Author: Ron Vannelli File Type: pdf How do desires and fears motivate human sociability? What effect do these motivators have on reproductive, social and political behaviour? And, crucially, how might we understand them separate from preconceived notions of design or higher morality? Taking these questions as a focus, this book examines human evolution with the emphasis on sexual selection and the evolution of a number of human psychological processes. Exploring evolutionary, sexual and maturational processes, along with primate, fossil and geological evidence, Vannelli argues that human nature can be conceptualised as species-typical desires and fears, derived from sexual selection during human evolution, and that these are major motivators of behaviour. Presenting additional evidence from the anthropology of band societies, along with material from group behaviour, Vannelli highlights the importance of pair-bonding, friendship, alliance behaviour, vengeance seeking and interpersonal politics in social behaviour, providing a unique interdisciplinary framework for understanding human nature and the evolution of human sociability.

Author: Jack Zipes File Type: pdf The fairy tale is arguably one of the most important cultural and social influences on childrens lives. But until the first publication of Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion, little attention had been paid to the ways in which the writers and collectors of tales used traditional forms and genres in order to shape childrens lives their behavior, values, and relationship to society. As Jack Zipes convincingly shows in this classic work, fairy tales have always been a powerful discourse, capable of being used to shape or destabilize attitudes and behavior within culture. How and why did certain authors try to influence children or social images of children? How were fairy tales shaped by the changes in European society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Zipes examines famous writers of fairy tales such as Charles Perrault, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen and L.Frank Baum and considers the extraordinary impact of Walt Disney on the genre as a fairy tale filmmaker. **

Author: Gabrielle Jennings File Type: pdf Offering historical and theoretical positions from a variety of art historians, artists, curators, and writers, this groundbreaking collection is the first substantive sourcebook on abstraction in moving-image media. With a particular focus on art since 2000, Abstract Video addresses a longer history of experimentation in video, net art, installation, new media, expanded cinema, visual music, and experimental film. Editor Gabrielle Jenningsa video artist herselfreveals as never before how works of abstract video are not merely, as the renowned curator Kirk Varnedoe once put it, pictures of nothing, but rather amorphous, ungovernable spaces that encourage contemplation and innovation. In explorations of the work of celebrated artists such as Jeremy Blake, Mona Hatoum, Pierre Huyghe, Ryoji Ikeda, Takeshi Murata, Diana Thater, and Jennifer West, alongside emerging artists, this volume presents fresh and vigorous perspectives on a burgeoning and ever-changing arena of contemporary art. **Review Recommended. (CHOICE 2016-06-01) From the Inside Flap Abstract Video charts a diverse range of perspectives and topics in the fields of art history and media studies. This collection of thoughtful articles by established figures and emerging voices demonstrates that the idea of abstraction is relevant not only to painting, where it is has been thoroughly explored, but also to video, where it has been largely ignored. Abstraction provides a new lens through which to regard the work of contemporary artists who work with moving images. This excellent book will be of interest to artists, curators, and scholars alike. Mark Tribe, author of New Media Art This anthology is very exciting and timely, the list of authors and topics impressive and broad. It is a great sign of the continuing vitality of abstract cinema in our own time. A. L. Rees, author of A History of Experimental Film and Video A deft and comprehensive critical anthology devoted to abstraction in the analog and digital realms. From origin stories to contemporary works, this volume collects some of the most diverse and theoretically rigorous writings on a woefully underexamined art form. Abstraction in the moving image (beyond film) finally has a collection of writings that grapples head-on with the engaging, innovative, and compelling use of abstraction in the video landscape and its intriguing intersection with contemporary visual culture. Erika Suderburg, author of Space, Site, Intervention Situating Installation Art

Author: Roger D. Woodard File Type: pdf This 2008 book, derived from the acclaimed Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Worlds Ancient Languages, describes the ancient languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia, for the convenience of students and specialists working in that area. Each chapter of the work focuses on an individual language or, in some instances, a set of closely related varieties of a language. Providing a full descriptive presentation, each of these chapters examines the writing system(s), phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of that language, and places the language within its proper linguistic and historical context. The volume brings together an international array of scholars, each a leading specialist in ancient language study. While designed primarily for scholars and students of linguistics, this work will prove invaluable to all whose studies take them into the realm of ancient language.Book DescriptionThis 2008 book describes the ancient languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia, for the convenience of students and specialists working in that area. Each chapter examines the writing system(s), phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of a language, and places that language within its proper linguistic and historical context. About the AuthorRoger D. Woodard is the Andrew Van Vranken Raymond Professor of the Classics at the University of Buffalo. His numerous publications include The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Worlds Ancient Languages (2004).