People have long been fascinated about times in human history when different cultures and societies first came into contact with each other, how they reacted to that contact, and why it sometimes occurred peacefully and at other times was violent or catastrophic. Studies in Culture Contact: Interaction, Culture Change, and Archaeology, edited by James G. Cusick,seeks to define the role of culture contact in human history, to identify issues in the study of culture contact in archaeology, and to provide a critical overview of the major theoretical approaches to the study of culture and contact. In this collection of essays, anthropologists and archaeologists working in Europe and the Americas consider three forms of culture contact—colonization, cultural entanglement, and symmetrical exchange. Part I provides a critical overview of theoretical approaches to the study of culture contact, offering assessments of older concepts in anthropology, such as acculturation, as well as more recently formed concepts, including world systems and center-periphery models of contact. Part II contains eleven case studies of specific contact situations and their relationships to the archaeological record, with times and places as varied as pre- and post-Hispanic Mexico, Iron Age France, Jamaican sugar plantations, European provinces in the Roman Empire, and the missions of Spanish Florida. Studies in Culture Contact provides an extensive review of the history of culture contact in anthropological studies and develops a broad framework for studying culture contact’s role, moving beyond a simple formulation of contact and change to a more complex understanding of the amalgam of change and continuity in contact situations.

This major text offers a critical reappraisal of the contemporary practice of cultural studies. It focuses in particular on the contribution of cultural studies to the understanding of media, communications and popular cultures in contemporary societies. The contributors, an outstanding group of internationally acclaimed scholars, examine topics such as: the different strands of cultural studies and how they are developed; whether cultural studies is a coherent discipline; tensions and debates within cultural studies; alternative or related approaches to contemporary media and society; and the movement by cultural studies revisionists towards more empirical and sociological modes of analysis.

The authors have brought together a collection of works from specialists in Pacific History from across Australia and throughout the Pacific. The individual contributions were specifically written to meet the needs of senior history courses in Australia. Max Quanchi and Ron Adams are well-known educationists who have specialised in the pacific. They have extensively travelled and studied in the Pacific and have spent many years teaching history to secondary and fertiary students. The result is an authoritative text for all senior History and Australian Studies students who need to understand the Pacific region.

Praise for the first edition: "This is a great introduction and contribution to the subject. It is unusually wide-ranging, covering the historical development of cultural theory and deftly highlighting key problems that just won′t go away." - Matthew Hills, Cardiff University "To say that the scope of the book′s coverage is wide-ranging would be an under-statement. Few texts come to mind that have attempted such a thorough overview of the central tenets of cultural studies." - Stuart Allan, Bournemouth University This fully revised edition of the best selling introduction to cultural studies offers students an authoritative, comprehensive guide to cultural studies. Clearly written and accessibly organized the book provides a major resource for lecturers and students. Each chapter has been extensively revised and new material covers globalization, the post 9/11 world and the new language wars. The emphasis upon demonstrating the philosophical and sociological roots of cultural studies has been retained along with boxed entries on key concepts and issues. Particular attention is paid to demonstrating how cultural studies clarifies issues in media and communication studies, and there are chapters on the global mediasphere and new media cultures. This is a tried and tested book which has been widely used wherever cultural studies is taught. It is an indispensable undergraduate text and one that will appeal to postgraduates seeking a ′refresher′ which they can dip into.

International Series in Experimental Social Psychology, Volume I: Culture in Contact: Studies in Cross-Cultural Interaction is part of a series of books that presents development in the field of social psychology; each volume contains materials such as empirical research, research procedures, theoretical formulations, and critical reviews of the relevant literature. This particular volume covers the processes and outcomes of cross cultural encounters. The book consists of eight chapters, which are organized into three parts. Part I discusses various types and purposes of cross-cultural contact and reviews the major empirical findings relating to the field. Part II deals with the processes underlying effective communication between culturally diverse persons. Part III concerns itself with practical outcomes of culture contact, such as the reactions of the persons engaged in the meeting. The text will be of great interest to researchers and professionals concerned with the nature of cross-cultural interactions, such as sociologists and social psychologists.

The exhibition "Beyond Babylon : Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.," held in 2008 - 2009 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, demonstrated the cultural enrichment that emerged from the intensive interaction of civilizations from western Asia to Egypt and the Aegean in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. During this critical period in human history, powerful kingdoms and large territorial states were formed. Rising social elites created a demand for copper and tin, as well as for precious gold and silver and exotic materials such as lapis lazuli and ivory to create elite objects fashioned in styles that reflected contacts with foreign lands. This quest for metals--along with the desire for foreign textiles--was the driving force that led to the establishment of merchant colonies and a vast trading network throughout central Anatolia during the early second millennium B.C. Texts from palaces at sites from Hattusa (modern Bogazköy) in Hittite Anatolia to Amarna in Egypt attest to the volume and variety of interactions that took place some centuries later, creating the impetus for the circulation of precious goods, stimulating the exchange of ideas, and inspiring artistic creativity. Perhaps the most dramatic evidence for these far-flung connections emerges out of tragedy--the wreckage of the oldest known seagoing ship, discovered in a treacherous stretch off the southern coast of Turkey near the promontory known as Uluburun. Among its extraordinary cargo of copper, glass, and exotic raw materials and luxury goods is a gilded bronze statuette of a goddess--perhaps the patron deity on board, who failed in her mission to protect the ship. To explore the themes of the exhibition--art, trade, and diplomacy, viewed from an international perspective--a two-day symposium and related scholarly events allowed colleagues to explore many facets of the multicultural societies that developed in the second millennium B.C. Their insights, which dramatically illustrate the incipient phases of our intensely interactive world, are presented largely in symposium order, beginning with broad regional overviews and examination of particular archeological contexts and then drawing attention to specific artists and literary evidence for interconnections. In this introduction, however, their contributions are viewed from a somewhat more synthetic perspective, one that focuses attention on the ways in which ideas in this volume intersect to enrich the ongoing discourse on the themes elucidated in the exhibition.

Life beyond the Boundaries explores identity formation on the edges of the ancient Southwest. Focusing on some of the more poorly understood regions, including the Jornada Mogollon, the Gallina, and the Pimería Alta, the authors use methods drawn from material culture science, anthropology, and history to investigate themes related to the construction of social identity along the perimeters of the American Southwest. Through an archaeological lens, the volume examines the social experiences of people who lived in edge regions. Through mobility and the development of extensive social networks, people living in these areas were introduced to the ideas and practices of other cultural groups. As their spatial distances from core areas increased, the degree to which they participated in the economic, social, political, and ritual practices of ancestral core areas increasingly varied. As a result, the social identities of people living in edge zones were often—though not always—fluid and situational. Drawing on an increase of available information and bringing new attention to understudied areas, the book will be of interest to scholars of Southwestern archaeology and other researchers interested in the archaeology of low-populated and decentralized regions and identity formation. Life beyond the Boundaries considers the various roles that edge regions played in local and regional trajectories of the prehistoric and protohistoric Southwest and how place influenced the development of social identity. Contributors: Lewis Borck, Dale S. Brenneman, Jeffery J. Clark, Severin Fowles, Patricia A. Gilman, Lauren E. Jelinek, Myles R. Miller, Barbara J. Mills, Matthew A. Peeples, Kellam Throgmorton, James T. Watson