Laurence Raw
I entered academe quite late at the age of 29. After spending three years at Bilkent University in the English Department, I worked in the British Council and Hacettepe University until 1999, when I joined Başkent University's Department of American Literature and Culture. Life was peaceful there until 2007, when an inability to agree with the then Head of Department resulted in my transferring to the English Teacher Training Department at the same university. Approaching my thirtieth year in academe, I find pedagogy as much, if not more fun that when I started.
I've co-created the Cultural Studies MA at Hacettepe University, and edited the Journal of American Studies in Turkey for four years from 2012-16. I serve on the Editorial Boards of LITERATURE-FILM QUARTERLY, ADAPTATION, JOURNAL OF ADAPTATİON IN FILM AND PERFORMANCE, JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE, JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES, DIALOGUE, INTERACTIONS, and LINGUACULTURE..
Supervisors: Michael Jamieson
I've co-created the Cultural Studies MA at Hacettepe University, and edited the Journal of American Studies in Turkey for four years from 2012-16. I serve on the Editorial Boards of LITERATURE-FILM QUARTERLY, ADAPTATION, JOURNAL OF ADAPTATİON IN FILM AND PERFORMANCE, JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE, JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES, DIALOGUE, INTERACTIONS, and LINGUACULTURE..
Supervisors: Michael Jamieson
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Books by Laurence Raw
In Theatre of the People: Donald Wolfit’s Shakespearean Productions 1937–1953, Laurence Raw looks at this tenacious personality whose determination to serve the nation by performing Shakespeare inspired audiences and fellow actors. Drawing on a series of hitherto unpublished materials—including letters and interviews—this part biography and part social history creates a vivid picture of what life was like for the touring actor during WWII and beyond. Recreating twelve of Wolfit’s touring dates throughout Great Britain and North America, this volume also demonstrates theatre’s importance as a source of mass entertainment and education, as well as a propaganda tool.
Despite Wolfit’s popular appeal at the time, he was doomed to remain on the periphery of the theatrical establishment. This book contends that Wolfit deserves to be recognized for his efforts in maintaining public morale during times of stress. Theatre of the People will appeal not only to those interested in drama but also to students and scholars of history and popular entertainment in the 1940s and 1950s.
In Adaptation Studies and Learning: New Frontiers, Laurence Raw and Tony Gurr seek to redefine the ways in which adaptation is taught and learned. Comprised of essays, reflections, and “learning conversations” about the ways in which this approach to adaptation might be implemented, this book focuses on issues of curriculum construction, the role of technology, and the importance of collaboration. Including a series of case-studies and classroom experiences, the authors explore the relationship between adaptation and related disciplines such as history, media, and translation. The book also includes a series of case studies from the world of cinema, showing how collaboration and social interaction lies at the heart of successful film adaptations.
By looking beyond the classroom, Raw and Gurr demonstrate how adaptation studies involves real-world issues of prime importance—not only to film and theater professionals, but to all learners. Covering a wide range of material, including film history, educational theory, and literary criticism, Adaptation Studies and Learning offers a radical repositioning of the ways in which we think about adaptation both inside and outside the classroom.
In addition, the ‘cultural turn’ in translation studies has prompted many scholars to consider adaptation as a form of inter-semiotic translation. But what does this mean, and how can we best theorize it? What are the semiotic systems that underlie translation and adaptation? Containing theoretical chapters and personal accounts of actual adaptions and translations, this is an original contribution to translation and adaptation studies which will appeal to researchers and graduate students.
This book shows how Merchant-Ivory have always taken considerable care in casting their films, as well as treating actors with respect. This is a deliberate policy, designed to bring out one of the triumvirate's principal thematic concerns--the impact of the "clash of cultures" on individuals. Partly this has been inspired by their collective experiences of living and working in different cultures. They do not offer any answers to this issue; rather they believe that their task is simply to raise awareness, to make filmgoers conscious of the importance of cultural sensitivities that assume paramount significance in any exchange, whether verbal or nonverbal.
