If, as David Guss argues, culture is a contested terrain with constantly changing contours, then festivals are its battlegrounds, where people come to fight and dispute in large acts of public display. Festive behavior, long seen by anthropologists and folklorists as the "uniform expression of a collective consciousness, is contentious and often subversive," and The Festive State is an eye-opening guide to its workings. Guss investigates "the ideology of tradition," combining four case studies in a radical multisite ethnography to demonstrate how in each instance concepts of race, ethnicity, history, gender, and nationhood are challenged and redefined. In a narrative as colorful as the events themselves, Guss presents the Afro-Venezuelan celebration of San Juan, the "neo-Indian" Day of the Monkey, the mestizo ritual of Tamunangue, and the cultural policies and products of a British multinational tobacco corporation. All these illustrate the remarkable fluidity of festive behavior as well as its importance in articulating different cultural interests.

"This book vividly recreates ... a Christmas holiday trip down State Street. You will visit many of the major shops and stores that existed during the 1940's and beyond, viewing old display windows and getting reacquainted with famous Christmas characters ..."--p. [4] of cover.

A comprehensive cultural and historical portrait of Italian American identities in Boston’s North End.

Captioned photographs depict Christmas time throughout the United States.

Can the magic of Christmas and the community of Thorndale bring two lost souls together in love? Olivia doesn’t have time for Christmas or for romance – she’s got a demanding career and has been burned before when it comes to love. This year, she’s spending the festive season in her dad’s old house, packing it up now that he’s moved out. Her dad failed to mention she wouldn’t be spending her time there alone... The last thing Olivia expects is for her surprise guest to be the very man who literally ran from her after an evening of mutual flirtation. But Tom has nowhere else to go and Olivia is determined to forget the disappointment she felt at his abandonment and instead help him find his way again. As heavy snow keeps them inside the cottage, will their enforced confinement spark romance once again – or will it push them further apart? The perfect festive romance to curl up with, for fans of Victoria Walters and Trisha Ashley. Praise for A Country Village Christmas'Warm and comforting and realistic and heartwarming and funny. It’s got everything a real family Christmas should have.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Reader review 'The writing evokes a real sense of community, with friendship and family at the heart, and the main characters are well drawn. I could easily imagine this book being made into a "feel good" movie. Perfect if you're looking for an uplifting light read - a cosy novel with a seasonal and romantic theme.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Reader review 'This was my first visit to Thorndale and after enjoying this peep into the village I can't wait to explore more books by this author. It's a book you will want to devour in one sitting, snuggled up with a hot chocolate.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Reader review 'I absolutely loved this beautiful, cosy, heartwarming read that was so much more than just a Christmas book. This was the perfect escapism read.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Reader review

In this cumulative rhyme based on "The Twelve Days of Christmas," Max receives gifts from his cousin related to the history, geography, animals, and interesting sites of Washington. Includes facts about Washington.

A King Travels examines the scripting and performance of festivals in Spain between 1327 and 1620, offering an unprecedented look at the different types of festivals that were held in Iberia during this crucial period of European history. Bridging the gap between the medieval and early modern eras, Teofilo Ruiz focuses on the travels and festivities of Philip II, exploring the complex relationship between power and ceremony, and offering a vibrant portrait of Spain's cultural and political life. Ruiz covers a range of festival categories: carnival, royal entries, tournaments, calendrical and noncalendrical celebrations, autos de fe, and Corpus Christi processions. He probes the ritual meanings of these events, paying special attention to the use of colors and symbols, and to the power relations articulated through these festive displays. Ruiz argues that the fluid and at times subversive character of medieval festivals gave way to highly formalized and hierarchical events reflecting a broader shift in how power was articulated in late medieval and early modern Spain. Yet Ruiz contends that these festivals, while they sought to buttress authority and instruct different social orders about hierarchies of power, also served as sites of contestation, dialogue, and resistance. A King Travels sheds new light on Iberian festive traditions and their unique role in the centralizing state in early modern Castile.

This book offers an exciting new perspective on Shakespeare's relation to popular culture.

This collection of essays is an important contribution to the new literature on frontier studies and the historiography of Northeast India. Moving away from an exclusive dependence on colonial ethnographies, the authors build their arguments on a varied range of sources: from buranjis to revenue records, survey maps to explorers' diaries, and missionary papers to police files. They question the givennes of the categories through which the region is usually described, and contest the stereotypes by which the people of the region are primitivized. They explore the historical processes whereby the region was surveyed, mapped, understood, represented, politically governed, economically refigured, and historically constituted during the colonial period. Though focused on the experience of Northeast India, the volume also raises substantive questions about the idea of the frontier and the border, the primitive and the modern, and the tribal and the settled, the local and the trans-local.

Recounts the events of six historic festivals in San Antonio, Texas, at the end of the nineteenth century, describing each event's pageantry, parades, competitions, and participants.