For some time now the body has been a central topic across a range of social science disciplines. Similarly, there has been a growing interest in the cultural meaning of clothing. But curiously, even though people are nearly always clothed, the relationship between dress and the body has been relatively unexplored until now.
Dress is a crucial aspect of embodiment, shaping the self physically and psychologically. From dressing up to dressing down, this book exposes the complex ways that fashions and costumes render the body presentable in a vast range of social situations. It investigates the varied ways in which western and non-western clothes operate to give the body meaning and situate it within culture. The authors consider different approaches to the relationship between fashion, dress and the body, and present new theoretical models for their future study. They demonstrate the importance of the concept of ‘embodiment’ to dress and fashion studies.
Exploring gender, photography, cultural history and modernity, this book deals with a vast range of questions inherent in dressing up the body. From fashion photography in the 1960s to contemporary queer fashion and the history of the masquerade, this is a fascinating and far-reaching collection. Its breadth and depth make it essential reading for anyone interested in style, costume, the body, gender or history.

In the networked age, we are living with changed parameters of time and space. Mobile networked communication fosters a form of virtual time and space, which is super-imposed onto territorial space. Time is increasingly composed of interruptions and distractions, as smartphone users are overwhelmed by messages.

Queercore is a queer and punk transmedia movement that was instigated in 1980s Toronto via the pages of the underground fanzine ("zine") J.D.s. Authored by G.B. Jones and Bruce LaBruce, J.D.s. declared "civil war" on the punk and gay and lesbian mainstreams, consolidating a subculture of likeminded filmmakers, zinesters, musicans and performers situated in pointed opposition to the homophobia of mainline punk and the lifeless sexual politics and exclusionary tendencies of dominant gay and lesbian society. More than thirty years later, queercore and its troublemaking productions remain under the radar, but still culturally and politically resonant. This book brings renewed attention to queercore, exploring the homology between queer theory/practice and punk theory/practice at the heart of queercore mediamaking. Through analysis of key queercore texts, this book also elucidates the tropes central to queercore's subcultural distinction: unashamed sexual representation, confrontational politics and "shocking" embodiments, including those related to size, ability and gender variance. An exploration of a specific transmedia subculture grounded in archival research, ethnographic interviews, theoretical argumentation and close analysis, ultimately, Queercore proffers a provocative, and tangible, new answer to the long-debated question, "What does it mean to be queer?"

Despite dying in relative obscurity, Jane Austen has become a global force as different readers across time, space, and media have responded to her work - beyond simply American and Great Britain, there are Janeites to be found in China, India, and across the globe. Many fans feel they have developed a personal relationship with Austen and her work. This volume examines the ways in which her novels affect individual psychologies and how Janeites in both the English and non-English speaking worlds experience her work, from visiting her home, to public re-enactments, to films based on her writings.

Drawing on case studies across the Asia-Pacific region, Gaming in Social, Locative and Mobile Media explores the 'playful turn' in contemporary everyday life, and the role of mobile devices, games and social media in this transformation.

This book continues the exploration of themes either neglected or devalued by others working in the field of philosophy and culture. The authors in this volume consider the domain of travel from the broadest and most diverse of philosophical perspectives, covering everyday topics ranging from commuting and vacation travel to immigration and forced relocation. Our time in transit, our being in transit, and our time at rest, whether by choice or edict, has always been at issue, always been at play (and has always been in motion, if you will), for our species. The essays collected here explore the possibilities of the material impact of being able to move or stay put, as well as being forced to go or prevented from leaving.

The field of fan studies has seen exponential growth in recent years and this companion brings together an internationally and interdisciplinarily diverse group of established scholars to reflect on the state of the field and to point to new research directions. Engaging an impressive array of media texts and formats and incorporating a variety of methodologies, this collection is organized into six main sections: methods and ethics, technologies and practices, identities, race and transcultural fandom, industry, and futures. Each section concludes with a conversation among some of the field's leading scholars and industry insiders to address a wealth of questions relevant to each section topic.

"It's time for those of us who remember how great our generation was to start thinking about what else we need to do "Before We Croak." I agree with Mr. Keveson, we were the greatest, coolest, most evolutionary generation the world has ever seen, and for too many people on earth life still sucks. Clearly there's more to do. And as Keveson points out, us hippie bastards still have 20 year left, so clearly we'll be the ones to do it. That's what the 20 years are for, and that's what we're here to do. Question is, what needs doing and how are we to do it? What Keveson does nobly well in this book, is take The Bus a little Further towards reaching our always lofty goal, figuring out why the hell we're still alive "
Ken Kesey--"The Astral Plane Dealer"

"Evolve, always evolve, my children, or I'll starve myself to death "
Mahatma Gandhi--"The Causal Plane Dealer"

"Read it. I'm telling ya. I highly recommend this book. Very highly. So ya better read this book, "Before Ya Croak ." I ain't kiddin "
God--"The Taoly News"

From the reality TV show Superstar to Formula One ace Michael Schumacher, Pop Culture Germany! explores the exciting world of contemporary German popular culture. Like no other volume of its kind, Pop Culture Germany! captures the breadth and vitality of popular culture in modern Germany, exploring both familiar and lesser-known aspects of German art, entertainment, television, music, and film. Written by expert contributors who are rooted in German language and culture, the book focuses on German popular culture since 1945, providing an indispensable guide for anyone planning a trip to Germany for business or pleasure or for those who wish to have a deeper understanding of the German nation. This book offers a concise, in-depth overview of the evolution and impact of German media, arts, lifestyles, and recreation, written with a historical perspective. Illustrated with photographs and reprints of iconic German advertisements, magazine covers, and official forms and documents A-Z glossaries at the end of each chapter list key words and summarize the most important topics

