Simon Smith – författare

Post-communist transformation in the former Soviet bloc has had a profound effect, not just in the political and economic sphere, but on all aspects of life. Although a great deal has been written about transformation, much of it has been about transformation viewed from the top, and little has been written about how things have changed for ordinary people at the local level.This book, based on extensive original research, examines the changes resulting from transformation at the local level in the form Czechoslovakia. It considers especially local democracy, social movements, and work collectives, and paints a picture of people gradually growing in self-confidence and taking more control of their communities, having lived for decades in a framework where so much was directed from the top.

Considering a wide range of early modern texts, performances and artworks, the essays in this collection demonstrate how attention to the senses illuminates the literature, art and culture of early modern England. Examining canonical and less familiar literary works alongside early modern texts ranging from medical treatises to conduct manuals via puritan polemic and popular ballads, the collection offers a new view of the senses in early modern England.The volume offers dedicated essays on each of the five senses, each relating works of art to their cultural moments, whilst elsewhere the volume considers the senses collectively in particular cultural contexts. It also pursues the sensory experiences that early modern subjects encountered through the very acts of engaging with texts, performances and artworks. This book will appeal to scholars of early modern literature and culture, to those working in sensory studies, and to anyone interested in the art and life of early modern England.An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

In this transformative study, Simon Smith explores how playwrights like Shakespeare crafted their plays for demanding and varied commercial audiences. Rediscovering the many forms of judgement practiced in the early modern playhouse, he investigates influences ranging from the classical tradition and grammar-school classroom to ballad and jest culture. Where many prior studies have treated 'the judicious' as a self-contained subset of playgoers, Smith reveals the variety of careful assessments made in the theatre by a wide range of playgoers, showing that judgement and pleasure were often simultaneous elements of the same response. Chapters examine specific parts of plays that were especially subject to evaluation and generative of enjoyment: spectacle, words, plot, and actorly technique. Close readings shed fresh light on much-studied plays like Hamlet and Volpone, as well as exploring several unfairly overlooked plays. This is a Flip it Open title and may be available open access on Cambridge Core.

In this transformative study, Simon Smith explores how playwrights like Shakespeare crafted their plays for demanding and varied commercial audiences. Rediscovering the many forms of judgement practiced in the early modern playhouse, he investigates influences ranging from the classical tradition and grammar-school classroom to ballad and jest culture. Where many prior studies have treated 'the judicious' as a self-contained subset of playgoers, Smith reveals the variety of careful assessments made in the theatre by a wide range of playgoers, showing that judgement and pleasure were often simultaneous elements of the same response. Chapters examine specific parts of plays that were especially subject to evaluation and generative of enjoyment: spectacle, words, plot, and actorly technique. Close readings shed fresh light on much-studied plays like Hamlet and Volpone, as well as exploring several unfairly overlooked plays. This is a Flip it Open title and may be available open access on Cambridge Core.

This book argues that a reflexive awareness of our semiotic style, our grasp on the world as it rolls over, can be empowering when our normal ways of going on come unstuck, opening up choices that are more event-shaping than we realise. Stylistic orientations enact metachoices: choices that set the criteria for subsequent ones, setting up a cascade of conditioned, but not wholly determined, choices.Switching semiotic styles constitutes an appeal to broaden our usual repertoire of semiotic practice, channelling a common multimodal listening competence into a perspective interplay which changes the parameters of what can be known. Smith develops a research style constructively opposing the narrative and sonic turns in the social sciences, which he then uses to analyse three examples of communication from the Covid-19 pandemic: advice-giving by the WHO, legal disputes about public health restrictions and vaccine promotion videos. The work shows how individuals and societies arrange ongoingness oriented by both the motivational affordances of transformational goals and the modulating push of music-like patterns of becoming.This book will appeal to scholars interested in semiotics, communication theory, sound studies, organisational communication, health communication, sociology of health and illness, and language in social interaction.

