The Makings of a Project Queen


Book Description

“The broken pieces of a Black woman. Shattered by the neglect of a Black man. It’s too much pressure to save her. So, he turns his head. Acting as if he don’t see her pain, While all she needed was his hand.” In her debut poetic memoir, “The Makings of a Project Queen,” Blossom relives a path of self-discovery, empowerment, and healing as she shines a light on key issues impacting inner-city Black girls today. She uses a collection of poems and short behind-the-scenes stories to take others on an inspirational journey of a hood scholar who forged her own path as a community-based educator and scholar-activist. Through the book, she emerges as a Project Queen. Growing up in South Sacramento, Denisha “Coco” Blossom had to navigate gang territories, drugs, poverty, hustle, and power plays. She survived immense heartbreak, broken relationships, body shaming, and hopelessness. At a young age, she internalized the notion that, as an impoverished fat Black girl, her choices in life were limited. Despite these adversities, through engagement with poetry, education, street literacy, and faith, she exceeded all of the low expectations – especially those that came from her teachers. Instead of succumbing to her circumstances, she grew into a Queen. She lifted her head, reclaimed her crown, and became the author of her own life. The makings of a Project Queen is a powerful story that will encourage women and girls everywhere to fix their crown, walk-in their queendom, and embark on their own journey to self-discovery and fulfilling their greatest life purpose.




The Making of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park


Book Description

This is the story of The Making of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park by the Olympic Delivery Authority. Situated in east London adjacent to Victoria Park, one of the world’s earliest public parks built in the 19th century, the Park provides an innovative blueprint for contemporary urban park design and is recognised as an exemplar sustainable development for the 21st century. As a primary legacy of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Park was conceived as a new piece of sustainable city, transforming a largely neglected, contaminated, post-industrial district, into a new community for up to 20,000 residents, shifting the centre of gravity of London eastwards. Written by those at the heart of the project, it draws significantly on contributions from the many experts who have shaped and guided the creation of the Park, including interviews with the key players responsible for delivering the project. It provides the only authoritative account of the planning, design and construction of the Park beginning with the bid to host the games, setting out its historical, philosophical and physical context; describing the strategic fit within the Thames Gateway, Lower Lea Valley and Stratford City; explaining how One Planet Living principles developed by WWF and BioRegional underpinned sustainability throughout the project; and concludes with a ‘Walk in Park’ capturing its essence for both Games and Legacy. Richly illustrated, it is a unique reference for those involved in the planning, design, delivery and management of sustainable urban parks and new communities on post-industrial and other land, and those seeking to host future Games and other large-scale international events.




Korean Musical Drama: P'ansori and the Making of Tradition in Modernity


Book Description

P’ansori is the quintessential traditional Korean musical drama, in which epic tales are sung and narrated by a solo singer accompanied by a drummer. Drawing on her extensive research in Korea and its diasporas, Haekyung Um describes and analyses the creative processes of p’ansori, weaving into her discussion musical, social and cultural aspects that include the evolution of p’ansori performance, origins and historical development, textual and musical materials, stylistic features of different p’ansori schools, transmission of knowledge, aesthetics, and changing interpretations of tradition. Also explored is the complexity of historical and contemporary influences that give shape to p’ansori as a ‘living tradition’ across the ages and into the present, and as a cultural icon with an enduring narrative and emotional impact. Social, economic and political dynamics are created in the nexus of traditional feudal values, colonial modernity and nationalism. The impact of aspects of late modernity such as technology, mass media, migration and globalization, has transported p’ansori into digital and transnational domains. By bringing all these creative and contextual processes together, Haekyung Um explains how a tradition is created, maintained and redefined by the dynamic interactions of agents, values, meanings, strategies, identities and artistic hybridity.




Korean Musical Drama: P'ansori and the Making of Tradition in Modernity


Book Description

P’ansori is the quintessential traditional Korean musical drama, in which epic tales are sung and narrated by a solo singer accompanied by a drummer. Drawing on her extensive research in Korea and its diasporas, Haekyung Um describes and analyses the creative processes of p’ansori, weaving into her discussion musical, social and cultural aspects that include the evolution of p’ansori performance, origins and historical development, textual and musical materials, stylistic features of different p’ansori schools, transmission of knowledge, aesthetics, and changing interpretations of tradition. Also explored is the complexity of historical and contemporary influences that give shape to p’ansori as a ’living tradition’ across the ages and into the present, and as a cultural icon with an enduring narrative and emotional impact. Social, economic and political dynamics are created in the nexus of traditional feudal values, colonial modernity and nationalism. The impact of aspects of late modernity such as technology, mass media, migration and globalization, has transported p’ansori into digital and transnational domains. By bringing all these creative and contextual processes together, Haekyung Um explains how a tradition is created, maintained and redefined by the dynamic interactions of agents, values, meanings, strategies, identities and artistic hybridity.




