東華大學圖書館 |

Nation and Nurture : = Cultural Anthropology, World War II, and the Birth of National Cinema Studies.

紀錄類型:	書目-電子資源 : Monograph/item
正題名/作者:	Nation and Nurture :/
其他題名:	Cultural Anthropology, World War II, and the Birth of National Cinema Studies.
作者:	Brennan, Nathaniel.
面頁冊數:	1 online resource (385 pages)
附註:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-01, Section: A.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International85-01A.
標題:	Film studies. -
電子資源:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=30315413click for full text (PQDT)
ISBN:	9798379773908

Nation and Nurture : = Cultural Anthropology, World War II, and the Birth of National Cinema Studies.
Brennan, Nathaniel.

Nation and Nurture :Cultural Anthropology, World War II, and the Birth of National Cinema Studies. - 1 online resource (385 pages)

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-01, Section: A.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--New York University, 2023.

Includes bibliographical references

This dissertation investigates American cultural anthropology's contributions to the development of early film studies before and during World War II. Through detailed historical reconstruction, it demonstrates how fields of knowledge are formed in part through negotiations between and exchanges across existent disciplines. During the interwar period, anthropology's disciplinary cache increased dramatically. At that time, the culture concept introduced and promulgated by American anthropologists was widely adopted by social scientists in adjacent fields. Elsewhere, efforts to use the insights of the social sciences proactively to address the social unrest of the Depression years, led to greater collaboration between the social and human sciences which sought to understand the dialectical relationship between individual and society. Social scientific film studies emerged in this juncture. When the national emergency shifted from the Depression to the growing threat of fascism and global war at the end of the decade, several key cultural anthropologists began to consider how their professional training and insight could be used to preserve American democracy, boost national morale, and, ultimately, help Americans understand how cultural particularities shaped the worldview, philosophy, and expectations of all peoples ranged into groups, from small isolated communities to industrialized nations. As a form of global cultural currency, cinema was an obvious tool through which to explore these ideas.This is also a story about the development and transmission of ideas as a material process dependent on access to money and resources. As such, it emphasizes how institutions like philanthropic organizations, government agencies, colleges, and universities cultivate and delimit lines of intellectual inquiry. On the other side of the equation are the scholars, artists, and administrators who worked within, outside, and occasionally against these interests. and how new ideas are developed and put into use. Taking these two extremes into account helps to contextualize the situation in which ideas and theories come to fruition - this relationship also helps us understand what happens when new ideas have run their course. Several issues deriving from this materialist view of intellectual history recur throughout the dissertation. The first issue is the development of ideas about cinema's usefulness. Thanks largely to capital investments from the Rockefeller Foundation, the ways that scholars thought about cinema changed dramatically in the latter half of the 1930s. Cinema, in addition to being a form of popular entertainment, could be used as a tool of social scientific instrumentation. It could be developed into as an educational or documentary tool. Alternately, popular films could be taken apart and analyzed as sources of cultural intelligence about how people think and perceive the world. The second concept begins as a core tenet of cultural anthropology: culture is relative and malleable, but to the individual enmeshed within a culture it appears to be universal. Abstracting from that idea, anthropologists argued that these cultural regularities, when applied to complex modern cultures - i.e., the nation - constituted a definable national character. Combining these two concepts - useful cinema and national character - during World War II laid the foundation for a quasi-scientific (and therefore legitimate) understanding of cultural character.

Electronic reproduction.
Ann Arbor, Mich. :
ProQuest,
2023

Mode of access: World Wide Web

ISBN: 9798379773908Subjects--Topical Terms:

2122736
Film studies.
Subjects--Index Terms:

AnthropologyIndex Terms--Genre/Form:

