Black Film British Cinema II

Black Film British Cinema II

Author: Clive Nwonka

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2021-03-02

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1912685639

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The politics of race in British screen culture over the last 30 years vis-a-vis the institutional, textual, cultural and political shifts that have occurred during this period. Black Film British Cinema II considers the politics of blackness in contemporary British cinema and visual practice. This second iteration of Black Film British Cinema, marking over 30 years since the ground-breaking ICA Documents 7 publication in 1988, continues this investigation by offering a crucial contemporary consideration of the textual, institutional, cultural and political shifts that have occurred from this period. It focuses on the practices, values and networks of collaborations that have shaped the development of black film culture and representation. But what is black British film? How do such films, however defined, produce meaning through visual culture, and what are the political, social and aesthetic motivations and effects? How are the new forms of black British film facilitating new modes of representation, authorship and exhibition? Explored in the context of film aesthetics, curatorship, exhibition and arts practice, and the politics of diversity policy, Black Film British Cinema II provides the platform for new scholars, thinkers and practitioners to coalesce on these central questions. It is explicitly interdisciplinary, operating at the intersections of film studies, media and communications, sociology, politics and cultural studies. Through a diverse range of perspectives and theoretical interventions that offer a combination of traditional chapters, long-form essays, shorter think pieces, and critical dialogues, Black Film British Cinema II is a comprehensive, sustained, wide ranging collection that offers new framework for understanding contemporary black film practices and the cultural and creative dimensions that shape the making of blackness and race. Contributors Bidisha, Ashley Clark, Shelley Cobb, James Harvey, Melanie Hoyes, Maryam Jameela, Kara Keeling, Ozlem Koksal, Rabz Lansiquot, Sarita Malik, Richard Martin, So Mayer, Alessandra Raengo, Richard T. Rodríguez, Tess S. Skadegård Thorsen, Natalie Wreyford


Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski

Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski

Author: Dhanveer Singh Brar

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2021-04-27

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 1912685795

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How black electronic dance music makes it possible to reorganize life within the contemporary city. Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski argues that Black electronic dance music produces sonic ecologies of Blackness that expose and reorder the contemporary racialization of the urban--ecologies that can never simply be reduced to their geographical and racial context. Dhanveer Singh Brar makes the case for Black electronic dance music as the cutting-edge aesthetic project of the diaspora, which due to the music's class character makes it possible to reorganize life within the contemporary city. Closely analysing the Footwork scene in South and West Chicago, the Grime scene in East London, and the output of the South London producer Actress, Brar pays attention to the way each of these critically acclaimed musical projects experiment with aesthetic form through an experimentation of the social. Through explicitly theoretical means, Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski foregrounds the sonic specificity of 12" records, EPs, albums, radio broadcasts, and recorded performances to make the case that Footwork, Grime, and Actress dissolve racialized spatial constraints that are thought to surround Black social life. Pushing the critical debates concerning the phonic materiality of blackness, undercommons, and aesthetic sociality in new directions, Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski rethinks these concepts through concrete examples of contemporary black electronic dance music production that allows for a theorization of the way Footwork, Grime, and Actress have--through their experiments in blackness--generated genuine alternatives to the functioning of the city under financialized racial capitalism.


Futilitarianism

Futilitarianism

Author: Neil Vallelly

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2021-11-16

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1912685906

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A proposal for countering the futility of neoliberal existence to build an egalitarian, sustainable, and hopeful future. If maximizing utility leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people, as utilitarianism has always proposed, then why is it that as many of us currently maximize our utility--by working endlessly, undertaking further education and training, relentlessly marketing and selling ourselves--we are met with the steady worsening of collective social and economic conditions? In Futilitarianism, social and political theorist Neil Vallelly eloquently tells the story of how neoliberalism transformed the relationship between utility maximization and the common good. Drawing on a vast array of contemporary examples, from self-help literature and marketing jargon to political speeches and governmental responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, Vallelly coins several terms--including "the futilitarian condition," "homo futilitus," and "semio-futility"--to demonstrate that in the neoliberal decades, the practice of utility maximization traps us in useless and repetitive behaviors that foreclose the possibility of collective happiness. This urgent and provocative book chimes with the mood of the time by at once mapping the historical relationship between utilitarianism and capitalism, developing an original framework for understanding neoliberalism, and recounting the lived experience of uselessness in the early twenty-first century. At a time of epoch-defining disasters, from climate emergencies to deadly pandemics, countering the futility of neoliberal existence is essential to building an egalitarian, sustainable, and hopeful future.


Medieval Goldsmiths

Medieval Goldsmiths

Author: John Cherry

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780714128238

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Goldsmiths were among the most highly regarded craftsmen in the medieval world, making extravagant objects from precious gold and silver, often enriched with rare stones and engraved gems. As well as royal and aristocratic patrons, much of their work was created for the Church, as it was thought that 'such display praised God'. For this reason many pieces that survive today were preserved in the treasuries of churches, where they escaped the ravages of history. In this wonderfully illustrated book, John Cherry explores the goldsmith's craft through works in the British Museum and from collections around the world. The British Museum holds some of the most splendid examples of medieval goldsmiths' work in the world, including the peerless Royal Gold Cup. With a description of the craft, its reputation in medieval times, and the raw materials used, the author offers an intriguing introduction to the expertise of the workmanship and the success of the trade. Who were the goldsmiths? Who did they work for? What influenced them, and how much freedom were they given to design? These questions and others are explored in this classic book, now redesigned in a lovely new format and illustrated throughout with new colour photography.


