The Great Recession in Fiction, Film, and Television

The Great Recession in Fiction, Film, and Television

Author: Kirk Boyle

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2013-10-17

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0739180649

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The Great Recession in Fiction, Film, and Television: Twenty-First-Century Bust Culture sheds light on how imaginary works of fiction, film, and television reflect, refract, and respond to the recessionary times specific to the twenty-first century, a sustained period of economic crisis that has earned the title the “Great Recession.” This collection takes as its focus “Bust Culture,” a concept that refers to post-crash popular culture, specifically the kind mass produced by multinational corporations in the age of media conglomeration, which is inflected by diminishment, influenced by scarcity, and infused with anxiety. The multidisciplinary contributors collected here examine mass culture not typically included in discussions of the financial meltdown, from disaster films to reality TV hoarders, the horror genre to reactionary representations of women, Christian right radio to Batman, television characters of color to graphic novels and literary fiction. The collected essays treat our busted culture as a seismograph that registers the traumas of collapse, and locate their pop artifacts along a spectrum of ideological fantasies, social erasures, and profound fears inspired by the Great Recession. What they discover from these unlikely indicators of the recession is a mix of regressive, progressive, and bemused texts in need of critical translation.


Book Synopsis The Great Recession in Fiction, Film, and Television by : Kirk Boyle

Download or read book The Great Recession in Fiction, Film, and Television written by Kirk Boyle and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2013-10-17 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Great Recession in Fiction, Film, and Television: Twenty-First-Century Bust Culture sheds light on how imaginary works of fiction, film, and television reflect, refract, and respond to the recessionary times specific to the twenty-first century, a sustained period of economic crisis that has earned the title the “Great Recession.” This collection takes as its focus “Bust Culture,” a concept that refers to post-crash popular culture, specifically the kind mass produced by multinational corporations in the age of media conglomeration, which is inflected by diminishment, influenced by scarcity, and infused with anxiety. The multidisciplinary contributors collected here examine mass culture not typically included in discussions of the financial meltdown, from disaster films to reality TV hoarders, the horror genre to reactionary representations of women, Christian right radio to Batman, television characters of color to graphic novels and literary fiction. The collected essays treat our busted culture as a seismograph that registers the traumas of collapse, and locate their pop artifacts along a spectrum of ideological fantasies, social erasures, and profound fears inspired by the Great Recession. What they discover from these unlikely indicators of the recession is a mix of regressive, progressive, and bemused texts in need of critical translation.

Popular Culture and the Austerity Myth

Popular Culture and the Austerity Myth

Author: Pete Bennett

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2016-10-14

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 1317374266

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Contemporary popular culture is engaged in a rich and multi-levelled set of representational relations with austerity. This volume seeks to explore these relations, to ask: how does popular culture give expression to austerity; how are its effects conveyed; how do texts reproduce and expose its mythic qualities? It provides a reading of cultural texts in circulation in the present ‘age of austerity’. Through its central focus—popular culture—it considers the impact and influence of austerity across media and textual categories. The collection presents a theoretical deconstruction of popular culture’s reproduction of, and response to, mythical expressions of ‘austerity’ in Western culture, spanning the United Kingdom, North America, Europe and the Middle East and textual events from political media discourse, music, videogames, social media, film, television, journalism, folk art, food, protest movements, slow media and the practice of austerity in everyday life


Book Synopsis Popular Culture and the Austerity Myth by : Pete Bennett

Download or read book Popular Culture and the Austerity Myth written by Pete Bennett and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-10-14 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary popular culture is engaged in a rich and multi-levelled set of representational relations with austerity. This volume seeks to explore these relations, to ask: how does popular culture give expression to austerity; how are its effects conveyed; how do texts reproduce and expose its mythic qualities? It provides a reading of cultural texts in circulation in the present ‘age of austerity’. Through its central focus—popular culture—it considers the impact and influence of austerity across media and textual categories. The collection presents a theoretical deconstruction of popular culture’s reproduction of, and response to, mythical expressions of ‘austerity’ in Western culture, spanning the United Kingdom, North America, Europe and the Middle East and textual events from political media discourse, music, videogames, social media, film, television, journalism, folk art, food, protest movements, slow media and the practice of austerity in everyday life

