Kobieta, sztuka i kolonizacja. Wizerunki kobiet w strefie kontaktu indyjsko-brytyjskiego


Book Description

Książka dr Doroty Kamińskiej-Jones pomyślana została jako analiza wizerunków kobiet stworzonych w złożonej przestrzeni kontaktu indyjsko-brytyjskiego, jaki zachodził od początków wieku XVII do połowy XX w., ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem prac pochodzących z drugiej połowy XVIII w. i wieku XIX. […] Autorka łączy w rozprawie warsztat historyka sztuki z metodologiami stosowanymi w szeroko pojmowanych badaniach kulturowych, w tym przede wszystkim odwołując się do dyskursu postkolonialnego i feministyczno-genderowego. Prezentowane analizy zostały starannie osadzone we właściwym im kontekście historycznym i społeczno-kulturowym, dając wyraz pogłębionemu rozumieniu analizowanych przedstawień. […] Decyzja dotycząca wyboru takiej właśnie perspektywy badawczej okazała się jak najbardziej właściwa, pozwoliła bowiem na optymalną realizację zakładanych celów. Jej rezultatem jest niezwykle interesująca rozprawa o interdyscyplinarnym charakterze. Za pośrednictwem analizy wizerunków kobiet oferuje ona nowe spojrzenie na sztukę i kulturę indyjską oraz brytyjską okresu kolonialnego, odkrywając złożoną rolę kobiet w procesie kolonizacji. […] Stosownie ilustrowany tekst jako całość czyta się z wielkim zainteresowaniem, po prostu (!) jako dobrze napisaną książkę, co wcale nie jest regułą na polskim rynku wydawnictw naukowych. […] Cechuje ją wysokiej próby wartość naukowa, będąca rezultatem dużej wnikliwości i staranności Autorki w zgłębianiu badanego tematu, zarówno w zakresie dzieł sztuki, jak i bardzo obszernej literatury przedmiotu. Ma również nieocenioną wartość poznawczą, tak istotną w czasach zglobalizowanej, natężonej wymiany myśli i różnych form ludzkiej działalności, w tym właśnie sztuki, w warunkach, gdy nie tylko w naszej części świata nadal wyraźnie odczuwalny jest niedostatek wiedzy na temat kultur pozaeuropejskich w ogóle, a tradycji artystycznych w szczególności. Omawiana praca z całą pewnością będzie służyła wyrównaniu tych naukowych zaniedbań. Z recenzji prof. dr hab. Danuty Stasik




A Grammar of Contemporary Polish


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The Seven Good Years


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A brilliant, life-affirming, and hilarious memoir from a “genius” (The New York Times) and master storyteller. With illustrations by Jason Polan. The seven years between the birth of Etgar Keret’s son and the death of his father were good years, though still full of reasons to worry. Lev is born in the midst of a terrorist attack. Etgar’s father gets cancer. The threat of constant war looms over their home and permeates daily life. What emerges from this dark reality is a series of sublimely absurd ruminations on everything from Etgar’s three-year-old son’s impending military service to the terrorist mind-set behind Angry Birds. There’s Lev’s insistence that he is a cat, releasing him from any human responsibilities or rules. Etgar’s siblings, all very different people who have chosen radically divergent paths in life, come together after his father’s shivah to experience the grief and love that tie a family together forever. This wise, witty memoir—Etgar’s first nonfiction book published in America, and told in his inimitable style—is full of wonder and life and love, poignant insights, and irrepressible humor.




Views on Europe


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Text by Ulrich Bischoff, Wolfgang Cortjaens, et al.




The Fifth Woman


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From the #1 international-bestselling master of Scandinavian noir: a “marvelously told mystery” of murder in Sweden and corruption in Africa (Austin American-Statesman). In an African convent, four nuns and an unidentified fifth woman are found with their throats slit. The local police do little to investigate . . . and cover up the unknown woman’s death. A year later in Sweden, Holger Eriksson, a retired car dealer and birdwatcher, is skewered to death after falling into a pit of carefully sharpened bamboo poles. Soon after, the body of a missing florist is discovered strangled and tied to a tree. Baffled and appalled by the crimes, the only clues Inspector Kurt Wallander has to go on are a skull, a diary, and a photo of three men. What ensues is a complex, meticulously plotted investigation that will push the detective to his limits. The key is the unsolved killing of the fifth woman in Africa—who was she, and what did she have to do with the brutal deaths of two seemingly innocent men? Are more victims in danger? The answers will lead Wallander to question everything he thought he knew about the psychology of murder. An international bestseller, this “scary and cunning tale” (Rocky Mountain News) “achieves the satisfying density of plot and characterization” that established Henning Mankell as one of the twentieth-century’s finest crime writers. His Kurt Wallander mysteries are now the basis for the hit TV show Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh (The Baltimore Sun).




