Jane Arthurs

Jean Grimshaw

The articles in this volume consider the prevailing standards of feminine decorum, and how these are being played with and challenged by various media. This is a collection of essays which focuses on the representation of women's bodies in historical and contemporary cultures. It discusses recent books on the subject, and compares the two different approaches to the body adopted by the soft-porn magazine "For Women", and the women's monthly "Cosmopolitan". It also examines TV cult figures, such as the "comic body" exemplified by comedienne Joe Brand, and situation comedies such as "Absolutely Fabulous".

Cultural Representations and Identity

Women's Bodies

Ben Little

Russell Brand is one of the most high profile and controversial celebrities of our time. A divisive figure, his ability to bounce back from adversity is remarkable. This book traces his various career stages through which he has done this, moving from comedy, to TV presenting; from radio to Hollywood films. It identifies how this eclectic career in entertainment both helped and hindered his high-profile move into political activism. Underpinning the book are interviews with leading activists and politicians, and sophisticated readings of Brand's performances, writing and on-screen work. There are sections on the Sachsgate scandal, his Newsnight interview with Jeremy Paxman, and his 2015 election intervention for aspiring Prime Minister Ed Miliband. It builds on scholarly work in the area of celebrity politics to develop an original analytic approach that blends the field theory of Pierre Bourdieu with the assemblage theory of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.

Russell Brand: Comedy, Celebrity, Politics

Martin Barker

Ramaswami Harindranath

Between 1996-97 an almost unprecedented campaign was mounted in the British press against on one film: David Cronenberg's Crash. What motivated this campaign? What can it tell us about British film culture? What impact did the campaign have on general audiences? This book, which draws on a year-long investigation supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, offers a series of important and challenging findings and is a major contribution to our understanding of censorship campaigns, how audiences respond to films, and the strategies employed in engaging with such texts.

Censorship Campaigns and Film Reception

The Crash Controversy

Iain Grant

Since Diana's car crash in August 1997, media interest in the crash as an event needing explanation has proliferated. A glut of documentaries on television have investigated the social and scientific history of our responses to the crash, as well as showing the personal impact of the crash on individual lives. The principal purpose of this collection of essays is to subject texts, within which crashes figure, to well-defined cultural study. The themes that emerge from this collection are many and varied. Moreover, they vary in format, in order to bring as many modes of address as possible to bear on the crashes that catastrophically and fantastically punctuate the fabric of everyday life.

Jane Arthurs

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