This collection addresses the significant cultural phenomenon of the 'zombie renaissance' - the growing importance of zombie texts and zombie cultural practices in popular culture. The chapters examine zombie culture across a range of media and practices including films games, music, social media, literature and fandom.

The interactions between popular culture and public policy in general, and foreign policy in particular, have always been an important area of scholarly enquiry and popular interest. However with the end of the bipolar world system and the emergence of a single world superpower in the form of the United States of America, which is waging a War Against Terror, this nexus has become critical. This is especially true because of the almost Manichean tendency of the United States to see other countries in terms of "good" or "evil." Indeed President Bush himself has coined the term "The Axis of Evil" for states, which in a kinder age were simply referred to by his predecessors as being "Rogue States."

This book draws together elements from several academic disciplines - politics, international relations, psychology, film and cultural studies and examines US foreign policy toward the so-called "rogue states" and the products of the Hollywood film industry in relation to these states, which promises to make a significant contribution to our understanding of the 'soft power' that is popular culture.

In the course of the twentieth century glamour was associated primarily with cinema, although the theatre, fashion, high society, popular music, glossy magazines and department stores have all sought to harness its allure. It is usually associated with 'magic' and suggests a capacity to dazzle and seduce. Yet glamour's origins and meanings have never until now been thoroughly examined. For many, it is simply the aura of excitement and mystery that has surrounded the famous and the desirable from time immemorial. By contrast, this innovative book traces the origins of glamour to the nineteenth century and identifies it as a core feature of consumer culture. The authors examine the way that a language of visual seduction has been associated with a variety of social milieux and used to arouse envy and interest, mainly in commercial settings. They also illustrate eight distinct permutations of glamour, each of which has a complex history and is in continual evolution.

This book provides the first comprehensive study of narco cinema, a cross-border exploitation cinema that, for over forty years, has been instrumental in shaping narco-culture in Mexico and the US borderlands. Identifying classics in its mammoth catalogue and analyzing select films at length, Rashotte outlines the genre's history and aesthetic criteria. He approaches its history as an alternative to mainstream representation of the drug war and considers how its vernacular aesthetic speaks to the anxieties and desires of Latina/o audiences by celebrating regional cultures while exploring the dynamics of global transition. Despite recent federal prohibitions, narco cinema endures as a popular folk art because it reflects distinctively the experiences of those uprooted by the forces of globalization and critiques those forces in ways mainstream cinema has failed.

Chronicling Shirley Temple Black's various careers, this work spans the years from her childhood at the studio and at home through her waning success during adolescence, to her diplomatic and political pursuits. An anomaly among child stars, Shirley Temple Black's successful adaptation to life outside the traditional Hollywood social life is explored against the backdrop of the child-star phenomenon in American entertainment. Facts about her childhood, her parental influences, and her political beliefs present Shirley Temple Black as a unique individual rather than as a child star icon. Scholars researching American popular culture will find information on child stars in general through this exploration of Shirley Temple Black's significance within that role. Current attitudes toward racial stereotyping in early films are examined. Research sources for radio broadcasts during the late 1930s and early 1940s are also valuable. The changing American political climate can be viewed through the filter of the economic depression, during which the public embraced Shirley Temple's sense of hope and optimism, and through her, revealed political activism.

Best known for the "dead-ant" theme to the Pink Panther films, Henry Mancini also composed the music to Peter Gunn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Orson Welles' Touch of Evil, and the Academy Award winning soundtracks to Victor/Victoria and The Days of Wine and Roses. In a career that lasted over thirty years, Mancini amassed twenty Grammy awards and more nominations than any other composer. In his memoir, written with jazz expert Lees, Mancini discusses his close friendships with Blake Edwards, Julie Andrews, and Paul Newman, his professional collaborations with Johnny Mercer, Luciano Pavarotti, and James Galway, and his achievements as a husband, father, and grandfather. A great memoir loaded with equal parts Hollywood glitz and Italian gusto.

Style and Form in the Hollywood Slasher Film fills a broad scholastic gap by analysing the elements of narrative and stylistic construction of films in the slasher subgenre of horror that have been produced and/or distributed in the Hollywood studio system from its initial boom in the late 1970s to the present.

