Book Description
This is Jurgen Habermas's most concrete historical-sociological book and one of the key contributions to political thought in the postwar period. It will be a revelation to those who have known Habermas only through his theoretical writing to find his later interests in problems of legitimation and communication foreshadowed in this lucid study of the origins, nature, and evolution of public opinion in democratic societies.
Customer Reviews:
Indispensable for Understanding Contemporary Culture.......2007-08-10
Okay, perhaps I've got the social-theory-geek gene, but when I first read this book some fourteen years ago (during grad school), I was able finally to put together a lot of things that had been swimming around in my brain. I'd already read a good bit of Adorno before a professor (with whom I was doing an independent study on Adorno) recommended that I read this. Habermas's historical analysis was so compelling that I simply couldn't put the book down. Moreover (all this may seem hard to believe), the lucidity of his presentation also helped me put a lot of what was going on in Adorno's writings in a clearer light.
While I don't agree with the directions in which Habermas later went--I strongly resist the notion of recuperating the modern project--this book provides a compelling analysis of how Western society and culture got to where it is now.
Habermas: The Public in History.......2005-09-17
In this monograph, Habermas tracks the origination, the evolution, and the dispersal of an informed "public sphere" among democratic Western nations. He defines public sphere as "private people com[ing] together as a public" (27). Once these individuals, gathered as reading groups or as aficionados of theatre, the arts, and politics, the individuals melded into a public capable of debating the government. Habermas locates these fledgling "publics" primarily in eighteenth-century France, England and to a lesser extent in the areas of Europe designated as German. Tellingly, Habermas strongly links the formation of the public sphere with the rise of capitalism and a continuing bourgeois revolution. Comprised of literate individuals governed by the principals of the Enlightenment, these "publics" eventually challenged the validity and legitimacy of governments, most notably in France during the French Revolution and England during the English Civil War.
Habermas builds a compelling argument based upon his interpretation of Rousseau, Kant, Locke, Hegel, and Marx. He links the works of these philosophers and sociologists in a credible chain stretching back to the eighteenth century. However, he only deals thoroughly with the educated, propertied elite of society. Habermas views the "unpropertied" and illiterate as a separate from and incapable of participating in a true public sphere. To do this he must dismiss a plethora of lower class uprisings found throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Even when the various governments quickly quashed these rebellions, the Ludites in England and the various rebellions of 1848 come to mind, it is difficult to dispute the effect these rebels and rebellions had upon the public discourse. As an early work on the subject, it is almost certain that Habermas had to amend his arguments following E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class, published in 1963 a scant year after this work. His exclusion of the great press of society from a functioning public sphere seems arrogant at best and naïve at worst.
One of the most influential studies on the subject.......2004-11-01
Habermas' work, though written more than four decades ago, still retains most of its original relevance for the study of the public sphere. If you are interested in this subject, and if you are into critical thinking, then this book is certainly worth reading. Why? Well, if you take in consideration the fact that no other book has been written so far on the subject that has been able to surpass Habermas' account both in depth and originality, then you begin to get my point. As to a critical reading of the argument put forth by Habermas, one should read "Habermas and the Public Sphere", edited by Craig Calhoun. This book includes an appendix by Habermas where he revises some of his original positions.
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere.......2002-04-04
When you talk about the public sphere in front of intellectuals, Jürgen Habermas's name is bound to come up. Habermas's 1962 study, "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere," examines the creation, brief flourishing, and demise of a public sphere based in rational-critical debate and discussion. The feasibility of a true public sphere, which is inclusive of anyone who would participate, is for Habermas of utmost importance. Habermas follows a methodology similar to the one Michel Foucault takes in "Discipline and Punish," which analyzes the abolition of public displays of power, and the process by which the structures of power are inculcated in the individual from the 17th through the 20th centuries. Habermas analyzes historical, economic, and political conditions from classical antiquity through his own historical moment, tracing the circumstances in which the public sphere arises, how it functions, and ceases to function over time.
Habermas begins with a delineation of the terms 'public' and 'private,' orienting them philologically from their roots and meanings in classical antiquity. From here, he traces the adoption of the words and their synonyms into the European Middle Ages and the era of feudalism. Habermas says that in this period, the feudal lord and the monarch, for whom `representative publicness' functioned as a display of power before their subjects, dominated the public. Authority figures embodied virtues and powers in a public fashion. Public representation of political and economic power continued, unabated until the Reformation, at which time, the privatization of religious faith signaled a separation between society and the state. Economically, in the 16th and 17th centuries, the spread of trade necessitated the spread of news from various locales. As news outside of the home became relevant to home economy, the private individual begins to take an interest in public events. Consolidation of 'national' financial administration and state-controlled taxation, along with the rise of print culture, facilitated the dissemination of news, initially in the form of governmental decrees, market conditions, and happenings at court. Through this, the actions of the authorities came under the scrutiny of a reading public.
