Everyday Political Objects

Everyday Political Objects PDF Author: Christopher Fletcher
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000397033
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Everyday Political Objects examines a series of historical case studies across a very broad timescale, using objects as a means to develop different approaches to understanding politics where both internal and external definitions of the political prove inadequate. Materiality and objects have gradually made their way into the historian’s toolbox in recent years, but the distinctive contribution that a set of methods developed for the study of objects can make to our understanding of politics has yet to be explored. This book shows how everyday objects play a certain role in politics, which is specific to material things. It provides case studies which re-orientate the view of the political in a way that is distinct from, but complementary to, the study of political institutions, the social history of politics and the analysis of discourse. Each chapter shows, in a distinctive and innovative way, how historians might change their approach to politics by incorporating objects into their methodology. Analysing case studies from France, the Congo, Burkina Faso, Romania and Britain between the early Middle Ages and the present day makes this study the perfect tool for students and scholars in the disciplines of history, art history, political science, anthropology and archaeology. Chapter 7 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003147428

Everyday Political Objects

Everyday Political Objects PDF Author: Christopher Fletcher
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000397033
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Get Book Here

Book Description
Everyday Political Objects examines a series of historical case studies across a very broad timescale, using objects as a means to develop different approaches to understanding politics where both internal and external definitions of the political prove inadequate. Materiality and objects have gradually made their way into the historian’s toolbox in recent years, but the distinctive contribution that a set of methods developed for the study of objects can make to our understanding of politics has yet to be explored. This book shows how everyday objects play a certain role in politics, which is specific to material things. It provides case studies which re-orientate the view of the political in a way that is distinct from, but complementary to, the study of political institutions, the social history of politics and the analysis of discourse. Each chapter shows, in a distinctive and innovative way, how historians might change their approach to politics by incorporating objects into their methodology. Analysing case studies from France, the Congo, Burkina Faso, Romania and Britain between the early Middle Ages and the present day makes this study the perfect tool for students and scholars in the disciplines of history, art history, political science, anthropology and archaeology. Chapter 7 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003147428

Stuff Theory

Stuff Theory PDF Author: Maurizia Boscagli
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1623562686
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
A groundbreaking theory of materialism which reconsiders the role of stuff, the small objects that clutter our lives, as they crowd the pages of modern literature.

The Authority of Everyday Objects

The Authority of Everyday Objects PDF Author: Paul Betts
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520420586
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
From the Werkbund to the Bauhaus to Braun, from furniture to automobiles to consumer appliances, twentieth-century industrial design is closely associated with Germany. In this pathbreaking study, Paul Betts brings to light the crucial role that design played in building a progressive West German industrial culture atop the charred remains of the past. The Authority of Everyday Objects details how the postwar period gave rise to a new design culture comprising a sprawling network of diverse interest groups—including the state and industry, architects and designers, consumer groups and museums, as well as publicists and women's organizations—who all identified industrial design as a vital means of economic recovery, social reform, and even moral regeneration. These cultural battles took on heightened importance precisely because the stakes were nothing less than the very shape and significance of West German domestic modernity. Betts tells the rich and far-reaching story of how and why commodity aesthetics became a focal point for fashioning a certain West German cultural identity. This book is situated at the very crossroads of German industry and aesthetics, Cold War politics and international modernism, institutional life and visual culture.

The Social Psychology of Everyday Politics

The Social Psychology of Everyday Politics PDF Author: Caroline Howarth
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317601394
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The Social Psychology of Everyday Politics examines the ways in which politics permeates everyday life, from the ordinary interactions we have with others to the sense of belonging and identity developed within social groups and communities. Discrimination, prejudice, inclusion and social change, politics is an on-going process that is not solely the domain of the elected and the powerful. Using a social and political psychological lens to examine how politics is enacted in contemporary societies, the book takes an explicitly critical approach that places political activity within collective processes rather than individual behaviors. While the studies covered in the book do not ignore the importance of the individual, they underscore the need to examine the role of culture, history, ideology and social context as integral to psychological processes. Individuals act, but they do not act in isolation from the groups and societies in which they belong. Drawing on extensive international research, with contributions from leaders in the field as well as emerging scholars, the book is divided into three interrelated parts which cover: The politics of intercultural relations Political agency and social change Political discourse and practice Offering insights into how psychology can be applied to some of the most pressing social issues we face, this will be fascinating reading for students of psychology, political science, sociology and cultural studies, as well as anyone working in the area of public policy.

