Popular culture Books
Wallflower Press Lord of the Rings – Popular Culture in Global
Book Synopsis
£64.00
Watkins Media Limited Down with Childhood: Pop Music and the Crisis of
Book SynopsisSometimes popular music registers our concerns and anxieties more lucidly than we realise. This is evident in the case of an ideal of childhood innocence in rapid decay in recent decades.So claims Down with Childhood, as it takes in psychedelia's preoccupation with rebirth and inner-children, the fascination with juvenilia amidst an ebbing UK rave scene and dozens of nursery rhyme hip-hop choruses spawned by a hit Jay-Z tune.As it examines the often complex sets of meanings to which the occasional presence of children in pop songs attests, the book pauses at Musical Youth's 'Pass the Dutchie' and other one-hit teen wonders, the career paths of child stars including Michael Jackson and Britney Spears, radical experiments in free jazz, and Black Panther influenced children's soul groups.In the process, a novel argument begins to emerge relating the often remarked crisis of childhood to changing experiences of work and play and ultimately, to an ongoing capitalist crisis that underlies them.
£10.97
Watkins Media Limited A Life Lived Remotely: Being and Work in the
Book SynopsisIf work is hell, what is working from home? Part memoir, part theory, A Life Lived Remotely tells the story of the transition to the digital age through our relationship to work. Following the author's journey as she left her 9-to-5 for the world of freelancing and working remotely, it outlines and reflects on what it means to work from home, how it affects our daily lives and our relationships, and how it is tied in to the development of the internet and our increasingly digitsed world. Tackling larger questions like What happens when we take our lives online?; How are we being changed by immersion in the internet?; and How do we know the difference between work and life when one seems to blend into the other?, A Life Lived Remotely provides a moment's pause in a world of fast-paced communication, offering critical reflection on what it means to come of age along with the internet.
£11.77
Watkins Media Limited We Are the Mutants: The Battle for Hollywood from
Book SynopsisWe Are the Mutants is a critical reassessment of what is arguably the most discussed and beloved stretch of movies in Hollywood history. Documenting the period between the arrival of US combat troops in Vietnam and the end of President Ronald Reagan’s second term, the book forgoes the usual and restrictive exemplars of “auteur cinema,” and instead focuses on an eclectic selection of films and genres — horror, documentary, disaster, vigilante action, neo-noir, post-apocalyptic sci-fi — to track this period's tumultuous transformation in American life, culture, and politics. By exploring cult classics like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Escape from New York, as well as studio blockbusters like The Exorcist and Fatal Attraction, We Are the Mutants rewrites the history of modern American cinema and, in doing so, the history of America itself.Trade Review“A highly enjoyable read for film fans hungry for an alternative point of view. The writing is intelligent, detailed, and well-researched without drifting into the academic and dry, and its arguments are frequently invigorating and thought-provoking.”"An intriguingly sharp and offbeat study of US cinema from the 60s to the 80s."
£10.99
University of Westminster Press Cultural China 2021: The Contemporary China
Book SynopsisCultural China is a unique annual publication for up-to-date, informed and accessible commentary about Chinese and Sinophone languages, cultural practices, politics and production, and their critical analysis. It builds on research and perspectives central to the Contemporary China Centre, based at the University of Westminster, and the Contemporary China Centre Blog. The chapters in this Review speak to the challenging and eventful year that was 2021 as it unfolded across cultural China. Thematically, they range from health and medicine, environment, food, children and parenting via film, red culture and calls to action. Many of the contributions in this edited collection focus on the People's Republic of China, but they also draw attention to the multiple Chinese and Sinophone cultural practices that exist within, across and beyond national borders. The Review is distinctive in its cultural studies-based approach and contributes a much-needed critical perspective from the humanities to the study of cultural China. It aims to promote interdisciplinary dialogue and debate about the social, cultural, political and historical dynamics that inform life in cultural China today offering academics, activists, practitioners and politicians a key reference with which to situate current events in and relating to cultural China in a wider context.
£22.99
University Press of Mississippi Garry Trudeau: and the Aesthetics of Satire
Book SynopsisSince 1968, Garry Trudeau (b. 1948) has brought his brand of political satire to bear on public figures, movie stars, heads of state, and even on himself. Trudeau has also advocated for artists' rights and challenged industry norms while keeping a decidedly low profile. In Garry Trudeau: ""Doonesbury"" and the Aesthetics of Satire, Kerry D. Soper traces the contribution of this groundbreaking artist.Trudeau is arguably the premier American political and social satirist of the last forty years. Amazingly, he achieved this on the comics page, rather than the editorial page. By defying convention, Trudeau has established a hybrid form of popular satire that capitalizes on the narrative continuity and broad reach of the comic strip form, while operating according to the rules of combative political commentary.Garry Trudeau: ""Doonesbury"" and the Aesthetics of Satire is divided into chapters that offer a history of Doonesbury; an analysis of Trudeau's effective satiric methods; a discussion of the methods whereby he challenged the business practices of the comic strip industry; an examination of the aesthetics of Doonesbury; and a consideration of Trudeau's significance as a social chronicler through an analysis of his character construction, narrative practices, and documentation of the American zeitgeist. Garry Trudeau is a thorough assessment of one of America's most popular and controversial cartoonists.Trade Review"Trudeau's notoriety is something to be celebrated. The controversy surrounding his strip has been a sign, perhaps, that he is actually effective at doing his job. The great satirists throughout history - Swift, Voltaire, Hogarth... - were given great license to challenge leaders and criticize the social order; and if they did not annoy political leaders or irk their audiences at times while using this license, then we would not place them in that pantheon of great cultural critics." -from the introduction"
£27.96
Zone Books Depositions: Scenes from the Late Medieval Church
Book Synopsis
£29.75
West Virginia University Press Transportation and the Culture of Climate Change: Accelerating Ride to Global Crisis
Book SynopsisThis interdisciplinary collection of eleven original essays focuses on the environmental impact of transportation, which is, as Tatiana Prorokova-Konrad and Brian C. Black note in their introduction, responsible for 26 percent of global energy use. Approaching mobility not solely as a material, logistical question but as a phenomenon mediated by culture, the book interrogates popular assumptions deeply entangled with energy choices. Rethinking transportation, the contributors argue, necessarily involves fundamental understandings of consumption, freedom, and self.The essays in Transportation and the Culture of Climate Change cover an eclectic range of subject matter, from the association of bicycles with childhood to the songs of Bruce Springsteen, but are united in a central conviction: "Transport is a considerable part of our culture that is as hard to transform as it is for us to stop using fossil fuels - but we do not have an alternative.Table of Contents Introduction: Carbonization as a Choice: Environmental Ethics, Mobility, and Energy Options Tatiana Prorokova-Konrad and Brian C. Black Part I: Mobility and the Environment 1. Using Heritage and Ecological Systems Thinking to Inform Resilient Automobility Design Barry L. Stiefel 2. Bikes for Children, Cars for Adults: Postwar American Transportation Culture and the Legacy of Moving Images James Longhurst 3. E-Scooters and the Urban Micromobility Revolution Matthew C. Swanson Part II: Car Cultures 4. ""Carbolization"": Cars, Carbon Emissions, and the Global Discipline of Automobility Gordon M. Sayre 5. Hydrocarbon Enslavement and Fantasies of Freedom Patrick D. Murphy 6. Suicide Machines: Bruce Springsteen, Ballard, and Broken Heroes on a Last Chance Power Drive David LaRocca 7. Remainders of the Fossil Regime: Automobility Regression in Three Post-Apocalyptic Novels Brent Ryan Bellamy Part III: Film, Energy, and Climate Change 8. Intermodal Aesthetics and the Otherwise of Cargo Megan Hayes and Jeff Diamanti 9. Nature Guarding ""Her Treasures"" in Oil Comedies: The Case of Local Hero and Fubar: Balls to the Wall Robin L. Murray and Joseph K. Heumann 10. Boom/Bust: Tragic Logistics and Accelerationist Comedy in Petroleum Transport C. Parker Krieg 11. Trafficking in Petronormativities: At the Intersections of Petrofeminism Petrocolonialism, and Petrocapitalism Sheena Wilson Contributors Index
£26.36
West Virginia University Press The Opioid Epidemic and US Culture: Expression, Art, and Politics in an Age of Addiction
Book SynopsisThe Opioid Epidemic and US Culture brings a new set of perspectives to one of the most pressing contemporary topics in Appalachia and the nation as a whole. A project aimed both at challenging dehumanizing attitudes toward those caught in the opioid epidemic and at protesting the structural forces that have enabled it, this edited volume assembles a multidisciplinary community of scholars and practitioners to consider the ways that people have mobilized their creativity in response to the crisis. From the documentary The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia to the role of cough syrup in mumble rap, and from a queer Appalachian zine to protests against the Sackler family's art-world philanthropy, the essays here explore the intersections of expressive culture, addiction, and recovery.Written for an audience of people working on the front lines of the opioid crisis, the book is essential reading for social workers, addiction counselors, halfway house managers, and people with opioid use disorder. It will also appeal to the community of scholars interested in understanding how aesthetics shape our engagement with critical social issues, particularly in the fields of literary and film criticism, museum studies, and ethnomusicology.Table of Contents Introduction: The Opioid Crisis and Expressive Culture Travis D. Stimeling Part I. On the Outside Looking In: The Opioid Crisis from Without 1. ""Something Too Pure / Is Killing Us"": Opioid-Addiction Porn, Endurance, and the Neoliberal Appropriation of Resilience Jordan Lovejoy 2. ""Snort Pills on My Head"": The Visual Rhetoric of Addiction, Abjection, and White Trash in The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia Christopher Garland 3. The Pill: Aesthetics, Addiction, and Gender in Jennifer Weiner's All Fall Down Ashleigh Hardin 4. Prince, Tom Petty, and Pain: Projections of Authenticity in Popular Music Leigh H. Edwards 5. ""Maybe If I'd Stayed"": Appalachian Outmigration and Narratives of Loss in Nate May's Dust in the Bottomland Travis D. Stimeling Part II. If You Lived Here: Representing the Opioid Epidemic from Within 6. Pretty Lil Azzie Crystal Good 7. The Way the World Is: From Maggie Boylan Michael Henson 8. Finding Maggie Boylan Michael Henson 9. You Talkin' about Me? Turning the Blood of Appalachia's Opioid Epidemic into Ink Jacqueline Yahn 10. Remediating the Opioid Crisis in Museums Ethan Sharp 11. A Hole Is Not a Void: Extraction, Addiction, and Aesthetics Jonas N. T. Becker 12. Narrative Engagement with the Opioid Epidemic: From Personal Story to Personal Reflection Amanda M. Caleb and Susan McDonald 13. Recovering from Addiction in Sobriety: Narrating Disability/Mental Illness through the Medium of Comic Art Tatiana Prorokova-Konrad 14. ""Hey, Let's Have a Very Good Time"": The Opioid Aesthetics of Post-Verbal Rap Austin T. Richey Part III. New Day Dawning: Recovery, Sobriety, and Post-Opioid Futures 15. Queer Addiction and Queer Harm Reduction in Appalachia Gina Mamone 16. Healing Open Wounds Chelsea Jack 17. Pain Is One Dance Partner: Move with It Anne Lloyd Willett 18. Images of Opioid Addiction, Recovery, and Privilege in Mainstream Hip Hop Paige Zalman 19. The Voices of Hope A Recovery Community Choir: Redefining Self, Community, and Success Natalie Shaffer Contributors Index
£23.96
Association for Asian Studies Japan on American TV – Screaming Samurai Join
Book Synopsis
£14.99
Rutgers University Press The Politics of Fame
Book SynopsisCelebrities can come from many different realms: film, music, politics, sports. But what do all these major celebrities have in common? What elevates them to the status of household names while their equally talented peers remain in relative obscurity? Is it just a question of charisma, or does fame depend more on the collective fantasies of fans than the actual accomplishments of celebrities? In search of answers, cultural historian Eric Burns delves deep into the biographies of some of the most famous figures in American history, from Benjamin Franklin to Fanny Kemble, Elvis Presley to Gene Tierney, and Michael Jordan to Oprah Winfrey. Through these case studies, he considers the evolution of celebrity throughout the ages. More controversially, he questions the very status of fame in the twenty-first century, an era in which thousands of minor celebrities have seen their fifteen minutes in the spotlight. The Politics of Fame is a provocative and entertaining look at the lives and afterlives of America’s most beloved celebrities as well as the mad devotion they inspired. It raises important questions about what celebrity worship reveals about the worshippers—and about the state of the nation itselfTrade Review"Eric Burns's book provides a fascinating chronology of the politics of fame from the American founder fathers to the present day. The volume includes many interesting anecdotes upon this important topic." -- Mark Wheeler * London Metropolitan University and author of Celebrity Politics *In this incendiary cultural commentary on the place of fame in politics, Burns’ links what he sees as a decline in educational standards with the “false intimacy” of celebrity. He describes a political environment in which the political classes pander to the “wisdom” of an electorate starved of genuine intelligence. Burns’ book will inspire and infuriate in equal measure, but as a warning against the influence of fame contemporary, it is unmissable. -- Michael Higgins * Senior Lecturer, Director of MLitt in Media and Communication at the University of Strathclyd *Table of ContentsContents Epigraph A Note to Readers Prologue PART ONE Chapter One: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Fame Chapter Two: The Celebrity With A Cause Chapter Three: The Cultural Commodity Chapter Four: At Long Last, Class Chapter Five: Circulation Wars Chapter Six: The Press and the Immigrants The Chapter Seven: The Deviancy of Adulation Part TWO Chapter One: The Decreasing Literacy Rate Chapter Two: The Leveling Forces of Democracy Chapter Three: The Declining Importance of Faith Chapter Four: The Acceleration of Haste Chapter Five: The False Intimacy of the Media Epilogue Bibliography Notes Index
£26.99
Rutgers University Press Speaking Truths: Young Adults, Identity, and
