Cultural Studies

This book looks at the representation of female characters in French comics from their first appearance in 1905. Organised into three sections, the book looks at the representation of women as main characters created by men, as secondary characters created by men, and as characters created by women.



It focuses on female characters, both primary and secondary, in the francophone comic or bande dessinée, as well as the work of female bande dessinée creators more generally. Until now these characters and creators have received relatively little scholarly attention; this new book is set to change this status quo.



Using feminist scholarship, especially from well-known film and literary theorists, the book asks what it means to draw women from within a phallocentric, male-dominated paradigm, as well as how the particular medium of bande dessinée, its form as well as its history, has shaped dominant representations of women.



This is the first book to study the representation of women in the French-language drawn strip. There are no other works with this specific focus, either on women in Franco-Belgian comics, or on the drawn representation of women by men.



This is a very useful addition to both general discussions of French-language comics, and to discussions of women’s comics, which are focused on comics by women only.



As it is written in English, and due to the popularity of comic art in Britain and the United States, this book will primarily appeal to an Anglo-American market. However, the cultural and gender studies approach this text employs (theoretical frameworks still not widely seen in non-Anglophone studies of the bande dessinée) will ensure that the text is also of interest to a Franco-Belgian audience.



With a focus on an art-form which also inspires a lot of public (non-academic) enthusiasm, it will also appeal to fans of the bande dessinée (or wider comic art medium) who are interested in the representation of women in comic art, and to comics scholars on a broad scale.

Launched in 2010 as a modest mobile photo-sharing application for Apple’s iPhone that uploads images in a square format and add filters that mimic vintage photographs, Instagram has grown to become one of the most-used social media platforms, alongside Facebook and Twitter. This book examines the rise of Instagram and its impact on visual culture by considering how it has shaped two inter-related and highly popular global forms: graffiti and street art. The book traces the intuitive connections between graffiti, street art and Instagram, beginning with the simple observation that when turned on its side, the scrolling feed of Instagram images displayed on a mobile phone resembles graffiti viewed from the windows of a moving train. It argues that with Instagram’s privileging of flows of images tied to mobile devices and the real-time battles for impact and attention that this generates, is more closely synced with the aesthetics of graffiti and street art and the needs of its producers and consumers than any other digital platforms. It analyses the architecture, data, networks and audiences of Instagram, showing how they underpin a dramatic shift in how graffiti and street art are produced and consumed.

Why do we travel? What are we doing – and what do we imagine we are doing – when we leave the house, get on a plane and thereby step into globalism? The Importance of Elsewhere is a collection of essays, rooted in Randy Malamud’s own lifetime of travel, that addresses those questions and more. Setting today’s tourism in the context of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century experiences of travel and travel writing, he uncovers motives and appreciations of movement, difference and novelty that are deeply woven into the imperial enterprise – and that remain key drivers of our interest in and enjoyment of travel today. Marrying concrete case studies and lively personal anecdotes, The Importance of Elsewhere will be of interest to any global traveler who has ever stopped to wonder what it is that draws her to faraway places.

Even a casual observer can spy traces of Islamic architecture and design on buildings all over the world, a reminder that artistic traditions and visual culture have never been limited to their region or country of origin, but rather are highly diffusible.

This book brings together scholars from architectural studies, design, art history and other fields to challenge and expand concepts of Islamic architecture. Ranging from eighteenth-century Ottoman tents to manifestations of Islamic motifs in 1960s Hawaii, this richly illustrated volume raises key questions about Islamic architecture, and, more broadly, about how we can rethink our understanding of material, artistic and cultural mobility in the modern world.

As governments and individuals struggle with growing indebtedness, the topic of debt itself – what it is, what it means, and how we understand it – has never been more salient. This collection brings together a range of contributions from many disciplines and around the world to consider debt through various lenses, including design, art, technology, political economy, social justice, surveillance, protest, education, urban and virtual spaces, and more. Aiming not just to advance scholarship, but to push ahead real change in the world, the book offers not only analytical insights and conceptual apparatuses, but practical tools and radical inspirations as well. A powerful analysis of a concept that has become ever more central to everyday society, InDEBTed to Intervene will be essential reading for scholars and citizens alike.

Do pictures enhance the communicative power of text?



Our society is becoming a more visual culture day-by-day. This book offers detailed analyses of how to combine words with pictures to communicate clearly across cultural barriers.



While some information is better communicated by one kind of media than another, some information is communicated most effectively through a combination of media. This book presents a critical framework within which iconic communication systems can be developed to truly bridge linguistic and cultural gaps and to provide effective computer-based systems for conveying information on a global scale.



With valuable insights for the Information and Communication industries, this book draws on the work presented at several conferences on the subject and is designed primarily for graphic designers and human-computer interface developers as well as supplementary reading on degree courses in Information Technology.