A fascinating feminist reading of an often scorned medium: the storytelling, cross-platform success, and female fandom of the photoromance. Born in Italy and successfully exported to the rest of the world, photoromances had a readership of millions in the postwar years. By the early 1960s, more than ten million Italians read a photoromance each week. Despite its popularity, the photoromance—a form of graphic storytelling that uses photographs instead of drawings—was widely scorned as a medium, and its largely female audience derided as naive, pathetic, and uneducated. In this provocative book, Paola Bonifazio offers another perspective, making a case for the relevance of the photoromance for both feminism and media culture. She argues that the photoromance pioneered storytelling across platforms, elevated characters and artists into brands, and nurtured a devoted fan base. Moreover, Bonifazio shows that female readers—condescended to by intellectuals, journalists, and politicians of both the left and the right—powered the Italian photoromance industry's success. Bonifazio examines the “convergence culture” of Italian media as photoromance magazines dispersed their content across multiple formats, narrative conventions, editorial and business strategies, and platforms. The plots of photoromances often resembled the storylines of romantic films, and film stars themselves often appeared in photoromances. Bonifazio discusses the media habits of photoromance readers; the use of photoromances to promote political, religious, and social agendas, including a campaign for “birth control in comics”; and long-term fandom. While publishers built lifelong relationships with their readers, the readers built a common identity and culture.

Crisp, lively, and jargon-free, this one-of-a-kind collection concisely introduces 101 artists painters,sculptors, photographers, and new media artists. The variety of ideas and forms in contemporary Indianart are presented here in just over 160 pages, and illustrated with an extraordinary gathering of images.The essays are both authoritative and accessible, addressing each artist s primary concerns and methods.They also include important biographical information and vivid descriptions of select pieces.

From the 1930s to the 50s in Italy commercial cultural products were transformed by new reproductive technologies and ways of marketing and distribution, and the appetite for radio, films, music and magazines boomed. This book uses new evidence to explore possible continuities between the uses of mass culture before and after World War II.

"As the base for global economic power shifts from the West to Asia, India has undergone a transformation. The mobile phone has reached the Indian village. The is now home to an emerging high-tech culture, which has brought with it entrepreneurship and pockets of wealth. A vibrant contemporary Indian art world with a developed gallery structure has risen with the new economy." "In her accompanying text to The Empire Strikes Back, Zehra Jumabhoy tracks the relationship between the art world and the economic climate. She succinctly presents the diverse threads of contemporary India, while touching on such universal themes as gender politics, national stereotypes and the collision between the 'folk' tradition and the computer age." "Just as a new international art world has surfaced in the galleries of Mumbai and other Indian cities with spectacular results, clearly evident throughout The Empire Strikes Back, Jumabhoy argues that the same culture is vulnerable to the effect of the recession and that the end of an economic boom may indeed have healthy consequences for this vital generation of Indian artists." --Book Jacket.

Is it the chance of a lifetime or his biggest mistake? When former hotel manager Alex Kirkland, his sister and their best friends pooled their money for an unusual lottery prize—a historic, dilapidated inn on the Maryland shore—as a last-ditch attempt to escape rotten circumstances, they never expected to win. But they’re all looking for a fresh start and a second chance, so Alex convinces everyone to move in and repair the building in time for the spring wedding season. Sydney Darrow never planned to return to her hometown. But her family needs her and Sydney can endure anything for 90 days—including making sandwiches and serving coffee with a smile until she returns to her jet-setter career. When her grandma mistakes a handsome customer for the “fiancé” Sydney created when she thought her grandma was on death’s door, well...Sydney will do anything to keep her spirits up during treatment. She can persuade him to keep up the charade for a few months, right? But when Alex agrees to play along, will they both fall for their own fiction?