Home The Wow Climax: Tracing the Emotional Impact of Popular Culture by Henry Jenkins (ISBN: 9780814742822)

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The Wow Climax: Tracing the Emotional Impact of Popular Culture Hardcover - 2006 - 1st Edition

Name: The Wow Climax: Tracing the Emotional Impact of Popular Culture
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Author: Henry Jenkins
ISBN: 9780814742822

by Henry Jenkins

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From the publisher

A spirited collection of essays that get to the heart of what gives popular culture its emotional impact Vaudevillians used the term "the wow climax" to refer to the emotional highpoint of their acts--a final moment of peak spectacle following a gradual building of audience's emotions. Viewed by most critics as vulgar and sensationalistic, the vaudeville aesthetic was celebrated by other writers for its vitality, its liveliness, and its playfulness. The Wow Climax follows in the path of this more laudatory tradition, drawing out the range of emotions in popular culture and mapping what we might call an aesthetic of immediacy. It pulls together a spirited range of work from Henry Jenkins, one of our most astute media scholars, that spans different media (film, television, literature, comics, games), genres (slapstick, melodrama, horror, exploitation cinema), and emotional reactions (shock, laughter, sentimentality). Whether highlighting the sentimentality at the heart of the Lassie franchise, examining the emotional experiences created by horror filmmakers like Wes Craven and David Cronenberg and avant garde artist Matthew Barney, or discussing the emerging aesthetics of video games, these essays get to the heart of what gives popular culture its emotional impact.

Details

Title The Wow Climax: Tracing the Emotional Impact of Popular Culture
Author Henry Jenkins
Binding Hardcover
Edition number 1st
Edition 1
Pages 285
Volumes 1
Language ENG
Publisher New York University Press
Date 2006-12-24
Features Bibliography, Index, Table of Contents
ISBN 9780814742822 / 0814742823
Weight 1.12 lbs (0.51 kg)
Dimensions 9.19 x 6.31 x 0.91 in (23.34 x 16.03 x 2.31 cm)
Library of Congress subjects Popular culture - United States, United States - Social conditions - 1933-1945
Library of Congress Catalog Number 2006022413
Dewey Decimal Code 302.230

About the author

Henry Jenkins is Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at the University of Southern California. He is the author or coauthor of twenty books including Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture, and By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism.