Film and the Historian
The British Experience
Films are not just for audiences: historians of the twentieth century have much to learn from them. A film exposes the attitudes and unconsidered trifles that people took for granted and which were not considered worth recording elsewhere. This volume surveys British cinema from the final days of the Second World War to the early 1970s, exploring societal change across a range of topics including housing, the countryside, psychiatry and the law. This provides a basis for cross-cultural comparisons, with many issues deserving of further research being highlighted. The films…
Films are not just for audiences. A film exposes the attitudes people took for granted. This volume surveys British cinema from the Second World War to the early 1970s, exploring societal change through films from the well-known Odd Man Out to the forgotten It’s Hard to be Good.
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Theatres of Rebellion in Nicaragua
From the Colony to the Sandinista Revolution
This book examines the critical connection between revolts and revolutions to larger notions of social and cultural performances in Nicaraguan social, cultural and political life. To understand social relations in Nicaragua today, it is crucial to look at those highly theatricalized and rhetorical performances of power and resistance that have spanned specific national spaces for centuries. The book looks, therefore, at the history of Nicaragua from the colonial period to the Sandinista Revolution to frame contingent and temporal social and cultural processes that have become heightened and revealing of the…
To understand Nicaragua today, we must look at its theatrical performances of power and resistance. This book examines the nation’s history, from the colonial period to the Sandinista Revolution, to reveal the critical connection between revolt and cultural performance.
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Colour in Sculpture
A Survey from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Present
This book introduces the reader to the art of sculpture across five millennia up to the present, and from the Near East to the west. In each of the eleven chapters, a number of selected works are discussed to exemplify the circumstances and conditions for making pieces of sculpture – objects peculiar to place, time and context. Within each cultural framework, characteristics are observable that suggest various reasons for the use of colour in sculpture. These encompass local preferences, customs or cultural requirements; and others point to an impulse to…
This book introduces sculpture across five millennia, exploring the intentional relationship between colour and form. It suggests that whether used for cultural custom or to enhance expression, polychromy adds another dimension of encoded meaning.
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From £37.99
This book is the first collection of research in English devoted to interpretations of Shakespeare’s works in all three Baltic countries, using historical, structural and comparative analysis. The purpose of this edited collection, written by leading Shakespeare researchers in the Baltics, is to introduce international readers to the unique experience of Baltic theatre, to analyse the importance of Shakespeare’s appropriation during the process of development of Baltic national culture, and to highlight the key tendencies and personalities involved in this process. This book will provide rich informative and analytical material…
This is the first collection of research in English on interpretations of Shakespeare in the Baltic countries. Written by leading researchers, it analyzes Shakespeare’s importance in developing Baltic national culture and introduces the unique experience of Baltic theatre.
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Depictions of the Three Orders and Estates around the Year 1500
Triplex Status Mundi
This volume highlights the copious and various depictions of the three orders of society during the Late Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Early Modern Period. It discusses the origins and development of the trifunctional division into the orders of the oratores, bellatores and laboratores, and the abundantly preserved visual material, which proves that this scheme was one of the most widespread ideological foundations of European societies at that time. Late Gothic and Renaissance depictions of the three orders of society can be found in different mediums, from…
This volume highlights the copious depictions of society’s three orders—the oratores, bellatores, and laboratores—in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period. The vast visual material proves this trifunctional division was a widespread ideological foundation.
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Alfred Dreyfus saw himself caught in a phantasmagoria, a great complex enigma that needed to be solved, but all the clues seemed to be an hallucination, a will-o’-th’-wisp, or what George Sand called “orblutes”. This book examines how Dreyfus and his wife found a powerful new kind of love through Jewish themes at the same time as they were forced to conceal their true identities. To see how Jewish Dreyfus was, the book explores his background in Alsatian culture, in the cosmopolitan Judaism of Paris, and in the customs of…
In a phantasmagoric trial, Alfred Dreyfus was called a “zinc puppet.” This book reveals the man behind the enigma: his concealed Jewish identity, the love it inspired, and the Court Martial as a fin de siècle horror fantasy.
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The Gladiators vs. Spartacus, Volume 1
Dueling Productions in Blacklist Hollywood
Using previously unpublished correspondence and personal journal entries from screenwriter Abraham Polonsky, neglected notices in Variety and other Hollywood trade publications, and a wide range of published sources, this narrative backstory of rival movie productions of The Gladiators vs Spartacus documents that intense competition with greater precision and clarity than any other existing account. The key role that this little-known chapter of Hollywood's blacklist history played, in connection with Dalton Trumbo's successful effort to win screen credit for Spartacus, is now for the first time available to film historians and…
Using unpublished sources, this book documents the intense rivalry between movie productions of The Gladiators and Spartacus. This little-known chapter of Hollywood’s blacklist history was key to Dalton Trumbo’s successful effort to win screen credit.
