Impossible Worlds, Impossible Things

Since returning to television screens in 2005, "Doctor Who" has seen a resurgence in academic study by scholars new and old. "Impossible Worlds, Impossible Things: Cultural Perspectives on Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures", an edited collection of papers given at 'Whoniversal' Appeal: An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference on "Doctor Who" and All of its Spin-Offs, offers ten chapters on various cultural perspectives of both 'Classic' and 'New' "Doctor Who", but also on its spin-off series "Torchwood" and "The Sarah Jane Adventures", as well as a Foreword by noted Doctor Who archivist Andrew Pixley, an Afterword by acclaimed "Doctor Who" scholar Dr Matt Hills, and a detailed summary of the conference industrial panel featuring writer Robert Shearman and Big Finish writer, director, actor and Dalek operator Barnaby Edwards. Examining such diverse topics as the changing role of the Doctor as a masculine hero, subversive and class-based elements of the series, the use of Classical elements and themes, and the work of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, this volume is geared toward academics and general readers alike.

About the Author

Melissa Beattie holds a BA in Classics from SUNY at Buffalo, where she focused on Classical archaeology, language and literature, as well as an MA from Bristol in Archaeology for Screen Media, where she focused upon heritage representation and contemporary archaeology. She is currently completing an M.Phil at Cardiff in Ancient History, and hopes to begin a Ph.D in Media Studies at Cardiff JOMEC focusing upon the connections between televisual epic, national identity, and Torchwood. Ross P. Garner is a PhD student at Cardiff University whose research concerns the construction of discourses of nostalgia within 21st Century British Time-Travel Television Dramas. His research interests include postmodernism and science fiction TV - especially Doctor Who which he has been an avid fan of for about twenty years. Una McCormack's writing on telefantasy has appeared in Doctor Who Magazine and British Science Fiction Television: A Hitchhiker's Guide (eds. John R. Cook and Peter Wright). She is the author of three Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novels, published by Simon and Schuster: Cardassia: The Lotus Flower (2004), Hollow Men (2005), and The Never-Ending Sacrifice (2009). A Doctor Who novel, The King's Dragon, featuring the Eleventh Doctor, will be published by BBC Books in 2010. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Surrey, her current favourite stories are 'The Caves of Androzani' and 'Gridlock', and her favourite companion is Donna.