Virtual Communities
Virtual Communities

Author: Felicia Wu Song

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9781433103957

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Does contemporary Internet technology strengthen civic engagement and democratic practice? The recent surge in online community participation has become a cultural phenomenon enmeshed in ongoing debates about the health of American civil society. But observations about online communities often concentrate on ascertaining the true nature of community and democracy, typically rehearsing familiar communitarian and liberal perspectives. This book seeks to understand the technology on its own terms, focusing on how the technological and organizational configurations of online communities frame our contemporary beliefs and assumptions about community and the individual. It analyzes key structural features of thirty award-winning online community websites to show that while the values of individual autonomy, egalitarianism, and freedom of speech dominate the discursive content of these communities, the practical realities of online life are clearly marked by exclusivity and the demands of commercialization and corporate surveillance. Promises of social empowerment are framed within consumer and therapeutic frameworks that undermine their democratic efficacy. As a result, online communities fail to revolutionize the civic landscape because they create cultures of membership that epitomize the commodification of community and public life altogether.

Songspirals
Songspirals

Author: Gay'wu Group of Women

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Published: 2019-08-05

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 1760871931

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Joint winner of the 2020 Prime Minister's Award for Non-Fiction. Shortlisted for the 2020 Victorian Premier's Award for Non-Fiction. 'We want you to come with us on our journey, our journey of songspirals. Songspirals are the essence of people in this land, the essence of every clan. We belong to the land and it belongs to us. We sing to the land, sing about the land. We are that land. It sings to us.' Aboriginal Australian cultures are the oldest living cultures on earth and at the heart of Aboriginal cultures is song. These ancient narratives of landscape have often been described as a means of navigating across vast distances without a map, but they are much, much more than this. Songspirals are sung by Aboriginal people to awaken Country, to make and remake the life-giving connections between people and place. Songspirals are radically different ways of understanding the relationship people can have with the landscape. For Yolngu people from North East Arnhem Land, women and men play different roles in bringing songlines to life, yet the vast majority of what has been published is about men's place in songlines. Songspirals is a rare opportunity for outsiders to experience Aboriginal women's role in crying the songlines in a very authentic and direct form. 'Songspirals are Life. These are cultural words from wise women. As an Aboriginal woman this is profound to learn. As a human being Songspirals is an absolute privilege to read.' - Ali Cobby Eckermann, Yankunytjatjara poet 'To read Songspirals is to change the way you see, think and feel this country.' - Clare Wright, award-winning historian and author 'A rare and intimate window into traditional women's cultural life and their visceral connection to Country. A generous invitation for the rest of us.' - Kerry O'Brien, Walkley Award-winning journalist

Wu Song Fights the Tiger
Wu Song Fights the Tiger

Author: Vibeke Børdahl

Publisher: Philip's

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9788776941093

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The focus of Chinese literary studies has long been on the written word even though Chinese fiction and drama have strong oral roots and have been shaped by an interplay between oral and written traditions. The culmination of decades working on this issue--and using as its lens the story about how the legendary hero Wu Song killed a tiger with his bare hands--this volume explores Chinese oral professional storytelling and its relations with literary culture in the past and present.

China
China

Author: Peter Xiaoming Yu

Publisher: Strategic Book Publishing

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 160860635X

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As the authors point out, "China has arrived, big time. To ignore the Chinese is foolish." Yet, where does one begin? Getting a handle on China, with its sweeping history and vast cultural diversity, is, for most, a daunting task. China: Ancient Culture, Modern Society provides a much-needed starting point for piecing together the many parts of the complex puzzle that is China. More than simply a guidebook or historical survey, this rich volume bridges geography, culture, politics, and beliefs to present a nuanced picture of a nation that is often misunderstood by those seeking to view it through a Western lens. Whether one is approaching China for the first time or seeking to fill the gaps in one's existing understanding of things Chinese, this book provides an abundance of useful information.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to World Mythology
The Complete Idiot's Guide to World Mythology

Author: Evans Lansing Smith

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9781592577644

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The dictionary defines mythology as a collection of ancient tales handed down over millennia, mainly dealing with gods and goddesses, that explains the way the world works, from natural events to society at large. Many people think of the deities of Greece and Rome when they think of mythology, forgetting that almost every culture has its own set of myths to interpret and explain its distinct worldview, often showing striking and fascinating similarities to the classical myths most people are familiar with. The Complete Idiot's Guide to World Mythologyexplores the gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, monsters and angels of the myths from every corner of the globe - the Americas, the Middle East and Africa, Asia, and more. Additionally, it explores the parallels between every culture, including Greece and Rome - striking similarities in mythic figures and the structure, action, wording, and result of the stories themselves.

