Welcome to our book review site go-pdf.online!
You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
The Trouble with Culture
2007 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title In this highly original book, anthropologist F. Allan Hanson reveals an entirely unanticipated but vital link between two of the most widely discussed features of contemporary American society: the computer revolution and the culture wars. Hanson argues that the culture wars stem from a divergence in the evolutionary paths of society and culture. Societies have evolved significantly over the last few millennia from small bands of farmers or hunter-gatherers into huge, internally diverse nation-states, while cultures—the closed systems of meanings and symbols that kept small, face-to-face societies together—have failed to keep pace. If cultures became more open, Hanson contends, then the maladaptive rupture between society and culture would be healed and the clashes that currently beset us would be greatly diminished. Interweaving lucid analysis with concrete case studies of common law, education, and other areas of contemporary life, Hanson demonstrates how the widespread use of computers is, in fact, encouraging more originality and open-mindedness, with the potential to ease polarization and calm the culture wars.
Thinking about Society: Theory and Practice
I. C. Jarvie was trained as a social anthropologist in the center of British social anthropology - the London School of Economics, where Bronislaw Malinowski was the object of ancestor worship. Jarvie's doctorate was in philosophy, however, under the guidance of Karl Popper and John Watkins. He changed his department not as a defector but as a rebel, attempting to exorcize the ancestral spirit. He criticized the method of participant obser vation not as useless but as not comprehensive: it is neither necessary nor sufficient for the making of certain contributions to anthropology; rather, it all depends on the problem-situation. And so Jarvie remained an anthro pologist at heart, who, in add...
Meaning in Culture
Meaning in Culture discusses the question of whether 'culture' refers to some superorganic entity that exists in its own right, or is only convenient short-hand for the shared beliefs and behaviour of human individuals. It also investigates the problem of relativism and explores the question of whether anthropology and the other social sciences are really scientific. First published in 1975.
Assessment: Social Practice and Social Product
Assessment has become one of the most significant areas of interest in educational policy development, as well as the focus of complex political, economic and cultural expectations for change. Increasingly, governments worldwide have become aware that curricula and teachers can be indirectly controlled through programmes of assessment. Opponents of centralized systems of mass assessment claim they are ill-suited to the diverse and changing needs of learners and users of assessment. In this text, the UK and US writers take the reader beyond the obvious functions of assessment, and focus upon the roles it performs in the social structuring of society. They examine the myths and assumptions that underpin assessment and testing and draw attention to its cultural context. This collection is devoted explicitly to socio-cultural studies of assessment and attempts to map the terrain of some 30 years of study in the field. Chapters are organized thematically, with background text providing comparative perspectives, key issues and further reading. The book provides a wide-ranging, structured and accessible approach to the study of socio-cultural origins and impacts of assessment.
Cursed Questions
Richard Taruskin’s sweeping collection of essays distills a half century of professional experience, demonstrating an unparalleled insider awareness of relevant debates in all areas of music studies, including historiography and criticism, representation and aesthetics, musical and professional politics, and the sociology of taste. Cursed Questions, invoking a famous catchphrase from Russian intellectual history, grapples with questions that are never finally answered but never go away. The writings gathered here form an intellectual biography that showcases the characteristic wit, provocation, and erudition that readers have come to expect from Taruskin, making it an essential volume for anyone interested in music, politics, and the arts.
Technology and Cultural Tectonics
What impact has technology had on cultural meanings, values, and symbols? This anthropological exploration shows how technologies produce novel and sometimes jarring realignments among cultural institutions.
Technology as Magic
What gives the mass media, particularly advertising and television, their extraordinary power over our lives, so that even the most jaded and sophisticated among us are troubled and fascinated by their allure? The secret, according to Richard Stivers, in this brilliant new book, lies in the curious relationship between technology and magic. Stivers argues the two are now related to one another in such a way that each has taken on important characteristics of the other. His contention is that our expectations for technology have become magical to the point that they have generated a multitude of imitation technologies that function as magical practices. These imitation technologies flourish i...
Webs of Empire
Breaking open colonization to reveal tangled cultural and economic networks, Webs of Empire offers new paths into our colonial history. Linking Gore and Chicago, Maori and Asia, India and newspapers, whalers and writing, empire building becomes a spreading web of connected places, people, ideas, and trade. These links question narrow, national stories, while broadening perspectives on the past and the legacies of colonialism that persist today. Bringing together essays from two decades of prolific publishing on international colonial history, Webs of Empire establishes Tony Ballantyne as one of the leading historians of the British Empire.
The Spirit of Colin McCahon
The Spirit of Colin McCahon provides a vivid historical contextualisation of New Zealand’s premier modern artist, clearly explaining his esoteric religious themes and symbols. Via a framework of visual rhetoric, this book explores the social factors that formed McCahon’s religious and environmental beliefs, and justifications as to why his audience often missed the intended point of spiritual his discourse – or chose to ignore it. The Spirit of Colin McCahon tracks the intricate process by which the artist’s body of work turned from optimism to misery, and explains the many communicative techniques he employed in order to arrest suspicion towards his Christian prophecy. More broadly,...
Art Market Research
This book is for art market researchers at all levels. A brief overview of the global art market and its major stakeholders precedes an analysis of the various sales venues (auction, commercial gallery, etc.). Library research skills are reviewed, and advanced methods are explored in a chapter devoted to basic market research. Because the monetary value of artwork cannot be established without reference to the aesthetic qualities and art historical significance of our subject works, two substantial chapters detail the processes involved in researching and documenting the fine and decorative arts, respectively, and provide annotated bibliographies. Methods for assigning values for art objects are explored, and sources of price data, both in print and online, are identified and described in detail. In recent years, art historical scholarship increasingly has addressed issues related to the history of art and its markets: a chapter on resources for the historian of the art market offers a wide range of sources. Finally, provenance and art law are discussed, with particular reference to their relevance to dealers, collectors, artists and other art market stakeholders.
