Fandom is generally viewed as an integral part of everyday life which impacts upon how we form emotional bonds with ourselves and others in a modern, mediated world. Whilst it is inevitable for television series to draw to a close, the reactions of fans have rarely been considered. Williams explores this everyday occurence through close analysis of television fans to examine how they respond to, discuss, and work through their feelings when shows finish airing. Through a range of case studies, including The West Wing (NBC, 2000-2006), Lost (ABC 2004 -2010), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), Doctor Who (BBC 1963-1989; 2005-), The X-Files (FOX, 1993-2002), Firefly (FOX, 2002) and Sex and the City (HBO, 1998-2004), Williams considers how fans prepare for the final episodes of shows, how they talk about this experience with fellow fans, and how, through re-viewing, discussion and other fan practices, they seek to maintain their fandom after the show's cessation.

The first volume to examine the iconic Elizabeth Taylor in this light, Elizabeth Taylor: A Private Life for Public Consumption paints Taylor as the seminal representation of "celebrity." A figure of enormous charisma and cultural sway, she intrigued a global audience with her marriages and extra-marital improprieties, as well as her extravagant jewelry, her never-ending illnesses, her dependency on alcohol, and her perplexing friendship with Michael Jackson. Despite her continued world-renown, however, most people would be hard-pressed to name even three of her films, though she made over seventy. Ellis Cashmore traces our modern, hyperactive celebrity culture back to a single instant in Taylor's life: the publicizing of her scandalous affair with Richard Burton by photographer Marcelo Geppetti in 1962, which announced the arrival of a new generation of predatory photojournalists and, along with them, a strange conflation between the public and private lives of celebrities. Taylor's life and public reception, Cashmore reveals, epitomizes the modern phenomenon of "celebrity."

South Africa has a uniquely rich and diverse theatre tradition which has responded energetically to the country's remarkable transition, helping to define the challenges and contradictions of this young democracy. This volume considers the variety of theatre forms, and the work of the major playwrights and theatre makers producing work in democratic South Africa. It offers an overview of theatre pioneers and theatre forms in Part One, before concentrating on the work of individual playwrights in Part Two. Through its wide-ranging survey of indigenous drama written predominantly in the English language and the analysis of more than 100 plays, a detailed account is provided of post-apartheid South African theatre and its engagement with the country's recent history. Part One offers six overview chapters on South African theatre pioneers and theatre forms. These include consideration of the work of artists such as Barney Simon, Mbongeni Ngema, Phyllis Klotz; the collaborations of William Kentridge and the Handspring Puppet Company; the work of Magnet Theatre, and of physical and popular community theatre forms. Part Two features chapters on twelve major playwrights, including Athol Fugard, Reza de Wet, Lara Foot, Zakes Mda, Yael Farber, Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom, Mike van Graan and Brett Bailey. It includes a survey of emerging playwrights and significant plays, and the book closes with an interview with Aubrey Sekhabi, the Artistic Director of the South African State Theatre in Pretoria. Written by a team of over twenty leading international scholars, The Methuen Drama Guide to Contemporary South African Theatre is a unique resource that will be invaluable to students and scholars from a range of different disciplines, as well as theatre practitioners.

Stop curating! And think what curating is all about. This book starts from this simple premise: thinking the activity of curating. To do that, it distinguishes between 'curating' and 'the curatorial'. If 'curating' is a gamut of professional practices for setting up exhibitions, then 'the curatorial' explores what takes place on the stage set up, both intentionally and unintentionally, by the curator. It therefore refers not to the staging of an event, but to the event of knowledge itself. In order to start thinking about curating, this book takes a new approach to the topic. Instead of relying on conventional art historical narratives (for example, identifying the moments when artistic and curatorial practices merged or when the global curator-author was first identified), this book puts forward a multiplicity of perspectives that go from the anecdotal to the theoretical and from the personal to the philosophical. These perspectives allow for a fresh reflection on curating, one in which, suddenly, curating becomes an activity that implicates us all (artists, curators, and viewers), not just as passive recipients, but as active members. As such, the Curatorial is a book without compromise: it asks us to think again, fight against sweeping art historical generalizations, the sedimentation of ideas and the draw of the sound bite. Curating will not stop, but at least with this book it can begin to allow itself to be challenged by some of the most complex and ethics-driven thought of our times.

