Fandom and Popular Culture Collection
A collection of cutting edge research from Intellect’s influential fandom and popular culture list. Combining the best of journals and e-books, this collection allows you to stay up to date with all things fannish at a significant discount. With a wealth of content for students and senior academics alike, this collection will enrich any fandom or popular culture curriculum.
- This collection will continue to grow each year as new titles are published
- Including 12 journals and 52 e-books
- Journals included: Journal of Fandom Studies; Horror Studies; East Asian Journal of Popular Culture; Studies in Comics; International Journal of Disney Studies; Animation Practice, Process & Production; Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture; Journal of Popular Television; Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds; Australasian Journal of Popular Culture; Journal of European Popular Culture and European Journal of American Culture
- Full Fan Phenomena book series.
Collection Contents
1 - 20 of 64 results
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Narrative Interplay in the Digital Era
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:Narrative Interplay in the Digital Era show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: Narrative Interplay in the Digital EraThis anthology explores the current evolution of interactive storytelling across digital as well as physical spaces by examining how games, digital narratives, and participatory art can reshape creative expression and learning at fundamental levels.
The contributors propose that interactive fiction is best examined by combining social, literary, and technical analyses together. Used independently, each modality provides an insufficient picture of the deeply merged social, technical, and artistic media environments we currently inhabit. We focus instead on the nature of the social interactions involved when engaging in digital storytelling, emphasizing that an interactive narrative is perpetually constructed and reconstructed each time it is experienced.
The collection provides in depth analysis, organized into three distinct sections, the first two based on the key modalities of alternate realities and digital interactive fiction. The third section then provides an important political critique of gaming ideologies. Contributors with expertise and experience in each section topic provide diverse and timely analyses on how interactive narratives function in educational contexts, community engagement, and human-machine collaboration. The authors also investigate both theoretical frameworks and practical applications, from live-action role-playing to AI-assisted writing, while considering the significant social and political implications of gaming culture in general.
The collection's strength remains on its unique bringing together diverse perspectives from game designers, educators, artists, and theorists to examine how new forms of storytelling emerge at the intersection of analog and digital realms, with particular attention to the role of play and interactivity in contemporary learning environments.
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Analyzing NES Music
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:Analyzing NES Music show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: Analyzing NES MusicThis study of five of Nintendo’s landmark music scores offers new insights into video game music composition and creativity with limited technology.
Faced with severe technological constraints on system memory, composers of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) sought ways to disguise repetition in music that repeats extensively. Their efforts gave rise to a set of compositional techniques for creating the illusion of variety.
Andrew Schartmann distills these techniques into a theory of harmony and form for the analysis of NES music. It then uses this theory to analyze five landmark scores of the NES era: Super Mario Bros., Dragon Warrior, Metroid, Mega Man 2, and Silver Surfer. Both theory and analysis are scaffolded by a detailed description of the NES hardware and its attendant constraints, highlighting the ever-evolving dialogue between technology, commercial demand, and artistic sensibility that characterizes video game music of the 1980s and 1990s.
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New Queer Television
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:New Queer Television show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: New Queer TelevisionThough queer critics and queer theory tend to frame queer identities as marginal, this edited volume draws attention to a dynamic field in which a wide variety of queer identities can be put on display and consumed by audiences. Cementing a foundational understanding of queerness that is at odds with current shifts in media production, contributors present a broad variety of queer identities from across a range of televisual shows and genres to reconsider the marginalization of queerness in the twenty-first century. Doing so challenges preexisting notions that such “mainstreamification” necessitates being subsumed by the cisheteropatriarchy. This project argues the opposite, showing that heteronormative assumptions are outdated and that new queer representations lay the groundwork for filling gaps that queer criticism has left open.
Thomas Brassington is a researcher whose work explores intersections of queerness and the Gothic in contemporary popular culture. Debra Ferreday is a feminist cultural theorist whose research concerns gender, feminist theory, sexuality, critical race theory, queer theory, and embodiment. Dany Girard is a queer researcher whose work primarily explores representations of gender, asexualities, and queer theory in television and film.
