Christopher Ames – författare

Hundreds of Hollywood-on-Hollywood movies can be found throughout the history of American cinema, from the days of silents to the present. They include films from genres as far ranging as musical, film noir, melodrama, comedy, and action-adventure. Such movies seduce us with the promise of revealing the reality behind the camera. But, as part of the very industry they supposedly critique, they cannot take us behind the scenes in any true sense. Through close analysis of fifteen critically acclaimed films, Christopher Ames reveals how the idea of Hollywood is constructed and constructs itself. Films discussed: What Price Hollywood? (1952), A Star Is Born (1937), Stand-In (1937), Boy Meets Girl (1938), Sullivan's Travels (1941), In a Lonely Place (1950), Sunset Boulevard (1950), The Star (1950), Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Pennies from Heaven (1981), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), The Player (1992), Last Action Hero (1993).

Critics have long recognized the links between community festivals and literary art. The comedies and tragedies of the ancient Greeks grew out of their festivals; Anglo-Saxon poetry was often read at festival occasions; and the structural patterns of renaissance drama are inseparable from their festive origins. In The Life of the Party, Christopher Ames argues that the private party has become the festival of modern culture and has served as a shaping force in the fiction of many important twentieth century writers.Drawing upon and extending theories of Mikhail Bakhtin and others, Ames contends that parties have inherited much of the spirit and social function of festivals and carnivals. In these “controlled transgressions,” ordinary rules of behavior are set aside for a short time, permitting excess and including (usually in veiled form) a ritual encounter with death, as well as a cathartic return to the normal social order when the party ends.In the experimental fiction of James Joyce and Virginia Wolf, the mingling of many voices at the party challenges both social and narrative decorum. For F. Scott Fitzgerald, Evelyn Waugh, and Henry Green, the party becomes a microcosm of a decadent society and informs a festive vision characteristic of the literature that emerged between the wars. And in postmodern works by Thomas Pynchon and Robert Coover, the novelists celebrate the disruptive and liberating force of parties even as they illustrate the dangers of chaos through scenes of the party-gone-wild.With its creative application of literary theory and ethnographic studies of festival, The Life of the Party demonstrates the persistence of the festive vision and its significance in the evolution of modern fiction.

This issue of the Neurosurgery Clinics, Guest Edited by Drs. Jian, Ames, and Shaffrey, presents updates and state-of-the-art approaches to spinal deformity surgery. Spine surgery is a timely topics amongst neurosurgeons, and one that is continually evolving. Articles in this issue include Radiographic and Clinical Evaluation of Adult Spinal Deformity; Use of Surgimap in Osteotomy Planning, Correction Calculation, and Reciprocal Changes; Adolescent Scoliosis Classification and Treatment; Osteotomy for Rigid Deformity; Coronal Realignment, Reduction Techniques, and Complication Avoidance; Cervical Deformity; High Grade Sponylolisthesis; Proximal Junctional Kyphosis; and The Role of Minimally Invasive Techniques in the Treatment of Adult Spinal Deformity.