Against those who considerarchitecture to be a wholly optimistic activity, this book shows how the history of modern architecture is inextricably tied to ideas of failure and ruin. By means of an original reading of the earliest origins of modernism, the Architecture of Failure exposes the ways in which failure has been suppressed, ignored and denied in the way we design our cities. It examines the 19th century fantasy architecture of the iron and glass exhibition palaces, strange, unprecedented, dream-like structures, almost all now lost, existing only as melancholy archive fragments; it traces the cultural legacy of these buildings through the heroics of the early 20th century, post-war radicals and recent developments, discussing related themes in art, literature, politics and philosophy. Critiquing the capitalist symbolism of the self-styled contemporary avant-garde, the book outlines a new history of contemporary architecture, and attempts to recover a radical approach to understanding what we build. Douglas Murphy blogs at http://www.youyouidiot.blogspot.com/

The Architecture of Failure

Arts & Photography

Murphy, Douglas

History & Criticism

Zero Books

For David Cameron and ‘Big Society’ Tories, folk culture means organic food, nu-folk pop music, and pastoral myths of Englishness. Meanwhile, postmodern liberal culture teaches us that talking about a singular ‘folk’ is reductive at best, neo-fascist at worst. But what is being held in check by this consensus against the possibility of a unified, oppositional, populist identity taking root in modern Britain? Folk Opposition explores a renewed contemporary divide between rulers and ruled, between a powerful elite and a disempowered populace. Using a series of examples, from folk music to football supporters’ trusts, from Raoul Moat to Ridley Scott, it argues that anti-establishment populism remains a powerful force in British culture, asserting that the left must recapture this cultural territory from the far right and begin to rebuild democratic representation from the bottom up.

Folk Opposition

Politics & Social Sciences

Niven, Alex

Social Sciences

The Sacred and the Profane is a work that combines local and global analysis to examine our age's often-talked about, but mostly misunderstood, 'mainstream subculture': the hipster. This book seeks to answer questions like, 'Why don't hipsters want to be called hipsters?' and 'Why do they act like they are different when they are just like all the other hipsters?' If you can't stand hipsters, are a hipster, or don't know what a hipster is, this book is for you.

The Sacred And The Profane: An Investigation Of Hipsters

Kinzey, Jake

Sociology

Brave New Avant Garde is a collection of essays that ask the questions: what is an adequate model of contemporary avant garde practice and what are its theoretical premises? With this it asks the related question, echoing Alain Badiou: must the avant garde hypothesis be abandoned? Brave New Avant Garde stands in opposition to postmodern post-politics and the view that radical practice has no other future than its reduction to the workings of the free market in the form of the "simple process of cultural production" or to variations on the cultural politics of representation. Today's avant garde, formed in the wake of the end of the Soviet Union and the rise of the anti-globalization movement, represents a counter-power that rejects the inevitability of capitalist integration. The way out for artists in today's world of creative industries is defined in these pages as a psychoanalytically informed sinthomeopathic practice, a critical identification with prevailing conditions of production that avoids the surplus enjoyment of the ideology of postmodern pluralism.

Brave New Avant Garde: Essays on Contemporary Art and Politics

Léger, Marc

Sociopaths are pervasive in contemporary television, from high-brow drama all the way down to cartoons -- and of course the news as well. From the scheming Eric Cartman of South Parkto the seductive imposter Don Draper of Mad Men, cold and ruthless characters captivate us, making us wish that we could be so effective and successful. Yet why should we admire characters who get ahead by being amoral and uncaring? In his follow-up to Awkwardness, Adam Kotsko argues that the popularity of the ruthless sociopath reflects our dissatisfaction with a failed social contract, showing that we believe that the world rewards the evil and uncaring rather than the good. By analyzing characters like the serial killer star of Dexter and the cynical Dr. House, Kotsko shows that the fantasy of the sociopath distracts us from our real problems -- but that we still might benefit from being a little more sociopathic.

Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide To Late Capitalist Television

Humor & Entertainment

Kotsko Shimer Great Books School North Central College, Adam

Television

Capitalism has become strange. Ironically, while the ‘age of work’ seems to have come to an end, working has assumed a total presence – a ‘worker’s society’ in the worst sense of the term – where everyone finds themselves obsessed with it. So what does the worker tell us today? "I feel drained, empty… dead." This book tells the story of the dead man working. It follows this figure through the daily tedium of the office, to the humiliating mandatory team building exercise, to awkward encounters with the funky boss who pretends to hate capitalism and tells you to be authentic. In this society, the experience of work is not of dying...but neither of living. It is one of a living death. And yet, the dead man working is nevertheless compelled to wear the exterior signs of life, to throw a pretty smile, feign enthusiasm and make a half-baked joke. When the corporation has colonized life itself, even our dreams, the question of escape becomes ever more pressing, ever more desperate…

Dead Man Working

FLEMING, PETER

Cederström, Carl

Philosophy

Safe drinking water is essential to daily life. Meeting that demand with bottled water is a luxury too far, argues Emma Jones. She is not a lone critic of the packaged water industry. However, this author looks to history for solutions to a major sustainability problem: in the design, management and use of the city. With original stories from London's archives, Parched City tracks drinking-water obsessions through a popular architectural history tale.

Parched City

Jones, Emma M.

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Why have so many remarkable men fought for women's rights, often risking their careers and ruining their health? Who were these men, what were their backgrounds, above all: what kind of relationships did they have with women? Finally, if there have been so many deviations from the male-oppressor/female-victim cliché, doesn't this stereotype need to be relativized or indeed rejected? Feminism's Founding Fathers is the first book to tell the untold story of the "traitors" to the men's cause - the pioneers and fellow-travellers of female emancipation. It challenges accepted wisdom and reveals the vital role that men have played in making Women's Lib happen.

Feminism's Founding Fathers: The Men Who Fought for Women's Rights

Biographies & Memoirs

Kaevan Gazdar, Kaevan

Professionals & Academics

In the same way that Stallone and Schwarzenegger played film heroes who came to embody the values of Ronald Reagans aggressive conservative agenda in the 1980s, the 21st-century film narratives of Batman, Spider-Man and Superman reflect the policies of the Bush Doctrine after 9/11. This book offers a groundbreaking study of the relationship that exists between post-9/11 American politics and the contemporary superhero movie phenomenon. No other Hollywood subgenre was as consistently popular during the George W. Bush presidency, as films such as Spider-Man, Superman Returns, Iron Man, and The Dark Knight embodied the key contradictions that inform the cultural and political life of the post-9/11 years. By combining in-depth analyses of numerous major superhero films from this era with astute readings of contemporary critical theory, this book offers accessible and academically potent insight into the complex interplay between politics, ideology, and entertainment in the 21st century.

Capitalist Superheroes: Caped Crusaders in the Neoliberal Age

Hassler-Forest, Dan

Reference

Melancology addresses the notorious musical genre black metal as a negative form of environmental writing that ‘blackens’ the cosmos. This book conjures a new word and concept that conjoins ‘black’ and ‘ecology’: melancology, a word in which can be heard the melancholy affect appropriate to the conjunction. Black metal resounds from the abyss and it is precisely only in relation to its sonic forces that the question of intervention in the environment arises in the articulation of melancology with ethics. That is, in deciding ‘which way out’ we should take, in deciding with what surpluses to dwell, with what waste, what detritus or decay in a process of unbinding with sonic forces that traverse an earth choking in wealth and death. The book thus provides a provocative and challenging contribution both to popular and intellectual debates on ecology.

Melancology: Black Metal Theory and Ecology

Wilson professor in media and cu, Scott

Music

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