Edited by Sorcha Ni Fhlainn
ISBN 978-0-7864-4400-7
filmography, notes, bibliography, index
272pp. softcover 2010
Price: $38.00
Description
A critical examination of the cultural, cinematic, and historical contexts of the Back to the Future trilogy, this book provides a multi-focal representation of the trilogy from several interdisciplinary fields, including philosophy, literature, music, pop culture, and media and gender studies. Topics include sexual symbolism in the trilogy and the oedipal plotting of the first film; nostalgia and the suburban dream in the cultural climate of the 1980s; generic play and performance throughout the trilogy; the emotional and narrative force provided by the films’ renowned musical scores; the trilogy’s post-modern references and allusions to the Western genre; female representations across the trilogy; and the Lacanian philosophical constructs in the characterizations of Doc Brown and George and Marty McFly.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vi
Introduction: It’s About Time
SORCHA NÍ FHLAINN 1
1. Back to the Future: Edipus as Time Traveler
ANDREW GORDON 29
2. “You Space Bastard! You killed my pines!”: Back to the Future, Nostalgia and the Suburban Dream
BERNICE M. MURPHY 49
3. “Don’t you think it’s about time?”: Back to the Future in Black and White
STEPHEN MATTERSON 62
4. “There’s something very familiar about all this”: Generic Play and Performance in the Back to the Future Trilogy
LUCY FIFE DONALDSON 73
5. Bury My Heart in Hill Valley, or, The Kid Who KO’d Liberty Valance
JOHN EXSHAW 91
6. Music in Flux: Musical Transformation and Time Travel in Back to the Future
CHRISTINE LEE GENGARO 112
7. Back to the Fifties! Fixing the Future
ELIZABETH MCCARTHY 133
8. “Mom! You look so thin!”: Constructions of Femininity Across the Space-Time Continuum
KATHERINE FARRIMOND 157
9. Ronald Reagan and the Rhetoric of Traveling Back to the Future: The Zemeckis Aesthetic as Revisionist History and Conservative Fantasy
CHRISTOPHER JUSTICE 174
10. “This is what makes time travel possible”: The Generation(s) of Revolutionary Master Signifiers in Back to the Future
MICHAEL WILLIAMS 195
11. Showdown at the Café ’80’s: The Back to the Future Trilogy as Baudrillardian Parable
RANDY LAIST 216
12. “Doing it in style”: The Narrative Rules of Time Travel in the Back to the Future Trilogy
JENNIFER HARWOOD-SMITH and FRANCIS LUDLOW 232
About the Contributors 255
Index 259
About the Author
Sorcha Ni Fhlainn teaches courses on American literature, cinema and the gothic at Trinity College Dublin, where she was awarded her Ph.D.
Edited by Amy M. Clarke and Marijane Osborn Series Editors Donald E. Palumbo and C.W. Sullivan III
ISBN 978-0-7864-4998-9
notes, bibliography, index
247pp. softcover 2010
Price: $29.95
Description
The 13 essays in this volume explore Stephenie Meyer’s wildly popular Twilight series in the contexts of literature, religion, fairy tales, film, and the gothic. Several examine Meyer’s emphasis on abstinence, considering how, why, and if the author’s Mormon faith has influenced the series’ worldview. Others look at fan involvement in the Twilight world, focusing on how the series’ avid following has led to an economic transformation in Forks, Washington, the real town where the fictional series is set. Other topics include Meyer’s use of Quileute shape-shifting legends, Twilight’s literary heritage and its frequent references to classic works of literature, and the series’ controversial depictions of femininity.
Table of Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments 1
Introduction: Approaching Twilight
AMY M. CLARKE 3
Luminous and Liminal: Why Edward Shines
MARIJANE OSBORN 15
Narrative Layering and “High-culture” Romance
YVETTE KISOR 35
Carlisle’s Cross: Locating the Post-Secular Gothic
LORI BRANCH 60
Eco-Gothics for the Twenty-First Century
JAMES MC ELROY AND EMMA CATHERINE MC ELROY 80
Noble Werewolves or Native Shape-Shifters?
KRISTIAN JENSEN 92
Abstinence, American-Style
ANN V. BLISS 107
Is Twilight Mormon?
SARAH SCHWARTZMAN 121
Bella and the Choice Made in Eden
SUSAN JEFFERS 137
Bella and Boundaries, Crossed and Redeployed
KERI WOLF 152
Sleeping Beauty and the Idealized Undead: Avoiding Adolescence
JANICE HAWES 163
Why We Like Our Vampires Sexy
STEPHANIE L. DOWDLE 179
Forks, Washington: From Farms to Forests to Fans
CHRISTINE M. MITCHELL 189
The Pleasures of Adapting: Reading, Viewing, Logging On
PAMELA H. DEMORY 202
About the Contributors 217
Bibliography 221
Index 227
About the Author
Amy M. Clarke is a continuing lecturer in the University Writing Program at the University of California, Davis. She teaches courses in science fiction and fantasy, including seminars on both the Harry Potter and Twilight series, and has recently published a study of Ursula Le Guin. Marijane Osborn is professor emeritus of English at the University of California, Davis. She has written or been a major contributor to several books on Beowulf and has published three books on Middle English topics. Donald E. Palumbo is a professor of English at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. He lives in Greenville. C.W. Sullivan III is in the English department at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.
Lori M. Campbell Series Editors Donald E. Palumbo and C.W. Sullivan III
ISBN 978-0-7864-4645-2
notes, bibliography, index
226pp. softcover 2010
Price: $35.00
Description
Fantasy writing, like literature in general, provides a powerful vehicle for challenging the status quo. Via symbolism, imagery and supernaturalism, fantasy constructs secondary-world narratives that both mirror and critique the political paradigms of our own world. This critical work explores the role of the portal in fantasy, investigating the ways in which magical nexus points and movement between worlds are used to illustrate real-world power dynamics, especially those impacting women and children. Through an examination of high and low fantasy, fairy tales, children’s literature, the Gothic, and science fiction, the portal is identified as a living being, place or magical object of profound metaphorical and cultural significance.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vi
Preface 1
Introduction 5
PART I
Women and Other Magical Creatures: Portals in Romance and Fairy Tale
1. Who “Wears the Pants” in Faërie? The Woman Question in William Morris’s The Wood Beyond the World 23
2. “For I am but a girl”: The Problem of Female Power in Ford Madox Ford’s The Brown Owl 44
PART II
Charms, Places, and Little Girls: Portals in Children’s Literature
3. E. Nesbit and the Magic Word: Empowering Child and Woman in Real-World Fantasy 63
4. Lost Boys to Men: Romanticism and the Magic of the Female Imagination in J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden 82
PART III
Haunted Houses and the Hidden Self: Portals in the Gothic, Low Fantasy, and Science Fiction
5. Confronting Chaos at the In-Between: William Hope Hodgson’s The House on the Borderland 103
6. The Society Insider/Outsider and the Sympathetic Supernatural in Fantastic Tales by Edith Wharton and Oscar Wilde 120
PART IV
Haunting History: The Portal in Modern/Postmodern Fantasy
7. One World to Rule Them All: The Un-Making and Re-Making of the Symbolic Portal in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings 143
8. Harry Potter and the Ultimate In-Between: J.K. Rowling’s Portals of Power 163
9. Portals Between Then and Now: Susan Cooper, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne Jones, Neil Gaiman, and Jonathan Stroud 183
Chaper Notes 203
Bibliography 205
Index 213
About the Author
Lori M. Campbell is a lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh, where she teaches courses on nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature. Donald E. Palumbo is a professor of English at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. He lives in Greenville. C.W. Sullivan III is in the English department at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.
