A critical biography of America's most influential postmodern poet. Mysterious, esoteric, and baffling, John Ashbery is notorious for the seeming difficulty of his work. But Ashbery is also entertaining, humorous, even charming, and ever responsive to his shifting social and political contexts. This biography charts Ashbery's rise from a minor avant-garde figure to the most important poet of his generation. Jess Cotton provides a legible and accessible roadmap to Ashbery's work that draws connections between his poetry, New York artists, and mid-century politics. Cotton paints an image of a more approachable and socially engaged Ashbery that will appeal to anyone interested in American poetry, queer lives, and twentieth-century American history.
The first in-depth account of Kunstkammern, cabinets of art or curios, proto-museums of the time.
Explores the full-length mirror through history, as well as in material culture.
An amusing, informative guide to a fanciful and charming building, the folly.
Explores the past, present and future of an instrument that is, quite literally, close to our hearts.
The first comprehensive English-language biography of Albert the Great in a century. As well as being an important medieval theologian, Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great) also made significant contributions to the study of astronomy, geography, and natural philosophy, and his studies of the natural world led Pope Pius XII to declare Albert the patron saint of the natural sciences. Dante Alighieri acknowledged a substantial debt to Albert's work, and in the Divine Comedy placed him equal with his celebrated student and brother Dominican, Thomas Aquinas. In this book, the first full, scholarly biography in English for nearly a century, Irven M. Resnick and Kenneth F. Kitchell Jr. narrate Albert's key contributions to natural philosophy and the history of science, while also revealing the insights into medieval life and customs that his writings provide.
Image-transforming techniques such as close-up, time lapse, and layering are generally associated with the age of photography, but as Florike Egmond shows in this book, they were already being used half a millennium ago. Exploring the world of natural history drawings from the Renaissance, 'Eye for Detail' shows how the function of identification led to image manipulation techniques that will look uncannily familiar to the modern viewer. Egmond shows how the format of images in nature studies changed dramatically during the Renaissance period, as high-definition naturalistic representation became the rule during a robust output of plant and animal drawings. She examines what visual techniques like magnification can tell us about how early modern Europeans studied and ordered living nature, and she focuses on how attention to visual detail was motivated by an overriding question: the secret of the origins of life. Beautifully and precisely illustrated throughout, this volume serves as an arresting guide to the massive European collections of nature drawings and an absorbing study of natural history art of the sixteenth century.
A comprehensive, accessible, and stunningly illustrated introduction to these far-off worlds. The most distant planets in our solar system, Uranus and Neptune were unknown by the ancients--Uranus was discovered in the 1780s and Neptune only in the 1840s. Our discovery and observation of both planets have been hampered by their sheer distance from Earth: there has only been one close encounter, Voyager 2 in the late 1980s. The Voyager mission revealed many enticing details about the planets and their moons but also left many more questions unanswered. This book is an informative and accessible introduction to Uranus, Neptune, and their moons. It takes readers on a journey from discovery to the most recent observations made from space- and ground-based telescopes, and it will appeal to amateur and professional astronomers alike.
Drawing on the latest archaeological and textual discoveries, a revealing look at the rich and dynamic civilization of Nubia. Nubia, the often-overlooked southern neighbor of Egypt, has been home to groups of vibrant and adaptive peoples for millennia. This book explores the Nubians' religious, social, economic, and cultural histories, from their nomadic origins during the Stone Ages to their rise to power during the Napatan and Meroitic periods, and it concludes with the recent struggles for diplomacy in North Sudan. Situated among the ancient superpowers of Egypt, Aksum, and the Greco-Roman world, Nubia's connections with these cultures shaped the region's history through colonialism and cultural entanglement. Sarah M. Schellinger presents the Nubians through their archaeological and textual remains, reminding readers that they were a rich and dynamic civilization in their own right.
"From classic Bruce Lee films to the comedies of Jackie Chan, a vibrant look at the enduring fascination with the kung fu cinema of Hong Kong. In the spring and summer of 1973, a wave of martial arts movies from Hong Kong--epitomized by Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon--smashed box-office records for foreign-language films in America and ignited a 'kung fu craze' that swept the world. Fighting without Fighting explores this dramatic phenomenon, and it argues that, more than just a cinematic fad, the West's sudden fascination with--and moral panic about--the Asian fighting arts left lasting legacies still present today. The book traces the background of the craze in the longer development of Hong Kong's martial arts cinema. It discusses the key films in detail, as well as their popular reception and the debates they ignited, where kung fu challenged Western identities and raised anxieties about violence, both on and off-screen. And it examines the proliferation of ideas and images from these films in fields as diverse as popular music, superhero franchises, children's cartoons, and contemporary art. Illuminating and accessible, Fighting without Fighting draws a vivid bridge between East and West."--
"Incomparable Realms offers a vision of Spanish culture and society during the so-called Golden Age, the period from 1500 to 1700 when Spain unexpectedly rose to become the dominant European power. But in what ways was this a Golden Age, and for whom? The relationship between the Habsburg monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church shaped the period, with both constructing narratives to bind Spanish society together. Incomparable Realms unpicks the impact of these two historical forces on thought and culture and examines the people and perspectives such powerful projections sought to eradicate. The book shows that the tension between the heavenly and earthly realms, and in particular the struggle between the spiritual and the corporeal, defines Golden Age culture. In art and literature, mystical theology and moral polemic, ideology, doctrine, and everyday life, the problematic pull of the body and the material world is the unacknowledged force behind early modern Spain."--Provided by publiser.
