Bloomsbury Collections - Topics in Focus Archive
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TOPICS IN FOCUS ARCHIVE

Each month, Bloomsbury Collections offers free access to scholarly and reference content exploring a relevant topic. Explore past topics below and be sure to check back each month to discover more resources from our ever-expanding library.

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Religion

This month, Bloomsbury Collections features titles on topics in religion. Explore the titles below to learn about religion in different areas of study and culture.


This image shows the cover of Judaism, History, and the Environment: Climate Change and Natural Disasters.

Climate Change

This book explores the interplay between history, Judaism, and the environment through the prism of natural disasters. Its timely and important argument demonstrates how a new engagement with Jewish history and thought may help us to grapple with the environmental challenges of today and the future.

Read this chapter to examine earthquakes in medieval and early modern history, with a special focus on Jewish responses to earthquakes in mid-eighteenth-century England. The chapter includes discussions about earthquakes in the Bible, rabbinic thought, and scientific and philosophical writing in Late Antiquity. The experiences of people in the past provide us with important lessons on how to understand and respond to disasters when they happen and how to prepare for them before they occur.



This image shows the cover of Solidarity and Power: Feminist Approaches to Religious Ethics.

Feminism

Solidarity and Power: Feminist Approaches to Religious Ethics explores questions and debates that have long perplexed religious ethicists, such as the relationship between descriptive (“how do we act?”) and normative (“how should we act?”) inquiry, and how those can be productively addressed by drawing on resources from feminist work. It also highlights case studies from different religious communities on moral issues to demonstrate how feminist approaches provide innovative responses to contemporary questions.

In this chapter, Audre Lorde is uplifted as a feminist and Black freedom movement activist who developed psychological and emotional capacities for engaging nuanced dynamics in grassroots political communities. Though Lorde did not self-identify as a Buddhist, she is a cutting-edge voice who illuminates Buddhist doctrines and practices that buttress and sustain the difficult work of dismantling systems of oppression while cultivating respectful, enduring solidarity and community.



This image shows the cover of Blurring the Boundaries of Religion and Popular Culture: Implicit Theology, Secular Spirituality, and Speculative Fiction.

Popular Culture

In an era shaped by increasing levels of religious non-affiliation and social polarization, this book explores religious ideas and practices that empower practitioners to meet universal yet deeply personal human needs and desires by engaging with popular culture. Employing theoretical lenses of implicit theology and secular spirituality, it blurs the boundaries between religion and popular culture to develop meaning-making in science fiction, fantasy, and horror media.

This chapter offers a consideration of secular spirituality in Season 1 of the Apple TV+ series Severance using the apparatus of the Split, a tactic that separates and compartmentalizes the sacred and the secular from each other.



This image shows the cover of Interpreting the Bible and the Qur’an through Love: Scripture, Love, and Hermeneutics.

Love

Through surveying the ways in which love was used to make sense of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Scriptures, Interpreting the Bible and the Qur’an through Love: Scripture, Love, and Hermeneutics advocates and argues for a hermeneutical approach that reads the Bible and the Qur’an through the lens of love. Engaging various exegetical authorities from the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions, it identifies numerous cases of love-informed exegesis covering diverse themes and techniques.

This chapter explores God’s love through a series of readings in biblical and Qurʾānic texts, showing the ways through which God’s love is represented in the Bible and the Qurʾān and how it has been derived and interpreted by the exegetical traditions even when the scriptural texts are not explicit on the theme of love.



This image shows the cover of Queer Religiosities: An Introduction to Queer and Transgender Studies in Religion.

Gender and Sexuality

Queer Religiosities is the first comprehensive, comparative, and globally focused introduction to queer and transgender studies in religion. Addressing sophisticated topics in clear and accessible language, award-winning teacher and scholar Melissa M. Wilcox brings her engaging lecture style into conversation with the work of scholars around the globe to welcome students into these rapidly growing fields.

