Matthew J Smith

Critical Approaches to Comics offers students a deeper understanding of the artistic and cultural significance of comic books and graphic novels by introducing key theories and critical methods for analyzing comics. Each chapter explains and then demonstrates a critical method or approach, which students can then apply to interrogate and critique the meanings and forms of comic books, graphic...

DeWine, Gibson, and Smith's new hybrid "essentials" introductory text, Exploring Human Communication includes unique coverage of important topics not usually found in basic texts: mass communication, legal communication, mediated communication and technology, and using communication principles on the job....

Argues that the period from 1934 until the rise of dictator Francois 'Papa Doc' Duvalier to the presidency in 1957 constituted modern Haiti's greatest moment of political promise. This title emphasizes the key role that radical groups, particularly Marxists and black nationalists, played in shaping contemporary Haitian history.

In this moving microhistory of nineteenth-century Haiti and Jamaica, Matthew J. Smith details the intimate connections that illuminate the conjoined histories of both places after slavery. He argues that the history of the Caribbean is bound up in the shared experiences of those who crossed the straits and borders between the islands just as much as in the actions of colonial powers.

Fully revised and updated for its second edition, The Power of Comics remains the most authoritative introduction to comic books and graphic novels ? the history of the medium, its many forms and manifestations and their place in contemporary culture. ...

This collection of 13 essays employs ethnographic methods to investigate San Diego's Comic-Con international, the largest annual celebration of the popular arts in North America. Working from a common grounding in fan studies, these individual explorations examine a range of cultural practices at an event drawing crowds of nearly 150,000 each summer.

Organized into three general sections, this work introduces both the technologies of the Internet Age and their social implications, considers the issues of online identity, taking into account how people construct presentations of self within a social environment, and addresses issues of how the Internet has affected our culture.

This book explores how the heroes and villains of popular comic books-and the creators of these icons of our culture-reflect the American experience out of which they sprang, and how they have achieved relevance by adapting to, and perhaps influencing, the evolving American character.

In Performance and Religion in Early Modern England, Matthew J. Smith seeks to expand our view of ?the theatrical.? By revealing the creative and phenomenal ways that performances reshaped religious material in early modern England, he offers a more inclusive and integrative view of performance culture.Smith argues that early modern theatrical and religious practices are better understood through...

Offers undergraduate students with an understanding of the comics medium and its communication potential. This book deals with comic books and graphic novels. It focuses on comic books because in their longer form they have the potential for complexity of expression.

Fully revised and updated for its second edition, The Power of Comics remains the most authoritative introduction to comic books and graphic novels ? the history of the medium, its many forms and manifestations and their place in contemporary culture. ...

Critical Approaches to Comics offers students a deeper understanding of the artistic and cultural significance of comic books and graphic novels by introducing key theories and critical methods for analyzing comics. Each chapter explains and then demonstrates a critical method or approach, which students can then apply to interrogate and critique the meanings and forms of comic books, graphic...

In Performance and Religion in Early Modern England, Matthew J. Smith seeks to expand our view of ?the theatrical.? By revealing the creative and phenomenal ways that performances reshaped religious material in early modern England, he offers a more inclusive and integrative view of performance culture....