Idols of Modernity

PATRICE PETRO is a professor of English and film studies and vice provost for international education at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. President of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, she is the author and editor of numerous books on film, culture, and internationalization, among them Global Cities: Cinema, Architecture, and Urbanism in a Digital Age (Rutgers University Press).

• Douglas Fairbanks : king of HollywoodBuster Keaton : comic invention and the art of moving picturesThe Talmadge sisters : a forgotten filmmaking dynastyRudolph Valentino : Italian AmericanAn appetite for living : Gloria Swanson, Colleen Moore, and Clara BowGreta Garbo : fashioning a star imageAnna May Wong : toward Janus-faced, border-crossing, "minor" stardomEmil Jannings : translating the starAl Jolson : the man who changed the movies foreverAfrican American stardom inside and outside of Hollywood : Ernest Morrison, Noble Johnson, Evelyn Preer, and Lincoln PerryMarie Dressler : thief of the talkiesIn the wings

"A collection of fascinating, stellar essays on the emerging culture of celebrity during the 1920s. Highly recommended." (Choice) "Incisive, elegantly crafted essays chronicling the major figures in the first years of the star system. Idols of Modernity is a rigorous, insightful, and refreshing look at the stars of the 1920s, the world in which they lived, the directors, producers and studios who shaped their public image, and the audiences who flocked to see their films." (Screening the Past) "A collection of fascinating, stellar essays on the emerging culture of celebrity during the 1920s. Highly recommended." (Choice) "Incisive, elegantly crafted essays chronicling the major figures in the first years of the star system. Idols of Modernity is a rigorous, insightful, and refreshing look at the stars of the 1920s, the world in which they lived, the directors, producers and studios who shaped their public image, and the audiences who flocked to see their films." (Screening the Past)