Samantha Holland – författare

Modern Vintage Homes & Leisure Lives is based on original empirical international data about a group of people who wear vintage clothing all of the time and whose homes are styled entirely, or almost entirely, vintage.

Modern Vintage Homes & Leisure Lives is based on original empirical international data about a group of people who wear vintage clothing all of the time and whose homes are styled entirely, or almost entirely, vintage.

Bulgarian popular music, the meanings it articulates, and the infrastructures of its creation, operates within a web of inter-dependencies with changing social and political contexts. Positioned on the edge of Europe, between the cultural constructs of the 'East' and 'West', Bulgarian popular music negotiates the complexities of perceived 'global' values and specificities of the 'local'.  This book takes an ethnographic approach to qualitative methodologies to create a mosaic of perspectives through the participation of music artists, critics, business figures, copyright specialists, and young audiences. It employs the metaphor of the 'crossroads' to describe the realities of the contemporary Bulgarian popular music field, developed amidst the prolonged transitions that followed the communist era. In the context of struggles for social change, popular music has participated in the creation of rituals and symbols of protest and resistance. At the same time, the new market environment created opportunities for popular music to formulate a business approach to producing standardised content. The Balkans, are a melting pot of music traditions, but are also framed as pathologically different from the rest of Europe. This book suggests that an internalised negative stereotype adds tacit complexities to Bulgarian popular music, while at the same time, expressive markers of identity, such as folklore and language, are celebrated.

Alternativity delineates those spaces, scenes, club-cultures, objects and practices in modern society that are considered to be actively designed to be counter or resistive to mainstream popular culture. The idea of the alternative in popular culture became mainstream with the rise of the counter culture in 1960s America (though there were earlier forms of alternative cultures in America and other Western countries). Alternativity is associated with marginalization, both actively pursued by individuals, and imposed on individuals and sub-cultures, and was originally represented and constructed through acts of transgression, and through shared sub-cultural capital. This edited collection maps the landscape of alternativity and marginalization, providing new theory and methods in a currently under-theorized area, setting out the issues, questions, concerns and directions of this area of study. It demonstrates the theoretical richness and empirical diversity of the interdisciplinary field it encompasses, and is deliberately feminist in its approach and its composition, with a majority of the contributors being women. Divided into three sub-sections, focused on sub-cultures, bodies and spaces, contributors explore this exciting new terrain, both through critiques of theory and new theoretical developments, and case studies of alternativity and marginalization in practice and in performance, expanding our understanding of the alternative, the liminal and the transgressive.

The successful return of horror to our television screens in the post-millennial years, and across a multi-media range of platforms, demonstrates that this previously moribund genre is once again vibrant, challenging and long-lasting. The traditional TV audience of the past would have watched very few horror TV shows, because not many were made. But that has changed. Programme makers have tapped into their public's insatiable need - in these days of terrorism, violence and mayhem - to provide programmes that have high production values, engaging storylines, and plenty of frights and gore.  Horror TV offers a safety-valve for its audience, one that enables them to enter into it from the safety of their armchairs. The era of instant access, streaming, downloading and binge-watching whole seasons over a weekend, where fandom has blossomed into a cultural force, clearly shows horror as a vital part of today's TV scheduling.This edited collection investigates the rising popularity of horror-television through deconstructing the gender roles within them via series of case studies including such programmes as Hannibal, American Horror Story, The Walking Dead, Penny Dreadful, Supernatural, The Exorcist and Bates Motel. By using a series of case studies and employing theoretical modes of close analysis, each chapter demonstrates how and why these TV shows are important in reflecting the changing gender roles within modern society.

Contemporary popular media has been marked by its startling ability to morph into a wide variety of formats, fed by the ongoing revolution in digital technology. Despite these significant changes, the horror genre has retained its attraction for audiences, and the representation of gender has been crucial to that appeal.Gender and Contemporary Horror in Comic, Games and Transmedia examines the impact of media convergence on the horror genre, focusing on comic books and graphic novels, video games, audio broadcasts, and transmedia adaptations, as well as considering the increasingly proactive role of audiences in making media themselves. A wide range of scholars consider the effect of this new hybridity on established debates regarding the role of gender in the horror genre, offering vital new interpretations of identity and representation.;This book is an illuminating, exciting read for academics and students interested in the effect of changing media, and an evolving cultural landscape, on the established debates surrounding gender in the horror genre. The responses of the authors reflect both the possible limitations and the groundbreaking possibilities of this new era in horror.

The horror genre will always remain current because it reflects our anxieties, shining a light onto our worst fears whilst creating worlds defined by darkness. Horror as a genre has always engaged with era-specific societal mores and moral panics, often about isolation or abandonment, changing family values and the role of women. It is often specifically about how gender is constructed in everyday life. Women are commonly defined in horror by their passivity, or monstrosity/sexuality or victimhood - or a mix of the three. At the same time women in horror are forced into psychological and physical torture ending in violent showdowns in which they emerge damaged but triumphant. Bringing together research from a wide range of established and emerging scholars this edited collection provides an insight into how modern horror films portray femininities, sexualities, masculinities, ageing, and other current issues, exploring the use of vampires, zombies, werewolves and ghosts in films made internationally. This volume, one of three by the same editorial team examining the horror genre, focuses on gender and contemporary horror in film, asking questions about how and if representations of gender in horror have changed. In these readings and re-readings, the authors examine developments in films about vampires, zombies, werewolves and ghosts, in films made internationally.

Imagine a world where the oppressive, over-feminized images of women from advertising, television, films, and magazines have re-armed themselves with army boots, body modifications, and flamboyant hair. Is this just another fairy tale, and if so, why cant it be a reality? In Alternative Femininities, Samantha Holland unpacks the myth of model womanhood and considers how a particular group of real women define and practise femininity. These women, who see themselves as 'alternative', modify and subvert popular images of femininity. The choices they make in clothing, appearance and body modifications enable them to construct a personal look that is intimately tied to self-identity. Getting the balance right between over-femininity and not being feminine enough is a frequently voiced concern. Holland also addresses head-on the much-neglected issue of how ageing impacts on notions of femininity. What do these women think about fashion, gender and appearance as they grow older and less visible in our media-dominated society? Do they choose to tone down or stay out there, and what motivates their choice?A revealing look at contemporary femininity, Alternative Femininities gives voice to a previously silent group of women who struggle to resist sexist gender stereotypes, yet age with style, individuality and creativity. By looking at how real women negotiate self-image in an increasingly appearance-conscious society, Holland has provided a much-needed corrective to theoretical accounts of gender and femininity lacking in real data.