In recent years, the 'Popular Shakespeare' phenomenon has become ever more pervasive: in fringe productions, mainstream theatre, or the mass media, Shakespeare is increasingly constructed as an authentic part of popular culture. A vivid account of Shakespeare in performance since the 1990s, this book examines what 'Shakespeare' means to us today.

This book explores representations of race and ethnicity in contemporary cinema and the ways in which these depictions all too often promulgate an important racial ideology: the myth of colorblindness. Colorblindness is a discursive framework employed by mainstream, neoliberal media to celebrate a multicultural society while simultaneously disregarding its systemic and institutionalized racism. This collection is unique in its examination of such films as Ex Machina, The Lone Ranger, The Blind Side, Zootopia, The Fast and the Furious franchise, and Dope, which celebrate the myth of colorblindness, yet perpetuate and entrench the racism and racial inequities that persist in contemporary society. While the #OscarsSoWhite movement has been essential to bringing about structural changes to media industries and offers the opportunity for a wide diversity of voices to alter and transform the dominant, colorblind narratives continue to proliferate. As this book demonstrates, Hollywood still has a long way to go.

This volume features a set of thought-provoking and long overdue approaches to situating Stanley Kubrick's films in contemporary debates around gender, race, and age - with a focus on women's representations Offering new historical and critical perspectives on Kubrick's cinema, the book asks how his work should be viewed bearing in mind issues of gender equality, sexual harassment, and abuse The authors tackle issues such as Kubrick's at times questionable relationships with his actresses and former wives, the dynamics of power, misogyny and miscegenation in his films, and auteur 'apologism', among others The selection discusses these complex issues in Kubrick's work by drawing on archival sources, engaging in close readings of specific films, and exploring Kubrick through unorthodox venture points With an interdisciplinary scope and social justice-centered focus, this book offers new perspectives on a well-established area of study It will appeal to scholars and upper-level students of film studies, media studies, gender studies, and visual culture, as well as to fans of Stanley Kubrick's cinema interested in revisiting his work with a new perspective

- Offers a practical introduction to business practices of the film industry from planning through production and distribution using graphics, charts, and sample financing scenarios, offering readers a detailed understanding of concepts and practices like financing, business models, and different distribution schemes. - Updated and revised throughout to account for the changing media landscape including the new challenges facing the industry due to COVID-19. - Digital eResource offers forms, templates, and additional case studies for students along with test banks, quizzes, and Powerpoint slides for instructor use.

This book is the first comprehensive analysis of the contemporary representation of the author on screen. It does this through two main approaches: by looking at how biographies of well-known authors in Western culture have been adapted onto the film and television screen; and by examining the wider preoccupation with the idea of what the 'author persona' means in broader economic, cultural, industrial, and ideological terms. Drawing from current debates about the uses of the heritage industry and conventions of the Hollywood biopic and celebrity culture, this book re-frames the analysis of the author on screen in contemporary culture and theorises it under its own unique genre: the 'literary biopic'. With case studies including adaptations of the biographies and cultural personas of William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, and Allen Ginsberg-to name a few-this book examines how and why the author continues to be a prominent screen and cultural preoccupation.

This book explores the comedy and legacy of women working as performers on the music-hall stage from 1880-1920, and examines the significance of their previously overlooked contributions to British comic traditions. Focusing on the under-researched female 'serio-comic', the study includes six micro-histories detailing the acts of Ada Lundberg, Bessie Bellwood, Maidie Scott, Vesta Victoria, Marie Lloyd and Nellie Wallace. Uniquely for women in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, these pioneering performers had public voices. The extent to which their comedy challenged Victorian and Edwardian perceptions of women is revealed through explorations of how they connected with popular audiences while also avoiding censorship. Their use of techniques such as comic irony and stereotyping, self-deprecation, and comic innuendo are considered alongside the work of contemporary stand-up comedians and performance artists including Bridget Christie, Bryony Kimmings, Sara Pascoe, Shazia Mirza and Sarah Silverman.

William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" (c.1606) is a timeless tale of love, greed and power, which has given rise to heated debates around such issues as the representation of gender roles, political violence and the dramatisation of evil.
Taking the form of a sourcebook, this guide to Shakespeare's play offers:
- extensive introductory comment on the contexts, critical history and performance of the text, from publication to the present
- annotated extracts from key contextual documents, reviews, critical works and the text itself
- cross-references between documents and sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticism
- suggestions for further reading.
Part of the "Routledge Guides to Literature," this volume is essential reading for all those beginning detailed study of "Macbeth "and seeking not only a guide to the play, but a way through the wealth of contextual and critical material that surrounds Shakespeare's text.

