Precarious Japan

Precarious Japan
Author: Anne Allison
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2014-02-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0822377241

In an era of irregular labor, nagging recession, nuclear contamination, and a shrinking population, Japan is facing precarious times. How the Japanese experience insecurity in their daily and social lives is the subject of Precarious Japan. Tacking between the structural conditions of socioeconomic life and the ways people are making do, or not, Anne Allison chronicles the loss of home affecting many Japanese, not only in the literal sense but also in the figurative sense of not belonging. Until the collapse of Japan's economic bubble in 1991, lifelong employment and a secure income were within reach of most Japanese men, enabling them to maintain their families in a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. Now, as fewer and fewer people are able to find full-time work, hope turns to hopelessness and security gives way to a pervasive unease. Yet some Japanese are getting by, partly by reconceiving notions of home, family, and togetherness.

The New Me

The New Me
Author: Halle Butler
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2019-03-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0525505407

"[A] definitive work of millennial literature . . . wretchedly riveting." —Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker “Girls + Office Space + My Year of Rest and Relaxation + anxious sweating = The New Me.” —Entertainment Weekly I'm still trying to make the dream possible: still might finish my cleaning project, still might sign up for that yoga class, still might, still might. I step into the shower and almost faint, an image of taking the day by the throat and bashing its head against the wall floating in my mind. Thirty-year-old Millie just can't pull it together. She spends her days working a thankless temp job and her nights alone in her apartment, fixating on all the ways she might change her situation--her job, her attitude, her appearance, her life. Then she watches TV until she falls asleep, and the cycle begins again. When the possibility of a full-time job offer arises, it seems to bring the better life she's envisioning within reach. But with it also comes the paralyzing realization, lurking just beneath the surface, of how hollow that vision has become. "Wretchedly riveting" (The New Yorker) and "masterfully cringe-inducing" (Chicago Tribune), The New Me is the must-read new novel by National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" honoree and Granta Best Young American novelist Halle Butler. Named a Best Book of the Decade by Vox, and a Best Book of 2019 by Vanity Fair, Vulture, Chicago Tribune, Mashable, Bustle, and NPR

The Great Transition

The Great Transition
Author: B. M. S. Campbell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 491
Release: 2016-06-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0521195888

Major account of the fourteenth-century crisis which saw a series of famines, revolts and epidemics transform the medieval world.

Ruined

Ruined
Author: Amy Tintera
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2016-05-03
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0062396625

New York Times bestseller Amy Tintera’s YA fantasy trilogy blends the romance of Kiera Cass’s Selection series and the epic stakes of Victoria Aveyard’s Red Queen in a story of revenge, adventure, and unexpected love. Emelina Flores has nothing. Her home in Ruina has been ravaged by war; her parents were killed and her sister was kidnapped. Even though Em is only a useless Ruined—completely lacking any magic—she is determined to get revenge. Her plan is simple: She will infiltrate the enemy’s kingdom, posing as the crown prince’s betrothed. She will lead an ambush. She will kill the king and everything he holds dear, including his son. The closer Em gets to the prince, though, the more she questions her mission. Her rage-filled heart begins to soften. But with her life—and her family—on the line, love could be Em’s deadliest mistake.

Precarious Imaginaries of Beirut

Precarious Imaginaries of Beirut
Author: Judith Naeff
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2017-12-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319659332

This book investigates a shared experience of time and space in the post-civil-war city of Beirut: “the suspended now”. Based on the close analysis of a large corpus of cultural objects; including visual art, literature, architecture and cinema; the book argues that last decades have witnessed a gradual shift in understanding this temporality from being a transitional phase to a more durable experience of precariousness. The theoretically rich analyses take us on a journey through Beirut’s real and imagined geographies, from garbage dumps to real estate advertisements, and from subterranean spaces to martyr’s posters. For scholars of cultural analysis, urban studies, cultural geography and critical theory, the case of post-1990 Beirut offers a fascinating case of neoliberal urban renewal, which challenges existing theories. For scholars of Lebanon and Beirut, this study complements existing work on post-civil-war Lebanese cultural production rooted in trauma studies by its focus on the city’s continual exposure to violence.