The 18th century is the key moment for Habermas. In this period, the government, along with private individuals, made use of the press, for the first time, in persuasive appeal to a public made up of private people. The press now presented the public with information, with which they were to use reason and discussion to determine what was in the public's interest. Habermas emphasizes the theoretical parity that this brings about - the rise of the coffee houses and salons, in which merchants met with gentility and engaged in rational-critical debate over issues of public import. Stretching this into the realm of the franchise, Habermas is careful to point out the problematics of a situation in which actual decision-making was restricted to those with money and land, but stresses that the opportunity for anyone to acquire these prerequisites was, again, theoretically, open to all.
For a brief time during the 18th century, Habermas sees the flourishing of a public sphere, born out of a reading public, that began to interact with the processes of public policy, legally, and morally. The purpose of this public sphere, according to Habermas, is to eliminate the domination of authoritative power, and establishing a government that is actually representative of the public will and contingent upon public opinion. Unfortunately, in the 19th century, with the stratification of party politics, the proliferating press encouraged less rational-critical discussion. Increasingly, debate moved into parliamentary circles, and the public was asked only to approve of party measures, not participate in the formation of the rules that governed them. In the 20th century, along with the creation of the welfare-state, consolidation of moneyed interests, and the expansion of universal suffrage (ironically), the public sphere disintegrated even further. New media - radio, television, etc. - turned its addresses to the public into mere advertising. Even the illusion of a private people engaged, as a public, in matters of their own governance, was gone, and the public became vessels for mass media.
To recuperate a true participatory public sphere, Habermas takes a guarded approach. He indicates that some kind of elite could be formed. These private individuals would undertake the responsibility of rational-critical debate, determining the public interest. The general public, then, would give their approval or disapproval to the measures decided on by this elite. This is kind of a bleak outlook, and one I don't much care for myself. Of course, this is a horribly limited review of Habermas's "Structural Transformation". I haven't even noted the break he takes to outline the historical-philosophical evaluation and critique of the public sphere by Kant, Hegel, Marx, Mill, and Tocqueville. Nor did I note the extensive use Habermas makes of political and economic changes in his key nations - England, France, and Germany - and the contributions these make to the disintegration of the public sphere. At any rate, "Structural Transformation" is an exhaustive (and exhausting) study, as relevant now to the study of literature, economics, government, history, etc., especially of the last three centuries, as it ever was. Even though it is a pain to read, you'll be glad you finally read it. Think of it as theoretical medicine - it may not taste good, but in the long run, it's good for you.
Habermas puts me to sleep.......2000-07-23
... This is Habermas' dissertation, but his writing is so poor, in English or in German, that it really doesn' matter. The book is a response, in my opinion, to Carl Schmitt, and specifically to Schmitt's argument that the core of liberal democracy is debate in parliament, that liberal democracy is rule by discussion (or, as its called now, "political discourse"), but that that discussion is now more real than painted flames on a radiator. Liberal democracy is in fact the triumph of aliberal, private, hidden powers, who rule from the shadows and through the true organs of power, the media, and through the hidden power of the private vote cast in the illicit privacy of the voting booth, where the bourgeois individual is free to exercise his worst prejudices and basest motives. So argues Schmitt. Habermas gives an interesting historical account of the rise of "Offentlichkeit" (which translates into the all-too-easy abstraction "public sphere," whatever that is), from the letters passed in the mail relating the news from town to town, to French salons, to newspapers, to television and radio. Habermas, like Schmitt, seeks to unmask the illiberal powers lurking behind the good liberal prejudices, but he, like Schmitt, mistakes liberalism for a debating society when in fact it is much more sophisticated than that. Habermas needs to read the Federalist Papers and the debates (!) at the constitutional convention to understand how little the founders of one liberal democracy thought of the power of discussion.
Average customer rating:
- Captivating, but a weak ending
- turn off your brain and enjoy!