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Gender, Race and Religion in Video Game Music
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:Gender, Race and Religion in Video Game Music show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: Gender, Race and Religion in Video Game MusicThis book provides semiotically-focused analyses and interpretations of video game music, focusing specifically on musical representation of three demographic diversity traits. Adopting a narratologist orientation to supplement existing ludological scholarship, these analyses apply music semiotics to crucial modern-day issues such as representation of gender, race, and religion in video games.
An original and welcome contribution to the field, it considers musical meaning in relation to the aspects of gender, race, and religion. This book will help readers to develop language and context in which to consider video game music in terms of society and representation and will encourage future research in these critical areas.
Yee analyses music's contributions to video games' narrative and thematic meanings, specifically concerning three master categories of identity – gender, race and religion. Containing twenty-five detailed analytical case studies of musical representation in video game music, it sets out theoretical and conceptual frameworks beneficial for interpreting musical meaning from video game soundtracks. Though players and commentators may be tempted to view a game's soundtrack as mere 'background music', this research demonstrates video game music's social relevance as a major factor impacting players' cultural attitudes, values, and beliefs.
Part I explores immersion, interactivity and interpretation in video game music, proposing a theory of 'interpretative interactivity' to account for players' semiotic agency in dialogue with their ludic agency. Part II explores gender representation in a trajectory from conventional gender construction, alternative femininities/masculinities and potential for non-binary representational possibilities. Part III explores musical representation of nationality, culture and race, proposing the concept of 'racialised fantasy' and applying frameworks from race scholarship to connect media representations of race to real world racial justice movements. Part IV examines religion, introducing the concept of 'sonic iconography' to connect theological
meanings to the use of sacred music in video game music.
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Multimodal Comics
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:Multimodal Comics show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: Multimodal ComicsComics have always embraced a diversity of formats, existing in complex relationships to other media, and been dynamic in their response to new technologies and means of distribution. This collection explores interactions between comics, other media and technologies, employing a wide range of theoretical and critical perspectives.
By focusing on key critical concepts within multimodality (transmediality, adaptation, intertextuality) and addressing multiple platforms and media (digital, analogue, music, prose, linguistics, graphics), it expands and develops existing comics theory and also addresses multiple other media and disciplines.
Over the last decade Studies in Comics has been at the forefront of international research in comics. This volume showcases some of the best research to appear in the journal. In so doing it demonstrates the evolution of Comics Studies over the last decade and shows how this research field has engaged with various media and technologies in a continuously evolving artistic and production environment. The theme of multimodality is particularly apt since media and technologies have changed significantly during this period. The collection will thus give a view of the ways in which comics scholars have engaged with multimodality during a time when “modes” were continually changing.
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A Cultural History of The Punisher
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:A Cultural History of The Punisher show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: A Cultural History of The PunisherIf the Punisher became a valuable piece of intellectual property during the closing decades of the twentieth century, he has become a global icon in the twenty-first. In this pathbreaking study, Kent Worcester explores the sometimes ridiculous and often socially resonate storyverse of the most famous rageaholic in popular culture: Frank Castle, aka the Punisher.
Worcester pays particular attention to nearly five decades' worth of punishment-themed comics and graphic novels published between the 1970s and the present day. These texts provide the material resources for a close reading of the Punisher's distinctive and extreme form of justice discourse. Punishment, after all, is a political and social construct. Violence does not imply or claim legitimacy. Punishment does. To talk about punishment is to ask who deserves to be punished, who decides who deserves to be punished, and what form the punishment should take. All costumed heroes have their political moments; the Punisher is political.
Frank Castle inhabits the most politically engaged corner of the entire Marvel Universe. His adventures should attract our interest for precisely this reason.
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Fan Phenomena: Disney
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:Fan Phenomena: Disney show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: Fan Phenomena: DisneyFan Phenomena: Disney collects essays on Disney fans, spanning a variety of media (such as film, television, novels, stage productions and theme parks) and different fannish approaches (cosplay, fan art), as well as the company's reactions to them.
It is a timely intervention that deals with crucial issues such as race and racism within the Disney fandom and in Disney texts, the role of queerness, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the advent of the streaming service Disney+.
The authors come from variety of disciplines, such as cultural and media studies, marketing and communications, cultural history or theatre and performance studies, and include both leading experts in fan and Disney studies, as well as emerging voices in these fields, plus interviews with fan practitioners.
It will be popular with scholars of cultural studies, cultural history, media studies, fan studies; Disney fans, and students at any level
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The Music of Nobuo Uematsu in the Final Fantasy Series
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:The Music of Nobuo Uematsu in the Final Fantasy Series show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: The Music of Nobuo Uematsu in the Final Fantasy SeriesNobuo Uematsu is one of the most influential Japanese composers of the current age. One of Japan’s most beloved living composers, he has been composing music for the popular franchise since 1987, inspiring a new generation of classical music fans, and named by Time Magazine as an ‘innovator’ of the new wave of music.
Sometimes described as the Beethoven of video game music, Nobuo Uematsu has built his career and reputation from his soundtracks to the enduring Final Fantasy series of video games, which are notable for their remarkable cinematic feel.
Classic FM radio describes Nobuo as ‘part John Williams, part Wagnerian leitmotif, part new-age soundscaper – and a legend in his own right’. He has so far appeared five times in the top 20 of the annual Classic FM Hall of Fame, voted for by listeners.
This is the first book-length study on the music of Uematsu. It takes a variety of different analytical approaches to his music. It offers readers interested in ludomusicology (the study of and research into video game music) a variety of ways in which to understand Uematsu’s compositional process and the role that video game music has in the overall gaming experience.
Those interested in Uematsu’s music will gain a greater appreciation and understanding of his compositional processes and his interaction with musical narrative, and those interested in ludomusicology in general will be shown various methodologies that can be applied to a single composer. Those interested in composing for video games or movies will also be given insight into how they might compose for a narrative themselves.
Professional musicians will gain deeper insight into the music from selected games in the series, as each chapter applies traditional theoretical and musicological methodologies to selected games from the series. It my also be a useful educational resource for use in their own studies by student and amateur musicians.
Foreword by William Gibbons, associate professor of musicology at Texas Christian University. Editor Richard Anatone is a professor of music theory at Prince George's Community College in Largo, Maryland.
It will be a valuable resource for ludomusicologists, as well as academics from a variety of disciplines who work in popular music and culture, film and visual media, and subjects traditionally marginalized by the Western 'Classical' canon. It will also be of interest to fans of the Final Fantasy series, both inside and outside of academia and to composers of video game music.
It will also appeal to readers interested in the business and marketing side of the video game industry, and who want to learn from the successes of live video game concerts and how symbolism and thematic interplay aids in drawing gamers’ attention to soundtracks and concerts of video game music.
Game developers will learn how to recognize potential composers and compositional approaches that will aid in storytelling, fandom and gamer immersion.
General video game historians who want to learn more about Square’s early years and eventual transition into a powerhouse development company will also find much to interest them.
While there have been several edited collections in the subdiscipline of ludomusicology, this is the first book to address a composer’s oeuvre as the main subject. It brings together a variety of methodologies and voices on the subject, and has potential to become a model for future composer-focused studies.
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House of Cards
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:House of Cards show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: House of CardsAlthough, by all appearances, House of Cards is a television series about politics, it in fact explores some of the most subversive questions raised by Machiavelli’s writings: what if the Prince were a ferocious animal? What would happen if our political world were overtaken by vampires? Would they be capable of mastering their bloodthirsty instincts, or would they remain true to their fundamental nature?
In their relentless quest for power, Frank Underwood, his wife Claire and his chief of staff Doug Stamper are so ruthlessly ambitious that they demolish all boundaries between good and evil. According to a Machiavellian logic taken to its extreme, the specific necessity of a given situation always wins out over common morality. In the struggle for survival, these people are the predators, determined to come out on top whatever the cost.
