Irresistible
Irresistible

Author: Joshua Paul Dale

Publisher: Profile Books

Published: 2023-10-26

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1782835423

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Why are some things cute, and others not? What happens to our brains when we see something cute? And how did cuteness go global, from Hello Kitty to Disney characters? Cuteness is an area where culture and biology get tangled up. Seeing a cute animal triggers some of the most powerful psychological instincts we have - the ones that elicit our care and protection - but there is a deeper story behind the broad appeal of Japanese cats and saccharine greetings cards. Joshua Paul Dale, a pioneer in the burgeoning field of cuteness studies, explains how the cute aesthetic spread around the globe, from pop brands to Lolita fashion, kids' cartoons and the unstoppable rise of Hello Kitty. Irresistible delves into the surprisingly ancient origins of Japan's kawaii culture, and uncovers the cross-cultural pollination of the globalised world. If adorable things really do rewire our brains, it can help answer some of the biggest questions we have about our evolutionary history and the mysterious origins of animal domestication. This is the fascinating cultural history of cuteness, and a revealing look at how our most powerful psychological impulses have remade global style and culture.

In Her Image
In Her Image

Author: Dennis Kent Allen

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2003-12-04

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1410721477

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Dr. Dale McCowan is comfortable in his secluded corner of huge Hunter Scientific, Inc., until his calm, family-centered life is troubled by an impromptu interview with Assistant Vice President Janet Hunter. The unsettling meeting is only the beginning. Janet begins to intrude on Dales quiet existence. Confused, Dale is intimidated into working on a mysterious project that not only frightens him, but separates him from his beloved family. Isolated and subjected to insidious tricks to force his total cooperation, Dale tries to find a way back home. Desperate to end his enslavement, Dale befriends a fellow disgruntled worker. Together they try to end their forced servitude. When the alliance is disclosed, Dale finds himself in deeper peril and in tighter controls. Worse, he discovers he has become an important part of a project as immoral as it is illegal. Horrified, he uncovers the grisly details of a murderous conspiracy that forever silences those who know too much. Helplessly, Dale slides down into a dark cave of terror. Can he work out a plan of escape and redemption? Is he able to accomplish the quixotic impossible? Will innocence be protected? Can justice be served?

Believing Is Seeing
Believing Is Seeing

Author: Errol Morris

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2014-05-27

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0143124250

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Academy Award–winning director Errol Morris turns his eye to the nature of truth in photography In his inimitable style, Errol Morris untangles the mysteries behind an eclectic range of documentary photographs. With his keen sense of irony, skepticism, and humor, Morris shows how photographs can obscure as much as they reveal, and how what we see is often determined by our beliefs. Each essay in this book is part detective story, part philosophical meditation, presenting readers with a conundrum, and investigates the relationship between photographs and the real world they supposedly record. Believing Is Seeing is a highly original exploration of photography and perception, from one of America’s most provocative observers.

The Ballerinas
The Ballerinas

Author: Rachel Kapelke-Dale

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2021-12-07

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 1250274249

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Dare Me meets Black Swan and Luckiest Girl Alive in a captivating, voice-driven debut novel about a trio of ballerinas who meet as students at the Paris Opera Ballet School. "Enthralling...irresistible." ––New York Times "A standing ovation to this debut." ––E! News Thirteen years ago, Delphine Léger abandoned her prestigious soloist spot at the Paris Opera Ballet for a new life in St. Petersburg––taking with her a secret that could upend the lives of her best friends, fellow dancers Lindsay and Margaux. Now thirty-six years old, Delphine has returned to her former home and to the legendary Palais Garnier Opera House, to choreograph the ballet that will kickstart the next phase of her career––and, she hopes, finally make things right with her former friends. But Delphine quickly discovers that things have changed while she's been away...and some secrets can't stay buried forever. Moving between the trio's adolescent years and the present day, The Ballerinas explores the complexities of female friendship, the dark drive towards physical perfection in the name of artistic expression, the double-edged sword of ambition and passion, and the sublimated rage that so many women hold inside––all culminating in a twist you won't see coming, with a magnetic cast of characters you won't soon forget.

Images of Childhood
Images of Childhood

Author: Paul Duncum

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-07-13

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1350299952

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Drawing on a rich legacy of pictorial evidence, Images of Childhood examines historical constructions of childhood and how they reinforce or challenge the prevailing view of childhood as a state of innocence. Each chapter explores how visual elements such as framing, points-of view, and lighting, as well as clothes, accessories, and body language, help to construct our many different conceptions of children: from members of the family unit and assumed gender roles; to schooling and aesthetic objects; through to their economic value and use in political propaganda. Skillfully navigating a multitude of perspectives on this topic, Paul Duncum considers both how our ideas, beliefs and values have changed throughout history and how some have remained unchanged. He also explores the cultural notion of “the child within” and how this has contributed to the way adults perceive children. The result is a text far broader in scope than any other in its field, as art history is interweaved with contemporary popular culture to explore how we visually represent childhood. In doing so, the book highlights the real-life implications that these representations have on children's rights.

Faces of Charisma: Image, Text, Object in Byzantium and the Medieval West
Faces of Charisma: Image, Text, Object in Byzantium and the Medieval West

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-07-26

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 9004363807

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In Faces of Charisma: Image, Text, Object in Byzantium and the Medieval West, a multi-disciplinary group of scholars advances the theory that charisma may be a quality of art as well as of person. Beginning with the argument that Weberian charisma of person is itself a matter of representation, this volume shows that to study charismatic art is to experiment with a theory of representation that allows for the possibility of nothing less than a breakdown between art and viewer and between art and lived experience. The volume examines charismatic works of literature, visual art, and architecture from England, Northern Europe, Italy, Ancient Greece, and Constantinople and from time periods ranging from antiquity to the beginning of the early modern period. Contributors are Joseph Salvatore Ackley, Paul Binski, Paroma Chatterjee, Andrey Egorov, Erik Gustafson, Duncan Hardy, Stephen Jaeger, Jacqueline E. Jung, Lynsey McCulloch, Martino Rossi Monti, Gavin Richardson, and Andrew Romig.