The diary as a genre is found in all literate societies, and these autobiographical accounts are written by persons of all ranks and positions. The Diary offers an exploration of the form in its social, historical, and cultural-literary contexts with its own distinctive features, poetics, and rhetoric. The contributors to this volume examine theories and interpretations relating to writing and studying diaries; the formation of diary canons in the United Kingdom, France, United States, and Brazil; and the ways in which handwritten diaries are transformed through processes of publication and digitization. The authors also explore different diary formats including the travel diary, the private diary, conflict diaries written during periods of crisis, and the diaries of the digital era, such as blogs. The Diary offers a comprehensive overview of the genre, synthesizing decades of interdisciplinary study to enrich our understanding of, research about, and engagement with the diary as literary form and historical documentation.

It’s your life, in your own words. In this one-year guided journal from artist Mary Kate McDevitt, every entry sparks creativity and self-reflection with inspiring prompts, upbeat affirmations, and interactive doodles. Chronicle big plans and budding ideas. Jot down daydreams or forecast your mood. Rate the day’s accomplishments: major, minor, or meh? With quirky humor and vibrant illustrations, every page is a celebration of the adventures, discoveries, and joys that make your life uniquely epic.

Architecture and photography share the condition of being suspended between fine art and craft. Realism is considered a given, something that happens almost by default. From the moment it is taken, a photograph is understood to be a record of what was in front of the camera--just as a building, as soon as it is inhabited, becomes the fixed backdrop for everyday life. In Epics in the Everyday, Jes s Vassallo explores this condition, tracing a series of collaborations between architects and photographers from the postwar years up to the present. Consistently, the subject matter of these collaborations is the built environment, which presents architects and photographers--in different ways--with a mirror that challenges the idea of realism in their respective disciplines. Beyond casting a diagonal light on important developments within the two individual disciplines, the book chronicles an alternative history of both modern architecture and photography and builds a case for a specific type of realism found at their intersection.

An exciting new strand in The Television Series, the ‘Moments in Television’ collections celebrate the power and artistry of television, whilst interrogating key critical concepts in television scholarship. Each ‘Moments’ book is organised around a provocative binary theme. Epic / everyday explores the presence within television of the epic and the everyday. It argues that attention to ideas of the epic and notions of the everyday can illuminate television programmes in new ways. The book explores an eclectic range of TV fictions, including Game of Thrones, Lost and Dr Who. Contributors from diverse perspectives come together to expand and enrich the kind of close analysis most commonly found in television aesthetics. Sustained, detailed programme analyses are sensitively framed within historical, technological, institutional, cultural, creative and art-historical contexts.

Epic Encounters examines how popular culture has shaped the ways Americans define their "interests" in the Middle East. In this innovative book—now brought up-to-date to include 9/11 and the Iraq war—Melani McAlister argues that U.S. foreign policy, while grounded in material and military realities, is also developed in a cultural context. American understandings of the region are framed by narratives that draw on religious belief, news media accounts, and popular culture. This remarkable and pathbreaking book skillfully weaves lively and accessible readings of film, media, and music with a rigorous analysis of U.S. foreign policy, race politics, and religious history. The new chapter, titled "9/11 and After: Snapshots on the Road to Empire," considers and brilliantly analyzes five images that have become iconic: (1) New York City firemen raising the American flag out of the rubble of the World Trade Center, (2) the televised image of Osama bin-Laden, (3) Afghani women in burqas, (4) the statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled in Baghdad, and (5) the hooded and wired prisoner in Abu Ghraib. McAlister's singular achievement is to illuminate the contexts of these five images both at the time they were taken and as they relate to current events, an accomplishment all the more remarkable since—to paraphrase her new preface—we are today struggling to look backward at something that is still rushing ahead.

Drawing on an unusually rich empirical base, this timely and compelling book examines how environmental values are constructed and legitimized within the policy process. It trains the spotlight on four environmentally significant countries - China, Japan, India, and the United States - representing a wide diversity of cultural, social, economic, and political characteristics. Through a combination of case studies and comparative analysis, the contributors illuminate cultural assumptions, standards, and analytic techniques that shape environmental actions and policies around the world. "Forging Environmentalism" provides valuable direction regarding what can be done to secure public support for environmental policies. Incorporating expert legal, economic, philosophical, sociological, and political perspective points the way toward the possibilities for a convergence of environmental norms and values across diverse cultures