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Girls' Series Fiction and American Popular Culture examines the
ways in which young female heroines in American series fiction have
undergone dramatic changes in the past 150 years, changes which
have both reflected and modeled standards of behavior for America's
tweens and teen girls. Though series books are often derided for
lacking in imagination and literary potency, that the majority of
American girls have been exposed to girls' series in some form,
whether through books, television, or other media, suggests that
this genre needs to be studied further and that the development of
the heroines that girls read about have created an impact that is
worthy of a fresh critical lens. Thus, this collection explores how
series books have influenced and shaped popular American culture
and, in doing so, girls' everyday experiences from the mid
nineteenth century until now. The collection interrogates the
cultural work that is performed through the series genre,
contemplating the messages these books relay about subjects
including race, class, gender, education, family, romance, and
friendship, and it examines the trajectory of girl fiction within
such contexts as material culture, geopolitics, socioeconomics, and
feminism.
The narrative re-tellings of the life, reign, and death of the
English King Edward II (reigned 1307-1327) present a unique
opportunity for scholars of sexuality in the early modern era. This
is because the works of authors like Christopher Marlowe, Michael
Drayton, Sir Francis Hubert, Elizabeth Cary, and Richard Niccols
were all inspired by the public, cultural memory fashioned from
Edward's same-sex love affair with Piers Gaveston. As such, each of
them presents a particular representation of and a specific
discourse about male-male sexual relations in the Renaissance. In
other words, what these works present is a concentrated body of
literature about same-sex love in the early modern era: works that
openly and frankly explore the possible origins of the love, the
reasons and causes for it; works that explore the ramifications of
male-male romantic relationships; works that explore the sexual
politics and sociocultural dynamics of same-sex romantic
partnerships; and works that describe and denote same-sex love from
an English Renaissance perspective. This study looks at each of the
major Renaissance texts about Edward II and examines the means
through which each text understands and analyzes the nature of
male-male same-sex love. From Marlowe's crafting of a
lover-identity for Edward to Drayton's obsession with Marlowe's
version of (gay) history; from Hubert's Augustinian construction of
Edward's nature to Cary's identification with the fallen king to
Niccols' inspired exemplum, what each of these works demonstrates
is that the "love that dare not speak its name" would not be
silenced, at least not in the case of Edward and Gaveston. When one
sees the name Edward II, one also sees his same-sex loves. The
correlation has become ingrained into our public recall of history.
Thus, as far as the world is concerned, Edward II was-and ever will
be-the gay king.
Girls' Series Fiction and American Popular Culture examines the
ways in which young female heroines in American series fiction have
undergone dramatic changes in the past 150 years, changes which
have both reflected and modeled standards of behavior for America's
tweens and teen girls. Though series books are often derided for
lacking in imagination and literary potency, that the majority of
American girls have been exposed to girls' series in some form,
whether through books, television, or other media, suggests that
this genre needs to be studied further and that the development of
the heroines that girls read about have created an impact that is
worthy of a fresh critical lens. Thus, this collection explores how
series books have influenced and shaped popular American culture
and, in doing so, girls' everyday experiences from the mid
nineteenth century until now. The collection interrogates the
cultural work that is performed through the series genre,
contemplating the messages these books relay about subjects
including race, class, gender, education, family, romance, and
friendship, and it examines the trajectory of girl fiction within
such contexts as material culture, geopolitics, socioeconomics, and
feminism.
Spartacus, the Thracian gladiator turned rebel leader, endures as a
near-mythic hero who fought for the oppressed against a Roman
oligarchy built on the backs of slave labour. The image of
Spartacus as a noble if doomed avenger is familiar and his story
has been retold through history as a cautionary tale about social
injustice. The series Spartacus takes a different view, with a
graphically violent depiction of the man and his times and a focus
on the archetype of the gladiator--the physically powerful,
courageous and righteous man. This collection of new essays studies
the series as an exploration of masculinity. In the world of
Spartacus, men jockey for social position, question the nature of
their lives, examine their relationships with women and with each
other, and their roles in society and the universe. As an
adaptation, the series also offers a compelling study in the
composite nature of historical narrative in television and film,
where key facts from original sources are seamlessly interwoven
with period embellishments, presenting audiences with authentic
history beside fiction that may as well be.
