Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society since Gorbachev Review

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(More customer reviews)This book has the rare quality of being a classroom text as well as a report. Today's Russia. Pyramid schemes, religion, rave parties,rock music, detective stories, cinema, pets, porn, graffiti, tattooing... the carnival of crazy New Russia to be read overnight. A shock.

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With the collapse of the Soviet empire in the late 1980s, the Russian social landscape has undergone its most dramatic changes since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, turning the once bland and monolithic state-run marketplace into a virtual maze of specialty shops—from sushi bars to discotheques and tattoo parlors. In Consuming Russia editor Adele Marie Barker presents the first book-length volume to explore the sweeping cultural transformation taking place in the new Russia. The contributors examine how the people of Russia reconcile prerevolutionary elite culture—as well as the communist legacy—with the influx of popular influences from the West to build a society that no longer relies on a single dominant discourse and embraces the multiplicities of both public and private Russian life. Barker brings together Russian and American scholars from anthropology, history, literature, political science, sociology, and cultural studies. These experts fuse theoretical analysis with ethnographic research to analyze the rise of popular culture, covering topics as varied as post-Soviet rave culture, rock music, children and advertising, pyramid schemes, tattooing, pets, and spectator sports. They consider detective novels, anecdotes, issues of feminism and queer sexuality, nostalgia, the Russian cinema, and graffiti. Discussions of pornography, religious cults, and the deployment of Soviet ideological symbols as post-Soviet kitsch also help to demonstrate how the rebuilding of Russia's political and economic infrastructure has been influenced by its citizens' cultural production and consumption. This volume will appeal to those engaged with post-Soviet studies, to anyone interested in the state of Russian society, and to readers more generally involved with the study of popular culture.Contributors. Adele Marie Barker, Eliot Borenstein, Svetlana Boym, John Bushnell, Nancy Condee, Robert Edelman, Laurie Essig, Julia P. Friedman, Paul W. Goldschmidt, Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, Anna Krylova, Susan Larsen, Catharine Theimer Nepomnyaschy, Theresa Sabonis-Chafee, Tim Scholl, Adam Weiner, Alexei Yurchak, Elizabeth Kristofovich Zelensky

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Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don't Give Away More Money Review

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(More customer reviews)As a seminary student with plans enter the priesthood, I found Passing the Plate valuable and helpful. The authors approach the inquiry of "Why American Christians don't give away more money" with genuine concern and interest in those who profess a faith but don't support it financially as their faith suggests they should. The tone throughout the book is measured not to criticize or accuse Christians of fault but moreso to help Christians live up to their faith and to fund the causes in which they believe. I appreciated their motives, processes, honesty and suggestions.
The authors present themselves as sociologists rather than theologians or Christian leaders. Their endeavor is to research and study Christian giving that they might determine the thoughts, attitudes, emotions and resources behind Christian giving or lack of it.
They study and analyze a plethora of data on giving and givers. They perform their own surveys and interviews of Christian leaders and parishoners to get to the core of the issue. The data results of their studies are eye opening to say the least, and most of their statistics are clear and tell a revealing story of who gives, how much they give and why they give or don't give.
The authors offer and test hypotheses of why American Christians don't give more money--at least closer to the 10% tithe prescribed by most Christian organizations. They discuss their findings in relation to these hypotheses.
After discussing their findings, they present suggestions for Christian leaders to implement in their congregations to increase giving in conformity with their faith. These are coherent, practical applications that are not manipulative or conniving but what I think are really helpful suggestions that readers can consider.
I think this book is one that pastors and Christian leaders will find valuable and instructional. I think it will also ease discomfort and anxiety that leaders may have when it comes to discussing money and teaching about finances within their churches.
Craig Stephans, author of Shakespeare On Spirituality: Life-Changing Wisdom from Shakespeare's Plays

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How People Live Review

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(More customer reviews)I am VERY familiar with this book, having read it at night to my 11 year old son for months now! We just finished it. He loved it--he is a huge geography buff and was fascinated with the glimpes of so many cultures around the world. We both learned a lot about people and countries we had known nothing or very little about before now.
A few small things would have made this a much better book, however! I would have loved to have a small map on each 2 page spread about a culture, so that we could have seen exactly where the people talked about lived. I'd have liked very much to have some of the words in other languages spelled out phonetically, as I was often guessing wildly at how things were said. I also wish the book would have focused a little less on exotic and unusual cultures and a little more on more common cultures---the former was very interesting, but the latter would have given us probably a more realistic world view!
My sons are annoyed that I am writing so many complaints! They felt this was a wonderful book, and so did I---I just think it could have been even better!

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