Download or read book America s Banquet of Cultures written by Ronald Fernández and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2000-06-30 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The melting pot is a myth, according to Fernandez, who shows that the United States is and always has been a banquet of cultures. As he argues, the best way to deal with the more than 20 million new immigrants since 1965 is to accept, recognize, and eagerly explore the differences among the American people. Fernandez seeks to forge a positive national consensus based on two building blocks. First, the nation's many ethnic groups can be a powerful source of unprecedented economic, artistic, and scientific creativity. Secondly, the nation's many ethnic groups offer a way to erase the black/white dichotomy which, masks the shared injustices of millions of European, Asian, African, Native, and Latino Americans. This is a provocative analysis of how we arrived at our current ethnic and racial dilemmas and what can be done to move beyond them. Scholars and students of American immigration and social policy as well as concerned citizens will find the book equally rewarding.

Download or read book Notes on the Death of Culture written by Mario Vargas Llosa and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE A provocative essay collection that finds the Nobel laureate taking on the decline of intellectual life In the past, culture was a kind of vital consciousness that constantly rejuvenated and revivified everyday reality. Now it is largely a mechanism of distraction and entertainment. Notes on the Death of Culture is an examination and indictment of this transformation—penned by none other than Mario Vargas Llosa, who is not only one of our finest novelists but one of the keenest social critics at work today. Taking his cues from T. S. Eliot—whose essay "Notes Toward a Definition of Culture" is a touchstone precisely because the culture Eliot aimed to describe has since vanished—Vargas Llosa traces a decline whose ill effects have only just begun to be felt. He mourns, in particular, the figure of the intellectual: for most of the twentieth century, men and women of letters drove political, aesthetic, and moral conversations; today they have all but disappeared from public debate. But Vargas Llosa stubbornly refuses to fade into the background. He is not content to merely sign a petition; he will not bite his tongue. A necessary gadfly, the Nobel laureate Vargas Llosa, here vividly translated by John King, provides a tough but essential critique of our time and culture.

Download or read book Transatlantic Trade and Global Cultural Transfers Since 1492 written by Martina Kaller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-31 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Access to new plants and consumer goods such as sugar, tobacco, and chocolate from the beginning of the sixteenth century onwards would massively change the way people lived, especially in how and what they consumed. While global markets were consequently formed and provided access to these new commodities that increasingly became important in the ‘Old World’, especially with regard to the establishment early modern consumer societies. This book brings together specialists from a range of historical fields to analyse the establishment of these commodity chains from the Americas to Europe as well as their cultural implications.

Download or read book A Place for Wolves written by Kosoko Jackson and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James Mills and his Brazilian boyfriend Tomas must rely on each other as they travel through war-torn Kosovo and try to reunite with their families.

Download or read book South to a Very Old Place written by Albert Murray and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-09-19 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The highly acclaimed novelist and biographer Albert Murray tells his classic memoir of growing up in Alabama during the 1920s and 1930s in South to a Very Old Place. Intermingling remembrances of youth with engaging conversation, African-American folklore, and astute cultural criticism, it is at once an intimate personal journey and an incisive social history, informed by "the poet's language, the novelist's sensibility, the essayist's clarity, the jazzman's imagination, the gospel singer's depth of feeling" (The New Yorker). "His perceptions are firmly based in the blues idiom, and it is black music no less than literary criticism and historical analysis that gives his work its authenticity, its emotional vigor and its tenacious hold on the intellect...[It] destroys some fashionable socio-political interpretations of growing up black."--Toni Morrison, The New York Times Book Review

Download or read book Dinner Roles written by Sherrie A. Inness and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2001-04 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who cooks dinner in American homes? It's no surprise that “Mom” remains the overwhelming answer. Cooking and all it entails, from grocery shopping to chopping vegetables to clearing the table, is to this day primarily a woman's responsibility. How this relationship between women and food developed through the twentieth century and why it has endured are the questions Sherrie Inness seeks to answer in Dinner Roles: American Women and Culinary Culture. By exploring a wide range of popular media from the first half of the twentieth century, including cookbooks, women's magazines, and advertisements, Dinner Roles sheds light on the network of sources that helped perpetuate the notion that cooking is women's work. Cookbooks and advertisements provided valuable information about the ideals that American society upheld. A woman who could prepare the perfect Jell-O mold, whip up a cake with her new electric mixer, and still maintain a spotless kitchen and a sunny disposition was the envy of other housewives across the nation. Inness begins her exploration not with women but with men-those individuals often missing from the kitchen who were taught their own set of culinary values. She continues with the study of juvenile cookbooks, which provided children with their first cooking lessons. Chapters on the rise of electronic appliances, ethnic foods, and the 1950s housewife all add to our greater understanding of women's evolving roles in American culinary culture.

