Fifteen essays explore the life of an unparalleled figure in the musical and cultural life of twentieth-century Ireland. Brian Boydell (1917-2000) was one of twentieth-century Ireland's leading composers and something of a Renaissance man to boot. He became a household name not only for his music and outspoken support of the expansion of Irish cultural identity, but for the many hats he wore as a broadcaster, professor, performer, and long-term member of Ireland's Arts Council. The recent centenary of his birth stimulated fresh interest in Boydell's many compositions and his role as a multidimensional figure in Ireland's musical and cultural life. The fifteen essays collected here focus both on his music--from his earliest orchestral works to his pioneering compositions for Irish and concert harp--and on his more varied contributions, including his musicological research, his involvement as a founding member of the Music Association of Ireland, his professorship at Trinity College Dublin, and his radio career. Creative Impulses, Cultural Accents also draws on Boydell's private papers to illuminate little-known corners of his life, like his interest in painting. This essay collection is a celebratory salutation to an entirely fascinating figure who contributed immensely to the cultural evolution of a modern nation.

Amid immigrant narratives of assimilation, Indian Accents focuses on the representations and stereotypes of South Asian characters in American film and television. Exploring key examples in popular culture ranging from Peter Sellers' portrayal of Hrundi Bakshi in the 1968 film The Party to contemporary representations such as Apu from The Simpsons and characters in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, Shilpa S. Dave develops the ideas of "accent," "brownface," and "brown voice" as new ways to explore the racialization of South Asians beyond just visual appearance. Dave relates these examples to earlier scholarship on blackface, race, and performance to show how "accents" are a means of representing racial difference, national origin, and belonging, as well as distinctions of class and privilege. While focusing on racial impersonations in mainstream film and television, Indian Accents also amplifies the work of South Asian American actors who push back against brown voice performances, showing how strategic use of accent can expand and challenge such narrow stereotypes.

Orelus' valuable study draws on the scholarly work of sociocultural and postcolonial theorists, as well as testimonies collected from study participants, to explore accentism, the systemic form of discrimination against speakers whose accents deviate from a socially constructed norm. Orelus examines the manner in which accents are acquired and the effects of such acquisition on the learning and educational experiences of linguistically and culturally diverse students. He goes on to demonstrate the ways and the degree to which factors such as race, class, and country of origin are connected with nonstandard accent-based discrimination. Finally, this book proposes alternative ways to challenge and counter the accentism that minority groups, including linguistically and culturally diverse groups, have faced in schools and in society at large. It will be of interest to all of those concerned with linguistic/accent-based prejudice and the experience of those who face it.

What makes us the people we are? Culture evidently plays a part, but how large a part? Is culture alone the source of our identities? Some have argued that human nature is the foundation of culture, others that culture is the foundation of human identity. Catherine Belsey calls for a more nuanced, relational account of what it is to be human, and in doing so puts forward a significant new theory of culture. Culture and the Real explains with Professor Belsey's characteristic lucidity the views of recent theorists, including Jean-François Lyotard, Judith Butler and Slavoj Zizek, as well as their debt to the earlier work of Kant and Hegel, in order to take issue with their accounts of what it is to be human. To explore the human, she demonstrates, is to acknowledge the relationship between culture and what we don't know: not the familiar world picture presented to us by culture as 'reality', but the unsayable, or the strange region that lies beyond culture, which Lacan has called 'the real'. Culture, she argues, registers a sense of its own limits in ways more subtle than the theorists allow. This volume builds on the insights of Belsey's influential Critical Practice to provide not only an accessible introduction to contemporary theories of what it is to be human, but a major new contribution to current debates about culture. Taking examples from film and art, fiction and poetry, Culture and the Real is essential reading for those studying or working in cultural criticism, within the fields of English, Cultural Studies, Film Studies and Art History.

British Cultural Identities assesses the degree to which being British impinges on the identity of the many people who live in Britain, analysing contemporary British identity through the various and changing ways in which people who live in the UK position themselves and are positioned by their culture today. This new edition is updated to include discussion of key events and societal shifts such as the 2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum, the 2015 British General Election, the growing emphasis on devolution, the 2012 Olympic Games, the new generation of royals, UKIP and the Euro crisis, the response to fundamentalism and the proliferation of social networking. Using examples from contemporary and popular culture, chapters cover a range of intersecting themes including: ■ place and environment ■ education, work and leisure ■ gender, sex and the family ■ youth culture and style ■ class and politics ■ ethnicity and language ■ religion ■ heritage. Accessible in style, illustrated with photographs, tables and timelines and containing discussion questions, cultural examples and suggestions for further resources at the end of each chapter, British Cultural Identities is the perfect introductory text for students of contemporary British society.

First Published in 1989. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Now completely revised (over 90% new), this handbook offers the authoritative presentation of theories, methods, and applications in the dynamic field of cultural psychology. Leading scholars review state-of-the-art empirical research on how culture affects nearly every aspect of human functioning. The volume examines how topics fundamental to psychology--such as cognition, emotion, motivation, development, and mental health--are influenced by cultural meanings and practices. It also addresses the psychological and evolutionary underpinnings of cultural stability and change. The second edition reflects important advances in cultural neuroscience and an increasing emphasis on application, among many other changes. As a special bonus, purchasers of the second edition can download a supplemental e-book featuring several notable, highly cited chapters from the first edition. New to This Edition: *Most chapters are new, reflecting nearly a decade of theoretical and methodological developments. *Cutting-edge perspectives on culture and biology, including innovative neuroscientific and biopsychological research. *Section on economic behavior, with new topics including money, negotiation, consumer behavior, and innovation. *Section on the expansion of cultural approaches into religion, social class, subcultures, and race. *Reflects the growth of real-world applications in such areas as cultural learning and adjustment, health and well-being, and terrorism.