Television Books

Book SynopsisElizabeth Rodwell follows the conflict between mass media conglomerates and independent media creators as they worked to redefine what interactivity meant for Japan's television industry.Trade Review“Across a polymorphous array of new media engagements, Elizabeth Rodwell questions how and with what affects/effects television is being recrafted in Japan following the ‘crisis’ of news dissemination during 3.11. Attentively ethnographic and analytically astute, Push the Button explores the implications—political, social, and technological—of inviting viewers to interact so intimately with their televisual machines.” -- Anne Allison, author of * Being Dead Otherwise *“Based on solid fieldwork with excellent theoretical analysis, Push the Button provides a fascinating ethnographic overview of interactive television in Japan and offers striking new insights into media in the early twenty-first century. This wonderful book speaks to experts and newcomers alike—a real gem!” -- Ian Condry, author of * The Soul of Anime: Collaborative Creativity and Japan’s Media Success Story *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction. Pushing Buttons 1 1. The Interactive Consumer-Viewer: The Social TV Promotion Collective, Ratings, and Advertising 25 2. Interactivity and Gatekeeping: The Compass and the Limits of Conservative Corporate Culture 46 3. Cultures of Independent Journalism: The Free Press Association of Japan, Independent Web Journal, and GoHoo 64 4. The New Interactive Television 89 5. Teaching Citizen Journalism: Media Activism and Our Planet-TV 108 Conclusion 129 Notes 143 Bibliography 163 Index 179

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Book SynopsisElizabeth Rodwell follows the conflict between mass media conglomerates and independent media creators as they worked to redefine what interactivity meant for Japan's television industry.Trade Review“Across a polymorphous array of new media engagements, Elizabeth Rodwell questions how and with what affects/effects television is being recrafted in Japan following the ‘crisis’ of news dissemination during 3.11. Attentively ethnographic and analytically astute, Push the Button explores the implications—political, social, and technological—of inviting viewers to interact so intimately with their televisual machines.” -- Anne Allison, author of * Being Dead Otherwise *“Based on solid fieldwork with excellent theoretical analysis, Push the Button provides a fascinating ethnographic overview of interactive television in Japan and offers striking new insights into media in the early twenty-first century. This wonderful book speaks to experts and newcomers alike—a real gem!” -- Ian Condry, author of * The Soul of Anime: Collaborative Creativity and Japan’s Media Success Story *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction. Pushing Buttons 1 1. The Interactive Consumer-Viewer: The Social TV Promotion Collective, Ratings, and Advertising 25 2. Interactivity and Gatekeeping: The Compass and the Limits of Conservative Corporate Culture 46 3. Cultures of Independent Journalism: The Free Press Association of Japan, Independent Web Journal, and GoHoo 64 4. The New Interactive Television 89 5. Teaching Citizen Journalism: Media Activism and Our Planet-TV 108 Conclusion 129 Notes 143 Bibliography 163 Index 179

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Book SynopsisFrom Game of Thrones to Breaking Bad, the key theories and concepts in criminal justice are explained through the lens of televisionIn Crime TV, Jonathan A. Grubb and Chad Posick bring together an eminent group of scholars to show us the ways in which crimeand the broader criminal justice systemare depicted on television. From Breaking Bad and Westworld to Mr. Robot and Homeland, this volume highlights how popular culture frames our understanding of crime, criminological theory, and the nature of justice through modern entertainment. Featuring leading criminologists, Crime TV makes the key concepts and analytical tools of criminology as engaging as possible for students and interested readers. Contributors tackle an array of exciting topics and shows, taking a fresh look at feminist criminology on The Handmaid's Tale, psychopathy on The Fall, the importance of social bonds on 13 Reasons Why, radical social change on The Walking Dead, and the politics of punishment on Game of Thrones. CTrade ReviewCrime TV takes popular criminology’s necessary next step. Taking the televisual series that most fascinate us and coupling them with classical theories and urgent contemporary perspectives, we immerse into the screens and streaming frontiers of rapidly shifting forms of media consumption. Students and teachers will love this volume. -- Michelle Brown, author of The Culture of Punishment: Prison, Society, and SpectacleCrime TV brilliantly capitalizes on entertainment habits that prompt most Americans to learn about criminality through dramas, many now streamed. Written by top-notch scholars and focusing on widely watched shows, the chapters use popular media to unmask prevailing justice myths and realities and to illuminate the relevance of theories of crime and punishment. Scholarly but accessible, this volume is a fascinating read for all and uniquely suited for classroom use with today’s students. -- Francis T. Cullen, co-author of Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences

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Book SynopsisThe history of Latina/o participation and representation in American televisionWhose stories are told on television? Who are the heroes and heroines, held up as intriguing, lovable, and compelling? Which characters are fully realized, rather than being cardboard villains and sidekicks? And who are our storytellers? The first-ever account of Latino/a participation and representation in US English-language television, Latino TV: A History offers a sweeping study of key moments of Chicano/a and Latino/a representation and authorship since the 1950s. Drawing on archival research, interviews with dozens of media professionals who worked on or performed in these series, textual analysis of episodes and promotional materials, and analysis of news media coverage, Mary Beltrán examines Latina/o representation in everything from children's television Westerns of the 1950s, Chicana/o and Puerto Rican activist-led public affairs series of the 1970s, and sitcoms that spTrade ReviewMary Beltrán weaves discussions of Mexican-American and Latina/o representation with those of authorship to produce a compelling and overdue account of how much we truly owe Latina/o creative professionals. Beautifully researched, this book is mandatory reading for scholars of race, media, and representation. * Dolores Inés Casillas, author of Sounds of Belonging: U.S. Spanish-Language Radio and Public Advocacy *Mary Beltrán’s archival research recovers a history that is essential to understanding the ways in which television culture is always in conversation with the social, political, and economic context in which it is produced. Her insightful analysis shows us why storytelling is ultimately about access to power and the social status of politically marginalized communities in the United States. * Isabel Molina-Guzmán, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign *Beltrán’s Latino TV is an essential contribution to the expanding scholarship on Latina/o/x media and is particularly important for the training of its future scholars. * Film Quarterly *[Beltrán] expertly unveils the ways in which the economic conditions, the stereotyped assumptions of the audience, and barriers to entry limit and contain Latina/o representation... The strength of Beltrán’s research is in the political and cultural contexts that frame how any individual program fits as part of a broader ideological project. * Journal of Arizona History *

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Book SynopsisThe history of Latina/o participation and representation in American televisionWhose stories are told on television? Who are the heroes and heroines, held up as intriguing, lovable, and compelling? Which characters are fully realized, rather than being cardboard villains and sidekicks? And who are our storytellers? The first-ever account of Latino/a participation and representation in US English-language television, Latino TV: A History offers a sweeping study of key moments of Chicano/a and Latino/a representation and authorship since the 1950s. Drawing on archival research, interviews with dozens of media professionals who worked on or performed in these series, textual analysis of episodes and promotional materials, and analysis of news media coverage, Mary Beltrán examines Latina/o representation in everything from children's television Westerns of the 1950s, Chicana/o and Puerto Rican activist-led public affairs series of the 1970s, and sitcoms that spTrade ReviewMary Beltrán weaves discussions of Mexican-American and Latina/o representation with those of authorship to produce a compelling and overdue account of how much we truly owe Latina/o creative professionals. Beautifully researched, this book is mandatory reading for scholars of race, media, and representation. * Dolores Inés Casillas, author of Sounds of Belonging: U.S. Spanish-Language Radio and Public Advocacy *Mary Beltrán’s archival research recovers a history that is essential to understanding the ways in which television culture is always in conversation with the social, political, and economic context in which it is produced. Her insightful analysis shows us why storytelling is ultimately about access to power and the social status of politically marginalized communities in the United States. * Isabel Molina-Guzmán, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign *Beltrán’s Latino TV is an essential contribution to the expanding scholarship on Latina/o/x media and is particularly important for the training of its future scholars. * Film Quarterly *[Beltrán] expertly unveils the ways in which the economic conditions, the stereotyped assumptions of the audience, and barriers to entry limit and contain Latina/o representation... The strength of Beltrán’s research is in the political and cultural contexts that frame how any individual program fits as part of a broader ideological project. * Journal of Arizona History *

