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This book considers fantasy film and its relationship to myth, legend and fairytale, examining its important role in contemporary culture. It provides an historical overview of the genre and its evolution, contextualising each fantasy film within its socio-cultural period and with reference to relevant critical theory.
A Critical Companion to Christopher Nolan provides a wide-ranging exploration of Christopher Nolan's films, practices, and collaborations. From a range of critical perspectives, this volume examines Nolan's body of work, explores its industrial and economic contexts, and interrogates the director's auteur status. This volume contributes to the scholarly debates on Nolan and includes original essays that examine all his films including his short films. It is structured into three sections that deal broadly with themes of narrative and time; collaborations and relationships; and ideology, politics, and genre. The authors of the sixteen chapters include established Nolan scholars as well as academics with expertise in approaches and perspectives germane to the study of Nolan's body of work. To these ends, the chapters employ intersectional, feminist, political, ideological, narrative, economic, aesthetic, genre, and auteur analysis in addition to perspectives from star theory, short film theory, performance studies, fan studies, adaptation studies, musicology, and media industry studies.
A provocative new look at concepts of the present, their connection to ideas about time, and their effect on literature, art, and culture The problem of the present—what it is and what it means—is one that has vexed generations of thinkers and artists. Because modernity places so much value on the present, many critics argue that people today spend far too much time in the here and now—but how can we tell without first knowing what the here and now actually is? What Is the Present? takes a provocative new look at this moment in time that remains a mystery even though it is always with us. Michael North tackles puzzles that have preoccupied philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, history,...
Transcending Postmodernism: Performatism 2.0 is an ambitious attempt to expand and deepen the theory of performatism. Its main thesis is that, beginning in the mid-1990s, the strategies and norms of postmodernism have been displaced by ones that force readers or viewers to experience effects of aesthetically mediated transcendence. These effects include specific temporal strategies (“chunking”), stylizing separated subjectivity (the genius and the fool being its two main poles) and orienting ethics toward actions taken by centered agents bearing a sacral charge. The book provides a critical overview of other theories of post-postmodernism, and suggests that among five text-oriented theories there is basic agreement on its techniques and strategies.
Terry Gilliam has been making movies for more than forty years, and this volume analyzes a selection of his thrilling directorial work, from his early films with Monty Python to The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnussus (2009). The frenetic genius, auteur, and social critic continues to create indelible images on screen--if, that is, he can get funding for his next project. Featuring eleven original essays from an international group of scholars, this collection argues that when Gilliam makes a movie, he goes to war: against Hollywood caution and convention, against American hyper-consumerism and imperial militarism, against narrative vapidity and spoon-fed mediocrity, and against the brutalizing notion and cruel vision of the "American Dream."
"Film tourism-travel associated with a movie or television show-is big business. Whether it is a filming location such as the Game of Thrones set in Northern Ireland, a newly-created themed area like The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, or the myriad of "pop-ups" that have become part of television marketing such as FriendsFest and The Seinfeld Experience, film tourism is booming. In Placing Fandom, Abby Waysdorf presents an in-depth investigation of contemporary film tourism, drawing on both fan studies and tourism studies perspectives. Its overall focus is on the tourist experience, building on previous research in that direction, but with a stronger focus on the relationship that tourists...
With the rise of drones and computer-controlled weapons, the line between war and video games continues to blur. In this book, the authors trace how the realities of war are deeply inflected by their representation in popular entertainment. War games and other media, in turn, feature an increasing number of weapons, tactics, and threat scenarios from the War on Terror. While past analyses have emphasized top-down circulation of pro-military ideologies through government public relations efforts and a cooperative media industry, The Military-Entertainment Complex argues for a nonlinear relationship, defined largely by market and institutional pressures. Tim Lenoir and Luke Caldwell explore th...
Foundations of Mobile Media Studies gathers some of the most important texts in this emerging field, offering readers key approaches to understanding our moment and our media. The impact of mobile media is far reaching and this book discusses topics such as human intimacy, social space, political uprisings, labor, mobile phones in the developing world, gender, the mobile device’s impact on reading, mobile television, and mobile photography, among others. This carefully curated collection will serve as the central text to introduce this field to anyone eager to understand the rise of mobile technology, its impact on our relationships, and how these media have transformed the ways we understand the world around us.
A collection of analyses focusing on popular culture as a profound discursive site of anxiety and discussion about 9/11 and demystifies the day's events.