Böcker utgivna av Emerald Publishing Limited

Design Thinking (DT) is popular in corporate innovation and start-ups alike for helping people to craft fresh, new solutions to today's challenges and develop underlying skills in high demand in tomorrow's economy: creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, insight, empathy, experimentation, and more.After years of research and practice in Design Thinking, CJ Meadows and Charvi Parikh have distilled their expertise into this definitive guide for making the most of this approach for business growth and problem-solving. In The Design Thinking Workbook, they guide you through the essential skills that underlie DT, and introduce the tools, techniques and processes that empower you to immediately apply DT to real-world situations. Their experiential, exercise-driven, and visual approach, awakens that part of the brain that draws, designs, and dreams.Anyone can be a Design Thinker. Businesspeople, policymakers, educators, social entrepreneurs, and others can use DT to solve problems, develop creativity, and design new solutions that make life easier and businesses more productive.

The digitalization of society is constructed as a necessary leap that governments and citizens need to take. However, with many older people lacking adequate digital competences to support their full participation in today's digitalized society, how is the marginalisation of older people in digital society socially constructed? How can we promote older people's digital inclusion and agency? Presenting case studies from Finland, one of the top performers in the supply and demand of digital public services, Older People in a Digitalized Society outlines internationally relevant implications for promoting the social construction of older people's agency. Delving into their digital competences, and use and non-use of Internet and eHealth technologies, Rasi-Heikkinen showcases the potential exclusionary effects of digitalization, and highlights the implications for digital inclusion practice and policy. Contesting the dominant discourses which suggest digital technologies and media play central roles in the learning, well-being, everyday life, and participation in society for individuals throughout their lifespan, Older People in a Digitalized Society addresses the digital gap faced by older generations that do not welcome digitalization, or even see it as a positive marginality: a choice that they have consciously made.Paying attention to how digitalization is a contested issue constructed with various, ambivalent, and paradoxical representations, Rasi-Heikkinen shines an important light on how older people are constructed as being on the margins of digitalization by researchers and the media.

Visual pollution is an emerging, multi-dimensional, subjective, and under studied area of manmade environments that has recently received researchers' focus. Visual Pollution: Concepts, Practices and Management Framework offers the first substantial cutting-edge exploration of visual pollution in urban settlements, uncovering the conceptualisation, geography-specific visual pollutants, methods of visual pollution assessment and management frameworks.Nawaz and Wakil dive into the contrasting prevalence of visual pollution geographically and the connection of human behaviour with urban aesthetics, urban management, measurement tools, information systems and regulatory frameworks. This novel contribution fills the international knowledge gap to generate dynamic and practical solutions for the mitigation in regulatory and enforcement frames.Providing a holistic picture to a diverse multi-dimensional readership interested to explore the phenomena of visual pollution, Visual Pollution: Concepts, Practices and Management Framework is an essential read for those working and researching in the fields of urban design, property management, planning, building, and policymakers confronted with a rapidly urbanising planet.

This collection reveals a recurring theme in the author's work over almost three decades: that the preoccupation in policy, commentary, research and practice with who gets into higher education has led to a corresponding failure to cast a critical eye over what, where and when they get the higher education offer. It seems that potential students are expected to fit-in with HE culture, rather than think about how HE might change to fit-in with them. On offer is a collection of the author's works, spanning much of his professional working life, covering issues relevant to widening access to success in higher education and for a wide-ranging audience. Some chapters offer conference speeches and keynotes; others are blogs or chapters in books. One is even a speech to an audience from the UK House of Lords delivered originally within the Parliament precincts. Together they paint a picture of the prevailing issues and concerns of the widening access agenda over twenty-five years.A recurring call throughout is the need for greater international collaboration, a need that has indeed grown in importance as the conversation on widening access and success has progressed. Some would say that this is due, in no small measure, to the work of this critical thinker and practitioner.