Presupposing no specialist musical knowledge, this book offers a fresh perspective on the dramatic role of music in the plays of Shakespeare and his early seventeenth-century contemporaries. Simon Smith argues that many plays used music as a dramatic tool, inviting culturally familiar responses to music from playgoers. Music cues regularly encouraged audiences to listen, look, imagine or remember at dramatically critical moments, shaping meaning in plays from The Winter's Tale to A Game at Chess, and making theatregoers active and playful participants in playhouse performance. Drawing upon sensory studies, theatre history, material texts, musicology and close reading, Smith argues for the importance of music in familiar and less well-known plays including Antony and Cleopatra, Othello, The Revenger's Tragedy, Sophonisba, The Spanish Gypsy and A Woman Killed With Kindness.

This edited collection of essays brings together leading scholars of early modern drama and playhouse culture to reflect upon the study of playing and playgoing in early modern England. With a particular focus on the player-playgoer exchange as a site of dramatic meaning-making, this book offers a timely and significant critical intervention in the field of Shakespeare and early modern drama. Working with and reflecting upon approaches drawn from literary scholarship, theatre history and performance studies, it seeks to advance the critical conversation on the interactions between: players; play-texts; performance spaces; the bodily, sensory and material experiences of the playhouse; and playgoers' responses to, and engagements with, the theatre. Through alternative methodological and theoretical approaches, previously unknown or overlooked evidence, and fresh questions asked of long-familiar materials, the volume offers a new account of early modern drama and performance that seeks to set the agenda for future research and scholarship.

This edited collection of essays brings together leading scholars of early modern drama and playhouse culture to reflect upon the study of playing and playgoing in early modern England. With a particular focus on the player-playgoer exchange as a site of dramatic meaning-making, this book offers a timely and significant critical intervention in the field of Shakespeare and early modern drama. Working with and reflecting upon approaches drawn from literary scholarship, theatre history and performance studies, it seeks to advance the critical conversation on the interactions between: players; play-texts; performance spaces; the bodily, sensory and material experiences of the playhouse; and playgoers' responses to, and engagements with, the theatre. Through alternative methodological and theoretical approaches, previously unknown or overlooked evidence, and fresh questions asked of long-familiar materials, the volume offers a new account of early modern drama and performance that seeks to set the agenda for future research and scholarship.

Rapid advances in computing have enabled the integration of corpora into language teaching and learning, yet in China corpus methods have not yet been widely adopted. Corpus Linguistics in Chinese Contexts aims to advance the state of the art in the use of corpora in applied linguistics and contribute to the expertise in corpus use in China.

Post-communist transformation in the former Soviet bloc has had a profound effect, not just in the political and economic sphere, but on all aspects of life. Although a great deal has been written about transformation, much of it has been about transformation viewed from the top, and little has been written about how things have changed for ordinary people at the local level.This book, based on extensive original research, examines the changes resulting from transformation at the local level in the form Czechoslovakia. It considers especially local democracy, social movements, and work collectives, and paints a picture of people gradually growing in self-confidence and taking more control of their communities, having lived for decades in a framework where so much was directed from the top.

Presupposing no specialist musical knowledge, this book offers a fresh perspective on the dramatic role of music in the plays of Shakespeare and his early seventeenth-century contemporaries. Simon Smith argues that many plays used music as a dramatic tool, inviting culturally familiar responses to music from playgoers. Music cues regularly encouraged audiences to listen, look, imagine or remember at dramatically critical moments, shaping meaning in plays from The Winter's Tale to A Game at Chess, and making theatregoers active and playful participants in playhouse performance. Drawing upon sensory studies, theatre history, material texts, musicology and close reading, Smith argues for the importance of music in familiar and less well-known plays including Antony and Cleopatra, Othello, The Revenger's Tragedy, Sophonisba, The Spanish Gypsy and A Woman Killed With Kindness.

Shakespeare | Sense explores the intersection of Shakespeare and sensory studies, asking what sensation can tell us about early modern drama and poetry, and, conversely, how Shakespeare explores the senses in his literary craft, his fictional worlds, and his stagecraft.15 substantial new essays by leading Shakespeareans working in sensory studies and related disciplines interrogate every aspect of Shakespeare and sense, from the place of hearing, smell, sight, touch, and taste in early modern life, literature, and performance culture, through to the significance of sensation in 21st century engagements with Shakespeare on stage, screen and page.The volume explores and develops current methods for studying Shakespeare and sensation, reflecting upon the opportunities and challenges created by this emergent and influential area of scholarly enquiry. Many chapters develop fresh readings of particular plays and poems, from Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, King Lear, and The Tempest to less-studied works such as The Comedy of Errors, Venus and Adonis, Troilus and Cressida, and Cymbeline.

