The first accessible reader on magic’s generative relationship with contemporary art practice. From the hexing of presidents to a renewed interest in herbalism and atavistic forms of self-care, magic has furnished the contemporary imagination with mysterious and often disorienting bodies of arcane thought and practice. This volume brings together writings by artists, magicians, historians, and theorists that illuminate the vibrant correspondences animating contemporary art’s varied encounters with magical culture, inspiring a reconsideration of the relationship between the symbolic and the pragmatic. Dispensing with simple narratives of reenchantment, Magic illustrates the intricate ways in which we have to some extent always been captivated by the allure of the numinous. It demonstrates how magical culture’s tendencies toward secrecy, occlusion, and encryption might provide contemporary artists with strategies of remedial communality, a renewed faith in the invocational power of personal testimony, and a poetics of practice that could boldly question our political circumstances, from the crisis of climate collapse to the strictures of socially sanctioned techniques of medical and psychiatric care. Tracing its various emergences through the shadows of modernity, the circuitries of ritual media, and declarations of psychic self-defence, Magic deciphers the evolution of a “magical-critical” thinking that productively complicates, contradicts and expands the boundaries of our increasingly weird present.

The first publication in English to provide an in-depth examination including illustrations of the historical developments of the famous temple site Karnak, from its early shrine to the greatest state temple of Ancient Eygpt's mighty empire.

Essential writings thatconsider the diverse meanings of contemporary painting since its postconceptualrevival.

A thrilling new Steampunk fantasy from a talented debut author TWO GODS-ONE CHANCE FOR MANKIND In Victorian London, the Whitechapel section is a mechanized, steam-driven hell, cut off and ruled by two mysterious, mechanical gods-Mama Engine and Grandfather Clock. Some years have passed since the Great Uprising, when humans rose up to fight against the machines, but a few brave veterans of the Uprising have formed their own Resistance-and are gathering for another attack. For now they have a secret weapon that may finally free them-or kill them all...

New perspectives on Anglo-Jewish history via the poetry and song of Yiddish-speaking immigrants in London from 1884 to 1914. Archive material from the London Yiddish press, songbooks, and satirical writing offers a window into an untold cultural life of the Yiddish East End. Whitechapel Noise: Jewish Immigrant Life in Yiddish Song and Verse, London 1884–1914 by Vivi Lachs positions London’s Yiddish popular culture in historical perspective within Anglo-Jewish history, English socialist aesthetics, and music-hall culture, and shows its relationship to the transnational Yiddish-speaking world. Layers of cultural references in the Yiddish texts are closely analyzed and quoted to draw out the complex yet intimate histories they contain, offering new perspectives on Anglo-Jewish historiography in three main areas: politics, sex, and religion. The acculturation of Jewish immigrants to English life is an important part of the development of their social culture, as well as to the history of London. In part one of the book, Lachs presents an overview of daily immigrant life in London, its relationship to the Anglo-Jewish establishment, and the development of a popular Yiddish theatre and press, establishing a context from which these popular texts came. The author then analyzes the poems and songs, revealing the hidden social histories of the people writing and performing them. For example, how Morris Winchevsky’s London poetry shows various attempts to engage the Jewish immigrant worker in specific London activism and political debate. Lachs explores how themes of marriage, relationships, and sexual exploitation appear regularly in music-hall songs, alluding to the changing nature of sexual roles in the immigrant London community influenced by the cultural mores of their new location. On the theme of religion, Lachs examines how ideas from Jewish texts and practice were used and manipulated by the socialist poets to advance ideas about class, equality, and revolution; and satirical writings offer glimpses into how the practice of religion and growing secularization was changing immigrants’ daily lives in the encounter with modernity. The detailed and nuanced analysis found in Whitechapel Noiseoffers a new reading of Anglo-Jewish, London, and immigrant history. It is a must-read for Jewish and Anglo-Jewish historians and those interested in Yiddish, London, and migration studies.

Writings on color from modernism to the present, with contributions writers from Baudelaire to Baudrillard, surveying art from Paul Gauguin to Rachel Whiteread.

Formed during the reign of Elizabeth I, the post of the Royal Occultist was created to safeguard the British Empire against threats occult, otherworldly, infernal and divine. It is now 1920, and the title and offices have fallen to Charles St. Cyprian. Accompanied by his apprentice Ebe Gallowglass, they defend the battered empire from the forces of darkness. In the wake of a seance gone wrong, a monstrous killer is summoned from the depths of nightmare by a deadly murder-cult. The entity hunts its prey with inhuman tenacity even as its worshippers stop at nothing to bring the entity into its full power... It's up to St. Cyprian and Gallowglass to stop the bloodthirsty horror before another notch is added to its gory tally, but will they become the next victims of the horror guised as London's most famous killer? In the tradition of William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki the Ghost-Finder, Josh Reynolds presents the Adventures of the Royal Occultist. Join Charles St. Cyprian and Ebe Gallowglass as they race to halt the workings of a sinister secret society and put an end to the monstrous manifestation in THE WHITECHAPEL DEMON!

Ruins is one of a series documenting major themes and ideas in contemporary art.

This anthology considers how the rise of transdisciplinary practices in the post-war era allowed for new kinds of artistic engagement with nature. It provides an overview of the eclectic scientific and philosophical sources that inform contemporary art's investigations of nature.

This is the true story about a respected businessman, Henry Wainwright, who had everything he needed in 1871. A wife and 5 children and a delightful London townhouse home. But in 1872, Henry fell in love with attractive Harriet Lane. He then embarked on a risky affair with Harriet coupled with gambling and flirtations with ballet girls from the Pavilion Theatre, Whitechapel. Harriet produced two children as Henry sets her up in lodgings with an allowance as they pretended to be husband & wife. Henry’s finances then tumbled out of control and bankruptcy loomed. What happened next was a scandalous conspiracy which ended in murder, and a plot which fooled everyone into thinking that the victim had gone abroad. Henry Wainwright got away with murder for a year before a schoolboy error led to his capture. The case ruined the lives of three families. This fast-moving story will transport to a world of polite, East End society in the mid 1870’s of Victorian London, but with a seedy underbelly. 14 years before the infamous Jack the Ripper Murders, it was the original, ‘Whitechapel Mystery’ which was probably the most sensational criminal case of the 1870’s and involves a chase through the city and across London Bridge. This story also involves Henry’s younger brother Thomas who was also involved in the conspiracy to murder Harriet Lane. The case paints a vivid picture of Victorian London. The police investigation and Old Bailey trial is revealed in glorious detail. It’s a story of love, weakness and devious, desperate liars. It’s a rollickingly good Victorian scandal. Written in an entertaining style, the book contains a huge amount of fascinating detail, not only of the murder but about the lives of so many of the characters in the story. It’s a huge slice of London life, 1875 style. This story deserves to be much better known and will be fascinating to anyone interested in Whitechapel or Victorian Crime.