This book examines how the producers of the series take monstrous characters – who would not be out of place in a crime series or a horror film – and set them in the world of politics, which offers little resistance to violence and turns into a laboratory for systematic destruction. In this variation on the conflict between brutalization and civilization at the heart of power, the political sphere therefore becomes the scene of crime par excellence.
Although the book contains concepts and theories in political science, it is accessibly written. It is also didactic: many examples are taken from the series and from the novels, so the reader always understands what is at stake in the analysis. It will find both an academic and a more general audience.
Primary academic readership will be scholars and students in law, political science, film studies, media studies and cultural studies. The wider readership will include fans of the show, and of course people interested in politics, political thrillers, political philosophy, corruption and democracy, as well as the nature of political leadership.
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Nostalgia and Videogame Music
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:Nostalgia and Videogame Music show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: Nostalgia and Videogame MusicThis book, the first multi-disciplinary study of nostalgia and videogame music, allows readers to understand the relationships and memories they often form around games, and music is central to this process. The quest into the past begins with this book, a map that leads to the intersection between nostalgia and videogame music.
Informed by research on musicology and memory as well as practices of gaming culture the edited volume discusses different forms of nostalgia, how video games display their relation to those and in what ways theoretically self-conscious positions can be found in games. The perspectives of the new discipline ludmusicology provide the broader framework for this project.
This significant new book focuses on an important topic that has not been sufficiently addressed in the field and is clear in its contribution to ludomusicology.
An important scholarly addition to the field of ludomusicology, with potential appeal to undergraduate and graduate scholars in many related fields due to its inherent interdisciplinarity, including musicology more broadly, game studies and games design, film studies, as well as cultural and media studies. It could also appeal to practitioners, particularly those nostalgic and self-reflexive artists who already engage in nostalgic practice (chiptune musicians, for instance). Also to those researching and studying in the fields of memory studies and cultural studies.
Readership will include researchers, educators, practitioners, undergraduate and graduate students, fans and game players.
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Interpreting and Experiencing Disney
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:Interpreting and Experiencing Disney show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: Interpreting and Experiencing DisneyEver since the premiere for the first Mickey Mouse cartoon in 1928, Disney has played a central role in American popular culture, which has progressively expanded to include a global market. The company positioned itself to be a central role in family entertainment, and many of its offerings – from films to consumable products – have deeply embedded themselves into not only the imaginations of children and adults, but also into the threads of one’s life experience. It is difficult to go through life without encountering one Disney product. Because of this, fans of Disney build connections with their favourite characters and franchises, some of which are fuelled further by Disney’s own marketing practices.
Similarly, Disney responds to the cultural values of the era through its films and other media offerings. In this volume, scholars from varying backgrounds take a close look at facets of the Disney canon as more than agents of entertainment or consumption, and into underlying messages at the very heart of the Disney phenomenon: the cultural response that drives the corporation’s massive production and marketing machine. The relationship between Disney and its fans is one of loyalty and love, shaping cultural behaviours and values through the brand and its products. Disney responds in kind with a synergistic approach that makes it possible to experience Disney in any format at any given time.
Primary readership will be academics, researchers, educators, scholars and students working in the fields of media and cultural studies, especially those interested in marketing and branding, and in the Disney Company in general. The accessible writing style and the range of topics covered make it suitable for postgraduate students and academics working in these fields, as well as third-year undergraduate students.
The book will also appeal to academics working in the related fields of tourism studies, film and television studies and, given the focus of some of the chapters, in gender studies.
Although academic in focus, the accessible writing style does mean that it may also have appeal to the non-academic reader and fans of Disney.
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The Return of Twin Peaks
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:The Return of Twin Peaks show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: The Return of Twin PeaksIn 2017, twenty-five years after its initial release, a new season of Twin Peaks shook the world of television.
This new book is a detailed analysis of the third season of the television series and aims to elucidate some of the meanings of Twin Peaks: The Return and explain these in terms of philosophical, mythological and spiritual approaches. It focuses on the third season of Twin Peaks but also refers to the first two seasons, and to the film, Fire Walk with Me.
