Performance in America: Contemporary U.S. Culture and the Performing Arts
Author: David Román File Type: pdf Performance in America demonstrates the vital importance of the performing arts to contemporary U.S. culture. Looking at a series of specific performances mounted between 1994 and 2004, well-known performance studies scholar David Roman challenges the belief that theatre, dance, and live music are marginal art forms in the United States. He describes the crucial role that the performing arts play in local, regional, and national communities, emphasizing the power of live performance, particularly its immediacy and capacity to create a dialogue between artists and audiences. Roman draws attention to the ways that the performing arts provide unique perspectives on many of the most pressing concerns within American studies questions about history and politics, citizenship and society, and culture and nation. The performances that Roman analyzes range from localized community-based arts events to full-scale Broadway productions and from the controversial works of established artists such as Tony Kushner to those of emerging artists. Roman considers dances produced by the choreographers Bill T. Jones and Neil Greenberg in the mid-1990s as new aids treatments became available and the aids crisis was reconfigured a production of the Asian American playwright Chay Yews A Beautiful Country in a high-school auditorium in Los Angeless Chinatown and Latino performer John Leguizamos one-man Broadway show Freak. He examines the revival of theatrical legacies by female impersonators and the resurgence of cabaret in New York City. Roman also looks at how the performing arts have responded to 911, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and the second war in Iraq. Including more than eighty illustrations, Performance in America highlights the dynamic relationships among performance, history, and contemporary culture through which the past is revisited and the future reimagined. **
Author: Paul Dresch
File Type: pdf
Despite their small populations, the Arab states of the Gulf exercise an enormous and global influence. But all-too-often, these states are treated as if their only importance were as pawns in a global strategic board game and are simply dealt with as mere models of the intersection of oil, wealth and power. Here, Dresch and Piscatori bring together a more nuanced picture exploring how the citizen populations of these states define themselves in a wider context. The Gulf provides extreme examples of the nexus of identities, not only because these polities are so dependent on transnational flows of wealth and imagery, but because at home the citizen workforce is often outnumbered by migrant labour. Examining the issues such as Gulf-owned transnational media, the role of women in the Kuwaiti state and the way Saudi Arabia manages the yearly influx of pilgrims for the Hajj, Monarchies and Nations is essential reading for all those interested in the society, politics and the future security of the Gulf.
Author: John Lanchester
File Type: epub
One of the most talked about books of the year, Capital is a sweeping social novel by the writer hailed on the cover of the New York Times Book Review as a brainy, pleasure-loving polymath.Celebrated novelist John Lanchester (author of The Debt to Pleasure) returns with an epic novel that captures the obsessions of our time. Its 2008 and things are falling apart Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers are going under, and the residents of Pepys Road, Londona banker and his shopaholic wife, an old woman dying of a brain tumor and her graffiti-artist grandson, Pakistani shop owners and a shadowy refugee who works as the meter maid, the young soccer star from Senegal and his minderare receiving anonymous postcards reading We Want What You Have. Who is behind it? What do they want? Epic in scope yet intimate, capturing the ordinary dramas of very different lives, this is a novel of love and suspicion, of financial collapse and terrorist threat, of property values going up and fortunes going down, and of a city at a moment of extraordinary tension. **
Author: Leighton Johnson
File Type: pdf
Computer Incident Response and Forensics Team Management provides security professionals with a complete handbook of computer incident response from the perspective of forensics team management. This unique approach teaches readers the concepts and principles they need to conduct a successful incident response investigation, ensuring that proven policies and procedures are established and followed by all team members. Leighton R. Johnson III describes the processes within an incident response event and shows the crucial importance of skillful forensics team management, including when and where the transition to forensics investigation should occur during an incident response event. The book also provides discussions of key incident response components.ul lProvides readers with a complete handbook on computer incident response from the perspective of forensics team managementl lIdentify the key steps to completing a successful computer incident response investigationl lDefines the qualities necessary to become a successful forensics investigation team member, as well as the interpersonal relationship skills necessary for successful incident response and forensics investigation teamsl ul**Review... might be useful as an overview for the lay person or beginner --Security ManagementThe book explores the right subjects. It provides the right warnings, focal points, and pitfalls. It stays clearly away from technical details, but does, for instance, present tools with strengths and weaknesses. Unlike other books, it does