[acc-cca-l] Book Announcement - Imagining the Method: Reception, Identity, and American Screen Performance

[Justin Rawlins]

[△EXTERNAL]


Dear colleagues,

I am happy to announce the publication of my book Imagining the Method: Reception, Identity, and American Screen Performance<https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477328507/imagining-the-method/> with University of Texas Press.

Using a reception-based approach that combines discourse analysis and textual analysis with cultural history, Imagining the Method explores the interpretive landscape of US popular culture to show how it has yielded a discursive construction of Method acting and actors—what I call “methodness”—that diverged from historical Method philosophies and practices long ago and has in fact eclipsed them in American popular culture. I investigate how prevailing understandings of the so-called Method created an exclusive brand for white, male actors while simultaneously associating such actors with rebellion and marginalization. Drawing on extensive archival research from more than a dozen repositories, this book offers a revisionist history of the Method that shines a light on the cultural politics of methodness and the still-dominant assumptions about race, gender, and screen actors and acting that inform how we talk about performance and performers. I have included several reviews of the book below, as well as a link to the introduction UTP has generously made available for free.

You can get 40% off Imagining the Method now with code UTXGIFTS.

I am more than happy to do in-person or online book/author events. I'm available for in-person and virtual class visits as well. Just email me (justin-rawlins at utulsa.edu<mailto:justin-rawlins at utulsa.edu>) if you are interested and we will make it happen.

Thank you for your time and consideration. Take care!
Justin
--
Justin Owen Rawlins, Ph.D. (he/him/his)
Asst. Prof. of Media Studies and Film Studies
University of Tulsa [located on Mvskoke land<https://utulsa.edu/university-of-tulsa-land-acknowledgment/>]
Faculty Advisor and Executive Producer, TU Media Lab
Book: Imagining the Method<https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477328507/imagining-the-method/>
More: justinowenrawlins.com<http://justinowenrawlins.com/>

Imagining the Method introduction here<https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Imagining_the_Method/wRXgEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Imagining+the+Method&pg=PA4&printsec=frontcover>

Reviews of Imagining the Method:
Imagining the Method is an impressively original, carefully researched, and consistently persuasive demystification of America’s most celebrated acting “school.” The book is valuable not only for its informative history of theater and movies but also for its recognition that the best way to understand “methodness” is to study the discourse surrounding it. Every chapter brims with insights and well-written commentary, especially regarding the implicit social and identity politics behind popular ideas of Method acting. There are also surprises: Who knew, for example, that John Wayne could be so interesting to discuss in this context? Highly recommended. ~James Naremore, author of Acting in the Cinema

If it is true that “acting is the art of the private made public,” then it is also true that we tend to focus on the private aspects of the definition to the exclusion of all else. Thank goodness, then, that we have Justin Rawlins, whose Imagining the Method looks squarely at that “public,” examining how the landscape of response to Method acting shapes acting itself. By limning sources as disparate as gossip columns, studio memos, fan magazines, and celebrity profiles, Rawlins carves out a space for the ever-evolving public interpretations and mythologies that surround Method acting and argues conclusively that this discourse is as important to the history of acting as any work of art of performance. If you care about the evolution of twentieth-century screen performance, you should read this book. ~Isaac Butler, author of The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act

This is an exciting and highly innovative analysis and historicization of Method acting and "methodness" in American cinema. Drawing on wider discourses, paratexts, biography, and contextual setting, Imagining the Method powerfully demonstrates the ways in which Method acting was produced and circulated outside or beyond the screen texts themselves. ~Sean Redmond, author of Liquid Space: Science Fiction Film and Television in the Digital Age



--
Justin Owen Rawlins, Ph.D. (he/him/his)
Asst. Prof. of Media Studies and Film Studies
University of Tulsa [located on Mvskoke land<https://utulsa.edu/university-of-tulsa-land-acknowledgment/>]
Faculty Advisor and Executive Producer, TU Media Lab
Book: Imagining the Method<https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477328507/imagining-the-method/>
More: justinowenrawlins.com<http://justinowenrawlins.com/>
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