Your Search Results
-
-
Optima Communications
Lisa Bjerke is the owner and director of Optima Communications. Optima Communications provides customized assessments, coaching, training, and workshops to meet the unique communication needs of each individual, group or organization. Training is facilitated onsite in the workplace or virtually. Lisa has a Master’s degree in Speech-Language Pathology. She is a corporate communication coach working with clients to enhance communication skills. These skills include: active listening, clear verbal expression, emotional intelligence, cultural diversity and communication, and managing difficult conversations. Lisa is a communication and professionalism coach with the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine and Post Graduate Medical Education Program. Lisa is a recognized expert in accent assessment and training. She is the author of Accent on Canadian English: a pronunciation program for speakers of English as a second language™, Accent on Canadian English™ e-book, Accent on Clear English™ International e-book and the Accent on Canadian English Pronunciation Assessment Kit™. She is also the creator of the Accent on Clear English™ eCourse https://acetraining.online
View Rights Portal
-
Promoted Content
Literature & Literary StudiesJuly 2022Nordic Gothic
by Maria Holmgren Troy, Johan Hõglund, Yvonne Leffler, Sofia Wijkmark
Nordic Gothic traces Gothic fiction in the Nordic region from its beginnings in the nineteenth century, with a main focus on the development of Gothic from the 1990s onwards in literature, film, TV and new media. The volume gives an overview of Nordic Gothic fiction in relation to transnational developments and provides a number of case studies and in-depth analyses of individual narratives. It creates an understanding of this under-researched cultural phenomenon by showing how the narratives make visible cultural anxieties haunting the Nordic countries, their welfare systems, identities and ideologies. Nordic Gothic examines how figures from Nordic folklore function as metaphorical expressions of Gothic themes and Nordic settings are explored from perspectives such as ecocriticism and postcolonialism. The book will be of interest to researchers and post- and- undergraduate students in various fields within the Humanities.
-
Promoted Content
The ArtsSeptember 2024The renewal of post-war Manchester
Planning, architecture and the state
by Richard Brook
A compelling account of the project to transform post-war Manchester, revealing the clash between utopian vision and compromised reality. Urban renewal in Britain was thrilling in its vision, yet partial and incomplete in its implementation. For the first time, this deep study of a renewal city reveals the complex networks of actors behind physical change and stagnation in post-war Britain. Using the nested scales of region, city and case-study sites, the book explores the relationships between Whitehall legislation, its interpretation by local government planning officers and the on-the-ground impact through urban architectural projects. Each chapter highlights the connections between policy goals, global narratives and the design and construction of cities. The Cold War, decolonialisation, rising consumerism and the oil crisis all feature in a richly illustrated account of architecture and planning in post-war Manchester.
-
Trusted Partner
Literature & Literary StudiesSeptember 2025Ghosts and the Gothic
by Ruth Heholt, Joanne Ella Parsons
Ghosts have long been connected with the Gothic, but until now there has not been a book dedicated to the subject. This collection examines ghostly presences (and absences) in both classic and lesser-known Gothic texts from the beginning of the genre to the present in a global context. Arguing that the undead, in the form of ghosts, are intrinsic to the Gothic mode, essays in the collection question the place of manifested spirits. The Gothic has always been 'political', and essays in this collection examine some of the most relevant issues facing us today: from the destruction of the natural environment, to questions of 'freedom', to gender politics.
-
Trusted Partner
Literature & Literary StudiesMay 2023Suicide and the Gothic
by William Hughes, Andrew Smith
Suicide and the Gothic is the first protracted study of how the act of self-destruction recurs and functions within one of the most enduring and popular forms of fiction. Comprising eleven original essays and an authoritative introduction, this collection explores how the act of suicide has been portrayed, interrogated and pathologised from the eighteenth century to the present. The featured fictions embrace both canonical and the less-studied texts and examine the crisis of suicide - a crisis that has personal, familial, religious, legal and medical implications - in European, American and Asian contexts. Featuring detailed interventions into the understanding of texts as temporally distant as Thomas Percy's Reliques and Patricia Highsmith's crime fictions, and movements as diverse as Wertherism, Romanticism and fin-de-siècle decadence, Suicide and the Gothic provides a comprehensive and compelling overview of this recurrent crisis in fiction and culture.
