At the beginning of the twenty-first century, scholarly interest in ceramics is at an all-time high. As a vehicle for much-needed synthesis, Ceramics in America is an interdisciplinary annual journal that examines the role of historical ceramics in the American context. Intended for collectors, historical archaeologists, curators, decorative arts students, social historians and contemporary potters, every issue features a variety of ground-breaking scholarly articles, new discoveries in the field, and book and exhibition reviews for this diverse audience. The 2005 issue of Ceramics in America will feature a diverse lineup of articles and new discoveries. Of particular interest will be articles covering early American stoneware from Baltimore and Richmond, Virginia. Of interest to both ceramic collectors and social historians is an article reviewing ceramics related to the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Echo and Reverb is the first history of acoustically imagined space in popular music recording. The book documents how acoustic effects-reverberation, room ambience, and echo-have been used in recordings since the 1920s to create virtual sonic architectures and landscapes. Author Peter Doyle traces the development of these acoustically-created worlds from the ancient Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus to the dramatic acoustic architectures of the medieval cathedral, the grand concert halls of the 19th century, and those created by the humble parlor phonograph of the early 20th century, and finally, the revolutionary age of rock 'n' roll. Citing recordings ranging from Gene Austin's 'My Blue Heaven' to Elvis Presley's 'Mystery Train,' Doyle illustrates how non-musical sound constructs, with all their rich and contradictory baggage, became a central feature of recorded music. The book traces various imagined worlds created with synthetic echo and reverb-the heroic landscapes of the cowboy west, the twilight shores of south sea islands, the uncanny alleys of dark cityscapes, the weird mindspaces of horror movies, the private and collective spaces of teen experience, and the funky juke-joints of the mind.

This inspired collection of over sixty original paintings, stone carvings and woodcut prints by Greg Tricker portrays the human suffering, exultation, compassion and joy of the life of St Francis; with their visionary quality, they present a fresh contemporary image of St Francis. Greg Tricker travelled to Assisi to research St Francis, drawing inspiration from the small church of San Damiano where the saint prayed and the square of San Rufino where he preached; and by walking through the beautiful olive groves and hills that surround Assisi.The plates, many of which have not been seen before, are complemented by a lively text on the historical background and life of St Francis by artist and teacher Johannes Steuck, and a spirited introduction by writer and philosopher Jeremy Naydler.

Drawing on his background as an ethnomusicologist as well as years of experience as an accomplished jazz musician, Paul Austerlitz argues that jazz-and the world-view or consciousness that surrounds it-embodies an aesthetic of inclusiveness, reaching out from its African American base to embrace all of humanity. Fans and musicians have made this claim before, but Austerlitz is the first to provide a scholarly basis for it. He examines jazz in relation to race and national identity in the U. S. and then broadens his scope to consider jazz within the African diaspora and in very different transnational scenes, from the Dominican Republic to Finland. Based on extensive fieldwork, the book explores jazz in an extraordinary range of contexts. One of the central chapters is devoted to the history of the groundbreaking Latin jazz band of Machito and his Afro-Cubans, who were inspired by the dancing of both Harlemites and Jewish mamboniks, while the final chapter includes an extensive interview with the seminal drummer Milford Graves, one of Austerlitz's mentors, who holds that music profoundly influences our biorhythms and indeed shapes our thoughts.

Luke Swank: Modernist Photographer reintroduces the work of an important artist who had been relegated to virtual anonymity after his untimely death in 1944. As both a biography of Swank (1890-1944) and an analysis of his work, the book focuses on his essential contribution to the modernist movement and positions Swank alongside contemporaries Edward Weston, Margaret Bourke-White, and Walker Evans. In 1930, at age forty, Luke Swank was selling cars in his hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Just two years later, his five-part photo mural “Steel Plant” was featured in Murals by American Painters and Photographers, the first show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York to include photography. Although Swank’s images share stylistic similarities with many of the modernists, they also reveal his unique visual poetry. His compositional exploration, technical virtuousity, and use of intense highlight and shadow and geometric forms and lines affirm his contributions to the modernist movement and the emerging art of photography.

