Alien Audiences

Released in 1979, Ridley Scott's Alien has come to be regarded as a classic film, and has been widely written about. But how have audiences engaged with it? This book presents the – sometimes very surprising – results of a major audience research project, exploring how people remember and continue to engage with the film.

The 1979 film Alien has left an indelible mark on popular culture. Directed by Ridley Scott, at the time known primarily for making advertisements, and starring then-unknown actor Sigourney Weaver in the lead role, it transcended its humble origins to shock and disturb audiences upon its initial release. Its success has led to three direct sequels, two prequels, one "mashup" franchise, a series of comic books, graphic novels, novelizations, games, and an enormous and devoted fanbase. For forty years, Alien and its progeny have animated debate and discussion among critics and academics from a wide variety of fields and methodological perspectives. This book brings together scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds to explore Alien through a contemporary lens. The chapters here demonstrate the extent to which its effects and reception are deeply multifaceted, with the Alien franchise straddling the lines between "high" and "low" culture, playing with generic categories, crossing media boundaries, and animating theoretical, critical, and political debates. Chapters touch on female agency and motherhood, the influence of H.R. Giger, the viscerality of Alien's body horror, the narrative tradition of the Female Gothic, the patriarchal gaze in the Alien video games, and the rise of in-universe online marketing campaigns. In so doing, the volume aims to debate Alien's legacy, consider its current position within visual culture, and establish what the series means--and why it still matters--forty years since its birth.

Despite the constant changes in contemporary popular media, the horror genre retains its attraction for audiences of all backgrounds. This edited collection explores modern representations of gender in horror and how this factors into the genre's appeal.

The Oxford Handbook of Cinematic Listening explores the intersection between the history of listening and the history of the moving image. Featuring established and emergent scholars from musicology, film studies, and literary studies, ethnomusicology and sound studies, popular music,sociology, media and communications, and psychology, this Handbook offers a wide range of case studies and methodological perspectives on the archaeologies, aesthetics, and extensions of cinematic listening.Chapters are structured around six themes: Part I ("Genealogies and Beginnings") considers film sound in light of pre-existing genres such as opera and shadow theatre, and explores changes in listening taking place at critical junctures in the early history of cinema. Part II ("Locations andRelocations") focuses on specific venues and presentational practices (from roadshow movies to and contemporary live-score screenings). Part III ("Representations and Re-presentations") zooms into the formal properties of specific films, analysing representations of listening on screen as well as onthe role of sound as a representational surplus. Part IV ("The Listening Body") focuses on cinematic sound as a powerful and sensual stimulus that has the power to engage the full body sensorium. Part V ("Listening again") discusses a range of ways in which film sound is encountered andreinterpreted outside the cinema, through ancillary materials like songs and soundtrack albums, in experimental conditions, and in pedagogical contexts. Part VI ("Between Media") compares the listening protocols of cinema with those of TV series and music video, promenade theatre and personalstereos, video games and Virtual Reality.

The heroes, villains, and monsters portrayed in such popular science fiction television series as Heroes, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Caprica, Doctor Who, and Torchwood, as well as Joss Whedon’s many series, illustrate a shift from traditional, clearly defined characterizations toward much murkier definitions. Traditional heroes give way to “gray” heroes who must become more like the villains or monsters they face if they are going to successfully save society. This book examines the ambiguous heroes and villains, focusing on these characters’ different perspectives on morality and their roles within society. Appendices include production details for each series, descriptions and summaries of pivotal episodes, and a list of selected texts for classroom use. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

We live in an interconnected world in which expressive and religious cultures increasingly commingle and collide. In a globalized and digitized era, we need to better understand the relationship between the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and international borders. This book focuses on the exercise and protection of cross-border and beyond-border expressive and religious liberties, and on the First Amendment's relationship to the world beyond US shores. It reveals a cosmopolitan First Amendment that protects cross-border conversation, facilitates the global spread of democratic principles, recognizes expressive and religious liberties regardless of location, is influential across the world, and encourages respectful engagement with the liberty regimes of other nations. The Cosmopolitan First Amendment is the product of historical, social, political, technological and legal developments. It examines the First Amendment's relationship to foreign travel, immigration, cross-border communication and association, religious activities that traverse international borders, conflicts among foreign and US speech and religious liberty models, and the conduct of international affairs and diplomacy.

Tenth anniversary omnibus collecting books six through ten of the EarthCent Ambassador series. Humanity's diplomats are now accepted to the galactic stage, but the learning process is far from over, and the Stryx have plans with plans with plans. Book 6 A fleet arrives carrying a post-employment society with members from many species. Book 7 What lurks on the hidden decks of a space station that's millions of years old? Book 8 Running a galactic empire isn't easy, and one of the best emperors is calling it quits. Book 9 The alien ambassadors are learning English, EarthCent worries about humans going native. Book 10 Can humanity remain an independent species or are we ripe for a takeover?

This text examines the construction of sex and gender in the four science-fiction films comprising the Alien saga (starring Sigourney Weaver). It will be useful to researchers and teachers in film, mass communication, women's studies, gender studies and genre studies.