Blackwell Publishing
The aesthetics of cultural studies.
Engaging cultural and literary debates about the role of aesthetics, these articles examine the current state of cultural studies. Bérubé (literature, Pennsylvania State U.) introduces the collection with an overview of the field and of its purported "return to Beauty." The lively and provocative essays that follow consider the question of judgment in contemporary popular culture, aesthetics as a realm of self-policing, the ordinary and extraordinary in popular culture, and the profusion of first-person narratives in academic writing. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Ancient Greek religion.
Mikalson (classics, U. of Virginia) offers a first introduction to ancient Greek religion, which encompasses hundreds of deities of several different types, and varied widely over nearly two thousand years and thousands of large and small Greek city-states. His topics include sanctuaries and worship; gods, heroes, and polytheism; seven cult myths; five major cults; religion in the family and village and the city-state; the individual; and the Hellenistic period. To encourage readers to study further, he references easily available editions of the texts he quotes from. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
An archaeology of Asia.
Comprising 15 chapters written by some of the world's foremost Asia archeologists, this volume sheds light on many of the most compelling aspects of Asian archeology, from the early plant and animal domestication to the emergence of states and empires from Pakistan to North China. In particular, the contributors explore migration, ethnicity, urbanism and technology and challenge readers to think beyond national and regional boundaries. The volume as a whole offers new insights into the archeology of Asia and encourages western scholars to pay more attention to the continent in their studies of human origins, evolution and history. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Architectural theory; v.1: An anthology from Vitruvius to 1870.
Mallgrave (history and theory, Illinois Institute of Technology) has selected 200 source readings in the field for this first volume of a two-volume set. The first of four chronological sections extends from the classical through the Baroque periods. Following are sections on classicism in France and Britain, neoclassicism and the Enlightenment, theories of the picturesque and sublime, historicism during the 19th century, the gothic revival (in Britain, Germany, and France), American theory, and historicism in the industrial age (British styles, rationalism, eclecticism, and realism in France, and tectonics and German style). Mallgrave introduces each section and reading. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Basic structures for engineers and architects.
Aimed at undergraduates in civil engineering and architecture, this text explains basic structural concepts in plain language. Garrison (Leeds Metropolitan U., UK) uses case histories and examples from everyday life to explain concepts such as force, loading, equilibrium, stability, and shear force. Three chapters each are devoted to the analysis of pin-jointed frames and the various types of stress. The volume is illustrated throughout with b&w photographs and line drawings. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
A companion to narrative theory.
What happens next? Narrative theory, regardless of the discipline to which it is applied, is rich and varied, accommodating a wealth of what may at first appear to be contrasting views going in different directions, sometimes contradicting the naive idea that narrative is plot. In this collection of 35 of the best pieces of work in the field, contributors demonstrate as well as describe both the complexity and the elegance of theory as it relates to literature, music and art in such topics as the resurrection of the implied author, unreliable narration, what narratology and stylistics can do for each other, multiple trajectories in such as Ulysses, spatial poetics, self-consciousness, method, rhetoric, and applications beyond the literary in law, music, media and art. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
A history of Rome, 3d ed.
Spanning over 1,300 years, this third edition chronicles the history of Rome beginning with the cultures of primitive Italy and concluding with theories about its demise. New material provided by David Cherry (Montana State University) and Donald Kyle (U. of Texas at Arlington) includes expanded coverage of the period of the late Republic, revisions to the section on the earliest history of Rome which takes into account new archaeological evidence, sections on Romanization and the sources for Roman history, and several sections on Roman spectacles — including gladiatorial combat and chariot racing. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
How to do theory.
Starting with the catchy and somewhat ironic title, Iser (English and comparative literature, U. of California, Irvine) takes undergraduates on a thinking person's tour of modern theories of literature, including the work of Ingarden (phenomenological), Gadamer (hermeneutical), Gombrich (gestalt), Iser (reception), Eco (semiotic), Ehrenzweig (psychoanalytical), Williams (Marxist), Miller (deconstruction) Gans (anthropological), including assessments of Dewey's Art as Experience, Showalter's "Toward a Feminist Poetics" and the postcolonial discourse of Said. Iser disagrees with those who maintain that structuralism, postmodernism and intertextuality are theories, noting they are only movements and period concepts that have only inspired certain legitimate theories. He also has a number of interesting ideas about why so many theories operate parallel to each other. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The life and death of Anne Boleyn; the most happy.
Ives (emeritus, English history, U. of Birmingham) offers scholars and general readers an accessible account of the life of Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII and mother of Elizabeth I. In so doing, he also illuminates the inner workings of the Tudor court which was the milieu for Anne's success and her ultimate destruction. A section of b&w plates of surviving artwork supports detailed discussions of Anne's portraiture and her role as an artistic patron. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Museum studies; an anthology of contexts.
Speaking reverently in hushed tones, keeping one's hands folded over one's belt buckle, and looking only where the guide points are appropriate behaviors in certain museums. In others, one juggles, sings along, and weeps. In this collection of 53 essays and meditations, editor Carbonell (visual cultures, museum studies, American studies, aesthetics, and ethics, New York U.) and contributors provide classic and modern perspectives on the purposes and responsibilities of a museum, and its opportunities to inform cognitively, emotionally and spiritually. Groups of essays address several issues in museum studies, including contexts of museums, how natural history, anthropology and ethnology are represented as "nature" and how museums represent the status of nations. Other articles examine how artifacts and their presentation affect the perception of history, and how museums influence perceptions of art and crafts, whether they operate primarily as patrons or as sources of inspiration. In an alternate taxonomy, articles are arranged to examine the history, theory, practices and poetics of museums. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Philosophy of film and motion pictures; an anthology.
Carroll (humanities, Temple University) and Choi (film studies, Carleton University) stress a need to analyze the philosophy of motion pictures and therefore have compiled an anthology of readings by philosophers for courses on the subject. Twenty-seven essays from 1953 to the present, most previously published, are organized into eight sections, each with an introduction. The selections discuss the philosophical questions of film as art, the definition of film, and various aspects of documentaries, DVDs, narrative, emotion in film, authorship, nationalism, morals and ethics in film, pornography, and film's connection to knowledge. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Post-Impressionism to World War II.
This anthology comprises 31 selections for teachers and undergraduate students of art history and criticism. Included are primary historical sources such as texts written by practitioners and manifestos, influential contemporary art criticism, and essays written between 1920 and the 1990s exploring cross-currents between visual culture from painting and sculpture to film and photography. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
