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Each month, Bloomsbury Collections offers free access to scholarly and reference content exploring a relevant topic. Explore past topics below and be sure to check back each month to discover more resources from our ever-expanding library.
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Fashion trends may be fleeting from one decade to the next, but historians can gain significant insights into a society’s evolving beliefs and values by examining what people wear. This month, Bloomsbury Collections brings together selections from our comprehensive Fashion History library to take a tour of fashion through the decades: from the restrictively feminine corset of the early 1900s, to homefront suit and dress styles during the 1940s and 50s, to what fashion’s future might hold as we head into the mid-21st century.
With primary source illustrations and deep analyses, these selections are part of Bloomsbury Collection’s Fashion library, offering thousands of titles in subject areas including Fashion and Culture, Fashion Marketing and Advertising, Design, and Fashion History, and Fashion Journalism.
What piece of women’s apparel illustrates the history of anti-feminism more than the corset? In The Bad Corset: A Feminist Reimagining, author Rebecca Gibson translates and critiques the original 1908 French text Le Corset, by Ludovic O’Followell, through a feminist lens to explore the evolution of female agency and choice, inspiring readers to reconsider how we think about the shaping of women’s bodies and lives.
In this provided introductory chapter, Gibson begins her tour of O’Followell’s original text, which includes early 20th century advertisements offering women the opportunity to conform to “healthy” social standards.
Every historical era ushers in social and cultural changes, and those changes can be tracked through popular fashion. In How to Read a Dress: A Guide to Changing Fashion from the 16th to the 21st Century, author and historian Lydia Edwards examines the evolution of women’s fashion from the 1550s to the present day, considering how textures, colors, and styles illustrate shifting roles and perceptions of women.
Read this provided chapter, complete with primary source illustrations, about the fashions that became popular after World War I, from flapper fringe to formal tea gowns—and what those fashions said about women’s roles of the time.
Picture Post magazine, published in the UK from 1938 –1957, was made famous by its pioneering photojournalism, vividly capturing a panorama of wartime events and the ordinary lives affected. In Women in Wartime: Dress Studies from Picture Post 1938-1945, Geraldine Howell examines this primary source as a cultural record of women’s history.
Follow the magazine’s visual narrative of the 1930s and 1940s with this sample chapter exploring how design, style and fashion were affected by, and responded to, the state of being at war—and the new roles it created for women.
The 1950s was a time of social upheaval, as well as sweeping conservatism and materialism. Dress and Identity in America: The Baby Boom Years 1946 – 1964 examines the era through the lens of fashion, considering how both masculine and feminine identities changed, illustrated by styles including gray flannel suits for men and “ultrafeminine” housewife fashions for women.
In this sample chapter, author and fashion historian Daniel Delis Hill analyzes New Look fashion created by ready-to-wear makers, from full dresses to pencil skirts, and the post-War social roles these styles were meant to help women fulfill.
The Peacock Revolution in menswear of the 1960s came as a profound shock to much of America. Men’s long hair and vividly colored, sexualized clothes challenged long established traditions of masculine identity. Daniel Delis Hill’s Peacock Revolution: American Masculine Identity and Dress in the Sixties and Seventies is an in-depth study of how radical changes in men’s clothing reflected, and contributed to, the changing ideas of American manhood in an era of social revolutions.
Read this sample chapter exploring the ranging roles men discovered in a post-war world, from beatniks to teddy boys to mods, and the fashion styles that embodied them.
Welcome to the 1980s: when popular women’s fashion styles ranged from power suits and shoulder pads to conservative-coded print dresses. Lydia Edwards explores the striking cultural contradictions women faced during the “Me” decade in the final chapter of her book How to Read a Dress: A Guide to Changing Fashion from the 16th to the 21st Century, and what it meant to dress for success.
As times change, so do the ways we use fashion to present ourselves. The End of Fashion: Clothing and Dress in the Age of Globalization offers essays examining how the age of technology and globalization continues to shape our sense of self, and how fashion appears to be moving away from statements of status towards new forms of self-expression and individuation.
This sample chapter by Valerie Steele considers the possible “end of fashion” and the cultural ideals that future fashions might illustrate, from global democratization to new frontiers of cultural diversity.
Some of our favorite and most enduring characters in cinema are also our most monstrous ones. Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the wolfman, and others continue to be reimagined, rebooted, and reinterpreted in film, reflecting our own social and cultural fears.
This month, celebrate the spooky season with Bloomsbury Collections and a rogue’s gallery of our most fearful (and beloved) movie monsters. Learn about the many cinematic lives of Dracula, the design of Frankenstein’s horrifying bride, the evolution of mummies in film, and more.
Bloomsbury Collections’ Film & Media Studies digital library offers more than 6,000 scholarly and reference titles in subjects including global cinema, media and pop culture, journalism, and cultural history.
No villain seems to have the impact of Vlad the Impaler, or as he is more popularly known, Count Dracula. From audiences’ first glimpse of Nosferatu in 1929 to modern versions in the decades since, Dracula has inspired countless interpretations, homages, and re-“vamps”.