Steampunk Film: A Critical Introduction is a concise and accessible overview of steampunk's indelible impact within film, and acts as a case study for examining the ways with which genres hybridize and coalesce into new forms. Since the beginning of the 21st century, a series of high-profile and big-budget films have adopted steampunk identities to re-imagine periods of industrial development into fantastical histories where future meets past. By calling this growing mass-cultural fetishism for anachronistic machines into question, this book examines how a retro-futuristic romanticism for technology powered by cogs, pistons and steam-engines has taken center stage in blockbuster cinema. As the first monograph to consider cinema's unique relationship with steampunk, it places this burgeoning genre in the context of ongoing debates within film theory: each of which reflecting the movement's remarkable interest in reengineering historical technologies. Rather than acting as a niche subculture, Robbie McAllister argues that steampunk's proliferation in mainstream filmmaking reflects a desire to reassess contemporary relationships with technology and navigate the intense changes that the medium itself is experiencing in the 21st century.

From the 1950s to the 1980s the Children's Film Foundation made films for Saturday morning cinema clubs across the UK - entertaining and educating generations of British children. This first history of this much-loved organisation provides an overview of the CFF's films, interviews with key backstage personnel, and memories of audience members.

Although the exploration of space has long preoccupied authors and filmmakers, the development of an actual space program, discoveries about the true nature of space, and critical reconsiderations of America's frontier experiences have challenged and complicated conventional portrayals of humans in space. This volume reexamines the themes of space and the frontier in science fiction in light of recent scientific and literary developments. From this new perspective, we discern previously unnoticed commentaries from older authors, while newer writers either remain within a reassuring but obsolete tradition, venture into unexplored new realities, or abandon space to focus on other frontiers.

The intriguing contributions to this volume include a previously unpublished interview with Arthur C. Clarke, the world's greatest living author of science fiction; examinations of space opera by veteran author Jack Williamson and scholar David Pringle; surveys of space in science fiction film, and writer and producer Michael Cassutt's account of his efforts to launch a film based on a Clifford D. Simak novel; and speculations about future developments from noted writers Gregory Benford, Jack Dann, James Gunn, and Howard V. Hendrix.

Representing Wars from 1860 to the Present examines representations of war in literature, film, photography, memorials, and the popular press. The volume breaks new ground in cutting across disciplinary boundaries and offering case studies on a wide variety of fields of vision and action, and types of conflict: from civil wars in the USA, Spain, Russia and the Congo to recent western interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the case of World War Two, Representing Wars emphasises idiosyncratic and non-western perspectives - specifically those of Japanese writers Hayashi and Ooka. A central concern of the thirteen contributors has been to investigate the ethical and ideological implications of specific representational choices. Contributors are: Claire Bowen, Catherine Ann Collins, Marie-France Courriol, Eliane Elmaleh, Teresa Gibert, William Gleeson, Catherine Hoffmann, Sandrine Lascaux, Christopher Lloyd, Monica Michlin, Guillaume Muller, Misako Nemoto, Clement Sigalas.

The bio-bibliography of one of America's most beloved actors, James Stewart spans six decades of his career. The detailed biography chronicles Stewart's youth in Indiana, Pennsylvania, records his college years at Princeton, his early years in Hollywood and World War II, his stardom in the Capra and Hitchcock films, and finally his current special appearances and television commercials. The volume is a compilation of Stewart's acting career and contains a complete bibliography. Included are listings of his credits for stage, screen, radio, and television, as well as his own writings. The book will be valuable for all fans of Stewart, film researchers, and others interested in obtaining a complete record of Jimmy Stewart's impressive and widely-praised career.

This is the first book-length consideration of music in British films to appear in sixty years. During the 1930s, British-made musicals were the most popular films seen by British audiences while British film music produced some outstanding pieces that became concert hall classics. This book addresses music in British films, both as musical scores (in the first half of the book) and as British film musicals (the second half). Each section will start with a detailed chronological review history.

The national cinemas of Czechoslovakia and East Germany were two of the most vital sites of filmmaking in the Eastern Bloc, and over the course of two decades, they contributed to and were shaped by such significant developments as Sovietization, de-Stalinization, and the conservative retrenchment of the late 1950s. This volume comprehensively explores the postwar film cultures of both nations, using a "stereoscopic" approach that traces their similarities and divergences to form a richly contextualized portrait. Ranging from features to children's cinema to film festivals, the studies gathered here provide new insights into the ideological, political, and economic dimensions of Cold War cultural production.

In "Making Settler Cinemas," Peter Limbrick argues that the United States, Australia, and New Zealand share histories of colonial encounters that have shaped their cinemas in distinctive ways. Going beyond readings of narrative and representation, this book studies the production, distribution, reception, and reexhibition of cinema across three settler societies under the sway of two empires. Investigating films both canonical and overlooked, "Making Settler Cinemas "not only shows how cinema has mattered to settler societies but affirms that practices of film history can themselves be instrumental in encountering and reshaping colonial pasts.""