L. Andrew Cooper
ISBN 978-0-7864-4835-7
21 photos, notes, bibliography, index
248pp. softcover 2010
Price: $35.00
Description
Eighteenth-century critics believed Gothic fiction would inspire deviant sexuality, instill heretical beliefs, and encourage antisocial violence--this book puts these beliefs to the test. After examining the assumptions behind critics’ fears, it considers nineteenth-century concerns about sexual deviance, showing how Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dorian Gray, and other works helped construct homosexuality as a pathological, dangerous phenomenon. It then turns to television and film, particularly Buffy the Vampire Slayer and David DeCoteau’s direct-to-video movies, to trace Gothicized sexuality’s lasting impact. Moving to heretical beliefs, Gothic Realities surveys ghost stories from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol to Poltergeist, articulating the relationships between fiction and the "real" supernatural. Finally, it considers connections between Gothic horror and real-world violence, especially the tragedies at Columbine and Virginia Tech.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Bad Influences and Gothic Realities 1 (pdf)
Part One: Gothic Threats 23
1. The Threat in the Gothic’s Foundation: From John Locke to Horace Walpole 25 (pdf)
2. Gothic Threats and Cultural Hierarchy: The Critical Evaluation of The Monk and The Mysteries of Udolpho 39 (pdf)
Part Two: Gothic Sexualities 57
3. Pathological Reproduction: The Emergence of Homosexuality through Nineteenth Century Gothic Fiction 59
4. Romps in the Closet: The Persistence of Nineteenth Century Notions in Contemporary Pop Culture 81
Part Three: Gothic Ghosts 115
5. Ghost Stories and Ghostly Belief: Conventional Horrors That Make Good Truths 117
6. Ghost Epistemology: Five or Six Ways to Haunt the Senses 144
Part Four: Gothic Violence 159
7. Fictions That Kill: Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Stephen King’s Only Out-of-Print Novel 161
8. Violent Self-Reflection: Natural Born Killers, Wes Craven’s Nightmares, and Torture Porn 184
Chapter Notes 209
Selected Bibliography 223
Index 233
About the Author
L. Andrew Cooper is assistant director of the Writing and Communication Program at Georgia Tech. His work has appeared in The Quarterly Review of Film and Video and Gothic Studies.
Thomas M. Sipos
ISBN 978-0-7864-4972-9
99 photos, notes, bibliography, index
288pp. softcover (7 x 10) 2010
Price: $35.00
Description
This richly informed study analyzes how various cinematic tools and techniques have been used to create horror on screen--the aesthetic elements, sometimes not consciously noticed, that help to unnerve, frighten, shock or entertain an audience. The first two chapters define the genre and describe the use of pragmatic aesthetics (when filmmakers put technical and budgetary compromises to artistic effect). Subsequent chapters cover mise-en-scene, framing, photography, lighting, editing and sound, and a final chapter is devoted to the aesthetic appeals of horror cinema.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments v
Preface 1
1. Defining the Genre 5
2. Pragmatic Aesthetics 29
3. Mise- en- Scène 31
4. Framing the Image 71
5. Photographing the Image 97
6. Lighting the Image 140
7. Editing the Image 176
8. Putting Sound to the Image 216
9. The Appeals of Horror 247
Chapter Notes 259
Bibliography 267
Index 271
About the Author
Thomas M. Sipos has worked as a script reader, actor or extra on more than 70 productions and has contributed to Filmfax, Midnight Marquee and other magazines.
Zach Waggoner
ISBN 978-0-7864-4109-9
15 photos, appendix, notes, bibliography, index
207pp. softcover 2009
Price: $35.00
Description
With videogames now one of the world’s most popular diversions, the virtual world has increasing psychological influence on real-world players. This book examines the relationships between virtual and non-virtual identity in visual role-playing games. Utilizing James Gee’s theoretical constructs of real-world identity, virtual-world identity, and projective identity, this research shows dynamic, varying and complex relationships between the virtual avatar and the player’s sense of self and makes recommendations of terminology for future identity researchers.