Representing Agency in Popular Culture: Children and Youth on Page,
Screen and In-Between addresses the intersection of children's and
youth's agency and popular culture. As scholars in childhood
studies and beyond seek to expand understandings of agency, power,
and voice in children's lives, this book places popular culture and
representation as central to this endeavor. Core themes of family,
gender, temporality, politics, education, technology, disability,
conflict, identity, ethnicity, and friendship traverse across the
chapters, framed through various film, television, literature, and
virtual media sources. Here, childhood is considered far from
homogeneous and the dominance of neoliberal models of agency is
questioned by intersectional and intergenerational analyses. This
book posits there is vast power in popular culture representations
of children's agency, and interrogation of these themes through
interdisciplinary lenses is vital to furthering knowledge and
understanding about children's lives and within childhood studies.
This book is a collection of new essays, with the general objective
of filling a gap in the literature about sex and science fiction.
Although some work has been published, none of it is recent. The
essays herein explore the myriad ways in which authors writing in
the genre, regardless of format (e.g., print, film, television,
etc.), envision very different beings expressing this most
fundamental of human behaviors. ""Science fiction"" can be
translated into ""real unreality."" More than a genre like fantasy,
which creates entirely new realms of possibility, science fiction
constructs its possibilities from what is real, from what is,
indeed, possible, or conceivably so. This collection, then, looks
to understand and explore the ""unreal reality,"" to note ways in
which our culture's continually changing and evolving mores of sex
and sexuality are reflected in, dissected by, and deconstructed
through the genre of science fiction.
[Much has been written about the girl sleuth in fiction, a feminist
figure who embodies all the potential wit, drive and zest of
girlhood. Her male counterpart, however, has received much less
critical attention despite his popularity in the wider culture.
This collection of twelve essays examines the boy detective and his
genre from a wide variety of critical perspectives and address
issues involving these young characters who stand on the cusp of
manhood and boyhood, heirs to the patriarchy yet still concerned
with first crushes and soda shop romances. Series explored include
the Hardy Boys, Tow Swift, the Three Investigators, Christopher
Cool and Tim Murphy, as well as works by Astrid Lindgren, Mark
Haddon, and Joe Meno.]
This collection of essays focuses its critical sights on the figure
of the girl sleuth, made famous by Nancy Drew but also
characterized by other famous detectives like Cherry Ames, Trixie
Belden, Linda Carlton, and even in contemporary media by Veronica
Mars and Hermione Granger of the ""Harry Potter"" series (all of
whom are represented in the book.) The girl sleuth is perhaps the
ultimate in paradox - she is fearless but cautious; intelligent but
undereducated; unbound yet always contained. She is almost
impossibly feminine, perfectly appointed and impeccably dressed,
yet she is also downright feminist, barging through barriers that
her adult female counterparts would not get through for decades to
come.And yet, in the face of the girl sleuth's paradoxical nature,
solving mysteries is clearly her defining act. Fittingly, solving
mysteries is what each of the authors represented in this
collection strives to do, examining the questions and conundrums
these girl sleuths have left in their wake as they have righted
wrongs, stopped the bad guy, and saved the day.The topics include:
the disputed origins of Nancy Drew and the Stratemeyer Syndicate;
the firmly intertwined relationships between the Syndicate and
Nancy Drew's many ghostwriters; the surprisingly distinct and
evolving textual identities of the Cherry Ames series; the
adaptation of the traditional girl sleuth archetype in contemporary
girl detectives like Veronica Mars, Lulu Dark, and Ingrid
Levin-Hill; and the ways in which Harry Potter's Hermione Granger,
while a central female character in the series, is often at odds
with the male-centric, fantasy-genre world of Harry Potter himself.
