Monday, April 29, 2013

You Are What You Hear: How Music and Territory Make Us Who We Are

Harry Witchel
online access from ProQuest Ebook Central
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Have you ever wondered why music makes you feel so good? Why did we evolve to have music, and what does music do to us? You Are What You Hear is a bit of a romp compared to the usual science book. Dr. Witchel, a specialist in music, pleasure and the brain, explains how the body and the brain are influenced by different kinds of music, why some music makes us joyous, while other music makes us sad, or angry, or anxious, and how the brain interprets this music. He also shows how music plays with your mind what you think, how you decide what to buy, and even how smart you are.

Pondering the musicality of everything from bird songs to the language he calls "motherese," Dr. Witchel illustrates the power of music and addresses the questions:
- Why do we listen to music?
- Why does music make sex better?
- Why do some people love Beethoven and others rap music?
- Is musical taste 100% nurture, or is there a role for nature?
- Why do aggressive young men blare out booming music from their cars?
- Why do we listen to sad music?
- Does violent music lead to violent behavior?
- Does listening to Mozart make you smarter or just happier?
- Does music make the brain grow larger?
- Can music surreptitiously influence what we decide to buy in shops?
- Can music cure?

Dr. Witchel's interests run the gamut from music, dating and laughter to the body language of the British Prime Minister, which he has analyzed on the BBC. he shows that, like birds, we use music to establish and reinforce territory, for ourselves and for our social groups. In this way, music defines who we are.

You Are What You Hear is an erudite and entertaining study that is unique in many ways. No other book has thoroughly elaborated the connection between music and social territory in humans, although in other music-making species scientists have shown this connection to be clear-cut. Given the wealth of scientific evidence and historical narratives presented in You Are What You Hear, an intellectual investigation of this avenue is long overdue. Written by a psychobiologist, the work straddles hard science and psychology, approaching music from a unique interdisciplinary perspective. Successfully bridging these strands of evidence, You Are What You Hear elucidates the significance of territory not only in music but in daily life. This lively and engaging book will have a broad appeal not only to the general public, but to students interested in the relationship between music and culture. Anyone from seventeen to seventy will have the potential to gain something from this book.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)


人類的音樂 (Music of Man)

耶胡迪・梅紐因 (Yehudi Menuhin) , 柯蒂斯・W・戴維斯 (Curtis W. Davis)
online access from SuperStar Digital Library
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在這本十分優美的書中,表達了作者許多精心選擇的個人觀點。本書將帶給讀者廣泛的閱讀樂趣,引領他們踏上一次激動人心的漫游音樂世界之旅,到世界的許多地方去對人聲、歌曲、和聲及器樂的發展探幽覽勝,把它們的種種動人形態盡收眼底。

《人類的音樂》是一本知識豐富、闡述詳盡、充滿深刻感悟和獨到見解的佳作。它探討了音樂在其漫長歷史中形成的各種形態,描述了各個時期創作及演奏音樂的歷史名人,闡釋了音樂在世界不同地區所扮演的社會角色。它追溯了因人類不斷變化的需要而應運而生的各種音樂流派、風格的演化過程,而那些促使音樂演化的因素,既有宗教和歷史的,也有社會和個人的。

(摘錄自dangdang.com)




Monday, April 22, 2013

Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril

online access from ProQuest Ebook Central
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Moral Ground brings together the testimony of over 80 visionaries — theologians and religious leaders, scientists, elected officials, business leaders, naturists, activists, and writers — to present a diverse and compelling call to honor our individual and collective moral responsibilities to our planet. In the face of environmental degradation and global climate change, scientific knowledge alone does not tell us what we ought to do. The missing premise of the argument and much-needed centerpiece in the debate to date has been the need for ethical values, moral guidance, and principled reasons for doing the right thing for our planet, its animals, its plants, and its people. This book encourages a newly discovered, or rediscovered, commitment to consensus about our ethical obligation to the future and why it’s wrong to wreck the world.
 
