In Confidence Culture, Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill argue that imperatives directed at women to “love your body” and “believe in yourself” imply that psychological blocks rather than entrenched social injustices hold women back. Interrogating the prominence of confidence in contemporary discourse about body image, workplace, relationships, motherhood, and international development, Orgad and Gill draw on Foucault’s notion of technologies of self to demonstrate how “confidence culture” demands of women near-constant introspection and vigilance in the service of self-improvement. They argue that while confidence messaging may feel good, it does not address structural and systemic oppression. Rather, confidence culture suggests that women—along with people of color, the disabled, and other marginalized groups—are responsible for their own conditions. Rejecting confidence culture’s remaking of feminism along individualistic and neoliberal lines, Orgad and Gill explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative.
Written in a clear and accessible style, with lots of examples from Anglo-American media, Gender and the Media offers a critical introduction to the study of gender in the media, and an up-to-date assessment of the key issues and debates. Eschewing a straightforwardly positive or negative assessment the book explores the contradictory character of contemporary gender representations, where confident expressions of girl power sit alongside reports of epidemic levels of anorexia among young women, moral panics about the impact on men of idealized representations of the 'six-pack', but near silence about the pervasive re-sexualization of women's bodies, along with a growing use of irony and playfulness that render critique extremely difficult. The book looks in depth at five areas of media - talk shows, magazines, news, advertising, and contemporary screen and paperback romances - to examine how representations of women and men are changing in the twenty-first century, partly in response to feminist, queer and anti-racist critique. Gender and the Media is also concerned with the theoretical tools available for analysing representations. A range of approaches from semiotics to postcolonial theory are discussed, and Gill asks how useful notions such as objectification, backlash, and positive images are for making sense of gender in today's Western media. Finally, Gender and the Media also raises questions about cultural politics - namely, what forms of critique and intervention are effective at a moment when ironic quotation marks seem to protect much media content from criticism and when much media content - from Sex and the City to revenge adverts - can be labelled postfeminist. This is a book that will be of particular interest to students and scholars in gender and media studies, as well as those in sociology and cultural studies more generally.
Accounts of new media working conditions draw heavily on two polarised stereotypes, veering from techno-utopianism on the one hand, to a vision of webworkers as the new 'precariat', victims of neo-liberal economic policies on the other. Heralded from both perspectives as representing the brave new world of work, what is striking is the absence of research on new media workers' own experiences, particularly in a European context. This INC commissioned research goes beyond contemporary myths to explore how people working in the field experience the pleasures, pressures and challenges of working on the web. Illustrated throughout with quotations from interviews, it examines the different career paths emerging for content-producers in web-based industries, questions the relevance of existing education and training, and highlights the different ways in which people manage and negotiate freelancing, job insecurity, and keeping up to date in a fast-moving field where both software and expectations change rapidly. The research is based on 35 interviews carried out in Amsterdam in 2005, and contextually draws upon a further 60 interviews with web designers in London and Brighton. The interviews were conducted by Danielle van Diemen and Rosalind Gill.
Cambridge Reading is a major reading scheme which provides stimulating books and support materials for the teaching of reading and the development of literacy throughout the primary years.
This remarkable story begins in the years following the Civil War, when reformers—emboldened by the egalitarian rhetoric of the post–Civil War era—pressed New York City's oldest institution of higher learning to admit women in the 1870s. Their effort failed, but within twenty years Barnard College was founded, creating a refuge for women scholars at Columbia, as well as an academic beachhead "from which women would make incursions into the larger university." By 1950, Columbia was granting more advanced degrees to women and hiring more female faculty than any other university in the country. In Changing the Subject, Rosalind Rosenberg shows how this century-long struggle transcended its local origins and contributed to the rise of modern feminism, furthered the cause of political reform, and enlivened the intellectual life of America's most cosmopolitan city. Surmounting a series of social and institutional obstacles to gain access to Columbia University, women played a key role in its evolution from a small, Protestant, male-dominated school into a renowned research university. At the same time, their struggles challenged prevailing ideas about masculinity, femininity, and sexual identity; questioned accepted views about ethnicity, race, and rights; and thereby laid the foundation for what we now know as gender. From Lillie Devereux Blake, Annie Nathan Meyer, and Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve in the first generation, through Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, and Zora Neale Hurston in the second, to Kate Millett, Gerda Lerner, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the third, the women of Columbia shook the world.
