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Realism and Tinsel: Cinema and Society in Britain 1939-48 (Cinema and Society)
by Robert MurphyFirst published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Realism, Myth, and the Vernacular in Pasolini's Film and Philosophy: Beyond the Middle-Class Matrix
by Max RyynänenPier Paolo Pasolini’s lifework has been studied through the lens of queer studies, film studies, poetry, and many other angles, but there are themes that one could still study. This book aims to bring forth a new understanding of Pasolini as someone who worked in various arts, and through appropriating one art with. Max Ryynänen shows Pasolini’s importance for not just film and film theory, but more broadly visual studies, art research and even cultural philosophy – where Pasolini can be seen to be a real pioneer in discussing unprivileged margins in the society. Ryynänen reads Pasolini not just as a semiotician of film, but also as a cultural philosopher, and argues for that interpretation.
Realist Ecstasy: Religion, Race, and Performance in American Literature (Performance and American Cultures #2)
by Lindsay V. RecksonHonorable Mention, Barnard Hewitt Award from the American Society for Theater ResearchExplores the intersection and history of American literary realism and the performance of spiritual and racial embodiment. Recovering a series of ecstatic performances in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American realism, Realist Ecstasy travels from camp meetings to Native American ghost dances to storefront church revivals to explore realism’s relationship to spiritual experience. In her approach to realism as both an unruly archive of performance and a wide-ranging repertoire of media practices—including literature, photography, audio recording, and early film—Lindsay V. Reckson argues that the real was repetitively enacted and reenacted through bodily practice. Realist Ecstasy demonstrates how the realist imagining of possessed bodies helped construct and naturalize racial difference, while excavating the complex, shifting, and dynamic possibilities embedded in ecstatic performance: its production of new and immanent forms of being beside. Across her readings of Stephen Crane, James Weldon Johnson, and Nella Larsen, among others, Reckson triangulates secularism, realism, and racial formation in the post-Reconstruction moment. Realist Ecstasy shows how post-Reconstruction realist texts mobilized gestures—especially the gestures associated with religious ecstasy—to racialize secularism itself. Reckson offers us a distinctly new vision of American realism as a performative practice, a sustained account of how performance lives in and through literary archives, and a rich sense of how closely secularization and racialization were linked in Jim Crow America.
Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth about Guilty Pleasure TV
by Jennifer L. PoznerMedia critic Pozner deconstructs reality TV's twisted fairy tales to demonstrate that far from being simple "guilty pleasures," these programs are actually guilty of fomenting gender-war ideology and significantly affecting the intellectual and political development of this generation's young viewers.
Reality Boy
by A.S. KingA new edition of Michael L. Printz Award winner A.S. King's stunning portrait of a life lived on reality TV."A.S. King is one of the best Y.A. writers working today."—New York Times Book ReviewGerald Faust knows exactly when he started feeling angry: the day his mother invited a reality television crew into his five-year-old life. Twelve years later, he&’s still haunted by his rage-filled youth—which the entire world got to watch from every imaginable angle—and his anger issues have resulted in violent outbursts, zero friends, and clueless adults dumping him in the special education room at school. Nothing is ever going to change. No one cares that he&’s tried to learn to control himself, and the girl he likes has no idea who he really is. Everyone&’s just waiting for him to snap…and he&’s starting to feel dangerously close to doing just that.
Reality Check: The Business and Art of Producing Reality TV
by Michael EssanyDo you have a concept for a reality TV show, but aren't sure about the next steps? Loaded with practical, step-by-step advice on the art and business of reality TV producing, and featuring insights from Mark Burnett, Dick Clark, and other top producers, Reality Check takes you from idea to...reality! At age 13, Michael Essany launched a lowly cable access TV talk show from his parents' basement in Valparaiso, Indiana. Fast forward to 2001, and Michael had turned his little talk show, The Michael Essany Show, into a multimillion-dollar project that quickly became one of the most talked about reality television shows. If Michael can do it, so can you. But be prepared for a lot of hard work and a few reality checks. This book includes compelling advice on how to:* Better understand the nature, complexities, and potential of the reality genre * Physically produce original reality programming* Get past the gatekeepers and deliver quality pitches to major networks and production companies* Legally protect yourself, your work, and your intellectual property * Learn from glories and the gaffes of those who toiled before you * Utilize the internet and other multimedia outlets to create and generate revenue from reality programming* Avoid the professional pitfalls of the reality TV industry* Parlay reality television projects into a successful and enduring career
Reality Radio, Second Edition: Telling True Stories in Sound (Documentary Arts and Culture, Published in association with the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University)
by John Biewen and Alexa DilworthThis new revised and expanded edition of Reality Radio celebrates today's best audio documentary work by bringing together some of the most influential and innovative practitioners from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. With a new foreword and five new essays, this book takes stock of the transformations in radio documentary since the publication of the first edition: the ascendance of the podcast; greater cultural, racial, and topical variety; and the changing economics of radio itself. In twenty-four essays total, documentary artists tell--and demonstrate, through stories and transcripts--how they make radio the way they do, and why. Whether the contributors to the volume call themselves journalists, storytellers, or even audio artists--and although their essays are just as diverse in content and approach--all use sound to tell true stories, artfully. Contributors include Jad Abumrad, Daniel Alarcon, Jay Allison, damali ayo, John Biewen, Emily Botein, Chris Brookes, Scott Carrier, Katie Davis, Sherre DeLys, Ira Glass, Alan Hall, Dave Isay, Natalie Kestecher, Starlee Kine, The Kitchen Sisters, Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder, Maria Martin, Karen Michel, Joe Richman, Dmae Roberts, Stephen Smith, Alix Spiegel, Sandy Tolan, and Glynn Washington.Jad Abumrad, RadiolabDaniel Alarcon, Radio AmbulanteJay Allison, The Moth Radio Hour, Transom.orgdamali ayo, independent audio producerJohn Biewen, audio program director at CDS, Scene on RadioEmily Botein, vice president of On-Demand Content, WNYCChris Brookes, independent audio producer, Battery RadioScott Carrier, This American Life, Home of the BraveKatie Davis, special projects coordinator at WAMU, Neighborhood StoriesSherre DeLys, 360documentaries, ABC Radio National Ira Glass, This American LifeAlan Hall, independent audio producer, Falling Tree ProductionsDave Isay, StoryCorpsNatalie Kestecher, Pocketdocs, ABC Radio NationalStarlee Kine, Mystery ShowThe Kitchen Sisters, The Hidden World of Girls, Hidden Kitchens Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder, SerialMaria Martin, Latino USA, GraciasVida Center for MediaKaren Michel, independent audio producerJoe Richman, Radio DiariesDmae Roberts, independent audio producerStephen Smith, APM ReportsAlix Spiegel, InvisibiliaSandy Tolan, independent audio producer, Homelands ProductionsGlynn Washington, Snap Judgment
Reality Show: Inside the Last Great Television News War
by Howard KurtzDan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings: They were on a first-name basis with the country for a generation, leading viewers through moments of triumph and tragedy. But now that a new generation has succeeded them, the once-glittering job of network anchor seems unmistakably tarnished. In an age of instantaneous Internet news, cable echo chambers and iPod downloads, who really needs the evening news? And, by extension, who needs Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and Charlie Gibson?
Reality Show: Inside the Last Great Television News War
by Howard KurtzDan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings: They were on a first-name basis with the country for a generation, leading viewers through moments of triumph and tragedy. But now that a new generation has succeeded them, the once-glittering job of network anchor seems unmistakably tarnished. In an age of instantaneous Internet news, cable echo chambers and iPod downloads, who really needs the evening news? And, by extension, who needs Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and Charlie Gibson? But the anchors still have a megaphone capable of cutting through the media static. Their coverage of Iraq helped turn the country against that bloody war, and they are now playing a leading role in chronicling the collapse of George Bush's presidency and the 2008 race to succeed him. Yet, even as the anchors fight for ratings supremacy, the mega-corporations they work for have handed them a bigger challenge: saving an American institution. In this freewheeling, intimate account of life atop the media pyramid, award-winning bestselling author Howard Kurtz takes us inside the newsrooms and executive suites of CBS, NBC, and ABC, capturing the deadline judgments, image-making, jealousies, and gossip of this high-pressure business. Whether it is Couric trying to regain her morning magic while coping with tabloid stories about her boyfriends, Williams reporting from New Orleans and Baghdad while worrying about his ailing father, or Gibson weighing whether to follow his wife into retirement while grappling with having to report the explicit details of sex scandals, Kurtz brings to life the daily battles that define their lives. The narrative reflects an extraordinary degree of access to such corporate chieftains as Jeff Zucker and Les Moonves, star correspondents, and the anchors themselves. Their goal: create an on-screen persona that people will tune in to and trust. Yet they are faced with a graying, shrinking audience as younger viewers flock to Jon Stewart, whose influence on the real newscasts is palpable. Here is the untold story of what these journalistic celebrities think of their bosses, cable competitors, bloggers, and each other.
