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Conspiracy theories are everywhere in post-war American culture. From postmodern novels to The X-Files and from gangsta rap to feminist polemic, there is a widespread suspicion that sinister forces are conspiring to take control of our national destiny, our minds, and even our bodies. Conspiracy explanations can no longer be dismissed as the paranoid delusions of far-right crackpots. Indeed, they have become a necessary response to a risky and increasingly globalized world, in which everything is connected but nothing adds up. Peter Knight provides an engaging and cogent analysis of the development of conspiracy culture, from 1960s' countercultural suspicions about the authorities to the 1990s, where a paranoid attitude is both routine and ironic. Conspiracy Culture analyses conspiracy narratives about familiar topics like the Kennedy assassination, alien abduction, body horror, AIDS, crack cocaine, the New World Order, as well as more unusual ones like the conspiracies of patriarchy and white supremacy. Conspiracy Culture shows how Americans have come to distrust not only the narratives of the authorities, but even the authority of narrative itself to explain What Is Really Going On. From the complexities of Thomas Pynchon's novels to the endless mysteries of The X-Files, Knight argues that contemporary conspiracy culture is marked by an infinite regress of suspicion. Trust no one, because we have met the enemy and it is us.

From The War of the Worlds, Mars Attacks!, Mission to Mars and Independence Day; Neil Badmington explores our relationship with aliens and how thinkers such as Descartes, Barthes, Freud, Lyotard and Derrida have conceptualised what it means to be human (and post-human).

When they floored their Thunderbird off a cliff rather than surrender to the law, Thelma and Louise became icons of female rebellion, provoking strong reactions from viewers who felt either empowered or outraged by the duo's transgressions of women's traditional roles. The 1991 film quickly became—and continues to be—a potent cultural reference point, even inspiring a bumper sticker that declares, "Thelma & Louise Live!" In this insightful study of Thelma & Louise, six noted film scholars investigate the initial reception and ongoing impact of this landmark film. The writers consider Thelma & Louise from a variety of perspectives, turning attention to the film's promotion and audience response over time; to theories of comedy and the role of laughter in the film; to the film's soundtrack and score; to the performances of stars Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis; to the emergence of Brad Pitt as a star and male sex object; and to the film's place in the history of road and crime film genres. Complementing the scholarly analysis is an in-depth interview of screenwriter Callie Khouri by editor Bernie Cook, as well as reviews of Thelma & Louise that appeared in U.S. News & World Report and Time. Offering myriad new ways of understanding the complex interrelations of gender, identity, and violence, Thelma & Louise Live! attests to the ongoing life and still-evolving meanings of this now-classic film.

Read The Chronicle of Higher Ed Author Interview In This Is Not a President, Diane Rubenstein looks at the postmodern presidency — from Reagan and George H. W. Bush, through the current administration, and including Hillary. Focusing on those seemingly inexplicable gaps or blind spots in recent American presidential politics, Rubenstein interrogates symptomatic moments in political rhetoric, popular culture, and presidential behavior to elucidate profound and disturbing changes in the American presidency and the way it embodies a national imaginary. In a series of essays written in real time over the past four presidential administrations, Rubenstein traces the vernacular use of the American presidency (as currency, as grist for popular biography, as fictional TV material) to explore the ways in which the American presidency functions as a “transitional object” that allows the American citizen to meet or discover the president while going about her everyday life. The book argues that it is French theory — primarily Lacanian psychoanalysis and the radical semiotic theories of Jean Baudrillard — that best accounts for American political life today. Through episodes as diverse as Iran Contra, George H. W. Bush vomiting in Japan, the 1992 Republican convention, the failed nomination of Lani Guinier, and the Iraq War, This Is Not a President brilliantly situates our collective investment in American political culture.

A Companion to Literature in Film provides state-of-the-art research on world literature, film, and the complex theoretical relationship between them. 25 essays by international experts cover the most important topics in the study of literature and film adaptations. Covers a wide variety of topics, including cultural, thematic, theoretical, and genre issues Discusses film adaptations from the birth of cinema to the present day Explores a diverse range of titles and genres, including film noir, biblical epics, and Italian and Chinese cinema

By developing the concept of the "digital effects emblem," Kristen Whissel contributes a new analytic rubric to cinema studies. An "effects emblem" is a spectacular, computer-generated visual effect that gives stunning expression to a film's key themes. Although they elicit feelings of astonishment and wonder, effects emblems do not interrupt narrative, but are continuous with story and characterization and highlight the narrative stakes of a film. Focusing on spectacular digital visual effects in live-action films made between 1989 and 2011, Whissel identifies and examines four effects emblems: the illusion of gravity-defying vertical movement, massive digital multitudes or "swarms," photorealistic digital creatures, and morphing "plasmatic" figures. Across films such as Avatar, The Matrix, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jurassic Park, Titanic, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, these effects emblems heighten the narrative drama by contrasting power with powerlessness, life with death, freedom with constraint, and the individual with the collective.

