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The ArtsJuly 2024Pasticcio opera in Britain
History and context
by Peter Morgan Barnes
This study overturns twentieth-century thinking about pasticcio opera. This radical way of creating opera formed a counterweight, even a relief, to the trenchant masculinity of literate culture in the seventeenth century. It undermined the narrowing of nationalism in the eighteenth century, and was an act of gross sacrilege against the cult of Romantic genius in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, it found itself on the wrong side of copyright law. However, in the twenty-first century it is enjoying a tentative revival. This book redefines pasticcio as a method rather than a genre of opera and aligns it with other art forms which also created their works from pre-existing parts, including sculpture. A pasticcio opera is created from pre-existing music and text, thus flying in face of insistence on originality and creation by a solo genius.
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Literature & Literary StudiesMarch 2021Thomas Heywood and the classical tradition
by Tania Demetriou, Janice Valls-Russell
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The ArtsOctober 20174 saints in 3 acts
A snapshot of the American avant-garde in the 1930s
by Patricia Allmer, John Sears
Four Saints in Three Acts by Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson was a major avant-garde phenomenon of the 1930s, an experimental opera that nonetheless achieved remarkable popular success. Photography was a key element of that success, but its complex roles in the construction, representation and dissemination of the opera have hitherto received little critical attention. The photographic recording of the all-African American cast in particular affords a unique insight into the complexities of Four Saints in relation to the Harlem Renaissance and the New York avant-gardes of the time. This book, published in collaboration with The Photographers' Gallery, London, presents a wide selection of photographs of the cast, performances, and other material - many images reproduced for the first time - alongside essays by an international range of scholars exploring different aspects of the opera, including dance, fashion, music, and avant-garde writing, as well as photography.
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Literature & Literary StudiesMarch 2017
Asia in Western fiction
by Robin Winks
Any reader who has ever visited Asia knows that the great bulk of Western-language fiction about Asian cultures turns on stereotypes. This book, a collection of essays, explores the problem of entering Asian societies through Western fiction, since this is the major port of entry for most school children, university students and most adults. In the thirteenth century, serious attempts were made to understand Asian literature for its own sake. Hau Kioou Choaan, a typical Chinese novel, was quite different from the wild and magical pseudo-Oriental tales. European perceptions of the Muslim world are centuries old, originating in medieval Christendom's encounter with Islam in the age of the Crusades. There is explicit and sustained criticism of medieval mores and values in Scott's novels set in the Middle Ages, and this is to be true of much English-language historical fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Even mediocre novels take on momentary importance because of the pervasive power of India. The awesome, remote and inaccessible Himalayas inevitably became for Western writers an idealised setting for novels of magic, romance and high adventure, and for travellers' tales that read like fiction. Chinese fictions flourish in many guises. Most contemporary Hong Kong fiction reinforced corrupt mandarins, barbaric punishments and heathens. Of the novels about Japan published after 1945, two may serve to frame a discussion of Japanese behaviour as it could be observed (or imagined) by prisoners of war: Black Fountains and Three Bamboos.
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Humanities & Social SciencesApril 2022Chinese religion in contemporary Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan
The cult of the Two Grand Elders
by Fabian Graham
In Singapore and Malaysia, the inversion of Chinese Underworld traditions has meant that Underworld demons are now amongst the most commonly venerated deities in statue form, channelled through their spirit mediums, tang-ki. The Chinese Underworld and its sub-hells are populated by a bureaucracy drawn from the Buddhist, Taoist and vernacular pantheons. Under the watchful eye of Hell's 'enforcers', the lower echelons of demon soldiers impose post-mortal punishments on the souls of the recently deceased for moral transgressions committed during their prior incarnations. Chinese religion in contemporary Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan offers an ethnography of contemporary Chinese Underworld traditions, where night-time cemetery rituals assist the souls of the dead, exorcised spirits are imprisoned in Guinness bottles, and malicious foetus ghosts are enlisted to strengthen a temple's spirit army. Understanding the religious divergences between Singapore and Malaysia (and their counterparts in Taiwan) through an analysis of socio-political and historical events, Fabian Graham challenges common assumptions about the nature and scope of Chinese vernacular religious beliefs and practices. Graham's innovative approach to alterity allows the reader to listen to first-person dialogues between the author and channelled Underworld deities. Through its alternative methodological and narrative stance, the book intervenes in debates on the interrelation between sociocultural and spiritual worlds, and promotes the destigmatisation of spirit possession and discarnate phenomena in the future study of mystical and religious traditions.
