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To read more discussions of American art, thought, and culture by Prof. Carney, you may purchase any of the three following books:
 American Vision: The Films of Frank Capra
 A Modern Mosaic: Art and Modernism in the United States
 The Revival of Pragmatism: New Essays on Social Thought, Law, and Culture

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Ray Carney, American Vision: The Films of Frank Capra (Hanover, N.H. University Press of New England, 1996), 88 illustrations, paperback, 510 pages. This book is available directly from the author for $20.

The first interdisciplinary study of America's best-known filmmaker. In this daring and unorthodox study, Ray Carney places the work of Frank Capra in the great tradition of American transcendentalism–along with paintings by Homer, Eakins, Sargent, Hopper and the writings of Emerson, Poe, Hawthorne, and William and Henry James, among others.

Interweaving wide-ranging discussions of American literature, drama, and painting and the work of other filmmakers with detailed analyses of such films as It's a Wonderful Life, Meet John Doe, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Carney finds in Capra's life and work a classic American struggle for self-expression within the repressive structures of ordinary life. In this larger cultural context, Capra emerges as something far more radical than the social realist he is often taken to be–as a visionary determined to unleash "mysterious, distinctive, personal energies that defy social understandings or control."

American Vision was reprinted in 1996 with a new Preface outlining recent developments in Capra criticism, and detailing the shortcomings of current Cultural Studies approaches to his work.

For reviews and critical responses to American Vision: The Films of Frank Capra, please click here. (Use your back button to return to this page.)

This book is available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble , your local bookseller, or, for a limited time, directly from the author (in discounted and specially autographed editions). See below for information how to order this book directly from the author by money order, check, or credit card. Clicking on the above links will open a new window in your browser. You may return to this page by closing that window or by clicking on the window for this page again.

 

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Ray Carney has the longest and most ambitious essay he has ever written about film and philosophy in the following book. The essay is more than 40,000 words long.

A Modern Mosaic: Art and Modernism in the United States, Edited by Townsend Ludington
(University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 225 b&w illustrations, paperback, 472 pages. This book is available directly from this site for $29.

The modernist movement has shaped our era as has no other. This insightful collection of original essays explores the impact of modernism on American culture and the ways in which modernism remains a key to understanding American art and society.

An impressive cast of scholars examines works and their creators across the whole spectrum of artistic expressionófiction and poetry, painting and sculpture, architecture, dance, photography, and film. In fresh and provocative essays they explore how the ideas of modernism helped shape such artistic expressions as the writings of the Harlem Renaissance, the paintings of Edward Hopper, New Deal public art projects, and George Antheil's Ballet Mècanique. Extensive use of color and black-and-white illustrations results in a book that is as appealing visually as it is stimulating intellectually.

The contributors are Casey Nelson Blake, Robert Cantwell, Ray Carney, Thomas Fahy, Lucy Fischer, John F. Kasson, William E. Leuchtenburg, Lucinda H. MacKethan, Randy Martin, Carol J. Oja, Miles Orvell, Joan Shelley Rubin, Jon Michael Spencer, and Maren Stange.

This book is available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, University of North Carolina Press, your local bookseller, or, for a limited time, directly from the author (in discounted, specially autographed editions). See below for information how to order this book directly from the author by money order, check, or credit card. Clicking on the above links will open a new window in your browser. You may return to this page by closing that window or by clicking on the window for this page again.

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For another discussion of American painting and culture by Ray Carney, see: "When Mind is a Verb: Thomas Eakins and the Doing of Thinking," in Morris Dickstein (ed.) The Revival of Pragmatism: New Essays in Social Thought, Law, and Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998), 5 photographs, paperback, 464 pages. This book is available directly from this site for $25.

Available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, your local bookseller, or, for a limited time, directly from the author (in discounted, specially autographed editions). See below for information how to order this book directly from the author by money order, check, or credit card. Clicking on the above links will open a new window in your browser. You may return to this page by closing that window or by clicking on the window for this page again.

  
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These books may be bought through the web sites listed above, or obtained directly from the author, by using the Pay Pal Credit Card button below, or by sending a check or money order to the address below. However you order the book or books, please provide the following information:

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Ray Carney
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Boston University Boston, MA 02215


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