Staged Otherness

The cultural phenomenon of exhibiting non-European people in front of the European audiences in the 19th and 20th century was concentrated in the metropolises in the western part of the continent. Nevertheless, traveling ethnic troupes and temporary exhibitions of non-European humans took place also in territories located to the east of the Oder river and Austria. The contributors to this edited volume present practices of ethnographic shows in Russia, Poland, Czechia, Slovenia, Hungary, Germany, Romania, and Austria and discuss the reactions of local audiences. The essays offer critical arguments to rethink narratives of cultural encounters in the context of ethnic shows. By demonstrating the many ways in which the western models and customs were reshaped, developed, and contested in Central and Eastern European contexts, the authors argue that the dominant way of characterizing these performances as “human zoos” is too narrow. The contributors had to tackle the difficult task of finding traces other than faint copies of official press releases by the tour organizers. The original source material was drawn from local archives, museums, and newspapers of the discussed period. A unique feature of the volume is the rich amount of images that complement every single case study of ethnic shows.

The cultural phenomenon of exhibiting non-European people in front of the European audiences in the 19th and 20th century was concentrated in the metropolises in the western part of the continent. Nevertheless, traveling ethnic troupes and temporary exhibitions of non-European humans took place also in territories located to the east of the Oder river and Austria. The contributors to this edited volume present practices of ethnographic shows in Russia, Poland, Czechia, Slovenia, Hungary, Germany, Romania, and Austria and discuss the reactions of local audiences. The essays offer critical arguments to rethink narratives of cultural encounters in the context of ethnic shows. By demonstrating the many ways in which the western models and customs were reshaped, developed, and contested in Central and Eastern European contexts, the authors argue that the dominant way of characterizing these performances as “human zoos” is too narrow. The contributors had to tackle the difficult task of finding traces other than faint copies of official press releases by the tour organizers. The original source material was drawn from local archives, museums, and newspapers of the discussed period. A unique feature of the volume is the rich amount of images that complement every single case study of ethnic shows.

Architecture’s role is becoming increasingly limited to serving the all-pervasive system of globalised capitalism and becoming a constituent, complicit part of its mechanism. The Resistant Object of Architecture addresses this problem, and does so in a way that represents a marked departure from predominant responses which, as the book shows, do not address the core issue. The book addresses this problem by focusing on the question "what is architecture?," and responds to this question by developing the immanent structural logic of architecture that enables it to work not only as an instrumental thinking practice, but as a practice of creative thinking. This means that it alone determines its issues, problems, and priorities, and precisely because of that it has the capacity and cogency to destabilise, indeed pierce holes in the system in which it operates. The Resistant Object of Architecture draws on various theoretical sources, from the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan and the philosophy of Alain Badiou, to contemporary architectural theory. In contrast to the predominant view of today, it demonstrates that architecture has an affirmative, transformative capacity. This book is an ideal read for those interested in architectural theory and history, analysis of contemporary architecture, and philosophy of architecture.

An illustrated study of the Roman triumphal procession, Ida Ostenberg analyses the stories the Roman triumph told about the defeated and the ideas it transmitted about Rome itself.

Combining ideas of sustainable development, strategic marketing and branding with space design and architecture, this volume offers contemporary perspectives on the development and impact of 'atmospheric quality' in tourism and hospitality service situations. Topics discussed include: silent airports, ambient odours and, co-created atmospheres.

Discusses the generic problem of "Christian philosophy" and considers Aquinas's views on the nature and methodology of metaphysics, and on metaphysics of created and uncreated being.

Building Genuine Community emphasizes a notion of a community in which people are bound together by a common life situation and a common purpose without using that common purpose as an exclusionary factor that distinguishes between those who belong and those who do not belong to the community. Without being scholarly, technical, or obscure, Building Genuine Community lays the foundation for true community, which is the seeking need of the age. True community is difficult to define. What makes some communities thrive and others fail? True community is not an ideal or a specific goal. Rather, it is a twofold direction of movementa movement within each particular structure of family, community, and society to discover the maximum possibilities of the confirmation of individuals as true others within that structure, as well as a movement from structure to structure toward more genuine community. Building Genuine Community proposes nothing less than to do away with the old and tired polarities of the individual versus society, individualism versus collectivism, competition versus cooperation, and free enterprise versus socialism. In place of all these ideals, this treatise confirms that otherness is the only meaningful direction of movement for friendship, marriage, family, community, and society within a democracy.