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The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity, Enlarged Edition
by Peter BrownA new edition of the &“brilliantly original and highly sophisticated&” study of saint worship after the fall of the Roman Empire (Library Journal). In this groundbreaking work, Peter Brown explores how the worship of saints and their corporeal remains became central to religious life in Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. During this period, earthly remnants served as a heavenly connection, and their veneration is a fascinating window into the cultural mood of a region in transition. Brown challenges the long-held two-tier idea of religion that separated the religious practices of the sophisticated elites from those of the superstitious masses, instead arguing that the cult of the saints crossed boundaries and played a dynamic part in both the Christian faith and the larger world of late antiquity. He shows how men and women living in harsh and sometimes barbaric times relied upon the holy dead to obtain justice, forgiveness, and power, and how a single sainted hair could inspire great thinkers and great artists. An essential text by one of the foremost scholars of European history, this expanded edition includes a new preface from Brown, which presents new ideas based on subsequent scholarship. &“Informative…demonstrates once again Brown&’s genius for sharing with his readers the fruits of not only his own painstaking and meticulous scholarship but also his penetrating understanding of the evolution of Western culture as a whole.&”—Religious Studies
The Cultivation of Conformity: Towards a General Theory of Internal Secularisation
by Pink DandelionThis book explores the inter-relationship between religious groups and wider society and examines the way religious groups change in relation to societal norms, potentially to the point of undergoing processes of ‘internal secularisation’ within secular and secularist cultures. Received sociological wisdom suggests that over time religious groups moderate their claims. This comes with the potential loss of new adherents, for theorists of secularisation suggest unique or universal, rather than moderate, truth claims appear attractive to would-be recruits. At the same time, religious groups need to appear equivalent, in terms of harmlessness, to state-sanctioned religious expression in order to secure rights. Thus, religious organisations face a perpetual conundrum. Using British Quakers as a case study as they moved from a counter-cultural group to an accepted and accepting part of twentieth- and twenty-first-century society, the author builds on models of religion and non-religion in terms of flows and explores the consequences of religious assimilation when the process of constructing both distinctive appeal and ‘harmlessness’ in pursuit of rights is played out in a secular culture. A major contribution to the sociology of religion, The Cultivation of Conformity presents a new theory of internal secularisation as the ultimate stage of the cultivation of conformity, and a model of the way sects and society inter-relate.
The Cultural Adjustment of Asian Lone Mothers Living in London (Routledge Revivals)
by Rachana SinhaFirst published in 1998, this insightful volume aims to explore how 90 Indian and African single mothers in 1993 London resolve the dual challenges of single parenthood and their ethnic origins, along with a comparison with their British counterparts. This is one of only a few studies devoted exclusively to Asian lone mothers in Britain and sheds light on the problems encountered by a group largely ignored by researchers to date. Rachana Sinha establishes the impact of differences in family values on issues of marriage, women’s status and lone parenthood and brings to light some of the mothers’ cultural and psychological adjustments to these values and life in London. The women’s experiences of lone parenthood are shown through their relationships with the father, their family and friends and with contacts with social organizations. Sinha ends the study with suggestions and implications for social policy drawn from her findings.
The Cultural Authority of Science: Comparing across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas (Routledge Studies in Science, Technology and Society)
by Rajesh Shukla Martin W Bauer Petra PansegrauThe cultural authority of science is the authority that is granted to science in any particular context. This authority is as much a matter of image and perceived legitimacy as of statutory guarantee. However, while authority can be charismatic, based on tradition or based on competence, we would assume that science aims to be an authority of competence. To what extent does science have the last word, or stand above opinion on public issues? This Indo-European led collaboration aims to map the cultural authority of science, and to construct a system of indicators to observe this ‘science culture’ based on artefacts (science news analysis) and espoused beliefs and evaluations (public attitude data). Indeed, through a series of studies the authors examine the cultural authority of science in light of the challenges posed by European, Asian, African and American developments and debates. In particular, two main ideas are examined: the ‘Lighthouse’ model, whereby science is shining into a stormy sea of ignorance and mistrust; and the ‘Bungee Jump’ model, which demonstrates how science occasionally experiences a rough ride against a backdrop of goodwill. Presenting expertise in discourse analysis, computer-assisted text analysis and largescale survey analysis, The Cultural Authority of Science will be of interest to a global audience concerned with the standing of science in society. In particular, it may appeal to scholars and students of fields such as sociology of science, science communication, science studies, scientometrics, innovation studies and social psychology.