Read this sample chapter from Ken Gelder’s broad-reaching book New Vampire Cinema, in which the author lifts the coffin lid on forty contemporary vampire films, from 1992 to the present day, charting the evolution of one of our favorite fiends.
Who, or more precisely what, is the Mummy? While its portrayal has shifted over the years (zombie, resurrected prince, lovesick beast in bandages), the Mummy hasn’t always received proper appreciation in the history of menacing movie monsters. Yet over the decades, the Mummy has steadily stalked, lumbered, and lurched its way through cinema since its early portrayal by Boris Karloff in 1932.
In his book The Mummy on Screen: Orientalism and Monstrosity in Horror Cinema, scholar and author Basil Glynn explores the history of the Mummy movie, a genre sometimes overlooked or marginalized in critical work on horror cinema. Read this chapter in which Glynn analyzes the 1932 film, which brings horror, romance, and unexpected depth to a largely misunderstood monster.
With or without bolts in his neck, the creature created by Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein is one of the most enduring figures in moviedom. In The Afterlives of Frankenstein: Popular and Artistic Adaptations and Reimaginings, history and literature scholars Robert I. Lublin and Elizabeth A. Fay explore adaptations of Frankenstein in film, comics, theatre, art, video-games and more, illuminating how the original novel’s myth has evolved since its publication.
This selected chapter examines the iconic monster in the popular imagination, and the multitude of incarnations that have come together over to create a genre and fandom of their own: “Frankensteiniana”.
The first time moviegoers saw Frankenstein’s diabolical bride was in Universal Studios’ Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Despite the fact that the monster’s terrifying love interest (played by Elsa Lanchester) only appeared on screen for five minutes, audiences were mesmerized. Since then, the bride has been portrayed numerous times with versions ranging from grotesque to gorgeous, and from tragic to comedic.
In this chapter from Fashioning Horror: Dressing to Kill on Screen and in Literature, Rafael Jaen and Robert I. Lublin explore creative interpretations of the bride, examining the costumes, hair, and special effects makeup used to reimagine her in a wide range of films.
Furry, fanged, and with a propensity for howling at the moon: cinema’s famed wolfman terrified audiences in Universal’s Werewolf of London (1935), gaining notoriety ever since as the tortured half-man, half-beast who succumbs to primal urges in the dead of night.
In this chapter from After Dracula: The 1930s Horror Film, Alison Peirse traces the history of the big screen werewolf, starting with Werewolf of London, cinema’s first full-length feature werewolf film and the first American horror movie to be released after the inauguration of the Production Code Administration (PCA) in 1934.
Why do certain foods conjure strong childhood memories? Why do we share pictures of our meals on social media? Why do some “comfort foods” make us feel better when we’re down?
This month, Bloomsbury Collections explores our relationship with eating through a cultural lens with book selections examining how we view food and the complicated feelings we have about what we consume. Scroll down to discover essays written by experts in the field of food studies, part of a vast cross-disciplinary library that includes titles about food history, anthropology, media studies, health and nutrition, and more.
Our relationship with food can be complex, particularly when it comes to overconsumption. In her book The Psychology of Overeating: Food and the Culture of Consumerism, Kima Cargill investigates how developments in food science, branding, and marketing have transformed Western diets and how the food industry employs psychology to trick us into overeating.
In this provided chapter, Cargill not only illuminates how the food industry uses deceptive practices to chip away at our psychological defenses, but how we may be unwitting accomplices.
What internal and external forces influence what we eat? Leighann Chaffee and Stephanie da Silva apply a psychological perspective to the subject in their book A Guide to the Psychology of Eating, illuminating contemporary eating topics that include overnutrition, eating disorders, dieting, and body image.
Read this sample chapter in which Chaffee and da Silva explore social influences on consumption: friends and family, diet and shopping trends, media, and other factors that affect our eating and drinking.
The influence of food has grown rapidly as it has become more intertwined with popular culture. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Food and Popular Culture brings together more than 20 original essays from leading experts, offering an authoritative, comprehensive overview of this growing research field.
In this provided chapter, authors Amy Bentley and Shayne Leslie Figueroa take readers through a life in food, from jars of branded baby food to our favorite school lunch boxes to the food fads that influence us as adult consumers, illustrating how popular culture shapes our eating choices throughout our lives.
When it comes to eating, one of our most complicated relationships with food involves our feelings around fat; we know our bodies need to consume it, yet we are told to avoid and even fear it. In her book fat, from Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series, Hanne Blank takes a look at fat itself, considering it from dietary, social, and psychological perspectives.
In this provided chapter, aptly titled “Foe,” Blank explores how Western culture teaches us to see fat as an enemy, despite the fact that fat is not only impossible to avoid in food, but is an important part of physical health.
Researching food culture can mean exploring a range of disciplines including communication studies, anthropology, history, and more. In The Bloomsbury Handbook of Food and Material Cultures, diverse scholars come together to examine topics that include how food shapes environments, food representations in media, how food is marketed to us, and how food is produced, distributed, and consumed.
Read this chapter about a type of food embraced around the world, a seemingly simple construction of filling between two slices of bread: the sandwich.
