• A close up of a painted portrait of James Macpherson.
Class and Feeling in the Films of Jia Zhangke

Class and Feeling in the Films of Jia Zhangke

In 2008, I saw Jia Zhangke’s film Still Life, and it changed my life. I had never seen a film that had affected me so intensely and knew that, after that moment, I needed to research this director and his films further. What impacted me the most about Jia’s films were their emotional and affective qualities, and how they evoked feelings that lingered long after the films had ended.
Christianity in North Africa and West Asia

Mapping Christianity in North Africa and West Asia

This region, North Africa and West Asia, is where Christianity began, nearly 2,000 years ago. Many Christian communities today trace their histories back over the entire period. At the same time, there is no region in the world where Christians are more at risk of extinction, as civil wars, persecution and economic distress have resulted in a massive exodus of the Christian population. This volume documents that exodus while it is underway.

British Youth Cultures and the Wider World

Pop music and youth culture are known to be among the great British exports of the late twentieth century. Be it teddy boys/girls or The Beatles, mods or the Sex Pistols, football hooligans or the Spice Girls, the seemingly rapid…

Emotion, History and the Arts

Erin Sullivan and Marie Louise Herzfeld-Schild are guest editors of a special issue of Cultural History about ‘Emotion, History and the Arts’, published October 2018. Their introduction draws on a wide range of emotionally charged art works from different times and places—including…

Ben Jonson Journal Celebrates 25 Years

2018 marks the 25th anniversary of the Ben Jonson Journal. Read on and learn more about the history and impact of the journal from the editor, Richard Harp. History of the Ben Jonson Journal Richard Harp and Stanley Stewart met…

Genre, Authorship and Contemporary Women Filmmakers

Women’s Cinema as Genre Cinema

An extract from the introduction of Genre, Authorship and Contemporary Women Filmmakers By Katarzyna Paszkiewicz   I don’t think I’ve read the words women and film and feminism in the same sentence as much in the last few months since…

Nineteenth-Century Local Governance in Ottoman Bulgaria

Ninteenth-Century Local Governance in Ottoman Bulgaria

An account of how bureaucratic procedures created the space for political conflict and slander in nineteenth-century Ottoman Bulgaria and what can we learn from studying them. Why would a district head administrator arrest mules, or someone slander a governor with…