The Past in Contemporary Society: Then, Now

The Past in Contemporary Society: Then, Now
Author: Peter Fowler
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2002-09-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134910452

Changes or innovations which threaten `our heritage' arouse great hostility in those who want to preserve the past in its entirity.`The heritage' has become a commodity, a device to sell everything from biscuits to country houses. Fowler skilfully examines the present relationship between the past and the present, analysing the manner in which we mould and interpret the past to fit our current needs. He assesses the influence of our heritage in the last decade of the 20th century, and with a wide range of examples judges the consequences of the increasing pressures of the heritage industry. As well as a diagnosis of where the past is being misused, he provides prescriptions for responsible development, and a thoughtful interpretation of a common past. As well as addressing the needs of the professional involved in the heritage industry he also considers the consumer - all those who visit museums, enjoy a historic site or an art exhibition, or who simply dislike the hijacking of our common heritage by commercial or vested interests.

London Eyes

London Eyes
Author: Gail Cunningham
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781845454074

"London Eyes provides paths through the city, chancing upon those stories that ultimately have the potential to change London, to see it with new eyes, casting new shadows and seeing new stories open up at many turns. This collection has at its heart a joyous fascination with the city and the texts, images and films that have contributed to our ideas about London. It was a wonderful opportunity to stumble upon some new panoramas." Film Philosophy London incessantly generates and incites cultural responses, pre-eminently in the interconnected domains of literature and film. This book demonstrates that those responses have been sustained as vital experiments and engagements in configuring the city and its inhabitants. Including essays by prominent cultural, literary and film historians this volume forms an original and incisive contribution to ongoing debates about the city's intricate cultural history and its construction through both language and image, as a crucial site of identity, desire, exile and displacement. Gail Cunningham is Professor of English and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Kingston University. Her recent publications include Houses in Between (CUP, 2004) Anna Lombard (Birmingham University Press, 2002) and He-Notes: Reconstructing Masculinity (Palgrave, 2000). Stephen Barber is a Professor of Media Arts at Kingston University. His most recent publications include The Vanishing Map (Berg, 2006), Hijikata (Creation, 2006) and The Art of Destruction (Creation 2004). He has been awarded international prizes and awards for his work by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Getty Program, the Ford Foundation, the DAAD Berlin Artists and Writers Programme, the Annenberg Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust, the Japan Foundation, the British Academy, the Daiwa Foundation, the Saison Foundation, and the London Arts Board.

London Lives

London Lives
Author: Tim Hitchcock
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2015-12-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107025273

This book surveys the lives and experiences of hundreds of thousands of eighteenth-century non-elite Londoners in the evolution of the modern world.

Limited Edition

Limited Edition
Author: Sophie Lovell
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2013-01-30
Genre: Design
ISBN: 303460890X

Limited Edition is the new buzzword in furniture design. The demand for unique pieces is steadily increasing. With prototypes, one-offs and limited product lines, designers are celebrating a cult of individuality for all price classes. Furniture prototypes have always been an element of the industrial design process, but now they are being brought from the workshops and presented to the public as embodiments of one of the most exciting creative fields of our age. In the global village with its standardized commodities, exclusive one-offs with an artisanal flavor are turning into coveted objects. Limited furniture series satisfy the collector’s thirst for objects that dissolve the boundary between art and design. Limited Edition pursues this new phenomenon and uncovers its background in meticulous investigative essays based on the author’s ongoing interchange with key designers, gallery owners, auctioneers and manufacturers. With a rich selection of magnificent images and an attractive layout, it presents the best and most breathtaking pieces by the leading designers.