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                                                  FILM STUDIES

Film has been a central part of popular culture since the early 20th century. It has undergone a number of transformations, from silent to talking, from black and white to color, from celluloid to digital, but always in ways that continue to captivate audiences. From the lightest of comedy to the most serious independent auteurs, the range of film is astounding and deeply important to cultures around the world. From Hollywood to Bollywood, Europe to Asia, and everywhere else around the globe local, national and global markets in film continue to thrive and evolve.

Film studies has been a thriving field for as long as films have been made in the form of reviews and commentaries, and beginning in the 1960s, when academia began to throw off its stuffy attitude towards popular culture, cinema criticism took off and has since become a rich, varied and vitally important field of study.  In addition to resource sites for film study, and a bibliography, below you will find a small sampling of the wide range of critical film analysis available online.

                              Film poster collage

Film poster collage from imgur.

Featured Site

  • Society for Film & Media Studies A major set of resources for all aspects of film studies research, and a meeting ground for the community of film/media scholars.

Some Key Sites for Film Studies

  • Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Most famous for handing out Oscars, the association plays several vital roles in the creation and preservation of cinema.
  • All Movie Guide's Film Finder. Especially useful for finding less well known films.
  • Asian American Filmography. Excellent resource on history and current trends in Asian/Pacific Am film.
  • Bad Subjects. Check out back issues for essays on films.
  • Black Cultural Studies Web Site. Compiled by Tim Haslett, Nimmy Abiaka, and Paula Lee. Includes information about Manthia Diawara, Isaac Julien, Arthur Jafa, and other filmmakers and film critics.
  • Black Film Center.
  • Best of the Web: Film Festivals. Useful guide to film festivals worldwide.
  • Bright Lights Film Journal. Interesting collection of essays and features on current and past cinema.
  • British Film Institute. See especially the sites "education & research" section.
  • Caucus on Class in Film Rich Society for Cinema and Media Studiessite focusing on class as an analytic for understanding film. Includes excellent bibliography and links to journals and organizations treating class in movies.
  • Disabilities in Film. Resources from UC Berkeley.
  • Edison Motion Pictures. American Memory Project site on one of the important sources for early silent films.
  • Film and History. Website from the journal Film and History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television History. Includes comprehensive list of documentary films.
  • Film History. Timeline of major developments in cinema from beginnings to the present.
  • Film Site.org. Useful commercial site concentrating on classic Hollywood films. Includes sections on history of film, strong genre introductions, excellent search engine advice, a strong “best films” list with much information, and a variety of other features.
  • Film and TV Studies Sites. Fine list of academic articles from the “English Server” at Carnegie Mellon.
  • Film Studies for Free. Entertaining & smart blog site on films.
  • Filmmaker.com. Includes links to over 1,000 film production sites worldwide.
  • Frameline. National organization supporting gay and lesbian filmmaking.
  • Gay and Lesbian Film Reviews. Reviews of gay-friendly and gay-unfriendly films.
  • Images: A Journal of Film and Popular Culture. A quarterly website focusing especially on movies of the past (as opposed to most sites, which focus on new releases). Each issue has features, and an “In Focus” section, which concentrates on one aspect or type of film (examples: the Western, Hollywood stars of the thirties, “Sex, Drugs and Exploitation”). Plus, the site features new articles and reviews (of new releases, videos/DVDs, and books) every week.
  • Internet Movie Database. A very comprehensive resource of film information and reviews. Serious students will want to cough up a few bucks for the "pro" edition.
  • LGBT and Queer Film Fine resource from Bright Lights.
  • Movie Review Query Engine. Comprehensive source for finding movies reviews.
  • The Movie Times. A good resource, primarily for box-office-receipt information (including charts of top-grossing actresses and actors, top-grossing films of all time, weekly box-office info, etc.)
  • The Movies, Race and Ethnicity. Fine resource from the University of California, Berkeley library.
  • New York Film Academy Film Festival List. Among the most comprehensive lists of film festivals worldwide.
  • Online Film Studies Journals. A comprehensive list from FSFF.
  • Origins of American Animation. Excellent site from the Library of Congress.
  • The Palace. A web site devoted to “classic” Hollywood films (from the 1920s to the 1950s). The site is mainly composed of well-written articles and well-selected images, as well as some decent links.
  • PopMatters: Film Reviews & essays from one of the best pop culture magazines.
  • Rotten Tomatoes. Take their aggregative reviews scores with a grain of salt, but use them to access a variety of analyses by some excellent critics.
  • Screensite. Academic film and TV studies site on the Web. Excellent on both cultural analysis, and the industry side of film.
  • Senses of Cinema Interesting online film journal.
  • Simply Scripts. Contains an online archives of full-length screenplays, as well as scripts for unproduced movies, television, anime, and radio programs. Also numerous links for screenwriting sites and other movie and film resources.
  • Society for Cinema Studies. Rich, useful academic site, including a discussion list, teaching resources, and information on conferences and other film study activities.
  • They Shoot Films, Don't They? Amusingly curated & rich film resources site.
  • Variety.com. The entertainment magazine Variety, online. An especially good source for info on the business of entertainment (namely: film, TV, and music).
  • Warner Archives A commercial rental site very useful for finding hard to locate older films.
  • Women in Cinema. Dated by still useful reference guide for women in film up to the mid-1990s.
  • The World Wide Web Virtual Library - Film History Index: History of World Cinema. Good comprehensive, well-indexed site that places US film in the wider context of world cinema.
  • 1000 Noir Films

