Materials from the past that wrongly anticipate the future, or present information or judgments that are later proved misleading or erroneous, are sometimes overlooked in reconstructing the past. Yet such documents are as legimiate, and perhaps as important, as those that are vindicated by events or continue to share perspectives with later generations. The five documents reproduced in Ninet…
An exploration of the implications of developments in artificial intelligence for social scientific research, which builds on the theoretical and methodological insights provided by "Simulating societies".; This book is intended for worldwide library market for social science subjects such as sociology, political science, geography, archaeology/anthropology, and significant appeal within comput…
Art, Research, Philosophy explores the emergent field of artistic research: art produced as a contribution to knowledge. As a new subject, it raises several questions: What is art-as-research? Don’t the requirements of research amount to an imposition on the artistic process that dilutes the power of art? How can something subjective become objective? What is the relationship between art and …
Net neutrality," a dry but crucial standard of openness in network access, began as a technical principle informing obscure policy debates but became the flashpoint for an all-out political battle for the future of communications and culture. Net Neutrality and the Battle for the Open Internet is a critical cultural history of net neutrality that reveals how this intentionally "boring" world of…
All in the mix: class, race and school choice considers how parents choose secondary schools for their children and makes an important intervention into debates on school choice and education. The book examines how parents talk about race, religion and class – in the process of choosing. It also explores how parents’ own racialised and classed positions, as well as their experience of educa…
Myst and Riven is well-written, interesting, on-topic, insightful, and a real pleasure to read.” —Edward Castronova, Indiana UniversityVideo games have become a major cultural force, and within their history, Myst and its sequel Riven stand out as influential examples. Myst and Riven: The World of the D’ni is a close analysis of two of the most popular and significant video games in the h…
An anthropologist's analysis of one of the world's most popular online world games
Upon its premiere in 1992, Midway's Mortal Kombat spawned an enormously influential series of fighting games, notorious for their violent "fatality" moves performed by photorealistic characters. Targeted by lawmakers and moral reformers, the series directly inspired the creation of an industrywide rating system for video games and became a referendum on the wide popularity of 16-bit home consol…
Emerging forms of alternative economy are changing the structure of society, redefining the relationship between centre and periphery in the urban fabric. In this context, the arts can play a crucial role in formulating a concept of complex and plural citizenship: This economic, social and cultural paradigm has the potential to overcome the conventional isolation of the arts and culture in ivor…
Graduate students have traditionally learned a good part of what they know about sources and research aids on modern China through hearsay and serendipity, in unsystematic and unreliable bits and pieces. The field has now developed to the point where this need not and ought not to be so. It is now possible for beginning researchers to start with some shared basic knowledge of research aids and …