Imagine you learn that your lover has had you erased from their memory and, in a moment of despair, you have your lover erased from your memory too. Imagine that as you lose your recollections of the bad times together, you realise that you don't want to forget them after all. That's the premise for Charlie Kaufman's Oscar-winning script for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. An instant cult classic, the film's distinctive ambiguity and tangled narrative demands audience engagement and repeated watching. Delving into the central themes of the film, Andrew M. Butler foregrounds its play with genre and audience expectations, its psychoanalytic underpinnings and its debt to Philip K. Dick. Also examining its production processes, Butler explores the against-type casting of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in lead roles and the intertwined careers of Kaufman and director Michel Gondry. This special edition features original cover artwork by Patricia Derks.

Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction is a collection of engaging essays on some of the most significant figures who have shaped and defined the genre. Diverse groups within the science fiction community are represented, from novelists and film makers to comic book and television writers. Important and influential names discussed include:

Octavia Butler

George Lucas

Robert Heinlein

Gene Roddenberry

Stan Lee

Ursula K. Le Guin

H.G. Wells

This outstanding reference guide charts the rich and varied landscape of science fiction and includes helpful and up-to-date lists of further reading at the end of each entry. Available in an easy to use A-Z format, Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction will be of interest to students of Literature, Film Studies, and Cultural Studies.

Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction is a collection of engaging essays on some of the most significant figures who have shaped and defined the genre. Diverse groups within the science fiction community are represented, from novelists and film makers to comic book and television writers. Important and influential names discussed include:

Octavia Butler

George Lucas

Robert Heinlein

Gene Roddenberry

Stan Lee

Ursula K. Le Guin

H.G. Wells

This outstanding reference guide charts the rich and varied landscape of science fiction and includes helpful and up-to-date lists of further reading at the end of each entry. Available in an easy to use A-Z format, Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction will be of interest to students of Literature, Film Studies, and Cultural Studies.

The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction is a comprehensive overview of the history and study of science fiction. It outlines major writers, movements, and texts in the genre, established critical approaches and areas for future study. Fifty-six entries by a team of renowned international contributors are divided into four parts which look, in turn, at:

• history an integrated chronological narrative of the genre 's development
• theory detailed accounts of major theoretical approaches including feminism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, postcolonialism, posthumanism and utopian studies
• issues and challenges anticipates future directions for study in areas as diverse as science studies, music, design, environmentalism, ethics and alterity
• subgenres a prismatic view of the genre, tracing themes and developments within specific subgenres.

Bringing into dialogue the many perspectives on the genre The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction is essential reading for anyone interested in the history and the future of science fiction and the way it is taught and studied.

The works of art carefully selected for this catalogue, which accompanies an exhibition at the prestigious Sam Fogg gallery in London, follow the impact of the introduction of paper into the Islamic world and its effect on both the quality and the scope of the calligraphic art form. Paper - rather than parchment - allowed for inscriptions to be penned on a massive scale, and one of the highlights here is a monumental half line from the so-called 'Baysunghur' Qur'an, which was probably the largest Qur'an manuscript commissioned by an imperial court. The transition to paper also witnessed the codifi cation of the 'six pens' or six recognized cursive scripts, which still hold. From this standardization of the script styles, lineages of recognized calligraphy masters were established. Calligraphers became hailed as artists and were highly valued at imperial courts. In the great age of the Ottoman Turks, the Safavid Persians and the Mughals in North India, there are numerous accounts of calligraphers moving between these Islamic empires by ever more lavish promises of patronage. The Pandnameh of Loqman, A book of advice of 1534-35 and made in Bukhara is one such example. The calligrapher Mahmud ibn Ishaq [al-Shahabi] was likely taken to Bukhara after the occupation of his native Herat in 1528-29, when 'Ubaidullah Khan, the Uzbek ruler, took many of the city's prized artists and calligraphers with him back to his capital. The position of prominence of calligraphy within the Islamic courts is highlighted by the development of the lavish arts of illumination, book binding and other aspects of the art of the book. The intricate designs which developed to decorate the margins and the interlinear space between the lines of text became a recognized art form in itself. Designs ranged from dazzling geometric compositions to scenes of nature populated by fabulous creatures. The combination of masterful calligraphy and radiant illumination produced princely works of art for the most discerning of imperial patrons. 'The Ball and Mallet' or halnama by Mahmud Ibn Muhammad 'Arifi al-Haravi, for example, is a Sufi text produced at the court of Shah Tahmasp c. 1540 and its wonderful illuminated borders are attributable to Aqa Mirak, one of the great Safavid court painters.

