Book Description
The complex and coherent development of Japanese art during the course of the nineteenth century was inadvertently disrupted by a political event: the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Scholars of both the preceding Edo (1615â€"1868) and the succeeding Meiji (1868â€"1912) eras have shunned the decades bordering this arbitrary divide, thus creating an art-historical void that the former view as a period of waning technical and creative inventiveness and the latter as one threatened by Meiji reforms and indiscriminate Westernization and modernization. General texts, academic studies, biographical dictionaries, and exhibition catalogues continue to reinforce this prejudicial chronological divide. Challenging Past and Present, to the contrary, demonstrates that the period 1840â€"1890, as seen progressively rather than retrospectively, experienced a dramatic transformation in the visual arts, which in turn made possible the creative achievements of the twentieth century.An introduction briefly explores the art historical and historiographical studies of the past half century that have affected both Japanese and foreign responses to the art of the period. It contextualizes the twelve chapters by Japanese, European, and American scholars that interrogate prevailing views and illuminate inventive aspects of this artistic and cultural transformation. The first group of chapters takes as its theme the diverse cultural currents of the transitional period, particularly as they applied to art. They examine the themes of fukkô (revival) and ishin (renewal), the responses of early Meiji painters to European “history painting,†and the role of scholars and literary figures in making Western aesthetic and cultural values accessible to Japanese artists and the general public. The second section deals with the inconsistent yet determinedly pragmatic courses pursed by artists, entrepreneurs, and patrons to achieve a secure footing in the uncertain terrain of early Meiji. The chapters in this section analyze the intermingling of mediums and techniques by artists in Yokohama, which, they argue, occupied a more central position in the Meiji art world than has been previously recognized. Further chapters look at how painters and sculptors sought to absorb and integrate foreign influences and reinterpret their own stylistic mediums and the ways in which architecture and expositions served as forms of national expression and a means of projecting a national image.
Challenging Past and Present opens up new ways of understanding the processes of artistic and social change. Although it focuses on developments in the visual arts, the processes of change articulated here apply widelyâ€"to literature, theater, cultural history. This ground-breaking collection will prompt readers to reassess the general history and significance of the period and move toward a more incisive and objective consideration of its influence on the creative achievements of modern Japanese art.
Customer Reviews:
Help You out of Puzzle.......2000-08-24
Chomsky's theory is difficult to most people because there are so many concepts which look alike but in fact are different by nature. Botha's book offers a very good help to the reader who is interested in getting to know Chomsky's linguistics. The book consists of a series of pairs of concepts which make people puzzling, for example, initial state vs. steady state, stable vs. steady, mind vs. body, external autonomy vs. internal autonomy, linguistic universals vs. cross-linguistic generalizations, problems vs. mysteries, and so on and so forth. It should be recommended as a desk-top handbook to the reader of Chomskyan literature.
An Intricate Jewelled Instructional Toy.......2000-05-08
For anyone even mildly interested in linguistics, this book is a unique delight. It is a primer on modern linguistics, disguised as a playful examination of Noam Chomsky's mind, disguised as a collection of whimsical fables. In it, Chomsky (the father of modern linguistics, reigning from his perch at MIT) is presented as the omnipotent 'Master of the Maze,' vanquishing all who challenge his hegemony of the 'Generative Garden.' At its surface, the book poses as an instructional tour of 'the Maze' for you, the hopeful but naive young warrior who dares to match wits with the Master. At each fork in the road, a dire warning is given in the form of a tale of some long-ago warrior that met an untimely end on the spot. The traps and distractions are revealed, the blind alleys and sudden drops are marked. Alternating with these second-person italicized passages of alliterative whimsy is a parallel, more serious, discussion of Chomsky's linguistic edifice of theory and argument. Here, the forks in the road are represented as a series of conceptual distinctions that Chomsky has applied to the topic over the decades since his seminal "Syntactic Structures" was printed. These are beautifully succinct and hone in like scalpels to the essential issues. And then, before your eyes glaze over, its back to the Garden Game and the words of wisdom to those who dare. Most of the major conflicts (as of the time of its writing, i.e., 1989) are humorously portrayed, although I'd bet some of the participants would take issue with Botha's judgement of victory for Chomsky in their case. Amusingly, Botha's own minor run-in with the Master (or his fans) is depicted discreetly as almost a non-event beneath the notice of Chomsky. Basically, this is a work of pure love and devotion to the author's chosen field of study, delivered as a left-handed tribute to the intellectual giant who made it all possible.
