Premiering in 2006,Ugly Betty, the award-winning US hit show about unglamorous but kind-hearted Betty Suarez (America Ferrera),is the latest incarnation of a worldwide phenomenon that started life as a Colombian telenovela,Yo soy Betty,la fea, back in 1999. The tale of the ugly duckling has since taken an extraordinary global journey and become the most successful telenovela to date. This groundbreaking book asks what the Yo soy Betty,la fea/Ugly Betty phenomenon can tell us about the inte...

Explores how the award-winning NBC drama offered a space for vibrant conversation about U.S. politics, identity, and culture.With its fast and furious dialogue, crackling wit, and political savvy, The West Wing became appointment TV for millions during its seven-season run between 1999 and 2006. The behind-the-scenes ensemble drama about Washington politics premiered on the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, was the first series to respond to the 9/11 te...

An introduction to feminist film theory as a discourse from the early seventies to the present. McCabe traces the broad ranging theories produced by feminist film scholarship, from formalist readings and psychoanalytical approaches to debates initiated by cultural studies, race and queer theory.

In his seminal book "Television's Second Golden Age", Robert Thompson described quality TV as 'best defined by what it is not': 'it is not "regular" TV'. Audacious maybe, but his statement renewed debate on the meaning of this highly contentious term. Dealing primarily with the post-1996 era shaped by digital technologies and defined by consumer choice and brand marketing, this book brings together leading scholars, established journalists and experienced broadcasters working in the field ...

Swanee Burrows, the restless, razor-sharp fifteen-year-old daughter of a scandal-ridden congressman and a flawed yet magnetic socialite, struggles to find her footing as her parents' bitter and very public divorce spirals out of control. In the rain-soaked landscape of the Pacific Northwest, Swanee's runaway attempts and the intricate web of deception surrounding her family bring her dangerously close to the edge of no return.At its heart, True Home is a story about coming...

Climate change is affecting Indiana's environment, threatening the way Hoosiers live and do business, and introducing new stresses to the state's economy, health, and infrastructure. And while scientists predict more days of extreme weather, increased public health risks, and reduced agricultural production in the coming years, Hoosiers still have a substantial say in determining their future environment.Climate Change and Resilience in Indiana and Beyond ...

What is literary theory? Is there a relationship between literature and culture? In fact, what is literature, and does it matter?These are some of questions addressed by Jonathan Culler in this Very Short Introduction to literary theory. Often a controversial subject, said to have transformed the study of culture and society in the past two decades, literary theory is accused of undermining respect for tradition and truth and encouraging suspicion about the political and psychological impl...

Now in a fully updated second edition The Routledge Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory is an indispensible guide for anyone approaching the field for the first time. Exploring ideas from a diverse range of disciplines through a series of 11 critical essays and a dictionary of key names and terms, this book examines some of the most complex and fundamental theories in modern scholarship including:MarxismTrauma Theory...

"Performance" has multiple and often overlapping meanings that signify a wide variety of social behaviors. In this invitation to reflect on the power of performance, Diana Taylor explores many of its uses and iterations: artistic, economic, sexual, political, and technological performance; the performance of everyday life; and the gendered, sexed, and racialized performance of bodies. This book performs its argument. Images and texts interact to show how performance is at once a creative a...

Why do some music styles gain mass popularity while others thrive in small niches? Banding Together explores this question and reveals the attributes that together explain the growth of twentieth-century American popular music. Drawing on a vast array of examples from sixty musical styles--ranging from rap and bluegrass to death metal and South Texas polka, and including several created outside the United States--Jennifer Lena uncovers the shared grammar that allows us to understa...

This short critical introduction to the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu is a model of clarity and insight. Where Bourdieu's original writings are often densely argued and ambiguous, Richard Jenkins is direct, concise and to the point. He emphasises Bourdieu's contirbutions to the theory and methodology while also dealing in detail with his substantive studies of education, social stratification and culture. His book provides the best short English-language introduction to Bourdieu's work.

An independently minded champion of ‘the project of modernity’ in a supposedly post-modern age, Jurgen Habermas (1929- ) is one of the most widely influential thinkers of our times.An easy-to-use A-Z guide to a body of work that spans philosophy, sociology, politics, law and cultural theory, Habermas: The Key Concepts explores Habermas’ writings on:capitalismgeneticslawneo-conservatismuniversal pragmatics.