Spracklen explores the impact of the internet on leisure and leisure studies, examining the ways in which digital leisure spaces and activities have become part of everyday leisure. Covering a range of issues from social media and file-sharing to romance on the Internet, this book presents new theoretical directions for digital leisure.

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Awarded Honorable Mention for the 2005 MLA Prize in United States Latina and Latino and Chicana and Chicano Literary and Cultural Studies.

a"Loca Motion" is a work of intelligent exuberance. Michelle Habell-PallAn has the eyes, ears, and heart to read popular performance, culture, and music as the new archives of Chicana and Latina transnational and translocal histories.a
--Lisa Lowe, UC San Diego

aForget about Ricky Martin and Shakira, here come El Vez and Marga Gomez. Habell-PallAn has produced a highly original study of Chicano/Latino popular culture and of its local, national and international dimensions by taking us into the world of alternative and experimental Chicano/Latino art.a
--Arlene Davila, author of "Barrio Dreams"

"Offers insight into the dynamics of race, class, gender and sexuality."--"Hispanic LInk Weekly Report"

In the summer of 1995, El Vez, the aMexican Elvis, a along with his backup singers and band, The Lovely Elvettes and the Memphis Mariachis, served as master of ceremony for a ground-breaking show, aDiva L.A.: A Salute to L.A.as Latinas in the Tanda Style.a The performances were remarkable not only for the talent displayed, but for their blend of linguistic, musical, and cultural traditions.

In Loca Motion, Michelle Habell-PallAn argues that performances like Diva L.A. play a vital role in shaping and understanding contemporary transnational social dynamics. Chicano/a and Latino/a popular culture, including spoken word, performance art, comedy, theater, and punk music aesthetics, is central to developing cultural forms and identities that reach across and beyond the Americas, from Mexico City to Vancouver to Berlin. Drawing on the lives and work of a diverse group of artists, Habell-PallAn explores new perspectives that defy both traditional forms of Latino cultural nationalism and the expectations of U.S. culture. The result is a sophisticated rethinking of identity politics and an invaluable lens from which to view the complex dynamics of race, class, gender, and sexuality.

Celebrate Christmas and discover 25 hidden surprises with Hedwig the owl, in this beautiful advent calendar and pop-up book inspired by the Harry Potter films! This must-have collectible designed by renowned paper engineer Matthew Reinhart brings Hedwig's lovable spirit to your holiday celebrations. Count down to Christmas with 25 days of exclusive Harry Potter gifts and watch as delightful presents from the Wizarding World magically transform into a beautiful pop-up tree centerpiece! This advent calendar also includes a booklet of fun behind-the-scenes facts from the films. Festive and interactive, Harry Potter: Hedwig Pop-Up Advent Calendar is the ideal way to ring in the holidays with one of the Wizarding World's most adored magical companions! EXCLUSIVE SURPRISES AND COLLECTIBLES: Discover 25 one-of-a-kind keepsakes inspired by the beloved Harry Potter films. MAGICAL HOLIDAY CENTERPIECE: Watch as the central pop-up gradually transforms into a gorgeous Christmas tree that you can reuse as a unique holiday decoration year after year. FROM RENOWNED DESIGNER MATTHEW REINHART: Designed by the paper engineer behind best-selling titles like Harry Potter: A Pop-Up Guide to Hogwarts, Harry Potter: Hedwig Pop-Up Advent Calendar boasts striking detail and stunning illustrations. COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS: Uncover a new gift each day between December 1st and Christmas! GREAT FOR FANS OF ALL AGES: Every Harry Potter fan will love this advent calendar's beautiful illustrations and behind-the-scenes details. COMPLETE YOUR HARRY POTTER HOLIDAY COLLECTION: Harry Potter: Hedwig Pop-Up Advent Calendar joins Harry Potter: A Hogwarts Christmas Pop-Up and Harry Potter: Holiday Magic: The Official Advent Calendar in Insight Editions' fan-favorite line of festive Harry Potter holiday titles.

