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      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        October 2024

        Queer cinema in contemporary France

        Five directors

        by Todd Reeser

        Jacques Martineau, Olivier Ducastel, Alain Guiraudie, Sébastien Lifshitz and Céline Sciamma. The films of these five major French directors exemplify queer cinema in the twenty-first century. Comprehensive in scope, Queer cinema in contemporary France traces the development of the meaning of queer across these directors' careers, from their earliest, often unknown films to their later, major films with wide international release. Whether having sex on the beach or kissing in the high school swimming pool, these cinematic characters create or embody forward-looking, open-ended and optimistic forms of queerness and modes of living, loving and desiring. Whether they are white, beur or black, whether they are lesbian, gay, trans* or queer, they open up hetero- and cisnormativity to new ways of being a gendered subject.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        June 2021

        The new pornographies

        Explicit sex in recent French fiction and film

        by Victoria Best, Martin Crowley

        The turn of the twenty-first century has witnessed the striking advance of pornography into the Western cultural mainstream. Symptomatic of this development has been the use by writers, artists, and film-makers of the imagery and aesthetics of pornography, in works which have, often on this basis, achieved considerable international success. Amongst these artists are a number of French authors and directors - such as Michel Houellebecq, Catherine Breillat, Virginie Despentes, or Catherine Millet - whose work has often been dismissed as trashy or exploitative, but whose use of pornographic material may in fact be indicative of important contemporary concerns. In this study of a very significant trend, the authors explore how the reference to pornography encodes diverse political, cultural, and existential questions, including relations between the sexes, the collapse of avant-garde politics, gay sexualities in the time of AIDS, the anti-feminist backlash, the relation to the body and illness, the place of fantasy, and the sexualisation of children. It will be of interest to undergraduates, graduates, and researchers in the fields of French culture, gender, film and media studies.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        January 2019

        The new pornographies

        Explicit sex in recent French fiction and film

        by Victoria Best, Martin Crowley

        The turn of the twenty-first century has witnessed the striking advance of pornography into the Western cultural mainstream. Symptomatic of this development has been the use by writers, artists, and film-makers of the imagery and aesthetics of pornography, in works which have, often on this basis, achieved considerable international success. Amongst these artists are a number of French authors and directors - such as Michel Houellebecq, Catherine Breillat, Virginie Despentes, or Catherine Millet - whose work has often been dismissed as trashy or exploitative, but whose use of pornographic material may in fact be indicative of important contemporary concerns. In this, the first study of this significant trend, the authors explore how the reference to pornography encodes diverse political, cultural, and existential questions, including relations between the sexes, the collapse of avant-garde politics, gay sexualities in the time of AIDS, the anti-feminist backlash, the relation to the body and illness, the place of fantasy, and the sexualisation of children. It will be of interest to undergraduates, graduates, and researchers in the fields of French culture, gender, film and media studies.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        November 2024

        Queer beyond London

        by Matt Cook, Alison Oram

      • Trusted Partner

        In the Footsteps of Enayat Al-Zayyat

        by Iman Mersal

        ‘In the Footsteps of Enayat Al-Zayyat’ is a book that traces the life of an unknown Egyptian writer who died in 1963, four years before the release of her only novel. The book does not follow a traditional style to present the biography of Al-Zayyat, or to restore consideration for a writer who was denied her rights. Mersal refuses to present a single story as if it is the truth and refuses to speak on behalf of the heroine or deal with her as a victim, but rather takes us on a journey to search for the individuality that is often marginalised in Arab societies. The book searches for a young woman whose family burned all her personal documents, including the draft of her second novel, and was completely absent in the collective archives.   The narration derives its uniqueness from its ability to combine different literary genres such as fictional narration, academic research, investigation, readings, interviews, fiction, and fragments of the autobiography of the author of the novel. The book deals with the differences between the individuality of Enayat, who was born into an aristocratic family, graduated from a German school and wrote her narration during the domination of the speeches of the Nasserism period, and that of Mersal, a middle-class woman who formed her consciousness in the 1990s and achieved some of what Enayat dreamed of achieving but remained haunted by her tragedy.   The book deals with important political, social and cultural issues, as we read the history of psychiatry in modern Egypt through the pills that Enayat swallowed to end her life on 3 January 1963, while her divorce summarises the continuing suffering of women with the Personal Status Law. We also see how the disappearance of a small square from her neighbourhood reveals the relationship between modernity and bureaucracy, and how the geography of Cairo changes, obliterated as the result of changes in political regimes. In the library of the German Archaeological Institute, where Enayat worked, we find an unwritten history of World War II and, in her unpublished second novel, we see unknown stories of German scientists fleeing Nazism to Cairo. We also see how Enayat’s neglected tomb reveals the life story of her great-grandfather, Ahmed Rashid Pasha, and the disasters buried in the genealogy tree.

