Spyscreen is a genre study of English-language spy fiction film and television between the 1930s and 1960s. Taking as his focus many well-known films and television series, Toby Miller uses a wide range of critical approaches - from textual interpretation, audience studies, and culturalhistory, through auteurism, imperial history, class, and governmentality, to genre, cultural imperialism, and gender.Beginning with an overview of the social and political background to the history, production, and analysis of spy fiction, topics discussed include the first canonical espionage movie, The 39 Steps, key film noir texts such as Gilda and The Third Man, the figure of popular spies, including JamesBond, and the importance of women to the genre. The result is not just an insightful new study of key texts in this popular genre; it is an important intervention in the methodology and practice of Screen Studies.

Why does the secret agent never seem to die? Why, in fact, has the secret agent not only survived the Cold War - which critics and pundits surmised would be the death of James Bond and of the genre more generally - but grown in popularity? Secret Agents attempts to answer these questions as it investigates the political and cultural ramifications of the continued popularity and increasing diversity of the secret agent across television, film, and popular culture. The volume opens with a foreword by Tony Bennett, and proceeds to investigate programs, figures, and films such as Alias, Austin Powers, Spy Kids, the «new» Bond Girl, Flint, Mission Impossible, Jason Bourne, and concludes with an afterword by Toby Miller. Chapters throughout question what it means for this popular icon to have far wider currency and meaning than merely that of James Bond as the white male savior of capital and democracy.

Looking-Glass Wars: Spies on British Screens since 1960 is a detailed historical and critical overview of espionage in British film and television in the important period since 1960. From that date, the British spy screen was transformed under the influence of the tremendous success of James Bond in the cinema (the spy thriller), and of the new-style spy writing of John le Carré and Len Deighton (the espionage story). In the 1960s, there developed a popular cycle of spy thrillers in the cinema and on television. The new study looks in detail at the cycle which in previous work has been largely neglected in favour of the James Bond films. The study also brings new attention to espionage on British television and popular secret agent series such as Spy Trap, Quiller and The Sandbaggers. It also gives attention to the more ‘realistic’ representation of spying in the film and television adaptations of le Carré and Deighton, and other dramas with a more serious intent. In addition, there is wholly original attention given to ‘nostalgic’ spy fictions on screen, adaptations of classic stories of espionage which were popular in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, and to ‘historical’ spy fiction, dramas which treated ‘real’ cases of espionage and their characters, most notably the notorious Cambridge Spies. Detailed attention is also given to the ‘secret state’ thriller, a cycle of paranoid screen dramas in the 1980s which portrayed the intelligence services in a conspiratorial light, best understood as a reaction to excessive official secrecy and anxieties about an unregulated security service. The study is brought up-to-date with an examination of screen espionage in Britain since the end of the Cold War. The approach is empirical and historical. The study examines the production and reception, literary and historical contexts of the films and dramas. It is the first detailed overview of the British spy screen in its crucial period since the 1960s and provides fresh attention to spy films, series and serials never previously considered.

This volume explores the concept of deception from a multidisciplinary perspective, reflecting how deception is considered across numerous fields ranging from literature and historical cases to psychological science.

Before 9/11, films addressing torture outside of the horror/slasher genre depicted the practice in a variety of forms. In most cases, torture was cast as the act of a desperate and depraved individual, and the viewer was more likely to identify with the victim rather than the torturer. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, scenes of brutality and torture in mainstream comedies, dramatic narratives, and action films appear for little other reason than to titillate and delight. In these films, torture is devoid of any redeeming qualities, represented as an exercise in brutal senselessness carried out by authoritarian regimes and institutions. This volume follows the shift in the representation of torture over the past decade, specifically in documentary, action, and political films. It traces and compares the development of this trend in films from the United States, Europe, China, Latin America, South Africa, and the Middle East. Featuring essays by sociologists, psychologists, historians, journalists, and specialists in film and cultural studies, the collection approaches the representation of torture in film and television from multiple angles and disciplines, connecting its aesthetics and practices to the dynamic of state terror and political domination.

The epic Emancipator sci-fi trilogy continues with this tale of galactic action and adventure, as one man fights to bring down the brutal slave trade. Slavery is the corporate foundation of the powerful Pangalic Worlds where Ruiz Aw leads a dangerous double life, as an enforcer for the Art League that so brutally controls its slaves and as an Emancipator dedicated to eradicating the cruel business. After escaping from a herd of slaves, and voyaging across the perilous and magical world of Sook, he and his band of refugees become trapped a rotting city called SeaStack. The biomechanical city however, has secrets that no one can begin to fathom. Ruiz must use his skills to kill for money, and the battle for safety just might a secret that will challenge the foundations of the universe.

Fans of the show and media history scholars will appreciate this thorough study.

The starship crew was stuck on a planet where the schemes of social engineers had created a nightmare of battling gangs. So they pretended to be the Royal Legions from a distant star kingdom. Things went better than they could have hoped, and the planet was rapidly becoming civilized--and then the real Royal flagship showed up.

The female spy has long exerted a strong grip on the popular imagination. With reference to popular fiction, film and television Violent Femmes examines the figure of the female spy as a nexus of contradictory ideas about femininity, power, sexuality and national identity. Fictional representations of women as spies have recurrently traced the dynamic of women’s changing roles in British and American culture. Employing the central trope of women who work as spies, Rosie White examines cultural shifts during the twentieth century regarding the role of women in the professional workplace. Violent Femmes examines the female spy as a figure in popular discourse which simultaneously conforms to cultural stereotypes and raises questions about women's roles in British and American culture, in terms of gender, sexuality and national identity. Immensely useful for a wide range of courses such as film and television studies, English, cultural studies, women’s studies, gender studies, media studies, communications and history, this book will appeal to students from undergraduate level upwards.