William P. Hobby Centennial Professor Emeritus of Communication and Professor Emeritus of Women's and Gender Studies
As a theoretician and historian of American film and television, Janet Staiger researches and has published on the following topics:
- authorship theory,
- various modes of production including classical Hollywood, "Indie" cinema, and world cinema,
- cultural and political issues of representation, especially involving gender, sexuality, and race/ethnicity,
- genre theory,
- the historical reception of cinema and television, and
- historiographical issues in writing media histories
Janet has served on various national committees including the National Film Preservation Board of the U.S. Library of Congress (1992-96) and the jury for the American Film Institute's Television Awards (2010, 2012). She is past president of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (1991-93) and has served on the Executive Committees of the Cultural Studies Association (U.S.) (2005-09) and the Reception Studies Society (2005-present). At The University of Texas at Austin, she was Director of the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies (2001-04) and Chair of the University’s Faculty Council (2009-10). She was given the 2025 Distinguished Career Achievement Award by the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.
Author and editor of twelve books and over 80 essays, her book publications include:
- Political Emotions co-ed. with Ann Cvetkovich, and Ann Reynolds (Routledge, 2010)
- Convergence Media History co-ed. with Sabine Hake (Routledge, 2008)
- Media Reception Studies (New York University, 2005)
- Authorship and Film co-ed. with David Gerstner (Routledge, 2003)
- Perverse Spectators: The Practices of Film Reception (New York University Press, 2000)
- Blockbuster TV: Must-See Sitcoms in the Network Era (New York University Press, 2000)
- Bad Women: Regulating Sexuality in Early American Cinema (University of Minnesota Press, 1995)
- The Studio System (ed.) (Rutgers University Press, 1995)
- Interpreting Films: Studies in the Historical Reception of American Cinema (Princeton University Press, 1992)
- The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960, co-author with David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson (Routledge & Kegan Paul/Columbia University Press, 1985)
Communication Arts, PhD, 1981 University of Wisconsin, Madison
English, MA, 1969 Purdue University
English and Speech, BA, 1968 University of Nebraska at Omaha
- Authorship Theory
- Modes of Production: Classical Hollywood, "Indie" Cinema, and more
- Cultural and Political Issues of Representation
- Genre Theory
- Historical Reception Studies of Film and Television
- Historiographical Issues in Writing Media Histories
Authorship Theory
Authorship and Film. Co-edited: David A. Gerstner and Janet Staiger. New York: Routledge, 2002. Includes: “Authorship Approaches," pp. 27-57.
"Creating the Brand: The Hitchcock Touch," in The Cambridge Companion to Alfred Hitchcock, ed. Jonathan Freedman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. 40-56.
"'Because I am a Woman': Thinking 'Identity' and 'Agency' for Historiography," Film History 25, nos. 1-2 (2013) 205-14.
“Analysing Self-Fashioning in Authoring and Reception,” in Ingmar Bergman Revisited: Performance, Cinema and the Arts, ed. Maaret Koskinen. London: Wallflower, 2008. Pp. 89-106.
“Authorship Studies and Gus Van Sant,” Film Criticism 29, no. 1 (Fall 2004), 1-22.
Modes of Production: Classical Hollywood, "Indie" Cinema, and More
The Studio System. Edited. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1995.
The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960. Co-authored: David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul and Columbia University Press, 1985.
"Scripting Protocols and Practices: Screenwriting in the Package-Unit Era," in Resetting the Scene: Classical Hollywood Revisited Classical, ed. Philippa Gates and Katherine Spring. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2021. Pp. 254-64.
"Proto-Indie: 1960s 'Half-Way' Cinema," in A Companion to American Indie Cinema, ed. Geoff King. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017. Pp. 205-32.
“Considering the Script as Blueprint in 2012,” Northern Lights [Denmark], 10 (2012), 75-90.
“Independent of What? Sorting out Differences from Hollywood,” in American Independent Cinema, ed. Geoff King, Claire Molloy, and Yannis Tzioumakis. London: Routledge, 2012. Pp. 15-27.
"Das Starsystem und der Klassische Hollywoodfilm" ["The Star System and the Classical Hollywood Cinema"] in Der Star: Geschichte, Rezeption, Bedeutung, ed. Werner Faulstich and Helmut Korte. Munchen, Germany: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1997. Pp.48-59.
