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In 1880 the concept of girlhood as a separate stage of existence was barely present. But in the decades that followed, due in part to changes in the legal definition of childhood, a new cultural category was inscribed in a flood of popular books and magazines. Indeed, by the turn of the century working-class and middle-class girls were beginning to control enough of their own time and pocket money that publishing for them was a lucrative business.
Highly respected as a writer by critics and commentators, Hesba Stretton (1832-1911) was a vigorous campaigner for the rights of oppressed minorities and a founding member of the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Though she is known today primarily as a writer of evangelical fiction for young people, including Jessica's First Prayer, this characterization fails to acknowledge the extensive range of her writings and social activism. Elaine Lomax re-examines Stretton's writing for children and adults, situating her body of work within the broad social and cultural context of its production to expose the depth and complexity of Stretton's engagement with contemporary ideas, debates, and discourses. Mining nineteenth-century periodicals, archival materials, and the minutes of the Religious Tract Society, as well as Stretton's own revealing log books, Lomax demonstrates Stretton's preoccupation with those at the bottom or on the margins of society. At the same time, she advances our understanding of the intersection of cultural and literary representations of the child and childhood with wider images of the colonized or excluded, and our knowledge of the history and development of juvenile literature and women's writing.
The Age of Equipoise by W.L Burn was published in 1964 and became a central text in the canon of interpretations of the Victorian period. The book subsequently fell out of favour but recent claims to establish a new interpretative standard have, paradoxically, prompted reviewers to cast back to Burn's work as the orthodox standard against which such claims should be judged. The essays in this volume by British and American contributors all engage, to varying degrees, with the notion of 'equipoise' and how it can help to illuminate the mid-Victorian period in ways which alternative formulations cannot. Some of the chapters develop arguments embedded in Burn's own book; others take up issues largely absent in The Age of Equipoise, such as the position of children, Britain's interaction with the wider world, and the threats the period experienced to its concept of masculine identity. Together the essays demonstrate the intricacy and turbulence of the forces of cohesion in Victorian society, along with the success of that culture in achieving a working, if shifting, modus vivendi. Moreover, they substantiate the argument that, whatever the limitations of Burn's work, 'equipoise' deserves rehabilitation as a powerful conceptual framework for making sense of mid-Victorian Britain. About the Editor: Martin Hewitt is Director of the Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies and editor of the Journal of Victorian Culture. With Robert Poole he has recently produced an edition of The Diaries of Samuel Bamford, 1858-61 (Sutton, 2000).
The Routledge Circus Studies Reader offers an absorbing critical introduction to this diverse and emerging field. It brings together the work of over 30 scholars in this discipline, including Janet Davis, Helen Stoddart and Peta Tait, to highlight and address the field’s key historical, critical and theoretical issues. It is organised into three accessible sections, Perspectives, Precedents and Presents, which approach historical aspects, current issues, and the future of circus performance. The chapters, grouped together into 13 theme-based sub-sections, provide a clear entry point into the field and emphasise the diversity of approaches available to students and scholars of circus studies. Classic accounts of performance, including pieces by Philippe Petit and Friedrich Nietzsche, are included alongside more recent scholarship in the field. Edited by two scholars whose work is strongly connected to the dynamic world of performance, The Routledge Circus Studies Reader is an essential teaching and study resource for the emerging discipline of circus studies. It also provides a stimulating introduction to the field for lovers of circus.
This groundbreaking reference work presents more than 100 articles by 98 high-profile interdisciplinary scholars, covering all aspects of girls' roles in American society, past and present. In this comprehensive, readable, two volume encyclopedia, experts from a variety of disciplines contribute pieces to the puzzle of what it means—and what it has meant over the last 400 years—to be a girl in America. The portrait that emerges reveals deep differences in girls' experiences depending on socioeconomic context, religious and ethnic traditions, family life, schools, institutions, and the messages of consumer and popular culture. Girls have been commodified, idealized, trivialized, eroticized, and shaped by the powerful forces of popular culture, from Little Women to Barbie. Yet girls are also powerful co-creators of the culture that shapes them, often cleverly subverting it to their own purposes. From Pocahantas to punk rockers, girls have been an integral, if overlooked and undervalued, part of American culture.
This conflict informs us not only of the complicated role that the circus played in Victorian society but provides a unique view into a collective psyche fraught by contradiction and anxiety.
'Maggie is a national treasure.' Tracey Spicer, AM '. . . sage wisdom for parenting and supporting girls.' Mona Delahooke, PhD, bestselling author and pediatric psychologist The early years of a little girl's life will shape her future in powerful ways. Maggie Dent, Australia's queen of common-sense parenting, has investigated the development period from birth to age eight. Drawing on nearly 5,000 survey results, the latest research, and her own extensive experience as an educator, counsellor, facilitator, mum and grandmother, Maggie shows us how to help our girls build an emotional and psychological base for life. Secure foundations, Maggie argues, will help insulate our girls against anxiety and other mental health challenges as they grow into their teens and feel more capable and resilient while keeping their own authentic voice as they enter womanhood. Written with all the rigour, compassion and humour we have come to expect from one of Australia's best-loved parenting voices, this is both a deeply practical guide to raising girls, as well as a celebration and intimate meditation on the state of being female, which women of all ages will relate to.
This is the first scholarly study devoted to Shakespeare's girl characters and conceptions of girlhood. It charts the development of Shakespeare's treatment of the girl as a dramatic and literary figure, and explores the impact of Shakespeare's girl characters on the history of early modern girls as performers, patrons, and authors.