Popular Culture and Politics
Brooklyn For Peace’s very own Vice Co-chair, Bruce Altshuler, has written multiple books on this topic. In March 2021 he wrote this article – “The Changing Face of Capital Punishment Films: Just Mercy and Clemency,” Journal of Popular Film and Television,” Volume 49, No. 1 (March 2021). He is currently working on a book about movies on the subject of freedom of the press.
In his own words:
“When I started teaching, my main field was American politics with a specialty of the American presidency. About 15 years ago, I began to combine that with my interest in film and theater, starting to teach a course on politics and film, then writing a book on plays about presidents. I have written the following books since then.”
Bruce Altshuler
Evolving American Presidency: Acting Presidents: 100 years of Plays about the Presidency (2011)
Author: Bruce Altschuler
This book seeks to fill a major gap in the literature about fictional representations of presidents by studying more than 40 plays, written since 1900, which have had prominent productions on or off-Broadway or in another major city. READ
Shakespeare and Politics: What a Sixteenth-Century Playwright Can Tell Us about Twenty-First Century Politics (2014)
Edited by Bruce Altschuler, Michael Genovese
William Shakespeare more than any other author was able to capture the essence of human nature in all of its manifestations. His political plays offer enduring insights into our humanity, our vanity, our noble and baser drives, what makes us great, what makes us loathsome. READ
Seeing through the Screen: Interpreting American Political Film (Hardcover edition 2017, Paperback 2019)
Author: Bruce E. Altschuler
Although films affect and reflect the way Americans look at politics, they have received far less attention than television or newspapers. This is changing, particularly on college campuses, where courses on politics and film are growing in popularity. This book consists of short essays on approximately fifty American political films. READ
Lights, Camera, Execution!: Cinematic Portrayals of Capital Punishment (2019)
Author: Helen J. Knowles; Bruce E. Altschuler and Jaclyn Schildkraut
Lights, Camera, Execution!: Cinematic Portrayals of Capital Punishment fills a prominent void in the existing film studies and death penalty literature. Each chapter focuses on a particular cinematic portrayal of the death penalty in the United States. Some of the analyzed films are well-known Hollywood blockbusters, such as Dead Man Walking (1995)…… READ