"Le commerce international du cinema et les flux culturels mondiaux: une approche neomarxiste" ["World Film Trade and Global Cultural Flows: A Neo-Marxist Approach"] in Une Histoire economique du cinema francais (1895-1995): Regards croises franco-americans, ed. Pierre-Jean Behghozi and Christian Delage. Paris: Editions L'Harmattan, 1997. Pp. 341-62. Rpt. in Film and Nationalism, ed. Alan Williams. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Pp. 230-48.
"I B Movies e il discorso de Hollywood sul pubblico." In Studi Americani: Modi di produzione a Hollywood dalle origini all'era televisiva, ed. Vito Zagarri. Venezia, Italy: Marsilio Editori, 1994. Pp. 263-269. Trans. Daniele Di Chiappari.
"Announcing Wares, Winning Patrons, Voicing Ideals: Thinking about the History and Theory of Film Advertising," Cinema Journal, 29, no. 3 (Spring 1990), 3-31.
"Standardization and Independence: The Founding Objectives of the SMPTE," SMPTE Journal, 96, no. 6 (June 1987), 532-537.
"'The Eyes are Really the Focus': Photoplay Acting and Film Form and Style," Wide Angle, 6, no. 4 (1985), 14-23.
"Blueprints for Feature Films: Hollywood's Continuity Scripts," in The American Film Industry, ed. Tino Balio. 2nd ed. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. Pp. 173-92.
"'Tame' Authors and the Corporate Laboratory: Stories, Writers, and Scenarios in Hollywood," The Quarterly Review of Film Studies, 8, no. 4 (Fall 1983), 33-45.
"Combination and Litigation: Structures of US Film Distribution, 1896-1917," Cinema Journal, 23, no. 1 (Winter 1983), 41-72.
"Individualism versus Collectivism: The Shift to Independent Production in the US Film Industry," Screen, 24, no. 4-5 (July-October 1983), 68-79.
"Seeing Stars," The Velvet Light Trap, no. 20 (1983), 10-14.
"Mass-Produced Photoplays: Economic and Signifying Practices in the First Years of Hollywood," Wide Angle, 4, no. 2 (1981), 12-27.
"Dividing Labor for Production Control: Thomas Ince and the Rise of the Studio System," Cinema Journal, 18, no. 2 (Spring 1979), 16-25.
Cultural and Political Issues of Representation
Political Emotions. Co-edited: Janet Staiger, Ann Cvetkovich, and Ann Reynolds. New York: Routledge, 2010.
Bad Women: Regulating Sexuality in Early American Cinema, 1907-1915. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1995.
"Film Reception Studies and Feminism," in The Routledge Companion to Cinema & Gender, ed. Kristin Lené Hole, Dijana Jelača, E. Ann Kaplan, and Patrice Petro. New York, NY: Routledge, 2017. Pp. 332-41.
"The Slasher, The Final Girl, and the Anti-Denoument," in Style and Form in the Hollywood Slasher Film, ed. Wickham Clayton. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Pp. 213-28.
"'Based on the True Story of': Political Filmmaking and Analogical Thinking," RS*SI Recherches sémiotiques/Semiotic Inquiry 30, nos. 1-3 (2010), 59-69.
"The Significance of Steven Spielberg's Old Mr. Lincoln: Political Emotions and Intertextual Knowledge," Jump Cut 55 (Fall 2013), http://www.ejumpcut.org/currentissue/staigerLincoln/index.html.
“The Cutting Edge: Emergencies in Visual Culture,” Jump Cut (February 2006), www.ejumpcut. org/currentissue/SchaivoStaiger/index.html.
“Fault Line Stories: Families, Masculinities and Texas Dynasties,” The Texas Gulf Historical & Biographical Record, 37, no. 2 (November 2001), 45-58.
"Cinematic Shots: The Narration of Violence." In The Persistence of History, ed. Vivian Sobchack. New York: Routledge/American Film Institute Readers, 1996. Pp. 39-54. Rpt. in Perverse Spectators.
"Response to 'Ideology Takes a Day Off: Althusser and Mass Culture'," Studies in 20th Century Literature, 18, no. 1 (Winter 1994), 55-59. Rpt. as "The Places of Empirical Subjects in the Event of Mass Culture: Jeanie Bueller and Ideology" in Perverse Spectators.
