Why do funny movies make us laugh? In this thoughtful essay, by turns stimulating and meditative, distinguished filmmaker and Yale professor Michael Roemer shares his musings on what causes us to chortle, snort, and guffaw when we watch antics onscreen or onstage. Roemer keeps us chuckling as he dissects punchy one-liners, Shakespearean plays, and everything in-between. Incorporating theories from such great thinkers as Sigmund Freud, Charles Baudelaire, Henri-Louis Bergson, and Soren Kierkegaard with the work of classic comedians like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and the Marx Brothers, Roemer examines the purpose of comedy in our lives and in society. Shocked But Connected provides a serious reflection on a lighthearted subject.

"What is a Bong Tree? brings together a big selection of Michael Rosen's writings and talks over five decades. They are about the centrality of literature, including children's literature, in the lives of all of us; about the power of poetry to inspire, console and entertain; and about the need to argue and campaign for these liberating forces in the face of ignorant and reductionist actions by successive governments in the United Kingdom, which have narrowed and impoverished children's experience of literature by pressing it into the service of a regime dominated by tests and examinations. The pieces here refer frequently to Michael's childhood and upbringing, and offer a generous tribute to his parents, Connie and Harold Rosen, and their influence on him and his subsequent work. Tonally, the pieces carry Michael's trademark: they're witty and insouciant; they carry serious ideas unseriously. Parents, teachers, librarians, academics, in fact anyone concerned with the nurture and education of children, and with the place of culture - in its widest sense - in our society, will find much pleasure and practical encouragement here." John Richmond, Editor

Viewing education through the prism of the Torah, Tree of Life, Tree of Knowledge takes the reader through the stages of learning, growth, and self-development that characterize human lives. The journey begins with education as it happens in the home, moves on to the institutions of society, especially schools, and then on to the questions of identity and commitment which constitute the hidden agenda of “informal educational networks.” The self-education of the individual is explored: When does one “grow up”? What is really worth knowing? How does one cope with memories, illness, and anticipation of what lies ahead? This book examines some of the millennial conversation in an attempt to discover an educational philosophy in the Torah that can be relevant to life in the contemporary world.

In the ten years since its first publication, the social issues facing Canadians have evolved, and this new third edition has responded to these changes. While the basic structure and viewpoint of Getting Started are the same, there are new statistics, issues, examples, quotes, and resource lists. Race has been integrated as a factor of analysis throughout the text, as have women's issues and concerns. The chapters on health, the environment, Native issues, women, and Canada in the Americas have been completely revamped. What remains unchanged through all three editions is the commitment to social justice in Canada and throughout the world.

. no dw, 1966, 220pp

The first complete volume on the multifaceted architecture and design projects of the Michael Sorkin Studio. Many of the projects are theoretical and experimental and come to fruition through the drawings, models, exhibitions, writings, and installations shown in the book. Sorkin provides his own commentary, discussing the goals of each project, the influences on it, and the research and design process, as well as its architectural, social, and political statement. The book is a record of Sorkins ambition to reinvent architecture.

Text and photographs examine the daily life and experiences of a ten-year-old boy growing up in New York City.

"In a series of intriguing essays ranging over terror, State fetishism, shamanic healing in Latin America, homesickness, and the place of the tactile eye in both magic and modernity, anthropologist Michael Taussig puts into representational practice a curious type of engaged writing. Based on a paranoiac vision of social control and its understanding as in a permanent state of emergency leaving no room for contemplation between signs and things, these essays hover between story-telling and high theory and thus create strange new modes of critical discourse. The Nervous System will appeal to writers, scholars, artists, film makers, and readers interested in critical theory, aesthetics, and politics." --Publisher description.

Should the Germans of today continue to atone for the sins of their forebears? "Eternal Guilt" argues persuasively that Germans, Israelis and American Jews cling to their historical legacy in order to manipulate contemporary political ends. In their social interactions since 1950, Germans, Jews, and Israelis have largely abandoned the "us versus them" worldview fostered by the Holocaust. At the personal level, members of these groups increasingly deal with one another as individuals living in the present. Germans and Israelis are increasingly willing to visit each other's countries; Diaspora Jews are reluctant to settle in Israel; intermarriage is prevalent among Jews and majority populations everywhere. Nonetheless, at the official level images and memories of the past prevail; the past remains important not as intrinsically instructive but as pragmatically useful in manipulating political aims. Wolffsohn demonstrates that this gap between "routine policy" among individuals and "historical policy" among nations results in continuing misunderstandings and ongoing disputes. Wolffsohn argues that if the continuing spiral of inflammatory rhetoric and political manoeuvering is ever to end, official positions must catch up to popular behaviour. His epilogue analyzes the implications of reunification for the relations among these groups. --

Un regard unique sur le processus créatif de Jane Campion, à travers une série d’entretiens réalisés depuis ses débuts à ses projets les plus récents par Michel Ciment, auteur de nombreux livres de référence dans le domaine du cinéma.Chaque chapitre contient l’analyse d’un film, des courts métrages réalisés pendant ses études de cinéma à l’Australian Film Television and Radio School à son dernier film The Power of the Dog (2021). Une étude biographique et un essai général mettent son oeuvre en contexte.

In this vital addition to the sociological literature on racism, Michel Wieviorka presents a detailed and revisionary analysis of the vocabulary of racism (prejudice, discrimination, segregation and violence), arguing that racism is not reducible to these elementary forms. He shows how the experiences of institutionalized racism in America and anti-Semitism in Europe can be analyzed to provide an understanding of the complex transition from race to racism. As cultural identities are more fragmented in our societies, as the social relations defined by industrial capitalism are in decline, so too are ideas of progress and universality. It is in this context of postmodern social and economic flux that Wieviorka puts forward a

In this extensively revised and updated edition of her classic work, Look Back in Gender, Michelene Wandor confirms the symbiotic relationship between drama and gender in a provocative look at key, representative British plays from the last fifty years. Repositioning the text at the heart of hteatre studies, Wandor surveys plays by Ayckbourn, Beckett, Churchill, Daniels, Friel, Hare, Kane, Osborne, Pinter, Ravenhill, Wertenbaker, Wesker and others. Her nuanced argument, central to any analysis of contemporary drama, discusses: *the imperative of gender in the playwright's imagination *the function of gender as a major determinant of the text's structural and narrative drives *the impact of socialism and feminism on post-war British drama, and the relevance of feminist dynamics in drama *differences in the representation of the fmaily, sexuality and the mother, before and after 1968 *the impact of the slogan that the 'personal is political' on contemporary form and content.