- Not Crichton's best
- Slow to start, but intense at the end
- Highly Enjoyable
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Sphere
Michael Crichton
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ASIN: 0394561104
Release Date: 1987-05-12 |
Amazon.com
Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton is possibly the best science teacher for the masses since H.G. Wells, and Sphere, his thriller about a mysterious spherical spaceship at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, is classic Crichton. A group of not-very-complex characters (portrayed in the film by Sharon Stone, Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Queen Latifah) assemble to solve a cleverly designed roller coaster of a mystery while attempting (with mixed success) to avoid sudden death and expounding (much more successfully) on the latest, coolest scientific ideas, including the existence of black holes. Somehow, Crichton manages to convey the complicated stuff in utterly simplistic prose, making him, as his old pal Steven Spielberg puts it, "the high priest of high concept." Yet there is more to Crichton than science and big-ticket show biz. He is also, as any reader of his startling memoir Travels knows, a bit of a mystic--he is entirely open to notions spouted by spoon-bending psychics that most science writers would scorn. Sphere is not only a gratifying sci-fi suspense tale; it also reflects Crichton's keen interest in the unexplained powers of the human mind. When something passes through a black hole in Crichton's fiction, a lesson is learned. The book also contains another profound lesson: when you're staring down a giant squid with an eyeball the size of a dinner plate, don't blink first.
Book Description
"A page-turner...Chichton's writing is cinematic, with powerful visual images and nonstop action. This book should come with hot buttered popcorn."
NEWSWEEK
A group of American scientists are rushed to a huge vessel that has been discovered resting on the ocean floor in the middle of the South Pacific. What they find defines their imaginations and mocks their attempts at logical explanation. It is a spaceship of phenomenal dimensions, apparently, undamaged by its fall from the sky. And, most startling, it appears to be at least three hundred years old....
"The suspense is real."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
From the Paperback edition.
Customer Reviews:
Captivating, but a weak ending.......2007-09-24
I just finished reading "Sphere" last week and I thought the story was slow and at times a bit boring. There is no question that Michael Crichton demonstrated his breadth of his science fiction imagination in this story of undersea explorers who find more than they bargain for. But, the actual "Sphere" thing, that was "filled with foam, and little white twinkling stars that floated, was too much of a fantasy. I'm a big fan of Mr. Crichton, but I struggled to finish this story and the ending was weak; leaving certain things unresolved.
turn off your brain and enjoy!.......2007-07-28
As with most Michael Crichton novels, 'Sphere' is a whole lot of fun provided it is not taken too seriously. Crichton is quick into getting the premise of the story out of the way and diving into action and suspense. Yes, much of the story is based on very dodgy science ... by all means speed read through the rubbish. His characterizations are two-dimensional. But 'Sphere' really moves at a rapid pace. This story about finding what appears to be a long sunken alien spaceship is really an imaginative page-turner.
Bottom line: a perfect antidote for a rainy day. Enjoy!
Not Crichton's best.......2007-07-27
"Sphere" is similar to "The Andromeda Strain" in topic (i.e. aliens), but its premise differs widely from any other Crichton novel I've ever read (and that's quite a few). Whereas Crichton's other novels deal with technology and the caution humans should have with its ramifications, "Sphere" ventures deeper, into the power of the human subconscious. I should have, after reading of Crichton's adventures with alternative medicine in "Travels," expected something of this sort to crop up eventually. Given that it probes more psychic ("deeper"?) questions than the other books, the plot and setting are much more restricted. However, the explanation of "Sphere"'s phenomena is much less satisfying than those of Crichton's other books, and overall I found "Sphere" much less satisfying.
Slow to start, but intense at the end.......2007-06-15
Here is yet another novel made into a movie and my first from Michael Crichton. I become more and more surprised at how Hollywood takes extreme artistic licensing in transforming the book to the movie. Situations are similar, most of the cast are the same, but there are distinct differences between the movie and the book that greatly make a difference in interpreting.
Plot:
Norman Johnson, a psychologist, is hauled to the middle of the Pacific Ocean to preside over a supposed plane crash. What he learns is that he is actually a part of a mission to explore a crashed spaceship hiding underwater for around 300 years and this mission is based on a report he gave to the secretary of the United States on contacting Unknown Life Forms.
Norman, along with Ted Fielding, astrophysicist, Beth Halpern, zoologist, Harry Adams, mathematician, Harold Barnes, USN Captain, and four other Navy personal travel down to a deepsea underwater habitat to investigate this spaceship. Inside the ship resides a sphere. Quickly things turn downhill as the sphere unleashes its alien power.
Good:
I think the book is much clearer about what is happening than the movie was. There are not as many confusing, unexplained occurences. Of course, this is in part due to the inability to show as much in a movie as in a book, but part of it is the fault of the movie.
Further, Michael Crichton is great at his characters. It is nice that Norman is a normal human being, scared out of his wits, making stupid mistakes, and not some young, hunky, smart aleky guy. The people in this book are just that: people. Not supermodels or fakes. Real live people.