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Book SynopsisA compelling political history of television's formative yearsTrade Review"In this engaging and original study, Anna McCarthy examines the high civic hopes once held for U.S. commercial television by the liberal social, political, and business elites who made up the & governing classes." * Journal of American History *"McCarthy has written about an aspect of the & golden age of television seldom detailed in histories of early television. This is the story of how some of the largest American commercial corporations of the 1950s used the new medium of television not with the sole intent of advertising their products but to effect social reform on television viewers in order to create & good citizens. Highly recommended" * Choice *

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Book SynopsisFrom Game of Thrones to Breaking Bad, the key theories and concepts in criminal justice are explained through the lens of televisionIn Crime TV, Jonathan A. Grubb and Chad Posick bring together an eminent group of scholars to show us the ways in which crimeand the broader criminal justice systemare depicted on television. From Breaking Bad and Westworld to Mr. Robot and Homeland, this volume highlights how popular culture frames our understanding of crime, criminological theory, and the nature of justice through modern entertainment. Featuring leading criminologists, Crime TV makes the key concepts and analytical tools of criminology as engaging as possible for students and interested readers. Contributors tackle an array of exciting topics and shows, taking a fresh look at feminist criminology on The Handmaid's Tale, psychopathy on The Fall, the importance of social bonds on 13 Reasons Why, radical social change on The Walking Dead, and the politics of punishment on Game of Thrones. CTrade ReviewCrime TV takes popular criminology’s necessary next step. Taking the televisual series that most fascinate us and coupling them with classical theories and urgent contemporary perspectives, we immerse into the screens and streaming frontiers of rapidly shifting forms of media consumption. Students and teachers will love this volume. -- Michelle Brown, author of The Culture of Punishment: Prison, Society, and SpectacleCrime TV brilliantly capitalizes on entertainment habits that prompt most Americans to learn about criminality through dramas, many now streamed. Written by top-notch scholars and focusing on widely watched shows, the chapters use popular media to unmask prevailing justice myths and realities and to illuminate the relevance of theories of crime and punishment. Scholarly but accessible, this volume is a fascinating read for all and uniquely suited for classroom use with today’s students. -- Francis T. Cullen, co-author of Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences

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Book SynopsisA new edition that brings the ways we watch and think about television up to the presentWe all have opinions about the television shows we watch, but television criticism is about much more than simply evaluating the merits of a particular show and deeming it good or bad. Rather, criticism uses the close examination of a television program to explore that program's cultural significance, creative strategies, and its place in a broader social context.How to Watch Television, Second Edition brings together forty original essaysmore than half of which are new to this editionfrom today's leading scholars on television culture, who write about the programs they care (and think) the most about. Each essay focuses on a single television show, demonstrating one way to read the program and, through it, our media culture. From fashioning blackness in Empire to representation in Orange is the New Black and from the role of the reboot in Gilmore Girls Trade ReviewThere's quite simply no book out there that can match this in scope and quality. The contributors are a 'Who's Who' of contemporary television studies, and the prose is engaging and highly readable. If you're looking for models of how to think about television from a range of perspectives, you need look no further. -- Greg M. Smith, author of Beautiful TV: The Art and Argument of Ally McBealAsk anyone in Hollywood and they'll tell you the movies are dead. TV is where its at, and this book will show you why. Thompson and Mittell offer an essential guide to television today, featuring the most insightful critics writing about the most creative and engaging shows. Whether student, fan, or TV professional, it belongs on your bookshelf. -- Michael Curtin, co-author of The American Television IndustryThis book, unlike the manual that comes with your TV set, is utterly readable, highly engaging, and worth referring back to, long after you've switched on your favorite channel. . . . Regardless of which essay one chooses to tune in to, How to Watch Television is an accessible and impressive group of essays by a powerhouse cast of television scholars. -- Journal of American CultureThere's not a single dull page in this book. -- Jose Solis, PopmattersWhat happens when you give 40 smart television scholars ten pages each to write about a television show that interests them? You get a delightful book that is sure to become a favorite of television scholars and students alike. Thompson and Mittell have brought together authors who provide thoughtful criticism in an engaging style and cover just about every genre, historical period, and lens of analysis. Each essay's combination of brevity and detailed analysis makes the book likely to work well as both a course reader for undergraduates in television studies and a reference resource for those wanting to dive into research on individual shows. Though every essay adds something valuable to the collection, essays on Mad Men, Glee, M*A*S*H, I Love Lucy, Modern Family, NYPD Blue, The Twilight Zone, and The Walking Dead are worth the price of this fun, informative, and useful book, even for seasoned television scholars.Summing Up: Highly recommended. -- S. Pepper, ChoiceWith their urging in the introduction about how the essays serve as models for writing your own criticism, the editors seem to be addressing media studies students. But because of its well-commissioned and well-balanced tone and diversity/specificity of texts, it is just as instructive for a wide range of burgeoning or established TV scholars as well as inquisitive fans of the various programs. The collection manages to be potentially enjoyable and useful to scholars and TV fans alike. -- Kathleen Collins, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly[I]t is a damn good collection, featuring 40 different contributions from American scholars, plus Matt Hills from Aberystwyth and Roberta Pearson from Nottingham. Their contributions are organised under five main themes: Aesthetics and Style;TV Representations: Social Identity and Cultural Politics;TV Politics: Democracy, Nation, and the Public Interest;TV Industry: Industrial Practices and Structures; and TV Practices: Medium, Technology, and Everyday Life. As with television schedules, it is easy to flick and pick and read. Indeed, the editors in their Introduction actively encourage & readers to go straight to a particular program or approach that interests them. -- Geoff Lealand, CST OnlineThis second edition ensures that this title will remain a staple of television studies courses, and the accessible style welcomes students and general readers to explore these essays and see their favorite television shows in new ways. * CHOICE *

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Book SynopsisRace does not exist in animation - it must instead be constructed and ascribed. In Race and the Animated Bodyscape, Francis M. Agnoli introduces and illustrates the concept of the animated bodyscape, looking specifically at the US television series Avatar: The Last Airbender and its sequel, The Legend of Korra.

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Book SynopsisThough best known for The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling wrote over 250 scripts for film and TV and won six Emmy Awards. In great detail and including never-published insights drawn directly from Serling's personal correspondence, unpublished writings, speeches, and unproduced scripts, Nicholas Parisi explores Serling's entire body of work.

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Book SynopsisFew trends have had as much impact on television as formats have in recent years. Long confined to the fringes of the TV industry, they have risen to prominence since the late 1990s. Today, they are a global business with hundreds of programmes adapted across the world at any one time, from mundane game shows to blockbuster talent competitions, from factual entertainment to high-end drama. Based on exclusive industry access, this book provides an in-depth analysis of the complex world of the TV format from its origins to the present day. Chalaby delivers a comprehensive account of the TV format trading system and conceptualizes the global value chain that underpins it, unpicking the corporate strategies and power relations within. Using interviews with format creators, he uncovers the secrets behind the world’s most travelled formats, exploring their narrative structure and cultural meanings.Trade Review"The Format Age is the most exhaustive analysis yet undertaken of a modern TV phenomenon. It explores both the economy and the culture of a global entertainment business which delivers local value. And it explains why and how it came about."Peter Bazalgette, Chair of Arts Council England"With his customary élan, Jean Chalaby has done a great service to our understanding of the international flow of culture. The Format Age is a judicious theoretical and empirical intervention. Bravo!"Toby Miller, University of California, RiversideTable of ContentsContentsAcknowledgementsTables and FiguresIntroduction Part One: Birth of a New TradeChapter 1 TV Formats as an Anglo-American Invention Chapter 2 The Making of an Entertainment RevolutionChapter 3 The Advent of The Super-FormatsPart Two: Production and Globalization Chapter 4 The Formation of the Global Format Trading SystemChapter 5 Nations and Competition: Upgrading Strategies in the TV Format Commodity ChainChapter 6 A Globalized Intellectual Property Market: The International Production ModelPart Three: TV Formats: Structuring NarrativesChapter 7 Journeys and Transformations: Unscripted Formats in the 21st CenturyChapter 8 Talent Competitions: Myths and Heroes for the Modern Age Chapter 9 Drama without Drama: The Late Rise of Scripted FormatsConclusion: Trade, Culture and TelevisionNotesPersonal Communications and Interviews by the AuthorReferences

