Goldsmiths were among the most highly regarded craftsmen in the medieval world, making extravagant objects from precious gold and silver, often enriched with rare stones and engraved gems. As well as royal and aristocratic patrons, much of their work was created for the Church, as it was thought that 'such display praised God'. For this reason many pieces that survive today were preserved in the treasuries of churches, where they escaped the ravages of history. In this wonderfully illustrated book, John Cherry explores the goldsmith's craft through works in the British Museum and from collections around the world. The British Museum holds some of the most splendid examples of medieval goldsmiths' work in the world, including the peerless Royal Gold Cup. With a description of the craft, its reputation in medieval times, and the raw materials used, the author offers an intriguing introduction to the expertise of the workmanship and the success of the trade. Who were the goldsmiths? Who did they work for? What influenced them, and how much freedom were they given to design? These questions and others are explored in this classic book, now redesigned in a lovely new format and illustrated throughout with new colour photography.

From Corporate Professional to Passion-Driven Retiree Mark Goldsmith enjoyed a 35-year career in the cosmetic business, managing household name brands during Madison Avenue's Mad Men heyday. Looking for new challenges in retirement, Goldsmith took his wife's suggestion to volunteer for the Principal for a Day program, specifically asking to be sent to the toughest New York City school available--which turned out to be Horizon Academy at the city's infamous Rikers Island jail. Goldsmith instantly connected with the men of Rikers, leveraging the skills he'd honed in decades of corporate experience and his strong desire to help. This passion ultimately led to the creation of his not-for-profit organization Getting Out and Staying Out (GOSO), which has helped thousands of young men pursue their goals for their education, employment, and emotional well-being to create a new life for themselves beyond the criminal justice system.

Using clear, readable prose, conceptual artist and poet Kenneth Goldsmith’s manifesto shows how our time on the internet is not really wasted but is quite productive and creative as he puts the experience in its proper theoretical and philosophical context. Kenneth Goldsmith wants you to rethink the internet. Many people feel guilty after spending hours watching cat videos or clicking link after link after link. But Goldsmith sees that “wasted” time differently. Unlike old media, the internet demands active engagement—and it’s actually making us more social, more creative, even more productive. When Goldsmith, a renowned conceptual artist and poet, introduced a class at the University of Pennsylvania called “Wasting Time on the Internet”, he nearly broke the internet. The New Yorker, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Slate, Vice, Time, CNN, the Telegraph, and many more, ran articles expressing their shock, dismay, and, ultimately, their curiosity. Goldsmith’s ideas struck a nerve, because they are brilliantly subversive—and endlessly shareable. In Wasting Time on the Internet, Goldsmith expands upon his provocative insights, contending that our digital lives are remaking human experience. When we’re “wasting time,” we’re actually creating a culture of collaboration. We’re reading and writing more—and quite differently. And we’re turning concepts of authority and authenticity upside-down. The internet puts us in a state between deep focus and subconscious flow, a state that Goldsmith argues is ideal for creativity. Where that creativity takes us will be one of the stories of the twenty-first century. Wide-ranging, counterintuitive, engrossing, unpredictable—like the internet itself—Wasting Time on the Internet is the manifesto you didn’t know you needed.

How black electronic dance music makes it possible to reorganize life within the contemporary city. Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski argues that Black electronic dance music produces sonic ecologies of Blackness that expose and reorder the contemporary racialization of the urban--ecologies that can never simply be reduced to their geographical and racial context. Dhanveer Singh Brar makes the case for Black electronic dance music as the cutting-edge aesthetic project of the diaspora, which due to the music's class character makes it possible to reorganize life within the contemporary city. Closely analysing the Footwork scene in South and West Chicago, the Grime scene in East London, and the output of the South London producer Actress, Brar pays attention to the way each of these critically acclaimed musical projects experiment with aesthetic form through an experimentation of the social. Through explicitly theoretical means, Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski foregrounds the sonic specificity of 12" records, EPs, albums, radio broadcasts, and recorded performances to make the case that Footwork, Grime, and Actress dissolve racialized spatial constraints that are thought to surround Black social life. Pushing the critical debates concerning the phonic materiality of blackness, undercommons, and aesthetic sociality in new directions, Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski rethinks these concepts through concrete examples of contemporary black electronic dance music production that allows for a theorization of the way Footwork, Grime, and Actress have--through their experiments in blackness--generated genuine alternatives to the functioning of the city under financialized racial capitalism.