P.S. -- For those of you who are mostly familiar with Chomsky's political writings, I commend this book as a small grain of salt to be prudently kept handy.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Pacific Affairs, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2006. The length of the article is 681 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Challenging Past and Present: The Metamorphosis of Nineteenth-Century Japanese Art.(Book review)
Author: Timon Screech
Publication:
Pacific Affairs (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 79
Issue: 2
Page: 336(3)
Article Type: Book review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
East Germany may be most remembered for the activities of the Stasi, but now, for the first time, its secret short flirtation with fashion is revealed.
For a short period the notoriously repressive bureaucrats who ran East Germany decided to bring some color into their otherwise drab lives. They commissioned two photographers, hired St. Pauli Girls as models, and chose the locations that represented their greatest socialist achievements—oil refineries, worker canteens, concrete office buildings, airports—to shoot their daring photographs. The result: cunning and original uses for tartan, little hats and jaunty caps, bold florals, and more swatches of pumpkin, tomato, and lemon yellow than you might find at a country fair. For years, these alarming examples of a zeitgeist unleashed have been hidden from Western eyes…but not anymore! From blindingly-bright mod go-go girls to demure peasant lasses posed with that most German of animals, the Llama, these images reveal another side of what went on behind the Berlin Wall.
Customer Reviews:
Awesome little coffee table book.......2007-07-07
Beth Fox gave a fabulous and serious review above, and I'll add to it just to say that almost all of the photos in this book were taken from one photographer, so it's really just one person's limited view of the fashion from that era.
But it's very, very entertaining nonetheless.
Some of the Republik's most daring fashion experiments .......2006-04-27
For a short time the bureaucrats who ran East Germany decided to bring some style into their lives, hiring professional photographers and models to represent fashion and socialist achievements. OFF THE WALL: FASHION FROM EAST GERMANY 1964 TO 1980 documents these daring images, adding a set of intriguing color photos rarely seen in the West to the chronicles of world fashion history. Some of the Republik's most daring fashion experiments come to life under the hand of photographer Gunter Rubitzsch, who hired local models and chose socialist-inspiring backgrounds to display fashion.
Bizarre View Behind the Iron Curtain.......2005-12-15
"East German Fashion"? Get your migraine pills and get ready to stare open-mouthed at some of the most blinding creations of the "Workers' and Peasants' State."
My interest in East German fashion was piqued by reading sociological surveys of East Germany and watching the movie "Heisser Sommer," where you can see some of that fashion at its not-quite-worst. East Germany differed a bit from other Warsaw Pact states in that the rulers attempted to provide their subjects with more consumer goods than found elsewhere. Whether this stemmed from the rulers' professed belief that socialism should improve the lives of ordinary people, or their fear that the knowledge of West German standards of living would make the populace restless, is not important. What is germane is that East Germany had more consumer products than other eastern-European countries (although this is damning with faint praise) and the rulers paid some attention to providing "fashionable" clothing.
The question, of course, is: what is "fashionable"? The clothing in this book was clearly an attempt to ape the wilder western fashions of the late 60s and early 70s. However, the clothing is much more cheaply made, and it shows: patterns do not match at the seam line, the colors are garish, and the execution of design is poor. Luckily (for the citizens of East Germany) this was considered to be cutting-edge fashion, and not day-to-day wear. This stuff is far worse than what you would see in a Sears catalog of the same era.
But this is really not a book for the tiny niche who are interested in the fashions of East Germany. If you really care, see "Fashioning Socialism: Clothing, Politics and Consumer Culture in East Germany," by Judd Stitziel. This book is a side-splitting look at the worst of the worst of 1960s and 1970s Communist fashion, with more orange than any one person can stand. I was rolling on the floor laughing my a** off. For $10, you can too.
Customer Reviews:
short stories.......2007-01-23
The layout of this book is in comic book form. I didn't realize that and was a little bit put off. However, the stories are interesting and short. Which comes in handy if you are reading this while commuting to work.
IF YOU ENJOY A GOOD HOAX..........2005-11-07
...then be sure to pick up the book TURN ME ON, DEAD MAN by Andru J. Reeve. It's the true saga of the story behind the infamous "Paul-Is-Dead" hoax of 1969, when millions believed a persistent rumor that Beatle Paul McCartney was killed in a car crash, his death kept a secret while the Beatles replaced him with a lookalike and planted "clues" to his death on subsequent Beatles albums. It's an amazing story and Reeve explores the who-what-and-whys of the story, explaining how this hoax was perpetrated and who was behind it. One of the most talked-about books of the year -- and it's available right now, right here at Amazon.com !!!
"An Amazing Book! I couldn't put it down!" -- Dr. Heritage Smith, folklorist and urban legends historian
Stunning art and great historical value.......2003-12-27
That's what the overall great series "Big book of.." offers. Comic art of the finest order and incredible historical value.
In this case, it's hoaxes or seeing it another way the ability of humans to be fooled in the most unlikely and bizzare ways, a process that more than often has led in a dramatic change in the course of history.
For those that are familiar with the "Big book.." series the comics offered here are nothing less than gems as some of the greatest comic makers colloborate to put this together.
But if you use these books as reference points (their bibliographies are treasures for such a use) you're bound to wind up with a very in-depth knowledge of history, one that's far-distanced from the mainstream-polished version you've been served up to now.
Some of the stories on display on this book might be somewhat known, most are not, but what's even more impressive is that some seem too outrageous to even be close to the truth. Sadly, for the record of human history all of them are 100% real.
Highlights include:
-the story of F.Kreisler who duper critics into thinking he was playing pieces of great composers but had instead composed them on his own. And this for decades! One of the great embarrasments for the world of critics and a lesson to be discovered.
-the infamous Hitler diaries, a definitive case showing that money and greed dictates the "news".
-The BBC riot panic and the very similar but far more sophisticated "War of the worlds" by O.Welles
-The Boxer rebellion in China, instigated by 4 journalists and a fake story they put up in Denver!
-Sawing Manhattan in half (!!!!)and how 1000s of workers were actually convinced that this "project" was to take place, showed up on the day it was supposed to start only to find none of the "organisers" there...
-Brian Hughes the king of pranksters as well as another prankster who actually managed to sell New York..
-the much unknown to many tulip hysteria in Holland.
These are of course just a few of the tens of stories included in this truly great book. As most of the "Big book of..." are slowly taken out of print you should make sure you can get what's still available. It looks like you should hurry especially if you are a dedicated comic fan and if you simoultaneously appreciate comics that reflect the facts.
Too Good To Be True?.......2000-06-08
This is the seventh volume in Paradox Press's "Big Books" series, and it's another winner! It's a book of lies, but all-true stories about them. From the Piltdown Man to Orson Welles' War of the Worlds, it's all unbelievably good.
GREAT REFERENCE BOOK.......1999-12-31
This book will make an informative, entertaining, off-the-wall addition to my reference library. I'm planning on buying more of this "Big Book of..." series.
