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  1. Dartmouth Libraries
  2. Research Guides
  3. Dartmouth Libraries Guides
  4. Film Studies
  5. Film & society

Film Studies

This guide is an introduction to the resources for Film Studies at Dartmouth. If you are interested in Television, see the separate research guide for Television.
  • Introduction
  • Basic information on film
  • Finding a specific film title
  • Streaming film services
    • Readings on streaming video
  • National cinemas This link opens in a new window
  • Course guides for Film & Media Studies
  • Starting your research ...
  • Researching early films
  • Film history through the decades
    • 1960's film history
    • 1970's film history
  • Books about film
  • Film reviews
  • Journals & magazines about film
  • Film theory
    • Feminist film theory
    • Auteur theory
  • Film criticism
    • Feminist film criticism
  • Box office information
  • Film audiences
  • Mass media Industry
  • Primary sources for historical film research
    • Cinema Pressbooks from the Original Studio Collections
    • Congressional Hearings & Communism
    • Film Daily
    • Herrick Library Digital Collections
    • Hollywood and the Production Code
    • Media History Digital Library
    • Moving Picture World
  • Themes
  • Acting
  • Racial & ethnic representation on film
    • African American diaspora
    • Asian American diaspora
    • Hispanic American diaspora
    • Native American & Indigenous peoples diasporas
    • Examples on film
  • LGBTQIA+
    • Examples on film
  • Women on/in/creating Film
    • Examples on film
  • Film genres This link opens in a new window
  • Film & society
  • Screenwriting
  • Film adaptations
    • Shakespeare on film
    • Television to Film adaptations
  • Color in film
  • Film music
  • Film festivals
    • A short list of film festivals
  • Film awards
  • Disney
  • Hitchcock
  • Internet resources
  • Future of Media
  • Back to Film & Media
  • Scholarly communication This link opens in a new window
  • Video Help

Subject Librarian

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Lucinda M. Hall
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Contact:
Evans Map Room, Baker-Berry Library
Dartmouth College
25 N Main ST
Hanover, NH 03755
(603) 646-0962
Website Skype Contact: d1128r8@kiewit.dartmouth.edu
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Subjects: Film and Media Studies, Geography, Polar Studies

Overviews

Refer to related subject guides for encyclopedias and other background sources specific to a region or topic.  The following two chronologies are useful in setting a film in context historically:

  • Calendar of Creative Man by John Paxton; Sheila Fairfield
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker/Berry Ref. NX 447.5 .P38
    ISBN: 0871964708
    This book focuses on the arts, with chronological listings for literature, dance/drama, music, architecture, three-dimensional art, and visual arts. Coverage through 1970.
  • Cover artChronology of world history: a calendar of principal events from 3000 B.C. to A.D. 1973 by H.E.L. Mellersh
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry Ref. D 11 .M39 1999 v.1-3
    ISBN: 9780901720672
    This four volume set includes 70,000 events compiled by 27 contributing editors, constitutes the most complete and current chronology of world history ever created. Entries ranging from Art and Economics to Politics and Technology, and cover both major and minor events throughout world history. ...

News Sources

While not a complete list, these are our primary online sources for domestic & foreign newspapers.

  • Nexis Uni
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    • Newspaper
    National & international newspapers, wire services, radio & television transcripts.
    LexisNexis Academic Tutorials
  • PressReader
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    • Newspaper
    A database of regional, national and international newspapers. The time limit is the last 60 days. Many countries are represented in the archive.
  • Resource logoProquest historical newspapers by ProQuest
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    • Newspaper
    Call Number: Electronic resources
    A collection of major regional and ethnic newspapers from their beginning date to a date in the near past. The New York Times goes until 3 years ago, while the Boston Globe only goes to 1989. The Chicago Defender goes from 1905 to 1975.
  • U.S. Newsstream by ProQuest
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    • Newspaper
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    This database lets you search a collection of current newspapers. Coverage varies from 1980 to the present. You can search a few or all of the newspapers in the collection.
  • Newspaper source plus by EBSCO
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    • Newspaper
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    Provides cover-to-cover full text for 23 national (U.S.) and international newspapers, including USA Today, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, The Times (London), The Toronto Star, etc.
    The database also contains selected full text from more than 200 regional (U.S.) newspapers.
    In addition, full text television & radio news transcripts are provided from CBS News, FOX News, NPR, etc.

Introduction

... With the rise of the postwar new waves and the decline of cinema going as a mass leisure pursuit, sociology shifted attention from audiences to films, art cinema and film movements in particular. A sociology of art approach to cinema, for example, calls for attention to the cultural contexts in which films and film movements arise, and may also concern itself with the implicit ideologies underlying films’ plots and styles. ...

Kuhn, A. & Westwell, G. (2012). "Sociology and film." In A Dictionary of Film Studies. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 3 Aug. 2016.

In the library catalog

The following are relevant subject headings. You can browse the print collection on Baker Stack Level 4 in the call number range PN 1995.9 .S6.

