Notions of culture, rituals and their meanings, the workings of ideology in everyday life, public representations of tradition and ethnicity, and the social consequences of economic transition— these are critical issues in the social anthropology of Russia and other postsocialist countries. Engaged in the negotiation of all these is the House of Culture, which was the key institution for cultural activities and implementation of state cultural policies in all socialist states. The House of Culture was officially responsible for cultural enlightenment, moral edification, and personal cultivation—in short, for implementing the socialist state’s program of “bringing culture to the masses.” Surprisingly, little is known about its past and present condition. This collection of ethnographically rich accounts examines the social significance and everyday performance of Houses of Culture and how they have changed in recent decades. In the years immediately following the end of the Soviet Union, they underwent a deep economic and symbolic crisis, and many closed. Recently, however, there have been signs of a revitalization of the Houses of Culture and a re-orientation of their missions and programs. The contributions to this volume investigate the changing functions and meanings of these vital institutions for the communities that they serve.

Cultures, Communities, Identities explores a wide range of cultural strategies to promote participation and empowerment in both First and Third World settings. The book starts by analysing contemporary debates on cultures, communities and identities, in the context of globalization. This sets the framework for the discussion of cultural strategies to combat social exclusion and to promote community participation in transformative agendas for local economic and social development. The final chapter focuses upon the use of cultural strategies and new technologies across national boundaries, at the global level.

Many colleges and universities have not engaged in the critical self-examination of their campuses necessary for effectively serving racially diverse student populations. This timely edited collection provides insights into how campus cultures can and do shape the experiences and outcomes of their increasingly diverse college student populations. By cultivating values, beliefs, and assumptions that focus on including, validating, and creating equitable outcomes among diverse undergraduate students, an institution can foster their success.While attention to campus climate is critical for gauging the nature of an institution’s culture and how students are experiencing the campus environment, changes in climate alone will not lead to holistic and deep rooted institutional transformation. Moving beyond previous explorations of campus racial climates, Creating Campus Cultures addresses the considerable institutionally embedded obstacles practitioners face as they attempt to transform entrenched institutional cultures to meet the needs of diverse student bodies. A broad range of chapters include voices of students, new research, practical experiences, and application of frameworks that are conducive to success. This book will help student affairs and higher education administrators navigate this increasingly difficult terrain by providing practical advice on how to foster success among racial minority students and enact long-term, holistic change at any institution.

DIVA collection of essays on the uses of new media in the formation of East Asian and Pacific queer identities./div

This book explores the ways in which study of culture as the realm of meaning and identity can inform current debates about globalization and thus afford greater understanding of emergent globalities. By drawing on a range of disciplinary and sub-disciplinary expertise from across the social sciences and also promoting areas of cross-disciplinary research, the book contributes to the development of theory on globalization and also provides some significant illustrations of (cultural) globalization in practice through attention to novel empirical sites and issues. These include eminently cultural realms such as music, film and architecture and those that are invested with a strong cultural component, such as migration and education. Contributions emphasise the soft features of globalization and globality and most look to marry theoretical abstraction with everyday aspects of global processes, focusing on those routine and sometimes conscious connections and accommodations that make up daily life in a globalized world. In doing so, the book itself can be seen as a contribution to critical and multidimensional studies of globalization and as engaging in a form of global practice.

In the Spring 2012 issue of Southern Cultures… Blood rains. Snow falls. Bourbon makes the man. Irish Americans redefine black and white. Camp Wah-Kon-Dah glows in the embers of old memories. The great teacher Arthur Raper opens minds, hearts, and doors. And the creative spaces of geniuses await the next act. Table of Contents Front Porch by Harry L. Watson "What happens to frontier manhood when blacks, women, and gays drink bourbon too—and white fraternity boys get stuck with Smirnoff Ice from time to time?" Every Ounce a Man's Whiskey?: Bourbon in the White Masculine South by Sean S. McKeithan "The hot bite of the Bourbon sensuously connects the body of the drinker to nation, region, and locale, enjoining his experience with those of imagined, historical bodies, soaking up space and place in the slow burn of what appears an endless southern summertime." Native Ground: Photographs by Rob McDonald "If convention has it right, these are writers who bear something close to a genetic predisposition to produce a literature suffused with place." Turned Inside Out: Black, White, and Irish in the South by Bryan Giemza "As a place where Black and Green were in perpetual contact, the Atlantic South furnishes an ideal case study in how these peoples moved with, against, and around one another." "God First, You Second, Me Third": An Exploration of "Quiet Jewishness"at Camp Wah- Kon- Dah by Marcie Cohen Ferris "This was an anxious time for American Jews, stung by the anti- Semitic quotas and discrimination of the interwar years and the growing horror regarding the fate of European Jewry as the Holocaust came to light in the 1940s." "A Mind- Opening Influence of Great Importance": Arthur Raper at Agnes Scott College by Clifford M. Kuhn "He was such an eye- opener to me . . . such a reversal of the whole way you think about life and society." "For the Scrutiny of Science and the Light of Revelation": American Blood Falls by Tom Maxwell "Showers of blood, however dreadful, were not news. Pliny, Cicero, Livy, and Plutarch mentioned rains of blood and flesh. Zeus makes it rain blood, 'as a portent of slaughter,' in Homer's Iliad." Mason- Dixon Lines Bourbon Poetry by R. T. Smith ". . . Earl was a steady liar who never in his life solved a single crime, to hear my father tell it, an improvident soul prone to nocturnal misdemeanors himself . . ." Southern Snow by Nancy Hatch Woodward "There's a silence in a snowy dawn that forces you to look anew at what has been transformed from the customary landscape of your day- to- day life. Dogwoods glisten in their silver finery; bowing fir limbs form a secret cathedral." Southern Cultures is published quarterly (spring, summer, fall, winter) by the University of North Carolina Press. The journal is sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for the Study of the American South.

Today is a new metropolitan age and for the first time ever more people live in cities than they do anywhere else. As cities strengthen their international and cultural influence, the global world is acted out most articulately in the world's urban hubs - through its diverse cultures, broad networks and innovative styles of governance. Looking at the city through its internal dynamics, the book examines how governance and cultural policy play out in a national and international framework. Making a truly global contribution to the literature, editors Isar and Anheier bring together a truly international and highly-respected collection of scholars. In doing so, they skilfully steer debates beyond the city as an economic powerhouse, to cover issues that fully comprehend a city's cultural dynamics and its impact on policy including alternative economies, creativity, migration, diversity, sustainability, education and urban planning. Innovative in its approach and content, this book is ideal for students, scholars and researchers interested in sociology, urban studies, cultural studies, and public policy.