This classic sociological examination of art as collective action explores the cooperative network of suppliers, performers, dealers, critics, and consumers who - along with the artist - "produce" a work of art. Howard S. Becker looks at the conventions essential to this operation and, prospectively, at the extent to which art is shaped by this collective activity. The book is thoroughly illustrated and updated with a new dialogue between Becker and eminent French sociologist Alain Pessin about the extended social system in which art is created, and with a new preface in which the author talks about his own process in creating this influential work.

Acknowledged as perhaps the masterpiece of materialist criticism in the English language, this omnibus ranges over British literary history from George Eliot to George Orwell to inquire about the complex ways economic reality shapes the imagination.

Made in Japan -- Made in Japan—these three simple words conjure playful wit, a delight in detail, formal elegance, and graphic energy. Author of Made in China, Reed Darmon has collected hundreds of images of everyday Japanese design and pop culture ephemera from the past century. Including perfume ads, art deco matchboxes, robot toys, action movie posters, Noh masks, kimono patters, sumo cards, children's books, household product packages, and much more, the fascinating objects assembled here reveal traditional Japanese artistry and techniques as applied to playfully modern design. A stylish object and graphic essay in one, Made in Japan is an extraordinary glimpse into the heart of Japanese popular culture.

The landmark study of cultural differences across 70 nations, Cultures and Organizations helps readers look at how they think—and how they fail to think—as members of groups. Based on decades of pains

Made in China is a fun-filled, action-packed journey into the heart of Chinese pop culture. For Asia-philes, designers, and pop culture junkies, designer Reed Darmon has collected the most colorful (and in some cases, the kookiest) Chinese ephemera in this chunky paperback. Candy wrappers, firecrackers, Chairman Mao heads, and more! These objects are a testament to the age-old Chinese fascination with vivid hues and whimsical figures. Even humdrum, everyday items such as matchbooks and sock labels are decorated with exuberant illustration. A stylishly designed object and graphic essay in one, Made in China is a kaleidoscope of playful graphics and vibrant design, from the post-revolution '50s through today.

The creation of the Frankfurt School of critical theory in the 1920s saw the birth of some of the most exciting and challenging writings of the twentieth century. It is out of this background that the great critic Theodor Adorno emerged. His finest essays are collected here, offering the reader unparalleled insights into Adorno's thoughts on culture. He argued that the culture industry commodified and standardized all art. In turn this suffocated individuality and destroyed critical thinking. At the time, Adorno was accused of everything from overreaction to deranged hysteria by his many detractors. In today's world, where even the least cynical of consumers is aware of the influence of the media, Adorno's work takes on a more immediate significance. The Culture Industry is an unrivalled indictment of the banality of mass culture.

If you hate: loft living; bar-clubs; Tony Blair; chick lit; global warming sceptics; Keane; loyalty cards; IKEA; Kabbalah; bling and Richard Curtis...then you need IS IT JUST ME OR IS EVERYTHING SHIT? - an encylopedic attack on modern culture and the standard reference work for everyone who believes everything is shit. Which it is. This book is for the large percentage of the population interested in saying NO to the phoney ideas, cretinous people, useless products and doublespeak that increasingly dominate our lives. This book is designed for everyone who thinks they may have mislaid their soul in a Coffee Republic. Never before has there been a book so completely full of shit. This very funny, well-informed, belligerent rant of a book adds up to an excoriating broadside against consumer capitalism that the authors hope will sell loads of copies.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction When three-month-old Lia Lee Arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Lia's parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run "Quiet War" in Laos. The Hmong, traditionally a close-knit and fiercely people, have been less amenable to assimilation than most immigrants, adhering steadfastly to the rituals and beliefs of their ancestors. Lia's pediatricians, Neil Ernst and his wife, Peggy Philip, cleaved just as strongly to another tradition: that of Western medicine. When Lia Lee Entered the American medical system, diagnosed as an epileptic, her story became a tragic case history of cultural miscommunication. Parents and doctors both wanted the best for Lia, but their ideas about the causes of her illness and its treatment could hardly have been more different. The Hmong see illness aand healing as spiritual matters linked to virtually everything in the universe, while medical community marks a division between body and soul, and concerns itself almost exclusively with the former. Lia's doctors ascribed her seizures to the misfiring of her cerebral neurons; her parents called her illness, qaug dab peg --the spirit catches you and you fall down--and ascribed it to the wandering of her soul. The doctors prescribed anticonvulsants; her parents preferred animal sacrifices.

