Wow Climax

Henry Jenkins is Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at the University of Southern California. He is the author or coauthor of twenty books including Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture, and By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism.

• ContentsIntroduction: Wow! Part I: The Lively Arts1 Games, the New Lively Art 2 Monstrous Beauty and Mutant Aesthetics: Rethinking Matthew Barney's Relation to the Horror Genre Part II: The Immediate Experience3 Death-Defying Heroes 4 Never Trust a Snake: WWF Wrestling as Masculine Melodrama 5 Exploiting Feminism in Stephanie Rothman's Terminal Island 6 "You Don't Say That in English!": The Scandal of Lupe Velez Part III: Welcome to the Playground7 "Going Bonkers!": Children, Play, and Pee-Wee 8 "Complete Freedom of Movement": Video Games as Gendered Play Spaces 9 "Her Suffering Aristocratic Majesty": The Sentimental Value of Lassie Notes Index About the Author

Building on the tradition of social commentators such as Gilbert Seldes, Robert Warshow, and Susan Sontag, Henry Jenkins brings his outstanding insight and compassionate counsel to contemporary cultural phenomena. Here not only media, but affect, matters. A delightful and helpful collection on popular pleasures. - Janet Staiger,author of Media Reception Studies Offers a lively, diligently researched, and well-written account of one scholar's engagement with the emotional punch of media. (PsycCRITIQUES)