Inspired by both Daniel Defoe's 'A Journal of the Plague Year' (1722) and 'The King', an anthology of the witty and provocative chess columns of the Dutch Grandmaster, Jan Hein Donner, Ray Keene here collects his thoughts and writings on the year 2020 - both in chess and the wider world. His reflections include the impact of Covid-19 on the popularity of chess, the remarkable influence of the Netflix series 'The Queen's Gambit', the growing army of teenage Grandmasters, the online pivot of chess competition and the emergence of chess entrepreneurs, such as World Champion Magnus Carlsen and Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura.. Like Donner, Ray uses chess as a metaphor for observations on art, culture and civilisation.

Transoceanic Perspectives in Amitav Ghosh's Ibis Trilogy studies Ghosh's Sea of Poppies (2008), River of Smoke (2011) and Flood of Fire (2015) in relation to maritime criticism. Juan-Jose Martin-Gonzalez draws upon the intersections between maritime criticism and postcolonial thought to provide, via an analysis of the Ibis trilogy, alternative insights into nationalism(s), cosmopolitanism and globalization. He shows that the Victorian age in its transoceanic dimension can be read as an era of proto-globalization that facilitates a materialist critique of the inequities of contemporary global neo-liberalism. The book argues that in order to maintain its critical sharpness, postcolonialism must re-direct its focus towards today's most obvious legacy of nineteenth-century imperialism: capitalist globalization. Tracing the migrating characters who engage in transoceanic crossings through Victorian sea lanes in the Ibis trilogy, Martin-Gonzalez explores how these dispossessed collectives made sense of their identities in the Victorian waterworlds and illustrates the political possibilities provided by the sea crossing and its fluid boundaries.

This book reports on innovative interdisciplinary research in the field of cultural studies. The study spans the early twentieth to twenty-first centuries and fills a gap in our understanding of how girls' and women's religious identity is shaped by maternal and institutional relations. The unique research focuses on the stories of thirteen groups of Australian mothers and daughters, including the maternal genealogy of the editor of the book. Extended conversations conducted twenty years apart provide a situated approach to locating the everyday practices of women, while the oral storytelling presents a rich portrayal of how these girls and women view themselves and their relationship as mothers and daughters. The book introduces the key themes of education, work and life transitions as they intersect with generational change and continuity, gender and religion, and the non-linear transitional stories are told across the life-course examining how Catholic pasts shaped, and continue to shape, the participants' lives. Adopting a multi-methodological approach to research drawing on photographs, memorabilia passed among mothers and daughters, journal entries and letters, it describes how women's lives are lived in different spaces and negotiated through diverse material and symbolic dimensions.

In this compelling study, Maria Theresia Starzmann and John Roby bring together an international cast of experts who move beyond the traditional framework of the ""constructed past"" to look at not only how the past is remembered but also who remembers it. They convincingly argue that memory is a complex process, shaped by remembering and forgetting, inscription and erasure, presence and absence. Collective memory influences which stories are told over others, ultimately shaping narratives about identity, family, and culture. This interdisciplinary volume-melding anthropology, archaeology, sociology, history, philosophy, literature, and archival studies-explores such diverse arenas as archaeological objects, human remains, colonial landscapes, public protests, national memorials, art installations, testimonies, and even digital space as places of memory. Examining important sites of memory, including the Victory Memorial to Soviet Army, Blair Mountain, Spanish penitentiaries, African shrines, and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, the contributors highlight the myriad ways communities reinforce or reinterpret their pasts.

How can we make sense of the current age of global political disruption when populism leaves norms overturned and the future form of democracy unpredictable? Political representatives are no longer elected for their experience and expertise but out of a desire for an ephemeral sense of authenticity, a direct connection to citizens, and the certainty of the truths they tell. But when populists project these ideas and claim to represent the citizenry, what is reality and what is strategic performance for the media? This conceptually rich book explores the performative strategies of the populist politicians who disrupt the normative order with acts of 'truth-telling'. It disentangles their complex use of media-from their appeal to news values through spectacular disruptions to sophisticated social media commentary-in repertoires of mediated performances. Based on vigorous empirical research in both established and transitional democracies, it develops a theoretical framework of populist communication in the new media environment.