Classic essays by one of the most original and stimulating anthropologists of his generation on what culture is, what role it plays in social life, and how it ought to be properly studied.

American Ways: An Introduction to American Culture, Third Edition, by Maryanne Kearny Datesman, JoAnn Crandall, and Edward N. Kearny, focuses on the traditional values that have attracted people to the United States for well over 200 years and traces the effects of these values on American life. Chapter themes include diversity, the family, education, government and politics, religion, business, and recreation. Cross-cultural activities --- from discussion topics to writing projects --- encourage high-intermediate to advanced students to compare their own values with those discussed in the readings. New to the Third Edition: *Expanded pre-reading exercises preview the chapter content and Academic Word List vocabulary. *Improve Your Reading Skills helps students become independent readers. *Build Your Vocabulary features collocations and exercises that expand on the Academic Word List. *New Internet activities offer opportunities for further research and study.

於 2005 年出版的《香港風格》是本地出版界的一件奇事。在沒有宣傳、沒有大量傳媒曝光下，這本大家都以為是深奧的城市建築為題的作品，在人傳人的口碑之下，至今出版了四版，銷量接近一萬本。2006 年，胡恩威再接再厲，出版《香港風格 2 ──消滅香港》，連同攝影師──人山人海創作人于逸堯，及多位作者，包括香港中文大學建築系副教授鄭炳鴻、嶺南大學文化研究系副教授許寶強、香港理工大學設計學院副教授邵健偉等，各自將自己對本地公共空間與建築的觀察、經驗和感情，化為文字與圖片，帶領讀者繼續尋找香港風格。本書分為消滅香港、消滅城市，消滅小販、消滅家庭，消滅生活，消滅藝術、規劃閱讀四個篇章，環繞城市組成的重要部分──舊區、街市、小販、公共房屋、公共藝術、商場等，探討目前香港城市規劃政策的弊病與結果。

失落的百工‧台灣最在地的美力 向美好常民文化的守護者與傳遞者致敬 你知道在電器科技產品普及的現代，還有人用稻稈編織成「茶壽」這種天然保溫容器，免插電又環保，完全符合當今綠設計的風潮？ 在媽祖遶境儼然已成為新興的文化觀光活動，你知道在陣頭最前端，宣告媽祖出巡的響亮「哨角」，極可能是出自有四十幾年製作經驗，年逾八旬的師傅之手？ 當電影《父後七日》以一場看似荒謬的悲喜葬禮，點出台灣特有的民間風情時，你知道「孝女白琴」為何要透過看似誇張的吶喊與哭號傳遞喪家的悲悽？ 街頭林立的高科技美容護膚中心，也許是時下愛美年輕男女的聖地，但你可體驗過挽面師傅手持細細棉線，就能擺平你臉上的汗毛和粉刺，還你一張清爽光滑的面容？ 這是四個還在就讀大學設計科系的年輕學子花一整年的時間，靠著兩部摩托車走遍台灣大小鄉鎮，尋訪在時代快速滾動下日趨湮沒的100個傳統行業／手藝的動人紀錄。他們以年輕的眼、真摯善感的心，腳踏實地去尋覓、挖掘乍看也許陌生，但曾和庶民日常生活緊密相連的市井工匠與職人，用文字和圖像去捕捉親身所見、所聞、所觸的一切，刻劃每一個工作者默默堅持的身影，所承繼的傳統文化，及其深植於風土民情所內含的生活智慧及工藝巧思。 於是，在一次次與各種民俗工匠職人的相遇裡，在無數的第一次體驗裡，四個學生品嚐了吹糖、畫糖、傳統糕餅……師傅手藝幻化的香甜童年好味；體驗了舉凡頭上戴的（斗笠）、身上穿的（客家藍衫、旗袍）、腳上蹬的（木屐、草鞋）、日常起居用的（榻榻米、藤椅、木桶、竹蒸籠），族繁不及備載的各色天然正物；領略了做毛筆、揉墨、製硯，或小到毫芒雕刻、大至畫野台戲布景的精湛技藝；親訪了傳遞死生大事、神鬼信仰的種種禮俗職人與傳統工藝匠師…… 這100則故事，100個身影，說的固然是職人們在時代變遷中始終堅持的專注精神與精細技藝，但我們也從這四個年輕學子的投入與熱血中，看見傳統行業在凋零喟嘆之外的一絲曙光與生機。

