Film and television adaptations of classic literature have held a longstanding appeal for audiences, an appeal that this book sets out to examine. With a particular focus on Wuthering Heights , the book examines adaptations made from the 1930s to the twenty-first century, providing an understanding of how they help shape our cultural landscape.

How do works from film and literature—Sister Carrie, Native Son, Meet Me in St. Louis, Halloween, and A History of Violence, for example—imagine, reify, and reproduce Midwestern identity? And what are the repercussions of such regional narratives and images circulating in American culture? In The American Midwest in Film and Literature: Nostalgia, Violence, and Regionalism, Adam R. Ochonicky provides a critical overview of the evolution, contestation, and fragmentation of the Midwest's symbolic and often contradictory meanings. Using the frontier writings of Frederick Jackson Turner as a starting point, this book establishes a succession of Midwestern filmic and literary texts stretching from the late-19th century through the beginning of the 21st century and argues that the manifold properties of nostalgia have continually transformed popular understandings and ideological uses of the Midwest's place-identity. Ochonicky identifies three primary modes of nostalgia at play across a set of textual objects: the projection of nostalgia onto physical landscapes and into the cultural sphere (nostalgic spatiality); nostalgia as a cultural force that regulates behaviors, identities, and appearances (nostalgic violence); and the progressive potential of nostalgia to generate an acknowledgment and possible rectification of ways in which the flawed past negatively affects the present (nostalgic atonement). While developing these new conceptions of nostalgia, Ochonicky reveals how an under-examined area of regional study has received critical attention throughout the histories of American film and literature, as well as in related materials and discourses. From the closing of the Western frontier to the polarized political and cultural climate of the 21st century, this book demonstrates how film and literature have been and continue to be vital forums for illuminating the complex interplay of regionalism and nostalgia.

Most of the papers presented at the Seminar on the Diasporic Eye : Theory and Cultural Interpretation, held at Jaipur during 17-19 February 2007

For too long, the field of amateur cinema has focused on North America and Europe. In Global Perspectives on Amateur Film Histories and Cultures, however, editors Masha Salazkina and Enrique Fibla-Gutiérrez fill the literature gap by extending that focus and increasing inclusivity. Through carefully curated essays, Salazkina and Fibla-Gutiérrez bring wider meaning and significance to the discipline through their study of alternative cinema in new territories, fueled by different historical and political circumstances, innovative technologies, and ambitious practitioners. The essays in this volume work to realize the radical societal democratization that shows up in amateur cinema around the world. In particular, diverse contributors highlight the significance of amateur filmmaking, the exhibition of amateur films, the uses and availability of film technologies, and the inventive and creative approaches of filmmakers and advocates of amateur film. Together, these essays shed new light on alternative cinema in a wide range of cities and countries where amateur films thrive in the shadow of commercial and conventional film industries.

During the interwar period cinema and literature seemed to be at odds with each other, part of the continuing struggle between mass and elite culture which so worried writers such as Aldous Huxley, T.S. Eliot and the Leavises. And this cultural divide appeared to be sharp evidence of a deeper struggle for control of the nation’s consciousness, not only between dominant and oppositional elements within Britain, but between British and American vales as well. On the one hand, films like Sing As We Go, Proud Valley, and The Stars Look Down consolidated the assumptions about the existence of a national rather than separate class identities. On the other hand, working-class literature such as Love on the Dole articulated working-class experience in a manner intended to bridge the gap between the ‘Two Englands’. This book, originally published in 1987, examines how two of the most significant cultural forms in Britain contributed indirectly to the stability of Britain in the interwar crisis, helping to construct a new class alliance. A major element in the investigation is an analysis of the mechanics of the development of a national cultural identity, alongside separate working-class culture, the development of the lower-middle class and the implications of the intrusion of Hollywood culture. The treatment throughout is thematic rather than text-oriented – works of Graham Greene, George Orwell, Bert Coombes, Evelyn Waugh, the British Documentary Film Movement and Michael Balcon are included in the wide range of material covered.

An accessible and thorough introduction to literary theory and contemporary critical practice, this book is an essential resource for beginning students of literary criticism. Covers traditional approaches such as formalism and structuralism, as well as more recent developments in criticism such as evolutionary theory, cognitive studies, ethical criticism, and ecocriticism Offers explanations of key works and major ideas in literary criticism and suggests key elements to look for in a literary text Also applies critical approaches to various examples from film studies Helps students to build a critical framework and write analytically

“Hamlet” by Olivier, Kaurismäki or Shepard and “Pride and Prejudice” in its many adaptations show the virulence of these texts and the importance of aesthetic recycling for the formation of cultural identity and diversity. Adaptation has always been a standard literary and cultural strategy, and can be regarded as the dominant means of production in the cultural industries today. Focusing on a variety of aspects such as artistic strategies and genre, but also marketing and cultural politics, this volume takes a critical look at ways of adapting and appropriating cultural texts across epochs and cultures in literature, film and the arts.