Podcasts by New Books in Film
Interviews with Scholars of Film about their New Books
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Podcast on the topic TV und Film
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Squid Game from 2022-07-06T08:00
Kyung Hyun Kim talks about the Netflix series Squid Game, its economic and political contexts, and its cultural potential. He also talks about his new book, Hegemonic Mimicry, out from Duke Univers...
ListenKendall Phillips, "A Place of Darkness: The Rhetoric of Horror in Early American Cinema" (U Texas, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode of the New Books Network, Lee Pierce (she/they) interviews Dr. Kendall Phillips (he) of Syracuse University on his fabulous new book A Place of Darkness: The Rhetoric of Horror in E...
ListenPema Tseden, "Enticement" (SUNY Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Though most renowned for his award-winning Tibetan films, Pema Tseden, is also a prolific author and translator. Enticement(State University of New York Press 2018) is a collection of Pema Tseden’s...
ListenW. K. Stratton, "The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film" (Bloomsbury, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On June 18, 1969, "The Wild Bunch" premiered to critical success. Over the past 50 years it has been rightly recognized as one of the landmark films from the end of the Hollywood studio system. Yet...
ListenNathan Holmes, "Welcome to Fear City: Crime Film, Crisis, and the Urban Imagination" (SUNY Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The so-called Urban Crisis of the 1970s continues to loom large in narratives of US urban politics and history, but what can we learn about the period from movies? In Welcome to Fear City: Crime Fi...
ListenArnika Fuhrmann, "Ghostly Desires: Queer Sexuality and Vernacular Buddhism in Contemporary Thai Cinema" (Duke UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Since the late 1990s Thai cinema has come to global attention with movies like the famous ghost film, Nang Nak, and more recently the evocative films of director Aphichatpong Weerasethakul, who won...
ListenShanna de la Torre, "Sex for Structuralists: The Non-Oedipal Logics of Femininity and Psychosis" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What might Levi-Strauss and structuralism have to offer to psychoanalysis beyond the incest prohibition and the Oedipus complex? What happens if we understand Lacan’s notion of the symbolic as crea...
ListenJoe Street, "Dirty Harry’s America: Clint Eastwood, Harry Callahan, and the Conservative Backlash" (UP of Florida, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When "Dirty Harry" first premiered in 1971, it was both praised and condemned for its portrayal of a rogue policeman fighting crime by ignoring many of the rules and procedures of the profession. Y...
ListenDavid LaRocca, "The Philosophy of War Films" (U Press of Kentucky, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Films that feature war as a theme have been made almost since the beginning of the industry. In The Philosophy of War Films (University Press of Kentucky, 2018), part of the "Philosophy of Popular ...
ListenChristian B. Long, "The Imaginary Geography of Hollywood Cinema 1960-2000" (Intellect, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
While most every live-action film takes place in a specific location, the role of these places has not often been studied. In his new book The Imaginary Geography of Hollywood Cinema 1960-2000 (Int...
ListenTison Pugh, "The Queer Fantasies of the American Family Sitcom" (Rutgers UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Perhaps no form of popular art has appeared as poised to resist subversive sexual themes as the television situation comedy. But Tison Pugh writes that the sitcom’s historic dogmatic insistence on ...
ListenAnnabel Cooper, "Filming the Colonial Past: The New Zealand Wars on Screen" (Otago UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In her new book, Filming the Colonial Past: The New Zealand Wars on Screen (Otago University Press, 2018), Annabel Cooper, an Associate Professor in the Gender Studies Programme at the University o...
ListenMcKenzie Wark, "General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century" (Verso, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention. The chapters of General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty...
ListenKevin Hamilton and Ned O’Gorman, "Lookout America!: The Secret Hollywood Studio at the Heart of the Cold War" (Dartmouth College Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
One of the major aspects of the end of the Cold War has been the discovery and release of records related to many government activities from the period. In Lookout America!: The Secret Hollywood St...
ListenCatherine Russell, "Archiveology: Walter Benjamin and Archival Film Practices" (Duke UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In her book Archiveology: Walter Benjamin and Archival Film Practices (Duke University Press, 2018), Catherine Russell defines "archiveology" as “the reuse, recycling, appropriation and borrowing o...
ListenAlicia Malone, “The Female Gaze: Essential Movies Made by Women” (Mango Publishing Group, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Today we will be talking to Alicia Malone, the author of The Female Gaze: Essential Movies Made by Women (Mango Publishing Group, 2018). Malone is a film critic and host on Turner Classic Films who...
ListenAnindita Banerjee, “Russian Science Fiction Literature and Cinema: A Critical Reader” (Academic Studies Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Russian Science Fiction Literature and Cinema: A Critical Reader (Academic Studies Press, 2018) offers a compelling investigation of the genre whose development was significantly reshaped in the se...
ListenZachary Lechner, “The South of the Mind: American Imaginings of White Southernness, 1960–1980” (U Georgia Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When talking about the American South in the second half of the twentieth century, popular discourse tended to fall into one of three camps (on occasion, two might coexist simultaneously): the “Vic...
ListenAnthony Slide, “Magnificent Obsession: The Outrageous History of Film Buffs, Collectors, Scholars, and Fanatics” (UP of Mississippi, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
One of the major aspects of the popular film industry are the fans who want to collect material related to their favorite films, actors, and actresses. While this has become generally easier in the...
ListenRichard Baxstrom and Todd Meyers, “Violence’s Fabled Experiment” (August Verlag, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Richard Baxstrom and Todd Meyers are anthropologists who have an interest in studying film for its value in a way to view the world. In Violence’s Fabled Experiment (August Verlag, 2018), they exam...
ListenRachel Harris, “Warriors, Witches, Whores: Women in Israeli Cinema” (Wayne State UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In her new book, Warriors, Witches, Whores: Women in Israeli Cinema (Wayne State University Press 2017), Rachel Harris presents one of the first comprehensive studies of the place and role of women...
ListenBecky Aikman, “Off the Cliff: How the Making of ‘Thelma & Louise’ Drove Hollywood to the Edge” (Penguin, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Off the Cliff: How the Making of ‘Thelma & Louise’ Drove Hollywood to the Edge (Penguin, 2018), Becky Aikman explores the making of Thelma & Louise, a 1991 film that challenged traditional Holly...
ListenRachel Morley, “Performing Femininity: Woman as Performer in Early Russian Cinema” (I. B. Tauris, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In studying the pre-Revolutionary films of Evgenii Bauer, Dr. Rachel Morley (Lecturer in Russian Cinema and Culture at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London) d...
ListenMartin Shuster, “New Television: The Aesthetics and Politics of a Genre” (U Chicago Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
How should we understand our new golden age of television? In New Television: The Aesthetics and Politics of a Genre (University of Chicago Press, 2017), Martin Shuster, Director of Judaic Studies ...
ListenChris Nashawaty, “Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story” (Flatiron Books, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The 1960s and 1970s saw the rise of a new type of humor, based on sarcasm, improvisation and drugs. From The National Lampoon to Saturday Night Live, many new stars appeared, both as performers and...
ListenYaron Peleg, “Directed by God: Jewishness in Contemporary Israeli Film and Television” (University of Texas Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
As part of its effort to forge a new secular Jewish nation, the nascent Israeli state tried to limit Jewish religiosity. However, with the steady growth of the ultraorthodox community and the expan...
ListenDiscussion with Dahlia Schweitzer (“Going Viral”) and Rob Thomas (“Veronica Mars”) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Follow-up interviews are always fun. Listen to my follow-up interview with Dahlia Schweitzer, author of Going Viral: Zombies, Viruses, and the End of the World (Rutgers University Press, 2018). I t...
ListenMark A. McCutcheon, “The Medium Is the Monster: Canadian Adaptations of Frankenstein and the Discourse of Technology” (Athabasca UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What do Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, media theorist Marshall McLuhan and Canadian popular culture have in common? This is the question that Mark A. McCutcheon seeks to answer in his new book, The M...
ListenJacob Bricca, “Documentary Editing: Principles and Practice” (Focal Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
While documentaries have been an accepted part of filmmaking for a long time, they are more popular than ever now, partly because of the many ways of distribution, as well as the less expensive met...
ListenBrian Tochterman, “The Dying City: Postwar New York and the Ideology of Fear” (UNC Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What does it mean to say that a city can “die”? As Brian Tochterman shows in this compelling intellectual and cultural history, motifs of imminent death—of a “Necropolis” haunting the country’s gre...
ListenMehal Krayem, “Heroes, Villains and the Muslim Exception: Muslim and Arab Men in Australian Crime Drama” (Melbourne UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In her new book, Heroes, Villains and the Muslim Exception: Muslim and Arab Men in Australian Crime Drama (Melbourne University Publishing, 2017), Mehal Krayem, a sociologist and researcher at the ...
ListenDahlia Schweitzer, “Going Viral: Zombies, Viruses, and the End of the World” (Rutgers UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory as we prep for the zombie apocalypse. In her new book Going Viral: Zombies, Viruses, and the End of the World (Rutgers University Press, 2018), Dahlia Schwei...
ListenKerry Wallach, “Passing Illusions: Jewish Visibility in Weimar Germany” (U Michigan Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What did it mean to be perceived as Jewish or non-Jewish in Weimar Germany? How, in an age of growing antisemitism, was Jewishness revealed, or made invisible? Kerry Wallach of Gettysburg College, ...
ListenVanda Krefft, “The Man Who Made the Movies: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of William Fox” (Harper, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Though not a figure in the public imagination today, William Fox is a man whose legacy is visible in the numerous media enterprises that bear his name. Vanda Krefft‘s biography The Man Who Made the...
ListenBruce Clarke, “Neocybernetics and Narrative” (University of Minnesota Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
As Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Literature and Science at Texas Tech University, Bruce Clarke has spent the last decade-plus publishing groundbreaking scholarship introducing the application of...
ListenJennifer Frost, “Producer of Controversy: Stanley Kramer, Hollywood Liberalism and the Cold War” (UP of Kansas, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
While Stanley Kramer is considered a successful producer and director of many films as Hollywood moved out of the studio era, he also was criticized for his lesser skills as a director, as well as ...
ListenCarla M. Wilson, “Curious Impossibilities: Ten Cinematic Riffs” (Black Scat Books, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Impossible Conversations: Imaginary Interviews with World-Famous Artists (Black Scat Books, 2015), Carla M. Wilson imagined discussions with (you guessed it) world-famous artists. In this book—C...
ListenBecky Aikman, “Off the Cliff: How the Making of Thelma and Louise Drove Hollywood to the Edge” (Penguin Books, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Thelma and Louise is rightly considered a great film that went through an incredible journey to the screen. It is also an illustration of how dedicated women still had to fight hard to get it made....
ListenKevin Bartig, “Sergei Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky” (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Kevin Bartig’s new book Sergei Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky (Oxford University Press, 2017) explores multiple facets of one of the most famous film scores of the twentieth century, as well as the c...
ListenZach Sands, “Film Comedy and the American Dream” (Routledge, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode Diana DePasquale talks to Zach Sands, author of Film Comedy and the American Dream (Routledge, 2017). Some of the films Zach writes about are Harvey, The Graduate, Blazing Saddles, ...
ListenLeslie Kealhofer-Kemp, “Muslim Women in French Cinema: Voices of Maghrebi Migrants in France” (Liverpool UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Connections between France and North Africa have long been shaped by colonialism, nationalism, and economics. This intercultural relationship has also been mediated through the arts. In Muslim Wome...
ListenStephen Most, “Stories Make the World: Reflections on Storytelling and the Art of the Documentary” (Berghahn Books, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
As an award-winning documentarian and writer, Stephen Most has a great deal of experience in the art of storytelling with non-fiction films. In Stories Make the World: Reflections on Storytelling a...
ListenMary Tomsic, “Beyond the Silver Screen: A History of Women, Filmmaking and Film Culture in Australia, 1920-1990” (Melbourne UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In her new book, Beyond the Silver Screen: A History of Women, Filmmaking and Film Culture in Australia, 1920-1990 (Melbourne University Publishing, 2017), Mary Tomsic, an ARC Postdoctoral Research...
ListenMatthew S. Rindge, “Profane Parables: Film and the American Dream” (Baylor UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Material success and prosperity are the aspirational goal for many Americans. The myth of meritocracy embedded in this national ethos has made this dream a civil religion. In Profane Parables: Film...
ListenJoel Dinerstein, “The Origins of Cool in Postwar America” (U. Chicago Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In his new book, The Origins of Cool in Postwar America (University of Chicago Press, 2017), Cultural Studies scholar Joel Dinerstein explores the cultural history of cool and the codes that define...
ListenStephen Pimpare, “Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen” (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Stephen Pimpare‘s new book, Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen (Oxford University Press, 2017), the reader is encouraged to think about how we portray poverty...
ListenNoel Brown, “The Children’s Film: Genre, Nation and Narrative” (Wallflower Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Noel Brown is a film and television scholar at Liverpool Hope University. His research has focused on Hollywood and British cinema (classical and contemporary), family entertainment, children’s cul...
ListenPatty Farmer, “Starring the Plaza: Hollywood, Broadway, and High Society Visit the World’s Favorite Hotel” (Beaufort Books, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
While many authors write about famous films, actors, or directors, Patty Farmer‘s book–Starring the Plaza: Hollywood, Broadway, and High Society Visit the World’s Favorite Hotel (Beaufort Books, 20...
ListenJennifer Fleeger, “Mismatched Women: The Siren’s Song Through the Machine” (Oxford UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Jennifer Fleeger‘s Mismatched Women: The Siren’s Song Through the Machine (Oxford University Press, 2014) tells the story of women in film and their representation as aberrations, but also as momen...
ListenDon Nunley with Marshall Terrill, “Steve McQueen: Le Mans in the Rearview Mirror” (Dalton Watson, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Steven McQueen was known as a great action star, but he also sometimes had a reputation for being troublesome on the set. Don Nunley worked with him as a prop man on Le Mans, a pet project of McQue...
ListenBlake Atwood, “Reform Cinema in Iran: Film and Political Change in the Islamic Republic” (Columbia UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Iranian cinema has close connections to the 1979 Islamic revolution. Ayatollah Khomeini , explicitly pointed to the uses of cinema for religious and revolutionary political purposes. But Iranian fi...
ListenAndré Gregory, "This Is Not My Memoir" (FSG, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
André Gregory's not-memoir This Is Not My Memoir (FSG, 2020) is a fascinating trip through theatre history as seen through the eyes of one of its greatest directors. The André we encounter in this ...
ListenWilliam Elison, et.al. “Amar Akbar Anthony: Bollywood, Brotherhood, and the Nation” (Harvard UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Amar Akbar Anthony is a film like no other. When you see it you cannot forget it. Filled with music, comedy, drama, and love it captures audiences in multiple ways. But what can we learn from a dee...
ListenThomas Doherty, "Little Lindy Is Kidnapped: How the Media Covered the Crime of the Century" (Columbia UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Little Lindy Is Kidnapped: How the Media Covered the Crime of the Century (Columbia University Press, 2020), Thomas Doherty offers a lively and comprehensive cultural history of the media covera...
ListenGary Kulik, “War Stories: False Atrocity Tales, Swift Boaters, and Winter Soldiers” (Potomac Books, 2009) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
One often hears stories of World War II and Korean War veterans who came back from the war and refused to talk about what they had experienced in combat. They neither wanted folks at home to know w...
ListenWoojeong Joo, "Cinema of Ozu Yasujiro: Histories of the Everyday" (Edinburgh UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
One of the most well regarded of non-Western film directors, responsible for acknowledged classics like Tokyo Story (1953), Ozu Yasujiro worked during a period of immense turbulence for Japan and i...
ListenGillian McIver, “Art History for Filmmakers: The Art of Visual Storytelling” (Bloomsbury, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Gillian McIver‘s Art History for Filmmakers: The Art of Visual Storytelling (Bloomsbury, 2016) is a ground-breaking book that illustrates the relationships among the histories of painting and cinem...
ListenMike Miley, "Truth and Consequences: Game Shows in Fiction and Film" (UP Mississippi, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Although nearly every other television form or genre has undergone a massive critical and popular reassessment or resurgence in the past twenty years, the game show’s reputation has remained both r...
ListenStephen Lee Naish, “Deconstructing Dirty Dancing” (Zero Books, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When the film was released in 1987, critic Roger Ebert famously panned Dirty Dancing. Yet the movie continues to be the favorite of millions of fans. In Deconstructing Dirty Dancing (Zero Books, 20...
ListenCourtenay Stallings, "Laura's Ghost: Women Speak about Twin Peaks" (Fayetteville Mafia Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In this episode Miranda Corcoran speaks to Courtenay Stallings about her new book, Laura’s Ghost: Women Speak about Twin Peaks (Fayetteville Mafia Press, 2020). Laura’s Ghost is unique exploration ...
ListenMia Mask, “Divas on the Screen: Black Women in American Film” (U. of Illinois Press, 2009) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Five charismatic women navigate uneven terrain of racial gender and class stereotypes: Dorothy Dandridge, Pam Grier, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey and Halle Berry. The quintet charisma, as explore...
ListenCharles R. Acland, "American Blockbuster: Movies, Technology, and Wonder" (Duke UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Ben-Hur (1959), Jaws (1975), Avatar (2009), Wonder Woman (2017): the blockbuster movie has held a dominant position in American popular culture for decades. In American Blockbuster: Movies, Technol...
ListenSteve Aldous, “The World of Shaft: A Complete Guide to the Novels, Comic Strip, Films and Television Series” (McFarland, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Who’s the black private dick That’s a sex machine to all the chicks? (Shaft) Ya damn right Who is the man that would risk his neck For his brother man? (Shaft) Can you dig it? Who’s the cat that wo...
ListenTrevor C. Pederson, "Psychoanalysis and Hidden Narrative in Film: Reading the Symptom" (Routledge, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Psychoanalysis and Hidden Narrative in Film: Reading the Symptom (Routledge, 2018) proposes a way of constructing hidden psychological narratives of popular film and novels. Instead of offering int...
ListenRichard Baxstrom and Todd Meyers, “Realizing the Witch: Science, Cinema, and the Mastery of the Invisible” (Fordham UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
One of the most interesting, but largely overlooked silent films, is Haxan, written and directed by Benjamin Christensen. Using documentary methods as well as reenactments, he presented a study of ...
ListenLaurence A. Rickels, “The Psycho Records” (Wallflower Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Reading Laurence Rickels‘ The Psycho Records (Wallflower Press, 2016) gave me the urge to ask random strangers questions like: Are you haunted by Alfred Hitchcock’s famous shower scene? How do you ...
ListenNancy Wang Yuen, “Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism” (Rutgers UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
How can we challenge the way film and television represents the world around us? In Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism (Rutgers University Press, 2017) Nancy Wan Yuen, and Associate Profe...
ListenMick Broderick, “Reconstructing Strangelove: Inside Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Nightmare Comedy'” (WallFlower Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Stanley Kubrick is justly considered one of the greatest filmmakers, even with his limited output over his career. The first film he both produced and directed was Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned...
ListenSherilyn Connelly, “Ponyville Confidential: The History and Culture of My Little Pony, 1981-2016” (McFarland, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Ponyville Confidential: The History and Culture of My Little Pony, 1981-2016 (McFarland, 2017), Sherilyn Connelly examines the long and complex history of Hasbro’s My Little Pony franchise. Sinc...
ListenBob Moss, “Vibes from the Screen: Getting Greater Enjoyment from Films” (MCP Books, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
While there are many books that assist the viewer in learning how feature films are made, Bob Moss’s Vibes from the Screen: Getting Greater Enjoyment from Films (MCP Books, 2016) is particularly go...
ListenJames A. Davidson, “Hal Ashby and the Making of Harold and Maude” (McFarland, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The original script was sold to a major Hollywood studio virtually overnight; the screenwriter was working as a pool boy and driver for the producer; the director was considered an acid freak by th...
ListenTom Rice, “White Robes, Silver Screens: Movies and the Making of the Ku Klux Klan” (Indiana U. Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
There has been much discussion recently in the United States about the contentious recent presidential election. Along with the election results, there has also been an increased interest in the so...
ListenAnthony Lioi, “Nerd Ecology: Defending the Earth with Unpopular Culture” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Nerd Ecology: Defending the Earth with Unpopular Culture (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), Anthony Lioi examines literature, film, television, and comics through an ecocritical study of nerd culture....
ListenToni Pressley-Sanon, “Zombifying a Nation: Race, Gender and the Haitian Loas on Screen” (McFarland, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Zombifying a Nation: Race, Gender and the Haitian Loas on Screen (McFarland, 2016) dwells on the intersections of memory, history, and cultural production in both Africa and the African diaspora. T...
ListenKevin Smokler, “Brat Pack America: A Love Letter to 80s Teen Movies” (Rare Bird Books, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Kevin Smokler’s new book, Brat Pack America: A Love Letter to 80s Teen Movies (Rare Bird Books, 2016)is what everyone in their 40s who loved watching movies as they were growing up wants it to be. ...
ListenDavid Shafer, “Antonin Artaud” (Reaktion/U Chicago Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
“Artaud lived with his neck placed firmly in the noose.” -Bauhaus* David Shafer’s new biography, Antonin Artaud (Reaktion Books and the University of Chicago Press, 2016), situates the life of this...
ListenAmanda Deutch, “Pull Yourself Together: The Gena Rowlands Poems” (Dancing Girl Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Pull Yourself Together: The Gena Rowlands Poems (Dancing Girl Press, 2106), Amanda Deutch reminds us of the current and historic importance of the muse. Something draws writers the page, painter...
ListenRobert Matzen, “Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe” (GoodKnight Books, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Jimmy Stewart has a well-deserved reputation as one of the major stars of the classic film era. Yet his life was greatly affected by his experiences as a bomber pilot in World War II. Robert Matzen...
ListenElizabeth Reich, “Militant Visions: Black Soldiers, Internationalism, and the Transformation of American Cinema” (Rutgers UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Elizabeth Reich is an assistant professor of film studies at Connecticut College in New London. Militant Visions: Black Soldiers, Internationalism, and the Transformation of American Cinema (Rutger...
ListenDennis Bartok and Jeff Joseph, “A Thousand Cuts: The Bizarre Underground World of Collectors and Dealers Who Saved the Movies ” (U. Press of Mississippi, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
While many fans collect all kinds of memorabilia related to their favorite movies, others actually seek out and collect the actual celluloid films. For their book, A Thousand Cuts: The Bizarre Unde...
ListenStephen Lee Naish, “Create or Die: Essays on the Artistry of Dennis Hopper” (Amsterdam UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Stephen Lee Naish first became aware of Dennis Hopper watching David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, jumpstarting what would become a long examination of Hopper’s ambitions and creative output as an actor, fi...
ListenSue Matheson, “The Westerns and War Films of John Ford” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
While John Ford made films of more general subjects, he is best known for his movies that illustrated the American West and life during wartime. In her book, The Westerns and War Films of John Ford...