This chapter explores stories, as they are related to religion and queer communities, and the intersection of both, identifying four types of stories that characterize the relationships between queer people, transgender people, and religion.

Brookings Institution Press®

This month Bloomsbury Collections features titles from Brookings Institution Press. The Brookings Institution Press® is the renowned publishing arm of the Brookings Institution, a leading think tank in Washington, D.C. Brookings and its scholars are known worldwide as a trusted resource for rigorous research and innovative ideas across fields.

This image shows the cover of Digitally Invisible: How the Internet Is Creating the New Underclass.

Digitally Invisible: How the Internet Is Creating the New Underclass

In Digitally Invisible, Nicol Turner Lee, a leading expert on the American digital divide, uses personal stories from individuals around the country to show how the emerging digital underclass is navigating the spiraling online economy, while sharing their joys and hopes for an equitable and just future.

In this chapter, learn about digital redlining and the digital divide as it relates to other systems of oppression such as housing inequities and insecurities.



This image shows the cover of New Pathways to Job Creation and Development in Africa: The Promise of Industries without Smokestacks.

New Pathways to Job Creation and Development in Africa: The Promise of Industries without Smokestacks

This book presents research on the prospects for large-scale job creation through the development of ‘industries without smokestacks’ including tourism, agro-processing, horticulture, and services that has revealed a promising path forward. It is the first to document the potential for non-traditional industries to address the formal sector job creation.

This chapter discusses the importance of improving employment opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the world’s youngest region.



This image shows the cover of The Rise of the Global Middle Class: How the Search for the Good Life Can Change the World.

The Rise of the Global Middle Class: How the Search for the Good Life Can Change the World

The Rise of the Global Middle Class traces the history of the middle class from its origins in Victorian England to present day India. It looks at how this powerful dream captivated generations through history, but its demands have led younger generations to ask if it is all worth it. Can the middle class continue to thrive, or will it falter under the stresses of automation, consumerism, pollution, and political strife?

In 1975, the number of people in the global middle class topped one billion. Two-thirds of them lived in Europe and North America. Read this chapter to learn the story of the first billion people in the middle class and the economic development and growth in these two regions of the world.



This image shows the cover of For the World’s Profit: How Business Can Support Sustainable Development.

For the World’s Profit: How Business Can Support Sustainable Development

For the World’s Profit brings together distinguished corporate, investor, government, academic, and nonprofit perspectives to consider how the pursuit of business profits can better add up to the world's profit.

This chapter provides insight into the intersection of business and sustainable development and context around the role of business in society and how that role continues to evolve.



This image shows the cover of Techlash: Who Makes the Rules in the Digital Gilded Age?.

Techlash: Who Makes the Rules in the Digital Gilded Age?

Techlash connects the experiences of the late 19th century’s industrial Gilded Age with its echoes in the 21st-century digital Gilded Age. With the Industrial Revolution and the Gilded Age that it created, new digital technology has changed commerce and culture, creating great wealth in the process, all while being essentially unsupervised.

According to a 2021 survey, 64 percent of Americans think the government should do more to regulate how internet companies handle privacy issues. Learn about data privacy and the collection and exploitation of personal information in the digital world in this chapter.



Elections and Organized Politics

This month Bloomsbury Collections features titles on elections. Explore titles below to learn more about elections, voting, organized politics, and political campaigns from a few different places around the world, some of which have recent or upcoming elections or have announced changes to voting laws.


This image shows the cover of Truth in Advertising?: Lies in Political Advertising and How They Affect the Electorate.

Truth in Advertising?: Lies in Political Advertising and How They Affect the Electorate

Does the accuracy of the information in political advertising matter—to voting behavior or vote choice––whether turnout goes up or down? Would voting more, while knowing less that is true be sufficient in a democracy? Truth in Advertising? examines how the accuracy of political ad claims, the visuals and sound of ads, and ad tone (particularly negativity) are related to voting behavior, showing the importance of understanding how the accuracy of political ad claims affects voters.