-
Trusted Partner
Literature & Literary StudiesMay 2026Russo-Soviet imperialist hauntings
Neo-Gothic geographies in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989
by Svitlana Krys, Maryna Romanets
Russo-Soviet imperialist hauntings attempts to capture some of the ghosts of the colonial and totalitarian past that have been proliferating in international political and cultural landscapes after the collapse of the USSR. By conflating postcolonial, post-totalitarian, postcommunist, and Gothic discourses, it maps virtually untouched aspects of cultural decolonization, focusing on unsettling "hauntings" of unresolved memory traces of Russo-Soviet domination in the former Eastern Bloc countries and Soviet republics. Operating within a vast intertextual field of social, cultural, and ideological discourses, the volume enables a productive exchange across distinct (inter)disciplinary boundaries and represents a range of voices from Europe and North America. The contributors' diverse interests draw on transmedia (literature, visual arts, and film), transnational, and translingual (diasporic literature) approaches, providing insights into a variety of forms that the Gothic has taken in the (late) twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and demonstrating its consistent engagement with history, ideology, and politics.
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsJune 2017Gothic television
by Helen Wheatley
Gothic television is the first full length study of the Gothic released on British and US television. An historical account, the book combines detailed archival research with analyses of key programmes, from Mystery and Imagination and Dark Shadows, to The Woman in White and Twin Peaks, and uncovers an aspect of television drama history which has, until now, remained critically unexplored. While some have seen television as too literal or homely a medium to successfully present Gothic fictions, Gothic television argues that the genre, in its many guises, is, and has always been, well-suited to television as a domestic medium, given the genre's obsessions with haunted houses and troubled families. This book will be of interest to lecturers and students across a number of disciplines including television studies, Gothic studies, and adaptation studies, as well as to the general reader with an interest in the Gothic, and in the history of television drama.
-
Trusted Partner
Literature & Literary StudiesMay 2026Women’s Agency and the Gothic in Spain and the Americas
by Megan DeVirgilis, Sandra García Gutiérrez
This volume has emerged to fulfill two main purposes: Primarily, to constitute the first collaborative work that traces the relationship between the Gothic and Women in Spain and the Americas, but also, to surpass the term 'Female Gothic,' coined by Ellen Moers, by transferring the focus towards women and their agency as writers, readers and characters. This volume functions as a manifesto per se to open new avenues into understanding how women have interacted with the Gothic between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries in Spain and the Americas. The question, we determine, is not simply about identity, but rather about agency. We define women's agency as the total capacity of characters, authors and readers to act freely within a social framework in relation to gothic texts. In our exploration of authorship, we reject the claim that the Gothic is a simplistic literary genre, instead sustaining that the plasticity of the Gothic has enabled it to survive for centuries; by shifting from a genre to a mode, it has surpassed literary forms and invaded all kinds of media: from film to music and merchandise such as clothing and pop culture collectables, fostering an authentic goth fandom.
-
Trusted Partner
-
Trusted Partner
Literature & Literary StudiesDecember 2025The Gothic in times of crisis
by John Whatley
The Gothic in times of crisis reflects contemporary society, showing how the Gothic modes continually resets its own forms to encompass each new reality, each new apocalypse, each new plague or crisis. This collection expands oncurrent scholarship to show how the Gothic challenges our understanding of both older and recent crises and, in turn, disturbs all genre complacencies to expose and confront the problems and contradictions in what our world has been, has become, or is in danger of becoming. This collection explores Gothic's current relevance to the contestations of ideas and the underlying and visible conflicts it dramatizes across a wide range of media. In various ways, it reveals what happens to Gothic modes now they confront the increasingly Gothic realities of our times, sometimesby recalling earlier crises and ideological contestations leading up to them.
