Sallie McNamara

This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2014. Ideas of beauty permeate our lives in ways of which we are often unaware, yet they are indicators of identity, transgression, sartorial codes and otherness. While contemporary society sees the dominance of Western hegemonic ideals of beauty, when comparing these to ideals in different cultures at different historical periods, attention is drawn to the instability of ‘beauty’. The work in this volume considers the ways individuals question, respond to, articulate reflect, challenge, modify or accept beauty within their lives, to show it can be powerful, destructive and transformative. They show that beauty is not always what it appears and can challenge common-sense preconceptions as to what is beautiful. The range of topics provide an important contribution to ongoing discussions and are testament to both the diversity and complexity of debate the concept engenders across different disciplines.

(Re)Possessing Beauty: Politics, Poetics, Change

Maggie Andrews

The media have played a significant role in the contested and changing social position of women in Britain since the 1900s. They have facilitated feminism by both providing discourses and images from which women can construct their identities, and offering spaces where hegemonic ideas of femininity can be reworked. This volume is intended to provide an overview of work on Broadcasting, Film and Print Media from 1900, while appealing to scholars of History and Media, Film and Cultural Studies. This edited collection features tightly focused and historically contextualised case studies which showcase current research on women and media in Britain since the 1900s. The case studies explore media directed at a particularly female audience such as Woman’s Hour, and magazines such as Vogue, Woman and Marie Claire. Women who work in the media, issues of production, and regulation are discussed alongside the representation of women across a broad range of media from early 20th-century motorcycling magazines, Page 3 and regional television news.

Feminism and Femininity in Britain, 1900 to the Present

Women and the Media

This book discusses Tatler, a monthly glossy magazine aimed at the wealthiest groups in British society, to consider how it addresses social change. The volume addresses specifically the period from 1997, the year New Labour was elected under Tony Blair, up to 2010, when the Conservative party and David Cameron came in to power. Sallie McNamara scrutinizes how the magazine negotiates ideas of ‘Britishness’, class, gender and national identity in a changing social, political, economic and cultural climate. Additionally, she explores the magazine’s humorous approach, and looks at how that distinctive address can potentially lead to misinterpretation. The British class system has seen many challenges over the period of the magazine’s history, and this study expertly grapples with exactly how Tatler has maintained its audience in a continually changing social environment.

Sallie McNamara

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