Perception and analogy explores ways of seeing scientifically in the eighteenth century. The book examines how sensory experience is conceptualised during the period, drawing novel connections between treatments of perception as an embodied phenomenon and the creative methods employed by natural philosophers. Covering a wealth of literary, theological, and pedagogical texts that engage with astronomy, optics, ophthalmology, and the body, it argues for the significance of analogies for conceptualising and explaining new scientific ideas. As well as identifying their use in religious and topographical poetry, the book addresses how analogies are visible in material culture through objects such as orreries, camera obscuras, and aeolian harps. It makes the vital claim that scientific concepts become intertwined with Christian discourse through reinterpretations of origins and signs, the scope of the created universe, and the limits of embodied knowledge.
The Rise of the Diva on the Sixteenth-Century Commedia dell'Arte Stage examines the emergence of the professional actress from the 1560s onwards in Italy. Tracing the historical progress of actresses from their earliest appearances as sideshow attractions to revered divas, Rosalind Kerr explores the ways in which actresses commodified their sexual and cultural appeal. Newly translated archival material, iconographic evidence, literary texts, and theatrical scripts provide a rich repertoire through which Kerr demonstrates how actresses skillfully improvised roles such as the maidservant, the prima donna, and the transvestite heroine. Following the careers of early stars such as Flaminia of Rome, Vincenza Armani, Vittoria Piissimi, and Isabella Andreini, Kerr shows how their fame arose from the combination of dazzling technical mastery and eloquent powers of persuasion. Seamlessly integrating the Italian and English scholarly literature on the subject, The Rise of the Diva is an insightful analysis of one of the modern world's first celebrity cultures.
What is Qualitative Interviewing? is an accessible and comprehensive 'what is' and 'how to' methods book. It is distinctive in emphasising the importance of good practice in understanding and undertaking qualitative interviews within the framework of a clear philosophical position. Rosalind Edwards and Janet Holland provide clear and succinct explanations of a range of philosophies and theories of how to know about the social world, and a thorough discussion of how to go about researching it using interviews. A series of short chapters explain and illustrate a range of interview types and practices. Drawing on their own and colleagues' experiences Holland and Edwards provide real research examples as informative illustrations of qualitative interviewing in practice, and the use of a range of creative interview tools. They discuss the use of new technologies as well as tackling enduring issues around asking and listening and power dynamics in research. Written in a clear and accessible style the book concludes with a useful annotated bibliography of key texts and journals in the field. What is Qualitative Interviewing? provides a vital resource for both new and experienced social science researchers across a range of disciplines.
By drawing attention to the wide range of gruesome, bloody and confronting amusements patronised by ordinary Londoners this book challenges our understanding of Victorian society and culture. From the turn of the nineteenth century, graphic, yet orderly, ‘re-enactments’ of high level violence flourished in travelling entertainments, penny broadsides, popular theatres, cheap instalment fiction and Sunday newspapers. This book explores the ways in which these entertainments siphoned off much of the actual violence that had hitherto been expressed in all manner of social and political dealings, thus providing a crucial accompaniment to schemes for the reformation of manners and the taming of the streets, while also serving as a social safety valve and a check on the growing cultural hegemony of the middle class.
Global Prescriptions is a critical yet optimistic analysis of the role of transnational women's groups in setting the agendas for women's health in international and national settings. The book reviews a decade of women's participation in UN conferences, transnational networks, national advocacy efforts and sexual and reproductive health provision, assessing both their strengths and weaknesses. It critiques the Cairo, Beijing and Copenhagen conference documents and World Bank, WHO and health sector reform policies. It also offers case studies of national-level reform and advocacy efforts and appraises the controversy concerning TRIPS, trade, and essential AIDS drugs. The author takes into account the formidable political and ideological forces confronting global justice movements and also offers a sobering reassessment of transnational women's NGOs themselves and such problems as 'NGOization', fragmentation and donor-dependency. Petchesky argues that the power of women's transnational coalitions is only as great as their organic connection with grassroots social movements.