Featuring many exquisite historical photographs, a celebration of the sometimes extravagant, sometimes bizarre pastime: playing dress-up. Pierrot, Little Bo Peep, cowboy: these characters and many more form part of this colorful story of dressing up, from the accession of Queen Victoria to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. During this time, fancy dress became a regular part of people's social lives, and the craze for it spread across Britain and the Empire, reaching every level of society. Spectacular and witty costumes appeared at suburban street carnivals, victory celebrations, fire festivals, missionary bazaars, and the extravagant balls of the wealthy. From the Victorian middle classes performing "living statues" to squads of Shetland men donning traditional fancy dress and setting fire to a Viking ship at the annual Up Helly Aa celebration, this lavishly illustrated book provides a unique view into the quirky, wonderful world of fancy dress.
A crucial book for our current moment, uncovering the history of mass incarceration in the United States and engaging with the major challenges of contemporary prison and police abolition activism. Inspired by the George Floyd Rebellion, States of Incarceration examines the ongoing reconfiguration of mass incarceration as crucial for understanding how race, class, and punishment shape America today. The rise of mass incarceration has coincided with massive disinvestment in working-class communities, particularly communities of color, and a commitment to criminalize poverty, addiction, and interpersonal violence. As Jarrod Shanahan and Zhandarka Kurti argue, the present is a moment of transition and potential reform of incarceration and, by extension, the American justice system. States of Incarceration provides insights into the rise of mass incarceration and its recent history while focusing on the needs of campaigners struggling with the issues of police and prison abolition, as well as the challenges that lie ahead. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with these questions.
The first comprehensive history of the Catholic Church's notorious Index, with resonance for ongoing debates over banned books, censorship, and free speech. For more than four hundred years, the Catholic Church's Index Librorum Prohibitorum struck terror into the hearts of authors, publishers, and booksellers around the world, while arousing ridicule and contempt from many others, especially those in Protestant and non-Christian circles. Biased, inconsistent, and frequently absurd in its attempt to ban objectionable texts of every conceivable description--with sometimes fatal consequences--the Index also reflected the deep learning and careful consideration of many hundreds of intellectual contributors over the long span of its storied evolution. This book constitutes the first full study of the Index of Prohibited Books to be published in English. It examines the reasons behind the Church's attempts to censor religious, scientific, and artistic works, and considers not only why this most sustained of campaigns failed, but what lessons can be learned for today's debates over freedom of expression and cancel culture.
"The robin is a small bird with a distinctive ruddy breast, at once a British national treasure and a bird with a global reputation. In this superbly illustrated account, Helen F. Wilson looks at many aspects of the cherished robin, from its status as a harbinger of seasonal change and, in the United Kingdom, an icon of Christmas, to its place in fairy tales, environmental campaigns, and scientific discovery. In moving between cultural and natural histories, Robin asks wide-ranging questions, such as how did the robin's name travel the world? Why is the robin so melancholy? Who was Cock Robin? And how has the history of the color red shaped the robin's ambivalent associations and unusual origin stories?"--
From their creation in the maw of mollusks to lustrous objects of infatuation and conflict, a revealing look at pearls' dark history. This book is a beautifully illustrated account of pearls through millennia, from fossils to contemporary jewelry. Pearls are the most human of gems, both miraculous and familiar. Uniquely organic in origin, they are as intimate as our bodies, created through the same process as we grow bones and teeth. They have long been described as an animal's sacrifice, but until recently their retrieval often entailed the sacrifices of enslaved and indentured divers and laborers. While the shimmer of the pearl has enticed Roman noblewomen, Mughal princes, Hollywood royalty, mavericks, and renegades, encoded in its surface is a history of human endeavor, abuse, and aspiration--pain locked in the layers of a gleaming gem.
From Viking fisheries to Portuguese bacalao and beyond, a delectable and informative journey through cod fact, cuisine, and lore. This is the first culinary history of a truly remarkable fish. Elisabeth Townsend follows cod around the globe, showing how its pursuit began with the Vikings, and exploring its influence on human affairs ever since. The book looks at the different ways cod has been caught, cooked, and eaten, often by the descendants of explorers, enslaved people, and traders. Cod examines the fish in the myths and legends of the North Atlantic, the West Indies, South America, West and Southeast Africa, and across the Indian Ocean to the Far East. It is a fascinating journey through cod fact and lore and features delectable historical and contemporary recipes that showcase the myriad ways cod can be consumed.
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