moving pictures: An introduction to cinema
A comprehensive introduction to cinema with chapters on film history, film analysis, mise-en-scene, narrative, cinematography, editing, sound and acting, as well as a section on representation with chapters on women in cinema and African Americans in cinema. Designed to be an interactive, engaging and FREE alternative to physical introductory texts. The book lives entirely online and is freely adaptable and expandable.
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Nightshift nyc
New York is the city that never sleeps. But this renowned insomnia would not be possible without the more than 200,000 men and women who work the nightshift – the fry cooks and coffee jockeys, train conductors and cab hacks, cops, docs, and fishmongers selling cod by the crate. Inverting the natural rhythm of life, they keep the city running as it slows but never stops.
In NIGHTSHIFT NYC, Russell Leigh Sharman and Cheryl Harris Sharman tell the stories of New York City nightshift workers. This ethnography of the night investigates familiar sites, such as diners, delis and taxis, as well as some unexpected corners of the night, such as a walking tour of homelessness in Manhattan and a fishing boat out of Brooklyn. The Sharmans show how the nightshift is more than simply out of phase, it is another social space altogether, highly structured, inherently subversive, and shot through with inequalities of power. NIGHTSHIFT presents the narratives of those who sleep too little and work too much, revealing the soul of a city hidden in the graveyard shift of 24-hour commerce when the sun goes down and the lights come up. 2009 Indie Book Awards, Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2009 Outstanding Book Awards, American Society of Journalists and Authors |
"In the city that never sleeps, ways to describe the 24-hour life of New York City abound. But probably no book has ever examined the nature of nighttime work in the city — and of the often forgotten, faceless people who do it — in as great depth and descriptive power as Nightshift NYC."
-New York Times
"This nonfiction tour bypasses generalizations with thorough research and sharp reporting to illuminate a complex and insular world foreign to most New Yorkers."
-City Limits Weekly
"[The authors] contextualize the personal anecdotes of their subjects by seamlessly weaving into the narrative pertinent data on the economy, transportation, health, industry, crime, labor, homelessness, immigration, and New York City history."
-Library Journal
-New York Times
"This nonfiction tour bypasses generalizations with thorough research and sharp reporting to illuminate a complex and insular world foreign to most New Yorkers."
-City Limits Weekly
"[The authors] contextualize the personal anecdotes of their subjects by seamlessly weaving into the narrative pertinent data on the economy, transportation, health, industry, crime, labor, homelessness, immigration, and New York City history."
-Library Journal
the tenants of east harlem
"Rich with the textures and rhythms of street life, The Tenants of East Harlem is an absorbing and unconventional biography of one neighborhood, lying just beyond most tourist maps of New York City, told through the life stories of seven residents whose experiences span nearly a century. Modeled on the ethnic distinctions that divide the community, the book introduces the old guard of East Harlem: Pete, one of the last Italians holdouts; José, a Puerto Rican; and Lucille, an African American. Side by side with these representatives of a century of ethnic succession are the newcomers: Maria, an undocumented Mexican; Mohamed, a West African entrepreneur; Si Zhi, a Chinese immigrant and landlord; and, finally, the author himself, a reluctant benefactor of urban renewal. Russell Leigh Sharman deftly weaves these oral histories together with fine-grained ethnographic observations and urban history to examine the ways that immigration, housing, ethnic change, gentrification, race, class, and gender have affected the neighborhood over time. Providing unique access to the nuances of inner city life, The Tenants of East Harlem shows how roots sink so quickly in a community that has always hosted the transient, how new immigrants are challenging the claims of the old, and how that cycle is threatened as never before by the specter of gentrification."
-From the University of California Press |
"This book is simply excellent. The writing is fluid and compelling, the narrators themselves are fascinating, and the sense of place that emerges from the dense interweaving of narrative, academic research, and theory is rich and finely textured... Works like this could create a foundation for understanding the commonalities between memoir and oral history, or oral history and the personal essay. Anyone interested in works dealing with personal history, urban history, neighborhood history, all with easily accessible cultural and theoretical underpinnings, will want to read Sharman’s Tenants.
-Oral History Review
"This stylish and passionate book revolves around the life histories of seven ethnically diverse residents of East Harlem, including the author. Russell Leigh Sharman skillfully uses these life histories to discuss city-level and supramacro-level (national and transnational) conditions that shape life experiences and changes in East Harlem as well as microlevel social interactions within the neighborhood... This book is useful for undergraduate courses on race and ethnicity and on urban anthropology, and its clear, literary, and often witty writing style will prove popular with students."
-American Anthropologist
"Anthropologist Sharman provides an ethnographic presentation in this significant and successful effort to reach nonspecialists and teaching and learning audiences. He effectively articulates the tension and confusion between individual choice and institutional influences. The narratives constitute marvelous expression and pleasant reading, and capture the cultural insights and "appropriation of histories" relative to Italians, Puerto Ricans, African Americans, Mexicans, West Africans, and Chinese in East Harlem. Sharman's scholarship is aptly evidenced by the richness and timeliness of literature employed, and it efficiently addresses critical housing, education, crime, employment, and immigration public policy issues."
-Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries
-Oral History Review
"This stylish and passionate book revolves around the life histories of seven ethnically diverse residents of East Harlem, including the author. Russell Leigh Sharman skillfully uses these life histories to discuss city-level and supramacro-level (national and transnational) conditions that shape life experiences and changes in East Harlem as well as microlevel social interactions within the neighborhood... This book is useful for undergraduate courses on race and ethnicity and on urban anthropology, and its clear, literary, and often witty writing style will prove popular with students."
-American Anthropologist
"Anthropologist Sharman provides an ethnographic presentation in this significant and successful effort to reach nonspecialists and teaching and learning audiences. He effectively articulates the tension and confusion between individual choice and institutional influences. The narratives constitute marvelous expression and pleasant reading, and capture the cultural insights and "appropriation of histories" relative to Italians, Puerto Ricans, African Americans, Mexicans, West Africans, and Chinese in East Harlem. Sharman's scholarship is aptly evidenced by the richness and timeliness of literature employed, and it efficiently addresses critical housing, education, crime, employment, and immigration public policy issues."
-Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries