Examining radical reinventions of traditional practices, ranging from a queer reclamation of the Jewish festival of Purim to an Indigenous remixing of musical traditions. Supposedly outmoded modes of doing and making—from music and religious rituals to crafting and cooking—are flourishing, both artistically and politically, in the digital age. In this book, Gabriel Levine examines collective projects that reclaim and reinvent tradition in contemporary North America, both within and beyond the frames of art. Levine argues that, in a time of political reaction and mass uprisings, the subversion of the traditional is galvanizing artists, activists, musicians, and people in everyday life. He shows that this takes place in strikingly different ways for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in settler colonies. Paradoxically, experimenting with practices that have been abandoned or suppressed can offer powerful resources for creation and struggle in the present. Levine shows that, in projects that span “the discontinuum of tradition,” strange encounters take place across the lines of class, Indigeneity, race, and generations. These encounters spark alliance and appropriation, desire and misunderstanding, creative (mis)translation and radical revisionism. He describes the yearly Purim Extravaganza, which gathers queer, leftist, and Yiddishist New Yorkers in a profane reappropriation of the springtime Jewish festival; the Ottawa-based Indigenous DJ collective A Tribe Called Red, who combine traditional powwow drumming and singing with electronic dance music; and the revival of home fermentation practices—considering it from microbiological, philosophical, aesthetic, and political angles. Projects that take back the vernacular in this way, Levine argues, not only develop innovative forms of practice for a time of uprisings; they can also work toward collectively reclaiming, remaking, and repairing a damaged world.

Examining radical reinventions of traditional practices, ranging from a queer reclamation of the Jewish festival of Purim to an Indigenous remixing of musical traditions. Supposedly outmoded modes of doing and making—from music and religious rituals to crafting and cooking—are flourishing, both artistically and politically, in the digital age. In this book, Gabriel Levine examines collective projects that reclaim and reinvent tradition in contemporary North America, both within and beyond the frames of art. Levine argues that, in a time of political reaction and mass uprisings, the subversion of the traditional is galvanizing artists, activists, musicians, and people in everyday life. He shows that this takes place in strikingly different ways for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in settler colonies. Paradoxically, experimenting with practices that have been abandoned or suppressed can offer powerful resources for creation and struggle in the present. Levine shows that, in projects that span “the discontinuum of tradition,” strange encounters take place across the lines of class, Indigeneity, race, and generations. These encounters spark alliance and appropriation, desire and misunderstanding, creative (mis)translation and radical revisionism. He describes the yearly Purim Extravaganza, which gathers queer, leftist, and Yiddishist New Yorkers in a profane reappropriation of the springtime Jewish festival; the Ottawa-based Indigenous DJ collective A Tribe Called Red, who combine traditional powwow drumming and singing with electronic dance music; and the revival of home fermentation practices—considering it from microbiological, philosophical, aesthetic, and political angles. Projects that take back the vernacular in this way, Levine argues, not only develop innovative forms of practice for a time of uprisings; they can also work toward collectively reclaiming, remaking, and repairing a damaged world.

Since the 1990s, Palestinian theatrical activities in the West Bank have expanded exponentially. As well as local productions, Palestinian theatre-makers have presented their work to international audiences on a scale unprecedented in Palestinian history. This book explores the histories of the five major theatre companies currently working in the West Bank: Al-Kasaba Theatre, Ashtar Theatre, Al-Harah Theatre, The Freedom Theatre and Al-Rowwad. Taking the first intifada (1987-93) as his point of departure, and drawing on original fieldwork and interviews with Palestinian practitioners, Gabriel Varghese introduces the term ‘abject counterpublics’ to explore how theatre-makers contest Zionist discourse and Israeli state practices. By foregrounding Palestinian voices, and placing theories of abjection and counterpublic formation in conversation with each other, Varghese argues that theatre in the West Bank has been regulated by processes of colonial abjection and, yet, it is an important site for resisting Zionism's discourse of erasure and Israeli settler-colonialism and apartheid. Palestinian Theatre in the West Bank: Our Human Faces is the first major account of Palestinian theatre covering the last three decades.

"Art and the City" explores the contentious relationship between civic politics and visual culture in Los Angeles. Struggles between civic leaders and modernist artists to define civic identity and control public space highlight the significance of the arts as a site of political contest in the twentieth century.

A century of Russian artistic genius, including literature, art, music and dance, within the dynamic cultural ecosystem that shaped it.

While there is a tacit appreciation that freedom from violence will lead to more prosperous relations among peoples, violence continues to be deployed for various political and social ends. Yet the problem of violence still defies neat description, subject to many competing interpretations. Histories of Violence offers an accessible yet compelling examination of the problem of violence as it appears in the corpus of canonical figures – from Hannah Arendt to Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault to Slavoj Žižek – who continue to influence and inform contemporary political, philosophical, sociological, cultural, and anthropological study. Written by a team of internationally renowned experts, this is an essential interrogation of post-war critical thought as it relates to violence.

"In the 20th and 21st century revolutions have become more urban, often less violent, but also more frequent and more transformative of the international order. Whether it is the revolutions against Communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR; the "color revolutions" across Asia, Europe and North Africa; or the religious revolutions in Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria; today's revolutions are quite different from those of the past. Modern theories of revolution have therefore replaced the older class-based theories with more varied, dynamic, and contingent models of social and political change. This new edition updates the history of revolutions, from Classical Greece and Rome to the Revolution of Dignity in the Ukraine, with attention to the changing types and outcomes of revolutionary struggles. It also presents the latest advances in the theory of revolutions, including the issues of revolutionary waves, revolutionary leadership, international influences, and the likelihood of revolutions to come. This volume provides a brief but comprehensive introduction to the nature of revolutions and their role in global history"--