Read this chapter to explore the role of audio and visual elements in political advertising.



This image shows the cover of Digital Citizenship in Africa: Technologies of Agency and Repression.

Digital Citizenship in Africa: Technologies of Agency and Repression

Since the so-called Arab Spring, citizens of African countries have continued to use digital tools in creative ways to ensure that marginalised voices are heard, and to demand for the rights they are entitled to in law: to freely associate, to form opinions, and to express them online without fear of violence or arrest. Digital Citizenship in Africa illustrates how citizens have been using VPNs, encryption, and privacy-protecting browsers to resist limits on their rights to privacy and political speech using examples from across the continent.

This chapter analyses the emergence of digital citizenship and asks the question of how Namibian citizens used social media to hold politicians accountable during the 2019 election.



This image shows the cover of Modern Political Campaigns: How Professionalism, Technology, and Speed Have Revolutionized Elections.

Modern Political Campaigns: How Professionalism, Technology, and Speed Have Revolutionized Elections

Modern political campaigns are more professional, technologically advanced, and responsive to changing conditions than ever before in human history. In this book, readers will learn how campaigns are organized, state-of-the-art tools of the trade, and how some of the most interesting people in politics got their big breaks. It combines academic insights and practical advice to show how elections are won.

Read this chapter to learn about how data and analytics are used in political campaigns, including voter files, owned data, and predictive modeling.



This image shows the cover of Votes at 16: Empowering Young People and Revitalising Democracy in Britain.

Votes at 16: Empowering Young People and Revitalising Democracy in Britain

In July 2025, the UK government announced plans to lower the voting age to 16. Want to learn more about the arguments behind this decision and what can be down to inform and empower young voters? This book explores the arguments and evidence for lowering the voting age.

In this chapter, learn about how citizenship education can be enhanced to support the introduction of votes at 16.



This image shows the cover of Networks of (Dis)Trust: The Impact of Automation, Corruption, and Media on Philippine Elections.

Networks of (Dis)Trust: The Impact of Automation, Corruption, and Media on Philippine Elections

This book argues that the bureaucracy and the Commission on Elections in the Philippines is dysfunctional and covers the impact of corruption on how the state operates. This book uses the unprecedented May 2010 synchronized automation of elections—an attempt at electoral engineering—to better understand the lingering paradox of Philippine politics and its public administration system.

This chapter describes the various attempts at electoral reform in the Philippines, alongside the steady increase of systemic corruption in the country and the implications of these on preserving democracy.

Celebrating Open Access

This month Bloomsbury Collections features open access titles for Open Access Week. Through our open access publishing programme we are committed to the widest possible dissemination of research, whilst providing subject expertise and professional publishing services to authors, funders, and institutions. Explore some of the breadth and depth of Bloomsbury’s open access publishing through the selection of titles below.


New and Popular Open Access Titles:

This image shows the cover of The Rise and Fall of the Sunbed in Britain: Tanning Culture from Fad to Fear.

The Rise and Fall of the Sunbed in Britain: Tanning Culture from Fad to Fear

This open access book explores tanning culture: how the desire for tanned white skin led to the phenomenal growth in sunbed use and how the practice spread through Britain. By analysing the role of the media, medical experts, and socio-political changes, The Rise and Fall of the Sunbed exposes how sunbed providers, consumers and the ‘sunbed tan’ itself shifted from ‘healthy’ to ‘harmful’ in late twentieth-century depictions. Fabiola Creed examines print media, film, medical journals, trade directories, catalogues, and children’s toys to map this transition.

Check out this chapter the examines the timeframe from 1980 to 1981 when sunbed businesses and sales soared.



This image shows the cover of Pedagogies of Collapse: A Hopeful Education for The End of The World as We Know It.

Pedagogies of Collapse: A Hopeful Education for The End of The World as We Know It

Climate change, biodiversity collapse, pandemics, wars, resource shortages, inflation, socio-economic inequality… How do we talk to and teach young people about collapse without triggering defence mechanisms of denial and depression?