look at the situation outside of the US. In forensics, you need to prove competence beyond doubt. For a team manager, this book is not a bad start for building that proof. --ComputingReviews.com, JulyAugust 2014Ultimately, this book is about protecting the organisation and not just against the hackers...Getting your response right is all about teamwork, and this book is a helpful guide for putting together the best team for the job. --Network Security, February 2014About the Author Leighton Johnson is the CTO and Senior Security Engineer for Information Security and Forensics Management Team (ISFMT), a provider of computer security, forensics consulting & certification training. He has over 38 years experience in Computer Security, Software Development and Communications Equipment Operations & Maintenance. Primary focus areas have included computer security, information operations & assurance, software system development life cycle focused on modeling & simulation systems, systems engineering and integration activities, anti-terrorismcyber terrorism, database administration, business process & data modeling. He just completed service as the ATCOOP task lead for a DOD Field Agency, based in Alexandria, VA. He recently was the CIO for a 450 person directorate within Lockheed Martin IS&GS covering 9 locations within the Eastern and Midwestern parts of the U.S. He previously served as Security Operations Program Manager for a US DOD Field Agency, based in Arlington, VA. He is a member of the CSA CloudSIRT working group developing the model for response collaboration among cloud providers, responders and users the CSA Security-as-a-Service working group developing the definitions for SECaaS requirements and models, as well as a member of the IEEE Education working groups on Cloud and on Computer Software Security. He recently served as a member of the IS Alliance - NIST joint working group on VOIP SCAP security. He has taught Digital and Network Forensics courses at Georgia Regents University. He holds CISM (Certified Information Security Manager), CISA (Certified Information Systems Auditor), CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional), CIFI (Certified Information Forensics Investigator), CSSLP (Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional), CAP (Certified Authorization Professional), CRISC (Certified in Risk & Information Systems Control), CMAS (Certified Master Antiterrorism Specialist), CAS-CTR (Certified Antiterrorism Specialist - Cyber Terrorism Response) and MBCI (Certified Member Business Continuity Institute) credentials.
Author: Patricia Melzer
File Type: pdf
In the early 1970s, a number of West German left-wing activists took up arms, believing that revolution would lead to social change. In the years to come, the bombings, shootings, kidnappings and bank robberies of the Red Army Faction (RAF) and Movement 2nd June dominated newspaper headlines and polarized legislative debates. Half of the terrorists declaring war on the West German state were women who understood their violent political actions to be part of their liberation from restrictive gender norms. As women participating in a brand of systematic violence usually associated with masculinity, they presented a cultural paradox, and their political decisions were viewed as gender transgressions by the state, the public, and even the burgeoning womens movement, which considered violence as patriarchal and unfeminist. Death in the Shape of a Young Girlquestions this separation of political violence from feminist politics and offers a new understanding of left-wing female terrorists actions as feminist practices that challenged existing gender ideologies. Patricia Melzer draws on archival sources, unpublished letters, and interviews with former activists to paint a fresh and interdisciplinary picture of West Germanys most notorious political group, from feminist responses to sexist media coverage of female terrorists to the gendered nature of their infamous hunger strikes while in prison. Placing the controversial actions of the Red Army Faction into the context of feminist politics,Death in the Shape of a Young Girloffers an innovative and engaging cultural history that foregrounds how gender shapes our perception of womens political choices and of any kind of political violence.**
Author: Robert Archer
File Type: pdf
What is a woman? This book questions the persistent assumption that the large corpus of medieval Hispanic texts that discuss the nature of women can be defined in terms of the clichAd discourses of misogynism and defence of women, arguing instead that the problem of gender identity is vital to them all. The texts, some well-known, others which have received scant critical attention, are each discussed in their specific contexts and in relation to the ostensible reasons for their composition, such as a political, literary, religious, or didactic agenda. They are also related to the literary traditions in which they are written (misogynistic denunciation, satire, humour, defence, narrative debate, among others), and the particular theoretical problems arising from them are discussed. But it is also argued that the full meaning of the texts lies at the less immediately accessible level at which they address this very problem of definition, one which arises directly from the self-perpetuating contradictions of authoritative wisdom on the nature of women.ReviewThis comprehensive overview.represents and important contribution to medieval studies. (...) (This) solid and useful book thus lays the groundwork for future attempts to answer the big question he poses. --Speculum About the AuthorROBERT ARCHER holds the Cervantes Chair of Spanish, Kings College London.
Author: Alex Toshkov
File Type: pdf
Whilst Soviet communism and its relationship with modernity has been widely studied to date, the agrarian experiment in Eastern Europe has been relegated to the margins of historical analysis. In this comparative study, Alex Toshkov uncovers the history of agrarianism after the First World War and explores its place as an alternative modernity to liberal democracy and capitalism. Drawing on a wealth of archival material, this book explores the transnational connections between the paradigmatic cases of Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, as well as the International Agrarian Bureau in Prague, teasing out contradictions, hidden records and silenced interpretations of agrarianism. In addition, it uses a microhistorical approach to present an innovative theoretical framework which adds to our understanding of nationalism, political corruption, and alterity and the subaltern. This fascinating study restores interwar agrarianism to its rightful place as one of the most original and significant political currents in 20th-century Europe. Review Agrarianism constituted one of the best alternatives for democratic, peaceful and equitable development in early 20th-century Europe. Alex Toshkovs fresh account provides a compelling analysis of peasant parties presenting them as an opportunity crushed by hostile forces. His unique, comparative approach makes the book a must-read for anyone interested in the modern political history of the region. Ulf Brunnbauer, Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, University of Regensburg, Germany Alex Toshkov restores to history the Agrarian movements of Eastern Europe, deftly and expertly showing how their radical and forward-looking vision of modernity reshaped postwar politics and forced their opponents on the right and left to respond to them. This volume profoundly reshapes our understanding of the potential that Agrarian politics had in the aftermath of World War One and how the reaction against Agrarianism lies at the heart of the story of the interwar period. Daniel Brett, Teaching Fellow in Social and Political Science, University College London, UK About the Author Alex Toshkov is Sessional Lecturer at the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada.
Author: Michael J. Bustamante
File Type: pdf
What does the Cuban Revolution look like from within?This volume proposes that scholars and observers of Cuba have too long looked elsewherefrom the United States to the Soviet Unionto write the islands post-1959 history. Drawing on previously unexamined archives, the contributors explore the dynamics of sociopolitical inclusion and exclusion during the Revolutions first two decades. They foreground the experiences of Cubans of all walks of life, from ordinary citizens and bureaucrats to artists and political leaders, in their interactions with and contributions to the emerging revolutionary state. In essays on agrarian reform, the environment, dance, fashion, and more, contributors enrich our understanding of the period beginning with the utopic mobilizations of the early 1960s and ending with the 1980 Mariel boatlift. In so doing, they offer new perspectives on the Revolution that are fundamentally driven by developments on the island. Bringing together new historical research with comparative and methodological reflections on the challenges of writing about the Revolution, The Revolution from Within highlights the political stakes attached to Cuban history after 1959. Contributors. Michael J. Bustamante, Maria A. Cabrera Arus, Maria del Pilar Diaz Castanon, Ada Ferrer, Alejandro de la Fuente, Reinaldo Funes Monzote, Lillian Guerra, Jennifer L. Lambe, Jorge Macle Cruz, Christabelle Peters, Rafael Rojas, Elizabeth Schwall, Abel Sierra Madero **Review A balanced blend of voices from within and beyond the island, together with a proper mix of disciplinary perspectives, makesThe Revolution from Within an important early twenty-first-century scholarly demarcation point. This is the state of the art at the moment the vantage point from which to look back and especially to advance forward. (Louis A. Perez Jr., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) Moving beyond the black-and-white polemics that have long governed Cuban scholarship, The Revolution from Within considers more ambivalent and ambiguous forms of identification and belonging. Eminently readable, this volume will cause major reverberations within Cuban revolutionary scholarship that will stimulate sustained conversations about how events from the revolutionary period have been experienced and lived outside of canonical national spaces and characters. (Lauren H. Derby, author of The Dictators Seduction Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo) About the Author Michael J. Bustamante is Assistant Professor of History at Florida International University. Jennifer L. Lambe is Assistant Professor of History at Brown University and author of Madhouse Psychiatry and Politics in Cuban History.