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This chapter suggests that the interest in reanalysis as a mechanism of change, while rightly focusing attention on syntactic structure, also contributes to a blinkered view of diachrony. It exemplifies this view with accounts of two widely discussed changes: the Middle English emergence of for noun phrase (NP) to verb phrase (VP) infinitivals, and the Early Modern English emergence of the be going to future. These accounts illustrate an approach whose goal is not just to characterize reanalyses but to understand what lies behind them. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 3.2 comments on the modern interest in reanalysis and then treats alleged reanalysis changes as cases of analogy or grammaticalization. Section 3.3 shows that radical reanalysis in syntactic change has been overemphasized, and that most of the changes involved in one well-known alleged case (the English for NP to VP pattern) are broadly analogical. Section 3.4 proposes a new account of the emergence of the English be going to future. This case shows how the combinatorial properties of a source pattern give rise to the properties of an emergent one in grammaticalization. Section 3.5 concludes.

This chapter investigates the shadow realities or externalities of bottled water markets: growing amounts of plastic waste. It focuses on the ways in which plastic bottles are far from disposable. As solid waste they present enormous challenges for waste management and recycling. The nature of these challenges is investigated in Hanoi. Here ‘plastic villages’ have emerged in peri-urban areas to recycle bottles. In these villages informal household economies seek to extract new value from discarded bottles by breaking them up into PET flakes to be used as feedstock in the making of new plastic objects. These recycling villages are engaged in ‘practices of economization’ where value isn’t so much found but enacted after labour intensive encounters with the toughness and durability of the bottles.

This chapter outlines the ways in which the Chinese state attempts to control the historical narratives propagated through the official public sphere, and the ways in which independent documentarian Hu Jie’s films contest state-sanctioned narratives. Hu’s work focuses on the subjective historical experiences of individuals who lived through the Maoist era, articulated in contemporary interviews conducted with survivors of that time. Hu’s emphasis on present-day testimony allows interviewees to become subjects in representations of their own history for the first time, rather than simply being the objects of the state’s collective historical accounts. Hu’s work will be examined through close analysis of his key titles Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul (Xunzhao Lin Zhao de ling, 2004) and Though I Am Gone (Wo sui siqu, 2006).

With roots in the 1980s and becoming a coherent trend in the 1990s, extreme hardcore punk pushed the intensity of punk music beyond previous levels with beats over 800 BPM, screamed or growled vocals, and guitar riffs built from dissonant and nondiatonic pitch material. Its lyrics often provided dystopian warnings of environmental catastrophe and humanity’s downfall due to globalized capitalism. Analysis and reception history of the music of bands such as Dropdead, His Hero Is Gone, Hellnation, and Capitalist Casualties identify the musical techniques and sublime effects of the extreme hardcore punk subgenre, also referred to as grindcore and power violence.

Against confining practices, young persons have always demonstrated ademocratic capacity that needs not only to be expressed, but exercised at will. Ending on a positive note with one fictional model of a radical peer public from Louise Fitzhugh's Nobody's Family is Going to Change, the conclusion reasserts that children should have the right to a public and participatory identity. Children can form fair, self-governing youth publics when given the chance. We, as the public, need to stepup in providing community connections as well as greater collective support forchildcare beyond the traditional nuclear family.

Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” analyzed in Chapter 15, is an unabashed pop hit with a dirty secret: producer Max Martin adapted the song from the indie track “Maps” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Analyzing how Clarkson and Martin translate the sounds of indie into pop reveals the chameleonic nature of the genre. Unlike other styles, it’s not defined by specific musical traits but by its market orientation. Still, that does not mean that pop is devoid of artistry, as attested by the manifold compositional acumen on display in “Since U Been Gone.”

This chapter considers the opening shot of Tsai Ming-liang's short film, The Skywalk Is Gone, a shot that encapsulates an aesthetics of slowness, the technique of defamiliarization, and the notion of getting lost. In this opening shot, the giant sign of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store divides the screen down the middle. Shiang-chyi stands transfixed in front of the skyscraper occupying the top-right quarter of the frame. On the building's façade an LED screen is churning out advertisements in bright colors. In a long take that lasts almost a minute and a half, Shiang-chyi stands in the foreground with her back to the low-angle camera, looking up at the screen in the middle ground. Her stillness and silence in the static shot provide a stark contrast to the incessantly changing images of the commercials and their loud soundtrack. The chapter suggests that this opening shot is a critique of a new kind of mediality marked by a proliferation of images with no auteurs, a proliferation that paradoxically undermines rather than enhances visual literacy. Furthermore, this opening shot is a comment on consumption, as the commercials are promoting, among other things, Japanese beauty products (Shiseido) and delicacies (Ganso).