culture

Hardcover. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1st, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 254 pages. Spine slightly cocked. Dust jacket shows light wear. Clean, unmarked copy.

Hardcover. Columbia OH, Ohio State University Press, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 368 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to corners. While "freaks" have captivated our imagination since well before the nineteenth century, the Victorians flocked to shows featuring dancing dwarves, bearded ladies, "missing links," and six-legged sheep. Indeed, this period has been described by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson as the epoch of "consolidation" for freakery: an era of social change, enormously popular freak shows, and taxonomic frenzy. Victorian Freaks: The Social Context of Freakery in Britain, edited by Marlene Tromp, turns to that rich nexus, examining the struggle over definitions of "freakery" and the unstable and sometimes conflicting ways in which freakery was understood and deployed. As the first study centralizing British culture, this collection discusses figures as varied as Joseph Merrick, "The Elephant Man"; Daniel Lambert, "King of the Fat Men"; Julia Pastrana, "The Bear Woman"; and Laloo "The Marvellous Indian Boy" and his embedded, parasitic twin. The Victorian Freaks contributors examine Victorian culture through the lens of freakery, reading the production of the freak against the landscape of capitalist consumption, the medical community, and the politics of empire, sexuality, and art. Collectively, these essays ask how freakery engaged with notions of normalcy and with its Victorian cultural context.

Softcover. NY, Harper Torchbooks, reprint, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 397 pages. "Few works that I know convey the excitement of the intellectual life of nineteenth-century England as immediately as Gertrude Himmelfarb's Victorian Minds. The essays are remarkable no less for the cogency of their wit than for the range and precision of their scholarship" ` ~ Lionel Trilling. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1st, 1980, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 266 pages. Christian religion's influence on secular Victorian culture, especially literature. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Paris, J. Hetzel, Reprint, 1867, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 636 pages. Hardcover. French text only. Previous owners name at top left corner of preliminary page dated 1868. Gilt title and decorations on red leather spine with embossed pebbled cloth covers. Satirical black & white illustrations by Jean-Jacques Grandville. Marbled endpapers. All edges gilt. Light rubbing to cover edges and spine. Small area of discoloration on lower section of front cover. Clean, bright pages.

Hardcover. Center for American Places, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 184 pages. Professor and photographer John Willis is well aware of the exploitation that sometimes occurs when photographers enter impoverished communities for a project. So, in 1992, when he first traveled to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the southwest corner of South Dakota, he assured the elders of the Oglala Lakota Sioux that he would not be exhibiting any of the images he took while there. Over time, however, Willis earned the respect and trust of the community, and the elders--hoping that the photographs might bring aid to their community--urged him to show his work. The product of several visits to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Views from the Reservation is meant to open our eyes, minds, and hearts to the life, culture, and conditions of the Oglala Lakota people.

Hardcover. Chicago, IL, Center for American Places, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 184 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket edges. Includes CD. The product of several visits to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Views from the Reservation is meant to open our eyes, minds, and hearts to the life, culture, and conditions of the Oglala Lakota people. With his insightful and complex images Willis enlists several other voices to offer a more complete story: writer Kent Nerburn, who contributes an original essay; Lakota elders and Pine Ridge High School students, who offer poems; Emil Her Many Horses, the associate curator of the National Museum of the American Indian, Kevin Gover, the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, and Oglala Lakota artist Dwayne Wilcox. Accompanying the book is Heartbeat of the Rez, a compact disc collecting traditional songs compiled by the author, the elders, and KILI, the radio station of the reservation.

Hardcover. New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1st English, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 143 pages, b&w photographs throughout. A very clean, tight copy.

Softcover. Los Angeles, Society for Visual Anthropology, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, magazine format, 180 pages. illustrated collection of provocative essays, occasional pieces, and dialogues with contributions from anthropologists, from cultural, literary and film critics and from image makers themselves. Special Issue on feminist approaches to the visualization of culture, other essays and reviews. Clean.

Softcover. Los Angeles, Society for Visual Anthropology, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, magazine format, 180 pages. illustrated collection of provocative essays, occasional pieces, and dialogues with contributions from anthropologists, from cultural, literary and film critics and from image makers themselves. Special Issue on feminist approaches to the visualization of culture, other essays and reviews. Clean.