A Sampling of Online Film Studies Articles

Selected Film Genre Links

  • The Astounding B Monster. Cult-movie site featuring essays, profiles, and interviews with stars like James Arness, Dick Contino, Anne Francis, and Mamie Van Doren. Notentirely limited to B-movies, as the name suggests, but definitely concentrating on cult classics.
  • Film Genres. Good introduction from filmsite.org to the various genres, or types, of Hollywood film (Action, Adventure, Film Noir, Musical Comedy, etc), with essays on each genre to get you on your way.
  • Film Noir. Good brief introduction to film noir and its classic examples.
  • Full Text Essays on Film Noir. Six interesting articles on the University of California, Berkeley library site.
  • Martin’s Film Noir Pages. Comprehensive site with filmography, articles, and links.
  • Moving Image Genre-Form Guide. Introduction to film genres based on the Library of Congress's method of categorizing types of film.
  • Origins of Animation. Excellent Library of Congress site on early animation (1900-21).
  • Screwball Comedy. On some of the classic comedies of the thirties and forties, usually featuring "fast talking dames," gender role reversals and intricate plotting.
  • Silent Movies. On the history of the silent film era.

Select Bibliography

[Few topics on popular culture can be adequately researched on the web alone. These reading suggestions are designed as beginning points for further offline study.]

  • Benshoff, Harry and Sean Griffin. America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in the Movies ..Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. One of the better general introductions to the social impact of film.
  • Bogle, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. New York: Continuum, 2001.
  • Classic study (updated in 1998 edition) of African American stereotypes, from silent film era to late 20th century.
  • Clover, Carrol J. Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. The title says it all. Ever wonder why people (maybe even you?) like slasher films? Here’s a sophisticated set of psycho-social answers.
  • Diawara, Manthia, ed. Black American Cinema. New York: Routledge, 1993. Excellent collection of essays on aesthetics, history, and reception of African American film.
  • Doty, Alexander. Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. Witty re-reading of popular figures from film and television who knowingly or not project a "queer subtext."
  • Fregoso, Rose Linda. The Bronze Screen: Chicana and Chicano Film Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993 Classic study of Chicanas as subjects in and creators of film.
  • Guerrero, Ed. Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. Among the very best general works on African Americans and film.
  • hooks, bell. Reel to Real: Race, Sex and Class in the MoviesNY: Routledge, 2008. Compelling study of how films largely fail to capture the kind of social complexity that could assist in progressive social change.
  • Kellner, Douglas. Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics Between the Modern and the Postmodern. London; New York: Routledge, 1995. Broad study that offers both a fully developed theoretical model and case studies ranging from films like Rambo to Madonna videos to Gulf War news coverage.
  • Kilpatrick, Jacquelyn. Celluloid Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. Best general study of images of Native American Indians in mainstream film.
  • Leonard, David. Screens Fade to Black. NY: Praeger, 2006. Incisive study of the positive and negative racial dynamics in recent works of African-American cinema.
  • Reid, Mark. Redefining Black Film. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Important history of the black independent film industry that has long sought to counter and complicate mainstream Hollywood representations of African Americans.
  • Rollins, Peter C., and John E. O'Connor, eds. Hollywood's Indian. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003. Good collection of essays on various portrayals of Indians in film from the silent era to the present
  • Russo, Vito. The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies. New York: Harper and Row, 1981. A groundbreaking book analyzing sex and gender, in regards to homosexuality, in film from the 1920s through the 1980s. There is a documentary film as well based on the book.
  • Walters, Suzanna Danuta. All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. An excellent book looking not only at gay visibility in film but in all forms of media up to its publication in 2001. While this book focuses primarily on television, it does pick up where Russo (above) left off. 
  • Zaniello, Tom. The Cinema of Globalization: A Guide to Films About the New Economic Order. Ithica, NY: IRL Press, 2007. Excellent book on how political economic globalization has been reflected in movies.