The Cultural Contradictions of Anti-Capitalism: The Liberal Spirit and the Making of Western Radicalism (Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought)
by Daniel FletcherDoes contemporary anti-capitalism tend towards, as Slavoj Žižek believes, nihilism, or does it tend towards, as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri believe, true egalitarian freedom? Within The Cultural Contradictions of Anti-Capitalism, Fletcher presents an answer that manages to tend towards both simultaneously. In entering into contemporary debates on radicalism, this innovative volume proposes a revised conception of Hardt and Negri’s philosophy of emancipatory desire. Indeed, Fletcher reassesses Hardt and Negri’s history of Western radicalism and challenges their notion of an alter-modernity break from bourgeois modernity. In addition to this, this title proposes the idea of Western anti-capitalism as a spirit within a spirit, exploring how anti-capitalist movements in the West pose a genuine challenge to the capitalist order while remaining dependent on liberalist assumptions about the emancipatory individual. Inspired by post-structuralism and rejecting both revolutionary transcendence and notions of an underlying desiring purity, The Cultural Contradictions of Anti-Capitalism offers new insight into how liberal capitalist society persistently produces its own forms of resistance against itself. This book will appeal to graduate and postgraduate students interested in fields such as: Sociology, Politics, International Relations, Cultural Studies, History, and Philosophy.
The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (20th Anniversary Edition)
by Daniel BellThis classic analysis of Western liberal capitalist society contends that capitalism and the culture it creates harbors the seeds of its own downfall by creating a need among successful people for personal gratification a need that corrodes the work ethic that led to their success in the first place.
The Cultural Contradictions of Progressive Politics: The Role of Cultural Change and the Global Economy in Local Policymaking (Routledge Research in Urban Politics and Policy)
by Donald L. RosdilWhy do some U.S. cities like Seattle and Boston impose social exactions and sustainability targets on private investment while others like Las Vegas and Houston offer property tax and fee remissions to business, tolerate environmentally hazardous activities such as oil drilling, and express skepticism even about recycling mandates? The behavior of the former cities appears especially puzzling in view of globalization processes that seemingly offer many more options to mobile capital and expose cities’ vulnerability to private investment decisions. Cultural Contradictions examines the paradoxical finding that some U.S. cities can impose burdensome regulations and extract social and environmental contributions from the private sector despite an apparently weak bargaining position. It usescultural change and the growth of non-traditional subcultures to explain why cities adopt these progressive policies. Responding to the urban policy literature’s tendency to prioritize economic considerations over other kinds of causal factors, the book demonstrates the joint impact of culture and economics in encouraging policy outcomes which emphasize social justice, human rights, and environmental sustainability in large U.S. cities. The book makes several specific contributions to urban literature. First, it argues that cities in which nontraditional cultural beliefs and practices thrive and which are strongly linked to dynamic economic sectors such as information services, professional, scientific and technical services, financial services, and education and health care services are especially likely to adopt progressive policies. It establishes this claim using both statistical analysis of large-N city samples and a closer investigation of four case studies. Second, it reveals how progressive policies are a plausible response to psychological concerns associated with unconventional ways of life and the nature of postindustrial society. Finally, the book indicates how these new ways of life and postindustrial economic sectors grow in mutually reinforcing ways in order to make these policies acceptable to local economic elites and therefore favorable to the city’s future development.
The Cultural Economy of Cities: Essays on the Geography of Image-Producing Industries (Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society)
by Allen J ScottCulture is big business. It is at the root of many urban regeneration schemes throughout the world, yet the economy of culture is under-theorized and under-developed. In this wide-ranging and penetrating volume, the economic logic and structure of the modern cultural industries is explained. The connection between cultural production and urban-industrial concentration is demonstrated and the book shows why global cities are the homelands of the modern cultural industries. This book covers many sectors of cultural economy, from craft industries such as clothing and furniture, to modern media industries such as cinema and music recording. The role of the global city as a source of creative and innovative energy is examined in detail, with particular attention paid to Paris and Los Angeles.