Book Description
Italian-Americans compose one of the largest ethnic groups in the United States, numbering more than 14 million in the 1990 census. Though they have often been portrayed in fiction and film, these images are often based on stereotypes not borne out among the immigrant and assimilated population.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent.......2006-09-03
Very ineresting and insightful look at Italianj American's and their colorful superstitions, charming as they often are. Reminded me of another favorite I-A book I recently read, Eleven Days in August, by Amatore Mille.
Italian-American Folkore - More Please!.......2003-12-01
Italian Americans pierced a girl baby's ears and place gold earrings in them, because gold protects the eyes from infection. This is one of the interesting facts in ITALIAN-AMERICAN FOLKLORE, which is a stand-alone volume in the American Folklore series. There are ten chapters: Setting the Scene, Conversation, Customs: The Life Cycle, Customs: The Traditional Calendar, Folk Supernaturalism, Folk Medicine, Recreation and Games, Stories and Storytelling, Drama, Music and Dance, and Foodways.
I was particularly interested in the folk supernaturalism and folk medicine, but all the chapters give interesting tidbits into the Italian immigrant experience. Did you know it is unlucky to be born on Christmas Eve according to Italian-American folklore? A girl born on Christmas Eve will become a strega (a witch) and a boy will become a werewolf. If you are born on the 13th of any month, you are under the protection of Santa Lucia.
It was also interesting to learn that the first Italian immigrants were very regionally oriented and pan-Italian ideology came later. The American Roman Catholic Church's relationship to the Italian immigrants was very interesting as it wasn't initially as amicable as one would have thought, which explains the new immigrants reliance on folk supernaturalism and folk medicine. Never would have known this if I hadn't read this book. The food, which has entered into mainstream America, is, of course, also very appealing.
The book consists of 298 pages, with around 50 pages of Notes and Bibliography. I really enjoyed the book, but I feel like this is just an introduction to the Italian-American experience. I want more!
Although those of Italian descent will find it useful to find their roots, those interested in the folklore of ethnic America will also enjoy this book. It may also be of interested to Modren Wiccan practitioners of the stregheria tradition.
Italian Customs -- to the "T".......2000-08-01
As an Italian-American myself, I was searching to fill the gaps on some of the details regarding some of the traditions and superstitions that my grandparents believed in. Since both of them have passed away, we have been filling in a family tree and are supplementing our research with some of the rituals and customs we have come to enjoy and would like to pass them along to our children.
This book was right on the money! Very enjoyable and easy to follow! My father and aunt and uncle enjoyed the portions I read aloud to them-- it brought back a lot of memories and is allowing us to build a more robust family history story! Excellent reading!
Book Description
This look at the traditional and subversive world of women's folklore examines the realm of women's talk, exploring the ways Italian immigrant women from Montreal use classic folk genres to stretch the boundaries of their culture. Through songs, lullabies, bawdy riddles, and trickster tales, these women subvert, redefine, and alter what it means to be Italian and female in North America. More than just a study of Italian Canadians, this essay delves into broader themes of gender, immigration, and ethnicity, showcasing voices that contradict homogenizing interpretations of traditional historical scholarship.
Average customer rating:
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Dream Streets: The Big Book of Italian American Culture
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Mythology
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0060160306 |
Average customer rating:
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Italian-American Ways
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
| 19th Century
| 20th Century
| 21st Century
| African Americans
| Civil War
| Colonial Period
| General
| Revolution & Founding
| State & Local
General
| Mythology
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Social Groups
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0060963379 |
Average customer rating:
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Studies in Italian American Folklore (Publications of the American Folklore Society New Series)
Manufacturer: Utah State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Italy
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Folklore & Mythology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Mythology
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0874211670 |
Average customer rating:
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The Italian American Novel
Manufacturer: Amer Italian Historical Assn
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Mythology
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0934675023 |
Average customer rating:
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Italian American Folktales
Catherine H. Ainsworth
Manufacturer: Clyde Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Folklore
| Mythology
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0933190034 |
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