China Miéville Conference (UK)

I had thought I had posted this before:

Weird Council: An International Conference on the Writing of China Miéville

Saturday 15th September 2012
School of Arts, Birkbeck, University of London

Sponsored by Gylphi: Arts and Humanities Publisher, Birkbeck, University of London and the University of Lincoln
Part of the Gylphi Contemporary Writers series

Keynote Speakers:
Professor Sherryl Vint (Brock University)
Professor Roger Luckhurst (Birkbeck, University of London)

Response and Q&A from China Miéville

Papers are invited for the first academic conference dedicated to the work of China Miéville. The winner of multiple awards, Miéville has developed a distinguished body of fictional work since the publication of his first novel, King Rat, in 1999. In addition to nine published novels (with his next forthcoming in May 2012) as well as a collection of short stories, Miéville is also a respected literary critic, political activist and legal scholar. His post-Suvinian working through of the “Fantastic” as a generic category encompassing SF, fantasy and the Gothic, as well as avant-garde traditions such as Surrealism, has been influential in cutting across received boundaries of genre. Miéville’s monograph Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law was published in 2005 and he has written and edited articles for a variety of journals; from Historical Materialism and the philosophical journal Collapse, to the Harvard International Law Journal.

Influenced by, among others, late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century pulp traditions and New Wave SF – especially the work of M. John Harrison – Miéville has recently been credited as “leading revolutions in fantasy as both a writer and a critic” (in a 2009 special edition of SF journal Extrapolation dedicated to his work). His fiction spans a wide variety of themes, contexts and genre-blurring literary traditions, which metaphorically explores, among other things, the implications of lived cultural, racial and geographical boundaries, collective struggle, and bodily affect.

Despite the critical acclaim of Miéville’s fictions – as well as his prominence as a literary and cultural critic – there is little scholarly work on Miéville’s already substantial oeuvre. The organisers welcome papers on any topic related to Miéville’s writing from any disciplinary position. Topics might include, but are not limited to:

Miéville and his literary contexts – the New Weird, the British SF Boom, London Gothic, steampunk, post-cyberpunk, post-genre fiction, slipstream
utopian and dystopian thinking
class, social mobility, poverty and social inequality
the critique of racism
revolution and the critique of capitalist modernity
spaces of alterity
urban and spatial phantasmagorias
Marxist theory and aesthetics
Metaphor vs. Allegory
teratology and hybridity
noir and crime
gender, sexuality, and feminism
religion and religious cults
posthumanism
Young Adult literature
post-Suvinian SF criticism
political writing and activism
hierarchies of high and low culture
fan subcultures and geek aesthetics
comics and role playing games
affinities with key figures in the British fantastic tradition (e.g. Mervyn Peake and M. John Harrison)

The conference welcomes proposals for individual papers and panels from any discipline and theoretical perspective. Submissions are welcome from both research students and academics. Please send a title and 300 word abstract for a 20 minute paper along with your name, affiliation and 100 word professional biography to mieville@gylphi.co.uk by 1st March 2012.

The conference is organised by Dr Caroline Edwards, Lecturer in English, Department of English, University of Lincoln and Tony Venezia, PhD candidate and tutor, School of Arts, Birkbeck, University of London.

http://ulincoln.academia.edu/CarolineEdwards 

http://birkbeck.academia.edu/TonyVenezia

The conference is sponsored by Gylphi Arts and Humanities Publisher, the Department of English, University of Lincoln and the School of Arts, Birkbeck, University of London. Selected papers from the conference proceedings will be published as China Miéville: Critical Essays, with a contribution by Miéville, as part of Gylphi’s Contemporary Writers: Critical Essays series (Series Editor: Dr Sarah Dillon). For more information regarding the Series see:

http://www.gylphi.co.uk/criticalessays/index.php

The Miéville conference website will launch in autumn 2011: see the Gylphi website for more details: http://www.gylphi.co.uk/index.php.


Caroline Edwards
Department of English
University of Lincoln
Brayford Pool
Lincoln, LN6 7TS
United Kingdom
Email: mieville@gylphi.co.uk

Miscellaneous from McFarland

New and recent from one of our favorite publishers:

The Galaxy Is Rated G: Essays on Children’s Science Fiction Film and Television

Edited by R.C. Neighbors and Sandy Rankin

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-5875-2
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8801-8
notes, bibliographies, index
292pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2011
Price: $40.00


About the Book
Through spaceships, aliens, ray guns and other familiar trappings, science fiction uses the future (and sometimes the past) to comment on current social, cultural and political ideologies; the same is true of science fiction in children’s film and television.

This collection of essays analyzes the confluences of science fiction and children’s visual media, covering such cultural icons as Flash Gordon, the Jetsons and Star Wars, as well as more contemporary fare like the films Wall-E, Monsters vs. Aliens and Toy Story. Collectively, the essays discover, applaud and critique the hidden--and not-so-hidden--messages presented on our children’s film and TV screens.


Table of Contents

Introduction. Horizons of Possibility: What We Point to When We Say Science Fiction for Children 1
SANDY RANKIN AND R.C. NEIGHBORS

PART 1. D IS FOR DEVIANCE
ONE. Monsters Among Us: Construction of the Deviant Body in Monsters, Inc. and Lilo & Stitch 15
ELIZABETH LEIGH SCHERMAN
TWO. Susan Murphy, Ginormica, and Gloria Steinem: Feminist Consciousness-Raising as Science Fiction in Monsters vs. Aliens 31
HOLLY HASSEL
THREE. Performing Gender, Performing Romance: Pixar’s WALL-E 53
CAROL A. BERNARD
FOUR. Last in Space: The “Black” Hole in Children’s Science Fiction Film 64
DEBBIE C. OLSON
FIVE. A Few Beasts Hissed: Buzz Lightyear and the Refusal to Believe 83
DANIEL KENNEFICK

PART 2. S IS FOR STRUCTURES OF POWER
SIX. Forward to the Past: Anti-Fascist Allegory and “Blitz Spirit” Revisionism in Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. 97
DANIEL O’BRIEN
SEVEN. The Search for a “More Civilized Age,” or the Failure of Utopian Desire in the Star Wars Franchise 111
R.C. NEIGHBORS
EIGHT. Inexplicable Utterances: Social Power and Pluralistic Discourse in Transformers 123
JACQUELINE WIEGARD
NINE. “Population: Us”: Nostalgia for a Future that Never Was (Not Yet) in The Iron Giant 138
SANDY RANKIN
TEN. Doctor Who: A Very British Alien 161
J.P.C. BROWN

PART 3. F IS FOR FUTURE SHOCK
ELEVEN. No Future Shock Here: The Jetsons, Happy Tech, and the Patriarchy 183
BRIAN COWLISHAW
TWELVE. “No One’s Lazy in LazyTown”: The Making of Active Citizens in Preschool Television 195
LYNN WHITAKER
THIRTEEN. Flash Gordon: Remembering a Childhood Hero (Past, Present, Future) 217
PATRICK D. ENRIGHT
FOURTEEN. Toys, a T-Rex, and Trouble: Cautionary Tales of Time Travel in Children’s Film 228
KRISTINE LARSEN
FIFTEEN. “Manmade Mess”: The Critical Dystopia of WALL-E 248
ALEXANDER CHARLES OLIVER HALL
SIXTEEN. A Bumbling Bag of Ball Bearings: Lost in Space and the Space Race 262
JONATHAN COHN

About the Contributors 279
Index 283


About the Author
R.C. Neighbors holds degrees in psychology, English and film from the University of Arkansas, Northeastern State University and Hollins University. He serves as a reviewer for the journal Callaloo, published at Texas A&M University.

Sandy Rankin is a visiting assistant professor at the University of Central Arkansas. Her publications include poetry, fiction, and essays in such periodicals as Journal of Popular Culture.

