This book explores fictional representations and narrative functions of animal characters in animated and live-action film and television, examining the ways in which these representations intersect with a variety of social issues. Contributors cover a range of animal characters, from heroes to villains, across a variety of screen genres and formats, including anime, comedy, romance, horror, fantasy, and science fiction. Aesthetic features of these works, along with the increased latitude that fictionalized narratives and alternative worlds provide, allow existing social issues to be brought to the forefront in order to effect change in our societies. By incorporating animal figures into media, these screen narratives have gained the ability to critique actions carried out by human beings and explore dimensions of both the human/animal connection and the intersectionality of race, culture, class, gender, and ability, ultimately teaching viewers how to become more human in our interactions with the world around us. Scholars of film studies, media studies, and animal studies will find this book of particular interest.

Children's Film in the Digital Age: Essays on Audience, Adaptation and Consumer Culture consists of essays by scholars who engage in the interpretation of American and international films produced for and about children. Divided into sections that focus on multiple audiences, film adaptation as well as nationalism, globalism and consumer culture, this volume explores how children's film must be re-examined alongside recent developments in the production of film for young cinephiles. These analyses of recent children's films take into account the effect of multi-media strategies on the child audience and the role of participatory opportunities and their pedagogical implications. Essays in this collection also address how childhood is inscribed within film and linked to various national/cultural and consumer contexts. Films over the last fifteen years, which have been released in a multiplicity of formats, reflect a reconceptualization of film genres, audiences and the impact of technological advances upon adaptation.

This timely volume takes stock of the discipline of comparative literature and its theory and practice from a Canadian perspective. It engages with the most pressing critical issues at the intersection of comparative literature and other areas of inquiry in the context of scholarship, pedagogy and academic publishing: bilingualism and multilingualism, Indigeneity, multiple canons (literary and other), the relationship between print culture and other media, the development of information studies, concerted efforts in digitization, and the future of the production and dissemination of knowledge. The authors offer an analysis of the current state of Canadian comparative literature, with a dual focus on the issues of multilingualism in Canada’s sociopolitical and cultural context and Canada’s geographical location within the Americas. It also discusses ways in which contemporary technology is influencing the way that Canadian literature is taught, produced, and disseminated, and how this affects its readings.

This book addresses the pervasive representation of women with unique visionary abilities in postfeminist television series and films from the 1990s to the present. Whether the female characters take the form of seer figures, witches, mediums, or women with the ability to see or know the future, these 'women of vision' suggest unique ways of constructing female heroes as saviors in a postfeminist era. These women mediate between the living and the dead or between different worlds of experience, redefining what it means to be 'normal' and challenging the traditional boundary between science and the inner world of visionary, mystical experience.History and myth mention many female visionaries, but Cassandra and Joan of Arc stand above the rest as the most imitated icons for modern 'women of vision' in popular culture. Fittingly, the first two sections of this book offer an examination of several television series or films which use these legendary women as key prototypes or points of departure for their own heroines or protagonists.Section one includes a discussion of modern-day Cassandra figures, including the witches and other 'seers' of the television series ""Buffy the Vampire Slayer"", ""Angel"", ""Firefly"", ""Charmed"", ""Hex"", and ""Tru Calling"". Section two discusses modern television shows whose main characters represent a contemporary spin on ""Joan of Arc"", including ""Joan of Arcadia"" and the short-lived ""Wonderfalls"". Finally, section three investigates female mediums and other 'psychic detectives' in reality television series such as ""Psychic Investigators"" and ""Rescue Mediums""; the popular television dramas ""Medium"", ""Ghost Whisperer"", and ""Afterlife""; and contemporary films such as ""Ghost"", ""The Gift"", and ""Premonition"".

Tattoos can tell personal stories through ink, drawn permanently on skin. They can be graphic representations of beliefs within communities, or can express an individual's defiance against authority. The tattoo's history can be traced back to the fourth millennium BC in Europe and 2000 BC in Egypt, and the current interest in tattoos is evident in many ways: in advertisements, the stereotypical ""outlaw biker"" character in films and television, the availability of temporary tattoos for children and even the production of a tattooed Barbie doll. Tattoos have become a significant statement, a means of interpersonal communication without words, across the globe. This text explores the tattoo as a narrative concept throughout its six chapters. The work highlights the tattoo in a different context, one of resistance and marginality, and draws attention to the important relationship between the visual and the narrative components of tattoo culture. Tattoos and their use, effects and narratives on Holocaust victims, slaves and colonized peoples, gangs and inmates and other societies are discussed, as well as the tattoo narrative in pop culture, from the prison drama ""Oz"" to the Maori films ""Utu"" and ""Once Were Warriors"".

In 1998, the series "Charmed", the story created by Constance M. Burge of three sisters who discover that they are powerful witches, first aired on the WB network. The series ran for eight series and into top-rating DVDs, and has established a continuing presence as cult TV. The world of "Charmed" is distinctively one of female solidarity, with sisters Piper, Prudence, Phoebe and, with the death of Pru, half-sister Paige making up the 'power of three'. In their crusade against the demonic population of their home city of San Francisco, the Halliwell sisters have also inherited their powers and "The Book of Shadows" through the female line. The expert contributors to "Investigating 'Charmed'", all of them fans of the show, explore its nature as ground breaking TV. They debate the status of "Charmed" as third wave feminist narrative, as well as its upturning of notions of sexuality, and its creation of alternative forms of family life. The San Francisco setting is explored as is "Charmed's" brand of witchcraft and fantasy, its mythological antecedents and female heroes. Looking also at the fans' relationship to the show, as well as its novelizations, fan fiction and blogs, the book on this fantastic magical show concludes with a complete Episode Guide.