Table of Contents
Preface 1
1. Videogames, Avatars, and Identity: A Brief History 3
2. Locating Identity in New Media Theory 21
3. Morrowind: Identity and the Hardcore Gamer 48
4. Oblivion: Identity and the Casual Gamer 98
5. Fallout 3: Identity and the Non-Gamer 128
6. Virtual and Non-Virtual Identities: Connections and Terminological Implications 158
Appendix: Transcription of Vishnu’s First Two Hours of Morrowind Gameplay 175
Chapter Notes 185
Bibliography 193
Index 199
About the Author
Zach Waggoner has a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition from Arizona State University, where he currently teaches professional writing, videogame theory and Teaching Assistant training.
Theresa Bane
ISBN 978-0-7864-4452-6
bibliography, index
207pp. hardcover (7 x 10) 2010
Price: $75.00
Description
From the earliest days of oral history to the present, the vampire myth persists among mankind’s deeply-rooted fears. This encyclopedia, with entries ranging from "Abchanchu" to "Zmeus," includes nearly 600 different species of historical and mythological vampires, fully described and detailed.
Table of Contents
Preface 1
Introduction 7
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA 13
Bibliography 155
Index 183
About the Author
Theresa Bane was featured on Discovery Channel’s "Twisted History: Vampires." She is also the author of other books on unusual phenomena and lives in Asheboro, North Carolina.
Kyle William Bishop
Foreword by Jerrold E. Hogle
ISBN 978-0-7864-4806-7
33 photos, filmography, notes, bibliography, index
247pp. softcover 2010
Price: $35.00
Description
Zombie stories are peculiarly American, as the creature was born in the New World and functions as a reminder of the atrocities of colonialism and slavery. The voodoo-based zombie films of the 1930s and ’40s reveal deep-seated racist attitudes and imperialist paranoia, but the contagious, cannibalistic zombie horde invasion narrative established by George A. Romero has even greater singularity.
This book provides a cultural and critical analysis of the cinematic zombie tradition, starting with its origins in Haitian folklore and tracking the development of the subgenre into the twenty-first century. Closely examining such influential works as Victor Halperin’s White Zombie, Jacques Tourneur’s I Walked with a Zombie, Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2, Dan O’Bannon’s The Return of the Living Dead, Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, and, of course, Romero’s entire "Dead" series, it establishes the place of zombies in the Gothic tradition.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vi
Foreword by Jerrold E. Hogle 1
Preface 5
Introduction—The Zombie Film and Its Cycles 9
1—RAISING THE LIVING DEAD
The Folkloric and Ideological Origins of the Voodoo Zombie 37
2—THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE
Imperialist Hegemony and the Cinematic Voodoo Zombie 64
3—THE RISE OF THE NEW PARADIGM
Night of the Living Dead and the Zombie Invasion Narrative 94
4—THE DEAD WALK THE EARTH
The Triumph of the Zombie Social Metaphor in Dawn of the Dead 129
5—HUMANIZING THE LIVING DEAD
The Evolution of the Zombie Protagonist 158
Conclusion—The Future Shock of Zombie Cinema 197
Filmography 209
Chapter Notes 213
Bibliography 225
Index 231
About the Author
Kyle William Bishop is an assistant professor at Southern Utah University, where he teaches American literature and culture, film studies, fantasy literature, and English composition. He has presented and published a variety of papers on popular culture and cinematic adaptation.
