Miles Booy – författare

The first full-length study of this beloved children’s series, The Chalet School in the Twentieth Century moves beyond the largely generic analysis within which it has previously been discussed. Published between 1925 and 1970, the series moves from European reconciliation after the Great War, through a second global conflict to a post-war world increasingly defined by increased secularity and emerging consumerism. Reproducing cover illustrations, Miles Booy’s book examines both those issues which author Elinor M. Brent-Dyer consciously explored (such as the exceptional The Chalet School in Exile, which she sought to explain the Nazi occupation of Austria to her young readers) and those aspects of the text which must be read symptomatically. This is a book which will engage students with historical and cultural interests beyond children’s literature. With barely a midnight feast in sight, but much anxiety about social change, it’s a familiar genre, but not as you think you know it. Hurry up, new girls, class is about to begin...

Upon its initial release in 1977, many critics regarded Star Wars as a childish retort to the mature American cinema of the seventies. Though full of sound and fury, some felt that it signified nothing. Four decades later, the significations are multiple as interpretations of the film’s strange imagery and metaphoric potential continue to pile up. Interpreting Star Wars analyses and contextualises the dominant trends in Star Wars interpretation from the earliest reviews, through Lucasfilm’s attempts to use its position as copyright holder to promote a single meaning, to the 21st century where the internet has rendered such authorial control impossible and new entries to the canon present new twists on old hopes.

Upon its initial release in 1977, many critics regarded Star Wars as a childish retort to the mature American cinema of the seventies. Though full of sound and fury, some felt that it signified nothing. Four decades later, the significations are multiple as interpretations of the film’s strange imagery and metaphoric potential continue to pile up. Interpreting Star Wars analyses and contextualises the dominant trends in Star Wars interpretation from the earliest reviews, through Lucasfilm’s attempts to use its position as copyright holder to promote a single meaning, to the 21st century where the internet has rendered such authorial control impossible and new entries to the canon present new twists on old hopes.

In 1975, Marvel Comics revived the X-Men, a failed title which hadn't used new material for half a decade. It was a marginal project in an industry then in crisis. Five years later, it was the bestseller in a revived comics market. Unusually in the comics world, one man, Chris Claremont wrote the comic over seventeen years, from 1975 to 1991, developing new characters such as Wolverine and Storm, and taking themes from Freudian psychology, Christian temptation narratives, Existentialist philosophy and the language of sub-cultural identity. Marvel's Mutants is the first book to be devoted to the aesthetics of these comics that laid the foundation for the worldwide X-Men franchise we know today. Miles Booy explores Claremont's recurrent themes, the evolution of his reputation as an auteur within a collaborative medium, the superhero genre and the input of the artists with whom Claremont worked. Also covered are the successful spin-off projects, which Claremont wrote: solo Wolverine mini-series and whole new teams of mutant superheroes.