The White Lioness


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A small-town murder leads to international intrigue in this “first-class thriller” from the New York Times–bestselling master of Scandinavian crime (The New York Times Book Review). Inspector Kurt Wallander returns in the second of Henning Mankell’s award-winning, internationally-bestselling detective novels, this time to investigate the execution-style killing of a Swedish housewife. The local police focus on a determined stalker who’s suddenly nowhere to be found, but when they finally catch up with their prime suspect his alibi turns out to be airtight. Digging deeper, Wallander discovers that the woman’s death is more complex and dangerous than a crime of passion. His search for the truth takes him far from home and into the murky world of apartheid-era South Africa, where he uncovers a sinister assassination plot. Soon the small-town detective finds himself in a high-stakes tangle with the South African secret service and a ruthless ex-KGB agent. Combining heart-pounding suspense with probing social commentary, The White Lioness is an essential chapter in the addictive mystery series that inspired the hit TV show Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh. “It is not hard to see why the Wallander books have made such an impact” (The Times Literary Supplement).




Iranian Intellectuals and the West


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Mehrzad Boroujerdi challenges the way many Americans perceive present-day Iran as well as how Iranians view the West. He examines the works of thinkers seminal in defining modern Iran (virtually unknown in the U.S.) and concludes that Islam was not the primary source of their inspiration. Their efforts forge an "authentic" national identity lay at the heart of Iranian thought. These intellectuals (both religious and secular) appropriated Islam as the vehicle through which they could most effectively challenge or accommodate modernity and Westernization. Through such a fitting appropriation, Boroujerdi asserts, could modern Iranian thinkers lay the foundation for a nativist vision of an unsullied culture, seemingly free of Western influence. Drawing on the works of Michel Foucault and Edward Said, this book explore how Iranians use their own misunderstandings about the West to form their own identity and, in return, how Westerns describe Iran in negative terms to help them reaffirm the superiority of their own culture. Boroujerdi also argues that Iranian intellectuals have been deeply indebted to Western thought, which has served as the cultural reference through which they continue to struggle with issues of identity and selfhood.




More science, ethics, culture for the modern and future world


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Chinese history is written by changes in the price of rice - the basic Chinese cereal. Each major increase in rice prices was preceded by a period of low prices in which agricultural property was concentrated in the hands of huge landowners. Then always followed a price increase causing social discontent and the outbreak of popular uprisings that changing the Chinese authorities. Then happen deconcentrating of land ownership by dividing landowners' agricultural assets between starving crowds of people and the rule of the new dynasty. And so the elites ruling China change from the rise in rice prices to the next rise. As a result of the recent People's Revolution in China in the early 1980s, there was another deconcentrating in agricultural ownership due to the global rise in food prices. The land possessed for many years by rural communist communes was transferred to Chinese peasants, and so far there is no shortage of food in China because 800 million producers produce it very effectively. Unfortunately, another global climate change is coming, which will increase global food prices. I am writing below about the causes of this future climate and food disaster.




Heat Wave


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A New York real estate tycoon plunges to his death on a Manhattan sidewalk. A trophy wife with a past survives a narrow escape from a brazen attack. Mobsters and moguls with no shortage of reasons to kill trot out their alibis. And then, in the suffocating grip of a record heat wave, comes another shocking murder and a sharp turn in a tense journey into the dirty little secrets of the wealthy. Secrets that prove to be fatal. Secrets that lay hidden in the dark until one NYPD detective shines a light. Mystery sensation Richard Castle, blockbuster author of the wildly best-selling Derrick Storm novels, introduces his newest character, NYPD Homicide Detective Nikki Heat. Tough, sexy, professional, Nikki Heat carries a passion for justice as she leads one of New York City's top homicide squads. She's hit with an unexpected challenge when the commissioner assigns superstar magazine journalist Jameson Rook to ride along with her to research an article on New York's Finest. Pulitzer Prize-winning Rook is as much a handful as he is handsome. His wise-cracking and meddling aren't her only problems. As she works to unravel the secrets of the murdered real estate tycoon, she must also confront the spark between them. The one called heat.




War of the Beasts and the Animals


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First full English translation of the poetry of Maria Stepanova, one of Russia's most innovative and exciting poets and thinkers.