The Cultural Heritage of Nagaland
by G. Kanato Chophy Sarit K. ChaudhuriThis volume gives an in-depth account of cultural heritage of Nagaland covering important themes like cultural beliefs, traditional knowledge, material culture, and social institutions. Contributors from diverse disciplines and backgrounds have delved into the cultural heritage of the state’s variegated tribes. Nagaland a hilly state in North-East India had been the centre of British colonialism and American Baptist mission. This cultural contact is significantly reflected in the socio-cultural life, and the contributors have shed light on the continuities and changes. This volume highlights the multiplicity of cultural traditions that are specific to various tribes inhabiting sixteen districts of Nagaland, since their experiences of modernity and cultural contact with ‘others’ have been diverse. The contributors have mainly focussed on the cultural heritage of the majority Naga tribes, but other tribes like the Kukis and Kacharis are part and parcel of the cultural melting pot of Nagaland, and this volume in a way underscores the cultural exchange and interactions. Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the print version of this book in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
The Cultural Imaginary of the Internet: Virtual Utopias and Dystopias
by Majid YarContemporary culture offer contradictory views of the internet and new media technologies, painting them in extremes of optimistic enthusiasm and pessimistic concern. This book explores such representations, uncovering the roots of our cultural responses to the internet, centred upon a profoundly ambivalent reaction to technological modernity.
The Cultural Life of Machine Learning: An Incursion into Critical AI Studies
by Jonathan Roberge Michael CastelleThis book brings together the work of historians and sociologists with perspectives from media studies, communication studies, cultural studies, and information studies to address the origins, practices, and possible futures of contemporary machine learning. From its foundations in 1950s and 1960s pattern recognition and neural network research to the modern-day social and technological dramas of DeepMind’s AlphaGo, predictive political forecasting, and the governmentality of extractive logistics, machine learning has become controversial precisely because of its increased embeddedness and agency in our everyday lives. How can we disentangle the history of machine learning from conventional histories of artificial intelligence? How can machinic agents’ capacity for novelty be theorized? Can reform initiatives for fairness and equity in AI and machine learning be realized, or are they doomed to cooptation and failure? And just what kind of “learning” does machine learning truly represent? We empirically address these questions and more to provide a baseline for future research.Chapter 2 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
The Cultural Logic of Politics in Mainland China and Taiwan
by Tianjian ShiTianjian Shi shows how cultural norms affect political attitudes and behavior through two causal pathways, one at the individual level and one at the community level. Focusing on two key norms - definition of self-interest and orientation to authority - he tests the theory with multiple surveys conducted in mainland China and Taiwan. Shi employs multi-level statistical analysis to show how, in these two very different political systems, similar norms exert similar kinds of influence on political trust, understanding of democracy, forms of political participation, and tolerance for protest. The approach helps to explain the resilience of authoritarian politics in China and the dissatisfaction of many Taiwan residents with democratic institutions. Aiming to place the study of political culture on a new theoretical and methodological foundation, Shi argues that a truly comparative social science must understand how culturally embedded norms influence decision making.
