The decade of the 1960s encompassed a "New Wave" of films whose makers were rebels, challenging cinematic traditions and the culture at large. The films... of the New Wave in Japan have, until now, been largely overlooked. Eros plus Massacre (taking its title from a 1969 Yoshida Yoshishige film) is the first major study devoted to the examination and explanation of Japanese New Wave film. Desser organizes his volume around the defining motifs of the New Wave. Chapters examine in depth such themes as youth, identity, sexuality, and women, as they are revealed in the Japanese film of the sixties. Desser's research in Japanese film archives, his interviews with major figures of the movement, and his keen insight into Japanese culture combine to offer a solid and balanced analysis of films by Oshima, Shinoda, Imamura, Yoshida, Suzuki, and others.

Epigrammatic, witty, ironic, and endlessly interesting, Eros is an utterly original book by an author whose acclaim has been steadily growing since the... book was first published in 1986 by Johns Hopkins.A book about love as seen by the ancients, Eros is Anne Carson's exploration of the concept of "eros" in both classical philosophy and literature. Beginning with: "It was Sappho who first called eros 'bittersweet.' No one who has been in love disputes her. What does the word mean?", Carson examines her subject from numerous points of view and styles, transcending the constraints of the scholarly exercise for an evocative and lyrical meditation in the tradition of William Carlos William's Spring and All and William H. Gass's On Being Blue.

Heightened awareness of the problem of sexual abuse has led to deep anxiety over adults touching children—in nearly any context. Though our society... has moved toward increasingly strict enforcement of this taboo, studies have shown that young children need regular human contact, and the benefits of breastfeeding have been widely extolled. Exploring the complicated history of love, desire, gender, sexuality, parenthood, and inequality, Erotic Attunement probes the disquieting issue of how we can draw a clear line between natural affection toward children and perverse exploitation of them.Cristina L. H. Traina demonstrates that we cannot determine what is wrong about sexual abuse without first understanding what is good about appropriate sensual affection. Pondering topics such as the importance of touch in nurturing children, the psychology of abuse and victimhood, and recent ideologies of motherhood, she argues that we must expand our philosophical and theological language of physical love and make a distinction between sexual love and erotic love. Taking on theological and ethical arguments over the question of sexuality between unequals, she arrives at the provocative conclusion that it can be destructive to completely bar eroticism from these relationships.

Since the 1960s, San Francisco has been America's capital of sexual libertinism and a potent symbol in its culture wars. In this highly original book,... Josh Sides explains how this happened, unearthing long-forgotten stories of the city's sexual revolutionaries, as well as the legions of longtime San Franciscans who tried to protect their vision of a moral metropolis. Erotic dancers, prostitutes, birth control advocates, pornographers, free lovers, and gay libbers transformed San Francisco's political landscape and its neighborhoods in ways seldom appreciated. But as sex radicals became more visible in the public spaces of the city, many San Franciscans reacted violently. The assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were but the most brazen acts in a city caught up in a battle over morality. Ultimately, Sides argues, one cannot understand the evolution of postwar American cities without recognizing the profound role that sex has played. More broadly, one cannot understand modern American politics without taking into account the postwar transformation of San Francisco and other cities into both real and imagined repositories of unfettered sexual desire.

By the end of the nineteenth century, women had become an undeniable force both in the public discussion of social life and in politics itself. Yet in... art and literature women's bodies continued to be represented-- and domesticated-- by men. They were still more often the object of the artist's or writer's gaze than they were the subject of their own representing processes. The erotic potential of women's bodies, however, was far from a marginal concern in the elaboration of modern forms of politics, art, literature, and psychology. In "Eroticism and the Body Politic", scholars from art history, history, and literature examine the frequent intersections between the body erotic and the body politic. Focusing on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France, they show how eroticized representations of bodies had a multitude of political and cultural meanings. The authors consider the eroticized body in a wide variety of media: from Fragonard's paintings of "erotic mothers", to political pornography attacking Marie Antoinette, to the "new woman" of fin-de-siecle decorative arts. Exploring the possibilities of a multidisiplinary approach, the volume shows that eroticism had an impact far beyond the usual confines of libertine or pornographic literature-- and that politics included much more than voting, meeting, or demonstrating. At a time of general methodological ferment in the "human sciences", "Eroticism and the Body Politic" brings fresh approaches to the developing field of cultural studies.

Erotic Journeys is a fascinating, revealing, and respectful examination of the romantic relationships and sex lives of the fastest-growing minority... group in the nation. In a series of in-depth interviews, Gloria González-López investigates the ways in which sixty heterosexual Mexican women and men living in Los Angeles reinvent their sex lives as part of their immigration and settlement experiences. Defying a broad spectrum of preconceived notions, these immigrants confirm in their vivid narratives that sexuality--far from being culturally determined--is fluid and complex.González-López explains that these Mexicans enter the United States with particular sexual ideologies and practices that, while diverse, are regulated by family ethics and regional patriarchies. After migration, a range of factors--including employment, the risks and dangers of resettlement, social networking with other immigrants, and the new demands of a fast-paced industrialized metropolis--begin to transform the immigrants' intimate lives in deep and unexpected ways. The remarkably candid interviews show that these men and women are skillful negotiating agents of their own sexuality. The author's incisive analysis of their narratives sets the stage for a nuanced and compelling understanding of this complex topic and its many social implications.