The scent and taste of certain foods are often triggers for our strongest memories. But why? Food in Memory and Imagination: Space, Place, and Taste is a collection of essays exploring how food helps people around the world engage with memory, with cases drawn from countries including Iran, Italy, Japan, Kenya, and more.
Read this chapter considering how memory influences our enjoyment of meals, drawing from sensory science research on food design and flavor perception.
As cultures change, so does the field of education. The best teachers and faculty members of today and tomorrow become more knowledgeable and skilled when they discover new perspectives about the culture of learning.
Bloomsbury Collections’ Education library provides scholars and researchers with thousands of titles offering research support in areas including education philosophy, research methodology, technology, policy and politics, curriculum studies, and more. Scroll down to explore highlighted selections exploring the field of education studies, with fresh insights in areas including global education, issues of class, sustainability, and student voice.
Education has long been viewed as a solution to social problems, particularly as a way out of poverty. The question remains, however, whether education helps students achieve upward mobility. The collection Class and the College Classroom: Essays on Teaching considers the relationship between social class and education with essays from scholars exploring topics that include equity in higher education, social class and classroom dynamics, and the challenges of teaching social class topics across the disciplines.
Read the selection “Stories out of School,” in which author Laurie Nisonoff, Susan J. Tracy, and Stanley Warner share experiences illustrating how class differences often play out both in the college classroom, and elsewhere on campus.
Learning about global issues and themes has become an increasingly recognised element of education in many countries around the world, bringing terms such as global learning, global citizenship and global education to the forefront of education policies. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Global Education and Learning considers ongoing debates in these areas, providing analysis of policies and suggestions for new research directions.
In this selected chapter, author and education scholar Douglas Bourn traces the emergence of global education as a distinct pedagogical field, discussing its development, criticisms, and future.
What is the relationship between universities and culture? While scholars agree that one can inform the other, debate remains regarding the cultural purpose of higher education itself. In Culture and the University: Education, Ecology, Design, three scholars build on the work of key philosophers to support their claim that the university can and should be an institution of cultural evolution, exploring issues across subjects including environmentalism, citizenship, post-truth, technology, and feminism.
In this introductory chapter, the authors frame the university within a “cultural crisis,” and consider the danger of viewing higher education as a “culture-free zone.”
The term “student voice” can refer to the strength of a student’s writing, level of classroom participation, or a student’s broader perspective and sense of value. In all cases, understanding student voice and advocating its development is a vital part of higher education. In The Bloomsbury Handbook of Student Voice in Higher Education, education scholars come together to identify core elements, conditions, constraints and outcomes associated with student voice and offer a broader understanding of this key concept.
Read the book’s overview by Jerusha Conner, which examines the meaning of student voice, introduces frameworks for its analysis, and examines key debates in the field.
When new pedagogies are established, education itself benefits on a larger scale. An example can be found in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Hip Hop Pedagogy, the first reference work to cover the theory, history, research, methodologies, and practice of a transformative approach to education.
The book’s introduction, by Lauren Leigh Kelly and Daren Graves, frames hip hop pedagogy with a look at its history (including a tour of hip hop itself starting in the 1970s), and an overview of both its value and its tensions.
What role does (or should) higher education play in the movement towards global sustainability? The authors anthologized in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Sustainability in Higher Education approach the subject from ranging perspectives, but agree that universities will be instrumental in the movement towards transformative change.
In the introduction, authors Wendy M. Purcell and Janet Haddock-Fraser define the book’s claim that universities are essential to the pursuit of sustainability, illustrate the scale of the challenges that lie ahead, and map the opportunities that await both faculty members and students.
How have larger-than-life superheroes like Spider-Man and Superman helped shaped the American identity? How has the concept of the big screen “supervillain” enabled moviegoers around the world to make sense of war, from World War II to the war on terror? How did classic movie monsters of the 1950s help audiences grapple with the fear of nuclear disaster?
Take a scholarly tour of cinema pop culture this month with selections from Bloomsbury Collections’ Cultural History and Film Studies libraries, and discover what we can learn when we look at popular movies as primary sources, and use them as lenses to help us examine our own history.
Image Credit: Ian Walton
When historians “read” a popular film, they use that film as a primary source that can offer insight into how a society views issues of gender, class, race, war, and more. The case studies in Histories on Screen: The Past and Present in Anglo-American Cinema and Television analyze films for historical study, offering readers contextual examination of documentaries, films, and television shows from Britain and the United States.
In this chapter, cultural history scholar Michael Goodrum analyzes key figures in the realm of superhero films to consider how the strengths, weaknesses, and origin stories of such characters have shaped Americans’ sense of their national identity since the 1940s.
Image Credit: Murray Close
What makes a great story even greater? An iconic villain, of course. The American Villain: Encyclopedia of Bad Guys in Comics, Film, and Television is a comprehensive cultural history reference text that pulls back the curtain on popular figures from The Joker to Hannibal Lecter, offering backstory and insight into a vast gallery of fictional foes.
