Archive for August 2019

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[Commlist] Star Wars after Lucas by Dan Golding from the University of Minnesota Press

Thu Aug 29 21:04:11 GMT 2019






We would like to announce a recent publication from the University of Minnesota Press, which we hope will be of interest.

*Star Wars after Lucas*

A Critical Guide to the Future of the Galaxy

*Dan Golding***

*_https://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/star-wars-after-lucas _**__*

*__*

"Star Wars is almost too big a subject for any one mind to grasp, but Dan Golding’s look at how the franchise maintains its nostalgic glow in the Disney era stays on target, excavating the unique combination of art and commerce that holds Star Wars together." *—Adam Rogers, deputy editor of /Wired and author of Proof: The Science of Booze/*//

"/Star Wars after Lucas/ is a useful and welcome review of the past four decades of Star Wars, as well as the strategies that corporations are increasingly adopting in order to perpetuate franchises. In particular, Dan Golding aptly describes Lucasfilm's struggles to balance nostalgic appeals with a growing commitment to diversity and inclusivity." *—A. D. Jameson, author of /I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing: Star Wars and the Triumph of Geek Culture/*

"Dan Golding’s wonderful book strikes a perfect balance between criticism and knowledgeable fandom. Approaching Disney-era Star Wars, his writing provides important insights into the workings of nostalgia culture, transmedia storytelling, and the power of transnational media industries in the age of global capitalism. His readings of individual Star Wars texts are thoughtful, nuanced, and theoretically informed, while at the same time relating them back to the complexities of branding, cross-platform marketing, and global entertainment franchising. /Star Wars after Lucas/ is essential reading for anyone with an interest in media franchising, globalization, media industries, and entertainment in the Disney era." *—Dan Hassler-Forest, coeditor of /Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling/**//*

Politics, craft, and cultural nostalgia in the remaking of Star Wars for a new ageA long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away—way back in the twenty-first century's first decade—Star Wars seemed finished. Then in 2012 George Lucas shocked the entertainment world by selling the franchise, along with Lucasfilm, to Disney. This is the story of how, over the next five years, Star Wars went from near-certain extinction to what Wired magazine would call "the forever franchise,"with more films in the works than its first four decades had produced. Focusing on /The Force Awakens/ (2015), /Rogue One/ (2016), /The Last Jedi/ (2017), and the television series /Rebels/ (2014–18), Dan Golding explores the significance of pop culture nostalgia in overcoming the skepticism, if not downright hostility, that greeted the Star Wars relaunch. At the same time he shows how Disney, even as it tapped a backward-looking obsession, was nonetheless creating genuinely new and contemporary entries in the Star Wars universe. A host of cultural factors and forces propelled the Disney-engineered Star Wars renaissance, and all figure in Golding's deeply informed analysis: from John Williams's music in The Force Awakens to Peter Cushing's CGI face in Rogue One, to Carrie Fisher's passing, to the rapidly changing audience demographic. /Star Wars after Lucas/ delves into the various responses and political uses of the new Star Wars in a wider context, as in reaction videos on YouTube and hate-filled, misogynistic online rants. In its granular textual readings, broad cultural scope, and insights into the complexities of the multimedia galaxy, this book is as entertaining as it is enlightening, an apt reflection of the enduring power of the Star Wars franchise.

*Dan Golding*is lecturer in media and communications at the Swinburne University of Technology and an award-winning writer with more than two hundred international publications. He is cohost of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV show /What Is Music/ and the producer of the soundtrack to /Push Me Pull You/. He is coauthor of /Game Changers: From Minecraft to Misogyny, the Fight for the Future of Videogames/ and has written for popular and web-based publications such as Kotaku, Buzzfeed, The Guardian, IGN, and The Conversation.

*University of Minnesota Press**| April 2019 | 256pp | 9781517905422 | HB | £17.99**

*Price subject to change.

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