 | Diana and Beyond: White Femininity, National Identity, and Contemporary Media Culture Subjects: Diana Princess of Wales 1961–1997 -- Influence.; Diana Princess of Wales 1961–1997 -- In mass media; Women White -- Great Britain -- Social conditions; National characteristics British -- History -- 20th century; Popular culture -- Great Britain --; The death of Princess Diana unleashed an international outpouring of grief, love, and press attention virtually unprecedented in history. Yet the exhaustive effort to link an upper class white British woman with "the people" raisesnbsp;questions. What narrative of white femininity transformed Diana into a simultaneous signifier of a nationalnbsp; and global popular? What ideologies did the narrative tap into to transform her into an idealized woman of the millennium? Why would a similar idealization not have appeared around a non-white, non-Western, or immigrant woman? nbsp; Raka Shome investigates the factors that led to this defining cultural/political moment and unravels just what the Diana phenomenon represented for comprehending the relation between white femininity and the nation in nbsp;postcolonial Britain and its connection to othernbsp;white female celebrity figures in the millennium. nbsp;nbsp;Digging into the media and cultural artifacts that circulated in the wake of Diana's death, Shome investigates a range of theoretical issues surrounding motherhood and the production of national masculinities, global humanitarianism, transnational masculinities, the intersection of fashion and white femininity, andnbsp;spirituality and national modernity. Her analysis explores how images of white femininity in popular culture intersect with issues of race, nbsp;gender, class, sexuality, and transnationality in the performance of Anglo national modernities.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; nbsp; Moving from ideas on the positioning of privileged white women in global neoliberalism to the emergence of new formations of white femininity in the millenniumnbsp;, nbsp; Diana and Beyond fearlessly explains the late princess's never-ending renaissance and ongoing cultural relevance. nbsp; nbsp; Raka Shome is a media, communication, and cultural studies scholar. She has held faculty appointments at the London School of Economics, Arizona State University, the University of Washington, and served as the 2011-12 Inaugural Harron Family (Visiting) Endowed Chair of Communication at Villanova University. |