Through American history, often in times of crisis, there have been periodic outbreaks of obsession with the paranormal. Between 2004 and 2019, over six dozen documentary-style series dealing with paranormal subject matter premiered on television in the United States. Combining the stylistic traits of horror with earnest accounts of what are claimed to be actual events, "paranormal reality" incorporates subject matter formerly characterized as occult or supernatural into the established category of reality TV. Despite the high number of programs and their evident popularity, paranormal reality television has to date received little critical attention. Ghost Channels: Paranormal Reality Television and the Haunting of Twenty-First-Century America provides an overview of the paranormal reality television genre, its development, and its place in television history. Conducting in-depth analyses of over thirty paranormal television series, including such shows as Ghost Hunters, Celebrity Ghost Stories, and Long Island Medium, author Amy Lawrence suggests these programs reveal much about Americans' contemporary fears. Through her close readings, Lawrence asks, "What are these shows trying to tell us?" and "What do they communicate about contemporary culture if we take them seriously and watch them closely?" Ridiculed by nearly everyone, paranormal reality TV shows-with their psychics, ghost hunters, and haunted houses-provide unique insights into contemporary American culture. Half-horror, half-documentary realism, these shows expose deep-seated questions about class, race, gender, the value of technology, the failure of institutions, and what it means to be American in the twenty-first century.

Chinese and Western Literary Influence in Liu Cixin's Three Body Trilogy examines Liu Cixin's acclaimed trilogy, a Chinese science fiction epic whose translation is exceedingly popular in the Western world. Will Peyton argues that the ingenuity of Liu's writing is found in its conscious engagement with translated Western fiction rather than, as one might expect, in Chinese language science fiction of the past. The book illustrates how contemporary Chinese fiction, since the economic opening of China in the late 1980s, is deeply and complexly influenced by various strains in Western literary and intellectual thought, an area that scholars of Chinese literature have tended to neglect. Providing a lucid and succinct close-reading and textual analysis of Three Body trilogy, the book also makes reference to broader ideas and themes in modern Chinese and Western intellectual history.

These essays consider the Godzilla films and how they were shaped (by and in turn shaped) postwar Japanese culture, as well as the globalization of Japanese pop culture icons in the wake of the Godzilla phenomenon. They fall within a wide range of disciplines: film studies, anthropology, history, literature, theater, and cultural studies. Contributors include Susan Napier, Anne Allison, Christine Yano, and others.

Orgasmic Bodies explores how bodily experiences of orgasm are worked up as present/absent, complicated/straightforward, too slow/too fast, fake or real, in the doing of masculinities and femininities. Engaging with both science and popular culture it examines the meanings given to orgasmic bodies in contemporary heterosex.

A critical survey of Hollywood film musicals from the 1960s to the present. This book examines how, in the post-studio system era, cultural, industrial and stylistic circumstances transformed this once happy-go-lucky genre into one both fluid and cynical enough to embrace the likes of "Rocky Horror" and pave the way for "Cannibal!" and "Moulin Rouge!."

This groundbreaking and truly interdisciplinary collection of essays examines how digital media technologies require us to rethink established conceptualisations of human memory in terms of its discourses, forms and practices.

With the prominence of one-name couples (Brangelina, Kimye) and famous families (the Smiths, the Beckhams), it is becoming increasingly clear that celebrity is no longer an individual pursuit-if it ever was. Accordingly, First Comes Love explores celebrity kinship and the phenomenon of the power couple: those relationships where two stars come together and where their individual identities as celebrities become inseparable from their status as a famous twosome. Taken together, the chapters in this volume interrogate the ways these alliances are bound up in wider cultural debates about marriage, love, intimacy, family, parenthood, sexuality, and gender, in their particular historical contexts, from the 1920s to the present day. Interdisciplinary in scope, First Comes Love seeks to establish how celebrity relationships play particular roles in dramatizing, disrupting, and reconciling often-contradictory ideas about coupledom and kinship formations.

The cave of Lascaux may be closed to the public, but five scholars a day are allowed inside, and Nora Barnes has finagled an appointment. True, she may have fudged a bit in her letter to the authorities, but she does teach art history, and she isn t about to miss her chance to see the world s most famous prehistoric paintings. Nora and her high-spirited husband, Toby, are visiting the Dordogne, in the southern French region of the Aquitaine. Aware that the Dordogne s renown for cave art is matched only by its reputation for delicious cuisine, the couple has also signed up for a cooking class at a nearby chateau, but they soon find that more than food is on their minds. During their tour of the cave, another visitor is murdered. When the local inspector pegs Nora and Toby as suspects, they embark on a mission to solve the crime, tracing strange links between a Cro-Magnon symbol and a thirteenth-century religious cult. As they match wits with the crusty inspector, Nora finds herself immersed in the notebooks of a forgotten artist who once lived in the chateau. In sifting through the artist s papers and uncovering old secrets, she begins to piece together the motives for the murder. But has she cooked up more trouble than she can handle? Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the Public Library Reviewers"

This timely, highly readable edited collection undertakes an interdisciplinary analysis of the innovative ways in which both the political process and the entertainment industry appeal to voters under the age of 30 and how the intended audience receives these endeavors. Along the way, contributors shed light on the state of the modern American political system and its relationship to entertainment and popular culture. By integrating academic investigations with a 'real-world' point of view, the essays in this collection present information in an engaging, accessible manner that will show readers how the articulation of youth culture has influenced the political engagement of young voters.