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The ArtsDecember 2015Classical Hollywood cinema
Point of view and communication
by James Zborowski
This book offers a new approach to filmic point of view by combining close analyses informed by the tools of narratology and philosophy with concepts derived from communication studies. Each chapter stages a conversation between two masterpieces of classical Hollywood cinema and one critical concept that can enrich our understanding of them: Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Frank Capra, 1936) are interpreted in relation to point of view; Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962) are considered with reference to the concept of distance; and Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophuls, 1948) and Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks, 1939) are explored through the lens of communication. Each encounter reveals new, exciting and mutually illuminating ways of appreciating not only these case studies, but also the critical concepts at stake. ;
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The ArtsJune 2021Genre and performance: film and television
by Christine Cornea
Looking at contemporary film and television, this book explores how popular genres frame our understanding of on-screen performance. Previous studies of screen performance have tended to fix upon star actors, directors, or programme makers, or they have concentrated upon particular training and acting styles. Moving outside of these confines, this book provides a truly interdisciplinary account of performance in film and television and examines a much neglected area in our understanding of how popular genres and performance intersect on screen. Each chapter concentrates upon a particular genre or draws upon generic case studies in examining the significance of screen performance. Individual chapters examine contemporary film noir, horror, the biopic, drama-documentary, the western, science fiction, comedy performance in 'spoof news' programmes and the television 'sit com' and popular Bollywood films.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017Britain in China
by Robert Bickers
This is a study of Britain's presence in China both at its peak, and during its inter-war dissolution in the face of assertive Chinese nationalism and declining British diplomatic support. Using archival materials from China and records in Britain and the United States, the author paints a portrait of the traders, missionaries, businessmen, diplomats and settlers who constituted "Britain-in-China", challenging our understanding of British imperialism there. Bickers argues that the British presence in China was dominated by urban settlers whose primary allegiance lay not with any grand imperial design, but with their own communities and precarious livelihoods. This brought them into conflict not only with the Chinese population, but with the British imperial government. The book also analyzes the formation and maintenance of settler identities, and then investigates how the British state and its allies brought an end to the reign of freelance, settler imperialism on the China coast. At the same time, other British sectors, missionary and business, renegotiated their own relationship with their Chinese markets and the Chinese state and distanced themselves from the settler British.
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The ArtsJune 2021Contemporary Spanish cinema and genre
by Jay Beck, Vicente Rodríguez Ortega
This volume is the first English-language collection exclusively dedicated to the study of genre in relation to Spanish cinema. Providing a variety of critical perspectives, the collection gives the reader a thorough account of the relationship between Spanish cinema and genre, drawing on case studies of several of the most remarkable Spanish films in recent years. The book analyses the significant changes in the aesthetics, production and reception of Spanish film from 1990 onwards. It brings together European and North American scholars to establish a critical dialogue on the topics under discussion, while providing multiple perspectives on the concepts of national cinemas and genre theory. In recent years film scholarship has attempted to negotiate the tension between the nationally specific and the internationally ubiquitous, discussing how globalisation has influenced film making and surrounding cultural practice. These broader social concerns have prompted scholars to emphasise a redefinition of national cinemas beyond strict national boundaries and to pay attention to the transnational character of any national site of film production and reception. This collection provides a thorough investigation of contemporary Spanish cinema within a transnational framework, by positing cinematic genres as the meeting spaces between a variety of diverse forces that necessarily operate within but also across territorial spaces. Paying close attention to the specifics of the Spanish cinematic and social panorama, the essays investigate the transnational economic, cultural and aesthetic forces at play in shaping Spanish film genres today.
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The ArtsJanuary 2019Contemporary Spanish cinema and genre
by Jay Beck, Vicente Rodríguez Ortega
This volume is the first English-language collection exclusively dedicated to the study of genre in relation to Spanish cinema. Providing a variety of critical perspectives, the collection gives the reader a thorough account of the relationship between Spanish cinema and genre, drawing on case studies of several of the most remarkable Spanish films in recent years. The book analyses the significant changes in the aesthetics, production and reception of Spanish film from 1990 onwards. It brings together European and North American scholars to establish a critical dialogue on the topics under discussion, while providing multiple perspectives on the concepts of national cinemas and genre theory. In recent years film scholarship has attempted to negotiate the tension between the nationally specific and the internationally ubiquitous, discussing how globalisation has influenced film making and surrounding cultural practice. These broader social concerns have prompted scholars to emphasise a redefinition of national cinemas beyond strict national boundaries and to pay attention to the transnational character of any national site of film production and reception. This collection provides a thorough investigation of contemporary Spanish cinema within a transnational framework, by positing cinematic genres as the meeting spaces between a variety of diverse forces that necessarily operate within but also across territorial spaces. Paying close attention to the specifics of the Spanish cinematic and social panorama, the essays investigate the transnational economic, cultural and aesthetic forces at play in shaping Spanish film genres today.
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Humanities & Social SciencesMay 2020Beginning classical social theory
by Marcel Stoetzler, Peter Barry
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Humanities & Social SciencesJanuary 2013Tyrants of Sicily by Hugo Falcandus
by Graham Loud, Thomas Wiedemann
This book is our principal source for the history of the Kingdom of Sicily in the troubled years between the death of its founder, King Roger, in February 1154 and the spring of 1169. It covers the reign of Roger's son, King William I, known to later centuries as 'the Bad', and the minority of the latter's son, William II 'the Good'. The book illustrates the revival of classical learning during the twelfth-century renaissance. It presents a vivid and compelling picture of royal tyranny, rebellion and factional dispute at court. Sicily had historically been ruled by tyrants, and that the rule of the new Norman kings could be seen, for a variety of reasons, as a revival of that classical tyranny. A more balanced view of Sicilian history of the period 1153-1169 has been provided as an appendix to the translation in the section of the contemporary world chronicle ascribed to Archbishop Romuald II of Salerno, who died in April 1181. In particular the chronicle of Romuald enables us to see how the papal schism of 1159 and the simultaneous dispute between the German Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and the north Italian cities affected the destiny of the kingdom of Sicily. In contrast to the shadowy figure of Hugo Falcandus, the putative author of the principal narrative of mid-twelfth-century Sicilian history, Romuald II, Archbishop of Salerno 1153-1181, is well-documented.
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Humanities & Social SciencesAugust 2012Understanding Chinese politics
An introduction to government in the People's Republic of China
by Neil Collins, Andrew Cottey
The Chinese political system is the subject of much media and popular comment in part because China supports an economy with an apparently inexorable dynamic and impressive record of achievement. This book provides a comprehensive introduction to China's political system, outlining the major features of the Chinese model and highlighting its claims and challenges. It explores the central role of the Communist Party in the country's politics and the way in which the Party controls most elements of the political system. The book also draws parallels with previous historical periods in China's history. Finally, it addresses the question of what kind of role the People's Republic of China will play in global politics as a whole, the implications for the West and the rebalancing of relations between China and its neighbours. ;
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2017New frontiers
Imperialism's new communities in East Asia, 1842–1953
by Robert Bickers, Christian Henriot
In the new world order mapped out by Japanese and Western imperialism in East Asia after the mid-nineteenth century opium wars, communities of merchants and settlers took root in China and Korea. New identities were constructed, new modes of collaboration formed and new boundaries between the indigenous and foreign communities were literally and figuratively established. Newly available in paperback, this pioneering and comparative study of Western and Japanese imperialism examines European, American and Japanese communities in China and Korea, and challenges received notions of agency and collaboration by also looking at the roles in China of British and Japanese colonial subjects from Korea, Taiwan and India, and at Chinese Christians and White Russian refugees. This volume will be of interest to students and scholars of the history and anthropology of imperialism, colonialism's culture and East Asian history, as well as contemporary Asian affairs.