The Buffyverse Catalog: A Complete Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel in Print, Film, Television, Comics, Games and Other Media, 1992-2010

Don Macnaughtan

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-4603-2
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8787-5
appendices, bibliography, index
326pp. softcover (7 x 10) 2011
Price: $45.00


About the Book
This bibliographic guide covers the "Buffyverse"--the fictional worlds of the acclaimed television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) and its spinoff Angel (1999-2004), as well as the original Buffy feature film of 1992. It is the largest and most inclusive work of its kind. The author organizes and describes both the original texts of the Buffyverse (episodes, DVDs, novels, comic books, games, and more) and the secondary materials created about the shows, including books, essays, articles, documentaries, dissertations, fan production and websites. This vast and diverse collection of information about these two seminal shows and their feature-film forebear provides an accessible, authoritative and comprehensive survey of the subject.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vi
Preface 1
Introduction 3
User’s Guide 5

I. LICENSED (PRIMARY) MATERIALS

Section 1. Buffy the Movie 10
A. Film 11
B. DVDs 11
C. Movie Script 11
D. Reviews 11

Section 2. Television Episodes 13
A. Buffy Seasons 1–7 14
B. Angel Seasons 1–5 23
C. Trailers 31
D. Undeveloped Productions 31
E. Reviews 31

Section 3. Television DVD Sets 37
A. North American DVD Sets 39
B. European, Australian and Asian DVD Sets 41
C. Reviews 43

Section 4. Television Scripts 44
A. Published Scripts 45
B. Shooting Script Reprints 45
C. Unpublished Scripts 47

Section 5. Novels 48
A. Buffy and Angel Novels 49
B. Foreign Language Editions 51
C. Reviews 56

Section 6. Short Stories 57
A. Short Story Collections 58
B. Individual Short Stories 58
C. Foreign Language Editions 59

Section 7. Comic Books 59
A. Dark Horse Comics 62
B. IDW Comics 73
C. Other Licensed Comics 79
D. Comic Book Art 79
E. Foreign Language Editions 81
F. Reviews 83

Section 8. Audio 85
A. Audiobooks 85
B. Soundtrack CDs 85
C. Reviews 87

Section 9. Games 88
A. Board Games 89
B. Card Games 89
C. DVD Game 89
D. Role-Playing Games 89
E. Video Games 90
F. Unpublished Projects 91
G. Reviews 91

Section 10. Fan Magazines 92
A. MVP Official Magazines 93
B. Titan Official Magazines 94
C. Other Genre Fan Magazines 103
D. Celebrity Magazines 109
E. Partworks 110
F. Foreign Language Magazines 111

Section 11. Other Licensed Materials 111
A. Books 112
B. Promotional Posters 113
C. Trading Cards 114
D. Miscellaneous Materials 116

II. UNLICENSED (SECONDARY) MATERIALS

Section 12. Books 120
A. General Books 120
B. Essay Collections 121
C. Reference, Companion, and Guide Books 122
D. Biographies of Actors 125
E. Miscellaneous and Special Interest Books 125
F. Foreign Language Books 126
G. Reviews and Review Essays 127

Section 13. Essays and Book Chapters 131
A. Reference Book Articles 132
B. Essays and Book Chapters 133
C. Foreign Language Essays 190

Section 14. Journal Articles 191
A. English Language Articles 192
B. Foreign Language Articles 222

Section 15. Magazine Articles 222

Section 16. News Articles 235

Section 17. Broadcasts and Documentaries 250
A. Broadcast Segments 250
B. Documentaries 251
C. Reviews 252

Section 18. Interviews 252
A. Joss Whedon 253
B. Television Writers and Producers 257
C. Actors 258
D. Television Talk and Comedy Shows 260
E. Other Creators 261
F. Collected Interviews and Panel Discussions 261

Section 19. Dissertations and Theses 262
A. English Language Dissertations 263
B. Foreign Language Dissertations and Theses 266

Section 20. Conference Papers and Reports 267
A. Academic Conferences and Symposia 267
B. Conference and Research Papers 268

Section 21. Derivative Works and Parodies 272
A. Art and Graphic Design 274
B. Comic Books and Strips 274
C. Fan Fiction 275
D. Fan Vids 277
E. Live Theatre, Poetry, and Events 279
F. Movies 279
G. Music 279
H. Podcasts and Online Audio 280
I. Scientific and Technical References 280
J. Television 281

Section 22. Websites 282

Section 23. Bibliographies 284

Appendix A: Wikipedia 285
Appendix B: Cast and Creator 292
Appendix C: Episode Title Index 294
Index 297


About the Author
Don Macnaughtan was raised and educated in Auckland, New Zealand. His many written works include the first published discography of New Zealand popular music. He is a reference librarian and teacher at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon.



The Martians Have Landed! A History of Media-Driven Panics and Hoaxes

Robert E. Bartholomew and Benjamin Radford

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-648-2
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8671-7
13 photos, notes, bibliography, index
254pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2012
Price: $40.00

About the Book
History is replete with examples of media-created scares and panics. This book presents more than three dozen studies of media scares from the 17th century to the 21st century, including hoaxes perpetrated via newspapers, radio, television and cyberspace. From the 1835 batmen on the Moon hoax to more recent bird flu scares and Hurricane Katrina myths, this book explores hoaxes that highlight the impact of the media on our lives and its tendency to sensationalize. Most of the hoaxes covered occurred in the United States, though incidents from Europe, Asia, Africa, South America and Australia are featured as well. Several are global in scope, revealing the power global media wields.


Table of Contents

Preface 1

Section One : It Came from the Airwaves—Radio
1. The London Riot Hoax 13
2. Radio Daze—The Martian Invasion Broadcast 16
3. The Martians Return 23
4. Infamous Disc Jockey Hoaxes 27
5. Playing with Fire: Nuclear Scares 30

Section Two : It Came from the Small Screen—Television
6. “This Just In...” NBC Frightens Viewers 37
7. “Look! Up in the Sky!” Asteroid Panic 40
8. Pokémon Panics and Creepy Crawley Scares 44
9. The “Documentary” That Fooled England 49
10. Hurricane Katrina Mythmaking 53
11. Chicken Little and the Bird Flu Panic 59
12. The Russians Are Coming! 64
13. The Video Nasties Scare (Peter Hassall) 67

Section Three : It Came from Ink—Newspapers
14. The Batmen on the Moon Hoax 79
15. The Central Park Zoo Panic 84
16. The Halley’s Comet Scare of 1910 87
17. How the Press Created an Imaginary Terrorist 92
18. The Hook Hoax 98
19. The Ghost Slasher of Taiwan 101
20. The Phantom Clown Panic 105

Section Four : It Came from Cyberspace—The Internet
21. Chemtrails and Conspiracies 113
22. Morgellons: The First Internet Disease? 117
23. Katrina Evacuee Myths 120
24. The E-mail Virus Panic (Bill Ellis) 123

Section Five : It Came from a Friend of a Friend—Media-Spread Urban Legends
25. Urban Legends and the Media 131
26. The Curse of the Crying Boy (David Clarke) 134
27. Photos of the Gods (David Clarke) 146

Section Six : It Came from Everywhere
28. The Satanic Cult Scare 157
29. Halloween Panics 162
30. Stranger Danger and the Predator Next Door 170
31. The School Safety Panic 176
32. “Out of the Water!” Media Shark Frenzy 179
33. The Great Puerto Rican Chupacabra Panic 182
34. YouTube, Popcorn and the Killer Cell Phones 187
35. Someone Stole My Kidney! Organ Theft Scares 192
36. Killer Vaccines (Felicity Goodyear-Smith and Helen Petousis-Harris) 197

Notes 213
Bibliography 229
Index 241


About the Author
Robert E. Bartholomew has taught sociology in Australia at The Flinders University of South Australia and James Cook University in Queensland. Also a former broadcast journalist and contributor to news organizations such as the Associated Press and United Press International, he is the author of several books and lives in Whitehall, New York.

Benjamin Radford is deputy editor of the science magazine The Skeptical Inquirer. The author of several books, he has also written numerous articles on a variety of topics including urban legends, the paranormal, critical thinking, films, and media literacy. He has appeared on CNN, the History Channel, and the National Geographic Channel.



Murray Leinster: The Life and Works

Billee J. Stallings and Jo-an J. Evans

Foreword by James Gunn

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-6504-0
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8715-8
42 photos, appendices, bibliography, index
227pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2011
Price: $40.00

About the Book
Will F. Jenkins, known to science fiction fans by his penname Murray Leinster, was among the most prolific American writers of the 20th century. "The Dean of Science Fiction," as he was sometimes known, published more than 1,500 short stories and 100 books in a career spanning more than fifty years. This biography, written by his two youngest daughters, chronicles Murray Leinster’s private and literary life from his first writings for The Smart Setand early pulp magazines such as Argosy, Amazing Stories and Astounding Stories, through the golden age of science fiction in the 1930s through the 1950s, to his death in 1975. Included as appendices are his famous 1946 story "A Logic Named Joe" and 1954 essay "To Build a Robot Brain."