New York has appeared in more movies than Michael Caine, and as a result of overfamiliarity, the City poses a problem for critics and casual moviegoers alike. Audiences mistake the New York image of skyscrapers and glitter for the real thing, but in fact the City is a network of small villages, each with its unique personality. Street Smart offers a novel approach to understanding the cultural influences of New York's neighborhoods on the work of four quintessentially New York filmmakers: Sidney Lumet, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Spike Lee. The city's diverse economic and ethnic enclaves, where people live, work, shop, worship, bank, and go to school, often have little relationship to the concept of New York City created by the movies. Their New York, however, is as real as the smell of fried onions in the stairwell of an apartment building, and it is this New York, not the movie New York, that has left its impression on their films. Lumet, Allen, Scorsese, and Lee's imaginations have been shaped by their neighborhoods, not the New York of the movies. In turn, these directors have used their own life experiences to shape their films. Richard A. Blake examines their home villages -- from Flatbush and Fort Green in Brooklyn to the Lower East Side of Manhattan -- to enrich our critical understanding of the films of four of America's most accomplished contemporary filmmakers.

This collection of seventeen essays explores the dramatic changes in Western conceptions of the body, encompassing the cultural shifts that occurred across Empire, religion and science, from antiquity to the eighteenth century.

Though wildly popular, daytime soaps are arguably the most denigrated and parodied of any contemporary entertainment form. For this reason, even the most devoted soap opera fans are often reticent or even secretive about the shows they love. Watching Daytime Soap Operas is a meditation on the pleasures-and displeasures-of watching and talking about daytime soap operas. In this multidisciplinary study, Louise Spence talks to 25 women about their mostly solitary viewing practices and observes many Internet chat rooms. Over 20 years in the making, the book explores the varied critical and creative ways in which the women use soap operas in their lives. Spence draws on work in reception studies, and pays particular attention to the question of what it means to be a fan. She ultimately challenges the accepted belief that soap opera viewers are passive consumers of escapist fantasy. Her study expands the current literature of this largely misunderstood television genre while making an important contribution to the field of film-TV studies.

This book is devoted to a monumental and superbly illuminated very large early fourteenth-century Mamluk Qur'an in muhaqqaq script. It constitutes the final part (Juz' 30) of a superb two-volume Qur'an of which the first volume is preserved in the National Museum in Damascus while the second volume, from which the present section originates, is widely dispersed. Remarkably, here the final part of the Qur'an is reunited with its magnificent and richly decorated double finispieces, thus reassembling what must have been among the most striking and lavishly illuminated sections of the entire manuscript. The high degree of inventiveness along with the overall quality of the manuscript point to the work of a master artist. Especially the geometric proficiency suggests the work of Muhammad ibn Mubadir, one of the leading illuminators in Mamluk Cairo at the turn of the thirteenth century. Although little is known of the life of this artist, his illumination in the Baybars al-Jashnagir Qur'an, now in the British Library, and a Qur'an copied in 1306-10 for an unknown patron, now in the Chester Beatty Library, constitute some of the most celebrated achievements of Mamluk Qur'an illumination.

Max Fleischer (1883--1972) was for years considered Walt Disney's only real rival in the world of cartoon animation. The man behind the creation of such legendary characters as Betty Boop and the animation of Popeye the Sailor and Superman, Fleischer asserted himself as a major player in the development of Hollywood entertainment. Out of the Inkwell: Max Fleischer and the Animation Revolution is a vivid portrait of the life and world of a man who shaped the look of cartoon animation. While deeply engaged with his characters, Fleischer also sought ways to improve his art through technical innovation. Among the many patented inventions Fleischer created was his Rotoscope, a device that helped track live action on-screen and revolutionized the way animated characters appeared and moved. In the 1920s, Fleischer and his brother Dave teamed up to create a series of "Out of the Inkwell" films, which led to a deal with Paramount. Films featuring their character Ko-Ko the Clown introduced new special effects such as startling combinations of live action and animation. In one piece, Ko-Ko emerges from an inkblot and appears on-screen with footage of Fleischer himself. As the sound revolution hit film, the studio produced shorts featuring the characters interacting with songs. The Fleischers involved jazz artists such as Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong, and the sound cartoons were a howling success. In the next decade, Fleischer Studios produced the features Gulliver's Travels and Mr. Bug Goes to Town and soon went to work on an animated Superman series, which won widespread critical and popular acclaim. In spite of its great popularity and success, however, the studio was abruptly closed. The animated cartoon industry was shocked, and the event went unexplained for many years. Now, Max's son Richard has at last solved the mystery of the shuttering of Fleischer Studios. Max Fleischer's story is one of a creative genius struggling to fit in with the changing culture of golden age cinema. Out of the Inkwell captures the twists and turns, the triumphs and disappointments, and most of all the breathless energy of a life vibrantly lived in the world of animation magic.