Representing Agency in Popular Culture: Children and Youth on Page,
Screen and In-Between addresses the intersection of children's and
youth's agency and popular culture. As scholars in childhood
studies and beyond seek to expand understandings of agency, power,
and voice in children's lives, this book places popular culture and
representation as central to this endeavor. Core themes of family,
gender, temporality, politics, education, technology, disability,
conflict, identity, ethnicity, and friendship traverse across the
chapters, framed through various film, television, literature, and
virtual media sources. Here, childhood is considered far from
homogeneous and the dominance of neoliberal models of agency is
questioned by intersectional and intergenerational analyses. This
book posits there is vast power in popular culture representations
of children's agency, and interrogation of these themes through
interdisciplinary lenses is vital to furthering knowledge and
understanding about children's lives and within childhood studies.
The end of the world may be upon us, but it certainly is taking its
sweet time playing out. The walkers on The Walking Dead have been
"walking" for nearly a decade. There are now dozens of apocalyptic
television shows and we use the "end times" to describe everything
from domestic politics and international conflict, to the weather
and our views of the future. This collection of new essays asks
what it means to live in a world inundated with representations of
the apocalypse. Focusing on such series as The Walking Dead, The
Strain, Battlestar Galactica, Doomsday Preppers, Westworld, The
Handmaid's Tale, they explore how the serialization of the end of
the world allows for a closer examination of the disintegration of
humanity--while it happens. Do these shows prepare us for what is
to come? Do they spur us to action? Might they even be causing the
apocalypse?
Few movie genres have highlighted the male body more effectively
than the "sword-and-sandal" film, where the rippling torso and the
bulging muscle are displayed for all to appreciate. Carrying his
ubiquitously phallic sword and dressed in traditional garb
calculated to highlight his magnificent physique, the
sword-and-sandal hero is capable of toppling great nations,
rescuing heroines, defeating monsters, and generally saving the
day. Each of these essays examines the issues of masculinity and
utility addressed in the sword-and-sandal genre. The contributors
offer insights on a film form which showcases its male protagonists
as heroic, violent, fleshy, and in the end, extremely useful.
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Geoffrey Chaucer (Hardcover)
Harold Bloom; Volume editing by Michael G. Cornelius
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R1,267
Discovery Miles 12 670
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Fourteenth-century author, poet, and civil servant Geoffrey Chaucer
has delighted readers through the ages with his colorful tales
filled with humanity, grace, and strength. He is best known for
""The Canterbury Tales"", a vibrant account of life in England
during his own day. This volume from the new ""Bloom's Classic
Critical Views"" series offers students essays from the 14th to the
early 20th centuries that present a historical look at Chaucer's
abiding literary influence.
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John Donne (Hardcover)
Harold Bloom; Volume editing by Michael G. Cornelius
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R1,401
Discovery Miles 14 010
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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The poetry of John Donne, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert, Robert
Herrick, and Richard Crashaw has fascinated critics for centuries.
Ambivalently received but inescapably influential, their tradition
can be traced through some of the best poets of our time. This new
volume from the ""Bloom's Classic Critical Views"" series features
insightful essays from the 17th and early 20th centuries that offer
students of literature historical insights into these significant
poets.
Many of us grew up exploring fascinating worlds--in books, films
and, most importantly, our imaginations--places filled with
mythological characters and magical landscapes where we had
stunning experiences punctuated by the harmless pleasures that any
child's mind can conjure. These worlds end up in our childhood
fictions, which have in turn shaped countless imaginations and
childhood adventures. The essays in this book attempt to comprehend
the worlds of children's progressive fiction--from how they are
created to how they affect readers. This book explores what happens
when speculative genres (fantasy, horror, and science fiction) and
imaginative spaces collide headlong with the realities and
surrealities of modern childhood. It moves back and forth between
Oz, Wonderland, Redwall and Fear Street, and explores series such
as Nancy Drew, Inkheart, The Mortal Instruments, the Miss Peregrine
series and more. Many of these works feature children who must save
the day--to stop the bad guy, kill the monster, complete the quest
and rescue adults--leading us to wonder if fantastic spaces in
children's progressive fiction help kids prepare to save the world
rather than helping them temporarily escape it.
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