Peter Decherney – författare

As Americans flocked to the movies during the first part of the twentieth century, the guardians of culture grew worried about their diminishing influence on American art, education, and American identity itself. Meanwhile, Hollywood studio heads were eager to stabilize their industry, solidify their place in mainstream society, and expand their new but tenuous hold on American popular culture. Peter Decherney explores how these needs coalesced and led to the development of a symbiotic relationship between the film industry and America''s stewards of high culture. Formed during Hollywood''s Golden Age (1915-1960), this unlikely partnership ultimately insured prominent places in American culture for both the movie industry and elite cultural institutions. It redefined Hollywood as an ideal American industry; it made movies an art form instead of simply entertainment for the masses; and it made moviegoing a vital civic institution. For their part, museums and universities used films to maintain their position as quintessential American institutions.As the book delves into the ties between Hollywood bigwigs and various cultural leaders, an intriguing cast of characters emerges, including the poet Vachel Lindsay, film producers Adolph Zukor and Joseph Kennedy, Hollywood flak and censor extraordinaire Will Hays, and philanthropist turned politician Nelson Rockefeller. Decherney considers how Columbia University''s film studies program helped integrate Jewish students into American culture while also professionalizing screenwriting. He examines MoMA''s career-savvy film curator Iris Barry, a British feminist once dedicated to stemming the tide of U.S. cultural imperialism, who ultimately worked with Hollywood and the U.S. government to fight fascism and communism and promote American values abroad. Other chapters explore Vachel Lindsay''s progressive vision of movies as reinvigorating the public sphere through film libraries and museums; the promotion of movie connoisseurship at Harvard and other universities; and how the heir of a railroad magnate bankrolled the American avant-garde film movement. Amid ethnic diversity, the rise of mass entertainment, world war, and the global spread of American culture, Hollywood and cultural institutions worked together to insure their own survival and profitability and to provide a coherent, though shifting, American identity.

All of the short essays in this volume look past the rhetoric of technological determinism and reliance on the natural logic of the market to consider the power of law and policy to steer new media in one direction or another. Many of the essays look backwards through history or outwards across national borders. They all look forward to how today’s policies will shape the future of the internet and society.

A particular focus of interest for some of the contributors is the revelations that followed Edward Snowden’s mass disclosure of classified documents in 2013, which revealed the U.S. National Security Agency’s systematic and longstanding program of monitoring global communications. Some chapters consider different countries’ varying approaches to regulating the proliferation of online communication, while others assess the current state of digital technology. They all call for policy interventions to solve market failures. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Studies in Media Communication.

All of the short essays in this volume look past the rhetoric of technological determinism and reliance on the natural logic of the market to consider the power of law and policy to steer new media in one direction or another. Many of the essays look backwards through history or outwards across national borders. They all look forward to how today’s policies will shape the future of the internet and society.

A particular focus of interest for some of the contributors is the revelations that followed Edward Snowden’s mass disclosure of classified documents in 2013, which revealed the U.S. National Security Agency’s systematic and longstanding program of monitoring global communications. Some chapters consider different countries’ varying approaches to regulating the proliferation of online communication, while others assess the current state of digital technology. They all call for policy interventions to solve market failures. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Studies in Media Communication.

Iranian films have been the subject of much critical and scholarly attention over the past several decades, and Iranian filmmakers are mainstays of international film festivals. Yet most of the attention has been focused on a small segment of Iranian film production: auteurist art cinema. Iranian Cinema in a Global Context, on the other hand, takes account of the wide range of Iranian cinema, from popular youth films to low budget underground films. The volume also reassesses the global circulation of Iranian art cinema, looking at its reception at international festivals, in university curricula, and at the Academy Awards. A final theme of the volume explores the intersection between politics and film, with essays on post-Khatami reform influences, representations of ineffective drug policies, and the representation of Jewish characters in Iranian film. Taken together, the essays in this volume present a new definition of the field of Iranian film studies, one that engages global media flows, transmedia interaction, and a heterogeneous Iranian national cinema.

Iranian films have been the subject of much critical and scholarly attention over the past several decades, and Iranian filmmakers are mainstays of international film festivals. Yet most of the attention has been focused on a small segment of Iranian film production: auteurist art cinema. Iranian Cinema in a Global Context, on the other hand, takes account of the wide range of Iranian cinema, from popular youth films to low budget underground films. The volume also reassesses the global circulation of Iranian art cinema, looking at its reception at international festivals, in university curricula, and at the Academy Awards. A final theme of the volume explores the intersection between politics and film, with essays on post-Khatami reform influences, representations of ineffective drug policies, and the representation of Jewish characters in Iranian film. Taken together, the essays in this volume present a new definition of the field of Iranian film studies, one that engages global media flows, transmedia interaction, and a heterogeneous Iranian national cinema.

The work of cultural and political theorist Stuart Hall, a pioneer of Cultural Studies who passed away in 2014, remains more relevant than ever. In Stuart Hall Lives, scholars engage with Hall’s most enduring essays, including "Encoding/Decoding" and "Notes on Deconstructing the Popular," bringing them into the context of the 21st century. Different chapters consider resistant media consumers, online journalism, debates around the American Confederate flag and rainbow flags, the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, and contemporary moral panics. The book also includes Hall’s important essay on French theorist Louis Althusser, which is introduced here by Lawrence Grossberg and Jennifer Slack. Finally, two reminiscences by one of Hall’s former colleagues and one of his former students offer wide-ranging reflections on his years as director of Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK, and as head of the Department of Sociology at The Open University. Together, the contributions paint a picture of a brilliant theorist whose work and legacy is as vital as ever.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Studies in Media Communication.

The work of cultural and political theorist Stuart Hall, a pioneer of Cultural Studies who passed away in 2014, remains more relevant than ever. In Stuart Hall Lives, scholars engage with Hall’s most enduring essays, including "Encoding/Decoding" and "Notes on Deconstructing the Popular," bringing them into the context of the 21st century. Different chapters consider resistant media consumers, online journalism, debates around the American Confederate flag and rainbow flags, the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, and contemporary moral panics. The book also includes Hall’s important essay on French theorist Louis Althusser, which is introduced here by Lawrence Grossberg and Jennifer Slack. Finally, two reminiscences by one of Hall’s former colleagues and one of his former students offer wide-ranging reflections on his years as director of Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK, and as head of the Department of Sociology at The Open University. Together, the contributions paint a picture of a brilliant theorist whose work and legacy is as vital as ever.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Studies in Media Communication.

Endless Exodus: The Jewish Experience in Ethiopia is a powerful visual and historical journey into one of the world's oldest and most resilient Jewish communities. Through striking photographs and highly researched narrative, filmmaker and scholar Peter Decherney captures the spiritual endurance, cultural richness, and everyday life of Ethiopian Jews — both those who remain in Ethiopia and those who have made Aliyah to Israel.

Spanning from biblical origins through exile, persecution, and migration, the book weaves together ancient legend, modernhistory, and contemporary portraiture. Decherney’s lens reveals everyday life in Gondar — from matzah baking on injera griddles to children studying Hebrew under corrugated roofs — while tracing the community’s centuries-long longing for Jerusalem.

Featuring a foreword by Sigal Kanotopsky, a leading Ethiopian-Israeli activist, Endless Exodus invites readers to see beyond narratives of suffering and rescue, offering instead a portrait of pride, continuity, and hope. It is both a work of art and a testament to Jewish diversity, identity, and belonging.