The Cultural Mindset: Managing People Across Cultures
by Afsaneh NahavandiThe phenomenon of global organizations reminds us that cross-cultural management is more prevalent than ever. While it may not be possible to develop in-depth knowledge of all cultures, a person can develop a way of thinking where they integrate culture in all of their deliberations, decisions, and behaviors. Such an approach is transformative and involves adopting a cultural mindset, understanding culture’s power as a frame of reference, and developing a new way of thinking. The book Cross-Cultural Management: The Cultural Mindset is based on Dr. Nahavandi’s years of teaching, researching, and consulting with many businesses on cross-cultural issues. Built around a think-know-do model, the text enables readers to adopt a cultural mindset that will effectively guide their thinking and behavior as future managers. Through case studies and self-assessments, the book allows students to develop a broader view of culture that is beyond learning skills and competencies. Additionally, by focusing on culture in general, the book allows readers to address both national cultural issues, such as how to work in another country or manage a multi-national team, and diversity issues, such as the glass ceiling or discrimination in the workplace. The key underlying theme for both topics is how culture, national or group-related, impacts our perspective – what we value, how we think, how we behave, and how we manage people effectively. Each chapter will include a focus on both informational and transformational learning through: · Cases and examples that will question assumptions and emphasize applicability · Self-assessments to make the concepts personal and relevant, and encourage self-reflection · Examples to help students understand those concepts · Specific exercises and/or reflections to help students apply information to their own personal and professional life
The Cultural Mindset: Managing People Across Cultures
by Afsaneh NahavandiThe phenomenon of global organizations reminds us that cross-cultural management is more prevalent than ever. While it may not be possible to develop in-depth knowledge of all cultures, a person can develop a way of thinking where they integrate culture in all of their deliberations, decisions, and behaviors. Such an approach is transformative and involves adopting a cultural mindset, understanding culture’s power as a frame of reference, and developing a new way of thinking. The book Cross-Cultural Management: The Cultural Mindset is based on Dr. Nahavandi’s years of teaching, researching, and consulting with many businesses on cross-cultural issues. Built around a think-know-do model, the text enables readers to adopt a cultural mindset that will effectively guide their thinking and behavior as future managers. Through case studies and self-assessments, the book allows students to develop a broader view of culture that is beyond learning skills and competencies. Additionally, by focusing on culture in general, the book allows readers to address both national cultural issues, such as how to work in another country or manage a multi-national team, and diversity issues, such as the glass ceiling or discrimination in the workplace. The key underlying theme for both topics is how culture, national or group-related, impacts our perspective – what we value, how we think, how we behave, and how we manage people effectively. Each chapter will include a focus on both informational and transformational learning through: · Cases and examples that will question assumptions and emphasize applicability · Self-assessments to make the concepts personal and relevant, and encourage self-reflection · Examples to help students understand those concepts · Specific exercises and/or reflections to help students apply information to their own personal and professional life
The Cultural Moment in Tourism (Advances in Tourism)
by Emma Waterton Steve Watson Laurajane SmithThis book is a response to the burgeoning interest in cultural tourism and the associated need for a coherently theorized approach for understanding the practices that such an interest creates. Cultural tourism has become an important and popular aspect of contemporary tourism studies, as well as providing a rich seam of upscale product development opportunities in the industry as a whole. Much of the related literature, however, focuses upon describing and categorizing cultural tourism from a supply-side perspective. This has prompted the taxonomizing of cultural tourists on the basis of their level of involvement and interest in cultural tourism products and/or their economic worth as a sought after market segment. There have been few recent attempts at a rigorous re-theorization of the issues beyond conventional representational theories; this book aims to fill that void. This groundbreaking volume provides a theoretical and empirical account of what it means to be a cultural or heritage tourist. It achieves this by exploring the interactions of people with places, spaces, intangible heritage and ways of life, not as linear alignments but as seductive ‘moments’ of encounter, engagement, performance and meaning-making, which are constitutive of cultural experience in its broadest sense. The book further explores encounters in cultural tourism as events that capture and constitute important social relations involving power and authority, self-consciousness and social position, gender and space, history and the present. It also explores the consequences these insights have for our understanding of culture and heritage and its management in the context of tourist activity. In capturing the ‘cultural moment’, this book provides a better understanding of the motivations, on-site activities, meaning constructions and other cultural work done by both tourists and tourist operators. The volume confronts and explores the cultural, political and economical interrelations between culture, heritage and the tourism industry. In so doing, it also investigates how this co-mingling of identity, representation and social life may be better apprehended with the wider shift in critical thought towards notions of affect and performativity. The book is a fundamental and influential contribution to research in this field. It will be of significant value to students, academics and researchers interested in this broad topic area.
The Cultural Nature of Human Development
by Barbara RogoffPeople develop as participants in cultural communities, says Ragoff (psychology, U. of California-Santa Cruz), and their development can be understood only in light of the changing cultural practices and circumstances of their communities. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)
The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language (Routledge Linguistics Classics)
by Alastair PennycookA much-cited and highly influential text by Alastair Pennycook, one of the world authorities in sociolinguistics, The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language explores the globalization of English by examining its colonial origins, its connections to linguistics and applied linguistics, and its relationships to the global spread of teaching practices. Nine chapters cover a wide range of key topics including: international politics colonial history critical pedagogy postcolonial literature. The book provides a critical understanding of the concept of the ‘worldliness of English’, or the idea that English can never be removed from the social, cultural, economic or political contexts in which it is used. Reissued with a substantial preface, this Routledge Linguistics Classic remains a landmark text, which led a much-needed critical and ideologically-informed investigation into the burgeoning topic of World Englishes. Key reading for all those working in the areas of Applied Linguistics, Sociolinguistics and World Englishes.
