Even as the global economy of the twenty-first century continues its dramatic and unpredictable transformations, the landscapes it leaves in its wake bear the indelible marks of their industrial past. Whether in the form of abandoned physical structures, displaced populations, or ecological impacts, they persist in memory and lived experience across the developed world. This collection explores the affective and “more-than-representational” dimensions of post-industrial landscapes, including narratives, practices, social formations, and other phenomena. Focusing on case studies from across Europe, it examines both the objective and the subjective aspects of societies that, increasingly, produce fewer things and employ fewer workers.

Even as the global economy of the twenty-first century continues its dramatic and unpredictable transformations, the landscapes it leaves in its wake bear the indelible marks of their industrial past. Whether in the form of abandoned physical structures, displaced populations, or ecological impacts, they persist in memory and lived experience across the developed world. This collection explores the affective and "more-than-representational" dimensions of post-industrial landscapes, including narratives, practices, social formations, and other phenomena. Focusing on case studies from across Europe, it examines both the objective and the subjective aspects of societies that, increasingly, produce fewer things and employ fewer workers.

Mass tourism is one of the most striking developments in postwar western societies, involving economic, social, cultural, and anthropological factors. For many countries it has become a significant, if not the primary, source of income for the resident population. The Mediterranean basin, which has long been a very popular destination, is explored here in the first study to scrutinize the region as a whole and over a long period of time. In particular, it investigates the area’s economic and social networks directly involved in tourism, which includes examining the most popular spots that attract tourists and the crucial actors, such as hotel entrepreneurs, travel agencies, charter companies, and companies developing seaside resort networks. This important volume presents a fascinating picture of the economics of tourism in one of the world’s most visited destinations.

Danesi’s introduction to popular culture takes students through major forms of media to explore a vast array of cultural theories. The fifth edition features updated coverage on social media and digital cultures, including those surrounding memes, video games, virtual reality, and streaming services.

Exploring the difficult and contested sites of deindustrialized society on the brink of transformation to either heritage or wasteland, this volume looks at the creative ways that such sites are (re)used and suggests that they are not always merely abject or abandoned. As a result, our understanding of the meanings given to left over spaces is enhanced by an examination of the ways they are used. Ambivalent heritage sites are not always recognized for their potential, although artists and people from different recreational activities, such as industrial sites and parkour, use and experience these places in different ways. The contributors introduce fresh ideas on how to approach these sites and the people invested in them, employing multidisciplinary methodologies from archaeology and heritage studies to ethnography and sociology. Through the use of Northern-European case studies such as a former sanatorium, a prison and the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, the reader gains a new perspective on these sites of contestation, which are cherished despite their problematic status. The conclusion is that due to the rapid societal change we are experiencing in the contemporary world, heritage professionals must start to acknowledge and deal with the difficulties that ambivalent heritage sites pose.

A Theology for a Mediated God introduces a new way to examine the shaping effects of media on our notions of God and divinity. In contrast to more conventional social-scientific methodologies and conversations about the relationship between religion and media, Dennis Ford argues that the characteristics we ascribe to a medium can be extended and applied metaphorically to the characteristics we ascribe to God—just as earlier generations attempted to comprehend God through the metaphors of father, shepherd, or mother. As a result, his work both challenges and bridges the gap between students of religion and media, and theology.

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Applies the recent `return to history' in film studies to the genre of classical Hollywood comedy as well as broadening the definition of those works considered central in this field.

Considering the current rash of film remakes, vintage video game downloads, and box sets of bygone television shows, media today is obsessed with nostalgia. Instead of presenting a past that functions as an adaptive mirror with which we can compare our contemporary situation, the past is instead presented as an individualized version that transfixes us as uncritical citizens of our own culture. Mediated Nostalgia: Individual Memory and Contemporary Mass Media argues that the cultural implication of a cross-media eternal return to nostalgia is an increasing reliance on defining who we are as people and societies by what media we consumed as children. The unblinking eye toward the past knows no progress, or at the very least, does not employ the past to compare and adaptively engage with the present or future. Examining film, literature, television, and video games, Ryan Lizardi tackles the idea of why that strong sense of nostalgia is such a popular tactic for the media industry, and why it is problematic.

In this book a new and distinctive approach to the science-religion debate emerges from a synthesis of the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition with phenomenological thought. Developing ideas of Greek Patristics the author treats faith, with its sense of the Divine presence, and knowledge of the universe, as two modes of communion which constitute the human condition. The modern opposition between science and theology (which is historically paralleled with the Church's split between East and West, and monasticism and Christianity in the world), is treated as the split between two intentionalities of the overall human subjectivity. The human person, as a centre of their reconciliation, becomes the major theme of the dialogue between science and theology. It is argued that the reconciliation of science and theology is not simply an academic exercise; it requires an existential change, a change of mind (metanoia), which cannot be effected without ecclesial involvement. Then the person who effectuates the mediation between science and theology is raised to the level of "cosmic priesthood" while the mediation acquires the features of a "cosmic Eucharist" in which all divisions and tensions in creation and humanity are removed. It is through this existential change accompanied by phenomenological analysis that scientific theories can be subjected to a certain "vision" through which the hidden ultimate goal (telos) of scientific research (as the explication of the human condition) shows its kinship to the saving telos advocated by Christian faith. The opposition between theology and science is thus being para-eucharistically overcome.