An indispensable resource for students and researchers of paranormal myth and media, this horror anthology explores both popular and obscure pieces about the undead and unholy. Beginning with the author's personal reflections on frightful manifestations in media, essays interrogate the roots and representations of well-known supernatural entities. Divided into three sections, chapters contextualize ghosts, vampires and monsters firmly within American culture. The section dedicated to ghosts features the author's 2004 essay "Spectral Turn" and explores spectrality in the work of Herman Melville and Toni Morrison. In the "Vampires" section, the author considers the undead bloodsucker's relationship to antisemitism, suicide and cinema. Lastly, the third section includes pieces that explore the otherizations of monsters in films like It Follows, 2017's IT and It Comes at Night. Considerations of monstrosity in the age of global pandemics, terrorism and "stranger danger " are also addressed at length.

The annual Beijing Film Academy Yearbook highlights the best academic debates, discussions and research from the previous year, as previously published in the highly prestigious Journal of Beijing Film Academy. This volume brings together specially selected articles, appearing for the first time in English, to bridge the gap in cross-cultural research in cinema and media studies. The book is the latest in the Intellect China Library series to produce work by Chinese scholars that have not previously been available to English language academia. Covering the subjects of film studies, visual arts, performing arts, media and cultural studies, the series aims to foster intellectual debate and to promote closer cross-cultural intellectual exchanges by introducing important works of Chinese scholarship to readers.

This interdisciplinary volume is dedicated to exploring the idea of the cinematic sublime by bringing together the disciplines of film studies and aesthetics to examine cinema and cinematic experience. Explores the idea of ‘the sublime’ in cinema from a variety of perspectives; the essays range in focus from early cinema, through classical Hollywood, documentary, avant-garde and art cinema traditions, and on to contemporary digital cinema. The book aims to apply the discussion of the sublime in philosophy to cinema and to interrogate the ways in which cinema engages with this tradition. Offers new and exciting insights into how cinema engages with traditional historical and aesthetic discourse. Original and wide-ranging, this clear and coherent volume is a useful resource for both post-graduate students and established scholars interested in the interrelations between film and philosophy. The range of material covered in the individual essays makes this a wide-ranging and very useful introduction to the topic. A significant new contribution to the literature on Film-Philosophy. What sets this reader apart from the existing books on the subject is the wider scope. It embraces both philosophers and film scholars to consider films from throughout film history in light of theories of the sublime from throughout the history of Philosophy. In doing so it aims to demonstrate the diverse value of sublime approaches (versus a singular definition and philosophical perspective) to a wider range of films than has previously been considered.  An original and stimulating collection of essays contributing new insights into the crossover between historical and aesthetic approaches to contemporary cinema and cinematic experience. The main readership will be academic markets including film studies and philosophy, and academics with an interest in the legacies of Burke and Kant on aesthetics. Useful for teaching aesthetics through cinematic illustration and application. Appropriate to final year undergraduate and postgraduate students with an interest in ideas at the boundaries of contemporary film studies.

Updates the scholarship of the previous edition and includes seven brand new chapters. Has a companion website containing images, videos, further reading lists and discussion questions Teaches students to build theory from cultural objects Designed for undergraduate teaching by experienced teachers of Japanese popular culture

National Portrait Gallery: The Collection is published to celebrate the reopening of the Gallery after a three-year redevelopment project. Designed by Daniela Rocha, this engaging and inviting book takes the reader on a chronological journey through Britain’s history in portraiture, from the Tudors to Now, featuring the country’s most impactful and famous individuals, from Queen Elizabeth I to Mary Seacole, and Virginia Woolf to David Bowie. The book is richly illustrated with beautiful paintings, photographs, sculptures, drawings and digital works. Readers will enjoy a selection of the most popular and recognisable portraits from the Collection, accompanied by short chapter introductions that introduce key historical periods, their most exciting figures, and their most important historical, political, social and cultural moments. This accessible structure allows the reader to dip into any of the beautiful portraits and their stories, and understand their place in British history. An Introduction by Director Dr. Nicholas Cullinan will highlight why portraiture has been fundamental to people and society historically, but also to contemporary audiences, by exploring themes of culture, identity and the representation of diversity. This will also introduce readers to the nation’s newly-reopened National Portrait Gallery, explaining how it came to be the nation’s home of portraits and the world’s most significant Collection of people.

