THE ROOTS OF REALITY TV in Film & History article...

The most recent issue of Film & History has was mailed
out to subscribers at the end of last week and should be
reaching doorsteps of homes and libraries at this time.
(This is Volume 32.1.)

While most of the essays are devoted to documentary
film and the Holocaust, there is a long review essay by
Jason Landrum and Deb Carmichael on both the series
AN AMERICAN FAMILY and a new book about the series
written by Dartmouth College Professor Jeffrey Ruoff.  The
essay ties in current productions and traces the evolution
of content and style since the 1973 broadcast of AN AMERICAN
FAMILY, a real event in many homes in those years of
social change.

Here are the details:

Landrum, Jason and Deborah Carmichael. "Jeffrey Ruoff's AN
AMERICAN FAMILY: A TELEVISED LIFE.  Reviewing the Roots
of Reality Television." Film & History 32.1 (2002): 66-70.

Here is the data on Ruoff's excellent book, which also tries to
put the documentary into context and to project into the present.

Ruoff, Jeffrey.  An American Family: A Televised Life.
       Minneapolis: U of Minneapolis P, 2002.

Good reading..

Peter Rollins




Peter C. Rollins
Editor-in-Chief
_Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and TV Studies_
(Web site: www.filmandhistory.org)
RR 3 Box 80
Cleveland, OK 74020
(918)243-7637 and fax 5995
[log in to unmask]

Comments: Individual subscription information on the web site
as well as information and FAQ's about the CD-ROMs. There are
also discussion items and essays on Saving Private Ryan, Amistad,
CNN's Cold War, and a host of other topics. The Table of Contents
for the last thirty years is there as well. The last two issues deal with
The Holocaust in Film.

Next conference is in November, 2002 on The American West(s) in
Film, Television, and History at the Kansas City Marriott, Country Club
Plaza--just a few blocks from the Nelson Art Gallery, a major institution
and just next door to the Kansas City Arts Institute. We are looking for
energetic
people to serve as Area Chairs and will put a list of existing and
available Area Chair topics on the web site this summer.

www.filmandhistory.org

Deadline for proposals is 15 August, 2002.  Early proposals
always get the most compatible panels, so do not wait until the
11th hour!   The Luncheon is included in the registration fee: speakers
include Ray B. Browne, John Cawelti, and Jack Nachbar with special
focus on the impact of Cawelti's pioneering book, _The Six-Gun Mystique_
(1971).



     Participating authors who have books they wish to have included in the
     display in Kansas City should contact their publisher and make that
     request. The publisher should contact Debby Pitts at The Scholar's
Choice:
     585-262-2048 x108 / [log in to unmask]



Some years back, we produced a wonderful issue on the The
American Frontier in Film and TV and we are going back to the well.
(See Film & History 26.1-4 [1996]: passim.)

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