Gary R. Edgerton - Böcker

For nearly two centuries, Americans have embraced the Western like no other artistic genre. Creators and consumers alike have utilized this story form in literature, painting, film, radio and television to explore questions of national identity and purpose. Westerns: The Essential Collection comprises the Journal of Popular Film and Television’s rich and longstanding legacy of scholarship on Westerns with a new special issue devoted exclusively to the genre. This collection examines and analyzes the evolution and significance of the screen Western from its earliest beginnings to its current global reach and relevance in the 21st century.Westerns: The Essential Collection addresses the rise, fall and durability of the genre, and examines its preoccupation with multicultural matters in its organizational structure. Containing eighteen essays published between 1972 and 2011, this seminal work is divided into six sections covering Silent Westerns, Classic Westerns, Race and Westerns, Gender and Westerns, Revisionist Westerns and Westerns in Global Context. A wide range of international contributors offer original critical perspectives on the intricate relationship between American culture and Western films and television series. Westerns: The Essential Collection places the genre squarely within the broader aesthetic, socio-historical, cultural and political dimensions of life in the United States as well as internationally, where the Western has been reinvigorated and reinvented many times. This groundbreaking anthology illustrates how Western films and television series have been used to define the present and discover the future by looking backwards at America’s imagined past.

For nearly two centuries, Americans have embraced the Western like no other artistic genre. Creators and consumers alike have utilized this story form in literature, painting, film, radio and television to explore questions of national identity and purpose. Westerns: The Essential Collection comprises the Journal of Popular Film and Television’s rich and longstanding legacy of scholarship on Westerns with a new special issue devoted exclusively to the genre. This collection examines and analyzes the evolution and significance of the screen Western from its earliest beginnings to its current global reach and relevance in the 21st century.Westerns: The Essential Collection addresses the rise, fall and durability of the genre, and examines its preoccupation with multicultural matters in its organizational structure. Containing eighteen essays published between 1972 and 2011, this seminal work is divided into six sections covering Silent Westerns, Classic Westerns, Race and Westerns, Gender and Westerns, Revisionist Westerns and Westerns in Global Context. A wide range of international contributors offer original critical perspectives on the intricate relationship between American culture and Western films and television series. Westerns: The Essential Collection places the genre squarely within the broader aesthetic, socio-historical, cultural and political dimensions of life in the United States as well as internationally, where the Western has been reinvigorated and reinvented many times. This groundbreaking anthology illustrates how Western films and television series have been used to define the present and discover the future by looking backwards at America’s imagined past.

From Ken Burns's documentaries to historical dramas such as Roots, from A&E's Biography series to CNN, television has become the primary source for historical information for tens of millions of Americans today. Why has television become such a respected authority? What falsehoods enter our collective memory as truths? How is one to know what is real and what is imagined -- or ignored -- by producers, directors, or writers? Gary Edgerton and Peter Rollins have collected a group of essays that answer these and many other questions. The contributors examine the full spectrum of historical genres, but also institutions such as the History Channel and production histories of such series as The Jack Benny Show, which ran for fifteen years. The authors explore the tensions between popular history and professional history, and the tendency of some academics to declare the past "off limits" to nonscholars. Several of them point to the tendency for television histories to embed current concerns and priorities within the past, as in such popular shows as Quantum Leap and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. The result is an insightful portrayal of the power television possesses to influence our culture.

Thinking Outside the Box brings together some of the best and most challenging scholarship about TV genres, exploring their genesis, their functions and development, and the interaction of disparate genres. The authors argue that genre is a process rather than a static category and that it signifies much about the people who produce and watch the shows. In addition to considering traditional genres such as sitcoms, soap operas, and talk shows, the contributors explore new hybrids, including reality programs, teen-oriented science fiction, and quality dramas, and examine how many of these shows have taken on a global reach. Identifying historical continuities and envisioning possible trends, this is the richest and most current study of how television genres form, operate, and change.

A comprehensive and compelling examination of one of cable television's most innovative and popular networks, The Essential HBO Reader looks at every aspect of HBO's development as a corporation, a creative voice, and a brand. The authors explore the network's diverse repertoire of programming, from drama to comedy to documentaries and sports -- including such acclaimed shows as The Sopranos, Sex in the City, Angels in America, America Undercover, and Def Comedy Jam -- as they detail HBO's nearly forty-year history and its profound influence on the entertainment industry.

From its premiere in 1999, The Sopranos captivated viewers with its easily relatable protagonist who has troubles at work and home, and went on to be one of the most critically successful shows in television history. By demonstrating that TV could be at once artistic and profitable, complex and engaging, edifying and entertaining, the series also redefined the prime-time drama. In this volume, author Gary R. Edgerton delves into the entire run of The Sopranos, integrating the existing scholarly literature, while also going much further than any previous source in exploring the series' innovations and legacy.First, Edgerton describes and analyzes The Sopranos' enormous business and industrial significance within the context of HBO as a network, a diversified entertainment company, and an identity brand. In chapter 2, he examines the many autobiographical influences and work experiences of creator David Chase and the narrative antecedents that informed the series' beginnings. In chapter 3, Edgerton underscores The Sopranos' deeply evocative sense of place, honing in especially on the cultural geography of New Jersey as representative of the nation as a whole. Finally, in chapter 4, Edgerton highlights how The Sopranos marks ""A Midlife Crisis for the Gangster Genre"" by illustrating some of the most profound generic transformations that took place over the course of the show, while his conclusion summarizes The Sopranos' ongoing industrial, aesthetic, and cultural legacy.The Sopranos is widely recognized in both popular and scholarly literature as a turning point in the history and development of TV. Fans who want to learn more about the show and scholars of television history will enjoy this entertaining and educational volume.

This one-stop primer offers a succinct analysis of one of the most skillfully produced, artistically innovative, and culturally resonant scripted series in modern television. It opens by explaining how Mad Men (AMC, 2007–2015) functions as a representative example of much deeper and more profound structural changes happening in television since the 2000s. Gary R. Edgerton highlights influences driving the creation of the show, including creator Matthew Weiner's personal connections to the subject matter and the development of the main character, Don Draper (Jon Hamm). Analysis of the show's story progression is delineated by a pivotal shift from a culturally relevant Zeitgeist phenomenon to a narrative more concerned with Draper's introspective and existential journey to reconciliation and self-awareness. Cultural reflections are also explored with interrogations of privilege and prejudice, the American Dream, ethnicity, race, gender politics, and class as witnessed through the program's complex and conflicted characters. Following its debut, Mad Men quickly became a bellwether of contemporary culture. The award-winning series set the creative standard in drama over the span of its initial run and is now recognized as a milestone in the history and development of scripted television. Throughout its seven seasons, the series struck a delicate balance of being both complex and cerebral while also entertaining and accessible, a balance that Edgerton skillfully carries over to this book.