This is a feminist introduction to Deleuze's work on cinema that proposes a new way of thinking about the cinematic viewing experience. "Deleuze and Film: A Feminist Introduction" proposes a new way of thinking about cinematic viewing by exploring it as a bodily and emotional experience. The book introduces Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's concept of the assemblage and uses it to understand the relationship between film and viewer, showing how Deleuze and Guattari's work can be useful to feminist film theory. Drawing primarily on Deleuze's books on cinema, this book acts as a bridge between early work in feminist film theory and current work in film theory. Does Deleuzian film philosophy offer anything to feminist film theory? Is the focus on spectactorship still relevant in the framework of current film theory? Theorising film viewing in terms of a cinematic assemblage is a radically new approach that focuses on affective and intensive connections between film and viewer and allows a non-binary understanding of difference for the viewing experience. The book thus addresses a key problem in feminist film theory, using Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the assemblage to develop a new framework for thinking about spectatorship.

Live theatre is an exciting, challenging profession - but how is professional theatre actually made? What are the roles and what does each person do? Which pathways lead into the profession? What skills are necessary to each role and how does the job differ according to the size of theatre or company? Written by the Acting Head of the Young People's Programme at the Royal Shakespeare Co. and former Director of Education at the Bristol Old Vic, this is a book for new entrants in the theatre industry needing a behind-the-scenes glimpse into how theatre is made. It covers each role including director, designer, sound and lighting, front of house, playwright and many more. Each chapter looks in detail at what each role entails, the main people who it involves working alongside and the skills required. Interviews with a number of key practitioners for each role provide authoritative and clear advice and insight for the reader. The book features interviews with all of the following and many more besides: Nick Hytner (National Theatre), Simon Reade (Bristol Old Vic), Mike Shepperd (founder and performer, Kneehigh), Emma Rice (Artistic Director, Kneehigh), Rachel Kavanaugh (Birmingham Rep), Tim Crouch (Writer/Director/Performer), Anne Tipton (Director), Stephen Jeffries (Playwright), David Edgar (Playwright) and Jack Bradley (Literary Manager).

Sketching Interiors: From Traditional to Digital, highlights four basic drawing skills for interior sketching across three different media --- pencil, ink and marker. The in-depth approach to various elements of sketching, including details of perception, texture, negative space, elevation, contour and the treatment of interior and exterior spaces, will help students perfect freehand and drawing skills. Throughout various exercises inspired by field studies, students will learn best practices for creating and presenting work for clients. Additionally, the book introduces the techniques of transforming hand drawings into sophisticated digital drawings using Photoshop, an invaluable resource for both new and seasoned designers.

Duologues are short scenes between two actors. They are used by drama school examining boards, students for their final year showcases, and professional actors' training centres. They provide a concentrated way of practising skills and encourage actors to listen and respond.
This collection of 45 duologues is selected from a range of plays, from Elizabethan to contemporary. Helpful advice is given in the book by contributors such as Tom Stoppard, April De Angelis and Don Taylor.

The range of extraordinary effects that can be achieved in a kiln is infinite. However, the technical requirements of different firing processes and equipment can often seem intimidating, particularly for those new to ceramics, and this can limit artists' confidence to explore and experiment.In" Firing""Kilns," wood-fire potter Benedict Brierley demystifies the firing process, explaining key methods and effects in simple, straightforward language. Beginning with the basic principles, including heatwork, firing schedules and cones, the book goes on to cover the various types of kilns and kiln packing, oxidation and reduction firing, and then special firing methods such as salt, soda, wood, pit, smoke and raku. Finally, it covers common firing faults and how these can be avoided to achieve consistent, successful results."Firing""Kilns" is a comprehensive handbook for anyone new to firing their work or for established ceramicists wishing to experiment with different firing effects.

Presentation Basics helps students hone both of the critical aspects of successful presentation-visual and verbal skills. Writing from the viewpoint that an effective presentation requires much more than adept graphic representation, Fullmer helps students strengthen their verbal skills to sell their ideas. The book also takes an essential look at business etiquette and body language, stressing the impact of these factors on a presentation.

Specifically engaging with contemporary art examples, this is a comprehensive introduction designed to help students studying aesthetics for the first time to master the subject. Guiding readers through major problems, issues and debates in aesthetics, this is a bias-free introduction for students studying the philosophy of art for the first time. Each chapter of the book begins by considering a particular work of art - from contemporary conceptual art, through literature to TV Soap Operas - to help students understand and explore key philosophical discussions and ideas. "Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: An Introduction" covers such topics as: definitions and the ontology of art; interpretation and intention; aesthetic properties and evaluation; emotion and the arts; and, art and morality. In addition to chapter summaries and outlines helping the reader to navigate the major topics covered, this book also includes annotated guides to further reading and 'unresolved questions' sections to help encourage and animate study and discussion beyond the text. With a final chapter, pointing students to more advanced discussions in contemporary aesthetics from aesthetics and nature to 'everyday aesthetics' this is the most complete introduction available for those seeking to master the subject.

This is a sweeping survey of how global filmmakers have treated the subject of the Holocaust. When representing the Holocaust, the slightest hint of narrative embellishment strikes contemporary audiences as somehow a violation against those who suffered under the Nazis. This anxiety is, at least in part, rooted in Theodor Adorno's dictum that 'To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric'. And despite the fact that he later reversed his position, the conservative opposition to all 'artistic' representations of the Holocaust remains powerful, leading to the insistent demand that it be represented, as it really was. And yet, whether it's the girl in the red dress or a German soldier belting out Bach on a piano during the purge of the ghetto in "Schindler's List", or the use of tracking shots in the documentaries "Shoah" and "Night and Fog", all genres invent or otherwise embellish the narrative to locate meaning in an event that we commonly refer to as 'unimaginable'. This wide-ranging book surveys and discusses the ways in which the Holocaust has been represented in cinema, covering a deep cross-section of both national cinemas and genres.

Commercial trade fairs, brand experiences, themed attractions, world expositions, museum galleries, visitor centers, historic houses, landscape interpretation and art installation are all areas that can be categorized under the broad umbrella term of ‘ exhibition’. Millions of people visit exhibitions of one sort or another every year and globally it is a multi-billion dollar industry. Basics Interior Design: Exhibition Design offers a better understanding of the complexity of exhibition design as a discipline, by exploring the role of the exhibition designer as a creative practitioner. It considers the blurring of borders with other design disciplines, but interior, graphic design and marketing in particular.   Supported by case study examples and practical in nature, this book offers a guide on how to approach the design of the narrative.  

"With this book, Philip Skerry makes an ambitious and largely successful effort to restore perspective to the debate that has swirled around "Psycho "since Hitchcock first ripped back the shower curtain of our expectations in 1960 and plunged his knife into the collective cinematic consciousness." - John Baxter, "Film International "

"P""sycho in the Shower "is a multi-dimensional study of "Psycho's "astonishing shower scene. Philip J. Skerry shows how it may be the most significant and influential film scene of all and substantiates this claim by providing chapters on the evolution of the scene in Hitchcock's career, with particular focus on his methods for creating suspense and terror in the audience. In tracing the evolution of the shower scene, the author discusses and analyzes many films (both Hitchcockian and otherwise) that lead up to "Psycho."

The book places the shower scene in the cultural and social contexts of American popular culture of the 1950s and 1960s, arguing that it helped to create a revolution in both sensibility and cinematic style. Several unique dimensions help to set this study apart from other books on "Psycho "and Hitchcock: extensive and detailed interviews with people who worked on the film, including star Janet Leigh and screenwriter Joseph Stefano (the last significant interviews before their deaths); a close study of Hitchcock's employment of "mise en scene "and montage in the scenes leading up to the famous shower murder; a shot by shot analysis of the scene itself and a discussion of the numerous controversies surrounding it; and a provocative and insightful account of the writing of the book itself, which provides a unique look at the author's creative process. The book culminates with examples of how the shower scene has become embedded in the matrix of contemporary culture and the remarkable ways in which the scene affected people on first viewing.

