Key Concepts in Theme Park Studies

Salvador Anton Clave is Professor of Regional Geographical Analysis at the University Rovira i Virgili (Catalonia, Spain). He has been a senior visiting scholar at the George Washington University (USA) and currently also serves as Director of Tourism Innovation at Eurecat - The Technology Centre of Catalonia. His research concentrates, among other interests, on visitor attractions and theme parks development, performance, and impact; visitors spatial behaviour; and digital technologies and tourism. He is the author of "The Global Theme Park Industry" (2007) and other publications in the field. In 2021 he received the American Association of Geographers Roy Wolfe Award presented by the Recreation, Tourism and Sport Specialty Group. Filippo Carla-Uhink is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Potsdam (Germany). He specializes, among other research interests, in the reception of classical antiquity in modern popular culture and in the modern visual and performing arts. Carla-Uhink is the author of "Representations of Classical Greece in Theme Parks" (2020) and of numerous other articles and book chapters on the reception of classical antiquity in theme parks. Together with Florian Freitag he directed the research group "'Here You Leave Today': Time and Temporality in Theme Parks," which was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) for the period 2014-2017. Florian Freitag is Professor of American Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany). Among other research interests, Freitag concentrates on the mediality and the history of theme parks. Freitag is the author of "Popular New Orleans: The Crescent City in Periodicals, Theme Parks, and Opera" (2021) and of numerous articles and book chapters, among others in "The Journal of Popular Culture" and "Continuum." Together with Filippo Carla-Uhink, he directed the research group "'Here You Leave Today': Time and Temporality in Theme Parks," which was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) for the period 2014-2017; and together with Salvador Anton Clave, Freitag is on the Editorial Board of the "Journal of Themed Experience and Attractions Studies."

Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. Attractions.- Chapter 3. Authenticity.- Chapter 4. Economic Strategy.- Chapter 5. History of Theme Parks.- Chapter 6. Immersion.- Chapter 7. Inclusion and Exclusion.- Chapter 8. Industry.- Chapter 9. Labor.- Chapter 10. Media.- Chapter 11. Metatexts and Reception.- Chapter 12. Methods.- Chapter 13. Planning and Layout.- Chapter 14. Space.- Chapter 15. Theming.- Chapter 16. Time.- Chapter 17. Visitors and Customers.- Chapter 18. Worldviews.- Bibliography.- Index.