The last decade has seen significant changes in global attitudes, policies and practices that impact the lives of trans people, but the world of sport has been slow to follow these initiatives.Contributors to this book document the formidable social-cultural and legal challenges facing trans athletes, particularly girls and women, at the global, national, and local levels, in contexts ranging from school sport to international competition. They demonstrate how proponents of trans exclusion rely on flawed or inconclusive science, selectively employed to support their purported goal of 'protecting women's sport'. Politicians in the US, UK, and elsewhere who have shown little interest in women or in sport exploit the issue to advance broader conservative agendas, while hostile mainstream and social media coverage exacerbates the problem.Bringing insights from sociology, philosophy, science and law, contributors present cogent analyses of these developments and explore the way forward, providing thoughtful and original recommendations for changes to policies and practices that are inclusive, innovative and democratic.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can cause significant social, communication and behavioural challenges. Introducing Therapeutic Robotics for Autism is the first book to explore the use of Robot Assisted Therapies (RAT) for children with ASD.Raheel Nawaz and Sara Ali present a holistic picture, exploring state-of-the-art robot assisted therapies available for supporting children with ASD, the impact of various robot assisted therapies on different communication skills, and challenges with robotic therapies. The book concludes with policy recommendations for parents, psychologists, therapists, and roboticists working in the domain. Written accessibly from the user's perspective, Introducing Therapeutic Robotics for Autism is a must read for researchers from related disciplinary backgrounds including robotics, educational psychology, cognitive sciences, and ASD.

COVID-19 has exposed and exacerbated entrenched inequities spawned by the historical and structural reality of bigotry, prejudice, discrimination, and inequity in all forms, and at institutional and individual levels. It is perceived that higher education institutions also perpetuates these inequities, which is fuelled by prevailing misconceptions, such as "e;college should be limited to the privileged few"e;; or that "e;community colleges are in some way 'inferior'."e;Recognizing Promise re-establishes the role community colleges can play in reversing centuries of racial and gender disparities in economic wealth, health, education, and life expectancy stemming from current and historical policies and practices that sustain structural racism. The result is a more civic-minded, educated citizenry and a stronger workforce of tomorrow.Educators in the community college space, in partnership with business, industry and philanthropic leaders, can lead the way in reasserting commitment toward eradicating racism and sustaining reform that advocates inclusive excellence, educational access and programmatic diversity, and the alignment of learning with opportunities in the workplace.

Wellness has become synonymous with yoga, meditation, and other forms of self-care. Over the past 60 years, what began as an alternative to mainstream medicine has coalesced with consumer culture and has been commercialised to such an extent that the term is now synonymous with an industry of exclusive products and services.This book traces the emergence of wellness culture as a countercultural movement to a trillion-dollar industry, examining the social, economic and political conditions that enabled wellness to assume mainstream cultural significance. It explores the role of the internet in making wellness more accessible to consumers, while simultaneously questioning who wields influence in these digital spaces. A must read for anyone interested in learning about wellness and its online penetration, Wellness Culture offers an in-depth yet accessible examination of how wellness has been weaponised during the COVID-19 pandemic to spread medical misinformation, conspiratorial thinking and political extremism.

Exploring the Latest Trends in Management Literature presents cutting edge literature reviews on the emerging concepts, theories, and research trends across management disciplines. Areas examined in exploratory chapters include general management and public policy, finance and economics, marketing, human resource management, operations and information system management, and international business, strategy, and entrepreneurship. Writing in an engaging yet authoritative way, the study enables readers to gain quick insights in research trends and developments across subject areas while providing extensive information and guidance for those researchers seeking to explore further research.Areas examined in exploratory chapters include general management and public policy, finance and economics, marketing, human resource management, operations and information system management, and international business, strategy, and entrepreneurship. Writing in an engaging yet authoritative way, the study enables readers to gain quick insights in research trends and developments across subject areas while providing extensive information and guidance for those researchers seeking explore further research directions in this fields.Review of Management Literature is a multi-disciplinary series presenting unique, ground-breaking literature reviews and examinations of new and emerging trends in research across the management discipline and beyond.

Connecting the constructs of meaning and experience in the fields of English education, teacher education, literacy and narrative inquiry, Making Meaning with Readers and Texts materializes new insights for advancing teacher education research, broadening understandings of teachers' use of literacy practices for making meaning from classroom events.Exploring new possibilities for framing and reframing learning to teach, Edge advances teacher education research through longitudinal inquiry into beginning teachers' meaning making from classroom events. Novel applications of theory combined with field-based research advances the development of conceptual and practical frameworks for teaching and teacher education. Documenting meaning-making as prospective teachers transition into teaching, extending seminal theories from language arts, reading, and literacy to teacher education, Making Meaning with Readers and Texts advances a new theory for how teachers can fully utilize literacy skills in and for their teaching practices.Reconsidering well-documented problems in preparing teachers and reimagining teaching as reading and composing-curriculum, identity, relationships - Making Meaning with Readers and Texts is crucial reading for teacher educators, English educators, and literacy scholars.

