University of Chicago Press: New Titles from 'Intellect Ltd'

Trends in Communication Policy Research

Manuel Puppis; Natascha Just — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

With contributions from leading international experts from within both the communications industry and academia, Trends in Communication Policy Research comprises the very latest developments in the theories, methods, and practical applications of the dynamic field of communication policy research. Topical and of high societal and political relevance, this authoritative and up-to-date volume will prove an invaluable reference for students and scholars seeking to understand future trends in communication policy research.

Art Education and Contemporary Culture

Gary Granville — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Using Ireland as a model, Art Education and Contemporary Culture offers a comprehensive treatment of art education in primary and secondary schools, institutions of higher education, cultural institutions, and the diverse communities they serve. Gary Granville has brought together a diverse group of eminent art educators who, together, lay out the opportunities and challenges of art practice while paying close attention to relevant national policy. Rounding out the discussion are essays that locate the challenges and innovations of art education from in international perspective.

Photography and Landscape

Rod Giblett; Juha Tolonen — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

With a focus on the settler societies of the United States and Australia, Photography and Landscape is a new critical account of landscape photography created through a unique collaboration between a photography writer and a landscape photographer. Beginning with the frontier days of the American West, the subsequent century-long popularity of landscape photography is exemplified by images from Carleton Watkins to Ansel Adams, the New Topographics to Richard Misrach, all of whose works are considered here. Along with discussions of other contemporary photographers, this extensively illustrated volume demonstrates the influence of settler societies on landscape photography, in which skilled photographers captured the fascination with and the appeal of the land and its expanse.

The latest installment in Intellect’s Critical Photography series, Photography and Landscape is a visually striking introduction to one of the most important modes of photography.

Habitus of the Hood

Chris Richardson; Hans A Skott-Myhre — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Since the 1990s, popular culture the world over has frequently looked to the ’hood for inspiration, whether in music, film, or television. Habitus of the Hood explores the myriad ways in which the hood has been conceived—both within the lived experiences of its residents and in the many mediated representations found in popular culture. Using a variety of methodologies including autoethnography, textual studies, and critical discourse analysis, contributors analyze and connect these various conceptions.

Touring the Screen

Alfio Leotta — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Following the success of prominent feature films shot on location, including Tolkien’s wildly popular The Lord of the Rings, New Zealand boasts an impressive film tourism industry. This book examines the relationship between New Zealand’s cinematic representation—as both a vast expanse of natural beauty and a magical world of fantasy on screen—and its tourism imagery, including the ways in which savvy local tourism boards have in recent decades used the country’s film representations to sell New Zealand as a premiere travel destination. Focusing on the films that have had a strong impact on marketing strategies by local tourist boards, Touring the Screen will be of interest to all those working and studying in the fields of cinema, postcolonial history, and tourism studies.

Italian TV Drama and Beyond

Milly Buonanno — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Since its inception in the mid-1950s, the television drama has emerged as the dominant medium of contemporary storytelling in Italian society, with a steadily increasing supply of locally produced domestic dramas offering up competing versions of Italian identity. Informed by the nation’s rich historical and cultural heritage—as well as a string of notable foreign imports—the narratives discussed here offer much insight into Italian society and highlight the wide array of television programming available outside of Britain and the United States.

Iranian Cinema and Globalization

Shahab Esfandiary — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Despite critical acclaim and a recent surge of popularity with Western audiences, Iranian cinema has been the subject of lamentably few academic studies—and those have by and large been limited to the films and filmmakers most visible on the international film circuit. Iranian Cinema and Globalization seeks to broaden readers’ exposure to other dimensions of Iranian cinema, including the works of the many prolific filmmakers whose films have received little outside attention despite being widely popular within Iran. Combining theories of globalization and national cinema with in-depth, interdisciplinary analyses of individual films, this volume expands the current literature on Iranian cinema with insights into the social, and religious political contexts involved.

Contingency in Madagascar

Stephen Muecke; Alfredo Cramerotti; Max Pam — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

As they set off for Madagascar in 2003, photographer Max Pam and writer Stephen Muecke adopted as their guiding principle the idea of contingency—central to which is the conscious embrace of risk and chance. In doing so, they established a new aesthetic in which image and text are inextricably linked to the notion of possibility. This stunning collection of photos and essays is the result of their vision, collectively illustrating the beauty and wisdom on offer in one of the world’s poorest nations. A contribution to the wave of new ethnography exemplified by Michael Taussig and Kathleen Stewart, these encounters with events, images, and experimental writing dramatize thoughts and feelings in the ongoing construction of place.