This book explores the varying contexts in which indigenous filmmaking takes place and how they challenge some of the basic assumptions of viewers.Though interest in indigenous feature-length films has expanded greatly in recent years, there is as yet no book-length examination of this subject. "Native Features" will fill this gap.Written for students and the general viewing public, "Native Features" explores the varying contexts in which indigenous filmmaking takes place. The book demonstrates how indigenous films challenge some of the basic assumptions of viewers who experience these films while using national cinemas as their models. Each chapter includes little known information that is likely to increase the understanding and pleasure of all who view these diverse films."Native Features" should function as an essential guide for everyone interested in indigenous peoples or in innovative films.

The Continuum Aesthetics Series looks at the aesthetic questions and issues raised by all major art forms. Stimulating, engaging and accessible, the series offers food for thought not only for students of aesthetics, but also for anyone with an interest in philosophy and the arts. Aesthetics and Music is a fresh and often provocative exploration of the key concepts and arguments in musical aesthetics. It draws on the rich heritage of the subject, while proposing distinctive new ways of thinking about music as an art form. The book looks at: The experience of listening Rhythm and musical movement What modernism has meant for musical aesthetics The relation of music to other 'sound arts' Improvisation and composition as well as more traditional issues in musical aesthetics such as absolute versus programme music and the question of musical formalism. Thinkers discussed range from Pythagoras and Plato to Kant, Nietzsche and Adorno. Areas of music covered include classical, popular and traditional music, and jazz. Aesthetics and Music makes an eloquent case for a humanistic, democratic and genuinely aesthetic conception of music and musical understanding. Anyone interested in what contemporary philosophy has to say about music as an art form will find this thought-provoking and highly enjoyable book required reading.

Anyone who has watched "Twin Peaks" or sat through the dark and grainy world of "Eraserhead" knows that David Lynch's films pull us into a strange world where reality turns upside down and sideways. His films are carnivals that allow us to transcend our ordinary lives and to reverse the meanings we live with in our daily lives. Nowhere is this demonstrated better than in the opening scene of "Blue Velvet" when our worlds are literally turned on their ears. Lynch endlessly vacillates between Hollywood conventions and avant-garde experimentation, placing viewers in the awkward position of not knowing when the image is serious and when it's in jest, when meaning is lucid or when it's lost. In this way, his style places form and content in a perpetually self-consuming dialogue. But what do Lynch's films have to do with religion? Wilson attempts to answer that question in his book. To say that irony (especially of the kind found in Lynch's films) generates religious experience is to suggest religion can be founded on nihilism. Moreover, in claiming Lynch's films are religious, one must assume that extremely violent and lurid sexual films are somehow expressions of energies of peace, tranquility and love. Wilson illuminates not only Lynch's film but also the study of religion and film by showing that the most profound cinematic experiences of religion have very little to do with traditional belief systems. His book offers fresh ways of connecting the cinematic image to the sacred experience.

Film Fables traces the history of modern cinema. Encyclopedic in scope, Film Fables is that rare work that manages to combine extraordinary breadth and analysis with a lyricism which attests time and again to a love of cinema. Jacques Ranciere moves effortlessly from Eisenstein's and Murnau's transition from theatre to film to Fritz Lang's confrontation with television, from the classical poetics of Mann's Westerns to Ray's romantic poetics of the image, from Rossellini's neo-realism to Deleuze's philosophy of the cinema and Marker's documentaries. The Film Fable shows us how, between its images and its stories, the cinema tells its truth.

Walter Benjamin's most famous and influential essay remains "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Walter Benjamin and the Work of Art is the first book to provide a broad and dedicated analysis of this canonical work and its effect upon core contemporary concerns in the visual arts, aesthetics and the history of philosophy. The book is structured around three distinct areas: the extension of Benjamin's work; the question of historical connection; the importance of the essay in the development of criticism of both the visual arts and literature. Contributors to the volume include major Benjain commentators, whose work has very much defined the reception of the essay, and leading philosophers, historians and aesthetician, whose approaches open up new areas of interest and relevance.

The Guerilla Guide to Performance Art is the ultimate guide for artists, at all stages of their careers, who are engaged in creating original performance and multimedia work, including hybrids of theater, visual art, installation, physical theater, dance, CD-ROM and web design. It covers all aspects of artist support including starting up a company, funding, multimedia tools, and documentation and marketing, and incorporates a useful Yellow Pages section with contact information for production, funding, venues, galleries, publications, festivals, printers, equipment hire, technical support, artists organizations, performance archives, copyright offices and software support. The book is lavishly illustrated and includes interviews with major artists and directors of some of the leading artist support groups in the UK and US. There are also illuminating case studies address practical questions and offer indispensable insights into how to succeed in the performance arts.