As complex, large institutions, universities present unique challenges for leaders. What is the nature of leadership for the 21st century? Should universities continue to rely predominantly on recruiting from within or should university leaders be drawn from wider professional fields and industries? How should such leaders be developed and supported? What does the existing research tell us about all of these questions, and what further research needs to be done?International Perspectives on Leadership in Higher Education examines how contemporary leaders in higher education - in different disciplines, at different levels and in different parts of the world - are identified, developed and supported. Employing a mixture of theoretical, practical and personal perspectives, it shows how notions and expectations of leadership in higher education are changing, discusses the varied reasons behind these trends, and speculates on possible future developments.International Perspectives on Leadership in Higher Education is essential reading for new and aspiring leaders in higher education worldwide, as well as for those responsible for selecting and supporting leaders to thrive in a higher education environment.

Biopolitics at 50 Years: Founding and Evolution explores the study of biology and politics through the prism of fifty years of experience presenting current research that illustrates the nature and evolution of biopolitics.Containing substantive chapters that address many issues using different methodologies, Biopolitics at 50 Years draws on different theoretical perspectives to advance the field. Beginning with a reflection on the origin and scholarly emphasises of biopolitics and concludes with future prospects in the field, this 13th volume of Research in Biopolitics explores the broad scale theoretical consideration of politics based on evolutionary factors affecting the political realm physiological factors affecting political behavior, public policy issues affected by biology and how human nature affects outcomes of policy making.

HRM practitioners and academics have been blindsided by unprecedented changes in the global war on talent. In response, Global Talent Management During Times of Uncertainty offers a multi-disciplinary perspective that identifies emerging global issues and new strategic and research approaches.This volume explores uncertain contexts related to socio-political and socio-economic change. Chapters investigate how rapidly evolving national policies and social and cultural contexts influence the attraction, management, and retention of mobile talent, and consider how such uncertainty may continue to affect post-pandemic global talent management (GTM). Manuscripts in this global volume touch on diverse cultural and geographic contexts, including Canada, the United States, Brazil, Russia, the Ukraine, Norway, Denmark, China, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.Authors highlight how GTM is influenced by disinformation, cultural differences, and multiple business environments. Scholars identify the importance of cross-disciplinary talent strategies involving military leadership principles when facing uncertainty caused by macro events. GTM practices may not work effectively in a local context but political city initiatives provide avenues for shared regional talent strategies.We delve into perspectives of sustainability, including: the loss of highly skilled workers to more developed countries, the underutilization of skilled immigrants, the retention of post-pandemic healthcare workers, the cultural differences leading to misunderstanding of justice perceptions, and the lasting effects of war and the pandemic on GTM.

Logistics are a critical element in the planning and realization of any large-scale event. Managing Global Sport Events: Logistics and Coordination provides a critical look behind the scenes of these large-scale sport events by combining the previously separate but inextricably bound areas of sport, logistics and coordination management.The coordination and logistics activities behind global sports events such as the Olympic Games or Formula 1 Championships are unparalleled, but have largely been ignored by scholars around the world. Managing Global Sport Events presents the latest developments in this intriguing area of study, offering insights from a team of experts across sport, event, and logistics management.This first volume of the ground-breaking Sports Management series enters unchartered territory and advances our inter-disciplinary knowledge across sport, event and logistics studies, informing both contemporary sport management theory and practice.

In this latest volume of the Critical Perspectives on International Public Sector Management series, Professors John Diamond and Joyce Liddle have gathered leading scholars and new research to help discern some immediate areas of public policy making that have been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. With this new profoundly different context, "e;business as normal"e; is seen as no longer viable.Reimagining Public Sector Management delves into the crisis and emergency management of the pandemic, exploring the ways in which different agencies responded to the pandemic and the lessons learnt in terms of disaster planning and co-ordination. Chapters analyse the ways in which health services and the associated work linked to vaccine development provided significant lessons for those involved in public policy making and analysis before highlighting the emergence of a new consensus on the role of public agencies and institutions could play in the post pandemic environment as captured in the slogan "e;Build Back Better"e;.