Reality TV and Queer Identities: Sexuality, Authenticity, Celebrity
by Michael LovelockThis book examines queer visibility in reality television, which is arguably the most prolific space of gay, lesbian, transgender and otherwise queer media representation. It explores almost two decades of reality programming, from Big Brother to I Am Cait, American Idol to RuPaul’s Drag Race, arguing that the specific conventions of reality TV—its intimacy and emotion, its investments in celebrity and the ideal of authenticity—have inextricably shaped the ways in which queer people have become visible in reality shows. By challenging popular judgements on reality shows as damaging spaces of queer representation, this book argues that reality TV has pioneered a unique form of queer-inclusive broadcasting, where a desire for authenticity, rather than being heterosexual, is the norm. Across all chapters, this book investigates how reality TV’s celebration of ‘compulsory authenticity’ has circulated ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ ways of being queer, demonstrating how possibilities for queer visibility are shaped by broader anxieties and around selfhood, identity and the real in contemporary cultural life.
Reality TV: Factual Entertainment and Television Audiences (Key Ideas In Media And Cultural Studies)
by Annette HillReality TV restores a crucial, and often absent, element to the critical debate about reality television: the voices of people who watch reality programmes. From Animal Hospital to Big Brother, Annette Hill argues that much can be learned from listening to audience discussion about this popular and rapidly changing television genre. Viewers' responses to reality TV can provide invaluable information to enhance our understanding of both the reality genre and contemporary television audiences. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative audience research to understand how viewers categorise the reality genre, and how they judge the performance of ordinary people and the representation of authenticity within different types of reality programmes. * Do audiences think reality TV is real? * Can people learn from watching reality TV? * How critical are viewers of reality TV? Reality TV argues that audiences are engaged in a critical examination of the development of popular factual television. The book examines how audiences can learn from watching reality programmes, and how viewers think and talk about the ethics of reality TV.
Reality Television Contracts: How to Negotiate the Best Deal
by Paul Battista Hayley HughesReality television is the growth area of television today. Individuals around the country want to be involved, whether in front of the camera or behind, and those who want to produce reality television seek to attract talent-maybe from the local beauty salon or perhaps the rodeo, extermination company, or trucking company-to begin taping their own "sizzle" reels to pitch to Hollywood production companies. At long last, here is a book that explains and educates those involved in reality television (and those who hope to be involved) regarding the terms found in these agreements and how best to negotiate them. This guide also includes: A brief history of reality television A breakdown of how ideas develop and of the "players" involved Reviews of and comments on agreement templates for all parties in the development and production stages "Deal point" checklists to help stay on trackDirected at attorneys who currently represent clients in the industry or would like to add reality television to their law practices, at reality television producers or those looking to break into the scene, and at all reality television participants, the contracts included in this book will be an indispensable resource all the way!Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don't aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.
Reality Television and Arab Politics: Contention in Public Life
by Marwan M. KraidyWhat does it mean to be modern outside the West? Based on a wealth of primary data collected over five years, Reality Television and Arab Politics analyzes how reality television stirred an explosive mix of religion, politics, and sexuality, fuelling heated polemics over cultural authenticity, gender relations, and political participation in the Arab world. The controversies, Kraidy argues, are best understood as a social laboratory in which actors experiment with various forms of modernity, continuing a long-standing Arab preoccupation with specifying terms of engagement with Western modernity. Women and youth take center stage in this process. Against the backdrop of dramatic upheaval in the Middle East, this book challenges the notion of a monolithic "Arab Street" and offers an original perspective on Arab media, shifting attention away from a narrow focus on al-Jazeera, toward a vibrant media sphere that compels broad popular engagement and contentious political performance.
