MY thoughts on this snowy morning are..Bravo Frank! Finally, a voice of reason in a field constrained by presuppositions and saturated with a muddled sense of reality. NO field of study should be ideologically-driven. Eleni -----Original Message----- From: Film and TV Studies Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Frank, Michael Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 9:24 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [SCREEN-L] Class in 50s Cinema to adam, and onlookers, a subversive question: for all i know there may be a powerful connection between cinematic excess and consumer wallets . . . but why BEGIN a research project by presupposing this and then asking whether there's any evidence to support it? . . . the whole point of scholarship [in any field] should be to determine what counts [within a given discourse] as an acceptable answer to a significant question . . . the point is not [or certainly should not be] to posit an answer and then search in obscure places for whatever shreds of information might count as evidence i hate to pick on adam, who as a ph.d. student is no doubt simply emulating those whom he sees as defining proper procedure for his field . . . it's precisely the discursive premises of the field itself that this query calls into vivid question -- a question that i find extremely embarrassing thoughts? mike -----Original Message----- From: Film and TV Studies Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Adam Fish Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 4:40 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [SCREEN-L] Class in 50s Cinema Film Scholars, I need to make connections between the late-1940s-1950s rise of the consumerist class, the class of the producers/directors of the musicals/epics/spectaculars of that era, and/or a class explanation for what appears on screen in the 1950s. I am connecting 1950s class to cinema production culture and/or screen events. Can you recommend a book or person to talk to? Was all the musical and spectacular excess of the period an accurate representation of buying power or aspirations for future commodity excess? Yours, Adam Fish UCLA: Anthropology, PhD student Current TV, VC2 Producer ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html ---- Learn to speak like a film/TV professor! Listen to the ScreenLex podcast: http://www.screenlex.org ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu