New Books in Film

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.

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TV & Film
776
Anthony Slide, “Magnificent Obsession: The Outr...
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 age of the Internet,
45 min
777
Richard Baxstrom and Todd Meyers, “Violence’s F...
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 examine three filmmakers: Werner Herzog,
51 min
778
Rachel Harris, “Warriors, Witches, Whores: Wome...
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 in Israeli cinema and Israeli society more widely.
46 min
779
Becky Aikman, “Off the Cliff: How the Making of...
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 Hollywood culture. The film cast two women as the stars,
50 min
780
Rachel Morley, “Performing Femininity: Woman as...
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) discovered the ubiquity of the female performer as a cha...
48 min
781
Martin Shuster, “New Television: The Aesthetics...
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 and Assistant Professor at Goucher College,
52 min
782
Chris Nashawaty, “Caddyshack: The Making of a H...
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 writers. In his book,
53 min
783
Yaron Peleg, “Directed by God: Jewishness in Co...
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 expansion of the settler community,
45 min
784
Discussion with Dahlia Schweitzer (“Going Viral...
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 talk with her and Rob Thomas,
63 min
785
Mark A. McCutcheon, “The Medium Is the Monster:...
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 Medium Is the Monster: Canadian Adaptations of Frankenst...
77 min
786
Jacob Bricca, “Documentary Editing: Principles ...
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 methods of making them. Jacob Bricca,
64 min
787
Brian Tochterman, “The Dying City: Postwar New ...
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 great “Cosmopolis”—have been a persistent feature of disco...
63 min
788
Mehal Krayem, “Heroes, Villains and the Muslim ...
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 University of Technology Sydney,
19 min
789
Dahlia Schweitzer, “Going Viral: Zombies, Virus...
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 Schweitzer brings them together as she explores the outbreak ...
64 min
790
Kerry Wallach, “Passing Illusions: Jewish Visib...
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, explores these questions in her new book,
39 min
791
Vanda Krefft, “The Man Who Made the Movies: The...
When you hear “Twentieth Century Fox,” I doubt you know where the source of “Fox” in the name. In her book, The Man Who Made the Movies: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of William Fox (Harper, 2017), Vanda Krefft presents a detailed biography of one ...
63 min
792
Bruce Clarke, “Neocybernetics and Narrative” (U...
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 second-order systems theory to the analysis of literat...
77 min
793
Jennifer Frost, “Producer of Controversy: Stanl...
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 his liberal beliefs that permeated many of his movies.
66 min
794
Carla M. Wilson, “Curious Impossibilities: Ten ...
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—Curious Impossibilities: Ten Cinematic Riffs (Black Scat...
56 min
795
Becky Aikman, “Off the Cliff: How the Making of...
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. Becky Aikman‘s book Off the Cliff: How the Making of T...
64 min
796
Kevin Bartig, “Sergei Prokofiev’s Alexander Nev...
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 cantata Prokofiev adapted from the original music.
53 min
797
Zach Sands, “Film Comedy and the American Dream...
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, The Jerk, Trading Place, and Office Space.
29 min
798
Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp, “Muslim Women in French ...
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 Women in French Cinema: Voices of Maghrebi Migrants in Fran...
51 min
799
Stephen Most, “Stories Make the World: Reflecti...
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 and the Art of the Documentary (Berghahn Books, 2017),
60 min
800
Vanda Krefft, “The Man Who Made the Movies: The...
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 Movies: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of William F...
63 min