Cultural Studies: theory and practice. 5th edn. (Print copy)
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With over 40,000 copies sold, Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice has been the indispensable guide to studying culture for generations of students. Here is everything students need to know, with all the key concepts, theories and thinkers in one comprehensive, authoritative yet accessible resource. Teaching students the foundations of cultural studies - from ideology, representation and discourse to audiences, subcultures and cultural policy - this revised edition: Fully explores the ubiquity of digital media culture, helping readers analyse issues surrounding social media, surveillance, cyber-activism and more Introduces students to all the key thinkers they'll encounter, from Stuart Hall and Michel Foucault to Judith Butler and Donna Haraway Balances the classics with cutting edge theory, including case studies on e-commerce, the self-help industry, the transgender debate, and representations of race Embraces popular culture in all of its diversity, from drag kings and gaming, to anime fandom and remix cultures Is re-written throughout with a new co-author, making it a more enjoyable read than ever. Unmatched in coverage and used world-wide, this is the essential companion for all students of cultural studies, culture and society, media and cultural theory, popular culture and cultural sociology.
Children and Young People's Cultural Worlds 2nd edn. (Print copy)
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Growing up in an increasingly media-saturated, commercial, and globalized world, children and young people in contemporary society encounter and must creatively adapt to a range of cultural phenomena. Offering a critical introduction to childhood in the digital age, Children and Young People's Cultural Worlds challenges common concepts and concerns about childhood innocence held by many adults. It examines the diversity of childhood experiences and relationships--the distinctiveness of children's worlds--and explores topics such as the consequences of age and the experience of living in different cultural contexts. Utilizing contributions from scholars in a variety of different fields, it is interdisciplinary and international in scope. Including resources for teachers and students such as learning outcomes, activities, and additional readings and commentary, this well-written and beautifully presented book will be a valuable resource to anyone interested in new perspectives on childhood in the digital age.
Stuff. (Print copy)
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Things make us just as much as we make things. And yet, unlike the study of languages or places, there is no discipline devoted to the study of material things. This book shows why it is time to acknowledge and confront this neglect and how much we can learn from focusing our attention on stuff. The book opens with a critique of the concept of superficiality as applied to clothing. It presents the theories that are required to understand the way we are created by material as well as social relations. It takes us inside the very private worlds of our home possessions and our processes of accommodating. It considers issues of materiality in relation to the media, as well as the implications of such an approach in relation, for example, to poverty. Finally, the book considers objects which we use to define what it is to be alive and how we use objects to cope with death. Based on more than thirty years of research in the Caribbean, India, London and elsewhere, Stuff is nothing less than a manifesto for the study of material culture and a new way of looking at the objects that surround us and make up so much of our social and personal life.
Childhood, Culture and Society. (Print copy)
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This book is not available as a print inspection copy. To download an e-inspection copy click here or for more information contact your local sales representative. ′Written with clarity and thoroughly argued, Wyness confirms his place as one of the key authors within contemporary social science writing on children and childhood. A formidable exploration of the nature of contemporary childhood in globally disparate regions.′ - Pia Christensen, Professor of Anthropology and Childhood Studies, University of Leeds, UKNever shying away from the most pressing topics in the field, this book provides a multifaceted and extensive analysis of the study of children and childhood.Linking key concepts, themes and problems together, the text offers an interdisciplinary approach with its topical and timely case studies and illustrations which illuminate the latest research in the field. Key features include: A number of international case studies including children and military conflict, child migrants, children and networking sites, child trafficking, and children as consumers Questions which help you to make connections between topics and get you reflecting on your own childhood Engaging learning features including chapter aims, boxed sections, summaries and further reading suggestions
Cultural Theory in Everyday Practice. (Print copy)
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Cultural Theory in Everyday Practice takes some of the most prominent theoretical approaches used in Cultural Studies and demonstrates the ways in which they are used to evaluate, analyse and interpret recent events, debates, topics and texts in contemporary society. The book is organized around seven theories that have dominated and still dominate the teaching and researching of cultural studies. Each section consists of an introduction, then three essays by different contirbutors that bring together theory and practice. This allows the book to look more at thetypes of theory, rather than at the theorist in isolation. Each section uses the introduction of the theory, its history, where appropriate, its concerns and its limitations, as well as connection with other sections of the book, drawing all the relevant concepts alongside for comparison anddiscussion. By offering more than one example in each part, the text reveals that there are not only many theoriesand many practices in which theory can be applied, but also many styles of writing, amny styles of thinking about and articulating cultural practices and everyday life.