While past public crises were addressed by focusing on protecting the public safety and maintaining public order, public crises today, such as the COVID-19 outbreak, require different responses and face more challenges. Crisis Communication in China examines crisis communication strategies taken by the Chinese government during public crises and discusses how the public react to these strategies, exploring the cultural context and the development of digital media as critical factors underlying the strategies adopted.Much of the previous research on crisis communication in China adopted Coombs' Situational Crisis Communication Theory. However, as a theory proposed and developed in the West, its application in a non-Western culture requires testing. In addition, cultural influences and the role of digital technology have been discussed in some existing literature, but few studies have attempted to integrate these elements into crisis communication theories. In order to fill these two gaps, this research analyses the Chinese government's crisis communication strategies during the H7N9 crisis, examining not only the government's management of the crisis but also the public's reaction to the official communication process. It also explores the cultural context and the development of digital media as critical factors underlying the strategies adopted. The analysis contributes to development of a comprehensive theory that incorporates these two elements, which shows and identifies related crisis communication strategies emerged from cultural traditions and the development of digital media.

This volume contains an Open Access Chapter.i Authenticity has become a buzzword for our times. Much of the travel industry is built around the provision of 'authentic' experiences, global brands fight to be seen as 'authentic' and social media platforms are awash with arguments about the authenticity of this post or that vlogger. But what do we mean by authenticity? And why have these debates grown so dramatically in the last two decades?This collection explores the complex and at times controversial idea of authenticity. Addressing the concept from an interdisciplinary perspective and offering a diverse range of topical cases, the authors bring together the latest empirical and conceptual scholarship addressing authenticity and its centrality to debates about contemporary culture, media and society. In this way, the authors are able to pinpoint the growing significance of the concept of authenticity, the various ways in which different disciplines approach the topic, and possible ways of advancing the field across disciplines.With sections covering travel and tourism, branding and marketing, popular culture, social media and political communication this exciting and innovative collection will make fascinating and crucial reading for scholars and students across the social sciences and humanities, and helps to define what these different disciplines mean by authenticity.

We live in an increasingly interdependent and interconnected world. The COVID-19 crisis has provided a stark reminder of the enormous educational inequities within and across countries around the globe. Featuring international language and literacy researchers who apply various tenets of global meaning making to disrupt and interrogate contradictions and tensions in global scholarship, Global Meaning Making focuses on a model of interrogating international literacy research and pedagogical pursuits with the ultimate goal of transforming how we engage in global endeavours. Organized around three major themes: Literacy Programs, Policies and Curriculum; Language of Instruction Policies and Practices and Engaging in Global Literacies, chapter authors reimagine global approaches that respect the histories, ways of knowing, needs, hopes and values of voices beyond the western, including those from the Global South: Asia, Africa, Oceania, and South and Central Americas. Each chapter outlines research the chapter authors are conducting or have conducted and describes implications for how their work utilizes tenets of global meaning making.

'Rough sex' has been at the forefront of criminal law in recent years following several high-profile murders of women killed during alleged consensual sex 'gone wrong', leading to widespread calls for reform to prevent the use of what has been termed the 'rough sex defence.' Situated in a global context in which violence against women is one of the leading preventable contributors to death and illness for women aged 18-44 worldwide, this timely collection examines the rough sex defence and responds to some of the wider debates around sex and the law.Drawing on a range of empirical and theoretical standpoints, chapters delve into a range of topics including the female experience of 'unwanted' slapping, choking and spitting during sex, the BDSM community, the impacts of pornography, the normalization and sexualization of violence against women, early depictions of BDSM involving the eroticization of non-consensual relations, problematic perceptions of BDSM as inherently violent, and more.Bows and Herring expertly collate a wide-reaching mix of perspectives to contribute to a powerful feminist investigation of this critical issue. It is a compelling read for scholars interested in the intersection of sex, the law, and the criminal justice system.

In this 37th issue of the Research in Political Economy series, Jan Toporowski and leading experts offer a unique and insightful overview of Polish Marxism after Luxemburg, serving as an introduction to some key themes and the ideas of several Polish political economists.Polish Marxism after Luxemburg covers various ideas that emerged around the same period as Rosa Luxemburg was active, such as Ludwik Krzywicki who pioneered the study of monopoly finance capital and suggested the possibility of industrial feudalism. Chapters illustrate the current relevance of these thinkers and highlight the development from Polish Marxism of MichaA Kalecki and Oskar Lange, who went on to become one of the founders of what came to be called the Keynesian Revolution in macroeconomics and economic policy. After exploring the relationship of Kalecki to Marxism, through the work of Luxemburg. Polish Marxism after Luxemburg also illuminates a selection of Polish discussions in the political economy from the second half of the twentieth century, particularly in the circle of political economists around Oskar Lange, like WA odzimierz Brus and Tadeusz Kowalik.

