Surveys the aesthetic movement in Victorian England, showcasing artwork from the time period and describing its followers, the different art media used, phases, and eventual exploitation for commercial gain.

This book deconstructs the quintessential Indian woman that the advertising industry portrays across the spectrum by looking at Indian advertisements across multiple brands with a gender lens based on societal and sociological perspectives. It delves into various critical issues like the differences between culture-defined gender roles/expectations and women’s portrayal in the ad narrative, and which product category has consistently portrayed women as sex objects. Drawing insights from a seminal research study and Erving Goffman’s classic book ‘Gender Advertisements’, it traces the journey of three decades, beginning the 1990s – the era of liberalization in India, to map trends and patterns in Indian advertising and presents the perspectives of the creative teams and top managements across Indian and global advertising agencies. It discusses the application of a Gender Sensitivity Barometer (GSB) which the creative teams can use to find out how sensitive or insensitive the ad has been based on pre-determined indicators suggested by the GSB. This book will be useful to students, researchers and faculty working in the field of management, advertising, mass communication, psychology, gender studies and sociology. It will also be an indispensable companion to professionals from the field of advertising and related areas.

From the 1890s to the 1930s, a growing number of Germans began to scrutinize and discipline their bodies in a utopian search for perfect health and beauty. Some became vegetarians, nudists, or bodybuilders, while others turned to alternative medicine or eugenics. In The Cult of Health and Beauty in Germany, Michael Hau demonstrates why so many men and women were drawn to these life reform movements and examines their tremendous impact on German society and medicine. Hau argues that the obsession with personal health and fitness was often rooted in anxieties over professional and economic success, as well as fears that modern industrialized civilization was causing Germany and its people to degenerate. He also examines how different social groups gave different meanings to the same hygienic practices and aesthetic ideals. What results is a penetrating look at class formation in pre-Nazi Germany that will interest historians of Europe and medicine and scholars of culture and gender.

Beauty today is a paradox. The cult of beauty is ubiquitous but it has lost its transcendence and become little more than an aspect of consumerism, the aesthetic dimension of capitalism. The sublime and unsettling aspects of beauty have given way to corporeal pleasures and 'likes', resulting in a kind of 'pornography' of beauty. In this book, cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han reinvigorates aesthetic theory for our digital age. He interrogates our preoccupation with all things slick and smooth, from Jeff Koon's sculptures and the iPhone to Brazilian waxing. Reaching far deeper than our superficial reactions to viral videos and memes, Han reclaims beauty, showing how it manifests itself as truth, temptation and even disaster. This wide-ranging and profound exploration of beauty, encompassing ethical and political considerations as well as aesthetic, will appeal to all those interested in cultural and aesthetic theory, philosophy and digital media.

In the past twenty years or more, there has been a growing interest among philosophers and theologians alike in the transcendentals and especially in the beautiful. This seems fortuitous since so much of contemporary culture is fixated in many ways on beauty, on what might be called a superficial or man-made beauty, intent on outward appearance, with little or no concern for the human person’s interiority and distinctive nature. The Ancients and the Medievals, on the contrary, were sensitive not only to the beauty of nature and art but also to beauty as intelligible, that is, to the beauty of moral harmony and of metaphysical splendor. While the question of whether the beautiful is in fact a transcendental aspect of being continues to be a subject of dispute in contemporary scholarship, the relationship between the beautiful and the good has been accepted since ancient times and has been attended to in recent publications. None of these publications, however, offers a systematic treatment of this relationship by drawing from the wisdom of both ancient and medieval thought in such a way as to bring together the work of scholars in this tradition. Beauty and the Good intends therefore to make a singular contribution by presenting a richer alternative to the contemporary cult of beauty and appearance on the one hand, and to the concomitant decline of real beauty on the other hand. In addition to highlighting the centrality of beauty in the Aristotelian account of moral virtue, where virtue is kalon and virtuous actions are done for the sake of kalon—an account which is found echoed in the medieval notion of intrinsic goodness (bonum honestum), understood as intelligible or spiritual beauty—this volume will provide the metaphysical and theological grounding for beauty, as influenced in part by Plato and Neoplatonism, together with a much needed account of how we know and judge beauty, and how for the recognition of true good and real beauty we need to be properly disposed. The integration of philosophical and theological reflection on the nature and relationship of beauty and the good, on our perception and judgment of beauty and of the good as beautiful, and on the motivational role of beauty in human action has as its goal to produce a coherent volume of essays.

"A study of reliquaries as a form of representation in medieval art. Explores how reliquaries stage the importance and meaning of relics using a wide range of artistic means from material and ornament to metaphor and symbolism"--Provided by publisher.

The House of Beauty and Culture (HOBAC) was an avant-garde boutique, design studio, and crafts collective in late 1980s London, with key figures like Judy Blame, John Moore, Cindy Palmano, and duo Fric and Frack. Until recently, HOBAC's influence was widely felt, yet barely documented, part of a subculture rooted in artistic practice, post-punk rebellion, and resistance to mainstream culture and overproduction. Against a dire socio-political and economic backdrop, they were among the first to upcycle found materials and champion androgynous urban style. Through diligent research, interviews, and countless images, Kasia Maciejowska honours the group's legacy.