This urgent, and radically honest, open access book looks collapse in the face, acknowledges the temptation for denial and despair, but chooses hope. Pedagogies of Collapse makes a dire, fact-packed case for the urgency of action, but resists the urge to fall into the usual categories of environmental discourses. It rejects both the unwarranted optimism of progress narratives and the unhelpful despair of extinction narratives.

In this chapter, the author provides a historical and systemic overview of education arguing that in order to craft an education system fit for the daunting tasks ahead, the first step involves reckoning with the emergence of schooling as we know it.



This image shows the cover of Open Scholarship in the Humanities.

Open Scholarship in the Humanities

Exploring the rise of open scholarship in the digital era and its transformational impact on how knowledge is created, shared, and accessed, this open access book offers new insights on the history, development, and future directions of openness in the humanities and identifies key drivers, opportunities, and challenges.

Read this chapter discussing a wide range of issues and opportunities relating to open scholarship in the humanities, arguing that there is a need to develop a stronger framework in which to enable open humanities rather than simply reapplying approaches drawn from open science.



This image shows the cover of Horror in Classical Antiquity and Beyond: Body, Affect, Concepts.

Horror in Classical Antiquity and Beyond: Body, Affect, Concepts

This open-access volume is the first to explore systematically and comprehensively the concept and category of ‘horror’ in antiquity. The contributors retrieve the ancient grammar of horror by paying equal attention to its affective and cognitive dimensions, and by looking at it as an embodied, enactive and full-rounded existential experience. They explore how horrifying experiences in antiquity are construed as embodied events while being conceptually rooted in cultural frameworks. They also showcase the ways in which the body itself can turn into a source of deep horror, be it in literary or medical texts and traditions in the Greek and Roman world, from the classical period to late antiquity.

Read this chapter about horror and horrific associations in our collective consciousness and its connections to horror in antiquity.



This image shows the cover of Internet Shutdowns in Africa: Technology, Rights and Power.

Internet Shutdowns in Africa: Technology, Rights and Power

Authored entirely by African researchers, Internet Shutdowns in Africa shows how shutdowns are used as a tactic of war, to blackout news of state violence, or to disrupt opposition protests. At the same time, the findings gathered here demonstrate the wide variety of forms these shutdowns take: they can be nationwide or localised; they can target a specific social media platform or website; or they can avoid the appearance of a complete shutdown by throttling connection speeds; and all of these types of shutdowns can last weeks, months, or even years.

Check out this chapter to read about a nationwide internet shutdown on election day, 12th of August 2021, imposed by the Zambian government that had a significant impact on the social, economic and political rights of millions of citizens.

Bloomsbury Open Collections:

Bloomsbury Open Collections is a collective-action approach to funding open access books. Through this model, we are aiming to make open access publication available to a wider range of authors by spreading the cost across multiple organisations, while providing additional benefits to participating libraries. Our aim is to engage a more diverse set of authors, bringing their work to a wider global audience.

Read more about some of the titles published through the Bloomsbury Open Collections program below.

This image shows the cover of Fire Dragon Feminism: Asian Migrant Women's Tales of Migration, Coloniality and Racial Capitalism.

Fire Dragon Feminism: Asian Migrant Women's Tales of Migration, Coloniality and Racial Capitalism

Featuring stories of early settler and contemporary Asian migrant women in Asia-Pacific region, Fire Dragon Feminism discusses Asian migrant women’s encounters with coloniality and racial capitalism at their workplace and in their everyday life. Based on in-depth interviews with 40 Asian migrant employees in Australian universities, the book examines how Asian migrant women are implicated and complicit in white race-making projects while being subjected to racialisation and marginalisation simultaneously.

In this chapter, the author presents the concept of fire dragon feminism and explores the experiences of Asian migrant women in migration, coloniality, and racial capitalism.



This image shows the cover of Eco-communities: Surviving Well Together.

