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How do books attract their readers? This collection takes a closer look at book covers and their role in promoting sales and shaping readers' responses. Judging a Book by Its Cover brings together leading scholars, many with experience in the publishing industry, who examine the marketing of popular fiction across the twentieth century and beyond. Using case studies, and grounding their discussions historically and methodologically, the contributors address key themes in contemporary media, literary, publishing, and business studies related to globalisation, the correlation between text and image, identity politics, and reader reception. Topics include book covers and the internet bookstore; the links between books, the music industry, and film; literary prizes and the selling of books; subcultures and sales of young adult fiction; the cover as a signifier of literary value; and the marketing of ethnicity and lesbian pulp fiction. This exciting collection opens a new field of enquiry for scholars of book history, literature, media and communication studies, marketing, and cultural studies.
The authors of religious scriptures had little difficulty enhancing sacred narratives with the rhetoric of violence. The phenomenon continues in the habitual linkage of violence and religion in contemporary film, music and literature. 'Holy Terror' brings together scholars of religious studies, biblical studies, film studies and sociology to examine the social function of violence in popular discourse. The book questions how violent rhetoric shapes belief and values, how audience empathy with violent protagonists can be understood, and the significance of the association of violence with particular religious groups and ideas. A range of phenomena are analysed, including terrorism in Scripture, apocalyptic texts in film and violence in sport.
The first English-language social science book to comprehensively explore hitchhiking in the contemporary era in the West, this volume covers a lot of ground—it goes to and fro, in an echo of the modus operandi of most hitchhiking journeys. As scarification, piercings, and tattoos move from the counter-culture to popular culture, hitchhiking has remained an activity apart. Yet, with the assistance of virtual platforms and through its ever-growing memorialisation in literature and the arts, hitchhiking persists into the 21st century, despite the many social anxieties surrounding it. The themes addressed here thus include: adventure; gender; fear and trust; freedom and existential travel; road and transport infrastructures; communities of protest and resistance; civic surveillance and risk ecologies.
This selection of presentations from the Wordsworth Summer Conference opens with Heidi Thomson's fresh new approach to Wordsworth's 'Salisbury Plain' narrative, and closes with Deirdre Coleman investigating the Keats Circle's interest in Indian culture and mythology. Christopher Simons offers an extended treatment of 'Ecclesiastical Sketches' in the context of Wordsworth's career. In other Wordsworth papers, Peter Larkin writes on Wordsworth in the City, Tom Clucas on Wordsworth and Petrarch, Daniel Robinson on an editorial crux in the early 'Prelude', Rowan Boyson on Wordsworth's 'anosmia', Simon Swift on Wordsworth and Charles le Brun, and Richard Gravil on 'sacred sites' in the poetry, from the Chartreuse to Long Meg. Kimiyo Ogawa writes on Godwin, Hazlittt and disinterestedness; Alexandras Paterson on Shelley and Atmospheric Science, and Richard Lansdown on James Montgomery's electrifying poem,' Pelican Island'.
This text brings together leading feminists who explore questions of feminist interventions in organisations of knowledge production, covering both the structure and culture of academic institutions and the social divisions between women. Feminism is located as a force for change, empowering women to gain a political understanding and providing a methodology for new approaches to teaching, learning, research and writing in the academy. Contributions demonstrate how an analysis of the micropolitics of the academy in terms of power, policies, discourses, pedagogy and interpersonal relationships provides a framework for de- privatising women's experience and influencing change. Using theoretical constructs and their own biographies and experience, the contributors present predicaments, inequalities and strategies. Power and influence are considered in conjunction with gender, 'race', social class and sexuality.
Thoroughly revised and fully updated, An Introduction to Sociology gives concise yet comprehensive coverage of all the topics specified by the GCSE examining boards. The second edition was described by the AQA's Chief Examiner for GCSE Sociology as establishing 'the standard for textbooks at this level' - this new edition builds on the book's existing achievements. New material is found throughout the book, including substantive new sections on gender, identity, citizenship, education, new social movements, poverty and the welfare state, religion, the mass media, work and leisure, and population. The book has been carefully designed to support and extend students' learning. Each chapter begi...
This book pays overdue attention to the British writer Ramsey Campbell, a key figure in the post-1970s boom in Anglo-American horror fiction. Despite a huge output and receiving every accolade within his field over a long career, Campbell has not yet been accorded anything like the wider critical recognition given to his contemporary Stephen King. This study concentrates also on Campbell's neglected novels and novellas, rather than the short stories for which he has been better known. The book Ramsey Campbell establishes the author's unique prose style, denoted by a haunted self-consciousness about the act of writing and role of readership, and his distinctive mediation of the Gothic tradition: religiously agnostic, politically liberal and ethically humane. For the first time, Campbell's works are interpreted in the contexts of trends in postmodernist and posthumanist thought and compared explicitly to King's, and his contribution to both Gothic studies and wider contemporary literature is appraised.
The last ten years have witnessed a renewed interest in H.P. Lovecraft in academic and scholarly circles. New Critical Essays on H.P. Lovecraft seeks to offer an expansive and considered account of a fascinating yet challenging writer; both popular and critically valid but also problematic in terms of his depictions of race, gender and class.
Laying the Foundation: Digital Humanities in Academic Libraries examines the library's role in the development, implementation, and instruction of successful digital humanities projects. It pays special attention to the critical role of librarians in building sustainable programs. It also examines how libraries can support the use of digital scholarship tools and techniques in undergraduate education. Academic libraries are nexuses of research and technology; as such, they provide fertile ground for cultivating and curating digital scholarship. However, adding digital humanities to library service models requires a clear understanding of the resources and skills required. Integrating digital...
The first of its kind, this study examines the exemplars of hardcore horror--Fred Vogel's August Underground trilogy, Shane Ryan's Amateur Porn Star Killer series and Lucifer Valentine's "vomit gore" films. The author begins with a definition and critical overview of this marginalized subgenre before exploring its key aesthetic convention, the pursuit of realist horror. Production practices, exhibition and marketing strategies are discussed in an in-depth interview with filmmaker Shane Ryan. Audience reception is covered with a focus on fan interaction via the Internet.