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      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        January 2021

        Victorian touring actresses

        Crossing boundaries and negotiating the cultural landscape

        by Janice Norwood

        Victorian touring actresses brings new attention to women's experience of working in nineteenth-century theatre by focusing on a diverse group of largely forgotten 'mid-tier' performers, rather than the usual celebrity figures. It examines how actresses responded to changing political, economic and social circumstances and how the women were themselves agents of change. Their histories reveal dynamic patterns of activity within the theatrical industry and expose its relationship to wider Victorian culture. With an innovative organisation mimicking the stages of an actress's life and career, the volume draws on new archival research and plentiful illustrations to examine the challenges and opportunities facing the women as they toured both within the UK and further afield in North America and Australasia. It will appeal to students and researchers in theatre and performance history, Victorian studies, gender studies and transatlantic studies.

      • Trusted Partner
        October 2022

        What Does the Ball Think?

        Why football is not just kicking

        by Johannes Schweikle, Oliver Lück

        A football is a moody thing, and the art of mastering it a highly challenging concern. Whether fan or philosopher, football is a fascination, and its various facets are revealed in this anthology with memorable, intelligent and curious contributions. How and with what (human rights-violating) methods did Qatar prepare for the World Cup? Actress Christiane Paul explains why she supports FC Bayern. Herman van Veen explains the difference between Dutch and German football fans, and the report 'Five balls for Angola' takes readers on a journey to football in Africa. A book for dedicated fans and critical football observers.

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        January 2019

        From Perversion to Purity

        The stardom of Catherine Deneuve

        by Lisa Downing, Sue Harris

        Catherine Deneuve is indisputably one of the world's most celebrated actresses, both in her native France and throughout the world. Her career has spanned five decades during which she has worked with the most significant of French auteurs, as well as forging partnerships with international directors such as Bunuel and Polanski. The Deneuve star persona has attained such iconic status that it can now symbolise the very essence of French womanhood and civic identity. In this wide-ranging and authoritative collection of essays by a selection of international film academics and writers, the Deneuve persona is scrutinised and illuminated. Beyond the glamorous iconographic status of Yves Saint Laurent's muse, and the epitome of sexual inviolability, Deneuve's status as actress is foregrounded. The book will be essential reading for students and lecturers in star studies.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        June 2011

        From Perversion to Purity

        The stardom of Catherine Deneuve

        by Lisa Downing, Sue Harris, author arranging

        Catherine Deneuve is indisputably one of the world's most celebrated actresses, both in her native France and throughout the world. Her career has spanned five decades during which she has worked with the most significant of French auteurs, as well as forging partnerships with international directors such as Buñuel and Polanski. The Deneuve star persona has attained such iconic status that it now symbolises the very essence of French womanhood and civic identity. In this wide-ranging and authoritative collection of essays by a selection of international film academics and writers, the Deneuve persona is scrutinised and illuminated. Beyond the glamorous iconographic status of Yves Saint Laurent's muse, and the epitome of sexual inviolability, Deneuve's status as actress is foregrounded. The book will be essential reading for students and lecturers in star studies. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        June 2012

        The Théâtre des Variétés in 1852

        by David Hillery, Mike Thompson

        This book gives a picture of a year's activities at the Théâtre des Variétés. It includes an account of the financial side of the Theatre and impressions of the principal actors and actresses, as well as a month-by-month overview of what was actually performed. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2001

        Women, scholarship and criticism c.1790–1900

        Gender and knowledge

        by Joan Bellamy, Anne Laurence, Gill Perry, Susan Williams

        Brings together the varied artistic, critical and cultural productions by women scholars, critics and artists between 1790-1900, many of whom are little known in the canonical histories of the period. Questions the concepts of 'scholarship', 'criticism' and 'artist' across the different disciplines. Women discussed include authors (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Sydney Morgan and Anna Jameson) actresses ( Elizabeth Siddons, Dorothy Jordan, and Mary Robinson) critics ( Margaret Oliphant and Mary Cowden Clarke) historians (Agnes Strickland, Lucy Aikin, Mary Anne Everett Green, Elizabeth Cooper and Lucy Toulmin Smith) as well as the writers and readers of Women's magazines, educationalists and translators. Makes a significant and original contribution to the development of gender studies by extending the frontiers of existing knowledge and research. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        April 2001

        Women, theatre and performance

        New histories, new historiographies

        by Kate Dorney, Maggie B. Gale, Susan Williams

        The first in a new annual series, Women, Theatre and Performance that will consist of themed volumes on diverse aspects of women's engagement with theatre and performance. Ranging across three hundred years the essays in this volume address key questions in women's theatre history and retrieve a number of hitherto 'hidden' histories of women performers. Resituates women's, largely neglected, creative contribution within theatre and cultural history and seeks to challenge orthodox readings of both history and text. Topics include: Susanna Centlivre and the notion of intertheatricality; gender and theatrical space; the repositioning of women performers such as Wagner's Muse, Willhelmina Schröder-Devrient, the Comédie Français' 'Mademoiselle Mars', Mme Arnould-Plessey, and the actresses of the Russian serf theatre. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        2021

        Bad Roads

        by Nataliia Vorozhbyt

        Nataliia Vorozhbyt became famous when she worked as a screenwriter on the cult TV series To Catch the Kaidash, based on the life of the Ukrainian classic writer Nechuy-Levytsky, and even played a role in it as a supporting actress. Her play Bad Roads was written for the Royal Court Theatre in London; it was also staged by the Kyiv Academic Theatre of Drama and Comedy and later adapted into a hit film. Bad Roads consists of six episodes: they are the stories of ordinary men and women whose fate brought them to Donbas during the Russo-Ukrainian war. Some episodes have even shocked audiences, like the episode where a naked eighth-grade schoolgirl is found in a military dugout. Disputes over Bad Roads are still raging, but they only manage to increase interest in Vorozhbyt’s work.

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        August 2003

        'Other' Spanish theatres

        Erasure and inscription on the twentieth-century Spanish stage

        by Maria M. Delgado

        'Other' Spanish theatres challenges established opinions on modern Iberian theatre by considering the roles of contrasting figures and companies who have impacted upon both the practice and the perception of Spanish and European stages. In questioning the primacy of the dramatist, this pioneering study offers a new interpretation of a nation's theatrical culture that has been viewed primarily through the prisms of a select number of playwrights. Accordingly many of the conclusions reached are new ones, and the case, for acknowledging the wide influence of Spanish practitioners on theatre in Europe and the Americas is made in persuasive terms. Through a bold documentation and interrogation of key productions and their reception both at home and abroad, 'Other' Spanish theatres focuses on the doing of performance, asking provocative questions around how performances are tested against the texts that remain. In a broad and detailed study Delgado selects six case studies which map out alternative readings of a nation's theatrical innovation through the twentieth century: muse and mentor to Federico Garcia Lorca, Margarita Xirgu; theatrical innovator and influence on Orson Welles, Enrique Rambal; tragedienne Maria Casares feted by George Craig Camus, Genet and Cocteau; actress, producer and director Nuria Espert; international director Lluis Pasqual and Catalan performance company La Cubana. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Crime & mystery
        2019

        The Great Prussia Hotel

        by Bohdan Kolomiychuk

        It’s 1905 in Europe. Russia is losing the war with Japan and is now concentrating its forces in the West. Specifically, hundreds of Russian entrepreneurs head to Austria-Hungary and Prussia to establish business relationships, agents of the Russian Okhranka secret police and members of Russia’s criminal underworld disguised among them. Meanwhile, in the Austrian city of Lviv, the career of Criminal Police Commissar Adam Wistowicz advances. He’s one of the best investigators in Halychyna (Galicia), whose reputation is well known even in the empire’s capital, Vienna. Wistowicz’s ex-wife Anna Kalisch, an actress of the Berlin Shauspielhaus, unexpectedly finds herself in the middle of the ruthless whirlpool. In despair, she sends the commissar a telegram, begging for help. Between two fires, in foreign Prussia, Wistowicz takes on the most dangerous case of his life. He finds himself in the Royal Opera House, among communists in a German pub, in the luxury Great Prussia Hotel in Posen, then one on one with a maniac in the middle of an empty square… Teetering at knifepoint between life and death, winning crazy amounts of money and subsequently losing it, and confronting a powerful enemy with only intelligence and adroitness, the commissar from faraway Halychyna brilliantly brings the case to a close… and proves victorious.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        June 2012

        The cinema of Iciar Bollaín

        by Isabel Santaolalla, Nuria Triana-Toribio, Andy Willis

        Director, actress, scriptwriter and producer, Iciar Bollaín is one of the liveliest of contemporary young Spanish filmmakers and the first female director to have had a film (También la lluvia, 2010) shortlisted by the American Film Academy. Through detailed analysis of film form, socio-cultural contexts and conditions of production and consumption, the book opens up key issues on gender, production, film authorship, the mediation of socio-historical realities and the whole question of 'women's cinema'. Covering all aspects of her career, this book begins by taking in her work in front of the camera, beginning with her emergence as a teenage star in Victor Erice's El Sur (1983), and following on with discussions of her mature roles, such as Un paraguas para tres and Leo . Discussion of her work as a producer and director focus on production and form, as well as on the socio-historical contexts to which they belong. Film scholars and students interested in the increasingly prominent place of modern Spanish cinema will find this highly readable book an indispensable guide to an outstanding film-maker who in her directed films addresses some of the more vibrant of contemporary themes: female friendship in Hola, ¿estás sola?, immigration in Flores de otro mundo, domestic violence in Te doy mis ojos, tensions between public and private commitments in Mataharis, and socio-economic exploitation in También la lluvia. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        September 2017

