Films, cinema Books
University of Toronto Press Why Theatre Matters
Book SynopsisKathleen Gallagher uses the drama classroom as a window into the daily challenges of marginalized youth in Toronto, Boston, Taipei, and Lucknow.Trade Review'Why Theatre Matters is written as a beautifully moderated conversation among the students and the teachers... This book reflects a researcher who pursues excellence and vulnerability together, inviting the field of theatre education to do the same.' -- Cortney McEniry Theatre Topics vol 26:03:2016Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter One: The Complexity of People, Conversation, and Space as Data Chapter Two: The Social and Pedagogical Context for Engagement Chapter Three: The Multi-dimensionality of Engagement: Academic Achievement, Academic Enthusiasm, Voluntary Initiative and What the Numbers Tell Us Chapter Four: Social Performances: Students and Teachers Inhabit Their Roles Chapter Five: Life or Theatre? Chapter Six: Up Close and Personal: Unfinished Stories Appendix 1: Social Identity Categories Appendix 2: Tables References
£25.19
University of Toronto Press Taking Exception to the Law
Book SynopsisTaking Exception to the Law explores how a range of early modern English writings responded to injustices perpetrated by legal procedures, discourses, and institutions.Trade Review'The editors gather an admirable selection of essays from a range of scholars...Taking Exception to the Law provokes stimulating conversation between legal and literary sources.' -- Larissa Tracy Sixteenth Century Studies vol 47:02:2016 'The volume takes its place among lively and rapidly expanding scholarship on early modern law and literature... Such a survey can do little, of course, to give a full sense of the richness of the volume but perhaps can tantalize readers with the variety of texts and breadth of concepts the authors tackle.' -- Karen Cunningham Renaissance Quarterly vol 69:02:2016 'Highly recommended' -- J.D. Sharpe Choice Magazine, vol 52:12:2015Table of Contents1. Law and the Production of Literature: An Introductory Perspective (Grant Williams) 2. Paper Justice, Parchment Justice: Shakespeare, Hamlet, and the Life of Legal Documents (Bradin Cormack) 3. Conditional Promises and Legal Instruments in The Merchant of Venice (Tim Stretton) 4. The "Snared Subject" and the General Pardon Statute in Late Elizabethan Coterie Literature (Virginia Lee Strain) 5. The Prison Diaries of Archbishop Laud (Debora Shuger) 6. Criminal Biography in Early Modern News Pamphlets (David Stymeist) 7. Two-Sided Legal Narratives: Slander, Evidence, Proof, and Turnarounds in Much Ado About Nothing (Barbara Kreps) 8. No Boy Left Behind: Education and Distributive Justice in Early Modern England (Elizabeth Hanson) 9. Warding off Injustice in Book Five of The Faerie Queene (Judith Owens) 10. Torture and the Tyrant's Injustice from Foxe to King Lear (John D. Staines) 11. The Literatures of Toleration and Civil Religion in Post-Revolutionary England (Elliott Visconsi) 12. Obnoxious Satan: Milton, Neo-Roman Justice, and the Burden of Grace (Paul Stevens)
£51.30
University of Toronto Press Exhibiting the German Past
Book SynopsisFeaturing a wide range of valuable case studies, Exhibiting the German Past offers a unique perspective on the developing relationship between museums and visual media.Trade Review'Illuminating and fully researched essays... Highly Recommended.' -- B. W. Vetruba Choice Magazine vol 53:11:2016Table of ContentsIntroduction (Peter M. McIsaac and Gabriele Mueller) 1. The "Museal Gaze" and "Civic Seeing": City, Film and Museum in Wim Wenders' Der Himmel uber Berlin (Simon Ward) 2. Refracted Memory: Museums, Film, and Visual Culture in Urban Space (Mark W. Rectanus) 3. Nikolaus Geyrhalter's Unser taglich Brot: Preservation, the Food Industry, and the Interrogation of Visual Evidence (Alice Kuzniar) 4. The Concealed Curator: Constructed Authenticity in Uli Edel's Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex (Catriona Firth) 5. Remembering and Historicizing Socialism: The Private and Amateur Musealization of East Germany's Everyday Life (Anne Winkler) 6. Object Lessons: Visuality and Tactility in Museums of the Socialist Everyday (Jonathan Bach) 7. Historical Museum Meets Docu-Drama: The Recipient's Experiential Involvement in the Second World War (Stephan Jaeger) 8. Between Education and Entertainment: Visual Musealizations of the Nazi Past in Harlan-Im Schatten von Jud Suss (2008) & Jud Suss-Film ohne Gewissen (2009/2010) (Annika Orich and Florentine Strzelczyk) 9. Moving Statues: Arthur Grimm, The "Entartete Kunst" Exhibition, and Installation Photography as Standfotografie (Kathryn M. Floyd) 10. "In a Hundred Years of Cinema ...": History and Musealization in Harun Farocki's Arbeiter verlassen die Fabrik in elf Jahrzehnten (Workers Leaving the Factory in Eleven Decades, 2006) (Christine Sprengler) 11. Sex on Display: Sexual Science and the Exhibition PopSex! (Michael Thomas Taylor and Annette F. Timm) 12. Spaces in Motion and Cinematic Experiences: The Permanent Exhibition Film of the Deutsche Kinemathek-Museum fur Film und Fernsehen (Museum for Film and Television) (Peter Manz)
£41.65
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Chromatic Cinema
Book SynopsisChromatic Cinema Color permeates film and its history, but study of its contribution to film has so far been fragmentary. Chromatic Cinema provides the first wide-ranging historical overview of screen color, exploring the changing uses and meanings of color in moving images, from hand painting in early skirt dance films to current trends in digital color manipulation. In this richly illustrated study, Richard Misek offers both a history and a theory of screen color. He argues that cinematic color emerged from, defined itself in response to, and has evolved in symbiosis with black and white. Exploring the technological, cultural, economic, and artistic factors that have defined this evolving symbiosis, Misek provides an in-depth yet accessible account of color's spread through, and ultimate effacement of, black-and-white cinema.Trade Review“Chromatic Cinema provides a much-needed technological history of machines and techniques for producing moving images in color, as well as a cultural history of color films.” (BRIAN R. JACOBSON, Technology and Culture, July 2012) “An invigorating critical intervention into the history, theory and aesthetic analysis of colour in the cinema.” (JENNIFER M. BARKER, Screen, August 2012) “Chromatic Cinema provides a wealth of information and of examples of different approaches to colour in cinema and stimulates enough thoughts and reflections to be a worthy addition to any library on colour in cinema.” (NICOLA MAZZANTI, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, April 2012 "Chromatic Cinema is an excellent critical history of screen colour by Richard Misek, who teaches at the University of Bristol, near which, as I recall, is a plaque to mark the birthplace of William Friese-Greene, the somewhat unfortunate British movie pioneer, one of who patents was for his own colour system." (Times Literary Supplement, 25 November 2011) "The book touches on most of the important aspects of color cinema-from history to technology to ideology-and serves as an orientation course for a complex subject. It's a gateway read, neither intimidating nor frustrating. For a beginner (like me), it presented a smattering of philosophical ideas, a grounding in the why and how progression of color use, and a primer on the science of color technologies." (MUBI, September 2010)Table of ContentsList of Plates ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1. Film Color 14 Coloration in Early Cinema, 1895–1927 14 The Rise of Technicolor, 1915–35 25 Chromatic Cold War: Black-and-White and Color in Opposition 29 “Technicolor Is Natural Color”: Color and Realism, 1935–58 35 Chromatic Thaw: Hollywood’s Transition to Color, 1950–67 41 2. Surface Color 50 Color in European Film, 1936–67 50 Chromatic Ambivalence: Art Cinema’s Transition to Color 57 “Painting with Light”: Cinema’s Imaginary Art History 65 Unmotivated Chromatic Hybridity 68 Monochrome Purgatory: Absent Color in the Soviet Bloc, 1966–75 77 3. Absent Color 83 Black-and-White as Technological Relic, 1965–83 83 Black-and-White Flashbacks: Codifying Temporal Rebirth 89 Black-and-White Films, 1967–2007 97 Nostalgia and Pastiche 111 4. Optical Color 117 Cinema’s Newtonian Optics 117 White Light: Hollywood’s Invisible Ideology 122 Darkness Visible: From Natural Light to “Neo-Noir,” 1968–83 132 Cinematography and Color Filtration, 1977–97 139 Case Study: Seeing Red in Psycho 147 5. Digital Color 152 Crossing the Chromatic Wall in Wings of Desire 152 An Archaeology of Digital Intermediate, 1989–2000 155 Digital Color Aesthetics, 2000–9 164 Conclusion: Painting by Numbers? 179 Notes 181 Bibliography 195 Index 210
£96.26
John Wiley and Sons Ltd A Companion to Literature Film and Adaptation
Book SynopsisThis is a comprehensive collection of original essays that explore the aesthetics, economics, and mechanics of movie adaptation, from the days of silent cinema to contemporary franchise phenomena.Trade Review“Overall, the essays in this collection deal with diverse topics and theoretical concerns of adaptation studies today. They throw light on both often researched and neglected or undervalued works.” (Poetics Today, 1 May 2015) “Well-written, suggestively arranged in a series of six sections, A Companion to Literature, Film and Adaptation provides an invaluable resource for anyone interested in debates about the past, present and future of adaptation studies, and why the discipline represents an important advance in the field of interdisciplinary learning … Cartmell’s collection covers just about every area imaginable within adaptation studies, whether historical, theoretical or otherwise … [It] is a far cry from those collections that simply compare source with target texts; it encompasses comic-books, songs, silent cinema as well as more canonical texts and their cinematic variants. There is something for everyone in this volume.” (Post Script, 2014) "Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above." (Choice, 1 November 2013) "A Companion to Literature, Film and Adaptation is open to anybody interested in learning more about the process of translating the printed page into film. Many popular productions on the big and small screen are referenced, such as Anonymous (2011) and Emma (2009), so readers do not need to know Barthes from Bazin to find the Companion both informative and accessible." (Reference Reviews, 27 April 2013)Table of ContentsList of Contributors viii Acknowledgments xi Foreword: Kamilla Elliott xii 100+ Years of Adaptations, or, Adaptation as the Art Form of Democracy 1 Deborah Cartmell Part I History and Contexts: From Image to Sound 15 1 Literary Adaptation in the Silent Era 17 Judith Buchanan 2 Writing on the Silent Screen 33 Gregory Robinson 3 Adaptation and Modernism 52 Richard J. Hand 4 Sound Adaptation: Sam Taylor’s The Taming of the Shrew 70 Deborah Cartmell Part II Approaches 85 5 Adaptation and Intertextuality, or, What isn’t an Adaptation, and What Does it Matter? 87 6 Film Authorship and Adaptation 105 Shelley Cobb 7 The Business of Adaptation: Reading the Market 122 Simone Murray Part III Genre: Film, Television 141 8 Adapting the X-Men: Comic-Book Narratives in Film Franchises 143 Martin Zeller-Jacques 9 The Classic Novel on British Television 159 Richard Butt Part IV Authors and Periods 177 10 Screened Writers 179 Kamilla Elliott 11 Murdering Othello 198 Douglas M. Lanier 12 Hamlet’s Hauntographology: Film Philology, Facsimiles, and Textual Faux-ensics 216 Richard Burt 13 Shakespeare to Austen on Screen 241 Lisa Hopkins 14 Austen and Sterne: Beyond Heritage 256 Ariane Hudelet 15 Neo-Victorian Adaptations 272 Imelda Whelehan Part V Beyond Authors and Canonical Texts 293 16 Costume and Adaptation 295 Pamela Church Gibson and Tamar Jeffers McDonald 17 Music into Movies: The Film of the Song 312 Ian Inglis 18 Rambo on Page and Screen 330 Jeremy Strong Part VI Case Studies: Adaptable and Unadaptable Texts 343 19 Writing for the Movies: Writing and Screening Atonement (2007) 345 Yvonne Griggs 20 Foregrounding the Media: Atonement (2007) as an Adaptation 359 Christine Geraghty 21 Paratextual Adaptation: Heart of Darkness as Hearts of Darkness via Apocalypse Now 374 Jamie Sherry 22 Authorship, Commerce, and Harry Potter 391 James Russell 23 Adapting the Unadaptable – The Screenwriter’s Perspective 408 Diane Lake Index 416
£135.85
The University of North Carolina Press White Balance
Book SynopsisIn the decades after the civil rights movement, the ideology of colorblindness co-opted the language of the civil rights era in order to reinvent white supremacy. The key to this shift, Justin Gomer contends, was film - Hollywood provided the visual medium necessary to dramatize an anti-civil rights agenda over the course of the 70s, 80s, and 90s.Trade ReviewThrough clear writing . . . Gomer makes thoughtful connections to support a compelling argument that Hollywood played an influential role in the popularization of racial colorblindness. . . . White Balance is a well-written and much-needed study of colorblindness – one of the few book-length sources that explores the role of race-neutral perspectives in American society and culture.--Black Perspectives
£69.70
University of Texas Press PrettyFunny
Book SynopsisFocusing on star writer/performer comediansKathy Griffin, Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, Margaret Cho, Wanda Sykes, and Ellen DeGeneresPretty/Funny demonstrates that women's comedy has become a prime site of feminism in the twenty-first century.Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction. Pretty/Funny Women and Comedy's Body Politics: Funniness, Prettiness, and Feminism Chapter One. Kathy Griffin and the Comedy of the D List Chapter Two. Feminism, Postfeminism, Liz Lemonism: Picturing Tina Fey Chapter Three. Sarah Silverman: Bedwetting, Body Comedy, and "a Mouth Full of Blood Laughs" Chapter Four. Margaret Cho Is Beautiful: A Comedy of Manifesto Chapter Five. "White People Are Looking at You!" Wanda Sykes's Black Looks Chapter Six. Ellen DeGeneres: Pretty Funny Butch as Girl Next Door Notes Bibliography Index
£20.89
University of Texas Press Cineaste on Film Criticism Programming and
