Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2006

In this book, David MacDougall, one of the leading ethnographic filmmakers and film scholars of his generation, builds upon the ideas in his widely praised Transcultural Cinema and argues for a new conception of how visual images create human knowledge in a world in which the value of seeing has often been eclipsed by words.MacDougall explores the relations between photographic images and the human body--the body of the viewer and the body behind the camera as well as the body as seen in ethnography, cinema, and photography. In a landmark essay, he discusses the need for a new field of social aesthetics, further elaborated in his reflections on filming at an elite boys' school in northern India. The theme of the school is taken up as well in his discussion of fiction and nonfiction films of childhood. The book's final section presents a radical view of the history of visual anthropology as a maverick anthropological practice that was always at odds with the anthropology of words. In place of the conventional wisdom, he proposes a new set of principles for visual anthropology.These are essays in the classical sense--speculative, judicious, lucidly written, and mercifully jargon-free. The Corporeal Image presents the latest ideas from one of our foremost thinkers on the role of vision and visual representation in contemporary social thought.

Introduction: Crises of Memory 1. Choosing Our Past Jean-Paul Sartre as Memoirist of Occupied France 2. Narrative Desire The Aubrac Affair and National Memory of the French Resistance 3. Commemorating the Illustrious Dead Jean Moulin and Andreacute; Malraux 4. History, Memory, and Moral Judgment after the Holocaust Marcel Ophuls's Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie 5. Anamnesis: Remembering Jewish Identity in Central Europe after Communism Istvaacute;n Szaboactute;'s Sunshine 6. Revision: Historical Trauma and Literary Testimony The Buchenwald Memoirs of Jorge Semprun 7. Do Facts Matter in Holocaust Memoirs? Wilkomirski/Wiesel 8. The Edge of Memory: Experimental Writing and the 1.5 Generation Perec/Federman 9. Amnesia and Amnesty: Reflections on Forgetting and Forgiving Notes Works Cited Index

Joyce Moore Turner's "Caribbean Crusaders and the Harlem Renaissance is a study of the emergence of African American radicalism in Harlem, a crossroads of the African D.phpora in the early twentieth century. Turner reveals that the Harlem Renaissance was more than just an artistic florescence; it was also a political movement to counter racism and colonialism. To explores the roots of the Caribbean emigres' radical ideology and the strategies used to extend agitation from Harlem to national and international platforms, the study draws on the papers and writings of Hermina Huiswood, Cyril Briggs, the Rev.E.Ethelred Brown, Langston Hughes, and Richard B. Moore, as well as interviews and biographies of related contemporary figures. It also incorporates census records. FB files, and hundreds of documents from the recently opened Russian Archive. Through focus on Otto Huiswood, the sole African American charter member of the Communist Party, and his wife, Hermuina, Turner exposes the complex developments within the socialist and communist parties on the question of race. The account ranges beyond Harlem to Europe, Africa, and the USSR to reveal the breadth, depth and nearly global reach of the Afro-Caribbean activists' activities.

Combining historical and economic analysis, this book shows how, beginningin the 1950s, a largely predictable business has been transformed into a volatile and complexmultimedia enterprise now commanding over 80 percent of the world's film business. At the sametime, the book asks how the economic forces leading to this success--the forces of audiencedemand, technology, and high risk--have combined to change the kinds of movies Hollywoodproduces.

This fascinating volume explores how research, craft, and technology are united in the Art Institute of Chicago’s mission to preserve its collection and further art-historical knowledge. Addressing the many challenges conservators face, the publication highlights their work on objects from throughout the museum, including books, furniture, electronic media, paintings, photographs, posters, sculpture, and textiles. An introductory essay traces the development of the profession and its specific history at the Art Institute. Case studies written by the museum’s conservators and curators examine diverse works ranging from an ancient Egyptian statue of Osiris to Bruce Nauman’s video Clown Torture. The authors explore how they determine appropriate treatment, uncover an artist’s intentions and techniques, and employ pathbreaking new technologies.