Reality Television and the Art of Trivialising Work Health, Safety and Wellbeing
by Trajce CvetkovskiThis book aims to assess the extent to which work health, safety and wellbeing (HSW) considerations are trivialised on the popular Australian reality TV programme, The Block. Reality TV as a genre plays a core feature in media and cultural studies, but there has not been any research on the impact of reality TV on safety culture, or how HSW issues are portrayed in popular media. This research remedies this deficiency and demonstrates contestants are workers on The Block who perform workplace activities. The work-related activities are concerned with construction, building and renovation work; and specifically, participants engage in what are seemingly routine or ordinary everyday life activities; namely housing construction and domestic or home dwelling renovations. It supports the argument claim that contestants on reality TV are defined as workers, and this definition of worker can be extended to other genres. The book ultimately demonstrates that reality television is trivialising HSW for the purposes of satisfying audience desire to consume popular culture, and these activities perpetuate a poor image of best safety practice.
Reality and Fantasy in American Independent Cinema: A Cavellian Approach
by Rick ZinmanIn the 21st century, blockbuster fantasy films have dominated film viewership in the United States. The increased popularity of fantasy films has generated much greater scholarly interest in the study of fantasy films. It has also generated an artistic response by American Indie filmmakers who have developed alternative approaches to the portrayal of film fantasy. Reality and Fantasy in American Indie Films: A Cavellian Approach applies the methods and procedures of Cavellian philosophical film criticism to the study of four prominent American indie films released in 2014 in which fantasy can be said to play an important role: Birdman (Alejandro G. Iñárritu); Boyhood (Richard Linklater); The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson); and Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch).
Reality, Magic, and Other Lies: Fairy-Tale Film Truths (Series in Fairy-Tale Studies)
by Pauline GreenhillReality, Magic, and Other Lies: Fairy-Tale Film Truths explores connections and discontinuities between lies and truths in fairy-tale films to directly address the current politics of fairy tale and reality. Since the Enlightenment, notions of magic and wonder have been relegated to the realm of the fanciful, with science and reality understood as objective and true. But the skepticism associated with postmodern thought and critiques from diverse perspectives—including but not limited to anti-racist, decolonial, disability, and feminist theorizing—renders this binary distinction questionable. Further, the precise content of magic and science has shifted through history and across location. Pauline Greenhill offers the idea that fairy tales, particularly through the medium of film, often address those distinctions by making magic real and reality magical. Reality, Magic, and Other Lies consists of an introduction, two sections, and a conclusion, with the first section, "Studio, Director, and Writer Oeuvres," addressing how fairy-tale films engage with and challenge scientific or factual approaches to truth and reality, drawing on films from the stop-motion animation company LAIKA, the independent filmmaker Tarsem, and the storyteller and writer Fred Pellerin. The second section, "Themes and Issues from Three Fairy Tales," shows fairy-tale film magic exploring real-life issues and experiences using the stories of "Hansel and Gretel," "The Juniper Tree," and "Cinderella." The concluding section, "Moving Forward?" suggests that the key to facing the reality of contemporary issues is to invest in fairy tales as a guide, rather than a means of escape, by gathering your community and never forgetting to believe. Reality, Magic, and Other Lies—which will be of interest to film and fairy-tale scholars and students—considers the ways in which fairy tales in their mediated forms deconstruct the world and offer alternative views for peaceful, appropriate, just, and intersectionally multifaceted encounters with humans, non-human animals, and the rest of the environment.
Realität in Serie: Realitätsbehauptungen in zeitgenössischen Fernsehserien
by Katja Kanzler Sophie Spieler Stefan SchubertRealität(streue) ist ein markantes Thema in der Medienkultur des 21. Jahrhunderts, das sich auf widersprüchliche Weise entfaltet: Realness scheint derzeit sowohl eine Krise als auch eine Konjunktur zu erleben. Der vorliegende Band beleuchtet dieses Thema im medialen Kontext der Fernsehserie mit Hilfe von Fallstudien aus interdisziplinären Perspektiven. Im Mittelpunkt stehen dabei die sozialen, kulturellen, politischen und ästhetischen Potenziale von Realitätsbehauptungen und -effekten in seriellen Fernsehformaten.
