Empire Signs

Author : Roland Barthes
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 9780374522070
Total Pages : 132 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Empire of Signs written by Roland Barthes and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1982 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology by Roland Barthes is a reflection on his travels to Japan in the 1960s. In twenty-six short chapters he writes about his encounters with symbols of Japanese culture as diverse as pachinko, train stations, chopsticks, food, physiognomy, poetry, and gift-wrapping. He muses elegantly on, and with affection for, a system "altogether detached from our own." For Barthes, the sign here does not signify, and so offers liberation from the West's endless creation of meaning. Tokyo, like all major cities, has a center--the Imperial Palace--but in this case it is empty, "both forbidden and indifferent ... inhabited by an emperor whom no one ever sees." This emptiness of the sign is pursued throughout the book, and offers a stimulating alternative line of thought about the ways in which cultures are structured.

Author : Karen Fang
Publisher : University of Virginia Press
ISBN 13 : 0813928826
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Romantic Writing and the Empire of Signs written by Karen Fang and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2010-02-02 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nineteenth-century periodicals frequently compared themselves to the imperial powers then dissecting the globe, and this interest in imperialism can be seen in the exotic motifs that surfaced in works by such late Romantic authors as John Keats, Charles Lamb, James Hogg, Letitia Landon, and Lord Byron. Karen Fang explores the collaboration of these authors with periodical magazines to show how an interdependent relationship between these visual themes and rhetorical style enabled these authors to model their writing on the imperial project. Fang argues that in the decades after Waterloo late Romantic authors used imperial culture to capitalize on the contemporary explosion of periodical magazines. This proliferation of "post-Napoleonic" writing—often referencing exotic locales—both revises longstanding notions about literary orientalism and reveals a remarkable synthesis of Romantic idealism with contemporary cultural materialism that heretofore has not been explored. Indeed, in interlocking case studies that span the reach of British conquest, ranging from Greece, China, and Egypt to Italy and Tahiti, Fang challenges a major convention of periodical publication. While periodicals are usually thought to be defined by time, this account of the geographic attention exerted by late Romantic authors shows them to be equally concerned with space. With its exploration of magazines and imperialism as a context for Romantic writing, culture, and aesthetics, this book will appeal not only to scholars of book history and reading cultures but also to those of nineteenth-century British writing and history.

Author : Yoshihiko Ikegami
Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9027285934
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Empire of Signs written by Yoshihiko Ikegami and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1991-04-19 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like Roland Barthes' well-known book, L’Empire des signes, from which the title of the present collection is taken, this volume contains essays dealing with certain aspects of Japanese culture.

Author : Françoise Waquet
Publisher : Verso
ISBN 13 : 9781859846155
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.57/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Latin, Or, The Empire of the Sign written by Françoise Waquet and published by Verso. This book was released on 2001 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Latin: A Symbol's Empire is a work of reference and a piece of cultural history: the story of a language that became a symbol with its own, highly significant empire."--BOOK JACKET.

Author : Andrew Apter
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226023567
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Pan-African Nation written by Andrew Apter and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Nigeria hosted the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in 1977, it celebrated a global vision of black nationhood and citizenship animated by the exuberance of its recent oil boom. Andrew Apter's The Pan-African Nation tells the full story of this cultural extravaganza, from Nigeria's spectacular rebirth as a rapidly developing petro-state to its dramatic demise when the boom went bust. According to Apter, FESTAC expanded the horizons of blackness in Nigeria to mirror the global circuits of its economy. By showcasing masks, dances, images, and souvenirs from its many diverse ethnic groups, Nigeria forged a new national culture. In the grandeur of this oil-fed confidence, the nation subsumed all black and African cultures within its empire of cultural signs and erased its colonial legacies from collective memory. As the oil economy collapsed, however, cultural signs became unstable, contributing to rampant violence and dissimulation. The Pan-African Nation unpacks FESTAC as a historically situated mirror of production in Nigeria. More broadly, it points towards a critique of the political economy of the sign in postcolonial Africa.