Ways of Seeing. (Print copy)
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John Berger's seminal text on how to look at art John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the Sunday Times critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures." By now he has. "The influence of the series and the book . . . was enormous . . . It opened up for general attention to areas of cultural study that are now commonplace." --Geoff Dyer "Berger has the ability to cut right through the mystification of the professional art critics . . . He is a liberator of images: and once we have allowed the paintings to work on us directly, we are in a much better position to make a meaningful evaluation." --Peter Fuller, Arts Review
Deconstructing Popular Culture. (Print copy)
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Popular culture permeates every aspect of our lives: from the music we listen to, the films and television shows we watch and the books we read. But who decides what counts as popular culture? Why is it so important? And how do we go about studying it? This book provides a comprehensive introduction to popular culture and examines the problems and possibilities of studying this fast changing field. Employing a unique approach, Bowman uses techniques of deconstruction to unpick, analyse and deconstruct contemporary examples of popular culture. The book looks at music, Hollywood film and the self-help movement to question claims behind the importance of popular culture and encourage readers to form their own interpretations of the culture they experience every day. With theory interwoven throughout, but in a way that is barely noticeable to the reader, the book provides covers the important theoretical work in the field, whilst directing the reader through ways to avoid common pitfalls in studying theory. An innovative user guide and glossary explain essential terms and ideas, making difficult concepts relevant, accessible and interesting. This witty, thought-provoking book provides a clear, novel introduction to popular culture for all students of cultural studies, media studies and sociology
The Fashioned Body (Print copy)
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The Fashioned Body provides a wide-ranging and original overview of fashion and dress from an historical and sociological perspective. Where once fashion was seen as marginal, it has now entered into core economic discourse focused around ideas about 'cultural' and 'creative' work as a major driver of developed economies. With a new preface and new material on the evolving fashion industry, this second edition gives a clear summary of the theories surrounding the role and function of fashion in modern society. Entwistle examines how fashion plays a crucial role in the formation of modern identity through its articulation of the body, gender and sexuality. The book offers a much needed synthesis between the literature on fashion and dress, and the sociology of the body, offering an updated critique of the issues raised in the first edition. Entwistle shows how an understanding of fashion and dress requires an understanding of the meanings acquired by the body in culture since it is the body that fashion speaks to and which is dressed in almost all social situations and encounters. She argues that while fashion refers to a specific system of dress originating in the west, all cultures 'dress' the body in the same way, making it a crucial feature of social order. Drawing on the work of theorists, the book offers insights into the connections that need to be made between the body, fashion and dress. The Fashioned Body will be an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the social role of fashion and dress in modern culture.
The Ethnicity Reader: nationalism, mutliculturalism & migration. 2nd edn. (Print copy)
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The second edition of The Ethnicity Reader offers a comprehensive and engaging selection of readings for students of sociology, politics, international relations and race relations. Updated with a large proportion of new readings and extended editorial summaries, the reader analyses the ethnic component present in nationalism, multiculturalism and migration, making it indispensable to those seeking to understand the relevance of ethnicity as one of the most prominent forces in the modern world. Drawing on a wide range of examples, the selections included examine theories of nationalism and consider issues of ethnic integration and conflict in the USA, Middle East, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Quebec and Catalonia among other countries and regions. The concept of ethnicity, however, is discussed not only in relation to group rights in existing nation-states: many of the selections deal with the role of ethnicity in groups which are not nationalist at all but for which ethnicity is an important factor in the process of migration, extending the focus to transnational communities in a globalized world. Contributors include Benedict Anderson, Etienne Balibar, James Clifford, Eric Hobsbawm, Michael Keating, Will Kymlicka, Tariq Modood, John Rex, Anthony D. Smith, Michel Wieviorka, and Franke Wilmer.
Theorizing Sexuality. (ONLINE)
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This book surveys and evaluates the sociological contribution to the study of sexuality. It not only maps major theoretical shifts and debates, but also offers a unique examination of the topic that emphasises the sociality of sexuality. In particular, it considers the institutional, biographical and interactional contexts of our sexual lives as well as the cultural significance and everyday practice of sexuality. The authors contest not only popular understandings of sexuality as natural, but also psychoanalytic explanations and forms of analysis that privilege the cultural construction of sexuality over its everyday social accomplishment. In particular, they challenge the 'specialness' of sexuality within contemporary culture, arguing that sexuality is better understood as a routine part of everyday social life. The book confronts the anxieties associated with sexuality in the late modern, western world and engages with wider debates on social transformations in late modernity. As such, it provides both an overview of the field of sexuality as well as setting an agenda. Theorizing Sexuality is key reading for students, researchers and academics interested in theories of sexuality, gender and intimacy and anyone concerned with the social conditions that inform our sexual identities.