Book SynopsisThe twenty-first century is already riddled with protests demanding social justice, and in every instance, young people are leading the charge. But in addition to protesters who take to the streets with handmade placards are young adults who engage in less obvious change-making tactics. In Speaking Truths, sociologist Valerie Chepp goes behind-the-scenes to uncover how spoken word poetry—and young people’s participation in it—contributes to a broader understanding of contemporary social justice activism, including this generation’s attention to the political importance of identity, well-being, and love. Drawing upon detailed observations and in-depth interviews, Chepp tells the story of a diverse group of young adults from Washington, D.C. who use spoken word to create a more just and equitable world. Outlining the contours of this approach, she interrogates spoken word activism’s emphasis on personal storytelling and “truth,” the strategic uses of aesthetics and emotions to politically engage across difference, and the significance of healing in sustainable movements for change. Weaving together their poetry and personally told stories, Chepp shows how poets tap into the beautiful, emotional, personal, and therapeutic features of spoken word to empathically connect with others, advance intersectional and systemic analyses of inequality, and make social justice messages relatable across a diverse public. By creating allies and forging connections based on friendship, professional commitments, lived experiences, emotions, artistic kinship, and political views, this activist approach is highly integrated into the everyday lives of its practitioners, online and face-to-face. Chepp argues that spoken word activism is a product of, and a call to action against, the neoliberal era in which poets have come of age, characterized by widening structural inequalities and increasing economic and social vulnerability. She illustrates how this deeply personal and intimate activist approach borrows from, builds upon, and diverges from previous social movement paradigms. Spotlighting the complexity and mutual influence of modern-day activism and the world in which it unfolds, Speaking Truths contributes to our understanding of contemporary social change-making and how neoliberalism has shaped this political generation’s experiences with social injustice.Trade Review"This beautifully written work deftly interweaves vignettes and poems to illustrate the culture of spoken word in meticulous detail." -- Jerusha O. Conner * author of The New Student Activists: The Rise of Neoactivism on College and University Campuses. *"In this timely and deeply incisive investigation of poet-activists in Washington, D.C., Chepp illuminates the capacity of spoken word to transcend single-axis identity politics and create visionary, intersectional coalitions." -- Patrick Ryan Grzanka * Editor of Intersectionality: Foundations and Frontiers *"Valerie Chepp’s Speaking Truths beautifully adds to the growing literature on poetry slams, spoken word, and their surrounding communities. By exploring young poets as social justice activists, Chepp reminds us of the arts' undying capacity to imagine and build new, just, and more equitable worlds. Speaking Truths is a necessary offering in the burgeoning sub field of slam and spoken word studies." -- Javon Johnson * author of Killing Poetry: Blackness and the Making of Slam and Spoken Word Communities *New Books Network: New Books in Popular Culture interview with Valerie Chepp * New Books Network: New Books in Popular Culture *"This beautifully written work deftly interweaves vignettes and poems to illustrate the culture of spoken word in meticulous detail." -- Jerusha O. Conner * author of The New Student Activists: The Rise of Neoactivism on College and University Campuses. *"In this timely and deeply incisive investigation of poet-activists in Washington, D.C., Chepp illuminates the capacity of spoken word to transcend single-axis identity politics and create visionary, intersectional coalitions." -- Patrick Ryan Grzanka * Editor of Intersectionality: Foundations and Frontiers *"Valerie Chepp’s Speaking Truths beautifully adds to the growing literature on poetry slams, spoken word, and their surrounding communities. By exploring young poets as social justice activists, Chepp reminds us of the arts' undying capacity to imagine and build new, just, and more equitable worlds. Speaking Truths is a necessary offering in the burgeoning sub field of slam and spoken word studies." -- Javon Johnson * author of Killing Poetry: Blackness and the Making of Slam and Spoken Word Communities *New Books Network: New Books in Popular Culture interview with Valerie Chepp * New Books Network: New Books in Popular Culture *"Speaking Truths provides a nuanced examination of the inner workings of spoken word activism, draws clear connections to a diverse body of sociological theory, and perhaps most importantly, firmly situates creative activism as a meaningful form of social justice work." -- Julie Gouweloos * Mobilization *Table of ContentsList of Tables Preface 1 Spoken Word Activism: Young Adults and Social Justice in the Age of Neoliberalism 2 Spinning Stories from Words Got Spit: Researching a Verbal Arts Community 3 Speaking Truths: Experiential Knowledge, Embodied Testimony, and Activist Storytelling 4 Creative Politics: Art, Justice, and Empathic Possibilities 5 Healing Justice: The Politics of Healthy Selves and Communities 6 #Activism and Beyond: Sustainability and Social Change in a Digital World 104 7 Intersectionality as Activist Strategy: Toward a New Identity Politics Appendix A: Doing Ethnographic Research in the Era of Social Media Appendix B: Core Sample by Venue Participation Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
£55.25
Rutgers University Press Race and Cultural Practice in Popular Culture
Book SynopsisRace and Cultural Practice in Popular Culture is an innovative work that freshly approaches the concept of race as a social factor made concrete in popular forms, such as film, television, and music. The essays collectively push past the reaffirmation of static conceptions of identity, authenticity, or conventional interpretations of stereotypes and bridge the intertextual gap between theories of community enactment and cultural representation. The book also draws together and melds otherwise isolated academic theories and methodologies in order to focus on race as an ideological reality and a process that continues to impact lives despite allegations that we live in a post-racial America. The collection is separated into three parts: Visualizing Race (Representational Media), Sounding Race (Soundscape), and Racialization in Place (Theory), each of which considers visual, audio, and geographic sites of racial representations respectively. Trade Review"Domino Perez and Rachel González-Martin have assembled a dynamic and eclectic collection that urges us to see, hear, and place race and racialized representations beyond stereotypical, silenced, and sedentary subjectivities. Engaging the contemporary social politics of race in television, film, music, and other performative sites, Race and Cultural Practice in Popular Culture deftly reframes, remixes, and resituates discourse on folklore and pop culture to usher in nuanced understandings and challenging conversations befitting who we are and where we may be going as local and global creators, consumers, and critics of the popular." -- Dustin Tahmahkera * author of Tribal Television: Viewing Native People in Sitcoms *"The ugly eruptions of racism and resurgent white supremacy in this 'post-racial' time are grim reminders of just how vital it is that we understand and engage the complex and contested logics of race in the United States and other settler states. This volume is an impressive and indeed essential tool for that purpose. The editors have brought together a community of thoughtful, provocative thinkers in conversation at the crossroads of folklore, popular culture, critical theory, political action, and lived experience. Collectively and individually the contributors take race and (self-) representation seriously, in often unexpected, sometimes playful, occasionally fierce, but always compelling ways; they challenge readers to reconsider our own biases and boundaries around knowledge and cultural production, and extend the horizon of what is and can be possible in our critical conversations and embodied understandings. Race and Cultural Practice in Popular Culture offers vital, nourishing intellectual sustenance in these cruel and incurious times." -- Daniel Heath Justice * author of Why Indigenous Literatures Matter *Table of ContentsContents List of Illustrations “Assembling an Intersectional Pop Cultura Analytical Lens: A Foreword” Introduction: Re-imagining Critical Approaches to Folklore and Popular Culture Domino Renee Perez and Rachel González-Martin Part I: Visualizing Race “A Thousand ‘Lines of Flight’: Collective Individuation and Racial Identity in Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black and Sense8” Ruth Y. Hsu “Performing Cherokee Masculinity in The Doe Boy” Channette Romero “Truth, Justice, and the Mexican Way: Lucha Libre, Film, and Nationalism in Mexico” James Wilkey “Native American Irony: Survivance and the Subversion of Ethnography” Gerald Vizenor Part II: Sounding Race “(Re)imagining Indigenous Popular Culture” Mintzi Auanda Martínez-Rivera “My Tongue is Divided into Two” Olivia Cadaval “Performing Nation Diva Style in Lila Downs and Astrid Hadad’s La Tequilera” K. Angelique Dwyer “(Dis)identifying with Shakira’s ‘Global Body’: A Path Towards Rhythmic Affiliations Beyond the Dichotomous Nation/Diaspora” Daniela Gutiérrez López “Voicing the Occult in Chicana/o Culture and Hybridity: Prayers and the Cholo-Goth Aesthetic” José G. Anguiano Part III: Racialization in Place “Ugly Brown Bodies: Queering Desire in Machete” Nicole Guidotti-Hernández “Bitch, how’d you make it this far?”: Strategic Enactments of White Femininity in The Walking Dead” Jaime Guzmán and Raisa Alvarado Uchima “Bridge and Tunnel: Transcultural Border Crossings in The Bridge and Sicario” Marcel Brousseau “Red Land, White Power, Blue Sky: Settler Colonialism and Indigeneity in Breaking Bad” James H. Cox Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Index
£31.45
Rutgers University Press Race and Cultural Practice in Popular Culture
Book SynopsisRace and Cultural Practice in Popular Culture is an innovative work that freshly approaches the concept of race as a social factor made concrete in popular forms, such as film, television, and music. The essays collectively push past the reaffirmation of static conceptions of identity, authenticity, or conventional interpretations of stereotypes and bridge the intertextual gap between theories of community enactment and cultural representation. The book also draws together and melds otherwise isolated academic theories and methodologies in order to focus on race as an ideological reality and a process that continues to impact lives despite allegations that we live in a post-racial America. The collection is separated into three parts: Visualizing Race (Representational Media), Sounding Race (Soundscape), and Racialization in Place (Theory), each of which considers visual, audio, and geographic sites of racial representations respectively. Trade Review"Domino Perez and Rachel González-Martin have assembled a dynamic and eclectic collection that urges us to see, hear, and place race and racialized representations beyond stereotypical, silenced, and sedentary subjectivities. Engaging the contemporary social politics of race in television, film, music, and other performative sites, Race and Cultural Practice in Popular Culture deftly reframes, remixes, and resituates discourse on folklore and pop culture to usher in nuanced understandings and challenging conversations befitting who we are and where we may be going as local and global creators, consumers, and critics of the popular." -- Dustin Tahmahkera * author of Tribal Television: Viewing Native People in Sitcoms *"The ugly eruptions of racism and resurgent white supremacy in this 'post-racial' time are grim reminders of just how vital it is that we understand and engage the complex and contested logics of race in the United States and other settler states. This volume is an impressive and indeed essential tool for that purpose. The editors have brought together a community of thoughtful, provocative thinkers in conversation at the crossroads of folklore, popular culture, critical theory, political action, and lived experience. Collectively and individually the contributors take race and (self-) representation seriously, in often unexpected, sometimes playful, occasionally fierce, but always compelling ways; they challenge readers to reconsider our own biases and boundaries around knowledge and cultural production, and extend the horizon of what is and can be possible in our critical conversations and embodied understandings. Race and Cultural Practice in Popular Culture offers vital, nourishing intellectual sustenance in these cruel and incurious times." -- Daniel Heath Justice * author of Why Indigenous Literatures Matter *Table of ContentsContents List of Illustrations “Assembling an Intersectional Pop Cultura Analytical Lens: A Foreword” Introduction: Re-imagining Critical Approaches to Folklore and Popular Culture Domino Renee Perez and Rachel González-Martin Part I: Visualizing Race “A Thousand ‘Lines of Flight’: Collective Individuation and Racial Identity in Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black and Sense8” Ruth Y. Hsu “Performing Cherokee Masculinity in The Doe Boy” Channette Romero “Truth, Justice, and the Mexican Way: Lucha Libre, Film, and Nationalism in Mexico” James Wilkey “Native American Irony: Survivance and the Subversion of Ethnography” Gerald Vizenor Part II: Sounding Race “(Re)imagining Indigenous Popular Culture” Mintzi Auanda Martínez-Rivera “My Tongue is Divided into Two” Olivia Cadaval “Performing Nation Diva Style in Lila Downs and Astrid Hadad’s La Tequilera” K. Angelique Dwyer “(Dis)identifying with Shakira’s ‘Global Body’: A Path Towards Rhythmic Affiliations Beyond the Dichotomous Nation/Diaspora” Daniela Gutiérrez López “Voicing the Occult in Chicana/o Culture and Hybridity: Prayers and the Cholo-Goth Aesthetic” José G. Anguiano Part III: Racialization in Place “Ugly Brown Bodies: Queering Desire in Machete” Nicole Guidotti-Hernández “Bitch, how’d you make it this far?”: Strategic Enactments of White Femininity in The Walking Dead” Jaime Guzmán and Raisa Alvarado Uchima “Bridge and Tunnel: Transcultural Border Crossings in The Bridge and Sicario” Marcel Brousseau “Red Land, White Power, Blue Sky: Settler Colonialism and Indigeneity in Breaking Bad” James H. Cox Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Index
£107.20
Rutgers University Press Easy Living: The Rise of the Home Office
Book SynopsisHow did Americans come to believe that working at home is feasible, productive, and desirable? Easy Living examines how the idea of working within the home was constructed and disseminated in popular culture and mass media during the twentieth century. Through the analysis of national magazines and newspapers, television and film, and marketing and advertising materials from the housing, telecommunications, and office technology industries, Easy Living traces changing concepts about what it meant to work in the home. These ideas reflected larger social, political-economic, and technological trends of the times. Elizabeth A. Patton reveals that the notion of the home as a space that exists solely in the private sphere is a myth, as the social meaning of the home and its market value in relation to the public sphere are intricately linked.Trade Review“This easy to read, fun, and unique book approaches discourses on work/life in a way that no one has before.” -- Elizabeth Fish Hatfield * editor of Communication and the Work-Life Balancing Act *"Patton draws on an impressive array of archival sources to demonstrate how communication technologies and architectural design have constructed ideals about working at home. Her nuanced historical analysis importantly reveals that our contemporary struggles over work/life balance are not new." -- Amy Corbin * author of Cinematic Geographies and Multicultural Spectatorship in America *"Remote Work Won’t Save Us: The home office was never designed to give workers more freedom. The pandemic has only made it worse," by Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein https://newrepublic.com/article/158704/remote-work-wont-save-us-home-office-elizabeth-patton-review * The New Republic *"Easy Living: The Rise of the Home Office [is] a piece of engaging and prescient scholarship which, especially at the present moment, makes a valuable contribution to now central and ongoing global debates about what working from home has meant, means now, and might mean in the future." * Visual Studies *"Easy Living sheds necessary light on the practice of working from home. It is also (and seemingly unintentionally) timely: as societies negotiate an exit from the pandemic emergency and attempt to move towards some form of the new normal, choices about whether to continue working from home or to return to the office are being made on both corporate and individual levels." * LSE Review of Books *"Easy Living offers a strong critique of the contemporary myth of work-life balance, a myth that 'keeps workers from recognizing the exploitation of their labor and the dependence on service workers to support work-life balance'....Although written before the onslaught of Covid-19, Easy Living exposes the long-standing discourses of gender, race, and class undergirding American experiences of work and home, discourses laden with power and inequality that the pandemic has exposed." * Television & New Media *Table of ContentsContents Introduction Part I: Where Does Work Belong?: Toward a New Conception of Home 1 The Home and Its Function 2 Industry Stay Out 3 The Telephone and Better Living 4 Portable Typewriters for Home Use Part II: Consuming Office Practices and Technology in the Postwar Suburban Middle-Class Home 5 The Quest for Easy Livin’ in the Suburban Home 6 The Big Business of Homemaking 7 Junior-sized Offices 8 An Office Away from the Office Part III: The Birth of the Live-Work Lifestyle 9 Real Men Live in the City 10 Pseudo-Bohemian Bacherlorettes 11 Work Where You Live Part IV: Neoliberal Domestic Workspaces 12 The Electronic Cottage 13 Adaptable Parents, Flexible Jobs and Adaptive Homes 14 Urban Professional Lifestyles Acknowledgments Bibliography Index
£107.20
Rutgers University Press Dreaming the Graphic Novel: The Novelization of
Book SynopsisWinner of the Best Book Award in Comics History from the Grand Comics Database Honorable Mention, 2019-2020 Research Society for American Periodicals Book Prize The term “graphic novel” was first coined in 1964, but it wouldn’t be broadly used until the 1980s, when graphic novels such as Watchmen and Maus achieved commercial success and critical acclaim. What happened in the intervening years, after the graphic novel was conceptualized yet before it was widely recognized? Dreaming the Graphic Novel examines how notions of the graphic novel began to coalesce in the 1970s, a time of great change for American comics, with declining sales of mainstream periodicals, the arrival of specialty comics stores, and (at least initially) a thriving underground comix scene. Surveying the eclectic array of long comics narratives that emerged from this fertile period, Paul Williams investigates many texts that have fallen out of graphic novel history. As he demonstrates, the question of what makes a text a ‘graphic novel’ was the subject of fierce debate among fans, creators, and publishers, inspiring arguments about the literariness of comics that are still taking place among scholars today. Unearthing a treasure trove of fanzines, adverts, and unpublished letters, Dreaming the Graphic Novel gives readers an exciting inside look at a pivotal moment in the art form’s development. Trade Review"A thoughtful and engaging exploration of the complex disagreements and debates over the term, form and temporality of the 'graphic novel.'" -- Mel Gibson * editor of Superheroes and Identities *"The 1970s are one of the most under-appreciated periods in the history of comic books. As sales collapsed, comic book publishers grasped at any innovation that offered a potential road forward. Paul Williams’s masterful study focuses on this chaotic period as it traces the complex ways that catastrophic change spurred a fundamental reconsideration of what comic books were and could be. Drawing on a vast array of historical documents, Williams shows how the graphic novel became the cultural format of our time." -- Bart Beaty * author of The Greatest Comic Book of All Time *"Accessible and detailed, Williams’s study expands on previous scholarship on the evolution of comics into graphic narratives. Highly recommended." * Choice *"As Williams’ detailed scholarship shows, efforts by major creators like Corben, Will Eisner, and Art Spiegelman secured academic and cultural legitimacy for the graphic novel while ensuring, through their newly integrative approach, a differential art recognized for its aesthetic seriousness yet independent of institutional strictures." * Technical Communication Journal *"There is much to recommend in Williams’ examples of, and conversation around, long-form comics of the period provided throughout the book....An excellent corrective to the scatter-shot references one usually encounters [that] succeeds in correcting some long-standing misconceptions about the development of the graphic novel." * Inks * Review of Dreaming the Graphic Novel in Medienwissenschaft 01/2021 * Medienwissenschaft *"Dreaming the Graphic Novel is a methodological wonder for scholars interested in American popular culture, digital humanities, text mining, and the history of comics and graphic novels. His mixed methodological approach allows him to successfully participate in 'the ongoing recovery of comics studies’ prehistory' as well as establish 'a new way of doing graphic novel history.' Williams’ book should be a required reading...for courses offering an introduction to graphic novels in the U.S. Comics fans, comics scholars, and those interested in the history of graphic novel might also find this a stimulating read." * ImageTexT *"Dreaming the Graphic Novel undertakes the very important task of deepening our understanding of the origins of book format comics and giving a historical context to the anxieties around comics and graphic novels in the 2000s." * European Journal of American Culture *Table of ContentsContents Preface Abbreviations Introduction 1) The Death of the Comic Book 2) Eastern Promise 3) Making Novels 4) The ‘Graphic Novel’ Triumphant 5) Putting the ‘Novel’ into ‘Graphic Novel’ 6) Comics as Literature? Conclusion Appendix Acknowledgments Bibliography