Spanning across playwrights, performers, critics, and theatrical commemorations, this book raises controversy about familiar figures and brings attention to neglected ones. Thomas F. Connolly opens his book with a provocative essay subtitled "Notional Culture." The first sentence: "Postmodernism makes others of us all," introduces Connolly's confrontational approach to the study of culture. The introduction takes readers from Montaigne's "Cannibals" to Madison Avenue "gangsta" wannabes, while explicating the impulses behind formal classification that have driven intellectual pursuits from the Early Modern Period through postmodernism. The chapter on Eugene O'Neill argues that his colossal status as the "greatest American playwright" has been imposed upon him and reduces his stature as a world playwright. Connolly is the major scholar of American drama critics and the essay on John Mason Brown has been called "a fascinating and important piece" by leading theatre historian David Savran. Other chapters on major European performers: Noel Coward, Micheal Mac Liammoir, Alexander Moissi and Viennese theatrical culture, offer analysis of self-creation, the superficiality of national identity, and the ways governments use performers. Genus Envy is an important book for all theatre, cultural studies, and literature collections.

This book examines the modes of representation of the East in Argentinean literature since the country's independence, in works by canonical authors such as Esteban Echeverria, Juan B. Alberdi, Domingo F. Sarmiento, Lucio V. Mansilla, Pastor S. Obligado, Eduardo F. Wilde, Leopoldo Lugones, and Roberto Arlt. The East, which has always fascinated intellectuals and artists from the Americas, inspired the creation of imaginary elements for both aesthetic and political purposes, from the depiction of purportedly despotic rulers to a genuine admiration for Eastern history and millennial cultures. These writers appropriated the East either through their travels or by reading chronicles, integrating along the way images that would end up being universalized by the Argentinean dichotomy between civilization and barbarism, all the while assigning the negative stereotypes of the exotic East to the Pampa region. With time, the exoticism of the Eastern world would shed its geopolitical meaning and was ultimately integrated into the national literature, thus adding new elements into the Argentinean imaginary.

While a number of recent works have linked magical realism to postcolonial trauma, this book expands the trauma-theory-based analysis of magical realism. Borrowing from the Russian Formalist Mikhail Bakhtin, the study adapts his concept of chronotope to that of shock chronotope in order to describe unstable time-spaces marked by extreme events. Besides trauma theory, contemporary theories of representation formulated by Guy Debord, Jean Baudrillard, and Slavoj i ek, among others, corroborate specific literary analyses of magical realist novels by Caribbean, North American, and European authors. The study discusses a series of concepts, such as "spectacle" and "hyperreality," in order to create an analogy between the hyperreal, a spectacle without origins, and magical realism, a representation of events without a history, or a recreation of an absence that first needs to be acknowledged before it can be assigned any meaning. Magical realist hyperreality is meant to be a reconstruction of events that were "missed" in the first place because of their traumatic nature. While the magical realist hyperreal might not explain the unspeakable event, if only to avoid the risk of an amoral rationalization, it makes the ineffable be vicariously felt and re-experienced. This study establishes a somewhat unorthodox nexus between magical realist writing (viewed primarily as a postmodern literary phenomenon) and trauma (understood both as an individual and as an often invisible cultural dominant), and proposes the concept of "traumatic imagination" as an analytical tool to be applied to literary texts struggling to represent the unpresentable and to reconstruct extreme events whose forgetting has proven just as unbearable as their remembering. The traumatic imagination defines the empathy-driven consciousness that enables authors and readers to act out and/or work through trauma by means of magical realist images. Corroborated by elements of trauma theory, postcolonial studies, narrative theory, and contemporary theories of representation, the work posits that the traumatic imagination is an essential part of the creative process that turns traumatic memories into narratives. Magical realism lends traumatic events an expression that traditional realism could not, seemingly because the magical realist writing mode and the traumatized subject share the same ontological ground: being part of a reality that is constantly escaping witnessing through telling. Over more than half a century now, magical realism has demonstrated its versatility by affecting literary productions belonging to various cultural spaces and representing different histories of violence. This book examines novels by traumatized and vicariously traumatized authors who make extensive use of fantastic/magical elements in order to represent slavery, postcolonialism, the Holocaust, and war. The Traumatic Imagination: Histories of Violence in Magical Realist Fiction is an important book for magical realism- and trauma theory-based critical collections.

This edited collection explores issues of gender equality in the global context. Campaigns to achieve gender equality throughout the twentieth century brought about huge changes in westernised countries. In particular, the achievements of second-wave feminism with regards to gender and sexual equality benefit many people today. The famous 'seven demands' of the second-wave movement form the basis of the chapters of this book, probing the advances made legally, socially and culturally. Contributors to this collection acknowledge the advances brought about by the second-wave movement, but highlight the work which still needs to be done in the twenty-first century, including the changes in society that have resulted in shifts in masculinity. Gender Equality in Changing Times is divided into two parts, following an overview of theoretical debates and social contexts that lead us to the current period of gender and sexual relations. Part One looks at gender equality by exploring the 'experience' of being part of a group where gender boundaries still exist, drawing on auto-ethnographies of those in key groups that are central to this debate, as well as interviews with members of such groups. Part Two investigates wider representations of these groups, offering an insight into the geopolitical world of gender relations in Saudi Arabia and China. Ultimately, this collection shows how much has been achieved, yet how far is also left to go. Students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including gender studies, history, education, sociology, media studies, politics, business studies, cultural studies and English literature and linguistics, will find this book of interest.