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aA veritable feast of the field's most scrumptious offerings, "East Main Street" satisfies with some of the best minds in Asian American studies at this table.a
--Gary Y. Okihiro, author of "Common Ground: Reimagining American History"

"Sure to spark the imagination of both seasoned fans of Asian American popular culture and the as yet uninitiated. From cyberspace and animA(c) to "The Simpsons" and "Secret Asian Man," this book intrigues and provokes with every chapter. The sheer number of savvy cultural critics assembled ensures that readers will find something of interest, no matter where one begins exploring the popular culture of Asian America."
--Kent Ono, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

aEast Main Street creates its own relevance by touching on an abundance of cultural mediums and themes. Scholars of film, literature, the Internet, music, and history can all find essays in which to sink their teeth.a
--"Western American Literature"

aThis volume explores historical and contemporary Asian American popular culture in the context of three broad themes: globalization and local identities, cultural legacy and memories, and ethnicity and identification. Among topics covered are transnational Vietnamese music, Asian fusion cuisine, race on the Internet, kung fu movies, hip hop, and the aiconography of Tiger Woodsa.
--"Sage Race Relations Abstracts"

From henna tattoo kits available at your local mall to afaux Asiana fashions, housewares and fusion cuisine; from the new visibility of Asian film, music, video games and anime to the current popularity of martial arts motifs in hip hop, Asianinfluences have thoroughly saturated the U.S. cultural landscape and have now become an integral part of the vernacular of popular culture.

By tracing cross-cultural influences and global cultural trends, the essays in East Main Street bring Asian American studies, in all its interdisciplinary richness, to bear on a broad spectrum of cultural artifacts. Contributors consider topics ranging from early Asian American movie stars to the influences of South Asian iconography on rave culture, and from the marketing of Asian culture through food to the contemporary clamor for transnational Chinese womenas historical fiction. East Main Street hits the shelves in the midst of a boom in Asian American population and cultural production. This book is essential not only for understanding Asian American popular culture but also contemporary U.S. popular culture writ large.

Portrayals of Children in Popular Culture: Fleeting Images, edited by Vibiana Bowman Cvetkovic and Debbie Olson, is a collection which examines images of "children" and "childhood" in popular culture, including print, online, television shows, and films. The contributors to this volume explore the constructions of "children" and "childhood" rather than actual children or actual childhoods. In the chapters that are concerned with depictions of actual, individual children, the authors investigate how the images of those children conform or "trouble" current notions of what it means to be a child engaged in a contemporary "childhood." This is a unique volume, because of the academic discourse which is employed-that of "Childhood Studies." The Childhood Studies scholars represented in this collection utilize an interdisciplinary approach which draws upon various academic fields-their methodologies, theoretical approaches, and scholarly conventions-for the scholarly research in this collection. Together, the contributions to this collection interrogate classic notions of childhood innocence, knowledge, agency, and the fluid position of the signifier "child" within contemporary media forms. These interdisciplinary works function as a testament to the infectiousness of the child image in print, television, and cinematic contexts, and represent a new avenue of discursive scholarship; the questions raised and connections made provide fresh insights and unique perspectives to topics regarding children and childhood and their representation within multiple media platforms. The growing field of Childhood Studies is enriched by the intellectual originality represented by this volume's authors who ask new questions about the enduring and captivating image of the child.

The Howard L. and Muriel Weingrow Collection consists of approximately 4,000 items including original illustrated books, periodicals, exhibition catalogues, pamphlets, posters, manuscripts, letters, and original prints representing most of the major avant-garde movements of the twentieth century. It provides important information on primary and secondary works of related movements as well as themes of interest and concern to modern artists and writers. This catalogue is divided into two sections. Part One deals with all material excluding periodicals, which are covered in Part Two. Authors and/or artists are listed alphabetically. Each item is identified in terms of its movement. A description of its size and contents; information on special features of the publication, such as paper, binding, and edition; and other pertinent data concerning materials inherent in the book, periodical, catalogue, or object are provided. The reproductions included are representative of original materials found in the various publications included in this collection.

