Trauma in American Popular Culture and Cult Texts, 1980-2020
Trauma in American Popular Culture and Cult Texts, 1980-2020

Author: Sean Travers

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-10-13

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 3031132874

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book examines trauma in late twentieth- and twenty-first century American popular culture. Trauma has become a central paradigm for reading contemporary American culture. Since the early 1980s, an extensive range of genres increasingly feature traumatised protagonists and traumatic events. From traumatised superheroes in Hollywood blockbusters to apocalyptic-themed television series, trauma narratives abound. Although trauma is predominantly associated with high culture, this project shows how popular culture has become the most productive and innovative area of trauma representation in America. Examining film, television, animation, video games and cult texts, this book develops a series of original paradigms through which to understand trauma in popular culture. These include: popular trauma texts’ engagement with postmodern perspectives, formal techniques termed ‘competitive narration’, ‘polynarration’ and ‘sceptical scriptotherapy’, and perpetrator trauma in metafictional games.

Gothic War on Terror
Gothic War on Terror

Author: Danel Olson

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-01-01

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 3031170164

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

After 9/11, the world felt the “shock and awe” of the War on Terror. But that war also exploded inside novels, films, comics, and gaming. Danel Olson investigates why the paranormal, ghostly, and conspiratorial entered such media between 2002-2022, and how this Gothic presence connects to the most recent theories on PTSD. Set in New York/Gotham, Afghanistan, Iraq, and CIA black sites, the traumatic and weird works interrogated here ask how killing affects the killers. The protagonists probed are artillery, infantry, and armored-cavalry soldiers; military intelligence; the Air Force; counter-terrorism officers of the NYPD, NCIS, FBI, and CIA; and even the ultimate crime-fighting vigilante, Batman.

American Horror Story and Cult Television
American Horror Story and Cult Television

Author: Richard Hand

Publisher: Anthem Press

Published: 2023-11-14

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 1785279351

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Over ten seasons since 2011, the television series American Horror Story (AHS), created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, has continued to push the boundaries of the televisual form in new and exciting ways. Emerging in a context which has seen a boom in popularity for horror series on television, AHS has distinguished itself from its ‘rivals’ such as The Walking Dead, Bates Motel or Penny Dreadful through its diverse strategies and storylines which have seen it explore archetypal narratives of horror culture as well as engaging with real historical events. Utilising a repertory company model for its casting, the show has challenged issues around contemporary politics, heteronormativity, violence on the screen, and disability to name but a few. This new collection of essays approaches the AHS anthology series through a variety of critical perspectives within the broader field of television studies and its transections with other disciplines.

Contemporary Horror on Screen
Contemporary Horror on Screen

Author: Sarah Baker

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-10-17

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 9819949653

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book highlights how horror in film and television creates platforms to address distinct areas of modern-day concern. In examining the prevalence of dark tropes in contemporary horror films such as Get Out, Annabelle: Creation, A Quiet Place, Hereditary and The Nun, as well as series such as Stranger Things, American Horror Story and Game of Thrones, amongst numerous others, the authors contend that we are witnessing the emergence of a ‘horror renaissance’. They posit that horror films or programmes, once widely considered to be a low form of popular culture entertainment, can contain deeper meanings or subtext and are increasingly covering serious subject matter. This book thus explores how horror is utilised as a tool to explore social and political anxieties of the cultural moment and is thus presented as a site for contestation, exploration and expansion to discuss present-day fears. It demonstrates how contemporary horror reflects the horror of modern-day life, be it political, biological, social or environmental. A vital contribution to studies of the horror genre in contemporary culture, and the effect it has on social anxieties in a threatening and seemingly apocalyptic time for the world, this is a vital text for students and researchers in popular culture, film, television and media studies.

Understanding Media
Understanding Media

Author: Marshall McLuhan

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2016-09-04

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 9781537430058

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

When first published, Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media made history with its radical view of the effects of electronic communications upon man and life in the twentieth century.

Understanding the Transgenerational Legacy of Totalitarian Regimes
Understanding the Transgenerational Legacy of Totalitarian Regimes

Author: Elena Cherepanov

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-11-23

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 0429638507

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Understanding the Transgenerational Legacy of Totalitarian Regimes examines the ways in which the cultural memory of surviving totalitarianism can continue to shape individual and collective vulnerabilities as well as build strength and resilience in subsequent generations. The author uses her personal experience of growing up in the former Soviet Union and professional expertise in global trauma to explore how the psychological legacy of totalitarian regimes influences later generations’ beliefs, behaviors, and social and political choices. The book offers interdisciplinary perspectives on the complex aftermath of societal victimization in different cultures and discusses survivors’ experiences. Readers will find practical tools that can be used in family therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and peace building to recognize and challenge preconceived assumptions stemming from cultural trauma. This book equips trauma-minded mental health professionals with an understanding of the transgenerational toxicity of totalitarianism and with strategies for becoming educated consumers of cultural legacy.

Outstanding Books for the College Bound
Outstanding Books for the College Bound

Author: Angela Carstensen

Publisher: American Library Association

Published: 2011-05-27

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 083899315X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

More than simply a vital collection development tool, this book can help librarians help young adults grow into the kind of independent readers and thinkers who will flourish at college.

Five Midnights
Five Midnights

Author: Ann Dávila Cardinal

Publisher: Tor Teen

Published: 2019-06-04

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1250296080

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Ann Dávila Cardinal's Five Midnights is a “wickedly thrilling” (William Alexander) and “flat-out unputdownable” (Paul Tremblay) novel based on the el Cuco myth set against the backdrop of modern day Puerto Rico. 2019 Digital Book World Award Winner for best Suspense/Horror Book Five friends cursed. Five deadly fates. Five nights of retribución. If Lupe Dávila and Javier Utierre can survive each other’s company, together they can solve a series of grisly murders sweeping though Puerto Rico. But the clues lead them out of the real world and into the realm of myths and legends. And if they want to catch the killer, they'll have to step into the shadows to see what's lurking there—murderer, or monster? “A frightening, fast-paced thriller.” —Julianna Baggott, Alex Award-winning author of Pure At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Combat Death in Contemporary American Culture
Combat Death in Contemporary American Culture

Author: Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-12-16

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 1793634963

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Combat Death in Contemporary American Culture: Popular Cultural Conceptions of War since World War II explores how war has been portrayed in the United States since World War II, with a particular focus on an emotionally charged but rarely scrutinized topic: combat death. Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet argues that most stories about war use three main building blocks: melodrama, adventure, and horror. Monnet examines how melodrama and adventure have helped make war seem acceptable to the American public by portraying combat death as a meaningful sacrifice and by making military killing look necessary and often even pleasurable. Horror no longer serves its traditional purpose of making the bloody realities of war repulsive, but has instead been repurposed in recent years to intensify the positivity of melodrama and adventure. Thus this book offers a fascinating diagnosis of how war stories perform ideological and emotional work and why they have such a powerful grip on the American imagination.