See also "Film Studies for Free's" extensive list of open access e-books about film:

  1. Allen, Richard, Malcolm Turvey (eds), Camera Obscura, Camera Lucida: Essays in Honor of Annette Michelson (Amsterdam University Press, 2004)
  2. Armbrust, Walter, editor. Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond. Berkeley: University of California Press, c2000 2000
  3. Balsom, Erika, Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013)
  4. Tim Barnard, South American Cinema: A Critical Filmography 1915–1994 (Originally University of Texas Press, 1996)
  5. Bay-Cheng, Sarah, Chiel Kattenbelt, Andy Lavender, Robin Nelson (eds), Mapping Intermediality in Performance (Amsterdam University Press, 2010)
  6. Bergfelder, Tim, Sue Harris, Sarah Street (eds), Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination: Set Design in 1930s European Cinema (Amsterdam University Press, 2007)
  7. Bijsterveld, K, J. Van Dijck (eds), Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory and Cultural Practices (Amsterdam University Press, 2009)
  8. Bloch, R. Howard, and Frances Ferguson, editors Misogyny, Misandry, and Misanthropy. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1989 1989
  9. Blom, Ivo, Jean Desmet and the Early Dutch Film Trade (Amsterdam University Press, 2004)
  10. Boomen, Marianne van den, Sybille Lammes, Ann-Sophie Lehmann, Joost Raessens, Mirko Tobias Schäfer (eds), Digital Material : Tracing New Media in Everyday Life and Technology (Amsterdam University Press, 2009)
  11. Bordwell, David, Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema
  12. Brunette, Peter, Roberto Rossellini. University of California Press, c1996 1996
  13. Burch, Noel, To the Distant Observer: Form and Meaning in the Japanese Cinema
  14. Burton, Julianne, The Social documentary in Latin America
  15. Byg, Barton. Landscapes of Resistance: The German Films of Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1995 1995
  16. Clemens, Justin, Dominic Pettman, Avoiding the Subject: Media, Culture and the Object (Amsterdam University Press, 2004)
  17. Christie, Ian (ed.), Audiences: Defining and Researching Screen Entertainment Reception (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012)]  
  18. Day, James. The Vanishing Vision: The Inside Story of Public Television. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1995 1995
  19. The Documentary Filmmakers' Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use (Center for Social Media, 2012)
  20. Elsaesser, Thomas (ed), A Second Life : German Cinema's First Decades (Amsterdam University Press, 1996)
  21. Elsaesser, Thomas (ed), Harun Farocki: Working on the Sight-Lines (Amsterdam University Press, 2004)
  22. Elsaesser, Thomas, Jan Simons, Lucette Bronk (eds), Writing for the Medium: Television in transition (Amsterdam University Press, 2004)
  23. Elsaesser, Thomas, European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood(Amsterdam University Press, 2005)
  24. Elsaesser, Thomas, Fassbinder's Germany: History, Identity, Subject (Amsterdam University Press, 1996)
  25. Elsaesser, Thomas, Noel King, Alexander Horwath (eds), The Last Great American Picture Show: New Hollywood Cinema in the 1970s (Amsterdam University Press, 2004)
  26. Flinn, Caryl. The New German Cinema: Music, History, and the Matter of Style. Berkeley: University of California Press, c2004 2004
  27. Fossati, Giovanna, From Grain to Pixel: The Archival Life of Film in Transition (Amsterdam University Press: Amsterdam, 2009) 
  28. Frame, John M., Theology at the Movies
  29. Graham, Seth, ed. Necrorealism (Pittsburgh, 2001) 
  30. Grainge, Paul (ed.), Memory and Popular Film (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003)
  31. Grønstad, Asbjørn, Transfigurations: Violence, Death and Masculinity in American Cinema Amsterdam, 2008)
  32. Grost, Mike, on Fritz Lang, Joseph H. Lewis, Vincente Minnelli, and Raoul Walsh 
  33. Gutiérrez-Jones, Carl. Rethinking the Borderlands: Between Chicano Culture and Legal Discourse. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1995 1995
  34. Hagener, Malte, Moving Forward, Looking Back : The European Avant-garde and the Invention of Film Culture, 1919-1939 (Amsterdam University Press, 2007)
  35. Hediger, Vinzenz, Patrick Vonderau (eds), Films that Work : Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media (Amsterdam University Press, 2009)
  36. Katinka van Heeren, Contemporary Indonesian Film; Spirits of Reform and ghosts from the past (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2012)