Sterling Karat Gold

Sterling Karat Gold

Author: Isabel Waidner

Publisher: Graywolf Press

Published: 2023-02-07

Total Pages: 122

ISBN-13: 1644452146

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Like Franz Kafka’s The Trial for the post-truth era, at once “surreal, polemical, and fun” (The Telegraph). Sterling Beckenbauer is plunged into a terrifying and nonsensical world one morning when they are attacked, then unfairly arrested, in their neighborhood in London. With the help of their friends, Sterling hosts a trial of their own in order to exonerate themselves and to hold the powers that be to account. Sterling Karat Gold, in the words of Kamila Shamsie, is “a madly brilliant and deeply sane novel that reveals surrealism as possibly the most effective way of talking about the political moment we find ourselves in.” In it, Isabel Waidner concocts a world replete with bullfighters, high fashion, DIY theater, the Beach Boys, and time-traveling spaceships. The acclaimed winner of the 2021 Goldsmiths Prize for fiction that breaks the mold and extends the possibilities of the form, this novel explores the phantasmagoric nature of contemporary life, especially for nonbinary migrants, and daringly revises how solidarity and justice might be sought and won. Sterling Karat Gold couldn’t be a better North American introduction to a writer with an irresistible style and unforgettable vision.


Food and Multiculture

Food and Multiculture

Author: Alex Rhys-Taylor

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-05-12

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 1000181731

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In this book, Alex Rhys-Taylor offers a ground-breaking sensory ethnography of East London. Drawing on the multicultural context of London, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, he explores concepts such as gentrification, class antagonism, new ethnicities and globalization. Rhys-Taylor shows how London is characterized by its rich history of socioeconomic change and multiculture, exploring how its smells and food are integral to understanding both its history and the reality of London’s urban present. From the fiery chillies sold by street grocers which are linked to years of cultural exchange, through ‘cuisines of origin’ like jellied eels to hybridized dishes such as the chicken katsu wrap, sensory experiences are key to understanding the complex cultural genealogies of the city and its social life.Each of the eight chapters combines micro histories of ingredients such as fried chicken, bush-meat and curry sauce, featuring narratives from individuals that provide a unique, engaging account of the evolution of taste and culture through time and space.With its innovative methodology, this is a highly original contribution to the fields of sensory studies, food studies, urban studies and cultural studies.


Bikes and Bloomers

Bikes and Bloomers

Author: Kat Jungnickel

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2020-02-25

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1912685434

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An illustrated history of the evolution of British women's cycle wear. The bicycle in Victorian Britain is often celebrated as a vehicle of women's liberation. Less noted is another critical technology with which women forged new and mobile public lives—cycle wear. This illustrated account of women's cycle wear from Goldsmiths Press brings together Victorian engineering and radical feminist invention to supply a missing chapter in the history of feminism. Despite its benefits, cycling was a material and ideological minefield for women. Conventional fashions were unworkable, with skirts catching in wheels and tangling in pedals. Yet wearing “rational” cycle wear could provoke verbal and sometimes physical abuse from those threatened by newly mobile women. Seeking a solution, pioneering women not only imagined, made, and wore radical new forms of cycle wear but also patented their inventive designs. The most remarkable of these were convertible costumes that enabled wearers to transform ordinary clothing into cycle wear. Drawing on in-depth archival research and inventive practice, Kat Jungnickel brings to life in rich detail the little-known stories of six inventors of the 1890s. Alice Bygrave, a dressmaker of Brixton, registered four patents for a skirt with a dual pulley system built into its seams. Julia Gill, a court dressmaker of Haverstock Hill, patented a skirt that drew material up the waist using a mechanism of rings or eyelets. Mary and Sarah Pease, sisters from York, patented a skirt that could be quickly converted into a fashionable high-collar cape. Henrietta Müller, a women's rights activist of Maidenhead, patented a three-part cycling suit with a concealed system of loops and buttons to elevate the skirt. And Mary Ann Ward, a gentlewoman of Bristol, patented the “Hyde Park Safety Skirt,” which gathered fabric at intervals using a series of side buttons on the skirt. Their unique contributions to cycling's past continue to shape urban life for contemporary mobile women.


Fabergé in London

Fabergé in London

Author: Kieran McCarthy

Publisher: Antique Collector's Club

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781851498284

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The first book to be dedicated to the British branch of Faberge, covering its fascinating history from its opening in 1903, to its closure in 1917. Royalty, Aristocrats, American heiresses, exiled Russian Grand Dukes, Randlords, Maharajas, Socialites and financiers with newly made fortunes flocked to Faberge in London to buy gifts for each other. This book is the first dedicated to the glittering history of Faberge's British branch, from its opening in 1903 to its closure in 1917. The Imperial Russian Goldsmith's London branch was the only one outside of Russia and its jewelled and enamelled contents were as popular there as they were in St. Petersburg or Moscow. Using previously unreferenced sources and a newly discovered archive of papers relating to Faberge in London, Kieran McCarthy studies the branch's structure, customers and exclusive stock. The most expensive sale made by Faberge in London, of a diamond tiara priced for £1400, cost one hundred times the annual wage of a scullery maid. It will be of interest to enthusiasts of the decorative arts, the social history of the Edwardian Golden Age and especially of European Royalty. Faberge's works were and continue to be intimately associated with the British Royal Family. For Violet Trefusis, daughter of King Edward VII's mistress Mrs. Keppel and lover of Vita Sackville-West, A Faberge cigarette case was the emblem of Royalty, as symbolical as the bookies cigar, or the ostler's straw. AUTHOR: Kieran McCarthy is a director of Wartski, the London Court Jewellers who specialises in the work of Carl Faberge. He is on the advisory board of the Faberge Museum in St. Petersburg, is a freeman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths' and a fellow of the Gemmological Association. He has written and lectured extensively about Carl Faberge. He advises collectors and institutions on Faberge's work and recently revealed the rediscovery of one of the lost Imperial Faberge Easter Eggs. 191 colour, 86 b/w