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Gavaler, Chris and Nathaniel Goldberg. Revising Reality: How sequels, remakes, retcons, and rejects explain the world. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2024. 
Added by: joachim (10/02/2026, 11:02)   Last edited by: joachim (10/02/2026, 11:04)
Resource type: Book
Language: en: English
Published
DOI: 10.5040/9781350439658
ID no. (ISBN etc.): 9781350439610
BibTeX citation key: Gavaler2024c
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 Categories: General
Keywords: Seriality, Superhero, USA
Creators: Gavaler, Goldberg
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic (New York)		 Views: 9/253
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Abstract
The past is fixed – what happened happened. But our descriptions of that past are in constant flux, creating branching networks of contradictory accounts more complex than any fictional franchise. Revising Reality uses pop culture and media concepts of revision to untangle our real-world histories – with startlingly revelatory results. Novels, comics, films, and TV shows can continue previous events (sequels), reinterpret events (retcons), or restart events (remakes), and audiences can ignore any of these revisions (rejects). Drawing on these four kinds of revision derived from franchises such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and Marvel comics, Chris Gavaler and Nat Goldberg make sense of the stories we tell about a remarkable range of actual events, including scientific discoveries, Supreme Court cases, historical moments, folk heroes, and even trans names and human memory.

They ask:

  • What happened to the original, green-scaled dinosaurs after scientists decided dinosaurs had multi-colored feathers?
  • When overturning Roe v. Wade, did the Supreme Court end the right to abortion, or did the Court claim that the right of the previous half century never existed?
  • Since Ronald Reagan increased taxes, expanded government, and championed amnesty for undocumented immigrants, who is the Ronald Reagan whom today's conservatives champion as a model president?
  • When a trans person comes out as trans, has their gender changed or has their gender remained consistent?
  • Are our memories accounts of real events or some kind (or kinds) of revision? And if our memories are in flux, what does that say about our memory-dependent identities?

Revising Reality answers these and so many more questions, providing surprising new tools for explaining the world and our relationship to it.

Table of Contents

Introduction: the Histories of History
Sequels
Remakes
Retcons
Rejects
Moving Forward

1. Rejecting Possibilities
Unforced
Exorcised
Unearthed
Mandated
TERFed
Gated
Re-versed
Barred

2. Rewriting History
Storying Origins
Revering Paul
Amending Men
Trumping Thomas
Queering Authors
Canceling Culture
Hiding History

3. Making America
Resolving Winners
Remaking America (Great Again)
Reckoning Reagan
Criticizing the Common Core
Objecting to Obamacare
Revising Racism
Criticizing Critical Race Theory
Taking Tenure

4. Retconning Law
Ridged Klingons v. Ridgeless Klingons
Ministers and Genomes v. Winnie the Pooh
Buses v. Cars and Cocaine Trafficking
Judicial Retcons v. Legal Sequels
Metaphysics v. Epistemology
Cannons v. Stun Guns
People v. People
SCOTUS v. Disregarding Citizens

5. Knowing Science
Planets and Dwarves
Lizards and Birds
Hobbits and Hoaxes
Counseling and Cognition
Ulcers and Ivermectin
Paradigms and Shifts

6. Naming Change
A Knight and a Lord
A Caliph and a Prince
Two Marriages and a Divorce
Two Women
A Baby and Dear Abby
A Star, a King, and a Kennedy
A Building and an Institution
A Man, a Person, and a Corporation
A Person and an Alias

7. Changing Minds
Encoring Yesterdays
Categorizing Villains
Theorizing Characters
Alternating Worlds
Justifying Cartoonists
Combating Memories
Forgetting Selves
Continuing People
Philosophizing Brains

Bibliography
Index


Added by: joachim  
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