  37. Heide, William van der, Malaysian Cinema, Asian Film: Border Crossings and National Culture (Amsterdam University Press, 2002)
  38. Henderson, Brian, and Ann Martin, editors. Film Quarterly: Forty Years - A Selection. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1999 1999
  39. Higashi, Sumiko. Cecil B. DeMille and American Culture: The Silent Era. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1994 1994
  40. Horton, Andrew, Play it again, Sam: retakes on remakes. Berkeley: University of California Press, c 1998 1998
  41. Iampolski, Mikhail. The Memory of Tiresias: Intertextuality and Film. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1998 1998
  42. Jacobs, Lewis, The Rise of the American Film: A Critical History
  43. Johnson, Randal, The film industry in Brazil: culture and the state
  44. Karlstrom, Paul J., editor On the Edge of America: California Modernist Art, 1900-1950. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1996 1996
  45. Sarah Keller and Jason N. Paul (eds), Jean Epstein: Critical Essays and New Translations (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012)  
  46. Kenner, Hugh. Chuck Jones: A Flurry of Drawings, Portraits of American Genius. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1994 1994
  47. Kester, Bernadette, Film Front Weimar: Representations of the First World War in German Films from the Weimar Period (1919-1933) (Amsterdam University Press, 2002)
  48. Kinder, Marsha. Playing with Power in Movies, Television, and Video Games: From Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1991 1991
  49. Kolker, Robert Philip, The Altering Eye
  50. Kooijman, Jaap, Fabricating the Absolute Fake: America in Contemporary Pop Culture (Amsterdam University Press, 2008)
  51. Kooijman, Jaap, Patricia Pisters, Wanda Strauven (eds), Mind the Screen: Media Concepts According to Thomas Elsaesser (Amsterdam University Press, 2008)
  52. Koivunen, Anu and Paasonen, Susanna (eds), Conference proceedings for Affective Encounters: Rethinking Embodiment in Feminist Media Studies (Media Studies, Turku 2000)
  53. Kracauer, Siegfried, From Caligari To Hitler: A Psychological History Of The German Film
  54. Laclos, Michel, Le Fantastique au cinéma (in French)
  55. Langdon, Jennifer E., Caught in the Crossfire: Adrian Scott and the Politics of Americanism in 1940s Hollywood
  56. Lauwaert, Maaike, The Place of Play: Toys and Digital Cultures (Amsterdam University Press, 2009)
  57. Lawrence, Amy. Echo and Narcissus: Women's Voices in Classical Hollywood Cinema. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1991 1991
  58. Leyda, Jay, Kino A History Of The Russian And Soviet Film
  59. Lisboa, Maria Manuela, The End of the World: Apocalypse and its Aftermath in Western Culture (Open Book Publishers, 2011) [Apocalypse Now and Again; The World Gone M A D ; Is the End Ever; Falling Out with Hal and Hester; Utopia at the End of this; Libera Me Domine De Vita Æterna] 
  60. MacKillop, Ian and Neil Sinyard (eds), British Cinema in the 1950s: A celebration (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003)
  61. Martin, Adrian, Last Day Every Day: Figural Thinking from Auerbach and Kracauer to Agamben and Brenez (Punctum Books, 2012)
  62. Matsumoto, Valerie J., and Blake Allmendinger, editors Over the Edge: Remapping the American West. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1999 1999
  63. McGilligan, Patrick. Backstory 2: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1940s and 1950s. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1991
  64. McGilligan, Patrick. Backstory 3: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 60s. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1997 1997
  65. Mittell, Jason, Complex TV (in progress ebook; Media Commons, 2012 onwards)
  66. Münsterberg, Hugo, The Photoplay
  67. Murphy, Timothy S. Wising Up the Marks: The Amodern William Burroughs. Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, c1997 1997
  68. Musser, Charles. Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1991 1991
  69. Paulino Bueno, Eva and Terry Caesar, Imagination beyond nation: Latin American popular culture
  70. Pearson, Roberta E. Eloquent Gestures: The Transformation of Performance Style in the Griffith Biograph Films. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1992 1992
  71. Puro, Jukka-Pekka and Sihvonen, Jukka (eds.), Unfolding Media Studies Working Papers 2010 (Turku: Media Studies, University of Turku, 2011) PDF 
  72. Phillips, Alastair, City of Darkness, City of Light: Emigré Filmmakers in Paris 1929-1939(Amsterdam University Press, 2003)