-
Trusted Partner
The ArtsDecember 2025New Basque Gothic
Trauma, screen media and transnationalism
by Rebecca Wynne-Walsh
This monograph addresses the twenty-first century upsurge in Gothic screen media emanating from the Autonomous Basque Community, Euskadi, in Northern Spain. The book focuses on online video sharing, streaming and social media platforms, demonstrating the impact of multi-national co-production and distribution on the development of Basque film production; looking to the future of regional production in the digital era. This monograph fills a critical gap, presenting Basque Gothic screen media as a regionalist challenge to national models of cinema and identity. Wynne-Walsh establishes Basque Gothic as an expression of transgenerational trauma engendered by a history of state-suppression and socio-political violence. This regional iteration of the mode is addressed as a window into community perception and projection. While this project centres a Basque case study, it establishes a model for the reimagination of critical approaches to global, twenty-first century screen cultures.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesJune 2017Stained glass and the Victorian Gothic revival
by Christopher Breward, Jim Cheshire, Bill Sherman
Stained glass reached the height of its popularity in the Victorian period. But how did it become so popular and who was involved in this remarkable revival? The enthusiasm for these often exquisite pieces of artwork spread from specialist groups of antiquarians and architects to a much wider section of the Victorian public. By looking at stained glass from the perspective of both glass-painter and patron, and by considering how stained glass was priced, bought and sold, this enlightening study traces the emergence of the market for stained glass in Victorian England. Thus it contains new insights into the Gothic Revival and the relationship between architecture and the decorative arts. Beautifully illustrated with colour plates and black and white illustrations, this book will be valuable to those interested in stained glass and the wider world of Victorian art.
-
Trusted Partner
Literature & Literary StudiesJune 2025Contemporary Slavic horror across media
Cursed zones
by Agnieszka Jezyk
In the Western cultural production that puts individual or collective fear at its center, East/Central Europe has been portrayed as an othered space of horror - lawless, frightening zones where anything can happen. Incorporating articles on literature, film, visual arts, video games, music videos, and music festivals, Contemporary Slavic horror across media: Cursed zones is a pioneering anthology of academic essays devoted to Slavic horror fiction. The book focuses on works from the mid-20th century through the present, particularly the post-Soviet period. Assessing current trends in Czech, Polish, Russian, Slovak, Ukrainian, and East/Central European horror media, the book looks at similarities and idiosyncrasies of the genre in its Slavic variant. With this anthology we hope to tame 'the Easterner Other' and start exorcising 'monstrous' East/Central Europe.
-
Trusted Partner
Humanities & Social SciencesJuly 2021Post-everything
An intellectual history of post-concepts
by Herman Paul, Adriaan van Veldhuizen
Postmodern, postcolonial and post-truth are broadly used terms. But where do they come from? When and why did the habit of interpreting the world in post-terms emerge? And who exactly were the 'post boys' responsible for this? Post-everything examines why post-Christian, post-industrial and post-bourgeois were terms that resonated, not only among academics, but also in the popular press. It delves into the historical roots of postmodern and poststructuralist, while also subjecting more recent post-constructions (posthumanist, postfeminist) to critical scrutiny. This study is the first to offer a comprehensive history of post-concepts. In tracing how these concepts found their way into a broad range of genres and disciplines, Post-everything contributes to a rapprochement between the history of the humanities and the history of the social sciences.
-
Trusted Partner
-
Trusted Partner
Demonstrations & protest movementsJuly 2014Worker protests in post-communist Romania and Ukraine
Striking with tied hands
by Mihai Varga
Worker protests in post-communist Romania and Ukraine is a book about strategies of trade unions confronting employers in difficult conditions. The book's main idea is to study why and how successful forms of workers' interest representation could emerge in a hostile context. The post-communist context makes it difficult for workers and trade unions to mobilise, pose threats to employers, and break out of their political isolation, but even under such harsh conditions strategy matters for defending workers' rights and living standards. The cases studied in this book are 18 conflict episodes at 10 privatised plants in the Romanian steel industry and Ukraine's civil machine-building sector in the 2000s. This book should be relevant for anyone taking interest in how and to what extent workers can reassert their influence over the conditions of production in regions and economic sectors characterised by disinvestment (of which outsourcing and 'lean' methods of production are instances).
-
Trusted Partner
-
Trusted Partner
-
Trusted Partner
-
Trusted Partner
Literature & Literary StudiesFebruary 2020Nordic Gothic
by Maria Holmgren Troy, Johan Hõglund, Yvonne Leffler, Sofia Wijkmark, Jerrold Hogle
-
Trusted Partner
