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        The Arts
        January 2019

        Contemporary Spanish cinema and genre

        by Jay Beck, Vicente Rodríguez Ortega

        This volume is the first English-language collection exclusively dedicated to the study of genre in relation to Spanish cinema. Providing a variety of critical perspectives, the collection gives the reader a thorough account of the relationship between Spanish cinema and genre, drawing on case studies of several of the most remarkable Spanish films in recent years. The book analyses the significant changes in the aesthetics, production and reception of Spanish film from 1990 onwards. It brings together European and North American scholars to establish a critical dialogue on the topics under discussion, while providing multiple perspectives on the concepts of national cinemas and genre theory. In recent years film scholarship has attempted to negotiate the tension between the nationally specific and the internationally ubiquitous, discussing how globalisation has influenced film making and surrounding cultural practice. These broader social concerns have prompted scholars to emphasise a redefinition of national cinemas beyond strict national boundaries and to pay attention to the transnational character of any national site of film production and reception. This collection provides a thorough investigation of contemporary Spanish cinema within a transnational framework, by positing cinematic genres as the meeting spaces between a variety of diverse forces that necessarily operate within but also across territorial spaces. Paying close attention to the specifics of the Spanish cinematic and social panorama, the essays investigate the transnational economic, cultural and aesthetic forces at play in shaping Spanish film genres today.

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        The Arts
        June 2021

        Genre and performance: film and television

        by Christine Cornea

        Looking at contemporary film and television, this book explores how popular genres frame our understanding of on-screen performance. Previous studies of screen performance have tended to fix upon star actors, directors, or programme makers, or they have concentrated upon particular training and acting styles. Moving outside of these confines, this book provides a truly interdisciplinary account of performance in film and television and examines a much neglected area in our understanding of how popular genres and performance intersect on screen. Each chapter concentrates upon a particular genre or draws upon generic case studies in examining the significance of screen performance. Individual chapters examine contemporary film noir, horror, the biopic, drama-documentary, the western, science fiction, comedy performance in 'spoof news' programmes and the television 'sit com' and popular Bollywood films.

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        The Arts
        January 2019

        The secret life of romantic comedy

        by Celestino Deleyto

        The secret life of romantic comedy offers a new approach to one of the most popular and resilient genres in the history of Hollywood. Steering away from the rigidity and ideological determinism of traditional accounts of the genre, this book advocates a more flexible theory, which allows the student to explore the presence of the genre in unexpected places, extending the concept to encompass films that are not usually considered romantic comedies. Combining theory with detailed analyses of a selection of films, including To Be or Not to Be (1942), Rear Window (1954), Kiss Me Stupid (1964), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and Before Sunset (2004), the book aims to provide a practical framework for the exploration of a key area of contemporary experience - intimate matters - through one of its most powerful filmic representations: the genre of romantic comedy. Original and entertaining, The secret life of romantic comedy is perfect for students and academics of film and film genre.

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        June 2024

        Thierry and Theodoret

        John Fletcher, Philip Massinger and Nathan Field

        by Domenico Lovascio

        Enthusiastically praised by Charles Lamb and A. C. Swinburne but unjustly neglected since the early twentieth century, Thierry and Theodoret dramatizes events from medieval French history. With its disenchanted depiction of royalty, its eerie instability in terms of genre, and its black comic overtones, Thierry and Theodoret strikes as a distinctive specimen of tragic drama in the Jacobean mould and ranks as one of the most powerful plays in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators. This Revels Plays volume is the first fully annotated critical edition of the play, and the first to attribute it to Nathan Field alongside Fletcher and Philip Massinger. It provides a thorough introduction reassessing the play's engagement with its sources - including Shakespeare - and discusses the dating, authorship, and reception of this bizarrely captivating play, pointing the way for future scholarship, especially of a historical or gender-based nature.

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        The Arts
        January 2019

        Contemporary Spanish cinema

        by Barry Jordan, Rikki Morgan-Tamosunas

        Contemporary focus, right up to date with material from 1980s and 90s. Wide-ranging analyses of major directors, themes, genres and issues, including historical film, genre cinema, women in film and autonomies.

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        The Arts
        July 2023

        You’re nicked

        Investigating British television police series

        by Ben Lamb

        You're nicked is the first comprehensive study of television police series in the UK. It reveals how British television's most popular genre has developed stylistically, politically and philosophically from 1955 to the present. Each chapter focuses on a particular decade, investigating how the most-watched series represent the inner workings of the police station, the civilian life of criminals and the private lives of police officers. This new approach unearths the complex ideology underpinning each series and discerns the key insights the genre can provide into the breakdown of the post-war settlement. Offering insightful readings of police series from Dixon of Dock Green to Happy Valley via The Sweeney, The Bill and Cracker, the book is a must-read for crime-drama enthusiasts worldwide. This new paperback edition features an extensive epilogue on Line of Duty and other Jed Mercurio creations.

