{"product_id":"picturing-american-modernity-9780822342014","title":"Picturing American Modernity","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInvestigates the relationship between early American cinema and the experience of technological modernity. This book demonstrates how, between the late 1890s and the eve of World War I, moving pictures helped the US public understand the possibilities and perils of forms of \"traffic\" produced by industrialization and urbanization.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003ePicturing American Modernity\u003c\/i\u003e is a noteworthy contribution to the ongoing historiographic reworking of early cinema history. It is based on excellent archival work, which leads to new conclusions about the complex forces that shaped the cinema in its first two decades.”—\u003cb\u003eAnne Friedberg\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In \u003ci\u003ePicturing American Modernity\u003c\/i\u003e, Kristen Whissel thinks through the relation between early cinema and American culture at the turn of the century in imaginative and original ways. Probing cinema’s interaction with both current events and other forms of mass entertainment (such as the Spanish-American War, the World Expositions, and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show), Whissel traces the creation of a new mass audience and cinema’s role in shaping the culture of American imperialism. Her in-depth analysis of the films \u003ci\u003eTraffic in Souls\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eShoes\u003c\/i\u003e reveals that the concept of ‘traffic’ can also organize strategies of film narration, as the cinema began to define itself as a new form of storytelling and national identity.”—\u003cb\u003eTom Gunning\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Films of Fritz Lang: Allegories of Vision and Modernity\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments ix\u003cbr\u003e Introduction 1\u003cbr\u003e 1. The Early Cinema Encounters Empire: War Actualities, American Modernity, and Military Masculinity 21\u003cbr\u003e 2. Placing Audiences on the Scene of History: Modern Warfare and the Battle Reenactment at the Turn of the Century 63\u003cbr\u003e 3. Electric Modernity and the Cinema at the Pan-American Exposition: The City of Living Light 117\u003cbr\u003e 4. Regulating Mobility: Traffic, Technology, and Feature-Length Narrativity 161\u003cbr\u003e Conclusion 215\u003cbr\u003e Notes 233\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography 253\u003cbr\u003e Index 263","brand":"Duke University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49406050828631,"sku":"9780822342014","price":25.19,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780822342014.jpg?v=1730494366","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/picturing-american-modernity-9780822342014","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}