Category: American Studies
Guest post by Sheri Chinen Biesen The Society For Cinema & Media Studies hosts Sheri Chinen Biesen for presentation on this topic at the 2015 SCMS annual conference. Jazz music flourished in “musical” noir films, which were distinctive for showing smoke, shadows, and bluesy nightclub performers. The music recalled Harlem’s Cotton Club, where, according to…
Guest post by Susan Nance It was big news recently when Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus finally bowed to public pressure and their accountants to announce that they will phase out live elephants in their traveling shows by 2018. The circus company is the last one to hold a large herd of elephants.…
With the Academy Awards set for this weekend, we want to aim a key light on our terrific books in film history and cinema studies. Call the gaffer! A Cinema of Poetry: Aesthetics of the Italian Art Film by Joseph Luzzi “Luzzi brings a set of powerful resources to his new study: a vast erudition,…
With the Academy Awards set for this weekend, we want to aim a key light on our terrific books in film history and cinema studies. Call the gaffer! A Cinema of Poetry: Aesthetics of the Italian Art Film by Joseph Luzzi “Luzzi brings a set of powerful resources to his new study: a vast erudition,…
Guest post by David F. Allmendinger Jr. In August 1831, in Southampton County, Virginia, Nat Turner led a bloody uprising that took the lives of some fifty-five white people—men, women, and children—shocking the South. Nearly as many black people perished in the rebellion and its aftermath. Our recent book by David F. Allmendinger Jr. presents…
Guest post by David F. Allmendinger Jr. In August 1831, in Southampton County, Virginia, Nat Turner led a bloody uprising that took the lives of some fifty-five white people—men, women, and children—shocking the South. Nearly as many black people perished in the rebellion and its aftermath. Our recent book by David F. Allmendinger Jr. presents…
The bold lines and decorative details of Art Deco have stood the test of time since one of its first appearances in the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris in 1925. The style reflected the confidence of the age—streamlined, chrome-clad, glossy black. Along with simple elegance, sharp lines, and cosmopolitan aspirations,…
The bold lines and decorative details of Art Deco have stood the test of time since one of its first appearances in the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris in 1925. The style reflected the confidence of the age—streamlined, chrome-clad, glossy black. Along with simple elegance, sharp lines, and cosmopolitan aspirations,…
By Janet Gilbert, JHUP Journals Staff After two hours at the mall, my feet are burning in my pointy work shoes. I hoist my packages up the first set of ten and the second set of five steps to my front door, and toss the bags of gifts in the foyer. I’ll wrap them tomorrow.…
Guest post by Sheri Chinen Biesen I’m a bit of a nerd. I like digging around in Hollywood studio archives investigating classic cinema like you see on Turner Classic Movies with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. I specialize in film noir, a series of 1940s–1950s American crime pictures noted for their moody, shadowy visual style…