Situation Comedy, Character, and Psychoanalysis puts the sitcom character on the analyst's couch and closely examines the characters of Basil Fawlty, Lucy Ricardo and Kim from Australia's Kath & Kim, in order to reveal the essential elements that must exist in a sitcom before even the first joke is written.
Bringing together papers presented at the Academic Conference on Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy from 2005 to 2013, this collection of essays includes Veronica Hollinger's keynote address, "e;The Body on the Slab,"e; and Robert Runte's Aurora Award-winning paper, "e;Why I Read Canadian Speculative Fiction,"e; along with 15 other contributions on science fiction and fantasy literature, television and music by Canadian creators.
Though unjustly neglected by English-language audiences, Spanish film and television not only represent a remarkably influential and vibrant cultural industry; they are also a fertile site of innovation in the production of transmedia works that bridge narrative forms.
Most of the bright and talented actresses who made America laugh in the 1950s are off the air today, but their pioneering Hollywood careers irrevocably changed the face of television comedy.
After a century of reinvention and, frequently, reinterpretation, Western movies continue to contribute to the cultural understanding of the United States.
In this fascinating survey of contemporary screen craft, David Cohen of Script and Variety magazines leads readers down the long and harrowing road every screenplay takes from idea to script to screen.
The puckish super-being called Q has bedeviled Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the Starship Enterprise since their first encounter at Farpoint Station.
Siegfried Kracauer (1889-1966), friend and colleague of Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, was one of the most influential film critics of the mid-twentieth century.
Created in 2006 as a spinoff of Doctor Who, the internationally popular BBC television series Torchwood is a unique blend of science fiction and fantasy, with much more of an adult flavor than its progenitor.
The vampire and the zombie, the two most popular incarnations of the undead, are brought together for a forensic critical investigation in Screening the Undead.
Following on author Peter Rollins' motto "e;If it isn't popular, it isn't culture,"e; this collection of new essays considers Vince Gilligan's award-winning television series Breaking Bad as a landmark of Western culture--comparable to the works of Shakespeare and Dickens in their time--that merits scholarly attention from those who would understand early the 21st century zeitgeist.
Food Network star Guy Fieri takes you on a tour of America's most colorful diners, drive-ins, and dives in this tie-in to his enormously popular television show, complete with recipes, photos, and memorabilia.
Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond made its television debut in 1959, nine months before Rod Serling's classic The Twilight Zone, and paved the way for a generation of television programs devoted to paranormal topics such as the occult, ESP, and ghost stories.
From the moment that Watership Down made its appearance on screen in season one, speculation about Lost's literary allusions has played an important role in the larger discussion of the show.
A quintessential work of 1960s European art cinema, L'Ann e derni re Marienbad (Last Year in Marienbad, 1961) was a collaboration between director Alain Resnais and 'New Novel' enfant terrible Alain Robbe-Grillet.
Scholars have characterized the early decades of the Cold War as an era of rising militarism in the United States but most Americans continued to identify themselves as fundamentally anti-militaristic.
Throughout film history, one of the fundamental fantasies portrayed on screen has been the kind of physical action few of us could ever experience in real life.
When Sydney Newman conceived the idea for Doctor Who in 1963, he envisioned a show in which the Doctor and his companions would visit and observe, but not interfere with, events in history.
Torchwood started its life on television as a spin-off from Doctor Who, bringing Captain Jack to join new colleagues in a television series that quickly established itself as fresh and watchable television.
Push: Software Design and the Cultural Politics of Music Production shows how changes in the design of music software in the first decades of the twenty-first century shaped the production techniques and performance practices of artists working across media, from hip-hop and electronic dance music to video games and mobile apps.
After '89 takes as its subject the dynamic new range of performance practices that have been developed since the demise of communism in the flourishing theatrical landscape of Poland.
Explores the cultural, industrial, formal, and generic contexts of the television soap opera Dark Shadows as a precursor to today s popular gothic media franchises.
When you think of holiday romance in popular culture, you probably imagine the formulaic made-for-TV movies we all love to watch: a career gal moves from the big city to a small town, where she finds the love of her life and the true meaning of Christmas.
