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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2020

        Imagining Caribbean womanhood

        Race, nation and beauty competitions, 1929–70

        by Pamela Sharpe, Rochelle Rowe, Penny Summerfield, Lynn Abrams, Cordelia Beattie

        Over fifty years after Jamaican and Trinidadian independence, Imagining Caribbean womanhood examines the links between beauty and politics in the Anglophone Caribbean, providing a first cultural history of Caribbean beauty competitions, spanning from Kingston to London. It traces the origins and transformation of female beauty contests in the British Caribbean from 1929 to 1970, through the development of cultural nationalism, race-conscious politics and decolonisation. The beauty contest, a seemingly marginal phenomenon, is used to illuminate the persistence of racial supremacy, the advance of consumer culture and the negotiation of race and nation through the idealised performance of cultured, modern beauty. Modern Caribbean femininity was intended to be politically functional but also commercially viable and subtly eroticised.

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        June 2011

        Destined for a Life of Service

        Defining African–Jamaican womanhood, 1865–1938

        by Henrice Altink, Pamela Sharpe, Penny Summerfield, Lynn Abrams, Cordelia Beattie

        Based on a wide range of original sources, including folktales, anthropological studies, court statements, poetry and speeches, this book sheds new light on the struggle of people of African descent for full and equal citizenship in the post-emancipation British Caribbean. It examines the messages that African-Jamaican women were given about their place and roles from within and outside their own community, the extent to which these messages intersected with class and colour ideologies, and African-Jamaican women's attempts to realise these ideals of femininity amidst various constraints. Incorporating the full realm of African-Jamaican women's experiences, exploring not just their sexuality and reproduction but also their roles as labourers, citizens and freedom fighters, the book also links shifting gender ideologies to citizenship, race and nation. Essential reading for undergraduates and graduates interested in gender within the British Caribbean during the critical transformative period between 1865 and 1938, it will also interest political scientists and other scholars working on questions of nationalism, transnationalism and the gendered nature of citizenship. ;

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2012

        The independent man

        Citizenship and gender politics in Georgian England

        by Matthew McCormack, Pamela Sharpe, Penny Summerfield, Lynn Abrams, Cordelia Beattie

        'Independence' was an important ideal for men in Georgian England. In this period, however, the word meant much more than simply the virtues of self-sufficiency and impartiality. Most people believed that obligations absolutely compromised freedom and conscience, whereas 'independence' was associated with manly virtue and physical vigour. Fundamentally, the political world was thought to consist of 'independent men', exercising their consciences and standing up for the general good. As such, Georgians thought about political action and masculine virtue very differently to the ways in which we do today. In study, newly available in paperback, Matthew McCormack establishes the links between the histories of masculinity and politics, highlighting the centrality of 'manly' ideals in the political world and - conversely - the role of politics in the operation of gender ideology. ;

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        September 2017

        Gender and housing in Soviet Russia

        Private life in a public space

        by Pamela Sharpe, Lynne Attwood, Penny Summerfield, Lynn Abrams, Cordelia Beattie

        This book explores the housing problem throughout the 70 years of Soviet history, looking at changing political ideology on appropriate forms of housing under socialism, successive government policies on housing, and the meaning and experience of 'home' for Soviet citizens. Attwood examines the use of housing to alter gender relations, and the ways in which domestic space was differentially experienced by men and women. Much of Attwood's material comes from Soviet magazines and journals, which enables her to demonstrate how official ideas on housing and daily life changed during the course of the Soviet era, and were propagandised to the population. Through a series of in-depth interviews, she also draws on the memories of people with direct experience of Soviet housing and domestic life. Attwood has produced not just a history of housing, but a social history of daily life which will appeal both to scholars and those with a general interest in Soviet history.

