Journalism and Communication Book List ·

Shakespeare in Production

Whose History?

Shakespeare in Production examines a number of plays in context. Included are the 1936 Romeo and Juliet, unpopular with critics of filmed Shakespeare, but very much a “photoplay” if its time; the opening sequences of filmed Hamlets which span more than seventy years; The Comedy of Errors on television, where production of this script is almost impossible; and the Branagh Much Ado About Nothing, a “popular” film discussed in the context of comedy as a genre.…

Hired Pens

Professional Writers in America's Golden Age of Print

Just as mass-market magazines and cheap books have played important roles in the creation of an American identity, those skilled craftsmen (and women) whose careers are the subjects of Ronald Weber's narrative profoundly influenced the outlook and strategies of the high-culture writers who are generally the focus of literary studies.…

Gender Violence and the Press

The St. Kizito Story

On the night of Saturday, July 13, 1991, a mob of male students at the St. Kizito Mixed Secondary School in Meru, Kenya, attacked their female classmates in a dormitory. Nineteen schoolgirls were killed in the melee and more than 70 were raped or gang raped.…

Freedom in Our Lifetime

Collected Writings of Anton Muziwakhe Lembede

When a group of young political activists met in 1944 to launch the African National Congress Youth League, it included the nucleus of a remarkable generation of leaders who forged the struggle for freedom and equality in South Africa for the next half century: Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Jordan Ngubane, Ellen Kuzwayo, Albertina Smith, A.…

Language, Power, and Ideology in Brunei Darussalam

Contrary to modern theories of developing nations, Brunei Darussalam, which has a very high rate of literacy, is also one of the few countries where the traditional elite retains absolute political power.…

Sight Unseen

Beckett, Pinter, Stoppard, and Other

In Sight Unseen radio drama, a genre traditionally dismissed as popular culture, is celebrated as high art. The radio plays discussed here range from the conventional (John Arden’s Pearl) to the docudramatic (David Rudkin’s Cries from Casement), from the curtly conversational (Harold Pinter’s A Slight Ache) to the virtually operatic (Robert Ferguson’s Transfigured Night), testifying to radio drama’s variety and literary stature.…

From the Uncollected Edmund Wilson

Many of Wilson's writings have been anthologized. But there is another body of work — over fifty fine essays on aspects of contemporary literature and ideas — that have been scattered in a variety of magazines, including The New Yorker, The New Republic, Vanity Fair, and The Nation.…

Sometimes I’m Happy

A Writer’s Memoir

Marshall Sprague’s colorful lifetime spanned the century like a mountain rainbow. Somewhere between the time he learned the true function of the umbrella stand in the Midwest Victorian household of his youth and his first solo train ride to New York City, he surrendered to an innate talent and inquisitiveness that subsequently engaged tens of thousands of his friends and readers.…

The Fifth Directory of Periodicals

Publishing Articles On American and English Language and Literature, Criticism and Theory, Film, American Studies, Poetry and Fiction

The Fifth Directory of Periodicals is expressly organized for scholars in the humanities who are looking for appropriate places to submit manuscripts for publication. The Fourth Directory, published by Donna Gerstenberger and George Hendrick in 1974, provided access to a large selection of periodicals, but it has been out of print for some time.…

A Realist in the American Theatre

Selected Drama Criticism of William Dean Howells

William Dean Howells has long been recognized as the chief spokesman for post-1880s American Realism. Most of his writing appeared in popular magazines, however, and has been lost to us. This collection brings together for the first time his most significant essays about American drama written between 1875 and 1919 and a full bibliography of his writings on drama and theatre.…

Victorian Scandals

Repressions of Gender And Class

In the popular mind, the word “Victorian” still evokes associations of repression, hypocrisy, and prudery. We persist in thinking that the Victorians were perpetually shocked by everything from minor breaches of domestic decorum to ministry-toppling causes célèbres.…

Art and Science of Book Publishing

Now back in print, this volume discusses with authority every aspect of the editorial and financial operations of the modern publishing house. Unlike other books on this subject, The Art and Science of Book Publishing is distinguished by its conceptual approach, viewing the publishing house as a whole, emphasizing both its external and internal environments.…

Early Prose Writings of William Dean Howells, 1852–1861

While William Dean Howells is today best remembered as Mark Twain’s staunchest defender, Howells was, at his peak, the unrivaled man of letters in America: he had no contemporary equal. The achievements of both Twain and Henry James have since surpassed those of Howells in the literary hierarchy, but the work of Howells still remains an important part of American letters.…

Returning to the Scene

Blake Edwards Volume 2

In Volume 2 of their treatment of Blake Edwards’ work, William Luhr and Peter Lehman have continued their critical analysis of the films of one of the United States’ most prolific contemporary film directors.…

Blake Edwards

Until the extraordinary critical and commercial success of “10,” Blake Edwards was mostly known as the director of the immensely popular Pink Panther films. The character of Inspector Clouseau, as played by Peter Sellers, has, in the estimation of some critics, joined the ranks of such classic comic personae as Chaplin’s tramp and Keaton’s stone-faced clown.…

Edmund Wilson

A Critic For Our Time

In the course of a career that spanned five decades, Edmund Wilson’s literary output was impressive. His life’s work includes five volumes of poetry, two works of fiction, thirteen plays, and more than twenty volumes of social commentary on travel, politics, history, religion, anthropology, and economics.…

Native American Folklore in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals

Though study of American Indian cultures had been fostered for several centuries by missionaries and explorers, it was not until he nineteenth century that a disciplined and systematic approach to the study of New World cultures began to emerge.…

Antonin Artaud

Man of Vision

The extraordinary actor–director–writer who developed his talent for self-torture into art to become one of the most vital creative forces of the century.