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53 books match the query '1970-' and 5 start with e

cover of Economic Policy Making in Mexico: Factors Underlying the 1982 Crisis

Economic Policy Making in Mexico

Factors Underlying the 1982 Crisis

Robert Looney

Duke University Press, 1985

This volume argues that the Mexican crisis of August 1982, in which the country was left facing the prospect of national default and zero economic growth, was not only the result of some fundamental flaws in the country's economy, but is more accurately characterized as a cash flow problem—in the author's words, "a case of illiquidity rather than insolvency." Based on a thorough analysis of the Mexican economy, the book assesses the effectiveness of the various economic programs of the de la Madrid presidency in dealing with the nation's problems.
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cover of Egotopia: Narcissism and the New American Landscape

Egotopia

Narcissism and the New American Landscape

John Miller

University of Alabama Press, 1999

Egotopia explains why individual political and economic interests have eclipsed aesthetic considerations in the rampant billboards, malls, and urban sprawl of the New American Landscape

Egotopia begins where other critiques of the American landscape end: identifying the physical ugliness that defines and homogenizes America's cities, suburbs, and countryside. Believing that prevailing assessments of the American landscape are inadequate and injudicious, John Miller calls into question the conventional wisdom of environmentalists, urban planners,and architects alike. In this precedent-shattering examination of what he sees as the ugliness that is the American consumer society, Miller contends that our aesthetic condition can be fully understood only by explorers of the metaphoric environment.

Metaphorically, the ugliness of America's great suburban sprawl is the physical manifestation of our increasing narcissism- our egotopia. The ubiquity of psychotherapy as a medium promoting self-indulgence has deified private man as it has demonized public man. The New American Landscape, Miller argues, is no longer the physical manifestation of public and communal values. Instead it has become a projection of private fantasies and narcissistic self-indulgence. Individual interests and private passions can no longer tolerate, nor even recognize, aesthetic concerns in such a landscape dedicated to uncompromising notions of utility.

 
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cover of Empire Burlesque: The Fate of Critical Culture in Global America

Empire Burlesque

The Fate of Critical Culture in Global America

Daniel T. O Hara

Duke University Press, 2003

Empire Burlesque traces the emergence of the contemporary global context within which American critical identity is formed. Daniel T. O’Hara argues that globalization has had a markedly negative impact on American cultural criticism, circumscribing both its material and imaginative potential, reducing much of it to absurdity. By highlighting the spectacle of its own self-parody, O’Hara aims to shock U.S. cultural criticism back into a sense of ethical responsibility.

Empire Burlesque presents several interrelated analyses through readings of a range of writers and cultural figures including Henry James, Freud, Said, De Man, Derrida, and Cordwainer Smith (an academic, spy, and classic 1950s and 1960s science fiction writer). It describes the debilitating effects of globalization on the university in general and the field of literary studies in particular, it critiques literary studies’ embrace of globalization theory in the name of a blind and vacant modernization, and it meditates on the ways critical reading and writing can facilitate an imaginative alternative to institutionalized practices of modernization. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalytical theory, it diagnoses contemporary American Studies as typically driven by the mindless abjection and transference of professional identities.

A provocative commentary on contemporary cultural criticism, Empire Burlesque will inform debates on the American university across the humanities, particularly among those in literary criticism, cultural studies, and American studies.

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cover of Exceptional State: Contemporary U.S. Culture and the New Imperialism

Exceptional State

Contemporary U.S. Culture and the New Imperialism

Ashley Dawson and Malini Johar Schueller, eds.

Duke University Press, 2007

Exceptional State analyzes the nexus of culture and contemporary manifestations of US. imperialism. The contributors, established and emerging cultural studies scholars, define culture broadly to include a range of media, literature, and political discourse. They do not posit September 11, 2001 as the beginning of US belligerence and authoritarianism at home and abroad, but they do provide context for understanding US responses to and uses of that event. Taken together, the essays stress both the continuities and discontinuities embodied in a present-day US imperialism constituted through expressions of millennialism, exceptionalism, technological might, and visions of world dominance.

The contributors address a range of topics, paying particular attention to the dynamics of gender and race. Their essays include a surprising reading of the ostensibly liberal movies Wag the Dog and Three Kings, an exploration of the rhetoric surrounding the plan to remake the military into a high-tech force less dependent on human bodies, a look at the significance of the popular Left Behind series of novels, and an interpretation of the Abu Ghraib prison photos. They scrutinize the national narrative created to justify the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the ways that women in those countries have responded to the invasions, the contradictions underlying calls for US humanitarian interventions, and the role of Africa in the US imperial imagination. The volume concludes on a hopeful note, with a look at an emerging anti-imperialist public sphere.

Contributors. Omar Dahbour, Ashley Dawson, Cynthia Enloe, Melani McAlister, Christian Parenti, Donald E. Pease, John Carlos Rowe, Malini Johar Schueller, Harilaos Stecopoulos

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cover of Expedition Escape from the Classroom: Political Outings on the Campus and the Anxiety of Teaching IR

Expedition Escape from the Classroom

Political Outings on the Campus and the Anxiety of Teaching IR

Oded Löwenheim

University of Michigan Press, 2024

Despite facing profound teaching anxiety stemming from the politically intense surroundings in Israel and his own writer’s block, Oded Löwenheim crafted an innovative college course that breaks free from the traditional classroom setting to explore the depths of Jerusalem’s Mount Scopus campus. He takes his class—and by extension, the reader—to explore the political and historical imprints scattered throughout Mount Scopus, such as the Jerusalem British War Cemetery, the botanical garden of the campus, and the bomb shelter of the Harry S. Truman Research Institute. Drawing from a rich tapestry of disciplines that include political geography, botany, literature, history, and archaeology, this book invites readers to find the international in the everyday.

Expedition Escape from the Classroom offers a unique narrative where teaching and its inherent challenges intersect with the intricacies of global politics, history, and identity. While recounting his academic experiment, Löwenheim grapples with the changing landscape of academia in a neoliberal age, while illustrating how personal vulnerabilities can transform into powerful tools for growth, exploration, and enlightenment. Whether you’re an educator, student, or just a curious reader, Expedition Escape from the Classroom promises a journey of reflection, critical thinking, and profound revelations.
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