ListenAnand Pandian, “Reel World: An Anthropology of Creation” (Duke UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Do we live in a real world or a ‘reel world,’ in which life begins to feel like a film? In this wonderful ethnography of the Tamil film industry, Anand Pandian explores topics as grand, rich and ti...
ListenCass Sunstein, “The World According to Star Wars” (Harper Collins, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Cass Sunstein‘s son, Declan, got dad hooked on Star Wars. And dad, a Harvard Law professor, ended up writing a book about it. “If you’d told me a year ago that I’d write a book about Star Wars,” Su...
ListenBirgit Meyer, “Sensational Movies: Video, Vision, and Christianity in Ghana” (U of California Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Anthropologist Birgit Meyer‘s most recent book, Sensational Movies: Video, Vision, and Christianity in Ghana (University of California Press, 2015), explores the dynamic process of popular video fi...
ListenHarlan Lebo, “Citizen Kane: A Filmmakers Journey” (Thomas Dunne Books, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Considered by many to be the greatest American film ever made, Citizen Kane was the product of Orson Welles, who made a movie that is still groundbreaking today. In his new book Citizen Kane: A Fil...
ListenJason Mittell, “Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television” (NYU Press 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We are said to be in a golden age of TV. The best stories today are told on television screens in serialized forms. The Wire, Lost, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos are a few of the shows that have eleva...
ListenKimberly Fain, “Black Hollywood: From Butlers to Superheroes, the Changing Role of African American Men in the Movies” (Praeger, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
While black men have been portrayed in film for over a hundred years, they have often been stereotyped or portrayed very badly. In her book Black Hollywood: From Butlers to Superheroes, the Changin...
ListenAlan Sepinwall, “The Revolution Was Televised” (Touchstone, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What do Tony Soprano and Archie Bunker have in common? Alan Sepinwall, longtime TV writer and critic, knows that the 1970s comedic bigot and 2000s Jersey mob boss are not as different as we may thi...
ListenGeorge Cotkin, “Feast of Excess: A Cultural History of the New Sensibility” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
George Cotkin is an emeritus professor of history at California Polytechnic State University. In his book Feast of Excess: A Cultural History of the New Sensibility (Oxford University Press, 2015) ...
ListenRanen Omer-Sherman, “Imagining the Kibbutz: Visions of Utopia in Literature and Film” (Penn State UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Imagining the Kibbutz: Visions of Utopia in Literature and Film (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015), Ranen Omer-Sherman, a professor at the University of Louisville, looks at literar...
ListenHilary Neroni, “The Subject of Torture: Psychoanalysis and Biopolitics in Television and Film” (Columbia UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Did you notice that after 9/11, the depiction of torture on prime-time television went up nearly seven hundred percent? Hilary Neroni did. She had just finished a book on the changing relationship ...
ListenLiam Burke, “The Comic Book Film Adaptation: Exploring Modern Hollywood’s Leading Genre” (UP of Mississippi, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When Marvel’s X-Men took the movie theaters by storm in the summer of 2000, the studios were both surprised and unprepared for the popularity of a comic book film. Over the last fifteen years, film...
ListenElizabeth Haas, Terry Chrstensen, and Peter J. Haas, “Projecting Politics: Political Messages in American Films” (Routledge, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Politics has been a part of many films, since the beginning of the industry over 100 years ago. These include movies with political subjects, such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, to films with pol...
ListenLaura Isabel Serna, “Making Cinelandia: American Films and Mexican Film Culture Before the Golden Age” (Duke UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
During the early decades of the 20thcentury the nation of Mexico entered the modern era through a series of social, political, and economic transformations spurred by the Mexican Revolution of 1910...
ListenMichael Ray FitzGerald, “Native Americans on Network TV: Stereotypes, Myths, and the ‘Good Indian'” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In his new book Native Americans on Network TV: Stereotypes, Myths, and the ‘Good Indian’ (Rowman and Littlefield, 2013), Michael Ray FitzGerald reviews how television represented Native Americans,...
ListenCaseen Gaines, “We Don’t Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy” (Plume, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On the thirtiethanniversary of the film, Caseen Gaines has written We Don’t Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy (Plume, 2015). The book is an engaging history of the Back to th...
ListenSuzanne Broderick, “Real War vs. Reel War: Veterans, Hollywood, and WWII” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In hew new book Real War vs. Reel War: Veterans, Hollywood, and WWII (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015), Suzanne Broderick shares how she discussed a number of World War II films with veterans and othe...
ListenDonald Dewey, “Lee J. Cobb: Characters of an Actor” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In his new book Lee J. Cobb: Characters of an Actor (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014),Don Dewey discusses Lee J. Cobb’s career, both from his importance as a character actor and follower of the Method...
ListenDave Itzkoff, “Mad as Hell: The Making of Network and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies” (Times Books, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Clearly prophetic, “Network” was a controversial film that was reviled by television studios and networks, yet became one of the best films of its time. Dave Itzkoff, culture reporter for The New Y...
ListenPaul Seydor, “The Authentic Death and Contentious Afterlife of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” (Northwestern UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Sam Peckinpah’s career as a writer and director was also filled with controversies, but his reputation has not diminished, more than thirty years after his last film. Paul Seydor began in academics...
ListenSamantha Langsdale and Elizabeth Rae Coody, "Monstrous Women in Comics" (UP of Mississippi, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In their new collection, Monstrous Women in Comics (University Press of Mississippi, 2020), Samantha Langsdale and Elizabeth Rae Coody put together a critical volume on the ways women are made mons...
ListenTom Hertweck, “Food on Film” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Movies and television shows often include scenes of eating, either as a side activity of the actors or as an integralpart of a scene. University of Nevada, Reno Professor Tom Hertweck compiled 14 e...
ListenRebecca Harrison, "The Empire Strikes Back" (Bloomsbury, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Why does The Empire Strikes Back matter? In BFI Classics Series's The Empire Strikes Back (Bloomsbury, 2020), Rebecca Harrison, a lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgo...
ListenHugo Frey, “Nationalism and the Cinema in France” (Berghahn Books, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Hugo Frey‘s new book, Nationalism and the Cinema in France: Political Mythologies and Film Events, 1945-1995 (Berghahn Books, 2014) distinguishes between a national cinema (films made in France) an...
ListenChris Richardson, "Batman and the Joker: Contested Sexuality in Popular Culture" (Routledge, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Batman and The Joker: Contested Sexuality in Popular Culture (Routledge, 2020), Chris Richardson presents a cultural analysis of the ways gender, identity, and sexuality are negotiated in the ri...
ListenChris Morgan, “The Comic Galaxy of Mystery Science Theater 3000” (McFarland, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
While there are many well known cult television shows still revered by fans, MST3K continues to have an incredibly large following with a thriving following 25 years after its final episode. Chris ...
ListenLiza Black, "Picturing Indians: Native Americans in Film, 1941-1960" (U Nebraska Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Behind the braided wigs, buckskins, and excess bronzer that typified the mid-century "filmic Indian" lies a far richer, deeper history of Indigenous labor, survival, and agency. This history takes ...
ListenKathryn Cramer Brownell, “Showbiz Politics: Hollywood in American Political Life” (UNC Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We are all aware how important professional movie makers are to modern campaigns. Many trace this importance to John F. Kennedy’s presidential victory in 1960. Yet, as Kathryn Cramer Brownell shows...
ListenE. Goldberg et al, "Bollywood Horrors: Religion, Violence and Cinematic Fears in India" (Bloomsbury, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Bollywood Horrors: Religion, Violence and Cinematic Fears in India (Bloomsbury, 2020) is a multi-faceted and wide-ranging collection that examines cinematic representations of real-life horror, the...
ListenJoan Kramer and David Heeley, “In the Company of Legends” (Beaufort Books, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
There are a variety of great documentaries about famous films and film artists. Two of the most successful producers of these movies are Joan Kramer and David Heeley. Their book In the Company of L...