Book SynopsisDigital technology and the Internet have revolutionized film criticism, programming, and preservation in deeply paradoxical ways. The Internet allows almost everyone to participate in critical discourse, but many print publications and salaried positions for professional film critics have been eliminated. Digital technologies have broadened access to filmmaking capabilities, as well as making thousands of older films available on DVD and electronically. At the same time, however, fewer older films can be viewed in their original celluloid format, and newer, digitally produced films that have no “material” prototype are threatened by ever-changing servers that render them obsolete and inaccessible.Cineaste, one of the oldest and most influential publications focusing on film, has investigated these trends through a series of symposia with the top film critics, programmers, and preservationists in the United States and beyond. This volume compiles several of these symposia: “Film Criticism in America Today” (2000), “International Film Criticism Today” (2005), “Film Criticism in the Age of the Internet” (2008), “Film Criticism: The Next Generation” (2013), “The Art of Repertory Film Exhibition and Digital Age Challenges” (2010), and “Film Preservation in the Digital Age” (2011). It also includes interviews with the late, celebrated New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael and the critic John Bloom (“Joe Bob Briggs”), as well as interviews with the programmers/curators Peter von Bagh and Mark Cousins and with the film preservationist George Feltenstein. This authoritative collection of primary-source documents will be essential reading for scholars, students, and film enthusiasts.Trade ReviewThe collection provides a fascinating look into how film criticism, programming, preservation, and cinema itself have evolved to meet the changes wrought by the rise of the internet during the early years of the twenty-first century...Cineaste on Film Criticism, Programming, and Preservation in the New Millennium should be of interest to scholars, students, and anyone seriously interested in film. * Popular Culture Studies Journal *Table of Contents Acknowledgments Editors’ Introduction. By Cynthia Lucia and Rahul Hamid Part I. Film Criticism in the New Millennium 1. Film Criticism in America Today: A Critical Symposium (2000). By David Ansen, Jay Carr, Godfrey Cheshire, Mike Clark, Manohla Dargis, David Denby, Morris Dickstein, Roger Ebert, David Edelstein, Graham Fuller, J. Hoberman, Stanley Kauffmann, Stuart Klawans, Todd McCarthy, Peter Rainer, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Andrew Sarris, Richard Schickel, Lisa Schwarzbaum, John Simon, David Sterritt, Peter Travers, Kenneth Turan, Armond White 2. International Film Criticism Today: A Critical Symposium (2005). By Argentina: Quintín (Eduardo Antin); Australia: Adrian Martin; Austria: Christoph Huber; Brazil: Pedro Butcher; China: Li Hongyu; France: Michel Ciment; France: Jean-Michel Frodon; Germany: Olaf Möller; Greece: Angelike Contis; Hong Kong: Li Cheuk-to; India: Meenakshi Shedde; Italy: Tullio Kezich; Italy: Roberto Silvestri; Japan: Tadao Sato; Mexico: Leonardo García Tsao; Philippines: Noel Vera; Russia: Lev Karakhan; South Africa: Leon van Nierop; Thailand: Kong Rithdee; Tunisia: Tahar Chikhaoui; United Kingdom: Jonathan Romney; Uruguay: Jorge Jellinek 3. Film Criticism in the Age of the Internet: A Critical Symposium (2008). By Zach Campbell, Robert Cashill, Mike D’Angelo, Steve Erickson, Andrew Grant, J. Hoberman, Kent Jones, Glenn Kenny, Robert Koehler, Kevin B. Lee, Karina Longworth, Adrian Martin, Adam Nayman, Theodoros Panayides, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Dan Sallitt, Richard Schickel, Campaspe, Girish Shambu, Michael Sicinski, Amy Taubin, Andrew Tracy, Stephanie Zacharek 4. Film Criticism: The Next Generation: A Critical Symposium (2013). By Ben Kenigsberg, Gabe Klinger, Michael Koresky, Kiva Reardon, Andrew Tracy 5. “I Still Love Going to Movies”: An Interview with Pauline Kael (2000). By Leonard Quart 6. Cult Films, Commentary Tracks, and Censorious Critics: An Interview with John Bloom (2003). By Gary Crowdus Part II. The Art of Repertory Film Exhibition and Digital-Age Challenges 7. Repertory Film Programming: A Critical Symposium (2010). By John Ewing, John Gianvito, Bruce Goldstein, Haden Guest, Jim Healy, Kent Jones, Laurence Kardish, Marie Losier, Richard Peña, James Quandt, David Schwartz, Adam Sekuler, Dylan Skolnick, Tom Vick 8. Utopian Festivals and Cinephilic Dreams: An Interview with Peter von Bagh (2012). By Richard Porton 9. The (Cinematic) Gospel According to Mark: An Interview with Mark Cousins (2013). By Declan McGrath Part III. Film Preservation in the Digital Age 10. Film Preservation in the Digital Age: A Critical Symposium (2011). By Schawn Belston, Margaret Bodde, Paolo Cherchi Usai, Grover Crisp, Dennis Doros and Amy Heller, Jan-Christopher Horak, Annette Melville, Michael Pogorzelski, Katie Trainor, Daniel Wagner 11. MOD Man: An Interview with George Feltenstein (2011). By Robert Cashill Notes on the Editors Index
£62.90
University of Texas Press La India Maria
Book SynopsisDrawing on extensive interviews with the late actress and other film industry professionals, this book surveys the work of performer, director, and producer María Elena Velasco and her central place in Mexploitation cinema.Trade ReviewRohrer has produced a genuinely ground-breaking account of popular Mexican cinema through the prism of this specific director-producer-star. * The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory *Rohrer charts the rise of [María Elena] Velasco from vaudeville performer to comedic icon...The film historical interventions of the project are the book’s strength, but Rohrer’s project of recovery also discusses the narratives of Velasco’s films in relation to Mexploitation tropes and genres in order to identify the different symbolic functions of her India María character. * Revista de Esudios Hispánicos *Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1. La India María: From Vaudeville to the Big Screen 2. Mexploitation 3. Box-Office Moneymakers and Small-Screen Hits 4. Hated by Critics, Loved by the People 5. Crossing Borders: India María’s Diaspora Epilogue: India María and Mexploitation Today Overview of India María Films Filmography Notes Bibliography Index
£21.59
University of Texas Press Selling Science Fiction Cinema
Book SynopsisHow science fiction films in the 1950s were marketed and helped create the broader genre itself. For Hollywood, the golden age of science fiction was also an age of anxiety. Amid rising competition, fluid audience habits, and increasing government regulation, studios of the 1950s struggled to make and sell the kinds of films that once were surefire winners. These conditions, the leading media scholar J.P. Telotte argues, catalyzed the incredible rise of science fiction. Though science fiction films had existed since the earliest days of cinema, the SF genre as a whole continued to resist easy definition through the 1950s. In grappling with this developing genre, the industry began to consider new marketing approaches that viewed films as fluid texts and audiences as ever-changing. Drawing on trade reports, film reviews, pressbooks, trailers, and other archival materials, Selling Science Fiction Cinema reconstructs studio efforts to market a promisinTrade ReviewJ. P. Telotte offers a thoughtful, well-researched overview of how these films were marketed to audiences at their height in Selling Science Fiction Cinema...Telotte also offers a thought-provoking look at contemporary sci-fi marketing approaches during such a fascinating time in which so much content is available to users via streaming platforms rather than the past 'traditional' approach of attending the cinema. * Hometowns to Hollywood *Focusing on various promotional campaigns, publicity strategies, and cultural products, this fascinating study offers a material-based history of the selling of mid-20th-century science fiction cinema...Deploying precise critical insight and drawing on an array of archival findings, Telotte considers the marketing of such films as The Thing from Another World (1951), Forbidden Planet (1956), and Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1954), and he adroitly generates new insights and readings of these films and their significance to history and culture. Considering the discourse circulating around science fiction film’s place in literary fan culture, the genre’s position in society, and the shifting attitudes toward speculative cinema of studios in both Hollywood and Japan, Telotte’s work emerges as an engaging addition to film studies. * CHOICE *Table of Contents Acknowledgments Chapter 1. Marketing and Making Science Fiction Chapter 2. What Is This Thing? Framing and Unframing a New Genre Chapter 3. Pondering the “Pulp Paradox”: Pal, Paramount, and the SF Market Chapter 4. Moppets and Robots: MGM Markets Forbidden Planet Chapter 5. Another Form of Life: Audiences, Markets, and The Blob Chapter 6. Selling Japan: Making, Remaking, and Marketing Japanese SF Conclusion Notes Select Filmography Select Bibliography Index
£31.50
Duke University Press Columbo
Book SynopsisAmelie Hastie examines the television show Columbo as a way to understand both the show itself, but also the history of Hollywood in the 1970s and television as a media technology.Trade Review“Amelie Hastie makes a compelling case for revisiting a series that had a global footprint in its heyday and continues to be a staple in rerun syndication. Hastie uses Columbo’s famous tagline ‘Just one more thing’ to think about the series—and by extension television as cultural form—in relation to a complex intertextual network of quotation, iteration, and intertexts. Columbo is an exciting book by a wonderful critic, historian, and writer.” -- Lynn Spigel, author of * TV Snapshots: An Archive of Everyday Life *“In Columbo, Amelie Hastie offers a comprehensive look at this essential popular television show, explaining its iconic status in the landscape of American popular culture along with the iconic status of its lead actor, Peter Falk. Hastie provides extensive information about the production history of the series as well as an analysis of specific motifs and narratives. Columbo will stand as the go-to work for study of the series.” -- Dana Polan, Martin Scorsese Professor of Cinema Studies, New York UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Prologue: Humble Origins and Dogged Returns xv Introduction: Murder by the Book 1 1. Mapping the Detective: Falk’s Early Drives 24 2. Best-Selling Mystery Team: Columbo and Televisual Collaboration 38 3. “I’m Fascinated by Money”: Rank, File, and Gumshoe Detection 72 4. Special Guest Stars: Hollywood Icons and Repeat Offenders 95 5. Between Columbo and Cassavetes: A Familial Pack 119 6. “An Obsessive Preoccupation with Gadgetry”: Columbo’s Investigation of Media Technologies 144 7. Columbo’s Reign: Of Life and Death and Detection 172 Epilogue: Loving and Leaving Columbo 197 Notes 201 Bibliography 219 Index 225
£72.25
Duke University Press Columbo
Book SynopsisAmelie Hastie examines the television show Columbo as a way to understand both the show itself, but also the history of Hollywood in the 1970s and television as a media technology.Trade Review“Amelie Hastie makes a compelling case for revisiting a series that had a global footprint in its heyday and continues to be a staple in rerun syndication. Hastie uses Columbo’s famous tagline ‘Just one more thing’ to think about the series—and by extension television as cultural form—in relation to a complex intertextual network of quotation, iteration, and intertexts. Columbo is an exciting book by a wonderful critic, historian, and writer.” -- Lynn Spigel, author of * TV Snapshots: An Archive of Everyday Life *“In Columbo, Amelie Hastie offers a comprehensive look at this essential popular television show, explaining its iconic status in the landscape of American popular culture along with the iconic status of its lead actor, Peter Falk. Hastie provides extensive information about the production history of the series as well as an analysis of specific motifs and narratives. Columbo will stand as the go-to work for study of the series.” -- Dana Polan, Martin Scorsese Professor of Cinema Studies, New York UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Prologue: Humble Origins and Dogged Returns xv Introduction: Murder by the Book 1 1. Mapping the Detective: Falk’s Early Drives 24 2. Best-Selling Mystery Team: Columbo and Televisual Collaboration 38 3. “I’m Fascinated by Money”: Rank, File, and Gumshoe Detection 72 4. Special Guest Stars: Hollywood Icons and Repeat Offenders 95 5. Between Columbo and Cassavetes: A Familial Pack 119 6. “An Obsessive Preoccupation with Gadgetry”: Columbo’s Investigation of Media Technologies 144 7. Columbo’s Reign: Of Life and Death and Detection 172 Epilogue: Loving and Leaving Columbo 197 Notes 201 Bibliography 219 Index 225
£18.89
New York University Press Film as Religion Second Edition
Book SynopsisArgues that popular films perform a religious function in our culture The first edition of Film as Religion was one of the first texts to develop a framework for the analysis of the religious function of films for audiences. Like more formal religious institutions, films can provide us with ways to view the world and the values to confront it. Lyden argues that the cultural influence of films is analogous to that of religions, so that films can be understood as representing a religious worldview in their own right. Thoroughly updating his examples, Lyden examines a range of film genres and individual films, from The Godfather to The Hunger Games to Frozen, to show how film can function religiously.Trade ReviewThe first edition of John Lyden’s Film as Religion forced us to change the very terms of the conversation about religion and film. This second edition reminds us that this is an ongoing conversation, and that there is still much to consider. Once again, Lyden proves that he is one of the most important voices in the academic study of religion and film. * Eric Mazur, Editor, Encyclopedia of Religion and Film *Most noteworthy is Lyden's emphasis on war films, particularly in light of the cultural mind-set of the war on terror. His critical insights on how film functions as religion continue to provoke and inspire. * Choice *
£62.90
New York University Press Film as Religion Second Edition
Book SynopsisArgues that popular films perform a religious function in our culture The first edition of Film as Religion was one of the first texts to develop a framework for the analysis of the religious function of films for audiences. Like more formal religious institutions, films can provide us with ways to view the world and the values to confront it. Lyden argues that the cultural influence of films is analogous to that of religions, so that films can be understood as representing a religious worldview in their own right. Thoroughly updating his examples, Lyden examines a range of film genres and individual films, from The Godfather to The Hunger Games to Frozen, to show how film can function religiously.Trade Review"The first edition of John Lyden’s Film as Religion forced us to change the very terms of the conversation about religion and film. This second edition reminds us that this is an ongoing conversation, and that there is still much to consider. Once again, Lyden proves that he is one of the most important voices in the academic study of religion and film." * Eric Mazur, Editor, Encyclopedia of Religion and Film *"Most noteworthy is Lyden's emphasis on war films, particularly in light of the cultural mind-set of the war on terror. His critical insights on how film functions as religion continue to provoke and inspire." * Choice *
£23.74
Baylor University Press Lyric Theology
