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Biography & Autobiography | - 776 items found in your search |
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A Britton Katharine Hepburn Star as Feminist (Film & Culture)
Columbia University Press 2008-09-12 0231132778 / 9780231132770 Paperback Near fine n/a Paperback
New. Remainder mark. Near fine in publisher's decorated wrappers. Available in our UK premises for prompt dispatch worldwide.Hepburn's film persona challenged expectations of class and gender, while her strong self-assurance defied the strictures of Hollywood studios during her career. According to Britton, a British film lecturer before his death in 1994, Hepburn's public image was replicated in part by her film roles. Yet that same brash confidence, coupled with the social conventions of the day, dooms her onscreen characters, who are validated only when they find contentment with men. Britton combs Hepburn's oeuvre for signs of subversive feminism and points out the studios' successes at undermining them. But his thesis doesn't live up to his title. Although a close examination of such films as Sylvia Scarlet, Stage Door and Woman of the Year impart some insight into the gender politics of the day, much of Britton's analysis is labored and his conclusions are strained (and, at times, overwrought, as when he claims that casting Hepburn as the controlling mother in 1959's Suddenly, Last Summer was a reaction to her role as a daughter rebelling against patriarchy in 1932's A Bill of Divorce). The book, published in England in 1984, displays Britton's encyclopedic knowledge of film. He assumes his readers are similarly familiar with everyone from D.W. Griffith to Hal Ashby. In addition, he expects them to know Jacques Lacan's writings, Marxist politics and sophisticated gender identity theories. Academics may not mind Britton's leaden prose, but researchers will be frustrated by his lack of attribution. B&w photos. Copyright ® Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. ... ... Andrew Britton proposes a feminist reading of Hepburn's films, arguing that her persona raises problems about class, female sexuality, and women's oppression that strain to the limits the conventions of a cinema ultimately committed to the reassertion of bourgeois gender roles. Hepburn's work is also used to explore more general issues, such as the functioning of the star system. This is one of the very few analyses of American cinema to focus on a film star rather than a director or a genre and as such is essential reading for anyone interested in the movies.... First published in the United Kingdom twenty years ago, this lavishly illustrated new edition features a foreword by the noted film critic Robin Wood.
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Abraham Ben-Zvi Decade of Transition: Eisenhower, Kennedy and the Origins of the American-Israeli Alliance
Columbia University Press 15/09/1998 0231112629 / 9780231112628 Hardcover Fine n/a Hardcover
New. Fine in publisher's boards as issued/no dust jacket. Shrink wrapped. Available in our UK premises for prompt dispatch worldwide.Important, original, and thoroughly readable. Ben-Zvi challenges conventional wisdom with boldness and originality, making a major contribution to our historical understanding that also has implications for the contemporary debate on America's Middle East policy and national interests. -- Robert Lieber Georgetown University... This work is in many ways a model of what such a work should be. It is clearly conceived and argued, based on work with original sources as well as a mastery of the relevant literature, and offers a significant reinterpretation of an important period (as it turns out) in the development of the U.S.-Israel relationship. -- Alan Dowty University of Notre Dame ... ... "This work is in many ways a model of what such a work should be. It is clearly conceived and argued, based on work with original sources as well as a mastery of the relevant literature, and offers a significant reinterpretation of an important period (as it turns out) in the development of the U.S.-Israel relationship." -- Alan Dowty, University of Notre Dame
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38.75 GBP
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Adams, Jad Madder Music, Stronger Wine: The Life of Ernest Dowson, Poet and Decadent [ILLUSTRATED]
I. B. Tauris 2000 1860644708 / 9781860644702 Hardcover Fine Fine Hardcover 9.5 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
New. Fine in publisher's cloth in like dust jacket. Available in our UK premises for prompt dispatch worldwide.well-researched, sympathetic and unusually well-written...Adams has made [Dowson's life] colorful, affecting and absorbing. His approach is exemplary: neither censorious nor adulatory...He has a bedrock common sense that enables him to portray Dowson and his decadent friends with a pinch of salt." -- The Los Angeles Times "...Adams is thorough in detailing the good and the bad about the writer..." --Boston Globe
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7.77 GBP
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Ahmad, Aijaz Lineages of the Present: Ideological and Political Genealogies of Contemporary South Asia
Verso 2001 185984765X / 9781859847657 Hardcover Very good Very good Hardcover 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
New. Very good in publisher's rubbed cloth in like dust jacket. Available in our UK premises for prompt dispatch worldwide.Ahmad's voice is one of the most important in the current critical debate on the literature and cultures of Africa and Asia. -- Financial Times In March 1998, India broke a quarter century's silence when it detonated a series of nuclear devices in the Rajastjan desert. Having announced it possessed the requisite credentials for membership in the nuclear club in 1974, India quickly disavowed any desire to join, pledging not to develop its capability further. The Pokhran explosions revealed that promise to have been broken. The principal beneficiary of its breaking was a rightwing government seeking to shore up its shaky base with commitment to the 'Hindu bomb.' While most in the West were taken unawares by this sudden bellicosity in the land of Gandhi, more scrupulous observers on the Indian scene insisted it had a clear history. In Lineages of the Present, his first book since the hotly-debated In Theory, Aijaz Ahmad untangles many of the intertwined threads of an important story often poorly understood in the metropolitan West: that the right-wing nationalisms now flourishing in many regions of the world did not emerge, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus, fully formed and as if by accident. Their complex genealogies hold the key to comprehending--and ultimately defeating--them. Such an understanding is urgently required in India where, Ahmad argues, the BJP's road to power, far from being a temporary detour from the path of secular democracy, may well become a more permanent feature of the country's politics--with dire consequences for the region and the globe.