The 96 entries are complete with a biography and in-depth analyses of the actor’s best performances--demonstrating how important these personalities were to the success of their genre films. "
This collection of essays focuses on numerous contexts to emphasize why adaptations matter to students of literature. It is the first such volume devoted exclusively to teaching adaptations from a practical, teacher-centered angle. Many of the essays show how 'adaptation' as a discipline can be used to prompt reflection on cultural, historical, and political differences. Written by specialists in a variety of fields, ranging from film, radio, theater, and even language studies, the book adopts a pluralistic view of adaptation, showing how its processes vary across different contexts and in different disciplines.
Defining new horizons for the teaching of adaptation studies, these essays draw on such disparate sources as Frankenstein, Moby Dick, and South Park. This volume not only provides a resource-book of lesson plans but offers valuable pointers as to why teaching literature and film can help develop students' skills and improve their literacy.
The contributors to this volume look at adaptation in different contexts and develop new ways to approach adaptation, not just as a literature-through-film issue but as something which can be used to develop other skills, such as creative writing and personal and social skills. Aimed at teachers in high schools and universities at the under- and postgraduate levels, this volume not only suggests how 'adaptation' might be used in different disciplines, but how it might improve the learning experience for teachers and students alike.
This anthology covers new ground in the field of adaptation studies, specifically, as a branch of American Studies that not only encompasses literature and visual media, but also a wide-range of subject areas including, but not limited to, history, political science and cultural/ethnic studies. By looking at adaptation specifically in relation to the United States, the book investigates a variety of culturally and historically transformative strategies, as well showing how the process of adaptation has been influenced by social, ideological and political factors both inside and outside the United States.
From his first feature film, The Duellists, to his international successes Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise, Black Hawk Down, Gladiator, and American Gangster, Ridley Scott has directed some of the most compelling films of the last 30 years. Apart from his work as a film director, Scott has engaged in a vast range of activities, including that as a designer, producer, film mogul, and advertising executive. The Ridley Scott Encyclopedia is the first book that focuses on all aspects of his work in a wide-ranging career that spans nearly 50 years.
The entries in this encyclopedia focus on all aspects of his work and are divided into four categories. The first focuses on Ridley Scott's work as a director, encompassing his feature films from The Duellists to Body of Lies, as well as his work in television, including commercials. The second category focuses on the people who have been involved in Scott's projects, including actors, directors, producers, designers, writers and other creative personnel. The third focuses on general thematic issues raised in Scott's work, such as gender construction, political issues, and geographical locations. Finally the encyclopedia incorporates entries on films by other directors who have influenced Scott's approach to his work as a director or producer. Each entry is followed by a bibliography of published sources, both in print and online, making this the most comprehensive reference on Scott's body of work.
Considered one of the greatest of American authors, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) created a memorable body of literature, which included the novels The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables, as well as a wealth of short stories. In Adapting Nathaniel Hawthorne to the Screen: Forging New Worlds, Laurence Raw demonstrates how filmmakers have turned to Hawthorne to comment on the nation's past, present, and future.
Raw shows how some filmmakers have tackled the difficulty of Hawthorne's material by treating him strictly as a writer whose work was firmly situated in American life of the mid-nineteenth century. Raw also examines how directors have used Hawthorne's stories to comment on various aspects of twentieth century American life. This device is particularly evident in the many versions of The Scarlet Letter, such as the 1950 television version broadcast two months after Senator Joseph McCarthy's speech about State Department employees who were "card-carrying members of the Communist Party" and 1960s and early 70s versions supporting countercultural values where filmmakers created characters prepared to fly in the face of conformity and search for alternative means of existence.
In this volume, Raw also discusses adaptations of the short stories "Feathertop," "The Snow Image," "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," and "Rappacinni's Daughter," as well as the novels The House of Seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter, the latter having been transformed into film no less than ten times. By surveying the canon of adaptations produced over the last eight decades, this book provides a unique insight into American social, political, and cultural history from a variety of perspectives, underlining how Hawthorne's work has been of enduring concern to directors and audiences alike.
