Screening the Crisis

Examining the dynamic interplay between screen cultures and various crises underpinning American society - poverty, homelessness, racism, ecological disaster, terrorism, war, and more - this book suggests ways in which mainstream and independent cinema alike have been exploring multiple intersecting dark undersides of contemporary American society. Contributors adopt a cultural studies approach to consider a wide variety of 21st-century films as archives of precarity, barometers of the affective experience of crisis, and, potentially, harbingers of change. --Pamela Robertson Wojcik, Professor in the Department of Film, TV, and Theatre, University of Notre Dame, USA Screening the Crisis' editors have assembled a volume that significantly updates the literature on cinema, crisis and austerity. Comprised of richly textured genre, industry and social histories, the book will be of use to both students and scholars alike. --Diane Negra, Professor of Film Studies and Screen Culture, University College Dublin, Ireland Screening the Crisis is an excellent, and very timely, new volume of scholarly essays that examines the impact of the post-2008 financial crisis as it has played out in American cinema. Engaging with some of the most important films of the 21st century, the collection provides impressive accounts of the multilayered ways in which the crisis took hold of, and shaped, American society. --Yannis Tzioumakis, Reader in Film and Media Industries, University of Liverpool, UK