Fairground attractions : a genealogy of the pleasure ground / / Deborah Philips.

• Author: Philips, Deborah.
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (305 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

The study investigates the cultural production of the visual iconography of popular pleasure grounds from the eighteenth century pleasure garden to the contemporary theme park. Deborah Philips identifies the literary genres, including fairy tale, gothic horror, Egyptiana and the Western which are common to carnival sites, tracing their historical transition across a range of media to become familiar icons of popular culture.Though the bricolage of narratives and imagery found in the contemporary leisure zone has been read by many as emblematic of postmodern culture, the author argues that the

Table of Contents

Cover; Contents; List of Figures; Preface; Introduction; 1 Pleasure Gardens, Great Exhibitions and Wonderlands: A Genealogy of the Carnival Site; Pleasure gardens; From stately home to theme park; Tivoli Gardens; The Exhibition and the Egyptian Hall; Great Exhibitions, Grands Expositions and World's Fairs; The pleasure resort: Blackpool and Coney Island; World's Fairs; Disneyland; Las Vegas; Heterotopias; 2 Illustrations and Innovations: The Metonymic Icons of the Carnival; Metonymic icons; From oral tradition to ballad sheet and chapbook; The Romantic imagination and popular publishing

Technologies and the reading publicShowmen and storytellers; Illustrated fictions; Children's fiction; Stage sets and toy theatres; Comic books and pulp fiction; Moving images; Disneyland television; The Disney version; 3 Mickey Mouse Chivalry: Chivalric Romance; 4 Fairy Tale Romance; 5 Monsters, Murders and Vampires: The Gothic Tradition; 6 The Riddles of the Sphinx: Egyptomania; 7 Boy's Own Stories: Explorer Heroes; 8 Treasure Islands and Blue Lagoons; 9 Future Imperfect: Science and Technology; 10 Constructing the Frontier: The Western; 11 Consuming the West: Main Street, USA; Notes

BibliographyIndex; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; Y; Z