This volume presents a winning selection of the very best essays from the long and distinguished career of Stanley Wells, one of the most well-known and respected Shakespeare scholars in the world. Wells's accomplishments include editing the entire canon of Shakespeare plays for the ground-breaking Oxford Shakespeare, and over his lifetime he has made significant contributions to debates over literary criticism of the works, genre study, textual theory, Shakespeare's afterlife in the theatre, and contemporary performance. The volume is introduced by Peter Holland, and its thirty chapters are divided into themed sections: 'Shakespearian Influences', 'Essays on Particular Works', 'Shakespeare in the Theatre', and 'Shakespeare's Text'. An afterword by Margreta de Grazia concludes the volume.

Sweden's place in film history is secure and prominent. Swedish films are associated internationally with Ingmar Bergman's successful and high quality works. However, another breed of Swedish film is notorious for its laissez-faire attitude towards nudity, relaxed sexuality, drugs, and shocking violence. Produced in the backyard of the Swedish film industry, these sexually daring films join countless sensational Swedish movies dealing with shocking or taboo subjects--street punks, space aliens, hard drugs, and drunken vikings. Other efforts are simply too strange and Swedish to ignore. Once again, "Swedish Death Metal" author Daniel Ekeroth delves into the arcane culture of his homeland, returning with the first comprehensive overview of "Sensationsfilms"--Swedish Exploitation Cinema.

Martin Scorsese's current position in the international film community is unrivaled, and his name has become synonymous with the highest standards of filmmaking excellence. He is widely considered America's best living film director, and his Taxi Driver and Raging Bull appear frequently on worldwide surveys of the best films of all time. Here, in the first biographical account of this artist's life, Vincent LoBrutto traces Scorsese's Italian-American heritage, his strict Catholic upbringing, the continuing role of religion in his life and art, his obsessive love of cinema history, and the powerful impact the streets of New York City had on his personal life and his professional career. Meanwhile, the filmmaker's humble, soft-spoken public persona tells only part of the story, and LoBrutto will delve into the other side of a complex and often tortured personality. Scorsese's intense passion, his private relationships, his stormy marriages, and his battles with drugs and depression are all chronicled here, and, in many cases, for the first time. In addition, the book includes an interview with the director, as well as filmographies cataloging his work as a director, producer, actor, and presenter. As his Best Director award at the 2007 Oscars clearly demonstrated, Scorsese has become something like Hollywood royalty in recent years, finally enjoying the insider status and favor that eluded him for most of his career. But these recent developments aside, Scorsese is also notable as a distinctly American type of artist, one whose work-created in a medium largely controlled by commercialism and marketing-has always been unmistakably his own, and who thus remains a touchstone of artisticintegrity in American cinema. In Martin Scorsese: A Biography, readers can examine not only the work of one of the form's genuine artists, but also the forces that have propelled the man behind it. BLNo real biography of Scorsese has ever been published: the existing literature comprises critical studies and compilations of interview BLLoBrutto is an experienced writer and teacher, with an encyclopedic knowledge of his subject and proven ability in the biographic genre.

As Andrzej Sapkowski was fleshing out his character Geralt of Rivia for a writing contest, he did not set out to write a science textbook--or even a work of science fiction. However, the world that Sapkowski created in his series The Witcher resulted in a valuable reflection of real-world developments in science and technology. As the Witcher books have been published across decades, the sorcery in the series acts as an extension of the modern science it grows alongside. This book explores the fascinating entanglement of science and magic that lies at the heart of Sapkowski's novel series and its widely popular video game and television adaptations. This is the first English-language book-length treatment of magic and science in the Witcher universe. These are examined through the lenses of politics, religion, history and mythology. Sapkowski's richly detailed universe investigates the sociology of science and ponders some of the most pressing modern technological issues, such as genetic engineering, climate change, weapons of mass destruction, sexism, speciesism and environmentalism. Chapters explore the unsettling realization that the greatest monsters are frequently human, and their heinous acts often involve the unwitting hand of science.

