Screen Ages: A Survey of American Cinema

by John Alberti

Screen Ages is a valuable guide for students exploring the complex and vibrant history of US cinema and showing how this film culture has grown, changed and developed. Covering key periods from across American cinema history, John Alberti explores the social, technological and political forces that have shaped cinematic output and the varied impacts cinema of on US society. Each chapter has a series of illuminating key features, Screen Ages illustrates how the history of US cinema has always been and continues to be one of multiple screens, audiences, venues, and markets. It is an essential text for all those wanting to understand of power of American cinema throughout history and the challenges for its future. The book is also supported by a companion website, featuring additional case studies, an interactive blog, a quiz bank for each chapter and an online chapter, ‘Screen Ages Today’ that will be updated to discuss the latest developments in American cinema.

318 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2014

About the author

John Alberti is professor of English and chair of the English department at Northern Kentucky University, and he has published widely in the areas of cinema studies, writing studies, and popular culture. He is editor of Leaving Springfield: The Simpsons and the Possibility of Oppositional Culture, and the author of several titles including Screen Ages: A Survey of American Cinema, Masculinity in the Contemporary Romantic Comedy: Gender as Genre, and The Killing.