Masculinity in Contemporary Quality Television

Masculinity in Contemporary Quality Television

Author: Michael Mario Albrecht

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-03

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 1317099818

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Recent years have seen a rise in the popularity and quantity of ’quality’ television programs, many of which featuring complicated versions of masculinity that are informed not only by the women’s movement of the sixties and seventies, but also by several decades of backlash and debate about the effects of women’s equality on men, masculinity, and the relationship between men and women. Drawing upon studies of contemporary television programs, including popular series viewed internationally such as Mad Men, The League, Hung, Breaking Bad, Louie, and Girls, this book explores the ways in which popular cultural texts address widely circulating discourses of the ostensible ’crisis of masculinity’ in contemporary culture. A rich study of masculinity and its representation in contemporary television, Masculinity in Contemporary Quality Television will appeal to scholars and students of cultural and media studies, popular culture, television studies and cultural sociology with interests in gender, masculinities, and sexuality.


Book Synopsis Masculinity in Contemporary Quality Television by : Michael Mario Albrecht

Download or read book Masculinity in Contemporary Quality Television written by Michael Mario Albrecht and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent years have seen a rise in the popularity and quantity of ’quality’ television programs, many of which featuring complicated versions of masculinity that are informed not only by the women’s movement of the sixties and seventies, but also by several decades of backlash and debate about the effects of women’s equality on men, masculinity, and the relationship between men and women. Drawing upon studies of contemporary television programs, including popular series viewed internationally such as Mad Men, The League, Hung, Breaking Bad, Louie, and Girls, this book explores the ways in which popular cultural texts address widely circulating discourses of the ostensible ’crisis of masculinity’ in contemporary culture. A rich study of masculinity and its representation in contemporary television, Masculinity in Contemporary Quality Television will appeal to scholars and students of cultural and media studies, popular culture, television studies and cultural sociology with interests in gender, masculinities, and sexuality.

From Wall Street to Main Street

From Wall Street to Main Street

Author: Judith Schulz

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-11-16

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 3658162686

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Since the financial crisis cannot be explained by looking at the ‘numbers’ alone, Judith Schulz investigates the diverse facets of the economic system, including the emotional response and motivations of the actors. It is precisely in this context that fiction can fill in the gaps in the understanding of the financial crisis and its cultural context. Schulz analyses works of Don DeLillo, Jess Walter and Martha McPhee to explore the complex and multifaceted interaction between culture and the economy. These authors shed light on the impact of neoliberal economic policies and create a dialogue on the highly controversial questions related to the financial crisis. They point to the contradictions and paradoxes within American culture and show that there is a need to renegotiate issues of national identity and the American Dream.


Book Synopsis From Wall Street to Main Street by : Judith Schulz

Download or read book From Wall Street to Main Street written by Judith Schulz and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-11-16 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the financial crisis cannot be explained by looking at the ‘numbers’ alone, Judith Schulz investigates the diverse facets of the economic system, including the emotional response and motivations of the actors. It is precisely in this context that fiction can fill in the gaps in the understanding of the financial crisis and its cultural context. Schulz analyses works of Don DeLillo, Jess Walter and Martha McPhee to explore the complex and multifaceted interaction between culture and the economy. These authors shed light on the impact of neoliberal economic policies and create a dialogue on the highly controversial questions related to the financial crisis. They point to the contradictions and paradoxes within American culture and show that there is a need to renegotiate issues of national identity and the American Dream.

Television and Precarity

Television and Precarity

Author: Jasmin Humburg

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-03-06

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 3476056600

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Jasmin Humburg provides evidence of naturalist narrative strategies, tropes, and character variations in six contemporary American television series: The Wire, Tremé, Shameless, Ozark, Orange is the New Black and 2 Broke Girls. The author investigates how poverty is negotiated through classic literary naturalism and contemporary televisual articulations, and how the latter may have been influenced by the former in the age of the Great Recession. By connecting literary studies, television studies, and concepts of social mobility, this project contributes to the field of new poverty studies.