Also, the whole idea is absolutely original. Instead of meeting aliens who may or may not be friendly, the team meets an empty spaceship with an alien object in it.
Crichton steadily builds the tempo of this novel. He starts out somewhat slow almost lazy, but it gets more and more intriguing the further you get into the book. By the last 100 pages, I had a hard time putting it down.
Bad:
While not as confusing as the movie, it is difficult to tell which manifestations originated from which person. Did Norman manifest the jellyfish or Harry? Was Beth's seduction Norman's or Beth's? Other than this, there is not much to lament about (other than one of my favorite characters dies...)
Dialogue/Sexual Situations/Violence:
There is quite a bit of foul language, mostly da**, he**, bi***, and God's name. Beth acts seductive to Norman at one point. Over the course of the novel, six people die. Their deaths are somewhat graphic but not overly. Several people try or talk about killing each other.
Overall:
An immensely intriguing book and an enjoyable ride to the bottom of the sea. Well worth the money I spent for it. After reading this book, I definitely want to check out more of Michael Crichton's.
Highly Enjoyable.......2007-06-06
SPHERE is considered by many to be one of Michael Crichton's best books. Now that I have read it, I can see why: this novel is a highly enjoyable read with a lot of action and suspense. Like most of his books, Crichton does a fine job integrating a lot of scientific information into the story. So this novel is not just fun to read, it is also educational.
This novel does suffer from relatively two-dimensional characterization, but that's a common flaw with Crichton. Overall, I found the characterization in SPHERE to be stronger than some of his other books. The ending is the type you'll either love or hate, but I thought it was appropriate to the story.
Overall, this is a very fine novel, and not a bad place to start if you're interested in trying Michael Crichton's work.
Book Description
Aikido, the gentleman's fighting art," neutralizes aggression and renders attackers harmless without injuring them. By controlling body position and understanding its simple physical premises, anyone -- regardless of size, strength or weight -- can fend off attacks using this sophisticated martial art. This classic text reveals the secrets which enable the stunning displays of physical control practiced in Aikido. Further, it delves into the ethical intention requisite for successful aikido, and enables its readers to harmonize their vital powers -- both mental and physical -- into the disciplined practice of this elegant martial art. "
Customer Reviews:
Ideal for the beginner.......2007-03-28
As a beginner of aikido, I am sometimes at a loss at remembering everything from the recent class. This book gives a good insight into aikido and has brilliant illustrations to aid the novice with technique.
A MUST HAVE FOR ANY BEGINNER
The drawings make this book..........2007-02-12
This is an excellent text, although possibly too much info for the beginner. The incredible drawings are the illustrations by which all others are judged. Numerical designations for techniques may prove confusing for some people used to describing techniques with the classical Japanese nomenclature.
Aikido and the Dynamic Sphere: An Illustrated Introduction.......2006-12-26
OK, the illustrations LOOK easy and simpel. But i really dislike this book. Techniques have names, these names expand your knowledge of japanese, the language for a part as well as how to understand it. And here we use some numbers ????
Uke uses attack #37, tori responds with a number #12... no... that's old school, in times when we didn't know beter...
Best Aikido book out there.......2006-11-10
This book covers all the basics of aikido. It has very useful information by showing the ideas behind the moves. With outstanding illustrations together it digs to the core of aikido.
Great book on Aikido, but...........2006-09-13
A lot of good things have been said about this book by many others, and I basically agree with them. So, I'm not going to repeat any of them here. However, the one thing that I don't like about this book is that, instead of using the common terminology used by aikidoka around the world, the authors use algebraic terms like "attack #1" neutralised by "immobilization #2". Why can't they just use the proper terms such as "shomen-uchi" and "nikyo"? Give me a break. This is like calling "slamdunk" a "scoring technique #5".
Book Description
Hip-hop culture began in the early 1970s as the creative and activist expressions -- graffiti writing, dee-jaying, break dancing, and rap music -- of black and Latino youth in the depressed South Bronx, and the movement has since grown into a worldwide cultural phenomenon that permeates almost every aspect of society, from speech to dress. But although hip-hop has been assimilated and exploited in the mainstream, young black women who came of age during the hip-hop era are still fighting for equality.