Eco-communities: Surviving Well Together

co-communities can inspire, provoke, and challenge us to live more environmentally harmonious and collective lives. Eco-communities are examples of grassroot efforts at socio-ecological transformation—self-organised practices, infrastructures and spaces that seek to transform ways of being, living and working. While many eco-communities attempt to transform all elements of their daily lives, these processes are always incomplete, in-the-making, unfinished and messy. This book explores the ongoing processes of navigating these tensions and contradictions that none-the-less create hope.

Read this chapter on how important it is for eco-communities to be inclusive of racially and ethnically diverse peoples and the causes that affect their everyday lives.



This image shows the cover of The Police, the State and the Congo Cop.

The Police, the State and the Congo Cop

The Police, the State and the Congo Cop is the first full-length, empirical deep-dive into everyday policework in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Following officers from the classroom to the station and the street, it offers five narrative-driven chapters rich with historical detail and thick description that show how the police force, as an institution, struggles to coordinate practice with training, coercion with persuasion and reconciliation, and the need to make ends meet with the duty to serve the public.

Check out this chapter to learn about the history of policing Congo.



This image shows the cover of Hemingway, Ecology and Culture: Re-reading Hemingway in the Anthropocene.

Hemingway, Ecology and Culture: Re-reading Hemingway in the Anthropocene

The Anthropocene has ushered in remarkable progress and unprecedented challenges, with ecological crises threatening all life—especially the most vulnerable. In search of new solutions in this open access book, Lay Sion Ng turns to an unexpected source: Ernest Hemingway.

Through a multidisciplinary lens Ng challenges the notion of Hemingway as merely a hyper-masculine figure. Instead, she reveals his texts as "ecological forces" that can heighten our awareness of nonhuman agency, leading us to understand our own place in this interconnected world.

In this chapter, the author explores the narrative of Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises as a compelling exploration of the interplay between sociocultural stereotypes and the discourse of disability, as well as the transformative potential of his connection with the natural world.



This image shows the cover of New and Decolonial Approaches to Gender Nonconformity: Forging A Home For Ourselves.

New and Decolonial Approaches to Gender Nonconformity: Forging A Home For Ourselves

While substantial work has addressed the ethics and practicalities of working with trans and gender-nonconforming participants in social science research, approaches to gender nonconformity in arts and humanities research, teaching and practice still remain underexplored.

This book features a diverse collective of arts and humanities researchers, educators and creative practitioners, sharing their thoughts and experiences of how to approach gender nonconformity creatively and ethically, including from a decolonial perspective. Contributors share their thoughts and experience on topics including centering trans people and people of colour in fan adaptations of Les Misérables; moving beyond medicalised approaches to trans history; responding to the early modern history of gender nonconformity through poetic-performative closet dramas; and using trans history to decolonise history teaching.

Check out this chapter to read conversation and reflections on different approaches to gender nonconformity.



More to Explore

Interested in more titles in this area? Visit this page to learn more about open access publishing at Bloomsbury. To learn more about our library-funded Bloomsbury Open Collections model, click here.

Read this blog in which author Rebecca Bennett reflects on how one accessible book changed the course of her entire career, and how the values of open research have been at the core of her work ever since.

Sigmund Freud

This month, Bloomsbury Collections features volumes from The Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, newly added to the platform. The long-awaited 24-volume set adds a new layer of revisions, translations, and explanatory annotations under the executive editorship of neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, and Freud scholar Mark Solms. Explore the volumes below to learn more about what’s covered in the set.

Volume 4: The Interpretation of Dreams (First Part) 1900

Freud reviews the world literature on dreams and comes to the conclusion that they are valid psychological acts, with purpose and meaning. Through a deep analysis of his own dreams, he concludes that every dream is an attempt to fulfill a repressed infantile wish, and thereby to protect sleep. In this volume, we see Freud’s first description of ‘dream-work’, which includes such key processes as condensation, displacement and regression.

