Love and Other Technologies: Retrofitting Eros for the Information Age
Can love really be considered another form of technology? Dominic Pettman says it can—although not before carefully redefining technology as a cultural challenge to what we mean by the "human" in the information age. Using the writings of such important thinkers as Giorgio Agamben, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Bernard Stiegler as a springboard, Pettman explores the "techtonic" movements of contemporary culture, specifically in relation to the language of eros.
Children, Cinema and Censorship. From Dracula to the Dead End Kids
Using original research, this book explores the recurring debates in Britain and America about children and how they use and respond to the media, focusing on a key example: the controversy surrounding children and cinema in the 1930s. It explores the attempts to control children's viewing, the theories that supported these approaches and the extent to which they were successful. The author develops her challenging proposition that children are agents in their cinema viewing, not victims; showing how these angels with dirty faces colonized the cinema.
Have you ever wondered what makes you laugh when someone tickles you? Or why some people are left-handed and some right-handed? Or why do babies smile in sleep? Well, how about a sphinx to answer these and many more such queries as and when they occur to you? The book explores, with the sphinx, the scientific principles behind the day-to-day happenings. It is necessary to wonder why and to know the answers in some degree!
The most famous medieval wars of European expansion, the Crusades, were originally military expeditions sponsored by the papacy for recovery of Christian sites in Palestine. The Crusades also provided land and opportunity for poor and restless knights. Castles were thus built by an alien aristocracy in a hostile environment to provide shelter and to maintain control over the surrounding countryside. After a sketch of the literature and of fortifications before the crusades, Kennedy (history, Univ. of St. Andrews, Scotland) explores the evolution of castle styles, siege techniques, and defensive technologies, relying on the evidence of both Western and Muslim chroniclers and of archaeology.
The Ascession of James I - Historical and Cultural Consequences
Through twelve probing essays from leading scholars in the field, this book analyzes the consequences of the accession of James I in 1603 for English and British history, politics, literature and culture. Questioning the extent to which 1603 marked a radical break with the past, the book explores the Scottish and Welsh--as well as the wider European and colonial--contexts to this crucial date in history.