In Adapting Henry James to The Screen: Gender, Fiction and Film, author Laurence Raw suggests that most James adaptations have sought to shift attention away from the classical narrative to the spectator's interaction with that narrative. Raw demonstrates that while several adaptations have critically engaged with the subject of gender relations, they have often ended up by reinforcing rather than questioning accepted norms. Yet, there are instances where individual directors and/or screenwriters have bucked the trend and directly engaged with what people understand by 'masculine' and 'feminine' behavior, thus focusing on how the notions of 'masculinity' and 'femininity' are socially constructed, not only in the societies represented on screen, but in the spectators' world as well.
This book shows how changing priorities affected the ways in which James's novels were translated to the screen, and how they examined the theme of gender relations. Not only does this represent a new departure for adaptation studies (which hitherto has largely focused on issues of textual fidelity), but it is a particularly appropriate methodology for studying James, who was perhaps the first modern novelist to grapple with the often conflicting concerns of artistic integrity and commercial potential.
Raw discusses most of the major adaptations, beginning with Berkeley Square (1933) and culminating with James Ivory's The Golden Bowl. This book also offers new readings of well-known adaptations and examines works that have hitherto been critically neglected, such as The Lost Moment (1947), The House In The Square (1951), The Haunting of Hell House (1999), and four television versions of The Turn of the Screw produced between 1974 and 1999. Consequently, Adapting Henry James to the Screen is the most comprehensive survey yet published on Henry James's work on film and television.
Leo J. Mahoney, Daniel Denton's A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF NEW YORK: A Pre-Industrial American Dream
G. St. John Scott - Amerindian History, the BOOK OF MORMON, and the American Dream
Manoli Lopez Ramirez - Treasure Hunt in Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure'
Sinan Akilli - The Destruction of the American Dream in Sam Shepard's CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS
J. Emmet Winn, Investigating the American Dream in Pretty Woman (1990)
Lerzan Gultekin, The Myth of the American Dream in Adrian Lyne's Indecent Proposal (1991)
Erik Angelone, Reality TV: A Contemporary Medium for Participating in the 'New' American Dream
Tomasz M. Lebiecki, The American Dream as el Seuno Americano: Lost in Translation?
Richard Profozich, The American Dream: A Still Viable Concept of American Exceptionalism?
Laurence Raw et. al. - Staging WAITING FOR LEFTY: Or, Agit-Prop in Ankara.
Aaron Peron Ogletree - Review of THE WILLIAM FREEMAN MURDER TRIAL by Andrew W. Arpey
In Theatre of the People: Donald Wolfit’s Shakespearean Productions 1937–1953, Laurence Raw looks at this tenacious personality whose determination to serve the nation by performing Shakespeare inspired audiences and fellow actors. Drawing on a series of hitherto unpublished materials—including letters and interviews—this part biography and part social history creates a vivid picture of what life was like for the touring actor during WWII and beyond. Recreating twelve of Wolfit’s touring dates throughout Great Britain and North America, this volume also demonstrates theatre’s importance as a source of mass entertainment and education, as well as a propaganda tool.
Despite Wolfit’s popular appeal at the time, he was doomed to remain on the periphery of the theatrical establishment. This book contends that Wolfit deserves to be recognized for his efforts in maintaining public morale during times of stress. Theatre of the People will appeal not only to those interested in drama but also to students and scholars of history and popular entertainment in the 1940s and 1950s.
In Adaptation Studies and Learning: New Frontiers, Laurence Raw and Tony Gurr seek to redefine the ways in which adaptation is taught and learned. Comprised of essays, reflections, and “learning conversations” about the ways in which this approach to adaptation might be implemented, this book focuses on issues of curriculum construction, the role of technology, and the importance of collaboration. Including a series of case-studies and classroom experiences, the authors explore the relationship between adaptation and related disciplines such as history, media, and translation. The book also includes a series of case studies from the world of cinema, showing how collaboration and social interaction lies at the heart of successful film adaptations.
By looking beyond the classroom, Raw and Gurr demonstrate how adaptation studies involves real-world issues of prime importance—not only to film and theater professionals, but to all learners. Covering a wide range of material, including film history, educational theory, and literary criticism, Adaptation Studies and Learning offers a radical repositioning of the ways in which we think about adaptation both inside and outside the classroom.