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Book SynopsisThe first serious book-length study of crime writing in Canada, Detecting Canada contains thirteen essays on many of Canada's most popular crime writers, including Peter Robinson, Giles Blunt, Gail Bowen, Thomas King, Michael Slade, Margaret Atwood, and Anthony Bidulka. Genres examined range from the well-loved police procedural and the amateur sleuth to those less well known, such as anti-detection and contemporary noir novels. The book looks critically at the esteemed sixties' television show Wojeck, as well as the more recent series Da Vinci's Inquest, Da Vinci's City Hall, and Intelligence, and the controversial Durham County, a critically acclaimed but violent television series that ran successfully in both Canada and the United States. The essays in Detecting Canada look at texts from a variety of perspectives, including postcolonial studies, gender and queer studies, feminist studies, Indigenous studies, and critical race and class studies. Crime fiction, enjoyed by so many around the world, speaks to all of us about justice, citizenship, and important social issues in an uncertain world.Trade Review"Writers of Canadian crime fiction have learned to gird our loins when we are asked a question that is as irritating as it is inevitable: When are you going to write a real novel? By offering not simply an overview of the history of crime fiction in Canada but thoughtful essays on the themes Canadian crime writers explore and on the roles played by landscape, gender, class, race, and community in our works, 'Detecting Canada' answers that question decisively. Canadian crime writers are writing real novels, and 'Detecting Canada' offers solid evidence to prove the point." -- Gail Bowen, author of 'The Gifted', the latest in the Joanne Kilbourn mystery series"'Detecting Canada' is an indispensable landmark in the study of Canadian crime narratives. Its range is remarkable, with the essays covering not only the major practitioners of Canadian crime fiction but also television crime shows and films. This collection will remain a standard resource for many years to come." -- David Schmid, Department of English, University at Buffalo, author of 'Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture'Table of Contents Detecting Canada: Essays on Canadian Crime Fiction, Television, and Film, edited by Jeannette Sloniowski and Marilyn Rose Introduction Jeannette Sloniowski and Marilyn Rose History and Theory 1. Coca-Colonialists Write Back: Localizing the Global in Canadian Crime Fiction Beryl Langer 2. Canadian Crime Writing in English David Skene-Melvin Essays on Fiction 3. Canadian Psycho: Genre, Nation, and Colonial Violence in Michael Slade's Gothic RCMP Procedurals Brian Johnson 4. Northern Procedures: Policing the Nation in Giles Blunt's The Delicate Storm Manina Jones 5. Revisioning the Dick: Reading Thomas King's Thumps DreadfulWater Mysteries Jennifer Andrews and Priscilla L. Walton 6. Generic Play and Gender Trouble in Peter Robinson's In a Dry Season Jeannette Sloniowski 7. A Colder Kind of Gender Politics: Intersections of Feminism and Detection in Gail Bowen's Joanne Kilbourn Series Pamela Bedore 8. Queer Eye for the Private Eye: Homonationalism and the Regulation of Queer Difference in Anthony Bidulka's Russell Quant Mystery Series Péter Balogh 9. Under/Cover: Strategies of Detection and Evasion in Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace Marilyn Rose Essays on Television 10. Televising Toronto in the 1960s: Wojeck and the Urban Crime Genre Sarah A. Matheson 11. North of Quality? ""Quality"" Television and the Suburban Crimeworld of Durham County Lindsay Steenberg and Yvonne Tasker 12. Mounties and Metaphysics in Canadian Film and Television Patricia Gruben Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisComic Visions, Second Edition is an update of the most influential critical history of American television comedy. Most comprehensive social and critical history of American television comedy Very engaging, lucid and entertaining writing style Approaches social criticism without being too scholarly and pedantic Trade Review"A new edition of David Marc's Comic Visions is grounds for rejoicing. His historical survey of TV comedy remains unrivalled, and new material on the cable era will be more than welcome." Francis Couvares, Amherst College. "David Marc's Comic Visions is the outstanding book of its type: social and cultural analysis of the most popular and important comedic forms of television." Chad Gordon, Rice University. "Recommended for all academic and large public libraries; all levels." A. Hirsh, emeritus, Central Conneticut State University.Table of ContentsPraise for the First Edition. Acknowledgments. Foreword by Ken Tucker. Preface to the Second Edition. 1. What's So Funny About America?. 2. Waking Up to Television. 3. The Making of a Sitcom, 1961. 4. Planet Earth to Sitcom, Planet Earth to Sitcom. 5. The Sitcom at Literate Peak. 6. Demographic Fantasies of the Reagan Era. 7. Friends of the Family. Bibliography. Index to Television Comedy Series. General Index.

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Book SynopsisThe face of U.S. television broadcasting is changing in ways that are both profound and subtle. Global Television uncovers the particular processes by which the international circulation of culture takes place, while addressing larger cultural issues such as identity formation. Focusing on how the process of internationally made programming such as Highlander: The Series and The Odyssey-amusingly dubbed \u201cEuropudding\u201d and \u201ccommercial white bread\u201d-are changing television into a transnational commodity, Barbara Selznick considers how this mode of production-as a means by which transnational television is created-has both economic rewards and cultural benefits as well as drawbacks. Global Television explores the ways these international co-productions create a \u201cglobal\u201d culture as well as help form a national identity. From British \u201cbrand\u201d programming (e.g, Cracker) that airs on A&E in the U.S. to children\u2019s television programs such as Plaza Sesamo, and documentaries, Selznick indicates that while the style, narrative, themes and ideologies may be interesting, corporate capitalism ultimately affects and impacts these programs in significant ways.Trade Review"Global Television is well focused, disciplined, imaginative, and original; the global outlook and free ranging expertise across borders are signature virtues. It looms to be a blueprint for the emergent field of globally-centric media studies." -Thomas Doherty , American Studies Department, Brandeis UniversityTable of ContentsTable of Contents Introduction: McTelevision in the Global Village... Chapter 1: History without Nation: Global Fiction... Chapter 2: Clear, Strong Brands: British Television as a Marketing Tool... Chapter 3: The 3 C's: Children, Citizenship and Co-Production... Chapter 4: Global Truths: Documentaries for the World... Conclusion: Transculturation or the Expansion of Modern Capitalism... Works Cited...

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Book SynopsisThe soap opera, one of U.S. television's longest-running and most influential formats, is on the brink. Declining ratings have been attributed to an increasing number of women working outside the home and to an intensifying competition for viewers' attention from cable and the Internet. Yet, soaps' influence has expanded, with serial narratives becoming commonplace on most prime time TV programs. The Survival of Soap Opera investigates the causes of their dwindling popularity, describes their impact on TV and new media culture, and gleans lessons from their complex history for twenty-first-century media industries.The book contains contributions from established soap scholars such as Robert C. Allen, Louise Spence, Nancy Baym, and Horace Newcomb, along with essays and interviews by emerging scholars, fans and Web site moderators, and soap opera producers, writers, and actors from ABC's General Hospital, CBS's The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful, and other shows. This diverse group of voices seeks to intervene in the discussion about the fate of soap operas at a critical juncture, and speaks to longtime soap viewers, television studies scholars, and media professionals alike.

