Christine Geraghty - Böcker

Television studies has come of age as the rapid expansion in media and communications courses shows. The Television Studies Book is a stimulating and challenging collection which analyses how the study of television has developed and points to new approaches dealing with rapidly changing technologies and formats. Chapters on the history and methods of studying television reflect on such issues as the impact of feminism and the development of ethnographic research while specific case studies on topics as varied as US 'people shows', Brazilian telenovelas and the varied use of video in the home give pointed and vivid accounts of current practices. Specially commissioned chapters by scholars such as Lynn Spigel, Jostein Gripsrud, Gillian Branston and Laura Stempel Murnford provide accessible and concise accounts of the main developments in television studies in a book which will become an important resource for students in higher education who need to relate broad overall accounts to more specialised interests being developed through academic research.

In the fifties British cinema won large audiences with popular war films and comedies, creating stars such as Dirk Bogarde and Kay Kendall, and introducing the stereotypes of war hero, boffin and comic bureaucrat which still help to define images of British national identity. In British Cinema in the Fifties, Christine Geraghty examines some of the most popular films of this period, exploring the ways in which they approached contemporary social issues such as national identity, the end of empire, new gender roles and the care of children.Through a series of case studies on films as diverse as It Always Rains on Sunday and Genevieve, Simba and The Wrong Arm of the Law, Geraghty explores some of the key debates about British cinema and film theory, contesting current emphases on contradiction, subversion and excess and exploring the curious mix of rebellion and conformity which marked British cinema in the post-war era.

In the fifties British cinema won large audiences with popular war films and comedies, creating stars such as Dirk Bogarde and Kay Kendall, and introducing the stereotypes of war hero, boffin and comic bureaucrat which still help to define images of British national identity. In British Cinema in the Fifties, Christine Geraghty examines some of the most popular films of this period, exploring the ways in which they approached contemporary social issues such as national identity, the end of empire, new gender roles and the care of children.Through a series of case studies on films as diverse as It Always Rains on Sunday and Genevieve, Simba and The Wrong Arm of the Law, Geraghty explores some of the key debates about British cinema and film theory, contesting current emphases on contradiction, subversion and excess and exploring the curious mix of rebellion and conformity which marked British cinema in the post-war era.

Going beyond the process of adaptation, Geraghty is more interested in the films themselves and how they draw on our sense of recall. While a film reflects its literary source, it also invites comparisons to our memories and associations with other versions of the original. For example, a viewer may watch the 2005 big-screen production of Pride and Prejudice and remember Austen's novel as well as the BBC's 1995 television movie. Adaptations also rely on the conventions of genre, editing, acting, and sound to engage our recall—elements that many movie critics tend to forget when focusing solely on faithfulness to the written word.

This is the first major study of the roles of women in prime time soap operas. In a comparative analysis of British and North American television soaps, Christine Geraghty examines the relationship between the narratives on the screen and the women viewers who make up the traditional soap audience.Within the structure of many of the most popular soaps, such as Dallas, Dynasty, Coronation Street and EastEnders, the split between public and personal life, reason and emotion, work and leisure is turned into a lynchpin of the plot. The author argues that these themes are also linked to broader social divisions between men and women, divisions which soap operas both question and develop as a source of pleasure. Geraghty analyses the critical role of women characters in the families and communities of soaps and suggests that the utopian possibilities of soaps can be used not just to maintain the status quo, but to promote change and influence attitudes and prejudices. She examines the way in which soaps have been transformed in the last decade, looking at how issues of class, race, sexual orientation and feminism have been handled in the programmes. She argues that in pursuing new audiences more recent soaps such as Brookside may have put at risk the pleasures they have traditionally offered their women viewers. Women and Soap Opera is a detailed, thoughtful and wide-ranging analysis which will become a central work in women’s studies and media and cultural studies courses.

Addresses how academic historians engage with Downton Abbey and similar programmes on a personal, intellectual, and professional basisAs representations of history, period dramas perform serious work, and can be used to discuss both historical and contemporary issues (voting rights, war and trauma, reproductive rights). The contributors challenge the narrow view of period drama TV as conservative nostalgia; through sharing their experiences with these series (as consultants, bloggers and public speakers) they suggest ways in which historians can navigate the boundaries between academic and public history. Key FeaturesGives personal accounts of the ways US historians have been publicly in work on one of the most talked-about television dramasLooks at Downton Abbey from historians' perspectives, not to challenge its historical accuracy but to explore how it works as popular historyExplores the divide between public and academic historyBrings together British and American historians to help us understand how British popular culture is used and consumed in different ways