£107.20
Rutgers University Press Those Were the Days: Why All in the Family Still
Book SynopsisBetween 1971 and 1979, All in the Family was more than just a wildly popular television sitcom that routinely drew 50 million viewers weekly. It was also a touchstone of American life, so much so that the living room chairs of the two main characters have spent the last 40 years on display at the Smithsonian. How did a show this controversial and boundary-breaking manage to become so widely beloved?Those Were the Days is the first full-length study of this remarkable television program. Created by Norman Lear and produced by Bud Yorkin, All in the Family dared to address such taboo topics as rape, abortion, menopause, homosexuality, and racial prejudice in a way that no other sitcom had before. Through a close analysis of the sitcom’s four main characters—boorish bigot Archie Bunker, his devoted wife Edith, their feminist daughter Gloria, and her outspoken liberal husband Mike—Jim Cullen demonstrates how All in the Family was able to bridge the generation gap and appeal to a broad spectrum of American viewers in an age when a network broadcast model of television created a shared national culture. Locating All in the Family within the larger history of American television, this book shows how it transformed the medium, not only spawning spinoffs like Maude and The Jeffersons, but also helping to inspire programs like Roseanne, Married... with Children, and The Simpsons. And it raises the question: could a show this edgy ever air on broadcast television today?Trade Review"Little did I know about the world Archie Bunker and All in the Family were born into until I read Jim Cullen’s informed and perceptive Those Were the Days: Why All In The Family Still Matters." -- Norman Lear"Jim Cullen's beguiling scholarship offers a nimble treatment of what was arguably American television's most influential scripted series, made in the waning days of the now bygone mass audience." -- Robert Thompson * Founding Director, Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture, Syracuse University *"'All in the Family' pushed the envelope on race and gender. Has America regressed since then?" by Jim Cullen * USA Today *"A very accessible and highly readable study that situates All in the Family aptly in its historical moment. It illuminates why the show became a landmark and what makes it so special to this day." -- Christina von Hodenberg * author of Television's Moment: Sitcom Audiences and the Sixties Cultural Revolution *"From how each character evolved to the family's resemblance to real-life changes and developing social awareness, Those Were the Days provides a solid study that will serve as discussion material for any media studies or American social history classroom." * Donovan's Literary Services *"Those were the days: As ‘All in the Family’ turns 50, a look at why it succeeded" by Jim Cullen * New York Daily News *"Norman Lear deserves his Golden Globe award — does America deserve him?" by Benjamin Lear * The Foreward *Mary Baker Eddy Library podcast: Jean Stapleton and the spiritual dimensions of “All in the Family” episode * Seekers and Scholars podcast *Table of ContentsContents Introduction: Broad(cast) Humor 1 Situation Comedy, Situation Tragedy: The Transitional World of All in the Family 2 The Revolution, Televised: Origins of the Family 3 Fuzzy Reception: Meeting the Bunkers 4 Producing Comedy: Making All in the Family 5 The Character of Home: Chez Bunker 6 Not Bad for a Bigot: The Making of Archie Bunker 7 A Really Great Housewife: The Character of Edith Baines Bunker 8 Left In: The Liberal Arts of Michael Stivic 9 “Little Girl” to Mother: The Working-Class Feminism of Gloria Bunker Stivic 10 Family Resemblance: The Rise and Fall of the Lear Television Empire Conclusion: Just Like Us Acknowledgments Index
£23.79
Rutgers University Press Hot Pants and Spandex Suits: Gender
Book SynopsisThe superheroes from DC and Marvel comics are some of the most iconic characters in popular culture today. But how do these figures idealize certain gender roles, body types, sexualities, and racial identities at the expense of others? Hot Pants and Spandex Suits offers a far-reaching look at how masculinity and femininity have been represented in American superhero comics, from the Golden and Silver Ages to the Modern Age. Scholar Esther De Dauw contrasts the bulletproof and musclebound phallic bodies of classic male heroes like Superman, Captain America, and Iron Man with the figures of female counterparts like Wonder Woman and Supergirl, who are drawn as superhumanly flexible and plastic. It also examines the genre’s ambivalent treatment of LGBTQ representation, from the presentation of gay male heroes Wiccan and Hulkling as a model minority couple to the troubling association of Batwoman’s lesbianism with monstrosity. Finally, it explores the intersection between gender and race through case studies of heroes like Luke Cage, Storm, and Ms. Marvel. Hot Pants and Spandex Suits is a fascinating and thought-provoking consideration of what superhero comics teach us about identity, embodiment, and sexuality.Trade Review“In Hot Pants and Spandex Suits: Gender and Race in American Superhero Comics, Esther De Dauw has addressed the complexities of identity politics reflected in superhero comics from their earliest appearance eighty years ago. The superhero, a metaphor for the concerns of our culture, presents an apt topic for our understanding of the intersections of gender, race and national identity. The eighty-year span of the book offers us a mirror to our changing perceptions of identity politics and it is of interest to anyone interested in cultural, historical and media studies.” -- Joan Ormrod * author of Wonder Woman, the Female Body and Popular Culture *"Dr. Esther De Dauw asks us to reconsider the generic construct of the superhero and to ask not only who they serve, but how. More importantly, she shows how their high-minded words often obscure less lofty silences and thus also asks us who they be might harming."— Martin Lund, Malmö University, author of Re-Constructing the Man of Steel “In Hot Pants and Spandex Suits: Gender and Race in American Superhero Comics, Esther De Dauw has addressed the complexities of identity politics reflected in superhero comics from their earliest appearance eighty years ago. The superhero, a metaphor for the concerns of our culture, presents an apt topic for our understanding of the intersections of gender, race and national identity. The eighty-year span of the book offers us a mirror to our changing perceptions of identity politics and it is of interest to anyone interested in cultural, historical and media studies.”— Joan Ormrod, author of Wonder Woman, the Female Body and Popular Culture "Esther De Dauw’s book Hot Pants and Spandex Suits is well versed in gender and sexuality studies."— Inks"Dr. Esther De Dauw asks us to reconsider the generic construct of the superhero and to ask not only who they serve, but how. More importantly, she shows how their high-minded words often obscure less lofty silences and thus also asks us who they be might harming." -- Martin Lund * Malmö University, author of Re-Constructing the Man of Steel *"Esther De Dauw’s book Hot Pants and Spandex Suits is well versed in gender and sexuality studies." * Inks *Table of ContentsContents Introduction Chapter 1: White Superheroes and Masculinity Chapter 2: The White Female Body Chapter 3: Gay Characters and Social Progress Chapter 4: Legacy, Community and the Superhero of Color Conclusion: The Next Steps Bibliography Index
£27.20
Rutgers University Press Hot Pants and Spandex Suits: Gender
Book SynopsisThe superheroes from DC and Marvel comics are some of the most iconic characters in popular culture today. But how do these figures idealize certain gender roles, body types, sexualities, and racial identities at the expense of others? Hot Pants and Spandex Suits offers a far-reaching look at how masculinity and femininity have been represented in American superhero comics, from the Golden and Silver Ages to the Modern Age. Scholar Esther De Dauw contrasts the bulletproof and musclebound phallic bodies of classic male heroes like Superman, Captain America, and Iron Man with the figures of female counterparts like Wonder Woman and Supergirl, who are drawn as superhumanly flexible and plastic. It also examines the genre’s ambivalent treatment of LGBTQ representation, from the presentation of gay male heroes Wiccan and Hulkling as a model minority couple to the troubling association of Batwoman’s lesbianism with monstrosity. Finally, it explores the intersection between gender and race through case studies of heroes like Luke Cage, Storm, and Ms. Marvel. Hot Pants and Spandex Suits is a fascinating and thought-provoking consideration of what superhero comics teach us about identity, embodiment, and sexuality.Trade Review“In Hot Pants and Spandex Suits: Gender and Race in American Superhero Comics, Esther De Dauw has addressed the complexities of identity politics reflected in superhero comics from their earliest appearance eighty years ago. The superhero, a metaphor for the concerns of our culture, presents an apt topic for our understanding of the intersections of gender, race and national identity. The eighty-year span of the book offers us a mirror to our changing perceptions of identity politics and it is of interest to anyone interested in cultural, historical and media studies.” -- Joan Ormrod * author of Wonder Woman, the Female Body and Popular Culture *"Dr. Esther De Dauw asks us to reconsider the generic construct of the superhero and to ask not only who they serve, but how. More importantly, she shows how their high-minded words often obscure less lofty silences and thus also asks us who they be might harming."— Martin Lund, Malmö University, author of Re-Constructing the Man of Steel “In Hot Pants and Spandex Suits: Gender and Race in American Superhero Comics, Esther De Dauw has addressed the complexities of identity politics reflected in superhero comics from their earliest appearance eighty years ago. The superhero, a metaphor for the concerns of our culture, presents an apt topic for our understanding of the intersections of gender, race and national identity. The eighty-year span of the book offers us a mirror to our changing perceptions of identity politics and it is of interest to anyone interested in cultural, historical and media studies.”— Joan Ormrod, author of Wonder Woman, the Female Body and Popular Culture "Esther De Dauw’s book Hot Pants and Spandex Suits is well versed in gender and sexuality studies."— Inks"Dr. Esther De Dauw asks us to reconsider the generic construct of the superhero and to ask not only who they serve, but how. More importantly, she shows how their high-minded words often obscure less lofty silences and thus also asks us who they be might harming." -- Martin Lund * Malmö University, author of Re-Constructing the Man of Steel *"Esther De Dauw’s book Hot Pants and Spandex Suits is well versed in gender and sexuality studies." * Inks *Table of ContentsContents Introduction Chapter 1: White Superheroes and Masculinity Chapter 2: The White Female Body Chapter 3: Gay Characters and Social Progress Chapter 4: Legacy, Community and the Superhero of Color Conclusion: The Next Steps Bibliography Index
£107.20
Rutgers University Press Gray Matters: Finding Meaning in the Stories of
Book SynopsisWinner of the 2021 Excellence in Research and Scholarly Activity Award from the University of Wisconsin-MilwaukeeFinalist for the 2021 American Book Fest Best Book AwardsAging is one of the most compelling issues today, with record numbers of seniors over sixty-five worldwide. Gray Matters: Finding Meaning in the Stories of Later Life examines a diverse array of cultural works including films, literature, and even art that represent this time of life, often made by people who are seniors themselves. These works, focusing on important topics such as housing, memory loss, and intimacy, are analyzed in dialogue with recent research to explore how “stories” illuminate the dynamics of growing old by blending fact with imagination. Gray Matters also incorporates the life experiences of seniors gathered from over two hundred in-depth surveys with a range of questions on growing old, not often included in other age studies works. Combining cultural texts, gerontology research, and observations from older adults will give all readers a fuller picture of the struggles and pleasures of aging and avoids over-simplified representations of the process as all negative or positive. Trade Review“Creative, wide-ranging and well-written, Gray Matters offers a many-sided, complex understanding of late-life. It demonstrates that this period of our lives interweaves our past and present, takes grit, and offers opportunities for positive experiences. For some, learning becomes more enjoyable, as the phrase ‘senior college’ indicates. Gray Matters also skillfully shows that aging occurs in a social context, a fact often overlooked when the process is understood as solely an individual matter.” -- Margaret Cruikshank * from the foreword *"Gray Matters invites readers to reexamine what they think they know about growing old. Offering succinct close readings of richly diverse cultural texts, Lem’s book presents literature as a resource for dealing with the practical and existential concerns of aging. With its interdisciplinary grounding in age studies theory and sociological data, Gray Matters is itself a valuable resource for readers ready to reorient their view of later life." -- Erin Lamb * co-editor of Research Methods in Health Humanities *"Lem draws examples from literature, film, television, and a survey of older people to support a wide-ranging and accessible examination of contemporary culture. Especially helpful to those who are new to the field, this book is a welcome addition to age-studies scholarship." -- Valerie Lipscomb * author of Performing Age in Modern Drama *"A savvy analysis of films, books, and studies undermining Philip Roth’s contention that 'Old age is not a battle. It is a massacre.'" -- Susan Gubar * author of Late-Life Love: A Memoir *"The Literature of Elder Care is Often About Shifting Power Dynamics: Ellyn Lem on Works by Shakespeare, Lauren Fox, and Others" https://lithub.com/the-literature-of-elder-care-is-often-about-shifting-power-dynamics/ * Literary Hub *"Drawing on literature, movies and TV as well as her survey research with 200 seniors, Lem explores the diversity of experiences of older people and pushes back against negative stereotypes about aging. Sexuality, housing, memory loss, adult children and death are among the topics." * Milwaukee Journal Sentinel *"Often, the elderly handle the pandemic very well. Here’s why," by Ellyn A. Lem https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/elderly-coping-pandemic-despite-isolation/2020/09/18/f397dea8-f763-11ea-89e3-4b9efa36dc64_story.html#comments-wrapper * Washington Post *"Gray Matters increases readers’ knowledge about contemporary literature, media, and research focused on lived experiences of older adults. The content and insights can be introduced into gerontology courses and social work practice, human behavior, policy, and research courses, as well as informing direct practice with critical perspectives." * Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work *"Just How Well Is Popular Culture Portraying Older Adults?" by Ellyn Lem * Next Avenue *"This illuminating book will be appreciated by anyone who is growing old, or who is committed to social changes that ensure a pleasant and productive old age for all. Recommended." * Choice *"What the New Movie 'Old' Gets Right About Aging," by Ellyn Lem * Next Avenue *Table of ContentsForeword by Margaret Cruikshank Introduction: “Where Do I Begin?” Senior Parents and Their Adult Children: “Can’t We All Just Get Along?” Surveying the Housing Options: “No Place like Home”? Understanding Memory Loss: “Am I Losing my Mind?” Intimacy: “Love is All You Need”? Women and Men: “Separate But Equal”? Money, Work and Retirement: “Are We There Yet?” Death: “The Final Frontier”? Afterword Acknowledgments Works Cited Index
£55.20
Rutgers University Press Teenage Dreams: Girlhood Sexualities in the U.S.