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5.85 GBP
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Alan Clark Diaries : In Power
Phoenix 2003-07-03 1857991427 / 9781857991420 Paperback Fair n/a Paperback
Fair in publisher's decorated wrappers. Available in our UK premises for prompt dispatch worldwide.
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0.01 GBP
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Alan Goldsher Hard Bop Academy: The Sidemen of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
Hal Leonard Corporation 2008-07-31 0634037935 / 9780634037931 Hardcover Fine Fine Hardcover
New. Fine in publisher's cloth in like dust jacket. Available in our UK premises for prompt dispatch worldwide.From Library Journal: To call Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers a "hard bop academy" is no exaggeration. From 1954 to the leader's death in 1990, the Messengers were a staple in an ever-changing jazz universe. Many of the great practitioners of this style cut their teeth in the band, including Lee Morgan, Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton, and Wynton Marsalis. Drawing on more than 30 interviews, as well as secondary sources, Goldsher, a bassist and writer, presents us with a fan's view of the hard bop sidemen organized chronologically by instrument. While the interviews offer insight into the workings of the band, some eras are not covered in as much detail as they deserve, e.g., the late 1960s through the mid-1970s. And though the writing is fairly lucid and engaging, ultimately, more could have been said. Many of the musicians featured here have been profiled in jazz magazines like Down Beat and Cadence, but this is the first book dedicated to the Messengers. Recommended with some reservation to jazz collections in public and academic libraries. Ronald S. Russ, Arkansas State Univ. Lib., Beebe Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. Product Description Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers was one of the most enduring, popular, reliable and vital small bands in modern jazz history. Blakey was not only a distinguished, inventive and powerful drummer, but along with Duke Ellington and Miles Davis, he was one of jazz's foremost talent scouts. The musicians who flowed seamlessly in and out of this constantly evolving collective during its 36-year run were among the most important artists not just of their eras, but of any era. Though their respective innovations were vital to the evolution of bebop, hard bop and neo bop, the recorded work of the Messengers sidemen has never been properly analyzed. Until now. Hard Bop Academy: The Sidemen of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers critically examines the multitude of gifted artists who populated the many editions of the Jazz Messengers. In addition to dissecting the sidemen's most consequential work with Blakey's band, jazz musician and acclaimed novelist Alan Goldsher offers up engaging profiles of everyone from Wynton Marsalis to Terence Blanchard to Hank Mobley to Wayne Shorter to Horace Silver to Keith Jarrett to Curtis Fuller to Steve Davis. And that's only the beginning. Goldsher conducted over 30 interviews with surviving graduates of Blakey's Hard Bop Academy, many of whom spoke at length of their tenure with the legendary "Buhaina" for the first time.Alan Goldsher is a bassist who has recorded with Janet Jackson, Digable Planets, Cypress Hill and Naughty By Nature. His writing has been published in Bass Player, Tower Pulse, Sport and BasketBull: Chicago Bulls Magazine. Goldsher's debut novel, Jam, was published in 2002 by Permanent Press. He lives in Chicago. Hardcover.
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10.43 GBP
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Alan Lovell; Peter Kramer Screen Acting
Routledge, an imprint of Taylor & Francis Books Lt 1999 041518293X / 9780415182935 Hardcover Near fine n/a Hardcover
New. Near fine in publisher's cloth as issued/no dust jacket. Available in our UK premises for prompt dispatch worldwide.A very useful collection, full of useful technical knowledge, interesting history and new ways to think about acting - a recommended purchase.' - Roy Stafford, In the Picture... A very useful collection, full of useful technical knowledge, interesting history and new ways to think about acting - a recommended purchase. - Roy Stafford, In the Picture ... Exploring the relationship between script and performance, and drawing out the individual elements of performance, such as the awareness of the frame, and the use of voice and physique to embody a character, Screen Acting reveals the centrality of the actor's performance to a film's impact and offers new directions for the study of performance on film. The book also discusses the acting styles of different stars, including Bette Davis, James Mason, Susan Sarandon and Morgan Freeman. Contributors include: Cynthia Baron, Sharon Marie Carnicke, Susan Knobloch, Paul McDonald, David Mayer, Roberta E. Pearson, Gianluca Sergi, Martin Shingler, and Carole Zucker.
