This book brings together studies of cultural institutions in Manchester from 1850 to the present day, giving an unprecedented account of the city’s cultural evolution. These bring to light the remarkable range of Manchester’s contribution to modern cultural life, including the role of art education, popular theatre, religion, pleasure gardens, clubs and societies. The chapters show the resilience and creativity of Manchester’s cultural institutions since 1850, challenging any simple narrative of urban decline following the erosion of Lancashire’s industrial base, at the same time illustrating the range of activities across the social classes. This book will appeal to everyone interested in the cultural life of the city of Manchester, including cultural historians, sociologists and urban geographers, as well as general readers with interests in the city. It is written by leading international authorities, including Viv Gardner, Stephen Milner, Mike Savage, Bill Williams and Janet Wolff.

A Strong Sense of Unity and tradition frames a fascinating history of Manchester, New Hampshire's Franco-American community. Author Robert B. Perreault presents this story through compelling vignettes, including the triumphant success of photographer Ulric Bourgeois, the undeniable conflict between the French and Irish immigrants and a colorful profile of book collector and author Adélard Lambert. Featuring vintage images from Perreault's private collection, this work is a stunning visual narrative of the French-Canadian contributions to local culture. Book jacket.

Culture will keep you fit and healthy. Culture will bring communities together. Culture will improve your education. This is the message from governments and arts organisations across the country; however, this book explains why we need to be cautious about culture. Offering a powerful call to transform the cultural and creative industries, Culture is bad for you examines the intersections between race, class, and gender in the mechanisms of exclusion in cultural occupations. Exclusion from culture begins at an early age, the authors argue, and despite claims by cultural institutions and businesses to hire talented and hardworking individuals, women, people of colour, and those from working class backgrounds are systematically disbarred. While the inequalities that characterise both workforce and audience remain unaddressed, the positive contribution culture makes to society can never be fully realised.

Accessible, introductory student guide which identifies key feminist approaches to popular culture from the 1960s to the present.. The only introduction to both feminist cultural studies and feminism and popular culture published in the UK.. Presents its information in a reader friendly series of case studies on: women's film romantic fiction soap opera consumption and material culture fashion and beauty proactices youth culture and popular music. Will appeal to students across a wide range of disciplines as a variety of popular cultural forms are discussed.

This book revisits the county study as a way of understanding the dynamics of civil war in England during the 1640s. It explores gentry culture and the extent to which early Stuart Cheshire could be said to be a ‘county community’. It also investigates how the county’s governing elite and puritan religious establishment responded to highly polarising interventions by the central government and Laudian ecclesiastical authorities during Charles I’s Personal Rule. The second half of the book provides a rich and detailed analysis of petitioning movements and side-taking in Cheshire in 1641–2. An important contribution to understanding the local origins and outbreak of civil war in England, the book will be of interest to all students and scholars studying the English revolution.

Northernness, Northern culture and Northern narratives are a common aspect of popular culture, and the North of England, like other Northernnesses in Europe, is a collection of narratives, myths, stereotypes and symbols. In politics and everyday culture, Northern culture is paradoxically a site of resistance against an inauthentic South, a source of working-class identity, and a source of elite marginalisation. This book provides a key to theorising about Northernness, and a platform to scholars working away at exposing the North in different aspects of culture. The aims of this book are twofold: to re-theorise ‘the North’ and Northern culture and to highlight the ways in which constructions of Northernness and Northern culture are constituted alongside other gender, racial and regional identities. The contributions presented here theorise Northernness in relation to space, leisure, gender, race, class, social realism, and everyday embodied practices. A main thematic thread that weaves the whole book together is the notion that Northernness and ‘the North’ is both an imagined discursive construct and an embodied subjectivity, thus creating a paradox between the reality of ‘North’ and its representation. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal for Cultural Research.

History through material culture is a unique, step-by-step guide for students and researchers who wish to use objects as historical sources.Responding to the significant, scholarly interest in historical material culture studies, this book makes clear how students and researchers ready to use these rich material sources can make important, valuable and original contributions to history.Written by two experienced museum practitioners and historians, the book recognises the theoretical and practical challenges of this approach and offers clear advice on methods to get the best out of material culture research. With a focus on the early modern and modern periods, this volume draws on examples from across the world and demonstrates how to use material culture to answer a range of enquiries, including social, economic, gender, cultural and global history.