Book SynopsisUtilizing a breadth of archival sources from activists, artists, and policymakers, Teenage Dreams examines the race- and class-inflected battles over adolescent women’s sexual and reproductive lives in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century United States. Charlie Jeffries finds that most adults in this period hesitated to advocate for adolescent sexual and reproductive rights, revealing a new culture war altogether--one between adults of various political stripes in the cultural mainstream who prioritized the desire to delay girlhood sexual experience at all costs, and adults who remained culturally underground in their support for teenagers’ access to frank sexual information, and who would dare to advocate for this in public. The book tells the story of how the latter group of adults fought alongside teenagers themselves, who constituted a large and increasingly visible part of this activism. The history of the debates over teenage sexual behavior reveals unexpected alliances in American political battles, and sheds new light on the resurgence of the right in the US in recent years.Trade Review“Teenage Dreams is a vital contribution to our historic understanding of the US culture wars from the 1980s to the present moment. This rich analysis uncovers a wealth of youth activism around sexuality, revealing how we might benefit if we heard the voices of youth who are typically left out of public conversations on their own sexuality.” -- Julie Bettie * author of Women without Class: Girls, Race, and Identity *"Teenage sexuality has long been a site of contention in US politics and popular culture. Examining policies and popular ideologies starting in the 1980s, Charlie Jeffries brings to light political and social histories that have long restricted teenage girl sexuality. Jeffries’ research into how multiple influencers of US policy have denied teen girls access to sex-positive education and information is as timely as it is informative." -- Rebekah J. Buchanan * author of Writing a Riot: Riot Grrrl Zines and Feminist Rhetorics *“Teenage Dreams is a vital contribution to our historic understanding of the US culture wars from the 1980s to the present moment. This rich analysis uncovers a wealth of youth activism around sexuality, revealing how we might benefit if we heard the voices of youth who are typically left out of public conversations on their own sexuality.” -- Julie Bettie * author of Women without Class: Girls, Race, and Identity *"Teenage sexuality has long been a site of contention in US politics and popular culture. Examining policies and popular ideologies starting in the 1980s, Charlie Jeffries brings to light political and social histories that have long restricted teenage girl sexuality. Jeffries’ research into how multiple influencers of US policy have denied teen girls access to sex-positive education and information is as timely as it is informative." -- Rebekah J. Buchanan * author of Writing a Riot: Riot Grrrl Zines and Feminist Rhetorics *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Teenage Girls and the New Right 2. Women and Children? Sexual Speech and Sexual Harm 3. Explicit Content: Cultures of Girlhood 4. The Third Wave and the Third Way 5. Medicine, Education, and Sexualization Epilogue: Girlhood Sexualities in the Contemporary Culture Wars Acknowledgments Notes Index
£107.20
Rutgers University Press Unsettling: Jews, Whiteness, and Incest in
Book SynopsisBy analyzing how various media told stories about Jewish celebrities and incest, Unsettling illustrates how Jewish community protective politics impacted the representation of white male Jewish masculinity in the 1990s. Chapters on Woody Allen, Roseanne Barr, and Henry Roth demonstrate how media coverage of their respective incest denials (Allen), allegations (Barr), and confessions (Roth) intersect with a history of sexual antisemitism, while an introductory chapter on Jewish second-wave feminist criticism of Sigmund Freud considers how Freud became “white” in these discussions. Unsettling reveals how film, TV, and literature have helped displace once prevalent antisemitic stereotypes onto those who are non-Jewish, nonwhite, and poor. In considering how whiteness functions for an ethnoreligious group with historic vulnerability to incest stereotype as well as contemporary white privilege, Unsettling demonstrates how white Jewish men accused of incest, and even those who defiantly confess it, became improbably sympathetic figures representing supposed white male vulnerability. Trade ReviewBromberg breaks the silence and pushes discomfort to the margins as he unpacks notions of American Jewish Ashkenazi exceptionalism without overlooking how Jewish whiteness, an embodied American process, exists as an anomaly... Innovative. -- Katya Gibel Mevorach * author of Black, Jewish and Interracial: It's Not the Color of Your Skin but the Race of Your Kin, *In this provocative and timely book, Eli Bromberg dares to examine how anti-Semitic sexual stereotypes centered on the incest taboo continue to shape representations of Jews and Jewishness in American culture. Bromberg brings oft-silenced topics to the fore, exposing the “protective politics” of Jewish communities and unsettling paradigms...a fascinating contribution to the fields of Jewish cultural studies and comparative race studies. -- Lori Harrison-Kahan * author of The White Negress: Literature, Minstrelsy, and the Black-Jewish Imaginary *"Bromberg presents a well-written critical analysis of the intersections of Jewish ethnoreligious identity, white racial identity, and gender that lays important groundwork for future work in the area. Those who read this text will have a more advanced understanding of the intersections of these categories in the context of the situations described....[A]n important contribution to the fields of race and ethnic studies and Jewish studies because it pioneers many previously undiscussed and under-discussed topics simultaneously." * Ethnic and Racial Studies *"Unsettling: Jews, Whiteness, Incest in American Pop Culture by Eli Bromberg" * New York Jewish Travel Guide *"A timely and theoretically sophisticated contribution to studies in Jewish social politics, popular culture, and critical race studies. It shines a bold light on the ways in which Jewish vulnerability to sexual antisemitism, rooted in centuries of anti-Jewish belief, has continued to enable and reward complacence with the demands of racist and patriarchal power structures as a requisite for American Jews’ own conditional inclusion within the paradox of 'universalist,' white-dominated American culture. It furthers contemplation about the predicaments of Jewish identity in a context that awards conditional privileges to those whose security is easily dismantled by underlying prejudice and who are thus compelled to reinforce existing power structures in the name of self-defense." * AJS Review *Table of ContentsContents Introduction Chapter 1: A Victorian Freud: A Rhetorical Analysis of Jewish Second-Wave Feminist Criticism of Freud Chapter 2: Incest, Exogamy, and Jewishness on Roseanne Chapter 3: Woody, Wood Yi, and Communion Wafers Chapter 4: Blood Libel Humor and Incest Easter Eggs Chapter 5: “Till a Khusin Comes Along” Conclusion Acknowledgments About the Author
£30.40
Rutgers University Press Unsettling: Jews, Whiteness, and Incest in
Book SynopsisBy analyzing how various media told stories about Jewish celebrities and incest, Unsettling illustrates how Jewish community protective politics impacted the representation of white male Jewish masculinity in the 1990s. Chapters on Woody Allen, Roseanne Barr, and Henry Roth demonstrate how media coverage of their respective incest denials (Allen), allegations (Barr), and confessions (Roth) intersect with a history of sexual antisemitism, while an introductory chapter on Jewish second-wave feminist criticism of Sigmund Freud considers how Freud became “white” in these discussions. Unsettling reveals how film, TV, and literature have helped displace once prevalent antisemitic stereotypes onto those who are non-Jewish, nonwhite, and poor. In considering how whiteness functions for an ethnoreligious group with historic vulnerability to incest stereotype as well as contemporary white privilege, Unsettling demonstrates how white Jewish men accused of incest, and even those who defiantly confess it, became improbably sympathetic figures representing supposed white male vulnerability. Trade ReviewBromberg breaks the silence and pushes discomfort to the margins as he unpacks notions of American Jewish Ashkenazi exceptionalism without overlooking how Jewish whiteness, an embodied American process, exists as an anomaly... Innovative. -- Katya Gibel Mevorach * author of Black, Jewish and Interracial: It's Not the Color of Your Skin but the Race of Your Kin, *In this provocative and timely book, Eli Bromberg dares to examine how anti-Semitic sexual stereotypes centered on the incest taboo continue to shape representations of Jews and Jewishness in American culture. Bromberg brings oft-silenced topics to the fore, exposing the “protective politics” of Jewish communities and unsettling paradigms...a fascinating contribution to the fields of Jewish cultural studies and comparative race studies. -- Lori Harrison-Kahan * author of The White Negress: Literature, Minstrelsy, and the Black-Jewish Imaginary *"Bromberg presents a well-written critical analysis of the intersections of Jewish ethnoreligious identity, white racial identity, and gender that lays important groundwork for future work in the area. Those who read this text will have a more advanced understanding of the intersections of these categories in the context of the situations described....[A]n important contribution to the fields of race and ethnic studies and Jewish studies because it pioneers many previously undiscussed and under-discussed topics simultaneously." * Ethnic and Racial Studies *"Unsettling: Jews, Whiteness, Incest in American Pop Culture by Eli Bromberg" * New York Jewish Travel Guide *"A timely and theoretically sophisticated contribution to studies in Jewish social politics, popular culture, and critical race studies. It shines a bold light on the ways in which Jewish vulnerability to sexual antisemitism, rooted in centuries of anti-Jewish belief, has continued to enable and reward complacence with the demands of racist and patriarchal power structures as a requisite for American Jews’ own conditional inclusion within the paradox of 'universalist,' white-dominated American culture. It furthers contemplation about the predicaments of Jewish identity in a context that awards conditional privileges to those whose security is easily dismantled by underlying prejudice and who are thus compelled to reinforce existing power structures in the name of self-defense." * AJS Review *Table of ContentsContents Introduction Chapter 1: A Victorian Freud: A Rhetorical Analysis of Jewish Second-Wave Feminist Criticism of Freud Chapter 2: Incest, Exogamy, and Jewishness on Roseanne Chapter 3: Woody, Wood Yi, and Communion Wafers Chapter 4: Blood Libel Humor and Incest Easter Eggs Chapter 5: “Till a Khusin Comes Along” Conclusion Acknowledgments About the Author
£107.20
Rutgers University Press The Other End of the Needle: Continuity and
Book SynopsisThe Other End of the Needle demonstrates that tattooing is more complex than simply the tattoos that people wear. Using qualitative data and an accessible writing style, sociologist Dave Lane explains the complexity of tattoo work as a type of social activity. His central argument is that tattooing is a social world, where people must be socialized, manage a system of stratification, create spaces conducive for labor, develop sets of beliefs and values, struggle to retain control over their tools, and contend with changes that in turn affect their labor. Earlier research has examined tattoos and their meanings. Yet, Lane notes, prior research has focused almost exclusively on the tattoos—the outcome of an intricate social process—and have ignored the significance of tattoo workers themselves. "Tattooists," as Lane dubs them, make decisions, but they work within a social world that constrains and shapes the outcome of their labor—the tattoo. The goal of this book is to help readers understand the world of tattoo work as an intricate and nuanced form of work. Lane ultimately asks new questions about the social processes occurring prior to the tattoo’s existence. Trade Review"A compelling, in-depth look at tattoo artists and their social world as they pursue fulfilling, enchanting work in the midst of a dehumanizing capitalist system. Lane provokes fascinating questions about how artists organize spaces, navigate laws, and construct authenticity as tattoos become increasingly popular. Reading made me want to get more tattoos – and ask my artist all sorts of questions!" -- Ross Haenfler * author of Straight Edge Hardcore Punk, Clean Living Youth, and Social Change *"It takes two to tattoo–someone being tattooed and the tattooist. Their encounter has to be face-to-face, and this fact shapes how tattooists work, regardless of whether they approach their work as a craft or as high art. In this fascinating book, David Lane takes us into the many corners of the tattooists’ world, revealing how the occupation retains its traditions in the face of dramatic changes." -- Joel Best * University of Delaware *"Looking at the nature, habits, and cultural codes of professional tattooing, Lane reveals the complexity of tattooing as an art form, work world, and social process. The tattooists appear as resilient agents who resist capitalist alienation, unionization, and state-level regulations. We also see the artists as gatekeepers who maintain the class, race, and gender order of professional tattooing. A truly interesting read." -- Katherine Irwin * University of Hawai’i at Manoa *"In The Other Side of the Needle, David C. Lane provides an absorbing and accessibly written view of the tattoo world from the perspective of tattoo workers. Drawing on an art-world perspective and packed with insights from tattooists, the book explores the working lives of tattooists. It provides a much-needed and thorough treatment of this understudied area and will be of interest to scholars in the production of culture as well as to anyone interested in tattoos and tattooing. -- Victoria D. Alexander * Goldsmiths, University of London *Table of ContentsContents List of Figures Figure 1.1: The Stratified World of Tattooing Figure 7.1: Authenticity of Machine Ownership List of Tables Table 4.1: State and Local Tattoo Bans Introduction: Tattooing for Beginners 1 The Social World of Tattooing 2 Organizing Space 3 Careers of Tattooists 4 Legal Consciousness among Workers 5 Ties to Conventional Institutions and Ideas 6 Sources of Contention 7 External Threats and the Maintenance of Boundaries Conclusion: Continuity and Change Methodological Appendix Acknowledgments Notes References Index
£27.20
Rutgers University Press Music Is Power: Popular Songs, Social Justice,
Book SynopsisHonorable Mention, 2019 Foreword INDIES Awards - Performing Arts & MusicHonorable Mention, Graphis 2021 Design Annual Competition Popular music has long been a powerful force for social change. Protest songs have served as anthems regarding war, racism, sexism, ecological destruction, and so many other crucial issues. Music Is Power takes us on a guided tour through the past one hundred years of politically conscious music, from Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie to Green Day and NWA. Covering a wide variety of genres, including reggae, country, metal, psychedelia, rap, punk, folk, and soul, Brad Schreiber demonstrates how musicians can take a variety of approaches— angry rallying cries, mournful elegies to the victims of injustice, or even humorous mockeries of authority—to fight for a fairer world. While shining a spotlight on Phil Ochs, Gil Scott-Heron, the Dead Kennedys and other seminal, politicized artists, he also gives readers a new appreciation of classic acts such as Lesley Gore, James Brown, and Black Sabbath, who overcame limitations in their industry to create politically potent music Music Is Power tells fascinating stories about the origins and the impact of dozens of world-changing songs, while revealing political context and the personal challenges of legendary artists from Bob Dylan to Bob Marley.Supplemental material (Artist and Title List): https://d3tto5i5w9ogdd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/24001955/Music_Is_Power_Supplementary_Artist_Title_List.doc Trade Review“Brad Schreiber understands both music and politics, as well as the jagged lines where they overlap and intersect. His clarity, intelligence, and insight provide lasting rewards.” -- Anthony DeCurtis * Grammy Award–winning journalist, for Rolling Stone, author of Lou Reed: A Life *“An inspiring tour through the history of making change with music and an important call for retrieving music’s intrinsic ability to challenge power.” -- Douglas Rushkoff * documentarian, professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at CUNY/Queens, author of Team Human *“A stirring survey of the sometimes sad, sometimes joyful, sometimes angry but ever hopeful music that is the soundtrack for America’s struggle to become a more fair and just society.” -- Seth Rosenfeld * journalist, winner of the George Polk Award, author of Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radical *Interview on "Deep Dish Radio with Tim Powers" with Brad Schreiber https://play.acast.com/s/deepdishradio/7424927b-bdc3-4183-a884-a84f4ba85c5f * Deep Dish Radio with Tim Powers *Law and Disorder Radio interview with Brad Schreiber https://lawanddisorder.org/2019/11/law-and-disorder-november-25-2019/ * Law and Disorder *Interview with Brad Schreiber on The Stuph File Program * The Stuph File *"Music is Power: Author Brad Schreiber digs into he history and power of protest music" interview with Brad Schreiber https://wgnradio.com/2019/12/10/music-is-power-author-brad-schreiber-digs-into-he-history-and-power-of-protest-music/ * Nick Digilio Show - WGN *Music Is Power mention in Planet Proctor, December 2019 issue * Planet Proctor *MWN Episode 136 – Popular Songs , Social Justice, and the Will to Change with Brad Schreiber * Midnight Writer News *"A fun read. It provides the old timer with a quick sail down the streams of memory and the younger reader with a useful and concise look at the music of the West that helped form the culture of today." * CounterPunch *Louisiana Radio Network "Talk Louisiana" interview with Jim Engster and Brad Schreiber https://www.wrkf.org/post/monday-january-20th-faye-williams-daryl-glasper-brad-schreiber * Louisiana Radio Network *"Music Is Power covers the socio-political history of important music, from Bob Dylan to hip-hop, including genres like punk, comedy, folk, psychedelia, RB/soul and major musicals, and encourages listeners to respond to this powerful music with real world activism. It’s a timeless New Year’s gift!" * Planet Proctor *Unstructured Podcast interview with Brad Schreiber https://unstructuredpod.com/psychotically-eclectic-author-brad-schreiber/ * Unstructured Podcast *"Brad Schreiber talks about this topic perfectly...You did a lot of research."