Divided into three sections, the book first examines the third season as expanded storytelling through the lens of Gene Youngblood's theory of synesthetic cinema, intertextuality, integrationist, and segregationist approaches in the realm of fiction, and focuses on the role of audio and visual superimpositions in The Return. It goes on to question the nature of the reality depicted in the seasons via scientific approaches, such as electromagnetism, time theory, and multiverses. The third and final section aims to transcend this vision by exploring the role of theosophy, the occult, and other spiritual sources.
The author’s focus on the role of spirituality and science in Twin Peaks is what distinguishes this book from other works on the famous television series. The work of a scholar who is also a fan, the book should appeal to any hard-core Twin Peaks viewer.
Foreword by Matt Zoller Seitz, editor-at-large at RogerEbert.com, and the television critic for New York magazine.
This will be essential reading for fans of Twin Peaks and academics writing about it.
Also of interest for students with an interest in philosophy, religion, science or spiritualism in visual and popular culture.
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Columbo
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:Columbo show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: ColumboThis book presents an analysis of Lieutenant Columbo's investigative method of rhetorical inquiry as seen in the television police procedural Columbo (1968-2003). With a barrage of questions about minute details and feigned ignorance, the iconic detective enacts a persona of ‘antipotency’ (counter authoritativeness) to affect the villains' underestimation of his attention to inconsistencies, abductive reasoning, and rhetorical efficacy. In a predominantly dialogue-based investigation, Columbo exhausts his suspects by asking a battery of questions concerning all minor details of the case, which evolves into an aggravating tedious provocation for the killer trying to maintain innocence. Based on the Ancient Greek ideal of Sophrosyne (temperance, restraint) and the Socratic method of questioning to discover truths, the Lieutenant models effective rhetorical inquiry with resistant responders: shy, secretive, anxious, emotionally-disconnected, angry, arrogant, jealous, and, in this case, murderous conversants. While designed to be critical and theoretical, this text strives to be accessible to interdisciplinary readers, practical in application, and amusing for Columbo buffs.
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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of TimeBy Tim SummersSome 22 years after its creation, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is still held in high critical regard as one of the finest examples of the video game medium. The same is true of the game’s music, whose superlative reception continues to be evident, whether in the context of the game or in orchestral concerts and recordings of the game’s music.
Given music’s well-established significance for the video game form, it is no coincidence that music is placed at the forefront of this most lauded and loved of games. In Ocarina of Time, music connects and unifies all aspects of the game, from the narrative conceit to the interactive mechanics, from the characters to the virtual worlds, and even into the activity of legions of fans and gamers, who play, replay and reconfigure the music in an enduring cultural site that has Ocarina of Time at its centre. As video game music studies begins to mature into a coherent field, it is now possible to take the theoretical apparatus and critical approaches that have been developed in antecedent scholarship and put these into practice in the context of an extended concrete game example.
The most extensive investigation into the music of a single game yet undertaken, this book serves three important primary purposes: first, it provides a historical-critical account of the music of an important video game text; second, it uses this investigation to explore wider issues in music and media studies (including interactivity, fan cultures, and music and technology); and third, it serves as a model for future in-depth studies of video game music.
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The Cultural Impact of RuPaul’s Drag Race
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:The Cultural Impact of RuPaul’s Drag Race show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: The Cultural Impact of RuPaul’s Drag RaceInsightful, provocative and now in paperback, The Cultural Impact of RuPaul’s Drag Race is a collection of original material that goes beyond simple analysis of the show and examines the profound effect that RuPaul’s Drag Race has had on the cultures that surround it: audience cultures, economics, branding, queer politics and all points in between. Once a cult show marketed primarily to gay men, Drag Race has drawn both praise and criticism for its ability to market itself to broader, straighter and increasingly younger fans. The show’s depiction of drag as both a celebrated form of entertainment and as a potentially lucrative career path has created an explosion of aspiring queens in unprecedented numbers, and had a far-reaching impact on drag as both an art form and a career.