542853
Electronic books.

Nation and Nurture : = Cultural Anthropology, World War II, and the Birth of National Cinema Studies.
LDR:04900nmm a2200397K 4500 001 2359221
005 20230918120626.5
006 m o d
007 cr mn ---uuuuu
008 241011s2023 xx obm 000 0 eng d
020 $a 9798379773908
035 $a (MiAaPQ)AAI30315413
035 $a AAI30315413
040 $a MiAaPQ $b eng $c MiAaPQ $d NTU
100 1 $a Brennan, Nathaniel. $3 3699812
245 1 0 $a Nation and Nurture : $b Cultural Anthropology, World War II, and the Birth of National Cinema Studies.
264 0 $c 2023
300 $a 1 online resource (385 pages)
336 $a text $b txt $2 rdacontent
337 $a computer $b c $2 rdamedia
338 $a online resource $b cr $2 rdacarrier
500 $a Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-01, Section: A.
500 $a Advisor: Polan, Dana.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--New York University, 2023.
504 $a Includes bibliographical references
520 $a This dissertation investigates American cultural anthropology's contributions to the development of early film studies before and during World War II. Through detailed historical reconstruction, it demonstrates how fields of knowledge are formed in part through negotiations between and exchanges across existent disciplines. During the interwar period, anthropology's disciplinary cache increased dramatically. At that time, the culture concept introduced and promulgated by American anthropologists was widely adopted by social scientists in adjacent fields. Elsewhere, efforts to use the insights of the social sciences proactively to address the social unrest of the Depression years, led to greater collaboration between the social and human sciences which sought to understand the dialectical relationship between individual and society. Social scientific film studies emerged in this juncture. When the national emergency shifted from the Depression to the growing threat of fascism and global war at the end of the decade, several key cultural anthropologists began to consider how their professional training and insight could be used to preserve American democracy, boost national morale, and, ultimately, help Americans understand how cultural particularities shaped the worldview, philosophy, and expectations of all peoples ranged into groups, from small isolated communities to industrialized nations. As a form of global cultural currency, cinema was an obvious tool through which to explore these ideas.This is also a story about the development and transmission of ideas as a material process dependent on access to money and resources. As such, it emphasizes how institutions like philanthropic organizations, government agencies, colleges, and universities cultivate and delimit lines of intellectual inquiry. On the other side of the equation are the scholars, artists, and administrators who worked within, outside, and occasionally against these interests. and how new ideas are developed and put into use. Taking these two extremes into account helps to contextualize the situation in which ideas and theories come to fruition - this relationship also helps us understand what happens when new ideas have run their course. Several issues deriving from this materialist view of intellectual history recur throughout the dissertation. The first issue is the development of ideas about cinema's usefulness. Thanks largely to capital investments from the Rockefeller Foundation, the ways that scholars thought about cinema changed dramatically in the latter half of the 1930s. Cinema, in addition to being a form of popular entertainment, could be used as a tool of social scientific instrumentation. It could be developed into as an educational or documentary tool. Alternately, popular films could be taken apart and analyzed as sources of cultural intelligence about how people think and perceive the world. The second concept begins as a core tenet of cultural anthropology: culture is relative and malleable, but to the individual enmeshed within a culture it appears to be universal. Abstracting from that idea, anthropologists argued that these cultural regularities, when applied to complex modern cultures - i.e., the nation - constituted a definable national character. Combining these two concepts - useful cinema and national character - during World War II laid the foundation for a quasi-scientific (and therefore legitimate) understanding of cultural character.
533 $a Electronic reproduction. $b Ann Arbor, Mich. : $c ProQuest, $d 2023
538 $a Mode of access: World Wide Web
650 4 $a Film studies. $3 2122736
650 4 $a Cultural anthropology. $3 2122764
650 4 $a Cinematography. $3 546522
653 $a Anthropology
653 $a Bateson, Gregory
653 $a Disciplinary history
653 $a Modern Art Film Library
653 $a Rockefeller foundation
655 7 $a Electronic books. $2 lcsh $3 542853
690 $a 0900
690 $a 0326
690 $a 0435
710 2 $a ProQuest Information and Learning Co. $3 783688
710 2 $a New York University. $b Cinema Studies. $3 1022523
773 0 $t Dissertations Abstracts International $g 85-01A.
856 4 0 $u http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=30315413 $z click for full text (PQDT)