With examples from every region of the continent, "Handmade in Africa" demonstrates the wide variety of African art. The splendid art of the African... peoples occupies an unusual place in the concert of world cultures. It is anything but 'primitive', being characterized rather by a highly developed sense of design - whether it's masks, ancestral figures, ceramics, basketry, metalwork, or weapons. The items in this volume, mostly datable only with difficulty, start with a sculptured head from Nigeria, which may be as old as the 12th century, and extend from a 15th/16th-century salt container from Sierra Leone to the 19th and 20th centuries, to which most of the extant artworks belong.With examples from every region of the continent - from Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Republic of Congo as well as a dozen other countries including Madagascar and South Africa - this book demonstrates the wide variety of African art, describing the social and religious background without which this art, which today is increasingly threatened with extinction, could not be understood. Each book in Taschen's "Basic Genre Series" features: a detailed introduction with approximately 35 photographs, plus a timeline of the most important events (political, cultural, scientific, etc.) that took place during the time period and a selection of the most important works of the epoch; each is presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and, on the facing page, a description/interpretation of the work and brief biography of the artist as well as additional information such as a reference work, portrait of the artist, and/or citations.

The emergence of AIDS in contemporary culture has not only produced a vast discourse on the disease but has provoked an anxious proliferation of sites... of erotic danger. In Erotic Welfare , Linda Singer argues that we are currently living in an "age of epidemic", fueled by a "panic logic" in which contemporary discourse on sexuality and on a variety of social problems - teenage pregnancy, prostitution, and drug addiction, have come to replicate the discourse of contagion. Singer traces the effects of epidemic on the growth of regulatory mechanisms for the control of sexuality, and explores the ways this development has affected women's efforts to secure reproductive freedom; the construction of femininity within the media; and efforts to displace the hegemony of the nuclear family in the cultural imaginary. Her work forms a trenchant critique of sexuality in an age of discipline, where bodies and their pleasures have become dense sites of regulatory power.

A collective work of art whose time has come. Of lasting value for all lovers of literature and the erotic, this is a glorious, groundbreaking... celebration of black sensuality, including works by Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, and many more.

Taboo and sacrifice, transgression and language, death and sensuality—Georges Bataille pursues these themes with an original, often startling... perspective. He challenges any single discourse on the erotic. The scope of his inquiry ranges from Emily Bronte to Sade, from St. Therese to Claude Levi-Strauss and Dr. Kinsey; and the subjects he covers include prostitution, mythical ecstasy, cruelty, and organized war. Investigating desire prior to and extending beyond the realm of sexuality, he argues that eroticism is "a psychological quest not alien to death.

The concepts of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Business Processes are important to understand for all students of business, marketing,... economics, management, human resources, and various other (applied) sciences. ERP and Business Processes puts previously obtained knowledge in perspective, integrating school subjects with state-of-the-art information management as is applied in companies and institutions all around the world. For managers, ERP and Business Processes is a useful overview of today’s integrated business processes and an aid to finding the true meaning of their own organization. For consultants, this book also provides an integrated framework that is useful in their work. Starting from the basics, this introductory text focuses on business processes, rather than explaining the buttons you have to use in the ERP software. However, to keep the explanation practical, the ERP system Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009© is used to illustrate the concepts. A lot of real business examples are included, so readers can get a clear view. This book is not a manual or button training course for Dynamics NAV 2009©. It is suitable for students, managers, and IT professionals. ERP and Business Processes is an excellent guide showing how to deal with business processes and business management in an SMB company. It provides an easy-to-understand helicopter view of the entire business. Each chapter of this book contains: Introduction Regular text with bolded terms and lots of examples PowerPoint presentation Glossary of basic terms Assignments Educators can find extra materials on www.vanderhoeven.net.