"Self-Regulation and the Classical Hollywood Cinema," Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, 6, no. 2 (Fall 1991), 221-231.
"Class, Ethnicity, and Gender: Explaining the Development of Early American Film Narrative," Iris [France], no. 11 (Summer 1990), 13-25.
"Securing the Fictional Narrative as a Tale of the Historical Real: The Return of Martin Guerre," South Atlantic Quarterly, 88, no. 2 (Spring 1989), 393-413. Rpt. in Perverse Spectators.
"Future Noir: Contemporary Representations of Visionary Cities," East-West Film Journal, 3, no. 1 (December 1988), 20-44.
Genre Theory
"Sound and the Comic/Horror Romance Film: Formula, Affect, and Inflection," in Voicing the Cinema: Film Music, and the Integrated Soundtrack," ed. James Buhler and Hannah Lewis. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2020. Pp. 245-59.
“Les Belles Dames sans Merci, Femmes Fatales, Vampires, Vamps, and Gold Diggers: The Transformation and Narrative Value of Aggressive Fallen Women,” in Reclaiming the Archive: Feminism and Film History, ed. Vicki Callahan. Detroit, MI: Wayne State UP, 2010. Pp. 32-57.
“Film Noir as Male Melodrama: The Politics of Film Genre Labeling,” in The Shifting Definitions of Genre: Essays on Labeling Films, Television Shows and Media, ed. Lincoln Geraghty and Mark Jancovich. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2008. Pp. 71-91.
Historical Reception Studies of Film and Television
Media Reception Studies. New York: New York University Press, 2005.
Perverse Spectators: The Practices of Film Reception. New York: New York University Press, 2000. 241pp. Includes reprints of:
- "Modes of Reception," in Le Cinema en Histoire: Institution cinematographique, reception filmique et reconstitution historique, ed. Andre‚ Gaudreault, Germain Lacasse and Isabelle Raynauld. Quebec, Canada: Editions nota bene, 1999. Pp. 305-323.
- “Writing the History of American Film Reception,” in Hollywood Spectatorship: Changing Perceptions of Cinema Audiences, ed. Melvyn Stokes and Richard Maltby. London: British Film Institute, 2001. Pp. 19-32.
- "The Perversity of Spectators: Expanding the History of Classical Hollywood Cinema," in Moving Images, Culture and the Mind, ed. Ib Bondebjerg. Luton, England: University of Luton Press, 2000. Pp. 19-28.
- “The Cultural Productions of A Clockwork Orange,” in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, ed. Stuart Y. McDougal. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. 37-60.
- "Finding Community in the Early 1960s: Underground Cinema and Sexual Politics," in Swinging Single: Representing Sexuality in the 1960s, ed. Hilary Radner and Moya Luckett. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. Pp. 38-74.
- "The Romances of the Blonde Venus: Movie Censors Versus Movie Fans," Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 6, no. 2 (Fall 1997), 5-20.
- "Hitchcock in Texas: Intertextuality in the Face of Blood and Gore," in "As Time Goes By": Festskrift i anledning Bjorn Sorenssens 50-arsday, ed. Gunnar Iversen, Stig Kulset, and Kathrine Skretting. Trondheim, Norway: Tapir, 1996. Pp. 189-197.
- "Taboos and Totems: Cultural Meanings of Silence of the Lambs." In Film Theory Goes to the Movies, ed. Jim Collins, Hilary Radner, and Ava Collins. NY: Routledge/American Film Institute, 1993. Pp. 142-54.
Blockbuster TV: Must-See Sitcoms in the Network Era. New York: New York University Press, 2000.
Interpreting Films: Studies in the Historical Reception of American Cinema. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992.
"Interpretive Pleasures in Experiencing Serial Fiction," Theoreme [Paris], forthcoming.
"Speculating about Spectatorship" [symposium on Hollywood Aesthetic], Projections: The Journal for Movies and Mind, 14, no. 2 (Summer 2020), 75-80.
"The Audience of Perry Mason, or the Case of What People Write to Famous Authors," Participations 16, no. 2 (November 2019), 511-24, https://www.participations.org/Volume%2016/Issue%202/25.pdf.
"Mailer and Maidstone: When Cinéma Vérité Fiction Becomes Real," Participations 15, no. 1 (May 2018), http://www.participations.org/Volume%2015/Issue%201/3.pdf.
