Retold Resold Transformed


Book Description

In recent decades crime fiction has enjoyed a creative boom. Although, as Alison Young argues in her book Imagining Crime (1996), crime stories remain strongly identified with specific locations, the genre has acquired a global reach, illuminating different corners of the world for the delectation of international audiences. The recent fashion for Nordic noir has highlighted the process by which the crime story may be franchised, as it is transposed from one culture to another. Crime fiction has thus become a vehicle for cultural exchange in the broadest of senses; not only does it move with apparent ease from one country to the next, and in and out of different languages, but it is also reproduced through various cultural media. What is involved in these processes of transference? Do stories lose or gain value? Or are they transformed into something else altogether? How does the crime story that originates in a specific society or culture come to articulate aspects of very different societies and cultures? And what are the repercussions of this cultural permeability?




Crime Fiction Migration


Book Description

Crime narratives form a large and central part of the modern cultural landscape. This book explores the cognitive stylistic processing of prose and audiovisual fictional crime 'texts'. It also examines instances where such narratives find themselves, through popular demand, 'migrating' - meaning that they cross languages, media formats and/or cultures. In doing so, Crime Fiction Migration proposes a move from a monomodal to a multimodal approach to the study of crime fiction. Examining original crime fiction works alongside their translations, adaptations and remakings proves instrumental in understanding how various semiotic modes interact with one another. The book analyses works such as We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Killing trilogy and the reimaginings of plays such as Shear Madness and films such as Funny Games. Crime fiction is consistently popular and 'on the move' - witness the spate of detective series exported out of Scandinavia, or the ever popular exporting of these shows from the USA. This multimodal and semiotically-aware analysis of global crime narratives expands the discipline and is key reading for students of linguistics, criminology, literature and film.




The Bloomsbury Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature in Translation


Book Description

Offering the first systematic overview of modern and contemporary Chinese literature from a translation studies perspective, this handbook provides students, researchers and teachers with a context in which to read and appreciate the effects of linguistic and cultural transfer in Chinese literary works. Translation matters. It always has, of course, but more so when we want to reap the benefits of intercultural communication. In many universities Chinese literature in English translation is taught as if it had been written in English. As a result, students submit what they read to their own cultural expectations; they do not read in translation and do not attend to the protocols of knowing, engagements and contestations that bind literature and society to each other. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature in Translation squarely addresses this pedagogical lack. Organised in a tripartite structure around considerations of textual, social, and large-scale spatial and historical circumstances, its thirty plus essays each deal with a theme of translation studies, as emerged from the translation of one or more Chinese literary works. In doing so, it offers new tools for reading and appreciating modern and contemporary Chinese literature in the global context of its translation, offering in-depth studies about eminent Chinese authors and their literary masterpieces in translation. The first of its kind, this book is essential reading for anyone studying or researching Chinese literature in translation.




Nostalgia and Political Theory


Book Description

In Nostalgia and Political Theory, Lawrence Quill advocates the central importance of nostalgia as a theoretical response to the ‘historic’ past and a vertiginous present. He does so by offering detailed analyses of diverse theoretical approaches, from the ancient world to the modern day, in order to reassess the relation between nostalgia and politics. Quill proposes nostalgia as an organizing concept, silently (and not so silently) influencing theorists as they construct critiques of the present or visions of the political future. Nostalgia and Political Theory surveys key contributions to nostalgic and antinostalgic thinking from across the political spectrum. Assessing the influence of photography, radio, television, and personal computing on changing conceptions of the past, Quill also considers the relation between populism, nationalism, and nostalgia. By challenging those who would dismiss nostalgia as irrational or a symptom of cultural malaise, Quill concludes by advancing the case for a liberal theory of nostalgia. Nostalgia and Political Theory will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of political theory, social theory, sociology, philosophy, political science, memory studies, and nostalgia studies.




The Crossover Novel


Book Description

"Highly recommended" by Choice While crossover books such as Rowling's Harry Potter series have enjoyed enormous sales and media attention, critical analysis of crossover fiction has not kept pace with the growing popularity of this new category of writing and reading. Falconer remedies this lack with close readings of six major British works of crossover fiction, and a wide-ranging analysis of the social and cultural implications of the global crossover phenomenon. A uniquely in-depth study of the crossover novel, Falconer engages with a ground-breaking range of sources, from primary texts, to child and adult reader responses, to cultural and critical theory.




Sing a Battle Song


Book Description

Outraged by the Vietnam War and racism in America, a group of young American radicals announced their intention to "bring the war home." The Weather Underground waged a low-level war against the U.S. government through much of the 1970s, bombing the Capitol building, breaking Timothy Leary out of prison, and evading one of the largest FBI manhunts in history. Sing a Battle Song brings together the three complete and unedited publications produced by the Weathermen during their most active period underground, 1970 to 1974: The Weather Eye: Communiqués from the Weather Underground; Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism; and Sing a Battle Song: Poems by Women in the Weather Underground Organization. Sing a Battle Song is introduced and annotated by three of the Weather Underground’s original organizers—Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, and Jeff Jones—all of whom are all still actively engaged in social justice movement work. Idealistic, inspired, pissed-off, and often way-over-the-top, the writings of the Weather Underground epitomize the sexual, psychedelic, anti-war counterculture of the American 1960s and 1970s.