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Rhapsody of Northern Art presents fascinating artefacts produced between the late Bronze Age and the start of the Romanesque Period. Ancient objects from Northern Europe, exhibited in museums, are usually appreciated as documenting the past and reflecting its society. The people viewing these objects are able to become aware of skills and techniques that were applied many generations ago. However, a number of such objects should certainly be regarded more as works of fine art. Since the early 20th century, artists such as Duchamp have created “object art” and installations…
While ancient objects from Northern Europe are usually seen as historical documents, many should be regarded as works of fine art. This book encourages readers to appreciate Bronze Age and early Medieval artefacts as they do works by well-known contemporary artists.
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Holocaust Film
The Political Aesthetics of Ideology
This timely new monograph takes as its starting point the provocative contention that Holocaust film scholarship has been marginalized academically despite the crucial role Holocaust film has played in fostering international awareness of the Nazi genocide and scholarly understandings of cinematic power. The book suggests political and economic motivations for this seeming paradox, the ideological parameters of which are evident in debates and controversies over Holocaust films themselves, and around Holocaust culture in general. Lending particular attention to four exemplary Holocaust “art” films (Korczak [Poland, 1990], The Quarrel [Canada, 1990],…
Why is Holocaust film scholarship marginalized when the films themselves are so crucial to public awareness? This book explores the political and economic motivations for this paradox, connecting public debates over representation to the cinematic structures of key films.
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Agnolo Bronzino
Medici Court Artist in Context
The Florentine artist Agnolo Bronzino (1503–1572) has long been celebrated as the consummate court painter and his sumptuous portrayals of Duke Cosimo de’ Medici and Duchess Eleonora de Toledo have become icons of Italian Renaissance art. In this volume, an international assembly of scholars advances modern perceptions of Bronzino’s art by applying fresh research paradigms not only to the well-known portraits, but also to other painted subjects, frescoes, and tapestries within the context of ancient Roman precedents, Renaissance European court culture, and postmodernist theory. The seven essays supplement two recent…
An international assembly of scholars advances modern perceptions of Florentine artist Agnolo Bronzino. This volume applies fresh research not only to his well-known portraits, but also to frescoes and tapestries, addressing nudity, sexuality, and satire.
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New Approaches to the Temple of Zeus at Olympia
Proceedings of the First Olympia-Seminar 8th-10th May 2014
This volume brings together the proceedings of an international and interdisciplinary symposium held at Budapest between 8th and 10th May 2014. It was the first event dealing exclusively with the temple of Zeus at Olympia, which was, at the time of its construction, the largest temple in mainland Greece, and which has remained the largest ancient building of the Peloponnese ever since. Contributors come from eight countries, namely Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, and the UK, and from several different fields of classical studies, including…
This volume explores the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, the largest in mainland Greece. International experts from many fields offer new perspectives on its architecture, sculptural decoration, and the cult of Zeus, bridging classical studies with new digital technologies.
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This book recovers the lives of four men masked behind one legend. Reinterpreting recently rediscovered documents shows a Tuscan artist Leonardo da Vinci was banished from Florence around 1477, when at the same moment another Leonardo arrived from the East, an Ottoman agent from Genoese Caffa in the Black Sea. This Leonardo was a military engineer, who began writing technical notes backward in a flourishing Italian script. In Florence, around 1500, he met the alchemist and polymath Zoroastro, who collaborated in producing the scientific Notebooks. However, by the mid-sixteenth century,…
This book unmasks the legend of Leonardo da Vinci. Rediscovered documents show the artist was two different men: a Tuscan painter and an Ottoman agent. Crucially, a document proves the painter died in 1499, revealing the true artist of the Mona Lisa: Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio.
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The Gladiators vs. Spartacus, Volume 2
Abraham Polonsky’s Screenplay
This publication of Abraham Polonsky’s unproduced screenplay for The Gladiators is a tribute to one of Hollywood’s premiere post-WW II directors and writers whose career was severely impacted by the blacklist. His script for The Gladiators survives to remind us that he could, and did, transform a difficult and complex novel of an ancient slave rebellion into a screenplay worthy of Arthur Koestler’s bold fictional vision. Through a combination of the ambivalence of its executive producer and star, plus bad timing, it never went before the cameras. This book is…
From blacklisted director Abraham Polonsky, this is the unproduced screenplay for The Gladiators. He transformed Arthur Koestler’s complex novel of an ancient slave rebellion into a script worthy of its bold vision, but due to bad timing, it never went before the cameras.