From Publishers Weekly This book may mark the beginning of a new front in the science wars. Nisbett, an eminent psychologist and co-author of a seminal Psychological Review paper on how people talk about their decision making, reports on some of his latest work in cultural psychology. He contends that "[h]uman cognition is not everywhere the same"-that those brought up in Western and East Asian cultures think differently from one another in scientifically measurable ways. Such a contention pits his work squarely against evolutionary psychology (as articulated by Steven Pinker and others) and cognitive science, which assume all appreciable human characteristics are "hard wired." Initial chapters lay out the traditional differences between Aristotle and Confucius, and the social practices that produced (and have grown out of) these differing "homeostatic approaches" to the world: Westerners tend to inculcate individualism and choice (40 breakfast cereals at the supermarket), while East Asians are oriented toward group relations and obligations ("the tall poppy is cut down" remains a popular Chinese aphorism). Next, Nisbett presents his actual experiments and data, many of which measure reaction times in recalling previously shown objects. They seem to show East Asians (a term Nisbett uses as a catch-all for Chinese, Koreans, Japanese and others) measurably more holistic in their perceptions (taking in whole scenes rather than a few stand-out objects). Westerners, or those brought up in Northern European and Anglo-Saxon-descended cultures, have a "tunnel-vision perceptual style" that focuses much more on identifying what's prominent in certain scenes and remembering it. Writing dispassionately yet with engagement, Nisbett explains the differences as "an inevitable consequence of using different tools to understand the world." If his explanation turns out to be generally accepted, it means a big victory for memes in their struggle with genes. From Scientific American Nisbett, a psychologist and Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, used to believe that "all human groups perceive and reason in the same way." A series of events and studies led him gradually to quite another view, that Asians and Westerners "have maintained very different systems of thought for thousands of years." Different how? "The collective or interdependent nature of Asian society is consistent with Asians' broad, contextual view of the world and their belief that events are highly complex and determined by many factors. The individualistic or independent nature of Western society seems consistent with the Western focus on particular objects in isolation from their context and with Westerners' belief that they can know the rules governing objects and therefore can control the objects' behavior." Nisbett explores areas that manifest these different approaches--among them medicine, law, science, human rights and international relations. Are the societal differences so great that they will lead to conflict? Nisbett thinks not. "I believe the twain shall meet by virtue of each moving in the direction of the other."

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Mind Wide Open comes a groundbreaking assessment of popular culture as it's never been considered before: through the lens of intelligence. The $10 billion video gaming industry is now the second-largest segment of the entertainment industry in the United States, outstripping film and far surpassing books. Reality television shows featuring silicone-stuffed CEO wannabes and bug-eating adrenaline junkies dominate the ratings. But prominent social and cultural critic Steven Johnson argues that our popular culture has never been smarter. Drawing from fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and literary theory, Johnson argues that the junk culture we're so eager to dismiss is in fact making us more intelligent. A video game will never be a book, Johnson acknowledges, nor should it aspire to be-and, in fact, video games, from Tetris to The Sims to Grand Theft Auto, have been shown to raise IQ scores and develop cognitive abilities that can't be learned from books. Likewise, successful television, when examined closely and taken seriously, reveals surprising narrative sophistication and intellectual demands. Startling, provocative, and endlessly engaging, Everything Bad Is Good for You is a hopeful and spirited account of contemporary culture. Elegantly and convincingly, Johnson demonstrates that our culture is not declining but changing-in exciting and stimulating ways we'd do well to understand. You will never regard the glow of the video game or television screen the same way again.