Volume 7: A Case of Hysteria, Three Essays on Sexuality and Other Works 1901–1905

This volume contains Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, in which Freud formulates an entirely novel conception of human sexual development and behaviour. It opens, however, with another, equally momentous work: ‘Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria’. This was Freud’s first full-length report of a case of psychoanalytic treatment, in which he developed his theory of transference.

Volume 14: On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works 1914–1916

‘On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement’ opens this volume. By the time of its writing in 1914, Freud had parted company from Jung and Adler, despite both of the latter still claiming that their theories were psychoanalytical. Therefore, Freud set out in this work to plainly describe his psychoanalytic method in its own fundamentals and postulates, showing how Jung’s Analytical Psychology and Adler’s Individual Psychology diverge from it, and arguing that to designate all three theories as ‘psychoanalysis’ was far too confusing.

Volume 19: The Ego and the Id and Other Works 1923–1925

This volume contains one of Freud’s most enduring works, The Ego and the Id, a robust revision of his topographical model of the human psyche and the development of his later structural model of the mind in subsequent psychoanalysis. Freud explores the internal tensions between the ego and id, the ego and superego and the life and death drives, all of which are at odds with his earlier distinctions between consciousness and unconsciousness. The internal and external forces that give rise to the superego have a powerful effect on the ego, leading to shame and guilt.

Volume 23: Moses and Monotheism, An Outline of Psychoanalysis and Other Works 1937–1939

Moses and Monotheism was one of Freud’s more controversial books which would also become his final major work. An early version was written in 1934, but unpublished due to concerns about the response from the Catholic Church. It was finally published in the shadow of World War II, during Freud’s exile in London. Taken together, the three essays assert that Moses was Egyptian royalty, murdered by his followers, and that their repressed collective guilt over this act led to a recommitment to biblical monotheistic religion.

Ethics and Moral Philosophy

This month, Bloomsbury Collections features titles from Philosophy, specifically in Ethics and Moral Philosophy. Explore the titles below to learn how different philosophers and schools of thought approach ethics and morality.


This image shows the cover of A Philosophy of Struggle.

Leonard Harris

Leonard Harris is a leading figure in African-American and liberatory thought. His writings on honor, insurrectionist ethics, tradition, and his work on Alain Locke have established him as a leading figure in critical philosophy. His timely and urgent responses to structural racism and structural violence mark him out as a bold cultural commentator and a deft theoretician.

Read this essay by Harris from A Philosophy of Struggle: The Leonard Harris Reader: Philosophia Nata Ex Conatu: “Insurrectionist Ethics: Advocacy, Moral Psychology, and Pragmatism” (2002) to learn more about Harris’ thoughts on ethics.



This image shows the cover of Hannah Arendt’s Ethics.

Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt’s best-known ethical concepts are the notion of the banality of evil and the link she posits between thoughtlessness and evil, both inspired by her study of Adolf Eichmann. Hannah Arendt’s Ethics draws out the most salient aspects of Arendt’s ethics, provides a critical review of the more philosophically problematic elements, and places Arendt’s work in this area in a broader moral philosophy context, examining the issues in moral philosophy.

In the introduction, learn some context around Arendt’s life and theories and read about the ethical dimension in the her politics and thought.



This image shows the cover of Practical Kantian Ethics.

Kant

In recent years there has been an increase in interest in Kant’s philosophical thought, but there remains little consensus on exactly how his ideas should be organized and understood. In Practical Kantian Ethics: A Commonsense Account of Moral Life, Donald Wilson reinterprets Kant’s moral theory through his later practical works offering a new “inner freedom” account informing obscure aspects of Kant’s formal moral philosophy.

Read this chapter to learn more about Kant’s Doctrine of Right and how it should be understood and the Doctrine of Right in the context of human nature.



This image shows the cover of Agamben’s Ethics of the Happy Life.

Agamben

Rather than having formulated an ethical theory, Agamben’s ethical statements are scattered throughout his oeuvre, leaving it to the reader to attempt a montage. Moreover, these ethical fragments vary so widely that it isn’t immediately certain that they allow for a coherent ethical theory. Agamben’s Ethics of the Happy Life: Beyond Nihilism and Morality presents a careful evaluation of Agamben’s overlooked contribution to ethics.

In this chapter, the author examines Agamben’s treatment of ethics in his work The Coming Community.



This image shows the cover of Confucian Ethics in Western Discourse.

Confucius

How can ancient Chinese philosophy contribute to Western discussions of moral philosophy? Covering the characteristics and significance of the Confucian ethical tradition, Confucian Ethics in Western Discourse introduces the main concepts, discusses differing perspectives of moral dilemmas and closely examines whether Confucian ethics should be considered as virtue ethics in the Western tradition.

Read this chapter for an introduction to the concept of morality in Confucian Ethics.

More to Explore

Interested in more titles in this area?

Bloomsbury Philosophy Library is a digital hub that provides access to the Bloomsbury Philosophy list through subject-specific collections of key areas within the discipline. Featuring a mix of primary texts, translations, secondary literature, exclusive articles, encyclopedia entries and images, this dynamic digital platform makes it possible to study key philosophical sub-fields in depth.

Exploring LGBTQ+ Topics for Pride Month

This month, Bloomsbury Collections features titles on LGBTQ+ topics in honor of Pride Month. Explore the titles below to learn about LGBTQ+ identities and themes in different areas of life and culture.


This image shows the cover of Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling: How LGBTQ+ people can thrive and succeed at work.

In the Workplace

Enabling LGBTQ+ people to achieve their career potential is complex. In Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling: How LGBTQ+ people can thrive and succeed at work, Layla McCay explores the hidden differences that cause LGBTQ+ people to be underrepresented at the most senior levels of professional life, combining data with personal insights from over 40 prominent LGBTQ+ trailblazers, from CEOs to Ambassadors.

In this sample chapter, read about being LGBTQ+ in the workplace, diversity as a performance advantage, networking, and challenges.



This image shows the cover of Queer and Trans African Mobilities: Migration, Asylum and Diaspora.

African Diaspora and Migration

Recent years have seen increased scholarly and media interest in the cross-border movements of LGBT persons, particularly those seeking protection in the Global North. While this has helped focus attention on the plight of individuals fleeing homophobic or transphobic persecution, it has also reinvigorated racist tropes about the Global South, reinforcing colonial notions about Africa and its peoples.

Queer and Trans African Mobilities: Migration, Asylum and Diaspora provides new insights into the drivers and impacts of displacement linked to sexual orientation or gender identity and challenges notions about why LGBT Africans move, where they are going and their experiences.

In the introduction, the authors provide context around queer and trans mobility in Africa.



This image shows the cover of Rainbow Trap: Queer Lives, Classifications and the Dangers of Inclusion.

Classification – Film and Television

For many queer people, existing in a straight society – where life is organized around a fixed, gender binary and the assumption everyone is heterosexual – highlights who classification systems are designed to work for and who they are designed to work against. Looking across six areas, Rainbow Trap: Queer Lives, Classifications and the Dangers of Inclusion, documents how inclusive interventions have attempted to bring historically marginalized communities out of the shadows and the challenges LGBTQ+ people face navigating an ever-growing list of classifications, categories, and labels.

Read this chapter to learn about queer classification in the area of film and television specifically and check out the rest of the book for analysis on classification in other areas.



This image shows the cover of LGBTQ+ and Healthcare in America.

Healthcare in America

The health of LGBTQ+ Americans is affected by many historical achievements and failures, societal influences, economic disparities, cultural shifts, and political divisions that can greatly impact the world of medicine. LGBTQ+ and Healthcare in America examines these issues to identify the systemic factors and enduring consequences impacting these communities, including first-hand accounts from LGBTQ+ individuals impacted by healthcare challenges through "In their Words" perspective essays.

Read the first chapter for some historical context for and major factors affecting LGBTQ+ healthcare in America.



