In the face of expanding global media, Europe's linguistic minorities have begun to resist the homogenizing forces of television. This book documents and analyzes the Irish campaign for an alternative Irish-language television service.
The Radio Eye: Cinema in the North Atlantic, 1958–1988, examines the way in which media experiments in Quebec, Newfoundland, the Faroe Islands, and the Irish-Gaelic-speaking communities of Ireland use film, video, and television to advocate for marginalized communities and often for “smaller languages.” The Radio Eye is not, however, a set of isolated case studies. Author Jerry White illustrates the degree to which these experiments are interconnected, sometimes implicitly but more often quite explicitly. Media makers in the North Atlantic during the period 1958–1988 were very aware of each other’s cultures and aspirations, and, by structuring the book in two interlocking parts, White illustrates the degree to which a common project emerged during those three decades. The book is bound together by White’s belief that these experiments are following in the idealism of Soviet silent filmmaker Dziga Vertov, who wrote about his notion of “the Radio Eye.” White also puts these experiments in the context of work by the Cuban filmmaker and theorist Julio García Espinosa and his notion of “imperfect cinema,” Jürgen Habermas and his notions of the “public sphere,” and Édourard Glissant’s ideas about “créolité” as the defining aspect of modern culture. This is a genuinely internationalist moment, and these experiments are in conversation with a wide array of thought across a number of languages.
“A riveting memoir of years of living dangerously” by the journalist and New York Times–bestselling author of A Rumor of War (Kirkus Reviews). As a journalist, Philip Caputo has covered many of the world’s troubles, and in Means of Escape, he reveals in moving and clear-eyed prose how he made himself into a writer, traveler, and observer with the nerve to put himself at the center of conflict. As a young reporter he investigated the Mafia in Chicago, earning acclaim as well as threats against his safety. Later, he rode camels through the desert and enjoyed Bedouin hospitality; was kidnapped and held captive by Islamic extremists; and was targeted and hit by sniper fire in Beirut; with memories of Vietnam never far from the surface. And after it all, he went into Afghanistan. Caputo’s goal has always been to bear witness to the crimes, ambitions, fears, ferocities, and hopes of humanity. With Means of Escape, he has done so. This powerful recounting of his life and adventures is now updated with a foreword that assesses the state of the world and the journalist’s art. “An episodic, impressionistic, and dead-honest narrative that affords memorable as well as consequential insights into a chaotic era’s noteworthy conflicts.” —Kirkus Reviews “This is, make no mistake about it, a startlingly honest and brutal book. . . . The writing is suberb. Highly recommended for all.” —Library Journal “One of the few absolutely essential writers at work today.” —Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Mr. Spaceman
This is an autobiography of a cancer survivor, a veteran network news journalist. For 38 years since 1971, the author, as Asia video editor for ABC News, chased news stories round the clock, often without sleep. With early retirement in sight, the sudden diagnosis of cancer one day radically changed his lifestyle overnight. By an unusual coincidence, his links to golf were also linked to his discovery of cancer. Here's a man who led an incredible life even before he overcame his battle with cancer. It took more than the conventional means of treatment. His treatment and road to recovery is a revelation. Today, as a cancer survivor and a retiree who now enjoys a healthier and more fulfilling life, the author tells a compelling story of how he entered into the darkest tunnel and emerged, a more vigilant and environmentally aware individual. Eddy Li shares his painful experience, what he has learned about an increasingly hazardous environment and how you can protect yourself from its toxicity.
This book offers a bold forecast of the year 2050 and what life will look like in the emerging global village. Is this profound new work, Thomas McFaul examines the interwoven concepts of truth and freedom in the context of the Modernist movement that has fundamentally reshaped our world. McFaul's thesis? Societies that make truth and freedom their signature values stand the best chance of prospering in the emerging global village. In The Future of Truth and Freedom in the Global Village: Modernism and the Challenges of the Twenty-first Century, McFaul relates the two cornerstone ideas of truth and freedom to the development of Modernism and its impact on science, religion, ethics, economics, and politics. This sets the stage for thought-provoking speculation as McFaul forecasts what life might be like in the year 2050, with scenarios that range from moving forward as a unified world embracing new possibilities to sliding back to the "good old days." McFaul's well-reasoned conclusion is that any society's long-term viability rests on having the freedom to adapt to changes in the modern world in new and creative ways.
In a world plagued by religious conflict, how can the various religious and secular traditions coexist peacefully on the planet? And, what role does sociology play in helping us understand the state of religious life in a globalizing world? In the Fourth Edition ofGods in the Global Village, author Lester Kurtz continues to address these questions. This text is an engaging, thought-provoking examination of the relationships among the major faith traditions that inform the thinking and ethical standards of most people in the emerging global social order. Thoroughly updated to reflect recent events, the book discusses the role of religion in our daily lives and global politics, and the ways in which religion is both an agent of, and barrier to, social change.
Modern life is often described as an iron cage from which there is no escape. But popular culture venerates leisure and travel as authentic escape routes from routine and monotony. However what kind of escape is tolerated in modern society? How is it shaped by historical expectations of leisure and travel? And what do we actually experience when we engage in leisure or travel activity? This fascinating and accomplished book tries to supply answers to these questions. A major scholarly contribution to the sociological analysis of leisure, pleasure and travel, Dr Rojek's study is a radical challenge to the existing paradigmatic orthodoxy. Bryan S. Turner, University of Essex.
At first glance, the remote villages of the Kabre people of northern Togo appear to have all the trappings of a classic "out of the way" African culture—subsistence farming, straw-roofed houses, and rituals to the spirits and ancestors. Arguing that village life is in fact an effect of the modern and the global, Charles Piot suggests that Kabre culture is shaped as much by colonial and postcolonial history as by anything "indigenous" or local. Through analyses of everyday and ceremonial social practices, Piot illustrates the intertwining of modernity with tradition and of the local with the national and global. In a striking example of the appropriation of tradition by the state, Togo's Kabre president regularly flies to the region in his helicopter to witness male initiation ceremonies. Confounding both anthropological theorizations and the State Department's stereotyped images of African village life, Remotely Global aims to rethink Euroamerican theories that fail to come to terms with the fluidity of everyday relations in a society where persons and things are forever in motion.
When Jonah was swallowed by the big fish, he was trying to escape to what is now Portugal. Here, Hannibal discovered the warriors, weapons and gold, to march on Rome; and Julius Caesar found the fortune that paid the way to his conquests of Gaul and England. During the Dark Ages further north, Portugal's Arab rulers made it part of the world's most advanced civilization. After the Norman conquest of Lisbon, the new Portugal bankrupted Venice and became the wealthiest nation in Europe. Before he became Pope John XXI, Joao Hispano of Lisbon wrote one of the first modern medical textbooks, consulted through much of Europe more than a century later. Portuguese Jews introduced tulips, chocolate and diamonds to Holland. The Portuguese gave the English afternoon tea, and Bombay, the key to empire. They brought to Africa protection from malaria, and slave-shipments to America; to India, higher education, curry and samosas; to Japan, tempura and firearms. Portugal entered the 21st century as the first European nation to have freed itself from communism, returned to democracy and set about rebuilding itself as a vital part of the new Europe. - Cover flap.