ListenAra H. Merjian, "Against the Avant-Garde: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Contemporary Art, and Neocapitalism" (U Chicago Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode of New Books in History, Jana Byars talks with Ara Marjian, Professor of Italian and affiliate of the Institute of Fine Arts and the Department of Art History at New York University...
ListenRaluca Lucia Cimpean, “The JFK Image: Profiles in Docudrama” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Even long after his death, President John F. Kennedy continues to be a popular figure. In addition to documentaries, his influence appears in television and film. In her book The JFK Image: Profile...
ListenEithne Quinn, "A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post–Civil Rights Hollywood" (Columbia UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What is the history of equal rights in Hollywood? In A Piece of the Action: Race and Labor in Post–Civil Rights Hollywood (Columbia UP, 2019), Eithne Quinn, a senior lecturer in American Studies at...
ListenNorma Jones, Maja-Bajac-Carter, Bob Batchelor, “Heroines of Film and Television: Portrayals in Popular Culture” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
While there are a number of studies of how women are represented in popular culture, Norma Jones, Maja Bajac-Carter, Bob Batchelor’s collection of essays Heroines of Film and Television: Portrayals...
ListenCharles L. Leavitt IV, "Italian Neorealism: A Cultural History" (U Toronto Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Italian Neorealism: A Cultural History (University of Toronto Press, 2020), Charles Leavitt steps back from the micro-histories focusing more narrowly on, for example, Italian cinema so as to we...
ListenSteven Awalt, “Steven Spielberg and Duel: The Making of a Film Career” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Steven Spielberg’s long career as a filmmaker began with television. In addition to episodes of popular TV series, he also directed one of the most popular made for television movies of all time, D...
ListenKutter Callaway, “Scoring Transcendence: Contemporary Film Music as Religious Experience” (Baylor UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For many people, filmgoing is a moment to submerge themselves in a new world of meaning and experience a different reality. While film is prominently defined by its ‘moving images’ these alone are ...
ListenJohn Wiley Jr., “The Scarlett Letters: The Making of the Film Gone With the Wind” (Taylor Trade Publishing, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Margaret Mitchell’s blockbuster novel was released in 1936 to great acclaim. It immediately drew interest from Hollywood hoping to turn it into an epic film. After its sale, Mitchell began a large ...
ListenGuy Westwell, “Parallel Lines: Post-9/11 American Cinema” (Wallflower Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The United States and the world underwent a fundamental change because of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In addition to major wars, the event has brought up themes of security, tortur...
ListenGlen Jeansonne and David Luhrssen, “War on the Silver Screen” (Potomac Books, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
War has been a constant topic for feature films since the invention of the motion picture camera. These events made for interesting stories and dynamic visual representations. In their book, War on...
ListenDick Lehr, “The Birth of a Nation” (PublicAffairs, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Many books on film discuss the artistic aspects of movies, often as they relate to social and political events that affected the filmmakers. In his book The Birth of a Nation: How a Legendary Filmm...
ListenBruce Babington, “The Sports Film: Games People Play” (Wallflower Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
One of the most enduring film genres is the sports movie. From the earliest attempts at narrative motion pictures to the present day, movies devoted to athletic competition are both popular and las...
ListenCynthia J. Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper, “1950s “Rocketman” TV Series and Their Fans: from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When television began to grow in popularity, broadcasters had to come up with programming to fill the day. Growing from the Flash Gordon movie serials, science fiction shows geared towards young pe...
ListenLaura Mattoon D’Amore, “Smart Chicks on Screen” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
One of the continuing issues of the entertainment industry is the treatment of women in movies and television. Even with a larger number of female writers, producers, and directors, roles often fol...
ListenBridget Conor, “Screenwriting: Creative labor and professional practice” (Routledge, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Bridget Conor’s new book, Screenwriting: Creative Labor and Professional Practice (Routledge, 2014), looks closely at the creative practice and profession of screenwriting for film and television i...
ListenChris Taylor, “How Star Wars Conquered the Universe” (Basic Books, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When George Lucas first began to write “The Star Wars”, as it was originally known, he had no idea that it would become his main life’s work. Beginning as a modern Flash Gordon-style space adventur...
ListenBryn Upton, “Hollywood and the End of the Cold War: Signs of Cinematic Change” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
While the Cold War ended in 1991 with a whimper, not a bang, it still affects popular culture in many ways. In his book. Hollywood and the End of the Cold War: Signs of Cinematic Change (Rowman and...
ListenHideaki Fujiki, “Making Personas: Transnational Film Stardom in Modern Japan” (Harvard University Asia Center, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Stardom has a history. Hideaki Fujiki‘s new book traces that history through a story of the transformations of Japanese film stars in the early twentieth century. Taking a deeply transnational appr...
ListenM. Gail Hamner, “Imaging Religion in Film: The Politics of Nostalgia” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When we watch film various visual elements direct our understanding of the narrative and its meaning. The subjective position of each viewer informs their reading of images in a multitude of ways. ...
ListenTravis Vogan, “Keepers of the Flame: NFL Films and the Rise of Sports Media” (University of Illinois Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Last weekend was the NFL Draft, the annual event when teams select college players who have shown the talent to advance to the professional ranks. Staged at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, broadc...
ListenDonald T. Critchlow, “When Hollywood Was Right” (Cambridge UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It seems that everyone in Hollywood is on the political Left. “Seems” is the operative word here, because there are actually Republicans in pictures, at least according to this website. (NB: I have...
ListenAswin Punthamabekar, “From Bombay to Bollywood: The Making of a Global Media Industry” (NYU Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Aswin Punthamabekar‘s From Bombay to Bollywood: The Making of a Global Media Industry (New York University Press, 2013) offers a deeply researched and richly theorized look at the evolution of the ...
ListenOlga Gershenson, “The Phantom Holocaust: Soviet Cinema and Jewish Catastrophe” (Rutgers UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Fifty years of Holocaust screenplays and films -largely unknown, killed by censors, and buried in dusty archives – come to life in Olga Gershenson‘s The Phantom Holocaust: Soviet Cinema and Jewish ...
ListenDaisuke Miyao, “The Aesthetics of Shadow: Lighting and Japanese Cinema” (Duke UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In The Aesthetics of Shadow: Lighting and Japanese Cinema (Duke UP, 2013), Daisuke Miyao explores a history of light and its absence in Japanese cinema. A commentary on the history of modernity, th...
ListenDavid Konow, “Reel Terror: The Scary, Bloody, Gory, Hundred-Year History of Classic Horror Films” (St. Martin’s Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Filmmakers discovered in the early twentieth century that Americans would gladly pay to be scared to death. As the decades marched on, dismissive critics regularly wrote obituaries for the relentle...
ListenLouis Menashe, “Moscow Believes in Tears: Russians and Their Movies” (New Academia, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Did you see one of Eisenstein’s masterpieces “The Battleship Potemkin” and “Alexander Nevsky” in a Russian or Soviet history class? Were you captivated by Tarkovsky’s brooding long shots in movies ...
ListenS. Brent Plate, “Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-Creation of the World” (Wallflower Press, 2008) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
As each frame of a film goes by we witness a new world that is situated in space and time. This process of worldmaking happens through the cinematic lens but also through the myths and rituals of r...
ListenDavid A. Kirby, “Lab Coats in Hollywood: Science, Scientists, and Cinema” (MIT Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
First things first: this was probably the most fun I’ve had working through an STS monograph. (Really: Who doesn’t like reading about Jurassic Park and King Kong?) In addition to being full of wond...
ListenJennifer Frost, “Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood: Celebrity Gossip and American Conservatism” (NYU Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Any pop culture scholar worth her salt will tell you that discussion of Beyonce’s baby bump or Charlie Sheen’s unique sex life is far from apolitical, but, at times, gossip columnists have engaged ...
ListenRobert J. Corber, “Cold War Femme: Lesbianism, National Identity, and Hollywood Cinema” (Duke University Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The study of non-heteronormative sexualities in the academy continues to be remarkably dynamic. Despite the usual attempts to harden the frame around this scholarship, it remains consistently excit...
ListenMaria Yatskova, “Miss Gulag” (Neihausen-Yatskova & Vodar Films, 2007) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In this episode of NBRES, we’re doing something a bit out of the ordinary. Instead of interviewing an author about his or her new book, we are going to talk to filmarkerMaria Yatskova about her doc...
ListenLaura Wittern-Keller, “The Miracle Case: Film Censorship and the Supreme Court” (University of Kansas Press, 2008) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Did you ever wonder how we got from a moment in which almost everything on film could be censored (the Progressive Era) to the moment in which nothing on film could be censored (today)? From the Ni...
ListenLaura Wittern-Keller, “Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to Film Censorship 1915-1981” (University of Kentucky Press, 2008) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This week we interviewed Laura Wittern-Keller about her new book, Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to Film Censorship 1915-1981. Both well written and extremely well researched, Freedom of t...
ListenDan Callahan, "The Camera Lies: Acting for Hitchcock" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In The Camera Lies, published in 2020 by Oxford University Press, author Dan Callahan spotlights the many nuances of Hitchcock's direction throughout his career, from Cary Grant in Notorious (1946)...
ListenWaleed F. Mahdi, "Arab Americans in Film: From Hollywood and Egyptian Stereotypes to Self-Representation" (Syracuse UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It comes as little surprise that Hollywood films have traditionally stereotyped Arab Americans, but how are Arab Americans portrayed in Arab films, and just as importantly, how are they portrayed i...
ListenEric San Juan, "The Films of Martin Scorsese: Gangsters, Greed, and Guilt" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Few mainstream filmmakers have as pronounced a disregard for the supposed rules of filmmaking as Martin Scorsese. His inventiveness displays a reaction against the “right” way to make a movie, freq...
ListenYvonne Rainer, "Revisions: Essays by Apollo Musagète, Yvonne Rainer, and Others" (No Place Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Yvonne Rainer is one of the most influential living choreographers. After studying with Merce Cunningham she co-founded the Judson Dance Theater, a center of post-modern dance whose influence far o...
ListenDave O’Brien, "Culture is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries" (Manchester UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It would be hard to overstate the importance of culture. It teaches us, heals us, rips us apart and puts us back together in new and surprising ways. Given its fundamental importance to the human e...
ListenChris Fenton, "Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, and American Business" (Post Hill Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For seventeen years, Chris Fenton served as the president of DMG Entertainment Motion Picture Group, a multi-billion-dollar global media company headquartered in Beijing. He has produced or supervi...
ListenGlenn Kenny, "Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas" (Hanover Square, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For the thirtieth anniversary of its premiere comes the vivid and immersive history behind Martin Scorsese’s signature film Goodfellas, hailed by critics as the greatest mob movie ever made. In the...
ListenBruce Isaacs, "The Art of Pure Cinema: Hitchcock and His Imitators" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Art of Pure Cinema: Hitchcock and His Imitators (Oxford University Press) is the first book-length study to examine the historical foundations and stylistic mechanics of pure cinema. Author Bru...
ListenGiorgio Bertellini, "The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film Stardom and the Political Leadership in 1920s America" (U California Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In 1927, the Hollywood stars (and spouses), Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr stood outside their California home, arms raised in fascist salute. The photo’s caption, referencing the couple’s...
ListenPatrick Ffrench, "Roland Barthes and Film: Myth, Eroticism and Poetics" (Bloomsbury, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Roland Barthes and Film: Myth, Eroticism and Poetics (Bloomsbury) is a book by Patrick Ffrench, Professor of French at Kings College. It is a comprehensively researched and finely argued book that ...
ListenJoseph Clark, "News Parade: The American Newsreel and the World as Spectacle" (U Minnesota Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When weekly newsreels launched in the early twentieth century, they offered the U.S. public the first weekly record of events that symbolized “indisputable evidence” of the news. In News Parade: Th...
ListenRodrigo Quian Quiroga, "NeuroScience Fiction" (Benbella Books, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In NeuroScience Fiction (Benbella Books, 2020), Rodrigo Quian Quiroga shows how the outlandish premises of many seminal science fiction movies are being made possible by new discoveries and technol...
ListenChris Yogerst, "Hollywood Hates Hitler!: Jew-bating, Anti-Nazism, and the Senate Investigation into Warmongering in Motion Pictures" (U Mississippi, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In September 1941, a handful of isolationist senators set out to tarnish Hollywood for warmongering. The United States was largely divided on the possibility of entering the European War, yet the i...
ListenSteven C. Smith, "Music by Max Steiner: The Epic Life of Hollywood’s Most Influential Composer" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
During a seven-decade career that spanned from 19th century Vienna to 1920s Broadway to the golden age of Hollywood, three-time Academy Award winner Max Steiner did more than any other composer to ...
ListenWaleed Mahdi, "Arab Americans in Film: From Hollywood and Egyptian Stereotypes to Self-Representation" (Syracuse UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Dr. Waleed Mahdi’s book, Arab Americans in Film: From Hollywood and Egyptian Stereotypes to Self-Representation (Syracuse University Press) offers a comparative analysis of the portrayals of Arab A...
ListenM. Hennefeld and N. Sammond, "Abjection Incorporated: Mediating the Politics of Pleasure and Violence" (Duke UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
From the films of Larry Clark to the feminist comedy of Amy Schumer to the fall of Louis C. K., comedic, graphic, and violent moments of abjection have permeated twentieth- and twenty-first-century...
ListenRussell J. A. Kilbourn, "The Cinema of Paolo Sorrentino: Commitment to Style" (Wallflower Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Russell J. A. Kilbourn’s The Cinema of Paolo Sorrentino: Commitment to Style (Wallflower Press, 2020) is the first comprehensive study published in the English-speaking world on one of the most com...
ListenKevin J. Bryne, "Minstrel Traditions: Mediated Blackface in the Jazz Age" (Routledge, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Blackface minstrel show is typically thought of a form tied to the 19th century. While the style was indeed developed during the Antebellum period, its history stretches well into 20th- and eve...
ListenJustin Gomer, "White Balance: How Hollywood Shaped Colorblind Ideology and Undermined Civil Rights" (UNC Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Justin Gomer is the author of White Balance: How Hollywood Shaped Colorblind Ideology and Undermined Civil Rights, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2020. White Balance explore...
ListenTelory Arendell, "The Autistic Stage: How Cognitive Disability Changed 20th-Century Performance" (Sense Publishers, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In The Autistic Stage: How Cognitive Disability Changed 20th-Century Performance (Sense Publishers, 2015) (Sense Publishers, 2015), Telory Arendell creates a revolutionary fusion of disability stud...
ListenGreg Mitchell, "The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood—and America—Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (The New Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
dSoon after atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, MGM set out to make a movie studio chief Louis B. Mayer called “the most important story” he would ever film: a big budget dra...
ListenCreshema R. Murray, "Leadership Through the Lens: Interrogating Production, Presentation, and Power" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Television informs our perceptions and expectations of leaders and offers a guide to understanding how we, as organizational actors, should communicate, act, and relate. Join NBN host Lee Pierce (s...
ListenKendra Preston Leonard, "Music for the Kingdom of Shadows: Cinema Accompaniment in the Age of Spiritualism" (Humanities Commons, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We might call movies made before the advent of the talkies in 1927 silent films—but for the audience, they were certainly not silent. Live orchestras and solo instrumentalists accompanied early mov...
ListenGreg Garrett, "A Long, Long Way: Hollywood’s Unfinished Journey from Racism to Reconciliation" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In his powerful new book, A Long, Long Way: Hollywood’s Unfinished Journey from Racism to Reconciliation (Oxford University Press, 2020), Greg Garrett brings his signature brand of theologically mo...