Book SynopsisDrawing on his own work as a literary scholar and a lyric essayist, Thomas Gardner gives us the tools to both understand and join in performing creative theological explorations of great subtlety, beauty, and originality.Table of Contents Introduction 1 Czeslaw Milosz: The Immense Call of the Particular 2 Terrence Malick: Always You Wrestle Inside Me 3 Marilynne Robinson: But if the While I Think on Thee 4 Annie Dillard: In Touch with the Absolute at Base
£47.60
University of Toronto Press Revolutionary Visions
Book SynopsisRevolutionary Visions traces the emergence of a growing corpus of Latin American films that explore the legacy of Jewish encounters with revolutionary political movements in 1960s and 1970s Latin America.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. A Place in the Economy of Being: Revolutionary Visions 2. Saintly Politics: Christianity, Revolution, and Jews 3. Here We Are to Build a Nation: Jewish Immigrants to Early-Twentieth-Century Latin America 4. Poner el cuerpo femenino judío: Jewish Women and Revolutionary Movements 5. Lost Embraces: Jewish Parent-Child Relationships and 1970s Politics 6. What Sort of Affinity? Conclusions and Areas for Future Study Notes Bibliography
£33.30
University of Nebraska Press Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism
Book SynopsisWhile news reports about Pakistan tend to cover Taliban attacks and bombings, and academics focus on security issues, the environment often takes a backseat in media reportage and scholarship. In particular, Pakistani women’s attachment to their environment and their environmental concerns are almost always ignored. Shazia Rahman traces the ways in which Pakistani women explore alternative, environmental modes of belonging, examines the vitality of place-based identities within Pakistani culture, and thereby contributes to evolving understandings of Pakistani women—in relation to both their environment and to various discourses of nation and patriarchy. Through an astute analysis of such works as Sabiha Sumar’s Khamosh Pani (2003), Mehreen Jabbar’s Ramchand Pakistani (2008), Sorayya Khan’s Noor (2006), Uzma Aslam Khan’s Trespassing (2003), and Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows (2009),Rahman illumTrade Review"Boldly focusing on eco-cosmopolitanism, vernacular and official landscapes, animalization, and bioregionalism, Rahman highlights the tensions between ecocriticism and feminism that have produced a vulnerable position for ecofeminism. The author's new perspective on postcolonial Pakistani studies is welcome."—M. Roy, Choice"As a welcome infusion of a new and urgent critical voice into Pakistani literary criticism, Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism makes its most significant contribution to ecocriticism through its focus on the environments of Pakistan."—Cara Cilano, Bloomsbury Pakistan"Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism fills an important gap in scholarship in not only Pakistani Literatures specifically, but South Asian Studies in general. It also significantly extends the scope of both feminist and ecocritical scholarship, offering an alternative vision of empowerment for women and the subdominant sections of society that eschews two competing, hegemonic, and limiting, frameworks based on religious nationalism and US imperialism. . . . This pioneering approach from an ecofeminist perspective is sure to pave the way for more such explorations."—Chitra Sankaran, ISLE"[Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism] offers much to think about and discuss, including a greater engagement with social and ecological issues so important to Pakistan's development and climate change."—Muneeza Shamsie, Dawn“Shazia Rahman brings a fine literary critical sensibility to a postcolonial, ecofeminist reading of contemporary Pakistani novels and films. Her ethically charged book offers a fresh . . . engagement with cultural production from Pakistan, an enormously important part of South Asia that is nevertheless often neglected in postcolonial studies.”—Ananya Jahanara Kabir, author of Partition’s Post-Amnesias: 1947, 1971, and Modern South Asia“This is an urgent and consequential book on the deep entanglements between gender politics and environmental justice. Shazia Rahman brings into conversation for the first time an impressive array of ecological thought leaders and Pakistani writers and film makers. Impressive, vital work.”—Rob Nixon, author of Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor“By foregrounding attachments to Pakistan as a place—comprising land, sea, plants, and animals—Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism probes the important but overlooked relationship between women and the environment through a critical analysis of patriarchal structures of land ownership and social control that underpin the political and moral economy of Pakistan. Reading novels and feature films against the grain from an ecological perspective reveals the myriad ways of environmental belonging experienced by women at key moments in Pakistan’s history. Innovative in its use of methodologies in environmental humanities and postcolonial analysis, Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism is a welcome intervention to the incipient debate on women and ecological degradation in Pakistan and will enrich understandings of self, place, and belonging beyond the narrow confines of the postcolonial state’s official nationalism.”—Ayesha Jalal, Mary Richardson Professor of History and director of the Center for South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies at Tufts University “This book addresses the silence in the environmental humanities and in the academy regarding Pakistani women’s literary and cinematic fictions. Rahman conducts a nuanced analysis of Pakistani women’s lives, particularly in terms of how they engage with land, animals, ecology, and sense of place. She delves into the ways that Pakistani literature and cinema are revealing alternative, environmental ways of belonging that women create to counter dominant discourses of religious nationalism and global Islam. This book will be required reading not only among ecocritics, but among feminist, postcolonial, ethnic, Pakistani, and American studies scholars as well.”—Joni Adamson, professor of English and director of the Environmental Humanities Initiative at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University“Shazia Rahman constructively redirects much current scholarship on Pakistani literature and film. Her focus on women’s narratives, understood broadly, and the environment is not only timely in terms of scholarly trends but also necessary, given the increasingly stark risks Pakistanis and others around the world face due to environmental neglect and degradation.”—Cara Cilano, professor of English at Michigan State UniversityTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: The Place That Is Pakistan 1. Punjab: Eco-cosmopolitan Feminism 2. Thar: Bioregionalism 3. Bengal: Vernacular Landscape 4. Karachi: Pakistani Eco-cosmopolitanism 5. Displacement: Animalization Conclusion: Justice for All Notes References Index
£45.00
University of Nebraska Press Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism
Book SynopsisWhile news reports about Pakistan tend to cover Taliban attacks and bombings, and academics focus on security issues, the environment often takes a backseat in media reportage and scholarship. In particular, Pakistani women’s attachment to their environment and their environmental concerns are almost always ignored. Shazia Rahman traces the ways in which Pakistani women explore alternative, environmental modes of belonging, examines the vitality of place-based identities within Pakistani culture, and thereby contributes to evolving understandings of Pakistani women—in relation to both their environment and to various discourses of nation and patriarchy. Through an astute analysis of such works as Sabiha Sumar’s Khamosh Pani (2003), Mehreen Jabbar’s Ramchand Pakistani (2008), Sorayya Khan’s Noor (2006), Uzma Aslam Khan’s Trespassing (2003), and Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows (2009),Rahman illumTrade Review"Boldly focusing on eco-cosmopolitanism, vernacular and official landscapes, animalization, and bioregionalism, Rahman highlights the tensions between ecocriticism and feminism that have produced a vulnerable position for ecofeminism. The author's new perspective on postcolonial Pakistani studies is welcome."—M. Roy, Choice"As a welcome infusion of a new and urgent critical voice into Pakistani literary criticism, Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism makes its most significant contribution to ecocriticism through its focus on the environments of Pakistan."—Cara Cilano, Bloomsbury Pakistan"Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism fills an important gap in scholarship in not only Pakistani Literatures specifically, but South Asian Studies in general. It also significantly extends the scope of both feminist and ecocritical scholarship, offering an alternative vision of empowerment for women and the subdominant sections of society that eschews two competing, hegemonic, and limiting, frameworks based on religious nationalism and US imperialism. . . . This pioneering approach from an ecofeminist perspective is sure to pave the way for more such explorations."—Chitra Sankaran, ISLE"[Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism] offers much to think about and discuss, including a greater engagement with social and ecological issues so important to Pakistan's development and climate change."—Muneeza Shamsie, Dawn“Shazia Rahman brings a fine literary critical sensibility to a postcolonial, ecofeminist reading of contemporary Pakistani novels and films. Her ethically charged book offers a fresh . . . engagement with cultural production from Pakistan, an enormously important part of South Asia that is nevertheless often neglected in postcolonial studies.”—Ananya Jahanara Kabir, author of Partition’s Post-Amnesias: 1947, 1971, and Modern South Asia“This is an urgent and consequential book on the deep entanglements between gender politics and environmental justice. Shazia Rahman brings into conversation for the first time an impressive array of ecological thought leaders and Pakistani writers and film makers. Impressive, vital work.”—Rob Nixon, author of Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor“By foregrounding attachments to Pakistan as a place—comprising land, sea, plants, and animals—Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism probes the important but overlooked relationship between women and the environment through a critical analysis of patriarchal structures of land ownership and social control that underpin the political and moral economy of Pakistan. Reading novels and feature films against the grain from an ecological perspective reveals the myriad ways of environmental belonging experienced by women at key moments in Pakistan’s history. Innovative in its use of methodologies in environmental humanities and postcolonial analysis, Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism is a welcome intervention to the incipient debate on women and ecological degradation in Pakistan and will enrich understandings of self, place, and belonging beyond the narrow confines of the postcolonial state’s official nationalism.”—Ayesha Jalal, Mary Richardson Professor of History and director of the Center for South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies at Tufts University “This book addresses the silence in the environmental humanities and in the academy regarding Pakistani women’s literary and cinematic fictions. Rahman conducts a nuanced analysis of Pakistani women’s lives, particularly in terms of how they engage with land, animals, ecology, and sense of place. She delves into the ways that Pakistani literature and cinema are revealing alternative, environmental ways of belonging that women create to counter dominant discourses of religious nationalism and global Islam. This book will be required reading not only among ecocritics, but among feminist, postcolonial, ethnic, Pakistani, and American studies scholars as well.”—Joni Adamson, professor of English and director of the Environmental Humanities Initiative at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University“Shazia Rahman constructively redirects much current scholarship on Pakistani literature and film. Her focus on women’s narratives, understood broadly, and the environment is not only timely in terms of scholarly trends but also necessary, given the increasingly stark risks Pakistanis and others around the world face due to environmental neglect and degradation.”—Cara Cilano, professor of English at Michigan State UniversityTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: The Place That Is Pakistan 1. Punjab: Eco-cosmopolitan Feminism 2. Thar: Bioregionalism 3. Bengal: Vernacular Landscape 4. Karachi: Pakistani Eco-cosmopolitanism 5. Displacement: Animalization Conclusion: Justice for All Notes References Index
£21.59
University Press of Mississippi Madeline Kahn
Book SynopsisBest known for her Oscar-nominated roles in the smash hitsPaper MoonandBlazing Saddles, Madeline Kahn (1942-1999) was one of the most popular comedians of her time - and one of the least understood. William V. Madison examines Kahn's film career, including not only her triumphs with Mel Brooks and Peter Bogdanovich, but also her overlooked performances.Trade ReviewWhen I started out in New York, in the late 60's, one of my earliest friends and fellow performers at Upstairs at the Downstairs was the inimitable Madeline Kahn. As young and struggling artists, we bonded as great friends, and remained friends for thirty years. Even back then, I knew her talent would take her far. She was so gifted in so many ways, it's difficult to summarize her genius. I'm delighted that William V. Madison's book has perfectly captured her irreverent humor as well as all the challenges she faced as a single working woman. Madeline continues to influence younger artists today, and her performances are a treasure for all of us."" - Lily Tomlin, ""Below the Belt"" revue, Upstairs at the Downstairs.""Bids to become the surprise biography of the year. A great untold story intriguingly revealed. Superbly researched, digs deep into the life and times of its subject and captures her essence."" - Dan Rather.""For everyone who found her an enigmatic delight on stages and screens, the book is a resonant must-read, evoking its subject and the golden age of theater and film in which she lived."" - Tom Shales, Pulitzer Prize-winning television critic.""Madeline Kahn is the best comic or dramatic actress, the best singer - serious or comic - and the best I've worked with, or known in my life."" - Gene Wilder.""Madeline was bright, committed, thoughtful, and one of the most remarkable actresses I have ever worked with. William V. Madison's biography captures Madeline's complexity and finely documents her career and personal life."" - Jane Alexander, actress, author, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, and wildlife conservationist.
£18.86
University Press of Mississippi Ferocious Ambition Joan Crawfords March to
Book SynopsisRobert Dance’s new evaluation of Joan Crawford looks at her entire career and - while not ignoring her early years and tempestuous personal life - focuses squarely on her achievements as an actress, and as a woman who mastered the studio system with a rare combination of grit, determination, beauty, and talent.Trade ReviewFerocious Ambition presents a commendable, well-researched study of its subject from a sharp-eyed scholar." - Marion Meade, author of Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?
£30.36
Stanford University Press The Off-Screen: An Investigation of the Cinematic
Book SynopsisFrom the Renaissance on, a new concept of the frame becomes crucial to a range of artistic media, which in turn are organized around and fascinated by this frame. The frame decontextualizes, cutting everything that is within it from the continuity of the world and creating a realm we understand as the realm of fiction. The modern theatrical stage, framed paintings, the novel, the cinematic screen—all present us with such framed-off zones. Naturally, the frame creates a separation between inside and out. But, as this book argues, what is outside the frame, what is offstage, or off screen, remains particularly mysterious. It constitutes the primary enigma of the work of art in the modern age. It is to the historical and conceptual significance of this "off" that this book is dedicated. By focusing on what is outside the frame of a work of art, it offers a comprehensive theory of film, a concise history of American cinema from D.W. Griffith to Quentin Tarantino, and a reflection on the place and significance of film within the arts of modernity in general.Trade Review"Peretz's landmark discussion of the off-screen goes well beyond the technical definitions of Bazin, Bonitzer, or Deleuze. In his hands, the off-screen becomes the philosophical lynchpin of a new way of addressing modern art and the poetics of the modern image." -- Alessia Ricciardi * Northwestern University *"Think you know what a frame is? Well, this inspired book radically unframes and reframes the notion. Frames, Eyal Peretz brilliantly shows, are a negotiation with the specters, angels, or ghosts that works of art—from Bruegel to Tarantino—carry around as their (off-)trail." -- Peter Szendy * University of Paris Ouest Nanterre. *"Peretz reconstructs a sweeping genealogy of the frame – as that which is both in and outside – from the painted image to the theatrical stage to the cinematic screen itself. Peretz's project is an idiosyncratic endeavor in the best sense of the word, blending art theory, film theory, and philosophy, without taking shelter in the philological and historicist micropolitics of each respective discipline..." -- Sulgi Lie * Texte zur Kunst *"The Off-Screen, within the context of the invisible dimension of the "off," provides its readers with an insightful and incisive background of US cinema from Griffith to Tarantino. Apart from the obvious contribution to film studies, scholars in performance and visual studies will find themselves enthralled by Peretz's investigation of the frame." -- Mohammad Mehdi Kimiagari * The Drama Review *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsThe Unframing Image chapter abstractThe book opens its investigation of the category of the "off" by examining a paradigmatic painting of the early modern period, Rembrandt's The Sacrifice of Isaac. The painting is shown to involve a reflection on the historical significance of the modern category of the "off". The key element is the painting's attempt to differentiate the dimension of the outside the frame (the "off") of a modern painting from the outside the frame in a sacred image. While in the sacred image the outside is conceived as the divine, in the modern painting the outside marks the disappearance of the divine. This new dimension of the "off" is also conceived, due to its critique of the logic of the divine, as what allows for a liberation from the logic of sacrifice that guided the monotheistic religions. The Off-Screen: Shakespeare, Bruegel, Tarkovsky chapter abstractThe paradigmatic articulation for the modern age of the work of art's relation to the "off" is Hamlet. Hamlet's ghost, occupying the off-stage as the play begins, is a figure for the dimension of the "off-stage." The figure of the ghost appears with the disappearance of divine order, and the work of art, which now becomes fascinated with the new dimension of the "off," becomes the arena for showing ghosts, replacing the sacred work as an arena for showing the divine. In order to demonstrate the generality of this matrix the book engages in a discussion of Bruegel's Landscape with the Fall of Icarus and Tarkovsky's Solaris which, much like Hamlet<\i>, show the emergence of the modern work of art to depend on the disappearance of divine order, associated in both works with the death of the father. 1On the Origin of Film and the Resurrection of the People: D.W. Griffith's Intolerance<\i> chapter abstractThis chapter consists of a reading of Griffith's masterpiece Intolerance. From the point of view of the development of cinematic grammar, Griffith is perhaps most famous for two things: for having basically invented cinematic montage—a logic of cinematic cutting—and for having liberated the location of the camera, no longer having it simulate the position of a theatrical audience, freeing it from occupying a constant center and distance in relation to which a stage opens. These innovations meant that the perspective and order of cinematic shots were no longer subjected to the principle of a given center; any shot could follow any given shot, without any pre-established reason or meaning. The chapter demonstrates how these innovations are fundamentally based on Griffith's understanding of the dimension of the off-screen. 2The Actor of the Crowd–The Great Dictator: Chaplin, Riefenstahl, Lang chapter abstractThis chapter stages a confrontation, a confrontation which Chaplin himself staged in The Great Dictator, between the two most famous and influential screen "personas" of the 20th century, Chaplin and Hitler. Both Chaplin and Hitler understood the screen as an arena in relation to which the question of the modern city crowd is raised, and they both saw their task, the task of a movie star, as transforming the crowds, helping them out of their condition of anxiety of the modern world and abandonment by the ruling powers. However, whereas Chaplin's project is a revolutionary and liberatory one, allowing the crowds to conceive of themselves as part of an unprecedented democratic project, Hitler's "project" cancels the freedom of the crowds and submits them to a ruling fascistic identity. 3Howard Hawks's Idea of Genre chapter abstractIn this chapter the book extends its demonstration that the dimension of the off-screen is the very heart of the medium of film by showing how it can become the lens through which to examine another fundamental cinematic question, that of film genre. The chapter is dedicated to a reading of a single film of Howard Hawks, the relatively late work Monkey Business, through which it also opens up the general Hawksian poetics. The chapter demonstrates that Hawks' brilliance consists in having understood genres to be differing modalities of inscription of the dimension of the "off". Monkey Business transitions between dozens of genres displaying the main Hawksian principle of genre: there is no sense of speaking, as in the classical theory of genres, about a hierarchy of genres (tragedy is high, comedy is low, farce even lower, etc.), nor about a limitation of their number. 4What is a Cinema of Jewish Vengeance? Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds chapter abstractThis chapter examines film genre by taking a look at the project of a cinematic heir of Hawks, Quentin Tarantino, in his Inglourious Basterds. Moving as he does between multiple genres without hierarchy, Tarantino discovers in Inglourious Basterds the weight behind this logic, which is that of making the screen the arena of a historical witnessing to the dimension of the "off". The film expresses three main cinematic ideas. First, that the only way for film to activate the dimension of the "off" is by creating an unstable generic system where cracks between genres allow the "off-screen" to leak into the film. Second, that violence has to do with the attempt to eliminate the "off," and is always accompanied by the creation of images without an "off." Third, that the task of the modern cinematic image is to liberate the image from all false images.
£50.40
University of Minnesota Press Zombie Theory: A Reader
Book SynopsisZombies first shuffled across movie screens in 1932 in the low-budget Hollywood film White Zombie and were reimagined as undead flesh-eaters in George A. Romero’s The Night of the Living Dead almost four decades later. Today, zombies are omnipresent in global popular culture, from video games and top-rated cable shows in the United States to comic books and other visual art forms to low-budget films from Cuba and the Philippines. The zombie’s ability to embody a variety of cultural anxieties—ecological disaster, social and economic collapse, political extremism—has ensured its continued relevance and legibility, and has precipitated an unprecedented deluge of international scholarship. Zombie studies manifested across academic disciplines in the humanities but also beyond, spreading into sociology, economics, computer science, mathematics, and even epidemiology. Zombie Theory collects the best interdisciplinary zombie scholarship from around the world. Essays portray the zombie not as a singular cultural figure or myth but show how the undead represent larger issues: the belief in an afterlife, fears of contagion and technology, the effect of capitalism and commodification, racial exclusion and oppression, dehumanization. As presented here, zombies are not simple metaphors; rather, they emerge as a critical mode for theoretical work. With its diverse disciplinary and methodological approaches, Zombie Theory thinks through what the walking undead reveal about our relationships to the world and to each other.Contributors: Fred Botting, Kingston U; Samuel Byrnand, U of Canberra; Gerry Canavan, Marquette U; Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, George Washington U; Jean Comaroff, Harvard U; John Comaroff, Harvard U; Edward P. Comentale, Indiana U; Anna Mae Duane, U of Connecticut; Karen Embry, Portland Community College; Barry Keith Grant, Brock U; Edward Green, Roosevelt U; Lars Bang Larsen; Travis Linnemann, Eastern Kentucky U; Elizabeth McAlister, Wesleyan U; Shaka McGlotten, Purchase College-SUNY; David McNally, York U; Tayla Nyong’o, Yale U; Simon Orpana, U of Alberta; Steven Shaviro, Wayne State U; Ola Sigurdson, U of Gothenburg; Jon Stratton, U of South Australia; Eugene Thacker, The New School; Sherryl Vint, U of California Riverside; Priscilla Wald, Duke U; Tyler Wall, Eastern Kentucky U; Jen Webb, U of Canberra; Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, Central Michigan U.Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Wander and Wonder in ZombielandSarah Juliet LauroPart I. Old Schools: Classic Zombies1. Contagious Allegories: George RomeroSteven Shaviro2. Zombie TV: Late-Night B Movie Horror FestJeffrey Andrew Weinstock3. Viral Cultures: Microbes and Politics in the Cold WarPriscilla Wald4. Slaves, Cannibals, and Infected Hyper-Whites: The Race and Religion of ZombiesElizabeth McAlister5. Slavoj Žižek, the Death Drive, and Zombies: A Theological AccountOla SigurdsonPart II. Capitalist Monsters6. Some Kind of Virus: The Zombie as Body and as TropeJen Webb and Samuel Byrnand7. Ugly Beauty: Monstrous Dreams of UtopiaDavid McNally8. Alien-Nation: Zombies, Immigrants, and Millennial CapitalismJean Comaroff and John Comaroff9. Zombies of Immaterial Labor: The Modern Monster and the Consumption of the SelfLars Bang Larsen10. Abject Posthumanism: Neoliberalism, Biopolitics, and ZombiesSherryl VintPart III. Zombies and Other(ed) People11. Zombie RaceEdward P. Comentale12. Taking Back the Night of the Living Dead: George Romero, Feminism, and the Horror FilmBarry Keith Grant13. Dead and Live Life: Zombies, Queers, and Online SocialityShaka McGlotten14. Dead and Disabled: The Crawling Monsters of The Walking DeadAnna Mae Duane 15. Trouble with Zombies: Muselmänner, Bare Life, and Displaced PeopleJon StrattonPart IV. Zombies in the StreetPreface: In Memoriam: The Toronto Zombie Walk (2003–2015)Sarah Juliet Lauro16. Zombie London: Unexceptionalities of the New World OrderFred Botting17. Spooks of Biopower: The Uncanny Carnivalesque of Zombie WalksSimon Orpana18. The Scene of OccupationTavia Nyong’o19. The Walking Dead and Killing State: Zombification and the Normalization of Police ViolenceTravis Linnemann, Tyler Wall, and Edward GreenPart V. New Life for the Undead20. Nekros: or, The Poetics of Biopolitics Eugene Thacker21. Grey: A Zombie EcologyJeffrey Jerome Cohen22. A Zombie Manifesto: The Nonhuman Condition in the Era of Advanced CapitalismSarah Juliet Lauro and Karen Embry23. “We Arethe Walking Dead”: Race, Time, and Survival in Zombie NarrativeGerry CanavanAcknowledgmentsContributorsPrevious PublicationsFurther ReadingIndex
£86.40
University of Minnesota Press The Monster Theory Reader
