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Los Angeles has nourished a dazzling array of independent cinemas: avant-garde and art cinema, ethnic and industrial films, pornography, documentaries, and many other far-flung corners of film culture. This glorious panoramic history of film production outside the commercial studio system reconfigures Los Angeles, rather than New York, as the true center of avant-garde cinema in the United States. As he brilliantly delineates the cultural perimeter of the film business from the earliest days of cinema to the contemporary scene, David James argues that avant-garde and minority filmmaking in Los Angeles has in fact been the prototypical attempt to create emancipatory and progressive culture. D...
Rock 'N' Film presents a cultural history of films about US and British rock music during the period when biracial popular music was fundamental to progressive social movements on both sides of the Atlantic.
Discusses avant garde films produced during the sixties, and considers the work of Stan Brakhage and Andy Warhol
Like David James' earlier collection of essays, Power Misses: Essays Across (Un)Popular Culture (1996), the present volume, Power Misses II: Cinema, Asian and Modern is concerned with popular cultural activity that propose alternatives and opposition to capitalist media. Now with a wider frame of reference, it moves globally from west to east, beginning with films made during the Korean Democracy Movement, and then turning to socialist realism in China and Taiwan, and to Asian American film and poetry in Los Angeles. Several other avant-garde film movements in L.A. created communities resistant to the culture industries centered there, as did elements in the classic New York avant-garde, here instanced in the work of Ken Jacobs and Andy Warhol. The final chapter concerns little-known films about communal agriculture in the Nottinghamshire village of Laxton, the only one where the medieval open-field system never suffered enclosure. This survival of the commons anticipated resistance to the extreme and catastrophic forms of privatization, monetization, and theft of the public commonweal in the advanced form of capitalism we know as neoliberalism.
“I CAN’T BREATHE!” These were the last words of more than a half-million people in America who contracted the deadly Coronavirus. Ironically, they were also among the last words of Mr. George Floyd, an African-American man murdered by Derek Chauvin, a white police officer who knelt on Mr. Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds. Was it merely a coincidence that these same words were uttered in both instances? Was there a connection on some deeper, abstract level that should have served as a wake-up call for the United States of America? In 2020, two deadly viruses swept the nation: a new virus known as “COVID-19” and one centuries-old virus called “Racism.” The Fight of My Life: The Coronavirus: A Dance with the Devil is an inspirational tale of one man’s fight and path to victory over two invisible and deadly enemies.
The art and legacy of a towering figure in the independent film movement.
Los Angeles. A city that is synonymous with celebrity and mass-market culture, is also, according to David James, synonymous with social alienation and dispersal. In the communities of Los Angeles, artists, cultural institutions and activities exist in ways that are often concealed from sight, obscured by the powerful presence of Hollywood and its machinations. In this significant collection of original essays, The Sons and Daughters of Los reconstructs the city of Los Angeles with new cultural connections. Explored here are the communities that offer alternatives to the picture of L..A. as a conglomeration of studios and mass media. Each essay examines a particular piece of, or place in, Lo...
For students studying the revised Language A Literature syllabus in English for the IB Diploma. Written by experienced, practising IB English teachers, this new title is a clear and concise guide to studying the revised Language A Literature syllabus in English for the IB Diploma. Available in print and e-book formats it covers all parts of the Language A Literature programme at both Standard and Higher Levels, and contains a wide variety of text extracts including works originally written in English and World literature in translation. Integrated into the coursebook are information and guidance on assessment, Theory of Knowledge opportunities, Extended Essay suggestions, and activities to help students read, think, discuss, write and present ideas.
Buddhism, one increasingly hears, is an 'eco-friendly' religion. It is often said that this is because it promotes an 'ecological' view of things, one stressing the essential unity of human beings and the natural world. Buddhism, Virtue and Environment presents a different view. While agreeing that Buddhism is, in many important respects, in tune with environmental concerns, Cooper and James argue that what makes it 'green' is its view of human life. The true connection between the religion and environmental thought is to be found in Buddhist accounts of the virtues - those traits, such as compassion, equanimity and humility, that characterise the life of a spiritually enlightened individual...
Were David and Jonathan 'gay' lovers? This very modern question lies behind the recent explosion of studies of the David and Jonathan narrative. Interpreters differ in their assessment of whether 1 and 2 Samuel offer a positive portrayal of a homosexual relationship. Beneath the conflict of interpretations lies an ambiguous biblical text which has drawn generations of readers - from the redactors of the Hebrew text and the early translators to modern biblical scholars - to the task of resolving its possible meanings. What has not yet been fully explored is the place of David and Jonathan in the evolution of modern, Western understandings of same-sex relationships, in particular how the story of their relationship was read alongside classical narratives, such as those of Achilles and Patroclus, or Orestes and Pylades. The Love of David and Jonathan explores this context in detail to argue that the story of David and Jonathan was part of the process by which the modern idea of homosexuality itself emerged.