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Notions of Genre
Writings on Popular Film Before Genre Theory
Edited by Barry Keith Grant and Malisa Kurtz
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Book Presentation:
Much of the writing in film studies published today can be understood as genre criticism, broadly speaking. And even before film studies emerged as an academic discipline in the 1970s, cultural observers within and beyond the academy were writing about genre films and making fascinating attempts to understand their conventions and how they speak to, for, and about the culture that produces them. While this early writing on genre film was often unsystematic, impressionistic, journalistic, and judgmental, it nonetheless produced insights that remain relevant and valuable today.
Notions of Genre gathers the most important early writing on film genre and genre films published between 1945 and 1969. It includes articles by such notable critics as Susan Sontag, Dwight Macdonald, Siegfried Kracauer, James Agee, André Bazin, Robert Warshow, and Claude Chabrol, as well as essays by scholars in academic disciplines such as history, sociology, and theater. Their writings address major issues in genre studies, including definition, representation, ideology, audiences, and industry practices, across genres ranging from comedy and westerns to horror, science fiction, fantasy, gangster films, and thrillers. The only single-volume source for this early writing on genre films, Notions of Genre will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students of film genre, film history, film theory, cultural studies, and popular culture.
About the authors:
Barry Keith Grant is a professor in the Department of Communications, Popular Culture, and Film at Brock University.
Malisa Kurtz received her PhD from Brock University in Interdisciplinary Humanities.
See the publisher website: University of Texas Press
> From the same authors:
Voyages of Discovery (2023)
The Cinema of Frederick Wiseman, revised and expanded edition
Subject: Director > Frederick Wiseman
Comics and Pop Culture (2019)
Adaptation from Panel to Frame
Dir. Barry Keith Grant and Scott Henderson
Documenting the Documentary (2013)
Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video, New and Expanded Edition
Dir. Barry Keith Grant and Jeannette Sloniowski
Subject: Genre > Documentary
New Zealand Cinema (2011)
Interpreting the Past
Dir. Alistair Fox, Barry Keith Grant and Hilary Radner
Subject: Countries > New Zealand
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (2010)
Subject: One Film > Invasion of the Body Snatchers
American Cinema of the 1960s (2008)
Themes and Variations
Dir. Barry Keith Grant
Subject: On Films > Per period
Five Films by Frederick Wiseman (2006)
Titicut Follies, High School, Welfare, High School II, Public Housing
Dir. Barry Keith Grant
Subject: Director > Frederick Wiseman
> On a related topic:
Reading Contemporary TV Series (2022)
Aesthetics, Themes, and Reception
Netflix, Dark Fantastic Genres and Intergenerational Viewing (2024)
Family Watch Together TV
by Djoymi Baker, Jessica Balanzategui and Diana Sandars
Subject: Sociology
Women Do Genre in Film and Television (2019)
Dir. Mary Harrod and Katarzyna Paszkiewicz
Subject: Sociology
American Film Cycles (2011)
Reframing Genres, Screening Social Problems, & Defining Subcultures
Subject: General
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