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Description

Dear Angela includes fourteen critical essays that examine the brief-lived but landmark television series, My So-Called Life (1994-1995). Though certainly not the first young woman to be the center of a television series, Angela Chase and the show about her life were doing something new on television and influenced many of the shows about young people that followed. Michele Byers and David Lavery bring together enthusiastic and engaging voices that bear on a series that continues to be hailed as a breakthrough moment in television, even though more than a decade has passed since its cancellation. Tackling a broad range of topics_from identity politics, to music, to infidelity, and death_each essay builds upon a belief that My So-Called Life is a particularly rich text worth studying for the clues it offers about a particular moment in cultural and television history. Dear Angela offers a sophisticated analysis of the show's legacy and cultural relevance that will appeal to media studies scholars and fans alike.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Overtures
Chapter 2 Gender/Sexuality/Desire: Subversion of Difference and Construction of Loss in the Adolescent Drama My So-Called Life
Chapter 3 Saving Our So-Called Lives: Girl Fandom, Adolescent Subjectivity, and My So-Called Life
Part 4 Media
Chapter 5 Timing is Everything: The Success of Dawson's Creek and the Failure of My So-Called Life
Chapter 6 Their So-Called Scene: Uses of Popular Music in My So-Called Life
Part 7 Characters & Themes
Chapter 8 My So-Called Queer: Rickie Vasquez and the Performance of Teen Exile
Chapter 9 Jordan Catalano/Brian Krakow: Masculinity in the 'Alternative' 90s
Chapter 10 Passing Notes and Passing Crushes: Writing Desire and Sexuality in My So-Called Life
Chapter 11 Whatever happens happens: Infidelity in My So-Called Life
Part 12 Literature
Chapter 13 My So-Called Magical Life: Magical Realism Joins the Chase(s)
Chapter 14 Holden Caulfield in Doc Martins: The Catcher in the Rye and
Part 15 Narrative
Chapter 16 One of those Fights Where it Feels like the Fight's Having You: Subjectivity and the My So-Called Life Narrative
Chapter 17 "It Only Got Teenage Girls": Narrative Strategies and the Realism of
My So-Called Life
Part 18 Coda
Chapter 19
My So-Called Life in the Balance: Metaphors of Mortality and Uncertainty in a Short-Lived Television Series
Part 20 Afterword
Chapter 21
My So-Called Life Meets The X-Files: Winnie Holzman's Influence on Joss Whedon

Product details

Published Aug 20 2007
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 256
ISBN 9780739116913
Imprint Lexington Books
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Series Critical Studies in Television
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Michele Byers

Anthology Editor

David Lavery

Contributor

Michele Byers

Contributor

Susan Murray

Contributor

Andrew Coomes

Contributor

Kelli Maloy

Contributor

Jes Battis

Contributor

Nicholas Birns

Contributor

Jolie Braun

Contributor

Chris Brooks

Contributor

Barbara Bell

Contributor

Bill Kte'pi

Contributor

Caryn Murphy

Contributor

David Diffrient

Contributor

David Lavery

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