Firefly revisited : essays on Joss Whedon's classic series / edited by Michael D. Goodrum, Philip Smith.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Goodrum, Michael D., 1983- editor.

Smith, Philip, 1983- editor.

Bloomsbury (Firm), publisher.

Series:

Science fiction television (Rowman and Littlefield, Inc.)

Science Fiction Television

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Firefly (Television program).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (228 p.)

Distribution:

New York : Bloomsbury Publishing(US), 2015.

Place of Publication:

Lanham : Rowman and Littlefield, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

According to Joss Whedon, the creator of the short-lived series Firefly (2002), the cult show is about "nine people looking into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things." The chronicles of crewmembers on a scruffy space freighter, Firefly ran for only four months before its abrupt cancellation. In that brief time, however, it established a reputation as one of the best science-fiction programs of the new millennium: sharply written, superbly cast, and set on an exotic multicultural frontier unlike anything ever seen on the small screen. The show's large, enthusiastic fan following supported a series of comics and a theatrical film, Serenity (2005), that extended the story, deepened the characters, and revealed new wonders and dangers on the deep-space frontier.In Firefly Revisited: Essays on Joss Whedon's Classic Series, Michael Goodrum and Philip Smith present a collection that reflects on the program, the characters, and the post-cancellation film and comics that grew out of the show. The contributors to this volume offer fresh perspectives on familiar characters and blaze new trails into unexplored areas of the Firefly universe. Individual essays explore the series' place in the history of the space-Western subgenre, the political economy of the Alliance, and the uses of music and language in the series to immerse audiences in a multicultural future.These essays look at how the show offered viewers high adventure as well as engaged with a range of themes that still resonate today. As such, Firefly Revisited will intrigue the show's many fans, as well as Whedon scholars and anyone interested in the twenty-first-century renaissance of science-fiction television.

Contents:

Introduction / Michael Goodrum & Philip Smith

Firefly and the space western: frontier fiction on fast-forward / John Wills

"A man of honor in a den of thieves": war veterans in Firefly and serenity / David Budgen

"See what's inside": understanding the reavers' posthuman identity and role in Firefly and serenity / Gareth Hadyk-Delodder & Laura Chilcoat

At the "corner of no and where": River's unmappable body in the Firefly/Serenity verse / Lisa Perdigao

"This is where I am, ain't a place of wishes": kyriarchy and the preservation of power in better days / Samira Nadkarni

Politics of loss: the historical world, "the right thing to do", and a utopian community in Firefly / Dennis Sobolev

Speaking Chinese: music and the exotic in Firefly / S. Andrew Granade

"Where does any story begin?": book chapters and Whedon verse choices / Dean A. Kowalski

Lighting out for the black: Firefly and the suspicion of governance structures / Andrew Howe

"They couldn't let us profit, it wouldn't be civilized": economic modalities and core-periphery relationships in the political economy of Firefly-serenity / Howard Kahm

The future isn't so shiny: Blade runner, Firefly, and the effects of American consumerism in modern China / Tara Prescott.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

979-88-8182-745-8

1-4422-4744-4

OCLC:

902724718