This book examines the scope and nature of Donald Duck and his family's popularity in Germany, in contrast to the diminished role they play in America. This is achieved through examination of the respective fan communities, business practices, and universality of the characters. This work locates and understands the aspects of translation and adaptation that inform the spread of culture that have as yet been underexplored in the context of comic books. It represents a large-scale attempt to incorporate adaptation and translation studies into comics studies, through a lens of fan studies (used to examine both the American and German fan communities, as well as the work of Don Rosa). This work builds on the efforts of other scholars, including Janet Wasko and Illaria Meloni, while expanding the historical understanding of what might be the world's best-selling comics. Peter Cullen Bryan is Lecturer at Pennsylvania State University, USA. His areas of study include American Studies, Intercultural Communications, and 21st Century American culture, emphasizing comic art and fan communities. His research has appeared in the Journal of Fandom Studies, The Journal of American Culture, and Popular Culture Studies Journal. He serves on the boards of the Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture Association and the Popular Culture Association, as well as Secretary for the Intercultural Communication section of the International Communication Association.

Once it was just Mods and Rockers or Hippies and Skinheads. Now we have Riot Grrls and Rappers; Modern Primitives and Metalheads; Goths, Clubcultures and Fetishists; Urban Tribes, New Age Travellers and Internet fan groups. In a global society with a rapid proliferation of images, fashions and lifestyles, it is -unsurprisingly - becoming increasingly difficult to pinpoint what 'subculture' actually means. Enthusiastically adopted by the media and academia, 'subculture' may be a convenient way to describe more unconventional aspects of youth culture, but it does little to help us comprehend the diverse range of youth groups in today's so-called 'postmodern' world. How can we begin to rethink, reformulate and replace outdated notions of 'subcultures' to make them applicable to the experiences of youth in the twenty-first century? And to what extent does this involve the challenging of past orthodoxies about spectacular subcultural styles?From Seattle anarchist punks to UK Asian underground music, Canadian female X-Files fans to Australian dance cultures, this groundbreaking book draws on a wide variety of international case studies to investigate the new relationships among youth subcultural music, politics and taste. Is it possible to work within the existing limitations of 'subculture', or has the concept exhausted its usefulness? Can attempts at re-conceptualization, such as neo-tribes, sub-streams and micro-networks, adequately capture the experience of fragmentation, flux and fluidity that is central to contemporary youth culture?This timely book is the first to challenge and reconsider the use of 'subculture'. In doing so, it questions the possibility and relevance of what might betermed 'post-subcultural studies' and helps to chart the emergence of a new paradigm for the study of youth subculture.

Using the cultural prism of race, this book critically examines the images of African Americans that exist in media of the twenty-first century. Further, the authors assess the ways in which media focused on gender, religion, and politics in framing perceptions of the President and First Lady of the United States during the Obama administration. The text draws on a wide range of textual and critical strategies to interpret, criticize, and deconstruct media artifacts.

It is common to hear heavy metal music fans and musicians talk about the "metal community". This concept, which is widely used when referencing this musical genre, encompasses multiple complex aspects that are seldom addressed in traditional academic endeavors including shared aesthetics, musical practices, geographies, and narratives. The idea of a "metal community" recognizes that fans and musicians frequently identify as part of a collective group, larger than any particular individual. Still, when examined in detail, the idea raises more questions than answers. What criteria are used to define groups of people as part of the community? How are metal communities formed and maintained through time? How do metal communities interact with local cultures throughout the world? How will metal communities change over the lifespan of their members? Are metal communities even possible in light of the importance placed on individualism in this musical genre? These are just some of the questions that arise when the concept of "community" is used in relation to heavy metal music. And yet in the face of all these complexities, heavy metal fans continue to think of themselves as a unified collective entity. This book addresses this notion of "metal community" via the experiences of authors and fans through theoretical reflections and empirical research. Their contributions focus on how metal communities are conceptualized, created, shaped, maintained, interact with their context, and address internal tensions. The book provides scholars, and other interested in the field of metal music studies, with a state of the art reflection on how metal communities are constituted, while also addressing their limits and future challenges.