Flesh Into Light

Robert A. Haller — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Over her more than four-decade career, New York-based filmmaker, performer, and writer Amy Greenfield has achieved widespread critical acclaim for her genre-bending films which cross the boundaries of experimental film, video art, and multimedia performance—from her feature film, Antigone/Rites Of Passion, to her major new live multimedia work, Spirit in the Flesh. Exploring the dynamism of movement and the resilience of the human spirit, Greenfield creates a new visual and kinetic language of cinema.

An innovative exploration of an artist whom Cineaste called “the most important practitioner of experimental film-dance,” Flesh Into Light covers Greenfield’s entire career and draws attention to the more than thirty films, holographic sculptures, and video installations of this important American artist.

Holistic Shakespeare

Debra Charlton — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Shakespeare’s plays are staples of the classroom. Yet too often they are taught as antiquated works of literature with little reference to their theatrical life and enduringhuman themes. Applying the methodologies of the holistic education model to the study of four Shakespearean plays— Othello, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Measure for Measure—Holistic Shakespeare offers lively theater-based activities to complement traditional analytical exercises. In keeping with the aims of holistic education, each play is studied in relation to a particular social or ethical topic addressed in the work.

Despite abundant scholarly works in the field of Shakespeare studies, few texts combine analytical and creative learning methodologies—and none before has specifically applied the principles of holistic education to the topic. Accessible to both teachers and learners, this book will be an essential tool for making Shakespeare come to life in the classroom.

South African Cinema 1896-2010

Martin Botha — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Taking an inclusive approach to South African film history, this volume represents an ambitious attempt to analyze and place in appropriate sociopolitical context the aesthetic highlights of South African cinema from 1896 to the present. Thoroughly researched and fully documented by renowned film scholar Martin Botha, the book focuses on the many highly creative uses of cinematic form, style, and genre as set against South Africa’s complex and often turbulent social and political landscape. Included are more than two hundred illustrations and a look at many aspects of South African film history that haven’t been previously documented.

World Film Locations: Istanbul

Özlem Köksal — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

From Head-On to Murder on the Orient Express, World Film Locations: Istanbul offers a compelling look at the many films shot on location in this multicultural metropolis on the Black Sea. Central to this volume are the film industry’s changing representations of Istanbul, which have ranged from progressive cultural center to the authoritarian police state of Alan Parker’s Midnight Express. Evident in both in films made in the West and throughout Turkey over time, these divergent accounts are analyzed with regard to their role in continually reshaping our perception of the city. Essays explore this topic and many others, including the significance of Istanbul to the works of critically-acclaimed directors, among them Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

Illustrated throughout with film stills as well as photographs of featured locations as they appear today, World Film Locations: Istanbul visits all of the important cinematic landmarks, including the Topkapi Palace and the Haydarpasa train station and offers a vivid picture of this historic and culturally stimulating city.

Virtuality and the Art of Exhibition

Vince Dziekan — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Digital technologies are playing an increasingly instrumental role in guiding the curatorial and institutional strategies of contemporary art museums today. Designed around contextual studies of virtuality and the art of exhibition, this interdisciplinary volume applies practice-based research to a broad range of topics, including digital mediation, spatial practice, the multimedia museum, and curatorial design. Rounding out the volume are case studies with accompanying illustrations.

Brit Wits

Iain Ellis — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

The Sex Pistols. David Bowie. Pink Floyd. Rebel rockers and provokers of the public, vivid in our memories as much for their subversion of the mainstream as for their signature sounds. Yet what very few people realize is that a substantive part of the weaponry used by these rockers and their contemporaries was humor: outrageous onstage antics, coded cultural references, and clever lyrical constructs were all critical to expressions of youth rebellion that could still slip past the powers that be.

Focusing on key subversive rock humorists, Brit Wits shows how and why humor has been such a powerful catalyst and expressive force in these artists’ work. Distinguishing rock humorists from rockers who are merely sometimes humorous, Iain Ellis trains his attention on those whose music and persona exude defiance—beginning with the Beatles, the Kinks, and Pink Floyd; and continuing through the Smiths, the Slits, and even the Spice Girls—to investigate the nature of rock humor and the ways in which these groups have used it to attack prevailing social structures. Politics and issues of gender, class, and race are all laid open to ridicule, as is the music industry itself—epitomized by the Sex Pistols’s scathing “EMI.” And although lyrics are foregrounded, Ellis demonstrates that a guitar solo, dissident dance move, or antisocial hairstyle may in context be every bit as subversive and humorous as a song.

At once an action-packed look at some of the most notorious rebels of British rock history and a celebration of an underexplored area of humor, Brit Wits compiles essays and critical profiles that look at one of the most effective—and entertaining—means of anti-establishment expression for half a century.

Europe and Love in Cinema

Jo Labanyi; Luisa Passerini; Karen Diehl — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Europe and Love in Cinema explores the relationship between love and Europeanness in a wide range of films from the 1920s to the present. A critical look at the manner in which love—in its broadest sense—is portrayed in cinema from across Europe and the United States, this volume exposes constructed notions of "Europeanness" that both set Europe apart and define some parts of it as more "European" than others. Through the international distribution process, these films in turn engage with ideas of Europe from both outside and within, while some, treated extensively in this volume, even offer alternative models of love. A bracing collection of essays from top film scholars, Europe and Love in Cinema demonstrates the centrality of desire to film narrative and explores multiple models of love within Europe's frontiers.

Directory of World Cinema: Japan 2

John Berra — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Building on and bringing up to date the material presented in the first installment of Directory of World Cinema: Japan, this volume continues the exploration of the enduring classics, cult favorites, and contemporary blockbusters of Japanese cinema with new contributions from leading critics and film scholars. Among the additions to this volume are in-depth treatments of two previously unexplored genres—youth cinema and films depicting lower-class settings—considered alongside discussions of popular narrative forms, including J-Horror, samurai cinema, anime, and the Japanese New Wave.

Accompanying the critical essays in this volume are more than 150 new film reviews, complemented by full-color film stills, and significantly expanded references for further study. From the Golden Age to the film festival favorites of today, Directory of World Cinema: Japan 2 completes this comprehensive treatment of a consistently fascinating national cinema.

Memory Fragments

Marita Bullock — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Taking as its starting point four contemporary visual artists whose work utilizes the conventions of museum display and collecting practices, Memory Fragments examines how these artists have reconfigured dominant representations of Australian history and identity, including viewpoints often marginalized by gender and race. Echoing Walter Benjamin’s reflections on history and time, this interdisciplinary volume will be of interest to scholars working in the arts as well as modern and postmodern cultural studies.

World Film Locations: Madrid

Lorenzo J. Torres Hortelano — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

From Death of a Cyclist to Open Your Eyes to The Limits of Control, Madrid has graced the big screen countless times across a wide variety of genres enacted by a similarly eclectic array of directors, including Carlos Saura, Luis Buñuel, and Pedro Almodovar. With the aim of capturing the full range of portrayals of the city onscreen, this volume pairs short synopses of scenes from fifty films with an accompanying array of dynamic full-color film stills. These scenes are set in context through a series of incisive essays that examine significant periods from Madrid’s rich film history, as well as its key industry figures and recurring themes.

Packed with fun facts, World Film Locations: Madrid offers a fascinating—and often surprising—tour of the many film representations of Madrid. For jetsetters planning a jaunt to this richly cinematic city, the book also includes photographs of locations as they appear now and city maps with information on how to locate key features.

Engendering Interaction with Images

Audrey G. Bennett — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

No longer passive spectators of images, these days we are more likely to be active participants in their production, distribution, and consumption—which raises important questions about the consequences of widespread user interaction on meaning, communicative effectiveness, and society at large. In this groundbreaking book, communication expert Audrey Grace Bennett argues that engendering interaction with images actually improves their effectiveness by enabling images to convey meanings effectively across cultures. At the cutting edge of the visual and communicative arts, this book represents a welcome challenge to the way we think about how images convey meaning.

Octave Mirbeau: Two Plays

Richard J. Hand — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Octave Mirbeau was one of the most prolific literary figures of France’s storied Belle Époque, and his innovative theatrical works are only recently being rediscovered and appreciated by modern audiences. Here for the first time in English-language translation are his two most celebrated and successful plays: Business is Business, a classical comedy of manners recalling Molière; and Charity, a satirical comedy centered around the exploitation of adolescents in a dubious charity home. In addition to the play texts, this volume also includes an introduction contextualizing the works and the translation and adaptation process.

World Film Locations: Las Vegas

Marcelline Block — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Sin and redemption. The ridiculous and the sublime. The carnivalesque excess of the Strip and the barrenness of the desert surrounding the city. Visited by millions of fortune seekers—and starry-eyed lovers—each year, Las Vegas is a city with as many apparent contradictions as Elvis impersonators, and this complexity is reflected in the diversity of films that have been shot on location there.

A copiously illustrated retrospective of Vegas’s appearances on the big screen, this new volume in Intellect’sWorld Film Locations series presents synopses of scenes from a broad selection of films—from big-budget blockbusters like Oceans 11 to acclaimed classics Rain Man, Casino, and The Godfather to cult favorites like Showgirls and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Insightful essays throughout explore a range of topics, including the Rat Pack’s Las Vegas, the cinematized Strip, Las Vegas as a frequent backdrop for science fiction, and the various film portrayals of iconic pop-cultural figures like Elvis and Frank Sinatra. Rounding out this information are film stills juxtaposed with photographs of the locations as they appear today.

World Film Locations: Las Vegas goes beyond the clichés of Sin City to examine what Hal Rothman and Mike Davis called “the grit beneath the glitter,” thus providing an opportunity to find out more about the unique position Vegas occupies in the popular imagination.

Greek Cinema

Yannis Tzioumakis; Lydia Papadimitriou — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Covering the silent era to the present, this wide-ranging collection of essays examines Greek cinema as an aesthetic, cultural, and political phenomenon with the potential to appeal to a diverse range of audiences. Using a range of methodological tools, the authors investigate the ever-shifting forms and meanings at work within Greece’s national cinema and locate it within the booming interdisciplinary study of European cinema at large. Designed for undergraduate courses in film studies, this well-researched volume fills a substantial gap in the market for critical works on Greek cinema in English.

Peter Weir

Serena Formica — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Peter Weir has been directing Hollywood films since his successful US debut, Witness, in 1985. But does this make him a Hollywood director? Or should he still be considered an Australian filmmaker as many scholars argue?

For the first time, Weir’s entire three-decade creative journey from Australia to Hollywood is considered in light of the recent theories on transnational cinema and through a close examination of four key films: Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Year of Living Dangerously, Witness, and The Truman Show The films’ analyses integrate original interviews with Weir and his closest collaborators, including Russell Boyd. The book concludes that Weir is both an Australian and a Hollywood filmmaker—and would be better seen as a transnational filmmaker whose success in the United States reflects the fact that he was already a “Hollywood” director by the time he relocated.

Perform, Repeat, Record

Amelia Jones; Adrian Heathfield — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Bringing together contributors from dance, theater, visual studies, and art history, Perform, Repeat, Record addresses the conundrum of how live art is positioned within history. Set apart from other art forms in that it may never be performed in precisely the same way twice, ephemeral artwork exists both at the time of its staging and long after in the memories of its spectators and their testimonies, as well as in material objects, visual media, and text, all of which offer new critical possibilities. Among the artists, theorists, and historians who contributed to this volume are Marina Abramovic, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Rebecca Schneider, Boris Groys, Jane Blocker, Carolee Schneemann, Tehching Hsieh, Orlan, Tilda Swinton, and Jean-Luc Nancy.

Directory of World Cinema: Iran

Parviz Jahed — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Iranian cinema has an extraordinary history that has been marked by religion and ever-shifting political, economic, and social environments. This addition to Intellect’s Directory of World Cinema series turns the spotlight on the award-winning cinema of that nation, with particular attention to the major movements, historical turning points, and prominent figures that have helped shape it. A wide range of genres are presented, including comedy, Film Farsi, new wave, children’s films, art house film, and women’s cinema. For the film studies scholar, students working on alternative or national cinema, or for all those who love Persian cinema and wish to learn more, Directory of World Cinema: Iran will be an essential companion to this prolific and prominent film industry.

Italian Women's Theatre, 1930-1960

Daniela Cavallaro — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Between 1930 and 1960, popular female dramatists, including Paola Riccora, Anna Bonacci, Clotilde Masci, and Gici Ganzini Granata, set the stage for a new generation of feminist theatre and the development of contemporary Italian women’s theatre as a whole. Now largely forgotten, the lives and works of these dramatists are reintroduced into the scholarly conversation in Italian Women’s Theatre, 1930–1960. Following a general introduction, the book presents a selection of dramatic works, rounded out by commentary, performance histories, critical analyses, and biographical information.

Composed Theatre

David Roesner; Matthias Rebstock — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

A unique contribution to an emerging field, Composed Theatre explores musical strategies of organization as viable alternative means of organizing theatrical work. In addition to insightful essays by a stellar group of international contributors, this volume also includes interviews with important practitioners, shedding light on historical and theoretical aspects of composed theatre.

Directory of World Cinema: East Europe

Adam Bingham — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Since the 1970s, the works of filmmakers from the nations of Eastern Europe— among them, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Béla Tarr, István Szabó, and Jirí Menzel—have experienced an international upsurge in popularity. Charting the trends of the national cinemas of Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, as well as the lesser-known industries of Serbia, Slovakia, and Romania, this new volume in the Directory of World Cinema series explores important genres in the cinema of Eastern Europe, including war films, new wave, comedies, and surrealist art cinema, with essays on the most prolific filmmakers, in-depth reviews of key titles, and suggested resources for further study. Fifty full-color stills round out this invaluable guide to the burgeoning cinema of Eastern Europe.

Directory of World Cinema: Germany

Michelle Langford — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

From bleak expressionist works to the edgy political works of the New German Cinema to the feel-good Heimat films of the postwar era, Directory of World Cinema: Germany aims to offer a wider film and cultural context for the films that have emerged from Germany—including some of the East German films recently made available to Western audiences for the first time. With contributions by leading academics and emerging scholars in the field, this volume explores the key directors, themes, and periods in German film history, and demonstrates how genres have been adapted over time to fit historical circumstances. Rounding out this addition to the Directory of World Cinema series are fifty full-color stills, numerous reviews and recommendations, and a comprehensive filmography.

Spatialities

Judith Rugg; Craig Martin — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Spatialities: The Geographies of Art and Architecture draws on a distinguished panel of artists, cultural theorists, architects, and geographers to offer a nuanced conceptual framework for understanding the ever-evolving spatial orderings that materially constitute our world. With chapters covering a wide range of topics, including the interstitial, the liminal and the relational processes of networks, accumulations, and assemblage as possibilities for spatial reflection, this volume shows space to be less a defining category and more an abstract terrain whose boundaries may be continually probed and contested.

China's Environment and China's Environment Journalists

Hugo de Burgh; Zeng Rong — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Environmental issues are of growing concern in China, with numerous initiatives aimed at cultivating dialogue and increasing awareness. And key to these initiatives is the environmental journalist. The first English-language study of this burgeoning new field, this book investigates Chinese environmental journalists—their methodologies, their attitudes toward the environment, and their views on the significance of their work—and concludes that most respond enthusiastically to government promptings to report on the environment and climate change. Additional chapters demonstrate journalists’ impact in helping to shape governmental decision making.

World Film Locations: Dublin

Jez Conolly; Caroline Whelan — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

With its rich political and literary history, Dublin is a sought after destination for cinematographers who have made use of the city’s urban streetscapes and lush pastoral settings in many memorable films—among them Braveheart, The Italian Job, and the 2006 musical drama Once. World Film Locations: Dublin offers an engaging look at the many incarnations of the city onscreen through fifty synopses of the key scenes—either shot or set in Dublin—accompanied by a generous selection of full-color film stills.

Throughout the book, a series of essays by leading film scholars spotlight familiar actors, producers, and directors as well as some of the themes common to films shot in Dublin, including literature, politics, the city’s thriving music scene, and its long history of organized crime. Also included is a look at the representations of Dublin before, during, and after the Celtic Tiger era. Sophisticated yet accessible, this volume will undoubtedly take its place on the shelves of film buffs and those interested in Irish culture.