"Creating the Brand: The Hitchcock Touch," in The Cambridge Companion to Alfred Hitchcock, ed. Jonathan Freedman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. 40-56.
"'Nuking the Fridge': Great Expectations and Affective Reception," in Film Experience and Spectatorship: Between Cinema, Museum and Social Networks, ed. Wilfried Pauleit, Christine Rüffert, Karl-Heinz Schmid/Alfred Tews, and Stefano Odorico. Berlin: Bertz + Fischer Verlag, 2014. Pp. 135-50 (e-book version)..
“’The First Bond Who Bleeds, Literally and Metaphorically’: Gendered Spectatorship for ‘Pretty Boy’ Action Movies,” in Feminism at the Movies, ed. Hilary Radner and Rebecca Springer. New York: Routledge, 2011. Pp. 13-24.
"'Based on the True Story of': Political Filmmaking and Analogical Thinking," RS*SI Recherches sémiotiques/Semiotic Inquiry 30, nos. 1-3 (2010), 59-69.
“The Centrality of Affect in Reception Studies,” [on Sweeney Todd] in Film-Kino-Zuschauer: Filmrezeption/Film-Cinema-Spectator: Film Reception, ed. Irmbert Schenk, Margrit Tröhler, and Yvonne Zimmermann. Marburg, Germany: Schüren, 2010. Pp. 85-98.
“Kiss Me Deadly: Cold War Threats from Spillane to Aldrich, New York to Los Angeles, and the Mafia to the H-Bomb,” in New Directions in American Reception Studies, ed. Philip Goldstein and James L. Machor. NY: Oxford University Press, 2008. Pp. 279-88.
“The Revenge of the Film Education Movement: Cult Movies and Fan Interpretative Behaviors,” Reception: Texts, Readers, Audiences, History 1 (Fall 2008), 43-69. http://receptionstudy.org/files/Staiger.pdf .
“Cabinets of Transgression: Collecting and Arranging Hollywood Images,” Particip@tions 1, no. 3 (2005) http://www.participations.org/volume%201/issue%203/1_03_staiger_article…
"Film, Reception, and Cultural Studies," The Centennial Review, 36, no. 1(Winter 1992), 89-104.
"Reception Studies: The Death of the Reader," in The Cinematic Text: Methods and Approaches, ed. R. Barton Palmer. Georgia State Literary Studies, no. 3. New York: AMS Press, 1989. Pp. 353-68.
"'The Handmaiden of Villainy': Methods and Problems in Studying the Historical Reception of a Film," Wide Angle, 8, no. 1 (1986), 19-27. Revision reprinted in Interpreting Films.
Historiographical Issues in Writing Media Histories
Convergence Media History. Co-edited: Janet Staiger and Sabine Hake. New York: Routledge, 2008.
"The Wertham Case: Evaluating Effects of Media Theories," in Moral Panics, Social Fears, and the Media: Historical Perspectives, ed. Sian Nicholas and Tom O'Malley. New York: Routledge, 2013. Pp. 46-55.
“Film History, Film Practices,” Scandia [Sweden] 76, no. 2 (2010), 13-30.
“The Future of the Past,” Cinema Journal 44, no. 1 (Fall 2004), 126-29.
“Matters of Taste, Subtexts of Rank,” Framework 45, no. 2 (Fall 2004): 76-80.
"Hybrid or Inbred: The Purity Hypothesis and Hollywood Genre History," Film Criticism, 22, no. 1 (Fall 1997), 5-20.
"The Pleasures and Profits of a Postmodern Film Historiography," Norsk medietidsskrift [Olso,Norway], 2, no. 2 (1995), 7-17.
"This Moving Image I Have Before Me," in Image as Artifact: The Historical Analysis of Film and Television, ed. John O'Connor. American Historical Association Institutional Services Program. Malabar, Florida: Robert Kreiger Publishers, 1990. Pp. 247-75.
"The Politics of Film Canons," Cinema Journal, 24, no. 3 (Spring 1985), 4-23. Dialogue response in 25, no. 1 (Fall 1985), 61-64.
"Theorist, yes, but what of? Bazin and History," Iris [France], 2, no. 2 (1984), 99-109.
"The History of World Cinema: Models for Economic Analysis," co-authored: Janet Staiger and Douglas Gomery, Film Reader, 4 (1979), 35-44.