Full Description
This collection examines the nerd and/or geek stereotype in popular culture today. Utilizing the media—film, TV, YouTube, Twitter, fiction—that often defines daily lives, the contributors interrogate what it means to be labeled a "nerd" or "geek." While the nerd/geek that is so easily recognized now is assuredly a twenty-first century construct, an examination of the terms' history brings a greater understanding of their evolution. From sports to slasher films, Age of the Geek establishes a dialogue with texts as varied as the depictions of "nerd" or "geek" stereotypes.
Contents
Chapter 1: How Was the Nerd or Geek Born?.- Chapter 2: A Nerd, A Geek, and a Hipster Walk Into a Bar....- Chapter 3: Mediagasms, Ironic Nerds, and Mainstream Geeks: A Multi-Methodological Ideographic Cluster Analysis of and on Twitter.- Chapter 4: Changing Faces: Exploring Depictions of Geeks in Various Texts.- Chapter 5: Geek Metafiction: Nerds, Footnotes, and Intertextuality.- Chapter 6: Ich Bin Ein Nerd!: Geek Identity in Insider and Outsider Media.- Chapter 7: Geek Is the New Jock: The Relationship Between Geek Culture and Sports.- Chapter 8: Geeking Out and Hulking Out: Towards an Understanding of Marvel Fan Communities.- Chapter 9: How Is It Okay to be a Black Nerd?.- Chapter 10: That Geek Look: Beauty and the Female Geek Body.- Chapter 11: Modern Nerd: Alex Dunphy and Growing Up Geeky in Modern Family.- Chapter 12: From Zero to Hero and Back Again: Nerd Nobodies, Magic Makeovers, and the Power of the American Dream in Four Teen Films.- Chapter 13: The Geek as Rake: Roving Masculinity in Contemporary Film.- Chapter 14: The Horror of the Geek: The Nerd Archetype in Slasher Film.- Chapter 15: Survival of the Smartest?.
