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Are you<\/em> in need of a literary fix, dearest readers? Then, be sure to investigate the half-off sale being held by the University of Illinois Press<\/strong> through the end of Friday, June 25<\/strong>. We\u2019ve mentioned them a handful of times on C-U Blogfidential<\/span><\/strong> since they are the only local publisher with a sizeable selection of histories and cultural studies on the cinema, and now might be a golden opportunity to take a closer look! Books in our milieu can be found at the online store under the \u201cFilm & Media\u201d category<\/a><\/span>, but mention of the sale itself is cleverly hidden in plain sight on the home page<\/a><\/span>. I learned of it through their mailing list, so you should join today to make sure that you receive the news first<\/a><\/span>. And then, enter the secret code as shown in the banner above when you check out to save a little money or help you afford a taller stack to peruse.<\/p>\n Trust me, there is plenty<\/em> to select from. Recent volumes, all with titles that describe succinctly what one should expect, include: Unruly Cinema: History, Politics, and Bollywood<\/span><\/strong> by Rini Bhattacharya Mehta<\/strong> (released June 2020), Film and the Anarchist Imagination<\/span>, 2nd ed.<\/strong>, by Richard Porton<\/strong> (rel. Oct. 2020), Laughing to Keep from Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century<\/span><\/strong> by Danielle Fuentes Morgan<\/strong> (rel. Nov. 2020), Fighting Visibility: Sports Media and Female Athletes in the UFC<\/span><\/strong> by Jennifer McClearen<\/strong> (rel. Mar. 2021), Visual Alterity: Seeing Difference in Cinema<\/span><\/strong> by Randall Halle<\/strong> (also rel. Mar 2021), and the latest entry in the \u201cContemporary Film Directors<\/strong>\u201d series, Werner Herzog<\/span><\/strong> by Joshua Lund<\/strong> (rel. July. 2020), which centers on the esoteric output of a favorite Roger Ebert\u2019s Film Festival<\/strong> guest. Many are available as a hardcover, paperback, and eBook; let\u2019s presume the discount can be used to buy any edition and does not apply to other material in their catalog, such as journals.<\/p>\n There is an additional title I’ll mention, should fate allow, for it might as well have been designed with CUBlog<\/span><\/strong> in mind<\/a><\/span>. \u201cIn the 1950s, the gangster movie and film noir<\/em> crisscrossed to create gangster noir<\/em>,\u201d begins the dust jacket description for I Died a Million Times: Gangster Noir in Midcentury America<\/span><\/strong> (rel. Jan. 2021), \u201c[and author] Robert Miklitsch<\/strong> takes readers into this fascinating subgenre of films focused on crime syndicates, crooked cops, and capers.\u201d You can click the \u201cGoogle<\/strong> Preview<\/strong>\u201d button, tucked next to the hard-boiled cover art on the product page, to sample its content if you’d like.<\/a><\/span> A professor of English at Ohio University<\/strong>, Miklitsch has published two previous forays in noir<\/em> studies with UI Press, The Red and the Black: American Film Noir in the 1950s<\/span><\/strong> (2017) and Kiss the Blood Off My Hands: On Classic Film Noir<\/span><\/strong> (2014), along with numerous other books and articles.<\/p>\n ~~~~~<\/p>\n ~~~~~<\/p>\n While researching for this piece the last couple of weeks, I\u2019ve enjoyed the supplemental outreach done by UI Press that I\u2019ve spent time with. Subscribers to the e-mails will receive a link to one complementary eBook every month that can be opened with the Adobe Digital Editions<\/strong> application. A \u201cContemporary Film Directors\u201d monograph on Todd Haynes<\/strong>, the provocative talent behind SAFE, FAR FROM HEAVEN, I\u2019M NOT THERE<\/strong>, and DARK WATERS<\/strong>, happened to be the first title I was given access to. They also post audio and video interviews. An example of the former is this episode of \u201cThe UPside<\/span><\/strong>\u201d podcast<\/a><\/span>, moderated by Elizabeth Hess<\/strong> and featuring Dr. Ronald H. Sadoff<\/strong> and Gillian B. Anderson<\/strong>, co-founders of the journal Music and the Moving Image<\/span><\/strong> and its namesake conference held in New York City<\/strong> every May.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Other conversations are scheduled as livestreams to help launch titles on the eve of release. In a fruitful pairing embedded at the product page for Laughing to Keep from Dying<\/span><\/a><\/span>, for instance, author Fuentes Morgan engages in an hour-long Zoom<\/strong> session with the respected comedian W. Kamau Bell<\/strong>, host of UNITED SHADES OF AMERICA<\/strong> on CNN<\/strong>. Even more goodness appears on the website \u2018blog. Last week, UI Press shared this brief exchange with Jonathan Wright<\/strong> and Dawson Barrett<\/strong><\/a><\/span>, co-authors of Punks in Peoria: Making a Scene in the American Heartland<\/span><\/strong>, and damn<\/em> does it strike a few sharp chords in pretty short order. (Just like punk rock, tra-la!) It\u2019s worth a glance and, if you\u2019ve ever been part of a self-made community that was built to give adequate space to artistic and authentic expression, you will<\/em> relate.<\/p>\n ~~~~~<\/p>\n ~~~~~<\/p>\n Happy book hunting to everyone and, if you aren\u2019t taking advantage of the discount today, be open to gifting yourselves down the road. Coming in July is Movie Workers: The Women Who Made British Cinema<\/span><\/strong> by Melanie Bell<\/strong>, to be followed in October by Movie Mavens: US Newspaper Women Take On the Movies, 1914-1923<\/span><\/strong> edited by Richard Abel<\/strong> and Citizen Spielberg<\/span>, 2nd ed.<\/strong>, by Lester D. Friedman<\/strong> later in January. Also, we should go ahead and mention the journals related to our interests that are issued by UI Press and primarily seen in academic libraries and departments: Journal of Film and Video<\/span><\/strong>, ed. Michael Clarke<\/strong>, Visual Arts Research<\/span><\/strong>, eds. Laura Hetrick, Jorge Lucero<\/strong>, and Sarah Travis<\/strong>, and the aforementioned Music and the Moving Image<\/span>, eds. Robynn J. Stilwell<\/strong> and Sadoff.<\/p>\n The University of Illinois Press has published quality discourse from its Champaign-Urbana<\/strong> offices since 1918. The director is Laurie Matheson<\/strong>, editor-in-chief is Daniel Nasset<\/strong>, and acquisition editors are Dominique J. Moore<\/strong> and Alison K. Syring<\/strong>. Marketing and sales manager is Michael Roux<\/strong>.<\/p>\n ~ Jason Pankoke<\/p>\n p.s.<\/em> The concept behind another book, Voicing the Cinema: Film Music and the Integrated Soundtrack<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/span> edited by James Buhler<\/strong> and Hannah Lewis<\/strong> (rel. Mar. 2020), makes me think of the late UI professor Joseph Tykociner<\/strong> even if music was not the raison d\u2019\u00eatre<\/em> of his sound-on-film experimentation. We\u2019re fortunate that another scholar incorporated his story into a volume published this year<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n p.s.2<\/em> Now I really<\/em> want to read Punks in Peoria<\/span>. I\u2019m allowed to lose myself in a constructive tangent that is not about film and media, right? I would also be curious to compare Wright and Barrett\u2019s approach in relaying this history with the one about do-it-yourself cultural creation that I played a part in<\/a><\/span> so long ago.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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