Dear Angela

Michele Byers is an associate professor at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. David Lavery holds a chair in film and television at Brunel University in London.

Dear Angela includes fourteen critical essays that examine the brief-lived but landmark television series, My So-Called Life (1994-1995). Though certainly not the first young woman to be the center of a television series, Angela Chase and the show about her life were doing something new on television and influenced many of the shows about young people that followed. Michele Byers and David Lavery bring together enthusiastic and engaging voices that bear on a series that continues to be hailed as a breakthrough moment in television, even though more than a decade has passed since its cancellation. Tackling a broad range of topics-from identity politics, to music, to infidelity, and death-each essay builds upon a belief that My So-Called Life is a particularly rich text worth studying for the clues it offers about a particular moment in cultural and television history. Dear Angela offers a sophisticated analysis of the show's legacy and cultural relevance that will appeal to media studies scholars and fans alike.

Part 1 Overtures Chapter 2 Gender/Sexuality/Desire: Subversion of Difference and Construction of Loss in the Adolescent Drama My So-Called Life Chapter 3 Saving Our So-Called Lives: Girl Fandom, Adolescent Subjectivity, and My So-Called Life Part 4 Media Chapter 5 Timing is Everything: The Success of Dawson's Creek and the Failure of My So-Called Life Chapter 6 Their So-Called Scene: Uses of Popular Music in My So-Called Life Part 7 Characters & Themes Chapter 8 My So-Called Queer: Rickie Vasquez and the Performance of Teen Exile Chapter 9 Jordan Catalano/Brian Krakow: Masculinity in the 'Alternative' 90s Chapter 10 Passing Notes and Passing Crushes: Writing Desire and Sexuality in My So-Called Life Chapter 11 Whatever happens happens: Infidelity in My So-Called Life Part 12 Literature Chapter 13 My So-Called Magical Life: Magical Realism Joins the Chase(s) Chapter 14 Holden Caulfield in Doc Martins: The Catcher in the Rye and Part 15 Narrative Chapter 16 One of those Fights Where it Feels like the Fight's Having You: Subjectivity and the My So-Called Life Narrative Chapter 17 "It Only Got Teenage Girls": Narrative Strategies and the Realism of My So-Called Life Part 18 Coda Chapter 19 My So-Called Life in the Balance: Metaphors of Mortality and Uncertainty in a Short-Lived Television Series Part 20 Afterword Chapter 21 My So-Called Life Meets The X-Files: Winnie Holzman's Influence on Joss Whedon