ListenClifford Mason, "Macbeth in Harlem: Black Theater in America from the Beginning to Raisin in the Sun" (Rutgers UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Macbeth in Harlem: Black Theater in America from the Beginning to Raisin in the Sun (Rutgers University Press, 2020) by Clifford Mason, celebrated actor, director, writer, and playwright, and autho...
ListenDavid Slucki et al., "Laughter After: Humor and the Holocaust"?(Wayne State UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In?Laughter After: Humor and the Holocaust?(Wayne State University Press, 2020), Co-editors?David Slucki, Loti Smorgon Associate Professor of Contemporary Jewish Life and Culture at the Australian ...
ListenJeremy Black, "The World of James Bond: The Lives and Times of 007" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
This book by renowned Professor of History Jeremy Black presents an insightful and hugely entertaining exploration of the political and cultural context of the Bond books and films. In The World of...
ListenRobert Pippin, "Filmed Thought: Cinema as Reflective Form" (U Chicago Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Robert Pippin's book Filmed Thought: Cinema as Reflective Form (University of Chicago Press, 2020) is a work in the philosophy of film published in 2020 by the University of Chicago Press. Each cha...
ListenJon Wilkman, "Screening Reality: How Documentary Filmmakers Reimagined America" (Bloomsbury, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Screening Reality: How Documentary Filmmakers Reimagined America (Bloomsbury, 2020) is a widescreen view of how American “truth” has been discovered, defined, projected, televised, and streamed dur...
ListenScott Henderson, "Comics and Pop Culture: Adaptation from Panel to Frame" (U Texas Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It is hard to discuss the current film industry without acknowledging the impact of comic book adaptations, especially considering the blockbuster success of recent superhero movies. Yet transmedia...
ListenBrian Greene, "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe" (Random House, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Brian Greene is a Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he is the Director of the Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics, a...
ListenBrian Crim, "Planet Auschwitz: Holocaust Representation in Science Fiction and Horror Film and Television" (Rutgers UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In his new book, Planet Auschwitz: Holocaust Representation in Science Fiction and Horror Film and Television (Rutgers University Press, 2020), Brian Crim explores the diverse ways in which the Hol...
ListenLeslie M. Harris, "Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies" (U Georgia Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies (University of Georgia Press, 2019), edited by Leslie M. Harris, James T. Campbell, and Alfred L. Brophy, is the first edited collection of schola...
ListenJoseph Rex Young, "George R.R. Martin and the Fantasy Form" (Routledge, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
“In the game of thrones you either win or you die”––with over 10 million viewers per episode of Game of Thrones, one of the most successful television shows of all time, George R.R. Martin definite...
ListenMatt Cook, "Sleight of Mind: 75 Ingenious Paradoxes in Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy" (MIT Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician's purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat. Yet paradox doesn't require tangibles, like ra...
ListenKunio Hara, "Joe Hisaishi's Soundtrack for My Neighbor Totoro" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
A beloved Japanese anime move released in 1988, My Neighbor Totoro tells the story of two sisters, Satsuki and Mei, as they deal with the separation from their mother who is in the hospital, and th...
ListenKristen Hoerl, "Bad Sixties: Hollywood Memories of the Counterculture, Antiwar, and Black Power Movements" (UP of Mississippi, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode of the New Books Network, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric and Communication at the State University of New York at Geneseo--interviews Kristen Hoerl (she/hers) on...
ListenJoshua Foa Dienstag, "Cinema Pessimism: A Political Theory of Representation and Reciprocity" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Joshua Foa Dienstag, Professor of Political Science and Law at UCLA, considers, in his new book, the interaction between our experiences in watching films and our positions as citizens in a represe...
ListenÁine O'Healy, "Migrant Anxieties: Italian Cinema in a Transnational Frame" (Indiana UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In her recently published Migrant Anxieties: Italian Cinema in a Transnational Frame (Indiana University Press, 2019), Áine O'Healy explores how filmmakers in Italy have probed the tensions accompa...
ListenErika Engstrom, "Feminism, Gender, and Politics in NBC’s Parks and Recreation" (Peter Lang, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Erika Engstrom is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her latest book, Feminism, Gender, and Politics in NBC’s Parks and Recreation (Peter Lang, 2017), analyz...
ListenPhillipa Chong, “Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times” (Princeton UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
How does the world of book reviews work? In Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times (Princeton University Press, 2020), Phillipa Chong, assistant professor in sociology at McM...
ListenK. Linder et al., "Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers" (Stylus Publishing, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
If you’re a grad student facing the ugly reality of finding a tenure-track job, you could easily be forgiven for thinking about a career change. However, if you’ve spent the last several years work...
ListenCarol Dyhouse, "Hearthrobs: A History of Women and Desire" (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What can a cultural history of the heartthrob teach us about women, desire, and social change? From dreams of Prince Charming or dashing military heroes, to the lure of dark strangers and vampire l...
ListenJennifer Cazenave, "An Archive of the Catastrophe: The Unused Footage of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah" (SUNY Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Jennifer Cazenave’s An Archive of the Catastrophe: The Unused Footage of Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah (SUNY Press, 2019) is a fascinating analysis of the 220 hours of outtakes edited out of the final ni...
ListenStephen Benedict Dyson, "Imagining Politics: Interpretations in Political Science and Political Television" (U Michigan Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Stephen Dyson has provided a fascinating and engaging analysis of political science, the discipline, and political television in his new book, Imagining Politics: Interpretations in Political Scien...
ListenSeán Crosson, "Gaelic Games on Film" (Cork UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Today we are joined by Seán Crosson, leader of the Sport and Exercise Research Group at NUI Galway, co-director of the MA in Sports Journalism and Communication, and Professor at the Huston School ...
ListenHunter Vaughan, "Hollywood’s Dirtiest Secret: The Hidden Environmental Costs of the Movies" (Columbia UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In his new book, Hollywood’s Dirtiest Secret: The Hidden Environmental Costs of the Movies (Columbia University Press, 2019), Hunter Vaughan offers a new history of the movies from an environmental...
ListenSimone Knox and Kai Hanno Schwind, "Friends: A Reading of the Sitcom" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What does Friends mean to us now? In Friends: A Reading of the Sitcom (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), Simone Knox, an Associate Professor in the Department of Film, Theatre, and Television at the Unive...
ListenAlberto Cairo, "How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information" (Norton, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what if we don’t understand what we’re looking at? Social media has made charts, infographics, and diagrams ubiquitous?and easier to sh...
ListenClaudia Moscovici, "Holocaust Memories: A Survey of Holocaust Memoirs, Histories, Novels, and Films" (Hamilton, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Claudia Moscovici’s recent book, Holocaust Memories: A Survey of Holocaust Memoirs, Histories, Novels, and Films (Hamilton Books, 2019), is intended for educators and politicians to draw attention ...
ListenAlicia Izharuddin, “Gender and Islam in Indonesian Cinema” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Since the fall of the Indonesian New Order regime in 1998 there has been a steady rise of Islamic popular culture in the nation. Muslim consumers and producers have cultivated a mediated domain whe...
ListenLiz Gloyn, "Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What is it about ancient monsters that popular culture still finds so enthralling? Why do the monsters of antiquity continue to stride across the modern world? In Tracking Classical Monsters in Pop...
ListenElena Past, "Italian Ecocinema: Beyond the Human" (Indiana UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Elena Past’s recently published Italian Ecocinema: Beyond the Human (Indiana University Press, 2019) studies a complex of issues surrounding on-location films made in Italy and the way their produc...
ListenKathryn Conrad on University Press Publishing from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
As you may know, university presses publish a lot of good books. In fact, they publish thousands of them every year. They are different from most trade books in that most of them are what you might...