Drawing principally on original source materials, Nancy Goyne Evans's elegantly written and extensively illustrated Windsor-Chair Making in America presents an authoritative and absorbing historical picture of the vernacular chair shop and industry. Of the book's five chapters, three deal extensively with the craft shop. Evans discusses everything from structure to tools and equipment, from shop personnel to power sources, and from raw materials to ornament, both painted and stenciled. A chapter on marketing explores the booming Windsor-chair trade in the American coastal South and the islands of the Caribbean, furniture distribution to local, overland, and overseas markets, and general methods of doing business. Another section explores consumerism and the use of Windsor furniture in domestic and public settings. Students and interpreters of American material culture and life will find here an abundance of new material organized and presented to provide comprehensive insights into craft life and product distribution in America. Evans's book should have pride of place in the libraries of collectors, curators, practicing and amateur furniture craftsmen, and anyone interested in early American studies trades, folk art, and pre-industrial technology. This book includes an extensive index, detailed maps, an indispensable paint color chart based on more than 1,200 references, a select bibliography, and a wealth of photographic reproductions.

The Danish silversmith Georg Jensen (1866– 1935) first established a worldwide reputation as a designer of flatware, hollowware, and jewelry in the arts and crafts idiom of the early twentieth century, then went on to become a foremost international designer of elegant and refined silver creations in the modernist style. This book surveys his work from his beginnings as a self-taught artist through his apprenticeship to a master silversmith and beyond. His work is highly soughtafter today, and he is considered one of the most influential designers of the twentieth century. Richly illustrated, the book provides thorough, detailed coverage of the full range of Jensen’s jewelry. The contributors to the volume consider Jensen in the context of American modernist jewelry, the significance of the international exhibitions and World’s Fairs at which he first promoted his work, and the output of his company, where his own designs and those of current silversmiths working in related styles continue to be produced. Collectors, design historians, and admirers of Jensen’s original designs will be delighted with this splendid and wide-ranging display of his work.

The twentieth-century's fast cars, trains, and planes promised to conquer space and time; their aerodynamic styling and metallic bodies embodied a new and modern beauty that enchanted American designers from the late 1920s to the 1950s. Streamlining became popular for everything, including toy scooters, typewriters, power tools, teakettles, Coca-Cola bottles, Lucky Strike packaging, Fiestaware pitchers, Studebaker cars, Greyhound buses, and the 20th Century Limited train. This book celebrates streamlining as epitomized by the work of Raymond Loewy, Donald Deskey, Henri Dreyfuss, Russel Wright, and Norman Bel Geddes, and introduces other industrial designers, also highlighting the resurgence of streamlining among international vanguard designers from the 1980s to the present. Patent drawings and period photographs demonstrate the usage of these dynamically styled objects. Two hundred objects drawn from the Eric Brill Collection (recently donated to the American Friends of Canada) and supplemented by the Stewart Collection of 20th Century Design were photographed for this book. A full bibliography, biographies of the designers, and index complete the study.

The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun- the most spectacular royal tomb ever found- is one of the most famous events in the history of archaeology. The treasures of this tomb surpass all others, and the fifty Tutankhamun artifacts featured in this book illustrate many uses of gold and other precious materials in ancient Egypt, giving us a glimpse into the extraordinary richness of this ancient civilization. The book also includes never-before-seen images of the full-body forensic recreation of the boy king. How did Tut really look and what caused his untimely death? Cutting edge CT scan data provides tantalizing clues.In addition artifacts from the period preceding the reign of Tutankhamun will be featured, illuminating this fascinating era of Egyptian history and setting the stage for the treasures of Tut. These pieces will illustrate the history of the 18th dynasty, daily life under the golden pharaohs, and the journeys of both kings and commoners to the afterlife, and will include pieces dating to the reigns of four 18th dynasty pharaohs, the direct ancestors of Tutankhamun: Amenhotep II and Tuthmosis IV These two great warrior kings ruled in the mid-18th Dynasty, and solidified the great Egyptian empire built by their predecessors. Although their tombs had both been robbed in antiquity, many fascinating pieces were left behind by the thieves. The tomb of Amenhotep II was reused just after the end of the New Kingdom as a cache for a group of royal mummies. Amenhotep III and Akhenaten A number of pieces come from the Theban area, where the great temple of Amun stood, the site of many great discoveries, and Amarna, where Akhenaten built a new capital city. Other artifacts come from one of the rare private tombs in the Valley of the Kings, the burial of Amenhotep III's parents-in-law, Yuya and Tjuya.

