Too often dismissed as escapist entertainment or vilified as mass manipulation, popular cinema in the Third Reich was in fact sustained by well-established generic conventions, cultural traditions, a
In her work as poet, essayist, editor, dramatist, and public intellectual, Chicana lesbian writer Cherrie Moraga has been extremely influential in current debates on culture and identity as an ongoing
Since the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century, the Maya population of Guatemala has been forced to adapt to extraordinary challenges. Under colonial rule, the Indians had to adapt enough t
Defining the "common knowledge" a "literate" person should possess has provoked intense debate ever since the publication of E. D. Hirsch’s controversial book Cultural Literacy: What Every American Ne
Propitiating the supernatural forces that could grant bountiful crops or wipe out whole villages through natural disasters was a sacred duty in ancient Peruvian societies, as in many premodern culture
The 1994 Zapatista uprising of Chiapas' Maya peoples against the Mexican government shattered the state myth that indigenous groups have been successfully assimilated into the nation. In this wide-ra
Wearing a maskputting on another faceembodies a fundamental human fantasy of inhabiting other bodies and experiencing other lives. In this extensively illustrated book, Thomas Morawetz ex
Poetry, stories, hymns, prayers, and wisdom texts found exquisite written expression in ancient Egypt while their literary counterparts were still being recited around hearth fires in ancient Greece a
When he settled in Mexican Texas in 1832 and began courting Anna Raguet, Sam Houston had been separated from his Tennessee wife Eliza Allen for three years, while having already married and divorced h
Surrealist artist Max Ernst defined collage as the "alchemy of the visual image." Students of his work have often dismissed this comment as simply a metaphor for the transformative power of using foun
The history of photography in Mexico was a largely untold story until the 1994 publication of Olivier Debroise's Fuga Mexicana, un recorrido por la fotograf!a en M?xico. Based on ten years' research
Do cities work anymore? How did they get to be such sprawling conglomerations of lookalike subdivisions, megafreeways, and "big box" superstores surrounded by acres of parking lots? And why, most of
The earliest known author of written literature was a woman named Enheduanna, who lived in ancient Mesopotamia around 2300 BCE. High Priestess to the moon god Nanna, Enheduanna came to venerate the g
In the midst of native people's discontent following Spanish conquest, a native Andean born after the fall of the Incas took up the pen to protest Spanish rule. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala wrote his N
In villages and towns across Spain and its former New World colonies, local performers stage mock battles between Spanish Christians and Moors or Aztecs that range from brief sword dances to massive s
While the anti-establishment rebels of 1969's Easy Rider were morphing into the nostalgic yuppies of 1983's The Big Chill, Seventies movies brought us everything from killer sharks, blaxploitation, an
Mexican communities in the Midwestern United States have a history that extends back to the turn of the twentieth century, when a demand for workers in several mass industries brought Mexican agricult
Along the U.S.-Mexico frontier, where border crossings are a daily occurrence for many people, reinforcing borders is also a common activity. Not only does the U.S. Border Patrol strive to "hold the
Texas was already slipping from the grasp of Mexico when Manuel Mier y Teran made his tour of inspection in 1828. American settlers were pouring across the vaguely defined border between Mexico’s nort
Struggles over space and resistance to geographic displacement gave rise to much of Chicano history and culture. In this pathfinding book, Raul Villa explores how California Chicano/a writers, journal
Based on new fieldwork in 1997, Tracy Bachrach Ehlers has updated her classic study of the effects of economic development on the women weavers of San Pedro Sacatepequez. Revisiting many of the women
To many observers, the 1981 election of Henry Cisneros as mayor of San Antonio, Texas, represented the culminating victory in the Chicano community’s decades-long struggle for inclusion in the city’s
Independent city-states (poleis) such as Athens have been viewed traditionally as the most advanced stage of state formation in ancient Greece. By contrast, this pioneering book argues that for some G
"Federal Indian law . . . is a loosely related collection of past and present acts of Congress, treaties and agreements, executive orders, administrative rulings, and judicial opinions, connected onl
In the late Roman Republic, acts of wrongdoing against individuals were prosecuted in private courts, while the iudicia publica (literally "public courts") tried cases that involved harm to the commun
The distinguished Moroccan philosopher Mohammed Abed al-Jabri, in this summary of his own work, examines the status of Arab thought in the late twentieth century. Al-Jabri rejects what he calls the cu
The New Generation Play Project was a daring experiment in American children’s theatre. Begun in 1989 by a consortium that included the Seattle Children’s Theatre, The Children’s Theatre Company of Mi
In Andean Bolivia, racial and cultural differences are most visibly marked on women, who often still wear native dress and speak an indigenous language rather than Spanish. In this study of modernity
As Spain’s New World colonies fought for their independence in the early nineteenth century, an anonymous author looked back on the earlier struggle of native Americans against the Spanish conquistado
This evocative account of the months Stephen Harrigan spent diving on the coral reefs off Grand Turk Island in the Caribbean was originally published by Houghton Mifflin in 1992.
Stories of ghostly spirits who return to this world to warn of danger, to prophesy, to take revenge, to request proper burial, or to comfort the living fascinated people in ancient times just as they
The Gulf Coast has been a principal place of entry into Texas ever since Alonso Alvarez de Pineda explored these shores in 1519. Yet, nearly five hundred years later, the maritime history of Texas rem
The Trans-Pecos, that huge region of Texas west of the Pecos River, is richer in recorded bird species than all but three of the United States. Hundreds of birders come here each year in search of sp
More than any other filmmaker, Sam Peckinpah opened the door for graphic violence in movies. In this book, Stephen Prince explains the rise of explicit violence in the American cinema, its social effe
In premodern Moroccan Sufism, sainthood involved not only a closeness to the Divine presence (walaya) but also the exercise of worldly authority (wilaya). The Moroccan Jazuliyya Sufi order used the do
Guatemala has undergone an unprecedented conversion to Protestantism since the 1970s, so that thirty percent of its people now belong to Protestant churches, more than in any other Latin American nati
Drawing on six years of research and advocacy in Cincinnati's East End river community, Halperin (anthropology, U. of Cincinnati) argues for redefining community by viewing it as a set of culturally e
The Civil War history of Galveston is one of the last untold stories from America's bloodiest war, despite the fact that Galveston was a focal point of hostilities throughout the conflict. As other So
Filmmaker David Lynch asserts that when he is directing, ninety percent of the time he doesn't know what he is doing. To understand Lynch's films, Martha Nochimson believes, requires a similar method