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Britain and the Muslim World
Historical Perspectives
Based on papers presented at an international three-day conference, sponsored by the British Academy and held at the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter in April 2009, this collection of essays provides a comprehensive and accessible synthesis of the most advanced specialist and scholarly knowledge to date concerning historical perspectives on relations between Britain and the Muslim World. Ranging from the early-modern period to the present day, the essays collected here represent work by leading writers and scholars from relevant fields—history, international relations, economics, religion,…
This collection of essays by leading scholars provides a comprehensive synthesis of historical relations between Britain and the Muslim World, from the early-modern period to the present, exploring how these past encounters shape our current situation.
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The Statue of Zeus at Olympia
New Approaches
This book began to take shape following a conference on the Statue of Zeus at Olympia held at the University of Queensland in July 2008. In line with the main themes of the conference, the book has two fundamental aims: the first is to recognise the unsurpassed reputation of the Zeus in antiquity, to move beyond the framework provided by the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and to treat the famous statue in depth, as befits its unique importance in ancient times; the second aim is to employ a…
This book moves beyond the Seven Wonders framework to explore the unsurpassed reputation and unique importance of the Statue of Zeus. Using interdisciplinary perspectives, it traces the statue’s influence from antiquity through to recent centuries.
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The Design Collective
An Approach to Practice
The rise of social networking and open-source technology, the return of community-focussed activities (e.g. gardens, knitting groups, food cooperatives) and creative collectives across the fields of design and the visual arts have reawakened the discourse around human capital, flat structures and collectives as a means for ‘making’ the things of everyday life. As the essays presented in this collection illustrate, there is an emerging field of discourse about the potential of the collective as an organising and generative community structure that links creativity, social change and politics. Furthermore it is…
This collection explores the potential of the collective as a structure linking creativity, social change, and politics. Bringing together practitioners, historians, and theorists, it examines how design practices like authorship and agency are being re-evaluated.
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£54.99
This volume is an attempt to discuss the ways in which themes of authority and gender can be traced in the writing of chronicles and chronicle-like writings from the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance. With major contributions by fourteen authors, each of them specialists in the field, this study spans full across the compass of medieval and early modern Europe, from England and Scandinavia, to Byzantium and the Crusader Kingdoms; embraces a variety of media and methods; and touches evidence from diverse branches of learning such as language and…
This collection traces themes of authority and gender in chronicles from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. With contributions from leading specialists, this study spans medieval Europe, drawing on evidence from language, literature, history, and art.
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Global History, Visual Culture and Itinerancies
Changes and Continuities
National studies have demonstrated their inability to correctly understand global phenomena, and the way in which they affect societies. This chronologically ambitious book investigates methodological and theoretical issues from Roman times to the present, in terms of globalization. In this context, one of the most relevant parameters of change emerges: the itinerancy of culture and knowledge. Therefore, this volume argues that itinerant agents carry with them cultural baggage, transporting and transmitting it to other spaces. In this way, interconnection begins, producing active changes in global history and visual culture. Contributions…
This chronologically ambitious book investigates globalization from Roman times to the present. It argues that itinerant agents carry cultural baggage, transporting and transmitting it to create interconnections and produce active changes in global history.
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£49.99
This multidisciplinary collection of essays explores the functions, meanings and use of images and objects in various late Medieval and Early Modern social practices, which were linked by their ritual character. The book approaches ‘ritual’ as an action which is discussed under the general umbrella term “performative practice”, and is characterised by a synthesis between the repetitive and the extraordinary that carries an intense symbolic meaning and is emotionally charged. Images, spaces and rituals were closely interconnected in both the religious and the secular spheres, and played a…
This collection of essays explores the role of images and objects in the ritual practices of late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. The volume focuses on symbolic communication in Northern and Central Europe, including overlooked regions like Scandinavia and Poland.
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Placing the Origins of the Buddha
An Island, Its People, and an Orientalist Odyssey
Our understanding that the Buddha emerged from the Middle Gangetic region of the Indian subcontinent has been largely unchallenged for the past 200 years. However, can we truly trust our existing knowledge regarding the geographical locations associated with early Buddhism? Could the Buddha’s origins, in fact, lie elsewhere? Tracking the general theory explaining the Buddha’s emergence from the Middle Ganges, this book explores the lesser-known story of colonial Sri Lanka’s connections to the wider nineteenth-century orientalist quest of placing the Buddha across the northern expanses of the subcontinent. By doing…
For two centuries, the Buddha’s origin story has been accepted as fact. But is it built on a flawed foundation? This book exposes the stunning inconsistencies in the evidence, demanding a radical rethinking of early Buddhism’s true beginnings.
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