Author: Crispin Paine File Type: pdf In the past, museums often changed the meaning of icons or statues of deities from sacred to aesthetic, or used them to declare the superiority of Western society, or simply as cultural and historical evidence. The last generation has seen faith groups demanding to control their objects, and curators recognising that objects can only be understood within their original religious context. In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in the role religion plays in museums, with major exhibitions highlighting the religious as well as the historical nature of objects. Using examples from all over the world, Religious Objects in Museums is the first book to examine how religious objects are transformed when they enter the museum, and how they affect curators and visitors. It examines the full range of meanings that religious objects may bear - as scientific specimen, sacred icon, work of art, or historical record. Showing how objects may be used to argue a point, tell a story or promote a cause, may be worshipped, ignored, or seen as dangerous or unlucky, this highly accessible book is an essential introduction to the subject. **

Author: Sugata Ray File Type: pdf This book surveys the intersections between water systems and the phenomenology of visual cultures in early modern, colonial and contemporary South Asia. Bringing together contributions by eminent artists, architects, curators and scholars who explore the connections between the environmental and the cultural, the volume situates water in an expansive relational domain. It covers disciplines as diverse as literary studies, environmental humanities, sustainable design, urban planning and media studies. The chapters explore the ways in which material cultures of water generate technological and aesthetic acts of envisioning geographies, and make an intervention within political,social and cultural discourses. A critical interjection in the sociologies of water in the subcontinent, the book brings art history into conversation with current debates on climate change by examining waters artistic, architectural, engineering, religious, scientific and environmental facets from the 16th century to the present. This is one of the first books on South Asias art, architecture and visual history to interweave the ecological with the aesthetic under the emerging field of eco art history. The volume will be of interest to scholars and general readers of art history, Islamic studies, South Asian studies, urban studies, architecture, geography, history and environmental studies. It will also appeal to activists, curators, art critics and those interested in water management. About the Author Sugata Ray is Associate Professor in the History of Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. His research focuses on the intersections amongearly modern and colonial artistic cultures, transterritorial ecologies and the natural environment. His publications include Climate Change and the Art of Devotion Geoaesthetics in the Land of Krishna, 15501850 (2019) Ecologies, Aesthetics and Histories of Art (coedited, 2019) and essays in journals such as The Art Bulletin , Art History and South Asia Journal of South Asian Studies.Venugopal Maddipati is Assistant Professor in the School of Design at Ambedkar University Delhi, India. His research focuses on geological thinking, architectural history and ecological histories. His publications include Gandhi and Architecture Against History The Contemporaneity of Low-Cost Housing (forthcoming) and essays in journals and books, such as South Asia Journal of South Asian Studies Sarai Reader 09 Simon StarlingSuperflex Reprototypes, Triangulations and Road Tests and LA, Journal of Landscape Architecture.

Author: Rodrigo Cordero File Type: pdf Fragility is a condition that inhabits the foundations of social life. It remains mostly unnoticed until something breaks and dislocates the sense of completion. In such moments of rupture, the social world reveals the stuff of which it is made and how it actually works it opens itself to question. Based on this claim, this book reconsiders the place of the notions of crisis and critique as fundamental means to grasp the fragile condition of the social and challenges the normalization and dissolution of these concepts in contemporary social theory. It draws on fundamental insights from Hegel, Marx, and Adorno as to recover the importance of the critique of concepts for the critique of society, and engages in a series of studies on the work of Habermas, Koselleck, Arendt, and Foucault as to consider anew the relationship of crisis and critique as immanent to the political and economic forms of modernity. Moving from crisis to critique and from critique to crisis, the book shows that fragility is a price to be paid for accepting the relational constitution of the social world as a human domain without secure foundations, but also for wishing to break free from all attempts at giving closure to social life as an identity without question. This book will engage students of sociology, political theory and social philosophy alike.

Author: Andrea Barrios Villarreal File Type: pdf International Standardization and the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade examines the international standardization system generally, with a specific focus on some of the bodies within this system, along with their rules and procedures. It also examines - and questions - the lack of definition regarding several features related to the system, notably an international standardizing body (ISB) and international standards in the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT). Andrea Barrios Villarreal, who has been involved in standardization activities for more than seven years, provides a unique and in-depth analysis that will be useful to scholars, students and practitioners. This illuminating work is a welcome addition to the international economic law literature and should be read by anyone with an interest in the interaction between trade law and international standardization.