Author : Jüri Lina
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Under the Sign of the Scorpion written by Jüri Lina and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Eric Hobsbawm
Publisher : Pantheon
ISBN 13 : 0307489027
Total Pages : 128 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book On Empire written by Eric Hobsbawm and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2008-11-26 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In these four incisive and keenly perceptive essays, one of out most celebrated and respected historians of modern Europe looks at the world situation and some of the major political problems confronting us at the start of the third millennium. With his usual measured and brilliant historical perspective, Eric Hobsbawm traces the rise of American hegemony in the twenty-first century. He examines the state of steadily increasing world disorder in the context of rapidly growing inequalities created by rampant free-market globalization. He makes clear that there is no longer a plural power system of states whose relations are governed by common laws--including those for the conduct of war. He scrutinizes America's policies, particularly its use of the threat of terrorism as an excuse for unilateral deployment of its global power. Finally, he discusses the ways in which the current American hegemony differs from the defunct British Empire in its inception, its ideology, and its effects on nations and individuals. Hobsbawm is particularly astute in assessing the United States' assertion of world hegemony, its denunciation of formerly accepted international conventions, and its launching of wars of aggression when it sees fit. Aside from the naivete and failure that have surrounded most of these imperial campaigns, Hobsbawm points out that foreign values and institutions--including those associated with a democratic government--can rarely be imposed on countries such as Iraq by outside forces unless the conditions exist that make them acceptable and readily adaptable. Timely and accessible, On Empire is a commanding work of history that should be read by anyone who wants some understanding of the turbulent times in which we live.

Author : Gabriele Esposito
Publisher : Casemate Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1526730383
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Armies of the Late Roman Empire, AD 284–476 written by Gabriele Esposito and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2018-10-30 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated guide to the organization, structure, equipment, weapons, combat history, and tactics of the Late Roman military forces. This guide to the Late Roman Army focusses on the dramatic and crucial period that started with the accession of Diocletian and ended with the definitive fall of the Western Roman Empire. This was a turbulent period during which the Roman state and its armed forces changed. Gabriele Esposito challenges many stereotypes and misconceptions regarding the Late Roman Army; for example, he argues that the Roman military machine remained a reliable and efficient one until the very last decades of the Western Empire. The author describes the organization, structure, equipment, weapons, combat history and tactics of Late Roman military forces. The comitatenses (field armies), limitanei (frontier units), foederati (allied soldiers), bucellarii (mercenaries), scholae palatinae (mounted bodyguards), protectores (personal guards) and many other kinds of troops are covered. The book is lavishly illustrated in color, including the shield devices from the Notitia Dignitatum. The origins and causes for the final military fall of the Empire are discussed in detail, as well as the influence of the “barbarian” peoples on the Roman Army. Praise for Armies of the Late Roman Empire, AD 284–476 “An excellent introduction to the subject for the novice, and seasoned students of the subject may find it of use as well.” —The NYMAS Review “This beautifully illustrated book depicts the very different arms and armour of the late Roman Empire as Roman soldiers adapted to the challenges of the rising barbarian armies . . . Very Highly Recommended.” —Firetrench “Superbly well-illustrated . . . historians, re-enactors and war gamers will find invaluable to understanding and picturing the Roman forces.” —Hoplite Association

Author : Felicity Dale Elliston Scott
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9783956791871
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Disorientation written by Felicity Dale Elliston Scott and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Viennese émigré architect Bernard Rudofsky (1905-1988) is most frequently recalled for curating "Architecture without Architects," the famous 1964 photography exhibition of vernacular, preindustrial structures at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Far from simply a romantic or nostalgic invocation of cultures lost to industrial modernity, Rudofsky's exhibition drew on decades of speculations about modern architecture and urbanism, particularly their semantic, technological, institutional, commercial, and geopolitical influences. Focusing on Rudofsky's encounters with Japan in the 1950s--he described postwar Japan as a "rear-view mirror" of the American way of life--architectural historian Felicity D. Scott revisits the architect's readings of the vernacular both in the United States and Japan, which resonate with his attempts to imagine architecture and cities that refused to communicate in a normative sense. In a contemporary world saturated with visual information, Rudofsky's unconventional musings take on a heightened resonance. Critical Spatial Practice 7 Edited by Nikolaus Hirsch, Markus Miessen Featuring artwork by Martin Beck

Author : Roland Barthes
Publisher : French List
ISBN 13 : 9781803092744
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Signs and Images written by Roland Barthes and published by French List. This book was released on 2023-08-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major collection of essays and interviews from an iconic 20th-century philosopher in five volumes, now all available together in paperback. Roland Barthes was a restless, protean thinker. A constant innovator--often as a daring smuggler of ideas from one discipline to another--he first gained an audience with his pithy essays on mass culture and then went on to produce some of the most suggestive and stimulating cultural criticism of the late twentieth century, including Empire of Signs, The Pleasure of the Text, and Camera Lucida. In 1976, this one-time structuralist outsider was elected to a chair at France's preeminent Collège de France, where he chose to style himself as a professor of literary semiology until his death in 1980. The greater part of Barthes's published writings has been available to a French audience since 2002, but now, translator Chris Turner presents a collection of essays, interviews, prefaces, book reviews, and other journalistic material for the first time in English and divided into five themed volumes. Volume four, Signs and Images, gathers pieces related to his central concerns--semiotics, visual culture, art, cinema, and photography--and features essays on Marthe Arnould, Lucien Clergue, Daniel Boudinet, Richard Avedon, Bernard Faucon, and many more.