Read this selection from the text’s collection of introductory critical essays: “Nazis, Communists, and Terrorists… Oh my! The Rise of the Supervillain and the Evolution of Modern American Villain,” which analyzes a rich roster of rogues throughout the decades, contextualizing their unique threats to America during World War II, the Cold War, and the War on Terrorism.
Image Credit: LMPC
When we look back at science fiction cinema through history, we discover new frontiers, strange creatures, and terrifying threats that often provide fantastical illustration of very real earthbound fears of the time. In his work Science Fiction Cinema and 1950s Britain: Recontextualizing Cultural Anxiety, writer and film history expert Matthew Jones draws on extensive archival research to recount the story of 1950s British moviegoers and the monsters they watched on the silver screen, offer a critical analysis of both British and American sci-fi films.
This sample chapter takes researchers on a tour of 1950s “creature features” such as Beginning of the End (1958), Them! (1954) and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), which embodied the fears facing British audiences at that time, including the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Image Credit: Getty Images/Silver Screen Collection
The 1970s saw a new type of action movie emerge in American pop culture, introducing a disturbing new hero: the vigilante. Films like Joe (1970), The French Connection (1971), Dirty Harry (1971), and Taxi Driver (1976) gave moviegoers their first taste of anti-heroes who preferred their justice with a side of violence.
This chapter from The Vigilante Thriller: Violence, Spectatorship and Identification in American Cinema, 1970-76, contextualize such films alongside events like the Kent State massacre, the Watergate scandal, and rising civil unrest in the U.S. to show why characters like Dirty Harry, Joe Curran, and Travis Bickle resonated so strongly with audiences of the time.
Image Credit: Bettmann
Love at first sight, whirlwind marriages, break-ups, divorces, remarriage… for better or worse, screwball romantic comedies of the 1930s and 40s established relationship rules that would last for decades, even after those rules were recognized as sexist. In his book Hollywood Screwball Comedy 1934-1945: Sex, Love, and Democratic Ideals, film professor Grégoire Halbout examines this genre to reveal some of the important gender and relationship issues that lay beneath the comedy, including free consent, contractual engagement, and freedom of speech.
Read Halbout’s analysis of the genre’s origin, which began in 1934 with the films It Happened One Night and The Thin Man, setting the stage for those that followed, including My Man Godfrey (1936), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), and His Girl Friday (1940).
Academic study of marginalized communities legitimizes unique experiences and perspectives that have previously gone unrecognized. To celebrate Pride month, Bloomsbury Collections brings together excerpts from groundbreaking studies in Queer Theory and LGBQ Studies, offering insights into what this complex subject area is and how it is studied.
Scroll down to take a tour of this evolving scholarly landscape and learn about queer history, the role of homosexuality in literature, queerness in work and home life, and more.
Image Credit: Getty Images/Madiha Ali
In a time when big data drives important social and political decisions, the collection of demographic social information has never mattered more. Writer and researcher Kevin Guyan’s book Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action is the first to look at queer data and explain why it’s important to understand, and how it can influence actions towards equality.
Read the book’s introduction, which kicks off the discussion of what queer data includes and how LGBTQ researchers, practitioners and activists can use that information to protect and improve the lives of the global queer community.
Photo Credit: Getty Images/snem
Queer history dates back centuries, with LGBTQ individuals woven into the fabric of human culture. The Myth of the Modern Homosexual: Queer History and the Search for Cultural Unity, from the Bloomsbury Academic Collections Gender Studies series, legitimizes queer history by reviewing its fundamental historiographical issues and demonstrating how it takes precedence over political ideology.
In this sample chapter, literary and cultural history scholar Rictor Norton asks and answers the fundamental question “What is queer history?”, drawing from sources including (but not limited to) queer researchers as he offers readers a source-based overview.
Photo Credit: Getty Images/renaschild
Part of ABC-CLIO’s Contemporary Debates series, LGBTQ Life in America: Examining the Facts provides readers with a clear and unbiased understanding of what it means to be LGBTQ in the United States in the 2020s. Along the way, it debunks common myths and misconceptions about the LGBTQ community while providing accurate information about LGBTQ people, their successes and shared history, and the current challenges they face.
This introductory chapter offers a thorough overview for researchers seeking foundational knowledge on the subject of LGBTQ identity, including the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity, LGBTQ identities across cultures, and the existence of LGBTQ individuals throughout human history.
Photo Credit: iStock/Stockbusters
The transgender community is more visible now than ever before, but still faces significant discrimination in homes, at schools, and at work. In their delicate and evidence-based text Gender Ambiguity in the Workplace: Transgender and Gender-Diverse Discrimination, Alison Ash Fogarty and Lily Zheng analyze the relationship between gender identity and performance in the workplace while considering the emotional and economic survival of those who identify as transgender.
This sample chapter offers a thorough overview of the changing terminology associated with gender diversity, providing students with the tools they need for deeper research.
Photo Credit: Getty Images/Corbis Historical
Although many contemporary artists are able to be openly gay and address homosexuality explicitly in their work, the literary landscape has historically been much more restrictive. However, in Homosexuality in Literature 1890–1930, from the Bloomsbury Academic Collections Gender Studies series, Jeffrey Meyers demonstrates that the harsh social climate of the late 1800s – early 1900s actually produced outstanding literary explorations of homosexuality.
