Lexington Books
Pages: 154
Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜
978-1-7936-4738-2 • Hardback • December 2023 • $95.00 • (£73.00)
978-1-7936-4739-9 • eBook • December 2023 • $45.00 • (£35.00)
Abigail Reed is assistant professor of media studies at the University of Mount Union.
Chapter 1: Diversity and the US Dollar: Selling the Future through Star Wars
Chapter 2: Saw Gerrera, Fear of the Other, and Imperialist Ideologies Embedded in Rogue One
Chapter 3: “We Are the Spark:” A Story of Loss, Corporate Censorship, and Reveling in Radical Queer Politics
Chapter 4: “I’ve Found My True Purpose:” L3-37, Transgressive Bodies, and Liberatory Movements
The author digs deep into the films (and the expanded canon/universe) to find the ways in which the Disney Star Wars universe perpetuates the problems of the original films, seemingly celebrating progressive resistance and increasingly diverse casts, while actually grounding the narrative in whiteness and the white gaze. Reed clearly demonstrates that the imperialist ideologies that undergird the neoliberal entertainment that is contemporary Star Wars only serve to enforce empires, both galactic and Disney’s.
— Kevin J. Wetmore Jr., Loyola Marymount University; author of The Empire Triumphant: Race, Religion and Rebellion in the Star Wars Films
Neoliberal Aesthetics of Resistance in the Disney Star Wars Films: Rescripting Rebellion provides an excellent critical analysis of the politics of the Star Wars universe drawing upon the most up to date scholarship. It presents readers with a much-needed entertaining, engaging, and insightful reading that asks us to consider that many of the ideologies in the films aren’t simply relegated to a galaxy far far away.
— Bernadette Marie Calafell, Gonzaga University; author of Monstrosity, Performance, and Race in Contemporary Culture