Books by Prof. M. Keith Booker

Disney, Pixar, and the Hidden Messages of Children's Films provides wide-ranging scrutiny of one of the most lucrative American entertainment genres. Beyond entertaining children-and parents-and ringing up merchandise sales, are these films attempting to shape the political views of young viewers? M. Keith Booker examines this question with a close reading of dozens of films from Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, and other studios, debunking some out-there claims-The Ant Bully communist propaganda?-while seriously considering the political content of each film.Disney, Pixar, and the Hidden Messages of Children's Films recaps the entire history of movies for young viewers-from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to this year's Up-then focuses on the extraordinary output of children's films in the last two decades. What Booker finds is that by and large, their lessons are decidedly, comfortably mainstream and any political subtext more often than not is inadvertent. Booker also offers some advice to parents for helping children read films in a more sophisticated way.

Since the first Superman film came to the screen in 1978, films adapted from comics have become increasingly important as a film form.

While literary utopias depict an ideal society and reflect an optimistic belief in the triumph of humanity and government, dystopias present a society marked by suffering caused by human and political evils. Later chapters consider dystopias after World War II, contemporary communist dystopias, and postmodernist dystopias in the West.

Since late evening cartoons first aired in 1960, prime-time animated series have had a profound effect on American television and American culture at large.

This reference overviews dystopian theory and summarizes and analyzes numerous dystopian works. By reviewing the critical thought of particular dystopian theorists, the beginning of the volume provides a theoretical context for the remainder of the book.

A reassessment of the work of James Joyce, especially "Ulysses", in the light of postcolonial and Marxist literary theory. It explores the influence of Cold War anticommunism on previous readings of Joyce in the West and discusses the rejection of Joyce's writings by many leftist critics.

Bakhtin, Stalin, and Modern Russian Fiction presents an advanced introduction to the work of the Russian theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, focusing on the concepts of carnival, dialogism, and historicism.

For more than 50 years, science fiction films have been among the most important and successful products of American cinema, and are worthy of study for that reason alone.