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Bending Steel. Modernity and the American Superhero by Aldo J. Regalado (2015)

By examining interviews, trade magazines and even testimonies, letters, memoirs and other personal data author Regalado seeks direct impact of the superheroes on the real lives of actual people. Or rather, he aims to find out just how “the big forces of American modernity shaped the lives of Americans on an individual level and how […]

Savage Preservation: The Ethnographic Origins of Modern Media Technology by Brian Hochman (2014)

When technology and ethnographic curiosity meet, the result often is a huge body of data – mostly consisting of recordings and data stored in all varieties of the current technical standards. In five chapters, each one quite enthralling, Brian Hochman elaborates on various researchers, field studies and vanishing cultures, with subjects as Plains Indian sign […]

Science in Wonderland: The Scientific Fairy Tales of Victorian Britain by Melanie Keene (2015)

Mythical characters from folklore and fairy tales saw a revival unprecedented in 19th-century England. Fairies, and their realms, for many authors served as prominent means to comment on contemporary society and fairy tales were used as parables. Taking into consideration the many modern inventions such as steam engines, machines and electricity that transformed everyday life, […]