Book Synopsis Television and Precarity by : Jasmin Humburg

Download or read book Television and Precarity written by Jasmin Humburg and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-03-06 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jasmin Humburg provides evidence of naturalist narrative strategies, tropes, and character variations in six contemporary American television series: The Wire, Tremé, Shameless, Ozark, Orange is the New Black and 2 Broke Girls. The author investigates how poverty is negotiated through classic literary naturalism and contemporary televisual articulations, and how the latter may have been influenced by the former in the age of the Great Recession. By connecting literary studies, television studies, and concepts of social mobility, this project contributes to the field of new poverty studies.

Exploring Downton Abbey

Exploring Downton Abbey

Author: Scott F. Stoddart

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2018-03-21

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 1476632200

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 The BBC television series Downton Abbey (2010–2016), highly rated in the UK, achieved cult status among American viewers, harking back to the days when serial dramas ruled the airwaves. The show’s finale was one of the most watched in all of television history. This collection of new essays by British and American contributors explores how a series about life in an early 20th century English manor home resonated with American audiences. Topics include the role of the house in literature and film, the changing roles of women and the servant class, the influence of jazz and fashion, and attitudes regarding education and the class system.


Book Synopsis Exploring Downton Abbey by : Scott F. Stoddart

Download or read book Exploring Downton Abbey written by Scott F. Stoddart and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2018-03-21 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:  The BBC television series Downton Abbey (2010–2016), highly rated in the UK, achieved cult status among American viewers, harking back to the days when serial dramas ruled the airwaves. The show’s finale was one of the most watched in all of television history. This collection of new essays by British and American contributors explores how a series about life in an early 20th century English manor home resonated with American audiences. Topics include the role of the house in literature and film, the changing roles of women and the servant class, the influence of jazz and fashion, and attitudes regarding education and the class system.

Shadow Cinema

Shadow Cinema

Author: James Fenwick

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2020-11-12

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1501351613

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Filmmakers and cinema industries across the globe invest more time, money and creative energy in projects and ideas that never get produced than in the movies that actually make it to the screens. Thousands of projects are abandoned in pre-production, halted, cut short, or even made and never distributed – a “shadow cinema” that exists only in the archives. This collection of essays by leading scholars and researchers opens those archives to draw on a wealth of previously unexamined scripts, correspondence and production material, reconstructing many of the hidden histories of the last hundred years of world cinema. Highlighting the fact that the movies we see are actually the exception to the rule, this study uncovers the myriad reasons why 'failures' occur and considers how understanding those failures can transform the disciplines of film and media history. The first survey of this new area of empirical study across transnational borders, Shadow Cinema is a vital and fascinating demonstration of the importance of the unmade, unseen, and unknown history of cinema.


Book Synopsis Shadow Cinema by : James Fenwick

Download or read book Shadow Cinema written by James Fenwick and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filmmakers and cinema industries across the globe invest more time, money and creative energy in projects and ideas that never get produced than in the movies that actually make it to the screens. Thousands of projects are abandoned in pre-production, halted, cut short, or even made and never distributed – a “shadow cinema” that exists only in the archives. This collection of essays by leading scholars and researchers opens those archives to draw on a wealth of previously unexamined scripts, correspondence and production material, reconstructing many of the hidden histories of the last hundred years of world cinema. Highlighting the fact that the movies we see are actually the exception to the rule, this study uncovers the myriad reasons why 'failures' occur and considers how understanding those failures can transform the disciplines of film and media history. The first survey of this new area of empirical study across transnational borders, Shadow Cinema is a vital and fascinating demonstration of the importance of the unmade, unseen, and unknown history of cinema.

American Women's Regionalist Fiction

American Women's Regionalist Fiction

Author: Monika Elbert

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-01-04

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 3030555526

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American Women’s Regionalist Fiction: Mapping the Gothic seeks to redress the monolithic vision of American Gothic by analyzing the various sectional or regional attempts to Gothicize what is most claustrophobic or peculiar about local history. Since women writers were often relegated to inferior status, it is especially compelling to look at women from the Gothic perspective. The regionalist Gothic develops along the line of difference and not unity—thus emphasizing regional peculiarities or a sense of superiority in terms of regional history, natural landscapes, immigrant customs, folk tales, or idiosyncratic ways. The essays study the uncanny or the haunting quality of “the commonplace,” as Hawthorne would have it in his introduction to The House of the Seven Gables, in regionalist Gothic fiction by a wide range of women writers between ca. 1850 and 1930. This collection seeks to examine how/if the regionalist perspective is small, limited, and stultifying and leads to Gothic moments, or whether the intersection between local and national leads to a clash that is jarring and Gothic in nature.


