From Cult To Culture

Author : Roger Sandall
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429976348
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.46/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Culture Cult written by Roger Sandall and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-02-19 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Culture Cultis an acerbic critique of that longing widespread in society today to ?retreat from civilization.? From Rousseau and the Noble Savage to modern defenders of ethnicity such as Isaiah Berlin and Karl Polanyi, a prominent intellectual tradition has over-romanticized the virtues of tribal life. In contrast, another tradition, represented by Karl Popper, Michael Polanyi, and Ernest Gellner, defends modern values and civil society. The Culture Cult discusses both sides of this divide between "culture" and "civilization," and between "closed" and "open" societies. The romantic insistence on the superiority of the primitive is increasingly grounded in a fictionalized picture of the past-a picture often created with the aid of well-meaning but misguided anthropologists. Such idealizations work to the detriment of the very people they are meant to help, for they isolate minorities from such undeniable benefits of modern society as literacy and health care, and discourage them from participating in modern life. Few will find comfort in The Culture Cult, but many will recognize a valuable criticism of currently popular social politics.

Author : Olga Dror
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824829727
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Cult, Culture, and Authority written by Olga Dror and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Princess Lieu Hanh, often called the Mother of the Vietnamese people by her followers, is one of the most prominent goddesses in Vietnamese popular religion. First emerging some four centuries ago as a local sect appealing to women, the princess' cult has since transcended its geographical and gender boundaries and remains vibrant today. Who was this revered deity? Was she a virtuous woman or a prostitute? Why did people begin worshiping her and why have they continued? Cult, Culture, and Authority traces Lieu Hanh's cult from its ostensible appearance in the sixteenth century to its present-day prominence in North Vietnam and considers it from a broad range of perspectives, as religion and literature and in the context of politics and society. Over time, Lieu Hanh's personality and cult became the subject of numerous literary accounts, and these historical texts are a major source for this book. Author Olga Dror explores the authorship and historical context of each text considered, treating her subject in an interdisciplinary way. Her interest lies in how these accounts reflect the various political agendas of successive generations of intellectuals and officials. The same cult was called into service for a variety of ideological ends: feminism, nationalism, Buddhism, or Daoism.

Author : Holger Jebens
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 9780824828516
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Cargo, Cult, and Culture Critique written by Holger Jebens and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2004-09-30 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cargo cults have long exerted a remarkable attraction on Westerners, and the last decade has seen the publication of much new work on the subject. This collection of original essays is based on fieldwork in Melanesia, Fiji, Australia, and Indonesia by scholars who are influential in the contemporary debate on cargo. Conceived as a reader for undergraduate and graduate courses, the volume offers an up-to-date view of the subject and the debates it arouses among contemporary anthropologists. Some contributors plead for the abolition of "cargo" because of its troublesome implications, but also because, in the authors’ view, cargo cults do not exist as identifiable objects of study. Others argue that it is precisely this troublesome nature that makes the term a useful analytical tool that should be welcomed rather than rejected. By delineating and substantiating key issues and positions in this lively and ongoing debate, this volume underscores and refines the contemporary reevaluation of cargo cults. Scholars of the Pacific region and others interested in new religious movements should find this volume both enlightening and compelling. Contributors: Nils Bubandt, Vincent Crapanzano, Douglas M. Dalton, Elfriede Hermann, Holger Jebens, Martha Kaplan, Karl-Heinz Kohl, Stephen C. Leavitt, Lamont Lindstrom, Ton Otto, Joel Robbins, Jaap Timmer, Robert Tonkinson.

Author : Jacob Taubes
Publisher : Cultural Memory in the Present
ISBN 13 : 9780804739832
Total Pages : 397 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

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Download or read book From Cult to Culture written by Jacob Taubes and published by Cultural Memory in the Present. This book was released on 2010 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is the English edition of a collection of essays by Jacob Taubes, one of the most creative and idiosyncratic philosophers of religion in Germany of the second half of the twentieth century.

Author : Jacob Taubes
Publisher : Cultural Memory in the Present
ISBN 13 : 9780804739849
Total Pages : 397 pages
Book Rating : 4.46/5 ( download)

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Download or read book From Cult to Culture written by Jacob Taubes and published by Cultural Memory in the Present. This book was released on 2010 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book is the English edition of a collection of essays by Jacob Taubes, one of the most creative and idiosyncratic philosophers of religion in Germany of the second half of the twentieth century.