Callous Objects

Callous Objects PDF Author: Robert Rosenberger
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452956871
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 105

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Book Description
Uncovering injustices built into our everyday surroundings Callous Objects unearths cases in which cities push homeless people out of public spaces through a combination of policy and strategic design. Robert Rosenberger examines such commonplace devices as garbage cans, fences, signage, and benches—all of which reveal political agendas beneath the surface. Such objects have evolved, through a confluence of design and law, to be open to some uses and closed to others, but always capable of participating in collective ends on a large scale. Rosenberger brings together ideas from the philosophy of technology, social theory, and feminist epistemology to spotlight the widespread anti-homeless ideology built into our communities and enacted in law. Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.

The Brexit Referendum on Twitter

The Brexit Referendum on Twitter PDF Author: Jingrong Tong
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1800432968
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Book Description
The Brexit referendum on Twitter:a mixed-method computational analysis investigates how Twitter worked in shaping political discourse and its potential for fuelling populism in the month leading to the referendum.

The Beauty of Everyday Things

The Beauty of Everyday Things PDF Author: Soetsu Yanagi
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241366364
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
The daily lives of ordinary people are replete with objects, common things used in commonplace settings. These objects are our constant companions in life. As such, writes Soetsu Yanagi, they should be made with care and built to last, treated with respect and even affection. They should be natural and simple, sturdy and safe - the aesthetic result of wholeheartedly fulfilling utilitarian needs. They should, in short, be things of beauty. In an age of feeble and ugly machine-made things, these essays call for us to deepen and transform our relationship with the objects that surround us. Inspired by the work of the simple, humble craftsmen Yanagi encountered during his lifelong travels through Japan and Korea, they are an earnest defence of modest, honest, handcrafted things - from traditional teacups to jars to cloth and paper. Objects like these exemplify the enduring appeal of simplicity and function: the beauty of everyday things.

Popular Culture, Social Media, and the Politics of Identity

Popular Culture, Social Media, and the Politics of Identity PDF Author: William Clapton
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040223389
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
Popular Culture, Social Media, and the Politics of Identity advances a novel methodological approach – pop culture as political object – to capture the centrality of popular culture as an object of a broad range of political contests and debates that constitute pop culture artefacts by generating and informing specific meanings and understandings of them. It is no longer novel to claim that popular culture matters to world politics. The literature on Popular Culture and World Politics (PCWP) has demonstrated the cultural basis of political action and meaning-making. However, this book argues that in doing so, the PCWP literature has focused primarily on the traditionally narrow range of issues, actors, and things that mainstream International Relations regards as part of world politics. While PCWP challenges restrictive disciplinary understandings of the sites of legitimate inquiry where one can purposefully gain knowledge about world politics, comparatively little has been done to challenge constricted understandings of what world politics is, who it involves, and where it takes place. Methodological approaches in the literature largely treat popular culture and politics as separate and therefore focus on understanding how popular culture relates to and intersects with a relatively circumscribed notion of world politics. Focusing on the everyday politics of how audiences perceive and contest popular cultural artefacts, this book demonstrates that pop culture does not merely intersect with or reflect discrete political processes; it is also directly situated as an object of politics. The author analyses current debates over identity politics across a range of contemporary pop cultural artefacts, including films and video games. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of International Relations, Political Science, and Cultural and Media Studies.

Vibrant Matter

Vibrant Matter PDF Author: Jane Bennett
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822391627
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
In Vibrant Matter the political theorist Jane Bennett, renowned for her work on nature, ethics, and affect, shifts her focus from the human experience of things to things themselves. Bennett argues that political theory needs to do a better job of recognizing the active participation of nonhuman forces in events. Toward that end, she theorizes a “vital materiality” that runs through and across bodies, both human and nonhuman. Bennett explores how political analyses of public events might change were we to acknowledge that agency always emerges as the effect of ad hoc configurations of human and nonhuman forces. She suggests that recognizing that agency is distributed this way, and is not solely the province of humans, might spur the cultivation of a more responsible, ecologically sound politics: a politics less devoted to blaming and condemning individuals than to discerning the web of forces affecting situations and events. Bennett examines the political and theoretical implications of vital materialism through extended discussions of commonplace things and physical phenomena including stem cells, fish oils, electricity, metal, and trash. She reflects on the vital power of material formations such as landfills, which generate lively streams of chemicals, and omega-3 fatty acids, which can transform brain chemistry and mood. Along the way, she engages with the concepts and claims of Spinoza, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Darwin, Adorno, and Deleuze, disclosing a long history of thinking about vibrant matter in Western philosophy, including attempts by Kant, Bergson, and the embryologist Hans Driesch to name the “vital force” inherent in material forms. Bennett concludes by sketching the contours of a “green materialist” ecophilosophy.

Teaching the EU

Teaching the EU PDF Author: Anna Visvizi
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1800432763
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Against the backdrop of disintegrative tendencies in the EU, this book offers a detailed understanding of the key issues, challenges, and opportunities that educators across Europe and beyond encounter on a daily basis when teaching EU-related course content at higher education institutions.