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The ArtsJanuary 2019Alejandro Amenábar
by Barry Jordan
Since the release of his first feature in 1996, Alejandro Amenábar has become the 'golden boy' of Spanish filmmaking, a bankable star director whose brand virtually guarantees quality, big audiences and domestic box office success. He has directed three of the highest-grossing movies in Spanish film history and has enjoyed enormous international and critical acclaim, including an Oscar for Best Foreign Film for Mar Adentro/The Sea Inside, 2004. This book is the first full-length study in English of Amenábar's shorts and feature films. It provides detailed analysis of his engagement with popular film genres as the basis for an auteur cinema and incorporates a reappraisal of his auteurism as fundamentally decentred and shared. An essential resource for students, scholars and fans of Amenábar, the book will also appeal to a wider readership, including professionals in the film, media and culture industries as well as those who have a general interest in the best of Spanish, European and world cinema.
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Literature & Literary StudiesOctober 1996In contact with the Gods?
Directors talk theat
by Maria M. Delgado, P. P. Heritage
In 1994 the Arts Council of Great Britain brought together a number of theatre directors as part of the City of Drama celebrations. This is a collection of interviews and discussions with directors who have helped shape the development of theatre in the last 20 years. They include Peter Brook, Peter Stein, Augusto Boal, Jorge Lavelli, Lluis Pasqual, Lev Dodin, Maria Irene Fornes, Jonathan Miller, Jatinder Verma, Peter Sellars, Declan Donnellan, Ariane Mnouchkine, Ion Caramitru, Yukio Ninagawa and Robert Wilson. In addition to the art and craft of directing, there are discussions on multiculturalism; the "classical" repertoire; theatre companies and institutions; working in a foreign language; opera; Shakespeare; new technologies; the art of acting; design; international festivals; politics and aesthetics; the audience; and theatre and society. Finally, there is an epilogue by Peter Brook, Jonathan Miller and Oliver Sacks. ;
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PsychologyEverything Is Different with the Beaver Family
A Story for Children Whose Parents are Affected by Unemployment
by Lisa Bartling, Lea Buchner, Yannik Bendel, Hannah Grote, Johannes Kresse, Jennifer Koy
Bene Beaver is quite certain of the following: His Mom has the coolest job in the world! At dinnertime, his mother often talks about the latest construction of a beaver den, until one evening she is quiet at dinner and seems sad. Papa Bernhard explains that Mom has lost her job. “How can you lose something like that?” asks Bene, who goes to visit the wisest animal in the forest: the moose. This book is designed to help children, whose parents are affected by unemployment, to better understand and master their situation. The story of Bene Beaver and his family addresses a number of the different challenges that occur when a parent is unemployed. For: • children of elementary school age (between 6 and 12 years of age) whose parents are affected by unemployment• parents, relatives• therapists
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January 2004Conradi Summenhart opera omnia, Band 1
Tractatus theologici canonistici
by Summenhart, Conrad / Herausgegeben von Feld, Helmut
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Humanities & Social SciencesJune 2024
The sound of difference
Race, class and the politics of 'diversity' in classical music
by Kristina Kolbe
What happens when the elitist space of 'Western' classical music seeks to diversify itself? And what are the social effects worked through diversity discourses in classical music institutions? Sounding difference addresses these concerns by critically examining how diversity work takes shape in a cultural sector so deeply implicated in hierarchies of class, structures of whiteness, and legacies of imperialism. The book draws from ethnographic and interview data to analyse how diversity discourses become constructed in the organisational and creative processes of music production. From rehearsal and performance practices to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the sector's commitment to change, Kolbe reveals the institutional constraints and precarious labour relations that form around diversity work in classical music and skilfully considers what these processes can tell us about the remaking of class, race, and racism today.
