Mcfarland Company Inc Publishers: 2371 books

The Golden Girls, Designing Women, Living Single, Sex and the City, Girlfriends, Cashmere Mafia and Hot in Cleveland stand out as some of America’s favorite television series. Their lovable “female foursome” characters engage in witty banter as they challenge American stereotypes about sex,...

North Carolina’s Haw River has a rich geographic, ecological and cultural history, tracked here from its source to its confluence with the Atlantic Ocean. From grinding mills to algae science, this popular history features interviews with mill owners and workers, archaeologists, environmentalists,...

Like other forms of fan fiction, slash fiction—centered on same-sex relationships between two or more characters—is a powerful cultural dialogue. Though the genre can be socially transformative, particularly as an active feminist resistance to patriarchal ideologies, it is complex and continually...

The word “control” has many implications for video games. On a basic level, without player control, there is no experience. Much of the video game industry focuses on questions of control and ways to improve play to make the gamer feel more connected to the virtual world. The sixteen essays in...

Can a video game make you cry? Why do you relate to the characters and how do you engage with the storyworlds they inhabit? How is your body engaged in play? How are your actions guided by sociocultural norms and experiences? Questions like these address a core aspect of digital gaming—the video...

A follow up to 2007’s Classic Home Video Games, 1972–1984, this reference work provides detailed descriptions and reviews of every U.S.–released game for the Nintendo NES, the Atari 7800, and the Sega Master System, all of which are considered among the most popular video game systems ever produced....

Throughout the centuries, different cultures have established a variety of procedures for handling and disposing of corpses. Often the methods are directly associated with the deceased’s position in life, such as a pharaoh’s mummification in Egypt or the cremation of a Buddhist. Treatment by the...

From the text adventures of Zork, to the arcade game of Pac-Man, to the corridors of Doom, and on to the city streets of Grand Theft Auto IV, the maze has often been used as a space to trap and confuse players in their navigation of gameworlds. However, the maze as a construction on the landscape...

This is a detailed examination of 58 science fiction television series produced between 1990 and 2004, from the popular The X-Files to the many worlds of Star Trek (The Next Generation onward), as well as Andromeda, Babylon 5, Firefly, Quantum Leap, Stargate Atlantis and SG-I, among others. A chapter...

Whether rocketing to other worlds or galloping through time, science fiction television has often featured the best of the medium. The genre’s broad appeal allows youngsters to enjoy fantastic premises and far out stories, while offering adults a sublime way to view the human experience in a dramatic...

Most widely known for his starring role as outlaw Hannibal Heyes in television’s Alias Smith and Jones (1971–1973), actor Pete Duel (originally Peter Deuel) led an unpredictable and often tumultuous life, cut short by his highly publicized suicide on New Year’s Eve 1971, at the height of his...

People hunting people for sport—an idea both shocking and fascinating. In 1924 Richard Connell published a short story that introduced this concept to the world, where it has remained ever since—as evidenced by the many big- and small-screen adaptations and inspirations. Since its publication,...

For more than a century the Western film has proven to be an enduring genre. At the dawn of the 20th century, in the same years that The Great Train Robbery begat a film genre, Owen Wister wrote The Virginian, which began a new literary genre. From the beginning, both literature and film would usually...

Libraries are charged with fostering new skills and capabilities, a challenging task in an era of rapid technological change. Developing new ways of teaching and learning—within budget and time constraints—is the key to keeping up-to-date. Written by librarians, this collection of new essays describes...