Examining representations of mental difference, this collection focuses on the ways that adaptations (including remakes, reboots, and other examples of remixed narratives) can shape and shift the social contexts and narratives we use to define mental disability. The movement of narratives across media in adaptation, or within media but across time and space in the case of remakes and reboots, is a common tactic for revitalization, allowing storytellers to breathe new life into tired narratives, remedying past inaccuracies and making them accessible and relevant for contemporary audiences. Thus, this collection argues that adaptation provides a useful tool for examining the constraints or opportunities different media impose on or afford narratives, or for measuring shifts in ideology as narratives move across cultures or through time. Further, narrative functions within this collection as a framework for examining the ways that popular media exerts rhetorical power, allowing for deeper understandings of the ways that mental disability is experienced by differently situated individuals, and revealing relationships with broader social narratives that attempt to push definitions of disability onto them.

In this book, film scholars, anthropologists, and critics discuss star-making in the contemporary Hindi-language film industry in India, also known as "Bollywood." Drawing on theories of stardom, globalization, transnationalism, gender, and new media studies, the chapters explore contemporary Hindi film celebrity. With the rise of social media and India's increased engagement in the global economy, Hindi film stars are forging their identities not just through their on-screen images and magazine and advertising appearances, but also through an array of media platforms, product endorsements, setting fashion trends, and involvement in social causes. Focusing on some of the best-known Indian stars since the late 1990s, the book discusses the multiplying avenues for forging a star identity, the strategies industry outsiders adopt to become stars, and the contradictions and conflicts that such star-making produces. It addresses questions such as: What traits of contemporary stars have contributed most to longevity and success in the industry? How has filmmaking technology and practice altered the nature of stardom? How has the manufacture of celebrity altered with the recent appearance of commodity culture in India and the rise of a hyper-connected global economy? By doing so, it describes a distinct moment in India and in the world in which stars and stardom are drawn more closely than ever into the vital events of global culture. Hindi films and their stars are part of the national and global entertainment circuits that are bigger and more competitive than ever. As such, this is a timely book creates opportunities for examining stardom in other industries and provides fruitful cross-cultural perspectives on star identities today. "Grounded in rigorous scholarship as well as a palpable love of Hindi cinema, this collection of 19 essays on a dizzying array of contemporary Hindi film stars makes for an informative, thought-provoking, illuminating, and most of all, a joyful read. Pushing boundaries of not only global Star Studies but also film theory as a whole, this de-colonised and de-colonising volume is a must read for film scholars, students and cinephiles!" Dr. Sunny Singh, Senior Lecturer - Creative Writing and English Literature, Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture & Design, London Metropolitan University "A wide-ranging overview of Hindi cinema's filmi firmament today, focussing on its most intriguing and brightest-burning stars. The variety of approaches to stardom and celebrity by both established and upcoming scholars reveals a web of interconnecting stories and concerns that provide fascinating new insights into the workings of today's Hindi film industry, while shining fresh light on contemporary India and the world we live in." Professor Rosie Thomas, Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media (CREAM), College of Design, Creative and Digital Industries, University of Westminster

Welcome to Kitschmasland in a fun and nostalgic look at our infatuation with Christmas holiday decor from the 1950s and through the 1970s. This beautiful revised book covers the gamut of decorations - some whimsical, some beautiful - and a treasure trove of campy kitsch that the author calls "Kitschmas!" Join a magical tour of retro homes decked out for the holidays, and enjoy a variety of festive holiday decorations from our not-too-distant past. Featuring vintage Christmas ornaments, trees, ceramics, and more, over 400 color photos and vintage magazine images are used to illustrate this whimsical journey through some of our favorite decades. This book is a delight for Kitschmas fans, decorators, and the thousands of people devoted to mid-century decor and design.

This book brings together an international group of scholars who chart and analyze the ways in which comic book history and new forms of graphic narrative have negotiated the aesthetic, social, political, economic, and cultural interactions that reach across national borders in an increasingly interconnected and globalizing world. Exploring the tendencies of graphic narratives - from popular comic book serials and graphic novels to manga - to cross national and cultural boundaries, Transnational Perspectives on Graphic Narratives addresses a previously marginalized area in comics studies. By placing graphic narratives in the global flow of cultural production and reception, the book investigates controversial representations of transnational politics, examines transnational adaptations of superhero characters, and maps many of the translations and transformations that have come to shape contemporary comics culture on a global scale.