Michael J. Tresca
ISBN 978-0-7864-5895-0
10 photos, glossary, bibliography, index
238pp. softcover 2011
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Price: $35.00
Book Launch March 2011
Description
Tracing the evolution of fantasy gaming from its origins in tabletop war and collectible card games to contemporary web-based live action and massive multi-player games, this book examines the archetypes and concepts within the fantasy gaming genre alongside the roles and functions of the game players themselves. Other topics include: how The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings helped shape fantasy gaming through Tolkien’s obsessive attention to detail and virtual world building; the community-based fellowship embraced by players of both play-by-post and persistent browser-based games, despite the fact that these games are fundamentally solo experiences; the origins of gamebooks and interactive fiction; and the evolution of online gaming in terms of technological capabilities, media richness, narrative structure, coding authority, and participant roles.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Preface 1
Introduction 5
1. The Lord of the Rings 23
2. Collectible Card Games and Miniature Wargames 47
3. Tabletop Role-Playing Games 59
4. Play-By-Post and Browser-Based Games 92
5. Gamebooks and Interactive Fiction 100
6. Multi-User Dungeons 111
7. Computer Role-Playing Games 134
8. Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games 162
9. Live Action Role-Playing Games 181
Conclusion 200
Glossary 203
Sources 207
Index 217
About the Author
Game designer, author, and artist Michael J. Tresca has authored numerous supplements and adventures for publishers of fantasy role-playing games. An administrator at RetroMUD, he lives in Connecticut.
Edited by Kevin K. Durand and Mary K. Leigh
ISBN 978-0-7864-4628-5
notes, bibliographies, index
258pp. softcover 2010
Price: $35.00
Description
The Wizard of Oz has captured the imagination of the public since publication of L. Frank Baum’s first book of the series in 1900. Oz has shaped the way we read children’s literature, view motion pictures and experience musicals. Oz has captured the scholarly imagination as well. The seventeen essays in this book address numerous questions of the boundaries between literature, film, and stage--and these have become essential to Oz scholarship. Together the essays explore the ways in which Oz tells us much about ourselves, our society, and our journeys.
Table of Contents
Preface; or, Scholars Walk the Yellow Brick Road 1
PART ONE: OZ AND LITERARY CRITICISM
1. The Emerald Canon: Where the Yellow Brick Road Forks
(Kevin K. Durand) 11
2. Dorothy and Cinderella: The Case of the Missing Prince and the Despair of the Fairy Tale
(Agnes B. Curry and Josef Velazquez) 24
3. Psychospiritual Wizdom: Dorothy’s Monomyth in The Wizard of Oz
( Jené Gutierrez) 54
4. “Come out, come out, wherever you are”: How Tina Landau’s 1969 Stages a Queer Reading of The Wizard of Oz
(Ronald Zank) 61
5. “Something between higgledy-piggledy and the eternal sphere”: Queering Age/Sex in Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl
(Emily A. Mattingly) 77
6. No Place Like the O.Z.: Heroes and Hybridity in Sci-Fi’s Tin Man
(Kristin Noone) 94
7. The Wizard of Oz as a Modernist Work
(Charity Gibson) 107
PART TWO: OZ AND PHILOSOPHY
8. Ask the Clock of the Time Dragon: Oz in the Past and the Future
(Randall Auxier) 121
9. Down the Yellow Brick Road: Good and Evil, Freewill, and Generosity in The Wizard of Oz
(Gail Linsenbard) 136
10. The “Wonderful” Wizard of Oz and Other Lies: A Study of Inauthenticity in Wicked: A New Musical
(Mary K. Leigh) 147
11. Memories Cloaked in Magic: Memory and Identity in Tin Man
(Anne Collins Smith) 158
12. The Wicked Wizard of Oz
(Kevin K. Durand) 172
13. A Feminist Stroll Down the Yellow Brick Road: Dorothy’s Heroine’s Adventure
(Paula Kent) 179
PART THREE: OZ AND SOCIAL CRITIQUE
14. The Wiz: American Culture at Its Best
(Rhonda Williams) 191
15. The Wiz as the Seventies’ Version of The Wizard of Oz: An Analysis
(Claudia A. Beach) 200
16. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: Religious Populism and Spiritual Capitalism
(Kevin Tanner) 204
17. The Ethics and Epistemology of Emancipation in Oz
( Jason M. Bell and Jessica Bell) 225
About the Contributors 247
Index 251
About the Author
Kevin K. Durand is an associate professor of philosophy at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. He has published broadly in philosophy, religion, and ethics, and this is his third book. Mary K. Leigh is an adjunct instructor of philosophy and English at Henderson State University. She lives in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.
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