Diva Nation explores the constructed nature of female iconicity in Japan. From ancient goddesses and queens to modern singers and writers, this edited volume critically reconsiders the female icon, tracing how she has been offered up for emulation, debate or censure. The research in this book culminates from curiosity over the insistent presence of Japanese female figures who have refused to sit quietly on the sidelines of history. The contributors move beyond archival portraits to consider historically and culturally informed diva imagery and diva lore. The diva is ripe for expansion, fantasy, eroticization, and playful reinvention, while simultaneously presenting a challenge to patriarchal culture. Diva Nation asks how the diva disrupts or bolsters ideas about nationhood, morality, and aesthetics.

The diva – a central figure in the landscape of contemporary popular culture: gossip-generating, scandal-courting, paparazzi-stalked. And yet the diva is at the epicentre of creative endeavours that resonate with contemporary feminist ideas, kick back against diminished social expectations, boldly call-out casual sexism and industry misogyny and, in terms of hip-hop, explores intersectional oppressions and unapologetically celebrates non-white cultural heritages. Diva beats and grooves echo across culture and politics in the West: from the borough to the White House, from arena concerts to nightclubs, from social media to social activism, from #MeToo to Black Lives Matter. Diva: Feminism and Fierceness from Pop to Hip-Hop addresses the diva phenomenon and its origins: its identity politics and LGBTQ+ components; its creativity and interventions in areas of popular culture (music, and beyond); its saints and sinners and controversies old and new; and its oppositions to, and recuperations by, the establishment; and its shifts from third to fourth waves of feminism. This co-edited collection brings together an international array of writers – from new voices to established names. The collection scopes the rise to power of the diva (looking to Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Dolly Parton, Grace Jones, and Aaliyah), then turns to contemporary diva figures and their work (with Beyoncé, Amuro Namie, Janelle Monáe, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, and Nicki Minaj), and concludes by considering the presence of the diva in wider cultures, in terms of gallery curation, theatre productions, and stand-up comedy.

Using examples from the Bible, describes the familiar spirits that can cause hindrances and damaging activities in everyday life and explains how to use a belief in God and the power of prayer to overcome them.

"This is a fully illustrated book highlighting some memorable moments in Australian sporting history."--Provided by publisher.

An essential guide for every woman who wants to build, preserve, and enjoy her wealth in a world where the old sequential patterns of education, marriage, motherhood, and retirement no longer apply.

Following their first tour to Japan in 1966, the Beatles would become an important part of Japan’s postwar cultural development and its deepening relationship with the West. By the 1960s Japan’s dramatic rise in prosperity and the self-confidence of the country’s ‘economic miracle’ period were yet to come; it was not, at this stage, considered a fully-fledged partner of the West. All these potential developments were consolidating around the time of the 1966 tour. The Beatles' concerts in Tokyo contributed to the construction of a new Japanese national identity and introduced Japan as a new potential market to UK and US music producers, broadening the country’s transnational cultural links. This book explores the Beatles’ engagement with Japan within the larger context of the country’s increased global connection and large-scale economic, social and cultural change. It describes the great impact of the Beatles’ contentious 1966 tour, which took place amid public displays of both euphoric ‘Beatlemania’ and angry protests, and discusses the lasting impression of this tour on Japanese culture and identity to the present day. The Beatles’ relationship with Japan did not end after their departure; this book also examines the Beatles’ subsequent contacts with Japan, including John Lennon’s marriage and artistic partnership with Yoko Ono, and Paul McCartney’s later Japanese tours and the warm reception the ex Beatles and their musical legacy have received over the years.

The phenomenon of 'Cool Japan' is one of the distinctive features of global popular culture of the millennial age. A History of Popular Culture in Japan provides the first historical and analytical overview of popular culture in Japan from its origins in the 17th century to the present day, using it to explore broader themes of conflict, power and meaning in Japanese history. E. Taylor Atkins shows how Japan was one of the earliest sites for the development of mass-produced, market-oriented cultural products consumed by urban middle and working classes. From traditional monochrome ink painting, court literature and poetry to anime, manga and J-Pop, popular culture was pivotal in the rise of Japanese nationalism, imperialism, militarism and economic development, and to the present day plays a central role in Japanese identity. With updated historiography throughout, this fully revised second edition features: - A new chapter on popular culture in the Edo period - An expanded section on pre-Tokugawa culture - More discussion on recent pop culture phenomena such as TV game shows, cuteness and J-Pop - 10 new images - A new glossary of terms including kanji This improved edition is a vital resource for students of Japanese cultural history wishing to gain a deeper understanding of Japan's contributions to global cultural heritage.

A representative selection of Hall's enormously influential writings on cultural studies and Hall's engagement with urgent and abiding questions of 'race', ethnicity and identity.

"From stars like Britney Spears and Mariah Carey to classic icons like Yoko Ono, female musicians have long been the target of toxic labels in the media and popular culture: liar, crazy, snake, diva, and so on. This book takes a candid look at the full range of sexist labeling and inspires us to think about these remarkable women on their own terms"--

Passing, Posing, Persuasion interrogates the intersections between cultural production, identity, and persuasive messaging that idealized inclusion and unity across Japan’s East Asian empire (1895–1945). Japanese propagandists drew on a pan-Asian rhetoric that sought to persuade colonial subjects to identify with the empire while simultaneously maintaining the distinctions that subjugated them and marking their attempts to self-identify as Japanese as inauthentic, illegitimate forms of “passing” or “posing.” Visions of inclusion encouraged assimilation but also threatened to disrupt the very logic of imperialism itself: If there was no immutable difference between Taiwanese and Japanese subjects, for example, then what justified the subordination of the former to the latter? The chapters emphasize the plurality and heterogeneity of empire, together with the contradictions and tensions of its ideologies of race, nation, and ethnicity. The paradoxes of passing, posing, and persuasion opened up unique opportunities for colonial contestation and negotiation in the arenas of cultural production, including theater, fiction, film, magazines, and other media of entertainment and propaganda consumed by audiences in mainland Japan and its colonies. From Meiji adaptations of Shakespeare and interwar mass media and colonial fiction to wartime propaganda films, competing narratives sought to shape how ambiguous identities were performed and read. All empires necessarily engender multiple kinds of border crossings and transgressions; in the case of Japan, the policing and blurring of boundaries often pivoted on the outer markers of ethno-national identification. This book showcases how actors—in multiple senses of the word—from all parts of the empire were able to move in and out of different performative identities, thus troubling its ontological boundaries.