmas That Never Will Be. They show him distressing scenes around the grey town of Lower Spigot. It's written in a wry, twisted style, this book includes delightfully dour illustrations by the late and much lamented Gorey.
Tired of relentless holiday cheer? Looking for a dash of Halloween's darkness in the chirrupy holiday season? Then check out "The Haunted Tea Cosy," and then carry on to "the very edge of the unseemly"!
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The Bluffer's Guide to Archaeology, Revised: The Bluffer's Guide Series (Bluffer's Guides - Oval Books)
Paul Bahn
Manufacturer: Oval Books
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philosophy hope in a jar daily moisturizer
ASIN: 1903096367 |
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All readers need to know on the subject of Archaeology to dig themselves out of any social hole and rebuff their colleagues with insight and erudition.
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Selling Shakespeare to Hollywood: The Marketing of Filmed Shakespeare Adaptations from 1989 into the New Millennium
Emma French
Manufacturer: University Of Hertfordshire Press
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ASIN: 1902806514 |
Book Description
Breaking from traditional critiques of Shakespeare films based on either the aesthetics of the films or on a comparison between the film and source text, this new analysis of recent Shakespeare movies seeks to explain what makes such films commercial successes. Focusing particularly on three sub-genres—the teen Shakespeare film, the hybrid Shakespeare film, and the “faithful” adaptation—the author argues that the commercial success of the most popular films stems from blurring the line between the “traditional Shakespeare” and a more modern interpretation of the texts.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Shakespeare Bulletin, published by Thomson Gale on September 22, 2006. The length of the article is 1738 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Selling Shakespeare to Hollywood: The Marketing of Filmed Shakespeare Adaptations from 1989 into the New Millennium.(Book review)
Author: Helen Hull
Publication:
Shakespeare Bulletin (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 24
Issue: 3
Page: 67(4)
Article Type: Book review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
The practice of singing and songwriting in France during the Great War provides an intriguing tool for the exploration of the French cultural politics of the epoch. Responding to the dearth of cultural studies of the First World War, Regina Sweeney's unique cross-disciplinary study illuminates many of the hitherto unexplored corners of an era that many historians consider to exhibit a break with recognizable trends.
In early twentieth century Europe, singing was considered a part of education integral to the formation of good citizens. Singing was especially important to the French, for whom it was historically associated with authenticity of feeling and purity of character, and thereby with the very roots of French democracy; it was particularly associated with the image of France as a victorious nation. But as Sweeney shows, different performances of the same patriotic song could carry vastly different meanings. By focusing on singing, Sweeney is able to provide a more nuanced reading of French Great War cultures than ever before, and to show that cultures previously held to be exclusive -- those of the home front and the Western front, for example -- existed in dialectical tension and were themselves far from homogenous.
Customer Reviews:
Absolutely Amazing.......2003-12-05
There is not enough I can say about Regina Sweeney's book. It is absolutely ineffable in every sense. The depth of topic and research involved is astounding to any scholar. I highly suggest this book to anyone. It was a most enjoyable and enlightening read!!
Writing Our Way to a Great Book.......2001-04-01
Sweeney has struck gold in the minefield that was World War I. Terrific scholarship! Her thesis is novel: her research impeccable. The book captures the reader from page one and never lets go.
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Great for Kids.......2000-10-07
This is book is great if you want to keep your children entertained and happy. Donna has a special way of reaching the children. Great if you have Children.
Book Description
Coaching is for everyone!
In this all-new edition of his best-selling package, Dennis Kinlaw gives you the insight you need to improve performance by empowering your colleagues. In today's employee-centered organizations, the opportunities for leadership no longer rest with managers and supervisors alone--everyone needs to be a coach!
With Kinlaw's help, you can teach people in all types of organizations to:
Build commitment to tasks
Encourage successful project completion
Enhance job satisfaction . . . and much more!
Book Description
Coaching is for everyone!
In this all-new edition of his best-selling package, Dennis Kinlaw gives you the insight you need to improve performance by empowering your colleagues. In today's employee-centered organizations, the opportunities for leadership no longer rest with managers and supervisors alone--everyone needs to be a coach!
With Kinlaw's help, you can teach people in all types of organizations to:
Build commitment to tasks
Encourage successful project completion
Enhance job satisfaction . . . and much more!
Book Description
Coaching is for everyone!
In this all-new edition of his best-selling package, Dennis Kinlaw gives you the insight you need to improve performance by empowering your colleagues. In today's employee-centered organizations, the opportunities for leadership no longer rest with managers and supervisors alone--everyone needs to be a coach!
With Kinlaw's help, you can teach people in all types of organizations to:
Build commitment to tasks
Encourage successful project completion
Enhance job satisfaction . . . and much more!
Book Description
Coaching is for everyone!
In this all-new edition of his best-selling package, Dennis Kinlaw gives you the insight you need to improve performance by empowering your colleagues. In today's employee-centered organizations, the opportunities for leadership no longer rest with managers and supervisors alone--everyone needs to be a coach!
With Kinlaw's help, you can teach people in all types of organizations to:
Build commitment to tasks
Encourage successful project completion
Enhance job satisfaction . . . and much more!
Books:
- Cartoons II: From the Newspaper Series Memories of a Former Kid
- Cartoons II: From the Newspaper Series Memories of a Former Kid
- Celebrity Caricature in America
- Changing Impressions: Marcantonio Raimondo & Sixteenth Century Print Connoisseurship
- Clark Gable Paper Dolls in Full Color
- Collected Writings of William De Kooning
- Collecting rare coins for profit
- Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art: Artists, Work, Culture, and Education
- Copper and Bronze in Art: Corrosion, Colorants, Conservation
- Costume: 1066 to the Present, Third Edition
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
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- Life in the French Foreign Legion: How to Join and What to Expect When You Get There
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- Microsystem Design
- Mary Queen of Scots: Romance and Nation
- Old master drawings from the collection of John and Alice Steiner
- Heart Of A Heroine: Saving the Last Redwoods
- Electrophoresis in the Separation of Biological Macromolecules
