Explorations in New Cinema History: Approaches and Case Studies

Explorations in New Cinema History brings together cutting-edge research by the leading scholars in the field to identify new approaches to writing and understanding the social and cultural history of cinema, focusing on cinema’s audiences, the experience of cinema, and the cinema as a site of social and cultural exchange.

• Includes contributions from Robert Allen, Annette Kuhn, John Sedwick, Mark Jancovich, Peter Sanfield, and Kathryn Fuller-Seeley among others
• Develops the original argument that the social history of cinema-going and of the experience of cinema should take precedence over production- and text-based analyses
• Explores the cinema as a site of social and cultural exchange, including patterns of popularity and taste, the role of individual movie theatres in creating and sustaining their audiences, and the commercial, political and legal aspects of film exhibition and distribution
• Prompts readers to reassess their understanding of key periods of cinema history, opening up cinema studies to long-overdue conversations with other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences
• Presents rigorous empirical research, drawing on digital technology and geospatial information systems to provide illuminating insights in to the uses of cinema

Richard Maltby is Professor of Screen Studies and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Education, Humanities and Law at Flinders University, South Australia. He has written and edited several books and articles on cinema history, including Hollywood Cinema (Blackwell, 2003).

Daniel Biltereyst is Professor in Film and Media Studies at Ghent University, Belgium, and has written widely on the subject of film culture and controversy in the public sphere.

Philippe Meers is Associate Professor in Film and Media Studies at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. He has published variedly on historical and contemporary cinema culture and audiences.