On the Museum's Ruins

On the Museum's Ruins
Author: Douglas Crimp
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 374
Release: 1993
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780262531269

"What determines the significance of a work of art? Doe it abide eternally within the work? Or is it continually constructed and reconstructed from the outside, through the work's presentation? The historical shift from autonomous modernist object to postmodernist critique of institutions, from artwork to discursive context, is the subject of Douglas Crimp's essays and Louise Lawler's photographs in On the Museum's Ruins. Taking the museum as paradigmatic institution of artistic modernism, Crimp surveys its historical origins and current transformations. The new paradigm of postmodernism is elaborated through analyses of art practices broadly conceived--not only the practices of artists but also those of critics and curators, of international exhibitions, and of new or refurbished museums."--back cover.

The Mushroom at the End of the World

The Mushroom at the End of the World
Author: Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2021-06-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0691220557

"A tale of diversity within our damaged landscapes, The Mushroom at the End of the World follows one of the strangest commodity chains of our times to explore the unexpected corners of capitalism. Here, we witness the varied and peculiar worlds of matsutake commerce: the worlds of Japanese gourmets, capitalist traders, Hmong jungle fighters, industrial forests, Yi Chinese goat herders, Finnish nature guides, and more. These companions also lead us into fungal ecologies and forest histories to better understand the promise of cohabitation in a time of massive human destruction."--Publisher's description.

Conservation

Conservation
Author: Alison Richmond
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2010-07-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1136441697

* Conservation ethics and principles, such as minimum intervention, integrity and authenticity of an object, addressed from a wide range of professional and academic viewpoints, including contributions from curators, museology theorists and philosophers * Theory and principles presented and analysed both from a Western perspective and outside the boundaries of North America and Europe * Brings together conservation theory relevant to collections, historic buildings, monuments and archaeological sites

Capitalism on Edge

Capitalism on Edge
Author: Albena Azmanova
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2020-01-14
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0231530609

The wake of the financial crisis has inspired hopes for dramatic change and stirred visions of capitalism’s terminal collapse. Yet capitalism is not on its deathbed, utopia is not in our future, and revolution is not in the cards. In Capitalism on Edge, Albena Azmanova demonstrates that radical progressive change is still attainable, but it must come from an unexpected direction. Azmanova’s new critique of capitalism focuses on the competitive pursuit of profit rather than on forms of ownership and patterns of wealth distribution. She contends that neoliberal capitalism has mutated into a new form—precarity capitalism—marked by the emergence of a precarious multitude. Widespread economic insecurity ails the 99 percent across differences in income, education, and professional occupation; it is the underlying cause of such diverse hardships as work-related stress and chronic unemployment. In response, Azmanova calls for forging a broad alliance of strange bedfellows whose discontent would challenge not only capitalism’s unfair outcomes but also the drive for profit at its core. To achieve this synthesis, progressive forces need to go beyond the old ideological certitudes of, on the left, fighting inequality and, on the right, increasing competition. Azmanova details reforms that would enable a dramatic transformation of the current system without a revolutionary break. An iconoclastic critique of left orthodoxy, Capitalism on Edge confronts the intellectual and political impasses of our time to discern a new path of emancipation.

The Precariat

The Precariat
Author: Guy Standing
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2021-07-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0755637097

This book presents the new Precariat – the rapidly growing number of people facing lives of insecurity, on zero hours contracts, moving in and out of jobs that give little meaning to their lives. The delivery driver who brings your packages, the uber driver who gets you to work, the security guard at the mall, the carer looking after our elderly...these are The Precariat. Guy Standing investigates this new and growing group, finding a frustrated and angry new underclass who are often ignored by politicians and economists. The rise of zero hours contracts, encouraged by fat cat corporations as risk-free employment, and by silicon valley as a way of outsourcing costs and responsibility, has been exacerbated by the COVID pandemic. At the same time, in its experience of lockdown, the western world is realizing the true value of these nurses, carers and key workers. The answer? The return of income security and meaningful work - the principles 20th century capitalism was built on. By making the fears and desires of the Precariat central to economic thinking, Standing shows how concepts like Basic Income are not just desirable but inevitable, and plots the way to a better future.