In the book’s introduction, Meyers sets the stage for his analysis, which includes an exploration of the lives and works of notable authors of the era including Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, T.E. Lawrence, and more.
Photo Credit: Getty Images/Mark Kerrison
Vital to the study of queer theory is a clear understanding “gay space” or “queer space”: the infrastructure that provides community for LGBTQ populations. Such spaces include bars, cafes, nightclubs, pubs, and community centers. In his book Queer Premises: LGBTQ+ Venues in London Since the 1980s, architectural history scholar Ben Campkin examines the queer spaces of London from 1980 to the present, considering how, where, and why such spaces have been established, and the challenges they now face.
Read the book’s introduction, in which Campkin offers readers access to queer spaces and discusses the role such locations have played in LGBTQ social movements.
From the earliest silent movies to modern action blockbusters, our lives and cultural history have been shaped by our favorite films. This month, Bloomsbury Collections celebrates cinematic storytellers who have given us movies that have informed how we view ourselves, our society, and our larger world.
Get your popcorn, choose your seat, and scroll down to learn about the achievements of directors from Alfred Hitchcock to Pedro Almodóvar with selections from Bloomsbury Collections’ Film & Media Studies library.
When Stanley Kubrick’s science fiction masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey premiered in 1968, audiences didn’t know what they were in for. More than just a story about rockets, UFOs, and alien beings, 2001 invited us to contemplate the very nature of our existence on the planet, as well as what might be waiting for us elsewhere.
In this provided essay from The Hollywood Renaissance: Revisiting American Cinema’s Most Celebrated Era, writer and professor of Cinema Studies Julie Turnock examines the impact of 2001: A Space Odyssey by analyzing the special effects and unique editing style that solidified Kubrick as a bona fide master of his craft.
Photo Credit: United Archives/Hulton Archive
Fans of Alfred Hitchcock likely have difficulty choosing a favorite film, especially since the auteur’s body of work successfully explored a range of genres, including mystery, horror, drama, and even comedy. But in the realm of nail-biting spy films, North by Northwest (1959) stands out as an all-time classic.
Read this chapter from author and film historian James Chapman’s book Hitchcock and the Spy Film and learn about the film’s premiere place within the context of suspenseful espionage drama, from the gripping sequence in which Cary Grant is chased through a corn field by a machine-gun wielding plane, to the climactic, nail- biting climb down the face of Mount Rushmore.
Photo Credit: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis Historical
Few directors have enjoyed the career longevity or global acclaim of Steven Spielberg. From the early successes of Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) to later pop culture touchstones like Jurassic Park (1993) and Minority Report (2002), many critics argue that Spielberg has had a permanent impact on the landscape of modern cinema.
Read about Spielberg’s films from the late 1970s and early 1980s exploring what happens when otherworldly forces invade everyday suburbia in the films Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Poltergeist (1982) with this sample chapter from author and editor James Kendrick’s book Darkness in the Bliss-Out: A Reconsideration of the Films of Steven Spielberg.
Photo Credit: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis Historical
In 2009, Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director for her searing war drama The Hurt Locker, about an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team navigating the trauma of the Iraq War. With this landmark achievement, Bigelow helped open doors for other female directors across cinematic genres.
In this essay from Film Firsts: The 25 Movies that Created Contemporary American Cinema, author Ethan Alter gives readers insight into how Bigelow’s film made a unique impact on war movies, and examines how the director helped break the glass ceiling for female filmmakers.
Photo Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
By the time Francis Ford Coppola accepted his Best Director Oscar for The Godfather Part II (1974), he was already planning his next film, which would permanently change how the world viewed the Vietnam War. Apocalypse Now (1979), Coppola’s re-envisioning of Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness, may have been met with mixed reviews upon its initial release, but has since been recognized by critics as one of the greatest films of all time.
Read this chapter about Coppola’s journey making the film, from The Coppolas: A Family Business, which chronicles the legacy of the Coppola family and its lasting influence on the world of film.
Photo Credit: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis Historical
Pedro Almodóvar had already made a name for himself in his native country of Spain before his work began to receive acclaim overseas in the 1980s. But his talent as a director became apparent to the world with the release of his 1988 black comedy Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios), which was ultimately nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
In this sample chapter from his book analyzing the film, author and professor Peter William Evans examines what inspired Almodóvar to make Women on the Verge, and what led it to become the most commercially successful film to emerge from Spain, as well as a subsequent global phenomenon.
Photo Credit: Philippe Le Tellier/Hulton Archive
Sometimes the best way to appreciate the natural wonders of our planet is to see it through the eyes of another. To commemorate Earth Month, Bloomsbury Collections celebrates environmentalist writers whose words continue to inspire readers by honoring nature and advocating conservation. Scroll down for free-to-read essays about some of the activists, poets, and philosophers who have changed the way we view the natural world.
