A Useful Art is an invaluable chronicle of a major American poet's engagement with this country's indigenous tradition of design. In 1936, the Federal Arts Project (a division of the WPA) hired Louis Zukofsky, along with many others, to prepare a compendium of information on traditional American crafts. The Index of American Design aimed to define original U. S. culture at a time when interest in handicrafts had just begun to emerge. These previously unpublished essays and radio scripts are scrupulously researched investigations of various American handicrafts: the topics they cover include ironwork, tin ware, furniture maker Duncan Phyfe and friendship quilts. They also reflect Zukofsky's sense of the poem as a crafted object and his attempt to reconcile the labor theory of value with aesthetic production. This book, which can be seen in the context of kindred work by William Carlos William (In the American Grain) and Ezra Pound (Guide to Kulchur), will be of special interest to readers of 20th-century poetry, cultural critics, social historians, and scholars of design.

Richard Ohmann's work is in a class by itself. While editor of College English, and in the three books he published since then, he has created America's most comprehensive vision of how teaching and scholarship are at once part of the university, of society and of history. In Politics of Knowledge, Ohmann's essays and interviews analyze, explain and criticize the roles of the university, the academic professions and publishing in a rearranged America. Focusing on the opposed movements of a more open university and overwhelmingly powerful multinational corporations, he offers language and formulations that will help present generations move closer to the hope that teaching and scholarly work can enhance the lives of all. This scholar, teacher and activist sets his often anecdotal and autobiographical reflections within the broad tapestry of historical, economic and material conditions. It is this combination of the long backward-looking personal perspective and adept critical analysis that have made his work a resource for professors and students alike.

Figure skating is one of the most popular spectator sports in the U.S., yet it eludes definitive categorization. In this engaging new book, Ellyn Kestnbaum examines figure skating from multiple perspectives: as sport, as performance, and even as spectacle, guiding the reader through both the technical aspects of skating and the sometimes convoluted rules of figure skating competition. By careful readings of skating events at the 1994 and 1998 Olympic Games, she argues that figure skating is a language, one whose meaning is inflected by the culture at large. In particular, she looks at the ways in which race, social class and gender all disrupt, subvert or reinforce the practices of figure skating, and examines the influence of the media in shaping perceptions of the sport. As a skater, skating fan and scholar, Kestnbaum brings a unique point of view to this study, providing not only a history of the skating world but also a feeling for what it is like to be on the ice.

Among America's most unusual and successful weapons during the Cold War were Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. RFE-RL had its origins in a post-war America brimming with confidence and secure in its power. Unlike the Voice of America, which conveyed a distinctly American perspective on global events, RFE-RL served as surrogate home radio services and a vital alternative to the controlled, party-dominated domestic press in Eastern Europe. Over twenty stations featured programming tailored to individual countries. They reached millions of listeners ranging from industrial workers to dissident leaders such as Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel.Broadcasting Freedom draws on rare archival material and offers a penetrating insider history of the radios that helped change the face of Europe. Arch Puddington reveals new information about the connections between RFE-RL and the CIA, which provided covert funding for the stations during the critical start-up years in the early 1950s. He relates in detail the efforts of Soviet and Eastern Bloc officials to thwart the stations; their tactics ranged from jamming attempts, assassinations of radio journalists, the infiltration of spies onto the radios' staffs, and the bombing of the radios' headquarters.Puddington addresses the controversies that engulfed the stations throughout the Cold War, most notably RFE broadcasts during the Hungarian Revolution that were described as inflammatory and irresponsible. He shows how RFE prevented the Communist authorities from establishing a monopoly on the dissemination of information in Poland and describes the crucial roles played by the stations as the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union broke apart.Broadcasting Freedom is also a portrait of the Cold War in America. Puddington offers insights into the strategic thinking of the RFE-RL leadership and those in the highest circles of American government, including CIA directors, secretaries of state, and even presidents.

