Uruk: the First City is the first fully historical analysis of the origins of the city and of the state in southern Mesopotamia,the region providing the earliest evidence in world history related to these seminal developments. Contrasting his approach -- which has been influenced by V. Gordan Childe and by Marxist theorywith the neo-evolutionist ideas of (especially) American anthropological theory, the author argues that the innovations that took place during the Uruk period (most of the fourth millennium B.C.) were a true revolution that fundamentally changed all aspects of society and culture. This book is unique in its historical approach and its combination of archaeological and textual sources. It develops an argument that weaves together a vast amount of information and places it within a context of contemporary scholarly debates on such questions as the ancient economy and world systems.It explains the roots of these debates briefly without talking down to the reader. The book is accessible to a wider audience, while it also provides a cogent argument about the processes involved to the specialist in the field.

Uruk: The First City (Bible World)

History

Mario Liverani

World

Equinox Publishing Limited

Few British jazz musicians have been at the cutting edge of as many movements as Ian Carr. A pioneer bebop player in his youth, a colleague of Eric Burdon and John McLaughlin in the R'n'B explosion of the 60s, co-leader of one of Britain's most innovative jazz groups, the Rendell-Carr Quintet, a free-jazz colleague of John Stevens and Trevor Watts, and the founding father of jazz rock in the UK with his band Nucleus, Carr's musical career alone is truly remarkable, and a one-man history of British jazz in the 60s and 70s. Add to that his work as a member of the United Jazz and Rock Ensemble with such distinguished leaders as George Russell, Stan Tracey and Mike Gibbs, and his work as a player is even more remarkable. Yet Ian Carr is also one of the most perceptive critical writers and broadcasters about jazz, being not only the co-author of the Rough Guide, but also the celebrated biographer of Keith Jarrett and Miles Davis. In recent years he has transformed his writing talents into making innovative and prizewinning films on the music he loves, for which he has always been a fearless and outspoken advocate, from the time of his 1973 book Music Outside. As a teacher, his pupils have included such stellar British talents as Julian Joseph, the Mondesir brothers and Nikki Yeoh. He has been a professor of jazz at London's Guildhall School of Music since the 1980s and was founder of the jazz workshop at the Interchange arts scheme. In this full length biography, Alyn Shipton examines the fascinating mix of ingredients that comprise the man and his music, and in the process draws a vivid picture of Carr's home region, the North-East of England, of National Service, of such literary influences as W. Somerset Maugham, of post-war continental Europe and its Bohemian arts scene, and of the London jazz world from the 1960s onwards. The book shows that jazz does not have to have an American accent to be original and innovative, and to inspire audiences all around the world.

Out of the Long Dark: The Life of Ian Carr (Popular Music History)

Biographies & Memoirs

Alyn Shipton

Arts & Literature

An Introduction to Irish English (EQUINOX TEXTBOOKS & SURVEYS IN LINGUISTICS)

This book is a general introduction to the English spoken in Ireland, its most characteristic features, and its historical development. It provides a practical introduction to the topic of Irish English (also known as Hiberno-English), the variety of English that arose in Ireland as a consequence of contact between the Irish and the English languages. As well as looking at the specific examples where substratum from Irish can be observed, the book analyses other features unique to Irish English, from different perspectives (taking into account, for example, the pragmatic implications of certain syntactic structures in current spoken Irish English). It offers the reader a comprehensive coverage of the history and most salient features of this variety of English, while discussing key concepts such as bilingualism and language shift. The material is presented in a simple and accessible manner. It encourages the reader to discuss and think critically about some of the topics and to use the last section of each chapter as a basis for further investigation. An Introduction to Irish English contains exercises and practical activities with each chapter, as well as suggestions for further reading. It deals with both real data and fictional representations of this variety and it includes excerpts from Literature, media and film scripts, as well as other contexts, including everyday conversation, political debates, newspapers, e-mail, blogs, etc.

An Introduction to Irish English (EQUINOX TEXTBOOKS & SURVEYS IN LINGUISTICS) (Equinox Textbooks and Surveys in Linguistics)

Reference

Carolina P. Amador Moreno

Words, Language & Grammar

During his 13 year career between 1955 and 1968, Paul Chambers was one of the leading double bass players in jazz, performing with a wide variety of artists and a range of the musics sub-genres and recording over 300 LPs for labels such as Blue Note, Riverside, Mercury and Columbia Records. Chambers performed as a sideman with some of the greatest names in jazz including Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Sonny Rollins, Wes Montgomery, Joe Henderson, Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan, Gil Evans and Freddie Hubbard. He recorded a half dozen LPs under his own name including his own compositions but is probably best remembered for his contribution to the greatest jazz recording of all time; Miles Davis 'Kind Of Blue'. Mr. P.C.: The Life and Music of Paul Chambers tells the story of this quiet giant of jazz; his early experiences in Detroit, his early rise to jazz celebrity, his time at the top, his ultimate struggle against the tides of change enveloping the music that he loved and the circumstances surrounding his tragic death, aged 33, in 1969. Using material from other literary sources and interviews with family members, friends and colleagues with the jazz fraternity, this book represents the first time that much of this influential musicians story has been told. The book includes a comprehensive discography detailing all of his recordings both as a sideman and bandleader.