Realizing the Witch: Science, Cinema, and the Mastery of the Invisible (Forms of Living)
by Richard Baxstrom Todd MeyersBenjamin Christensen’s Häxan (The Witch, 1922) stands as a singular film within the history of cinema. Deftly weaving contemporary scientific analysis and powerfully staged historical scenes of satanic initiation, confession under torture, possession, and persecution, Häxan creatively blends spectacle and argument to provoke a humanist re-evaluation of witchcraft in European history as well as the contemporary treatment of female “hysterics” and the mentally ill.In Realizing the Witch, Baxstrom and Meyers show how Häxan opens a window onto wider debates in the 1920s regarding the relationship of film to scientific evidence, the evolving study of religion from historical and anthropological perspectives, and the complex relations between popular culture, artistic expression, and concepts in medicine and psychology. Häxan is a film that travels along the winding path of art and science rather than between the narrow division of “documentary” and “fiction.” Baxstrom and Meyers reveal how Christensen’s attempt to tame the irrationality of “the witch” risked validating the very "nonsense" that such an effort sought to master and dispel. Häxan is a notorious, genre-bending, excessive cinematic account of the witch in early modern Europe. Realizing the Witch not only illustrates the underrated importance of the film within the canons of classic cinema, it lays bare the relation of the invisible to that which we cannot prove but nevertheless “know” to be there.
Really the Blues
by Bernard Wolfe Ben Ratliff Mezz MezzrowMezz Mezzrow was a Jewish boy from the slums of Chicago who learned to play the clarinet in reform school and pursued a life in music and a life of crime. He moved from Chicago to New Orleans to New York, working in brothels and bars, bootlegging, dealing drugs, getting hooked, doing time, producing records, and playing with the greats, among them Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, and Fats Waller. Really the Blues, the jive-talking memoir that Mezzrow wrote at the insistence of, and with the help of, the novelist Bernard Wolfe, is the story of an unusual and unusually American life, and a picture of a man who moved freely across racial boundaries when few could or did, "the odyssey of an individualist. . . the saga of a guy who wanted to make friends in a jungle were everyone was too busy making money."
Really?: The World According To Clarkson
by Jeremy ClarksonJEREMY CLARKSON'S LATEST - AND MOST OUTRAGEOUS - TAKE ON THE WORLDCLARKSON'S BACK - AND THIS TIME HE'S PUTTING HIS FOOT DOWNFrom his first job as a travelling sales rep selling Paddington Bears to his latest wheeze as a gentleman farmer, Jeremy Clarkson's love of cars has just about kept him out of trouble.But in a persistently infuriating world, sometimes you have to race full-throttle at the speed-bumps.Because there's still plenty to get cross about, including:· Why nothing good ever came out of a meeting· Muesli's unmentionable side effects · Navigating London when every single road is being dug up at once· People who read online reviews of dishwashers· ****ing driverless carsBuckle up for a bumpy ride - you're holding the only book in history to require seatbelts . . .Praise for Jeremy Clarkson: Brilliant . . . Laugh-out-loud' Daily Telegraph'Outrageously funny . . . Will have you in stitches' Time Out 'Very funny . . . I cracked up laughing on the tube' Evening Standard
Reasserting the Disney Brand in the Streaming Era: A Critical Examination of Disney+ (Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies)
by Robert Alan Brookey Jason Phillips Timothy PollardReasserting the Disney Brand in the Streaming Era investigates the evolution of the Disney brand at a pivotal moment – the move from content creation to acquisition and streaming – and how the company reasserted its brand in a changing marketplace. Exploring how Disney’s acquisition of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Fox positioned the company to launch the Disney+ streaming service, the chapters look at the history of those acquisitions, and the deployment of the content, brands, and intellectual property from those acquisitions, through an analysis of the original content that appeared on Disney+. Offering a focused investigation of how the content offered from these various media brands was adapted for Disney+ so that it reflects the Disney brand, the authors illustrate through close textual analysis how this content reflects elements of the "Classic Disney Style." The analysis positions these texts in relation to their industrial contexts, while also identifying important touchstone texts (both television and film) in Disney's catalog. This comprehensive and thoughtful analysis will interest upper-level students and scholars of media studies, political economy, Disney studies, media industries and new technology.