Book SynopsisA collection of scholarship on monsters and their meaning—across genres, disciplines, methodologies, and time—from foundational texts to the most recent contributions Zombies and vampires, banshees and basilisks, demons and wendigos, goblins, gorgons, golems, and ghosts. From the mythical monstrous races of the ancient world to the murderous cyborgs of our day, monsters have haunted the human imagination, giving shape to the fears and desires of their time. And as long as there have been monsters, there have been attempts to make sense of them, to explain where they come from and what they mean. This book collects the best of what contemporary scholars have to say on the subject, in the process creating a map of the monstrous across the vast and complex terrain of the human psyche.Editor Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock prepares the way with a genealogy of monster theory, traveling from the earliest explanations of monsters through psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, and cultural studies, to the development of monster theory per se—and including Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s foundational essay “Monster Theory (Seven Theses),” reproduced here in its entirety. There follow sections devoted to the terminology and concepts used in talking about monstrosity; the relevance of race, religion, gender, class, sexuality, and physical appearance; the application of monster theory to contemporary cultural concerns such as ecology, religion, and terrorism; and finally the possibilities monsters present for envisioning a different future. Including the most interesting and important proponents of monster theory and its progenitors, from Sigmund Freud to Julia Kristeva to J. Halberstam, Donna Haraway, Barbara Creed, and Stephen T. Asma—as well as harder-to-find contributions such as Robin Wood’s and Masahiro Mori’s—this is the most extensive and comprehensive collection of scholarship on monsters and monstrosity across disciplines and methods ever to be assembled and will serve as an invaluable resource for students of the uncanny in all its guises.Contributors: Stephen T. Asma, Columbia College Chicago; Timothy K. Beal, Case Western Reserve U; Harry Benshoff, U of North Texas; Bettina Bildhauer, U of St. Andrews; Noel Carroll, The Graduate Center, CUNY; Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Arizona State U; Barbara Creed, U of Melbourne; Michael Dylan Foster, UC Davis; Sigmund Freud; Elizabeth Grosz, Duke U; J. Halberstam, Columbia U; Donna Haraway, UC Santa Cruz; Julia Kristeva, Paris Diderot U; Anthony Lioi, The Julliard School; Patricia MacCormack, Anglia Ruskin U; Masahiro Mori; Annalee Newitz; Jasbir K. Puar, Rutgers U; Amit A. Rai, Queen Mary U of London; Margrit Shildrick, Stockholm U; Jon Stratton, U of South Australia; Erin Suzuki, UC San Diego; Robin Wood, York U; Alexa Wright, U of Westminster.Trade Review"This book, indeed, may bite. The best books often do."—PopMatters"Weinstock's organization is carefully considered, and the overlap between some of the arguments and works cited between essays suggests that the discipline of monster theory has been built on a bedrock of canonical sources, several of which—most notably Freud's "The Uncanny"—are included in the first section of this book."—CHOICE"In the real world, monstrosity is used as a vague catch-all to justify acts of violence and even murder; these essays offer readers a digestible and critical examination of the monstrous as a way to force us to consider the politics behind what we deem monstrous, and how a deeper understanding of what haunts us may lead to a new, previously unimagined, future."—Ploughshares" An entertaining subject for students."—Gramarye
£100.00
University of Minnesota Press The Monster Theory Reader
Book SynopsisA collection of scholarship on monsters and their meaning—across genres, disciplines, methodologies, and time—from foundational texts to the most recent contributions Zombies and vampires, banshees and basilisks, demons and wendigos, goblins, gorgons, golems, and ghosts. From the mythical monstrous races of the ancient world to the murderous cyborgs of our day, monsters have haunted the human imagination, giving shape to the fears and desires of their time. And as long as there have been monsters, there have been attempts to make sense of them, to explain where they come from and what they mean. This book collects the best of what contemporary scholars have to say on the subject, in the process creating a map of the monstrous across the vast and complex terrain of the human psyche.Editor Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock prepares the way with a genealogy of monster theory, traveling from the earliest explanations of monsters through psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, and cultural studies, to the development of monster theory per se—and including Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s foundational essay “Monster Theory (Seven Theses),” reproduced here in its entirety. There follow sections devoted to the terminology and concepts used in talking about monstrosity; the relevance of race, religion, gender, class, sexuality, and physical appearance; the application of monster theory to contemporary cultural concerns such as ecology, religion, and terrorism; and finally the possibilities monsters present for envisioning a different future. Including the most interesting and important proponents of monster theory and its progenitors, from Sigmund Freud to Julia Kristeva to J. Halberstam, Donna Haraway, Barbara Creed, and Stephen T. Asma—as well as harder-to-find contributions such as Robin Wood’s and Masahiro Mori’s—this is the most extensive and comprehensive collection of scholarship on monsters and monstrosity across disciplines and methods ever to be assembled and will serve as an invaluable resource for students of the uncanny in all its guises.Contributors: Stephen T. Asma, Columbia College Chicago; Timothy K. Beal, Case Western Reserve U; Harry Benshoff, U of North Texas; Bettina Bildhauer, U of St. Andrews; Noel Carroll, The Graduate Center, CUNY; Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Arizona State U; Barbara Creed, U of Melbourne; Michael Dylan Foster, UC Davis; Sigmund Freud; Elizabeth Grosz, Duke U; J. Halberstam, Columbia U; Donna Haraway, UC Santa Cruz; Julia Kristeva, Paris Diderot U; Anthony Lioi, The Julliard School; Patricia MacCormack, Anglia Ruskin U; Masahiro Mori; Annalee Newitz; Jasbir K. Puar, Rutgers U; Amit A. Rai, Queen Mary U of London; Margrit Shildrick, Stockholm U; Jon Stratton, U of South Australia; Erin Suzuki, UC San Diego; Robin Wood, York U; Alexa Wright, U of Westminster.Trade Review"This book, indeed, may bite. The best books often do."—PopMatters"Weinstock's organization is carefully considered, and the overlap between some of the arguments and works cited between essays suggests that the discipline of monster theory has been built on a bedrock of canonical sources, several of which—most notably Freud's "The Uncanny"—are included in the first section of this book."—CHOICE"In the real world, monstrosity is used as a vague catch-all to justify acts of violence and even murder; these essays offer readers a digestible and critical examination of the monstrous as a way to force us to consider the politics behind what we deem monstrous, and how a deeper understanding of what haunts us may lead to a new, previously unimagined, future."—Ploughshares" An entertaining subject for students."—Gramarye
£26.99
University of Minnesota Press Asians on Demand: Mediating Race in Video Art and
Book SynopsisDoes media representation advance racial justice? While the past decade has witnessed a push for increased diversity in visual media, Asians on Demand grapples with the pressing question of whether representation is enough to advance racial justice. Surveying a contemporary, cutting-edge archive of video works from the Asian diaspora in North America, Europe, and East Asia, this book uncovers the ways that diasporic artists challenge the narrow—and damaging—conceptions of Asian identity pervading mainstream media. Through an engagement with grassroots activist documentaries, experimental video diaries by undocumented and migrant workers, and works by high-profile media artists such as Hito Steyerl and Ming Wong, Feng-Mei Heberer showcases contemporary video productions that trouble the mainstream culture industry’s insistence on portraying ethnic Asians as congenial to dominant neoliberal values. Undermining the demands placed on Asian subjects to exemplify institutional diversity and individual exceptionalism, this book provides a critical and nuanced set of alternatives to the easily digestible forms generated by online streaming culture and multicultural lip service more broadly. Employing feminist, racial, and queer critiques of the contemporary media landscape, Asians on Demand highlights how the dynamics of Asian representation play out differently in Germany, the United States, Taiwan, and Spain. Rather than accepting the notion that inclusion requires an uncomplicated set of appearances, the works explored in this volume spotlight a staunch resistance to formulating racial identity as an instantly accessible consumer product. Trade Review "Asians on Demand heralds an original, new voice in Asian diasporic media studies. Challenging the uncritical embrace of respectable, normative, 'ready-made' images of Asians on global screens, Feng-Mei Heberer directs our attention to exciting video installations, performance art, and documentaries by Asian filmmakers, artists, and activists that advance searing critiques of the Asian on Demand while also showcasing the erotics, pleasures, and 'political desires' of queer, feminist, and diasporic Asian subjects at the beginning of the twenty-first century."—Nguyen Tan Hoang, author of A View from the Bottom: Asian American Masculinity and Sexual Representation "Feng-Mei Heberer exposes the twinned logics of Asian racialization and transparent mediation, laying bare their complicity with contemporary neoliberal regimes of commodified diversity. Wonderfully nomadic in its exploration of video practices and rich with acerbic critique, Asians on Demand is an essential resource for an expanded critical cartography of media, diaspora, and race."—Steven Chung, author of Split Screen Korea: Shin Sang-ok and Postwar Cinema Table of Contents Contents Introduction: Asians on Demand and the Refusal to Represent 1. Improper Asiatische Deutsche: The Video Art of Ming Wong and Hito Steyerl 2. Mental Health and Live Fictions: Kristina Wong and Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 3. Stateless Cinema and the Undocument: Miko Revereza, Distancing, and No Data Plan 4. Migrant Erotics: TIWA’s Lesbian Factory and Rainbow Popcorn 5. Me llamo Peng: Self-Care with a Camcorder Acknowledgments Notes Index
£72.00
University of Minnesota Press Asians on Demand: Mediating Race in Video Art and
Book SynopsisDoes media representation advance racial justice? While the past decade has witnessed a push for increased diversity in visual media, Asians on Demand grapples with the pressing question of whether representation is enough to advance racial justice. Surveying a contemporary, cutting-edge archive of video works from the Asian diaspora in North America, Europe, and East Asia, this book uncovers the ways that diasporic artists challenge the narrow—and damaging—conceptions of Asian identity pervading mainstream media. Through an engagement with grassroots activist documentaries, experimental video diaries by undocumented and migrant workers, and works by high-profile media artists such as Hito Steyerl and Ming Wong, Feng-Mei Heberer showcases contemporary video productions that trouble the mainstream culture industry’s insistence on portraying ethnic Asians as congenial to dominant neoliberal values. Undermining the demands placed on Asian subjects to exemplify institutional diversity and individual exceptionalism, this book provides a critical and nuanced set of alternatives to the easily digestible forms generated by online streaming culture and multicultural lip service more broadly. Employing feminist, racial, and queer critiques of the contemporary media landscape, Asians on Demand highlights how the dynamics of Asian representation play out differently in Germany, the United States, Taiwan, and Spain. Rather than accepting the notion that inclusion requires an uncomplicated set of appearances, the works explored in this volume spotlight a staunch resistance to formulating racial identity as an instantly accessible consumer product. Trade Review "Asians on Demand heralds an original, new voice in Asian diasporic media studies. Challenging the uncritical embrace of respectable, normative, 'ready-made' images of Asians on global screens, Feng-Mei Heberer directs our attention to exciting video installations, performance art, and documentaries by Asian filmmakers, artists, and activists that advance searing critiques of the Asian on Demand while also showcasing the erotics, pleasures, and 'political desires' of queer, feminist, and diasporic Asian subjects at the beginning of the twenty-first century."—Nguyen Tan Hoang, author of A View from the Bottom: Asian American Masculinity and Sexual Representation "Feng-Mei Heberer exposes the twinned logics of Asian racialization and transparent mediation, laying bare their complicity with contemporary neoliberal regimes of commodified diversity. Wonderfully nomadic in its exploration of video practices and rich with acerbic critique, Asians on Demand is an essential resource for an expanded critical cartography of media, diaspora, and race."—Steven Chung, author of Split Screen Korea: Shin Sang-ok and Postwar Cinema Table of Contents Contents Introduction: Asians on Demand and the Refusal to Represent 1. Improper Asiatische Deutsche: The Video Art of Ming Wong and Hito Steyerl 2. Mental Health and Live Fictions: Kristina Wong and Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 3. Stateless Cinema and the Undocument: Miko Revereza, Distancing, and No Data Plan 4. Migrant Erotics: TIWA’s Lesbian Factory and Rainbow Popcorn 5. Me llamo Peng: Self-Care with a Camcorder Acknowledgments Notes Index
£19.79
Bristol University Press Digital Accessibility of Performing Arts
£58.50
University of Arkansas Press Philly Sports: Teams, Games, and Athletes from
Book SynopsisPhiladelphia sports—anchored by the Eagles, Flyers, Phillies, and 76ers— have a long, and sometimes tortured, history. Philly fans have booed more than their share and have earned a reputation as some of the most hostile in the country. They’ve been known, so the tales go, to jeer Santa Claus and cheer at the injury of an opposing player.Strangely though, much of America’s perception of Philadelphia sports has been shaped by a fictional figure: Rocky. The series of Hollywood films named after their title character has told and retold the Cinderella story of an underdog boxer rising up against long odds. One could plausibly make the argument that Rocky is Philadelphia’s most famous athlete.Beyond the major sports franchises and Rocky, lesser-known ath- letic competition in Philadelphia offers much to the interested observer. The city’s boxing culture, influence on Negro Leagues baseball, role in establishing interscholastic sport, and leadership in the rise of cricket all deserve and receive close investigation in this new collection. Philly Sports combines primary research and personal experiences—playing in the Palestra, scouting out the tombstones of the city’s best athletes, enjoying the fervor of a Philadelphia night with a local team in pursuit of a championship title. The essence of Philadelphia sport, and to a cer- tain extent the city itself, is distilled here.