Book Synopsis American Women's Regionalist Fiction by : Monika Elbert

Download or read book American Women's Regionalist Fiction written by Monika Elbert and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-01-04 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Women’s Regionalist Fiction: Mapping the Gothic seeks to redress the monolithic vision of American Gothic by analyzing the various sectional or regional attempts to Gothicize what is most claustrophobic or peculiar about local history. Since women writers were often relegated to inferior status, it is especially compelling to look at women from the Gothic perspective. The regionalist Gothic develops along the line of difference and not unity—thus emphasizing regional peculiarities or a sense of superiority in terms of regional history, natural landscapes, immigrant customs, folk tales, or idiosyncratic ways. The essays study the uncanny or the haunting quality of “the commonplace,” as Hawthorne would have it in his introduction to The House of the Seven Gables, in regionalist Gothic fiction by a wide range of women writers between ca. 1850 and 1930. This collection seeks to examine how/if the regionalist perspective is small, limited, and stultifying and leads to Gothic moments, or whether the intersection between local and national leads to a clash that is jarring and Gothic in nature.

Fiction in the Age of Risk

Fiction in the Age of Risk

Author: Tony Hughes-d'Aeth

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-04-02

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 1351026402

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When Ulrich Beck theorised a ‘Risk Society’ (Risikogesellschaft) in 1986, the threat of global annihilation through nuclear war remained uppermost in the minds of his readership. Three decades on, questions about whether the sensation of risk has mutated or evolved in the intervening period, and whether fiction exhibits evidence of such a change, remain just as urgent. While the immediate risk of the Cold War’s ‘mutually assured destruction’ through World War Three seems to have ebbed, the paradox is that the social goal of safety and security seem to elude attainment. Global financial collapse, Islamic terrorism, human-authored climate change, epidemic disease outbreaks, refugee crises and the chronic erosion of the welfare state now preoccupy those in the developed world and provide the horizons for contemporary anxieties worldwide. The contributions to this volume explore these themes, locating their significance and representation in a diverse range of contemporary literature, film, and comics, from China, Australia, South Africa, United Kingdom, Pakistan, and the United States. This book was originally published as a special issue of Textual Practice.


Book Synopsis Fiction in the Age of Risk by : Tony Hughes-d'Aeth

Download or read book Fiction in the Age of Risk written by Tony Hughes-d'Aeth and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-04-02 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Ulrich Beck theorised a ‘Risk Society’ (Risikogesellschaft) in 1986, the threat of global annihilation through nuclear war remained uppermost in the minds of his readership. Three decades on, questions about whether the sensation of risk has mutated or evolved in the intervening period, and whether fiction exhibits evidence of such a change, remain just as urgent. While the immediate risk of the Cold War’s ‘mutually assured destruction’ through World War Three seems to have ebbed, the paradox is that the social goal of safety and security seem to elude attainment. Global financial collapse, Islamic terrorism, human-authored climate change, epidemic disease outbreaks, refugee crises and the chronic erosion of the welfare state now preoccupy those in the developed world and provide the horizons for contemporary anxieties worldwide. The contributions to this volume explore these themes, locating their significance and representation in a diverse range of contemporary literature, film, and comics, from China, Australia, South Africa, United Kingdom, Pakistan, and the United States. This book was originally published as a special issue of Textual Practice.

Liberalism and American Literature in the Clinton Era

Liberalism and American Literature in the Clinton Era

Author: Ryan M. Brooks

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-06-30

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 1316519813

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Argues that a new, post-postmodern aesthetic emerges in the 1990s as American writers grapple with the triumph of free-market politics.


Book Synopsis Liberalism and American Literature in the Clinton Era by : Ryan M. Brooks

Download or read book Liberalism and American Literature in the Clinton Era written by Ryan M. Brooks and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-30 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that a new, post-postmodern aesthetic emerges in the 1990s as American writers grapple with the triumph of free-market politics.