Encountering the Everyday: an introduction to the sociologies of the unnoticed (Print copy)
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Everyday life is something we tend to take for granted, something that just is, something unnoticed. But everyday life is perhaps the most important dimension of society - it's where we live most parts of our lives with each other. This book provides a clear, contemporary and comprehensive overview of the sociologies of everyday life. Looking at everyday activities and experiences, from language and emotions to popular culture and leisure, Encountering the Everyday explores what social structures, orders and processes mean to us on a daily basis. The book carefully leads the reader through historical developments in the field, beginning at the earlier Chicago school and finishing with up-to-date ideas of postmodernism and interactionism. Each chapter relates theoretical ideas directly to case studies and real empirical research to make complex concepts and core issues accessible, relevant and engaging. Written by leading international scholars in the field, this truly global book will inspire and inform all students and scholars of everyday life sociology.
Childhood and Human Value: development, separation and separability. (Print copy)
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Examining a number of 20th century development thinkers, Lee argues that there exists a more flexible and realistic understanding of the sources of human value which are available to us, claiming that understanding adult-child relations through separability can resolve the tension between love and rights.
Materiality. (Print copy)
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Throughout history and across social and cultural contexts, most systems of belief--whether religious or secular--have ascribed wisdom to those who see reality as that which transcends the merely material. Yet, as the studies collected here show, the immaterial is not easily separated from the material. Humans are defined, to an extraordinary degree, by their expressions of immaterial ideals through material forms. The essays in Materiality explore varied manifestations of materiality from ancient times to the present. In assessing the fundamental role of materiality in shaping humanity, they signal the need to decenter the social within social anthropology in order to make room for the material. Considering topics as diverse as theology, technology, finance, and art, the contributors--most of whom are anthropologists--examine the many different ways in which materiality has been understood and the consequences of these differences. Their case studies show that the latest forms of financial trading instruments can be compared with the oldest ideals of ancient Egypt, that the promise of software can be compared with an age-old desire for an unmediated relationship to divinity. Whether focusing on the theology of Islamic banking, Australian Aboriginal art, derivatives trading in Japan, or textiles that respond directly to their environment, each essay adds depth and nuance to the project that Materiality advances: a profound acknowledgment and rethinking of one of the basic properties of being human. Contributors. Matthew Engelke, Webb Keane, Susanne Küchler, Bill Maurer, Lynn Meskell, Daniel Miller, Hirokazu Miyazaki, Fred Myers, Christopher Pinney, Michael Rowlands, Nigel Thrift
The Body, Childhood and Society. (Print copy)
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Bringing together two topics of wide and growing sociological interest, The Body, Childhood and Society examines how children's bodies are constructed in schools, families, courts, hospitals and in film. Recognising that children's bodies are a target for adult practices of social regulation, the contributors show that children are also active in their construction, employ them in resistance and social action, and generate their own meanings about them. The editor, a leading sociologist of childhood, draws out the theoretical implications of this work, indicates the limits of social constructionism, and suggests new ways of thinking about the hybrid of material, discursive and collective processes involved. It will be a valuable text for social scientists interested in the body, childhood, schooling, the law, medicine and health.
A Universal Child? (Print copy)
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Addressing questions about the cultural specificity of childhood, the complementary value of psychological, biological and social understandings of children, and the impact of policy and law on how children are dealt with and perceived, this will be a core text for many courses related to childhood studies.
Ethics in Light of Childhood. (Print copy)
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Childhood faces humanity with its own deepest and most perplexing questions. An ethics that truly includes the world's childhoods would transcend pre-modern traditional communities and modern rational autonomy with a postmodern aim of growing responsibility. It would understand human relations in a poetic rather than universalistic sense as openly and interdependently creative. As a consequence, it would produce new understandings of moral being, time, and otherness, as well as of religion, rights, narrative, families, obligation, and power. Ethics in Light of Childhood fundamentally reimagines ethical thought and practice in light of the experiences of the third of humanity who are children. Much like humanism, feminism, womanism, and environmentalism, Wall argues, a new childism is required that transforms moral thinking, relations, and societies in fundamental ways. Wall explores childhood's varied impacts on ethical thinking throughout history, advances the emerging interdisciplinary field of childhood studies, and reexamines basic assumptions in contemporary moral theory and practice. In the process, he does not just apply ethics to childhood but applies childhood to ethics--in order to imagine a more expansive humanity.