Download or read book Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Engineering and Applications IEA 2012 written by Zhicai Zhong and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 794 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Information engineering and applications is the field of study concerned with constructing information computing, intelligent systems, mathematical models, numerical solution techniques, and using computers and other electronic devices to analyze and solve natural scientific, social scientific and engineering problems. Information engineering is an important underpinning for techniques used in information and computational science and there are many unresolved problems worth studying. The Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Information Engineering and Applications (IEA 2012), which was held in Chongqing, China, from October 26-28, 2012, discusses the most innovative research and developments including technical challenges and social, legal, political, and economic issues. A forum for engineers and scientists in academia, industry, and government, the Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Information Engineering and Applications presents ideas, results, works in progress, and experience in all aspects of information engineering and applications.

Download or read book Guess Who s Coming to Dinner Now written by Angela D. Dillard and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2002-02-11 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "...could not be more of the moment." (New York Times Book Review) "If you, like many, marveled that George W. Bush not only did but could put together a cabinet and staff that was racially diverse as well as fiscally and morally conservative, here's a book you'll want to read." (Ms. magazine)

Download or read book The Literary and Cultural Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe written by Thomas F. Glick and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-05-22 with total page 776 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beyond his pivotal place in the history of scientific thought, Charles Darwin's writings and his theory of evolution by natural selection have also had a profound impact on art and culture and continue to do so to this day. The Literary and Cultural Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe is a comprehensive survey of this enduring cultural impact throughout the continent. With chapters written by leading international scholars that explore how literary writers and popular culture responded to Darwin's thought, the book also includes an extensive timeline of his cultural reception in Europe and bibliographies of major translations in each country.

Download or read book Between the World and Me written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and published by One World. This book was released on 2015-07-14 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone) NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

Download or read book Mother for Dinner written by Shalom Auslander and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-09-22 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the author of Foreskin's Lament, a novel of identity, tribalism, and mothers. Seventh Seltzer has done everything he can to break from the past, but in his overbearing, narcissistic mother's last moments he is drawn back into the life he left behind. At her deathbed, she whispers in his ear the two words he always knew she would: "Eat me." This is not unusual, as the Seltzers are Cannibal-Americans, a once proud and thriving ethnic group, but for Seventh, it raises some serious questions, both practical and emotional. Of practical concern, his dead mother is six-foot-two and weighs about four hundred and fifty pounds. Even divided up between Seventh and his eleven brothers, that's a lot of red meat. Plus Second keeps kosher, Ninth is vegan, First hated her, and Sixth is dead. To make matters worse, even if he can wrangle his brothers together for a feast, the Can-Am people have assimilated, and the only living Cannibal who knows how to perform the ancient ritual is their Uncle Ishmael, whose erratic understanding of their traditions leads to conflict. Seventh struggles with his mother's deathbed request. He never loved her, but the sense of guilt and responsibility he feels--to her and to his people and to his "unique cultural heritage"--is overwhelming. His mother always taught him he was a link in a chain, thousands of people long, stretching back hundreds of years. But, as his brother First says, he's getting tired of chains. Irreverent and written with Auslander's incomparable humor, Mother for Dinner is an exploration of legacy, assimilation, the things we owe our families, and the things we owe ourselves.

Download or read book Early Cinema in Russia and its Cultural Reception written by Yuri Tsivian and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-13 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the development of cinematic form and culture in Russia, from its late nineteenth-century beginnings as a fairground attraction to the early post-Revolutionary years. The author traces the changing perceptions of cinema and its social transition from a modernist invention to a national art form. He explores reactions to the earliest films from actors, novelists, poets, writers and journalists. His richly detailed study of the physical elements of cinematic performance includes the architecture and illumination of the cinema foyer, the speed of projection and film acoustics. In contrast to standard film histories, this book focuses on reflected images: rather than discussing films and film-makers, it features the historical film-goer and early writings on film. The book presents a vivid and changing picture of cinema culture in Russia in the twilight of the tsarist era and the first decades of the twentieth century. The study expands the whole context of reception studies and opens up questions about reception relevant to other national cinemas.

Download or read book History and Cultures of the Americas Revised Edition written by Robert Johnson and published by . This book was released on 2012-09-24 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Kitchen Culture in America written by Sherrie A. Inness and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2015-08-31 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At supermarkets across the nation, customers waiting in line—mostly female—flip through magazines displayed at the checkout stand. What we find on those magazine racks are countless images of food and, in particular, women: moms preparing lunch for the team, college roommates baking together, working women whipping up a meal in under an hour, dieters happy to find a lowfat ice cream that tastes great. In everything from billboards and product packaging to cooking shows, movies, and even sex guides, food has a presence that conveys powerful gender-coded messages that shape our society. Kitchen Culture in America is a collection of essays that examine how women's roles have been shaped by the principles and practice of consuming and preparing food. Exploring popular representations of food and gender in American society from 1895 to 1970, these essays argue that kitchen culture accomplishes more than just passing down cooking skills and well-loved recipes from generation to generation. Kitchen culture instructs women about how to behave like "correctly" gendered beings. One chapter reveals how juvenile cookbooks, a popular genre for over a century, have taught boys and girls not only the basics of cooking, but also the fine distinctions between their expected roles as grown men and women. Several essays illuminate the ways in which food manufacturers have used gender imagery to define women first and foremost as consumers. Other essays, informed by current debates in the field of material culture, investigate how certain commodities like candy, which in the early twentieth century was advertised primarily as a feminine pleasure, have been culturally constructed. The book also takes a look at the complex relationships among food, gender, class, and race or ethnicity-as represented, for example, in the popular Southern black Mammy figure. In all of the essays, Kitchen Culture in America seeks to show how food serves as a marker of identity in American society.