Mr. P.C: The Life and Music of Paul Chambers (Popular Music History)

R. Palmer

Were David and Jonathan 'gay' lovers? This very modern question is at the root of the recent explosion of studies of the David and Jonathan narratives in 1 and 2 Samuel. But what makes it possible even to ask this question, and what agendas govern the ways interpreters try to answer it? This book begins by critiquing recent scholarship on David and Jonathan, with particular emphasis on the ideological use of historical criticism on the one hand and queer theory on the other. Neither approach to the relationship between David and Jonathan has taken seriously enough either the richness of the biblical text as a work of narrative art or the influence of reception history on the way scholarly agendas are framed. Beneath the plurality of interpretations currently on the market lies an ambiguous text that has drawn readers, beginning with the redactors of the Hebrew text and the translators of the Septuagint and Targum, to the task of resolving its several possible meanings. Generations of interpreters have read the biblical narrative through the lens of later codes and conventions, culminating in the use of this narrative as a resource for the reconstruction of gay history. Far from being a history of misreading, the reception history of the David and Jonathan narratives is a witness to the capacity of a richly ambiguous text to generate interpretations

The Love of David and Jonathan (BibleWorld)

Literature & Fiction

James E. Harding

History & Criticism

Prophecy and Power: Muhammad and the Qur'an in the Light of Comparison (Comparative Islamic Studies)

A posthumous work by the most rigorous comparativist in her generation of Islamic studies scholars, Prophecy and Power proposes a major innovative approach to both the Prophet Muhammad and the Noble Qur'an. By the end of the ninth century, the Prophet Muhammad had emerged as an intercommunal norm beyond compare, and yet the very constructedness of this model of Muhammad allows historians of religion to see how the process itself requires us to undercut the terms used. We undercut them by qualifying them with multiple meanings, both overlapping and corrective, but we also decapitalize them in order to suggest how much broader they were in earlier contexts, and how much broader they may become, or were intended to become, in later contexts.

Religion & Spirituality

Marilyn Robinson Waldman

Islam

A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion

Societies are never ordered in ways that serve everyone's interests equally. Religious traditions - possibly more than any other aspect of society - have been developed over time to create, reproduce, and contest that social order. To study religion effectively is to be able to identify who benefits and who does not and how social structures are legitimated, maintained and contested. A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion explains the key ideas and methods in the study of religion and demonstrates how they can be used. The aim is to provide students with a tool-kit of critical concepts for studying religious belief and behaviour. Throughout the discussion all ideas and methods are illustrated with clear case material. The critical concepts draw on sociological, cultural and anthropological thinking and include: classification and essentialism; naturalization and mystification; legitimation and social reproduction; habitus and normalization; and repression and domination. All offer valuable ways of viewing, analyzing, and evaluating social structures. A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion presents students with a very productive and potentially radical way of studying religion, both its past and its present.

Politics & Social Sciences

Martin, Craig

Sociology

This collection of articles is intended for scholars and students of ethnology, folkloristics, religious studies, anthropology, area studies, theology and cultural research. It argues that greater understanding of the concept of vernacular religion and broader usage of genres could produce more nuanced understanding of religious beliefs and practices and a more sophisticated scholarly lexicon for the study of religion. Vernacular religion refers to "religion as it is lived: as human beings encounter, understand, interpret, and practice it" (Primiano 1995). Vernacular religion implies a system of beliefs that shapes the everyday culture of groups and individual and is expressed in both verbal and non-verbal forms. It challenges traditional scholarly boundaries between 'official' and 'folk' religiosity. In this book, genres are defined and utilised from the folkloristic perspective as forms of expression and interpretive strategies that develop in daily communication and performance situations. Written, performative and oral genres represent and express multiple world views, modalities and attitudes, encompassing ways of seeing, being in and acting relationally towards the world that weave together different strands of tradition, culture and experience in an integrative manner for the individual both within and beyond traditional forms of religion. In order to exemplify both the concept of vernacular religion and the utility of genres as a tool for both describing and interpreting expressions of belief, the book examines vernacular religion in a variety of social, national and individual contexts from the 19th to 21st century. It demonstrates a considerable degree of continuity in form and function of genres employed, and the persistence of certain topics, while exemplifying the extent to which the influence of globalisation is endemic in contemporary culture. The book discusses expressions of belief in different Christian denominations and also in the contexts of indigenous religion, the New Age and contemporary spirituality. The articles are based mostly on original field research, and one of the strongest aspects of the book is the extent it will bring to Anglophone audiences case studies and examples of scholarly literature from a variety of European language and research traditions.

Expressions of Belief: Vernacular Religion in Everyday Life

Marion Bowman

Anthropology

Cave Droppings: Nick Cave and Religion (Studies in Popular Music)

Cave Droppings analyses the work of Nick Cave, a singular, idiosyncratic and brilliant musician, specifically through his engagements with theology and the Bible. It does so not merely in terms of his written work, the novels and plays and poetry and lyrics that he continues to produce, but also the music itself. Covering more than three decades of extraordinarily diverse creativity, the book has seven chapters focusing on: the modes in which Cave engages with the Bible; the total depravity of the worlds invoked in his novels and other written work; the consistent invocation of apocalyptic themes; his restoration of death as a valid dimension of life; the twists of the love song; the role of a sensual and heretical Christ; and then a detailed, dialectical analysis of his musical forms. The book draws upon a select number of theorists who provide the methodological possibilities of digging deep into the theological nature of Cave's work, namely Ernst Bloch, who is the methodological foundation stone, as well as Theodor Adorno, Theodore Gracyk and Jacques Attali.

Nick Cave: A Study of Love Death and Apocalypse (Studies in Popular Music)

Roland Boer

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