Table of Contents

Acknowledgments v
Foreword: The Dean Revisited by James Gunn 1
Preface 3

1. The Beginning: 1909 5
2. A Southern Family 13
3. The Early Days: 1910–1919 22
4. Entering Science Fiction: 1919–1921 33
5. Marriage: The 1920s 38
6. The 1930s 61
7. The New York Years: The 1940s 86
8. The 1950s 117
9. The 1960s 132
10. After Mary’s Death 152
11. On Writing 164

Appendix A. “A Logic Named Joe” 175
Appendix B. “To Build a Robot Brain” 187
Bibliography 195
Index 215


About the Author
Billee J. Stallings lives in Moorestown, New Jersey, where she is active in historical preservation.

Jo-an J. Evans has written previously about fashion and design. She lives in London.

Ridley Scott: A Critical Filmography

William B. Parrill

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-5866-0
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8593-2
23 photos, filmography, bibliography, index
189pp. softcover (7 x 10) 2011
Price: $45.00

About the Book
Ridley Scott, the director of such seminal films as Blade Runner, Alien and Thelma & Louise, is one of the most important directors of the last fifty years. Unlike many directors, Scott has been remarkably transparent about his craft, offering the audience glimpses into his creative process. This book explores Scott’s oeuvre in depth, devoting a chapter to his 22 primary works, from his first effort, Boy and Bicycle (1962), through Robin Hood (2010). Topics discussed include the critical reception of the films, and the ways in which Scott’s works function as cinematic mediators of issues such as religion, women’s rights and history.


Table of Contents

Preface 1
Introduction 3

1. Boy and Bicycle (1962): Playing Hooky 25
2. Adam Adamant Lives! (1966): The League of Uncharitable Ladies 28
3. The Duellists (1977): En Garde! 30
4. Alien (1979): Ripley on Call 36
5. Blade Runner (1982): At the Thanhauser Gate 43
6. Legend (1985): I Only Wanted to Touch One. Where’s the Harm in That? 58
7. Someone to Watch Over Me (1987): Is It Love, Mike? 63
8. Black Rain (1989): One Big Gray Area 68
9. Thelma & Louise (1991): On the Road: One Insult Too Far 74
10. 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992): I Think We Have Returned to Eden 85
11. White Squall (1996): A Meterological Phenomenon of the Imagination 91
12. G. I. Jane (1997): Wild Thing 94
13. Gladiator (2000): There Was Once a Dream That Was Rome 100
14. Black Hawk Down (2001): Bird Down in the City 108
15. Hannibal (2001): Hannibal the Cannibal 116
16. Matchstick Men (2003): Mean Street Men in Bright Colors 125
17. All the Invisible Children (2005): “Jonathan”: The Rediscovery of Life Through Childhood 129
18. Kingdom of Heaven (2005): Jerusalem: The Center of the World for Forgiveness 131
19. A Good Year (2006): Postcards from Provence 138
20. American Gangster (2007): Cops Kill Cops They Can’t Trust 142
21. Body of Lies (2008): Closing Time 150
22. Robin Hood (2010): The Outlaw Returns to History 154

Filmography 161
Bibliography 165
Index 173


About the Author
William B. Parrill is an emeritus professor of English and communication at Southeastern Louisiana University. He is a founding editor of the journal Louisiana Literature and has written extensively on films and contemporary literature.

Classic Home Video Games, 1989-1990: A Complete Guide to Sega Genesis, Neo Geo and TurboGrafx-16 Games

Brett Weiss 

Foreword by Leonard Herman

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-4172-3
121 photos, glossary, appendices, bibliography, index
344pp. hardcover (7 x 10) 2011
Price: $55.00

About the Book
The third in a series about home video games, this detailed reference work features descriptions and reviews of every official U.S.-released game for the Neo Geo, Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx-16, which, in 1989, ushered in the 16-bit era of gaming. Organized alphabetically by console brand, each chapter includes a description of the game system followed by substantive entries for every game released for that console. Video game entries include historical information, gameplay details, the author’s critique, and, when appropriate, comparisons to similar games. Appendices list and offer brief descriptions of all the games for the Atari Lynx and Nintendo Game Boy, and catalogue and describe the add-ons to the consoles covered herein--Neo Geo CD, Sega CD, Sega 32X and TurboGrafx-CD.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii
Foreword by Leonard Herman 1
Preface 3

Neo Geo 7
Samurai 26
Sega Genesis 36
BubsyII 62
Mortal Kombat 145
TurboGrafx-16 251
Pac-Land 273

Appendix I. Neo Geo CD 285
Appendix II. Sega CD 288
Appendix III. Sega 32X 293
Appendix IV. TurboGrafx-CD 295
Appendix V. Atari Lynx 297
Appendix VI. Nintendo Game Boy 299
Glossary 311
Bibliography 323
Index 325


About the Author
Former comic shop owner Brett Weiss lives in Fort Worth, Texas area. In addition to his reference books about classic home video games, he has written for numerous industry magazines.



Of Muscles and Men: Essays on the Sword and Sandal Film

Edited by Michael G. Cornelius

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-6162-2
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8902-2
notes, bibliographies, index
218pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2011
Price: $40.00


About the Book
Few movie genres have highlighted the male body more effectively than the "sword-and-sandal" film, where the rippling torso and the bulging muscle are displayed for all to appreciate. Carrying his phallic sword and dressed in traditional garb calculated to bring attention to his magnificent physique, the sword-and-sandal hero is capable of toppling great nations, rescuing heroines, defeating monsters, and generally saving the day. Each of these essays examines the issues of masculinity and utility addressed in the sword-and-sandal genre. The contributors offer insights on a film form which showcases its male protagonists as heroic, violent, fleshy, and, in the end, extremely useful.


Table of Contents

Introduction—Of Muscles and Men: The Forms and Functions of the Sword and Sandal Film
MICHAEL G. CORNELIUS 1

Hercules, Politics, and Movies
MARIA ELENA D’AMELIO 15
Hero Trouble: Blood, Politics, and Kinship in Pasolini’s Medea
KRISTI M. WILSON 28
“To do or die manfully”: Performing Heteronormativity in Recent Epic Films
JERRY B. PIERCE 40
From Maciste to Maximus and Company: The Fragmented Hero in the New Epic
ANDREW B. R. ELLIOTT 58
Reverent and Irreverent Violence: In Defense of Spartacus, Conan, and Leonidas
JOHN ELIA 75
“Civilization ... ancient and wicked”: Historicizing the Ideological Field of 1980s Sword and Sandal Films
KEVIN M. FLANAGAN 87
Homer’s Lies, Brad Pitt’s Thighs: Revisiting the Pre-Oedipal Mother and the German Wartime Father in Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy
ROBERT C. PIRRO 104
An Enduring Logic: Homer, Helen of Troy, and Narrative Mobility
LARRY T. SHILLOCK 124
“By Jupiter’s Cock!” Spartacus: Blood and Sand, Video Games, and Camp Excess
DAVID SIMMONS 144
Beefy Guys and Brawny Dolls: He-Man, the Masters of the Universe, and Gay Clone Culture
MICHAEL G. CORNELIUS 154
Developments in Peplum Filmmaking: Disney’s Hercules
CHRIS PALLANT 175
Hercules Diminished? Parody, Differentiation, and Emulation in The Three Stooges Meet Hercules
DANIEL O’BRIEN 187

About the Contributors 203
Index 207


About the Author
Award-winning novelist Michael G. Cornelius is the author or editor of numerous books. He serves as chair of the department of English and Mass Communications at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

The Boy Detectives: Essays on the Hardy Boys and Others

Edited by Michael G. Cornelius 

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-6033-5
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-6198-1
notes, bibliographies, index
220pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2010
Price: $35.00


About the Book
Much has been written about the girl sleuth in fiction, a feminist figure embodying all the potential wit and drive of girlhood. Her male counterpart, however, has received much less critical attention despite his popularity in the wider culture. This collection of 11 essays examines the boy detective and his genre from a number of critical perspectives, addressing the issues of these young characters, heirs to the patriarchy yet still concerned with first crushes and soda shop romances. Series explored include the Hardy Boys, Tow Swift, the Three Investigators, Christopher Cool and Tim Murphy, as well as works by Astrid Lindgren, Mark Haddon and Joe Meno.


Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: The Nomenclature of Boy Sleuths
MICHAEL G. CORNELIUS 1

1. A Hardy Boys’ Identity Narrative and The Tower Treasure
LARRY T. SHILLOCK 19
2. Hardy Camaraderie: Boy Sleuthing and Male Community in the Hardy Boys Mysteries
C. M. GILL 35
3. Terminal Immaterial: The Uncertain Subject of the Hardy Boys Airport Mysteries
CHRISTOPHER SCHABERG 51
4. Strategies of Adaptation: The Hardy Boys on Television
BRIAN TAVES 62
5. Natural Detective Work: Ideas About Nature in the Early Tom Swift Books
ELIZABETH D. BLUM 86
6. Tim Murphy: Superhero Without a Cape
FRED ERISMAN 108
7. Adventures and Affect: The Character of the Boy Detective and Orphan in Astrid Lindgren’s Rasmus and the Tramp
CHARLOTTE BEYER 120
8. The Power of Three: Alfred Hitchcock’s Three Investigators Series
ALAN PICKRELL 132
9. Clashing Genres: (No) Sex and (No) Violence in the Christopher Cool, TEEN Agent Series
MICHAEL G. CORNELIUS 143
10. “The Perfect Hero for His Age”: Christopher Boone and the Role of Logic in the Boy Detective Narrative
NICOLA ALLEN 167
11. Has the World Outgrown the Classic Boy Detective?
JOHN FINLAY KERR 180

About the Contributors 199
Index 203


About the Author
Award-winning novelist Michael G. Cornelius is the author or editor of numerous books. He serves as chair of the department of English and Mass Communications at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

The Wind Is Never Gone: Sequels, Parodies and Rewritings of Gone with the Wind

M. Carmen Gomez-Galisteo

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-5927-8
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8636-6
notes, bibliography, index
216pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2011
Price: $35.00

About the Book
More than seventy years after its publication in 1936, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Windhas never been out of print. An icon of American culture, it has had similar success abroad, popular in Japan, Russia, and post-World War II Europe, among other places and times. This work analyzes the continuations of Mitchell’s novel: the authorized sequels, Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley and Rhett Butler’s People by Donald McCaig; the unauthorized parody The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall and a politically correct parody; and the many fan fiction stories posted online. The book also explores Gone with the Wind’s ambiguous ending, the perceived need to publish an authorized sequel, and the legal battle to determine who may re-write Gone with the Wind.


Table of Contents

Preface 1
Introduction: I Have Been Unfaithful to Thee, Scarlett! 3

1. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 15
2. To Be Continued: Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley and the Failed Sequels Commissioned to Emma Tennant and Pat Conroy 36
3. Copyright Not Gone with the Wind 55
4. The Gone with the Wind Parodies: The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall and “Frankly, Scarlett, I Do Give a Damn” by Beverly West and Nancy Peske 79
5. Rhett Butler’s Side of the Story: Rhett Butler’s People by Donald McCaig 107
6. Gone with the Wind Fan Fiction 124
7. The Gone with the Wind Canon 155

Conclusion: Is It Gone with the Wind? 173
Bibliography 183
Index 203

About the Author
M. Carmen Gomez-Galisteo’s work has appeared in Ad Americam, Contemporary Legend, Americana, Clepsydra, RAEI, The Grove, and NeoAmericanist, among other publications. She currently teaches at ESNE - Universidad Camilo Jose Cela (Madrid).

Learning from Mickey, Donald and Walt: Essays on Disney’s Edutainment Films

Edited by A. Bowdoin Van Riper

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-5957-5
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8475-1
chart, notes, bibliography, index
274pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2011
Price: $40.00

About the Book
Throughout its long and colorful history, Walt Disney Studios has produced scores of films designed to educate moviegoers as well as entertain them. These productions range from the True-Life Adventures nature documentaries and such depictions of cutting-edge technology as Man in Space and Our Friend the Atom, to wartime propaganda shorts (Education for Death), public-health films (VD Attack Plan) and coverage of exotic cultures (The Ama Girls, Blue Men of Morocco). Even Disney’s dramatic recreations of historical events (Ten Who Dared, Invincible) have had their share of educational value. Each of the essays in this volume focuses on a different type of Disney "edutainment" film. Together they provide the first comprehensive look at Walt Disney’s ongoing mission to inform and enlighten his worldwide audience.


Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction
A. BOWDOIN VAN RIPER 1

Section I: War and Propaganda
1. The Canadian Shorts: Establishing Disney’s Wartime Style
BELLA HONESS ROE 15
2. “Desiring the Disney Technique”: Chronicle of a Contracted Military Training Film
DOUGLAS A. CUNNINGHAM 27
3. Cartoons Will Win the War: World War II Propaganda Shorts
RICHARD J. LESKOSKY 40
4. Cartoon Combat: World War II, Alexander de Seversky, and Victory Through Air Power
JOHN D. THOMAS 63

Section II: Science, Technology, Mathematics and Medicine
5. The Promise of Things to Come: Disneyland and the Wonders of Technology, 1954–58
A. BOWDOIN VAN RIPER 84
6. A Nation on Wheels: Films About Cars and Driving, 1948–1970
A. BOWDOIN VAN RIPER 103
7. “A Journey Through the Wonderland of Mathematics”: Donald in Mathmagic Land
MARTIN F. NORDEN 113
8. Paging Doctor Disney: Health Education Films, 1922–1973
BOB CRUZ, JR. 127

Section III: Nature
9. “Nature is the Dramatist”: Documentary, Entertainment, and the World According to the True-Life Adventures
EDDY VON MUELLER 145
10. Sex, Love, and Death: True-Life Fantasies
RONALD TOBIAS 164
11. It Is a Small World, After All: Earth and the Disneyfication of Planet Earth
EDDY VON MUELLER 173

Section IV: Times, Places and People
12. A Past to Make Us Proud: U. S. History According to Disney
MARIANNE HOLDZKOM 183
13. Reviving the American Dream: The World of Sports
KATHARINA BONZEL 201
14. Beyond the Ratoncito: Disney’s Idea of Latin America
BERNICE NUHFER-HALTEN 209
15. Locating the Magic Kingdom: Spectacle and Similarity in People and Places
CYNTHIA J. MILLER 221
16. America’s Salesman: The USA in Circarama
SARAH NILSEN 237

About the Contributors 255
Index 259



About the Author
A. Bowdoin Van Riper has written several books and articles on popular culture and on the history of geology, archaeology, and technology. He teaches in the Social and International Studies Department at Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta, Georgia.

The World of Angela Carter: A Critical Investigation

Dani Cavallaro

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-6128-8
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8723-3
bibliography, index
208pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2011
Price: $40.00


About the Book
Angela Carter, a prolific author who worked in numerous genres, remains one of the most important British writers of the last century. She was particularly renowned for her investigation of cultural mythologies, which shape our lives but which we often leave unexamined. This text explores a selection of Carter’s novels and short stories, supplemented with her perspectives on politics, society and aesthetics, and her attempts to redefine popular genres such as the fairy tale. This critical work is a strong addition to the scholarship on this important but often overlooked writer.


Table of Contents

Preface 1

1. Angela Carter’s Vision 5
2. Dark Play: The Magic Toyshop 18
3. Surrealist Visions: The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman 47
4. Modern Mythologies: The Passion of New Eve 77
5. Tradition Reimagined: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories 99
6. Beyond Gravity: Nights at the Circus 137
7. Mirror Identities: Wise Children 164

Bibliography 189
Index 197


About the Author
Dani Cavallaro has written widely about literature, cultural theory, and anime. She lives in London.

New Horror Studies from McFarland

Theorizing Twilight: Critical Essays on What’s at Stake in a Post-Vampire World
Edited by Maggie Parke and Natalie Wilson

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-6350-3
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8912-1
notes, bibliographies, index
253pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2011
Price: $35.00


About the Book
Since the publication of Twilight in 2005, Stephenie Meyer’s four-book saga about the tortured relationship between human heroine Bella Swan and her vampire love Edward Cullen has become a world-wide sensation--inciting screams of delight, sighs of derision, and fervent pronouncements. Those looking deeper into its pages and on screen can find intriguing subtexts about everything from gender, race, sexuality, and religion.

The 15 essays in this book examine the texts, the films, and the fandom, exploring the series’ cultural reach and offering one of the first thorough analyses of the saga.


