Twenty-first century media have seen a rise not only in remakes and “re-imaginings” (television series like Hawaii 5-0 or Battlestar Galactica, video games like Tomb Raider, or films like Ghostbusters) but also transmedia adaptations (comic book series becoming television becoming video games, board games and Hallowe’en costumes, a la The Walking Dead), works based in nostalgic callback (Ready Player One, Wreck-it Ralph), fan-written versions of media (Fifty Shades of Grey is fan fiction of Twilight) and genre-bending remixes (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies). However, while a wider body of work exists on transmedia storytelling and adaptation, remakes are still a rich and largely unexplored subject even as interest in the remake phenomenon continues to grow.

Broad-ranging and multidisciplinary, this series invites analysis of remakes, reboots, and adaptations in contemporary media from videogames to television to the internet. How are we re-using and remixing our stories? What does that tell us about ourselves, our cultures, and our times? Multidisciplinary approaches are welcome from scholars working in areas such as gender studies, race, sexuality, disability, cultural studies, fan studies, sociology, or aesthetic and technical research. Titles in the series set out to say something about who we are, where we’ve come from, and where we’re going, as read in our popular culture and the stories we tell ourselves over and over again.

Potential topics might include:

  • “Gender flipped” remakes and roles (e.g. Ghostbusters or Battlestar Galactica)
  • Race and the remake (Annie, The Karate Kid, The Wiz, Roots)
  • Adaptations and Hollywood whitewashing (The Last Airbender, Ghost in the Shell)
  • Recycling and re-imagining of tropes and stereotypes (damsels in distress, action heroes, femmes fatales, supervillains) in media over the decades
  • Fan films, fan fictions and other “unauthorized” reworkings and revisionings
  • Callbacks to childhood: nostalgia as marketing and the 21st-century rise in mass-market film and television remakes
  • Remakes and the internet: how and why Netflix, Amazon and other new media companies are remaking, rebooting, and renewing old content
  • Transnational and/or transcultural remakes (Ugly Betty, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Returned, Jane the Virgin)
  • Remakes and the gaming industry (Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat, Final Fantasy IV, Prince of Persia)

The series accepts both monographs and edited collections; prospective contributors should email Dr. Carlen Lavigne (carlen.lavigne@rdc.ab.ca) and Dr. Paul Booth (pbooth@depaul.edu), using the Lexington Books submission guidelines at cstonline.netrowman.com/Page/LEXGuidelines.

Series Editors

Carlen Lavigne is the author of Post-Apocalyptic Patriarchy: American Television and Gendered Visions of Survival and Cyberpunk Women, Feminism and Science Fiction. She is also the editor of Remake Television and the co-editor of American Remakes of British Television. She teaches communications studies at Red Deer College in Alberta, Canada.

Paul Booth is Professor of Media and Cinema Studies at DePaul University. He’s the author or editor of eleven books about fandom and popular culture, including Digital Fandom, Playing Fans, and Game Play. He is currently enjoying a cup of coffee.