In this provocative study, Gwendolyn D. Pough explores the complex relationship between black women, hip-hop, and feminism. Examining a wide range of genres, including rap music, novels, spoken word poetry, hip-hop cinema, and hip-hop soul music, she traces the rhetoric of black women "bringing wreck." Pough demonstrates how influential women rappers such as Queen Latifah, Missy Elliot, and Lil' Kim are building on the legacy of earlier generations of women -- from Sojourner Truth to sisters of the black power and civil rights movements -- to disrupt and break into the dominant patriarchal public sphere. She discusses the ways in which today's young black women struggle against the stereotypical language of the past ("castrating black mother," "mammy," "sapphire") and the present ("bitch," "ho," "chickenhead"), and shows how rap provides an avenue to tell their own life stories, to construct their identities, and to dismantle historical and contemporary negative representations of black womanhood. Pough also looks at the ongoing public dialogue between male and female rappers about love and relationships, explaining how the denigrating rhetoric used by men has been appropriated by black women rappers as a means to empowerment in their own lyrics. The author concludes with a discussion of the pedagogical implications of rap music as well as of third wave and black feminism.
This fresh and thought-provoking perspective on the complexities of hip-hop urges young black women to harness the energy, vitality, and activist roots of hip-hop culture and rap music to claim a public voice for themselves and to "bring wreck" on sexism and misogyny in mainstream society.
Customer Reviews:
Hip-Hop From A Woman's Point Of View.......2006-02-27
Gwendolyn Pough has done something that many would have never thought could be done she wrote a delicate yet interesting academic book on an era that many seem to think will faze out hip hop has been with us for three decades or more hip hop has continue to thrive even when things that had nothing to do with it where use it against it but Ms. Pough takes it even farther she takes it to a point where most will tell you don't exist she breaks it down and tell you how woman yes I said it woman not just any woman but black woman step in and made their selves known in hip hop even though other hip hop scholars deny that ever being.
Gwendolyn takes you back to the days when working the turntables was a way to perform, rapping was a way to be heard, graffiti was a way to be seen because the state didn't want to have a performing arts curriculum so the black youth found away to allow their culture to thrive without the help of those who were educated to teach them these things they didn't need anyone to tell them what was the correct note or the proper way to do a dance the generation of that time was determine to make something of their selves and to say that this culture as Ms. Pough considers Hip Hop continues to grow so does other aspects of it from Rap to the Urban gear we see not only is it baggy jeans anymore we now see our young black brothers sharply dress in a three piece suite courtesy of Sean "P Diddy" Combs, brothers are wearing GRILLZ in their mouth because of Nelly, and last but surely not least women artist aren't afraid to take the stage because they have seen Missy, McLyte, Mary J Blidge, Queen Latifah, TLC, Salt N Pepper those ladies before them do it and they are determine to do it their selves I mean if you look at it Missy Elliott she is doing big things from producing to running her very own company. You can't tell me that hip hop has not arrived and that the black woman didn't help it arrive I mean woman are playing important roles in hip hop movies I know you all saw Brown Sugar where Taye Diggs and Sanaa Lathan are representatives of hip hop she is a part of it just as much as he is but no man will ever tell you hip hop is represent like it is black and white / man and female but Gwendolyn Pough has no problem telling you the truth behind the culture we know as Hip Hop.
After reading the book I sat back for a moment and really thought of what Ms. Pough said and her book now for me it was easy to accept as a young black woman working in the hip hop industry as a radio personality I see it all the time some black female artist trying to go up against whatever fella that's on the corner rapping its nothing to see a sister battling it out to maintain her place in the game they will get raunchy with their words and say something that you wouldn't expect but they will do what it takes to stand with the fellas because they know what its like to be in the male world of hip hop. So I stand give Ms Pough a applause for her dedication and hard work to make today's world understand that woman have a place in every culture even hip hop.
Different Perspective..........2005-12-31
Unfortunately I must disagree with the other reviewers in that Pough's book is a history of women in hip hop. It is actually much more than that. Check It While I Wreck It is mainly a discussion of black women in the public sphere and questions how black women are portrayed not only in hip hop culture but in black culture. The author asks the reader to review some of the things we as women love so much about hip hop and ask how much these things have influenced today's young women. She gives her own reasons of why women have a hard time breaking into the hip hop culture and engages in the age-old question: can black women uplift themselves and embrace their own culture without the emmasculation of black men. With that said, if you are looking for a history of women in hip hop, this may not be your best source. However, if you looking for a study of black womanhood as a culture and its evolution, this would be a great choice.
First Ladies of Hip Hop... Please Stand Up!.......2005-06-30
"Wave ya hands in the air and shake`em like you just don't care." These are words often used to hype the crowd for hip-hop concerts around the country. I found myself singing the same tune as I read this remarkable tribute to African American culture, hip-hop and feminism. Pough does an exceptional job of researching the roots of black women in the hip-hop phenomena, which has swept the world and become embedded in its very foundation. The hip-hop culture is broken down and explained through the lens of black women detailing how it has changed and how women are viewed. She traces the rhetoric of women in all hip-hop genres: urban literature, rap & soul music, development of the spoken word, and black film. The essence of the title, Pough explains is how black women bring "wreck" which is a form of praise to describe the "skill and greatness" of the lyrics.
Do you know the great women of hip-hop? You should take the time to sit down with this account of rap legends - Roxanne Shante, Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Yo Yo, Salt-N-Pepa and many more. You will learn about Sylvia Robinson, the owner of Sugar Hill Records, break-dancer Baby Love, and poet lyricist Jessica Care Moore and Sista Soulja. Pough uses the work and dedication of these women to help readers understand how women are portrayed in hip-hop. She reaches back to Sojourner Truth preaching black power and equal rights use then leaps forward to Queen Latifah performing socially conscious rap and Salt-N-Pepa exuding sexuality in their breakout lyrics. From the stereotypical roles of "mammy" to the present day images of "chickenhead", black women have used rap music to outline their life, reconfigure their identities, and breakdown the historical stereotypes and negative images that male rappers have constructed.
Pough has provided the world with a well-researched, provocative account of hip-hop culture and the women who have added to its success. Readers can relive the development of hip-hop and sing the songs, remember the films, dances and slang made popular starting from the early 1970's to the present. This is a must-have book for every hip-hop lover, feminist, or African American studies student/department. The issues discussed in this book will provide hours of discussion for anyone who reads it. Pough has brought "wreck" to the area of academia.
Reviewed by M. Bruner for Loose Leaves Book Review
Bringing Wreck.......2004-10-08
When hip hop made its debut onto the urban scene in the 1970s, most saw it as a fad that would eventually fade into oblivion. Some thirty years later this culture, essentially born from urban decay, with its eclectic mix of rap music, poetry, dance, dress and attitude, has become universal.
In her new book CHECK IT WHILE I WRECK IT, Gwendolyn Pough, assistant Professor of Women's Studies at the University of Minnesota, highlights some of the contributions of noted female rappers to hip hop and explores their impact on the evolution of the genre.
Dr. Pough explains the phenomena of "bringing wreck" a catch phrase often used in hip hop circles, as a form of praise, to describe "skill and greatness." The author uses this terminology to ascribe to the ways in which various female rappers; from the lyrically raunchy Foxy Brown and Lil Kim to the socially conscious Queen Latifah and Lauren Hill have brought "wreck" to the world of hip hop by causing "disruptions which somehow shifted the way black people were viewed in the society at large." The author further expounds on the theory that the hip hop culture has the power to "affect change and bring wreck in a meaningful way" and exhorts female rappers to recognize the tremendous possibilities of hip hop and use it as a force for good.
CHECK IT WHILE I WRECK IT is a thought-provoking, enlightening read which affords all readers a window into the world of an often misunderstood, yet extremely popular culture. At the core of this book is the author's call for female rappers to continue to "bring wreck" to the hip hop world, as they strive to carve their own niche in this essentially male dominated culture.
Reviewed by Autumn
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers
Erudite and Culturally Relevant.......2004-07-25
Throughout the history of Hip-Hop, its relationship with women (particularly Black women) and feminism has been strained. Though there have been a few success stories regarding women on the scene and behind the scenes of the Hip-Hop movement, women's place in it have been, for the most part, invisible, degrading, and kept to a minimum. In Gwendolyn's Pough's exciting new book, Check It While I Wreck It, the assistant professor of women's studies at the University of Minnesota examines the dysfunctional relationship between Black women, feminism, and Hip Hop.
The book commences with a history of Black women in the public sphere who have contributed to the betterment of African-Americans such as Angela Davis, the historical Black clubwomen, and women who were trailblazers in the blues music industry. Pough reveals how Black women laid the foundation for future successes for the entire race. Pough writes "Black women were major players through Reconstruction, the civil rights movement, and the Black Power movement." In fact, because of their exclusion, the author even suggests a re-writing of history.
Later the author gives us a more recent history of women's contributions to the arts and Hop, including Sylvia Robinson, the label owner of Sugar Hill Records, break dancer Baby Love, and female rapper Roxanne Shante. The book gives major props to Grammy-winner Queen Latifah, Sista Soulja, MC Lyte, and poet Jessica Care Moore.
Pough also critiques the products of popular culture such as movies like Boyz N The Hood and Just Another Girl on the IRT, books such as Sista Soulja's The Coldest Winter Ever and Omar Tyree's Flyy Girl, and of course rap records such as L.L. Cool J's I Need Love, and Latifah's U.N.I.T.Y.