Table of Contents

Acknowledgments v
Introduction 1

Part I. Twilight as Pop Cultural Artifact: Pilgrimages, Fan Culture, and Film Adaptations
The Vampire Capital of the World: Commerce and Enchantment in Forks, Washington
TANYA ERZEN 11
Fanpires: Utilizing Fan Culture in Event Film Adaptations
MAGGIE PARKE 25
The Hero and the Id: A Psychoanalytic Inquiry into the Popularity of Twilight
HEATHER ANASTASIU 41
Someday My Vampire Will Come? Society’s (and the Media’s) Lovesick Infatuation with Prince- Like Vampires
COLETTE MURPHY 56
Team Bella: Fans Navigating Desire, Security, and Feminism
ANANYA MUKHERJEA 70

Part II. Once Upon a Twilight: Fairy Tales, Byronic (Anti) Heroes, Post- Feminist Romance, and Growing Up in a Twilight World
“How Old Are You?” Representations of Age in the Saga
ASHLEY BENNING 87
Read Only as Directed: Psychology, Intertextuality, and Hyperreality in the Series
ANGELA TENGA 102
Torn Between Two Lovers: Twilight Tames Wuthering Heights
SARAH WAKEFIELD 117
Rewriting the Byronic Hero: How the Twilight Saga Turned “Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know” into a Teen Fiction Phenomenon
JESSICA GROPER 132
A Post- Feminist Romance: Love, Gender and Intertextuality in Stephenie Meyer’s Saga
HILA SHACHAR 147

Part III. Twilight Through an Intersectional Lens: Patriarchy, White Privilege, Heteronormativity, Rape Culture, Religion
Maybe Edward Is the Most Dangerous Thing Out There: The Role of Patriarchy
MELISSA MILLER 165
Denial and Salvation: The Twilight Series and Heteronormative Patriarchy
ASHLEY DONNELLY 178
It’s a Wolf Thing: The Quileute Werewolf /Shape- Shifter Hybrid as Noble Savage
NATALIE WILSON 194
Violence, Agency, and the Women of Twilight
ANNE TORKELSON 209
Un-biting the Apple and Killing the Womb: Genesis, Gender, and Gynocide
LINDSEY ISSOW AVERILL 224

About the Contributors 239
Index 243


About the Author
Maggie Parke is completing her doctorate in film and new media at the National Institute for Excellence in the Creative Industries at Bangor University, Wales. She has published in theJournal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds and is currently the head of development for Elfin Productions.
Natalie Wilson pens one of the only academic blogs analyzing Twilight and its cultural impact. She teaches at Cal State San Marcos in the Department of Literature and Writing and in the women’s studies program.



Seduced by Twilight: The Allure and Contradictory Messages of the Popular Saga
Natalie Wilson

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-6042-7
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8561-1
notes, bibliography, index
242pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2011
Price: $35.00

About the Book
Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga has maintained a tight grip on the contemporary cultural imagination. This timely and critical work examines how the Twilight series offers addictively appealing messages about love, romance, sex, beauty and body image, and how these charged themes interact with cultural issues regarding race, class, gender and sexuality. Through a careful analysis of the texts, the fandom and the current socio-historical climate, this work argues that the success of the Twilight series stems chiefly from Meyer’s negotiation of cultural mores.Table of Contents


Table of Contents:

Preface and Acknowledgments 1
Introduction: A Post-Twilight World 5

1. The Allure of the Vampire, the Danger of the Wolf: Or, Why to Avoid Big, Bad Shape-shifters in Favor of Knights in Sparkling Armor 15
2. Bitten by Romance: Happy Twilight-Ever-After 41
3. Vamping Femininity: Twilight as (Anti?) Feminist Fairy Tale, Or, We Can’t All Be Slayers 61
4. The Dawning of New Men: Hegemonic Masculinity, Sparkly White Male Vampires, and Ab-tastic Wolves of Color 83
5. Sexuality Eclipsed: The Taming of Female Sexuality via Vampire Abstinence 106
6. The Soul of the Vampire: Sparkly Mormons, Female Eves, and Unconverted Wolves 133
7. Got Vampire Privilege? Or, Why You Should Marry an Undead White, Wealthy, Heterosexual Mormon 157
8. Consuming Desires: Can You Buy That Twilight Feeling? 180

Conclusion: You Have a Choice, and It Need Not Be Edward or Jacob 205
Chapter Notes 209
Bibliography 219


Index 229


About the Author
Natalie Wilson pens one of the only academic blogs analyzing Twilight and its cultural impact. She teaches at Cal State San Marcos in the Department of Literature and Writing and in the women’s studies program.



Generation Zombie: Essays on the Living Dead in Modern Culture
Edited by Stephanie Boluk and Wylie Lenz

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-6140-0
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8673-1
notes, bibliography, index
268pp. softcover (7 x 10) 2011
Price: $45.00

About the Book
Growing from their early roots in Caribbean voodoo to their popularity today, zombies are epidemic. Their presence is pervasive, whether they are found in video games, street signs, hard drives, or even international politics. These eighteen original essays by an interdisciplinary group of scholars examine how the zombie has evolved over time, its continually evolving manifestations in popular culture, and the unpredictable effects the zombie has had on late modernity. Topics covered include representations of zombies in films, the zombie as environmental critique, its role in mass psychology and how issues of race, class and gender are expressed through zombie narratives. Collectively, the work enhances our understanding of the popularity and purposes of horror in the modern era.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Generation Z, the Age of Apocalypse
(Stephanie Boluk and Wylie Lenz) 1

Zombies as Internal Fear or Threat
(Kim Paffenroth) 18
White Zombie and the Creole: William Seabrook’s The Magic Island and American Imperialism in Haiti
(Gyllian Phillips) 27
The Origin of the Zombie in American Radio and Film: B- Horror, U.S. Empire, and the Politics of Disavowal
(Chris Vials) 41
The Eco-Zombie: Environmental Critique in Zombie Fiction
(Sarah Juliet Lauro) 54
Lost Bodies/Lost Souls: Night of the Living Dead and Deathdream as Vietnam Narrative
(Karen Randell) 67
Shambling Towards Mount Improbable to Be Born: American Evolutionary Anxiety and the Hopeful Monsters of Matheson’s I Am Legendand Romero’s Dead Films
(Sean Moreland) 77
Ztopia: Lessons in Post- Vital Politics in George Romero’s Zombie Films
(Tyson E. Lewis) 90
Soft Murders: Motion Pictures and Living Death in Diary of the Dead
(Randy Laist) 101
Mass Psychology and the Analysis of the Zombie: From Suggestion to Contagion
(Phillip Mahoney) 113
Gray Is the New Black: Race, Class, and Zombies
(Aalya Ahmad) 130
Cyberpunk and the Living Dead
(Andrea Austin) 147
The End Begins: John Wyndham’s Zombie Cozy
(Terry Harpold) 156
Zombies in a “Deep, Dark Ocean of History”: Danny Boyle’s Infected and John Wyndham’s Triffids as Metaphors of Postwar Britain
(Nicole LaRose) 165
Dead and Live Life: Zombies, Queers, and Online Sociality
(Shaka McGlotten) 182
The E- Dead: Zombies in the Digital Age
(Brendan Riley) 194
A Brain Is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Isolation U. and the Campus Zombie
(Brian Greenspan) 206
Rhetoric Goes Boom(er): Agency, Networks, and Zombies at Play
(Scott Reed) 219
The National Strategy for Zombie Containment: Myth Meets Activism in Post–9/11 America
(Christopher Zealand) 231

About the Contributors 249
Index 253


About the Author
Stephanie Boluk is a postdoctoral fellow in the Media Studies program at Vassar College. Wylie Lenz is a Ph.D. candidate in the English Department at the University of Florida.

