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.

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

Drawing on rich interdisciplinary research that has laced the emerging subject of drag studies as an academic discipline, this book examines how drag performance is a political, socio-cultural practice with a widespread lineage throughout the history of performance. This volume maps the multi-threaded contexts of contemporary practices while rooting them in their fabulous historical past and memory. The book examines drag histories and what drag does with history, how it enacts or tells stories about remembering and the past. Featuring work about the USA, UK and Ireland, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Barbados, this book allows the reader to engage with a range of archival research including camp and history; ethnicity and drag; queering ballet through drag; the connections between drag king and queen history; queering pantomime performance; drag and military veterans; Puerto Rican drag performers and historical film.

Now, here, is the paperback edition to celebrate the year of the everyday heroes, who changed our way of seeing the world of work and heroism - a picture book without words, timeless, universal, and finally, both heart-breaking and ennobling. Frontline Heroes is the book to give to anyone who has known and appreciated these heroes, or who wants to recall the best part of ourselves, in the worst of times. With an Introduction by comic legend Geof Isherwood (Marvel illustrator of Dr Strange, Thor and other classic titles). Featuring frontline workers battling and defeating the Coronavirus - in hospitals, in shops, and on our streets. With over 40 full-colour illustrations, and black and white sketches.

This is the first collection of translations of Chinese film theory to be published in English. By using translations rather than summaries, as other works have done, "Chinese Film Theory" provides readers with an introduction to the issues current in China's film circles. It includes eighteen chapters written by a broad range of writers--from well established scholars to young people at the beginning of their involvement in film in China. This collection indicates a trend away from the study of external qualities of film and toward a study of the film itself.

The volume has been carefully organized so that major issues are interrelated; thus, the book comprises an ongoing debate of film theory issues, progressing from earlier to most recent issues, following the debate concerning the relationship of film to literary arts, and looking at the debate over the relationship of film to culture. The book concludes that for the time being, debate has virtually ended because of the political situation in China. This book is an important new source to anyone interested in film studies, film theory, or Chinese studies.

Drawing on cinema and media studies, art history, American studies, and postcolonial studies, this innovative book offers a fresh way of thinking about Hollywood film aesthetics. It explores how eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Western colonial formations of vision influenced classical Hollywood film style, and thus provides a new and unique perspective on the origins of the cinematic gaze. Classical Hollywood cinema constructs global spaces as an imaginative dreamworld, subsuming geographical and cultural differences into utopian fantasy. Yet, this characteristically Hollywoodian aesthetic has rarely been explored in detail. How are such representations constructed within film texts? Is this utopian aesthetic really as uniform and transparent as it appears? What is its relationship to the United States’ status as an imperial power? In The American Abroad, Anna Cooper explores how postwar Hollywood cinema adopted elements of British and French imperial visual culture, transforming them to suit a new United Statesian context. Cooper argues that four visual discourses in particular—the sublime, the ethnographic, the picturesque, and glamour—became building blocks in the development of a new American visual language.

The allure of the horror film is varied. Some prefer the voyeurism of watching others suffer. Some enjoy the cinematic depiction of gore. Still, others are tempted by the psychological torment of watching others in danger. The Spark of Fear: Technology, Society, and the Horror Film explores all of these elements through one unifying element: the rise of technology in the modern world. The horror genre is continually embroiled in reinvention; this is apparent in how the horror film explores technology as a manner for exposing everyday fears. This book details the ways by which the horror film exploits our continued reliance on technology, presenting a society that is in a continuous state of reinvention. As new technologies present previously unrealized methods, through which our daily anxieties and phobias are re-examined, our perception of horror in the modern world has been under a continued state of reassessment. This text seeks to determine precisely why our technologies are a source of fear. Focusing on the major technologies that have evolved the American Dream, from the advent of electricity to the modern cellular telephone, The Spark of Fear is an examination of technology as a perceived antidote of having to become a victim to the horrific realization of everyday life. In technology, humanity has sought to conquer fears of the unknown that previous modes of horror established as the essence of human fears. But, as the safety found in society has eroded amid the isolationist tendencies that modern technologies afford, the horror film has become the central location in which the new concept of horror has been established, one that exploits our reliance on technology and connection as the very source of our modern notion of horror.

Despite the fact that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ended over twenty-five years ago, there has yet to be a stand-alone assessment of the series. This collection corrects that omission, examining what made Deep Space Nine so unique within the Star Trek universe, and how that uniqueness paved the way for an altogether new, entirely different vision for Star Trek. If the Star Trek slogan has always been "to boldly go where no one has gone before," then Deep Space Nine helped to bring in a new renaissance of serialized television that has become normal practice. Furthermore, Deep Space Nine ushered in critical discussions on race, gender, and faith for the franchise, science fiction television and American lives. It relished in a vast cast of supporting characters that allowed for the investigation of psychosocial relationships—from familial issues to interpersonal and interspecies conflict to regional strife—that the previous Star Trek series largely overlooked. Essays explore how Deep Space Nine became the most richly complicated "sci-fi" series in the entire Star Trek pantheon.