The rich variety of languages, religious traditions and schools of art of the Indian subcontinent are brought together in this exceptional library of Indian manuscripts. Religious and philosophical texts from Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Jain, Sikh and Zoroastrian schools of thought are all represented in illustrated manuscripts. This library shows how these various faiths borrowed, interacted and influenced one another in the subcontinent. From palm leaf manuscripts of the South to pothi format manuals from the Himalayas in Nepal, to the sophisticated and highly illustrated manuscripts of the Imperial Moghul court, this catalogue takes the reader on a visual journey through great epics, charged romances and colourful cautionary tales. Highlights include an important and lavishly illustrated palm-leaf manuscript by 'The Emperor of Poets', Upendra Bhanja (c. 1640-1740 ce), and a rare Bihar-I Danesh (The Springtime of Knowledge) by Shaikh 'Inayatallah Kamboh of Delhi, from late 17th/early 18th century - the finest known copy of the manuscript. An exceptional album of 18th-century Indian paintings from the Liechtenstein Princely Collections offers insight into the fascination for Indian courtly life among the nobility of Europe. A number of exceptional painted scrolls are also presented here. Scroll painting has a long history in India. Story tellers would travel from village to village giving performances of well-known epics and regional stories often accompanied by musicians and with the visual aid of a painted scroll. One particularly vibrant scroll, over 15 metres in length, of the Madel Puranamu, was probably commissioned by a wealthy member of the dhobi caste to celebrate his community's origins and favour with Shiva. Among the many intruiging maps and manuals - on art, astrology, omens, divination and auspicious symbols - is an 18th-century Nepalese sorcer's manual, which contains instructions for protective and exorcistic Shaiva rituals, mantras and sacrificial blood-offerings. Its binding includes feathers and traces of blood and skin, which by tradition are fragments of the 'five beasts' - buffalo, chicken, dog, goat and cow.

Star Wars has reached more than three generations of casual and hardcore fans alike, and as a result many of the producers of franchised Star Wars texts (films, television, comics, novels, games, and more) over the past four decades have been fans-turned-creators. Yet despite its dominant cultural and industrial positions, Star Wars has rarely been the topic of sustained critical work. Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling offers a corrective to this oversight by curating essays from a wide range of interdisciplinary scholars in order to bring Star Wars and its transmedia narratives more fully into the fold of media and cultural studies. The collection places Star Wars at the center of those studies' projects by examining video games, novels and novelizations, comics, advertising practices, television shows, franchising models, aesthetic and economic decisions, fandom and cultural responses, and other aspects of Star Wars and its world-building in their multiple contexts of production, distribution, and reception. In emphasizing that Star Wars is both a media franchise and a transmedia storyworld, Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling demonstrates the ways in which transmedia storytelling and the industrial logic of media franchising have developed in concert over the past four decades, as multinational corporations have become the central means for subsidizing, profiting from, and selling modes of immersive storyworlds to global audiences. By taking this dual approach, the book focuses on the interconnected nature of corporate production, fan consumption, and transmedia world-building. As such, this collection grapples with the historical, cultural, aesthetic, and political-economic implications of the relationship between media franchising and transmedia storytelling as they are seen at work in the world's most profitable transmedia franchise.

The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction is a comprehensive overview of the history and study of science fiction. It outlines major writers, movements, and texts in the genre, established critical approaches and areas for future study. Fifty-six entries by a team of renowned international contributors are divided into four parts which look, in turn, at: history - an integrated chronological narrative of the genre's development theory - detailed accounts of major theoretical approaches including feminism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, postcolonialism, posthumanism and utopian studies issues and challenges - anticipates future directions for study in areas as diverse as science studies, music, design, environmentalism, ethics and alterity subgenres - a prismatic view of the genre, tracing themes and developments within specific subgenres. Bringing into dialogue the many perspectives on the genre The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction is essential reading for anyone interested in the history and the future of science fiction and the way it is taught and studied.

God desires you to not just live life, but get pleasure from life Joy is a promise from God, for you. It is a promise that we can walk in joy, even with a fullness and overflow of joy, through every season in life. Joy is a unfathomable thing. Where is joy? Joy is deep within your heart. It is about getting into the deep end of the pool. Joy should never be mistaken for happiness, because happiness is all based on what is happening. Sometimes, what is happening in life makes you glad and sometimes what is happening does not make you glad. Remember joy is about being in the deep end, but happiness is about being in the shallow end. Human beings are the only individuals, on this earth, that can desire to alter their life situation, at any moment. A desire is to want something very strongly. A shark can not one day desire to be a chef. An ant can not decide one day it wants to be an attorney. Their lives are built into their DNA. You, on the other hand, can change if you want to. Oftentimes, the only dilemma is that the fear of change is holding you back. Defensiveness keeps piling up. You only remember the times you failed; and this recollection scares you off, from trying again. You feel desperately trapped in life. What you need to know is that life is not intended to be a straight line that goes from point A to point B. Life is intended to be a sequence of zigs and zags. It should look like a mess, but a beautiful mess. The beautiful mess will exemplify that you have changed throughout the course of your life. You have had your ups and downs. You went down one pathway, but determination changed your course, possibly, on many occasions. This is how life should be. Life is a continuous understanding of self-determining moments and choices. For this reason, whatever situation you are in right now, just know that it can change if you want it to. It is up to you. You just have to desire something new. It is not too late to start anything new, unique or innovative.