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Book SynopsisMoviegoers know her as the housekeeper in White Christmas, the nurse in Now, Voyager, and the crotchety choir director in Sister Act. This book, filled with never-published behind-the-scenes stories from Broadway and Hollywood, chronicles the life of a complicated woman who brought an assortment of unforgettable nurses, nuns, and housekeepers to life on screen and stage.Wickes (1910-1995) was part of some of the most significant moments in film, television, theatre, and radio history. On that frightening night in 1938 when Orson Welles recorded his earth-shattering ""War of the Worlds"" radio broadcast, Wickes was waiting on another soundstage for him for a rehearsal of Danton's Death, oblivious to the havoc taking place outside.When silent film star Gloria Swanson decided to host a live talk show on this new thing called television, Wickes was one of her first guests. When Lucille Ball made one of her first TV appearances, Wickes appeared with her--and became Lucy's closest friend for more than thirty years. Wickes was the original Mary Poppins, long before an umbrella carried Julie Andrews across the rooftops of London. And when Disney began creating 101 Dalmatians, Wickes was asked to pose for animators trying to capture the evil of Cruella De Vil.The pinched-face actress who cracked wise by day became a confidante to some of the day's biggest stars by night, including Bette Davis and Doris Day. Bolstered by interviews with almost three hundred people, and by private correspondence from Ball, Davis, Day, and others, Mary Wickes: I Know I've Seen That Face Before includes scores of never-before-shared anecdotes about Hollywood and Broadway. In the process, it introduces readers to a complex woman who sustained a remarkable career for sixty years.

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Book SynopsisNo recent television creator has generated more critical, scholarly, and popular discussion or acquired as devoted a cult following as Joss Whedon (b. 1964). No fewer than thirty books concerned with his work have now been published (a forthcoming volume even offers a book-length bibliography), and ten international conferences on his work have convened in the U.K., the United States, Australia, and Turkey. Fitting then that this first volume in the University Press of Mississippi's ""Television Conversations"" series is devoted to the writer, director, and showrunner who has delivered Buffy the Vampire Slayer (The WB, 1997-2001; UPN, 2001-3), Angel (The WB, 1999-2004), Firefly (2002), Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (Webcast, 2008), and Dollhouse (FOX, 2009-10).If Whedon has shown himself to be a virtuoso screenwriter/script-doctor, director, comic book author, and librettist, he is as well a masterful conversationalist. As a DVD commentator, for example, the consistently hilarious, reliably insightful, frequently moving Whedon has few rivals. In his many interviews he likewise shines. Whether answering a hundred rapid-fire, mostly silly questions from fans on the Internet, fielding serious inquiries about his craft and career from television colleagues, or assessing his disappointments, Whedon seldom fails to provoke laughter and reflection.

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Book SynopsisNo longer has a niche or cult identity, fandom now coloured our notions of an expansive generational construct— the millennial generation. Like fans, millennials are frequently cast as active participants in media culture, spectators who expect opportunities to intervene, control, and create. At the same time, longstanding fears about fans’ cultural unruliness manifest in rampant stories of millennials’ technological overdependence and lack of moral boundaries.These conflicting narratives of entrepreneurial creativity and digital immorality operate to quell the growing threat represented by millennials’ media agency. With fan activities becoming ever more visible on social media platforms including YouTube, Facebook, LiveJournal, Twitter, Polyvore, and Tumblr, the fan has become the avatar of our digital hopes and fears. In an ambitious study encompassing a wide range of media texts, including popular television series like Kyle XY, Glee, Gossip Girl, Veronica Mars, and Pretty Little Liars and online works like The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, as well as fan texts from blog posts and tweets to remix videos, YouTube posts, and imagesharing streams, author This generation—and the fans it represents—is actively transforming the media landscape into a dynamic, culturally transgressive space of collective authorship. Offering a rich and complex vision of the relationship between fandom and millennial culture, Millennial Fandom will interest fans, millennials, students, and scholars of contemporary media culture alike.

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Book SynopsisJoseph Sobol is one of a select few contemporary scholar-practitioners to chart the evolution of storytelling from traditional foundations to its current multifarious presence in American life. The years since his classic The Storytellers’ Journey: An American Revival (1999), have brought seismic shifts in storytelling circles. Essays gathered here move between cultural history, critical analysis, and personal narratives to showcase the efforts of traditional and contemporary storytellers to make their presence felt in the world.The book begins with an account of recent changes in the storytelling landscape, including the growth of a new generation of urban personal storytelling venues sparked by The Moth. Next is a suite of essays on Appalachian Jack tales, the best-known cycle of traditional American wonder tales, and an account of its most celebrated practitioners, including close encounters with the traditional master, Ray Hicks. The next set examines frames through which storytellers capture truth—historical, legendary, literary, oral traditional, and personal. Stylistic differences between northern and southern tellers are affectionately portrayed, with a special look at the late, much-loved Alabaman Kathryn Tucker Windham.The final section makes the case for informed critical writing on storytelling performance, through a survey of notable contemporary storytellers’ work, a look at the ethics of storytelling genres, and a nuanced probe of truth and fiction in storytelling settings. A tapestry of personal stories, social criticism, and artistic illuminations, Liars, Damn Liars, and Storytellers is valuable not only to scholars and students in performance, folklore, cultural studies, and theater, but also to general readers with a love for the storytelling art.Trade ReviewJoseph Sobol is both a respected scholar and a storytelling performer with a superb style of writing that flows from his storytelling background. In many respects, this book is a continuation of his significant study The Storytellers’ Journey: An American Revival. There have been major changes in the storytelling field since, and Sobol is one of the few scholars who can understand and chart them." —Jack Zipes, author of The Irresistible Fairy Tale "Sobol takes us to meet the people, visit the scenes, and hear the voices of storytellers past and present. His writing is vivid, engaging, generous, and intimate. This collection is a gift to the storytelling world." —Annette Simmons, author of The Story Factor "No one has ever told so well the story of the story. Like any great yarn-spinner, Sobol gives us enthralling characters: Ray Hicks at his home on Beech Mountain, Kathryn Tucker Windham hunting the Alabama redhorse fish, Spalding Gray, and dozens more. But he also never loses sight of the core question of his tale: what is the magic in stories that give them such sway over our lives?" —George Dawes Green, novelist and founder of The Moth "With the sensitivity of an artist and the startling insights of a wide-ranging scholar, Joseph Sobol illuminates a century of storytelling performers and movements. Thanks to Liars, Damn Liars, and Storytellers, we are closer to understanding this enduring, protean art form and to finding the critical language to describe it." —Jo Radner, past president, American Folklore Society, past chair, National Storytelling Network

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Book SynopsisThe New York Times chief television critic James Poniewozik traces the history of television and mass media from the early 1980s to today and demonstrates how a “volcanic, camera-hogging antihero” merged with America’s most powerful medium to become the forty-fifth president. He charts the seismic evolution of television from a monolithic mass medium of mainstream networks into today’s fractious media subculture. He then examines Donald Trump, who took advantage of these changes to reinvent himself: from boastful cartoon zillionaire; to 1990s self-parodic sitcom fixture; to The Apprentice-reality-TV star to Twitter-mad, culture-warring demagogue. A trenchant, often hilarious work, Audience of One provides an eye-opening history of American media and a reflection of a raucous, “gorillas-are always-fighting” culture.Trade Review"The Mueller Report of television criticism! James Poniewozik’s Audience of One is both damning and illuminating, a witty, penetrating exposé of Trump’s most intimate relationship, the one with the medium that made him." -- Emily Nussbaum, television critic for The New Yorker"With wit, insight, and clarity, James Poniewozik puts Trump at the center of a series of changes that swept through American popular culture and political systems. Poniewozik’s essential book shows how these evolutions incubated Trumpism, even as Trump’s rise exposed the limits and vulnerabilities of the media, which too often found itself floundering in the face of his shameless manipulations." -- Maureen Ryan, chief TV critic for Variety"Illuminating... Poniewozik is a funny, acerbic and observant writer… [He] uses his ample comedic gifts in the service of describing a slow-boil tragedy. If humor is the rocket of his ICBM, the last three years of our lives are the destructive payload... Poniewozik brings a new microscope with which to analyze the drug-resistant bacterium that is our president. Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of Audience of One is that it makes Trump's presidency seem almost inevitable." -- Gary Shteyngart - The New York Times Book Review

