{"title":"Joshua Comaroff","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the thought-provoking works of Joshua Comaroff, exploring architecture, urbanism, and the built environment with a critical eye. Discover insightful perspectives on design, culture, and society.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"horror-in-architecture-book-joshua-comaroff-9781517914844","title":"Horror in Architecture","description":"A new edition of this extensive visual analysis of horror tropes and their architectural analogues       Horror in Architecture presents an unflinching look at how horror genre tropes manifest in the built environment. Spanning the realms of art, design, literature, and film, this newly revised and expanded edition compiles examples from all areas of popular culture to form a visual anthology of the architectural uncanny.         Rooted in the Romantic and Gothic treatment of horror as a serious aesthetic category, Horror in Architecture establishes incisive links between contemporary horror media and its parallel traits found in various architectural designs. Through chapters dedicated to distorted and monstrous buildings, abandoned spaces, extremes of scale, and other structural peculiarities, and featuring new essays on insurgent natures, blobs, and architectural puppets, this volume brings together diverse architectural anomalies and shows how their unsettling effects deepen our fascination with the unreal.         Intended for both horror fans and students of visual culture, Horror in Architecture turns a unique lens on the relationship between the human body and the artificial landscapes it inhabits. Extensively illustrated with photographs, film stills, and diagrams, this book retrieves horror from the cultural fringes and demonstrates how its attributes permeate the modern condition and the material world.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49777717707025,"sku":"NGR9781517914844","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51033157632273,"sku":"NIN9781517914844","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52447599198481,"sku":"GOR014525789","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1517914841.jpg?v=1767350713"},{"product_id":"horror-in-architecture-book-joshua-comaroff-9781935935902","title":"Horror in Architecture","description":"This book looks at the idea of horror and its analogues in architecture. In these, normal compositions become strange: extra limbs appear, holes open where they should not, individual objects are doubled or split or perversely occupied. Horrifying buildings re-imagine the possibilities of architectural language, shifting from 'natural' norms to other, more rarefied and exciting options. They define an expanded aesthetic field that marries the beautiful to the distorted, the awkward, the manifold, and the indeterminate. Through an investigation that spans architecture art, and literature, this study attempts to limn horror through its shifting forms and meanings and to identify a creeping unease that lingers at the very center of the modern project. Horror in Architecture may be read as a history, as an alternative to the classic canon of good and proper architectures, or as a sly manifesto for a new approach to the design of the built environment one that encourages a playful subversion of conventions. To capture horror in its many guises, this study is presented in a unique manner. An introductory essay describes the historical fortunes of horror as an aesthetic idea, from Roman antiquity to the pulp films and novels of the present day. Here, the authors put forward a new theory of the sources and effects of horror in modernity and in modern architecture. This is followed by case studies of types, linking classic tropes (clones, doubles, hybrids, psychotics and the undead) to specific buildings and architectural theories. As a result, this study may be read in a number of different ways. It may be consumed as a total theoretical piece, from start to finish. Or it may provide a series of more casual readings, in the various chapters and brief presentations of the works of individual architects or buildings. 200 photographs \u0026amp; 50 illustrations","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49925550047505,"sku":"GOR013321238","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49968873931025,"sku":"CIN1935935909G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50153710878993,"sku":"GOR006865102","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53120365789457,"sku":"GOR008995826","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53532876079377,"sku":"GOR008961349","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1935935909.jpg?v=1750770809"},{"product_id":"spectropolis-book-joshua-comaroff-9781517919344","title":"Spectropolis","description":"How economic transformation and the spirit world collide in hypermodern Singapore        In Singapore, the financial center of Southeast Asia, hyperurbanization and commercial development exist alongside enduring belief in the economic power of ghosts: in their ability to control the flows of money and value and to determine the outcome of investments and wagers. Spectropolis explores the unlikely collusion of these two systems, demonstrating both the productive role of popular beliefs in the modern world and the surprising correlations between “late” capitalism and the workings of the spirit realm.         Detailing the logic and practices of Singapore’s ghost economy-from performing exorcisms on real estate development sites to offering money and commodities to the dead as a hedge against precarious real-world transactions-Joshua Comaroff shows how speculative finance, largely governed by chance and volatility, is understood via its inherently spectral qualities. Through the influence of Chinese Buddhist-Taoist thought, the movement of capital is placed under the sway of cosmology and geomancy, resulting in a built environment that is both technologically advanced and quite literally enchanted.         Based on detailed case studies and years of extensive fieldwork, Spectropolis argues for the power of popular belief systems to theorize contemporary socioeconomic conditions and to give form to collective affect as well as shared aspirations and anxieties. As Comaroff demonstrates, the uniquely all-consuming nature of Singapore’s tightly compressed urban economy is such that it may subsume even that which lies beyond the threshold of life itself.             Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and\/or extended descriptions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51770034422033,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51770034684177,"sku":"NGR9781517919344","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781517919344.jpg?v=1764928768"},{"product_id":"spectropolis-book-joshua-comaroff-9781517919337","title":"Spectropolis","description":"How economic transformation and the spirit world collide in hypermodern Singapore        In Singapore, the financial center of Southeast Asia, hyperurbanization and commercial development exist alongside enduring belief in the economic power of ghosts: in their ability to control the flows of money and value and to determine the outcome of investments and wagers. Spectropolis explores the unlikely collusion of these two systems, demonstrating both the productive role of popular beliefs in the modern world and the surprising correlations between “late” capitalism and the workings of the spirit realm.         Detailing the logic and practices of Singapore’s ghost economy-from performing exorcisms on real estate development sites to offering money and commodities to the dead as a hedge against precarious real-world transactions-Joshua Comaroff shows how speculative finance, largely governed by chance and volatility, is understood via its inherently spectral qualities. Through the influence of Chinese Buddhist-Taoist thought, the movement of capital is placed under the sway of cosmology and geomancy, resulting in a built environment that is both technologically advanced and quite literally enchanted.         Based on detailed case studies and years of extensive fieldwork, Spectropolis argues for the power of popular belief systems to theorize contemporary socioeconomic conditions and to give form to collective affect as well as shared aspirations and anxieties. As Comaroff demonstrates, the uniquely all-consuming nature of Singapore’s tightly compressed urban economy is such that it may subsume even that which lies beyond the threshold of life itself.             Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and\/or extended descriptions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51770037338385,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51770037534993,"sku":"NGR9781517919337","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781517919337.jpg?v=1763116322"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-joshua-comaroff.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}