Moving beyond the biographical and journalistic approaches of most writing on Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A. was the first major work of cultural criticism to situate Springsteen's work in the broader sweep of American history-the heir of Walt Whitman and Woody Guthrie, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. Springsteen is an influential chronicler of our society, says Jim Cullen, a "good conservative" who preserves the traditional values of hard work, inclusive families, and genuine concern for the less fortunate. In the new edition to this landmark work, Cullen also discusses new currents in Springsteen's music since 9/11, notably his 2002 album The Rising. This Wesleyan edition includes a new foreword, introduction, and afterword. Must reading for any serious fan-or anyone who has ever been curious about what all the fuss has been about.

Excursion for Miracles is an intimate portrait of the early choreographic careers of Donya Feuer and Paul Sanasardo, and the artistic significance of their Studio for Dance in New York City. These two dynamic individuals were committed to breaking set ways of thinking about dance in relation to life, and their work with a group of very young children and dancers such as Pina Bausch anticipated radical cultural thought of the 1960s, particularly with the unrecognized masterpiece "Laughter after All." Author Mark Franko, who danced with Sanasardo for five years, also brings to life the creativity and intimacy involved in four Feuer/Sanasardo evening-length ballets. The book is lavishly illustrated with 75 stunning black and white still shots of the dancers that capture their energy at precise moments, giving sight to the conversation and analyses surrounding them.

During its seven-year run, Buffy the Vampire Slayer attracted a wide range of viewers and almost unprecedented academic interest. Sex and the Slayer explores one of the most talked-about topics in relation to this pioneering TV series-gender. As fantasy, Buffy potentially opens up a space for alternative representations of gender. But how alternative can popular television be? Taking a feminist cultural studies approach, Jowett explores the ways in which the series represents femininity, masculinity, and gendered relations, including sexuality and sexual orientation. Written for undergraduates, Sex and the Slayer provides an introduction to the most important theoretical and historical underpinnings of contemporary gender criticism as it examines a range of thought-provoking issues: role reversal, the tension between feminism and femininity, the "crisis" of masculinity, gender hybridity, the appeal of bad girls, romance, and changing family structures. Through this introductory analysis, Jowett shows that Buffy presents a contradictory mixture of "subversive" and "conservative" images of gender roles and as such is a key example of the complexity of gender representation in contemporary television.

Novelist and essayist Hilary Masters recreates a moment in 1940s Pittsburgh when circumstances, ideology, and a passion for the arts collided to produce a masterpiece in another part of the world. E. J. Kaufmann, the so-called "merchant prince" who commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, was a man whose hunger for beauty included women as well as architecture. He had transformed his family's department store into an art deco showcase with murals by Boardman Robinson and now sought to beautify the walls of the YM&WHA of which he was the president. Through his son E.

For more than a thousand years, the paths of the Silk Road joined the distant empires of East Asia and the Mediterranean, forming a complex web of trade, pilgrimage and intellectual exchange between China, Central Asia, Persia, Tibet, India, the Near East and Europe. Interest in the cultures of the Silk Road was renewed in the end of the nineteenth century. In 1907 Sir Aurel Stein (1862-1943) made one of the most sensational archaeological finds of all time: at the Mogao Caves, also known as the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, near Dunhuang, he discovered a library containing thousands of both religious and secular manuscripts dating from the fifth to the eleventh centuries. Most such documents have ended up in institutions like the British Museum, the Bibliothèque Nationale and other national libraries in India, China and Japan. In keeping with the diversity of the Dunhuang discoveries, this book consists of examples of manuscripts in Chinese, Khotanese, Bactrian, Gandhari, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Syriac, Hebrew and Arabic. The material provides a sense of the fruitful exchanges as well as bitter struggles in these regions over the centuries.

Stained glass was unknown in antiquity. Invented around AD 1000, it soon achieved a dominant position in the arts of the Middle Ages, not only in churches but also in secular contexts. Its innovation can be compared with that of television - and like television it involves passing light through a transparent layer, using the light of sun instead of light generated by electricity, so that in a real sense the stained glass image is in constant motion, as the light passing through it changes. Stained glass was linked to all the graphic arts and the most skilled artisans made the drawings for the glassmaker. Even single heads can be masterpieces of draughtsmanship. This book presents a brilliant selection of stained glass now detached from its original location, featuring work related to some of the finest masters of the late Middle Ages, such as the Housebook Master or Domenico Ghirlandaio. All works are fully documented and their provenance traced where possible in an illustrated appendix.