Imperial Affects: Sensational Melodrama and the Attractions of American Cinema

By Jonna Eagle

Imperial Affects is the first sustained account of American action-based cinema as melodrama. From the earliest war films through the Hollywood Western and the late-century action cinema, imperialist violence and mobility have been produced as sites of both visceral pleasure and moral virtue. Suffering and omnipotence operate as twinned affects in this context, inviting identification with an American national subject constituted as both victimized and invincible--a powerful and persistent conjunction traced here across a century of cinema.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813583020
• ISBN13: 9780813583020
• Release Date: July 2017
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Length: 286 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 8.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher