Shifting Paradigms In Culture

Jean Genet is a writer known for contradictions in his life and in his creative endeavours. As a playwright, he has been classified in various categories: as a part of the Theatre of the Absurd, as a representative of the rights of the gay community, as a spokesperson of the Palestinian cause, and so on. His comments about his life and works further complicate things. This book frees Jean Genet’s plays from the overpowering Sartrean perspective, and offers an interpretation that reveals the otherwise hidden spaces of the prison, brothel or the maid’s garret ingrained in them. The plays selected for analysis in this study make a bold statement about areas in society that escaped the attention of contemporary dramatists. In the process, the existing social fabric is meaningfully subjected to the playwright’s gaze; this is achieved through the creation of a stage dynamic different from the one adopted by the Theatre of the Absurd. The chapters in the book explain paradigms informing the plays and enabling the viewer to forge their own response. Discussions in the book take the reader to possibilities of invention and experimentation in an act that belongs to the stage as much as to the world it controls. This book traverses challenging issues and spaces – the areas inhabited by the blacks, the ghettoized existence of social discards, and others rotting on the margins in the post-Second World War period. It is clearly suggested that the playwright spoke from his own experiences and of those others with whom he empathized; into these aspects he infused his imaginative and creative skills. An important method of enquiry used in this study is that of the panoptic machinery: the tower and its function of keeping watch on people caught in the web of the oppressive modern state. It is highlighted that the panopticon survives by hiding its dialectical link with its inhabitants. The panopticon can remain only as long as it conceals – therein lies its threatening presence. The three segments into which the discussion is divided are: “Role-playing and The Maids,” “The Panopticon and The Balcony,” and “Decolonisation and The Blacks.”

Children Learn by Observing and Contributing to Family and Community Endeavors, the latest in the Advances in Child Development and Behavior Series provides a major step forward in highlighting patterns and variability in the normative development of the everyday lives of children, expanding beyond the usual research populations that have extensive Western schooling in common. The book documents the organization of children’s learning and social lives, especially among children whose families have historical roots in the Americas (North, Central, and South), where children traditionally are included and contribute to the activities of their families and communities, and where Western schooling is a recent foreign influence. The findings and theoretical arguments highlight a coherent picture of the importance of the development of children’s participation in ongoing activity as presented by authors with extensive experience living and working in such communities. Contains contributions from leading authorities in the field of child development and behavior Presents a coherent picture of the importance of the development of children’s participation in ongoing activity Provides a major step forward in highlighting patterns and variability in the normative development of the everyday lives of children, expanding beyond the usual research populations that have extensive Western schooling in common Informs and updates on all the latest developments in the field

Addressing the big questions about how technological change is transforming economies and societies Rapid technological change—likely to accelerate as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic—is reshaping economies and how they grow. But change also causes disruption, creates winners and losers, and produces social stress. This book examines the challenges of digital transformation and suggests how creative policies can make it more productive and inclusive. Shifting Paradigms is the second book on technological change produced by a joint research project of the Brookings Institution and the Korea Development Institute. Contributors are experts from the United States, Europe, and Korea. The first volume, Growth in a Time of Change, was published by Brookings in February 2020. The book's underlying thesis is that the future is arriving faster than expected. Long-accepted paradigms about economic growth are changing as digital technologies transform markets and nearly every aspect of business and work. Change will only intensify with advances in artificial intelligence and other innovations. Investors, business leaders, workers, and public officials face many questions. Is rising market concentration inevitable with the new technologies or can their benefits be more widely shared? How can the promise of FinTech be captured while managing risks? Should workers fear the new automation? Are technology-driven shifts in business and work causing income inequality to rise? How should public policy respond? Shifting Paradigms addresses these questions in an engaging manner for anyone interested in understanding how the economic and social agenda is being transformed by today's winds of change.

This book analyses the current legal framework seeking to protect cultural heritage during armed conflict and discusses proposed and emerging paradigms for its better protection. Cultural heritage has always been a victim of conflict, with monuments and artefacts frequently destroyed as collateral damage in wars throughout history. In addition, works of art have been viewed as booty by victors and stolen in the aftermath of conflict. However, deliberate destruction of cultural sites and items has also occurred, and the Intentional destruction of cultural heritage has been a hallmark of recent conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, where we have witnessed unprecedented, systematic attacks on culture as a weapon of war. In Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Mali, extremist groups such as ISIS and Ansar Dine have committed numerous acts of iconoclasm, deliberately destroying heritage sites, and looting valuable artefacts symbolic of minority cultures. This study explores how the international law framework can be fully utilised in order to tackle the destruction of cultural heritage, and analyses various paradigms which have recently been suggested for its better protection, including the Responsibility to Protect paradigm and the peace and security paradigm. This volume will be an essential resource for scholars and practitioners in the areas of public international law, especially international humanitarian law and cultural heritage law.

Tao Yuanming (365?–427), although dismissed as a poet following his death, is now considered one of China’s greatest writers. Over the centuries, portrayals of his life—some focusing on his eccentricity, others on his exemplary virtue—have elevated him to iconic status. This study of the posthumous reputation of a central figure in Chinese literary history, the mechanisms at work in the reception of his works, and the canonization of Tao himself and of particular readings of his works sheds light on the transformation of literature and culture in premodern China. It focuses on readers’ interpretive negotiations with Tao’s works and on changes in hermeneutical practices, critical vocabulary, and cultural demands, as well as the intervention of interested and influential readers, in order to trace the construction of Tao Yuanming. Driven by a dialogue on categories at the very heart of literati culture—reclusion, personality, and poetry—this cumulative process spanning fifteen centuries, the author argues, helps explain the very different pictures of Tao Yuanming and the divergent ways of reading his works across time and illuminates central issues animating premodern Chinese culture.

Explores China's rich visual culture from the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 to the present day.

Continuing from Desire Lines, Shifting Paradigms is a collection of essays on art, poetry and culture--both high and low--gathered from the astute critical work of Toronto writer Ewan Whyte. Included: essays on Yayoi Kusama, Anish Kapoor, Janet Cardiff, Damien Hirst, Viktor Mitic, Anne Carson and a number of other Canadian artists and poets.