Sometimes Life Imitates Art. And Sometimes Life Imitates Really Bad Art. . . Rebecca Abbot's life has just gone from vintage feather boas to boring office casual. Thanks to Sylvie Arnaud's heart attack, she's out of a job. But it's Sylvie's French, vaguely famous name on Rebecca's creatively embellished resume that lands her an associate editor position at romance heavyweight Candlelight Books. Editing is a far cry from scouting out exotic groceries, which is pretty much all Rebecca did for Sylvie, but Candelight is offering an actual salary to go with her position's actual workload, and the rent is way overdue on the railroad flat she shares with her friend Wendy and her mooching ex, wanna-be writer Fleishman. Working for Candlelight is nothing like the plots of their syrupy novels, though. In fact, it's a lot like being stuck in an estrogen-heavy Fellini film. Between protecting her back from rival editor Cassie's repeated stabs, attempting a relationship with a sexy literary agent, wondering about Fleishman's new secret "project," and discovering her first truly talented author, Rebecca's learning that the business of romance is hardly a nine-to-five thing--and that editing out all her mistakes will never lead her to "happily ever after. . ."

At once the most lucrative, popular, and culturally oppositional musical force in the United States, hip hop demands the kind of interpretation Imani Perry provides here: criticism engaged with this vibrant musical form on its own terms. A scholar and a fan, Perry considers the art, politics, and culture of hip hop through an analysis of song lyrics, the words of the prophets of the hood. Recognizing prevailing characterizations of hip hop as a transnational musical form, Perry advances a powerful argument that hip hop is first and foremost black American music. At the same time, she contends that many studies have shortchanged the aesthetic value of rap by attributing its form and content primarily to socioeconomic factors. Her innovative analysis revels in the artistry of hip hop, revealing it as an art of innovation, not deprivation. Perry offers detailed readings of the lyrics of many hip hop artists, including Ice Cube, Public Enemy, De La Soul, krs-One, OutKast, Sean “Puffy” Combs, Tupac Shakur, Lil’ Kim, Biggie Smalls, Nas, Method Man, and Lauryn Hill. She focuses on the cultural foundations of the music and on the form and narrative features of the songs—the call and response, the reliance on the break, the use of metaphor, and the recurring figures of the trickster and the outlaw. Perry also provides complex considerations of hip hop’s association with crime, violence, and misogyny. She shows that while its message may be disconcerting, rap often expresses brilliant insights about existence in a society mired in difficult racial and gender politics. Hip hop, she suggests, airs a much wider, more troubling range of black experience than was projected during the civil rights era. It provides a unique public space where the sacred and the profane impulses within African American culture unite.

Widely interdisciplinary in appeal, this book reports on the successes of innovative training opportunities for non-college women who end up in low-paying, low-mobility, pink-collar jobs. The author examines the relative effectiveness of various programs in helping these women gain access to high-wage, high-mobility employment opportunities. The analysis includes case studies of grant-funded projects, as well as in-depth statistical analysis using ten years of data on women throughout the United States. These types of education and training options are in tremendous demand, and the author finds that they are having a powerful impact on the job prospects of non-college women. As an integral part of her study, she spells out what kinds of programs have proven most and least effective. Breaking Out of the Pink-Collar Ghetto addresses vital issues concerning the effects of gender segregation in career counseling and employment and training policy. It provides much-needed guidance on employment and training services delivery. The book has wide application for students as well as professionals in the fields of public policy and public administration, educational counseling and vocational education, labor economics, and women's studies.

DIVFocuses on the socially relevant aspects of Hip Hop music: its treatment of the identity of the black subject in a white society, new definitions of blackness and its commercialization./div

[While acknowledging that the development of France's homosexual communities was influenced by America, Martel highlights the differences arising from the fact that homosexuality has not been criminalised in France as in the United States] -- back cover.

Intro -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Notes on Contributors -- Introduction -- Setting the Scene: Women in the Irish film industry -- Susan Liddy -- Revisiting the Past -- Ellen O'Mara Sullivan and Her Role in Early Irish Cinema -- Díóg O'connell -- Feminist Reclamation Politics: Reclaiming Maeve (1981) and Mother Ireland (1988) -- Sarah Edge -- Practitioners and Production Culture -- 'Where Are the Women?' Exploring perceptions of a gender order in the Irish film industry -- Susan Liddy -- Irish Production Cultures and Women Filmmakers: Nicky Gogan -- Laura Canning -- Women Cinematographers and Changing Irish Production Cultures -- Maeve Connolly -- A Cut Above: In conversation with Emer Reynolds -- Susan Liddy -- Documenting Documentary: Liberated enclave or pink ghetto? -- Anne O'brien -- Changing the Conversation: Education, celebration and collaboration -- Educating Gráinne: The role of education in promoting gender equality in the Irish film industry -- Annie Doona -- Activism through Celebration: The role of the Dublin Feminist Film Festival in supporting women in Irish film, 2014-17 -- Karla Healion, Aileen O'driscoll, Jennifer O'meara, Katie Stone -- What If We Had Been the Heroes of the Maze and Long Kesh? Collaborative filmmaking in Northern Ireland -- Laura Aguiar -- Text and Context: Documentary, fiction and animation -- Dearbhla Glynn: Documenting war and sexual violence -- Eileen Culloty -- Pat Murphy: Portrait of an artist as a filmmaker -- Lance Pettitt -- Juanita Wilson: A crusading Irish filmmaker -- Isabelle Le Corff -- Irish Cinema and the Gendering of Space: Motherhood, domesticity and the homeplace -- Ruth Barton -- Authority to Speak: Assessing the progress of gender parity and representation in Irish animation -- Ciara Barrett -- Conclusion.

In this disturbing but ultimately hopeful personal account, Jean Anyon provides compelling evidence that the economic and political devastation of America's inner cities has robbed schools and teachers of the capacity to successfully implement current strategies of educational reform. She argues that without fundamental change in government and business policies and the redirection of major resources back into the schools and the communities they serve, urban schools are consigned to failure, and no effort at raising standards, improving teaching, or boosting achievement can occur. Based on her participation in an intensive four-year school reform project in the Newark, New Jersey public schools, the author vividly captures the anguish and anger of students and teachers caught in the tangle of a failing school system. Ghetto Schooling offers a penetrating historical analysis of more than a century of government and business policies that have drained the economic, political, and human resources of urban populations. Provocative and controversial, this book reveals the historical roots of the current crisis in ghetto schools and what must be done to reverse the downward spiral.