Böcker av Philip Allen

We are essentially alone in a vast, beautiful, and magnificent cosmos. The life that teems on our own blue planet, and its representatives in the fossil record, is exceptionally special. The story of planet Earth is a narrative stitched together over 4 billion years, full of major altercations and near-misses superimposed on a gradual drift of environmental change. Yet somehow life has survived. Oasis Earth is a rational enquiry into key questions about the origins, purpose, and destiny of life on Earth, using an approach by the author that is built upon a career as a leading Earth scientist and a life as a Christian believer. This approach treats both science and religion with equal respect and shows that conflict is not inevitable between Christian faith (as a guide to how to live life and relate to others) and scientific principles (with which to understand the mechanics of the physical world).

This book provides an in-depth examination and analysis of the film and television adaptations of Lope de Vega's theatrical dramas that have appeared on Spanish screens since the mid-twentieth century. Using a multidisciplinary approach, Allen draws on critical media literacy studies, film and adaptation studies, literary theory, cultural studies, and cultural historiography in his analysis. Allen argues that, given the problematic reception of Lope's works in Francoist Spain, the canonical author never held a privileged position in the dictatorial propaganda machine. In fact, adaptations of Lope's theater productions were subject to the same rigorous scrutiny, if not more, than any other screenplays that landed under censorship's microscope. Allen analyzes adaptations produced during and after the nearly forty-year dictatorship and questions whether the adaptors of the democratic era created films and television shows that can sufficiently demonstrate how the spirit of Lope's life and works can resonate with modern audiences. Scholars of film and television studies, adaptation studies, and history will find this book particularly useful.