Abstract
Key issues around flirting, scandal, and intimacy that inform the structure and thinking of this book are introduced. We begin by investigating what feminism has to say about flirting, and its legacies for thinking through flirting in the context of the #MeToo movement. We trace the history of the term ‘flirting’ linguistically and through the pedagogy provided by handbooks, both historically in print and in contemporary online forms, to demonstrate how ideas and language change over time and are gendered in their use and function. Ideas around desire, seduction, power, play, and indeterminacy are introduced drawing on contemporary critical and social theories, and the ensuing structure of the book and its key arguments are described.
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Bartlett, A., Clarke, K., Cover, R. (2019). Introduction: Flirting, Scandal, Intimacy. In: Flirting in the Era of #MeToo. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15508-7_1
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