This book analyses photographic and cinematographic representations of war and its memorialisation rituals in the period of late modernity from the perspectives of cultural sociology, philosophy, art theory and film studies. It reveals how the experience of war trauma takes root in everydayness and shows how artists try to question the 'normality' of the everyday, to actualise the memory of war trauma, to rethink the contrasting experiences of the time of war and everydayness, and to oppose the imposed historical narratives. The new representations are analysed by developing theories of war as a 'magic spectacle', also by using such concepts as spectres, triumph and trauma, collective social catastrophes, forensic architecture and others.

This book presents an analysis of how the grassroots movement of Guangchang Wu or 'square dance' in China has become a national phenomenon. Through oral narratives offering rich descriptions of lived encounters, the experiences of those involved in leading, organizing, teaching and learning Guangchang Wu are revealed. Through these narratives, this book serves to understand the leadership practices occurring and how this dance practice is deeply rooted in the complexities of China's rapid economic development, acceleration of urbanisation, and the desire for a healthier and more communal lifestyle.

This book brings together twelve contributions that trace the empirical-conceptual evolution of Popular Communication, associating it mainly with the context of inequalities in Latin America and with the creative and collective appropriation of communication and knowledge technologies as a strategy of resistance and hope for marginalized social groups. In this way, even while emphasizing the Latin American and even ancestral identity of this current of thought, this book positions it as an epistemology of the South capable of inspiring relevant reflections in an increasingly unequal and mediatized world. The volume's contributors include both early-career and more established professionals and natives of seven countries in Latin America. Their contributions reflect on the epistemological roots of Popular Communication, and how those roots give rise to a research method, a pedagogy, and a practice, from decolonial perspectives.

This book interrogates the nature and state of African American citizenship through the prism of Social Contract Theory. Challenging the United States' commitment to African American citizenship, this book explores the idea of Social Nullification, the decision to reject, revoke and re-define the social contract with a state and society. Charles F. Peterson surveys the history of Social Contract Theory, examines Nullification as political and legal theory, argues public policy as a measure of the state's commitment to the contractarian relationship and frames the writings and activism of Martin R. Delany, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and the African American Reparations Movement as examples of Social Nullification and challenges to the terms of Black life in America.

This book studies tabloid journalism newspapers within the broader context of press freedom in Africa. After defining tabloid journalism and professional practices within various political contexts, the book then proceeds to consider tabloids in Southern Africa and emerging cyberspace laws. Many factors of press freedom are considered, including the impact of public order and national security laws on tabloids in North Africa, the impact of defamation laws on tabloids in West Africa, the impact of the fake news laws on tabloids in East Africa, and the impact of sedition and treason laws on tabloids in Central Africa. Exploring tabloid journalism and press freedom in Arabic, Portuguese, and Francophone speaking countries across Africa, this book is a unique addition to this emerging field. The book concludes by providing a synthesis of the developing patterns from the cases analysed and by looking to the future to make recommendations and map the challenges and the successes.

Fetish Style traces the history, forms and tendencies of sub-cultural fashions that are popular in both mainstream and alternative fashion cultures. Presenting the world of subcultural fetish clothing design in all of its richness and beauty, this book explores the idea of fetish as subversive and repressive as reflected in clothing choices in people of all ages and cultures. Linking the fetishistic aspects of contemporary culture with everyday clothing as dictated by fashion and merchandizing, Fetish Style presents a fascinating study of historical as well as 21st century subcultures. Case studies include the Japanese-influenced 'tribes' of the various Lolita formations, the Shotaru (male Lolita), the club scene, the Goths, the hip-hop fashions and other locally-formed fetishized practices. Fetish Style will be key reading for anyone interested in fetish fashion both past and present.

This book examines Donald M. Allen's crucially influential poetry anthology The New American Poetry, 1945-1960 from the perspectives of American Cold War nationalism and literary transnationalism, considering how the anthology expresses and challenges Cold War norms, claiming post-war Anglophone poetic innovation for the United States and reflecting the conservative American society of the 1950s. Examining the crossroads of politics, social life, and literature during the Cold War, this book puts Allen's anthology into its historical context and reveals how the editor was influenced by the volatile climate of nationalism and politics that pervaded every aspect of American life during the Cold War. Reconsidering the dramatic influence that Allen's anthology has had on the way we think about and anthologize American poetry, and recontextualizing The New American Poetry as a document of the Cold War, this study not only helps us come to a more accurate understanding of how the anthology came into being, but also encourages new ways of thinking about all of Anglophone poetry, from the twentieth century and today.