Contributors include scholars based in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and South Africa. The contributions are interdisciplinary, as well as international. The editor invited submissions from scholars in theatre and performance studies, English literature, cultural anthropology, media studies, linguistics, sociology and marketing. What he envisaged was an examination of the wider cultural impacts that RuPaul’s Drag Race has had; what he received was a rich and diverse engagement with the question of how Drag Race has affected local, live cultures, fan cultures, queer representation and the very fabric of drag as an art form in popular cultural consciousness.
This original collection, with its variety of topics and approaches, is a critical appraisal of RuPaul’s Drag Race at an important point of the programme’s run, as well as of the growing industries around RPDR, including DragCon and drag queens' post-show careers in the on- and offline world.
Primarily of interest to students, scholars and researchers in media and communication studies, gender and sexuality studies, popular culture, queer theory, LGBTQ history, media studies, and fan studies. Will also appeal to fans of the series.
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A Cultural History of the Disneyland Theme Parks
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:A Cultural History of the Disneyland Theme Parks show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: A Cultural History of the Disneyland Theme ParksWhen the first Disneyland opened its doors in 1955, it reinvented the American amusement park and transformed the travel, tourism and entertainment industries forever. Now a global vacation empire, the original park in Anaheim, California, has been joined by massive complexes in Florida, Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Spanning six decades, three continents and five distinct cultures, Sabrina Mittermeier presents an interdisciplinary examination of the parks, situating them in their proper historical context and exploring the distinct cultural, social and economic landscapes that defined each one at the time of its construction. She then spotlights the central role of class in the subsequent success or failure of each venture.
The first comparative study of the Disney theme parks, this book closes a significant gap in existing research and is an important new contribution to the field, providing the first discussion of the Disney parks and what they reveal about the cultures they are set in. There has been a lack of focus on cross- and trans-cultural analyses of theme parks generally and Disney theme parks specifically, until now.
It is also particularly interesting – and will be welcomed for it – for the non-United States context of the study. This is a thorough examination of all of the existing Disney Parks and how they function within their respective cultures. While Disney themes and characters attempt to be universal, the author does a good job of arguing for where this is not possible and how glocalization is crucial to the parks’ successes.
The writing is academic, but it is not inaccessible. It will have wide disciplinary appeal within academia, as tourism studies cross into a variety of fields including history, American studies, fandom studies, performance studies and cultural studies.
It will be invaluable to those working in the field of theme park scholarship and the study of Disney theme parks, theme parks in general and related areas like world’s expositions and spaces of the consumer and lifestyle worlds.
It will also be of interest to Disney fans, those who have visited any of the parks or are interested to know more about the parks and their cultural situation and context.
Dr. Sabrina Mittermeier and Dr. Tracey Mollett discuss the cultural histories of Disney's theme parks and fairy tales:
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Lesbians on Television
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:Lesbians on Television show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: Lesbians on TelevisionThe twenty-first century has seen LGBTQ+ rights emerge at the forefront of public discourse and national politics in ways that would once have been hard to imagine. This book offers a unique and layered account of the complex dynamics in the modern moment of social change, drawing together critical, social and cultural theory as well as empirical research, which includes interviews and multi-platform media analyses.
This original new study puts forward a much-needed analysis of twenty-first century television and lesbian visibility. Books addressing the representation of lesbians have tended to focus on film; analysis of queer characters on television has usually focused on representations of gay males. Other recent books have attempted to address lesbian, gay and trans representation together, with the result that none are examined in sufficient detail – here, the exclusive focus on lesbian representation allows a fuller discussion. Until now, much of the research on lesbian and gay representation has tended to employ only textual analysis. The combination of audience research with analysis in this book brings a new angle to the debates, as does the critical review of the tropes of lesbian representation. The earlier stereotypes of pathological monsters and predators are discussed alongside the more recent trends of ‘lesbian chic’ and ‘lesbianism as a phase’.
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American Presidents and Oliver Stone
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:American Presidents and Oliver Stone show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: American Presidents and Oliver StonePerhaps no current filmmaker has made more provocative films about American history than Oliver Stone. In this book, Carl Freedman gives a detailed and nuanced account of the presidencies of John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush as fictionalized in Stone’s biographical films JFK, Nixon and W.