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, The MIT Press, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 316 pages, b&w illustrations. The history, theoretical frameworks, methodology, and pedagogy of the new field of visual culture; current debates and the possibility for future consensus. In recent years, visual culture has emerged as a growing and important interdisciplinary field of study. Visual culture regards images as central to the representation of meaning in the world. It encompasses "high" art without an assumption of its higher status. But despite the current proliferation of studies and programs in visual culture, there seems to be no consensus within the field itself as to its scope and objectives, definitions, and methods. In Visual Culture, Margaret Dikovitskaya offers an overview of this new area of study in order to reconcile its diverse theoretical positions and understand its potential for further research. Clean copy. Uncommon in the hardcover.

Hardcover. France Loisirs , 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 144 pages. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. Bastienne Schmidt's photographs are images of both life and death. Mercilessly direct, these pictures from Latin America - the fruits of intensive work over the past few years - bring to an existential fact of our lives, a truth we in western societies are only too happy to hide behind a facade of casual diversions and consumable "beauty"; the immediate presence of death. It takes courage to look at these pictures, for in the faces of these people from another culture we are confronted, violently and with an authenticity we cannot ignore, with the very destiny we refuse to accept. Moreover, Bastienne Schmidt shows us the naked truth that underlies not only our inability to look our own death in the face, but also our tendency to disregard the violent deaths of others, failing to recognize the value of "mere" life as we do, so long as they die far enough away from our own doorsteps.

Softcover. Norman OK, University of Oklahoma Press,, 1st pbk., 1965, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 254 pages, b&w illustrations. This volume is a study of Mesopotamian literature from the beginnings of the Bronze Age to the fall of Babylon as an independent state in the 6th century BCE. Part I of this volume deals with the history and culture of the region from the Sumerians to the Persian conquests. Part II treats the development of poetic forms and the mythology and religion upon which much of the poetry is based. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Smithsonian Institution / Victoria and Albert Museum, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Eighty-two watercolors and drawings selected from the extensive Searight Collection in London present a variety of 19th-century artists' encounters with the diverse cultures and dramatic lands of the fabled Ottoman Empire. Complementing the artworks are essays by experts in Middle Eastern studies elucidating the exchange of ideas and influences between East and West. Artists include Edward Lear, Luigi Meyer, David Roberts etc. 128 pages. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Melcher/Virgin, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Non-Paginated. Illustrated with black & white photographs. Features photographs by Atget, Larry Clark, Walker Evans, Larry Fink, Weegee, Susan Meiselas, and more. Essay by Luc Sante. Slip case and covers show light wear. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Watertown, Charlesbridge, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Non-paginated. Hardcover. Black & white woodcut illustrations by Michael McCurdy. Bright, clean copy.No dust jacket

Hardcover. NY, Prestel , 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, 320 pages. Some of Walker Evans' most iconic images of 20th-century American culture are showcased in this book celebrating his 50-year career. Walker Evans was one of the most important American photographers of the 20th century. His focus on everyday life in America, in both urban and rural settings, makes him also one of the most relatable. This retrospective volume traces Evans' career through more than 300 images--from his first photographs of the late 1920s to his Polaroids of the 1970s. Organized thematically, the book examines topics such as Evans' relationship with the impresario Lincoln Kirstein, his work in postcards and magazines, and his lifelong exploration of the American vernacular. In addition, this volume features items from the photographer's own collection, including personal writings, signage, postcards, and other ephemera. Through these ancillary objects and a thorough overview of Evans' career, readers will come away with a better understanding of a photographer whose iconic photographs remain timeless.