The genre of the video clip has been established for more than thirty years, mainly served by the sub genres of video art and music video. This book explores processes of hybridization between music video, film, and video art by presenting current theoretical discourses and engaging them through interviews with well-known artists and directors, bringing to the surface the crucial questions of art practice. The collection discusses topics including postcolonialism, posthumanism, gender, race and class and addresses questions regarding the hybrid media structure of video, the diffusion between content and form, art and commerce as well as pop culture and counterculture. Through the diversity of the areas and interviews included, the book builds on and moves beyond earlier aesthetics-driven perspectives on music video.

This brief but readable biography tells the story of the most recognized figure in baseball-Babe Ruth. Besides vividly describing the highlights of Ruth's career, author Wayne Stewart examines the unprecedented impact Ruth had on the nature and future of the game. Ruth's ability to hit the long ball and the flamboyance of his off-field persona infused the game with a new excitement that rescued baseball from the negative effects of the 1919 Black Sox scandal. Making extensive use of interviews conducted by the author with members of Ruth's family and with players who knew Ruth, this biography is an engaging exploration of how Ruth helped shape modern baseball. Babe Ruth is the most recognized figure in baseball and a true American icon. In this brief but readable biography, author Wayne Stewart engagingly describes the highlights of Ruth's career and deftly examines the reasons for the unprecedented impact Ruth had on the game. Ruth's ability to hit the long ball and the flamboyance of his off-field persona infused the game with a new excitement that rescued baseball from the negative effects of the 1919 Black Sox scandal. The author draws new insights into Ruth's life and career through interviews he conducted with members of Ruth's family and with other baseball players who knew him. Readers are also provided with a quick reference chronology to Ruth's career, a bibliography of important print and non-print information resources on Ruth, a statistical appendix summarizing Ruth's on-field production by season, and a discussion of how Ruth has been depicted in books, movies, plays, and other media since his death. This biography will both explain and satisfy the continuing curiosity about Ruth among young basbeball fans who never had the opportunity to see him play.

The twenty-first century has seen the emergence of a new style of man: the metrosexual. Overwhelmingly straight, white, and wealthy, these impeccably coiffed urban professionals spend big money on everything from facials to pedicures, all part of a multi-billion-dollar male grooming industry. Yet as this innovative study reveals, even as the industry encourages men to invest more in their appearance, it still relies on women to do much of the work. Styling Masculinity investigates how men's beauty salons have persuaded their clientele to regard them as masculine spaces. To answer this question, sociologist Kristen Barber goes inside Adonis and The Executive, two upscale men's salons in Southern California. Conducting detailed observations and extensive interviews with both customers and employees, she shows how female salon workers not only perform the physical labor of snipping, tweezing, waxing, and exfoliating, but also perform the emotional labor of pampering their clients and pumping up their masculine egos. Letting salon employees tell their own stories, Barber not only documents occasions when these workers are objectified and demeaned, but also explores how their jobs allow for creativity and confer a degree of professional dignity. In the process, she traces the vast network of economic and social relations that undergird the burgeoning male beauty industry.

Just as American culture has been constructed by people of many ethnicities, roots music in America is multicultural in nature. Native American music resonates from Indigenous traditions of the Great Plains and the American West. Hispanic culture has spawned Border Music styles such as Conjunto and Tejano, while Cajun and Zydeco grew from cultural cross-pollination in the American South. In northern regions, Polish-American musicians popularized Polka, while Irish-American music holds a rich tradition throughout many regions in the East. This unique volume presents influential musical cultures from throughout the multicultural history of American vernacular song. Series blurb: This series presents five volumes on genres of music that have evolved in distinctly regional styles throughout the nation. With volumes authored by leading music scholars, the series traces the growth of Blues, Country, Folk, and Jazz in their many regional variations, as well as Ethnic and Border music traditions throughout America. Each volume presents an accessible analysis of the genre in its many regional forms, examining the musical elements and, when applicable, lyrical subjects as tied to specific cultures throughout the United States. The series features: BLTraditional music placed within regional perspectives BLThe study of music shown to illustrate cultural nuances BLMusical elements explained in accessible language for the lay reader BLGlossaries of important biographical and topical entries related to the genres.

This collection was inspired by the observation that film remakes offer us the opportunity to revisit important issues, stories, themes, and topics in a manner that is especially relevant and meaningful to contemporary audiences. Like mythic stories that are told again and again in differing ways, film remakes present us with updated perspectives on timeless ideas. While some remakes succeed and others fail aesthetically, they always say something about the culture in which and for which they are produced. Contributors explore the ways in which the fears of death, loss of self, and bodily violence have been expressed and then reinterpreted in such films and remakes as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Night of the Living Dead, and Dawn of the Dead. Films such as Rollerball, The Ring, The Grudge, The Great Yokai Wars, and Insomnia are discussed as well because of their ability to give voice to collective anxieties concerning cultural change, nihilism, and globalization. While opening on a note that emphasizes the compulsion of filmmakers to revisit issues concerning fear and anxiety, this collection ends by using films like Solaris, King Kong, Star Trek, Doom, and Van Helsing to suggest that repeated confrontation with these issues allows the opportunity for creative and positive transformation."

While a number of recent works have linked magical realism to postcolonial trauma, this book expands the trauma-theory-based analysis of magical realism. Borrowing from the Russian Formalist Mikhail Bakhtin, the study adapts his concept of chronotope to that of shock chronotope in order to describe unstable time-spaces marked by extreme events. Besides trauma theory, contemporary theories of representation formulated by Guy Debord, Jean Baudrillard, and Slavoj i ek, among others, corroborate specific literary analyses of magical realist novels by Caribbean, North American, and European authors. The study discusses a series of concepts, such as "spectacle" and "hyperreality," in order to create an analogy between the hyperreal, a spectacle without origins, and magical realism, a representation of events without a history, or a recreation of an absence that first needs to be acknowledged before it can be assigned any meaning. Magical realist hyperreality is meant to be a reconstruction of events that were "missed" in the first place because of their traumatic nature. While the magical realist hyperreal might not explain the unspeakable event, if only to avoid the risk of an amoral rationalization, it makes the ineffable be vicariously felt and re-experienced. This study establishes a somewhat unorthodox nexus between magical realist writing (viewed primarily as a postmodern literary phenomenon) and trauma (understood both as an individual and as an often invisible cultural dominant), and proposes the concept of "traumatic imagination" as an analytical tool to be applied to literary texts struggling to represent the unpresentable and to reconstruct extreme events whose forgetting has proven just as unbearable as their remembering. The traumatic imagination defines the empathy-driven consciousness that enables authors and readers to act out and/or work through trauma by means of magical realist images. Corroborated by elements of trauma theory, postcolonial studies, narrative theory, and contemporary theories of representation, the work posits that the traumatic imagination is an essential part of the creative process that turns traumatic memories into narratives. Magical realism lends traumatic events an expression that traditional realism could not, seemingly because the magical realist writing mode and the traumatized subject share the same ontological ground: being part of a reality that is constantly escaping witnessing through telling. Over more than half a century now, magical realism has demonstrated its versatility by affecting literary productions belonging to various cultural spaces and representing different histories of violence. This book examines novels by traumatized and vicariously traumatized authors who make extensive use of fantastic/magical elements in order to represent slavery, postcolonialism, the Holocaust, and war. The Traumatic Imagination: Histories of Violence in Magical Realist Fiction is an important book for magical realism- and trauma theory-based critical collections.

Social Media: Principles and Applications examines social media in interpersonal, mass-mediated, educational, organizational, and political settings. Social media technologies take on many different forms, including social network sites like Facebook and Twitter, blogs, wikis, online video and photo-sharing sites (e.g., Pinterest), rating and social bookmarking sites, and video/text chatting sites (e.g., Skype). Beginning with the principles of social media, Sheldon disassembles applications of social media in a variety of settings to understand who is using social media, how they develop meaningful relationships, and how they use social media during major events. Sheldon also delves into the political, educational, commercial, and privacy issues of social media use, making this an excellent resource for communication, psychology, and social media scholars.