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Book SynopsisThe Pacific Northwest has a thriving, rich film culture, and it's finally celebrated in a guide as visually arresting and compelling as the films and television themselves. Author David Schmader put in a lot of screen time watching movies and TV shows, and the result is more than 200 entries that feature hilarious and insightful synopses, behind-the-scene facts and trivia, and regional scenic highlights. Sidebars showcase filmmakers like Gus Van Sant and Lynn Shelton, the television shows that shaped the public's perception of the region (such as Twin Peaks, Shrill, and Portlandia!), documentaries, queer cinema, silent films, Vancouver-shot imposters, and more. This is a book for any cinephile, but for those who love and live in the PNW, it's an absolute must-have.Trade Review“Filmlandia is a quick, joyful read that’s as much a love letter to local film and television icons such as Lynn Shelton, Megan Griffiths, and Irene from the Real World as it is to the Pacific Northwest’s (mostly) sparkling scenery. And oh, boy, is this corner of the country filled with weird little treasures.” —The Stranger“David Schmader’s film writing has always been dryly funny and incisive, but it has rarely been this affectionate. This very comprehensive collection of PNW-centric film and TV capsules is for locals or tourists, hardcore cinephiles or casual viewers. Full disclosure: David once called me a "Showgirls truther.” —Matt Lynch, Scarecrow Video, cohost of The Suspense Is Killing Us podcast and YouTube’s Viva Physical Media Table of ContentsCONTENTS Introduction: A Film Lover's Paradise SEATTLE & WASHINGTONWashington Fun Boxes (sidebars to appear throughout)Bruce Lee | Dystopian Futures | Film Festivals | Frasier | Grey’s Anatomy | Kurt Cobain | Lynn Shelton | Megan Griffiths | Movie Houses | Northern Exposure | PNW Film All-Stars | PNW XXX | Queer Cinema | Seattle Verite: Seattle Documentaries | The Real World | Rose Red | Scarecrow Video | Twin Peaks | Vancouver Switcheroo10 Things I Hate About You | 21 & Over | 50 Shades of Gray | American Heart | The Art of Racing in the Rain | Assassins | Battle in Seattle | Beacon Hill Boys | Benny & Joon | A Bit of Bad Luck | Black Widow | The Book of Stars | Boy Culture | Brand Upon the Brain! | Bustin Loose | The Changeling | Cinderella Liberty | Come See the Paradise | Cthulu | Daredreamer | Dear Lemon Lima | The Details | Disclosure | Dogfight | Double Jeopardy | East of the Mountains | Enough | The Fabulous Baker Boys | Fear | Frances | Georgia | Get Carter | Gory Gory Hallelujah | Grassroots | The Hand That Rocks the Cradle | Harry and the Hendersons |Harry in Your Pocket |Highway |Hit! |House of Games |The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle | It Happened at the World’s Fair | Karl Krogstad | The Last Mimzy | Late Autumn | Life or Something Like It | Little Buddha | Love Happens | Mad Love | Money Buys Happiness | My Last Year with the Nuns | Officer & a Gentleman | Old Goats | Paper Tigers | The Parallax View | Plain Clothes | Police Beat | Power |Practical Magic | Red Dawn | The Ring | Safety Not Guaranteed | Say Anything | Seven Hours to Judgment | Singles | Slaves to the Underground | Sleepless in Seattle | The Slender Thread | Snow Falling on Cedars | Surviving the Game | This Boy’s Life | Trouble in Mind | True Adolescents | Tugboat Annie | Twice in a Lifetime | Twilight | Unforgettable | The Vanishing | Waiting for the Light | War Games | Where’d You Go, Bernadette? | World’s Greatest DadPORTLAND & OREGONPortland Fun Boxes (sidebars to appear throughout)Astoria! | Behind the Music | Eternal Silents | Film Festivals | The Technicolor Frontier! | Grimm | Gus Van Sant | Jack Nicholson | Kelly Reichardt | LAIKA Studios | Movie Houses | PDX Docs | Portlandia! | Prefontaine vs Prefontaine | The Real World: Portland | Shrill | The Simpsons Animal House | Benji the Hunted | The Black Stallion | Body of Evidence | Captain Fantastic | C.O.G. | Dead Man | The Fog | Foxfire | Free Willy | The Goonies | Hear No Evil | How to Beat the High Cost of Living | I Don’t Feel at Home in This World | The Indian Fighter | Into the Wild | Kindergarten Cop | Lean on Pete | Leave No Trace | Lost Horizon | Maverick | Men of Honor | Mr. Brooks | Mr. Holland’s Opus | My Name is Bruce | Overboard | Pay It Forward | PIG | Point Break | The River Wild | Ring of Fire | Roaring Timber | Rooster Cogburn | Short Circuit | Sometimes a Great Notion | Stand By Me | Swordfish | Thumbsucker | Wild ConclusionViewing ListsAcknowledgmentsSources Index

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Book SynopsisWhat could the supernatural world of Stranger Things have in common with the Bible? The paranormal television series Stranger Things taps into the mysterious elements that have fueled spiritual questions for millennia. The otherworldly manifestations in Hawkins, Indiana offer compelling portrayals of important spiritual truths--and many of these truths are echoed in the supernatural worldview of the Bible. For Michael Heiser, Stranger Things is the perfect marriage of his interest in popular culture and the paranormal. In The Unseen Realm, he opened the eyes of thousands, helping readers understand the supernatural worldview of the Bible. Now he turns his attention to the worldwide television phenomenon, exploring how Stranger Things relates to Christian theology and the Christian life. In The World Turned Upside Down, Heiser draws on this supernatural worldview to help us think about the story of Jesus and discover glimpses of the gospel in the Upside Down. He argues that this celebrated series helps us understand the gospel in unique and overlooked ways. The spiritual questions and crises raised by Stranger Things are addressed the same way they are in the gospel, with mystery and transcendent power.

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Book SynopsisIn this concise but rich book, Syverson refutes the common notion that reality television is superficial or inauthentic, explaining how such criticisms fail to appreciate the way that we form social reality in the first place. By examining shows like The Hills, The Real Housewives, Vanderpump Rules, and The Bachelor alongside postmodern philosophy, feminist theory, and political economy, Syverson argues that we can confront today’s postmodern condition only by accepting it on its own terms. To what extent does reality television mimic and shape our public and personal lives? Is reality television a dangerous, shallow decadence, or can it provide the key to understanding our postmodern moment? And above all, what does the election of Donald Trump mean for progressive fans of the genre? Reality Squared tackles these questions head-on, arguing that reality television represents the great modern art form, and the only entertainment vehicle capable of showing what it feels like to be alive today.

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Book SynopsisThis is the first ever international comparative study of the mythologies which popular TV series in Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania -- made before and after the fall of communism -- disseminate in their societies. Popular television broadcasting has had an enormous impact on the general public's beliefs and values, East and West. From the outset, the communist systems of Central and East Europe used entertainment television programming to instil the regimes' values in the viewer. And indeed popular television still exerts a major impact on these fairly homogeneous societies. Up to date research about current social values and factors in the formation of individual and collective identity has considerable strategic importance for decision making both in Britain and in the EU. If we are to understand how the populations of the Central and East European countries might react in the current relatively unstable political and economic situation, it is necessary to understand the indigenous political, social and cultural discourse in these countries. Comparison of samples of popular television from the 1970s, 1980s and 2000s provides strategically significant material about how these societies think and rationalise, and what their thinking is rooted in. The study proceeds from the premise that popular television series provide a fertile ground of investigation as mass media reflects and shapes social and cultural values.

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Book SynopsisIn the summer of 1970, the artist Les Levine arrived at the University of Toronto to take part in the installation of site-specific work on the quadrangle in front of the University's Hart House. The intended piece-construction materials hung from high-tension rope between campus buildings-was quickly stymied as Levine encountered a series of bureaucratic impediments on the part of the University staff. What ensued was played into the conceptual conceit the artist had envisioned for the project. By collating the correspondence, telephone transcripts, and visual documentation of the eventual installation process, Levine used the work to demonstrate how the university itself functioned as a system. Red Tape publishes this project, which had existed only as a dossier in the artist's archive, for the first time. ?Red Tape is being published on the occasion of the exhibition "Les Levine: Bio-Tech Rehearsals 1965-1975," curated by Felicity D. Scott and Mark Wasiuta, at Columbia University's Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery.