Why has memory become such an important political tool in response to the challenges of modernity? How can performance be used to probe and recuperate aspects of the past, and what are the ethical and political questions that arise when it does so? And how should the discipline of theatre studies define and deploy the term 'memory' theoretically and in practice? Theory for Theatre Studies: Memory provides a comprehensive introduction to the intersections between contemporary theatre and performance, the field of memory studies and the politics of memory across the globe. Beginning by offering a fresh critical snapshot of the major theoretical foundations for the study of memory today, the author presents vivid theatrical examples drawn from a wide variety of cultural contexts and compellingly illustrates the centrality of memory for the theatre as well as the vital role of theatre in transmitting individual and collective memories. Featuring in-depth case studies of a range of performance works - including Lola Arias’s Minefield, Yael Ronen’s Common Ground and Robert Lepage’s The Seven Streams of the River Ota - it explores how theatre artists have grappled with issues of memory and the tensions between memory and history. A final section examines the problematics of memory in a global context by exploring the subject of migration/immigration. Memory is supported by further online resources including section overviews and discussion questions. Online resources to accompany this book are available at: https://www.bloomsbury.com/theory-for-theatre-studies-memory-9781474246651/

Kenyan Cinema provides one of the most striking case studies in the growth and development of film in Eastern Africa. The film industry has grown tremendously at the turn of the 21st century. Notably, there has been a significant increase in the number of domestic film productions, film screenings, film audiences and film festivals in the country. Indeed, Kenya has become one of Africa’s major film markets. Kenyan actors, actresses and films are increasingly entering and featuring in global films and markets, and are connecting with international audiences in commercial cinemas and at major international film festivals. Adding to this impressive success is an upsurge in the number of tertiary institutions training in film and a corresponding surge in the number of students pursuing film studies in and outside the country currently. In the academic circles, interest in Kenyan Cinema as a serious scholarly subject has grown exponentially. The evolution of Kenyan Cinema scholarship is also noteworthy. Therefore, Reimagining Kenyan Cinema seeks to situate current scholarship on Kenyan Cinema within the ongoing debates in national and contemporary global film studies. It thus advocates for diverse methodologies, critical tools and theoretical perspectives in interrogating Kenyan film. This approach is premised on the realization that critical discussions on film should lead out of the films themselves towards matters of aesthetics, culture, history and society. The cumulative effect of this approach is that it allows for the presentation of a simultaneously synchronic and diachronic approach to the study of Kenyan cinema. While individual chapters will provide in-depth analyses of particular films, historical moments in Kenyan and key film texts, the chapters as a whole will cohere into a well-grounded and deeply informative collection of original contributions on the practice of Cinema in Kenya.

With the recent shift in Cuba-US relations stemming from the relaxing of travel restrictions and an influx of American visitors, interest in Cuba and its culture has increased substantially. A new emphasis has been placed on the island country’s many cultural and artistic achievements, specifically in film. Cuban cinema is recognized around the world as having produced some of the most celebrated works originating from Latin America—such as Fresa y Chocolate and La Muerte de un Burócrata—as well as many prominent artists—including directors Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Humberto Solás. In A Cuban Cinema Companion, editors Salvador Jimenez Murguía, Sean O’Reilly, and Amanda McMenamin have assembled a collection of essays about more than 100 films across six decades, including feature films, documentaries, and animation. These entries also provide information on directors, actresses, and actors of Cuban cinema. Entries range from films like Retrato de Teresa to Buena Vista Social Club and include descriptions of each film’s plot, themes, and critical commentary, as well as comprehensive production details and brief suggestions for further reading. Beginning with the victory of the Cuban revolution—from the first ten years of what is often referred to as Cuba’s “Golden Age� of film to the present—this volume offers readers valuable insights into Cuban history, politics, and culture. An indispensable guide to one of the great world cinemas, A Cuban Cinema Companion will be of interest to students, academics, and the general public alike.

The twenty-first century has seen LGBTQ+ rights emerge at the forefront of public discourse and national politics in ways that would once have been hard to imagine. This book offers a unique and layered account of the complex dynamics in the modern moment of social change, drawing together critical, social and cultural theory as well as empirical research, which includes interviews and multi-platform media analyses. This original new study puts forward a much-needed analysis of twenty-first century television and lesbian visibility. Books addressing the representation of lesbians have tended to focus on film; analysis of queer characters on television has usually focused on representations of gay males.  Other recent books have attempted to address lesbian, gay and trans representation together, with the result that none are examined in sufficient detail – here, the exclusive focus on lesbian representation allows a fuller discussion. Until now, much of the research on lesbian and gay representation has tended to employ only textual analysis. The combination of audience research with analysis in this book brings a new angle to the debates, as does the critical review of the tropes of lesbian representation. The earlier stereotypes of pathological monsters and predators are discussed alongside the more recent trends of ‘lesbian chic’ and ‘lesbianism as a phase’. 

