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Reveals the history of how 3,000 Greek children were shipped to the United States for adoption in the postwar period
Marriage globally is undergoing profound change, provoking widespread public comment and concern. Through the close ethnographic examination of case studies drawn from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, Marriage in Past, Present and Future Tense places new and changing forms of marriage in comparative perspective as a transforming and also transformative social institution. In conditions of widespread socio-political inequality and instability, how are the personal, the familial and the political co-produced? How do marriages encapsulate the ways in which memories of past lives, present experience and imaginaries of the future are articulated? Exploring the ways that marriage draws toge...
The chapters in this book consist of selected papers that were presented at the 3rd International Conference and Poster Exhibition on Semiotics and Visual Communication at the Cyprus University of Technology in November 2017. They investigate the theme of the third conference, “The Semiotics of Branding”, and look at branding and brand design as endorsing a reputation and inhabiting a status of almost mythical proportion that has triumphed over the past few decades. Emerging from its forerunner (corporate identity) to incorporate advertising, consumer lifestyles and attitudes, image-rights, market-research, customisation, global expansion, sound and semiotics, and “the consumer-as-the-...
The chapters in this book consist of selected papers that were presented at the 2nd International Conference and Poster Exhibition on Semiotics and Visual Communication at the Cyprus University of Technology in October 2015. They investigate the theme of the Conference, Culture of Seduction [the seduction of culture] and look at Seduction as in “deception”, not sexual enticement, but as a mechanism of attraction and appeal which has often been the case in many communication strategies and approaches used by mass and popular culture. Seduction has historic and increasing agency in visual communication—the urgency to entice viewers is ever more powerful in difficult economic times, in an increasingly hyper-real world – and designers are led to become exceedingly complicit in its strategies. The contributions here cover a range of approaches from theoretical aspects of seduction in verbal and nonverbal communication, public spaces, design and meaning, seductive strategies, and advertising design, as well as fashion representations and packaging design.
The area of investigation covered in this volume deals with mode and means through which humans form and develop meaningful relationships.
Grounded in multi-generational stories from Kinmen in Taiwan, Visions of Marriage explores the historical entanglements between the pursuit of new personal and national futures. Focusing on the relational and future-making aspects of marriage, the ethnography highlights the intersection of transformations across familial generations and shifting political economies in Taiwan, and more globally. While theories of modernity often treat marriage as an index of social change, without adequate attention to its transformative capacities generated through personal and familial agency, this volume provides comparative insights on family change and demographic shifts in Asia.
Unconventional Muslim marriages have been topics of heated public debate. Around the globe, religious scholars, policy makers, political actors, media personalities, and women’s activists discuss, promote, or reject unregistered, transnational, interreligious and other boundary-crossing marriages. Couples entering into such marriages, however, often have different concerns from those publicly discussed. Based on ethnographic research in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, the chapters of this volume examine couples’ motivations for, aspirations about, and abilities to enter into these marriages. The contributions show the diverse ways in which such marriages are concluded, an...
The chapters in this book consist of selected papers which investigate the theme of ‘Myths Today’, paying homage to the notion of myth as defined by Roland Barthes in the late 1950’s which provided a theoretical framework under which daily habits, as well as consumer practices, can be examined as socially constructed signs, idealized through verbal narratives. While ‘myth is a type of speech’, it is also a type of image; typeface, cinema, photography, sports, online networks, politics, TV shows, sound, and fashion can all serve as groundwork for mythical discourses. Under this framework, the book explores myths today, in the context of global networks, globalisation, visuals and mass communication. The interdisciplinary nature of the book provides a platform for discussion and research, broadens the scope of semiotic and visual communication thinking, and challenges the boundaries of various disciplines.
Exploring the intersections of gender, sexuality, and kinship within the context of Latter-day Saint theology and history, this book contains elements that can be reinterpreted through a queer lens. Taylor Petrey reexamines and resignifies Mormon cosmology in the context of queer theory, offering a fresh perspective on divine relationships, gender fluidity, and the concept of kinship itself. Petrey's work draws together queer studies and the academic study of religion in new ways, providing a nuanced understanding of how religious narratives and doctrines can be reimagined to include more diverse interpretations of identity and community.