Royal tourists, colonial subjects and the making of a British world, 1860–1911


Book Description

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This study examines the ritual space of nineteenth-century royal tours of empire and the diverse array of historical actors who participated in them. It suggests that the varied responses to the royal tours of the nineteenth century demonstrate how a multi-centred British imperial culture was forged in the empire and was constantly made and remade, appropriated and contested. In this context, subjects of empire provincialised the British Isles, centring the colonies in their political and cultural constructions of empire, Britishness, citizenship and loyalty.







The Making of a King


Book Description

The dramatic story of the new king’s evolution over the past year from Prince of Wales to King Charles III, from one of the most acclaimed royal biographers writing today. No British monarch has had a tougher act to follow. Now, after seventy years of waiting and preparation, King Charles III is not just the head of the most famous family in the world. He is the custodian of a thousand-year-old institution which must redefine its place in the digital age while others insist on rewriting the past. With unrivaled access to the king, the royal family, and the court, leading royal authority Robert Hardman brings us the inside story on the most pivotal and challenging year for the monarchy in living memory. From the death of Elizabeth II through to the ancient spectacle of the Coronation, from the rise of a new Prince and Princess of Wales to the latest "truth bombs" from the Sussexes, this is the story of the making of a monarch.




The Making of Crusading Heroes and Villains


Book Description

Engaging the Crusades is a series of volumes which offer windows into a newly emerging field of historical study: the memory and legacy of the crusades. Together these volumes examine the reasons behind the enduring resonance of the crusades and present the memory of crusading in the modern period as a productive, exciting, and much needed area of investigation. This new volume explores the ways in which significant crusading figures have been employed as heroes and villains, and by whom. Each chapter analyses a case study relating to a key historical figure including the First Crusader Tancred; ‘villains’ Reynald of Châtillon and Conrad of Montferrat; the oft-overlooked Queen Melisende of Jerusalem; the entangled memories of Richard ‘the Lionheart’ and Saladin; and the appropriation of St Louis IX by the British. Through fresh approaches, such as a new translation of the inscriptions on the wreath laid on Saladin’s tomb by Kaiser Wilhelm II, this book represents a significant cutting-edge intervention in thinking about memory, crusader medievalism, and the processes of making heroes and villains. The Making of Crusading Heroes and Villains is the perfect tool for scholars and students of the crusades, and for historians concerned with the development of reputations and memory.




The Making of Disney's Jungle Cruise


Book Description

Like the famed theme park attraction and brand-new feature film that this volume examines, The Making of Disney’s Jungle Cruise takes readers on a unique and fascinating journey. It’s an odyssey through the history and legacy of one of the most original ideas ever to come out of Walt Disney’s fertile mind, first planned for the opening of his revolutionary new theme park in 1955. This book travels from the debut of what was called the Jungle River Cruise on Disneyland’s opening day, through the arrival at long last of the thrilling feature film starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt and directed by Jaume Collet-Serra.On Disneyland’s opening day of July 17, 1955, the park’s first guests boarded authentically styled riverboats to take the first Jungle Cruises. This unique riverboat-themed attraction in Adventureland takes visitors on a short journey down expertly simulated versions of the most prominent tropical rivers of the world, including the Amazon and the Nile, to witness wild animals, exotic sights, and thrills only a handful of intrepid real-world explorers had experienced in the past. A hilarious (and “punny”) Jungle Cruise skipper narrates all the sights and action from beginning to end. This Jungle Cruise experience would ultimately be woven into three other Disney parks, where the ride was likewise an opening-day attraction—simulating comedic high-adventure cruises through rivers in the continents of South America, Africa, and Asia. Fast-forward decades and, at long last, production on the movie commenced. The project was influenced by director Jaume Collet-Serra’s love of The African Queen, Indiana Jones films, and Romancing the Stone, among others, and built on the foundation of key elements of the theme park attraction. From the re-creation of the Amazon River to the film’s hilarious take on famous skipper puns and the reams of Easter eggs for longtime fans, the Jungle Cruise movie captures the same excitement and joy as the theme park attraction, and