During the First World War, President Woodrow Wilson bought a flock of sheep to trim the White House grounds to save money on groundskeeping. One of the sheep, called Old Ike, even became a public phenomenon for his ornery disposition and his penchant for chewing tobacco. Included here are hundreds of well-researched accounts of the fascinating animals that have played vital roles throughout history. Featured animals include Able, who flew on a space mission; Bayou, Salvador Dali's ocelot companion; and G.I. Joe, a pigeon who saved more than 100 people during World War II. These and many other stories detail the unexpected contributions of our animal companions in settings of war, space travel, stage and screen. The book is organized alphabetically by the given name of each animal, and entries feature compelling factual descriptions in a storytelling format.

Law in Common draws on a large body of unpublished archival material from local archives and libraries across the country, to show how ordinary people in the later Middle Ages - such as peasants, craftsmen, and townspeople - used law in their everyday lives, developing our understanding of the operation of late-medieval society and politics.

In What Are the Animals to Us? scholars from a wide variety of academic disciplines explore the diverse meanings of animals in science, religion, folklore, literature, and art.

Histories of East Asia traditionally emphasize China and Japan, and neglect Korea and Vietnam. Essentially, 20th century East Asia is re-written into the past, as though China and Japan was always the core of East Asian development. This is not at all how East Asia developed. Chinese prehistoric cultures became historic in the 18th century B.C.! Japan was not part of East Asia for over 2300 more years. By studying periods of Chinese unity and disunity, and their effects on China s neighbors, Korea and Vietnam, a distinct culture zone, East Asia, gradually emerged, and slowly included Japan. The main elements of East Asia cultural, social, political, philosophical, religious and linguistic were derived from China, but the others were not minor replicas of China. Each was unique: its people ethnically distinct, from China and each other; its native language, and linguistic blend with Chinese, also unique. Korea and Vietnam resisted Chinese colonization, but adopted and adapted advance Chinese elements to their own needs. Emerging later, Japan underwent wholesale adoption of Tang China s advances, replicated in the 19th century, when Japan was the first East Asian country to modernize. Spanning some thirty-eight centuries, from the 18th century B.C. to 2012 A.D., this diversity with common elements derived from China, is a major theme of this work. It is often overlooked by those who prefer general views, based on surface impressions, to more complex realities. The former often lead to mistakes; the latter become the basis for more sound understanding. After all, these four countries and people share the eastern end of the Eurasian continent, yet each country s geographic situation is also unique. As the twenty-first century continues to unfold, this new approach to East Asia should help to produce clearer and more accurate understanding of this important world region.

Academic curricula are being strengthened and enriched through the enlightened realization that no discipline is complete unto itself. In the interdisciplinary studies that result, the one theme that remains universal is popular culture. Academia throughout the disciplines is rapidly coming to understand that it should be used in courses campus-wide and on all levels. All in the world of education benefit from the use of the cultures around them. This work emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary mingling and explores the ways in which instructors can utilize popular culture studies in order to deepen both their own areas of specialization and their students' appreciation of education. The collection of 18 essays spans campus curricula, including the humanities (English literature, American studies, folklore and popular culture), the social sciences (anthropology, history, sociology and communications), religion and philosophy, geography, women's studies, economics and sports. Also addressed is the importance of popular culture courses in both community colleges and high school settings.

This book explores India’s rich popular culture and provides illuminating insights into various aspects of the social, cultural, economic and political realities of contemporary globalised India. It is essential reading for courses on Indian popular culture and a useful resource for more general courses in the field of cultural studies, media studies, history, literary studies and communication studies.

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. Animals are increasingly recognized as fit and proper subjects for historians, yet their place in conventional historical narratives remains contested. This volume argues for a history of animals based on the centrality of liminality - the state of being on the threshold, not quite one thing yet not quite another. Since animals stand between nature and culture, wildness and domestication, the countryside and the city, and tradition and modernity, the concept of liminality has a special resonance for historical animal studies. Assembling an impressive cast of contributors, this volume employs liminality as a lens through which to study the social and cultural history of animals in the modern city. It includes a variety of case studies, such as the horse-human relationship in the towns of New Spain, hunting practices in 17th-century France, the birth of the zoo in Germany and the role of the stray dog in the Victorian city, demonstrating the interrelated nature of animal and human histories. Animal History in the Modern City is a vital resource for scholars and students interested in animal studies, urban history and historical geography.

A new issue of the longstanding theatre journal, documenting conversations that traverse disciplinary boundaries The essays in the thirty-first volume of Theatre Symposium traverse disciplinary boundaries to explore what constitutes the "popular" in theater and performance in an increasingly frenetic and mediated landscape. Amid the current resurgence of populist discourse and the enduring impact of popular culture, this volume explores what is considered popular, how that determination gets made, and who makes it. The answers to these questions shape the structures and systems of performance in an interaction that is reciprocal, intricate, and multifaceted. Productions often succeed or fail based on their ability to align with what is popular--sometimes productively, sometimes clumsily, sometimes brazenly, and sometimes tragically. In our current moment, what constitutes the popular profoundly affects the real world politically, economically, and socially. Controversies about the electoral college system hinge on the primacy of the "popular" vote. Streaming services daily update lists of their most popular content and base future decisions on opaque measures of popularity. Social media platforms broadcast popular content across the globe, triggering new products, social activism, and political revolutions. The contributors to this volume engage with a range of contemporary and historical examples and argue with clarity and acuity the interplay of performance and the popular. Theatre and performance deeply engage with the popular at every level--from audience response to box office revenue. The variety of methodologies and sites of inquiry showcased in this volume demonstrates the breadth and depth of the popular and the importance of such work to understanding our present moment onstage and off. CONTRIBUTORS Mysia Anderson / Chase Bringardner / Elizabeth M. Cizmar / Chelsea Curto / Janet M. Davis / Tom Fish / Kyla Kazuschyk / Sarah McCarroll / Eleanor Owicki / Sunny Stalter-Pace / Chelsea Taylor / Chris Woodworth

Effective visual communication has become an essential strategy for grassroots political activists, who use images to publicly express resistance and make their claims visible in the struggle for political power. However, this “aesthetics of resistance” is also employed by political and economic elites for their own purposes, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish from the “aesthetics of rule.” Through illuminating case studies of street art in Buenos Aires, Bogotá, Caracas, and Mexico City, The Aesthetics of Rule and Resistance explores the visual strategies of persuasion and meaning-making employed by both rulers and resisters to foster self-legitimization, identification, and mobilization.