Spring 2012 saw the return to creative and critical success of Joss Whedon, with the release of both his horror flick The Cabin in the Woods and the box-office sensation, Marvel's The Avengers. After establishing himself as a premier cult creator, the man who gave us great television with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse and web series Dr Horrible's Sing-along Blog, as well as comic books including Fray and Astonishing X-Men, finally became the filmmaker he'd long dreame...

The Ultimate Unauthorized Resource to the Stories Behind LostLost is a complex and mysterious tale, one that draws on many sources for its themes and ideas—sources you must understand to become an advanced Lost expert. Lost*'s Buried Treasures* is the ultimate unauthorized guide to the ideas that have influenced the show and its writers—and is completely updated through Season Five.Explore:Bo...

"Save the Cheerleader, Save the World.rdquo; With that immediately memorable mantra, Heroes became the top-rated new series of fall 2006. Featuring such archetypal characters as one with a split personality, one who can fly, one who can see the future, one who can time travel - and the evil villain out to steal all of the powers for himself - the show touches our inner comic book fan, even if we've never cracked open a comic book. Saving the World: A Guide to Heroes will include essay anal...

For every television series, the original vision grows within a press of forces-both social and artistic expectations, conventions of the business, as well as conventions of the art. Bad television-predictable, commercial, exploitative-simply yields to the forces. Good television, like the character of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, fights them. Fighting the Forces explores the struggle to create meaning in an impressive example of popular culture, the television series phenomenon Buffy the Vam...

The Essential Cult TV Reader is a collection of insightful essays that examine television shows that amass engaged, active fan bases by employing an imaginative approach to programming. Once defined by limited viewership, cult TV has developed its own identity, with some shows gaining large, mainstream audiences. By exploring the defining characteristics of cult TV, The Essential Cult TV Reader traces the development of this once obscure form and explains how cult TV achi...

Bringing together seventeen original essays by scholars from around the world, Screwball Television offers a variety of international perspectives on Gilmore Girls. Adored by fans and celebrated by critics for its sophisticated wordplay and compelling portrayal of a mother-daughter relationship, this contemporary American TV program finally gets its due as a cultural production unlike any other, one that is beholden to Hollywood’s screwball comedies of the 1930s, steeped ...

The Sopranos is recognized as the most successful cable series in the history of television. The Washington Post has called the popular series, winner of twenty-one Emmys and five Golden Globes, "the television landmark that leaves other landmarks in the dust." In every aspect—narrative structure, visual artistry, writing, intertextuality, ensemble acting, controversial themes, dark humor, and unflinching examinations of American life—The Sopranos has had few equ...

In an age when geek chic has come to define mainstream pop culture, few writers and producers inspire more admiration and response than Joss Whedon. From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Much Ado About Nothing, from Dr. Horrible’s Sing–Along Blog to The Avengers, the works of Whedon have been the focus of increasing academic attention. This collection of articles represents some of the best work covering a wide array of topics that clarify Whedon’s importance...

No recent television creator has generated more critical, scholarly, and popular discussion or acquired as devoted a cult following as Joss Whedon (b. 1964). No fewer than thirty books concerned with his work have now been published, and ten international conferences on his work have convened in the U.K., the United States, Australia, and Turkey. Fitting then that this first volume in University Press of Mississippi's Television Conversations Series is devoted to the writer, director, and ...

The third edition of Clinical Care of the Diabetic Foot has been fully revised and updated, and continues to be the essential handbook on foot care and the treatment of the diabetic foot.The diabetic foot is typically the victim of nerve damage, micro- and macrovascular disease, and faulty healing, mechanisms that without proper care can lead to amputation. More than 80,000 diabetes-related amputations are performed in the United States each year, but non-specialist primar...

No recent television creator has generated more critical, scholarly, and popular discussion or acquired as devoted a cult following as Joss Whedon (b. 1964). No fewer than thirty books concerned with his work have now been published (a forthcoming volume even offers a book-length bibliography), and ten international conferences on his work have convened in the U.K., the United States, Australia, and Turkey. Fitting then that this first volume in the University Press of Mississippi's "Telev...