This collection brings together leading research on contemporary and popular culture, focussing on marginalised voices and representations; socially marginalised, marginalised in media and media scholarship. It spans five continents, with contributions on topics like gender, sexuality, nation, disability, disciplinary boundaries, youth and age.

The author focuses on two parallel folk trends: the Freedom Songs arising from the civil rights battles in the South and the topical songs composed by Northern writer/singers.

The concept of the game illustrates a collectively recognized representation of existence in American literature. This investigation explores the concealment of the function of division beneath the function of communication. The philosophical cornerstones of this investigation are Marshall McLuhan, Guy Debord, and Michel Pecheux. Inspired by Henry Miller, an innovative methodology is established that focuses on patterns of experience (symbol/sign), patterns of structure (myth), and patterns of language (metaphor). The concept of the game renders an essential social relation tangible (interpellation), and it epitomizes a commitment to the restoration of American spiritual values. It is a rejection of "a mistaken idea of freedom" and an advocate of "true freedom."

This book uses an examination of the annual Turner Prize to defend the view that the evaluation of artworks is a reason-based activity, notwithstanding the lack of any agreed criteria for judging excellence in art. It undertakes an empirical investigation of actual critical practice as evident within published commentaries on the Prize in order to examine and test theories of critical evaluation, including the ideas of Noel Carroll, Frank Sibley, Kendall Walton and Suzanne Langer. Case studies of work by Turner Prize winners such as Steve McQueen, Martin Creed, Tomma Abts are used to explore definitions of art and concepts of artistic value and meaning. The book will be of interest to academics in the fields of aesthetics, contemporary art and cultural studies, but also to practitioners working in the arts, media and education.

'Media and Nostalgia' is an interdisciplinary and international exploration of media and their relation to nostalgia. Each chapter demonstrates how nostalgia has always been a media-related matter, studying also the recent nostalgia boom by analysing, among others, digital photography, television series and home videos.

Two horror films were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2018, and one of them-The Shape of Water-won. Since 1990, the production of horror films has risen exponentially worldwide, and in 2013, horror films earned an estimated $400 million in ticket sales. Horror has long been the most popular film genre, and more horror movies have been made than any other kind. We need them. We need to be scared, to test ourselves, laugh inappropriately, scream, and flinch. We need to get through them and come out, blinking, still in one piece. Lost in the Dark: A World History of Horror Film is a straightforward history written for the general reader and student that can serve as a comprehensive entry-level reference work. The volume provides a general introduction to the genre, serves as a guidebook to its film highlights, and celebrates its practitioners, trends, and stories. Starting with silent-era horror films and ending with 2020's The Invisible Man, Lost in the Dark looks at decades of horror movies. Author Brad Weismann covers such topics as the roots of horror in literature and art, monster movies, B-movies, the destruction of the American censorship system, international horror, torture porn, zombies, horror comedies, horror in the new millennium, and critical reception of modern horror. A sweeping survey that doesn't scrimp on details, Lost in the Dark is sure to satisfy both the curious and the completist.

This volume is based on the recognition that heritage is popular and popular culture is now readily transformed into heritage whose meanings and myths reshape social life and political and economic realities as well as re-make "tradition." The papers in this volume consider: What does popular heritage look like? To whom does it speak? Is it active in dissolving class and cultural boundaries or just in reproducing new ones? How do societies manage a heritage that is fluid, immediate and that straddles extremes of serious conflict and hedonistic frivolity? When/under what circumstances is the creation and expression of new cultural forms - popular culture - capable of being transformed into heritage?.