£22.91
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Through the Roof – What Communities Can Do About
Book Synopsis
£15.29
University of Massachusetts Press Movie Censorship and American Culture
Book SynopsisFrom the earliest days of public outrage over ""indecent"" nickelodeon shows, Americans have worried about the power of the movies. The eleven essays in this book examine nearly a century of struggle over cinematic representations of sex, crime, violence, religion, race, and ethnicity, revealing that the effort to regulate the screen has reflected deep social and cultural schisms. In addition to the editor, contributors include Daniel Czitrom, Marybeth Hamilton, Garth Jowett, Charles Lyons, Richard Maltby, Charles Musser, Alison M. Parker, Charlene Regester, Ruth Vasey, and Stephen Vaughn. Together, they make it clear that censoring the movies is more than just a reflex against ""indecency,"" however defined. Whether censorship protects the vulnerable or suppresses the creative, it is part of a broader culture war that breaks out recurrently as Americans try to come to terms with the market, the state, and the plural society in which they live.
£24.65
Temple University Press,U.S. Framing Blackness: The African American Image in
Book Synopsis From D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation to Spike Lee's Malcolm X, Ed Guerrero argues, the commercial film industry reflects white domination of American society. Written with the energy and conviction generated by the new black film wave, Framing Blackness traces an ongoing epic—African Americans protesting screen images of blacks as criminals, servants, comics, athletes, and sidekicks. These images persist despite blacks' irrepressible demands for emancipated images and a role in the industry. Although starkly racist portrayals of blacks in early films have gradually been replaced by more appealing characterizations, the legacy of the plantation genre lives on in Blaxpoitation films, the fantastic racialized imagery in science fiction and horror films, and the resubordination of blacks in Reagan-era films. Probing the contradictions of such images, Guerrero recalls the controversies surrounding role choices by stars like Sidney Poitier, Eddie Murphy, Whoopie Goldberg, and Richard Pryor. Throughout his study, Guerrero is attentive to the ways African Americans resist Hollywood's one-dimensional images and superficial selling of black culture as the latest fad. Organizing political demonstrations and boycotts, writing, and creating their own film images are among the forms of active resistance documented. The final chapter awakens readers to the artistic and commercial breakthrough of black independent filmmakers who are using movies to channel their rage at social injustice. Guerrero points out their diverse approaches to depicting African American life and hails innovative tactics for financing their work. Framing Blackness is the most up-to-date critical study of how African Americans are acquiring power once the province of Hollywood alone: the power of framing blackness. In the series Culture and the Moving Image, edited by Robert Sklar.Trade Review"Ed Guerrero writes broadly and insightfully about the creation and domination of the black image in commercial cinema. This book is a must-read for anyone wishing to develop an understanding of black films and filmmaking in the U.S."—Julie Dash"This well-written and well-argued book offers both an historical survey of representations of blacks in American films and an argument about the relationship between social life and popular culture.... [It] fills an important need within the fields of cinema studies, Afro-American studies, and cultural studies, and will appeal to a broad range of readers."—George Lipsitz, University of California, San DiegoTable of Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. From Birth To Blaxploitation: Hollywood's Inscription of Slavery 2. Slaves, Monsters, and Others: Racial Fragment, Metaphor, and Allegory on the Commercial Screen 3. The Rise and Fall of Blaxploitation 4. Recuperation, Representation, and Resistance: Black Cinema through the 1980s 5. Black Film in the 1990s: The New Black Movie Boom and Its Portents Notes Bibliography Index
£26.99
Temple University Press,U.S. Heroes In Hard Times
Book SynopsisAccording to Neal King, cop action movies point both an accusatory finger and homoerotically murderous race at powerful white men. A close look at a massive and hugely popular fictional culture, Heroes in Hard Times considers the over 190 cop action movies released between 1980 and 1997; examines the generic moral logic that they offer; and explores the crisis in American masculinity that, King argues, propels the action in their stories. King studies how, in the cop action genre, working-class police officers weigh in on such topics as racial justice, homosexuality, misogyny, unemployment, worker resistance, affirmative action, drug use, poverty, divorce, and the use of violence to deal with social problems. Facing their enemies with wisecracks and firepower, these men prove themselves at once complicitous in a system of violence and corruption and worthy to \u0022blow away,\u0022 with neither hesitation nor remorse, their -- society's -- menacing threats. The central male figures in these stories are heroes in their fight against criminals, but, as individuals, they fell undervalued by women, unappreciated by their bosses, and out of place in a society where fat cats and liberals have all the power. Such \u0022hard times,\u0022 King's study reveals, position them to simultaneously long for, disdain, and heroically -- if violently -- stake their frustrated claim to white male privilege. Discussing such topics as white male guilt and the rage of the oppressed and examining such films as Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, and Silence of the Lambs, King's book notes the socially-charged roles given to American culture's fictional police heroes. The last artisan in a culture that has become increasingly corporate and bureaucratized, the movie cop is the last 'real man' in a world that has emasculated men and the last non-conforming patriot in a world that pays more attention to rules than what is morally right. A book that shows how modern mythology makes sense of rampant corruption (and provides entertainment in its punishment), Heroes in Hard Times will educate and provoke those interested in American popular culture, film, and gender studies.Trade Review"The cop-at least in cinematic fantasy-is America's last action hero, the last 'real man' in a world of emasculated wimps. In this discerningly analytic, yet erudite and even occasionally impish study, Neal King shows that such fantasies ignore the reality of real police work while offering a subterraneanhomoerotic thrill for both the character and his (male) viewer. A significant work that straddles the boundaries of cultural studies and sociology." -Michael Kimmel, author of Manhood in America "Neal King loves a good cop-action flick, and in Heroes in Hard Times: Cop Action Movies in the U.S., it shows. His obvious enthusiasm as a fan-"Whoa, good crash!"-lends an intensity to his scholarship. And like-minded readers will delight in snippets of hard-boiled dialogue from Die Hard, Sudden Impact, and many other films. But for all its pleasures of fandom, the book has a deeper purpose. The universe of cop-action films, Mr. King argues, acts as a "cracked mirror" of American society, reflecting in particular the anger, fantasies, and guilt of white men who feel they have "lost ground." It is, he says, a self-conscious reflection." -Chronicle of Higher Education "King's study is good to read. In fact, it might prove most enlightening to those of us who have tended to disdain this impoverished, headachey genre. In straight-talk prose. King takes account of the prejudices many readers will bring to his subject; certainly he can't be accused of sidestepping the toughest objections to these movies. In successive chapters he regards them through prisms of gender, race, and economics; the longest chapter is on the symbolism of sodomy...King does not defend cop action so much as seek thematic coherence from a position of sympathy." -Film Quarterly "King's analysis remains valuable for the contribution it makes in taking seriously an oft derided and dismissed form of popular culture that speaks directly to issues of masculinity... This book will be a useful resource for those interested in understanding how images of hyper-masculinity--the "hard man"--represent both the excess and the ordinary parts of masculinity in cinema. King's methodology is helpful in reading media texts, and his provocative interpretations of these films--particularly his readings of homosocial sadomasochism--will likely generate much discussion." -Women's Studies in CommunicationTable of ContentsCONTENTS Preface 1 Losing Ground at the Movies 2 Out in the Cold 3 Back Home Again 4 White Male Guilt 5 Rage of the Oppressed 6 The Criminal Class 7 Sodomy and Guts Conclusion: Good Guys? Appendix: Using Movies Notes Index
£25.19
Temple University Press,U.S. Sisters On Screen
Book SynopsisPerhaps the most vital, emotionally complex, and lasting attachments between women occur between sisters. Whether as best friends or antagonists, \u0022sisters remain entangled in a common tapestry of mutual experience and remembrance, family and history,\u0022 according to author Eva Ruschmann. Although many of the women-centered films in the last three decades depict the relationship between sisters as a pivotal aspect of a character's psychological development, the now substantial body of feminist film criticism has not taken up this theme in any sustained way. In Sisters on Screen, Eva Rueschmann explores the sister bond in a wide range of modernist feature films that depart from the conventional cinematic rendering of women's lives. Drawing on the psychoanalytic concept of intersubjectivity, this book emphasizes the role of a woman's relationship and inner world in her continual quest for self-knowledge. Offering an original and absorbing perspective on women's filmic images, Sisters on Screen reveals how post-1960s cinema has articulated the way sin which biological sisters negotiate mutuality and difference, co-author family histories, and profoundly shape each other's political and personal identities. The films in focus question standards of femininity as they probe in to memory, fantasy, and desire, bringing women's realities into view in the process. Structuring her discussion in terms of life-cycle stages -- adolescence and adulthood -- Rueschmann offers an in-depth discussion of such films as An Angel at my Table, Double Happiness, Eve's Bayou, Gas Food Lodging, Heavenly Creatures, Little Women, Marianne and Juliane, Paura e amore, Peppermint Soda, The Silence, Sweetie, and Welcome to the Dollhouse. Rueschmann draws upon the works of filmmakers from the 1970s to the 1990s. Some of the directors included in her study are Allison Anders, Gillian Armstrong, Ingmar Bergman, Jane Campion, Peter Jackson, Mina Shum, Diane Kurys, Kasi Lemmons, Todd Solondz, and Margarethe von Trotta. Sisters on Screen will appeal to anyone interested in women's studies, film studies, psychoanalytic readings of cinema, women directors, and international modern film.Table of ContentsCONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction PART I: Sisters as Artists in the Cinematic Kunstlerroman 1. The Romance of Sisterhood: Little Women and Popular Nostalgia in Contemporary Women's Cinema 2. An Angel at My Table: Sisters, Trauma, and the Making of an Artist as a Young Woman PART II: Negotiating Sameness and Difference: Sisters in Adolescence 3. Sororal Rites of Passage: Peppermint Soda, Gas Food Lodging, and Welcome to the Dollhouse 4. Sisters, Fathers, and the Modern Ethnic Family: Double Happiness and Eve's Bayou 5. Sororophilia and Matricide: Shared Fantasies in Heavenly Creatures and Sister My Sister PART III: Loss, Memory, Recognition: Sisters in Adulthood 6. The Internal World of Sisters: Ingmar Berman's The Silence and Cries and Whispers 7. The Politics of Intersubjectivity: The Sister Films of Margarethe von Trotta Conclusion Appendix: Filmography Notes Index Photographs follow page 116
£26.99
Temple University Press,U.S. Rubble Films: German Cinema In Shadow Of 3Rd
Book SynopsisAt the end of World War II, Germany was a broken nation. Split in two and occupied by the victorious Allies, it would have to be rebuilt, literally, from the rubble of its own defeat. Volumes of books have been published chronicling its structural and economic rebirth; this unique study reveals how Germany rebuilt itself culturally. Rubble Films is a close look at German cinema in the immediate postwar era, and a careful examination of its relationship to Allied occupation. Shandley reveals how German film borrowed -- both literally and figuratively -- from its Nazi past, and how the occupied powers (specifically the US) used its position as victor to open Europe to Hollywood movie products and aesthetics. Incorporating a careful reading of several important postwar films, Shandley also discusses how the German studio system operated immediately after the war, in the east and the west, giving special focus on DEFA, the east German studio that rose during Soviet occupation. Pathbreaking in its research, Rubble Films sheds new light on a significant moment of German cultural rebirth, and adds a new dimension to the study of the history of film.Trade Review"[Rubble Films] will certainly come to stand as an important book on an unwritten chapter in the history of postwar German cinema... [I]t also contributes to the specific analysis of culture as an apparatus of historical memory in postwar Germany, and does so in illuminating and intriguing ways." -Lisa Saltzman, Department of History of Art, Bryn Mawr College "Rubble Films is a deft and perceptive study of the most overlooked period in German film history. Superbly researched and written, this complex tale of German film culture illuminates, at times brilliantly, the much larger story of East and West Germany in the shadow of World War II." -Timothy Corrigan, author of New German Film: The Displaced Image and The Films of Werner Herzog: Between Mirage and History "His study deftly combines descriptive and analytic treatments of individual films, with a cogent reconstruction of their historical context." -German History "A primary strength of the bok is its breadth: Shandley provides a useful survey of the rubble film that addresses a wide range of genres...in doing so, he never loses sight of his analysis of the representation of history in these films." -Colloquia Germanica "Shandley extensively mines German secondary sources to flesh out the fascinating picture of the "rubble films" first produced in the late 1940s...Shandley's book presents a clear argument and critical evaluation of these early film initiatives." -ChoiceTable of ContentsCONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Dismantling the Dream Factory: The Film Industry in Berubbled Germany 2. Coming Home through Rubble Canyons: The Murderers Are among Us and Generic Convention 3. It's a Wonderful Reich: Private Innocence and Public Guilt 4. The Sword That Smote You: Jewish Filmmakers and the Visual Reconstruction of Jews in German Film 5. The Trouble with Rubble: DEFA's Social Problem Films 6. Comedic Redemption and the End of Rubble Film Discourse Conclusion: The Vanishing Rubble Film in Postwar Historiography Notes Selected Bibliography Filmography Index