ListenAisha Shillingford and Terry Marshall, "Black Freedom Beyond Borders: Re-Imaging Gender in Wakanda" (WDL, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Wakanda Dream Lab’s anthology, Black Freedom Beyond Borders: Re-Imaging Gender in Wakanda, features the work of writers, artists, and activists, as they imagine gender justice through the framework...
ListenJ. Neuhaus, "Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds Who Want to Be Effective Teachers" (West Virginia UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The things that make people academics -- as deep fascination with some arcane subject, often bordering on obsession, and a comfort with the solitude that developing expertise requires -- do not nec...
ListenRico Issacs, "Film and Identity in Kazakhstan: Soviet and Post-Soviet Culture in Central Asia" (I.B. Tauris, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Film and Identity in Kazakhstan: Soviet and Post-Soviet Culture in Central Asia (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Rico Issacs uses cinema as an analytical tool to demonstrate the constructed and contested na...
ListenJennifer C. Lena, "Entitled: Discriminating Tastes and the Expansion of the Arts" ( Princeton UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
How did American elites change the meaning of Art? In Entitled: Discriminating Tastes and the Expansion of the Arts (Princeton University Press, 2019), Jennifer C. Lena, associate professor of arts...
ListenLindsey Green-Simms, "Postcolonial Automobility: Car Culture in West Africa" (U Minnesota Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Cars promise freedom, autonomy, and above all, movement but leave whole cities stuck in traffic, breathing polluted air, exposed of deadly crashes, and dependent on vast the vast infrastructures of...
ListenPolina Kroik, "Cultural Production and the Politics of Women’s Work in American Film and Literature" (Routledge, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
How does thinking about gender and work help to rethink cultural hierarchies? In Cultural Production and the Politics of Women’s Work in American Film and Literature(Routledge, 2019), Polina Kroik,...
ListenGrégory Pierrot, "The Black Avenger in Atlantic Culture" (U Georgia Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
With the Ta-Nehisi Coates–authored Black Panther comic book series (2016), recent films Django Unchained (2012), The Birth of a Nation (2016), Nate Parker’s cinematic imagining of the Nat Turner r...
ListenDavid Resnick, "Representing Education In Film: How Hollywood Portrays Educational Thought, Settings and Issues" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
David Resnick combines two of his passions, movies and education, in his book, Representing Education In Film: How Hollywood Portrays Educational Thought, Settings and Issues (Palgrave Macmillan, 2...
ListenLiat Steir-Livny, "Remaking Holocaust Memory: Documentary Cinema by Third Generation Survivors in Israel" (Syracuse UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Holocaust was and remains a central trauma in Israel’s national consciousness. It has found ample expressions in Israeli documentary cinema from 1945 until the present. Third-generation Holocau...
ListenJinah Kim, "Postcolonial Grief: The Afterlives of the Pacific Wars in the Americas" (Duke UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Postcolonial Grief: The Afterlives of the Pacific Wars in the Americas (Duke University Press, 2019), Jinah Kim explores questions of loss, memory, and redress in post WWII Asian diasporic decol...
ListenAnne A. Cheng, "Ornamentalism" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On this episode, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric and Communication at the State University of New York at Geneseo--Dr. Anne Cheng (she/hers)--Professor of English and Director of...
ListenEleonor Gilburd, "To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture" (Harvard UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Josef Stalin’s death in 1953 marked a noticeable shift in Soviet attitudes towards the West. A nation weary of war and terror welcomed with relief the new regime of Nikita Khrushchev and its focus...
ListenKara Ritzheimer, "'Trash,' Censorship, and National Identity in Early Twentieth-Century Germany" (Cambridge UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Convinced that sexual immorality and unstable gender norms were endangering national recovery after World War One, German lawmakers drafted a constitution in 1919 legalizing the censorship of movie...
ListenSara K. Eskridge, "Rube Tube: CBS and Rural Comedy in the Sixties" (U Missouri Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The television comedies of the 1960s set in the American South epitomize American innocence. But in their original historical, social, and commercial context, their portrayals of southern life and ...
ListenBrian Cremins, "Captain Marvel and the Art of Nostalgia" (UP of Mississippi, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Brian Cremins' book Captain Marvel and the Art of Nostalgia (University Press of Mississippi, 2017) explores the history of Billy Batson, a boy who met a wizard that allowed him to transform into a...
ListenAnnie McClanahan, "Dead Pledges: Debt, Crisis, and Twenty-First Century Culture" (Stanford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When teaching a public course called “The Age of Debt” this winter break, I had the strange realization that one of the the most successful readings in that course, the one which most clearly expla...
ListenJinhua Dai (ed. Lisa Rofel), "After the Post-Cold War: The Future of Chinese History" (Duke UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Although not all that well known to English-speaking audiences, cultural critic and Peking University professor Jinhua Dai’s incisive commentaries and critiques of contemporary Chinese life have el...
ListenDan Golding, "Star Wars after Lucas: A Critical Guide to the Future of the Galaxy" (U Minnesota Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In 2012 George Lucas shocked the entertainment world by selling the Star Wars franchise, along with Lucasfilm, to Disney. This is the story of how, over the next five years, Star Wars went from nea...
ListenNicholas Baer et al. "Unwatchable" (Rutgers UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We all have images that we find unwatchable, whether for ethical, political, or sensory and affective reasons. Yet what does it mean to proclaim something “unwatchable”: disturbing, revolting, poor...
ListenEric T. Kasper and Quentin D. Vieregge, "The United States Constitution in Film: Part of Our National Culture" (Lexington Books, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The U.S. Constitution is often depicted in popular films, teaching lessons about what this founding document means and what it requires. The United States Constitution in Film: Part of Our National...
ListenMichael Benson, "Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clark and The Making of a Masterpiece" (Simon and Schuster, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Michael Benson talks about the making of 2001, a movie inspired by the collaboration of American director Stanley Kubrick and British futurist Arthur C. Clark. Benson is a writer, artist, and film ...
ListenRobert Matzen, "Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II" (GoodKnight Books, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Audrey Hepburn was justly known for her long acting career, yet her early life is largely unknown. In his book, Robert Matzen describes how she lived during the World War II period in Nazi-occupied...
ListenRacquel J. Gates, "Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture" (Duke UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Racquel J. Gates’ new book, Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture (Duke University Press, 2018), interrogates understandings of African-American representations on screen. This book...
ListenJoan Neuberger, "This Thing of Darkness: Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible in Stalin’s Russia" (Cornell UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Most of the time, this podcast focuses on the products of those who create historical fiction—specifically, novels. But what goes into producing a work of historical fiction—especially in a dictato...
ListenDiscussion of Massive Online Peer Review and Open Access Publishing from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the information age, knowledge is power. Hence, facilitating the access to knowledge to wider publics empowers citizens and makes societies more democratic. How can publishers and authors contri...
ListenMeredith McCarroll, "Unwhite: Appalachia, Race, and Film" (U Georgia Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
If you mention Appalachia to many people, they may immediately respond with the "Deliverance" dueling banjos theme. Unfortunately, this is an example of how the region is stereotyped and misunderst...
ListenMargaret Hennefeld, "Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes" (Columbia UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the early days of film, female comedians appeared in films that included both strange activities and slapstick. In her new book Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes (Columbia Univer...
ListenLaura Wittern-Keller, “Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to Film Censorship 1915-1981” (University of Kentucky Press, 2008) from 2008-04-04T21:55:46
This week we interviewed Laura Wittern-Keller about her new book, Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to Film Censorship 1915-1981. Both well written and extremely well researched, Freedom of t...
ListenLaura Wittern-Keller, “Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to Film Censorship 1915-1981” (University of Kentucky Press, 2008) from 2008-04-04T21:55:46
This week we interviewed Laura Wittern-Keller about her new book, Freedom of the Screen: Legal Challenges to Film Censorship 1915-1981. Both well written and extremely well researched, Freedom of t...
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