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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

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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

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Book SynopsisMediating the Uprising: Narratives of Gender and Marriage in Syrian Television Drama shows how gender and marriage metaphors inform post-uprising Syrian drama for various forms of cultural and political critique. These narratives have become complicated since the uprising due to the Syrian regime’s effort to control the revolutionary discourse. As Syria’s uprising spawned more terrorist groups, some drama creators became nostalgic for pre-war days. While for some screenwriters a return to pre-2011 life would be welcome after so much bloodshed, others advocated profound cultural and social transformation, instead. They employed marriage and gender metaphors in the stories they wrote to engage in political critique, even at the risk of creating marketing difficulties for the shows or they created escapist stories such as transnational adaptations and Old Damascus tales. Serving as heritage preservation, Mediating the Uprising underscores that television drama creators in Syria have many ways of engaging in protest, with gender and marriage at the heart of the polemic. Trade Review“A huge accomplishment, Mediating the Uprising combines smart readings of Syrian television miniseries with detailed ethnographic analysis. Joubin reveals the strategies of artists--both oppositional and regime-supporters--who are testing the limits of social and political expression, and the workings of an industry navigating seven years of civil war. The book is an invaluable addition to media studies and Syrian studies.” -- Edward Ziter * author of Political Performance in Syria: From the Six-Day War to the Syrian Uprising *“Mediating the Uprising expertly reveals how Syria’s most successful transnational media products have fared during and responded to the current conflicts. Rebecca Joubin displays uncommon dexterity in how she interlaces a wealth of detail, from knowledgeable insight into sociopolitical contexts to illuminating interviews with the musalsalat’s creative personnel. This approachable book will appeal just as much to specialized scholars as to a general readership wishing to learn more about how devastating geopolitical events take their toll on our media industries and their representations of gender.” -- Kay Dickinson * author of Arab Cinema Travels: Transnational Syria, Palestine, Dubai and Beyond *“A huge accomplishment, Mediating the Uprising combines smart readings of Syrian television miniseries with detailed ethnographic analysis. Joubin reveals the strategies of artists--both oppositional and regime-supporters--who are testing the limits of social and political expression, and the workings of an industry navigating seven years of civil war. The book is an invaluable addition to media studies and Syrian studies.” -- Edward Ziter * author of Political Performance in Syria: From the Six-Day War to the Syrian Uprising *“Mediating the Uprising expertly reveals how Syria’s most successful transnational media products have fared during and responded to the current conflicts. Rebecca Joubin displays uncommon dexterity in how she interlaces a wealth of detail, from knowledgeable insight into sociopolitical contexts to illuminating interviews with the musalsalat’s creative personnel. This approachable book will appeal just as much to specialized scholars as to a general readership wishing to learn more about how devastating geopolitical events take their toll on our media industries and their representations of gender.” -- Kay Dickinson * author of Arab Cinema Travels: Transnational Syria, Palestine, Dubai and Beyond *Table of ContentsTable of Contents Series Foreword List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations Note on Transliteration A Chronology of the Syrian Uprising Introduction: New Directions in Television Drama Amid an Uprising Chapter One: Mediating the Uprising Chapter Two: Socio-Political Satire in the Multi-Year Syrian Sketch Series Buq‘at Daw’ (Spotlight): Artistic Resistance via Gender and Marriage Metaphors, 2001 to 2017 Chapter Three: The Rise and Fall of the Qabaday (Tough Man): (De)constructing Fatherhood as Political Protest Chapter Four: The Politics of Love and Desire in Post-Uprising Syrian and Transnational Arab Television Drama Chapter Five: The Politics of Queer Representations in Syrian Television Drama Past and Present Conclusion Appendix 1: Charts of Miniseries for Ramadan 2011-2018 (Miniseries that touch on the uprising are in bold) Appendix 2: Table of Percentages of Miniseries 2011-2018 Appendix 3: Chart of Miniseries for Ramdan 2019 (Miniseries that touch on the uprising are in bold) Appendix 4: Table of Percentages of Miniseries 2019 Acknowledgments Bibliography/Filmography Index

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Book SynopsisThis is the first book that examines how “ethnic spectacle” in the form of Asian and Latin American bodies played a significant role in the cultural Cold War at three historic junctures: the Korean War in 1950, the Cuban Revolution in 1959, and the statehood of Hawaii in 1959. As a means to strengthen U.S. internationalism and in an effort to combat the growing influence of communism, television variety shows, such as The Xavier Cugat Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, and The Chevy Show, were envisioned as early forms of global television. Beyond the Black and White TV examines the intimate moments of cultural interactions between the white hosts and the ethnic guests to illustrate U.S. aspirations for global power through the medium of television. These depictions of racial harmony aimed to shape a new perception of the United States as an exemplary nation of democracy, equality, and globalism.Trade Review"Fascinating, compelling, and important, Beyond the Black and White TV demonstrates how government objectives were married with the goals of television productions to display migration, integration, and global imagination in order to control discourses of race and nation.This work reframes television history through the lens of variety shows by engaging with race from an industry perspective, informing readers how race factored into the production of genre and national identity." -- L.S. Kim * associate professor, Film and Digital Media, University of California, Santa Cruz *"Benjamin M. Han illuminates the secret history of the American variety show, deftly revealing the cosmopolitan roots of a familiar TV format. A major contribution to the cultural history of the Cold War." -- Christina Klein * author of Cold War Cosmopolitanism: Period Style in 1950s Korean Cinema *"Beyond the Black and White TV makes a convincing and timely argument that the history of Asian and Latin American media representation is the history of anticommunism [and] serves as a warning to critically examine such media representation as more than merely evidence of America’s racial liberalism but also as an instrument for its political interests." * Journal of Asian American Studies *"The Cold War has been studied by many, but this is the first book that does so by looking at how the “ethnic spectacle” helped the United States in winning the cultural Cold War." * Journal of Popular Culture *"This book illustrates the process by which various races coexist to construct a state and how television programs are used to form national identity… Readers tired of examining the Cold War only in the context of international politics will enjoy understanding the conflict through various experiences of racial diversity and ambiguity." -- Wonjung Min * Asian Communication Research *Table of ContentsContents Introduction 1 Narratives of Integration: Ethnic Spectacle and Las Vegas 2 Narratives of Exchange: Asian/ American Performers after the Korean War 3 Narratives of Partnership: Latin American Entertainers in the Post-Cuban Revolution 4 Narratives of Co-Existence: Pacific Islanders and the Statehood of Hawaii’i Epilogue Epilogue Acknowledgments Bibliography Index

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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

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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