The Cultural Politics of Female Sexuality in South Africa (Routledge Research in Gender and Society)
by Henriette GunkelSexual identity has emerged into the national discourse of post-apartheid South Africa, bringing the subject of rights and the question of gender relations and cultural authenticity into the focus of the nation state’s politics. This book is a fascinating reflection on the effects of these discourses on non-normative modes of sexuality and intimacy and on the country more generally. While in 1996, South Africa became the first country in the world that explicitly incorporated lesbian and gay rights within a Bill of Rights, much of the country has continued to see homosexuality as un-African. Henriette Gunkel examines how colonialism and apartheid have historically shaped constructions of gender and sexuality and how these concepts have not only been re-introduced and shaped by understandings of homosexuality as un-African but also by the post-apartheid constitution and continued discourse within the nation.
The Cultural Politics of Lifestyle Sports (Routledge Critical Studies in Sport)
by Belinda WheatonThis important new study examines the changing place and meaning of lifestyle sports – parkour, surfing, skateboarding, kite-surfing and others – and asks whether they continue to pose a challenge to the dominant meanings and experience of ‘sport’ and physical culture. Drawing on a series of in-depth, empirical case-studies, the book offers a re-evaluation of theoretical frameworks with which lifestyle sports have been understood, and focuses on aspects of their cultural politics that have received little attention, particularly the racialization of lifestyle sporting spaces. Centrally, it re-assess the political potential of lifestyle sports, considering if lifestyle sports cultures present alternative identities and spaces that challenge the dominant ideologies of sport, and the broader politics of identity, in the 21st century. It explores a range of key contemporary themes in lifestyle sport, including: identity and the politics of difference commercialization and globalization sportscapes, media discourse and lived reality risk and responsibility governance and regulation the racialization of lifestyle sports spaces lifestyle sports outside of the Global North the use of lifestyle sport to engage non-privileged youth Casting new light on the significance of sport and sporting subcultures within contemporary society, this book is essential reading for students or researcher working in the sociology of sport, leisure studies or cultural studies.
The Cultural Politics of Post-9/11 American Sport: Power, Pedagogy and the Popular (Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society)
by Michael SilkMuch of the writing on the post-9/11 period in the United States has focused on the role of "official" Government rhetoric about 9/11. Those who have focused on the news media have suggested that they played a key role in (re)defining the nation, allowing the citizenry to come to terms with 9/11, in providing ‘official’ understandings and interpretations of the event, and setting the terms for a geo-political-military response (the war on terror). However, strikingly absent from post-9/11 writing has been discussion on the role of sport in this moment. This text provides the first, book-length account, of the ways in which the sport media, in conjunction with a number of interested parties – sporting, state, corporate, philanthropic and military – operated with a seeming collective affinity to conjure up nation, to define nation and its citizenry, and, to demonize others. Through analysis of a variety of cultural products – film, children’s baseball, the Super Bowl, the Olympics, reality television – the book reveals how, in the post-9/11 moment, the sporting popular operated as a powerful and highly visible pedagogic weapon in the armory of the Bush Administration, operating to define ways of being American and thus occlude other ways of being.
The Cultural Politics of Talent Migration in East Asia
by Brenda S.A. Yeoh and Shirlena HuangAs the world globalises, more people than ever are on the move, including the many professional, managerial and entrepreneurial elites—often referred to as ‘international talent’—who circulate between cities in response to career and business opportunities. While much has been written about the economic motivations behind these mobilities, less is known about the everyday experiences and encounters of highly skilled transnational migrants, who, with the rise of Asia as an economic powerhouse and cultural magnet, are not only increasingly Asian in composition but also rapidly attracted to the globalising cities in Asia. The book demonstrates how the migratory moves of transnational elites are not only implicated in the reality of multiple belongings, but are also intertwined with the broader cultural politics of specific places. By exploring the interfaces of contact and their diverse subjectivities from race and gender to class and nationality, this collection as a whole—with papers examining talent moving among cities in China, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, Britain and Canada—paints a decidedly complex picture of how talented migrants inhabit the world in ‘more-than-rational’ ways. Through the lens of the everyday, this book uncovers the ways in which ‘cosmopolitanisms’ are forged in uneven and contested ways in different localities, as well as offer new insights into cities as transnational spaces of encounter in the 21st century.This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
The Cultural Politics of the Paralympic Movement: Through an Anthropological Lens (Routledge Critical Studies in Sport)
by David HoweDo the Paralympic Games empower the disability sport community? Like many other contemporary sporting institutions, the Paralympic Games have made the transition from pastime to spectacle, and the profile of athletes with disabilities has been increased as a result. This book reviews the current status of the Paralympics and challenges the mainstream assumption that the Games are a vehicle for empowerment of the disabled community. Using ethnographic methods unique in this area of study, P. David Howe has undertaken an innovative and critical examination of the social, political and economic processes shaping the Paralympic Movement. In The Cultural Politics of the Paralympic Movement he presents his findings and offers a new insight into the relationship between sport, the body and the culture of disability. In doing so he has produced the most comprehensive and radical text about high performance sport for the disabled yet published. P. David Howe is Lecturer in the Sociology of Sport at Loughborough University. He is also a four-time Paralympian and former Athlete’s Representative to the International Paralympic Committee.
The Cultural Production of Social Movements
by Robert F. CarleyThe Cultural Production of Social Movements offers a theory of cultural practices, protest tactics, strategic planning and deliberation, and movement organizational structures: “ideological contention.” It is a theory of ideology “from below.” The Cultural Production of Social Movements shows how conflicts—both with external political forces and disagreements, dissensus, and the decision-making process internal to social movements—produce knowledge and meanings that, in turn, impact upon and change the practices that contribute to how social movements are structured and organized. The Cultural Production of Social Movements theorizes the relationship between consciously held superordinate ideas, the changing composition of progressive and oppositional social struggles, and the social worlds they hope to inhabit. Analyzing the Black Panther Party, specifically Kathleen Cleaver’s break with the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee and her contributions to the Party, Operaismo (or Workerism) in Italy and the relationship between shifting organizational strategies, inventive tactics, and novel and expansive ways to theorize class struggles, and the communal composition of “Worker-Recovered Enterprise Movements” in contemporary Argentina, this book shows how movement ideologies change and how meanings structure organizations, mobilizations, and futures. In The Cultural Production of Social Movements ideology is neither a static set of principles, nor is an unconscious orientation towards power and governance. Rather, it is the contentious, democratizing, and deliberative processes—which become realized as tactics in protests, struggles, defeats, and victories—that makes the relationship between movements, and what they “mean” conscious to its participants.
The Cultural Side of Innovation: Adding Values (Routledge Studies in Innovation, Organizations and Technology)
by Dany JacobsIn most discussions about the knowledge-based economy, innovation is associated or even equated with technology, while culture’s influence is ignored. Innovation is however embedded in cultural and social contexts, and neglecting these crucial contexts may impede an innovation’s diffusion—and eventual success. This book places culture at the center of discussions on innovation, beginning with a comprehensive introduction to innovation’s various forms, including the history, sociology, and economics of innovation. Insights from marketing and psychology are integrated into a complexity theory framework, which are then utilized to evaluate case studies of organizations experiencing repeated innovation successes. The sometimes fraught relationship of firms to creativity is discussed, and a new model for to calculating the creativity of an economy is presented.
The Cultural Significance of the Child Star (Routledge Advances in Sociology)
by Jane Catherine O'ConnorThe child star is an iconic figure in Western society representing a growing cultural trend which idolises, castigates and fetishises the image of the perfect, innocent and beautiful child. In this book, Jane O’Connor explores the paradoxical status of the child star who is both adored and reviled in contemporary society. Drawing on current debates about the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood and fears about children ‘growing up too soon’, she identifies hostile media attention around child stars as indicative of broader social concerns about the ‘correct’ role and place of children in relation to normative ideals of childhood. Through reference to extensive empirical examples of the way child stars such as Shirley Temple, Macaulay Culkin, Charlotte Church and Jackie Coogan have been constructed in the media, this book illustrates both the powerlessness and the power held by this tiny band of children, and demonstrates their significance as representatives of the public face of childhood throughout the twentieth century and beyond.