Susanna Paasonen is Professor of Media Studies at University of Turku, Finland. With an interest in studies of sexuality, affect and popular media culture, she is most recently the author of TechnoPharmacology (with Joshua Neves, Aleena Chia and Ravi Sundaram, 2022), Dependent, Distracted, Bored: Affective Formations in Networked Media (2021), Objectification: On the Difference of Sex and Sexism (with Feona Attwood, Alan McKee, John Mercer and Clarissa Smith, 2020) and Who's Laughing Now? Feminist Tactics in Social Media (with Jenny Sunden, 2020).
This is perhaps the most extensive academic treatise ever written on Russian-born actor Yul Brynner (1920-85). Paasonen does not deliver a standard biography of the famed actor; rather, she studies Brynner in a number of ways that transcend him as an individual. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.--G. R. Butters Jr., Aurora University ""CHOICE connect"" One of the world's foremost sexuality scholars provides an overdue analysis of one of the world's sexiest stars. Through the lens of cosmopolitanism, Paasonen delves into the star persona and spectacular acting style of Yul Brynner. This book challenges postwar masculinity studies' over-determination of authenticity and problematic associations with whiteness. --Rebecca Sullivan, University of Calgary Susanna Paasonen has written a substantial and scholarly study of one of the major male stars of the 20th century that is as rigorously researched as it is engaging and witty. This book is a delight and an important contribution to the study of stardom and mid-century masculinity. --John Mercer, Birmingham City University