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        Literature & Literary Studies
        May 1999

        Introduction to English Renaissance comedy

        by Alexander Leggatt

        Introduction to English Renaissance comedy provides a comprehensive introduction to Elizabethan, Jacobean and Caroline comedy, covering both public and private theatres, emphasising the eclectic, experimental nature of this comedy: its departures from the mainstream New Comedy tradition, its searching, witty analysis of social and personal relations in court, city and country. This book makes a close analysis of some of the richest comedies of the period, making unexpected connections between them: Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest, Lyly's Endymion, Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Marston's The Malcontent, Middleton's Michaelmas Term, Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, Shirley's The Lady of Pleasure and Brome's A Jovial Crew. Through these plays the reader is given a comprehensive picture of English comedy in one of its most creative periods. ;

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        The Arts
        February 2009

        The secret life of romantic comedy

        by Celestino Deleyto

        The secret life of romantic comedy offers a new approach to one of the most popular and resilient genres in the history of Hollywood. Steering away from the rigidity and ideological determinism of traditional accounts of the genre, this book advocates a more flexible theory, which allows the student to explore the presence of the genre in unexpected places, extending the concept to encompass films that are not usually considered romantic comedies. Combining theory with detailed analyses of a selection of films, including To Be or Not to Be (1942), Rear Window (1954), Kiss Me Stupid (1964), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and Before Sunset (2004), the book aims to provide a practical framework for the exploration of a key area of contemporary experience - intimate matters - through one of its most powerful filmic representations: the genre of romantic comedy. Original and entertaining, The secret life of romantic comedy is perfect for students and academics of film and film genre. ;

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        The Arts
        May 2024

        The Family of Love

        By Lording Barry

        by Sophie Tomlinson

        The Family of Love charts a successful love intrigue between the cash-strapped Gerardine, and Maria, the sequestered niece of the mercenary Doctor Glister. Their romance unfolds against the dissection of two citizen marriages, the Glisters' and the Purges'. Mistress Purge attends Familist meetings independently, arousing her husband's suspicions about her marital fidelity. Two libertines, Lipsalve and Gudgeon, go in search of sex and solubility (freedom from constipation), receiving more than they bargain for in respect of the latter. This scholarly edition of Family of Love marks the first occasion on which the comedy is attributed to Lording Barry in print. It brings together literary and historical discussion with a thorough analysis of the play's disputed authorship. Tomlinson highlights Barry's rich vein of burlesque humour in a comedy that combines magic, a trunk, and a mock-court session with vigorous colloquial language.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        January 2022

        The Family of Love

        By Lording Barry

        by Helen Ostovich, Sophie Tomlinson

        The Family of Love charts a successful love intrigue between the cash-strapped Gerardine, and Maria, the sequestered niece of the mercenary Doctor Glister. Their romance unfolds against the dissection of two citizen marriages, the Glisters' and the Purges'. Mistress Purge attends Familist meetings independently, arousing her husband's suspicions about her marital fidelity. Two libertines, Lipsalve and Gudgeon, go in search of sex and solubility (freedom from constipation), receiving more than they bargain for in respect of the latter. This scholarly edition of Family of Love marks the first occasion on which the comedy is attributed to Lording Barry in print. It brings together literary and historical discussion with a thorough analysis of the play's disputed authorship. Tomlinson highlights Barry's rich vein of burlesque humour in a comedy that combines magic, a trunk, and a mock-court session with vigorous colloquial language.

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        January 2020

        The Shakespearean comic and tragicomic

        by Richard Hillman

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        The Arts
        June 2021

        Genre and performance: film and television

        by Christine Cornea

        Looking at contemporary film and television, this book explores how popular genres frame our understanding of on-screen performance. Previous studies of screen performance have tended to fix upon star actors, directors, or programme makers, or they have concentrated upon particular training and acting styles. Moving outside of these confines, this book provides a truly interdisciplinary account of performance in film and television and examines a much neglected area in our understanding of how popular genres and performance intersect on screen. Each chapter concentrates upon a particular genre or draws upon generic case studies in examining the significance of screen performance. Individual chapters examine contemporary film noir, horror, the biopic, drama-documentary, the western, science fiction, comedy performance in 'spoof news' programmes and the television 'sit com' and popular Bollywood films.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        September 2019

        Queer Objects

        by Chris Brickell, Judith Collard

        Queer lives give rise to a vast array of objects: the things we fill our houses with, the gifts we share with our friends, the commodities we consume at work and at play, the clothes and accessories we wear, and the analogue and digital technologies we use to communicate with one another. But what makes an object queer? The sixty-three chapters in Queer Objects consider this question in relation to lesbian, gay and transgender communities across time, cultures and space. In this unique international collaboration, well-known and newer writers traverse world history to write about items ranging from ancient Egyptian tomb paintings and Roman artefacts to political placards, snapshots, sex toys and the smartphone. Fabulous, captivating, transgressive.

      • Trusted Partner
        February 2001

        Comic politics

        Gender in Hollywood Comedy

        by Mark Jancovich, Eric Schaefer

        Are Jim Carrey, Robin Williams, and Eddie Murphy the celluloid compatriots of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair? This book argues that the rubber faces of '80s and '90s comedy films, helped to transform us into the flexible, self-managing citizens beloved of the new right—and its successors. Through its sustained look at the box-office comedies of the last two decades, Comic Politics provides a critical introduction to key approaches to comedy. It tests the usefulness and limits of psychoanalytics, Bakhtinian and postmodernist theory against comedians and comedies from Woody Allen to Wayne's World. The book includes a look at animation and computer enhanced comedies.