This book reveals the hitherto critically disregarded ludic elements in popular American comedy films, building on and expanding the theories developed by Johan Huizinga in his classic study Homo Ludens (1938) and Roger Caillois in Les jeux et les hommes (1958). To address the lack of attention paid to the play principle in film comedy studies, this book focuses exclusively on the elements typical of play that can be found in movies. It introduces two new categories describing play: oneiros and pragma, which allow analysis of how play in comedies is influenced by the relations between the player and non-players. The text is supplemented by the use of the author's drawings, which, because of their analytical and selective nature, are used as a tool for visual study. The play principle has a long tradition in American humor and the films examined here were chosen for their popularity and wide appeal, often acting as vehicles for Hollywood stars (e.g. Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Goldie Hawn, Mike Myers, Jackie Chan or Chris Tucker). The actors' status allowed the filmmakers to construct situations in which the protagonists distanced themselves from the fictional situation. It is argued that the playful detachment from reality, typifying many of the fictional characters portrayed by actors with star status, is characteristic of the play principle in film. Another major consideration is the hotly debated notion of the accomplishment of goals in playful activities, and the book strongly supports the position that in narratives, play can (but does not have to) yield important results. The introduction of the categories of oneiros and pragma in play serves to highlight the complex relation between playfulness and practicality in the films discussed. Building on a comprehensive analysis of the ludic elements in selected popular American comedies, the book makes an important contribution to film studies, providing a unique perspective through its focus on the concept of homo ludens as a comic hero.

This book proposes that creative and participatory modes of measuring, knowing, and moving in the world are needed for coming to grips with the Anthropocene epoch. It interrogates how creative, affective and experiential encounters that traverse the local and the global, as well as the mundane and the everyday, can offer new perspectives on the challenges that lay ahead. This book considers the role of the arts in exploring geographical concerns and increasing human mobility. In doing so, it offers ways to counteract the unstable, shifting and disorienting impacts and debates surrounding human activity and the Anthropocene. The authors bring together perspectives from mobilities, creative arts, cultural geography, philosophy and humanities in an innovative exploration of how creative forms of measurement can assist in reconfiguring individual and collective action.

This book engages with Margaret Atwood's work and its adaptations. Atwood has long been appreciated for her ardent defence of Canadian authors and her genre-bending fiction, essays, and poetry. However, a lesser-studied aspect of her work is Atwood's role both as adaptor and as source for adaptation in media as varied as opera, television, film, or comic books. Recent critically acclaimed television adaptations of the novels The Handmaid's Tale (Hulu) and Alias Grace (Amazon) have rightfully focused attention on these works, but Atwood's fiction has long been a source of inspiration for artists of various media, a seeming corollary to Atwood's own tendency to explore the possibilities of previously undervalued media (graphic novels), genres (science-fiction), and narratives (testimonial and historical modes). This collection hopes to expand on other studies of Atwood's work or on their adaptations to focus on the interplay between the two, providing an interdisciplinary approach that highlights the protean nature of the author and of adaptation.

- The book uses globally recognized films as a basis for analysis. - Studies on digital culture and digital spaces are becoming increasingly relevant in today's world (particularly in light of the pandemic), so demand for books exploring this subject is growing for both research and teaching markets. - Includes examples from a diverse range of film genres: science fiction, horror, comedy, European art films.

This book follows a physically disabled researcher's journey from stigmatized embodiment on her way to creating accessible storytelling performances. These unique performances function not only as traditional, peer-reviewed forms of critical qualitative research, but also as 'narrative teaching productions' that guide students and their audiences in the pursuit of social justice and equality. The book begins by developing the author's personal standpoint, and provides an evocative discussion of the multiple perceptions and identities experienced by those with disabled bodies. It negotiates how performance research can be created and conducted within the confines of course learning objectives, moves through complications encountered in research design and data collection, and explores a range of insightful responses from community members, social activists, and performance critics, as well as more traditional academic audiences. Critical autoethnographic personal narratives, performance scripts, and poetry are used to illuminate struggles over legitimate methodological practice and storytelling performance pedagogy. Each chapter confronts the fear of mortality that presses us to stigmatize those who remind us of our inescapably vulnerable embodiments and offers hope for an inclusive, adaptable culture. The book will be compelling reading for scholars in Performance Studies, Disability Studies, Cultural Studies, Narrative Methodology, Ethnography, Higher Education, Autoethnography, Creative Nonfiction and everyone interested embodiment and/or storytelling for social change. Please visit www.uncwstorytelling.org/chapter-summaries-1 to access supplementary material for the book.