Young Femininity: girlhood, power and social change. (Print copy)
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This text draws on international work to do with femininity, identity and youth cultures to explore how girlhood is defined and portrayed in contemporary theoretical and popular discourses, and to examine how young women from different social backgrounds and cultural contexts negotiate their gendered identities. Encompassing topics such as sexuality, the body, friendship, family, education, work and citizenship, this is an appealing and wide-ranging text for students of sociology, gender studies and cultural studies.
A Passion for Cultural Studies. (Print copy)
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The culture that infiltrates our lives can provoke a range of feelings and afflictions - culture can move you, get under your skin and stir up your emotions. Ben Highmore uses these feelings, or 'passions', to explore the culture that surrounds us and uses it as a basis to introduce and explain the key ideas, debates and theories that are central to cultural studies. Impressively accessible and packed with absorbing examples from everyday life, this compact book is the ideal entry-point into cultural studies. The chapters examine problematic and complex issues that are core to cultural studies, looking at the experience of migration, the nature of the media, the lure of commodities, the world of taste and the culture of love. Cleverly written in a way that's easy to follow and enjoyable to read, the text gives a sense of the discipline as a way of thinking rather than an amalgamation of theories, and whets the appetite of all those interested in cultural studies. Whether you're a student who's new to the field, or a seasoned scholar seeking a fresh idea about what cultural studies can do, this clear and concise text encourages you to become truly passionate about cultural studies.
Children and the Internet. (Print copy)
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Is the internet really transforming children and young people?s lives? Is the so-called ?digital generation? genuinely benefiting from exciting new opportunities? And, worryingly, facing new risks? This major new book by a leading researcher addresses these pressing questions. It deliberately avoids a techno-celebratory approach and, instead, interprets children?s everyday practices of internet use in relation to the complex and changing historical and cultural conditions of childhood in late modernity. Uniquely, Children and the Internet reveals the complex dynamic between online opportunities and online risks, exploring this in relation to much debated issues such as: Digital in/exclusion Learning and literacy Peer networking and privacy Civic participation Risk and harm Drawing on current theories of identity, development, education and participation, this book includes a refreshingly critical account of the challenging realities undermining the great expectations held out for the internet - from governments, teachers, parents and children themselves. It concludes with a forward-looking framework for policy and regulation designed to advance children?s rights to expression, connection and play online as well as offline.
Gender, Culture and Society: contemporary femininities and masulinities. (Print copy)
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This text offers a wide-ranging account of the dynamic relationship between gender, culture and society. Incorporates feminist theory, theories of men and masculinity, and post-structuralism, as well as recent global events, ensuring a highly topical and relevant discussion.
Sociology of Personal Life. 2nd edn. (Print copy)
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What can Sociology tell us about our personal lives, families and intimate relationships? This book explains how key theoretical perspectives and relevant contemporary research in the discipline can shed new light on even the most familiar areas of our everyday worlds. From friendships and pets, to political engagement and social legislation, the text shows how distinctions and connections can be drawn between our public and private lives. Each chapter explores a familiar topic that illustrates how individual relationships and lives can be shaped by social contexts, and how personal choices shape the wider social world. Using vivid case examples drawn from topical areas of debate, such as marriage rights and the role of social networking, the book is clearly laid out and easy to read. It gives useful explanations of theory and invaluable advice on how to carry out research on personal lives and relationships. This is essential reading for students of Sociology interested in family, relationships and beyond.
The Politics of Belonging: intersectional contestations. (E-book)
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In this groundbreaking book, Nira Yuval-Davis provides a cutting-edge investigation of the challenging debates around belonging and the politics of belonging. Alongside the hegemonic forms of citizenship and nationalism which have tended to dominate our recent political and social history, the author examines alternative contemporary political projects of belonging constructed around the notions of religion, cosmopolitanism, and the feminist 'ethics of care'. The book also explores the effects of globalization, mass migration, the rise of both fundamentalist and human rights movements on such politics of belonging, as well as some of its racialized and gendered dimensions. A special space is given to the various feminist political movements that have been engaged as part of or in resistance to the political projects of belonging.