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        The Arts
        June 2017

        Terry Gilliam

        by Peter Marks

        Terry Gilliam presents a sustained examination of one of cinema's most challenging and lauded auteurs, proposing fresh ways of seeing Gilliam that go beyond reductive readings of him as a gifted but manic fantasist. Analysing Gilliam's work over nearly four decades, from the brilliant anarchy of his Monty Python animations through the nightmarish masterpiece Brazil to the provocative Gothic horror of Tideland, it critically examines the variety and richness of Gilliam's sometimes troubled but always provocative output. The book situates Gilliam within the competing cultural contexts of the British, European and American film industries, examining his regular struggles against aesthetic and commercial pressures. He emerges as a passionate, immensely creative director, whose work encompasses a dizzying array of material: anarchic satire, childhood and adult fantasy, dystopia, romantic comedy, surrealism, road movie, fairy tale and the Gothic. The book charts how Gilliam interweaves these genres and forms to create magical interfaces between reality and the illuminating, frightening but liberating worlds of the imagination. Scrutinising the neglected importance of literature and adaptation in Gilliam's career, this study also observes him through the lenses of auteurism, genre, performance, design and national culture, explaining how someone born in Minnesota and raised in California came to be one of British television and film's most compelling figures.

      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        March 2021

        Queer exceptions

        Solo performance in neoliberal times

        by Stephen Greer

        Queer exceptions is a study of contemporary solo performance in the UK and Western Europe that explores the contentious relationship between identity, individuality and neoliberalism. With diverse case studies featuring the work of La Ribot, David Hoyle, Oreet Ashery, Bridget Christie, Tanja Ostojic, Adrian Howells and Nassim Soleimanpour, the book examines the role of singular or 'exceptional' subjects in constructing and challenging assumed notions of communal sociability and togetherness, while drawing fresh insight from the fields of sociology, gender studies and political philosophy to reconsider theatre's attachment to singular lives and experiences. Framed by a detailed exploration of arts festivals as encapsulating the material, entrepreneurial circumstances of contemporary performance-making, this is the first major critical study of solo work since the millennium.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        November 2021

        De-centering queer theory

        Communist sexuality in the flow during and after the Cold War

        by Bogdan Popa, Gurminder Bhambra

        De-centering queer theory seeks to reorient queer theory to a different conception of bodies and sexuality derived from Eastern European Marxism. The book articulates a contrast between the concept of the productive body, which draws its epistemology from Soviet and avant-garde theorists, and Cold War gender, which is defined as the social construction of the body. The first part of the book concentrates on the theoretical and visual production of Eastern European Marxism, which proposed an alternative version of sexuality to that of western liberalism. In doing so it offers a historical angle to understand the emergence not only of an alternative epistemology, but also of queer theory's vocabulary. The second part of the book provides a Marxist, anti-capitalist archive for queer studies, which often neglects to engage critically with its liberal and Cold War underpinnings.

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        Film theory & criticism
        July 2013

        Hollywood romantic comedy

        by Kathrina Glitre

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        Television
        September 2013

        Cult british TV comedy

        by Leon Hunt

      • Trusted Partner
        March 2022

        Lin Handa Chinese History Stories (Comic version)·The Spring and Autumn Period

        by Lin Handa

        The comic illustrated series of “Lin Handa Chinese History Stories” is the original unabridged comic illustrated version of “Lin Handa Chinese History Stories”. There are five sets, divided into: the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States Period, Western Han, Eastern Han and Three Kingdoms. This set of 8 volumes has 1 knowledge booklet, suitable for children from the third grade and above. Author Lin Handa is a famous educator and linguist. He has edited the “Lin Handa Chinese History Stories” and this series sell best for more than 50 years. This is a classic book of Chinese history for children.

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        A Civil Code Comic Book that Children Can Understand

        by Du Zili, Du Chang'en

        This book presents a selection of articles in the Civil Code that are relevant to teenagers, and it explains the Civil Code in a question-and-answer format through comic and specific cases. The combination of fun and knowledge in the format prevents readers from becoming intimidated by the legal language. Each case is closely related to social hot topics, and each issue is professionally explained by legal scholars to provide legal countermeasures, which not only facilitates teenagers' learning and understanding, but also makes it easy for them to apply their knowledge to solve legal problems in their lives. Through the youth-friendly ways to promote legal education, to help them better understand and use the law as a tool.

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      • Trusted Partner
        The Arts
        April 2024

        Hyde Park

        by James Shirley

        by Eugene Giddens

        Hyde Park (1632) is one of the best-loved comedies of James Shirley, considered to be one of the most important Caroline dramatists. The play showcases strong female characters who excel at rebuking the outlandish courtship of various suitors. Shirley's comic setting, London's Hyde Park, offers ample opportunity for witty dialogue. This is the first critical edition of the play, including a wide-ranging introduction and extensive commentary and textual notes. Paying special attention to the culture of Caroline London and its stage, the volume unpicks Shirley's politics of courtship and consent while also underlining the play's dynamics of class and power. A detailed performance history traces productions from 1632, across the Restoration to the present day, including that of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1987. A textual history of the play's first quarto determines how it was printed and what relationship Hyde Park has to other texts by Shirley.

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