This unique collection broadens the focus of public administration to include practical and theoretical insights from the worlds of literature and the arts. By making connections between what are normally seen as disparate arenas, the contributors seek to enrich the theory and practice of public administration. The volume connects administrative and management concepts to both Western and Eastern aesthetic theories; provides insights into administration by surveying literature and film for negative and positive constructs of bureaucracy; examines historical and fictional portrayals of leadership; and points to the influence of literature and film on public policy innovation. This work will be of interest to both scholars and practitioners in public administration.

"Walking between these figures feels like an interruption; being a spectator is itself a performance. They seem to know more than we do, about the status of being an artwork and the place of the viewer. The joke, if there is one, is on us." - The Guardian Munoz's revolutionary oeuvre creates emotional and evocative narratives through sculpture, installation, drawing, writing, and sound. Situating viewers between his work and amongst each other, he creates an intimacy between works of art and viewers. Munoz thought deeply about art history and in particular the tradition of Spanish painting. Before his untimely death at the age of forty-eight, he produced an extensive, powerfully evocative body of work that uniquely explores the narrative and philosophical possibilities of art. Published on the occasion of the two-floor exhibition at David Zwirner in New York in 2022, this catalogue provides an expansive overview of Munoz's career from the 1980s onwards. In an accompanying text, art historian and curator Guillaume Kientz contextualizes Munoz's influences within the art-historical canon. Acclaimed writer Siri Hustvedt writes a thoughtful response to the artist's iconic Conversation Piece. In an imagined interview between Munoz and himself, Maurizio Cattelan further propels the artist's artistic momentum and potential in the time before his death. Also featured is a never-before-published interview between Munoz and the art historian Michael Brenson that took place in 2000, less than one year prior to his untimely death.

This is a devilishly delightful collection of 1,814 questions and answers about the best and worst horror films ever made, from the silent movies of the 1920s to the scream queens of the 1990s.

In this pioneering volume, Howell addresses the extent to which fictional characters are legally recognized and protected as intellectual property. Through a judicious selection of cases chosen for their bearing on the popular arts, the author reviews the basic legal principles involved--copyright, trademark, unfair competition, and contract law--and analyzes their applications to fictional characters. In addition to tracing the evolution of the law relating to the protection of fictional characters, Howell explores the feasibility of isolating characters and protecting them via stringent copyright and/or trademark laws, addresses character merchandising and the associated legal issues, and suggests legal reforms aimed at protecting the creator. Detailed case information serves both to illustrate the legal principles and actions discussed and to stand as a model for the proprietors of future characters.

Divided into two major sections, the volume begins by offering a comprehensive introduction to intellectual property law. Specific topics addressed include basic concepts of property, statutory protection of intellectual property, elements of an infringement action, defenses to copyright infringement, unfair competition, and the application of trademark principles to literary properties. In the second section, Howell analyzes the extent to which the fictional character is legally regarded as intellectual property. She reviews situations in which copyright and trademark law have been invoked to protect the creator of a fictional character, examines cases involving such well-known characters as the Lone Ranger, Superman, and the crew of the Starship Enterprise, and presents an extended analysis of the case of Tarzan. Finally, Howell considers whether right of publicity and merchandising offer additional protection for fictional characters. In the concluding chapter, she offers an analysis of copyright decisions and a proposal for their reconciliation. Both practicing attorneys and students of entertainment law will find Howell's work an important contribution to the professional literature.

Glamorous young wife Alma Rattenbury takes her chauffeur as a lover and their scandalous relationship leads to a murder most foul. The 1935 murder of architect Francis Mawson Rattenbury, famous for his design of the iconic Parliament Buildings and Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia, and the arrest and lurid trial of his 30-years-younger second wife, Alma, and the family chauffeur, George Percy Stoner, her lover, riveted people. Francis and Alma had moved to Bournemouth, England, after the City of Victoria had ostracized them for their scandalous, flagrant affair while Francis was married to his first wife. Their life in Bournemouth was tangled. Francis became an impotent lush. Deprived of sexual gratification, Alma seduced George, previously a virgin who was half her age. They conducted their affair in her upstairs bedroom with her and Francis’s six-year-old son in a nearby bed, “sleeping,� she said, and the near-deaf Francis in his armchair downstairs in a drunken stupor. The lovers were tried together for Francis’s murder at the Old Bailey Criminal Court in London, resulting in intense public interest and massive, frenzied media coverage. The trial became one of the 20th century’s most sensational cases, sparking widespread debate over sexual mores and social strata distinctions.

"Vince uses written and artifactual evidence of theatre history to explain the nature of its current state. His study of theatre's early forms discloses a wealth of significant facts, and some conjectures, that stimulate understanding and appreciation of the art." Backstage