Aristophanes was clearly anxious about the role of the sophists and the "new" education in Athens. After the perceived failure of Clouds in 423 and its subsequent, unperformed revision, Aristophanes, this book argues, returned in 414 with Birds, a continuation and deepening of his critique found in Clouds. Peisetaerus or "persuader of his comrades," the protagonist of Birds, though an old man, is clearly a student of Socrates' phrontisterion. Unlike Socrates, however, he is political and ambitious and he understands the whole of human nature, both rational and irrational. Peisetaerus employs the various deconstructive techniques of Socrates and his allies (which is summed up on the comic sage in the image of "father-beating") to overturn not just human society, but, with the help of his new allies, the divine and musical birds, the cosmos. After his new gods and bird city, Cloudcuckooland, are actually established, however, the hero re-introduces the "old" ways - justice, moderation, and obedience to law - but now under his personal authority, and thereby becomes "the highest of the gods." Thus, the author postulates, in 414 Aristophanes has come to acknowledge the potency of the apparent civic-minded turn (or element) of the sophists, while aware of the self-aggrandizing nature of their ambition. Peisetaerus, unlike Socrates, is successful: he is establishing a just polis and cosmos and, therefore, must be victorious. But the consequence or cost of this success is illustrated through the Bird Chorus. After the polis is founded, the birds never again sing of their musical reciprocity with the Muses, the source of melodies for men. The birds are now political and the policemen of human beings. The sophist-run cosmos has lost its music. The new Zeus is an ugly bird-mutant. The gods and all nomoi have lost their beauty, honor, and reverential nature. Birds, in its finale, hilariously, but boldly illuminates the inherent tension between philosophy (reason) and poetry (divinely-inspired tradition).

The first of its kind, this book focuses on the value of inclusivity in the tap dance studio, instructing on how to bring the rhythmic world of tap dance into the lives of individuals living with disabilities or mobility issues. No longer should those with mobility challenges be denied the opportunity to enjoy the unique delight, challenge and excitement of tap dancing. Based on the author's inclusive program called Tap for All, this book is part inspirational memoir and part instructional manual, detailing how tap dance's enormous cognitive benefits can benefit those living with Alzheimer's, dementia, cerebral palsy, arthritis, traumatic brain injuries and more. The author outlines her experience opening the hearts and minds of other dance instructors and studio owners, showing that shifting their perspective about dance is beneficial to both client and studio. Chapters also instruct on the physiological effects of music and dance, guide the development of dance routines, and outline the author's tap programs for various student skill levels and experiences. Practicing ability inclusion can ensure that everyone, not just those fortunate enough to have a fully functioning physique, can learn and enjoy tap dance.

This book broadens the scope of inquiry of neo-Victorian studies by focusing primarily on screen adaptations and appropriations of Victorian literature and culture. More specifically, this monograph spotlights the overlapping yet often conflicting drives at work in representations of Victorian heroines in contemporary film and TV. Primorac's close analyses of screen representations of Victorian women pay special attention to the use of costume and clothes, revealing the tensions between diverse theoretical interventions and generic (often market-oriented) demands. The author elucidates the push and pull between postcolonial critique and nostalgic, often Orientalist spectacle; between feminist textual interventions and postfeminist media images. Furthermore, this book examines neo-Victorianism's relationship with postfeminist media culture and offers an analysis of the politics behind onscreen treatment of Victorian gender roles, family structures, sexuality, and colonial space.

The legal terminology is portrayed in a simple and accessible way, making it ideal for beginner filmmakers with zero law knowledge Organized chronologically according to the life cycle of a film, but written in a way that allows the filmmaker to jump in and find a specific answer without having to read the book cover to cover first. A section featuring frequently asked questions help you zero in on particularly pressing issues, while appendices at the end form a portable law library to provide you with separate handy guides to intellectual property, contract, labor and employment law

This book provides new insights into the relationship of the field of arts and cultural management and cultural rights on a global scale. Globalisation and internationalisation have facilitated new forms for exchange between individuals, professions, groups, localities and nations in arts and cultural management. Such exchanges take place through the devising, programming, exhibition, staging, marketing, and administration of project activities. They also take place through teaching and learning within higher education and cultural institutions, which are now internationalised practices themselves. With a focus on the fine, visual and performing arts, the book positions arts and cultural management educators and practitioners as active agents whose decisions, actions and interactions represent how we, as a society, approach, relate to, and understand ourselves and others. This consideration of education and practice as socialisation processes with global, political and social implications will be an invaluable resource to academics, practitioners and students engaging in arts and cultural management, cultural policy, cultural sociology, global and postcolonial studies.

