Rereading the Machine in the Garden

2014-11-06 Art

Author : Eric Erbacher
Release : 2014-11-06
Genre : Art
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 910/5 ( reviews)

Book Synopsis Rereading the Machine in the Garden by : Eric Erbacher

Download or read book Rereading the Machine in the Garden written by Eric Erbacher. This book was released on 2014-11-06. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume reexamines the trope of the intrusive machine and the regenerative pastoral garden, laid out fifty years ago by Leo Marx in "The Machine in the Garden," one of the founding texts of American Studies. Contributions explore the lasting influence of the trope in American culture and the arts, rereading it as a dialectics where nature is as much technologized as technology is naturalized. They trace this dialectic trope in filmic and literary representations of industrial, bureaucratic, and digital gardens; they explore its function in the aftermath of the civil war, the rural electrification during the New Deal, in landscape art, and in ethnic literatures; and they discuss the historical premises and lasting influence of Leo Marx's seminal study.

The Culture of Nature in the History of Design

2019-03-26 Design

Author : Kjetil Fallan
Release : 2019-03-26
Genre : Design
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 970/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Culture of Nature in the History of Design by : Kjetil Fallan

Download or read book The Culture of Nature in the History of Design written by Kjetil Fallan. This book was released on 2019-03-26. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Culture of Nature in the History of Design confronts the dilemma caused by design’s pertinent yet precarious position in environmental discourse through interdisciplinary conversations about the design of nature and the nature of design. Demonstrating that the deep entanglements of design and nature have a deeper and broader history than contemporary discourse on sustainable design and ecological design might imply, this book presents case studies ranging from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century and from Singapore to Mexico. It gathers scholarship on a broad range of fields/practices, from urban planning, landscape architecture, and architecture, to engineering design, industrial design, furniture design and graphic design. From adobe architecture to the atomic bomb, from the bonsai tree to Biosphere 2, from pesticides to photovoltaics, from rust to recycling – the culture of nature permeates the history of design. As an activity and a profession always operating in the borderlands between human and non-human environments, design has always been part of the environmental problem, whilst also being an indispensable part of the solution. The book ventures into domains as diverse as design theory, research, pedagogy, politics, activism, organizations, exhibitions, and fiction and trade literature to explore how design is constantly making and unmaking the environment and, conversely, how the environment is both making and unmaking design. This book will be of great interest to a range of scholarly fields, from design education and design history to environmental policy and environmental history.

Video Games and Spatiality in American Studies

2022-02-21 History

Author : Dietmar Meinel
Release : 2022-02-21
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 188/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Video Games and Spatiality in American Studies by : Dietmar Meinel

Download or read book Video Games and Spatiality in American Studies written by Dietmar Meinel. This book was released on 2022-02-21. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While video games have blossomed into the foremost expression of contemporary popular culture over the past decades, their critical study occupies a fringe position in American Studies. In its engagement with video games, this book contributes to their study but with a thematic focus on a particularly important subject matter in American Studies: spatiality. The volume explores the production, representation, and experience of places in video games from the perspective of American Studies. Contributions critically interrogate the use of spatial myths ("wilderness," "frontier," or "city upon a hill"), explore games as digital borderlands and contact zones, and offer novel approaches to geographical literacy. Eventually, Playing the Field II brings the rich theoretical repertoire of the study of space in American Studies into conversation with questions about the production, representation, and experience of space in video games.

Work: The Labors of Language, Culture, and History in North America

2021-11-08 Literary Criticism

Author : J. Jesse Ramírez
Release : 2021-11-08
Genre : Literary Criticism
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 025/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Work: The Labors of Language, Culture, and History in North America by : J. Jesse Ramírez

Download or read book Work: The Labors of Language, Culture, and History in North America written by J. Jesse Ramírez. This book was released on 2021-11-08. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like all fundamental categories, work becomes ever more complex as we examine it more closely. The terms "work," "labor," "job," "employment," "occupation," "profession," "vocation," "task," "toil," "effort," "pursuit," and "calling" form a dense web of overlapping and contrasting meanings. Moreover, the analysis of work must contend with how histories of class struggle, gendered and sexual divisions of labor, racial hierarchies, and citizenship regimes have determined who counts as a worker and qualifies for the rights, protections, and social respect thereof. And yet waged work is only the tip of an enormous iceberg that feminist theorists call "socially reproductive labor"—the gendered, mostly unpaid, and hidden work of caring for, feeding, nursing, and teaching the next generation of workers. This collection of essays explores the richness of work as a linguistic, cultural, and historical concept and the conjunctures that are changing work and its worlds.

David Foster Wallace in Context

2022-12-01 Literary Criticism

Author : Clare Hayes-Brady
Release : 2022-12-01
Genre : Literary Criticism
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 08X/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis David Foster Wallace in Context by : Clare Hayes-Brady

Download or read book David Foster Wallace in Context written by Clare Hayes-Brady. This book was released on 2022-12-01. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Foster Wallace is regarded as one of the most important American writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book introduces readers to the literary, philosophical and political contexts of Wallace's work. An accessible and useable resource, this volume conceptualizes his work within long-standing critical traditions and with a new awareness of his importance for American literary studies. It shows the range of issues and contexts that inform the work and reading of David Foster Wallace, connecting his writing to diverse ideas, periods and themes. Essays cover topics on gender, sex, violence, race, philosophy, poetry and geography, among many others, guiding new and long-standing readers in understanding the work and influence of this important writer.

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Rereading the Machine in the Garden

The Culture of Nature in the History of Design

Video Games and Spatiality in American Studies

Work: The Labors of Language, Culture, and History in North America

David Foster Wallace in Context

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