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        January 2012

        The business of everyday life

        Gender, practice and social politics in England, c.1600–1900

        by Beverly Lemire, Pamela Sharpe, Penny Summerfield, Lynn Abrams, Cordelia Beattie, Kim Latham

        From 1600 to 1900 a growing consumerism fired the English economy, shaping the priorities of individuals, and determining the allocation of resources within families. Everyday business might mean making a trip to the pawnbroker, giving a loan to a trusted friend of selling off a coat, all to make ends meet. Both women and men engaged in this daily budgeting, but women's roles were especially important in achieving some level of comfort and avoiding penury. In some communities, the daily practices in place in the seventeenth century persisted into the twentieth, whilst other groups adopted new ways, such as using numbers to chart domestic affairs and turning to the savings banks that appeared in the nineteenth century. In the material world of the past and in the changing habits of earlier generations lie crucial turning points. This book explores these previously under-researched patterns and practices that gave shape to modern consumer society. ;

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        December 2011

        Women of the right spirit

        Paid organisers of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), 1904–18

        by Krista Cowman, Pamela Sharpe, Penny Summerfield, Lynn Abrams, Cordelia Beattie

        This book is the first investigation on how official organizers built and sustained the national militant campaign of the Women's Social and Political Union between 1903 and 1918. Whilst the overall policy of the Union was devised by an ever-decreasing circle of women, centred around the mother-daughter team of Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, much of its actual activity, including its more extreme militant actions such as arson, was devised and implemented by these organizers who worked in the provinces and in London. Women of the right spirit reveals organizers to be a diverse bunch of women, whose class backgrounds ranged from the aristocratic to the extremely impoverished. It describes the ways in which they were recruited and deployed, and the work they undertook throughout Britain. The exhausting pace of their itinerant life is revealed as well as the occasions when organizers fell out with their employers or their own branches. Taking the story of the WSPU's workers up to the end of the First World War, it considers what directions they took when votes for women became a reality. The book will appeal to academics, postgraduates and undergraduates with an interest in women's history, as well as a more general readership wishing to understand the extent of support for the votes for women campaign and the mechanisms through which it organized. ;

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        August 2014

        The women's liberation movement in Scotland

        by Sarah Browne, Pamela Sharpe, Penny Summerfield, Lynn Abrams, Cordelia Beattie

        This is the first book-length account of the women's liberation movement in Scotland, which, using documentary evidence and oral testimony, charts the origins and development of this important social movement of the post-1945 period. In doing so, it reveals the inventiveness and fearlessness of feminist activism, while also pointing towards the importance of considering the movement from the local and grassroots perspectives, presenting a more optimistic account of the enduring legacy of women's liberation. Not only does this book uncover the reach of the WLM but it also considers what case studies of women's liberation can tell us about the ways in which the development of the movement has been portrayed. Previous accounts have tended to equate the fragmentation of the movement with weakness and decline. This book challenges this conclusion, arguing that fragmentation led to a diffusion of feminist ideas into wider society. In the Scottish context, it led to a lively and flourishing feminist culture where activists highlighted important issues such as abortion and violence against women. ;

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        Humanities & Social Sciences
        October 2013

        Gender, nation and conquest in the high Middle Ages

        Nest of Deheubarth

        by Susan Johns, Pamela Sharpe, Penny Summerfield, Lynn Abrams, Cordelia Beattie

        Nest of Deheubarth was one of the most notorious women of the Middle Ages, mistress of Henry I and many other men, famously beautiful and strong-willed, object of one of the most notorious abduction/elopements of the period and ancestress of one of the most famous dynasties in medieval Ireland, the Fitzgeralds. This volume sheds light on women, gender, imperialism and conquest in the Middle Ages. From it emerges a picture of a woman who, though remarkable, was not exceptional, representative not of a group of victims or pawns in the dramatic transformations of the high Middle Ages but powerful and decisive actors. The book examines beauty, love, sex and marriage and the interconnecting identities of Nest as wife/concubine/mistress, both at the time and in the centuries since her death, when for Welsh writers and other commentators she has proved a powerful symbol. ;

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