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From Ken Burns's documentaries to historical dramas such as Roots, from A&E's Biography series to CNN, television has become the primary source for historical information for tens of millions of Americans today. Why has television become such a respected authority? What falsehoods enter our collective memory as truths? How is one to know what is real and what is imagined—or ignored—by producers, directors, or writers? Gary Edgerton and Peter Rollins have collected a group of essays that answer these and many other questions. The contributors examine the full spectrum of historical genres, but also institutions such as the History Channel and production histories of such series as The Jack Benny Show, which ran for fifteen years. The authors explore the tensions between popular history and professional history, and the tendency of some academics to declare the past "off limits" to nonscholars. Several of them point to the tendency for television histories to embed current concerns and priorities within the past, as in such popular shows as Quantum Leap and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. The result is an insightful portrayal of the power television possesses to influence our culture.
This intriguing issue represents the truly international and interdisciplinary nature of contemporary work in cultural studies. Cultural Studies has reflected the discipline in becoming ever more global in scope and perspective.
A clear and comprehensive introduction to the thought of French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Critical Issues in Electronic Media is an interdisciplinary sourcebook that offers new critical perspectives directly related to, or arising from, the practice of electronic media art. It sketches the changing topology of culture as it enters electronic space and specifically addresses questions of art practice in that space. Some of the contributions focus on the dynamics of specific emerging media such as interactive media, while others look at the cultural conditions formed by, and forming around, new technological complexes. Still others examine contemporary technocultural manifestations against a background of social and technological history. The contributors are professionally and geographically diverse, representing professional fields such as computer graphics, video, sound, drama, and visual arts as well as media, cultural and literary theory, and the social sciences. Together, these essays provide a rich survey of contemporary technological critique and offer a perspective on creative practice in technological media.
Framing Technology uses an interdisciplinary approach to explore some of the key issues in technology today, including virtual reality, gender, health, the environment, regulation, the information society, surveillance and globalisation.
The content of this volume reflects theoretical and practical discussions on cultural issues influenced by increased adoption of information and communication technologies. The penetration of new forms of communication, such as online social networking, internet video-casting, and massive online multiplayer gaming; the experience and exploration of virtual worlds; and the massive adoption of ever-emergent ICT technologies; are all developments in desperate need of serious examination. It is not surprising that these new realities, and the questions and issues to which they give rise, have drawn increasing attention from academics. Those engaging these issues do so from a wide range of academ...
What is the subject of video? Charlotte Klink traces the development of electromagnetism in the pursuit of »Electric Seeing« that emerged in the 19th century as well as its curious relation to psychoanalysis and the contemporary discovery of the structure of the human psyche. In doing so, she exposes how this development laid the foundation of what we know today as »video«. This comprehensive theory of video entails a discussion of the technological, historical, and etymological roots, the media-theoretical concepts of medium and index, the philosophical and art-theoretical environment in which video emerged in the 1960s, the psychoanalytic concept of the phantasm, and artworks by artists such as Yael Bartana, Hito Steyerl, and Bjørn Melhus.
This is a study of the "returned gaze" from the cinema screen, demonstrating that the films that we watch watch us, guide us, control our gaze, and enforce societal codes.
Documentary and feminist film studies have long been separate or parallel universes that need to converse or collide. The essays in this volume, written by prominent scholars and filmmakers, demonstrate the challenges that feminist perspectives pose for documentary theory, history, and practice. They also show how fuller attention to documentary enriches and complicates feminist theory, especially regarding the relationship between gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, class, and nation. Feminism and Documentary begins with a substantial historical introduction that highlights several of the specific areas that contributors address: debates over realism, the relationship between filmmake...
In this work of feminist film criticism, Mary Ann Doane examines questions of sexual difference and knowledge in cinematic, theoretical, and psychoanalytic discourses. "Femmes Fatales" examines Freud, the female spectator, the meaning of the close-up, and the nature of stardom. Doane's analyses of such figures as Pabst's Lulu and Rita Hayworth's Gilda trace the thematics and mechanics of maskes, masquerade, and veiling, with specific attention to the form and technology of the cinema. Working through and against the intellectual frameworks of post-structuralist and psychoanalytic theory, Doane interrogates cinematic and theoretical claims to truth about women which rely on judgements about v...