The book is best when examining the problems that exist between women and Hip-Hop, from the objectification of women in music videos to the acts of hyper-sexual rappers such as Lil' Kim and Foxy Brown. Pough writes "Today, in addition to the old images of the sexually promiscuous Black women...we have the bitches, hos, stunts, hoochies, pigeons, chickenheads, and baby mamas put forth by Black men rappers. The need to struggle against stereotyped images is still present." Let's hope this book will keep the discussion that invokes change alive.
"Check It While I Wreck" is a thoroughly researched, erudite, and culturally relevant work that is virtually impossible to put down. Reminiscent of the writings of bell hooks, this scholarly work in feminist theory and Hip-Hop culture is destined to be an instant classic taught in college lecture halls across the country.
Customer Reviews:
The other shoe never drops.......2003-11-09
Before critiquing this book, Mr. Walzer should be given some credit. He manages to make a good argument for pluralism, equality, and the like, and avoids the deus ex machina thought experiments a la Rawls (with "original positions") or the like. For that, Mr. Walzer should be thanked.
Now for the problems. Walzer, author of "Just and Unjust Wars" and "On Toleration" (among many others), is trying to defend a certain order of society where differences can be accepted and equality may be ensured. But Walzer's arguments suffer from a major problem - his starting point(s) are left undefended, and indeed sometimes even undefined. The key to his system is "shared meanings," an idea that he has used in other works (like "Just and Unjust Wars" [J&UW]) under various names. What these shared meanings are, Walzer generally avoids saying directly. As he mentioned in J&UW, Walzer tends to avoid the more complex questions of the foundations for morality and the like - he tends, in practice anyway, to be an antifoundationalist. This presents a problem - he gives the reader all these beautifully reasoned arguments for his idea of society, but always leaves the starting-point out. As such, it is hard to make much of his argument, if you may find yourself in disagreement with his elusive first principles.
Walzer argues that he's starting with "shared meanings," and just following out logically what that entails. In practice, this results in a social democratic, left-oriented society. Fine. But one feels a sleight-of-hand is being played. The "shared meanings" are rather vague. Moreover, "shared" by whom? While Walzer gives some discussion to this, the question lingers. Shared by all those in Western society? By those in only one country? By those in one class? By those on the editorial board of "Dissent" magazine? The reader may find that s/he is locked into the "logical result" of premises that were unknown in the beginning.
Having written all that, this is a very important book in political thoery/philosophy. If those are areas you are interested in, you should read this book. While well-argued, I find it less than compelling (for the reasons discussed above). I could be wrong. Read and decide for yourself.
great theory.......2002-01-20
Finally, Walzer has published a book that challenges the liberal theory of rationality, justice, and the capitalist markets. Although Walzer does have a few inconsistencies, his theory of the individual and the community dwarfs the liberal theory of Rawls.
An easy, excellent read.......2001-07-08
One of the major achievements of this is book just how well-written it is. Like one previous reviewer noted, Walzer is much more readable than authors like Nozick and Rawls (not to demean their incredible works). The strength of this book I have found is uneven. Some topics it treats incredibly and others are sorely wanting. Walzer's work is best at showing how justice is not just a political experience but also an economic, social, cultural, religious, and personal one; thus, this book is not just about politics but also about ethics. I recommend the book highly. It's an easy, memorable read for those interested in the topic therein.
Fantastic.......2001-03-15
This is nothing less than the most important work of political theory written in the last 20 years. Walzer, unlike other post war liberal theorists like Nozick and Rawls, returns political theory to the realm of practical political reality. His propsed theory creates a rational and thoughtful framework to confront many modern social issues.
Walzer makes equality make sense.......2000-01-04
Spheres of Justice was assigned to me but, years later and the class notes long lost, it has become a loyal, dog-eared partner in my life. Walzer's framework provides a powerful tool for non-philosophers to understand, and then speak-up directly and intelligently for equality and democracy. Nonetheless, the sphere-conceit tends mask and mystify the material bases for some of the situations Walzer uses it to address. This book is not a replacement for Mill, Rawls, Locke, Marx, Kant, and Arrow, but it is a huge span in the bridge between theories advocating equality and public policies that can secure it.
Book Description
Arguing for a fundamental reassessment of the literary history of the nineteenth-century United States within transamerican and multilingual contexts, Anna Brickhouse examines a broad array of texts in English, French, and Spanish. She discovers literary influences from Latin American and Caribbean American literatures which made the period a rich era of literary border-crossing and transcontinental cultural exchange.