Download or read book Asian American Food Culture written by Alice L. McLean and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-04-28 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering topics ranging from the establishment of the Gulf Coast shrimping industry in 1800s to the Korean taco truck craze in the present day, this book explores the widespread contributions of Asian Americans to U.S. food culture. Since the late 18th century, Asian immigrants to the United States have brought their influences to bear on American culture, yielding a rich, varied, and nuanced culinary landscape. The past 50 years have seen these contributions significantly amplified, with the rise of globalization considerably blurring the boundaries between East and West, giving rise to fusion foods and transnational ingredients and cooking techniques. The Asian American population grew from under 1 million in 1960 to an estimated 19.4 million in 2013. Three-quarters of the Asian American population in 2012 was foreign-born, a trend that ensures that Asian cuisines will continue to invigorate and enrich the United States food culture. This work focuses on the historical trajectory that led to this remarkable point in Asian American food culture. In particular, it charts the rise of Asian American food culture in the United States, beginning with the nation's first Chinese "chow chows" and ending with the successful campaign of Indochina war refugees to overturn the Texas legislation that banned the cultivation of water spinach—a staple vegetable in their traditional diet. The book focuses in particular on the five largest immigrant groups from East and Southeast Asia—those of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, and Vietnamese descent. Students and food enthusiasts alike now have a substantial resource to turn to besides ethnic cookbooks to learn how the cooking and food culture of these groups have altered and been integrated into the United States foodscape. The work begins with a chronology that highlights Asian immigration patterns and government legislation as well as major culinary developments. The book's seven chapters provide an historical overview of Asian immigration and the development of Asian American food culture; detail the major ingredients of the traditional Asian diet that are now found in the United States; introduce Asian cooking philosophies, techniques, and equipment as well as trace the history of Asian American cookbooks; and outline the basic structure and content of traditional Asian American meals. Author Alice L. McLean's book also details the rise of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, and Vietnamese restaurants in the United States and discusses the contemporary dining options found in ethnic enclaves; introduces celebratory dining, providing an overview of typical festive foods eaten on key occasions; and explores the use of food as medicine among Asian Americans.

Download or read book American Culture in the 1990s written by Colin Harrison and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-31 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Culture in the 1990s focuses on the dramaticcultural transformations of the last decade of the millennium. Lodgedbetween the fall of Communism and the outbreak of the War on Terror, the1990s was witness to America's expanding influence across the world but alsoa period of anxiety and social conflict. National traumas such as the LosAngeles riots, the Oklahoma City bombing and the impeachment of PresidentClinton lend an apocalyptic air to the decade, but the book looks beyondthis to a wider context to identify new voices emerging in the nation.Thisis one of the first attempts to bring together developments taking placeacross a range of different fields: from Microsoft to the Internet, fromblank fiction to gangsta rap, from abject art to new independent cinema,and from postfeminism to posthumanism. Students of American culture andgeneral readers will find this a lively and illuminating introduction to acomplex and immensely varied decade.Key Features*3 case studies per chapterfeaturing key texts, genres, writers and artists*Chronology of 1990sAmerican Culture*Bibliographies for each chapter*18 black and whiteillustrations

Download or read book Contemporary Latin American Cultural Studies written by Stephen Hart and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-24 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary Latin American Cultural Studies is a collection of new essays by recognised experts from around the world on various aspects of the new discipline of Latin American cultural studies. Essays are grouped in five distinct but interconnected sections focusing respectively on: (I) the theory of Latin American cultural studies; (II) the icons of culture; (III) culture as a commodity; (IV) culture as a site of resistance; and (V) everyday cultural practices. The essays range across a wide gamut of theories about Latin American culture; some, for example, analyse the role that ideas about the nation - and national icons  have played in the formation of a sense of identity in Latin America, while others focus on the resonance underlying cultural practices as diverse as football in Argentina, TV in Uruguay, cinema in Brazil, and the 'bolero' and soaps of modern-day Mexico. Contemporary Latin American Cultural Studies has an introduction setting the ideas explored in each section in their proper context. The essays are written in jargon-free English (all Spanish terms have been translated into English), and are supplemented by a concluding section with suggestions for further reading.