The title of this book by Perry Miller, who is world-famous as an interpreter of the American past, comes close to posing the question it has been Mr.... Miller's lifelong purpose to answer: What was the underlying aim of the first colonists in coming to America? In what light did they see themselves? As men and women undertaking a mission that was its own cause and justification? Or did they consider themselves errand boys for a higher power which might, as is frequently the habit of authority, change its mind about the importance of their job before they had completed it? These questions are by no means frivolous. They go to the roots of seventeenth-century thought and of the ever-widening and quickening flow of events since then. Disguised from twentieth-century readers first by the New Testament language and thought of the Puritans and later by the complacent transcendentalist belief in the oversoul, the related problems of purpose and reason-for-being have been central to the American experience from the very beginning. Mr. Miller makes this abundantly clear and real, and in doing so allows the reader to conclude that, whatever else America might have become, it could never have developed into a society that took itself for granted. The title, Errand into the Wilderness, is taken from the title of a Massachusetts election sermon of 1670. Like so many jeremiads of its time, this sermon appeared to be addressed to the sinful and unregenerate whom God was about to destroy. But the original speaker's underlying concern was with the fateful ambiguity in the word errand. Whose errand? This crucial uncertainty of the age is the starting point of Mr. Miller's engrossing account of what happened to the European mind when, in spite of itself, it began to become something other than European. For the second generation in America discovered that their heroic parents had, in fact, been sent on a fool's errand, the bitterest kind of all; that the dream of a model society to be built in purity by the elect in the new continent was now a dream that meant nothing more to Europe. The emigrants were on their own. Thus left alone with America, who were they? And what were they to do? In this book, as in all his work, the author of The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century; The New England Mind: From Colony to Province, and The Transcendentalists, emphasizes the need for understanding the human sources from which the American mainstream has risen. In this integrated series of brilliant and witty essays which he describes as "pieces," Perry Miller invites and stimulates in the reader a new conception of his own inheritance.

Making a vital contribution to the understanding of Latin American modernism, Esther Gabara rethinks the role of photography in the Brazilian and... Mexican avant-garde movements of the 1920s and 1930s. During these decades, intellectuals in Mexico and Brazil were deeply engaged with photography. Authors who are now canonical figures in the two countries’ literary traditions looked at modern life through the camera in a variety of ways. Mário de Andrade, known as the “pope” of Brazilian modernism, took and collected hundreds of photographs. Salvador Novo, a major Mexican writer, meditated on the medium’s aesthetic potential as “the prodigal daughter of the fine arts.” Intellectuals acted as tourists and ethnographers, and their images and texts circulated in popular mass media, sharing the page with photographs of the New Woman. In this richly illustrated study, Gabara introduces the concept of a modernist “ethos” to illuminate the intertwining of aesthetic innovation and ethical concerns in the work of leading Brazilian and Mexican literary figures, who were also photographers, art critics, and contributors to illustrated magazines during the 1920s and 1930s.Gabara argues that Brazilian and Mexican modernists deliberately made photography err: they made this privileged medium of modern representation simultaneously wander and work against its apparent perfection. They flouted the conventions of mainstream modernism so that their aesthetics registered an ethical dimension. Their photographic modernism strayed, dragging along the baggage of modernity lived in a postcolonial site. Through their “errant modernism,” avant-garde writers and photographers critiqued the colonial history of Latin America and its twentieth-century formations.

A reorganized and comprehensive major revision of a classic book, this edition provides a bridge between introductory digital communications and more... advanced treatment of information theory. Completely updated to cover the latest developments, it presents state-of-the-art error control techniques. Coverage of the fundamentals of coding and the applications of codes to the design of real error control systems. Contains the most recent developments of coded modulation, trellises for codes, soft-decision decoding algorithms, turbo coding for reliable data transmission and other areas. There are two new chapters on Reed-Solomon codes and concatenated coding schemes. Also contains hundreds of new and revised examples; and more than 200 illustrations of code structures, encoding and decoding circuits and error performance of many important codes and error control coding systems. Appropriate for those with minimum mathematical background as a comprehensive reference for coding theory.

An unparalleled learning tool and guide to error correction codingError correction coding techniques allow the detection and correction of errors... occurring during the transmission of data in digital communication systems. These techniques are nearly universally employed in modern communication systems, and are thus an important component of the modern information economy.Error Correction Coding: Mathematical Methods and Algorithms provides a comprehensive introduction to both the theoretical and practical aspects of error correction coding, with a presentation suitable for a wide variety of audiences, including graduate students in electrical engineering, mathematics, or computer science. The pedagogy is arranged so that the mathematical concepts are presented incrementally, followed immediately by applications to coding. A large number of exercises expand and deepen students' understanding. A unique feature of the book is a set of programming laboratories, supplemented with over 250 programs and functions on an associated Web site, which provides hands-on experience and a better understanding of the material. These laboratories lead students through the implementation and evaluation of Hamming codes, CRC codes, BCH and R-S codes, convolutional codes, turbo codes, and LDPC codes.This text offers both "classical" coding theory-such as Hamming, BCH, Reed-Solomon, Reed-Muller, and convolutional codes-as well as modern codes and decoding methods, including turbo codes, LDPC codes, repeat-accumulate codes, space time codes, factor graphs, soft-decision decoding, Guruswami-Sudan decoding, EXIT charts, and iterative decoding. Theoretical complements on performance and bounds are presented. Coding is also put into its communications and information theoretic context and connections are drawn to public key cryptosystems.Ideal as a classroom resource and a professional reference, this thorough guide will benefit electrical and computer engineers, mathematicians, students, researchers, and scientists.An Instructor's Manual presenting detailed solutions to all the problems in the book is available from the Wiley editorial department.