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gaim6C8E3wfeature=youtu.be * The Allan Handelman Show interview with Brad Schreiber: Music Is Power" *Brad Schreiber's Playlist for His Book "Music is Power: Popular Songs, Social Justice, and the Will to Change" * Largehearted Boy *"Brad Schreiber Visits Madame Perry's Salon" podcast interview https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/brad-schreiber-visits-madame-perrys-salon/id1063919048?i=1000465223311 * Madame Perry's Salon *"In-Depth Interview: Author Brad Schreiber Talks..." interview on the Peter B. Collins Show https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/peter-b-collins-newscomment/e/66984975 * The Peter B. Collins Show *"A fun and informative read from first page to last." * Midwest Book Review *"Brad Schreiber, 'Music Is Power: Popular Songs, Social Justice And The Will To Change'" https://www.wortfm.org/brad-schreiber-music-is-power-popular-songs-social-justice-and-the-will-to-change/ * Madison Bookbeat *Parallax Views with J.G. Michael interview with Brad Schreiber https://parallaxviews.podbean.com/e/schreiber/ * Parallax Views *"Passing Through" KAAD-LP 103.5 FM interview with Brad Schreiber * Passing Through *"An intensively researched yet rollicking tour of socially charged music...A compelling read on the intersection of popular music and social activism, from Pete Seeger to Zappa to Public Enemy and beyond." * American Songwriter *INTERVIEW WITH BRAD SCHREIBER ON ‘MUSIC IS POWER’: PART 1—DIXIE CHICKS, MARVIN GAY https://shadowproof.com/2020/03/31/music-is-power-interview-schreiber-dixie-chicks-marvin-gaye/ * Shadowproof *"What’s better than a book you didn’t know you needed? Music Is Power is a history of the nexus of music and protest, from Wobbly-turned-musician Joe Hill to Green Day, from folk to hip-hop." * Razorcake *"INTERVIEW WITH BRAD SCHREIBER ON ‘MUSIC IS POWER’: PART 2—JIMI HENDRIX, PINK FLOYD" * Shadowproof, Part 2 *“Music Is Power - Part 3: Black Sabbath, Gil Scott-Heron, Public Enemy” https://shadowproof.com/2020/04/28/music-is-power-schreiber-gil-scott-heron-black-sabbath/ * Shadowproof, Part 3 *"Much has been written about these artists elsewhere, but Schreiber’s focus sets this study apart. He goes beneath the surface to detail how their social consciousness evolved during the course of their careers, and how they came to understand their music’s power to address social ills. This carefully researched book is suitable for fans and scholars alike. Recommended." * Choice *"Madame Perry's Salon" interview with Brad Schreiber, part two https://www.blogtalkradio.com/madameperryssalon/2020/05/14/writer-producer-brad-schreiber * Madame Perry's Salon, part two *Brad Schreiber interview on “Passing Through” on KAAD-LP 103.5 FM * Passing Through, part 2 *"Coast to Coast AM" interview with Brad, Schreiber, part 1 * Coast to Coast AM, part 1 *"Coast to Coast AM" interview view Brad Schreiber, part 2 * Coast to Coast AM, part 2 *"Coast to Coast AM" interview with Brad Schreiber, part 3 * Coast to Coast AM, part 3 *"MWN Episode 144 – Music is Power (Part 2) with Brad Schreiber" https://midnightwriternews.com/mwn-episode-144-music-is-power-part-2-with-brad-schreiber/ * Midnight Writer News *"Chatting with Sherri," BlogTalkRadio interview with Brad Schreiber https://www.blogtalkradio.com/rithebard/2020/06/25/chatting-with-sherri * Chatting with Sherri - Blog Talk Radio *Music's Connection to Societal Issues The Patty Hearst/SLA Case - interview with Brad Schreiber https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AHdxbXK6Ys * Beyond Reality Radio *"Talk with Ted" interview with Brad Schreiber https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-s3b37-e5cbf5 * Talk with Ted podcast *"Brad Schreiber interview – Episode 288" http://readingandwritingpodcast.com/brad-schreiber-interview/ * Reading and Writing podcast *High Road to Humanity - Music Is Power! Popular Songs, Social Justice, with Guest Brad Schreiber https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55j15fa54NIfeature=youtu.be * Nancy Yearout's High Road to Humanity *"Episode 37: "Music Is Power: Popular Songs, Social Justice, and The Will to Change" with Brad Schreiber" https://allmusicbooksdeepdive.podbean.com/e/episode-37-music-is-power-popular-songs-social-justice-and-the-will-to-change-with-brad-schreiber/ * Deep Dive podcast *Beyond Reality Paranormal Podcast - Hidden History episode interview with Brad Schreiber https://anchor.fm/brparanormal/episodes/Hidden-History---Brad-Schreiber---102020-elclvh * Beyond Reality Paranormal podcast *"Tuesday, December 8th: Andrea Gallo, Brad Schreiber" * "Talk Louisiana," WRKF *The Stuph File Program interview with Brad Schreiber * The Stuph File Program *"How Tom Odell’s Another Love became an unlikely anthem for Ukraine," by James Hall * The Telegraph **Special episode * Music is Power: Donna and Dr Adam in conversation with author Brad Schreiber * Love's A Secret Weapon podcast *"In Music Is Power, Brad Schreiber argues that socially or politically conscious music emerges from practically every genre of popular music, and he takes the reader on a journey through the various ways that musicians have addressed the issues of their day." -- Shalon Van Tine * Western Folklore journal *Table of ContentsIntroductionChapter 1: Musical Workers of the World Unite: Joe Hill, Woody Guthrie, Pete SeegerChapter 2: There For More Than Fortune: Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, Bob DylanChapter 3: Caged Artists: Lesley Gore, Janis Ian, P.F. SloanChapter 4: Parody and Poetry: Tom Lehrer, Peter, Paul and Mary, The Smothers BrothersChapter 5: Psychedelicate Situation: Jimi Hendrix and Pink FloydChapter 6: Reason and Blues: Marvin Gaye and The TemptationsChapter 7: Say It Loud, We’re Blocked but Proud: James Brown and Curtis MayfieldChapter 8: Hard Rock Turns Metallic: The Who and Black SabbathChapter 9: More Than a Working Class Hero: John LennonChapter 10: Out of Place and In Your Face: The Dead Kennedys and The Sex PistolsChapter 11: Word: Gil Scott Heron and Grandmaster FlashChapter 12: Global Music Consciousness: Bob Marley and Peter GabrielChapter 13: Weird, Funny, Angry: Frank Zappa vs. EverybodyChapter 14: Rap, Not Hip Hop: N.W.A. and Public EnemyChapter 15: Weapons of Mass Deconstruction: Dixie Chicks and Green DayEpilogueBibliography
£28.80
Rutgers University Press Rebuilding Story Worlds: The Obscure Cities by
Book SynopsisA collaboration between Belgian artist François Schuiten and French writer Benoît Peeters, The Obscure Cities is one of the few comics series to achieve massive popularity while remaining highly experimental in form and content. Set in a parallel world, full of architecturally distinctive city-states, The Obscure Cities also represents one of the most impressive pieces of world-building in any form of literature. Rebuilding Story Worlds offers the first full-length study of this seminal series, exploring both the artistic traditions from which it emerges and the innovative ways it plays with genre, gender, and urban space. Comics scholar Jan Baetens examines how Schuiten’s work as an architectural designer informs the series’ concerns with the preservation of historic buildings. He also includes an original interview with Peeters, which reveals how poststructuralist critical theory influenced their construction of a rhizomatic fictional world, one which has made space for fan contributions through the Alta Plana website. Synthesizing cutting-edge approaches from both literary and visual studies, Rebuilding Story Worlds will give readers a new appreciation for both the aesthetic ingenuity of The Obscure Cities and its nuanced conception of politics. Trade Review"In this compelling study of world making and storytelling in The Obscure Cities by François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters, Jan Baetens offers a subtle and intelligent reading of how structures of authorship, character, image, and world draw readers into a truly fictional universe in which interpretation and rereading are key. With this book, Baetens has certainly brought The Obscure Cities into its rightful place in the history of American and European comics."— Nancy Pedri, Memorial University of Newfoundland "Baetens ‘monograph is devoted to the overall concept of a series that was not originally conceived as such. The heterogeneity of the individual, complementary and contradicting volumes that stand for themselves and can be read in the context of the other volumes."— Comic.de "With clarity, insight, and depth, Jan Baetens’ Rebuilding Story Worlds gives the reader all the essential keys to navigate François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters’ sprawling graphic novel series The Obscure Cities—Belgium’s most sophisticated, contemporary bande dessinée opus."— Jean-Paul Gabilliet, author of Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of Comic Books in AmericaTable of ContentsContents List of Illustrations 1 A New Series, A New Type of Author 2 A World of Its Own 3 More than a Possible World 4 Between Chapter and Series 5 A New Fantastic 6 In and Out the Medium 7 Doing Politics in Comics 8 Close-reading The Leaning Girl 9 A Conversation with Benoît Peeters 10 Image Gallery Acknowledgments Primary Sources Secondary Sources Index
£73.60
Rutgers University Press Panthers, Hulks and Ironhearts: Marvel, Diversity
Book SynopsisMarvel is one of the hottest media companies in the world right now, and its beloved superheroes are all over film, television and comic books. Yet rather than simply cashing in on the popularity of iconic white male characters like Peter Parker, Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, Marvel has consciously diversified its lineup of superheroes, courting controversy in the process. Panthers, Hulks, and Ironhearts offers the first comprehensive study of how Marvel has reimagined what a superhero might look like in the twenty-first century. It examines how they have revitalized older characters like Black Panther and Luke Cage, while creating new ones like Latina superhero Miss America. Furthermore, it considers the mixed fan responses to Marvel’s recasting of certain “legacy heroes,” including a Pakistani-American Ms. Marvel, a Korean-American Hulk, and a whole rainbow of multiverse Spidermen. If the superhero comic is a quintessentially American creation, then how might the increasing diversification of Marvel’s superhero lineup reveal a fundamental shift in our understanding of American identity? This timely study answers those questions and considers what Marvel’s comics, TV series, and films might teach us about stereotyping, Orientalism, repatriation, whitewashing, and identification. Trade Review"Jeffrey Brown does it again! With his usual compelling style of writing, this time we are treated to a very timely analysis of Marvel’s contemporary multicultural superheroes and their complex entanglements. The significance of this text is its sophisticated way of unpacking the pop cultural panoply of ideology, history, and identity in which the superhero aesthetic is inextricably confined."— Ronald L. Jackson II, co-author of the Comic-Con award winning book, Black Comics "Panthers, Hulks, and Ironhearts offers the first comprehensive study of how Marvel has reimagined what a superhero might look like in the twenty-first century. It examines how they have revitalized older characters like Black Panther and Luke Cage, while creating new ones like Latina superhero Miss America. Furthermore, it considers the mixed fan responses to Marvel’s recasting of certain 'legacy heroes,' including a Pakistani-American Ms. Marvel, a Korean-American Hulk, and a whole rainbow of multiverse Spidermen."— Forces of Geek "[Brown] has written a wonderfully readable book whose academic posture does not make it any less appealing to the layperson or the aficionado."— South China Morning Post "Smash Pages QA: Jeffrey A. Brown: The pop culture scholar discusses his latest books on superheroes, diversity and gender"— SmashPagesTable of ContentsContents Introduction: Marvel and Modern America Spider-Analogues: Unmarking and Unmasking White Male Superheroism The Replacements: Ethnicity, Gender and Legacy Heroes in Marvel Comics Superdad: Luke Cage and Heroic Fatherhood in the Civil War Comics Black Panther: Aspiration, Identification and Appropriation Iron Fist: Ethnicity, Appropriation and Repatriation Totally Awesome Asian Heroes vs. Stereotypes A New America: Marvelous Latinx Superheroes Ms. Marvel: A Thoroughly Relatable Muslim Superheroine Afterword: “Because the World Still Needs Heroes” Works Cited
£107.20
Rutgers University Press From Memory to History: Television Versions of
Book SynopsisOur understanding of history is often mediated by popular culture, and television series set in the past have provided some of our most indelible images of previous times. Yet such historical television programs always reveal just as much about the era in which they are produced as the era in which they are set; there are few more quintessentially late-90s shows than That ‘70s Show, for example. From Memory to History takes readers on a journey through over fifty years of historical dramas and sitcoms that were set in earlier decades of the twentieth century. Along the way, it explores how comedies like M*A*S*H and Hogan’s Heroes offered veiled commentary on the Vietnam War, how dramas ranging like Mad Men echoed current economic concerns, and how The Americans and Halt and Catch Fire used the Cold War and the rise of the internet to reflect upon the present day. Cultural critic Jim Cullen is lively, informative, and incisive, and this book will help readers look at past times, present times, and prime time in a new light.Trade Review"This is a terrific book, fun and learned and provocative. Ranging across television from The Waltons to The Americans, Cullen provides an entertaining and thoughtful account of the ways that we remember and how this is influenced and directed by what we watch. The discussions of popular television series are excellent, and together they provide a compelling account of historical television, reminding us that nothing artistic happens by chance and that we should be careful of what we believe." -- Jerome de Groot * author of Consuming History: Historians and Heritage in Contemporary Popular Culture *"Jim Cullen has been writing incisively about how Americans remember the past and make sense of the present through various forms of popular culture for a quarter-century. This time his focus is prime-time television with deep dives into seven celebrated series from the 1960s through the 2010s, which will inspire readers to return to these beloved programs with renewed insight and appreciation." -- Gary R. Edgerton * Professor of Creative Media and Entertainment at Butler University and coeditor of the Journal of Po *Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION Television’s History 1 LEFT TO THE RIGHTThe Waltons as a 1970s Version of the 1930s 2 CAMP HISTORYHogan’s Heroes as a 1960s Version of the 1940s 3 A FUNNY WARM*A*S*H as a 1970s Version of the 1950s 4 DREAM ADVERTISEMENTMad Men as a 2000s Version of the 1960s 5 WE’RE ALL ALL RIGHTThat ’70s Show as a 1990s Version of the 1970s 6 DOMESTIC FRONTThe Americans as a 2010s Version of the 1980s 7 PROGRAMMING HOPEHalt and Catch Fire as a 2010s Version of the 1990s CONCLUSION Visualizing the Future of the Past Acknowledgments Notes Index
£23.79
Rutgers University Press Bollywood’s New Woman: Liberalization,
Book SynopsisBollywood’s New Woman examines Bollywood’s construction and presentation of the Indian Woman since the 1990s. The groundbreaking collection illuminates the contexts and contours of this contemporary figure that has been identified in sociological and historical discourses as the “New Woman.” On the one hand, this figure is a variant of the fin de siècle phenomenon of the “New Woman” in the United Kingdom and the United States. In the Indian context, the New Woman is a distinct articulation resulting from the nation’s tryst with neoliberal reform, consolidation of the middle class, and the ascendency of aggressive Hindu Right politics. Trade Review"There is an emerging gap in classical narrative or textual analysis which marked the early blossoming of film studies in India. Anwer and Arora’s edited volume on Bollywood’s New Woman addresses precisely this gap by taking the attention back to the text to comment on gender, history and society. This collection of articles, spread across fourteen chapters and four sections attempts to reconfigure screened womanhood from the post-liberalization era."— Studies in South Asian Film and Media "These authors deconstruct the tools that filmmakers use and how the characters themselves strategize to assert identity and individuality. Localized, globalized, and contextualized within the larger Indian landscape and yet focusing on the intersections of place, class, caste, and age, the book offers an overview of the New Bollywood Woman."— Uma Vangal, Quarterly Review of Film and Video "A timely and valuable collection, Bollywood’s New Woman offers a critical assessment of nearly three decades of post-economic liberalization India through a focus on the changes and consistencies, in female characters and stars in Hindi cinema. The close readings situate films in diverse industrial formations—big-budget, small films, multiplex, hatke—that shape the many manifestations of these ‘new’ women. And, the perceptive readings anchored in genres, star texts, and new media skillfully show how these ‘new’ women navigate, question, and/or embrace the tradition/modern dyad in neoliberal and Hindu nationalist India." — Monika Mehta, author of Censorship and Sexuality in Bombay Cinema "A sumptuous and well-rounded volume of essays by leading experts on Indian cinema. This book is recommended for all scholars and students for an in-depth understanding of the gender dynamics in post-globalization Bollywood." — Rini Bhattacharya Mehta, author of Unruly Cinema: History, Politics, and Bollywood "Essays in this exciting and welcome collection show us how India’s economic liberalization ushers in new figurations of women. Tracking Bollywood’s New Woman across revised filmic tropes, unconventional screen bodies, emergent technological formats and cosmopolitan geographies, they reveal gender’s starring role in the unfolding story of India’s neoliberalism and cinema." — Priya Jaikumar, author of Where Histories Reside: India as Filmed Space "Insightful and wide-ranging, Bollywood’s New Woman brings together some of the most exciting new scholarship in South Asian film and cultural studies. The figure of the ‘New Woman’ has emerged as the site on which many of India’s current desires and anxieties come to be rehearsed and executed. This anthology is essential reading for anyone interested in gender, politics, and popular culture in contemporary India and beyond." — Meheli Sen, author of Haunting Bollywood: Gender, Genre and the Supernatural in Hindi Commercial CinemaTable of ContentsContents Introduction Part I Family and Nation 1. Koel Banerjee and Jigna Desai, “Mompreneur in the Multiplex: Entrepreneurial Technologies of the “New Woman” Subject in the Age of Neoliberal Globalization” 2. Sangita Gopal, “Lethal Acts: Bollywood’s new woman and the Nirbhaya Effect” 3. Baidurya Chakrabarti, “Beyond the Couple Form: The Space of the New Woman in Yash Raj Films” 4. Aparajita De, “Mera Saaya: Shadows of the Woman in Bollywood’s Cultural Imagination” Part II Body Matters 5. Gohar Siddiqui, “New Womanhood and #LipstickRebellion: Feminist Consciousness in Lipstick Under My Burkha” 6. Debadatta Chakraborty, “Queering Bollywood: Sexuality of the disabled Body – A Case Study” 7. Ajay Gehlawat, “Plus-size Femininity: The Multiple Figurations of Bhumi Pednekar” 8. Puja Sen, “The Many Bodies of Vidya Balan: The Dirty Picture, Kahaani, and Tumhari Sulu” Part III Geographies of the New Woman 9. Anjali Ram, “Out of India: Educating the New Woman in Queen, EnglishVinglish, and Badrinath ki Dulhaniya” 10. Prathim-Maya Dora-Laskey, “Learning to Love The(ir) World: Using Feminist Spaces and Cosmopolitan Impulses against the Heteropatriarchy in Queen and English Vinglish” 11. Namrata Rele Sathe, “Single in the City: The Female Flâneur in Queen” 12. Madhavi Biswas, ”Dedh Ishqiyaand Ishqiya “Glocal Women: Gender, Genre, and Performance in Abhishek Chaubey’s Part IV New Media and the New Woman 13. Kuhu Tanvir, “All Broken Up and Dancing: Looking at Katrina Kaif in eight GIFs” 14. Tanushree Ghosh, “Reshaping ‘Bollywood’: Dissident New Media Femininities and Hindi Cinema” Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Index
£30.40
Rutgers University Press American Cinema of the 2010s: Themes and