Most historical studies bury us in wars and politics, paying scant attention to the everyday effects of pop culture. Welcome to America's other history: the arts, activities, common items, and popular opinions that profoundly impacted our national way of life.

At the birth of the nation, when America's statesmen were laying the foundations of a new government, citizens were forging a popular culture to call their own. Patriotic symbols like the eagle and the profile of George Washington symbolized the virtues of the young nation. People from all classes--farmers, merchants, and the educated wealthy--turned away from European culture and began to recognize America's own prodigies. Homes, furnitures, fashions, and pastimes sprang from the new climate and topography. The styles, hobbies, and entertainments would evolve into the uniquely American popular culture we recognize today.

Early American artists such as Benjamin West, John Singleton Copley, and Charles Wilson Peale emerged along with original contributions to culture, including:

The first novels for women

The first American music, a unprecedented blend of religious hymns, African tribal music, and folk songs from the Middle Ages

Ninepins and skittles, the forerunners of bowling

Architecture incorporating the classical styles of Greece and Rome.

A wealth of facts, information, and interesting sidelights not available elsewhere makes this a treasure trove for students and interested readers.

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Contributions by Apryl Alexander, Alisia Grace Chase, Brian Faucette, Laura E. Felschow, Lindsay Hallam, Rusty Hatchell, Dru Jeffries, Henry Jenkins, Jeffrey SJ Kirchoff, Curtis Marez, James Denis McGlynn, Brandy Monk-Payton, Chamara Moore, Drew Morton, Mark C. E. Peterson, Jayson Quearry, Zachary J. A. Rondinelli, Suzanne Scott, David Stanley, Sarah Pawlak Stanley, Tracy Vozar, and Chris Yogerst Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen fundamentally altered the perception of American comic books and remains one of the medium's greatest hits. Launched in 1986-"the year that changed comics" for most scholars in comics studies-Watchmen quickly assisted in cementing the legacy that comics were a serious form of literature no longer defined by the Comics Code era of funny animal and innocuous superhero books that appealed mainly to children. After Midnight: "Watchmen" after "Watchmen" looks specifically at the three adaptations of Moore's and Gibbons's Watchmen-Zack Snyder's Watchmen film (2009), Geoff Johns's comic book sequel Doomsday Clock (2017), and Damon Lindelof's Watchmen series on HBO (2019). Divided into three parts, the anthology considers how the sequels, especially the limited series, have prompted a reevaluation of the original text and successfully harnessed the politics of the contemporary moment into a potent relevancy. The first part considers the various texts through conceptions of adaptation, remediation, and transmedia storytelling. Part two considers the HBO series through its thematic focus on the relationship between American history and African American trauma by analyzing how the show critiques the alt-right, represents intergenerational trauma, illustrates alternative possibilities for Black representation, and complicates our understanding of how the mechanics of the show's production can complicate its politics. Finally, the book's last section considers the themes of nostalgia and trauma, both firmly rooted in the original Moore and Gibbons series, and how the sequel texts reflect and refract upon those often-intertwined phenomena.

Bringing together the voices of scholars from Europe and North America with those of key contest stakeholders, Performing the 'New' Europe: Identities, Feelings, and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest argues that this popular music competition is a symbolic contact zone between European cultures: an arena for European identification in which both national solidarity and participation in a European identity are confirmed, and a site where cultural struggles over the meanings, frontiers and limits of Europe are enacted. This exciting collection explores the ways in which European artists perform, disavow, and contest their racial, national, and sexual identities in the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), and asks difficult questions about European inclusions and exclusions the contest reflects. It suggests the ESC as an ever-evolving network of peoples and places transcending both historical and geographical boundaries of Europe that brings into being new understandings of the relationship between culture, space, and identities.