The Spike Lee Reader
Edited by Paula Massood
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Taken together, the essays in The Spike Lee Reader will spark dialogue and encourage a continuing consideration of the depth and complexity of Spike Lee's career.
From his stunning debut, She's Gotta Have It, to his incendiary Do the Right Thing, through Jungle Fever, Bamboozled, and even Inside Man, Spike Lee has found loyal fans and fervid detractors, as well as critical praise, if not always box office success. Lee's films have sparked critical inquiries into the nature of genres, the role of the auteur, and question of whether there is, in fact, a black cinematic aesthetic. According to some critics, Lee's films challenge viewers to engage intellectually with a cinematic "text," to revel in and deconstruct the complexities of each film's polyphonic visual and aural fields.
Gathered in this anthology are critical writings on Spike Lee's films by leading scholars in the fields of Cinema Studies and African American Studies. In sixteen new and reprinted essays, the contributors to The Spike Lee Reader consider the nexus of race, gender, and sexuality in Lee's work, and in doing so encourage readers to further explore the cultural, social, and political implications of Lee's films as well as his entire body of work.
Contributors include: Christine Acham, Toni Cade Bambara, Mark D. Cunningham, Anna Everett, Daniel Flory, Krin Gabbard, David A. Gerstner, Ed Guerrero, Keith M. Harris, bell hooks, Wahneema Lubiano, James C. McKelly, Tavia Nyong'o, Beretta E. Smith-Shomade, Michele Wallace, S. Craig Watkins, and the editor.
About the Author:
Paula J. Massood is Associate Professor of Film Studies, Department of Film, Brooklyn College, CUNY, and author of Black City Cinema: African American Urban Experiences in Film (Temple).
Press Reviews:
"The Spike Lee Reader includes new and several well-known pieces previously published about Lee’s work. The previously published pieces work seamlessly with the newer additions. These pieces provide a foundation to remind readers of the discourse established in response to the first decade of his career concerning representations of gender, sexuality, and class.... The Spike Lee Reader is a necessary addition to the library of researchers and scholars in film and cultural studies. It is also a theoretically rich, interdisciplinary text that will be of use for upper division undergraduate and graduate courses on film, popular culture, and Ethnic Studies."
—American Studies
See the publisher website: Temple University Press
See the complete filmography of Spike Lee on the website: IMDB ...
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