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Book SynopsisPrestige Television explores how a growing array of 21st century US programming is produced and received in ways that elevate select series above the competition in a saturated market. Contributing authors demonstrate that these shows are positioned and understood as comprising an increasingly recognizable genre characterized by familiar markers of distinction. In contrast to most accounts of elite categorizations of contemporary US television programming that center on HBO and its primary streaming rivals, these essays examine how efforts to imbue series with prestigious or elevated status now permeate the rest of the medium, including network as well as basic and undervalued premium cable channels. Case study chapters focusing on diverse series, ranging from widely recognized examples such as The Americans (2013-2018) and The Knick (2014-15) to contested examples like Queen of the South (2016-2021) and How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014), highlight how contributing authors extend conceptions of the genre beyond expected parameters. Trade Review“Seth Friedman and Amanda Keeler prompt us to rethink conventional wisdom about 'Quality TV' and explore a rich terrain that combines TV industry strategies and textual expressions. The book makes a wonderful contribution to the study of recent and contemporary television and its shifting cultural status.” -- Michael Z. Newman * Professor of English and Media, Cinema, and Digital Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee *“Closely examining the ways in which industrial, textual, paratextual, and contextual factors have shaped the category of prestige television programming in the 21st century, Seth Friedman and Amanda Keeler invite us to ponder if prestige television should perhaps be recognized as a new genre. This rich and timely volume is a must read for scholars, students, and TV fans alike.” -- Yeidy Rivero * author of Broadcasting Modernity: Cuban Commercial Television, 1950-1960 *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 SETH FRIEDMAN AND AMANDA KEELERPart I The Fringes of Prestige TV: Genre and Markers of Distinction 1 Spies Like Us: Genre Mixing, Brand Building, and Reagan’s 1980s in The Americans DAVID R. COON 2 Disrupting the Pattern of Prestige TV: Fringe AMANDA KEELER 3 “But Is It Star Trek?”: Prestige, Fandom, and the Return of Star Trek to Television MURRAY LEEDER 4 Negotiating Prestige on The CW: Is Roswell, New Mexico “Another Show about Teenagers Getting F-cked Up and Having Sex” or a Sophisticated Exploration of Racial and Gender Politics? CATHERINE MARTINPart II How Contemporary Programming Met Prestige TV: Unconventional Depictions of Cultural and Televisual Norms 5 Prestige Adaptation by Design: The Commercial Appeal of Latinx Tropes in Queen of the South JAVIER RAMIREZ 6 “Tell Them We Are Gone”: Imperial Narratives, Indigenous Perspectives, and Prestige in The Terror JUSTIN O. RAWLINS 7 Prestige Comedy: Contemporary Sitcom Narrative and Complexity in How I Met Your Mother ANDRE W J. BOTTOMLEYPart III Top of the Media Hierarchy: Cinematization and Television’s Elevation 8 Running The Knick Show: Transfusing Steven Soderbergh’s Authorial Persona into the Prestige Medical Series SETH FRIEDMAN 9 Legitimating Top of the Lake: Jane Campion, the Film Fest, and the Miniseries W. D. PHILLIPS 10 Specters of Serling: Authorship, Television History, and Inherited Prestige in The Twilight Zone (2019–2020) JOSIE TORRES BARTH Acknowledgments Selected Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisPrestige Television explores how a growing array of 21st century US programming is produced and received in ways that elevate select series above the competition in a saturated market. Contributing authors demonstrate that these shows are positioned and understood as comprising an increasingly recognizable genre characterized by familiar markers of distinction. In contrast to most accounts of elite categorizations of contemporary US television programming that center on HBO and its primary streaming rivals, these essays examine how efforts to imbue series with prestigious or elevated status now permeate the rest of the medium, including network as well as basic and undervalued premium cable channels. Case study chapters focusing on diverse series, ranging from widely recognized examples such as The Americans (2013-2018) and The Knick (2014-15) to contested examples like Queen of the South (2016-2021) and How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014), highlight how contributing authors extend conceptions of the genre beyond expected parameters. Trade Review“Seth Friedman and Amanda Keeler prompt us to rethink conventional wisdom about 'Quality TV' and explore a rich terrain that combines TV industry strategies and textual expressions. The book makes a wonderful contribution to the study of recent and contemporary television and its shifting cultural status.” -- Michael Z. Newman * Professor of English and Media, Cinema, and Digital Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee *“Closely examining the ways in which industrial, textual, paratextual, and contextual factors have shaped the category of prestige television programming in the 21st century, Seth Friedman and Amanda Keeler invite us to ponder if prestige television should perhaps be recognized as a new genre. This rich and timely volume is a must read for scholars, students, and TV fans alike.” -- Yeidy Rivero * author of Broadcasting Modernity: Cuban Commercial Television, 1950-1960 *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 SETH FRIEDMAN AND AMANDA KEELERPart I The Fringes of Prestige TV: Genre and Markers of Distinction 1 Spies Like Us: Genre Mixing, Brand Building, and Reagan’s 1980s in The Americans DAVID R. COON 2 Disrupting the Pattern of Prestige TV: Fringe AMANDA KEELER 3 “But Is It Star Trek?”: Prestige, Fandom, and the Return of Star Trek to Television MURRAY LEEDER 4 Negotiating Prestige on The CW: Is Roswell, New Mexico “Another Show about Teenagers Getting F-cked Up and Having Sex” or a Sophisticated Exploration of Racial and Gender Politics? CATHERINE MARTINPart II How Contemporary Programming Met Prestige TV: Unconventional Depictions of Cultural and Televisual Norms 5 Prestige Adaptation by Design: The Commercial Appeal of Latinx Tropes in Queen of the South JAVIER RAMIREZ 6 “Tell Them We Are Gone”: Imperial Narratives, Indigenous Perspectives, and Prestige in The Terror JUSTIN O. RAWLINS 7 Prestige Comedy: Contemporary Sitcom Narrative and Complexity in How I Met Your Mother ANDRE W J. BOTTOMLEYPart III Top of the Media Hierarchy: Cinematization and Television’s Elevation 8 Running The Knick Show: Transfusing Steven Soderbergh’s Authorial Persona into the Prestige Medical Series SETH FRIEDMAN 9 Legitimating Top of the Lake: Jane Campion, the Film Fest, and the Miniseries W. D. PHILLIPS 10 Specters of Serling: Authorship, Television History, and Inherited Prestige in The Twilight Zone (2019–2020) JOSIE TORRES BARTH Acknowledgments Selected Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisThe Synchronized Society traces the history of the synchronous broadcast experience of the twentieth century and the transition to the asynchronous media that dominate today. Broadcasting grew out of the latent desire by nineteenth-century industrialists, political thinkers, and social reformers to tame an unruly society by controlling how people used their time. The idea manifested itself in the form of the broadcast schedule, a managed flow of information and entertainment that required audiences to be in a particular place – usually the home – at a particular time and helped to create “water cooler” moments, as audiences reflected on their shared media texts. Audiences began disconnecting from the broadcast schedule at the end of the twentieth century, but promoters of social media and television services still kept audiences under control, replacing the schedule with surveillance of media use. Author Randall Patnode offers compelling new insights into the intermingled roles of broadcasting and industrial/post-industrial work and how Americans spend their time.Trade Review"Patnode asks a deceptively simple question—why were modern media audiences willing to structure their lives around broadcasting schedules? Only now, as the broadcast era recedes, can that question be posed historically. The book offers a striking new synthesis, linking broadcasting history to the longer history of time management in the US. Recent histories have often been audience-centered; this one reminds us of the imperatives towards rationalization, discipline, and efficiency that also shaped modern broadcasting."— David Goodman, coauthor of New Deal Radio: The Educational Radio ProjectTable of Contents1 The Bizarre Model of Broadcasting 1 2 The Evolution of Time Consciousness 13 3 Roots of the Synchronized Society 22 4 The Rationalization of Radio 41 5 The Synchronized Society 66 6 Learning to Love the Clock 87 7 Television and Latter-Day Synchrony 105 8 The Decline of Synchrony 128 9 The Arrhythmic Society 153 10 From Clock to Click 172 11 Moving Ahead While Looking Backward 187 Acknowledgments 193 Notes 195 Index 000

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Book SynopsisThe Synchronized Society traces the history of the synchronous broadcast experience of the twentieth century and the transition to the asynchronous media that dominate today. Broadcasting grew out of the latent desire by nineteenth-century industrialists, political thinkers, and social reformers to tame an unruly society by controlling how people used their time. The idea manifested itself in the form of the broadcast schedule, a managed flow of information and entertainment that required audiences to be in a particular place – usually the home – at a particular time and helped to create “water cooler” moments, as audiences reflected on their shared media texts. Audiences began disconnecting from the broadcast schedule at the end of the twentieth century, but promoters of social media and television services still kept audiences under control, replacing the schedule with surveillance of media use. Author Randall Patnode offers compelling new insights into the intermingled roles of broadcasting and industrial/post-industrial work and how Americans spend their time.Trade Review"Patnode asks a deceptively simple question—why were modern media audiences willing to structure their lives around broadcasting schedules? Only now, as the broadcast era recedes, can that question be posed historically. The book offers a striking new synthesis, linking broadcasting history to the longer history of time management in the US. Recent histories have often been audience-centered; this one reminds us of the imperatives towards rationalization, discipline, and efficiency that also shaped modern broadcasting."— David Goodman, coauthor of New Deal Radio: The Educational Radio ProjectTable of Contents1 The Bizarre Model of Broadcasting 1 2 The Evolution of Time Consciousness 13 3 Roots of the Synchronized Society 22 4 The Rationalization of Radio 41 5 The Synchronized Society 66 6 Learning to Love the Clock 87 7 Television and Latter-Day Synchrony 105 8 The Decline of Synchrony 128 9 The Arrhythmic Society 153 10 From Clock to Click 172 11 Moving Ahead While Looking Backward 187 Acknowledgments 193 Notes 195 Index 000