During the first decade of this millennium Germany's largest ethnic minority-Turkish Germans-began to enjoy a new cultural prominence in German literature, film, television and theater. While controversies around forced marriage and "honor" killings have driven popular interest in the situation of Turkish-German women, popular culture has played a key role in diversifying portrayals of women and men of Turkish heritage. This book documents the significance of marriage in 21st-century Turkish-German culture, unpacking its implications not only for the cultural portrayals of those of Turkish background, but also for understandings of German identity. It sheds light on the interactions of gender, sexuality and ethnicity in contemporary Germany. This book explores four notions of marriage in popular culture: forced marriage; romantic marriage; intercultural marriage; and gay marriage. Over five chapters, the book shows that in popular culture marriage is conventionally portrayed as little more than a form of oppression for Turkish-German women and gay men. The state of Turkish matrimony is seen as characterized by coercion, lack of choice, familial duty and "honor," even violence. In German culture, by contrast, marriage stands for individual choice, love and equality. However, within comedy genres such as "chick lit", "ethno-sitcom" and wedding film, there have been attempts to challenge the monolithic power of these gender stereotypes. This study finds that, in grappling with the legacy of these stereotypes, these genres reveal a yearning within German popular culture for the very kinds of "traditional" gender roles Turkish Germans are imagined to inhabit. The book provides a comprehensive account of the multiple ways in which the diverse portrayals of marriage shape views of Turkish Germans in popular culture, and are also revealing of the role of gender in contemporary Germany. It investigates some key genres-autoethnography, chick lit, ethno-sitcom, wedding film, "gay" Bildungsroman, documentary theater-within which questions of gender and cultural difference are "framed". In new and innovative close readings of literary, filmic, television and dramatic texts, the work reveals the broad significance of cultural portrayals of Turkish-German intimacy.

This book spans three centuries of popular entertainment and everyday culture, showcasing both mainstream and submerged channels and voices to examine how once reviled business values gained supremacy and poisoned the American spirit. The office in popular culture is often depicted as a topsy-turvy parallel universe where psychological disorders are legitimized as "managerial styles" and comically depraved bosses torment those who do the actual work. During the 1950s, the Beats chose denim and the open road over gray flannel suits and office jobs, but today their grandchildren-Generation Y-aggressively covet desk jobs. "Greed Is Good" and Other Fables: Office Life in Popular Culture examines how office life is both extolled and lampooned in popular culture. The book tracks how business values ascended to cultural dominance in the United States today, revealing our incessant struggle between financial and spiritual goals in the pursuit of "freedom" and the fulfillment of the American dream. By drawing upon sources as varied as books, newspapers, magazines, television shows, movies, blogs, message boards, documentaries, public speeches, corporate training films, and employee newsletters, the author provides compelling insights into the range of competing values and ideals interwoven throughout office life.

The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott, edited by Adam Barkman, Ashley Barkman, and Nancy Kang, brings together eighteen critical essays that illuminate a nearly comprehensive selection of the director's feature films from cutting-edge multidisciplinary and comparative perspectives. Chapters examine such signature works as Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Thelma and Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000), Hannibal (2001), Black Hawk Down (2001), and American Gangster (2007). This volume divides the chapters into three major thematic groups: responsibility, remembering, and revision; real, alienated, and ideal lives; and gender, identity, and selfhood. Each section features six discrete essays, each of which forwards an original thesis about the film or films chosen for analysis. Each chapter features close readings of scenes as well as broader discussions that will interest academics, non-specialists, as well as educated readers with an interest in films as visual texts. While recognizing Scott's undeniable contributions to contemporary popular cinema, the volume does not shy away from honest and well-evidenced critique. Each chapter's approach correlates with philosophical, literary, or cultural studies perspectives. Using both combined and single-film discussions, the contributors examine such topics as gender roles and feminist theory; philosophical abstractions like ethics, honor, and personal responsibility; historical memory and the challenges of accurately rendering historical events on screen; literary archetypes and generic conventions; race relations and the effect of class difference on character construction; how religion shapes personal and collective values; the role of a constantly changing technological universe; and the schism between individual and group-based power structures. The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott assembles the critical essays of scholars working in the fields of philosophy, literary studies, and cultural studies. An international group, they are based in the United States, Canada, Argentina, Italy, Greece, Korea, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. The guiding assumption on the part of all the writers is that the filmmaker is the leading determiner of a motion picture's ethos, artistic vision, and potential for audience engagement. While not discounting the production team (including screenwriters, actors, and cinematographers, among others), auteur theory recognizes the seminal role of the director as the nucleus of the meaning-making process. With Scott an active and prolific presence in the entertainment industry today, the timeliness of this volume is optimal.

