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Approximately one thousand years ago Gypsies, or Roma, left their native India. Today Gypsies can be found in countries throughout the world, their distinct culture still intact in spite of the intense persecution they have endured. This authoritative collection brings together leading Gypsy and non-Gypsy scholars to examine the Romani legal system, an autonomous body of law based on an oral tradition and existing alongside dominant national legal networks. For centuries the Roma have survived by using defensive strategies, especially the absolute exclusion of gadje (non-Gypsies) from their private lives, their values, and information about Romani language and social institutions. Sexuality,...
Lissa Wilson has seen more than enough death in her family, so when people start being savagely killed whenever she has a night out in Melbourne, she's determined to investigate and to make the killing stop. Even when she realises the murders must be the work of a vampire. She reluctantly teams up with the painfully-awkward suburban vampire, Gary, who has been instructed by Melbourne's vampires to find out who's making existence so difficult for the undead community. But in getting to the undead heart of the matter, Lissa and Gary face more challenges than Gary's appalling fashion sense. Particularly when the idea of living forever can be a big temptation for someone who has lost so much. 'A well-made plot with a killer (literally) ending.' - Kerry Greenwood 'It's certainly a most unusual vampire novel. Lissa Wilson is a wonderful character; not because she's an heroic supergirl, but because she rings true. If you can get this book, do.' - Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood novels.
This book written for introductory-level students of global politics examines the connections and conflicts among peoples on our planet and relates them in a personalized way. While other world politics texts examine the globe from a distance, this text emphasizes the voices of those engaged in political struggles over the complexities of health, resources, the environment, economics, and ultimately power and its multiple conceptions. Throughout, students are challenged to engage in global politics and citizen movements.
Power electronics is a genre of industrial or ‘noise’ music that utilises feedback and synthesizers to produce an intense, loud, challenging sound. To match this sonic excess, power electronics also relies heavily upon extreme thematic and visual content — whether in lyrics, album art, or live performance. The result is a violent, ecstatic, and potentially consciousness-altering spectacle, and a genre that often invites strong reactions from both listeners and critics. FIGHT YOUR OWN WAR is the first English-language book primarily devoted to power electronics. Written by artists, fans, and critics from around the world, its essays and reviews explore the current state of the genre, from early development through to live performance, listener experience, artist motivation, gender and subcultures such as ‘Japanoise’. In considering this ‘spectacle’ of noise, how far can we simply label power electronics as a genre of shock tactics or of transgression for transgression’s sake?
This path-breaking book explains the processes through which the heterogeneous population of Roma in Europe constitutes itself into a transnational collective identity through the practices and discourses of everyday life, as well as through those of identity politics. It illustrates how the collective identity formation of the Roma in Europe is constituted simultaneously in the local, national, and European contexts, drawing attention to the mismatches and gaps between these levels, as well as the creative opportunities for achieving this political aim. Bunescu demonstrates that the differences and stereotypes between the Roma and the non-Roma, as well as those among different groups of Rom...
The Travelling People of Scotland are the traditionally nomadic minority group known also by the derogatory term tinkers. Traveling in groups or in their individual caravans along the high roads and byways of Scotland, they have established a distinct identity and mode of life for themselves that preserves centuries-old cultural beliefs. For their skill as storytellers, as well as ballad singers, they are internationally recognized for the richest storytelling traditions of the world. One of their best-known storytellers is Duncan Williamson. He was fascinated by storytelling from an early age and dedicated himself to keeping the wisdom of traveller culture by learning as many stories as pos...
Gypsies and the British Imagination, 1807-1930, is the first book to explore fully the British obsession with Gypsies throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Deborah Epstein Nord traces various representations of Gypsies in the works of such well-known British authors John Clare, Walter Scott, William Wordsworth, George Eliot, Arthur Conan Doyle, and D. H. Lawrence. Nord also exhumes lesser-known literary, ethnographic, and historical texts, exploring the fascinating histories of nomadic writer George Borrow, the Gypsy Lore Society, Dora Yates, and other rarely examined figures and institutions. Gypsies were both idealized and reviled by Victorian and early-twentieth-centur...
Choice Recommended Title, February 2010 Culture, Class, Distinction is major contribution to international debates regarding the role of cultural capital in relation to modern forms of inequality. Drawing on a national study of the organisation of cultural practices in contemporary Britain, the authors review Bourdieu’s classic study of the relationships between culture and class in the light of subsequent debates. In doing so they re-appraise the relationships between class, gender and ethnicity, music, film, television, literary, and arts consumption, the organisation of sporting and culinary practices, and practices of bodily and self maintenance. As the most comprehensive account to date of the varied interpretations of cultural capital that have been developed in the wake of Bourdieu’s work, Culture, Class, Distinction offers the first systematic assessment of the relationships between cultural practice and the social divisions of class, gender and ethnicity in contemporary Britain. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the relationships between culture and society.
'The Damned Fraternitie': Constructing Gypsy Identity in Early Modern England, 1500–1700 examines the construction of gypsy identity in England between the early sixteenth century and the end of the seventeenth century. Drawing upon previous historiography, a wealth of printed primary sources (including government documents, pamphlets, rogue literature, and plays), and archival material (quarter sessions and assize cases, parish records and constables's accounts), the book argues that the construction of gypsy identity was part of a wider discourse concerning the increasing vagabond population, and was further informed by the religious reformations and political insecurities of the time. T...
An accessible history of the Roma people in England told from the inside. The Romany people have been variously portrayed as exotic strangers or as crude, violent, delinquent “gypsies.” For the first time, this book describes the real history of the Romany in England from the inside. Drawing on new archival and first-hand research, Jeremy Harte vividly describes the itinerant life of the Romany as well as their artistic traditions, unique language, and flamboyant ceremonies. Travelers through Time tells the dramatic story of Romany life on the British margins from Tudor times through today, filled with vivid insights into the world of England’s large Romany population.