        The cinema of Iciar Bollaín

        by Nuria Triana-Toribio, Isabel Santaolalla, Andy Willis

        Director, actress, scriptwriter and producer, Iciar Bollaín is one of the liveliest of contemporary young Spanish filmmakers and the first female director to have had a film (También la lluvia, 2010) shortlisted by the American Film Academy. Through detailed analysis of film form, socio-cultural contexts and conditions of production and consumption, the book opens up key issues on gender, production, film authorship, the mediation of socio-historical realities and the whole question of 'women's cinema'. Covering all aspects of her career, this book begins by taking in her work in front of the camera, beginning with her emergence as a teenage star in Victor Erice's El Sur (1983), and following on with discussions of her mature roles, such as Un paraguas para tres and Leo . Discussion of her work as a producer and director focus on production and form, as well as on the socio-historical contexts to which they belong. Film scholars and students interested in the increasingly prominent place of modern Spanish cinema will find this highly readable book an indispensable guide to an outstanding film-maker who in her directed films addresses some of the more vibrant of contemporary themes: female friendship in Hola, ¿estás sola?, immigration in Flores de otro mundo, domestic violence in Te doy mis ojos, tensions between public and private commitments in Mataharis, and socio-economic exploitation in También la lluvia.

      • Trusted Partner
        September 2022

        Lust

        Fuckability, orgasm gap and #metoo

        by Henriette Hell

        Lust, a mortal sin? These times are over. In today's public perception, it is more likely for a boring sex life to be categorised as that. In statistical terms, people have never had as little sex with each other as they do today. And yet tips for a good sex life are to be found on every (digital) corner. Sex has mutated into a lifestyle product, and terms like 'fuckability' and 'MILF' trip lightly off our tongues. Henriette Hell takes a closer look at the thing about sex. She traces the history and genesis of 'sexual liberation', and sheds light on the 'cheating gene' and the #metoo debate. The author asks (and answers) the question of whether sex is becoming more and more antisocial and what actually still turns us on today. In doing so, she focuses on the former mortal sin of lust, which is inseparably linked to the systematic suppression of female lust (and its liberation).

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2012

        Cultures and caricatures of British imperial aviation

        Passengers, pilots, publicity

        by Gordon Pirie, Andrew Thompson, John Mackenzie

        The new activity of trans-continental civil flying in the 1930s is a useful vantage point for viewing the extension of British imperial attitudes and practices. Cultures and caricatures of British imperial aviation examines the experiences of those (mostly men) who flew solo or with a companion (racing or for leisure), who were airline passengers (doing colonial administration, business or research), or who flew as civilian air and ground crews. For airborne elites, flying was a modern and often enviable way of managing, using and experiencing empire. On the ground, aviation was a device for asserting old empire: adventure and modernity were accompanied by supremacism. At the time, however, British civil imperial flying was presented romantically in books, magazines and exhibitions. Eighty years on, imperial flying is still remembered, reproduced and re-enacted in caricature. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Biography & True Stories
        February 2017

        Jackie Chan:Never Grow Up, Only Get Older

        by Jackie Chan, Zhu Mo

        This is an autobiography of Chinese Kongfu star Jackie Chan. The book is a true recording of this international superstar’s growth and life experience for the last 50 years. It tells us the legendary actor’s stories, and also reflects a fantastic acting age.

      • Biography & True Stories

        Aerial Roots

        The grandmother big lies

        by Vanessa Gani / Vanny Gani

        How would you feel if you found out your grandmother was a big liar? The protagonist believed that the grandmother was a famous French actress, but comes to suspect that she might be a prostitute. In search of the truth, after finding documents from her  grandmother with eight different names, she travels with her family to the places where she lived, Romania, Israel and France, and makes surprising discoveries. Read to find out how this Jewish grammy escape to the war and ends up in Brazil. This is not a sad story.

      • Home - You

        by Ekaterine Togonidze

        An earthquake completely shatters Nia’s world. The crack that appeared in her house is a sign that everything she holds dear – her family, relationships and future – is about to be destroyed. Nia is alone and that’s the fate of a lonely warrior, but life gives her another chance by offering her a long-desired role in a film. Together with film shooting starts a new phase in her life, a kind of parallel reality: art as a shelter, as a way of escape. Or possibly the only way of connecting to the reality and finding her own self. In this labyrinth the reader travels with the rhythm of Nia’s quickened heartbeat and breathing, but holds onto Ariadne’s thread to get back, hoping to restore the connection with the lost past and, all the way, noticing something even Nia fails to see, which is the truth of the others in her life. Home – You is Ekaterine Togonidze’s new novel. She is already well-known for collection of short stories, Anesthetic and Listen to Me, novels Another Way, Hurricane Margot and Asynchronies. Ekaterine Togonidze is a two-time participant of the Berlin Literary Colloquium and received the literary prize SABA. Her works are translated into the English, German, Czech, Russian and Abkhaz languages.

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