Author: David Barton File Type: pdf We live in a textually-mediated world where writing is central to society, its cultural practices and institutions. Writing has been the subject of much research but it is usually highly visible and valued texts that are studied --the work of novelists, poets and scholars.The studies included in this book examine every day acts of writing and their significance. Ordinary quotidian writing may be viewed as mundane and routine, but it is central to how societies operate and the ways individuals relate to each other and to institutions.Examples discussed in the book including writing in areas such as farming, photo-sharing, childcare work and health care. The chapters are united in their approach to examining this writing as cultural practice. The book also brings together two important traditions of this type of study the Anglophone and Francophone. The work of French scholars in this field is made accessible for the first time to the Anglophone world. The insights and research in this collection will appeal to all linguists, anthropologists, sociolinguistics and cultural theorists.

Author: Lydia Pyne File Type: epub An irresistible journey of discovery, science, history, and myth making, told through the lives and afterlives of seven famous human ancestors Over the last century, the search for human ancestors has spanned four continents and resulted in the discovery of hundreds of fossils. While most of these discoveries live quietly in museum collections, there are a few that have become world-renowned celebrity personasambassadors of science that speak to public audiences. In Seven Skeletons, historian of science Lydia Pyne explores how seven such famous fossils of our ancestors have the social cachet they enjoy today. Drawing from archives, museums, and interviews, Pyne builds a cultural history for each celebrity fossilfrom its discovery to its afterlife in museum exhibits to its legacy in popular culture. These seven include the three-foot tall hobbit from Flores, the Neanderthal of La Chapelle, the Taung Child, the Piltdown Man hoax, Peking Man, Australopithecus sediba, and Lucyeach embraced and celebrated by generations, and vivid examples of how discoveries of how our ancestors have been received, remembered, and immortalized. With wit and insight, Pyne brings to life each fossil, and how it is described, put on display, and shared among scientific communities and the broader public. This fascinating, endlessly entertaining book puts the impact of paleoanthropology into new context, a reminder of how our past as a species continues to affect, in astounding ways, our present culture and imagination. **Review Describing human evolution through accounts of fossils that became media events might seem a publicity ploy, but science journalist Pyne pulls it off. [Pyne] casts her net... widely, adding captivating accounts of how each discovery fascinated the mass media and entered literature and popular culture.Kirkus Reviews (starred) Highly readable and an excellent title for armchair explorers with dreams of their own history-making discoveries.Booklist Impressively blends the humanities and science to greatly enrich both.Publishers Weekly Ever wondered how we got here, and how we think we know? Lydia Pyne takes us on a grand romp through some high (and low) points of the scientific discovery and cultural interpretation of the human fossil record, and along the way shows just how intimately the two are intertwined.Ian Tattersall, author of *The Strange Case of the Rickety Cossack and Other Cautionary Tales from Human Evolution How and why do some important fossils become famous and others do not? Seven Skeletons is a story about science, but also its impact in popular culture remind[ing] us that context matters in shaping how we think about science and the past.Samuel J. Redman, author of Bone Rooms*From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums As lively and readable as it is informative and instructive. By framing her account around the intimate history of seven individual hominid fossils, Pyne shows that paleoanthropology is about far more than dead and dry bones.Lukas Rieppel, Assistant Professor of History, Brown University A skilled historian and a lively, colorful writer, Lydia Pyne takes us beyond the headlines and into the archives, revealing intimate details of scientific investigation, discovery, marketing, and myth-making in the stories of seven of the best-known human fossils. Seven Skeletons is a sprightly, informative page-turner with a deeper message the strange careers of human remains have much to tell us about how we use science to understand what it means to be human.Nathaniel Comfort, Professor of the History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University** About the Author Lydia Pynehas degrees in history and anthropology and a PhD inhistory and philosophy of science from Arizona State University. She hasparticipated in field and archival work in South Africa, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan, Iran, and the American Southwest. She has published articlesand essays inThe Atlantic,Nautilus, andPublic Domain Review. She lives in Austin, Texas, where she isan avid rock climber andmountain biker.