Race, Oppression and the Zombie: Essays on Cross-Cultural Appropriations of the Caribbean Tradition

Edited by Christopher M. Moreman and Cory James Rushton 

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-5911-7
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8800-1
bibliography, filmography, index
240pp. softcover (7 x 10) 2011
Price: $45.00

About the Book
The figure of the zombie is a familiar one in world culture, acting as a metaphor for "the other," a participant in narratives of life and death, good and evil, and of a fate worse than death--the state of being "undead." This book explores the phenomenon from its roots in Haitian folklore to its evolution on the silver screen and to its radical transformation during the 1960s countercultural revolution. Contributors from a broad range of disciplines here examine the zombie and its relationship to colonialism, orientalism, racism, globalism, capitalism and more--including potential signs that the zombie hordes may have finally achieved oversaturation.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Race, Colonialism, and the Evolution of the “Zombie”
CORY JAMES RUSHTON and CHRISTOPHER M. MOREMAN 1

I—Haitian Origins: Race and the Zombie
1. New South, New Immigrants, New Women, New Zombies: The Historical Development of the Zombie in American Popular Culture
ANN KORDAS 15
2. Hurston in Haiti: Neocolonialism and Zombification
RITA KERESZTESI 31
3. Putting the Undead to Work: Wade Davis, Haitian Vodou, and the Social Uses of the Zombie
DAVID INGLIS 42
4. Guess Who’s Going to Be Dinner: Sidney Poitier, Black Militancy, and the Ambivalence of Race in Romero’s Night of the Living Dead
BARBARA S. BRUCE 60

II—The Capital of the Dead
5. Time for Zombies: Sacrifice and the Structural Phenomenology of Capitalist Futures
RONJON PAUL DATTA and LAURA MACDONALD 77
6. Zombified Capital in the Postcolonial Capital: Circulation (of Blood) in Sony Labou Tansi’s Parentheses of Blood
ELIZABETH A. STINSON 93

III—Culturally Transplanted Zombies
7. Zombie Orientals Ate My Brain! Orientalism in Contemporary Zombie Stories
ERIC HAMAKO 107
8. Post–9/11 Anxieties: Unpredictability and Complacency in the Age of New Terrorism in Dawn of the Dead (2004)
BECKI A. GRAHAM 124
9. The Rise and Fall—and Rise—of the Nazi Zombie in Film
CYNTHIA J. MILLER 139
10. Eating Ireland: Zombies, Snakes and Missionaries in Boy Eats Girl
CORY JAMES RUSHTON 149
11. It’s So Hard to Get Good Help These Days: Zombies as a Culturally Stabilizing Force in Fido (2006)
MICHELE BRAUN 162

IV—The Future of Zombie Understandings
12. Zombie Categories, Religion and the New False Rationalism
EDWARD DUTTON 177
13. Nothing but Meat? Philosophical Zombies and Their Cinematic Counterparts
DAVE BEISECKER 191

Bibliography 207
Filmography 219
About the Contributors 223
Index 225


About the Author
Christopher M. Moreman is an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at California State University-East Bay, where he teaches courses in comparative religion.

Cory James Rushton is an associate English professor at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Horror Noir: Where Cinema’s Dark Sisters Meet
Paul Meehan

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-4597-4
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-6219-3
77 photos, filmography, notes, bibliography, index
310pp. softcover (7 x 10) 2011
Price: $39.95

About the Book
This critical survey examines the historical and thematic relationships between two of the cinema’s most popular genres: horror and film noir. The influence of 1930s- and 1940s-era horror films on the development of noir is detailed, with analyses of more than 100 motion pictures in which noir criminality and mystery meld with supernatural and psychological horror. Included are the films based on popular horror/mystery radio shows (The Whistler, Inner Sanctum), the works of RKO producer Val Lewton (Cat People, The Seventh Victim), and Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological ghost stories. Also discussed are gothic and costume horror noirs set in the 19th century (The Picture of Dorian Gray, Hangover Square); the noir elements of more recent films; and the film noir aspects of the Hannibal Lecter movies and other serial-killer thrillers.Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vi
Preface 1
Introduction 3

1. Horror and Fantasy Elements in Classic Films Noir 11
2. Horror Noir in the 1930s 30
3. The Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur Noir Legacy 53
4. Horror Noir from Radioland 73
5. Monster Noir 93
6. Gothic and Costume Noir 115
7. Horror Noir in the 1950s 145
8. Hitchcock’s Psychological Ghosts and Doppelgangers 167
9. Modern Horror Noir in the 1960s 186
10. Horror Noirs of the 1970s and 1980s 211
11. The Noir Horrors of Hannibal the Cannibal 237
12. The Mean Streets of Hell 254

Conclusion: Horror and Film Noir—The Dark Genres 277
Filmography 281
Chapter Notes 289
Bibliography 291

Index 293

About the Author
Paul Meehan has also written on UFOs in cinema, and is a contributor to the Noir City Sentinel, the journal of the Film Noir Foundation. He lives in San Francisco.

Deformed and Destructive Beings: The Purpose of Horror Films
George Ochoa 

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-6307-7
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8654-0
48 photos, notes, bibliography, index
235pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2011
Price: $40.00

About the Book
Why are audiences drawn to horror films? Previous answers to that question have included everything from a need to experience fear to a hunger for psychotherapy. This critical text proposes that the horror film’s primary purpose is to present monsters, best understood as deformed and destructive beings. These monsters satisfy the audience’s desire to know these beings, in particular those beings too fantastic and dangerous to know in real life. The text illuminates many aspects of the horror film genre, including epistemology, ethics, evaluation, history, monster taxonomy, and filmmaking techniques.

Table of Contents

Preface 1

PART I. THE HORROR FILM ANALYZED
1. Purpose 5
2. Knowing 18
3. DDB Profile 28
4. Structure 38
5. Essential Elements 47
6. Ethics 61
7. Meaning and Significance 72
8. Evaluation of a Good Horror Film 83
9. Evaluation of a Bad Horror Film 96

PART II. THE HORROR FILM IN CONTEXT
10. Genres 107
11. History: Beginnings to the 1950s 117
12. History: 1960s to the Present 131
13. Reputation 143
14. Taxonomy 151
15. Techniques 168
16. Directors 181
17. Stars and DDBs 194
18. Other Directions 201

Notes 209
Bibliography 215
Index 219


About the Author
George Ochoa is the author or coauthor of more than thirty nonfiction books. He is currently a medical writer at Applied Clinical Education in New York. Please visit his blog at deformeddestructive.blogspot.com.

Supernatural Romance in Film: Tales of Love, Death and the Afterlife 

Richard Striner

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-4664-3
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8487-4
22 photos, appendix, notes, bibliography, index
213pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2011
Price: $40.00

About the Book
Themes of love, death and the supernatural are mainstays in cinema, and this is the first scholarly work to address movies that explore all three. Twenty-two films are covered in short chapters, from The Mummy through What Dreams May Come, with plot synopses, critical analyses of the relationship of each to major philosophical and literary themes, and explorations of the critical responses.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vi
Introduction 1

The Mummy (1932) 5
Death Takes a Holiday (1934) 15
Topper (1937) 23
On Borrowed Time (1939) 30
Our Town (1940) 35
Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) 43
Cabin in the Sky (1943) 49
A Guy Named Joe (1943) 55
Blithe Spirit (1945) 61
A Matter of Life and Death (Stairway to Heaven) (1946) 68
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) 76
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) 83
Portrait of Jennie (1948) 91
The Red Shoes (1948) 98
Brigadoon (1954) 110
Vertigo (1958) 118
Solaris (Russian version, 1972) 131
Somewhere in Time (1980) 137
Dead Again (1991) 152
Sleepless in Seattle (1993) 161
Sliding Doors (1998) 169
What Dreams May Come (1998) 174

Afterword 181
Appendix: Honorable Mentions 183
Notes 189
Bibliography 199
Index 201


About the Author
Richard Striner is a professor of history at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. He has written on political history, economics, architecture, historic preservation and film.



Dark Dreams 2.0: A Psychological History of the Modern Horror Film from the 1950s to the 21st Century

Charles Derry

Foreword by John Russell Taylor

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-3397-1
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-5695-6
988 photos, notes, appendices, filmography, bibliography, index
447pp. hardcover (7 x 10) 2009
Price: $75.00


About the Book
Greatly expanded and updated from the 1977 original, this new edition explores the evolution of the modern horror film, particularly as it reflects anxieties associated with the atomic bomb, the Cold War, 1960s violence, sexual liberation, the Reagan revolution, 9/11 and the Iraq War. It divides modern horror into three varieties (psychological, demonic and apocalyptic) and demonstrates how horror cinema represents the popular expression of everyday fears while revealing the forces that influence American ideological and political values. Directors given a close reading include Alfred Hitchcock, Brian De Palma, David Cronenberg, Guillermo Del Toro, Michael Haneke, Robert Aldrich, Mel Gibson and George A. Romero. Additional material discusses postmodern remakes, horror franchises and Asian millennial horror. This book also contains more than 950 frame grabs and a very extensive filmography.


Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction to Dark Dreams 2.0 1

PART ONE: DARK DREAMS (1977)
Foreword to the Original Edition, by John Russell Taylor 15
Introduction 19
1—The Horror of Personality 21
2—The Horror of Armageddon 55
3—The Horror of the Demonic 88

PART TWO: MILLENNIAL NIGHTMARES (2009)
4—A Context; and Why What’s Not Happening in American Horror Isn’t 109
5—The Horror of Personality, Revisited 112
6—Sequels and Insincerity 200
7—The Horror of the Demonic, Revisited 203
8—The Horror of Armageddon, Revisited 231
9—Asian Millennial Horror 284
10—Postmodern Remakes, the Averted Gaze, and Some Glimmerings of the New 305
11—Guillermo Del Toro 315
12—David Cronenberg 330
13—9/11 and Beyond 342

Appendix I: A Proposed Canon of Modern Horror 347
Appendix II: Interviews with Horror Directors: Aldrich, Castle, Harrington, Romero, Friedkin (1977) 349
Appendix III: Filmographies (Compiled by Thomas G. Kohn) 365
Notes 409
Bibliography 413
Index 415


About the Author
Charles Derry is professor emeritus of motion picture studies at Wright State University. He has written widely on a variety of popular culture topics, including film, television and ideology.

Horror Film Festivals and Awards

Thomas M. Sipos

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-6572-9
EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8796-7
34 photos, notes, lists, index
318pp. softcover (7 x 10) 2012
Price: $40.00

About the Book
The rise of independent horror filmmaking has spurred a growth of "indie" horror film festivals, promising promotional and distribution opportunities for selected motion pictures. Some filmmakers spend thousands of dollars on festival entry fees, only to be rejected everywhere. What occurs behind the scenes at these events? More than two dozen festival directors discuss how they secure money, sponsors and screening venues, and how they promote and run their events, as well as their criteria for selecting films. This book will help horror filmmakers take fuller advantage of festival opportunities, and assist festival directors in founding and improving events. Included are listings of 200+ film festivals and awards--current, defunct and prospective--and of previous award winners, spanning six continents and several decades.


Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii
Preface 1

1 How to Run a Film Festival on Pennies a Day! 5
2 How to Make an Award- Winning Horror Film! 37
3 Working the Film Festival! 65

Directory of Festivals and Awards 95
List of Award Winners (by Festival) 121

Notes 253
Index 257


About the Author
Thomas M. Sipos is the founder/manager of the Tabloid Witch Awards and a past film judge for the World Horror Convention. He has worked as a script reader, actor or extra on more than 70 productions and has written for Filmfax, Midnight Marquee and other magazines.

CFP Fringe Collection

Shapeshifters, Cyborgs, and Psychedelics: Analyzing the Alternate Worlds of J.J. Abrams’ Fringe
Call for Papers Date: 2012-03-01
Date Submitted: 2011-11-17
Announcement ID: 189836


Coeditors Sherry Ginn, Tanya R. Cochran, and Paul Zinder invite proposals or completed essays for an edited collection of scholarly works that explore J.J. Abrams’ science fiction television series Fringe (2008-present). We are interested in a variety of topics as well as diverse disciplinary approaches. Proposals should demonstrate not only a clear methodology and strong thesis but also a familiarity with current conversations and publications about the series. We would be especially pleased to see innovative perspectives on unusual topics such as the show’s paratexts or production elements. 

Though not prescriptive, the following list of topics may be productive to consider:

*Alternate Worlds
*Auteur Theory—J.J. Abrams, creator
*Broadcasting/Scheduling
*Casting
*Characters/Character Development
*(Dis)Ability—representations of mental illness, psychotherapeutic techniques, (de)institutionalization
*Drug Use—recreational use as well as therapeutic use of recreational drugs
*Discourse Analysis
*Fandom
*Gender
*Genre
*Government Intervention/Conspiracy Theories
*History—LSD trials, emergence of transpersonal psychology/Consciousness Studies
*Intertextuality
*Interpersonal Communication
*Myth(ologies)
*(Neuro)Science and Technology—ethics (e.g., human experimentations)
*Philosophy/Spirituality/Religion
*Paratexts—web content, fan fiction, glyphs
*Production—cinematography, editing, musical score
*Predecessors—The X-Files, Regenesis, Eleventh Hour, etc.
*Psychology
*Race
*Rhetoric

We strongly recommend authors familiarize themselves with these publications to extend and/or challenge published analyses of the series:
*Grazier, Kevin R., ed. Fringe Science: Parallel Universes, White Tulips, and Mad Scientists. Dallas: Smart Pop, 2011. Print.
*Stuart, Sarah Clarke. Into the Looking Glass: Exploring the Worlds of Fringe. Toronto: ECW, 2011. Print.

QUERIES AND SUBMISSIONS
Queries are welcomed; please email us at fringecollection@gmail.com. Send 350-500-word proposals or 5,000-7,000-word essays in Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format (RTF) to the same email address; please label your attachment with “Fringe,” your last name, and the date (day.month.year)—e.g., “Fringe, Cochran, 1.3.12.” We suggest but do not require that proposals include a working bibliography. Please provide in a separate document or in the body of the email a brief biography and selected vita.

PRODUCTION TIMELINE
We are currently negotiating with a publisher and working on the following timeline:
*Proposals Due: 1 March 2012
*Notification of Acceptance: 1 May 2012
*First Drafts Due: 1 August 2012
*Second Drafts Due: 1 December 2012
*Completed Manuscript: 1 March 2013


BIOGRAPHIES
Sherry Ginn, Ph.D.—Ginn earned both her M.A. (1984) and Ph.D. (1988) in General-Experimental Psychology from the University of South Carolina. She currently teaches at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, near Charlotte, North Carolina. She has published numerous articles in the fields of neuroscience and psychology. Her book Our Space, Our Place: Women in the Worlds of Science Fiction Television was published in 2005; forthcoming is Power and Control in the Television Worlds of Joss Whedon (McFarland, 2012). She is a member and/or officer of a number of professional organizations, including the International Society for the History of the Neurosciences (President, 2008-2009; Secretary, 2010-present), the Popular Culture Association (Chair, Science Fiction and Fantasy Section, 2009-2012), the Whedon Studies Association, and the North Carolina Writers’ Network. Current projects in the field of popular culture include an essay on the Doctor Who companion Sarah Jane Smith, cinematic intersections of neuroscience with the Frankenstein myth, Sexing Science Fiction (with coeditor Michael Cornelius), and Farscape (editor).

Tanya R. Cochran, Ph.D.—Cochran earned her Ph.D. (2009) in Rhetoric and Composition from Georgia State University. An associate professor of English at Union College in Lincoln, NE, she teaches first-year writing and the history/theory of rhetoric and directs the College Writing Program and the Studio for Writing and Speaking. She is a founding board member of the Whedon Studies Association as well as its current secretary-treasurer and serves on the editorial boards of Slayage: The Journal of the Whedon Studies Association and Watcher Junior: The Undergraduate Journal of Whedon Studies. She is a past chair (2006-2010) of the Popular/American Culture Association’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Area. Her publications related to popular culture and the rhetoric of fandom include chapters in Televising Queer Women (Palgrave, 2008); Siths, Slayers, Stargates + Cyborgs: Modern Mythology in the New Millennium (Peter Lang, 2008); and Investigating Veronica Mars: Essays on the Teen Detective Series (McFarland, 2011). With Rhonda V. Wilcox, Cochran edited the anthology Investigating Firefly and Serenity: Science Fiction on the Frontier (I.B. Tauris, 2008). Forthcoming publications include an article in the journal Transformative Works and Cultures and a coedited collection on the works of Joss Whedon for Syracuse University Press.

Paul Zinder, M.F.A.—Zinder earned his M.F.A. (1996) in Film from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. He has taught media studies, production, theory, and screenwriting courses at universities in the United States and Italy for over fifteen years. He is currently Associate Professor of Film and Digital Media and Chair of the Department of Communication and English at The American University of Rome, where he created and teaches a variety of media studies courses, including Cult Film and Television. His writing has been published in Investigating Veronica Mars: Essays on the Teen Detective Series (McFarland, 2011) and Investigating Alias: Secrets and Spies (I.B. Tauris, 2007) and will appear in the forthcoming volumes The Post-9/11 Western: Repurposing the Genre and The Last Western: Deadwood and the End of the American Empire. He is also a film and video-maker, whose work has been recognized internationally. His documentaries Benedizione delle Bestie (Benediction of the Beasts) (2009) and Uno degli Ultimi (One of the Last) (2007) screened at over 40 international film festivals from 2008-2011 and won eight awards. His latest film, Robot e Pinocchi (Robots and Pinocchios) (2011), will have its world premiere at the St. Louis International Film and Video Festival in 2011.



