The 1942 smash musical hit Yankee Doodle Dandy has long remained a favorite among audiences and film buffs. Ostensibly the story of "Mr. Broadway"—George M. Cohan— the movie evolved in its making into one of Warners' trademark "biopics" and a showcase for the singing and dancing talents of James Cagney.

This book includes the complete screenplay.

The famous "Stage Yankees," with their eccentric New England dialect comedy, entertained audiences from Boston to New Orleans, from New York to London in the years between 1825 and 1850. They provided the creative energy for the development of an American-type character in early plays of native authorship. This book examines the full range of their theatre activity, not only as actors, but also as playmakers, and re-evaluates their contribution to the growth of the American stage.

Yankee theatre was not an oddity, a passing fad, or an accident of entertainment; it was an honest exploitation of the materials of American life for an audience in search of its own identification. The delineation of the American character—a full-length realistic portrait in the context of stage comedy—was its projected goal; and though not the only method for such delineation, the theatre form was the most popular and extensive way of disseminating the American image.

The Yankee actors openly borrowed from what literary sources were available to them, but because of their special position as actors, who were required to give flesh-and-blood imitations of people for the believable acceptance of others viewing the same people about them, they were forced to draw extensively on their actors' imaginations and to present the American as they saw him. If the image was too often an external one, it still revealed the Yankee as a hardy individual whose independence was a primary assumption; as a bargainer, whose techniques were more clever than England's sharpest penny-pincher; as a country person, more intelligent, sharper and keener in dealings than the city-bred type; as an American freewheeler who always landed on top, not out of naive honesty but out of a simple perception of other human beings and their gullibility.

Much new evidence in this study is based on London productions, where the view of English audiences and critics was sharply focused on what Americans thought about themselves and the new culture of democracy emerging around them. The shift from America, the borrower, to America, the original doer, can be clearly seen in this stager activity.

Yankee theatre, then, is an epitome of the emerging American after the Second War for Independence. Emerging nationalism meant emerging national definition. Yankee theatre thus led to the first cohesive body of American plays, the first American actors seen in London, and to a new realistic interpretation of the American in the "character" plays of the 1870s and 1880s.

Penny Siopis is internationally acclaimed for her pathbreaking paintings and installations. Your History with Me is a comprehensive study of her short films, which have put her at the front ranks of contemporary artist-filmmakers. Siopis uses found footage to create short video essays that function as densely encrypted accounts of historical time and memory that touch on the cryptic and visceral elements of gender and power. The critics, scholars, curators, artists, and filmmakers in this volume examine her films in relation to subjects ranging from the history of Greeks in South Africa, trauma and cultural memory, and her relationship with the French New Wave to her feminist-inflected articulations of form and content and how her films comment on apartheid. They also highlight her global South perspective to articulate a mode of filmmaking highly responsive to histories of violence, displacement, migration as well as pleasure, joy, and renewal. The essays, which are paired with vivid stills from Siopis’s films throughout, collectively widen the understanding of Siopis’s oeuvre. Opening new vocabularies of thought for engaging with her films, this volume outlines how her work remakes the possibilities of film as a mode of experimentation and intervention.

Contributors. John Akomfrah, Sinazo Chiya, Mark Gevisser, Pumla Dineo Gqola, Katerina Gregos, Brenda Hollweg, William Kentridge, Achille Mbembe, Sarah Nuttall, Griselda Pollock, Laura Rascaroli, Zineb Sedira, Penny Siopis, Hedley Twidle, Zoé Whitley

Coming of age is a pivotal experience for everyone. So it is no surprise that filmmakers around the globe explore the experiences of growing up in their work. From blockbuster U.S. movies such as the Harry Potter series to thought-provoking foreign films such as Bend It Like Beckham and Whale Rider, films about youth delve into young people's attitudes, styles, sexuality, race, families, cultures, class, psychology, and ideas. These cinematic representations of youth also reflect perceptions about youth in their respective cultures, as well as young people's worth to the larger society. Indeed, as the contributors to this volume make plain, films about young people open a very revealing window on the attitudes and values of cultures across the globe.

Youth Culture in Global Cinema offers the first comprehensive investigation of how young people are portrayed in film around the world. Eighteen established film scholars from eleven different national backgrounds discuss a wide range of films that illuminate the varied conditions in which youth live. The essays are grouped thematically around the issues of youthful resistance and rebellion; cultural and national identity, including religion and politics; and sexual maturation, including gender distinctions and coming-of-age queer. Some essays engage in close readings of films, while others examine the advertising and reception of films or investigate psychological issues. The volume concludes with filmographies of over 700 youth-related titles arranged by nation and theme.