Author : Jacob Taubes
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804760284
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.87/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Occidental Eschatology written by Jacob Taubes and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Occidental Eschatology is a study of apocalypticism and its effects on Western philosophy. One of the great Jewish intellectuals of the twentieth century, Taubes published only this one book during his life, and here the English translation finally becomes available.

Author : Amanda Montell
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062993178
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Cultish written by Amanda Montell and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-06-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of the widely praised Wordslut analyzes the social science of cult influence: how cultish groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus use language as the ultimate form of power. What makes “cults” so intriguing and frightening? What makes them powerful? The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries by the dozen and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we’re looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join—and more importantly, stay in—extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me? Amanda Montell’s argument is that, on some level, it already has . . . Our culture tends to provide pretty flimsy answers to questions of cult influence, mostly having to do with vague talk of “brainwashing.” But the true answer has nothing to do with freaky mind-control wizardry or Kool-Aid. In Cultish, Montell argues that the key to manufacturing intense ideology, community, and us/them attitudes all comes down to language. In both positive ways and shadowy ones, cultish language is something we hear—and are influenced by—every single day. Through juicy storytelling and cutting original research, Montell exposes the verbal elements that make a wide spectrum of communities “cultish,” revealing how they affect followers of groups as notorious as Heaven’s Gate, but also how they pervade our modern start-ups, Peloton leaderboards, and Instagram feeds. Incisive and darkly funny, this enrapturing take on the curious social science of power and belief will make you hear the fanatical language of “cultish” everywhere.

Author : Claudia L. Johnson
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022615503X
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Jane Austen's Cults and Cultures written by Claudia L. Johnson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-04-04 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Johnson begins by exploring the most important monuments and portraits of Austen, considering how these artifacts point to an author who is invisible and yet whose image is inseparable from the characters and fictional worlds she created. She then passes through the four critical phases of Austen's reception.

Author : Matthew Hills
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134551983
Total Pages : 247 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Fan Cultures written by Matthew Hills and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emphasising the contradictions of fandom, Matt Hills outlines how media fans have been conceptualised in cultural theory. Drawing on case studies of specific fan groups, from Elvis impersonators to X-Philes and Trekkers, Hills discusses a range of approaches to fandom, from the Frankfurt School to psychoanalytic readings, and asks whether the development of new media creates the possibility of new forms of fandom. Fan Cultures also explores the notion of "fan cults" or followings, considering how media fans perform the distinctions of 'cult' status.

Author : Andrew Keen
Publisher : Currency
ISBN 13 : 0385520816
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Cult of the Amateur written by Andrew Keen and published by Currency. This book was released on 2008-08-12 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amateur hour has arrived, and the audience is running the show In a hard-hitting and provocative polemic, Silicon Valley insider and pundit Andrew Keen exposes the grave consequences of today’s new participatory Web 2.0 and reveals how it threatens our values, economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity that forms the fabric of American achievement. Our most valued cultural institutions, Keen warns—our professional newspapers, magazines, music, and movies—are being overtaken by an avalanche of amateur, user-generated free content. Advertising revenue is being siphoned off by free classified ads on sites like Craigslist; television networks are under attack from free user-generated programming on YouTube and the like; file-sharing and digital piracy have devastated the multibillion-dollar music business and threaten to undermine our movie industry. Worse, Keen claims, our “cut-and-paste” online culture—in which intellectual property is freely swapped, downloaded, remashed, and aggregated—threatens over 200 years of copyright protection and intellectual property rights, robbing artists, authors, journalists, musicians, editors, and producers of the fruits of their creative labors. In today’s self-broadcasting culture, where amateurism is celebrated and anyone with an opinion, however ill-informed, can publish a blog, post a video on YouTube, or change an entry on Wikipedia, the distinction between trained expert and uninformed amateur becomes dangerously blurred. When anonymous bloggers and videographers, unconstrained by professional standards or editorial filters, can alter the public debate and manipulate public opinion, truth becomes a commodity to be bought, sold, packaged, and reinvented. The very anonymity that the Web 2.0 offers calls into question the reliability of the information we receive and creates an environment in which sexual predators and identity thieves can roam free. While no Luddite—Keen pioneered several Internet startups himself—he urges us to consider the consequences of blindly supporting a culture that endorses plagiarism and piracy and that fundamentally weakens traditional media and creative institutions. Offering concrete solutions on how we can reign in the free-wheeling, narcissistic atmosphere that pervades the Web, THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR is a wake-up call to each and every one of us.