This image shows the cover of Queer Print in Europe.

In Print

An enormous mass of LGBTQ+ printed materials has circulated – usually locally or nationally, sometimes more widely – across Europe since the advent of a widespread gay rights movement. How have radical print cultures fostered and preserved queer lived experience from the 1960s to the present?

Check out this chapter from Queer Print in Europe to read about a French Lesbian Press that developed in the 1980s and the connections and cultures it fostered.

More to Explore

Interested in more titles in this area? Download this title list to see more titles related to Gender & Sexuality on Bloomsbury Collections.

In 2025-26 Bloomsbury Open Collections will continue to offer three collections of 20 titles each, including Gender & Sexuality. Bloomsbury Open Collections is a collective-action approach to funding open access books. Learn more about Bloomsbury Open Collections here.

Understanding Climate Change and its Effects

This month, Bloomsbury Collections features titles related to global warming and climate change. Explore climate change and environmental studies through different lenses, including history, philosophy, and more, and learn how it affects different sectors.


This image shows the cover of How to Think about CLimate Change: A Philosophical Guide to Saner Ways of Living.

Climate Change and Philosophy

Coping with the climate crisis is the greatest challenge we face as a species. We know the main task is to reduce our emissions as rapidly as possible to minimize the harm to the world’s population now and for generations to come. What on earth can philosophy offer us? How to Think About the Climate Crisis: A Philosophical Guide to Saner Ways of Living explains how expanding our philosophical horizons can help get us with this challenge.

In this part of the book, learn about what philosophy can tell us about our relationship to “things”.



This image shows the cover of Warming Up: How Climate Change is Changing Sport.

Climate Change and Sport

In recent years, a world championship marathon was held at midnight to avoid the blistering sun. Professional athletes needed oxygen tanks to play during wildfire season in California. Players collapsed and play was suspended amid the heat and bushfire smoke at the Australian Tennis open. Golf courses are sinking into the sea. The threat climate change poses to sport is clear, but with billions of participants and fans around the world who rely on the sector, this is one industry we don’t want to lose.

Read through this chapter of Warming Up: How Climate Change is Changing Sport to learn about the effects of climate change on ice skating.



This image shows the cover of Climate Change and International History: Negotiating Science, Global Change, and Environmental Justice.

Climate Change and History

Studying climate change and international history in tandem allows us to understand the historical and political factors that affect how we view Climate change today. Climate Change and International History: Negotiating Science, Global Change, and Environmental Justice explains the origins of the debates around the environmental emergency, the response of political leaders attempting to address the threat, and the barriers we face in creating an international regime to resolve the climate crisis.

In this sample chapter, Ruth Morgan explores the climate diplomacy of the late 1990s and early 2000s, including the Conference of the Parties where the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1997.



This image shows the cover of Implementation of Sustainable Development in the Global South: Strategies, Innovations, and Challenges.

Climate Change and Sustainable Development

The advent of the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda have contributed to the deepening of the concept of sustainable development within global and national policy schemes. The key concern now is how this can be achieved equitably by reconciling competing priorities and concerns of the Global South and the Global North. While the Global South countries are eager to adopt and integrate the 2030 Agenda in their respective policy frameworks, local contexts are often at odds with the global model of sustainable development.

Explore this piece from Implementation of Sustainable Development in the Global South: Strategies, Innovations, and Challenges to understand sustainable development in the context of agriculture.



This image shows the cover of Cleaning Up Greenwash: Corporate Environmental Crime and the Crisis of Capitalism.

Climate Change and Capitalism

Corporate environmental crime and illegal activities have become normalized within many major corporations. Arguably this is an inevitable consequence of a corporate culture that prioritizes profits and the smooth operation of market activities over environmental concerns coupled with the increased political power of major corporations that can act almost with impunity.

This chapter of Cleaning Up Greenwash: Corporate Environmental Crime and the Crisis of Capitalism examines the concept of Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER) and how many corporations with stated CER policies continue to commit environmental crimes.

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