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For years, major film studios have licensed products related to their most popular films; video game spin-offs have become an important part of these licensing practices. Where blockbuster films are concerned, the video game release has become the rule rather than the exception. In Hollywood Gamers, Robert Alan Brookey explores the business conditions and technological developments that have facilitated the convergence of the film and video game industries. Brookey treats video games as rhetorical texts and critically examines several games to determine how specific industrial conditions are manifest in game design. Among the games (and films) discussed are Lord of the Rings, The Godfather, Spider-Man, and Iron Man.

Reinventing the Male Homosexual: The Rhetoric and Power of the Gay Gene examines the assumption that embracing the biological research on homosexuality is a viable political strategy for the gay rights movement. The biological argument for gay rights is treated as a \"bio-rhetoric,\" a means of incorporating scientific research into public debates. The book investigates the biological research on which this gay rights argument is based, and explores how male homosexuality is conceptualized in the fields of behavioral genetics, neuroendocrinology, sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology. Robert Alan Brookey demonstrates that most biological research begins with the assumption that male homosexuality is a state of physical effeminate pathology. Although biological research may seem to support a pro-gay rights agenda, the same research can actually be used to support conservative political interests.

In this era of big media franchises, sports branding has crossed platforms, so that the sport, its television broadcast, and its replication in an electronic game are packaged and promoted as part of the same fan experience. Editors Robert Alan Brookey and Thomas P. Oates trace this development back to the unexpected success of Atari's Pong in the 1970s, which provoked a flood of sport simulation games that have had an impact on every sector of the electronic game market. From golf to football, basketball to step aerobics, electronic sports games are as familiar in the American household as the televised sporting events they simulate. This book explores the points of convergence at which gaming and sports culture merge.

Recently, Pixar and Disney parted ways, severing a very profitable partnership. The authors of this study argue that this business split is anticipated in and facilitated by the extra textual features included with DVD releases of Pixar films. To illustrate, the authors examine extra features accompanying Pixar's DVD release of Monster's, Inc. This examination identifies how Pixar strategically excluded Disney from such material while at the same time positioning itself as a corporate auteur capable of delivering high quality family friendly entertainment of the kind for which Disney has been famous. This study thus highlights the commercial implications of DVD extra text.

IN 2005 NINTENDO BEGAN RELEASING INFORMATION ABOUT their next console, code-named “Revolution.” The reception from the video game press was rather mixed. Ryan Block, covering Nintendo’s introduction of the Revolution at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) for the tech blogEngadget, had this to say: “The Revolution is a really unsexy device, all things considered – but it is a prototype, and [Nintendo] did hammer home that they want input from their adoring public. This may also just prove that Nintendo is serious when they say they don’t care about the hardware as much as they do about the gaming

This essay argues that critical applications of queer theory must extend beyond questions of the authenticity of sexual representation. Given that social norms regarding sexuality are constructed, critical approaches should examine the power relations that inform these constructions. This essay contends that rhetorical theory can contribute to the investigation of sexuality, and offers as an example an analysis of mainstream media representations of the homosexual \"community.\" The presentation of this community operates rhetorically, inviting audiences to view sexuality as a question of family morality, while also advocating an economic and ethnic hierarchy.

In this essay Lyne's theory of \"bio-rhetoric\" and Longino's theory of \"background beliefs\" are combined to provide an argumentative analysis of the biological research on male homosexuality. Because this research reflects a \"background belief\" about male homosexual effeminacy, it may not serve as an effective \"bio-rhetoric\" for the advancement of gay rights.

Deborah Sampson Gannett's 1802 lecture tour has been hailed as an important beginning for feminist public address. Previous critics have approached Sampson Gannett's lecture too narrowly, offering a \"celebratory\" reading that does not fully address the contradictions raised by her anti-feminist statements. My analysis illuminates those contradictions through an alternative reading based in theories of gender performance. I conclude that attention to the performative aspects of Sampson Gannett's discourse allows critics to understand the feminist potential of her ultimate disruption of the rigid confines of True Womanhood.

Brookey discusses \"the science wars,\" a conflict between scholars who study science as a mode of inquiry and scholars who study science as a social phenomenon. He also responds to Condit's (1996) article on the genetic debate.