Book SynopsisThe 2010s might be remembered as a time of increased polarization in American life. The decade contained both the Obama era and the Trump era, and as the nation’s political fissures widened, so did the gap between the haves and have-nots. Hollywood reflected these divisions, choosing to concentrate on big franchise blockbusters at the expense of mid-budget films, while new players like Netflix and Amazon offered fresh opportunities for low-budget and independent filmmakers. As the movie business changed, films ranging from American Sniper to Get Out found ways to speak to the concerns of a divided nation. The newest installment in the Screen Decades series, American Cinema in the 2010s takes a close look at the memorable movies, visionary filmmakers, and behind-the-scenes drama that made this decade such an exciting time to be a moviegoer. Each chapter offers an in-depth examination of a specific year, covering a wide variety of films, from blockbuster superhero movies like Black Panther and animated films like Frozen to smaller-budget biopics like I, Tonya and horror films like Hereditary. This volume introduces readers to a decade in which established auteurs like Quentin Tarantino were joined by an exceptionally diverse set of new talents, taking American cinema in new directions. Trade Review"American Cinema of the 2010s offers a lively compendium of insights about the complicated relationship between Hollywood cinema and the cultural zeitgeist." -- Virginia Wexman * editor of Directing *"American Cinema of the 2010s offers a lively compendium of insights about the complicated relationship between Hollywood cinema and the cultural zeitgeist." -- Virginia Wexman * editor of Directing *Table of ContentsTimeline: 2010s Introduction: Movies and the 2010s DENNIS BINGHAM 2010 Movies and Recessionary Gender Politics MICHELE SCHREIBER 2011 Movies and Masculinity at a Crossroads DAVID GREVEN 2012 Movies and Myths, Heroes, and History RAYMOND HABERSKI JR. 2013 Movies and Personhood ALEXANDRA KELLER 2014 Movies and the Unexpected Virtue of How the Sausage Gets Made DANIEL SMITH-ROWSEY 2015 Movies and Female Agency LISA BODE 2016 Movies and the Solace of Progressive Narratives CYNTHIA BARON 2017 Movies and the Right to Be Heard JULIE LEVINSON 2018 Movies and Revolution MIKAL J. GAINES 2019 Movies, Anniversaries, and the Limits of Looking Back DENNIS BINGHAM Select Academy Awards, 2010–2019 Acknowledgments Works Cited and Consulted Contributors Index
£55.25
Rutgers University Press Star Wars Multiverse
Book SynopsisStar Wars may have started out as a film about a Manichean battle between good and evil, but as countless filmmakers, novelists, animators, fan artists and even cosplayers have taken the opportunity to play in the fictional world George Lucas created, it has expanded into something far greater, resulting in a richly layered and diverse Star Wars multiverse. Drawing from a full range of Star Wars media, including comics, children’s books, fan films, and television shows like Clone Wars and The Mandalorian, Carmelo Esterrich explores how these stories set in a galaxy far far away reflect issues that hit closer to home. He examines what they have to say about political oppression, authoritarianism, colonialism, discrimination, xenophobia, and perpetual war. Yet he also investigates subtler ways in which the personal is political within the multiverse, including its articulations of gender and sexuality, its cultural hierarchies of language use, and its complex relationships between humans, droids and myriad species. This book demonstrates that the Star Wars multiverse is not just a stage for thrilling interstellar battles, but also an exciting space for interpretation and discovery.Trade ReviewE2K: Eager to Know podcast, "Seriously Star Wars" episode interview with Carmelo Esterrich— Eager to Know podcast (e2K) "Things are never as simple as they seem. While the stories of Star Wars span multiple media forms, the universes of the franchise are vast and uncharted. In this insightful volume, Carmelo Esterrich mines the unique and multifaceted Star Wars multiverse in all its complexities, delving deeply into discussions of diversity, war, fandom, and gender across the galaxy. Whether discussing the Canon and the Legend, the Fan and the Creator, or the human and the alien (and the droid!), Esterrich proves that the force is strong with Star Wars. Don’t be a nerf herder – get this book now!" — Paul Booth, author of Board Games as Media "Alumnus authors book, a 'conversation starter,' about all things Star Wars"— Penn State News "Associate Professor Carmelo Esterrich to publish Star Wars Multiverse in 2021"— Columbia College ChicagoTable of ContentsPreface: Seriously, Star Wars 1 Navigating a Multiverse: Watching, Reading, Wearing Star Wars 2 Humans and Creatures + Droids: Hierarchies of Life 3 Imperial Desires: War, Order, Colonialism 4 Beyond Princesses and Flyboys: Gender and Sexuality in Star Wars Conclusion: Star Wars, Seriously Acknowledgments Further Reading Works Cited Filmography Index
£16.19
Rutgers University Press Star Wars Multiverse
Book SynopsisStar Wars may have started out as a film about a Manichean battle between good and evil, but as countless filmmakers, novelists, animators, fan artists and even cosplayers have taken the opportunity to play in the fictional world George Lucas created, it has expanded into something far greater, resulting in a richly layered and diverse Star Wars multiverse. Drawing from a full range of Star Wars media, including comics, children’s books, fan films, and television shows like Clone Wars and The Mandalorian, Carmelo Esterrich explores how these stories set in a galaxy far far away reflect issues that hit closer to home. He examines what they have to say about political oppression, authoritarianism, colonialism, discrimination, xenophobia, and perpetual war. Yet he also investigates subtler ways in which the personal is political within the multiverse, including its articulations of gender and sexuality, its cultural hierarchies of language use, and its complex relationships between humans, droids and myriad species. This book demonstrates that the Star Wars multiverse is not just a stage for thrilling interstellar battles, but also an exciting space for interpretation and discovery.Trade ReviewE2K: Eager to Know podcast, "Seriously Star Wars" episode interview with Carmelo Esterrich— Eager to Know podcast (e2K) "Things are never as simple as they seem. While the stories of Star Wars span multiple media forms, the universes of the franchise are vast and uncharted. In this insightful volume, Carmelo Esterrich mines the unique and multifaceted Star Wars multiverse in all its complexities, delving deeply into discussions of diversity, war, fandom, and gender across the galaxy. Whether discussing the Canon and the Legend, the Fan and the Creator, or the human and the alien (and the droid!), Esterrich proves that the force is strong with Star Wars. Don’t be a nerf herder – get this book now!" — Paul Booth, author of Board Games as Media "Alumnus authors book, a 'conversation starter,' about all things Star Wars"— Penn State News "Associate Professor Carmelo Esterrich to publish Star Wars Multiverse in 2021"— Columbia College ChicagoTable of ContentsPreface: Seriously, Star Wars 1 Navigating a Multiverse: Watching, Reading, Wearing Star Wars 2 Humans and Creatures + Droids: Hierarchies of Life 3 Imperial Desires: War, Order, Colonialism 4 Beyond Princesses and Flyboys: Gender and Sexuality in Star Wars Conclusion: Star Wars, Seriously Acknowledgments Further Reading Works Cited Filmography Index
£51.85
Rutgers University Press Soccer in Mind: A Thinking Fan's Guide to the
Book SynopsisFrom the FIFA World Cup to pick-up games at your local park, soccer is the closest thing in our world to a universal entertainment. Many writers use this global popularity to describe the game’s winners and losers, but what happens when we use social science to explore how soccer intersects with culture, society, and the self? This book provides a thinking fan’s guide to the world’s most popular game, proposing a way of engaging soccer that sparks intellectual curiosity and employs critical consciousness. Using stories and data, along with ideas from sociology, psychology, and across the social sciences, it provides readers with new ways of understanding fanaticism, peak performance, talent development, and more. Drawing on concepts ranging from cognitive bias to globalization, it illuminates meanings of the game for players and fans while investigating impacts on our lives and communities. While it considers soccer cultures across the globe, the book also analyzes what makes U.S. soccer culture special, including its embrace of the women’s game. As a scholar, former minor league player and coach, and fan, Andrew Guest offers a distinctive perspective on soccer in society. Whatever name you call it, and whatever your interest in it, Soccer in Mind will enrich your own view of the one truly global game.Trade Review"Andrew Guest uses sociology and psychology to guide readers into a world of complex and malleable meanings associated with global soccer. With an engaging writing style, he presents an insightful introduction to the ways that critical thinking about sports enables us to play with ideas as we develop a better understanding of ourselves and the social worlds in which we live."— Jay Coakley, author of Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies “Soccer in Mind is a fun and thought-provoking read. By bringing social science theories and research findings to some of the most well-known, thrilling moments from soccer past and present, Guest illustrates a ‘thinking fandom’ that encourages us all to be more curious observers of the global game. Ultimately, this book helps us to understand ourselves through soccer, offering a compelling take not only on who we are, but also how we can be better.”— Rachel Allison, author of Kicking Center: Gender and the Selling of Women's Professional SoccerTable of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments 1. Lenses: Psychology, Sociology, and the Ways Soccer Explains Us 2. Fans: Losing Your Mind and Finding Your Place 3. Cultures: Soccer is Familiar, Soccer is Strange 4. Players: Talent Development Versus Human Development 5. Performances: Mental Skills, People Skills, and the Psychology in Soccer 6. Impacts: Players, Games, and the Greater Good 7. Initiatives: Soccer for Development and Peace 8. Futures: Toward Thinking Fandom Notes Index
£51.85
Rutgers University Press Robin and the Making of American Adolescence
Book SynopsisHoly adolescence, Batman! Robin and the Making of American Adolescence offers the first character history and analysis of the most famous superhero sidekick, Robin. Debuting just a few months after Batman himself, Robin has been an integral part of the Dark Knight’s history—and debuting just a few months prior to the word “teenager” first appearing in print, Robin has from the outset both reflected and reinforced particular images of American adolescence. Closely reading several characters who have “played” Robin over the past eighty years, Robin and the Making of American Adolescence reveals the Boy (and sometimes Girl!) Wonder as a complex figure through whom mainstream culture has addressed anxieties about adolescents in relation to sexuality, gender, and race. This book partners up comics studies and adolescent studies as a new Dynamic Duo, following Robin as he swings alongside the ever-changing American teenager and finally shining the Bat-signal on the latter half of “Batman and—.” Trade Review“Lauren R. O’Connor explains Robin—as a teen, as a superhero, as a symbol—as a necessary way to understand adolescence in America along the axes of age, class, gender, and race. O'Connor does us all a favor and gives us a way to know how this enduring figure of adolescence fits into the superhero genre, into comics publishing, and into American culture.” -- Peter Coogan * author of Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre *"In Robin and the Making of American Adolescence, Lauren R. O'Connor deftly demonstrates how various iterations of Robin express contemporary anxieties about adolescence, sexuality, gender, and race. This insightful, engaging study discusses the various ways Batman's sidekick is often kicked aside; it urges us to see how Robin's subordinate position mirrors young people's peripheral status. Robin and the Making of American Adolescence is a valuable contribution to histories of comics and adolescence." -- Lara Saguisag * author of Incorrigibles and Innocents: Constructing Childhood and Citizenship in Progressive Era Comics *"In this engaging account located at the intersection of youth studies and comics studies, O’Connor uses Robin as a lens to look at shifting cultural constructions of adolescence in the USA over time. In doing so she emphasizes the significance of the longevity of the character and the diversity of the individuals who have taken on the role." -- Mel Gibson * co-editor of Superheroes and Identities *"Holy adolescence, Batman! Robin and the Making of American Adolescence offers the first character history and analysis of the most famous superhero sidekick, Robin. Debuting just a few months after Batman himself, Robin has been an integral part of the Dark Knight’s history—and debuting just a few months prior to the word 'teenager' first appearing in print, Robin has from the outset both reflected and reinforced particular images of American adolescence. Closely reading several characters who have 'played' Robin over the past eighty years, Robin and the Making of American Adolescence reveals the Boy (and sometimes Girl!) Wonder as a complex figure through whom mainstream culture has addressed anxieties about adolescents in relation to sexuality, gender, and race. This book partners up comics studies and adolescent studies as a new Dynamic Duo, following Robin as he swings alongside the ever-changing American teenager and finally shining the Bat-signal on the latter half of 'Batman and—.'" * Forces of Geek *“Lauren R. O’Connor explains Robin—as a teen, as a superhero, as a symbol—as a necessary way to understand adolescence in America along the axes of age, class, gender, and race. O'Connor does us all a favor and gives us a way to know how this enduring figure of adolescence fits into the superhero genre, into comics publishing, and into American culture.” -- Peter Coogan * author of Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre *"In Robin and the Making of American Adolescence, Lauren R. O'Connor deftly demonstrates how various iterations of Robin express contemporary anxieties about adolescence, sexuality, gender, and race. This insightful, engaging study discusses the various ways Batman's sidekick is often kicked aside; it urges us to see how Robin's subordinate position mirrors young people's peripheral status. Robin and the Making of American Adolescence is a valuable contribution to histories of comics and adolescence." -- Lara Saguisag * author of Incorrigibles and Innocents: Constructing Childhood and Citizenship in Progressive Era Com *"In this engaging account located at the intersection of youth studies and comics studies, O’Connor uses Robin as a lens to look at shifting cultural constructions of adolescence in the USA over time. In doing so she emphasizes the significance of the longevity of the character and the diversity of the individuals who have taken on the role." -- Mel Gibson * co-editor of Superheroes and Identities *"Holy adolescence, Batman! Robin and the Making of American Adolescence offers the first character history and analysis of the most famous superhero sidekick, Robin. Debuting just a few months after Batman himself, Robin has been an integral part of the Dark Knight’s history—and debuting just a few months prior to the word 'teenager' first appearing in print, Robin has from the outset both reflected and reinforced particular images of American adolescence. Closely reading several characters who have 'played' Robin over the past eighty years, Robin and the Making of American Adolescence reveals the Boy (and sometimes Girl!) Wonder as a complex figure through whom mainstream culture has addressed anxieties about adolescents in relation to sexuality, gender, and race. This book partners up comics studies and adolescent studies as a new Dynamic Duo, following Robin as he swings alongside the ever-changing American teenager and finally shining the Bat-signal on the latter half of 'Batman and—.'" * Forces of Geek *Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter One The Secret Origins of Adolescence Chapter Two Robin, Nightwing, Batman: The Shifting Sexuality of Dick Grayson Chapter Three Girls Wonder: Young Female Robins in the Modern Age of Comics Chapter Four Mixed Signals: Adolescence, Race, and Robin Chapter Five The Sidekick on Screen: Images of Robin in Television and Film Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
£25.19
Rutgers University Press Very Special Episodes: Televising Industrial and
Book SynopsisVery Special Episodes examines how the quintessential “very special episode” format became a primary way in which the television industry responded to and shaped social change, cultural traumas, and industrial transformations. With essays covering shows ranging from the birth of Desi Arnaz, Jr. on I Love Lucy to contemporary examples such as a delayed episode of Black-ish and the streaming-era phenomenon of the “Very Special Seasons” of UnReal and 13 Reasons Why, this collection seriously and critically uses the “very special episode” to chart the history of American television and its self-identified status as an arbiter of culture. Trade Review“’Very special episodes’ are an intriguing and surprisingly underexplored topic. This excellent collection pulls together an impressive array of approaches to this concept that will give readers a broad but detailed look at how ostensibly challenging material was made palatable on television.” -- Derek Kompare * Associate Professor of Film and Media Arts, Southern Methodist University * "Very Special Episodes establishes a compelling framework detailing how the TV industry makes and manages cultural value, relevance, and distinction not via aesthetic exceptionalism, but as special parts of its programming regularity. Historical grounding from the volume's sixteen astute essays provides a much-needed antidote to film studies' myopic 'discovery' of a 'golden age' of quality TV only in the premium HBO/Netflix era. This is Exhibit-A, a must-read, for understanding TV not just as an 'industry' but as a resilient critical industrial practice." -- John T. Caldwell * Distinguished Research Professor, UCLA, and author of Specworld: Studying Folds, Faultlines, and Fra *Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments A Very Special Introduction JONATHAN COHN AND JENNIFER PORST 1 Listen to Save Lives: Music and the Atomic Bomb in Cold War Very Special Episodes REBA WISSNER 2 Blackface on a White Christmas: Bewitched’s “Sneaky Racism” JONATHAN COHN 3 Conspicuous Morality: Very Special Episodes, the War on Drugs, and Broadcast Deregulation PHILIP SCEPANSKI 4 “Due to Its Subject Matter”: Creating the Very Special Teen Sex Talk in 1980s Sitcoms BARBARA SELZNICK 5 “Thanksgiving Orphans”: Cheers and Very Special Holiday Episodes of Television JENNIFER PORST 6 Very Spooky Episodes: Roseanne, Working-Class Monsters, and the Playful Perversions of Halloween TV DAVID SCOTT DIFFRIENT 7 A Very Special Visit to the “Old Neighborhood”: Containing the Los Angeles Uprising on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air LINDSAY GIGGEY 8 The Night the Lights Went out at (Most of) NBC: Producing a Network with 1994’s Must See TV Blackout Stunt ERIN COPPLE SMITH 9 Ellen, “The Puppy Episode,” and a Special TV Milestone? RON BECKER 10 “And Was There a Lesson in All This?”: Weaponizing—and Subverting—the Very Special Episode ERIN GIANNINI 11 Animating Entertainment, or Very Special Media Reflexivity MIMI WHITE 12 Liveness and the Live Episode in Television Comedy BRETT MILLS 13 Too black-ish? Banned Very Special Episodes APRYL ALEXANDER AND JENNIFER PORST 14 Knife Crime and Passion: A Very Special Episode of EastEnders CHRISTINE BECKER 15 UnREAL, Sexual Assault, and the Very Special Season JORIE LAGERWEY AND TAYLOR NYGAARD Notes on Contributors Index
£30.60
Rutgers University Press Women and New Hollywood: Gender, Creative Labor,
