About the Book
The headlong rush, the rapid montage, the soaring superhero, the plunging roller coaster - "Matters of Gravity" focuses on the experience of technological spectacle in American popular culture over the past century. In these essays, leading media and cultural theorist Scott Bukatman reveals how popular culture tames the threats posed by technology and urban modernity by immersing people in delirious kinetic environments like those traversed by "Plastic Man", "Superman", and the careening astronauts of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "The Right Stuff". He argues that as advanced technologies have proliferated, popular culture has turned the attendant fear of instability into the thrill of topsy-turvydom, often by presenting images and experiences of weightless escape from controlled space. Considering theme parks, cyberspace, cinematic special effects, superhero comics, and musical films, "Matters of Gravity" highlights phenomena that make technology spectacular, permit unfettered flights of fantasy, and free us momentarily from the weight of gravity and history, of past and present.
Bukatman delves into the dynamic ways pop culture imagines that apotheosis of modernity: the urban metropolis. He points to two genres, musical films and superhero comics, that turn the city into a unique site of transformative power. Leaping in single bounds from lively descriptions to sharp theoretical insights, "Matters of Gravity" is a celebration of the liberatory effects of popular culture.
Table of Contents:
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction 1
One Remembering Cyberspace
1 There's Always . . . Tomorrowland: Disney and the Hypercinematic Experience 13
2 Gibson's Typewriter 32
3 X-Bodies: The Torment of the Mutant Superhero (1994) 48
Two Kaleidoscopic Perceptions
4 The Artificial Infinite: On Special Effects and the Sublime 81
5 The Ultimate Trip: Special Effects and Kaleidoscopic Perception 111
Three The Grace of Beings
6 Taking Shape: Morphing and the Performance of Self 133
7 Syncopated City: New York in Musical Film (1929-1961) 157
8 The Boys in the Hoods: A Song of the Urban Superhero (2000) 184
Notes 225
Bibliography 257
Index 270
About the Author :
Scott Bukatman is Associate Professor of Art and Art History at Stanford University. He is the author of Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction, published by Duke University Press.
Review :
"Bukatman's passion, evinced throughout these essays, for sci-fi films and pulp comic books is infectious ..."--The Guardian, 26 June, 2004 "Everyone knows that academics are a major species within the genus Geekus, but few celebrate this fact as eloquently and energetically as Bukatman, whose new collection of essays on special effects, comic books, science fiction, and Hollywood musicals includes a photo of a well-worn Superman T-shirt, credited to 'collection of the author.' ... Bukatman's approach [has] an endearing bedside manner, a Gibsonian penchant for phenomenological brain-games, and a determined muddying of boundaries between the writer and his subject."--Ed Halter, Village Voice "Bukatman ... can turn a phrase like no one else... [C]ompelling and heady..."--Dene Grigar, Leonardo " ...[W]ell-written and worthy... The underexamined medium of the comics clearly deserved a writer of his breadth and depth ..." --Michael R. Mosher, Leonardo "Matters of Gravity [is] a book that contains much worth thinking about for cultural-studies scholars, sf scholars, and those of us who just like thinking about the world around us."--Brooks Landon, Science Fiction Studies "Bukatman's voice and personal perspective succeed in tying everything together, making the book a rewarding and intriguing read."--Steffen Hankte, Journal of Popular Culture "Matters of Gravity is a collection worth owning (at its modest price), a thoughtful grab bag that has some significant things to say about superheroes and special effects... Bukatman's sensitivity to issues of race, class, and gender enriches his remarks throughout."--Dan Shaw, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism "The superhero story and cyberpunk [are] two traditions that are, among others, superbly analysed in Scott Bukatman's collection of essays... Bukatman's passion, evinced throughout these essays, for sci-fi films and pulp comic-books is infectious..." --Steven Poole, The Guardian "[T]his book can be extremely useful for those aspiring college freshman composition teachers who are interested in teaching a course on science fiction, popular culture, or urban modernity, and who have been long waiting for exactly such an expert guideline."--Jie Lu, Extrapolation "[S]timulating and often startlingly brilliant... [I]ndividual chapters display what in a superhero would be metahuman vision, piercingly far-reaching but also capable of narrowing to a microscopic, diamond-hard focus."--Will Brooker, Popular Communication "[T]he book as a whole lays a groundwork for understanding special effects as a genre of sort that cuts across media; each variety of popular entertainment he addresses provides its own glimpse at a different system at work in modernity's body, and each piece in this collection adds another transparency to layer over the last to provide a fuller picture of that body."-- Mary Helen Kolisnyk, Film-Philosophy "I like [Matters of Gravity] for its enthusiasm; its imaginative guide to new avenues of technology, the body, and popular culture; and its reminder that the irrational has its place in technology."--George Basalla, Technology and Culture "Physically, the book is a handsome volume. Readable, well designed, with a good set of plates and illustrations, it should satisfy the general public interest in films, comics, or popular culture. Academic readers should be pleased with an excellent set of annotations about comic, film, or cyberspace theory, with a good bibliography and an adequate index... Matters of Gravity ... will also be of value to stodgy academics by reminding them that today's great books were yesterday's trash, and that again, comics can articulate a political, social, utopian message worth examining."-- Oscar R. Marti, Utopian Studies