The Literature/film Reader


Book Description

From examinations of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now to Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, The Literature Film Reader: Issues of Adaptation covers a wide range of films adapted from other sources. The first section presents essays on the hows and whys of adaptation studies, and subsequent sections highlight films adapted from a variety of sources, including classic and popular literature, drama, biography, and memoir. The last section offers a new departure for adaptation studies, suggesting that films about history--often a separate category of film study--can be seen as adaptations of records of the past. The anthology concludes with speculations about the future of adaptation studies. Several essays provide detailed analyses of films, in some cases discussing more than one adaptation of a literary or dramatic source, such as The Manchurian Candidate, The Quiet American, and Romeo and Juliet. Other works examined include Moby Dick, The House of Mirth, Dracula, and Starship Troopers, demonstrating the breadth of material considered for this anthology. Although many of the essays appeared in Literature/Film Quarterly, more than half are original contributions. Chosen for their readability, these essays avoid theoretical jargon as much as possible. For this reason alone, this collection should be of interest to not only cinema scholars but to anyone interested in films and their source material. Ultimately, The Literature Film Reader: Issues of Adaptation provides an excellent overview of this critical aspect of film studies.




The Damned Don't Cry - They Just Disappear


Book Description

A biography of an unconventional Southern writer who illuminated gay life in the South In The Damned Don't Cry—They Just Disappear, literary historian and Lamba Award-winning novelist Harlan Greene has created a portrait of a nearly forgotten southern writer, unearthing information from archives, rare books, film libraries,and small-town newspapers. Greene brings Harry Hervey (1900-1951) to life and explicates his works to reveal him as a hardworking writer and master of many genres, bravely unwilling to conform to conventional values. As Greene illustrates, Hervey's novels, short stories, nonfiction books, and film scripts contain complex mixtures of history and thinly disguised homoerotic situations and themes. They blend local color, naturalism, melodrama, and psychological and sexual truths that provide a view to the circles in which he moved. Living openly with his male lover in Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, Hervey set novels in these cities that scandalized the locals and critics as well. He challenged the sexual mores of his day, sometimes subtly and at other times brazenly presenting texts that told one story to gay male readers, while still courting a mainstream audience. His novels and nonfiction may have been coded and thus escaped detection in their day, but twenty-first century readers can decipher them easily. Greene also discusses Hervey's travel books and successful Hollywood scriptwriting, as well as his use of exotic elements from Asian cultures. The iconic film Shanghai Express, starring Marlene Dietrich, was based on one of his original stories. He also wrote some of the first travel books on Indochina, with descriptions of male and female prostitution and allusions to his own sexual adventures, which still make for sensational reading today. Despite Hervey's output and his perseverance in presenting gay characters and themes as openly as he could, he has not been included in any survey of twentieth-century gay writers. Greene now rectifies this omission, providing the first book-length study of Hervey's life and work and the first scholarly attention to him in more than fifty years. It furthers our understanding of gay life in the South, as well as the impact of gay artists on popular culture in the first half of the twentieth century.




Fashion & Luxury Marketing


Book Description

Written by marketing experts, this authoritative and comprehensive full-colour textbook made up of both accessible research and theory, real-world examples and case studies including Prada, Gucci and Burberry, provides students with an overview of the global fashion industry and fashion marketing, strategy, branding, communications, retailing and distribution, as well as the psychological factors involved in consuming fashion and luxury. The role of social media, celebrities and influencers such as Kim Kardashian and Lil Miquela are discussed, as is the ever-increasing role of ethical fashion and sustainability. The authors also offer an expanded view of fashion and luxury by moving beyond just clothing and apparel to include other fashionable and luxurious products and services, including technology. Packed with attractive visuals from fashion and culture, and accompanied by chapter summaries, questions and exercises, this textbook is essential reading for students studying fashion, luxury, marketing, management, retailing, branding and communications. Also provided for educators are supporting PowerPoint slides and an instructor’s manual to support use of the textbook with students. Suitable for Fashion Marketing/Fashion Consumer Behaviour modules as well as a general text for Fashion Marketing programmes. The text will also appeal to Luxury programmes (MBA etc) and Retail Marketing modules (UG).




Playing the Race Card


Book Description

The black man suffering at the hands of whites, the white woman sexually threatened by the black man. Both images have long been burned into the American conscience through popular entertainment, and today they exert a powerful and disturbing influence on Americans' understanding of race. So argues Linda Williams in this boldly inquisitive book, where she probes the bitterly divisive racial sentiments aroused by such recent events as O. J. Simpson's criminal trial. Williams, the author of Hard Core, explores how these images took root, beginning with melodramatic theater, where suffering characters acquire virtue through victimization. The racial sympathies and hostilities that surfaced during the trial of the police in the beating of Rodney King and in the O. J. Simpson murder trial are grounded in the melodramatic forms of Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Birth of a Nation. Williams finds that Stowe's beaten black man and Griffith's endangered white woman appear repeatedly throughout popular entertainment, promoting interracial understanding at one moment, interracial hate at another. The black and white racial melodrama has galvanized emotions and fueled the importance of new media forms, such as serious, "integrated" musicals of stage and film, including The Jazz Singer and Show Boat. It also helped create a major event out of the movie Gone With the Wind, while enabling television to assume new moral purpose with the broadcast of Roots. Williams demonstrates how such developments converged to make the televised race trial a form of national entertainment. When prosecutor Christopher Darden accused Simpson's defense team of "playing the race card," which ultimately trumped his own team's gender card, he feared that the jury's sympathy for a targeted black man would be at the expense of the abused white wife. The jury's verdict, Williams concludes, was determined not so much by facts as by the cultural forces of racial melodrama long in the making. Revealing melodrama to be a key element in American culture, Williams argues that the race images it has promoted are deeply ingrained in our minds and that there can be no honest discussion about race until Americans recognize this predicament.