Contemporary connections between German directors and Hollywood and their implications for German, American, and transnational film.The film histories of Germany and the United States have long been seen as intertwined, but scholarship has focused on émigré works of the 1930s and 1940s, on links between Weimar film and American film noir, and on the conflictedrelationship between directors of the New German Cinema and Hollywood. Recently, German film studies has begun reexamining the interconnection of the two film cultures and focusing on the internationalism of German cinema, but little research has been done on contemporary German directors'' involvement in American cinema, a gap in scholarship that this book fills. The study offers ways of understanding current German cinematic engagement with America and different directorial responses to the hegemonic pressures of Hollywood. It delineates the historical trajectory of German-American film relations in the 20th century, then analyzes the careers and works of four German-born directors who have significant ties with American cinema: Wolfgang Petersen, Roland Emmerich, Percy Adlon, and Tom Tykwer. A series of close readings of their productions isolates the cinematic practices and strategies with which these filmmakers negotiate the different national cultural and cinematic paradigms they traverse. The book analyzes constructions of national cultural identity, probes the boundaries of national cinemas, and expands our understanding ofemerging hybrid film cultures. It is a contribution to German film studies and to the emerging field of transnational film studies. Christine Haase is Associate Professor of German at the University of Georgia.s of four German-born directors who have significant ties with American cinema: Wolfgang Petersen, Roland Emmerich, Percy Adlon, and Tom Tykwer. A series of close readings of their productions isolates the cinematic practices and strategies with which these filmmakers negotiate the different national cultural and cinematic paradigms they traverse. The book analyzes constructions of national cultural identity, probes the boundaries of national cinemas, and expands our understanding ofemerging hybrid film cultures. It is a contribution to German film studies and to the emerging field of transnational film studies. Christine Haase is Associate Professor of German at the University of Georgia.s of four German-born directors who have significant ties with American cinema: Wolfgang Petersen, Roland Emmerich, Percy Adlon, and Tom Tykwer. A series of close readings of their productions isolates the cinematic practices and strategies with which these filmmakers negotiate the different national cultural and cinematic paradigms they traverse. The book analyzes constructions of national cultural identity, probes the boundaries of national cinemas, and expands our understanding ofemerging hybrid film cultures. It is a contribution to German film studies and to the emerging field of transnational film studies. Christine Haase is Associate Professor of German at the University of Georgia.s of four German-born directors who have significant ties with American cinema: Wolfgang Petersen, Roland Emmerich, Percy Adlon, and Tom Tykwer. A series of close readings of their productions isolates the cinematic practices and strategies with which these filmmakers negotiate the different national cultural and cinematic paradigms they traverse. The book analyzes constructions of national cultural identity, probes the boundaries of national cinemas, and expands our understanding ofemerging hybrid film cultures. It is a contribution to German film studies and to the emerging field of transnational film studies. Christine Haase is Associate Professor of German at the University of Georgia.paradigms they traverse. The book analyzes constructions of national cultural identity, probes the boundaries of national cinemas, and expands our understanding ofemerging hybrid film cultures. It is a contribution to German film studies and to the emerging field of transnational film studies. Christine Haase is Associate Professor of German at the University of Georgia.

" Winner of the 2003 Ray and Pat Browne Book Award, given by the Popular Culture Association The contributors to Hollywood's White House examine the historical accuracy of these presidential depictions, illuminate their influence, and uncover how they reflect the concerns of their times and the social and political visions of the filmmakers. The volume, which includes a comprehensive filmography and a bibliography, is ideal for historians and film enthusiasts.

Michael Paul Rogin’s scholarship profoundly altered the scope, content, and disposition of political theory. He reconstituted the field by opening it to an array of texts, performances, and methods previously considered beyond the purview of the discipline. His work addressed the relationship between dimensions of politics typically split apart – institutional power and cultural forms, material interests and symbolic meanings, class projects and identity politics, the public and the private. Rogin’s scholarship enlarges our sense of the borders and genres defining political theory as a field and enriches our capacity to think critically and creatively about the political. The editors have focused on three categories of substantive innovation: Demonology and Countersubversion Rogin used the concepts “countersubversive tradition” and “political demonology” to theorize how constitutive exclusions and charged images of otherness generated imagined national community. He exposed not only the dynamics of suppressing and delegitimizing political opposition, but also how politics itself is devalued and displaced. The Psychic Life of Liberal Society Rogin addressed the essential contradiction in liberalism as both an ideology and a regime – how a polity professing equality, liberty, and pluralist toleration engages in genocide, slavery, and imperial war. Political Mediation: Institutions and Culture Rogin demonstrated how cultural forms – pervasive myths, literary and cinematic works – mediate political life, and how political institutions mediate cultural energies and aspirations.