Book Announcement: GENRE AND PERFORMANCE: FILM AND TELEVISION Edited by Christine Cornea 25 May 2010, Manchester University Press Looking at contemporary film and television, this book explores how popular genres frame our understanding of on-screen performance. Genre and Performance brings together ground-breaking and inspiring work on this topic from both renowned and newer academics in the field. Previous studies of screen performance have tended to fix upon star actors, directors and programme makers, or they have concentrated upon particular training and acting styles. Moving outside of these confines, this book provides a truly interdisciplinary account of performance in film and television and examines a much neglected area in our understanding of how popular genres and performance intersect on screen. Contents: List of illustrations Contributor biographies Acknowledgements Editor’s introduction – Christine Cornea 1. Film noir: gesture under pressure – Cynthia Baron 2. Captured ghosts: horror acting in the 1970s British television drama – Richard J. Hand 3. Docudrama performance: realism, recognition and representation – Jonathan Bignell 4. Living stories: performance in the contemporary biopic – Dennis Bingham 5. Borders and boundaries in Deadwood – Steven Peacock 6. The Colbert Report: performing the news as parody for the postmodern viewer – Gwendolyn Audrey Foster 7. Contemporary comedy performance in British sitcom – Brett Mills 8. 2-D performance and the re-animated actor in science fiction cinema – Christine Cornea 9. The multiple determinants of television acting – Roberta Pearson 10. Bollywood blends: genre and performance in Shahrukh Khan’s post-millennial films – Rayna Denison Index Reviews: ‘Offering a rich variety of texts and critical perspectives, this illuminating collection of essays will add a great deal to the analysis of genre within Screen Studies. Its focus on performance provides a particularly welcomed approach to the field, one that has often been notoriously undervalued and overlooked in the past. In doing so, it produces an essential, eclectic and original contribution to a set of issues and critical debates that will have a far reaching implication on the study of film and television for many years to come.’ Glen Creeber, Aberystwyth University. ‘This welcome collection advances critical work on screen performance by moving away from the traditional focus on individual stars, directors or training practices. Instead we have an original, stimulating and diverse volume of essays which shifts attention onto the crucial relationship between genre and performance. With its refreshingly interdisciplinary approach, it provides not only new perspectives on film genre, but interventions into the neglected and undervalued field of television performance. Genre theory promises to remain a contested but fundamental area of film and television studies; this book makes a valuable contribution to debates in the field and refines our understanding of both genre and performance, and the important confluence between them.’ Deborah Jermyn, Roehampton University. Manchester University Press:http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/catalogue/book.asp?id=1204535 Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Genre-Performance-Television-Christine-Cornea/dp/0719079802/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275642839&sr=1-3 Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Genre-Performance-Television-Christine-Cornea/dp/0719079802/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275642708&sr=1-2 _________________________________________________________________ http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/ ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu