Cultural Studies

Alarm

Alice Bennett, Liverpool Hope University, UK From the alarm clock and the air-raid siren to the doorbell and the phone alert, the history of alarms is also the history of work, security, technology, and emotion. Alarm responds to culture’s most urgent calls to attention by offering interpretations of all kinds of alarms, from the alarm clock in modernist art to the siren and the sound of the police in old-school hip hop. More than just bells and whistles, alarms are objects that have defined sleeping and waking, safety and danger, and have fundamentally shaped our understanding of the mind and its capacity for attention.

Mushroom

Sara Rich, Coastal Carolina University, USA They are the things we step on without noticing and also the largest organisms on Earth. They are symbols of inexplicable growth and excruciating misery. They are grouped with plants, but they behave more like animals. In their inscrutability, mushrooms are wondrous organisms. Rummaging through philosophical, literary, medical, (paleo)ecological, and anthropological texts only serves to confirm what the average forager already knows: that mushrooms are to be regarded with a reverence deserving of only the most powerful entities: those who create and destroy, and who thrive on both processes.

UK January 2023 • US January 2023 • 160 pages PB 9781501375576 • £9.99 / $14.95 ePub 9781501375583 • £10.18 / $13.45 ePdf 9781501375590 • £10.18 / $13.45 Series: Object Lessons • Bloomsbury Academic UK January 2023 • US January 2023 • 160 pages PB 9781501386589 • £9.99 / $14.95 ePub 9781501386596 • £10.18 / $13.45 ePdf 9781501386602 • £10.18 / $13.45 Series: Object Lessons • Bloomsbury Academic

Scream

Michael J. Seidlinger, Freelance Writer, USA The scream is an instinctive and reflexive action that carries a bold emotional core. The metal vocalist cupping the microphone blares out a deafeningly harsh scream; the drill instructor screams out commands to their soldiers. And then there’s the blood-curdling scream of characters in the latest horror film as they are chased by a knife-wielding killer. Be it fear, anger, sadness, or happiness, the scream is a declaration of being alive. Investigating popular and alternative cultures, art and science, Michael J. Seidlinger tracks the resonance of the scream across the complex and varied corners of the globe.

UK December 2022 • US December 2022 • 160 pages PB 9781501386749 • £9.99 / $14.95 ePub 9781501386756 • £10.18 / $13.45 ePdf 9781501386763 • £10.18 / $13.45 Series: Object Lessons • Bloomsbury Academic

Blue Jeans

Carolyn Purnell, Independent Scholar, USA Few clothing items are as ubiquitous or as casual as blue jeans. Yet, their simplicity is deceptive. Blue jeans are nothing if not an exercise in opposites. Levi Strauss made blue jeans in the 1870s to withstand the hard work of mining, but today, jeans are the epitome of leisure. In the 1950s, the utilitarian clothing of industrial labor became a glamorous statement of youthful rebellion, and now, jeans are on the chicest fashion runways. Blue Jeans considers the versatility of this iconic garment and investigates what makes denim a universal signifier, ready to fit any context, meaning, and body.

UK January 2023 • US January 2023 • 160 pages PB 9781501383748 • £9.99 / $14.95 ePub 9781501383755 • £10.18 / $13.45 ePdf 9781501383731 • £10.18 / $13.45 Series: Object Lessons • Bloomsbury Academic

OK

Michelle McSweeney, Converseon.AI, USA "OK" as a word accepts proposals, describes the world as satisfactory (but not good), provides conversational momentum, or even agrees (or disagrees). OK as an object, however, tells a story of how technology writes itself into language, permanently altering communication. OK is a young word, less than 200 years old. Today it is spoken and written by nearly everyone in the world. Drawing on linguistics, history, and new media studies, Michelle McSweeney traces OK from its birth in the Penny Presses through telephone lines, grammar books, and television signals into the digital age.

UK January 2023 • US January 2023 • 160 pages PB 9781501367182 • £9.99 / $14.95 ePub 9781501367199 • £10.18 / $13.45 ePdf 9781501367205 • £10.18 / $13.45 Series: Object Lessons • Bloomsbury Academic