Media : Media, Communication and Cultural Studies

Chronicles the decline of baseball reporting and shows in practical terms how ill-served sports followers are by those they trust for the straight story. Charting the path of a veteran sports reporter's career, this book traces the changes in baseball coverage. more...

Price: $24.95

Why doesn't Batman just kill the Joker and end everyone's misery?. Can we hold the Joker morally responsible for his actions?. Is Batman better than Superman?. If everyone followed Batman's example,. would Gotham be a better place?. What is the Tao of the Bat?. Batman is one of the most complex characters ever to appear in comic books, graphic novels, and on the big screen. What philosophical trials does this superhero confront in order to keep Gotham safe? Combing through seventy years of comic books, television shows, and movies, Batman and Philosophy explores how the Dark Knight grapples with ethical conundrums, moral responsibility, his identity crisis, the moral weight he carries to avenge his murdered parents, and much more. How does this caped crusader measure up against the teachings of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Kierkegaard, and Lao Tzu? more...

Price: $17.95

Belong is a look at how art, music and culture survive in places that much of the world only associates with war, poverty and civil strife — like the Bob Marley cover band in Beirut or the architect / artist in Tel Aviv who wanted to incorporate the idea of destruction into new buildings. Over the years, Jennifer Morton and her cameramen have been dragged out of a club by riot police in Milan, tracked down and questioned in Belfast, witnessed spirit possession in Senegal, and abandoned on the side of the road by more than one driver. As producer and host of TV Frames, a show focusing on urban culture using a documentary-style format, Jennifer pursued the global art, music and culture scene all over the world. Using colour photographs, Belong highlights a unique approach to cultural reportage: knocking on doors, walking the streets, and taking risks. From the sophisticated corridors of artsy Stockholm to the dirt roads of Bamako to the people-littered streets of Mumbai, this is a collection of stories about the global art scene and the eccentric characters that make it up. more...

Price: $16.95

From film festivals to university campuses, from private homes to first-run theaters, people everywhere are viewing and discussing gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, and transgender films and videos. Between the Sheets, In the Streets considers these videos and films, testifying to the unavoidable connections between sexuality (the sheets) and activism (the streets) for all who identify as gay, lesbian, or queer in the 1990s. This first collection of essays to focus exclusively on queer, lesbian, and gay documentary argues that documentary films and videos speak with a sense of political and social urgency, acting as testaments to the importance of reclaiming history and asserting the importance of these points of view. Among the topics discussed are representations of young queers on such shows as MTV’s The Real World; pre-Stonewall films; portrayals of lesbians and aging; video activism in Oregon and the South; and the works of Derek Jarman, Su Friedrich, Cheryl Dunye, and Sadie Benning. A range of films and videos is examined, including Strangers in Good Company, Paris Is Burning, Juggling Gender, Silverlake Life, and Without You I’m Nothing. Tracing an exhilarating range of perspectives and subject positions, Between the Sheets, In the Streets is an essential guide to current developments in queer, lesbian, and gay documentary. Contributors: Chris Cagle, Linda Dittmar, Lynda Goldstein, Ronald Gregg, Janet Jakobsen, Lynda McAfee, Kathleen McHugh, Beverly Seckinger, Marc Siegel, Chris Straayer, Erika Suderburg, Thomas Waugh, and Justin Wyatt. more...

Price: $99.00

As a child and teenager, Nathan Rabin viewed pop culture as a life-affirming form of escape. Today, pop culture is his life. For more than a decade, he's served as head writer for A.V. Club, the entertainment section of The Onion. In The Big Rewind, Rabin shares his too-strange-for-fiction life story. From a psilocybin-addled trip to the Anne Frank House to having focus groups for his movie-review panel show opine that all the male critics seemed "gay" and that the show as a whole was "too gay," Rabin discusses his personal evolution in prose as hilarious as it is unexpectedly poignant.Using a specific song, album, book, film, or television show as a springboard to discuss a period in his life, Rabin recounts his heartwarming tale of triumph over adversity® with biting wit and unwise candor. The pop culture touchstones Rabin uses here reflect his broad frame of reference with comic dissertations on The Simpsons, The Catcher in the Rye, Dr. Dre, Grey Gardens, The Great Gatsby, the Magnetic Fields, the uncanny parallels between Ol' Dirty Bastard and John F. Kennedy, and how the stock market mirrors the pimp game. more...

Price: $25.00