Offering detailed historical perspectives alongside careful aesthetic criticism, Freedman explores how Stone uses melodrama, tragedy and farce to transform politics into national mythology. Synthesizing film criticism with political and historical analysis, the book transcends the limitations of formalism and empiricism, reflecting on both Stone’s achievements as a filmmaker and American politics of the past sixty years.
Oliver Stone’s importance among filmmakers as the major chronicler of recent US history is the starting point for the analysis of his three ‘presidential’ films: JFK, Nixon and W. While not claiming equal artistic merit for Stone’s films, Freedman makes some comparison with Shakespeare’s history plays and draws on T.S. Eliot’s notion of ‘essential history’ to transcend the barren dichotomy of formalism versus empiricism – that is treating historical fiction as either only pure fiction, with nothing to say about real history, or judging it as non-fiction by the extent to which it adheres to superficial historical detail. Instead the focus is on the capacity of Stone’s films to illuminate the structural workings of history, contemporary and general.
Freedman is thoroughly familiar with his subject, and his meticulous attention to historical accuracy and critical attention to the films is impeccable. This book has a powerfully original focus and makes a significant contribution to the field through offering these detailed historical perspectives alongside much more careful aesthetic criticism of the films. It has the potential to become not only a great source on its subject, but a model of how to approach historical fiction in general.
This is an academic study but is written in such an accessible style that it will have genuine appeal to the general reader – to anyone with an interest in cinema, politics and recent history. Wide-ranging, accessible and highly original, American Presidents combines erudition and complex analysis with jargon-free writing and is sure to engage anyone interested in the intersection of American politics and cinema.
The academic readership will be among humanities scholars and students of film, popular culture, media, politics, political history and modern history. It will be highly relevant to undergraduate and postgraduate students studying film or modern American history and culture.
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The Traumatic Screen
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:The Traumatic Screen show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: The Traumatic ScreenBy Stuart JoyChristopher Nolan occupies a rare realm within the Hollywood mainstream, creating complex, original films that achieve both critical acclaim and commercial success. In The Traumatic Screen, Stuart Joy builds on contemporary applications of psychoanalytic film theory to consider the function and presentation of trauma across Nolan’s work, arguing that the complexity, thematic consistency and fragmentary nature of his films mimic the structural operation of trauma.
From 1997’s Doodlebug to 2017’s Dunkirk, Nolan’s films highlight cinema’s ability to probe the nature of human consciousness while commenting on the relationship between spectator and screen. Joy examines Nolan’s treatment of trauma – both individual and collective – through the formal construction, mise en scène and repeated themes of his films. The argument presented is based on close textual analysis and a methodological framework that incorporates the works of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. The first in-depth, overtly psychoanalytic understanding of trauma in the context of the director’s filmography, this book builds on and challenges existing scholarship in a bold new interpretation of the Nolan canon.
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Radical Mainstream
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:Radical Mainstream show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: Radical MainstreamBy Colin PerryRadical Mainstream examines independent film and video cultures in Britain from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s in the context of struggles against capitalism, patriarchy, racism, colonialism and homophobia, examining relations between counterpublics and social change. The book considers this period in order to examine the capacity for radical discourse to affect dominant cultural media forms, arguing that independent film- and video-makers helped transform television into a vital site of counterpublic discourse.
The end of the twentieth century saw the development of new social models of film and video production and exhibition alongside the formation of new alliances to campaign for changes to social practice, policy and legislature. Radical Mainstream explores the interrelation between public debate, institutions and individuals, arguing that independent film and video in Britain at this time – including activist documentary, currents of counter-cinema, avant-garde film and video art – were largely concerned with creating and circulating counterpublic discourses. The book traces the diversity of the influences on independent film and video, from socialist and liberation movements to popular radical histories and psychoanalytic and Marxist film theory. The account provides a historic backdrop to contemporary documentary and moving image work, and illuminates the heritage of critical thinking within such practices.
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