Reassessing Murder, She Wrote: The Afterlives of a Popular Culture Phenomenon (Routledge Advances in Popular Culture Studies)
by Eva Burke Jennifer SchnabelThis book provides a critical overview of the cultural impact of the Murder, She Wrote TV series and its paratextual elements, including board and video games, podcasts, fan conventions, collectible figures, and ghostwritten novels. It also explores the series’ position within the crime genre, particularly its engagement with earlier iterations of the ‘lady detective’.Bringing together a broad range of experts, the book includes contributions from both academics and crime fiction novelists to offer a wide-ranging view of this popular series and its afterlives.Suitable for scholars and students working on popular culture, crime fiction, TV studies or fan studies, this collection provides an interdisciplinary analysis of one of the most successful and enduring female-fronted detective series in history.
Reattachment Theory: Queer Cinema of Remarriage (a Camera Obscura book)
by Lee WallaceIn Reattachment Theory Lee Wallace argues that homosexuality—far from being the threat to “traditional” marriage that same-sex marriage opponents have asserted—is so integral to its reimagining that all marriage is gay marriage. Drawing on the history of marriage, Stanley Cavell's analysis of Hollywood comedies of remarriage, and readings of recent gay and lesbian films, Wallace shows that queer experiments in domesticity have reshaped the affective and erotic horizons of heterosexual marriage and its defining principles: fidelity, exclusivity, and endurance. Wallace analyzes a series of films—Dorothy Arzner's Craig's Wife (1936); Tom Ford's A Single Man (2009); Lisa Cholodenko's High Art (1998), Laurel Canyon (2002), and The Kids Are All Right (2010); and Andrew Haigh's Weekend (2011) and 45 Years (2015)—that, she contends, do not simply reflect social and legal changes; they fundamentally alter our sense of what sexual attachment involves as both a social and a romantic form.
Rebecca and the Movies (American Girls #4)
by Jacqueline Dembar Greene<P>Rebecca can hardly believe it when cousin Max invites her to visit his movie studio! Although her parents don't approve of actors or movies, Mama relents and says she may go. <P>At the studio, Rebecca meets the glamorous Lily, a real movie star. When the camera begins to roll, Rebecca knows she must sit quietly and watch. Suddenly, the director shouts "Cut!" -- and Rebecca finds herself facing an opportunity she never imagined in her wildest dreams. <P>Does she have the nerve for it? And what would her parents say if they knew? <P>Rebecca and the Movies is the fourth book in the Rebecca, American-Girls collection, six-book series. Each story in the series reveals more about Rebecca, a lively Jewish girl, who grows up in 1914 in New York. The books in the Rebecca series include: Meet Rebecca, Rebecca and Ana, Candlelight for Rebecca, Rebecca and the Movies, Rebecca to the Rescue, and Changes for Rebecca. Every book of the series not only features a fictional, realistic story and has magnificent illustrations, the book also has a historical "Looking Back" section. In this "Looking Back" section, the author describes some of the historical characteristics of Rebecca's 1914 time period in a style which children can understand and adults can appreciate.
Rebel Dance, Renegade Stance: Timba Music and Black Identity in Cuba
by Umi VaughanRebel Dance, Renegade Stance shows how community music-makers and dancers take in all that is around them socially and globally, and publicly and bodily unfold their memories, sentiments, and raw responses within open spaces designated or commandeered for local popular dance. Umi Vaughan, an African American anthropologist, musician, dancer, and photographer "plantao" in Cuba—planted, living like a Cuban—reveals a rarely discussed perspective on contemporary Cuban society during the 1990s, the peak decade of timba, and beyond, as the Cuban leadership transferred from Fidel Castro to his brother. Simultaneously, the book reveals popular dance music in the context of a young and astutely educated Cuban generation of fierce and creative performers. By looking at the experiences of black Cubans and exploring the notion of "Afro Cuba," Rebel Dance, Renegade Stance explains timba's evolution and achieved significance in the larger context of Cuban culture. Vaughan discusses a maroon aesthetic extended beyond the colonial era to the context of contemporary society; describes the dance spaces of Cuba; and examines the performance of identity and desire through the character of the "especulador. " This book will find an audience with musicians, anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, interdisciplinary specialists in performance studies, cultural studies, and Latin American and Caribbean studies, as well as laypeople who are interested in Atlantic/African and African American/Africana studies and/or Cuban culture.