£25.19
University of South Carolina Press New Boundaries in Political Science Fiction
Book SynopsisThis book offers an interpretation of the evolution of a growing genre in literary, film, and television.As a follow-up to their 1997 collection ""Political Science Fiction"" Hassler and Wilcox have assembled twenty-four noted international scholars representing diverse fields of inquiry to assess the influential voices and trends from the past decade in ""New Boundaries in Political Science Fiction"". The terrors and technologies that permeate our daily lives have changed radically in the past decade, further highlighting the underlying speculations on our contested future that remain the core of this genre. In surveying the vast expanse of politically charged science fiction of recent years, the editors posit that the defining dilemma for these tales rests in whether identity and meaning germinate from progressive linear changes or progress or from a continuous return to primitive realities of war, death, and the competition for survival.The discussion of political implications ranges among writers from H. G. Wells, Robert A. Heinlein, Ursula Le Guin, and Isaac Asimov to more radical recent voices such as Iain M. Banks, William Gibson, Joanna Russ, Philip K. Dick, and China Mieville. While emphasizing the literature, the collection also addresses political science fiction found on film and television from the original ""Star Trek"" through the newest incarnation of ""Battlestar Galactica"".Trade ReviewFascinating; a clear insight into current and highly informed thinking on matters as diverse as the political implications of Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek as a kind of Philosophy 101, and sexuality in Brazilian science fiction. That it works as a startling and highly germane overview of recent trends in American thinking about the U.S.'s own role in the world is an unexpected but highly welcome bonus. - Iain M. Banks
£35.96
Boydell & Brewer Ltd The Autobiographical Turn in Germanophone
Book SynopsisA volume of essays marking out a new, historically and culturally specific model for contemplating autobiographical non-fiction film and video. There is a widespread notion in the scholarly literature on autobiographical nonfiction film that there are unchanging, universal models for the investigation of the self through audiovisual media. By insisting on the cultural andhistorical specificity of that self, the essays in this volume trace the range of politically and theoretically informed taboos, critiques, and proclivities that shape autobiographical filmmaking in German-speaking countries. Indoing so, they delineate a new model for contemplating autobiographical film and video. The essays in this volume examine the parameters shaping the audiovisual self in the Germanophone cultural context across a variety of practices and aesthetic modes, from contemporary artists including Hito Steyerl, Ming Wong, and kate hers to Rolf Dieter Brinkmann's multimedia experiments of the 1970s, and from Helke Misselwitz's challenges to the documentary tradition in the GDR to Peter Liechti's investigations of Swiss ambivalence toward the nation's iconic landscape. The volume thus takes up a number of historically and geographically specific iterations of autobiographical discourse that in each case remain contingent on the space and time in which they are uttered. Contributors: Dagmar Brunow, Steve Choe, Robin Curtis, Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann, Angelica Fenner, Marcy Goldberg, Feng-Mei Heberer, Rembert Hüser, Waltraud Maierhofer, Christopher Pavsek, Patrik Sjöberg, Carrie Smith-Prei, Anna Stainton. Robin Curtis is Professor of Theory and Practice of Audiovisual Media at the Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf, Germany. Angelica Fenner is Associate Professor of German and Cinema Studies at the University of Toronto.Trade Review[N]ot only offers an introduction to a fascinating set of films and filmmakers; with its exploration of memory, history, identity, and the possibilities of the cinematic medium, Fenner and Curtis's volume offers an invaluable resource for scholars across a wide range of disciplines. -- Christina Kraenzle * GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW *Very interesting . . . . The twelve contributions are characterized by an international perspective and are very reflective . . . . Worth reading. * HHPRINZLER.DE *Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments Introduction "If people want to oppress you, they make you say 'I'": Hito Steyerl in Conversation The Impertinence of Saying "I": Sylvia Schedelbauer's Personal Documentaries Geography of a Swiss Body: Peter Liechti's Hans im Glück Reading Helke Misselwitz's Winter Adé as Multivocal Autobiography How Does It Feel to Be Foreign? Negotiating German Belonging and Transnational Asianness in Experimental Video Frankfurt Canteen: Eva Heldmann's fremd gehen. Gespräche mit meiner Freundin Mediated Memories of Migration and the National Visual Archive: Fatih Ak?n's Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren History Runs through the Family: Framing the Nazi Past in Recent Autobiographical Documentary Clearing Out Family History: Thomas Haemmerli's Sieben Mulden und eine Leiche Re-Authoring the Self: Brinkmann's Zorn From Death to Life: Wim Wenders, Autobiography, and the Natural History of Cinema "Ich bin's, Fassbinder," or The Timing of the Self Filmography and Sources Bibliography Notes on the Contributors Index
£89.25
University of Scranton Press,U.S. Bowery to Broadway: The American Irish in Classic
Book SynopsisBefore Johnny Depp and "Public Enemies", there was "The Public Enemy". James Cagney's 1931 portrayal of the Irish American gangster Tommy Powers set the standard for the Hollywood gangster and helped to launch a golden age of Irish American cinema. In the years that followed several of the era's greatest stars, such as Spencer Tracy, Bing Crosby, Pat O'Brien, and Ginger Rogers, assumed Irish American roles - as boxers, entertainers, priests, and working girls - delighting audiences and at the same time providing a fresh perspective on the Irish American experience in America's cities. With "Bowery to Broadway", Christopher Shannon guides readers through a number of classic films from the 1930s and '40s and investigates why films featuring Irish American characters were so popular among American audiences during a period when the Irish were still stereotyped and scorned for their religion. Shannon considers films such as "Angels with Dirty Faces", "Gentleman Jim", "Kitty Foyle", "Going My Way", and "Yankee Doodle Dandy", showing that the Irish American characters in the films were presented as inhabitants of an urban village - simultaneously traditional and modern, and valuing communal solidarity over individual advancement. As a result, these characters - even those involved in criminal activity - resonated deeply with countless Americans in search of the communal values that were rapidly being lost to the social dislocation of the Depression and the increasing nationalization of life under the New Deal.
£19.00
University Press of Mississippi Carole Landis: A Most Beautiful Girl
Book SynopsisDespite appearing in twenty-eight movies in little over a decade, Carole Landis (1919-1948) never quite became the major Hollywood star her onscreen presence should have afforded her. Although she acted in such enduring films as A Scandal in Paris and Moon over Miami, she was most often relegated to supporting roles. Even when she played the major role in a feature, as she did in The Powers Girl and the film noir I Wake Up Screaming!, she was billed second or third behind other actors. This biography traces Landis's life, chronicling her beginnings as a dance hall entertainer in San Francisco, her career in Hollywood and abroad, her USO performances, and ultimately her suicide. Using interviews with actors who worked with Landis, contemporary movie magazines and journals, and correspondence, biographer Eric Gans reveals a tragic figure whose life was all too brief. Landis's big break came in 1940 with Hal Roach's One Million B.C. She appeared in thirteen Twentieth Century-Fox pictures between 1941 and 1946. In 1942-43, Landis entertained troops in England and North Africa in the only all-female USO tour. The trip led to her memoir, Four Jills in a Jeep, and a Fox movie of the same title. After her last American film in 1947, she completed two projects in England while having an affair with married actor Rex Harrison. Tormented by a love that could not lead to matrimony and depressed about growing older, she took a fatal drug overdose on July 5, 1948.
£23.96
University Press of Mississippi Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine: A History of
Book SynopsisThe fan magazine has often been viewed simply as a publicity tool, a fluffy exercise in self-promotion by the film industry. But as an arbiter of good and bad taste, as a source of knowledge, and as a gateway to the fabled land of Hollywood and its stars, the American fan magazine represents a fascinating and indispensable chapter in journalism and popular culture.Anthony Slide's Inside the Hollywood Fan Magazine provides the definitive history of this artifact. It charts the development of the fan magazine from the golden years when Motion Picture Story Magazine and Photoplay first appeared in 1911 to its decline into provocative headlines and titillation in the 1960s and afterward. Slide discusses how the fan magazines dealt with gossip and innuendo, and how they handled nationwide issues such as Hollywood scandals of the 1920s, World War II, the blacklist, and the death of President Kennedy. Fan magazines thrived in the twentieth century, and they presented the history of an industry in a unique, sometimes accurate, and always entertaining style.This major cultural history includes a new interview with 1970s media personality Rona Barrett, as well as original commentary from a dozen editors and writers. Also included is a chapter on contributions to the fan magazines from well-known writers such as Theodore Dreiser and e. e. cummings. The book is enhanced by an appendix documenting some 268 American fan magazines and includes detailed publication histories.
£31.96
University of Iowa Press Millennial Fandom: Television Audiences in the
Book SynopsisNo longer has a niche or cult identity, fandom now coloured our notions of an expansive generational construct— the millennial generation. Like fans, millennials are frequently cast as active participants in media culture, spectators who expect opportunities to intervene, control, and create. At the same time, longstanding fears about fans’ cultural unruliness manifest in rampant stories of millennials’ technological overdependence and lack of moral boundaries.These conflicting narratives of entrepreneurial creativity and digital immorality operate to quell the growing threat represented by millennials’ media agency. With fan activities becoming ever more visible on social media platforms including YouTube, Facebook, LiveJournal, Twitter, Polyvore, and Tumblr, the fan has become the avatar of our digital hopes and fears. In an ambitious study encompassing a wide range of media texts, including popular television series like Kyle XY, Glee, Gossip Girl, Veronica Mars, and Pretty Little Liars and online works like The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, as well as fan texts from blog posts and tweets to remix videos, YouTube posts, and imagesharing streams, author This generation—and the fans it represents—is actively transforming the media landscape into a dynamic, culturally transgressive space of collective authorship. Offering a rich and complex vision of the relationship between fandom and millennial culture, Millennial Fandom will interest fans, millennials, students, and scholars of contemporary media culture alike.
£19.90
University Press of Mississippi Hollywood Unknowns: A History of Extras, Bit
Book SynopsisExtras, bit players, and stand-ins have been a part of the film industry almost from its conception. On a personal and a professional level, their stories are told in Hollywood Unknowns, the first history devoted to extras from the silent era through the present. Hollywood Unknowns discusses the relationship of the extra to the star, the lowly position in which extras were held, the poor working conditions and wages, and the sexual exploitation of many of the hardworking women striving for a place in Hollywood society. Though mainly anonymous, many are identified by name and, for perhaps the first time, receive equal billing with the stars. And Hollywood Unknowns does not forget the bit players, stand-ins, and doubles, who work alongside the extras facing many of the same privations. Celebrity extras, silent stars who ended their days as extras, or members of various ethnic groups--all gain a deserved luster in acclaimed film writer Anthony Slide's prose. Chapters document the lives and work of extras from the 1890s to the present. Slide also treats such subjects as the Hollywood Studio Club, Central Casting, the extras in popular literature, and the efforts at unionization through the Screen Actors Guild from the 1930s onwards.Slide chronicles events such as John Barrymore's walking off set in the middle of the day so the extras could earn another day's wages, and Cecil B. DeMille's masterful organizing of casts of thousands in films such as Cleopatra. Through personal interviews, oral histories, and the use of newly available archival material, Slide reveals in Hollywood Unknowns the story of the men, women, and even animals that completed the scenes on the silver screen.