This beautiful book celebrates the remarkable flowering of art in Prague during the reigns of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV and his two sons, Wenceslas IV and Sigismund. When crowned king of Bohemia in 1347, Charles vowed to make Prague the cultural rival of Paris and Rome. He rebuilt its castle and began a massive building campaign to glorify Saint Vitus’s Cathedral. In the ensuing century, Prague became not only an imperial but also an intellectual and artistic capital. In essays and detailed entries on some 240 artworks drawn from American and European collections, an esteemed group of scholars traces the birth of a distinctly Bohemian art in Prague in the mid-fourteenth century and its diffusion throughout Europe over the next hundred years. Panel paintings, goldsmiths’ work, sculpture, stained glass, and illuminated manuscripts bear witness to the wide-ranging achievements of the hundreds of artists who were active in Bohemian lands during this spectacular century. Not since they were created have these magnificent objects been accorded the attention that they deserve on an international stage.

Until now, mocha ware, with its mysterious origins and variable nomenclature, has not been widely studied or chronicled. Jonathan Rickard, with more than thirty years' experience as a collector, scholar, and enthusiast of mocha and dipped wares, has written the definitive book on this once widely produced pottery. Long considered a uniquely Victorian product, mocha ware was actually developed as early as the late eighteenth century. It was likely named after the Yemeni port city of al Mukha, famed for its trade in a moss agate, known as "mocha stone," which resembled the beautiful and delicate treelike striations (the products of chemical reactions) for which mocha ware is best known. Rickard outlines the development of new types of slip decoration and the tools that made them possible. Because mocha ware was made with relatively soft clay and designed mainly for everyday use, surviving specimens are rare and thus highly prized by collectors today. By his strict definition of mocha ware, Rickard makes an argument in favor of period terminology in describing other types of lathe-turned slipwares. He offers a detailed analysis of production techniques and decorative typologies, as well as a broad-ranging history of the wares from their development in eighteenth-century England to their widespread popularity in the American market well into the twentieth century. This definitive volume also contains a discussion of mocha's principal manufacturers, a detailed glossary, and a bibliography. Lavishly illustrated with color and black-and-white photographs, this book is an absolute necessity for casual and experienced collectors, museum curators, and scholars of British and American material culture.

In the flourishing ancient Indian communities of the American Southwest and northwest Mexico, master potters created ceramic arts that are considered among the most accomplished in the world. The symbolic imagery and distinctive local styles of the region are unmistakable—simple volumetric shapes covered with complex, interlocking geometrical designs that are sometimes combined with bold abstract animal, human, and composite figures. Within this shared tradition are clearly identifiable local styles and symbolic vocabularies, and this lavishly illustrated book focuses on one of them: the ceramic works of the Casas Grandes-Paquimé area of northwest Mexico and adjoining parts of New Mexico and Arizona, c. A.D. 1200–1400. For the first time on a comprehensive scale, expert art historians and an artist-teacher discuss the complex imagery of approximately ninety Casas Grandes vessels with fifty pieces representing other major styles of the Greater Southwest. Superb examples show polychromatic designs of real and mythological animals, together with abstract human figures and remarkably varied geometries, demonstrating the imaginative complexity and exceptional achievement of the Casas Grandes potters. Certain motifs reflect affinities with distant Mesoamerica, yet the authors show that these forms were absorbed into a visual vocabulary that reflected the unique artistic and cosmological outlook of Casas Grandes, within the native Southwestern cultural tradition.

In 1764, Johann Joachim Winckelmann published a key early instance of art-historical thinking, his Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, here translated into English for the first time. Dazzled by the sensuous and plastic beauty of recently excavated artifacts-coins, engraved gems, vases, paintings, reliefs, and statues-Winckelmann synthesized the visual and written evidence then available into a systematic history of art in ancient Egypt, Persia, Etruria, Rome, and, above all, Greece. His passionate yet detailed inquiry investigates the idea of beauty over time and space, offering a chronological and descriptive account whose conceptual and historical paradigms have been reiterated and contested into the twentieth century. Alex Potts's introduction not only sketches the circumstances that shaped Winckelmann's project but also assesses this scholar's indelible influence on European intellectual life-for both modern art history and archaeology commence with Winckelmann.