XO
XO

Author: Yafei Li

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2004-12-23

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9780262263603

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This important monograph offers a resolution to the debate in theoretical linguistics over the role of syntactic head movement in word formation. It does so by synthesizing the syntactic and lexicalist approaches on the basis of the empirical data that support each side. In trying to determine how a morphologically complex word is formed in Universal Grammar, generative linguists have argued either that a substantial amount of morphological phenomena result from head movement in overt syntax (the widely adopted syntactic approach) or that morphological/lexical means are both necessary and sufficient for a theory of word formation (the Lexicalist Hypothesis). Li examines both the linguistic facts that are brought to light for the first time and the existing data in the literature and shows that each side has an empirical foundation that cannot be negated by the other. Since neither approach is adequate to explain all the facts of word formation, he argues, the way to achieve a unified account lies in synthesizing the empirically advantageous portions of both approaches into one simple and coherent theory. Li begins by demonstrating how a theory that combines the essence of the syntactic and lexicalist approaches can account more accurately for the various morphological constructions analyzed in the literature by means of syntactic verb incorporation. He then examines causativization on the adjectival root, noun incorporation in polysynthetic languages, and the possibility that the word formation part of the Lexicalist Hypothesis—which is crucial to his theory—can be derived as a theorem from a version of the X-bar theory. He concludes by discussing methodological issues in current linguistic research.

Water Margin
Water Margin

Author: Shi Naian

Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

Published: 2011-12-10

Total Pages: 829

ISBN-13: 1462902596

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Based upon the historical bandit Song Jiang and his companions, The Water Margin is an epic tale of rebellion against tyranny that will remind Western readers of the English classic Robin Hood and His Merry Men. This edition of the classic J. H. Jackson translation brings a story that has been inspiring readers for hundreds of years to life for modern audiences. It features a new preface and introduction by Edwin Lowe, which gives the history of the book and puts the story into perspective for today's readers. First translated into English by Pearl S. Buck in 1933 as All Men Are Brothers, the original edition of the J.H. Jackson translation appeared under the title The Water Margin in 1937. In this updated edition, Edwin Lowe addresses many of the shortcomings found in the original J.H. Jackson translation, and reinserts the grit and flavor of Shuihui Zhuan found in the original Chinese versions, including the sexual seduction, explicit descriptions of brutality, and the profane voices of the lower classes of Song Dynasty China. Similarly, the Chinese deities, Bodhisattvas, gods and demons have reclaimed their true names, as has the lecherous, ill-fated Ximen Qing. This 70-chapter book includes much that was sanitized out of the 1937 publication, giving Anglophone readers the most complete picture to date of this classic Chinese novel. While Chinese in origin, the themes of The Water Margin are so universal that they have served as a source of inspiration for numerous movies, television shows and video games up to the present day.

The Tiger Killers
The Tiger Killers

Author: Luo Guanzhong

Publisher: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press

Published: 2020-06-15

Total Pages: 456

ISBN-13: 9622017517

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The Tiger Killers is the second volume of a new translation of the Chinese classical novel generally known as The Water Margin. Like the first volume, The Broken Seals, it follows the fortunes of various outlaw heroes as they move through a world of treacherous officials, jealous toadies, bullying gaolers, hired assassins, foolhardy generals and cannibalistic innkeepers. This volume contains some of the most famous scenes in the novel, starting with the episode in which Wu Song gets drunk at the tavern, ascends the pass in late evening and kills a notorious man-eating tiger with his bare hands. His subsequent encounter with his midget brother's flirtatious wife, Jinlian or Golden Lotus, and her vain attempt to seduce him lead into a tale of adultery, callous murder and bloody vengeance. The second half of the book is concerned with Song Jiang's attempts to serve out his prison sentence honourably and avoid becoming an outlaw, until he is unjustly condemned to death for a misconstrued poem. Towards the end of this volume we meet the violent Li Kui, variously known as Iron Ox or Black Whirlwind, who also turns out to have a way with tigers. This volume consists of chapters 23 to 43 of the full 120-chapter version of the novel by Shi Nai'an and Luo Guanzhong. It is the first English translation based on this version.

Wu Song kills a tiger
Wu Song kills a tiger

Author: Chia-yee Yung Teng

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1978

Total Pages: 33

ISBN-13: 9780887101205

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One of the most famous episodes from Water Margin, a traditional Chinese novel, is here retold in simple Chinese. This text is the fifth volume designed to supplement the Intermediate Chinese Reader by John DeFrancis. It is presented in simplified characters, with pinyin romanization, and an accompanying audio program is available.