The official behind-the-scenes art book for Sony Pictures Animation’s feature film The Mitchells vs. The Machines The Mitchells vs. The Machines is a comedy about an everyday family's struggle to relate while technology rises up around the world! When Katie Mitchell, a creative outsider, is accepted into the film school of her dreams, her plans to meet “her people� at college are upended when her nature-loving dad Rick determines the whole family should drive Katie to school together and bond as a family one last time. Katie and Rick are joined by the rest of the family, including Katie’s wildly positive mom Linda, her quirky little brother Aaron, and the family’s delightfully chubby pug Monchi for the ultimate family road trip. Suddenly, the Mitchells’ plans are interrupted by a tech uprising: All around the world, the electronic devices people love—from phones to appliances to an innovative new line of personal robots—decide it’s time to take over. With the help of two friendly malfunctioning robots, the Mitchells will have to get past their problems and work together to save each other and the world! The Art of The Mitchells vs. The Machines gives insight into how the filmmakers were able to bring this fresh, new vision to the screen through concept art, sketches, and early character designs, accompanied by exclusive commentary from director/co-writer Michael Rianda and co-director/co-writer Jeff Rowe, alumni of the team behind Emmy Award–winning Gravity Falls, and producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the innovative and creative minds behind The Lego Movie and the Academy Award–winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

From rural Japan to international icon - Yayoi Kusama has spent her remarkable life immersed in her art. Follow her incredible journey in this vivid graphic biography which details her bold departure from Japan as a young artist, her embrace of the buzzing New York art scene in the 1960s, and her eventual return home and rise to twenty-first-century super-fame.

Providing a solid media-philosophical groundwork, the book contributes to the theory of alterity in Performance Philosophy, while stimulating and inspiring future inquiries where studies in media, art, and literature intersect with philosophy. It collects a selective as well as productive diversity of philosophical, literary, and artistic figures of thought, attaining an exacting framework as a result of a clearly elaborated ethics of alterity, innovatively opened up by way of an aisthetics of existence: Touching upon the Aristotelian concept of aisthesis, the material, perceptual and sensory dimensions of everyday bodily existence are highlighted to move beyond what aesthetics in Modern Philosophy just specializes in, namely art and the beautiful. The notion of existence is therefore borrowed from Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who understands it as something concrete and richly interrelated, so as to avoid the dualisms both of psychological processes of consciousness and of physiological mechanisms. It is thus made explicit such that the unity of body and soul is not any arbitrarily arranged connection between “subject� and “object� but, rather, that it is enacted at every instant in the movement of existence. Imaginatively then, the book puts into writing how alterity not only can be treated theoretically but can be also made accessible through writing as well as rendered relatable through reading. That is why it deals with exemplary interpersonal encounters in the lifeworld, in the arts, and in the media, which are initially thematized as intercorporeal experiences, so as to enable an approach for an ethics of alterity by way of, in particular, sites located within a phenomenology of perception oriented towards the lived body.

This companion is the first study of caste and its representation in Indian cinema. It unravels the multiple layers of caste that feature directly and indirectly in Indian movies, to examine not only the many ways caste pervades Indian society and culture but also how the struggle against it adopts multiple strategies. The companion: • Critiques Indian cinema production through the lens of anti-caste discourse; • Traces the history of films beginning from the early twentieth century, focusing on caste representations across India, including Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil as well as silent films; • Makes a foray into OTT media; • Includes analysis of popular films such as Padmaavat, Masaan, Fandry, Sairat, Sujata, Article 15, Chomana Dudi, Lagaan, Court, Ee.Ma.Yau, Kaala, Pariyerum Perumal, Perariyathavar, among many others, to critique and problematise the idea of caste. A major intervention, this book alters traditional approaches to ‘caste’ in Indian cinemas and society and explores new political strategies implemented through cinematic creation and aesthetics. It will be indispensable for scholars and researchers of film studies, social discrimination and exclusion studies, human rights, popular culture, and South Asian studies. It will also be of interest to enthusiasts of Indian cinematic history.

Many artists are unaware of the mathematics that bubble beneath their craft, while some consciously use it for inspiration. Our instincts might tell us that these two subjects are incompatible forces with nothing in common, but what if we’re wrong?

Marcus du Sautoy, acclaimed mathematician and Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, looks to art, music, design and literature to uncover the key mathematical structures that underpin both human creativity and the natural world.

Blueprints takes us from the earliest stone circles to the modernist architecture of Le Corbusier, from Bach’s circular compositions to Radiohead’s disruptive soundscapes, and from Shakespeare’s hidden numerical clues to the Dada artists who embraced randomness. Instead of polar opposites we find a complementary relationship that spans a vast historical and geographic landscape.

