The Western tradition, with its well-worn tropes, readily identifiable characters, iconic landscapes, and evocative soundtracks, is not limited to the United States. Western, or Western-inspired films have played a part in the output of numerous national film traditions, including Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America. In International Westerns: Re-Locating the Frontier, Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper have assembled a collection of essays that explore the significance and meanings of these films, their roots in other media, and their reception in the national...

The fourteen essays featured here focus on series such as Space Patrol, Tom Corbett, and Captain Z-Ro, exploring their roles in the day-to-day lives of their fans through topics such as mentoring, promotion of the real-world space program, merchandising, gender issues, and ranger clubs - all the while promoting the fledgling medium of television.

The undead are back In Undead in the West: Vampires, Zombies, Mummies, and Ghosts on the Cinematic Frontier, Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper assembled a collection of essays that explored the unique intersection of two seemingly distinct genres in cinema: the western and the horror film. In this new volume, Undead in the West II: They Just Keep Coming, Miller and Van Riper expand their examination of undead Westerns to include not only film, but literature, sequential art, gaming, and fan culture (fan fiction, blogging, fan editing, and zombie walks). These essays run the gamut...

A popular sub-genre of fantasy and science fiction, steampunk re-imagines the Victorian age in the future, and re-works its technology, fashion, and values with a dose of anti-modernism. While often considered solely through the lens of literature, steampunk is, in fact, a complex phenomenon that also affects, transforms, and unites a wide range of disciplines, such as art, music, film, television, fashion, new media, and material culture. In Steaming into a Victorian Future: A Steampunk Anthology, Julie Anne Taddeo and Cynthia J. Miller have assembled a collection of essays that consider the...

Battlefields have traditionally been considered places where the spirits of the dead linger, and popular culture brings those thoughts to life. Supernatural tales of war told in print, on screen, and in other media depict angels, demons, and legions of the undead fighting against or alongside human soldiers. Ghostly war ships and phantom aircraft carry on their never-to-be-completed missions, and the spirits sometimes corpses of dead soldiers return to confront the enemies who killed them, comrades who betrayed them, or leaders who sacrificed them. In Horrors of War: The Undead on the...

Hybrid cinema films that straddle more than one genre are not unusual. But when seemingly incongruous genres are mashed together, such as the horror-comedy, filmmakers often have to tread carefully to produce a cohesive, satisfying work. Though they date as far back as James Whale s Bride of Frankenstein (1935), horror-comedies have only recently become one of the most popular attractions for movie goers. In The Laughing Dead: The Horror-Comedy Film from Bride of Frankenstein to Zombieland, editors Cynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper have compiled essays on the comic undead that look...

The fourteen essays featured here focus on series such as Space Patrol, Tom Corbett, and Captain Z-Ro, exploring their roles in the day-to-day lives of their fans through topics such as mentoring, promotion of the real-world space program, merchandising, gender issues, and ranger clubs - all the while promoting the fledgling medium of television.