Through richly detailed accounts of individual entrepreneurs, including the prominent printer-publisher Mathew Carey, Remer reveals the economic logic behind this distinctive book trade."—The Book
This book integrates new material, using sources from the eighteenth and nineteenth century periodical press, research with contemporary readers, the authors' critical reading of past and present magazines, and a clear discussion of theoretical approaches from literary criticism. The development of the genre, and its part in the historical process of forging modern definitions of gender, class and race are analysed through critical readings and a discussion of readers' negotiations with the contradictory pleasures of the magazine, and its constricting ideal of femininity.
Over the last twenty-five years, garbage infrastructure in Dakar, Senegal, has taken center stage in the struggles over government, the value of labor, and the dignity of the working poor. Through strikes and public dumping, Dakar's streets have been periodically inundated with household garbage as the city's trash collectors and ordinary residents protest urban austerity. Often drawing on discourses of Islamic piety, garbage activists have provided a powerful language to critique a neoliberal mode of governing-through-disposability and assert rights to fair labor. In Garbage Citizenship Rosalind Fredericks traces Dakar's volatile trash politics to recalibrate how we understand urban infrastructure by emphasizing its material, social, and affective elements. She shows how labor is a key component of infrastructural systems and how Dakar's residents use infrastructures as a vital tool for forging collective identities and mobilizing political action. Fleshing out the materiality of trash and degraded labor, Fredericks illuminates the myriad ways waste can be a potent tool of urban control and rebellion.
The act of converting people to certain beliefs or values is highly controversial in today's postcolonial, multicultural world. Proselytization has been viewed by some as an aggressive act of political domination. 'Proselytization Revisited' offers a comprehensive overview of the many arguments for and against proselytization in different regions and contexts. Proselytization is examined in the context of rights talk, globalisation and culture wars. The volume brings together essays demonstrating the global significance of proselytization, ranging from Christians in India to Turkish Islamic Movements and the Wiccan use of modern media technologies. The cross-cultural and multidisciplinary nature of this collection of essays provides a fresh perspective and the book will be of value to readers interested in the dynamic interaction of beliefs, ideas and cultures.
The thing that haunts me most to this day is that blokes were dying and I could do bugger all about it - do you look after the bloke who you know is going to die or the bloke who's got a chance?' - Australian ex-POW doctor, 1999 During World War II, 22 000 Australian military personnel became prisoners of war under the Japanese military. Over three and a half years, 8000 died in captivity, in desperate conditions of forced labour, disease and starvation. Many of those who returned home after the war attributed their survival to the 106 Australian medical officers imprisoned alongside them. These doctors varied in age, background and experience, but they were united in their unfailing dedication to keeping as many of the men alive as possible. This is the story of those 106 doctors - their compassion, bravery and ingenuity - and their efforts in bringing back the 14 000 survivors. 'You are unfortunate in being prisoners of a country whose living standards are much lower than yours. You will often consider yourselves mistreated, while we think of you as being treated well.' - Japanese officer to Australian POWs, 1943
Can Words Express Our Wonder? is written to help preachers recognizse and put to use the rich array of gifts and resources they have been given for the exercise of this ministry, whether week by week with a local congregation, as an occasional or supply preacher, or at critical times in people's lives at pastoral services.
What is object-relations theory and what does it have to do with literary studies? How can Freud's phallocentric theories be applied by feminist critics? In Psychoanalysis and Gender: An Introductory Reader Rosalind Minsky answers these questions and more, offering students a clear, straightforward overview without ever losing them in jargon. In the first section Minsky outlines the fundamentals of the theory, introducing the key thinkers and providing clear commentary. In the second section, the theory is demonstrated by an anthology of seminal essays which includes: * Feminity by Sigmund Freud * Envy and Gratitude by Melanie Klein * An extract from Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena by Donald Winnicot * The Meaning of the Phallus by Jacques Lacan * An extract from Women's Time by Julia Kristeva * An extract from Speculum of the Other Woman by Luce Irigaray
In 19th Century England, two small girls are ripped from their families and sold into cotton mill slavery. Lost, confused and alone, Emma and Susie find solace in each other's company. They search for freedom and identity as they battle the cold and miserable conditions and their place of nonentity in the mill. How will their dreams of freedom be achieved? When not working in the Hell on earth that is the spinning-room, they are locked in the mill garret. Their owners recognize them as 'hands', implements of labour, rather than living, breathing people. Then, one night changes the course of each girl's life. After this one night of freedom Susie's restless nature cannot be calmed, and the two must learn how to survive their newfound freedom, and to discover who they are truly are.
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