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23.06 GBP
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Albers, P. Shadows, Fire, Snow: The Life of Tina Modotti
University of California Press 2002 0520235142 / 9780520235144 Paperback Fine n/a Paperback
New. Fine in publisher's decorated wrappers. Available in our UK premises for prompt dispatch worldwide.The discovery of long-forgotten letters and photos enabled Patricia Albers to bring new recognition to this talented photographer whose life embodied the cultural and political values of many artists of the post-WWI generation.
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6.47 GBP
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Alexander, Michael Jazz Age Jews
Princeton University Press 2001 0691086796 / 9780691086798 Hardcover Near fine Near fine Hardcover
New. Near fine in publisher's cloth in like dust jacket. Available in our UK premises for prompt dispatch worldwide.Sanford Pinsker, Philadelphia Inquirer [This is] a book that takes strong, interesting positions of how the Jews made their way into mainstream America. Michael Freedland, Jewish Chronicle Of all America's ethnic minorities, only the Jazz Age Jews seeme
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24.32 GBP
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Ali, Ayaan Hirsi The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam
Free Press 2006 0743288335 / 9780743288330 Hardcover Near fine Near fine Hardcover 8.5 x 5.7 x 1 inches
New. Remainder mark. Near fine in publisher's slightly rubbed quarter bound boards in like dust jacket. Available in our UK premises for prompt dispatch worldwide.From Booklist: Well-known feminist Ali was named as the next target of outraged Muslims in a letter pinned with a knife to the chest of slain Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, murdered in 2004. Ali was the screenwriter on Van Gogh's film Submission, which questions the individual's relationship with God through the eyes of five Muslim women. In this book, which includes the text of Submission and new essays, Ali criticizes Western nations for deliberately overlooking aspects of Muslim culture that oppress women. In their struggle to integrate ideals of individualism with respect for other cultures, the West leaves Muslim women at the mercy of a "culture of virginity" that oppresses women and threatens their liberty and their lives. Ali details abuses, from genital mutilation to arranged marriages of young girls to domestic violence, suffered by female Muslims. Ali, originally from Somalia and a member of the Dutch Parliament, challenges Western culture and Islam to honestly confront issues of religion and individual freedom in this compelling look at Islam and gender politics. Vanessa Bush Copyright ¬ American Library Association. All rights reserved Muslims who explore sources of morality other than Islam are threatened with death, and Muslim women who escape the virgins' cage are branded whores. So asserts Ayaan Hirsi Ali's profound meditation on Islam and the role of women, the rights of the individual, the roots of fanaticism, and Western policies toward Islamic countries and immigrant communities. Hard-hitting, outspoken, and controversial, The Caged Virgin is a call to arms for the emancipation of women from a brutal religious and cultural oppression and from an outdated cult of virginity. It is a defiant call for clear thinking and for an Islamic Enlightenment. But it is also the courageous story of how Hirsi Ali herself fought back against everyone who tried to force her to submit to a traditional Muslim woman's life and how she became a voice of reform.Born in Somalia and raised Muslim, but outraged by her religion's hostility toward women, Hirsi Ali escaped an arranged marriage to a distant relative and fled to the Netherlands. There, she learned Dutch, worked as an interpreter in abortion clinics and shelters for battered women, earned a college degree, and started a career in politics as a Dutch parliamentarian. In November 2004, the violent murder on an Amsterdam street of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, with whom Hirsi Ali had written a film about women and Islam called Submission, changed her life. Threatened by the same group that slew van Gogh, Hirsi Ali now has round-the-clock protection, but has not allowed these circumstances to compromise her fierce criticism of the treatment of Muslim women, of Islamic governments' attempts to silence any questioning of their traditions, and of Western governments' blind tolerance of practices such as genital mutilation and forced marriages of female minors occurring in their countries.Hirsi Ali relates her experiences as a Muslim woman so that oppressed Muslim women can take heart and seek their own liberation. Drawing on her love of reason and the Enlightenment philosophers on whose principles democracy was founded, she presents her firsthand knowledge of the Islamic worldview and advises Westerners how best to address the great divide that currently exists between the West and Islamic nations and between Muslim immigrants and their adopted countries. An international bestseller -- with updated information for American readers and two new essays added for this edition -- The Caged Virgin is a compelling, courageous, eye-opening work.
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6.12 GBP
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