Book Description
Collaborative, ephemeral, self-reflective, multidisciplinary--the work generated by the rapid series of experimental artistic movements that energized the public sphere in postwar Japan was anything but private, static, or expected, despite the enduring engagement of Japanese artists with
Western modernism. For two decades, a small but progressive group of visual artists, musicians, dancers, theater performers, and writers variously confronted the fraught legacy of World War II in Japan, which included occupation by a foreign power, growing economic inequality, and the clash between
repressive social mores and an increasingly industrialized, urban, and consumer-oriented culture. Art, Anti-Art, Non-Art offers an introduction to this highly charged and innovative era in Japanese artistic practice.
Published in conjunction with an exhibition on view at the Getty Research Institute from March 6 to June 3, 2007, this catalogue features objects, books, periodicals, photographs, and other ephemera created by artists associated with Experimental Workshop, Gutai, High Red Centre, Neo Dada,
Provoke, Tokyo Fluxus, and VIVO, among others.
Average customer rating:
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Home and Family: Creating the Domestic Sphere
Graham Allan
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0333489748 |
Book Description
Professor of Music at Colgate University and a widely respected musicologist, Godwin traces the history of the idea, held since ancient times, that the whole cosmos, with its circling planets and stars, is in some way a musical or harmonious entity. The author shows how this concept has continued to inspire philosophers, astronomers, and mystics from antiquity to the present day.
Customer Reviews:
A Conscious Cosmos ~ Re-Discovering The Adam Kadmon.......2006-05-19
Jocelyn Godwin's 'The Harmony of the Spheres: The Pythagorean Tradition in Music' was published in '92 by Inner Traditions Publ. This 512 page text along with his 'Music, Mysticism and Magic' in '86 and 'Harmonies of Heaven and Earth' in '87 comprise a trilogy of monumental importance.
Building from the foundation of these two previous works Joscelyn Godwin presents a treatise encapsulating all the arcane and mundane wisdom of the ages to come to a conclusion that we knew all along in our heart of hearts. There is no separation, no "I and Thou" in the universe. All is one and music is the hidden key to unlocking this ancient truth. The cosmos is a musical, harmonious entity (Adam Kadmon)!
His scholarship is beyond repute, his research exhaustive and his conclusions, well you decide.
Source Readings in Music.......2002-12-11
Yes, this is a highly specialized, scholarly, and esoteric collection but it contains the translated writings of philosophers of music not easily available. Not even the huge "Strunk's Source Readings (1998)" has the information which Godwin has collected and translated: Nicomachus, Pliny, Ptolemy, Kepler, Fludd; Arab writers Al-Safa, Al-Katib; the kabalist Ibn Latif. If you are a fan of Godwin's research as I am, these source readings will fill in the gaps in the history of music which is not taught. It is, however, a reference book first and foremost.
Book Description
The core teachings and practices of Buddhism are systematically directed toward developing keen and caring insight into the relational or interdependent nature of all things. This book applies Buddhist thought to reflect on the challenges to public good created by emerging social, economic, and political realities associated with increasingly complex global interdependence. In eight chapters, the key arenas for public policy are addressed: the environment, health, media, trade and development, the interplay of politics and religion, international relations, terror and security, and education. Each chapter explains how a specific issue area has come to be shaped by complex interdependence and offers specific insights into directing the growing interdependence toward greater equity, sustainability, and freedom. Thereby, a sustained meditation on the meaning and means of realizing public good is put forward, which results in a solid, Buddhist conception of diversity. The author argues that concepts of Karma and emptiness are relevant across the full spectrum of policy domains and that Buddhist concepts become increasingly forceful as concerns shift from the local to the global.
Books:
- The Twilight Lord (World of Hetar)
- The Wasp Factory: A Novel
- The Way to Glory
- The Zero Hour: A Novel
- Too Soon to Say Goodbye
- Turnabout: New Help for Woman Alcoholic
- Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race
- Unity (Battlestar Galactica)
- Way of the Wolf (The Vampire Earth, Book 1)
- Wraeththu
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- To End All Wars
- Rainbow Magic #5: Sky The Blue Fairy
- Fifty Great Short Stories
- History: Fiction or Science
- History: Fiction or Science
- Nontraditional Careers for Chemists: New Formulas in Chemistry
- Quebec During The American Invasion, 1775-1776: The Journal Of Francois Baby, Gabriel Taschereau, An
- Leaving The 20th Century: The Incomplete Work Of The Situationist International
- History: Fiction or Science
- International Trade 1993: Statistics
Habermas and the Public Sphere (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
Publics and Counterpublics
The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society (The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol1)
The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 2: Lifeword and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason
Dialectic of Enlightenment (Cultural Memory in the Present)