Bob Dylan has had a profound influence on the shape of modern pop music (folk, rock, blues). As a modern literary figure, he has also attracted enormous attention from both professional and amateur "interpreters." Although articles about Dylan's religious beliefs--born Jewish, Dylan converted to Christianity but then moved quickly away from the Christian faith--there has never been a book devoted to Dylan's use of scripture in his lyrics. Gilmour offers a thorough study of Dylan's reading of scripture in this book. He explores the ways that Dylan transforms biblical images and concepts when he incorporates them into his literary world; it is an attempt to listen to the echoes of scripture in Dylan's published works. Gilmour closely reads Dylan's poems and songs and provides commentaries on several themes found in Dylan's work: the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus; apocalypse, judgment, and justice; oppressive religion and religious irony. Through these readings, Gilmour suggests the various ways in which Dylan uses scripture both in an explicit and an implicit manner.

Visual technology saturates everyday life. Theories of the visual--now key to debates across cultural studies, social theory, art history, literary studies and philosophy--have interpreted this new condition as the beginning of a dystopian future, of cultural decline, social disempowerment and political passivity. Intellectuals--from Baudelaire to Debord, Benjamin, Virilio, Jameson, Baudrillard and Derrida--have explored how technology not only reinvents the visual, but also changes the nature of culture itself. The heartland of all such cultural analysis has been the city, from Baudelaire's flaneur to Benjamin's arcades.The Architecture of the Visible presents a wide-ranging critical reassessment of contemporary approaches to visual culture through an analysis of pivotal technological innovation from the telescope, through photography to film. Drawing on the examples of Paris and New York--two key world cities for over two centuries--Graham MacPhee analyzes how visual technology is revolutionizing the landscape of modern thought, politics and culture.

The artistic and religious traditions of Africa constitute a primary example of the intelletual and cultural vitality of this vast and fascinating continent. Art plays a vital role - especially when oral traditions dominate - in expressing and communicating ideas about the relationships between the human, spiritual and natural worlds. However, despite the ritual and symbolic significance of many artistic works, the interactive and interdependent relationship between art and religion in the African context remains understudied and misunderstood. This book draws on the methodologies of several disciplines to provide a greater understanding of the philosophical and reigious aspects of artistic works and to challenge Western perceptions of what is 'important'. Case studies and examples reflect the geographical, material and gendered diversity of Africa's visual and performing arts and highlight the changes imposed by Christianity, Islam and the newer religious movements in post-colonial Africa. Rosalind I.J. Hackett is Professor of Religious Studies, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

______________________ 'The great rock 'n' roll book' - NME ______________________ THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE CREATIVE GENIUS BEHIND THE BEACH BOYS Brian Wilson was the creative genius behind The Beach Boys. He turned a suburban California garage into a group that took the world by storm with his songs, the sound capturing the laid-back, sunny Southern California lifestyle. But the cheerful image belied what was really going on. Wilson's autobiography describes his 20-year nightmare of drug addiction, alcoholism, obesity and mental illness. He spent three years alone in his room. He lost his family, and he nearly lost his life. It is a frank discussion of what destroyed his life and of the controversial forces which helped to save it.

One of the first books in our new Basics of Sculpture series. This aims to give the beginner a broad basic knowledge of how to sculpt in wood. Step-by-step photos illustrate how to go about it, and machinery is kept to a minimum so that the beginner can make several pieces on a slim budget with just a few tools. The book is filled with projects of increasing difficulty so that the reader can progress in his or her skill level. The projects gradually become more difficult, and in the final project power tools are introduced. This project is also laid out as a hand tools project, so the reader can see the differences and choose which way to do it. The book also covers the basics needed for getting started: sourcing materials, choosing a suitable wood for the project and planning the project. Possible treatments for finishing off the piece at the end are also recommended, such as using abrasives, repairing blemishes, and colouring, staining or decorating the surface. Essentially a complete guide on sculpting in wood for the beginner upwards.