News from Nowhere and Other Writings

News from Nowhere and Other Writings PDF

Author: William Morris

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2004-12-02

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 0141927429

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Poet, pattern-designer, environmentalist and maker of fine books, William Morris (1834-96) was also a committed socialist and visionary writer, obsessively concerned with the struggle to achieve a perfect society on earth. News From Nowhere, one of the most significant English works on the theme of utopia, is the tale of William Guest, a Victorian who wakes one morning to find himself in the year 2102 and discovers a society that has changed beyond recognition into a pastoral paradise, in which all people live in blissful equality and contentment. A socialist masterpiece, News From Nowhere is a vision of a future free from capitalism, isolation and industrialisation. This volume also contains a wide selection of Morris's writings, lectures, journalism and letters, which expand upon the key themes of News From Nowhere.

Penguin Classics

Penguin Classics PDF

Author: Anonymous

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2012-01-31

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1101578149

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A Complete Annotated Listing More than 1,500 titles in print Authoritative introductions and notes by leading academics and contemporary authors Up-to-date translations from award-winning translators Readers guides and other resources available online Penguin Classics on air online radio programs

Society in Early Modern England

Society in Early Modern England PDF

Author: Phil Withington

Publisher: Polity

Published: 2010-09-20

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 074564130X

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The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have traditionally been regarded by historians as a period of intense and formative historical change, so much so that they have often been described as ‘early modern' - an epoch separate from ‘the medieval' and ‘the modern'. Paying particular attention to England, this book reflects on the implications of this categorization for contemporary debates about the nature of modernity and society. The book traces the forgotten history of the phrase 'early modern' to its coinage as a category of historical analysis by the Victorians and considers when and why words like 'modern' and 'society' were first introduced into English in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In so doing it unpicks the connections between linguistic and social change and how the consequences of those processes still resonate today. A major contribution to our understanding of European history before 1700 and its resonance for social thought today, the book will interest anybody concerned with the historical antecedents of contemporary culture and the interconnections between the past and the present.

Theatre in the Expanded Field

Theatre in the Expanded Field PDF

Author: Alan Read

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2013-12-05

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 1408183412

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Theatre in the Expanded Field is a fiercely original, bold and daring exploration of the fields of theatre and performance studies and the received narratives and histories that underpin them. Rich with interdisciplinary reference, international, eclectic and broad-ranging in its examples, it offers readers a compelling and provocative reassessment of the disciplines, one that spans pre-history to the present day. Sixty years ago, in 1962, Richard Southern wrote a remarkable book called The Seven Ages of the Theatre. It was unusual in its time for taking a trans-disciplinary, new-historical and avowedly internationalist approach to its subject - nothing less than a totalizing view of its field. Theatre in the Expanded Field does not attempt to mimic Southern's work but rather takes his spirit of adventure and ambition as its frame for the contemporary moment of performance and its diverse pasts. Identifying seven ways of exploring the performance field, from pre-history to postdramatic theatre the book presents studies of both contemporary and historical works not as a chronological succession, but in keeping with their coeval qualities, as movements or 'generations' of connection and interaction, dissensus and interruption. It does this with the same purpose as Richard Southern's original work: to provide for the planning of responsive performance spaces 'now'. Illustrated throughout with line-drawings, Theatre in the Expanded Field is as richly rewarding as it is ambitious and expansive in it vision.

The Birmingham Quean

The Birmingham Quean PDF

Author: S. A. M. Trainor

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2010-06

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 0953832821

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We are to believe there was a time when The Birmingham Quean was just a poem: a mock-epic burlesque in which a fake pound coin told how she was won in a game of darts by a drag-queen called Britannia Spears. It parodied Pope ́s The Rape of the Lock, Byron ́s Don Juan and an anonymous eighteenth century novel, The Birmingham Counterfeit. The transformation of this bit of picaresque doggerel into the sprawling work barely contained by this cover is the central mystery of a ludic novel. It mirrors the unlikely story of a dirty little settlement of nailers and cutlers becoming the principle city of the Industrial Revolution by flooding the Restoration economy with counterfeit coins. What remains is an absurd scholarly edition of a poem recast as a futuristic dystopia in which nothing is authentic. It is also the tale of an impossible love affair that uncovers an impossible text by an impossible author. It is as strange, ironic, sombre, flashy and anarchic as the city to which it owes its existence.

Architecturally Speaking

Architecturally Speaking PDF

Author: Alan Read

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-09-11

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 1134564023

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Architecturally Speaking is an international collection of essays by leading architects, artists and theorists of locality and space. Together these essays build to reflect not only what it might mean to 'speak architecturally' but also the innate relations between the artist's and architect's work, how they are distinct, and in inspiring ways, how they might relate through questions of built form. This book will appeal to urbanists, geographers, artists, architects, cultural historians and theorists.

Making is Connecting

Making is Connecting PDF

Author: David Gauntlett

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-04-29

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 0745637752

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In Making is Connecting, David Gauntlett argues that, through making things, people engage with the world and create connections with each other. Both online and offline, we see that people want to make their mark on the world, and to make connections. During the previous century, the production of culture became dominated by professional elite producers. But today, a vast array of people are making and sharing their own ideas, videos and other creative material online, as well as engaging in real-world crafts, art projects and hands-on experiences. Gauntlett argues that we are seeing a shift from a ‘sit-back-and-be-told culture' to a ‘making-and-doing culture'. People are rejecting traditional teaching and television, and making their own learning and entertainment instead. Drawing on evidence from psychology, politics, philosophy and economics, he shows how this shift is necessary and essential for the happiness and survival of modern societies.

Medievalism

Medievalism PDF

Author: David Matthews

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1843843927

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An accessibly-written survey of the origins and growth of the discipline of medievalism studies. The field known as "medievalism studies" concerns the life of the Middle Ages after the Middle Ages. Originating some thirty years ago, it examines reinventions and reworkings of the medieval from the Reformation to postmodernity, from Bale and Leland to HBO's Game of Thrones. But what exactly is it? An offshoot of medieval studies? A version of reception studies? Or a new form of cultural studies? Can such a diverse field claim coherence? Should it be housed in departments of English, or History, or should it always be interdisciplinary? In responding to such questions, the author traces the history of medievalism from its earliest appearances in the sixteenth century to the present day, across a range of examples drawn from the spheres of literature, art, architecture, music and more. He identifies two major modes, the grotesque and the romantic, and focuses on key phases of the development of medievalism in Europe: the Reformation, the late eighteenth century, and above all the period between 1815 and 1850, which, he argues, represents the zenith of medievalist cultural production. He also contends that the 1840s were medievalism's one moment of canonicity in several European cultures at once. After that, medievalism became a minority form, rarely marked with cultural prestige, though always pervasive and influential. Medievalism: a Critical History scrutinises several key categories - space, time, and selfhood - and traces the impact of medievalism on each. It will be the essential guide to a complex and still evolving field of inquiry. David Matthews is Professor of Medieval and Medievalism Studies at the University of Manchester.