New Books in Film

Mar 07 2025 765 ep. 56 mins 1.4k

New Books in Film Podcast artwork

Interviews with Scholars of Film about their New Books

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Eric Dienstfrey, "Making Stereo Fit: The History of a Disquieting Film Technology" (U California Press, 2024)

Mar 07 2025 78 mins

Surround sound is often mistaken as a relatively new phenomenon in cinemas, one that emerged in the 1970s with the arrival of Dolby. Making Stereo Fit: The History of a Disquieting Film Technology (University of California Press, 2024) reveals that, in fact, filmmakers have been creating stereo and surround-sound effects for nearly a century, since the advent of talking pictures, a

Nadira Khatun, "Postcolonial Bollywood and Muslim Identity: Production, Representation, and Reception" (Oxford UP, 2024)

Mar 07 2025 46 mins

In Postcolonial Bollywood and Muslim Identity: Production, Representation, and Reception (Oxford UP, 2024), Nadira Khatun explores the contentious Muslim identity in contemporary India as reflected in recent Bollywood films. She argues that the approach towards Muslim identity in Bollywood films are influenced by the changing political landscape from Nehruvian India to the rise of

Chris Alexander, "Art! Trash! Terror! Adventures in Strange Cinema" (Headpress, 2025)

Mar 06 2025 57 mins

ART! TRASH! TERROR! Adventures in Strange Cinema (Headpress 2025) by Chris Alexander is a treasure trove of in-depth essays and edifying interviews that celebrate some of the most eccentric and unforgettable movies in cult cinema history. From recognized classics (George A. Romero's Dawn Of The Dead, David Lynch's The Elephant Man) to misunderstood masterpieces (Michael Mann's The

Alfie Bown, "Post-Comedy" (Polity, 2025)

Mar 05 2025 71 mins

Not so long ago, comedy and laughter were a shared experience of relief, as Freud famously argued. At their best, ribbing, roasting, piss-taking and insulting were the foundation of a kind of universal culture from which friendship, camaraderie and solidarity could emerge. Now, comedy is characterized by edgy humour and misplaced jokes that provoke personal and social anxiety, caus

Joseph Jonghyun Jeon, "Bong Joon Ho" (U Illinois Press, 2024)

Mar 04 2025 46 mins

Successful cult films like The Host and Snowpiercer proved to be harbingers for Bong Joon Ho's enormous breakthrough success with Parasite. In Bong Joon Ho (U Illinois Press, 2024), Joseph Jonghyun Jeon provides a consideration of the director's entire career and the themes, ambitions, techniques, and preoccupations that infuse his works. As Jeon shows, Bong's sense of spatial and

Kate Fortmueller and Luci Marzola, "Hollywood Unions" (Rutgers UP, 2024)

Mar 04 2025 56 mins

Hollywood Unions (Rutgers UP, 2024) is a unique collection that tells the stories of the unions and guilds that have organized motion picture and television labor: IATSE, the DGA, SAG-AFTRA, and the WGA. The Hollywood unions represent a wide swath of the workers making media: from directors and stars to grips and makeup artists. People today know some of these organizations from th

Waiyee Loh, "Empire of Culture: Neo-Victorian Narratives in the Global Creative Economy" (SUNY Press, 2024)

Mar 03 2025 33 mins

Empire of Culture: Neo-Victorian Narratives in the Global Creative Economy (SUNY Press, 2024) by Dr. Waiyee Loh brings together contemporary representations of Victorian Britain to reveal how the nation's imperial past inheres in the ways post-imperial subjects commodify and consume "culture" in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The globalization of English liter

Esha Niyogi De, "Women's Transborder Cinema: Authorship, Stardom, and Filmic Labor in South Asia" (U Illinois Press, 2024)

Mar 01 2025 76 mins

Can we write women’s authorial roles into the history of industrial cinema in South Asia? How can we understand women’s creative authority and access to the film business infrastructure in this postcolonial region? In Women’s Transborder Cinema: Authorship, Stardom, and Filmic Labor in South Asia (University of Illinois Press, 2024), Esha Niyogi De draws on rare archival and

William Burns, "Ghost of an Idea: Hauntology, Folk Horror, and the Spectre of Nostalgia" (Headpress, 2025)

Feb 25 2025 46 mins

The future ain't what it used to be. Is nostalgia revitalizing or killing 21st-century culture? The concept of nostalgia has seeped into almost all aspects of modern-day media, none more so than horror culture and its borderlands of Hauntology, Folk Horror, and found footage film. From film and TV franchises building endlessly on past glories, to musicians whose work now spans deca

Florence Martin, "Farida Benlyazid and Moroccan Cinema" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)

Feb 25 2025 78 mins

Farida Benlyazid and Moroccan Cinema (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) unfolds and analyzes the work of Moroccan director, producer, and scriptwriter Farida Benlyazid, whose career extends from the beginning of cinema in independent Morocco to the present. This study of her work and career provides a unique perspective on an under-represented cinema, the gender politics of cinema in Moroc