" Was Hitler a moral aberration or a man of his people? This topic has been hotly argued in recent years, and now Jay Gonen brings new answers to the debate using a psychohistorical perspective, contending that Hitler reflected the psyche of many Germans of his time. Like any charismatic leader, Hitler was an expert scanner of the Zeitgeist. He possessed an uncanny ability to read the masses correctly and guide them with ""new"" ideas that were merely reflections of what the people already believed. Gonen argues that Hitler's notions grew from the general fabric of German culture in the years following World War I. Basing his work in the role of ideologies in group psychology, Gonen exposes the psychological underpinnings of Nazi Germany's desire to expand its living space and exterminate Jews. Hitler responded to the nation's group fantasy of renewing a Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. He presented the utopian ideal of one large state, where the nation represented one extended family. In reality, however, he desired the triumph of automatism and totalitarian practices that would preempt family autonomy and private action. Such a regimented state would become a war machine, designed to breed infantile soldiers brainwashed for sacrifice. To achieve that aim, he unleashed barbaric forces whose utopian features were the very aspects of the state that made it most cruel.

The Grand Permission is a book of deeply enriching and articulate meditations on motherhood and the composition of poetry by practicing poets. The 32 contributors write with originality and commitment about the startling, intense and dynamic connections between motherhood and creative achievement-connections that shed new light on the nature of language and genre, the practical life of mothering and the writing vocation. The book combines intimacy of tone and discussion of serious personal issues in new essays written in varied and innovative forms. This wonderful book is an ideal gift for mothers of all ages and creative pursuits, and especially valuable for writers concerned about how life decisions impact artistic choices.CONTRIBUTORS: Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Jill Bialosky, Eavan Boland, Stephanie Brown, Norma Cole, Gillian Conoley, Toi Derricotte, Barbara Einzig, Carolyn Forché, Kathleen Fraser, Susan Gervirtz, Dale Going, Susan Griffin, Mimiko Hahn, Carla Harryman, Fanny Howe, Erica Hunt, Claudia Keelan, Maxine Kumin, Laura Moriarty, Carol Muske, Alice Notley, Alicia Ostriker, Maureen Owen, Frances Phillips, Pam Rehm, Elizabeth Robinson, Camille Roy, Mary Margaret Soan, C.D. Wright.

How is identity constructed, maintained and altered in different geographical, personal and societal contexts? A multi-disciplinary approach is indispensable for an understanding of the deeply intertwined processes of identity construction and boundary formation. In this spirit, Identity Dynamics and the construction of Boundaries brings together scholars from political science, human geography and area studies, who present a variety of perspectives on the subject. It is the fruit of a series of seminars and workshops on the themes of identity, nationalism, globalisation, migration, citizenship, and the removal and displacement of borders. The authors analyse a number of issues regarding identity and boundary construction, drawing on case studies from a wide range of countries, including Denmark, Ireland, Sweden and Russia.

For subsistence farmers in eastern Kentucky, wealthy horse owners in the central Bluegrass, and tobacco growers in Western Kentucky, land was, and continues to be, one of the commonwealth's greatest sources of economic growth. It is also a source of nostalgia for a people devoted to tradition, a characteristic that has significantly influenced Kentucky's culture, sometimes to the detriment of education and development.As timely now as when it was first published, Thomas D. Clark's classic history of agrarianism prepares readers for a new era that promises to bring rapid change to the land and the people of Kentucky.

Kentucky and Kentuckians are full of stories, which may be why so many present-day writers have Kentucky roots. Whether they left and returned, like Wendell Berry and Bobbie Ann Mason, or adopted Kentucky as home, like James Still and Jim Wayne Miller, or grew up and left for good, like Michael Dorris and Barbara Kingsolver, they have one connection: Kentucky has influenced their writing and their lives. L. Elisabeth Beattie explores this influence in twenty intimate interviews.Conversations with Kentucky Writers was more than three years in the making, as Beattie traveled across the state and beyond to capture oral histories on tape. Her exhaustive knowledge of these authors helped her draw out personal revelations about their work, their lives, and the nature of writing. When Still concludes his interview with "I believe I've told you more than anybody," he could be speaking for any of Beattie's subjects.Aspiring writers will learn that Mason submitted twenty stories to the New Yorker before one was accepted, and that Still wrote articles for Sunday school magazines. There's plenty of advice: Dorris tells budding authors to get real jobs, keep journals, and read everything, even cereal boxes, and Marsha Norman reminds playwrights that "it is not the business of the theater to provide writers with a living." Kingsolver advises, "Read good stuff and write bad stuff until eventually what you're writing begins to approximate what you're reading."Beattie's collection includes striking self-portraits of such writers as Sue Grafton, Leon Driskell, James Baker Hall, Fenton Johnson, George Ella Lyon, Taylor McCafferty, Ed McClanahan, Sena Naslund, Chris Offutt, Lee Pennington, and Betty Layman Receveur.What most distinguishes these moving conversations from other author interviews is their focus on creativity, on the teaching of writing, and on the authors' strong sense of place.As Wade Hall writes in his foreword, all twenty writers recognize that their works have been significantly influenced by their "Kentucky experience." This collection offers insights into Kentucky's rich and flowering literary heritage.

