Performance Culture

Cinema emerged alongside the rules that ushered in boxing’s modern age and the “squared circle” proved the ideal stage for cinematic display. The public had its first taste of the new medium in 1894 through a heavyweight bout, recognized today as the world’s first feature film. Smash Hit: Race, Crime, and Culture in Boxing Films uses twenty films as the basis of a hard-nosed exploration as to how the genre held a bloody mirror to twentieth century America’s most prominent social anxieties, elucidating two conjoined mediums that serve as bellwether to an ever-shifting cultural zeitgeist.

Born in Ontario, Canada, in 1940, Alex Trebek grew up listening to the radio and hoping to one day become a broadcaster. His dream became a reality when he was hired as a reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1961. Alex's composed nature and ability to skillfully improvise while on television eventually led to his role as the host of Jeopardy!, the biggest quiz game show in the United States.

The first comprehensive history of Hollywood's high-flying career women during the studio era, Nobody's Girl Friday covers the impact of the executives, producers, editors, writers, agents, designers, directors, and actresses who shaped Hollywood film production and style, led their unions, climbed to the top during the war, and fought the blacklist. Based on a decade of archival research, author J. E. Smyth uncovers a formidable generation working within the American film industry and brings their voices back into the history of Hollywood.

Why are you so tired—even after a full night’s sleep? Why does life feel like an endless to-do list, even when you're technically “free”? This incisive and darkly insightful book uncovers the root cause behind modern exhaustion: a culture that masks coercion as choice and self-worth as productivity. Why You're Exhausted dismantles the illusions of motivation culture, toxic positivity, and relentless self-optimization. Drawing from philosophy, social psychology, and cultural critique, it reveals how we've become both boss and worker in our own lives—chained not by others, but by ...

For No Reason at All: The Changing Narrative of the First World War in American Film discusses a variety of Great War-themed films made from 1915 to the present, tracing the changing approaches to the conflict over time.

As a child, Amalia always thought she would grow up to be a teacher - that was until she saw dancers perform in her town square. She was fascinated by the way they twirled and swayed, and she knew that someday she would be a dancer, too.

Want to know more about the life of Taylor Swift? Listen to this audiobook to learn all about Taylor's childhood, family, career, boyfriends, favorite things, and more!

Culture guru and best-selling author, Chris McGoff, allows you to journey along with Carolyn, a composite character based on real-life people, to learn and see how it’s up to everyone to work through the struggles and find a way to redefine company culture and achieve peak performance. By the end of Carolyn’s story, you will be equipped to break down that default culture and build a culture of peak performance.

You may know that Bruno Mars is an unbelievably talented pop singer and producer. But did you know that Bruno was known for his epic Elvis impersonations when he was a kid? Listen to learn all about Bruno's childhood, personality, parents and siblings, past projects, personal struggles, and more!

Wheely Good Team Building: A Fable About Unlocking Synergy on Eight Wheels Is your team stuck in a rut? Are meetings more like collisions, and deadlines a distant dream? Feeling the strain of a disjointed workforce? This heartwarming tale follows a struggling team through an unconventional team-building retreat. Through laughter and wobbly triumphs, they learn valuable lessons that translate far beyond the rink walls. Drawing on the power of experiential learning and novelty, you’ll discover how to: Master focus techniques you can use anywhere, even in the face of distractions, to boost ...

Alternating between personal anecdote, hilarious insight, and smart analysis, Luke Skywalker Can't Read contends that Barbarella is good for you, that monster movies are just romantic comedies with commitment issues, and that Dracula and Sherlock Holmes are total hipsters and, most shockingly, shows how virtually everyone in the Star Wars universe is functionally illiterate.

Tumbling from one love entanglement to another, 30-something teacher Izzy Comyn has a predilection for inappropriate men. Over the three hilarious series of Up the Garden Path, Izzy, played by Imelda Staunton, deals with the complicated ups and downs of her attempts to find true love.

When Stuever's narrative begins, he's standing in line with the people waiting to purchase flat-screen TVs at Best Buy on Black Friday, the opening of the Christmas shopping season. From there he follows a number of key residents of Frisco, Texas, as they navigate through the nativity and all its attendant crises.

"Don't you forget about me", lautet das Motto dieser Folge, die sich "The Breakfast Club", dem legendären Jugendfilm von John Hughes aus dem Jahr 1985 widmet.

See him? That little tramp twitching a postage stamp of a mustache, politely lifting his bowler hat, and leaning on a bamboo cane with the confidence of a gentleman? A slapstick comedian, he blazed forth as the brightest movie star in the Hollywood heavens. Everyone knew Charlie - Charlie Chaplin.

The paranormal investigator series picks up with what we are calling series two. This series will feature more Famous investigators both real and fictional. This book will explore not only the lives of these investigators but their specialized fields of study. Collin de Plancy, like most other demonologists who came before him, followed the tradition of cataloging demons according to their names and titles. Dictionnaire Infernal is his most renowned work. Reginald Scot wasn't at first convinced of the idea of witches.

Splatter Capital shows how a subgenre of cinematic horror has developed a unique perspective on the cycles of capitalism. It argues that the messy brand of horror mobilized in gore or "splatter" films is extremely responsive to the internal contradictions that threaten the future sustainability of capitalist accumulation. And, while responding to the prospect of that end, splatter promotes an extant truth: capitalist accumulation is and always has been a nightmare of systematized bloodshed.

Although her family and friends know her as Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso, the world refers to her simply as Celia Cruz. Starting her career in 1950, Celia grew increasingly popular as the new lead singer of the Cuban band Sonora Matancera. Her exceptional vocal range and flashy costumes made fans fall in love with her.

Mani Ratnam’s Nayakan is among Time’s "100 Best Movies Ever", and his Roja launched A.R. Rahman. For the first time ever, Mani Ratnam opens up here, to Baradwaj Rangan, in a series of freewheeling conversations - candid, witty, pensive, and sometimes combative - and looks back at these and 19 other masterly films. With Rangan’s personal and impassioned introduction setting the Tamil and national context of the films, Conversations is a treat for serious lovers of cinema as well as the casual moviegoer looking for a peek behind the process.

Examining current debates and the questions raised by comics adaptations, including those around authorship, style, and textual fidelity, the contributors consider the topic from an array of approaches that take into account representations of sexuality, gender, and race as well as concepts of world-building and cultural appropriation in comics from Modesty Blaise to Black Panther. The result is a fascinating re-imagination of the texts that continue to push the boundaries of panel, frame, and popular culture.