Transformation and Metamorphosis in Popular Culture (Routledge Advances in Popular Culture Studies)

This book investigates the cultural significance of transformation and metamorphosis in popular media across diverse global and historical contexts. Bringing together interdisciplinary scholarship, the chapters examine how transformation is represented in a wide range of media―from poetry and animation to horror, games, and AI-generated music videos.

With particular attention to Japanese transformation tropes and their global influence, this book rethinks the symbolic and affective power of metamorphosis in shaping identity, politics, and popular imagination. Timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of both Kamen Rider Kuuga and Meta-Morphing, this collection marks a timely intervention into ongoing discussions of embodiment and change. It is structured in six thematic sections, addressing animated transformations, more-than-human forms, societal metamorphoses, musical and sonic transformation, body horror, and changing identities. Featuring contributions that blend phenomenology, cultural history, and media analysis, the text offers conceptual innovation and methodological diversity. The chapters also engage emerging topics, such as AI-generated content and the intersections of transformation with race, gender, sexuality, and disability. The collection combines rigorous scholarship with accessibility and features contributions from both leaders in their fields research and the emerging voices of early career researchers.

This book is intended for scholars and postgraduate students in the Humanities and social sciences, particularly those working in media, cultural studies, animation, gender and queer theory, fan studies, musicology, horror, and AI studies. Its interdisciplinary framing and international scope will appeal to academics researching transnational popular culture, as well as educators seeking to integrate themes of transformation into their teaching. The collaborative structure ensures coherence across chapters, while its inclusion of historically excluded perspectives makes it a valuable contribution to global and justice-oriented scholarship.

Sophia Staite is Lecturer in Humanities (Philosophy and Gender Studies) at the University of Tasmania, Australia, and a past fellow of the Global Sentimentality Project at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (Germany). The leading English-language scholar of influential Japanese superhero franchise Kamen Rider, their work appears in Children's Literature in Education, The International Journal of Disney Studies, Jeunesse, and The Routledge Companion to Superhero Studies (2025).