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      • The Arts
        March 1905

        Concerning the Spiritual in Art

        by Wassily Kandinsky

        A pioneering work in the movement to free art from its traditional bonds to material reality, this book is one of the most important documents in the history of modern art. Written by the famous nonobjective painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), it explains Kandinsky's own theory of painting and crystallizes the ideas that were influencing many other modern artists of the period. Along with his own groundbreaking paintings, this book had a tremendous impact on the development of modern art. Kandinsky's ideas are presented in two parts. The first part, called "About General Aesthetic," issues a call for a spiritual revolution in painting that will let artists express their own inner lives in abstract, non-material terms. Just as musicians do not depend upon the material world for their music, so artists should not have to depend upon the material world for their art. In the second part, "About Painting," Kandinsky discusses the psychology of colors, the language of form and color, and the responsibilities of the artist. An Introduction by the translator, Michael T. H. Sadler, offers additional explanation of Kandinsky's art and theories, while a new Preface by Richard Stratton discusses Kandinsky's career as a whole and the impact of the book. Making the book even more valuable are nine woodcuts by Kandinsky himself that appear at the chapter headings. This English translation of Über das Geistige in der Kunst was a significant contribution to the understanding of nonobjectivism in art. It continues to be a stimulating and necessary reading experience for every artist, art student, and art patron concerned with the direction of 20th-century painting.

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        Geography & the Environment
        June 2025

        Demystifying informal urban design and planning

        Insights from Asia

        by Mahyar Arefi

        Touting informal settlements or informality in general as illegal, crime-ridden, unsafe, filthy, chaotic, and formal developments as legal, orderly or safe, and so forth has not solved anything and informality as a way of life or an economic reality lingers and grows. Demystifying informal urban design and planning delves deeper into this conundrum and seeks to debunk some common misguided perceptions about it. Borrowing popular philosophical and political analogies from Isaiah Berlin and Gregory Treverton and others, it encourages urban designers and planners to become multitaskers like foxes rather than hedgehogs who can do one thing right. The book ends with some general takeaways on assuming more proactive roles in informal urban design issues and avoiding two potential pitfalls while interacting with them.

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        Psychiatry

        Character Strength Interventions

        A Field Guide for Practitioners

        by Ryan M. Niemiec

        This unique guide brings together the vast experience of the author with the science and the practice of positive psychology in such a way that both new and experienced practitioners will benefit. New practitioners will learn about the core concepts of character and signature strengths and how to fine-tune their approach and troubleshoot. Experienced practitioners will deepen their knowledge about advanced topics such as strengths overuse and collisions, hot button issues, morality, and integrating strengths with savoring, flow, and mindfulness. Hands-on practitioner tips throughout the book provide valuable hints on how to take a truly strengths-based approach. The 24 summary sheets spotlighting each of the universal character strengths are an indispensable resource for client sessions, succinctly summarizing the core features of and research on each strength. 70 evidence-based step-by-step activity handouts can be given to clients to help them develop character strengths awareness and use, increase resilience, set and meet goals, develop positive relationships, and find meaning and engagement in their daily lives.   Working with client’s (and our own) character strengths boosts well-being, fosters resilience, improves relationships, and creates strong, supportive cultures in our practices, classrooms, and organizations.   Target Group: psychotherapists / clinical psychologists / counselors/ teachers

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2025

        Empirical art

        Filmmaking for fieldwork in practice

        by Andy Lawrence, Martha-Cecilia Dietrich

        Empirical art: Filmmaking for fieldwork in practice is an insightful exploration of what the craft of filmmaking brings to social science research. Providing creative avenues on how to narrate encounters, relationships, and experiences during fieldwork, this comprehensive volume offers a rich tapestry of theoretical explorations and explorative methodologies. Skilfully connecting the worlds of ethnography, art and cinema, the contributors in this book act as a compass for filmmakers and researchers venturing to use a camera and microphone to relate and narrate their research collaborations and fieldsites. Drawing from the authors' extensive experience in disciplines like social anthropology, environmental humanities, and political science, "Empirical Art" breaks down the intricate process of crafting ethnographic films that departs from the researcher's subjectivity. Covering aspects of filmmaking from conceptualisation to production and distribution, readers are equipped with a treasure trove of collaborative techniques, innovative approaches, and ethical considerations necessary to generate and examine storytelling practices in contemporary fields of study. The authors discuss the significance of the multiple roles that technologies of filmmaking play in reflecting on cultural practices, social dynamics, and (beyond) human storytelling and their transformative potentials. Whether a seasoned filmmaker, an aspiring ethnographer, or an academic seeking new dimensions for their research, Empirical Art serves as a guide to integrating visual storytelling, cinema craft and empirical research.

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        The Arts
        June 2026

        Borderline bodies in art and visual culture

        Unsettling identity and place since 1800

        by Keren Hammerschlag, Natasha Ruiz-Gómez, Tania Anne Cleaves

        Borderline bodies offers original interpretations of visual representations of human bodies as bounded and unbounded, fortified and permeable, mobile and static-subject to borders and able to traverse and challenge them. It also takes as its focus images and objects that might be considered 'borderline' because they sit at the intersection of disciplines or sit outside accepted notions of what constitutes serious 'art.' By mapping the ways human bodies traverse borders and straddle-even dismantle-categories, this volume's essays approach afresh the relationship of bodies to traditional modes of representation, especially in art and medicine, and encourage us to think anew about how we understand the relationship between human corporeality, identity and place. Critical transdisciplinary and transnational analyses of objects and images from a range of geographies shed new light on the themes of: bodies and identity; typologies of the body; racialised bodies; 'normal' and 'abnormal' bodies; encounters between bodies; bodies in transition; bodies and mobility; and the bounded and unbounded human body. The outcome is a fresh approach to depictions of the human body produced for the purposes of artistic and medical education, aesthetic edification, and scientific and professional advancement, which disrupts assumptions about the normative human body perpetuated through Western image-making traditions.

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        The Arts
        November 2017

        Empire and Art

        by Renate Dohmen

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        The Arts
        March 2026

        Contemporary art and ecological transformation in East and Southeast Asia

        by Meiqin Wang

        This anthology, presenting new research from fourteen scholars, delves into the interplay between contemporary art and ecological concerns in East and Southeast Asia. Focused on the concept of artistic remediation, the book unravels the diverse capacities of art to combat systemic anthropogenic destruction to the environment and ecology. At its core, the book articulates the ongoing ecological transformation in art and art history that embraces a paradigm shift in human-nature relationships, emphasizing interconnectedness of all life forms of the Earth. Bridging art studies, activism, and environmental studies, the book examines how artistic practices in the region have engaged with ecocritical reflection, biodiversity advocacy, sustainable practices, and environmental justice, among others. Providing a platform for critical and timely analysis of artistic interventions in the face of existential crises, the book acknowledges diverse voices of scholars who have situated their scholarship in the cultural and artistic specificities of various societies, locales, and communities in the region.

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        The Arts
        March 2018

        Art versus industry?

        New perspectives on visual and industrial cultures in nineteenth-century Britain

        by Christopher Breward, Kate Nichols, Bill Sherman, Rebecca Wade, Gabriel Williams

        This book is about encounters between art and industry in nineteenth-century Britain. It looks beyond the oppositions established by later interpretations of the work of John Ruskin, William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement to reveal surprising examples of collaboration - between artists, craftspeople, designers, inventors, curators, engineers and educators - during a crucial period in the formation of the cultural and commercial identity of Britain and its colonies. Across thirteen chapters by fourteen contributors, Art versus industry? explores such diverse subjects as the production of lace, the mechanical translation of sculpture, the display of stained glass, the use of the kaleidoscope in painting and pattern design, the emergence of domestic electric lighting and the development of art and design education and international exhibitions in India.

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        February 2018

        Reading the graphic surface

        by Glyn White

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        Teaching, Language & Reference
        May 2025

        Writing creatively for work or study

        by Helen Kara

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        The Arts
        January 2021

        Critical design in Japan

        Material culture, luxury, and the avant-garde

        by Ory Bartal

        This book tells the story of critical avant-garde design in Japan, which emerged during the 1960s and continues to inspire designers today. The practice communicates a form of visual and material protest drawing on the ideologies and critical theories of the 1960s and 1970s, notably feminism, body politics, the politics of identity, and ecological, anti-consumerist and anti-institutional critiques, as well as the concept of otherness. It also presents an encounter between two seemingly contradictory concepts: luxury and the avant-garde. The book challenges the definition of design as the production of unnecessary decorative and conceptual objects, and the characterisation of Japanese design in particular as beautiful, sublime or a product of 'Japanese culture'. In doing so it reveals the ways in which material and visual culture serve to voice protest and formulate a social critique.

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        Art: Financial Aspects

        The rise of the modern art market in London

        1850–1939

        by Edited by Pamela Fletcher and Anne Helmreich

        Now available in paperback for the first time, this study of the modern London art market establishes the central importance of London for the development of the modern retail market in fine art. Leading experts track the emergence and development of the structures and practices that have come to characterize the commercial art system, including the commercial art gallery, the professional dealer, the exhibition cycle and its accompanying rhetoric of press coverage and publicity, and an international network for the circulation of goods. This new commercial system involved a massive transformation of the experience of viewing art; of the relationships between artists, dealers, collectors, art objects and audiences; and of the very criteria of aesthetic value itself. Its history is thus a vital part of the history of modern art, and this anthology will be of interest to art historians as well as scholars of Victorian Studies, Museum Studies, and Social History.

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        The Arts
        February 2015

        Crafting design in Italy

        From post-war to postmodernism

        by Catharine Rossi, Christopher Breward, Bill Sherman

        Crafting design in Italy is the first book to examine the role that craft played in post-war Italian design, one of the most celebrated design episodes in the twentieth century. Craft was vital to the development of Italian design, and it has been so far overlooked. This book examines the multiple ways craft shaped Italian design from 1945 to the 1980s in the context of bigger socio-economic, cultural and political change; from post-war reconstruction to the economic 'miracle' of the 1960s, to the rise of the countercultural Radical Design movement and advent of postmodernism. It consists of case studies on design areas including product, furniture, fashion, glass and ceramics to bring to light previously unknown makers and objects as well as re-examine design 'icons' such as Gio Ponti's Superleggera chair and Ettore Sottsass's Memphisware. It also offers a model for analysing design and craft's relationship in other contexts, including today. ;

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