Book SynopsisThe 1970s has often been hailed as a great moment for American film, as a generation of “New Hollywood” directors like Scorsese, Coppola, and Altman offered idiosyncratic visions of what movies could be. Yet the auteurist discourse hailing these directors as the sole authors of their films has obscured the important creative roles women played in the 1970s American film industry. Women and New Hollywood revises our understanding of this important era in American film by examining the contributions that women made not only as directors, but also as screenwriters, editors, actors, producers, and critics. Including essays on film history, film texts, and the decade’s film theory and criticism, this collection showcases the rich and varied cinematic products of women’s creative labor, as well as the considerable barriers they faced. It considers both women working within and beyond the Hollywood film industry, reconceptualizing New Hollywood by bringing it into dialogue with other American cinemas of the 1970s. By valuing the many forms of creative labor involved in film production, this collection offers exciting alternatives to the auteurist model and new ways of appreciating the themes and aesthetics of 1970s American film. Trade Review"Women and New Hollywood provides the much-needed and long-awaited intervention on 1970s American movie industry mythologies, paying tribute to those whose talents, contributions, and perseverance were until now un(der)appreciated and, in so doing, modeling feminist media historiography at its finest."— Maria San Filippo, author of Provocauteurs and Provocations: Screening Sex in 21st Century Media "This ambitious and impressive edited collection, with contributions from some of the field’s most exciting scholars, is a much-needed feminist intervention into scholarship around the so-called 1970s Hollywood Renaissance. The essays place the women creators and collaborators—and vitally, their labor—back to the center of discussion where they belong. A stimulating and provocative read."— Julie Turnock, author of The Empire of Effects: Industrial Light and Magic and the Rendering of Realism "A major disruption of conventional narratives about New Hollywood in the 1970s, this collection demonstrates how essential women were to all levels of filmmaking and film culture during a period of fundamental transformation and transition."— Shelley Stamp, author of Lois Weber in Early Hollywood and Movie-Struck GirlsTable of ContentsIntroduction AARON HUNTER AND MARTHA SHEARER Part I History 1 The Rothman Renaissance, or the Politics of Archival (Re)Discovery ALICIA KOZMA 2 Watering the Grapevine: Jessie Maple, Self-Narration, and the Trajectory of a Career in Community NICHOLAS FORSTER 3 “It Was a Little Late in the Day for All That Prissy Business”: The New Hollywood Career of Jay Presson Allen OLIVER GRUNER 4 “We Knew and She Knew That She Was Barbra”: Streisand in the 1970s NICHOLAS GODFREY 5 I Know Why: Maya Angelou and the Promise of 1970s Hollywood MAYA MONTAÑEZ SMUKLER Part II Text 6 Women Editors in New Hollywood: Cutting Down on the Raging Bullshit KAREN PEARLMAN 7 Elaine May’s Awkward Age JAMES MORRISON 8 “She’s a Professional, Now”: Girlfriends, Creative Labor, and the Challenge of Feminist Professionalization ABIGAIL CHEEVER 9 A Different Image: Studies in Contrasts by Women Filmmakers of the L.A. Rebellion VIRGINIA BONNER 10 Barbara Loden’s Wanda (1970): A Radically Negative Feminist Aesthetic ANNA BACKMAN ROGERS Part III Theory and Criticism 11 Genealogies of a Decade: Classifying and Historicizing Women of the New Hollywood AMELIE HASTIE 12 “Women’s-Movement Anger”: Pauline Kael and New Hollywood ADRIAN GARVEY 13 Feminism, Auteurism, and the 1970s, in Theory MARIA PRAMAGGIORE Acknowledgments Notes on Contributors Index
£25.19
Rutgers University Press Played Out: The Race Man in Twenty-First-Century
Book SynopsisDating back to the blackface minstrel performances of Bert Williams and the trickster figure of Uncle Julius in Charles Chesnutt’s Conjure Tales, black humorists have negotiated American racial ideologies as they reclaimed the ability to represent themselves in the changing landscape of the early 20th century. Marginalized communities routinely use humor, specifically satire, to subvert the political, social, and cultural realities of race and racism in America. Through contemporary examples in popular culture and politics, including the work of Kendrick Lamar, Key and Peele and the presidency of Barack Obama and many others, in Played Out: The Race Man in 21st Century Satire author Brandon J. Manning examines how Black satirists create vulnerability to highlight the inner emotional lives of Black men. In focusing on vulnerability these satirists attend to America’s most basic assumptions about Black men. Contemporary Black satire is a highly visible and celebrated site of black masculine self-expression. Black satirists leverage this visibility to trouble discourses on race and gender in the Post-Civil Rights era. More specifically, contemporary Black satire uses laughter to decenter Black men from the socio-political tradition of the Race Man. Trade Review"Played Out is an instantly canonical book. It tackles narratives of the Race Man, racial uplift, and respectability politics through the lens of satire to reveal the enduring mythos of acceptable Black social justice work. Through this brilliant, deeply researched book, Brandon Manning rescripts the pathways to social transformation and progress." -- Robin R. Means Coleman * author of African American Viewers and the Black Situation Comedy: Situating Racial Humor *“Brandon Manning joins a group of brilliant scholars working on contemporary African American satire who have redefined scholarship on Black texts and Black bodies. His analyses of Percival Everett’s recent work and President Barack Obama’s role in this era cannot be missed.” -- Darryl Dickson-Carr * author of Spoofing the Modern: Satire in the Harlem Renaissance *Left of Black | Brandon J. Manning on Black Satire * Left of Black Podcast, produced by the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute *"Played Out is an instantly canonical book. It tackles narratives of the Race Man, racial uplift, and respectability politics through the lens of satire to reveal the enduring mythos of acceptable Black social justice work. Through this brilliant, deeply researched book, Brandon Manning rescripts the pathways to social transformation and progress." -- Robin R. Means Coleman * author of African American Viewers and the Black Situation Comedy: Situating Racial Humor *“Brandon Manning joins a group of brilliant scholars working on contemporary African American satire who have redefined scholarship on Black texts and Black bodies. His analyses of Percival Everett’s recent work and President Barack Obama’s role in this era cannot be missed.” -- Darryl Dickson-Carr * author of Spoofing the Modern: Satire in the Harlem Renaissance *Left of Black | Brandon J. Manning on Black Satire * Left of Black Podcast, produced by the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute *Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgements Preface Introduction: Please Let Me Be Misunderstood Chapter 1: Of Our Satirical Strivings Chapter 2: Neoliberalism and the Funny Race Man Chapter 3: Integrationist Intimacies Chapter 4: The President and His Translator Conclusion: Beyond the Funny Race Man
£55.25
Rutgers University Press Desegregating Comics: Debating Blackness in the
Book SynopsisSome comics fans view the industry’s Golden Age (1930s-1950s) as a challenging time when it comes to representations of race, an era when the few Black characters appeared as brutal savages, devious witch doctors, or unintelligible minstrels. Yet the true portrait is more complex and reveals that even as caricatures predominated, some Golden Age comics creators offered more progressive and nuanced depictions of Black people. Desegregating Comics assembles a team of leading scholars to explore how debates about the representation of Blackness shaped both the production and reception of Golden Age comics. Some essays showcase rare titles like Negro Romance and consider the formal innovations introduced by Black comics creators like Matt Baker and Alvin Hollingsworth, while others examine the treatment of race in the work of such canonical cartoonists as George Herriman and Will Eisner. The collection also investigates how Black fans read and loved comics, but implored publishers to stop including hurtful stereotypes. As this book shows, Golden Age comics artists, writers, editors, distributors, and readers engaged in heated negotiations over how Blackness should be portrayed, and the outcomes of those debates continue to shape popular culture today.Trade Review“Only someone living in a cave wouldn't see how thoroughly comics permeate American culture. But even those knowledgeable about graphic arts may not be aware of how comics mirror this nation's often tortured racial history. And even fewer people know about the pioneering Black artists who worked to challenge and change racist stereotypes. What that means is that the groundbreaking essays in Desegregating Comics are essential contributions to an exciting, relatively new field of long-overdue scholarship.” -- Charles Johnson * National Book Award-winning author of Middle Passage *"Desegregating Comics is essential reading for those seeking a more complex and revisionist history of the Black image in comics in the first half of the twentieth century. It includes leading voices in media, literature, gender, and Black studies who unearth the collaborative efforts in the industry to reshape visual and narrative renderings of spectacular blackness and speculations of blackness." -- Deborah Elizabeth Whaley * author of Black Women in Sequence: Re-inking Comics, Graphic Novels, and Anime *Table of ContentsIntroduction: “An Apt Cartoon” QIANA WHITTED Part I Iconographies of Race and Racism 1 Rose O’Neill and Visual Tropes of Blackness IAN GORDON 2 The Passing Fancies of Krazy Kat NICHOLAS SAMMOND 3 “How Else Could I Have Created a Black Boy in That Era?”: Racial Caricature and Will Eisner’s Legacy 61 ANDREW J. KUNKA Part II Formal Innovation and Aesthetic Range 4 Desegregating Black Art Genealogies: An Invitation REBECCA WANZO 5 Misdirections in Matt Baker’s Phantom Lady CHRIS GAVALER AND MONALESIA EARLE 6 The Art of Alvin Hollingsworth BLAIR DAVIS 7 “Hello Public!”: Jackie Ormes in the Print Culture of the Pittsburgh Courier ELI BOONIN-VAIL Part III Comics Readership and Respectability Politics 8 “Never Any Dirty Ones”: Comics Readership among African American Youth in the Mid-Twentieth Century CAROL L. TILLEY 9 All-Negro Comics and Counterhistories of Race in the Golden Age QIANA WHITTED 10 “This Business of White and Black”: Captain Marvel’s Steamboat, the Youthbuilders, and Fawcett’s Roy Campanella, Baseball Hero BRIAN CREMINS 11 Al Hollingsworth’s Kandy: Race, Colorism, and Romance in African American Newspaper Comics MORA J. BEAUCHAMP-BYRD Part IV Disrupting Genre, Character, and Convention 12 Diabolical Master of Black Magic: Examining Agency through Villainy in “The Voodoo Man” PHILLIP LAMARR CUNNINGHAM 13 Love in Color: Fawcett’s Revolutionary Negro Romance JACQUE NODELL 14 An Afrofuturist Legacy: Neil Knight and Black Speculative Capital JULIAN C. CHAMBLISS 15 “For They Were There!”: Dell Comics’ Lobo and the Black Cowboy in American Comic Books MIKE LEMON Acknowledgments Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index
£28.90
Rutgers University Press Perfect Copies: Reproduction and the Contemporary
Book SynopsisAnalyzing the way that recent works of graphic narrative use the comics form to engage with the “problem” of reproduction, Shiamin Kwa’s Perfect Copies reminds us that the mode of production and the manner in which we perceive comics are often quite similar to the stories they tell. Perfect Copies considers the dual notions of reproduction, mechanical as well as biological, and explores how comics are works of reproduction that embed questions about the nature of reproduction itself. Through close readings of the comics My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris, The Black Project by Gareth Brookes, The Generous Bosom series by Conor Stechschulte, Sabrina by Nick Drnaso, and Panther by Brecht Evens, Perfect Copies shows how these comics makers push the limits of different ideas of “reproduction” in strikingly different ways. Kwa suggests that reading and thinking about books like these, that push us to engage with these complicated questions, teaches us how to become better readers.Trade Review“Perfect Copies is about the creation and impact of comics that skirt the line of what readers might imagine would be considered typical within the medium. This book pushes readers to think about the ways that comics creators nudge the boundaries of how comics might look, "read" and visually "feel.” It is a must read for everyone who loves the ways that comics have revolutionized art and aesthetics and that art has revolutionized comics and notions of reproduction.”— Rachel Marie-Crane Williams, Dean of Liberal Arts, UNC School of The ArtsTable of ContentsIntroduction 1 The People Upstairs: Space, Memory, and the Queered Family in My Favorite Thing Is Monsters 2 Reach Out and Touch Someone: The Haptic Dreams of Gareth Brookes 3 Phantom Threads: Seeing in the Dark and Conor Stechschulte 4 If You See Something Say Something: Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina 5 There is a Monster in My Closet: Brecht Evens’s Panther Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
£55.25
Rutgers University Press Badass Feminist Politics: Exploring Radical Edges
Book SynopsisIn the late 2010s, the United States experienced a period of widespread silencing. Protests of unsafe drinking water have been met with tear gas; national park employees, environmentalists, and scientists have been ordered to stop communicating publicly. Advocates for gun control are silenced even as mass shootings continue. Expressed dissent to political power is labeled as “fake news.” DREAMers, Muslims, Trans military members, women, black bodies, the LGBTQI+ community, Latina/o/x communities, rape survivors, sex workers, and immigrants have all been systematically silenced. During this difficult time and despite such restrictions, advocates and allies persist and resist, forming dialogues that call to repel inequality in its many forms. Addressing the oppression of women of color, white women, women with (dis)abilities, and LBTQI+ individuals across cultures and contexts remains a central posit of feminist struggle and requires “a distinctly feminist politics of recognition.” However, as second wave debates about feminism have revealed, there is no single way to express a feminist politic. Rather, living feminist politics requires individual interpretation and struggle, collective discussion and disagreement, and recognizing difference among women as well as points of convergence in feminist struggle. Badass Feminist Politics includes a diverse range of engaging feminist political projects to not only analyze the work being done on the ground but provide an overview for action that can be taken on by those seeking to engage in feminist activism in their own communities. Contributors included here are working for equality and equity and resisting violent, racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, and sexist language and action during this tension-filled political moment. Collectively, the book explores what it means to live and communicate feminist politics in everyday choices and actions, and how we can facilitate learning by analyzing these examples. Taking up current issues and new theoretical perspectives, the authors offer novel perspectives into what it means to live feminist politics. This book is a testament to resilience, resistance, communication, and forward thinking about what these themes all mean for new feminist agendas. Learning how to resist oppressive structures through words and actions is particularly important for students. Badass Feminist Politics features scholars from non-dominant groups taking up issues of marginalization and oppression, which can help people accomplish their social justice goals of inclusivity on the ground and in the classroom. Trade Review"If ever there was a time for a badass feminist communication declaration, that time is now! Blithe and Bauer have carefully crafted a collection where perspectives, passions, voices, and views not only fill a gap in research, but carve a new path. The brilliance of the contributors is reflected in an affirmation of social identities across contexts representing 'what feminism looks like' for the next generation of badass feminist scholars aiming to right wrongs, ignite change, and sustain transformative practices in everyday lived experiences." -- Karla D. Scott * author of The Language of Strong Black Womanhood: Myths, Models, Messages and a New Mandate for Self-Care *"Sarah Jane Blithe and Janell C. Bauer have curated a must read edited collection for anyone interested in feminisms, communication, and identity justice. This is an important and timely resource for feminist scholar-teachers that engages critical questions about gender, race, and intersectionality in communication research and pedagogy by centering black feminist voices throughout." -- Stephanie Norander * Executive Director of Communication Across the Curriculum, UNC Charlotte *"If ever there was a time for a badass feminist communication declaration, that time is now! Blithe and Bauer have carefully crafted a collection where perspectives, passions, voices, and views not only fill a gap in research, but carve a new path. The brilliance of the contributors is reflected in an affirmation of social identities across contexts representing 'what feminism looks like' for the next generation of badass feminist scholars aiming to right wrongs, ignite change, and sustain transformative practices in everyday lived experiences." -- Karla D. Scott * author of The Language of Strong Black Womanhood: Myths, Models, Messages and a New Mandate for Self *"Sarah Jane Blithe and Janell C. Bauer have curated a must read edited collection for anyone interested in feminisms, communication, and identity justice. This is an important and timely resource for feminist scholar-teachers that engages critical questions about gender, race, and intersectionality in communication research and pedagogy by centering black feminist voices throughout." -- Stephanie Norander * Executive Director of Communication Across the Curriculum, UNC Charlotte *Table of Contents1 IntroductionSARAH JANE BLITHE AND JANELL C. BAUER2 Badass Activities for Threading Together Theory, Pedagogy, and ActivismJANELL C. BAUER AND SARAH JANE BLITHEPart I Black Lives Matter: Research and Reflections3 Being Black in the Ivory: Telling Our Truth and Taking Up SpaceANGELA N. GIST-MACKEY, ASHLEY R. HALL, AND SHARDÉ M. DAVIS4 #BlackIndigenousStoriesMatterANITA MIXON5 Your Black Friends Are TiredANDREA EWING6 Inciting Change with My Keyboard: Leveraging Hashtag Activism to Fight Anti-Black Racism during COVID-19SHARDÉ M. DAVIS7 The Reality of Our Dreams: Black Lives’ FearsPRISCA S. NGONDO8 Black Women in Black Lives Matter: Navigating Being Both Engaged and DismissedCERISE L. GLENN9 Antiracist Holistic Change in “STEM” Higher EducationMELANIE DUCKWORTH AND KELLY J. CROSS10 Fighting for Black Studies: An Essay about Educational EmpowermentIDRISSA N. SNIDER11 When You Can’t Call the Cops: Intimate Partner Violence and #BlackLivesMatterREBECCA MERCADO JONES AND JAYNA MARIE JONES12 Discovering Your Social Justice Gift amid the Distraction of Systemic RacismSIOBHAN E. SMITH-JONES AND JOHNNY JONES13 Sexuality in My Reality: An Autoethnography of a Black Woman’s Resistance of Sexual StereotypesSAVAUGHN WILLIAMS14 The Forgotten Ones (for Those Who Survive Black Death)ROBIN M. BOYLORN15 Performative Activism: Inauthentic Allyship in the Midst of a Racial PandemicTINA M. HARRISPart II Narrating the Material Body16 Nevertheless, She Feels Pretty: A Critical Co-constructed Autoethnography on Fat Persistence and ResistanceCASSIDY D. ELLIS AND SARAH GONZALEZ NOVEIRI17 Visual Activism, Persistence, and Identity: Ostomy Selfies as a Form of Resistance to Dominant Body IdeologiesRUTH J. BEERMAN AND MICHAEL S. MARTIN18 The Silence of LaughterLYDIA HUERTA MORENOPart III Living Feminist Politics in Mediated Environments19 Mónica Robles: (De?)colonizing Mexican Womanhood through the Power of MemesANA GOMEZ PARGA20 Smart Talk: Feminist Communication Questions for Artificial IntelligenceMAUREEN EBBEN AND CHERIS KRAMARAE21 The Silencing of Elizabeth Warren: A Case of Digital PersistenceKATHLEEN RUSHFORTHPart IV New Feminist Theorizing22 Social Justice Organizing through the Closet MetaphorJAMES McDONALD AND SARA DeTURK23 Disrupting the Ratchet-Respectable Binary: Explorations of Ratchet Feminism and Ratchet Respectability in Daily and Popular LifeDANETTE M. PUGH- PATTON AND ANTONIO L. SPIKES24 Afrofuturist Lessons in PersistenceJENNA N. HANCHEYAcknowledgmentsNotes on ContributorsIndex
£55.25
Rutgers University Press Janelle Monáe's Queer Afrofuturism: Defying Every