This book presents distinct perspectives from both geographically-oriented creative practices and geographers working with arts-based processes. In doing so, it fills a significant gap in the already sizeable body of non-representational discourse by bringing together images and reflections on performances, art practice, theatre, dance, and sound production alongside theoretical contributions and examples of creative writing. It considers how contemporary art making is being shaped by spatial enquiry and how geographical research has been influenced by artistic practice. It provides a clear and concise overview of the principles of non-representational theory for researchers and practitioners in the creative arts and, across its four sections, demonstrates the potential for non-representational theory to bring cultural geography and contemporary art closer than ever before.

Youth Fiction and Trans Representation is the first book that wholly addresses the growth of trans and gender variant representation in literature, television, and films for children and young adults in the twenty-first century. Ranging across an array of media-including picture books, novels, graphic novels, animated cartoons, and live-action television and feature films-Youth Fiction and Trans Representation examines how youth texts are addressing and contributing to ongoing shifts in understandings of gender in the new millennium. While perhaps once considered inappropriate for youth, and continuing to face backlash, trans and gender variant representation in texts for young people has become more common, which signals changes in understandings of childhood and adolescence, as well as gender expression and identity. Youth Fiction and Trans Representation provides a broad outline of developments in trans and gender variant depictions for young people in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and closely analyzes a series of millennial literary and screen texts to consider how they communicate a range of, often competing, ideas about gender, identity, expression, and embodiment to implied child and adolescent audiences.

* Features over thirty contributors from a diverse range of backgrounds within the field of composing for film and TV from across the world. * Illustrates how students and aspiring professionals can break into the industry and apply the technical skills they have. * Provides accessible and relatable perspectives on topics such as how to break into the field; how to develop, nurture, and navigate business relationships; and how to do creative work under pressure.

This book demonstrates, in contrast to statistics that show declining consumption of physical formats, that there has not been a mass shift towards purely digital media. Physical releases such as special editions, DVD box-sets and Blu-Rays are frequently promoted and sought out by consumers. And that past formats such as VHS, Laserdisc and HD-DVD make for sought-after collectible items. These trends are also found within particular genres and niche categories, such as documentary, education and independent film distribution. Through its case studies, this collection makes a distinctive and significant intervention in highlighting the ways in which the film industry has responded to rapidly changing markets. This volume, global in scope, will prove useful to those studying the distribution and exhibition of films, and the economics of the film industry around the world.

Expert advice from several industrial professionals who have worked for some of the world's biggest tech and interactive companies. Best practices that not only prepare writers on how to apply their craft to new fields, but also prepare them for the common ambiguity they will find in corporate and start-up environments. Breakdown of platforms that shows how tech capabilities can fulfill content expectations and how content can fulfill tech expectations. Basic storytelling mechanics customized to today's popular technologies and traditional gaming platforms.

This book undertakes a concentrated study of the impact of degraded and low-quality imagery in contemporary cinema and real-world portrayals of violence. Through a series of case studies, the book explores examples of corrupted digital imagery that range from mainstream cinema portrayals of drone warfare and infantry killing, through to real-world recordings of terrorist attacks and executions, as well as perpetrator-created murder videos live-streamed on the internet. Despite post-modernist concerns of cultural inurement during the seminal period of digitalized and virtualized killing in the 1990s, real-world reactions to violent media indicate that our culture is anything but desensitized to these media depictions. Against such a background, this book is a concentrated study of how these images are created and circulated in the contemporary media landscape and how the effect and affect of violent material is impacted by the low-resolution aesthetic.

The avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century inhabited the media discourses of their time like parasites, constantly irritating and taking from them. Dadaists ripped images of a mechanically reproduced world out of newspapers and magazines and reassembled them in their collages. Futurists instrumentalized the brevity of telegraph messages for their free word poetics. Artists such as F.T. Marinetti, Raoul Hausmann, and Luigi Russolo constantly abused existing media technologies and hijacked public communication. Niebisch traces how the early avant-garde movements started out as parasites inhabiting and irritating the emerging mass media circuits of the press, cinema, and wired and wireless communication and how they aimed at creating a media ecology based on and inspired by technologies such as the radio and the photo cell.