Whether we are searching for meaning in an abstract painting or deciphering poetry, there are blueprints everywhere: prime numbers, symmetry, fractals and the weirder worlds of Hamiltonian cycles and hyperbolic geometry. Nature similarly exploits these structures to achieve the wonders of our universe.

In this innovative and delightfully bold exploration of creativity, Marcus explains how we make art, why a creative mindset is vital for discovering new mathematics and how a fundamental connection to the natural world intrinsically links these two subjects.

This volume explores receptacles housing objects with divine or supernatural powers attributed to them. It offers pioneering comparative insights regarding the focal ritual structures in sacred places of world religions, including Catholic Sacrament houses and architectural altarpieces, Jewish Torah arks, Islamic mihrabs, Vietnamese household shrines, and Japanese butsudans. The publication elucidates artistic expressions, liturgical practices, and customary behaviors which distinguish abodes of divine or sacred contents. The chapters sound the voices of experts in religious architecture around the world and provide an encyclopedic scope of knowledge on the subject. Whereas each chapter focuses on a certain period, area, or tradition, the entire collection draws a comparative, cross-cultural, and multi- and interdisciplinary image of smaller-scale architectural objects of spiritual devotion.

Twelve essays discuss how the middle ages are reflected in English culture from the sixteenth century to the present day. Eleven essays, by scholars from America, Australia and the United Kingdom, investigate reinventions of the middle ages in English culture from the end of sixteenth century to the present day. Topics addressed include medievalism in English popular literature; Sir Walter Scott's Sir Tristrem; Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Chaucer; George Stephens and Old Northern philology; Anglo-Saxonism and the Franco-Prussian War; Dante and the Victorian historical sense; the Grail paintings of G.F. Watts; heterogeneity and the Kelmscott Chaucer; revivals of the Chester Mystery plays; and the cinematic art of Terry Gilliam. KATHLEEN VERDUIN is Professor of English, Hope College,Michigan. Contributors: JOHN SIMONS, DAVID MATTHEWS, ALAN LUPACK, KAREN HODDER, ANDREW WAWN, MARILYNN LINCOLN BOARD, CLARE SIMMONS, ALISON MILBANK, DIANA ARCHIBALD, DAVID MILLS, RICHARD H. OSBERG

From the critical and commercial fanfare his films generate, it is largely understood that Yorgos Lanthimos is one of the more interesting filmmakers to have emerged out of the new century. A markedly transnational filmmaker, between Dogtooth and The Favourite Lanthimos has managed to traverse the gap between the art-house and mainstream while not once sacrificing his unique style and worldview. His films, while often difficult, showcase his talents as a filmmaker, collaborator, and commentator on the human condition. Accompanied by a trademark acerbic wit, Lanthimos's films take aim at humanity's more contemptible and absurd designs as he explores a thematic preoccupation with, among other things, power, trauma, isolation, sex, and violence. This edited collection covers everything from an early career that was marked by experimentation with a range of different media to international festival hits including Dogtooth, The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and the Academy Award-winning "historical" epic The Favourite, Lanthimos's most successful feature to date. All his work demonstrates a fascinating contravention of aesthetic, thematic, and generic boundaries that forms the basis of some of the analyses to be found here. Featuring a roster of talented scholars, both new and established, The Cinema of Yorgos Lanthimos: Films, Form, Philosophy provides a timely compendium of critical approaches to one of the most distinct voices in contemporary film.

A thrilling behind-the-scenes biography of the Ringling brothers’ chief henchman. Art Concello wasn’t born into the circus. But he was in the right place at the right time, becoming one of the world’s best trapeze artists before transforming himself into a shrewd circus businessman. In the Shadows of the Big Top: The Life of Ringling's Unlikely Circus Savior details Concello’s fateful path from flyer, to manager, to owner. Against the backdrop of the golden age of the American circus, this book goes beyond the showmanship displayed in the ring to reveal how the circus could both thrill a crowd and make incredible money—and exposes the human toll extracted for doing so. Maureen Brunsdale not only tells Art’s incredible life story, but also that of his wife, an orphan-turned-acrobat who was determined to never be left behind in a career every bit as terrifying and electrifying as her husband’s. The first-ever biography of Concello, In the Shadows of the Big Top draws back the curtain on the inner workings of the circus and casts a light on the man who shaped not only Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, but the circus industry as a whole.