The story of rock lives in Lynn Goldsmith’s photographs. After coming of age in the Midwest in the tumultuous 1960s, she crashed the music scene in New York and emerged as one of its leading image-makers. She chronicled Bruce Springsteen’s passage to glory, the Rolling Stones’ legendary stadium tours, Michael Jackson’s staggering ascent, U2’s arrival in New York, and the brooding force of Bob Marley. Culture heroes like Bob Dylan and Patti Smith became frequent subjects for her lens. The range of her work is staggering. In Rock and Roll Stories, she shares the best of this work. Her commentary takes the reader into the studio, the tour bus, the concert hall, and the streets where the pictures were made, offering revealing perspectives on her subjects and herself. A greatly expanded and newly designed edition of her very successful book PhotoDiary (1995), this volume captures the story of a generation’s loyalty to rock and roll.

Sleep plays a crucial role in our waking lives, and we need to start paying it more attention. The latest research tells us that it's essential for learning and memory, for mental health and physical well-being, and yet we tend to only think about it when it's proving a struggle. Nodding Off leads you on a fascinating journey through the science of sleep as it evolves throughout our lives; from babies to teenagers, from middle age to the later years of our life, there are constantly new challenges to our sleep. Based on knowledge accumulated over almost two decades as a sleep researcher, Professor Alice Gregory shares real-life stories and interviews with other sleep experts to find the answers to questions, such as: - Why do so many adolescents enjoy lying in at the weekends? - Why do children experiencing anxiety, behavioural problems or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder so often have co-occurring sleep problems? - Why are scientists turning to sleep disorders such as sleep paralysis to try to understand paranormal experiences? With important tips on improving your sleep, Nodding Off is an essential read for anyone who sleeps, and more important still for those who don't get enough. Fans of Matthew Walker's Why We Sleep will love this book!

The politics of race in British screen culture over the last 30 years vis-a-vis the institutional, textual, cultural and political shifts that have occurred during this period. Black Film British Cinema II considers the politics of blackness in contemporary British cinema and visual practice. This second iteration of Black Film British Cinema, marking over 30 years since the ground-breaking ICA Documents 7 publication in 1988, continues this investigation by offering a crucial contemporary consideration of the textual, institutional, cultural and political shifts that have occurred from this period. It focuses on the practices, values and networks of collaborations that have shaped the development of black film culture and representation. But what is black British film? How do such films, however defined, produce meaning through visual culture, and what are the political, social and aesthetic motivations and effects? How are the new forms of black British film facilitating new modes of representation, authorship and exhibition? Explored in the context of film aesthetics, curatorship, exhibition and arts practice, and the politics of diversity policy, Black Film British Cinema II provides the platform for new scholars, thinkers and practitioners to coalesce on these central questions. It is explicitly interdisciplinary, operating at the intersections of film studies, media and communications, sociology, politics and cultural studies. Through a diverse range of perspectives and theoretical interventions that offer a combination of traditional chapters, long-form essays, shorter think pieces, and critical dialogues, Black Film British Cinema II is a comprehensive, sustained, wide ranging collection that offers new framework for understanding contemporary black film practices and the cultural and creative dimensions that shape the making of blackness and race. Contributors Bidisha, Ashley Clark, Shelley Cobb, James Harvey, Melanie Hoyes, Maryam Jameela, Kara Keeling, Ozlem Koksal, Rabz Lansiquot, Sarita Malik, Richard Martin, So Mayer, Alessandra Raengo, Richard T. Rodríguez, Tess S. Skadegård Thorsen, Natalie Wreyford