Exploring a hitherto unexamined aspect of San cosmology, Mathias Guenther's two volumes on human-animal relations in San cosmology link "new Animism" with Khoisan Studies, providing valuable insights for Khoisan Studies and San culture, but also for anthropological theory, relational ontology, folklorists, historians, literary critics and art historians. Building from the examinations of San myth and contemporary culture in Volume I, Volume II considers the experiential implications of a cosmology in which ontological mutability-ambiguity and inconstancy-hold sway. As he considers how people experience ontological mutability and deal with profound identity issues mentally and affectively, Guenther explores three primary areas: general receptiveness to ontological ambiguity; the impact of the experience of transformation (both virtual/vicarious and actual/direct); and the intersection of the mythic, spirit world with reality. Through a comparative consideration of animistic cosmology amongst the San, Bantu-speakers and the Inuit of Canada's eastern Arctic, alongside a discussion of animistic currents in Western humanities and ethology, Guenther clearly paints the relative strengths and weaknesses of New Animism discourse, particularly in relation to San ontology and cosmology, but with overarching relevance.

Video Game Chronotopes and Social Justice examines how the chronotope, which literally means "timespace," is an effective interpretive lens through which to understand the cultural and ideological significance of video games. Using 'slow readings' attuned to deconstruction along the lines of post-structuralist theory, gender studies, queer studies, continental philosophy, and critical theory, Mike Piero exposes the often-overlooked misogyny, heteronormativity, racism, and patriarchal structures present in many Triple-A video games through their arrangement of timespace itself. Beyond understanding time and space as separate mechanics and dimensions, Piero reunites time and space through the analysis of six chronotopes-of the bonfire, the abject, the archipelago, the fart as pharmakon, madness, and coupled love-toward a poetic meaning making that is at the heart of play itself, all in affirmation of life, equity, and justice.

This book traces how The Walking Dead franchise narratively, visually, and rhetorically represents transgressions against heteronormativity and the nuclear family. The introduction argues that The Walking Dead reflects cultural anxiety over threats to the family. Chapter 1 examines the destructive competition created by heteronormativity, such as the conflict between Rick and Shane. Chapter 2 focuses on the actual or attempted participation of characters such as Carol and Negan in queer relationships. Chapter 3 interprets zombies as queer antagonists to heteronormativity, while Chapter 4 explores the incorporation of zombies into the lives of characters such as the Governor and the Whisperers. The conclusion asserts that The Walking Dead presents both queer alternatives to and damaging contradictions within the traditional heterosexual family model, helping to question this model and to consider the struggle of queer American families. Overall, this study holds special interest for students and scholars of queerness, zombies, and the family.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Under what conditions does 'sensation' become 'sensational'? In the early nineteenth century murder was a staple of the sensationalizing popular press and gruesome descriptions were deployed to make a direct impact on the sensations of the reader. By the end of the century, public concern with the thrills, spills, and shocks of modern life was increasingly articulated in the language of sensation. Media sensationalism contributed to this process and magnified its impact, just as sensation was, in turn, taken up by literature, art and film. In the contemporary world the dramatization of these experiences in an era of media panics over terrorism and paedophilia has taken an overtly melodramatic form, in which battles of good and evil play out across the landscapes of our lives. Sensational Subjects develops an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to exploring these themes, their impact and their implications for understanding the modern world. A companion volume, Sympathetic Sentiments: Affect, Emotion and Spectacle in the Modern World is published simultaneously by Bloomsbury.

An introductory guide to the work of Judith Butler, a major contemporary theorist, this title includes a new interview with Butler. "Judith Butler: Live Theory" is an invaluable introduction to the work of this key contemporary theorist, guiding the student through the most complex ideas of one of the most influential thinkers in contemporary culture. Concise, accessible and comprehensive, the book explores and illuminates Butler's important and ongoing contributions to gender theory, offers new insights into the central themes of her work, and considers the extent of her impact on how the discipline of gender studies has been shaped. In particular, the book considers Butler's intellectual work in relation to issues of sexuality and performance, identity and politics, language and power - themes central to Butler's thought and writing. Vicki Kirby locates Butler in the context of contemporary theorists and thinkers and the book includes a new interview with Butler herself, in which she discusses the key themes in her work as well as future writing plans. Offering a stimulating and clear account of the work and thought of this inspiring figure, "Judith Butler: Live Theory" is a key resource for anyone studying this pioneering thinker within the context of sociology, cultural studies, literary criticism, feminism and philosophy.