Hidden Foundation: Cinema and the Question of Class - Hardcover

James, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0816627045 ISBN 13: 9780816627042

Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press, 1996

Synopsis

Ranging from the earliest days of the cinema to the present, The Hidden Foundation reestablishes class as a fundamental aspect of film history. Featuring prominent film scholars and historians, this volume is unique in its international scope, diversity of perspectives and methodologies, and the sweep of its analysis. The Hidden Foundation begins with a review of the history of class in social and political thought, going on to chronicle its disappearance from film and cultural studies. Subsequent essays consider topics ranging from American and Soviet silent film through Chinese and American film in the fifties, to the restructuring of the working class that was a feature of films of the 1980s in both the United States and Great Britain.

About this title

From the Back Cover

The present collection of essays was occasioned by specific institutional events. At the 1989 meeting of the Society for Cinema Studies, the professional organization of film and television scholars in the United States, one of its several internal interest groups, the Task Force on Race and Class, voted to dissolve and reconstitute itself as the Task Force on Race. The decision to sever institutional consideration of class from that of race and to jettison the former occurred at a moment when demands for increasing the presence of people with color in higher education and for increasing attention to ethnically oriented film practices were regaining some of the momentum lost in the previous decade and a half. - from the Introduction on Chapter One.

About the Author

David E. James is professor of critical studies in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California.

Edition details

• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0816627045
• ISBN 13: 9780816627042
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 312