This collection analyzes the Star Wars movies from diverse viewpoints—from history and politics to music and economics. The book will appeal to a wide audience, from students and academics to dedicated fans of the saga.
Bio-Art and the Environment
In a science-driven society, this book ignites a debate at the intersection of art, biology, and ethics. Can artists create living chimeras? Do we have the right to use them? And should we fund or prohibit the research that makes them possible?
With over 150 colour illustrations, this collection of essays explores the history and mysteries of the “Coral Road” from the Mediterranean to Japan. Journey from Italy’s fisheries to Tibet, where coral is a sacred treasure, to the magnificent craftwork of the Edo Period.
This collection of essays highlights the enduring significance of provenance for historians, authentication, and law. It remains vital to ownership and topical due to ongoing debates over looted art and the illicit trade in antiquities conducted by terrorist groups.
Half a century after his death, is E. M. Forster still relevant? Some find his novels old-fashioned; others, inspiring. This book explores Forster’s legacy, offering new interpretations of his work and his place within British and world culture.
Edward Burne-Jones on Nature
This study of Edward Burne-Jones’s paintings explores his vision of nature. It reveals how he fused scientific observation with symbolic interpretation to create the fantastical landscapes and magical imagery of his allegorical, fantasy, and dream cycles.
The Odyssey of Communism
This interdisciplinary volume explores how film has shaped culture and memory. From the Berlin Wall to China, it journeys from the terror of communist prisons to the rosy image of propaganda, arguing that communism, lingering in mentalities, still needs interrogation.
Rituals of Ilé-Ifẹ̀, Nigeria
This book reveals the hidden beauties of six prominent ritual festivals in Ile-Ifẹ̀, the spiritual capital of the Yoruba people. It provides rare information and profound analysis, an important record of enduring cultural legacies for Yoruba cultural studies.
Postsocialist Mobilities
Native scholars examine mobility in the cinema of the Visegrad countries and Romania, exploring political transition, social change, and transforming gender roles. These in-depth analyses are uniquely informed by the authors’ own “close-up” personal experiences of the phenomena.
Performing Memories
Why is the contemporary world haunted by memory? This collection of essays explores the cultural and artistic tensions in representing the past. Scholars analyze how memory is elaborated, contested, and shared through literature, film, technology, and myth.
Awakening through Literature and Film
This book, using Zen Buddhism and postmodern ethics, guides you beyond the conventional thematic approach. Learn to catch nondual, spiritual feelings while appreciating a given work, ultimately turning the act of reading or watching into a quest for spiritual enlightenment.
Leading scholars explore the understudied history of collecting in the American South. This volume examines the rich Renaissance and Baroque art in Southern public and private collections, revealing how these works were acquired, curated, displayed, and preserved.
This collection of film profiles explores the relevance of twentieth-century films to literature and culture. The films are viewed as moves in mind, trading the look of things brought to presence by the shocking directness of eyesight.
This hybrid collection of essays and self-portraits explores the ‘mark’—from heritage and race to trauma and scars. Through various art forms, it tackles identity, emancipation, and self-determination in postcolonial France and the French Caribbean.
Being and Film
This book develops a “solaristic ontology” of film—a philosophical system based on Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 sci-fi movie Solaris. It explores the nature of film, being, and reality, building on film philosophy and the speculative turn in contemporary philosophy.
This book collects Daniel Asia’s writings on classical music, universities, Judaism, politics, and American culture. Written in clear, elegant prose with a wry sense of humor, this is a fine introduction to high culture, with an emphasis on classical music and its composers.
This book examines the reception of visual arts across cultures and times. It focuses on the migration of images: how they travel from one medium to another, and how they migrate from an artefact into the human body, a process explored through various disciplines.
In 1478, Leonardo da Vinci opened his own workshop and began painting the Benois Madonna—a work marking a strong change in his style and representation of human emotion. This book analyzes his growth as an artist in this pivotal year, detailing his training and life in Florence.
Requests in Film Dialogue and Dubbing Translation
This is the first account of speech act pragmatics and (im)politeness in film conversation and dubbing, focusing on requests. It compares the features of requests in English and Italian film dialogue and reveals how their pragmatics travel across languages in translation.
Between the Headphones
While film sound studies have focused on Hollywood, the soundscapes of other world cinemas remain underexplored. This book bridges the gap, introducing leading sound practitioners from India—the world’s largest film producer—through a collection of revealing interviews.