(Excerpt from amazon.com)

 

失控的世界 : 全球化如何重塑我們的生活 (Runaway World)

安東尼‧吉登斯 (Antony Giddens)
online access from SuperStar Digital Library
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本書從政治、文化和生活的角度對全球化問題作了深刻的分析,生動地論述了不斷增長的全球依賴性是如何影響我們的日常生活,如何影響我們當中的每一個人的。全書共五章。

安東尼‧吉登斯,英國著名學者,現任倫敦政治經濟學院院長,曾任英國布萊爾首相和美國前總統克林頓顧問,至今出版著作30餘部。吉登斯近年來發表的《現代性的後果》、《現代性與自我認同》、《親密關係的轉型》、《超越左與右》、《為社會學辯護》和《第三條道路︰社會民主主義的復興》等著作引起國際學術界和政治界的廣泛關注,他的著作已被譯成22種語言,其主要著作大都已譯成中文在我國出版。此外,專門對吉登斯的著作進行研究的書籍就達十種之多,其中還有一部四卷本的研究專著。1996年,他成為BBC萊思講座主講人。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)


Monday, April 15, 2013

Orientalist Aesthetics: Art, Colonialism, and French North Africa, 1880-1930

Roger Benjamin
online access from ProQuest Ebook Central
online access from EBSCOhost
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Lavishly illustrated with exotic images ranging from Renoir's forgotten Algerian oeuvre to the abstract vision of Matisse's Morocco and beyond, this book is the first history of Orientalist art during the period of high modernism. Roger Benjamin, drawing on a decade of research in untapped archives, introduces many unfamiliar paintings, posters, miniatures, and panoramas and discovers an art movement closely bound to French colonial expansion. Orientalist Aesthetics approaches the visual culture of exoticism by ranging across the decorative arts, colonial museums, traveling scholarships, and art criticism in the Salons of Paris and Algiers.

Benjamin's rediscovery of the important Society of French Orientalist Painters provides a critical context for understanding a lush body of work, including that of indigenous Algerian artists never before discussed in English.

The painter-critic Eugène Fromentin tackled the unfamiliar atmospheric conditions of the desert, Etienne Dinet sought a more truthful mode of ethnographic painting by converting to Islam, and Mohammed Racim melded the Persian miniature with Western perspective. Benjamin considers armchair Orientalists concocting dreams from studio bric-à-brac, naturalists who spent years living in the oases of the Sahara, and Fauve and Cubist travelers who transposed the discoveries of the Parisian Salons to create decors of indigenous figures and tropical plants. The network that linked these artists with writers and museum curators was influenced by a complex web of tourism, rapid travel across the Mediterranean, and the march of modernity into a colonized culture. Orientalist Aesthetics shows how colonial policy affected aesthetics, how Europeans visualized cultural difference, and how indigenous artists in turn manipulated Western visual languages.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)

Creator
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Henri Matisse
[Accessible on Campus Only]



趙無極中國講學筆錄 = The Lecture Notes of Zao Wou-ki in China

孫建平  編集
online access from Apabi
online access from SuperStar Digital Library
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本書是作者一九八五年五月在其母校浙江美術學院講學時的筆錄,其中包括作者與美術學院師生的交流以及作者對美院師生作品的美術批評。

(摘錄自讀書網)


中國藝術研究院研究員、著名藝術評論家劉曉純認為,趙無極留下的東西不僅是他價值連城的藝術作品,更是他創造性的精神遺產:國際化視野,現代性的藝術觀念,以及兼具東西方的文化情懷。

在西方藝術家的眼中,趙無極的畫既有西方神秘學說的啟示,又有中國人對自然的思考,這無疑是趙無極藝術的最高境界。藝評人達尼埃爾.馬歇索認為,趙無極的畫面上透明而抽象的淡彩,精到地綜合了中國意味和西方抒情主義。

(摘錄自中國評論新聞網)



Monday, April 8, 2013

Risk to Succeed: Essential Lessons for Discovering Your Unique Talents and Finding Success

Ricky Cohen
online access from McGraw-Hill ebook library
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NEW BUSINESS PARABLE FOR OUR TIMES

According to the laws of the jungle, a baby elephant can survive only if it stands on its own in the first few hours after being born.

These laws also apply to your own survival--and ultimate success--in the business world today.

From Ricky Cohen, educator, entrepreneur, and renowned CEO of The Conway Organization, comes an inspiring new business parable for our unprecedented times. It is the story of a young elephant named Bella who is not content to move with the herd. She longs to venture out on her own. Searching. Exploring. Making her way in the world. Soon she forms an unlikely friendship with a colorful butterfly named Cee, who teaches Bella the importance of taking risks and other essential lessons--timeless "laws of the jungle" that you can apply to every aspect of your life:

"Life begins with courage."
"Smart is the new rich."
"Stumbling is a gift."
"What you seek lies within you."
"Believe in life: Always."

and much more…

Whether you're an entrepreneur with a dream, a manager on the rise, or a leader with a vision, this charming and insightful parable will guide you on your way through life’s greatest journey. This is the way to Risk to Succeed.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)


為什麼成功的人總成功 (The 7 Rules of Success)

費奧納.哈羅德 (Fiona Harrold)
online access from Apabi
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本書是英國當代著名的成功學教育學家費奧納•哈羅德的經典勵志作品。費奧納•哈羅德在其人生經歷中,曾接觸過大量的成功人士,與他們進行了面對面的交談,了解了他們的成功故事和成功法則。在本書中,費奧納•哈羅德通過親身經歷和切身體會,揭開了成功的神秘面紗,展示了成功背後的理念,提示了那些成功人士的成功策略和秘密,發現了現代成功人士所普遍遵從的7大法則:富有激情、相信自己、做得比別人多、冒更多的險、激勵他人、堅持不懈、慷慨,同時也探討了成功與快樂、成功與個人責任、成功與社會地位、成功與事業之間的關係。

(摘錄自amazon.cn)



Monday, April 1, 2013

Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom

Rebecca MacKinnon
online access from Books24x7
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The Internet was going to liberate us, but in truth it has not. For every story about the web’s empowering role in events such as the Arab Spring, there are many more about the quiet corrosion of civil liberties by companies and governments using the same digital technologies we have come to depend upon. Sudden changes in Facebook’s features and privacy settings have exposed identities of protestors to police in Egypt and Iran. Apple removes politically controversial apps at the behest of governments as well as for its own commercial reasons. Dozens of Western companies sell surveillance technology to dictatorships around the world. Google struggles with censorship demands from governments in a range of countries—many of them democracies—as well as mounting public concern over the vast quantities of information it collects about its users.

In Consent of the Networked, journalist and Internet policy specialist Rebecca MacKinnon argues that it is time to fight for our rights before they are sold, legislated, programmed, and engineered away. Every day, the corporate sovereigns of cyberspace make decisions that affect our physical freedom—but without our consent. Yet the traditional solution to unaccountable corporate behavior—government regulation—cannot stop the abuse of digital power on its own, and sometimes even contributes to it.

A clarion call to action, Consent of the Networked shows that it is time to stop arguing over whether the Internet empowers people, and address the urgent question of how technology should be governed to support the rights and liberties of users around the world.

(Excerpt from amazon.com)


萬古江河 : 中國歷史文化的轉折與開展

許倬雲 著
online access from SuperStar Digital Library
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《萬古江河》是許倬雲畢生智慧的結晶,也是他對中國文化發展問題的創新詮釋!

本書以江河流域的擴大比喻文化的進展,從中國文化發軔的地理空間開始談起,論及史前時期中國文化的多元發展與分合,然後再細述中國文化在不斷的衝突與融合中,一步步擴大進入世界體系的歷程。最後,全書以中國文化面對近代西方資本主義帝國壓力下的「百年蹣跚」為結束。

《萬古江河》近27萬言,涉及的內容極為豐富,有民俗生活、思想信仰、文學藝術、經濟社會的演變、科學技術的發展、文化的交流互動等,字裡行間既有高空鳥瞰式的宏觀洞見,又有具體日常生活的細微描寫。

更重要的是,本書不但擺脫了中國文化本位主義,也著重於庶民觀點及大區域文化的比較研究,每每以全球文化的高視點,來詮釋多元且複雜的中國文化發展歷程。其視野之開闊、思路之寬廣,實為相關著作中所僅見。

許倬雲耗時三年完成的這部大著作,雖是以精深學術為底子,但作者的文字風格極為暢達,也不直接引用史料原文,因此本書已跨越了歷史專業讀者群的範圍,非常適合一般讀者閱讀。作者在書中闡釋了上百個一般讀者想知道,但又不曉得到哪裡去問的文化議題,例如:台灣為什麼晚至近代才出現在中國歷史上、中古的老百姓吃些什麼、《金瓶梅》為什麼是有反叛精神的創作、長江文化和黃河文化有何差異、孔子的「仁」到底是什麼意思、中國為什麼沒有出現代西方的工業化……等。一如作者在自序中所言:「今日的讀者不同於舊時,在這平民的時代,大率受過高中教育以上者,都可能對歷史有興趣。」──而本書,即是為這一代中國人所撰寫的歷史。

(摘錄自博客來網路書店)