The Rolling Stones: Sociological Perspectives, edited by Helmut Staubmann, draws from a broad spectrum of sociological perspectives to contribute both to the understanding of the phenomenon of the Rolling Stones and to an in-depth analysis of contemporary society and culture that takes The Stones a starting point. Contributors approach The Rolling Stones from a range of social science perspectives including cultural studies, communication and film studies, gender studies, and the sociology of popular music. The essays in this volume focus on the question of how the worldwide success of The Rolling Stones over the course of more than half a century reflects society and the transformation of popular culture.

Scholarly research and depictions within popular culture present black males largely on the basis of their being caricatures- entities that extend not far beyond stereotypical celluloid, televised explanations, print articles, and selective hip-hop commentary. Even within institutions and among individuals that are assumed to have the best interest of the black male at center, there is often an inability to consider them past a faux orbit of one-dimensionality. Balance is unique in that it approaches Black males from a well-rooted personality perspective within context and utilizes discourse analysis in attempts at advancing identity theory.

Pop Culture Goes to War, by Geoff Martin and Erin Steuter, explores the persistence of militarism in American popular culture in the war on terror, from 9/11 to the present day. The authors detail the role of Hollywood and the entertainment industries in rallying both the troops and the public for war and show how toys, video games, music, and television support contemporary militarism. At the same time that popular culture is enlisting support for militarism, it is also serving as a major source of resistance to the war on terror through the traditional mediums of music and movies, and increasingly through the humor and insight of anti-war artists who are jamming the culture of militarism. The satire of The Daily Show, The Simpsons, and South Park are further examples of so-called culture jamming. This book is for readers who question the persistence of a warrior culture and offers new insights into the perpetuation of militaristic values throughout American culture.

This book is a detailed examination of one of the most important works of fantasy literature from the twentieth century. It goes through Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock considering how it engages with war on a personal and family level, how it plays with ideas of time as something fluid and disturbing, and how it presents mythology as something crude and dangerous. The book places Mythago Wood in the context of Holdstock's other works, noting in part how complex ideas of time have been a consistent element in his fiction. The book also briefly examines how the themes laid out in Mythago Wood are carried through into later books in the sequence as well as the Merlin Codex

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.

This book offers an in-depth analysis of Janelle Monae's Dirty Computer, an Afrofuturist project that appeared simultaneously as a concept album and a visual album or "emotion picture" in spring 2018. In the previous decade, Janelle Monae has developed into a global media personality who effortlessly unites speculative world-building with social and political activism. Across the intersecting album and film that together make up Dirty Computer, Monae brings together the science-fictional themes that informed her previous work, resulting in a powerfully focused artistic and political statement. While the music on the album can be enjoyed as an accessible collection of pop tracks, the accompanying film, music videos, and media paratexts add layers of meaning that combine speculative world-building with anti-racist activism. This unique convergence of energies, ideas, and media platforms has made Dirty Computer a new classic of Afrofuturist science fiction.

Fistic combat represents the greatest human drama in all of sport. Roman gladiators thrilled citizens and emperors alike when they entered the octagon to face an intense, life-threatening experience. Boxing, the sport of kings, also has its roots in the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome. Banned in 500 A.D. by the Emperor Theodoric, it resurfaced twelve centuries later in England. John Milton praised it as a noble art for building character in young men, and sports writer A.J. Leibling dubbed it the Sweet Science. Many of its major protagonists - men such as Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano and Muhammad Ali - have become transcendent, near-mythic heroes. But boxing is not the only combat sport, and mixed martial arts, in all their ferocious beauty, represent the fastest growing sports genre in the world. Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC) has joined boxing in paying seven figures to some of its champions, and draws millions in its pay-per-view events. This book details leading figures in boxing, sumo wrestling, kickboxing, Greco-Roman wrestling, and mixed martial arts (including organizations such as Ultimate Fighting, PRIDE, K-1, Total Combat, and SportFighting). Over 150 entries cover champions, contenders, and other famous combatants from all over the world, as well as legendary promoters, managers, trainers, and events. Also included in this encyclopedia are sidebars on controversies, highlights, brief bios, and other noteworthy events, along with a general timeline.

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