Visual Studies Commons^™

Teaching Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai, Jack Ryan

Cinema & Media Studies Faculty Publications

This paper offers a method for students to connect with and study Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. This approach begins with the final credits, when director Jim Jarmusch’s “personal thanks” list appears onscreen: “Tsunetomo Yamamoto, Mary Shelley, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Seijun Suzuki, Jean-Pierre Melville, Miguel de Cervantes, Akira Kurosawa, and the Wu-Tang Clan.”

Presented at the Third Virtual Joint Conference of the Literature Film Association and the Association of Adaptation Studies (2024).

Masculinity In American Movie-Musical Films, Christopher Sparks

Fall Showcase for Research and Creative Inquiry

My presentation explores the relation between American masculinity and film musicals. I demonstrate how the dominance of the musical at the box office in the middle of the 20^th century reflects historical events and technological change. Drawing on both scholarly and popular criticism, I show how the images of masculinity that Americans once encountered on the silver screen have transformed as musicals became marginal to popular culture in the United States. My research considers both classic 20^th century musicals, such as Wizard of Oz (1939) and 42^nd Street (1933), and more recent experiments with the genre, including …