Hardcover. Taschen, 1st thus, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover. On November 18, 1928, the world's most famous Mouse made his very first public debut. Today, we celebrate 90+ years of Mickey in one of the most expansive illustrated publications on the Disney universe. Starting with the first sketches of a character who was almost named Mortimer, we trace the career of Walt Disney's and Ub Iwerks's most famous creation, one met with an explosion of worldwide popularity preceded only by the earlier successes of Charlie Chaplin.With unlimited access to Disney's vast historical collections as well as public and private collections, the authors bring Mickey's success story to life: concept art, story sketches, background paintings, and animation drawings as well as historical photographs trace the origins and evolution of such timeless favorites as Steamboat Willie, The Band Concert, and Brave Little Tailor. They also follow Mickey as he builds on this legendary library of short cartoons by appearing in two historic feature-length films, Fantasia and Fun and Fancy Free.Extensive archival research sheds new light on little-known chapters of Mickey's career, the origins of the Mickey Mouse Club, and his use as a patriotic icon during World War II. Along the way, we encounter the work of all major Mickey artists in both film and comics, including such greats as Ub Iwerks, Win Smith, Ferdinand Horvath, Fred Moore, Floyd Gottfredson, Carl Barks, Manuel Gonzales, Paul Murry, Romano Scarpa, Giorgio Cavazzano, Byron Erickson, and Cesar Ferioli.Mickey Mouse has left an indelible mark on everyday culture as well as high art, becoming a favored subject for Pop artists such as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, and Roy Lichtenstein.

Softcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1st pbk, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 755 pages. Walter Benjamin is one of the twentieth century's most important intellectuals, and also one of its most elusive. His writings-mosaics incorporating philosophy, literary criticism, Marxist analysis, and a syncretistic theology-defy simple categorization. And his mobile, often improvised existence has proven irresistible to mythologizers. His writing career moved from the brilliant esotericism of his early writings through his emergence as a central voice in Weimar culture and on to the exile years, with its pioneering studies of modern media and the rise of urban commodity capitalism in Paris. That career was played out amid some of the most catastrophic decades of modern European history: the horror of the First World War, the turbulence of the Weimar Republic, and the lengthening shadow of fascism. Now, a major new biography from two of the world's foremost Benjamin scholars reaches beyond the mosaic and the mythical to present this intriguing figure in full. Clean copy.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 316 pages. Few twentieth-century thinkers have proven as influential as Walter Benjamin, the German-Jewish philosopher and cultural and literary critic. Richard Wolin's book remains among the clearest and most insightful introductions to Benjamin's writings, offering a philosophically rich exposition of his complex relationship to Adorno, Brecht, Jewish Messianism, and Western Marxism. Wolin provides nuanced interpretations of Benjamin's widely studied writings on Baudelaire, historiography, and art in the age of mechanical reproduction. In a new Introduction written especially for this edition, Wolin discusses the unfinished Arcades Project, as well as recent tendencies in the reception of Benjamin's work and the relevance of his ideas to contemporary debates about modernity and postmodernity. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. London/NY, Thames & Hudson, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial cloth, 112 pages illustrated in color, b&w. Jenny Uglow narrates the story of Walter Crane, an intriguing and most prolific figure not only in illustration, but in political culture more broadly. Uglow expertly weaves a fascinating study of how Crane's art and politics developed from his childhood love of Pre-Raphaelite painting to the influences of Morris and William Blake on the journals, books, banners, pamphlets and postcards he went on to create as he forged a new style for the international socialist movement. Comprising a staggering range of visual material, Crane's images became a symbolic code that leapt over linguistic boundaries. This book is a brilliant record of an artist who blended styles and influences like no one before him. An exploration of the life and work of Walter Crane, the pioneering British socialist artist who transformed the illustration of children's books. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Dresden, Verlag der Kunst, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 211 pages. Illustrated with 140 black & white photographs by Walter Rosenblum. Red remainder stamp on bottom edge. Text in English and German. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Knopf, 1st, 2024, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Tommy Orange traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through three generations of a family in a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion prison castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Stars son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his fathers jailer. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Prestel Publishing/ Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 286 pages, color illustrations. This catalogue reveals the myriad ways Warhol immersed himself in the music of his time. Tracing back to Warhol's introduction to music through the musical comedies. songs and soundtracks of his youth. this book opens with Warhol's portraits of the great films stars of his childhood. As the fascinating essays collected in this volume discuss. Warhol's renowned portraits of pop music icons such as Mick Jagger. Debbie Harry and Grace Jones are just one manifestation of his interest in music. Warhol collaborated with choreographer Merce Cunningham. served as producer for the Velvet Underground. incorporated music into his films. produced video-clips. designed dozens of record albums. filmed live concerts and created multimedia spectacles. Although never a musician himself. Warhol appropriated the imagery of a pop icon for some of his most arresting and haunting self portraits.