For the first time in human history, more people inhabit urban than rural areas. Investigating the experience of hunger and malnutrition in urban spaces, Food and Agriculture in Urbanized Societies confronts the persistence of social inequalities, constant waves of economic crises and accelerating climate shifts, asking, how and to what extent food systems will recover and rebuild after the unprecedented eruption of a pandemic? An in-depth diagnosis of the state of the art of the current and dominant agri-food system, the broad and diverse collective intelligence in this edited collection proposes alternatives for change and redesign, bringing together a set of pioneering ideas and solutions to old and new problems. From environmental regeneration and the quality of food to the nutritional, political and economic perspective, the chapters culminate with the focus on developing a more integrative and systematic approach towards urban and rural areas.Inspiring innovative and sustainable practices, governance perspectives and informing public policies, Food and Agriculture in Urbanized Societies offers the most current research on urbanized agriculture to truly provide 'pathways for a better future' to foster more equitable and fair societies.

Embodied encounters with death affect humans deeply, with the power to crush, transform and strengthen individuals and relationships. Understanding that these encounters often have a musical accompaniment, this edited collection offers a range of critical, analytic, discursive and personal reflections on how music provides both a container and a medium for experiencing, processing and integrating embodied encounters with death.The collection showcases new and original interdisciplinary case studies written by authors from several different countries across Australia, France, The Netherlands, Poland and the UK. Taking an international, interdisciplinary and inclusive approach, this carefully curated collection elaborates embodied encounters with death through music across a variety of praxes and disciplines such as death & grief, queer studies, disability, philosophy, and more. Providing a mix of personal perspectives and insights on the impact of music and death alongside more conventional academic studies, the chapters reveal how music and human nature are intimately, and bodily, entwined.Framed by opening and closing chapters written by the team of three editors, this core text in the field provides a unique overview of the implications and ramifications of the embodiment of death through music and the musicalisation of death through the body, and signposts possibilities for further research.

Acting as a bridge between the academic and policymaking communities, Young, Gifted and Missing sets the stage for addressing critical issues around why African American men are absent in the STEM disciplines. The authors track the experiences of African American male students in STEM at every level of the educational system in order to produce successful models of achievement. The number of African American males who enroll in STEM degree programs as opposed to the lower numbers that ultimately graduate portends poorly for U.S. communities and democracy.The road to economic success and global participation requires a rich, educated community that must include African American males.There is a state of urgency to address this critical challenge.Action must happen now. An educated public, not just for some, but one for all is a must.Graduate students in STEM, education, and business disciplines, as well as executive leadership in education, corporate and non-profit entities stand to benefit from reading this volume. Lastly, those looking to research the successes of African American males in STEM disciplines would find this book purposeful.

A 'good woman' is hard to find. To be 'good', after all, women face expectations that are shifting, internally contradictory, emotionally extreme, and prospectively even deadly. To be divergent, on the other hand, is an expansive position, encompassing cackling witches, childfree women, struggling mothers, insecure teenagers, and persecuted innocents. Exploring divergent women from a variety of critical and creative perspectives, this edited collection puts forth a dialogic discussion of how non-conforming women are coded as 'evil', and asks, what happens when women choose to be divergent?Delving into reflective and auto-ethnographic perspectives which explore subjective responses to the influence of the representation and treatment of evil women, Divergent Women is ultimately a celebratory reclamation of the concept of feminine transgression.Featuring perspectives from North Korea to Victorian England, from Biblical to digital narratives, this boundary breaking text demonstrates that divergent women have complex inner lives, agencies, and a unique ability to inspire other women to resist social sanctions. Encompassing global perspectives and bringing together artistic and academic work, the authors invite readers to explore the possibilities for divergence that exist under the label of womanhood.

The family business arena is dynamic. Family business owners, managers, and practitioners need to be aware of changing management approaches, processes, and strategies to allow them to respond to global competition in an increasingly chaotic world - as emphasised by the COVID-19 pandemic - whilst maintaining their businesses unique character, culture, and attributes. Family Business Debates provides a novel, ground-breaking approach to diverse and contemporary topics in current business management research, focusing on family enterprises to study both the positive and negative aspects of such commercial structures.Each chapter explores specific themes as they relate to family businesses and the authors developing a comprehensive and far-reaching perspective of family businesses from experts around the world, showcasing highly controversial topics in today's global debate within family business and management.Offering unrivalled coverage of contemporary aspects of family business, Family Business Debates offers a unique focus on theory and applied research in family firms, particularly considering and reviewing the impact of research on policy and practice globally. It aims to communicate the latest family business research and knowledge worldwide for the benefit of scholars and family business practitioners.

