Ever since Norman Lear remade the BBC series Till Death Us Do Part into All in the Family, American remakes of British television shows have become part of the American cultural fabric. Indeed, some of the programs currently said to exemplify American tastes and attitudes, from reality programs like American Idol and What Not to Wear to the mock-documentary approach of The Office, are adaptations of successful British shows. Carlen Lavigne and Heather Marcovitch's American Remakes of British Television: Transformations and Mistranslations is a multidisciplinary collection of essays that focuses on questions raised when a foreign show is adapted for the American market. What does it mean to remake a television program? What does the process of "Americanization" entail? What might the success or failure of a remade series tell us about the differences between American and British producers and audiences? This volume examines British-to-American television remakes from 1971 to the present. The American remakes in this volume do not share a common genre, format, or even level of critical or popular acclaim. What these programs do have in common, however, is the sense that something in the original has been significantly changed in order to make the program appealing or accessible to American audiences. The contributors display a multitude of perspectives in their essays. British-to-American television remakes as a whole are explained in terms of the market forces and international trade that make these productions financially desirable. Sanford and Son is examined in terms of race and class issues. Essays on Life on Mars and Doctor Who stress television's role in shaping collective cultural memories. An essay on Queer as Folk explores the romance genre and also talks about differences in national sexual politics. An examination of The Office discusses how the American remake actually endorses the bureaucracy that the British original satiri

A byproduct of the Science Fiction Research Association conference held in Lawrence, Kansas, in 2008, the essays in this volume address the intersections among the reading, writing, and teaching of science fiction. Part One studies the teaching of SF, placing analytical and pedagogical research next to each other to reveal how SF can be both an object of study as well as a teaching tool for other disciplines. Part Two examines SF as a genre of mediation between the sciences and the humanities, using close readings and analyses of the literary-scientific nexus. Part Three examines SF in the media, using specific television programs, graphic novels, and films as examples of how SF successfully transcends the medium of transmission. Finally, Part Four features close readings of SF texts by women, including Joanna Russ, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Octavia Butler.

Fans have been responding to literary works since the days of Homer's ""Odyssey"" and Euripedes' ""Medea"". More recently, a number of science fiction and fantasy works have found devoted fan followings. The advent of the internet has brought these groups from relatively limited, face-to-face enterprises to easily accessible global communities, within which fan fiction proliferates and is widely read and even more widely commented upon. New interactions between readers and writers of fan fiction are possible in these new virtual communities. From ""Star Trek"" to ""Harry Potter"", the essays in this volume explore the world of fan fiction - its purposes, how it is created, how the fan experiences it. Grouped by subject matter, twelve essays cover topics such as genre intersection, sexual relationships between characters, character construction through narrative and the role of the beta reader in online communities. The work also discusses the terminology employed by fan fiction writers and comments on the effects of technological advancements on fan communities.

Remakes are pervasive in today's popular culture, whether they take the form of reboots, "re-imaginings," or overly familiar sequels. Television remakes have proven popular with producers and networks interested in building on the nostalgic capital of past successes (or giving a second chance to underused properties). Some TV remakes have been critical and commercial hits, and others haven't made it past the pilot stage; all have provided valuable material ripe for academic analysis. In Remake Television: Reboot, Re-use, Recycle, edited by Carlen Lavigne, contributors from a variety of backgrounds offer multicultural, multidisciplinary perspectives on remake themes in popular television series, from classic cult favorites such as The Avengers (1961-69) and The X-Files (1993-2002) to current hits like Doctor Who (2005-present) and The Walking Dead (2010-present). Chapters examine what constitutes a remake, and what series changes might tell us about changing historical and cultural contexts-or about the medium of television itself.