  • motion pictures social aspects
    This is the more general subject search. You can add a country's name after this search to narrow your results.
  • ... in motion pictures
    If you want to see how a theme is handle in movies, you put the word in front of "in motion pictures." An example is "sex in motion pictures."
  • mass media social aspects
  • popular culture social aspects

Introductory reading(s)

  • Cover artBeyond the screen: institutions, networks and publics of early cinema by Marta Braun, [et. al.], eds.
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9780861967032
    The visionaries of early motion pictures thought that movies could do more than just entertain. They imagined the medium had the potential to educate and motivate the audience. In national and local contexts from Europe, North America, and around the world, early filmmakers entered the domains of science and health education, social and religious uplift, labor organizing and political campaigning.
  • Cover artThe social science of cinema by James C. Kaufman, Dean Keith Simonton, eds.
    • Book
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9780199797813
    This book compiles research from such varied disciplines as psychology, economics, sociology, business, and communications to find the best empirical research being done on the movies, based on perspectives that many filmgoers have never considered. ...
  • In glorious technicolor : a century of film and how it has shaped us by Francine Stock with Stephen Hughes
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker/Berry PN 1995.9 .S6 S746 2011
    ISBN: 9780701183950

Selected book titles

To find more books, click here.

  • Bollywood and Postmodernism: popular Indian cinema in the 21st Century by Neelam Sidhar Wright
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker/Berry PN 1993.5 .I8 W75 2015
    ISBN: 9780748696345
    'New Bollywood' has arrived, but its postmodern impulse often leaves film scholars reluctant to theorise its aesthetics. How do we define the style of a contemporary Bollywood film? Are Bollywood films just uninspired Hollywood rip-offs, or does their borrowing signal genuine innovation within the industry?
  • Cult Film As a Guide to Life: fandom, adaptation, and identity by I. Q. Hunter
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker/Berry PN 1995.9 .C84 H86 2016
    ISBN: 9781623565107
    Cult Film as a Guide to Life investigates the world and experience of cult films, from well-loved classics to the worst movies ever made.
  • Hollywood Riots: violent crowds and progressive politics in American film by Doug Dibbern
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker/Berry PN 1995.9 .P6 D52 2016
    ISBN: 9781780766324
    The large literature about the politics of Hollywood in the period of McCarthy and the blacklist has largely overlooked political film-making during those agitated years. Hollywood Riots examines the most vibrant cycle of independently produced political films made while House Committee on Un-American Activities was investigating communists in the film industry.
  • Soured on the System: disaffected men in 20th century American film by Robert T. Schultz
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker/Berry PN 1995.9 .M46 S34 2012
    ISBN: 9780786469918
    This work analyzes popular films produced in the years of significant historical change from 1946 to the end of the twentieth century. Although the American middle class expanded significantly with the economic prosperity that followed World War II, postwar films often depict middle-class men as discontented with the mundane nature of work and with declining autonomy in an increasingly corporate-bureaucratic society.
  • Cover artTen Arab Filmmakers: political dissent and social critique by Josef Gugler, ed.
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9780253016522
    Ten Arab Filmmakers provides an up-to-date overview of the best of Arab cinema, offering studies of leading directors and in-depth analyses of their most important films. The filmmakers profiled here represent principal national cinemas of the Arab world--Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, and Syria.

Finding journal articles

You can search various publications to find articles on society and film. Our collection does have a couple of journals that cover the topic exclusively. Their titles are listed below. You can use Film & Television Literature Index to find more articles or use the search box at the top of the page.

  • Issue cover artJournal of popular film & television by Bowling Green State University
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic journal
    The primary purpose of the Journal of Popular Film and Television is to provide a representative cross section of critical-cultural perspectives and to broaden the existing literature to include the “public visions” of popular filmmakers and television showrunners, economic and industrial factors, and an emphasis on the complex role of audiences in the development of film and television as art forms and wide-reaching socio-cultural forces.
  • Journal logoJump cut (OA)
    • Open Access Icon
    Call Number: Electronic journal
    Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media is an Open Access journal run on a nonprofit basis by its staff and is not affiliated with or supported by any institution. It analyzes media in relation to class, race, and gender.
  • Resource logoFilm & television literature index
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    This index covers over 300 journal and magazine titles for film and television reviews, scholarly and critical analysis of cinema and television, and articles of popular interest about film and television. About half the journals and magazines are film periodicals and the other half cover film and television with some regularity. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews.

Related subject guides

Many of the film studies resources mentioned elsewhere in this guide discuss aspects of film and society, but consider what other disciplinary perspectives address your topic and consult those guides as well.

  • Anthropology
  • Art History & Studio Art
  • Business
  • Communications
  • Government
  • History
  • Psychology
  • Sociology
  • Theater & Drama
  • Women's & Gender Studies

Keeping up with Film Studies journal literature

Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for all facets of Film Studies? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's, you can download and read the articles you want from the journals for which we have subscriptions.

You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.

Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's also available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.

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  • Next: Screenwriting >>
  • Last Updated: May 23, 2025 11:30 AM
  • URL: https://researchguides.dartmouth.edu/filmstudies
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Subjects: Film and Media Studies
Tags: Arts, box office, festivals, FILM, film aesthetics, film color, film criticism, film music, film reviews, film studies, future of media, genres, LGBTQIA+, media industry, primary resources, queer cinema, representation in film, screenwriting, streaming film services, themes, women in film

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