The Lure Of The Local

Explores the multiple senses of place in society through cultural studies, history, geography, photography, and contemporary public art

“A marvelous slim book [that] weaves . . . ideas, facts, images, and histories into a whole about . . . the ecology of the manmade world.” —Rebecca Solnit In Undermining, the award-winning author, art historian and social critic Lucy R. Lippard delivers “another trademark work” that combines text and full-color images to explore “the intersection of art, the environment, geography and politics” (Kirkus Reviews). Working from her own experience of life in a New Mexico village, and inspired by the gravel pits in the surrounding landscape, Lippard addresses a number of fascinating themes—including fracking, mining, land art, adobe buildings, ruins, Indian land rights, the Old West, tourism, photography, and water. In her meditations, she illuminates the relationship between culture, industry, and the land. From threatened Native American sacred sites to the history of uranium mining, she offers a skeptical examination of the “subterranean economy.” Featuring more than two hundred gorgeous color images, Undermining offers a provocative new perspective on the relationship between art and place in a rapidly shifting society. “[Lippard’s] strength lies in the depth of [her] commitment—her dual loyalty to tradition and modernity and her effort to restore the broken connection between the two.” —Suzi Gablik, The New York Times Book Review

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Early in the twenty-first century, Louisiana, one of the poorest states in the United States, redirected millions in tax dollars from the public coffers in an effort to become the top location site globally for the production of Hollywood films and television series. Why would lawmakers support such a policy? Why would citizens accept the policy’s uncomfortable effects on their economy and culture? Almost Hollywood, Nearly New Orleans addresses these questions through a study of the local and everyday experiences of the film economy in New Orleans, Louisiana—a city that has twice pursued the goal of becoming a movie production capital. From the silent era to today’s Hollywood South, Vicki Mayer explains that the aura of a film economy is inseparable from a prevailing sense of home, even as it changes that place irrevocably.

"Quite apart from her contributions as a literary critic, Shu-mei Shih is able to historicize literary developments of the period most persuasively. Her analysis of Shanghai, the city, and the literary movement it spawned, is crafted with great sensitivity to both history and literature. In many ways, it is the most inclusive historical study of modern Chinese literature in its formative period."—Prasenjit Duara, author of Rescuing History from the Nation "Tracing the spectral production of 'Chinese' identity as it is disseminated globally, Shih boldly moves away from using place (ethnicity) and the body (race) to anchor Chinese identity, to argue that the visual (film) and the verbal (language and linguistics) are the most salient ones in the modern and contemporary historical formation. She succeeds brilliantly."—David Palumbo-Liu, author of Asian/American: Historical Crossings of a Racial Frontier "This is the most thoroughly researched study of Chinese modernism published to date. The author's theoretical interventions greatly enrich our understanding of colonial modernity and the stakes of comparison in cross-cultural studies. The book is a major contribution to modern Chinese literary studies and comparative literature."—Lydia Liu, editor of Tokens of Exchange

A cookbook and guide to the “preservationists” and locavore aficionados who are rediscovering the lost art of jams and pickles.

Absolutely nothing is going right for Max Green: his parents have just uprooted their family from Vancouver, everybody at his new high school is ignoring him, and he's in love with an older girl. When Max discovers a library rumoured to be haunted by ghosts, he's immediately drawn to it.

The author reveals a continuum in materials, forms, symbols and imagery artists have employed over 1000s of years. She shows how contemporary art and prehistoric images are linked, with images of past times being 'overlaid' onto works of today's artists.

#1 National Bestseller Finalist, CBC Canada Reads Finalist, Scotiabank Giller Prize By turns savage, biting, funny, poetic, and heartbreaking, Megan Gail Coles’s debut novel rips into the inner lives of a wicked cast of characters, exposing class, gender, and racial tensions over the course of one Valentine’s Day in the dead of a winter storm. Valentine’s Day, the longest day of the year. A fierce blizzard is threatening to tear a strip off the city, while inside The Hazel restaurant a storm system of sex, betrayal, addiction, and hurt is breaking overhead. Iris, a young hostess, is forced to pull a double despite resolving to avoid the charming chef and his wealthy restaurateur wife. Just tables over, Damian, a hungover and self-loathing server, is trying to navigate a potential punch-up with a pair of lit customers who remain oblivious to the rising temperature in the dining room. Meanwhile Olive, a young woman far from her northern home, watches it all unfurl from the fast and frozen street. Through rolling blackouts, we glimpse the truth behind the shroud of scathing lies and unrelenting abuse, and discover that resilience proves most enduring in the dead of this winter’s tale.