Book SynopsisSinger. Dancer. Movie star. Activist. Queer icon. Afrofuturist. Working class heroine. Time traveler. Prophet. Feminist. Android. Dirty Computer. Janelle Monáe is all these things and more, making her one of the most fascinating artists to emerge in the twenty-first century. This provocative new study explores how Monáe’s work has connected different media platforms to strengthen and enhance new movements in art, theory, and politics. It considers not only Monáe’s groundbreaking albums The ArchAndroid, The Electric Lady, and Dirty Computer, but also Monáe’s work as an actress in such films as Hidden Figures and Antebellum, as well as her soundtrack appearances in socially-engaged projects ranging from I May Destroy You to Us. Examining Monáe as a cultural icon whose work is profoundly intersectional, this book maps how she is actively reshaping discourses around race, gender, sexuality, and capitalism. Tracing Monáe’s performances of joy, desire, pain, and hope across a wide range of media forms, it shows how she imagines Afrofuturist, posthumanist, and postcapitalist utopias, while remaining grounded in the realities of being a Black woman in a white-dominated industry. This is an exciting introduction to an audacious innovator whose work offers us fresh ways to talk about identity, desire, and power.Trade Review“An expert critic of the ideological construction of transmedia worlds, Dan Hassler-Forest offers a tour de force analysis of virtuoso music and media artist Janelle Monae as a vernacular theorist and intersectional figure. The resulting book makes a compelling case that her interventions into popular culture may help to shape how we collectively imagine our futures and the world according to Janelle Monae is a better one by far.” -- Henry Jenkins * co-editor of Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change *"Building on a close reading of the transformative potential central to Afrofuturism, Janelle Monáe's Queer Afrofuturism highlights how Monáe's mix of speculation and liberation shines a light on acceptance, care, and community central to Afrofuturism's appeal. Carefully framing intersectional concerns around bodies and power expressed in Monáe's artistic work allows Hassler-Forest to provide an intriguing examination of an artist who has quickly come to embody the transformative potential of black speculative practice." -- Julian C. Chambliss * co-editor of Cities Imagined: The African Diaspora in Media and History *“Hassler-Forest clarifies why artist-activists like Monae are so central not only to how we can imagine a future that is free from the strictures of white supremacy but also to how we can harness the power of utopian thinking in the here and the now.” -- TreaAndrea Russworm * author of From Madea to Media Mogul: Theorizing Tyler Perry *Pg. 99: Dan Hassler-Forest's "Janelle Monáe’s Queer Afrofuturism" * The Page 99 Test/Campaign for the American Reader *Table of ContentsIntroduction Vector 1: AFROFUTURISM Vector 2: BLACK FEMINISM Vector 3: : INTERSECTIONALITY Vector 4: : POSTHUMANISM Vector 5: POSTCAPITALISM Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
£21.59
Rutgers University Press Maid for Television: Race, Class, Gender, and a
Book SynopsisMaid for Television examines race, class, and gender relations as embodied in a long history of television servants from 1950 to the turn of the millennium. Although they reside at the visual peripheries, these figures are integral to the idealized American family. Author L. S. Kim redirects viewers' gaze towards the usually overlooked interface between characters, which is drawn through race, class, and gender positioning. Maid for Television tells the stories of servants and the families they work for, in so doing it investigates how Americans have dealt with difference through television as a medium and a mediator.The book philosophically redirects the gaze of television and its projection of racial discourse. Trade Review"Maid for Television is a rigorously intersectional and interdisciplinary study that places the racialized domestic servant at the center of U.S. television history. This figure is ubiquitously invisible, yet also absolutely essential to maintaining the white middle-class family as the nation’s social, economic, and political norm."— Chon A. Noriega, author of Shot in America: Television, the State, and the Rise of Chicano CinemaTable of Contents1 Introduction: The Figure of the Racialized Domestic in American Television 2 Domesticating Blackness: African Americans in Service in Comedy and Drama 3 Shades of Whiteness: White Servants Keeping Up a Class Ideal 4 Unresolvable Roles: Asian American Servants as Perpetual Foreigners 5 Invisible but Viewable: The Latina Maid in the Age of Nannygate Epilogue AcknowledgmentsNotes Bibliography Index
£28.90
Rutgers University Press Maid for Television: Race, Class, Gender, and a
Book SynopsisMaid for Television examines race, class, and gender relations as embodied in a long history of television servants from 1950 to the turn of the millennium. Although they reside at the visual peripheries, these figures are integral to the idealized American family. Author L. S. Kim redirects viewers' gaze towards the usually overlooked interface between characters, which is drawn through race, class, and gender positioning. Maid for Television tells the stories of servants and the families they work for, in so doing it investigates how Americans have dealt with difference through television as a medium and a mediator.The book philosophically redirects the gaze of television and its projection of racial discourse. Trade Review"Maid for Television is a rigorously intersectional and interdisciplinary study that places the racialized domestic servant at the center of U.S. television history. This figure is ubiquitously invisible, yet also absolutely essential to maintaining the white middle-class family as the nation’s social, economic, and political norm." -- Chon A. Noriega * author of Shot in America: Television, the State, and the Rise of Chicano Cinema *Table of Contents1 Introduction: The Figure of the Racialized Domestic in American Television 2 Domesticating Blackness: African Americans in Service in Comedy and Drama 3 Shades of Whiteness: White Servants Keeping Up a Class Ideal 4 Unresolvable Roles: Asian American Servants as Perpetual Foreigners 5 Invisible but Viewable: The Latina Maid in the Age of Nannygate Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
£107.20
Rutgers University Press The Internet Is for Cats: How Animal Images Shape
Book SynopsisLOL cats. Grumpy Cat. Dog-rating Twitter. Pet Instagram accounts. It’s generally understood the internet is for pictures of cute cats (and dogs, and otters, and pandas). But what motivates people to make and share these images, and how do they relate to other online social practices? The Internet is for Cats examines how animal images are employed to create a lighter, more playful mood, uniting users within online spaces that can otherwise easily become fractious and toxic. Placing today’s pet videos, photos, and memes within a longer history of mediated animal images, communication scholar Jessica Maddox also considers the factors that make them unique. She explores the roles that animals play within online economies of cuteness and attention, as well as the ways that animal memes and videos respond to common experiences of life under neoliberalism. Conducting a rich digital ethnography, Maddox combines observations and textual analysis with extensive interviews of the people who create, post and share animal media, including TikTok influencers seeking to make their pets famous, activists tweeting about wildlife conservation, and Redditors upvoting every cute cat photo. The Internet is for Cats will leave you with a new appreciation for the human social practices behind the animal images you encounter online. Trade Review"By exploring the ambivalent overlaps between attention, cuteness, toxicity, and neoliberalism - among other key themes - in animal imagery sharing practices, The Internet is for Cats is essential reading for understanding how and why the fun of animal memes is serious cultural business." -- Whitney Phillips * author of You Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories, and Our Polluted Media Landscape *"The Internet is for Cats skillfully demonstrates that the visual cultures of animals and pets in social media are not only cute and entertaining—they can also mask the Internet’s hateful and toxic content. Maddox’s project is an important reminder that even the most seemingly frivolous aspects of culture must be carefully examined." -- Melissa A. Click * associate professor of communication studies at Gonzaga University *"[The Internet is for Cats]'s major claim is convincing: there is more to cat (and other animal) pics than meets the eye." -- Gregory Hays * New York Review of Books *"The Internet is for Cats skillfully demonstrates that the visual cultures of animals and pets in social media are not only cute and entertaining—they can also mask the Internet’s hateful and toxic content. Maddox’s project is an important reminder that even the most seemingly frivolous aspects of culture must be carefully examined." -- Melissa A. Click * associate professor of communication studies at Gonzaga University *"By exploring the ambivalent overlaps between attention, cuteness, toxicity, and neoliberalism - among other key themes - in animal imagery sharing practices, The Internet is for Cats is essential reading for understanding how and why the fun of animal memes is serious cultural business." -- Whitney Phillips * author of You Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories, and Our *Table of ContentsContents List of Illustrations Introduction 1 Kittens in Context 2 “I’ve Heard People on TikTok Love This": Attention as Materiality and Looking Relation 3 Beyond Doomscrolling in an Internet of Cute 4 “You Can’t Buy Happiness, But You Can Rescue It”: Neoliberal Pets and Animals 5 Feels Good, Man: Collisions, Collusions, and Cloaks in Pet and Animal Social Media 6 Nature is Healing, We are the Virus: Beyond Signifiers Appendix Acknowledgments Bibliography Index
£47.60
Rutgers University Press Stories That Bind: Political Economy and Culture
Book SynopsisStories that Bind: Political Economy and Culture in New India examines the assertion of authoritarian nationalism and neoliberalism; both backed by the authority of the state and argues that contemporary India should be understood as the intersection of the two. More importantly, the book reveals, through its focus on India and its complex media landscape that this intersection has a narrative form, which author, Madhavi Murty labels spectacular realism. The book shows that the intersection of neoliberalism with authoritarian nationalism is strengthened by the circulation of stories about “emergence,” “renewal,” “development,” and “mobility” of the nation and its people. It studies stories told through film, journalism, and popular non-fiction along with the stories narrated by political and corporate leaders to argue that Hindu nationalism and neoliberalism are conjoined in popular culture and that consent for this political economic project is crucially won in the domain of popular culture. Moving between mediascapes to create an archive of popular culture, Murty advances our understanding of political economy through material that is often seen as inconsequential, namely the popular cultural story. These stories stoke our desires (e.g. for wealth), scaffold our instincts (e.g. for a strong leadership) and shape our values. Trade Review"In this beautifully written and timely book, Murty explores how popular cultural forms become politically charged. Moving across journalism, film, and other mediascapes, she shows how new forms of storytelling made sense of and won popular consent for majoritarian nationalism in a nation transformed by neoliberal reforms. Rigorously conceptualized and deeply researched, Stories That Bind is a brilliant exemplar of media and cultural studies." -- Aswin Punathambekar * University of Virginia *"In this beautifully written and timely book, Murty explores how popular cultural forms become politically charged. Moving across journalism, film, and other mediascapes, she shows how new forms of storytelling made sense of and won popular consent for majoritarian nationalism in a nation transformed by neoliberal reforms. Rigorously conceptualized and deeply researched, Stories That Bind is a brilliant exemplar of media and cultural studies." -- Aswin Punathambekar * University of Virginia *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Spectacular Realism and Political-Economic Change 1 The Development Story: Caste, Religion, and Poverty in “New” India 2 Iconicity: Moving between the Real and the Spectacular 3 The Entrepreneur: New Identities for New Times 4 Love in New Times Conclusion AcknowledgmentsNotes Bibliography Index
£107.20
Rutgers University Press Transpacific Cartographies: Narrating the
Book SynopsisTranspacific Cartographies examines how contemporary Chinese diasporic narratives address the existential loss of home for immigrant communities at a time of global precarity and amid rising Sino-US tensions. Focusing on cultural productions of the Chinese diaspora from the 1990s to the present -- including novels by the Sinophone writers Yan Geling (The Criminal Lu Yanshi), Shi Yu (New York Lover), Chen Qian (Listen to the Caged Bird Sing), and Rong Rong (Notes of a Couple), as well as by the Anglophone writer Ha Jin (A Free Life; A Map of Betrayal), selected TV shows (Beijinger in New York; The Way We Were), and online literature -- Melody Yunzi Li argues that the characters in these stories create multilayered maps that transcend the territorial boundaries that make finding a home in a foreign land a seemingly impossible task. In doing so, these “maps” outline a transpacific landscape that reflects the psycho-geography of homemaking for diasporic communities. Intersecting with and bridging Sinophone studies, Chinese American studies, and diaspora studies and drawing on theories of literary cartography, Transpacific Cartographies demonstrates how these “maps” offer their readers different paths for finding a sense of home no matter where they are. Trade Review"Transpacific Cartographies is particularly refreshing and capacious. Focusing on the 'new immigrants' to the U.S. from China since the 1980s, this book expands the study of Chinese American experience to transnational and translingual negotiations in the dire times of Sinophobia and U.S.-China contention. Carefully engaging Sinophone texts with discourses of diaspora and geocriticism, Li sheds light on the powers of mapping and 'homemaking' with which Chinese diasporic communities navigate being and belonging." -- Chih-ming Wang * author of Transpacific Articulations: Study Abroad and the Remaking of Asian America *"Transpacific Cartographies examines diasporic psycho-social instabilities and emergences in timely, fresh, coherent ways never done before. At a time of perilous, if not phobic, interactions between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, Melody Li’s focus on the reworlding dynamics and transpacific complexities of “home” from bilingual and diasporic writers like Ha Jin and Yan Geling create insights that are everywhere fresh, poetic, transcultural, uncanny, and elegant." -- Rob Sean Wilson * author of Reimagining the American Pacific: From South Pacific to Bamboo Ridge and Beyond *Table of Contents Introduction 1 Mapping Experiences of De/Reterritorialization: Ha Jin’s A Map of Betrayal 2 Cartographing Carceral Dystopia in the Mao Era: Yan Geling’s The Criminal Lu Yanshi 3 Affective Mapping of Touristic Diasporic Experience 4 Palimpsestic Map of the American and Chinese Dreams: Contested Sites in Overseas Chinese Immigrant Stories Coda: Charting an Online Chinese Diasporic Literary Map Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
£26.35
Rutgers University Press Transpacific Cartographies: Narrating the
Book SynopsisTranspacific Cartographies examines how contemporary Chinese diasporic narratives address the existential loss of home for immigrant communities at a time of global precarity and amid rising Sino-US tensions. Focusing on cultural productions of the Chinese diaspora from the 1990s to the present -- including novels by the Sinophone writers Yan Geling (The Criminal Lu Yanshi), Shi Yu (New York Lover), Chen Qian (Listen to the Caged Bird Sing), and Rong Rong (Notes of a Couple), as well as by the Anglophone writer Ha Jin (A Free Life; A Map of Betrayal), selected TV shows (Beijinger in New York; The Way We Were), and online literature -- Melody Yunzi Li argues that the characters in these stories create multilayered maps that transcend the territorial boundaries that make finding a home in a foreign land a seemingly impossible task. In doing so, these “maps” outline a transpacific landscape that reflects the psycho-geography of homemaking for diasporic communities. Intersecting with and bridging Sinophone studies, Chinese American studies, and diaspora studies and drawing on theories of literary cartography, Transpacific Cartographies demonstrates how these “maps” offer their readers different paths for finding a sense of home no matter where they are. Trade Review"Transpacific Cartographies is particularly refreshing and capacious. Focusing on the 'new immigrants' to the U.S. from China since the 1980s, this book expands the study of Chinese American experience to transnational and translingual negotiations in the dire times of Sinophobia and U.S.-China contention. Carefully engaging Sinophone texts with discourses of diaspora and geocriticism, Li sheds light on the powers of mapping and 'homemaking' with which Chinese diasporic communities navigate being and belonging." -- Chih-ming Wang * author of Transpacific Articulations: Study Abroad and the Remaking of Asian America *"Transpacific Cartographies examines diasporic psycho-social instabilities and emergences in timely, fresh, coherent ways never done before. At a time of perilous, if not phobic, interactions between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, Melody Li’s focus on the reworlding dynamics and transpacific complexities of “home” from bilingual and diasporic writers like Ha Jin and Yan Geling create insights that are everywhere fresh, poetic, transcultural, uncanny, and elegant." -- Rob Sean Wilson * author of Reimagining the American Pacific: From South Pacific to Bamboo Ridge and Beyond *Table of Contents Introduction 1 Mapping Experiences of De/Reterritorialization: Ha Jin’s A Map of Betrayal 2 Cartographing Carceral Dystopia in the Mao Era: Yan Geling’s The Criminal Lu Yanshi 3 Affective Mapping of Touristic Diasporic Experience 4 Palimpsestic Map of the American and Chinese Dreams: Contested Sites in Overseas Chinese Immigrant Stories Coda: Charting an Online Chinese Diasporic Literary Map Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
£107.20
Rutgers University Press Rockin' in the Ivory Tower: Rock Music on Campus
Book Synopsis Histories of American rock music and the 1960s counterculture typically focus on the same few places: Woodstock, Monterey, Altamont. Yet there was also a very active college circuit that brought edgy acts like the Jefferson Airplane and the Velvet Underground to different metropolitan regions and smaller towns all over the country. These campus concerts were often programmed, promoted, and reviewed by students themselves, and their diverse tastes challenged narrow definitions of rock music. Rockin’ in the Ivory Tower takes a close look at two smaller universities, Drew in New Jersey and Stony Brook on Long Island, to see how the culture of rock music played an integral role in student life in the late 1960s. Analyzing campus archives and college newspapers, historian James Carter traces connections between rock fandom and the civil rights protests, free speech activism, radical ideas, lifestyle transformations, and anti-war movements that revolutionized universities in the 1960s. Furthermore, he finds that these progressive students refused to segregate genres like folk, R&B, hard rock, and pop. Rockin’ in the Ivory Tower gives readers a front-row seat to a dynamic time for the music industry, countercultural politics, and youth culture. Trade Review“The research and writing are exciting; Rockin’ in the Ivory Tower fills an important gap in the historiography of rock music and the sixties.” -- Dewar MacLeod * author of Making the Scene in the Garden State: Popular Music in New Jersey from Edison to Springste *“Rockin’ in the Ivory Tower offers a welcome entry into a field of study that is only just beginning to flower.” -- Kenneth Womack * author of Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans *Table of Contents Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction 1 Postwar America, the Revolution in Higher Education, and Popular Music 2 “The Sound of the Sixties”: Popular Music and College Campuses 3 “I Blundered My Way Through”: The College Impresario, Fall 1965–Fall 1967 4 “They’re Rockin’ in the Ivory Tower”: Fall 1967–Fall 1968 5 The “Americanization of Rock”: Spring 1969–Fall 1970 Conclusion Appendix A: Bands/Artists at Drew University, 1967–1971 Appendix B: Bands/Artists at Stony Brook University, 1967–1971 Notes Bibliography Index
£26.35