Shakespeare | Sense explores the intersection of Shakespeare and sensory studies, asking what sensation can tell us about early modern drama and poetry, and, conversely, how Shakespeare explores the senses in his literary craft, his fictional worlds, and his stagecraft.15 substantial new essays by leading Shakespeareans working in sensory studies and related disciplines interrogate every aspect of Shakespeare and sense, from the place of hearing, smell, sight, touch, and taste in early modern life, literature, and performance culture, through to the significance of sensation in 21st century engagements with Shakespeare on stage, screen and page.The volume explores and develops current methods for studying Shakespeare and sensation, reflecting upon the opportunities and challenges created by this emergent and influential area of scholarly enquiry. Many chapters develop fresh readings of particular plays and poems, from Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, King Lear, and The Tempest to less-studied works such as The Comedy of Errors, Venus and Adonis, Troilus and Cressida, and Cymbeline.

The 21 censuses that have been conducted in Britain since 1801, have provided an invaluable insight into Britain’s social, political and economic history over the past 200 years. From their original purpose to assess how many men were fit for military duty in the Napoleonic wars, to being a necessary tool for determining government policy, the 10-yearly census return is a fascinating snapshot of the state of the population on a particular moment in each decade. The growth of Britain’s cities; the movement of population away from the countryside; the variety of people’s occupations; their way of life; and what religious beliefs they hold are all contained within the census reports. With the imminent publication of the 1921 census results, this will prove a useful introduction, both for those interested in general trends in social history, and those researching family history.

The Passenger collects the best new writing, photography, and reportage from around the world. Its aim, to break down barriers and introduce the essence of the place. Packed with essays and investigative journalism; original photography and illustrations; charts, and unusual facts and observations, each volume offers a unique insight into a different culture, and how history has shaped the place into what it is today. Brimming with intricate research and enduring wonder, The Passenger is a love-letter to global travel.IN THIS VOLUME, Peter Schneider, Cees Nooteboom, Vincenzo Latronico among other German writers tell of a youthful city that doesn’t cling to its “poor but sexy” past. “Berlin is too big for Berlin” is the curious title of a book by the flaneur Hanns Zischler, who joked about the low population density of a city so spread-out and polycentric—one of the reasons why it still inspires feelings of freedom and space. But the phrase also carries a symbolic, broader meaning: how can a single city encompass and sustain such a weighty mythology as that of contemporary Berlin, “the capital of cool”? In order to find out, it is necessary to go back to the origins of today’s Berlin, when time seemed to have stopped. The scars of a century of war were still visible everywhere: coal stoves, crumbling buildings, desolate minimarts, not a working buzzer or elevator. To visit the city then was a hallucinatory experience, a simultaneous journey into the past and into the future. The city’s youth seemed to have appropriated—and turned into a positive—the famous phrase pronounced by Karl Scheffler at the beginning of the 20th century: “Berlin is a place doomed to always become, never be.”

Pack your bags and grab your gas mask - you're heading to the countryside! War has been declared in Britain and as a young girl living in London, the government are sending you to live with a family far away from the chaos that's ensuing in the city. Prepare to enter a new world of rationed supplies, hard chores and some unfriendly locals - you really wouldn't want to be a Second World War evacuee! The ever-popular You Wouldn't Want to Be series transports readers to some of the grisliest times and places in history, perfect for reluctant readers! The humorous, first-person narrative approach places children directly in the shoes of some of history's most unfortunate people ever to have lived, great for engaging students with the history curriculum and encouraging further non-fiction reading.

'The Waste Land may have been smoothed to automatic for the iPad, but Simon Smith's Gravesend makes the South-East coast of Dickens and Conrad a place worth missing connections again. All the digital landfill of one London poet's life is here, not to mention a book-stopping tribute to Cy Twombly. Line by line, Smith is one of the most exciting poet writing in England: if it weren't for the sweet Thames and the Little Chefs, he might pass for an American.' - Jeremy Noel-Tod