Real-world leaders hold the fates of companies, armies, and nations in their hands, but the leaders portrayed in science fiction play for larger stakes. Their decisions determine the survival of species, planets, or reality itself. They tend, therefore, to be larger-than-life characters like Doc Savage, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Captain James T. Kirk. In From Starship Captains to Galactic Rebels, Kimberley Yost brings the principles of leadership studies to bear on characters from a quarter-century of classic science fiction television series, examining how their adventures can illuminate the challenges of real-world leadership. These in-depth case studies cover a full range of science-fictional leaders—from conventional heroes such as Jonathan Archer of Star Trek: Enterprise to William Adama and Laura Roslin, the dark, conflicted protagonists of Battlestar Galactica. Charismatic rebels like Malcolm Reynolds of Firefly and the ragtag fugitives of Farscape stand alongside pillars of the establishment like John Sheridan of Babylon 5. In her analysis, Yost considers emerging, flawed, and failed leaders as well as successful ones; women as well as men; and aliens as well as humans. An insightful examination of how leadership is represented on the small screen, From Starship Captains to Galactic Rebels will appeal not only to fans of televised science fiction but also to those grappling with the problems of leadership, regardless of their species.

Director, producer and screenwriter Joss Whedon is a creative force in film, television, comic books and a host of other media. This book provides an authoritative survey of all of Whedon's work, ranging from his earliest scriptwriting on Roseanne, through his many movie and TV undertakings--Toy Story, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly/Serenity, Dr. Horrible, The Cabin in the Woods, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.--to his forays into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The book covers both the original texts of the Whedonverse and the many secondary works focusing on Whedon's projects, including about 2000 books, essays, articles, documentaries and dissertations.

The story of an elite team of scientists and soldiers who travel to other worlds through an alien-built portal, Stargate SG-1 gave its viewers a weekly dose of spectacle and high adventure. Over its ten-season run (1997-2007), the series explored the interactions of the scientific and military cultures represented by its characters, as well as the place of science in society. The initial airing of Stargate SG-1 coincided with the “Science Wars,” a highly public clash among scholars and public intellectuals over the nature and value of scientific knowledge. Critics of science argued that it was merely one form of knowledge among many, subject to biases and blind spots imposed by the culture in which it was created. Defenders of science—mostly scientists themselves—contended that it possessed a unique ability to uncover universal truths, and thus was uniquely valuable to society. In Science Wars through the Stargate: Explorations of Science and Society in Stargate SG-1, Steven Gil offers the first in-depth analysis of the series and places it in the context of contemporary debates about the nature of scientific thought. Gil contends that representations of science within SG-1 can be more fully understood through the prism of the Science Wars. Scientific ideas put forth in SG-1 demonstrate how such complex intellectual exchanges and debates have a place in popular culture and can be further understood through these fictional articulations. Although SG-1 serves as the principal case study, the analysis also casts light on the role and position of science in science fiction television more generally. The long-form narrative of Stargate SG-1 enabled it to engage, in sophisticated ways, with many of the questions at issue in the Science Wars. As the author illustrates, the show presented a complex, sophisticated portrait of science and scientists at a time when the scientific enterprise was under intense public scrutiny. Science Wars through the Stargate will be of interest to science fiction scholars and fans of the series, but also to those interested in the public’s evolving understanding of science and its role in society.

Rod Serling’s pioneering series TheTwilight Zone (1959 to 1964) is remembered for its surprise twist endings and pervading sense of irony.While other American television series of the time also experimented with ironic surprises, none depended on these as much as Serling’s. However, irony was not used merely as a structural device—Serling and his writers used it as a provocative means by which to comment on the cultural landscape of the time. Irony in The Twilight Zone: How the Series Critiqued Postwar American Culture explores the multiple types of irony—such as technological, invasive, martial, sociopolitical, and domestic—that Serling, Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, and other contributors employed in the show. David Melbye explains how each kind of irony critiqued of a specific aspect of American culture and how all of them informed one another, creating a larger social commentary. This book also places the show’s use of irony in historical and philosophical contexts, connecting it to a rich cultural tradition reaching back to ancient Greece. The Twilight Zone endures because it uses irony to negotiate its definitively modernist moment of “high” social consciousness and “low” cultural escapism. With its richly detailed, frequently unexpected readings of episodes, Irony in The Twilight Zone offers scholars and fans a fresh and unique lens through which to view the classic series.

Leadership Studies is a multi-disciplinary academic exploration of the various aspects of how people get along, and how together they get things done. The fields that contribute to leadership studies include history, political science, psychology, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, literature, and behavioral economics. Leadership Studies is also about the ethical dimensions of human behavior. The discipline considers what leadership has been in the past (the historical view), what leadership actually looks like in the present (principally from the perspectives of the behavioral sciences and political science), and what leadership should be (the ethical perspective). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Leadership Studies will present both key concepts and research illuminating leadership and many of the most important events in human history that reveal the nuances of leadership, good and bad. Entries will include topics such as power, charisma, identity, persuasion, personality, social intelligence, gender, justice, unconscious conceptions of leadership, leader-follower relationships, and moral transformation.

By leveraging the intersection of popular culture, leadership theory, and followership theory, Courageous Companions offers an accessible new perspective for those who desire to gain a greater understanding of leaders and followers to transform their relationships and organizations.

Gender, Media, and Organization: Challenging Mis(s)Representations of Women Leaders and Managers is the fourth volume in the Women and Leadership: Research, Theory, and Practice series. This cross?disciplinary series from the International Leadership Association draws from current research findings, development practices, pedagogy, and lived experience to deliver provocative thinking that enhances leadership knowledge and improves leadership development of women around the world. This volume addresses the lack of critical attention in leadership research to how women leaders and professionals are represented in the media. The volume acts as a companion piece to a Seminar Series, funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC), to address this gap in the research. The lack of research interrogation of gendered media representations of women leaders and professionals is a surprising omission given the wealth of evidence from stakeholders outside academia revealing that women, and women leaders, continue to be underrepresented across all forms of media outlet. This volume contributes to social change, equality, and economic performance by raising consciousness about women’s lack of representation in the media and challenges gendered mis(s)representations of women professionals and leaders in the media through the presentation of a range of empirical investigations and methodological approaches. The volume contributors use various theories and conceptualizations to problematize and analyze women’s limited representation in the media, and the gendered representations of women professionals and leaders. Together, the volume’s 14 chapters reflect the beginning of a rich, diverse, emergent strand of academic research that interrogates relationships between the media in its multiple forms and women’s leadership. Illuminating the positioning of women leaders and professionals as both complex and problematic, these chapters offer an important agenda for management and organization scholars. They attest to the need to describe and make visible women’s mis(s)representations in the media while drawing attention to the importance of situating these mis(s) representations in the broader social, economic, historical, cultural, and political context as a means to gain insight into their development and evolution. As a rich and diverse site of research, examination of the media calls for a broad methodological repertoire. The chapters in this book draw from multiple sources and include, among others, the development of thematic analysis to illuminate stereotypes, the use of critical discourse analysis to understand professional women’s experience, a rhetorical analysis of the covers of Time magazine, and an interrogation of the power dynamics manifested in the media’s practice of nicknaming women leaders. Gender, Media, and Organization is a first step in stimulating further research that poses critical questions concerning gendered and sexualized representations of women leaders in textual and visual forms, and considers the media’s influence on gender equality and social justice. The chapters offer fruitful avenues for future research to continue the momentum of challenging gendered media representations of women leaders and professionals.