  73. Pisters, Patricia, Wim Staat, Shooting the Family: Transnational Media and Intercultural Values (Amsterdam University Press, 2005)
  74. Prokhorov, Alexander, ed., Springtime for Soviet Cinema: Re/Viewing the 1960s (Pittsburgh, 2001) 
  75. Pudovkin, V.I. Film Technique And Film Acting
  76. Richie, Donald, Japanese Cinema: Film Style and National Character (University of Michigan Press, Electronic Reprint of 1971 first edition)
  77. Riskin, Robert. Six Screen Plays by Robert Riskin. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1997 1997
  78. Ronald Duncan, Jean Cocteau: Diary of a Film
  79. Rosenbaum, Jonathan. Moving Places: A Life at the Movies. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1995 1995
  80. Eivind Røssaak (ed.), Between Stillness and Motion Film, Photography, Algorithms (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011) 
  81. Rotha, Paul, Rotha On The Film A Selection Of Writings About The Cinema
  82. Rotha, Paul, The Film Till Now: A Survey of World Cinema
  83. Roy, Parama. Indian Traffic: Identities in Question in Colonial and Postcolonial India. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1998 1998
  84. Ruoff, Jeffrey, and Ruoff, Kenneth, The Memory of War: Hara Kazuo's "The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On"(London: Flicks Books, 1998) 
  85. Saunders, Thomas J. Hollywood in Berlin: American Cinema and Weimar Germany. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1994 1994
  86. Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. In a Cold Crater: Cultural and Intellectual Life in Berlin, 1945-1948. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1998 1998
  87. Schoots, Hans, Living Dangerously: A Biography of Joris Ivens (Amsterdam University Press, 2000)
  88. Simons, Jan, Playing the Waves: Lars von Trier's Game Cinema(Amsterdam University Press, 2007)
  89. Smoodin, Eric, and Ann Martin, editors. Hollywood Quarterly: Film Culture in Postwar America, 1945-1957. Berkeley: University of California, c2002 2002
  90. Steene, Birgitt, Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide (Amsterdam University Press, 2005)
  91. Strauven, Wanda, The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded (Amsterdam University Press, 2006)
  92. Tai, Hue-Tam Ho, editor. The Country of Memory: Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001
  93. Thompson, Kristin, Exporting Entertainment: American in the World Film Market 1907–1934 (British Film Institute, 1985) 
  94. Thompson, Kristin, Herr Lubitsch Goes to Hollywood: German and American Film after World War I (Amsterdam University Press, 2005)
  95. Toepfer, Karl. Empire of Ecstasy: Nudity and Movement in German Body Culture, 1910-1935. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1997 1997
  96. Törnqvist, Egi, Between Stage and Screen: Ingmar Bergman Directs (Amsterdam University Press, 1996)
  97. Valck, Marijke de, Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia (Amsterdam University Press, 2007)
  98. Valck, Marijke de, Malte Hagener (eds), Cinephilia: Movies, Love and Memory (Amsterdam University Press, 2006)
  99. Verhoeff, Nanna, Mobile Screens The Visual Regime of Navigation (Amsterdam University Press: Amsterdam 2012)
  100. Verhoeff, Nanna, The West in Early Cinema: After the Beginning (Amsterdam University Press, 2006 [on the emergence of the Western])
  101. Vidal, Belén, Figuring the Past: Period Film and the Mannerist Aesthetic (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012) 
  102. Walker, Michael, Hitchcock's Motifs (Amsterdam University Press, 2005)
  103. Walters, Suzanna Danuta. Lives Together/Worlds Apart: Mothers and Daughters in Popular Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992
  104. Wees, William C. Light Moving in Time: Studies in the Visual Aesthetics of Avant-Garde Film. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1992 1992
  105. Weis, Elisabeth, The Silent Scream - Alfred Hitchcock's Soundtrack (Rutherford, Fairleigh: Dickinson University Press, 1982)
  106. Yeh, Wen-hsin, editor. Becoming Chinese: Passages to Modernity and Beyond. Berkeley: University of California Press, c2000 2000
  107. Youngblood, Gene, Expanded Cinema
  108. Zanger, Anat, Film Remakes as Ritual and Disguise: From Carmen to Ripley (Amsterdam University Press, 2006)
  109. Zielinski, Siegfried, Audiovisions: Cinema and Television as Entr'actes in History (Amsterdam University Press, 1999)
  110. Zolov, Eric. Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1999 1999