World Film Locations: Paris

Marcelline Block — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

“We’ll always have Paris,” Humphrey Bogart assures Ingrid Bergman in the oft-quoted farewell scene from Casablanca in which Bogart’s character, hard-hearted restaurateur Rick Blaine, bids former lover Ilsa Lund goodbye. The backdrop against which they first fell in love, Paris later serves as a reminder of their deep mutual longings. And with a host of different realizations by filmmakers from Philip Kaufman to Julien Leclercq to Woody Allen, there is no question that Paris has likewise endured in the memories of cinephiles worldwide.

World Film Locations: Paris takes readers on an unforgettable tour of the City of Lights past and present through the many films that have been set there. Along the way, we revisit iconic tourist sites from the Eiffel Tower—whose stairs and crossbars inspired more than one famous chase scene—to the Moulin Rouge overlooking the famously seedy Place Pigalle. Other films explore lesser-known quartiers usually tucked away from the tourist’s admiring gaze. Handsomely illustrated with full-color film stills and contemporary photographs, more than fifty scenes are individually considered with special attention to their use of Paris’s topography as it intersects with characters, narrative, and plot. A host of important genres and cinematic movements are featured, including poetic realism, the New Wave, cinéma-verité, the literary works of the Left Bank Group, and Luc Besson’s slickly stylized cinéma du look. Meanwhile, essays foreground contributions from Francophone African directors and émigré filmmakers.

For centuries, Paris has reigned over the popular imagination. For those who have visited or those who have only imagined it through art, literature, and film, World Film Locations: Paris presents a wonder-filled cinematic exploration of the mythical city that fans of French cinema—and new initiates—will appreciate.

Signifying Europe

Johan Fornäs — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Signifying Europe provides a systematic overview of the wide range of symbols used to represent Europe and Europeanness, both by the political elite and the broader public. Through a critical interpretation of the meanings of the various symbols—and their often contradictory or ambiguous dimensions—Johan Fornäs uncovers illuminating insights into how Europe currently identifies itself and is identified by others outside its borders. While the focus is on the European Union’s symbols, those symbols are also interpreted in relation to other symbols of Europe. Offering insight into the cultural dimensions of European unification, this volume will appeal to students, scholars, and politicians interested in European policy issues, cultural studies, and postnational cultural identity.

Marion Richardson

Rosemary Sassoon — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

In Marion Richardson: Her Life and Contribution to Handwriting, Rosemary Sassoon looks at Richardson’s life and work through the artist and educator’s own writings as well as letters and personal recollections from those who knew and worked with her. The driving force behind a momentous shift in the way art is taught to children, Richardson is perhaps best known for her groundbreaking contribution to penmanship, devising two schemes based on her observations of the natural movements of young children’s hands. The result of extensive original archival research, this book includes many illustrations that depict Richardson’s inventive approach.

Picturing Immigration

Athanasia Batziou — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 06:00:00 GMT

In recent years Greece and Spain have seen an influx of immigrants from nearby developing nations. And as their foreign populations grew, both countries' national medias documented the change and, in the process, shaped perceptions of the immigrant groups by their new countries and the world.

Picturing Immigration offers a comparative study of the photojournalistic framing of immigrants in these two southern European nations. Going beyond traditional media analysis, it focuses on images rather than text to explore a host of hot topics, including media representation of minorities, immigration, and stereotypes.

People's Pornography

Katrien Jacobs — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Since its establishment in 1949, the People's Republic of China has upheld a nationwide ban on pornography, imposing harsh punishments on those caught purchasing, producing, or distributing materials deemed a violation of public morality. A provocative contribution to Chinese media studies by a well-known international media researcher, People’s Pornography offers a wide-ranging overview of the political controversies surrounding the ban, as well as a fascinating glimpse into the many distinct media subcultures that have gained widespread popularity on the Chinese Internet as a result. Rounding out this exploration of the many new tendencies in digital citizenship, pornography, and activist media cultures in the greater China region are thought-provoking interviews with individuals involved.

A timely contribution to the existing literature on sexuality, Chinese media, and Internet culture, People’s Pornography provides a unique angle on the robust voices involved in the debate over about pornography’s globalization.