Author: Christopher Caudwell File Type: epub Considered by many to be the most innovative British Marxist writer of the twentieth century, Christopher Caudwell was killed in the Spanish Civil War at the age of 29. Although already a published writer of aeronautic texts and crime fiction, he was practically unknown to the public until reviews appeared of Illusion and Reality A Study of the Sources of Poetry, which was published just after his death. A strikingly original study of poetrys role, it explained in clear language how the organizing of emotion in society plays a part in social change and development. Caudwell had a powerful interest in how things worked aeronautics, physics, human psychology, language, and society. In the anti-fascist struggles of the 1930s he saw that capitalism was a system that could not work properly and distorted the thinking of the age. Self-educated from the age of 15, he wrote with a directness that is alien to most cultural theory. Culture as Politics introduces Caudwells work through his most accessible and relevant writing. Material will be drawn from Illusion and Reality, Studies in a Dying Culture and his essay, Heredity and Development. *Review Christopher Caudwell was a brief and breathtakingly brilliant presence in the world ... I commend Pluto for publishing these new editions and bringing Caudwell to the attention of new audiences -- Marx & Philosophy Review of Books A revealing set of texts by the most important British Marxist cultural critic before World War II, meticulously and lovingly edited by the greatest contemporary expert in the field. Indispensable -- Edith Hall, Professor of Classics, Kings College University of London The selection of writings presented here does justice to the richness of Caudwells thought, and will introduce a whole new generation of readers to this remarkable thinker -- Anindya Raychaudhuri, School of English, University of St Andrews It is not difficult to see Caudwell as a phenomenon - as an extraordinary shooting-star crossing Englands empirical night -- E. P. Thompson About the Author Christopher Caudwell (1907-1937) was the pen name of Christopher St. John Sprigg, a British Marxist poet, writer, and thinker. He joined the Communist Party in 1935, and soon became a dedicated grassroots activist, continuing his writing, even though none of his Marxist works were printed during his lifetime. In 1936, he left for Spain to join the International Brigades in the anti-fascist struggle against Franco. He was killed in the valley of Jarama, February 12th 1937, during his first day of battle.

Author: Ariana Destro File Type: epub What was there in Jesus person, behavior, and words that prompted not only much enthusiasm but also much hostility? This compelling portrait of the man Jesus of Nazareth by two pioneers of the anthropological study of early Christianity answers this vital question. They bring the fruit of years of scholarship to bear on a radical figure in Roman Galilee and on his encounters with others and the movement those encounters inspired. They give close attention to the everyday realities that shaped those encounters the facts of travel, common meals, domestic space, and the interactions of bodies. The result is a refreshing new look at the man who proved so significant - and so controversial - in Western culture.

Author: Brett Ommen File Type: pdf In The Politics of the Superficial Visual Rhetoric and the Protocol of Display, Brett Ommen explores the increasing reliance on images as a mode of communication in contemporary life. He shows that graphic design is a layered experience of images and space. Before images, viewers engage in the personal experience of aesthetics and individual identity. In space, viewers engage in the negotiation of meaning and collective belonging. Graphic design, then, fits the consumerist present precisely because it prompts viewers to differentiate between our collective commitments and individual sense of self. Ommen argues, for example, that on viewing a billboard, a driver isnt merely being exposed to a set of commercial messages or exhortations, but rather responding in a self-aware way that differentiates her from her collective associations like Democrat, Republican, rich, poor, Catholic, or Jewish. By examining graphic designas a profession, practice, and academic fieldas the nexus for understanding visual display in public culture, The Politics of the Superficial develops two arguments about contemporary visual communication practices first, that the study of visual communication privileges visual content at the expense of other dynamics, such as context and second, that interpretations focusing on content conceal the most persuasive and subversive dimensions of the visual. Wide-ranging and stimulating, The Politics of the Superficial ultimately posits that, far from serving as a communal oasis for public imagination, contemporary visual culture offers the possibility for politically engaged communication and persuasion while simultaneously threatening the health of public discourse by atomizing its constituent parts. It will serve as a vital contribution to the field of visual rhetoric. **Review The book is tightly argued and well written. I felt engaged as though in a dialectic with it I would mentally pose objections only to have the author address them nearly immediately in subsequent arguments. This is a fine book. Lawrence Prelli,author of A Rhetoric of Science Inventing Scientific Discourse and editor of Rhetorics of Display This is an engaged and engaging work. It speaks in provocative and important ways to many of the key concerns of theorists of design and especially rhetoricalcultural theorists.John Louis Lucaites, coauthor of No Caption Needed Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy About the Author Brett Ommen is an independent scholar and writer.

Author: Shawna Ross File Type: pdf This book uses the discipline-specific, computational methods of the digital humanities to explore a constellation of rigorous case studies of modernist literature.From data mining and visualization to mapping and tool building and beyond, the digital humanities offer new ways for scholars to questions of literature and culture. With the publication of a variety of volumes that define and debate the digital humanities, we now have the opportunity to focus attention on specific periods and movements in literary history. Each of the case studies in this book emphasizes literary interpretation and engages with histories of textuality and new media, rather than dwelling on technical minutiae. Reading Modernism with Machines thereby intervenes critically in ongoing debates within modernist studies, while also exploring exciting new directions for the digital humanitiesultimately reflecting on the conjunctions and disjunctions between the technological cultures of the modernist era and our own digital present. **