John Muir was more than just an environmental philosopher and founder of the Sierra Club. He was a worldwide traveler, lifelong pacifist, committed naturalist, and crusading preservationist. In this chapter from Spiritual Ecology: A Quiet Revolution, author Leslie E. Sponsel sheds light on Muir’s enduring relationship with nature, and his devotion to the three components of spiritual ecology: intellectual, spiritual, and activist.
Plants are silent and steadfast; so much so that we may not consider how they accompany us throughout our lives, or possibly even perceive our existence. The essay collection Dispersion: Thoreau and Vegetal Thought draws from the research and insights of Henry David Thoreau to consider our ongoing relationship with plant and tree life. In this provided selection, author Jane Bennett describes Thoreau as a man with unique sensitivity to natural influences, and how that awareness enhanced his relationship with Mother Earth.
While conservationist and writer Rachel Carson may be best known for her work Silent Spring (1962), about the environmental harm caused by pesticides, her previous work Under the Sea-Wind (1941) has endured as well, a book examining the strength of marine organisms. This provided chapter from ocean, one of Bloomsbury Academic’s texts from its Object Lessons series, brings new light to Carson’s first published work by considering it within its historical context and examining how the book explores the mystery of ocean life through a marriage of poetry and science.
Devotees of nature writing and Scottish modernist literature are likely familiar with Nan Shepherd and her memoir The Living Mountain, written in the 1940s but not published until 1977. Author Samantha Walton inspires new enthusiasm for Shepherd’s writing with her book The Living World: Nan Shepherd and Environmental Thought, the first work to examine Shepherd’s prose and fiction through an ecocritical lens. Read this selected chapter, which traces the history of Shepherd’s memoir recounting her life in the Cairngorm mountains and the book’s profound contribution to ecocriticism.
Bloomsbury Collections is celebrating Women’s History Month with a walk through some of the social and political movements that have helped pave the road to gender equality: from the pioneers of suffrage, to the architects of second-wave feminism, to the first heroes of the #MeToo movement.
Scroll down to take a tour of the movements and individuals committed to protecting women’s voices and freedoms.
The fight to receive voting rights was an arduous one, with a range of advocates lending their voices to the debate. One of those voices belonged to Helen Keller, who overcame deafness and blindness from birth to become a writer, reformer, and suffragist. Her essay “Why Men Need Suffrage,” first published in the New York Call on October 17, 1913, is an astute example of the suffragist perspective presented at a time when such a view was considered controversial.
This essay is part of Women’s Suffrage: The Complete Guide to The Nineteenth Amendment, a comprehensive collection of primary sources, references, and analyses for researchers exploring this vital movement.
Current debates about birth control can be surprisingly volatile, especially given the near-universal use of contraception among American and British women. In her book Conceived in Modernism: The Aesthetics and Politics of Birth Control, Aimee Armande Wilson examines these debates through a literary lens, considering the different ways modernist writers from Virginia Woolf to Octavia Butler view the importance of physical autonomy for women.
In this sample chapter, Wilson looks at Butler’s novel Dawn, which compels readers to see birth control as a necessary precondition of fundamental personhood.
Click here to explore Conceived in Modernism: The Aesthetics and Politics of Birth Control.
While first-wave feminism addressed suffrage and fundamental issues of equality such as voting and property rights, second-wave feminism began in the early 1960s, focusing on issues of family, reproductive rights, and equality in the workplace. At the core of this movement was Betty Friedan and her seminal book The Feminine Mystique, which challenged existing beliefs that women could only find fulfillment as wives and mothers.
The sample essay from Feminist Moments: Reading Feminist Texts, a collection examining pivotal tests in the history of feminist thought, explores Friedan’s book and the influences that shaped its thesis.
Click here to explore Feminist Moments: Reading Feminist Texts.
Many historians say that the world of sports remains the last frontier when it comes to gender equality. Authors Adrienne N. Milner and Jomills Henry Braddock II advocate for the increase of gender comingling in professional sports and school athletics in their book Sex Segregation in Sports: Why Separate Is Not Equal, examining the landscape of sports through both historical and sociological perspectives.
In this provided chapter, Milner and Braddock examine the history and impact of the U.S. Department of Education’s Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, which protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.
Click here to explore Sex Segregation in Sports: Why Separate Is Not Equal.
While it is widely believed that the #MeToo Movement began in 2017 with the public realization of filmmaker Harvey Weinstein’s mistreatment of women, the movement actually got its start a decade earlier in 2006, when Tarana Burke, founder and director of the Just Be Inc. youth organization, heard a young girl share a traumatic abuse experience in an all-girl group bonding session. Since then, the now famous phrase “Me Too” has galvanized women and allies who have intensified the fight against sexual harassment and assault.
This sample chapter from Laurie Collier Hillstrom’s book The #MeToo Movement offers researchers an overview of the movement’s evolution within a historical context, including a look at the criticism and debates it has provoked.
Click here to explore The #MeToo Movement.
The artistic and cultural contributions made by African Americans throughout U.S. history cover vast territory. To celebrate Black History month, Bloomsbury Collections offers a selection of free-to-read chapters drawing from history, film, literary studies, music, and fashion, examining the impact of African American cultural changemakers including Alain Locke, Zora Neale Hurston, and Sam Cooke.