Contemporary Approaches Studying Customer Experience in Tourism Research develops approaches and related methods to understand, analyze, and evaluate the tourist consumption experience under its different forms and stages (before, during and after the experience), offering a broader view by integrating the tourist/customer experience in its development while also considering the role of tourism stakeholders.Embracing the extremities of Customer Experience (CX) and studying its multiple sides through innovative methodological and conceptual frameworks, the volume also provides an in-depth literature review of CX and discusses vital related concepts as the case of consumer value. Contemporary Approaches Studying Customer Experience in Tourism Research also explores the adoption and the implementation of approaches to managing and marketing customer experiences across varied tourism contexts, with an emphasis on revisited interpretive, behavioral, and organizational approaches, highlighting the power of combining qualitative techniques to draw the complexity of the consumption experience. Also laid out are new analytical frameworks related to studying memorable tourist experiences in both digital and offline tourism journeys have attributed a broader consideration of the consumption experience in tourism research.

Taking forward the notion of the scholar without borders, International Environments and Practices of Higher Education provides a critical review of the teaching practices in higher education in international contexts. Sticky problems and debates about inclusivity, diversity, and cultural representation in the curriculum and classroom are explored through the eyes of the academics who negotiate complex teaching landscapes either on a temporary or permanent basis. The aspiration for universal nuanced teaching practices which reflect individual and national identities, along with newly emerging global ones that represent virtual academic citizenship that cross geographical and political borders, are presented as a foundation on which to instil borderless higher education.

Rapid growth in the tourism and hospitality industry highlights the importance of applied and pure research to address the theoretical and practical problems and gaps facing the industry daily, from a multitude of perspectives - the economic, social, cultural, environmental, political, and technological. Advanced Research Methods in Hospitality and Tourism reviews traditional research methods, revising them to suit the contemporary problems and research agendas.Developing recent research strategies under the umbrella of quantitative and qualitative research methods - such as the mixed-methods designs, analysing archival materials, online databases, text mining, and scientific qualitative analysis of social media historical data- can offer promising solutions.In the era of technology and big data, advanced and innovative research methods and conducting effective research to solve emerging problems in tourism and hospitality is critical, making Advanced Research Methods in Hospitality and Tourism a necessity for academics and practitioners.

Lying at the heart of the modern Action Cinema Canon is the concept of transformation. As the action genre evolves and shifts into the new millennia, innovative additions blend with nostalgic returns - the move away from a male-dominated space to feature even more prominent female roles co-exists alongside a revival of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton, and series such as Rocky and Rambo return to the screens. Gender and Action Films 2000 and Beyond: Transformations captures and explores the nuanced and complex nature of change within Action Cinema.Dealing with the notion of aging, the chapter authors consider how action heroes confront and cope with getting older. Expanding the foundation of research on geriaction stars, the advantages of mature masculinity contrasts with themes of masculine fragility. Viewing the action genre through a feminist lens, this edited collection traces the evolution of the representation of women, suggesting how such roles may develop in the future. Finally, a consideration of the post-millennial boom of movie backdrops in turmoil analyses how such pieces question and contribute to debates on global political and social issues.Gender and Action Films 2000 and Beyond: Transformations looks at Action Cinema from the old to the new, offering an exciting interrogation of the portrayal of gender in the new millennia. A necessity for academics, students and lovers of film and media and those interested in gender studies.

The noughties witnessed rapid change in Action Cinema, carrying with it the new action stars of the previous decade, and the boundary blurring experimentation of films such as The Matrix, that incorporated not only action but science fiction. The now dominant Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) debuted, and the Young Adult fictional worlds of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games further developed the scope of the action sequences. Despite this context, the action genre had still not engaged fully with contemporary social issues.Focusing on a less acknowledged period in Action Cinema history, Gender and Action Films: Road Warriors, Bombshells and Atomic Blondes examines specific action stars such as Michelle Rodriguez, Zhang Ziyi, and Pam Grier to analyse how female stars encounter the male gaze. Split into four parts - 'Star Bodies', 'Transmedia Action', 'Intergenerational Action' and 'Politics and Race', chapter authors prioritise female led action movies and champion a more meaningful interaction and representation between the action genre and contemporary issues of race, sexuality, and gender.Offering novel interpretations of depictions of gender within action movies, this edited collection demonstrates gender portrayal can be developed to incorporate meaningful representation in the wake of the movements such as #Oscarssowhite or #MeToo that have confronted Hollywood. The collection is a must-have for academics, students and lovers of film and media and those interested in gender studies.