Sherry Ginn, Ph.D.
Rowan-Cabarrus Community College
Email: fringecollection@gmail.com

Area CFP 2012

Here is the official CFP for next year's conference:

CALL FOR PAPERS

SCIENCE FICTION,

FANTASY, AND LEGEND AREA

2012 Conference of The Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association (NEPCA)

St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York

26-27 October 2012

Proposals by 1 June 2012

Proposals are invited from scholars of all levels for papers to be presented in the Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend Area. Presentations will be limited to 15-20 minutes in length (depending on final panel size) and may address any aspect of the intermedia genres of science fiction, fantasy, and/or legend as represented in popular culture produced in any country, any time period, and for any audience. Please see our website (http://sf-fantasy-legend.blogspot.com/) for further details and ideas.

If you are interested in proposing a paper or panel of papers, please send a proposal of approximately 300 to 500 words and a one to two page CV to both the Program Chair AND to the Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend Area Chair at the following addresses (please note “SF/Fantasy/Legend Proposal” in your subject line):

Tim Madigan

Program Chair

Tmadigan@rochester.rr.com

Michael A. Torregrossa

Science Fiction, Fantasy and Legend Area Chair

Popular.Culture.and.the.Middle.Ages@gmail.com

http://sf-fantasy-legend.blogspot.com/

The Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association (NEPCA) is a regional affiliate of the American Culture Association and the Popular Culture Association. NEPCA is an association of scholars in New England and New York, organized in 1974 at the University of Rhode Island. We reorganized and incorporated in Boston in 1992. The purpose of this professional association is to encourage and assist research, publication, and teaching on popular culture and culture studies topics by scholars in the northeast region of the United States. By bringing together scholars from various disciplines, both academic and non-academic people, we foster interdisciplinary research and learning. We publish a newsletter twice per year and we hold an annual conference at which we present both the Peter C. Rollins Book Award and an annual prize.

Membership in NEPCA is required for participation.

Annual dues are currently $30 for full-time faculty and $15 for all other individuals.

Further details are available at http://users.wpi.edu/~jphanlan/NEPCA.html

Mechademia 6 (2011)

The latest volume of Mechademia has been published. Here are the details:

Mechademia 6 (also on Project Muse)
User Enhanced
2011
Frenchy Lunning, editor

Manga and anime inspire a wide range of creative activities for fans: blogging and contributing to databases, making elaborate cosplay costumes, producingdôjinshi (amateur) manga and scanlations, and engaging in fansubbing and DIY animation. Indeed, fans can no longer be considered passive consumers of popular culture easily duped by corporations and their industrial-capitalist ideologies. They are now more accurately described as users, in whose hands cultural commodities can provide instant gratification but also need to be understood as creative spaces that can be inhabited, modified, and enhanced.

User Enhanced, the sixth volume of the Mechademia series, examines the implications of this transformation from consumer to creator. Why do manga characters lend themselves so readily to user enhancement? What are the limitations on fan creativity? Are fans simply adding value to corporate properties with their enhancements? And can the productivity and creativity of user activities be transformed into genuine cultural enrichment and social engagement?

Through explorations of the vitality of manga characters, the formal and structural open-endedness of manga, the role of sexuality and desire in manga and anime fandom, the evolution of the Lolita fashion subculture, the contemporary social critique embodied in manga like Helpman! and Ikigami, and gamer behavior within computer games, User Enhanced suggests that commodity enhancement may lead as easily to disengagement and isolation as to interaction, connection, and empowerment.

Contributors: Brian Bergstrom; Lisa Blauersouth; Aden Evens, Dartmouth College; Andrea Horbinski; Itô Gô, Tokyo Polytechnic U; Paul Jackson; Yuka Kanno; Shion Kono, Sophia U, Tokyo; Thomas Lamarre, McGill U; Christine L. Marran, U of Minnesota; Miyadai Shinji, Tokyo Metropolitan U; Miyamoto Hirohito, Meiji U; Livia Monnet, U of Montreal; Miri Nakamura, Wesleyan U; Matthew Penney, Concordia U, Montreal; Emily Raine; Brian Ruh; Kumiko Saito, Bowling Green State U; Rio Saitô, College of Visual Arts, St. Paul; Cathy Sell; James Welker, U of British Columbia; Yoshikuni Igarashi, Vanderbilt U.

 $24.95 paper ISBN 978-0-8166-7734-4
336 pages, 57 b&w photos, 7 x 10, November 2011

CONTENTS:

Introduction
Thomas Lamarre

Countering Domestication

Under the Ruffles: Shôjo and the Morphology of Power
Frenchy Lunning
Girliness Is Next to Godliness: Lolita Fandom as Sacred Criminality in the Novels of Takemoto Novala
Brian Bergstrom
Beyond Domesticating Animal Love
Christine L. Marran
Exploited and Mobilized: Poverty and Work in Contemporary Manga
Matthew Penney

Commodity-Life

Tezuka Is Dead: Manga in Transformation and Its Dysfunctional Discourse
Itô Gô
Translated and with an Introduction by Miri Nakamura
How Characters Stand Out
Miyamoto Hirohito
Translated by Thomas Lamarre
Manga Translation and Interculture
Cathy Sell
Speciesism Part 3: Neoteny and the Politics of Life
Thomas Lamarre

Photo Play

Out of the Closet: The Fancy Phenomenon
Photography by Rio Saitô
Introduction by Frenchy Lunning

Desiring Economies

Anatomy of Permutational Desire, Part 2: Bellmer's Dolls and Oshii's Gynoids
Livia Monnet
Desire in Subtext: Gender, Fandom, and Women’s Male-Male Homoerotic Parodies in Contemporary Japan
Kumiko Saito
The Sacrificial Economy of Cuteness in Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space
Emily Raine
Flower Tribes and Female Desire: Complicating Early Female Consumption of Male Homosexuality in Shôjo Manga
James Welker

Untimely Effects

Transformation of Semantics in the History of Japanese Subcultures since 1992
Miyadai Shinji
Translated by Shion Kono
With an Introduction by Thomas Lamarre
The Logic of Digital Gaming
Aden Evens
Tsuge Yoshiharu and Postwar Japan: Travel, Memory, and Nostalgia
Yoshikuni Igarashi
Implicational Spectatorship: Hara Setsuko and the Queer Joke
Yuka Kanno

Review and Commentary

War for Entertainment: The Sky Crawlers
Andrea Horbinski
Volition in the Face of Absurdity
Brian Ruh
The Past Presents the Future: Toward the Terra
Paul Jackson

トレンド Torendo

Wherein the Author Documents Her Experience as a Porcelain Doll
Lisa Blauersouth

Contributors
Call for Papers

NEPCA 2011 Update

My thanks to our presenters and audience this weekend at NEPCA. All three sessions went well, and we had great discussion sessions following all three sets of presentations. Unfortunately, we also had a number of last-minute withdrawals due to illness and injury and a no-show, and I include the revised session list below.

Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend Area

2011 Annual Conference of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association

Western Connecticut State University (Danbury, CT), November 11-12, 2011

Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend I: Science Fiction (Session I, Friday, 4-5:30 PM, Warner 320)

Presider: Michael A. Torregrossa, The Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages

Paper 1: “Surviving The Night of the Comet: Zombies, Space, and the 2012 Hysteria”

Kristine Larsen, Physics and Earth Sciences Department, Central Connecticut State University

Paper 2: “Ain’t I a Xenomorph?: Representations of Post-Feminist Identity in the Alien Films”

Randy Laist, Goodwin College

The paper by Marlene San Miguel Groner has been withdrawn.

Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend II: Legends Old and New (Session II, Saturday, 8:30-10 AM, Warner 320)

Presider: Brian Clements, Western Connecticut State University

Paper 1: “Robin Hood in Ballad and Film”

Kerry R. Kaleba, George Mason University

Paper 2: “What Do Vampires Have to Do with the Holy Grail?: The Transformation of the Grail Legend in Undead Arthuriana”

Michael A. Torregrossa, The Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages

Paper 3: “Vampires in Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire novels and the Twilight Saga”

Andrea Siegel, Graduate Center/CUNY

The paper by Barry Hall has been withdrawn.

Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend III: Fantasy (Session III, Saturday, 10:30 AM – 12 PM, White 023)

Presider: Faye Ringel, United States Coast Guard Academy, retired

Paper 1: “ ‘Close This Book Right Now’: The Writer-Character in Children’s Fantasy”

Amie A. Doughty, SUNY Oneonta

The paper by Anne Berthelot has been withdrawn, and we believe that paper by Robert Luce has been withdrawn as well.