£31.96
University Press of Mississippi Gloria Swanson: Ready for Her Close-Up
Book SynopsisGloria Swanson: Ready for Her Close-Up shows how a talented, self-confident actress negotiated a creative path through seven decades of celebrity. It also illuminates a little-known chapter in American media history: how the powerful women of early Hollywood transformed their remarkable careers after their stars dimmed. This book brings Swanson (1899-1983) back into the spotlight, revealing her as a complex, creative, entrepreneurial, and thoroughly modern woman.Swanson cavorted in slapstick short films with Charlie Chaplin and Mack Sennett in the 1910s. The popularity of her films with Cecil B. DeMille helped create the star system. A glamour icon, Swanson became the most talked-about star in Hollywood, earning three Academy Award nominations, receiving 10,000 fan letters every week, and living up to a reputation as Queen of Hollywood. She bought mansions and penthouses, dressed in fur and feathers, and flitted through Paris, London, and New York engaging in passionate love affairs that made headlines and caused scandals.Frustrated with the studio system, Swanson turned down a million-dollar-a-year contract. After a wild ride making unforgettable movies with some of Hollywood's most colorful characters--including her lover Joseph Kennedy and maverick director Erich von Stroheim--she was a million dollars in debt. Without hesitation she went looking for her next challenge, beginning her long second act.Swanson became a talented businesswoman who patented inventions and won fashion awards for her clothing designs; a natural foods activist decades before it was fashionable; an exhibited sculptor; and a designer employed by the United Nations. All the while she continued to act in films, theater, and television at home and abroad. Though she had one of Hollywood's most famous exit lines--""All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up""--the real Gloria Swanson never looked back.
£29.96
University Press of Mississippi Zachary Scott: Hollywood's Sophisticated Cad
Book SynopsisThroughout the 1940s, Zachary Scott (1914-1965) was the model for sophisticated, debonair villains in American film. His best-known roles include a mysterious criminal in The Mask of Dimitrios and the indolent husband in Mildred Pierce. He garnered further acclaim for his portrayal of villains in Her Kind of Man, Danger Signal, and South of St. Louis. Although he earned critical praise for his performance as a heroic tenant farmer in Jean Renoir's The Southerner, Scott never quite escaped typecasting.In Zachary Scott: Hollywood's Sophisticated Cad, Ronald L. Davis writes an appealing biography of the film star. Scott grew up in privileged circumstances--his father was a distinguished physician; his grandfather was a pioneer cattle baron--and was expected to follow his father into medical practice. Instead, Scott began to pursue a career in theater while studying at the University of Texas and subsequently worked his way on a ship to England to pursue acting. Upon his return to America, he began to look for work in New York.Excelling on stage and screen throughout the 1940s, Scott seemed destined for stardom. By the end of 1950, however, he had suffered through a turbulent divorce. A rafting accident left him badly shaken and clinically depressed. His frustration over his roles mounted, and he began to drink heavily. He remarried and spent the rest of his career concentrating on stage and television work. Although Scott continued to perform occasionally in films, he never reclaimed the level of stardom that he had in the mid-1940s.To reconstruct Scott's life, Davis uses interviews with Scott and colleagues and reviews, articles, and archival correspondence from the Scott papers at the University of Texas and from the Warner Bros. Archives. The result is a portrait of a talented actor who was rarely allowed to show his versatility on the screen.
£23.96
University of Tennessee Press The African Queen and The Night of the Hunter: First and Final Screenplays
Book SynopsisIn a writing career that branched into drama, poetry, fiction, and journalism, film was a constant for James Agee. In love with movies from early childhood, he flirted with filmmaking and screenwriting in the 1920s and ’30s, became a respected movie critic in the 1940s, and by late 1950 was working on a script with one of the directors he most admired, John Huston. His death at age forty-five would come only five years later but not before he had written several other screenplays.Volume 4 in The Works of James Agee series presents the writer’s two most famous screenplays: for The African Queen, his collaboration with Huston, and for The Night of the Hunter, the only film ever directed by actor Charles Laughton. Not only does the book offer both the first draft and final shooting script for each work, it also features meticulous annotations by editor Jeffrey Couchman and a wealth of archival material, similarly annotated. Included, for The African Queen, are variants of key scenes; relevant fragments by two other writers, John Collier and Peter Viertel; and notes that Agee wrote from his hospital bed while recovering from a heart attack. The result is a remarkable window into the complex process by which a story is shaped and reshaped before the cameras roll. Most notable about the section on The Night of the Hunter (which Agee did not live to see in its final form) is the inclusion of the never-before-published first draft, rediscovered in 2003. This debunks forever the myth that Agee had produced a massive, unfilmable mess that Laughton discarded and rewrote from scratch. In fact, Laughton preserved essential structural elements of Agee’s script along with important dramatic and visual ideas that originated with Agee and not with Davis Grubb’s source novel. The African Queen and The Night of the Hunter stand today as undisputed Hollywood classics: the former a wonderfully comic adventure tale with delightful star turns by Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn, the latter a unique, noirish fable in which Robert Mitchum’s “Preacher” emerges as one of cinema’s most unforgettable villains. For Agee scholars, film scholars, and the countless admirers of these masterful movies, this volume is a feast.Trade ReviewJeffrey Couchman s editing displays his prodigious gifts for analyzing complex artistic collaborations. In his annotations and overviews of the first drafts and shooting scripts and his introductions to supplemental material, he trains a subtle eye and ear on fluctuating dialogue, camera movements, music cues, and bits of action. He emerges with uncommon perceptions and deflates longstanding myths about the limits of Agee's influence on these two milestone movies. There's an air-clearing excitement to the way Couchman pinpoints specific Agee contributions that affect the flavor and quality of each film."" - Michael Sragow, author of Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master and editor of the Library of Americas James Agee volumes
£999.99
University of Tennessee Press Liars, Damn Liars, and Storytellers: Essays on
Book SynopsisJoseph Sobol is one of a select few contemporary scholar-practitioners to chart the evolution of storytelling from traditional foundations to its current multifarious presence in American life. The years since his classic The Storytellers’ Journey: An American Revival (1999), have brought seismic shifts in storytelling circles. Essays gathered here move between cultural history, critical analysis, and personal narratives to showcase the efforts of traditional and contemporary storytellers to make their presence felt in the world.The book begins with an account of recent changes in the storytelling landscape, including the growth of a new generation of urban personal storytelling venues sparked by The Moth. Next is a suite of essays on Appalachian Jack tales, the best-known cycle of traditional American wonder tales, and an account of its most celebrated practitioners, including close encounters with the traditional master, Ray Hicks. The next set examines frames through which storytellers capture truth—historical, legendary, literary, oral traditional, and personal. Stylistic differences between northern and southern tellers are affectionately portrayed, with a special look at the late, much-loved Alabaman Kathryn Tucker Windham.The final section makes the case for informed critical writing on storytelling performance, through a survey of notable contemporary storytellers’ work, a look at the ethics of storytelling genres, and a nuanced probe of truth and fiction in storytelling settings. A tapestry of personal stories, social criticism, and artistic illuminations, Liars, Damn Liars, and Storytellers is valuable not only to scholars and students in performance, folklore, cultural studies, and theater, but also to general readers with a love for the storytelling art.Trade ReviewJoseph Sobol is both a respected scholar and a storytelling performer with a superb style of writing that flows from his storytelling background. In many respects, this book is a continuation of his significant study The Storytellers’ Journey: An American Revival. There have been major changes in the storytelling field since, and Sobol is one of the few scholars who can understand and chart them." —Jack Zipes, author of The Irresistible Fairy Tale "Sobol takes us to meet the people, visit the scenes, and hear the voices of storytellers past and present. His writing is vivid, engaging, generous, and intimate. This collection is a gift to the storytelling world." —Annette Simmons, author of The Story Factor "No one has ever told so well the story of the story. Like any great yarn-spinner, Sobol gives us enthralling characters: Ray Hicks at his home on Beech Mountain, Kathryn Tucker Windham hunting the Alabama redhorse fish, Spalding Gray, and dozens more. But he also never loses sight of the core question of his tale: what is the magic in stories that give them such sway over our lives?" —George Dawes Green, novelist and founder of The Moth "With the sensitivity of an artist and the startling insights of a wide-ranging scholar, Joseph Sobol illuminates a century of storytelling performers and movements. Thanks to Liars, Damn Liars, and Storytellers, we are closer to understanding this enduring, protean art form and to finding the critical language to describe it." —Jo Radner, past president, American Folklore Society, past chair, National Storytelling Network
£34.36
University of Tennessee Press Nickelodeons and Black Vaudeville: The Forgotten
Book SynopsisIn an era of online streaming, it may be difficult to recognize the importance of a woman who in 1908 established the first silent movie theater in Richmond, Virginia: the Dixie nickelodeon. But Amanda Thorp, an independent, self-made woman, was on the ground floor of a popular culture that would grow to be enormously influential in our modern era. In Nickelodeons and Black Vaudeville: The Forgotten Story of Amanda Thorp, Kathi Clark Wong’s extensive archival research uncovers Thorp’s impressive contributions not only to moviegoing and its growth in America, but also perhaps even more surprisingly, Thorp’s support of early Black vaudeville in the Jim Crow South. Movie theater entrepreneurs like Thorp, who got her start at her Wonderland Theater in Bucyrus, Ohio, helped create our culture’s insatiable appetite for film. But it was after she established the Dixie in Richmond, that Thorp—a White woman—also saw a market for providing Black-centric entertainment. She converted the Dixie to all-Black patronage and began to bring in scores of Black vaudeville acts. Later, she built the Hippodrome Theater, in the heart of Richmond’s now-historic Jackson Ward, expressly for Black entertainment. Though she eventually left the field of Black entertainment behind, Thorp developed other movie venues in Richmond that brought in tens of thousands of (White) moviegoers over the years and which were widely admired for their elaborate trappings. Thanks to Wong’s research, contemporary readers can now benefit from the story of Amanda Thorp, a woman who amidst severe gender role constraints not only claimed social capacity on the crest of a rapidly growing industry but also, almost inadvertently, contributed to the success of early Black vaudeville, a subject which thus far has not received the scholarly attention it deserves.
£30.36
University Press of Mississippi A Real American Character: The Life of Walter
Book SynopsisWalter Brennan (1894-1974) was one of the greatest character actors in Hollywood history. He won three Academy Awards and became a national icon starring as Grandpa in The Real McCoys. He appeared in over two hundred motion pictures and became the subject of a Norman Rockwell painting, which celebrated the actor's unique role as the voice of the American Western. His life journey from Swampscott, Massachusetts, to Hollywood, to a twelve thousand-acre cattle ranch in Joseph, Oregon, is one of the great American stories.In the first biography of this epic figure, Carl Rollyson reveals Brennan's consummate mastery of virtually every kind of role while playing against and often stealing scenes from such stars as Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, and John Wayne. Rollyson fully explores Brennan's work with Hollywood's greatest directors, such as Howard Hawks, John Ford, and Fritz Lang. As a father and grandfather, Brennan instilled generations of his family with an outlook on the American Dream that remains a sustaining feature of their lives today. His conservative politics, which grew out of his New England upbringing and his devout Catholicism, receive meticulous attention and a balanced assessment in A Real American Character.Written with the full cooperation of the Brennan family and drawing on material in archives from every region of the United States, this new biography presents an artist and family man who lived and breathed an American idealism that made him the Real McCoy.
£999.99
University Press of Mississippi Conversations with Steve Martin
Book SynopsisConversations with Steve Martin presents a collection of interviews and profiles that focus on Martin as a writer, artist, and original thinker over the course of more than four decades in show business. While those less familiar with his full body of work may think of Martin as primarily the ""wild and crazy guy"" with an arrow through his head, this book makes the case that he is in fact one of our nation's most accomplished and varied artists. It shows the full range of Martin's creative work, tracing the source of his comic imagination from his early standup days, starting in the mid to late 1960s through the films he has written and starred in, and emphasizing his more recent creative outpourings as playwright, essayist, novelist, memoirist, songwriter, composer, musician, and art critic.""Standup is the hardest material in the world to write for someone else; it's like trying to condense 10 years of experience into 20 minutes of new material.,"" Martin says. But commenting on his fiction writing, he says. ""I think you have to be able to find as a writer that state where you don't know what you're going to say or what the character is going to say or who the characters are. That's the biggest thrill of all. When you start to trust that subconscious thing and you don't censor yourself--just remember you can always throw it away--that's when the good stuff comes out.""The selected materials consist not only of pieces focused primarily on Martin's writings, but also broader profiles and conversations that help explain Martin's development as a writer within the larger context of his many other accomplishments, talents, and performance skills.
£23.96