Why do people consider aesthetic qualities as well as utilitarian ones in the making of everyday objects? Why do they maintain traditions? What is the nature of their creative process? These are some of the larger questions addressed by Michael Owen Jones in his book on craftsmen in the Cumberland Mountains of eastern Kentucky. Concentrating on the work of one man, woodworker and chairmaker Chester Cornett, Jones not only describes the tools and techniques employed by Cornett but also his aspirations and values. Cornett possessed a deep knowledge of his materials and a mastery of construction methods. Some of his chairs represent not objects of utility but aesthetic developments of the chair form. Cornett sought to cope with the problems of his life, Jones maintains; their massiveness provided a sense of security, the virtuosity of their design and construction, a feeling of self-esteem. Jones also compares other area craftsmen and their views about their work.

With the different perspectives of eight academic sub-disciplines, the authors in the book discuss the complex weave of cultural links and the different religious and linguistic groups that have been living side by side in the Balkans for centuries. This anthropological study is the result of a scientific project, the primary goal of which has been to form an active network of scholars who study the cultural and political developments in the post-Yugoslav breakdown. Research has been gathered from Scandinavia and Germany as well as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia.

This is a classic book on the history of freedom of thought, covering ancient Greece and Rome, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. In addition, this early monograph deals with the Reformation, followed by the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

This is an indispensable reference to Roman Law, with an introductory essay by Erwin Grueber of Balliol College, Oxford. Sohm presents a systematic and historical exposition of Roman private law, introducing a new element into the legal studies of the English-speaking world.

The Incomplete Projects reevaluates the role of Marxist theory in the study of culture and makes a case for Marxist cultural analysis as a relevant political practice. Part I provides the reader with a comprehensive and lively overview of Marxist thought. Part II is a collection of case studies analyzing a wide range of cultural objects, from the novels of Philip K. Dick to the television series MAS*H. The objects of study are either American or British in origin, reflecting the dominance of Anglo-American culture in our new global economy; they are also what Freedman describes as 'middle culture,' falling somewhere between the bifurcated categories of high and low art. Through these case studies, Carl Freedman shows that it is impossible to make sense of capitalism without the Marxist critique and demonstrates that cultural analysis is an especially appropriate form of discourse in which to begin thinking politically. This book is particularly timely and relevant to anyone interested in the study of culture.

Breathless explores early sound recording and the literature that both foreshadowed its invention and was contemporaneous with its early years, revealing the broad influence of this new technology at the very origins of Modernism. Through close readings of works by Edgar Allan Poe, Stéphane Mallarmé, Charles Cros, Paul Valéry, Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Jules Verne, and Antonin Artaud, Allen S. Weiss shows how sound recording's uncanny confluence of human and machine would transform our expectations of mourning and melancholia, transfiguring our intimate relation to death. Interdisciplinary, the book bridges poetry and literature, theology and metaphysics. As Breathless shows, the symbolic and practical roles of poetry and technology were transformed as new forms of nostalgia and eroticism arose.

Singing the City is an eloquent tribute to a way of life largely disappearing in America, using Pittsburgh as a lens. Graham is not blind to the damage industry has done—both to people and to the environment, but she shows us that there is also a rich human story that has gone largely untold, one that reveals, in all its ambiguities, the place of the industrial landscape in the heart. Singing the City is a celebration of a landscape that through most of its history has been unabashedly industrial. Convinced that industrial landscapes are too little understood and appreciated, Graham set out to investigate the city\u2019s landscape, past and present, and to learn the lessons she sensed were there about living a good life. The result, told in both her voice and the distinctive voices of the people she meets, is a powerful contribution to the literature of place. Graham begins by showing the city as an outgrowth of its geography and its geology—the factors that led to its becoming an industrial place. She describes the human investment in the area: the floods of immigrants who came to work in the mills in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, their struggles within the domains of Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick. She evokes the superhuman aura of making steel by taking the reader to still functioning mills and uncovers for us a richness of tradition in ethnic neighborhoods that survives to this day.