Second Star to the Right: Peter Pan in the Popular Imagination

by Lester D. Friedman, Allison B. Kavey

Overview

Over a century after its first stage performance, Peter Pan has become deeply embedded in Western popular culture, as an enduring part of childhood memories, in every part of popular media, and in commercial enterprises.

Since 2003 the characters from this story have had a highly visible presence in nearly every genre of popular culture: two major films, a literary sequel to the original adventures, a graphic novel featuring a grown-up Wendy Darling, and an Argentinean novel about a children's book writer inspired by J. M. Barrie. Simultaneously, Barrie surfaced as the subject of two major biographies and a feature film. The engaging essays in Second Star to the Right approach Pan from literary, dramatic, film, television, and sociological perspectives and, in the process, analyze his emergence and preservation in the cultural imagination.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813544373
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	11/28/2008
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	292
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Allison B. Kavey is an assistant professor in the history department at CUNY John Jay College. She is the author of Worlds of Secrets: Books of Secrets and Popular Natural Philosophy in England, 1550-1600.

Lester D. Friedman is the Senior Scholar-in-Residence in the Media and Society Program at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. He is the editor of American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and Variations and the coeditor of the Screen Decades Series (both Rutgers University Press).

Table of Contents

Introduction: From peanut butter to the silver screen / Allison B. Kavey
Tinker Bell, the fairy of electricity / Murray Pomerance
"To die will be an awfully big adventure": Peter Pan in Word War I / Linda Robertson
"I do believe in fairies, I do, I do": the history and epistemology of Peter Pan / Allison B. Kavey
"Shadow of [a] girl": an examination of Peter Pan in performance / Patrick B. Tuite
Peter Pan and the possibilities of child literature / Martha Stoddard Holmes
Disney's Peter Pan: gender, fantasy, and industrial production / Susan Ohmer
Hooked on Pan: Barrie's immortal pirate in fiction and film / Lester D. Friedman
"Gay, innocent, and heartless": Peter Pan and the queering of popular culture / David P.D. Munns
Peter and me (or how I learned to fly): network television broadcasts of Peter Pan / Theresa Jones

Editorial Reviews

Whether a Victorian, Edwardian, or twenty-first-century postmodern, earthbound adults of all ages will find Second Star to the Right an engaging and illuminating collection.

Brandeis University - Thomas Doherty

"This fresh and original collection of essays offers a deeper understanding of Peter Pan as an icon and cultural phenomenon."IDENTIFY BY AFFILIATION (SEE BELOW) OR BY PUBLICATION--EDITOR OF THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

University of Minnesota - Jack Zipes

Perhaps responding to the modern phenomenon known as Peter Pan syndrome, Kavey and Friedman collect nine excellent essays that explore the social and artistic impacts of J.M. Barrie's classic tale over the past century. Recommended.

Choice