Cyclogeography: Journeys of a London Bicycle Courier

Author: Jon Day
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1910749303
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 123

Book Description
Cyclogeography is about the bicycle in the cultural imagination and also a portrait of London as seen from the saddle. In the great tradition of the psychogeographers, Jon Day attempts to depart from the map and reclaim the streets of the city. Informed by several grinding years spent as a bicycle courier, he lifts the lid on the solitary life of the courier. Traveling the unmapped byways, shortcuts, and urban edgelands, couriers are the declining, invisible workforce of the city. The parcels they deliver keep things running. For those who survive the crushing toughness of the job, the bicycle can become what holds them together.

Need for the Bike

Author: Paul Fournel
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496220390
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 153

Book Description
A book like no other, Paul Fournel's Need for the Bike conducts readers into a very personal world of communication and connection whose center is the bicycle, and where all people and things pass by way of the bike. In compact and suggestive prose, Fournel conveys the experience of cycling--from the initial charm of early outings to the dramas of the devoted cyclist. An extended meditation on cycling as a practice of life, the book recalls a country doctor who will not anesthetize the young Fournel after he impales himself on a downtube shifter, speculates about the difference between animals that would like to ride bikes (dogs, for instance) and those that would prefer to watch (cows, marmots), and reflects on the fundamental absurdity of turning over the pedals mile after excruciating mile. At the same time, Fournel captures the sound, smell, feel, and language of the reality and history of cycling, in the mountains, in the city, escaping the city, in groups, alone, suffering, exhausted, exhilarated. In his attention to the pleasures of cycling, to the specific "grain" of different cycling experiences, and to the inscription of these experiences in the body's cycling memory, Fournel portrays cycling as a descriptive universe, colorful, lyrical, inclusive, exclusive, complete.

Religion and Contemporary Art

Author: Ronald R. Bernier
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000868451
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 475

Book Description
Religion and Contemporary Art sets the theoretical frameworks and interpretive strategies for exploring the re-emergence of religion in the making, exhibiting, and discussion of contemporary art. Featuring essays from both established and emerging scholars, critics, and artists, the book reflects on what might be termed an "accord" between contemporary art and religion. It explores the common strategies contemporary artists employ in the interface between religion and contemporary art practice. It also includes case studies to provide more in-depth treatments of specific artists grappling with themes such as ritual, abstraction, mythology, the body, popular culture, science, liturgy, and social justice, among other themes. It is a must-read resource for working artists, critics, and scholars in this field, and an invitation to new voices "curious" about its promises and possibilities.

Cycling and Cinema

Author: Bruce Bennett
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 1906897999
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Book Description
A unique exploration of the history of the bicycle in cinema, from Hollywood blockbusters and slapstick comedies to documentaries, realist dramas, and experimental films. Cycling and Cinema explores the history of the bicycle in cinema from the late nineteenth century through to the present day. In this new book from Goldsmiths Press, Bruce Bennett examines a wide variety of films from around the world, ranging from Hollywood blockbusters and slapstick comedies to documentaries, realist dramas, and experimental films, to consider the complex, shifting cultural significance of the bicycle. The bicycle is an everyday technology, but in examining the ways in which bicycles are used in films, Bennett reveals the rich social and cultural importance of this apparently unremarkable machine. The cinematic bicycles discussed in this book have various functions. They are the source of absurd comedy in silent films, and the vehicles that allow their owners to work in sports films and social realist cinema. They are a means of independence and escape for children in melodramas and kids' films, and the tools that offer political agency and freedom to women, as depicted in films from around the world. In recounting the cinematic history of the bicycle, Bennett reminds us that this machine is not just a practical means of transport or a child's toy, but the vehicle for a wide range of meanings concerning individual identity, social class, nationhood and belonging, family, gender, and sexuality and pleasure. As this book shows, two hundred years on from its invention, the bicycle is a revolutionary technology that retains the power to transform the world.

The Politics of Cycling Infrastructure

Author: Cox, Peter
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1447345177
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
This volume casts a critical gaze on current practices and on the wider relationship of bicycling to other forms of urban mobility, especially within the context of sustainable and livable cities. The book's international contributors provide an interdisciplinary critical analysis of policy and practice.

Cycling to Work

Author: Patrick Rérat
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030622568
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 134

Book Description
This book presents a thorough discussion of utility cycling, cycling in the urban environment, and everyday mobility. It is based on large survey answered by 14,000 participants in the bike to work action in Switzerland, and quantifies the various dimensions of utility cycling. It proposes an innovative theoretical framework to analyse and understand the various dimensions of the uses of bikes and their diversity. It addresses the factors that motivate commuters to get on their bike, and highlights the barriers to this practice between deficient infrastructures and lack of legitimacy. This research makes a diagnosis and discusses the way to develop this sustainable mode of transportation. By combining quantitative results in the form of tables, figures, and maps, and including qualitative results in the form of quotations from survey participants, this book provides a thorough and enjoyable read. It will be of interest to researchers, policy makers, advanced students in the field of urban planning, social sciences, and transportation.

The Georgetown Companion to Interreligious Studies

Author: Lucinda Mosher
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 1647121639
Category : RELIGION
Languages : en
Pages : 565

Book Description
The Georgetown Companion to Interreligious Studies provides fifty thought-provoking chapters on the history, priorities, challenges, pedagogies, and practical applications of this emerging field, written by an international roster of practitioners of or experts across diverse religious traditions.

The Routledge Research Companion to Travel Writing

Author: Alasdair Pettinger
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317041194
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 855

Book Description
Showcasing established and new patterns of research, The Routledge Research Companion to Travel Writing takes an interdisciplinary approach to scholarship and to travel texts themselves. The volume adopts a thematic approach, with each contributor considering a specific aspect of travel writing – a recurrent motif, an organising principle or a literary form. All of the essays include a discussion of representative travel texts, to ensure that the volume as a whole represents a broad historical and geographical range of travel writing. Together, the 25 essays and the editors’ introduction offer a comprehensive and authoritative reflection of the state of travel writing criticism and lay the ground for future developments.

The Wind At My Back

Author: Paul Maunder
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472948122
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
In this deeply personal and lyrical exploration of what it means to ride a bicycle, Paul Maunder explores how our memories have a dialogue with landscape and how cycling and creativity are connected. Taking a journey through the places that have shaped him, we ride across wild moorland, through suburbia and city streets, into quintessentially English pastoral scenes. We see too some of the darker parts of the British countryside, sites of great secrecy that intrigue the imagination. This is a book about how landscape can sustain us, and how even an hour's escape can inspire our creative sides. The bicycle allows us to explore and dream, and return in time for dinner.

What Goes Around

Author: Emily Chappell
Publisher: Guardian Faber Publishing
ISBN: 9781783350544
Category : Bicycle messengers
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
At twenty-five, Emily Chappell took up cycle couriering while she searched for a 'real job'. Eight years on, she is still riding. As she flies through the streets of London, dancing with the traffic, Chappell records the pains and pleasures of life on wheels: the dangerous missions; the moments of fear and freedom, and ultimately the simple joy of pedalling onward.