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        September 2023

        Romantic women's life writing

        by Susan Civale

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2022

        The pastor in print

        Genre, audience, and religious change in early modern England

        by Amy G. Tan

        The pastor in print explores the phenomenon of early modern pastors who chose to become print authors, addressing ways authorship could enhance, limit or change clerical ministry and ways pastor-authors conceived of their work in parish and print. It identifies strategies through which pastor-authors established authorial identities, targeted different sorts of audiences and strategically selected genre and content as intentional parts of their clerical vocation. The first study to provide a book-length analysis of the phenomenon of early modern pastors writing for print, it uses a case study of prolific pastor-author Richard Bernard to offer a new lens through which to view religious change in this pivotal period. By bringing together questions of print, genre, religio-politics and theology, the book will interest scholars and postgraduate students in history, literature and theological studies, and its readability will appeal to undergraduates and non-specialists.

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        July 2021

        Making home

        Orphanhood, kinship and cultural memory in contemporary American novels

        by Maria Holmgren Troy, Elizabeth Kella, Helena Wahlstrom, Maria Holmgren Troy

        Making home explores the figure of the orphan child in a broad selection of contemporary US novels by popular and critically acclaimed authors Barbara Kingsolver, Linda Hogan, Leslie Marmon Silko, Marilynne Robinson, Michael Cunningham, Jonathan Safran Foer, John Irving, Kaye Gibbons, Octavia Butler, Jewelle Gomez and Toni Morrison. The orphan child is a continuous presence in US literature, not only in children's books and nineteenth-century texts, but also in a variety of genres of contemporary fiction for adults. Making home examines the meanings of this figure in the contexts of American literary history, social history and ideologies of family, race and nation. It argues that contemporary orphan characters function as links to literary history and national mythologies, even as they may also serve to critique the limits of literary history, as well as the limits of familial and national belonging.

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        The Arts
        December 2022

        The cinema of Pedro Almodóvar

        by Ana María Sanchez-Arce

        This book offers a comprehensive film-by-film analysis of Spain's most famous living director, Pedro Almodóvar. It shows how Almodóvar's films draw on various national cinemas and genres, including Spanish cinema of the dictatorship, European art cinema, Hollywood melodrama and film noir. It also argues that Almodóvar's work is a form of social critique, his films consistently engaging with and challenging stereotypes about traditional and contemporary Spain in order to address Spain's traumatic historical past and how it continues to inform the present. Drawing on scholarship in both English and Spanish, the book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students of film studies and Hispanic studies, scholars of contemporary cinema and general readers with a passion for the films of Pedro Almodóvar.

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        September 1985

        Die Sprache der Mode

        by Roland Barthes, Horst Brühmann

        »Das Vorhaben von Die Sprache der Mode entstand unmittelbar im Anschluß an das Nachwort der Mythen des Alltags, in dem ich die Möglichkeit einer immanenten Analyse anderer Zeichensysteme als der Sprache entdeckt habe - oder zu entdecken geglaubt hatte. Ich hatte von diesem Augenblick an den Wunsch, eines dieser Systeme, eine von allen gesprochene und zugleich allen unbekannte Sprache, Schritt für Schritt zu rekonstruieren. So habe ich die Kleidung gewählt.« Roland Barthes

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        The Arts
        January 2019

        Coline Serreau

        by Brigitte Rollet

        Coline Serreau became famous in 1985 when her third film, Trois hommes et un couffin (Three Men and a Baby), the most successful French film of the 1980s. She was already known in France for her major contribution to feminist documentaries with the acclaimed Mais qu'est-ce qu'elles veulent?, a series of interviews with French women made between 1975 and 1977. She is now a key figure in French cinema and drama, with international hits including Romuald et Juliette (1989) and La Crise (1992). This appraisal of her work situates her films within the social, cultural and political context of France since May 1968, and assesses th emajor impact of the women's movement on French society and culture. Politics and sexual politics, two key aspects of Serreau's films and plays, are thoroughly examined. This book also considers the cultural influences of her work, and provides an overview of her films and filmic skills. Special attention is given to comedy, the cinematographic genre favoured by Serreau and the French audience, which is apprehended from a historical and gendered perspective. The clarity of the style and the wide-ranging analysis of Serreau's films and filming techniques make this book relevant both to students of film and film enthusiasts.

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