In order to understand Bruce Lee, we must look beyond Bruce Lee to the artist's intricate cultural and historical contexts. This work begins by contextualising Lee, examining his films and martial arts work, and his changing cultural status within different times and places. The text examines Bruce Lee's films and philosophy in relation to the popular culture and cultural politics of the 1960s and 1970s, and it addresses the resurgence of his popularity in Hong Kong and China in the twenty...

What do martial arts signify today? What do they mean for East-West cross cultural exchanges? How does the representation of martial arts in popular culture impact on the wide world? What is authentic practice? What does it all mean?From Kung Fu to Jiujitsu and from Bruce Lee to The Karate Kid, Mythologies of Martial Arts explores the key myths and ideologies in martial arts in contemporary popular culture. The book combines the author’s practical, professional and academic experie...

The phrase “martial arts studies” is increasingly circulating as a term to describe a new field of interest. But many academic fields including history, philosophy, anthropology, and Area studies already engage with martial arts in their own particular way. Therefore, is there really such a thing as a unique field of martial arts studies?Martial Arts Studies is the first book to engage directly with these questions. It assesses the multiplicity and heterogeneity of possible approac...

The East in Western Media: A Critical Introduction is a comprehensive guide to understanding how ‘the East’ has been represented across Western media, exploring the cultural, ethical, and political implications of cross-cultural representation.This student-friendly textbook introduces core concepts, including orientalism, postcolonialism, and media representation, through thematically organised chapters. Each chapter is divided into manageable sections and includes questio...

This is the first book-length study of the groundbreaking work of Rey Chow, whose work has transformed the fields of postcolonialism, cultural studies, film, ethnicity and gender. It describes and explains the features and the breadth of Chow's interventions and illustrates Chow’s arguments by way of the analysis of a range of engaging examples drawn from the fields of film, popular music, identity and popular culture. Chow’s work is of interest and importance to anyone working on question...

Through popular movies starring Bruce Lee and songs like the disco hit "Kung Fu Fighting," martial arts have found a central place in the Western cultural imagination. But what would 'martial arts' be without the explosion of media texts and images that brought it to a wide audience in the late 1960s and early 1970s? In this examination of the media history of what we now call martial arts, author Paul Bowman makes the bold case that the phenomenon of martial arts is chiefly an invention o...

A decade ago, the question was ‘could martial arts ever be studied academically?’ Today we are witnessing the global emergence and rapid proliferation of Martial Arts Studies – an exciting and dynamic new field that studies all aspects of martial arts in culture, history, and society. In recent years there have been a proliferation of studies of martial arts and race, gender, class, nation, ethnicity, identity, culture, politics, history, economics, film, media, art, philosophy, gaming, ed...

Over the past 40 years, Jacques Rancière's work has defined itself through a remarkable set of philosophical differences in relation to other key figures working in the fields of politics, philosophy and aesthetics. There have been significant philosophical, theoretical and aesthetic disagreements with influential figures in contemporary thought, including Althusser, Bourdieu, Derrida, Agamben, Deleuze, Foucault, Habermas and Badiou. Through these differences Rancière has emerged as one of...

In a world of Gastons, how does Beauty find her Beast?Stuart ‘the Beast’ McAlister feels cursed. His new whisky is ruined, his family are at each other’s throats and their distillery is missing a fortune.Forensic accountant, Amanda Turner, arrives in Scotland determined to catch a thief and earn her promotion.When Beauty meets the Beast, she finds him cocky and rude. Stuart thinks she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. The more they work together, t...

Drama games are not staged plays but a dynamic form in which children explore their minds and the world around them. They can use their play-acting in sensory games, pantomimes, story games with puppets, in creating masks and costumes, and much more.Drama games allow children to get more in touch with themselves and what they want to be, and are a delightful way to discover the freedom, creativity, and expression of acting- and living.The SmartFunActivity series en...

The first ever biography of Toe Blake — Hockey Hall of Famer and eleven-time Stanley Cup winner“Holy Dirty Dora!” Hector “Toe” Blake would bark while pacing behind the Montreal Canadiens bench, hands thrust into his pockets, jawing at chewing gum before intentionally banging his forehead into the glass that separates players and fans. No lead was safe or sufficient for the lifelong hockey man at the helm of the greatest dynasty in NHL history. As a player, Toe won ...