Subject Encyclopedias
 |
Subject encyclopedias are great for:
|
Film Encyclopedias, Guides, and Dictionaries
NOTE: Reference books whose titles do not link to full text are in print only and must be requested in person or via email (libpublicservices.cornell.edu) through the Olin Library Circulation Desk due to their relocation during the Olin renovation. They may not be taken out of the Library, but pages or sections can be scanned and photocopied on site.
-
Cinema Studies: the Key Concepts
Call Number: Current (2018) print edition: Olin PN1993.45 .H36 2018Publication Date: Routledge, 20002nd. edition. 150 entries explore a wide range of genres, movements, theories and production terms with depth and clarity. -
Critical Dictionary of Film and Television Theory.
Call Number: Print copy: Olin Reference PN1993.45 C75x 2001 +Publication Date: Routledge, 2000"Explains the major theoretical approaches and definitions now deployed in the study of screen media. Entries range from longer overview essays which summarise the central paradigms of film and television theory, to shorter definitions of key concepts and introductions to major influential figures." (jacket copy) Includes cross-references, bibliographies, and index. -
International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers
Call Number: Online (click on title above); also Olin Reference PN 1993.45 I61 2000 (print copy)Publication Date: St. James Press, 2000Vol. I of this four-volume set lists and describes approximately 650 international and historical films. Descriptions include production information, a cast list, a plot summary, an essay of the film's place in film history, and a lengthy bibliography. Vols. II-IV focus on Directors/Filmmakers, Actors and Actresses, and Writers and Production Assistants. -
Routledge Companion to New Cinema History
Publication Date: Routledge, 2019Presents the most recent approaches and methods in the study of the social experience of cinema, from its origins in vaudeville and traveling exhibitions to the multiplexes of today. -
Routledge Encyclopedia of Film Theory
Call Number: Olin Reference PN1995 R6855 2014+Publication Date: Routledge, 2013An international reference work representing the essential ideas and concepts at the centre of film theory from the beginning of the twentieth century, to the beginning of the twenty-first. Signed articles by 50 scholars from around the globe address the difficult formulations and propositions in each theory by reducing these difficult formulations to straightforward propositions. -
Routledge Encyclopedia of Films
Call Number: Olin Reference PN1995 R6857 2015 +Publication Date: Routledge, 2015Comprises 200 essays by leading film scholars analyzing the most important, influential, innovative and interesting films of all time. Arranged alphabetically, each entry explores why each film is significant for those who study film and explores the social, historical and political contexts in which the film was produced.
Need a Substantive Bibliography?
Nothing gets your research off to a good start like a substantive, scholarly bibliography. Oxford Bibliographies provide excellent, scholar-curated bibliographies of academic books and articles in a variety of subject areas. For film studies, see:
-
Oxford Bibliographies: Cinema and Media Studies
Provides peer-reviewed annotated bibliographies on film history, television studies, media studies, critical theory, visual arts, cultural studies, digital culture, game studies, popular culture, and the study of the moving image. Bibliographies are browseable by subject area and keyword searchable.
Some Useful Books on Railroads and Trains
-
Parallel Tracks: the railroad and silent cinema
by
Call Number: Print copy in Olin stacks: PN1995.9.R25 K57x 1996Publication Date: Duke UP, 1997Explores and explains the relationship between cinema and the railroad in both historical and theoretical terms, blending film scholarship with railroad history. In analyses of dozens of silent films the author examines how trains and rail travel embodied concepts of spectatorship and mobility grounded in imperialism and the social, sexual, and racial divisions of modern Western culture. -
Train: riding the rails that created the modern world
by
Call Number: Print: Olin stacks HE1021 .Z64 2014Publication Date: Viking, 2014Chronicles the innovation and sociological impact of the railway technology that changed the world, -
Railroads and the American People
by
Call Number: Uris Library stacks, Oversize TF23 .G677 2012 +Publication Date: Indiana Univ. Press, 2012In this social history of the impact of railroads on American life, H. Roger Grant concentrates on the railroad's "golden age," 1830-1930. To capture the essence of the nation's railroad experience, Grant explores four fundamental topics--trains and travel, train stations, railroads and community life, and the legacy of railroading in America. -
We Took the Train
Call Number: Uris Library stacks, Oversize TF23 .W4x 1990 +Publication Date: Northern Illinois Univ. Press, 1990Brings together a rich assortment of personal accounts of train travel in the United States since the dawn of railroading. -
The Railroad in American Fiction
by
Publication Date: McFarland, 2005This extensively annotated bibliography lists and discusses in 956 entries novels and short stories from the 1840s to the present in which the railroad is important. -
Iron Empires: robber barons, railroads, and the making of modern America
by
Publication Date: Houghton Mifflin, 2020"Spanning four decades and featuring some of the most iconic figures of the Gilded Age, Iron Empires reveals how the robber barons drove the country into the twentieth century--and almost sent it off the rails." -
American Railroads: decline and renaissance in the twentieth century
by
Call Number: Olin HE2751 .G337 2014Publication Date: Harvard University Press, 2014