      • Trusted Partner
        Children's & YA
        January 2020

        Three Brave Knights

        by Anna Tretyak (Author), Natalya Chorna (Illustrator)

        Once upon a time, three brave knights appeared in the modern world! However, here's the surprise: these knights are actually three cheeky little girls pretending to be knights! Their imagination transforms ordinary objects and people into marvelous creatures, turning an ordinary day into an exciting adventure. They embark on many brave feats during their day, including fighting a dragon and, of course, saving a princess! The author demonstrates that children, and even adults, can be whoever they want with the power of imagination.   From 3 to 6 years, 304 words Rightsholders: hanna.bulhakova@ranok-school.com

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2022

        Crossing borders and queering citizenship

        Civic reading practice in contemporary American and Canadian writing

        by Zalfa Feghali

        Can reading make us better citizens? In Crossing borders and queering citizenship, Feghali crafts a sophisticated theoretical framework to theorise how the act of reading can contribute to the queering of contemporary citizenship in North America. Providing sensitive and convincing readings of work by both popular and niche authors, including Gloria Anzaldúa, Dorothy Allison, Gregory Scofield, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Erín Moure, Junot Díaz, and Yann Martel, this book is the first to not only read these authors together, but also to discuss how each powerfully resists the exclusionary work of state-sanctioned citizenship in the U.S. and Canada. This book convincingly draws connections between queer theory, citizenship studies, and border studies and sheds light on how these connections can reframe our understanding of American Studies.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        March 2021

        Queer exceptions

        Solo performance in neoliberal times

        by Stephen Greer

        Queer exceptions is a study of contemporary solo performance in the UK and Western Europe that explores the contentious relationship between identity, individuality and neoliberalism. With diverse case studies featuring the work of La Ribot, David Hoyle, Oreet Ashery, Bridget Christie, Tanja Ostojic, Adrian Howells and Nassim Soleimanpour, the book examines the role of singular or 'exceptional' subjects in constructing and challenging assumed notions of communal sociability and togetherness, while drawing fresh insight from the fields of sociology, gender studies and political philosophy to reconsider theatre's attachment to singular lives and experiences. Framed by a detailed exploration of arts festivals as encapsulating the material, entrepreneurial circumstances of contemporary performance-making, this is the first major critical study of solo work since the millennium.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        November 2021

        De-centering queer theory

        Communist sexuality in the flow during and after the Cold War

        by Bogdan Popa, Gurminder Bhambra

        De-centering queer theory seeks to reorient queer theory to a different conception of bodies and sexuality derived from Eastern European Marxism. The book articulates a contrast between the concept of the productive body, which draws its epistemology from Soviet and avant-garde theorists, and Cold War gender, which is defined as the social construction of the body. The first part of the book concentrates on the theoretical and visual production of Eastern European Marxism, which proposed an alternative version of sexuality to that of western liberalism. In doing so it offers a historical angle to understand the emergence not only of an alternative epistemology, but also of queer theory's vocabulary. The second part of the book provides a Marxist, anti-capitalist archive for queer studies, which often neglects to engage critically with its liberal and Cold War underpinnings.

      • Trusted Partner
        August 2015

        Man Ethnic Group: Flowers of Nian xi and the May Festival

        by Xiao Mao, Zhu Hong

        Festivals of Chinese Ethnic Groups was co-authored by China's well-beloved authors of children's literature including Fang Suzhen, Tang Sulan, Wang Yimei, and was illustrated by celebrated Chinese illustrators such as Cai Gao, Chen Yadan and Zhu Xunde. This series covers intriguing, outstanding and poetic folk tales on festivals and customs from China's ten most representative ethnic groups. Showcasing their courage, gentleness and indomitable will, these delightful stories allow readers to learn more about the distinct and charming characteristics of these ethnic groups. Recommended as parent-child reading by CCTV during the Dragon Boat Festival, this series has won the Most Beautiful Picture Book 2023 prize given by China Library Journal. It was also nominated for the top picture books prize in China for the Chinese Government Award.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2007

        Martha Gellhorn: The war writer in the field and in the text

        by Kate McLoughlin, Martin Hargreaves

        Martha Gellhorn was the doyenne of twentieth century war correspondence. Opinionated, honest and unafraid, she covered conflicts from the Spanish Civil War to Reagan's wars in Central America in the 1980s. Martha Gellhorn: the war writer in the field and in the text is the first critical study of her Second World War fiction and journalism. Often overlooked in accounts of war literature is the writer's precise position in relation to battle and his or her resultant standing in the text. Kate McLoughlin traces Gellhorn's daring attempts to access the war zone and her constructions of the woman war correspondent in her despatches, novels, short stories and play. Drawing on unpublished letters, close attention is given to Gellhorn's rivalry with Ernest Hemingway (the two were married from 1940 to 1945) over reaching the Normandy beaches on D-Day and its textual outcome in the pages of Collier's magazine. McLoughlin goes on to examine Gellhorn's increasingly negative portrayals of the glamorous female war reporter and to suggests why such disillusionment might have set in. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2021

        Disciplined agency

        Neoliberal precarity, generational dispossession and call centre labour in Portugal

        by Patrícia Alves de Matos

        Since the mid-2000s, the harsh reality of call centre employment for a generation of young workers in Portugal has been impossible to ignore. With its endless rows of small cubicles, where human agents endure repetitive telephone conversations with abusive clients under invasive modes of technological surveillance, discipline and control, call centre work remains a striking symbol of labour precarity, a condition particularly associated with the neoliberal generational disenchantment that 'each generation does better than its predecessor'. This book describes the emergence of a regime of disciplined agency in the Portuguese call centre sector. Examining the ascendancy of call centres as icons of precarity in contemporary Portugal, this book argues that call centre labour constitutes a new form of commodification of the labouring subject. De Matos argues that call centres represent an advanced system of non-manual labour power exploitation, due to the underestimation of human creativity that lies at the centre of the regimented structures of call centre labour. Call centres can only guarantee profit maintenance, de Matos argues, through the commodification of the human agency arising from the operators' moral, relational and social embedded agentive linguistic interventions of creative improvisation, decision-making, problem-solving and ethical evaluation.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2014

        Children's rights, Eastern enlargement and the EU human rights regime

        by Ingi Iusmen, Dimitris Papadimitriou, Simon Bulmer, Andrew Geddes, Peter Humphreys

        This book critically examines how and why Eastern enlargement has impacted on EU human rights policy. By drawing on the EU's intervention in human rights provision in Romania before 2007, it is demonstrated that the feedback effects of this intervention have led to the emergence of an EU child rights policy. Eastern enlargement has also raised the profile of Roma protection, international adoptions and mental health at the EU level. The impact of these developments has been further reinforced by the constitutional and legal provisions included in the Lisbon Treaty. It is argued that Eastern enlargement has led to the emergence of a more robust and well-defined EU human rights regime in terms of its scope and institutional clout. This book makes a substantial contribution to the scholarship on EU enlargement, Europeanisation and EU human rights policy by providing empirical evidence for the emergence and persistence of EU institutional and policy structures upholding human rights. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        August 2015

        Tibetan Ethnic Group: The Sacred Bathing Festival

        by Bing Bo, Chen Yadan

        Festivals of Chinese Ethnic Groups was co-authored by China's well-beloved authors of children's literature including Fang Suzhen, Tang Sulan, Wang Yimei, and was illustrated by celebrated Chinese illustrators such as Cai Gao, Chen Yadan and Zhu Xunde. This series covers intriguing, outstanding and poetic folk tales on festivals and customs from China's ten most representative ethnic groups. Showcasing their courage, gentleness and indomitable will, these delightful stories allow readers to learn more about the distinct and charming characteristics of these ethnic groups. Recommended as parent-child reading by CCTV during the Dragon Boat Festival, this series has won the Most Beautiful Picture Book 2018 prize given by China Library Journal. It was also nominated for the top picture books prize in China for the Chinese Government Award.

      • Trusted Partner
        August 2015

        Han Ethnic Group: Celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival

        by Xiao Mao, He Xu

        Festivals of Chinese Ethnic Groups was co-authored by China's well-beloved authors of children's literature including Fang Suzhen, Tang Sulan, Wang Yimei, and was illustrated by celebrated Chinese illustrators such as Cai Gao, Chen Yadan and Zhu Xunde. This series covers intriguing, outstanding and poetic folk tales on festivals and customs from China's ten most representative ethnic groups. Showcasing their courage, gentleness and indomitable will, these delightful stories allow readers to learn more about the distinct and charming characteristics of these ethnic groups. Recommended as parent-child reading by CCTV during the Dragon Boat Festival, this series has won the Most Beautiful Picture Book 2021 prize given by China Library Journal. It was also nominated for the top picture books prize in China for the Chinese Government Award.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2017

        Queering the Gothic

        by William Hughes, Andrew Smith

      • Trusted Partner
        Children's & YA
        January 2019

        Kitty and Sunny

        by Eva Solska (Author), Natalia Steshenko (Illustrator)

        This is the story of a little but very curious kitten, Bonnie. One day a small red bug with black dots – a ladybug – lands directly on Bonnie’s nose. It was something Bonnie had never seen before. He got very curious on why a bug like that had such a peculiar name: сонечко, little sun . Was it because ladybugs, little suns  were useful? Or because they lived up in the skies? Or maybe we all are little suns for those who love us? This book is part of a 3-books series. From 3 to 5 years, 625 words. Rightsholders: hanna.bulhakova@ranok-school.com

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