Performance Studies

Examines how psychological and physical suffering, as portrayed on screen and experienced in personal lives, has affected the images, performances, and fortunes of stars from the 1940s to the present.

Examines the reception, formal strategies, production history, and ideological underpinnings of the groundbreaking comedy-variety show Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.

Considers Montgomery Clift's star persona, film roles, and performances through the lens of queer theory.

Investigates the relationship between Jewish identity and American film from an interdisciplinary perspective.

An analysis of the under-studied sitcom Gilligan’s Island that addresses key questions about American social life in the 1960s.

Examines how generations of African Americans perceive, proclaim, and name the combined performance of race and class across genres.

An analysis of I Love Lucy, one of the best loved sitcoms in the history of American television.

An expanded, updated version of Peter Lehman’s classic text that became the leading source for the study of masculinity, the male body, and sexuality in film.

Three plays by Israel Zangwill, a noted Jewish playwright, published together for the first time in their original form and accompanied by extensive scholarly commentary.