Scroll down to read excerpts from resources ideal for student researchers and scholars alike.
The history of intellectual thought in America includes contributors too often overlooked in the past, including women of color. Covering the history and contributions of black women intellectuals from the late 19th century to the present, Bury My Heart in a Free Land gives voice to the passion and insights of black women intellectuals on various arenas in American life—from the social sciences, history, and literature to politics, education, religion, and art.
In this sample chapter, Nicole Anae examines the legacy of Zora Neale Hurston, chronicling her literary contributions to intellectual thought, notably in the realm of anthropology.
Click here to explore Bury My Heart in a Free Land: Black Women Intellectuals in Modern U.S. History.
U.S. History’s Harlem Renaissance saw sweeping social, cultural, and political reforms, as black Americans fled the feudal South and used Harlem as a place to nurture intellectual and artistic pursuits. In Harlem: The Crucible of Modern African American Culture, author Lionel C. Bascom examines the established image of Harlem during the Renaissance period—roughly between 1917 and the 1960s—as “heaven” for migrating African Americans.
Read this provided chapter which profiles Alain Locke, the man some have called the architect of this important historical era, from the naming and promotion of the New Negro Movement to the popularization of America’s great Jazz Age.
Click here to explore Harlem: The Crucible of Modern African American Culture.
From Elizabeth Keckly’s designs as a freewoman for Abraham Lincoln’s wife to flamboyant clothing showcased by Patrick Kelly in Paris, Black designers have made major contributions to American fashion. However, many of their achievements have gone unrecognized. From enslaved 18th-century dressmakers to 20th-century “star” designers , the subjects of Black Designers in American Fashion show how Black designers helped build America’s global fashion reputation even while facing extreme adversity.
Through an examination of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century seamstresses and modistes such as Harriet Jacobs, Elizabeth Keckly, and Ann Lowe, this provided chapter illuminates the connections between needlework and political activism.
Click here to explore Black Designers in American Fashion.
Known by many as the “King of Soul,” singer/songwriter Sam Cooke stands tall among African American musicians whose impact changed the landscape of music. Over time, Cooke’s live album Sam Cooke’s Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963, has come to be recognized as one of the most important live soul albums ever made. As part of Bloomsbury Academic’s 33 1/3 series, this book examines the musician and the album, placing it in the context of musical history as well as Cooke’s life as a writer and an agent of social change.
In this introductory chapter, author Colin Fleming reveals his own discovery of Cooke as a young listener, offering a timeline of songs and events leading up to the seminal live album.
Click here to explore Sam Cooke’s Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963.
The history of African American men in film is complicated at best, with dehumanizing depictions of black male characters dominating twentieth-century cinema. In her book Black Hollywood: From Butlers to Superheroes, the Changing Role of African American Men in the Movies, author and historian Kimberly Fain examines the history of film decade by decade, both exploring problematic character portrayals and exploitation of black performers, and celebrating the success stories that emerged as social activism has reshaped the cinematic landscape.
In this chapter, Fain offers a tour the turbulent 1960s, analyzing the impact of performers like Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte whose roles reflected changes inspired by the Civil Rights Movement.
Click here to explore Black Hollywood: From Butlers to Superheroes, the Changing Role of African American Men in the Movies.
Embracing the new year often means committing to a new set of healthy habits—at least for as long as we can. Sometimes the most beneficial and long-lasting changes we can make are the ones that address our mental and emotional health: whether we’re analyzing our relationship with food, conditioning ourselves towards healthier relationships, navigating social anxiety, or even learning from our dreams.
This month, Bloomsbury Collections offers a selection of free-to-read chapters from its vast library of Health & Wellbeing titles, with a focus on insights from leaders in cognitive and social psychology. Scroll down to read excerpts from resources ideal for student researchers and scholars alike.
Every year, many of us make New Year’s resolutions about food—both what we consume, and how much. But the best way to change our eating habits is to understand our relationship with food itself. A Guide to the Psychology of Eating, by Leighann Chaffee and Stephanie da Silva, illuminates contemporary eating topics, including the scope and consequences of overnutrition, societal focus on dieting and body image, controversies in food policy, and culture-inspired cuisine.
In this sample chapter, “This Is Your Brain on Food: The Biopsychology of Eating,” the authors take readers through a menu of insights about how biological hunger and satiation affect our thoughts and emotions.
Do your New Year’s resolutions include spending less time online? Most of us are aware that too much time in the digital space can be unhealthy, but to change our online behavior, it’s vital to understand the psychological effects of digital addiction to the internet, social media, online games, and other forms of technology. In her book Digital Detox: Why Taking a Break from Technology Can Improve Your Well-Being, author and professor Bernadette H. Schell offers student researchers a psychological context for examining online addiction, as well as its remedies.
This provided chapter uses case studies to categorize different types of internet addiction, examining causes, symptoms, and effects.
Click here to explore Digital Detox: Why Taking a Break from Technology Can Improve Your Well-Being.
Navigating social anxiety can be an exhausting journey for young and old alike. Researchers exploring the condition can gain insight from Vera Sonja Maass’ Understanding Social Anxiety: A Recovery Guide for Sufferers, Family, and Friends. This powerful book provides comprehensive coverage of social anxiety disorder by covering its history, explaining the symptoms and root causes, and presenting information on how key changes to the thought process can help sufferers find relief and be more comfortable in the modern world.
Read Maass’ introduction to learn more about the history of social anxiety’s diagnosis as an officially recognized disorder, as well as what causes are often found at anxiety’s core.
Whether romantic, platonic, or professional, our relationships are shaped by thoughts and emotion patterns passed down through generations. In Living on Automatic: How Emotional Conditioning Shapes Our Lives and Relationships, psychiatrists Homer B Martin and Christine B.L. Adams shed light on the role emotional conditioning can play in the relationships we develop, as well as how we can “decondition” ourselves to ensure that our relationships are healthier and more rewarding.
In this provided chapter, Martin and Adams examine seven effects emotional conditioning often has on our relationships, from impairing our judgment to stereotyping others.
Why do we dream, and what do our dreams mean? Examining our thoughts and emotions through the lens of dream psychology can be an effective way of understanding ourselves. In An Introduction to the Psychology of Dreaming, Kelly Bulkeley draws from neuroscientific research as well as theories from formative experts including Freud and Jung to consider how our dreams function and what they can reveal.
This free-to-read chapter sets a context for beginning and advanced psychology student researchers by addressing fundamental questions about the formation, function, and interpretation of dreams.
Click here to explore An Introduction to the Psychology of Dreaming.
While religions inspire faith and offer guidance to followers around the world, the subject of religious studies allows researchers to explore questions about religion’s role in history and modern society. This month, Bloomsbury Collections offers selections taking cross-disciplinary approaches to the analysis of religion’s impact: from symbolism that has shaped Judaism’s past and present, to the role of feminism and female deities in early history, to a debate about the role of Eastern religion in the evolution of pop music
Scroll down for free-to-read excerpts that present a sampling of Bloomsbury Collections’ Religious Studies library.
Covering secret societies, mysterious ancient traditions, and the often-mistaken history of the world's religious symbols, Hidden Religion: The Greatest Mysteries and Symbols of the World's Religious Beliefs takes readers on a tour through the fascinating world of religious symbolism and reveals the most mysterious and misunderstood facets of different religions from early history to the present.
In this free-to-read chapter, readers learn more the meaning of symbols that have shaped different sects of Judaism throughout history, from the chai symbol, to the ceremonial menorah, to the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.
In a world where religious beliefs influence political and social views around the world, Human Rights and the World's Major Religions is invaluable to researchers in religious studies. This updated one-volume edition of the celebrated five-volume set offers readers a comprehensive examination of the way the world's five major faiths—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism—view and have viewed human rights from ancient times to the present.
In this chapter, author and scholar William H. Brackney explores the history of religious liberty within Western Christianity, examining the interpretation of the term “religious freedom” through time.
Click here to explore Human Rights and the World's Major Religions.
Throughout world history, different religions have held ranging views regarding the roles and rights of women. In Feminism and Religion, editors and renowned subject experts Michele A. Paludi and J. Harold Ellens lead readers through a detailed exploration of the feminist methods, issues, and theoretical frameworks that have made women central, not marginal, to religions around the world.
In this provided essay, Maija Jespersen takes readers back to the early period of human history when female deities were worshipped as powerful natural forces, from the Paleolithic age to the goddess-worshipping cultures of Egypt and Greece.
The idea of miracles gives hope to believers with events that are viewed as the intersection of the divine and the mundane. Miracles have shaped world history and continue to influence us through their presence in films, television, novels, and popular culture. Miracles: An Encyclopedia of People, Places, and Supernatural Events from Antiquity to the Present provides a multidisciplinary approach to more than 150 miraculous phenomena that have shaped humanity’s faith and beliefs from 1500 BCE to the present day.
Read anthology editor Patrick J. Hayes’ introduction, which sets a context by defining miracles within historical, theological, philosophical, and scientific settings.
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Popular Music combines research in religious studies, theology, musicology, and sociology to present scholarly insights into the relationship between popular music and different faiths, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and more. This cross-disciplinary resource also focuses on individual music genres, from blues and jazz to rap and hip hop.
In this essay, editor Christopher Partridge dives into the global phenomenon of K-pop, analyzing the ongoing debate about whether Eastern religions like Neo-Confucianism have shaped the genre’s evolution.
Click here to explore The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Popular Music.
At ranging levels of education, humanities programs are integrating more study of indigenous cultures and the welcome decolonization of research itself. This month, Bloomsbury Collections proudly offers authoritative content exploring a range of indigenous cultures around the world, including Native Americans, Inuit communities of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland, and the Aboriginal and Māori cultures of Oceania.
Scroll down to discover free-to-read chapters ranging from the preservation of indigenous languages and cultures, to the growing genre of indigenous cinema, to an excerpt from Linda Tuhiwahi Smith’s formative work on decolonizing research in the field of Indigenous studies.
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