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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

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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

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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

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Book SynopsisIn the summer of 2016, Disney introduced its first Latina princess, Elena of Avalor. Princesa of the Periphery explores this Disney property using multiple case studies to understand its approach to girlhood and Latinidad. Following the circuit of culture model, author Diana Leon-Boys teases out moments of complex negotiations by Disney, producers, and audiences as they navigate Elena’s circulation. Case studies highlight how a flexible Latinidad is deployed through corporate materials, social media pages, theme park experiences, and the television series to create a princess who is both marginal to Disney’s normative vision of princesshood and central to Disney’s claims of diversification. This multi-layered analysis of Disney’s mediated Latina girlhood interrogates the complex relationship between the U.S.’s largest ethnic minority and a global conglomerate that stands in for the U.S. on the global stage. Trade Review"In this fascinating and insightful study, Diana Leon-Boys demonstrates how Disney has constructed notions of Latina girlhood through its first Latina princess. Through apt exploration of Elena of Avalor on screen and at Disney theme parks, she illuminates how Latina girls’ media is positioned as both Latin American and Latinx, and always peripheral to the U.S. mainstream."— Mary Beltrán, author of Latino TV: A History and Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes: The Making and Meanings of Film and "Well researched and argued, Princesa of the Periphery is a welcome contribution to Latinx/girls/media studies. Focusing on Elena of Avalor, one of Disney’s newest 'empowered' yet marginalized princesses, Leon-Boys helps us to understand the complexities of representing and performing Latina girlhood in U.S. popular culture while also drawing attention to the potential consequences of such depictions for Latina girls, who are hungry for public recognition and deserving of authentic role models."— Mary Celeste Kearney, author of Girls Make Media and editor of Mediated Girlhoods "This is a vital and sophisticated study of the connection between Latina girlhood and the dream machine that is Disney. Leon-Boys attends to the voices of Latina girls, and complements this with powerful insights on how Latina girls are seen within media production cultures. The result is a powerful and compelling argument about the marketization of dreams and the reconstitution of Latina marginalization."— Hector Amaya, author of Citizenship Excess: Latinos/as, Media, and the NationTable of ContentsIntroduction: Latina Girls’ Media Studies 1 From Black-and-White Mouse to “Latina” Girl 2 The Flexible Production of a “Latina” Princess 3 Animated Latina Girlhood and the Continuum of Flexibility 4 On-Site Performance of Latinidad from East Coast to West Coast Conclusion: A Princess for All Is a Princess Without a Home Acknowledgments Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisGeorge Clayton Johnson was an up-and-coming short story writer who broke into Hollywood in a big way when he co-wrote the screenplay for Ocean’s Eleven. More legendary works followed, including Logan’s Run and classic scripts for shows like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek. In the meantime, he forged friendships with some of the era’s most visionary science fiction writers, including Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon, Richard Matheson, and Rod Serling. Later in life, Johnson befriended comics journalist and artist Henry Chamberlain, and the two had long chats about his amazing life and career. Now Chamberlain pays tribute to his late friend in the graphic novel George’s Run, which brings Johnson’s creative milieu to life in vividly illustrated color panels. The result feels less like reading a conventional biography and more like sitting in on an intimate conversation between friends as they recollect key moments in pop culture history, as well as the colorful band of writers known as the “Rat Pack of Science Fiction.” Trade Review"George Clayton Johnson was one of the most brilliant and important writers of the twentieth century, creating classic episodes of The Twilight Zone and Star Trek, as well as coauthoring Logan's Run and Ocean's Eleven. George's Run spectacularly and charmingly invites you on the amazing journey of his life and legacy, from 1929 through the fifties and sixties to 2015 and beyond. It's a trip down Memory Lane via time machine and rocket ship — and it will definitely blow your mind!"— Marc Scott Zicree, author of The Twilight Zone Companion “Telling the story of postwar popular culture through the eyes of a pivotal writer, George’s Run offers fresh insights into pop culture history from a deeply personal perspective. Capturing the voice of a writer who helped shape our collective imagination, Chamberlain’s graphic novel highlights how a generation of creatives aspired to reshape our collective vision. This story calls attention to the creative community that shaped American culture. Whether you are a fan of television or intrigued by the creative communities that define a pivotal moment in U.S. entertainment history, this story of a writer’s journey will engage and inform.”— Julian C. Chambliss, Professor of English, Michigan State University "George Clayton Johnson’s limitless imagination fueled the foundations of sci-fi that made me the genre geek I am today. Filtered through Henry Chamberlain’s whimsical art, George’s Run is an intimate look at a personable writer’s journey and inspirations behind his iconic tales."— David Weiner, director of In Search of Darkness and editor in chief of Famous Monsters of Filmland “In this surprising and inventive graphic book, Henry Chamberlain looks deeply into the life and writing of George Clayton Johnson. What he finds is a truly American story that blends fact and fiction to describe the life of an underappreciated voice in 1960s Hollywood.”— Bart Beaty, author of Twelve-Cent Archie and Comics Versus ArtTable of ContentsForeword A Touch of Strange A Historical Portal A Remembrance Afterword Interview with George Clayton Johnson

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Book SynopsisThere She Goes Again interrogates the representation of ostensibly powerful women in transmedia franchises, examining how presumed feminine traits—love, empathy, altruism, diplomacy—are alternately lauded and repudiated as possibilities for effecting long-lasting social change. By questioning how these franchises reimagine their protagonists over time, the book reflects on the role that gendered exceptionalism plays in social and political action, as well as what forms of knowledge and power are presumed distinctly feminine. The franchises explored in this book illustrate the ambivalent (post)feminist representation of women protagonists as uniquely gifted in ways both gendered and seemingly ungendered, and yet inherently bound to expressions of their femininity. At heart,There She Goes Again asks under what terms and in what contexts women protagonists are imagined, envisioned, embodied, and replicated in media. Especially now, in a period of gradually increasing representation, women protagonists demonstrate the importance of considering how we should define—and whether we need—feminine forms of knowledge and power.Trade Review"In an analysis both invigorating and theoretically rigorous, Aviva Dove-Viebahn skillfully deconstructs the age-old dichotomy of feminism versus femininity to produce a nuanced reading of popular culture's mediation of gendered empowerment. This is essential reading for readers interested in gender, media and power, and a valuable contribution to ongoing cultural debates.”— Miriam Kent, author of Women in Marvel Films "For all of us who love our pop-culture wonder women and have wondered about their feminist implications, There She Goes Again asks fearless questions about these characters and offers brilliant insights about their appeal. Aviva Dove-Viebahn explores what female exceptionalism means for super-powered heroines, and as the title suggests, advances timely insights about how we imagine and picture extraordinary women in the postfeminist era." — Linda Mizejewski, author of Hardboiled & High Heeled: The Woman Detective in Popular Culture “Relying on close readings that in turn recognize nuances of media texts, Dove-Viebahn accurately and persuasively enumerates the potentialities and pitfalls of gendered understandings. She brings together media analysis with a serious sense of what is at stake, which is, in short, the contemporary state of feminist thought.” — Suzanne Leonard, co-editor of Imagining "We" in the Age of "I": Romance and Social Bonding in Contemporary CultureTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Why Feminine Intuition?: The Gendering of Knowledge and Power 2. Seriality and ‘Strong Female Characters’: The Double Bind of Women’s Empowerment 3. From Girl Power to Intersectional Sisterhood: Exceptionalism and the Imperatives of Belonging 4. Motherhood and Myth: Inside and Outside the Family Circle 5. At the End of the World: Apocalyptic Bodies and the Feminine Sublime Acknowledgments Bibliography Index

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