Bücher veröffentlicht von Wayne State University Press

For critics, fans, and scholars of drama and film, the laugh has traditionally been tied to comedy, indicating and expressing mirth, witty relief, joyous celebration, or arch and sarcastic parody. But strange, dark laughter that illuminates non-comedic, unfunny situations gets much less attention. In The Last Laugh: Strange Humors of Cinema, editor Murray Pomerance has assembled contributions from thirteen estimable scholars that address the strange laughter of cinema from varying intellectual perspectives and a wide range of sources.Contributors consider unusual humors in a variety of filmic settings, from the chilling unheard laughter of silent cinema to the ribald and mortal laughter in the work of Orson Welles; the vagaries and nuances of laughter in film noir to the eccentric laughter of science fiction. Essays also look at laughter in many different applications, from the subtle, underlying wit of the thriller Don't Look Now to the deeply provocative humor of experimental film and the unpredictable, shadowy, insightful, and stunning laughter in such films as Black Swan, Henry Fool, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Kiss of Death, The Dark Knight, and A.I. Artificial Intelligence. The accessibly written, unique essays in The Last Laugh bring a new understanding to the delicate balance, unsettled tensions, and fragility of human affairs depicted by strange humor in film. For scholars of film and readers who love cinema, these essays will be rich and playful inspiration.

This work provides an analysis of Jewish music. Drawing upon hundreds of sources, it explains what constitutes Jewish music and the socio-cultural context in which it evolved.

This collection of essays on Kafka seeks to place his writings in a very large cultural context by fusing Freudian and expressionist perspectives and incorporating more theoretical approaches, linguistic theory, Gnosticism, and aspects of Derrida, into its synthesis.

This sombre biography of an urban slave who taught himself to read and write, and who ultimately achieved fame as a poet in Cuba's slave society, is presented in both Spanish and English. There is an introduction which sets the text in its historical and cultural context.

Explores the cultural connection between Syrian Jewish life and Arab culture in Brooklyn, New York, through liturgical music. This book investigates the multidimensional interaction of music and text in Sabbath prayers of the Syrian Jews to trace how Arab and Jewish traditions have merged in this particular culture.

Examining ""Perry Mason"" - one of the most successful television programs from the 1950, this book looks at the longevity of its appeal and what the continued appeal tells us about Americans' attitudes toward lawyers and the law. It lays out the circumstances under which ""Perry Mason"" was conceived and marketed as a distinct franchise.

As in the United States, fairy-tale characters, motifs, and patterns (many from the Western canon) have pervaded recent Japanese culture. Like their Western counterparts, these contemporary adaptations tend to have a more female-oriented perspective than traditional tales and feature female characters with independent spirits.In From Dog Bridegroom to Wolf Girl: Contemporary Japanese Fairy-Tale Adaptations in Conversation with the West, Mayako Murai examines the uses of fairy tales in the works of Japanese women writers and artists since the 1990s in the light of Euro-American feminist fairy-tale re-creation and scholarship. After giving a sketch of the history of the reception of European fairy tales in Japan since the late nineteenth century, Murai outlines the development of fairy-tale retellings and criticism in Japan since the 1970s. Chapters that follow examine the uses of fairy-tale intertexts in the works of four contemporary writers and artists that resist and disrupt the dominant fairy-tale discourses in both Japan and the West. Murai considers Tawada Yoko's reworking of the animal bride and bridegroom tale, Ogawa Yoko's feminist treatment of the Bluebeard story, Yanagi Miwa's visual restaging of familiar fairy-tale scenes, and Konoike Tomoko's visual representations of the motif of the girl's encounter with the wolf in the woods in different media and contexts. Forty illustrations round out Murai's criticism, showing how fairy tales have helped artists reconfigure oppositions between male and female, human and animal, and culture and nature. From Dog Bridegroom to Wolf Girl invites readers to trace the threads of the fairy-tale web with eyes that are both transcultural and culturally sensitive in order to unravel the intricate ways in which different traditions intersect and clash in today's globalising world. Fairy-tale scholars and readers interested in issues of literary and artistic adaptation will enjoy this volume.

Many historians focus on the growing anti-Semitism of the period 1848 to 1933, culminating in the Nazi Party's rise to power and its programme of genocide, but Peter Pulzer emphasizes the evolution of the ethnic identity, social roles and political activities of German Jews.

Examining events surrounding the test case of the right of Blacks to armed self-defense in the 1960s, this book tells the story of a Southern Black community's struggle to defend themselves against the Ku Klux Klan and other racists. This book heavily influenced the leader of the Black Panthers.

Originally published in Finnish in 1967, this text brings the story of the contribution of Finnish immigrants into the mainstream of Michigan history. Firsthand experiences are combined with research in Finnish language sources to create the story of an immigrant group in Michigan's development.

Offers a different perspective by allowing twenty-three male writers the chance to explore their artistic and emotional relationship to their favorite fairy-tale stories.

Explores the long and rich history of Jewish women writers in Britain from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day.

Twelve essays analyse performance in post-1950s film, addressing distinct questions about the working relationships between actors and directors and discussing the interplay between performance and cinematic techniques. The book explain the context for performance analysis as they address an international array of film genres, actors, and genres.

Pregnant Fictions explores the complex role of pregnancy in early modern tale-telling and considers how stories of childbirth were used to rethink gendered ""truths"" at a key moment in the history of ideas.

Investigates why, of all the British Romantic poets, Byron is the most frequently translated into Hebrew and Yiddish and how Jews used translations of Byron's works to help construct a new Jewish identity. Scholars of Byron, Jewish identity, and those interested in translation and reception studies will appreciate this insightful volume.

Presents studies about the cultural impact and audience reception of ""King Kong"". This book considers problems such as race and gender in the King Kong tradition, as well as historical, international, and contemporary audience and fan responses to this classic film and its popular protagonist. It is suitable for those in film and popular culture.

Examines the exchanges within and through feminist film culture to expand critical horizons in film scholarship. This book explores a variety of contextual factors that have shaped women's film making, from the conditions of production and circulation to engagement with various social movements.

A critical investigation of how virginity is represented in film. It considers virginity as it is produced and marketed in film. With chapters that span a range of periods, genres, and performances, it intends to prove that although it seems like an obvious quality at first glance, virginity in film is anything but simple.

Following a detailed introduction to the world of messianic ideology and its significance in Jewish history, The Messiah Texts traces the progress of the messianic legend from its biblical beginnings to contemporary expressions. Renowned scholar Raphael Patai has skillfully selected passages from a voluminous literature spanning three millennia. Using his own translations from Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Latin, and other original texts, Patai excerpts delightful folk tales, apocalyptic fantasies, and parables of prophetic power. All are central to the understanding of a magnificent heritage. patai also investigates the false messiahs who have appeared throughout Jewish history, the modern Messiah-influenced movements such as reform Judaism and Zionism, and the numerous reasons put forth by the various branches of Judaism as to why the Messiah has not yet appeared.