In addition, the ‘cultural turn’ in translation studies has prompted many scholars to consider adaptation as a form of inter-semiotic translation. But what does this mean, and how can we best theorize it? What are the semiotic systems that underlie translation and adaptation? Containing theoretical chapters and personal accounts of actual adaptions and translations, this is an original contribution to translation and adaptation studies which will appeal to researchers and graduate students.
This book shows how Merchant-Ivory have always taken considerable care in casting their films, as well as treating actors with respect. This is a deliberate policy, designed to bring out one of the triumvirate's principal thematic concerns--the impact of the "clash of cultures" on individuals. Partly this has been inspired by their collective experiences of living and working in different cultures. They do not offer any answers to this issue; rather they believe that their task is simply to raise awareness, to make filmgoers conscious of the importance of cultural sensitivities that assume paramount significance in any exchange, whether verbal or nonverbal.
The 96 entries are complete with a biography and in-depth analyses of the actor’s best performances--demonstrating how important these personalities were to the success of their genre films. "
This collection of essays focuses on numerous contexts to emphasize why adaptations matter to students of literature. It is the first such volume devoted exclusively to teaching adaptations from a practical, teacher-centered angle. Many of the essays show how 'adaptation' as a discipline can be used to prompt reflection on cultural, historical, and political differences. Written by specialists in a variety of fields, ranging from film, radio, theater, and even language studies, the book adopts a pluralistic view of adaptation, showing how its processes vary across different contexts and in different disciplines.
Defining new horizons for the teaching of adaptation studies, these essays draw on such disparate sources as Frankenstein, Moby Dick, and South Park. This volume not only provides a resource-book of lesson plans but offers valuable pointers as to why teaching literature and film can help develop students' skills and improve their literacy.
The contributors to this volume look at adaptation in different contexts and develop new ways to approach adaptation, not just as a literature-through-film issue but as something which can be used to develop other skills, such as creative writing and personal and social skills. Aimed at teachers in high schools and universities at the under- and postgraduate levels, this volume not only suggests how 'adaptation' might be used in different disciplines, but how it might improve the learning experience for teachers and students alike.
This anthology covers new ground in the field of adaptation studies, specifically, as a branch of American Studies that not only encompasses literature and visual media, but also a wide-range of subject areas including, but not limited to, history, political science and cultural/ethnic studies. By looking at adaptation specifically in relation to the United States, the book investigates a variety of culturally and historically transformative strategies, as well showing how the process of adaptation has been influenced by social, ideological and political factors both inside and outside the United States.
From his first feature film, The Duellists, to his international successes Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise, Black Hawk Down, Gladiator, and American Gangster, Ridley Scott has directed some of the most compelling films of the last 30 years. Apart from his work as a film director, Scott has engaged in a vast range of activities, including that as a designer, producer, film mogul, and advertising executive. The Ridley Scott Encyclopedia is the first book that focuses on all aspects of his work in a wide-ranging career that spans nearly 50 years.
The entries in this encyclopedia focus on all aspects of his work and are divided into four categories. The first focuses on Ridley Scott's work as a director, encompassing his feature films from The Duellists to Body of Lies, as well as his work in television, including commercials. The second category focuses on the people who have been involved in Scott's projects, including actors, directors, producers, designers, writers and other creative personnel. The third focuses on general thematic issues raised in Scott's work, such as gender construction, political issues, and geographical locations. Finally the encyclopedia incorporates entries on films by other directors who have influenced Scott's approach to his work as a director or producer. Each entry is followed by a bibliography of published sources, both in print and online, making this the most comprehensive reference on Scott's body of work.
Considered one of the greatest of American authors, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) created a memorable body of literature, which included the novels The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables, as well as a wealth of short stories. In Adapting Nathaniel Hawthorne to the Screen: Forging New Worlds, Laurence Raw demonstrates how filmmakers have turned to Hawthorne to comment on the nation's past, present, and future.
Raw shows how some filmmakers have tackled the difficulty of Hawthorne's material by treating him strictly as a writer whose work was firmly situated in American life of the mid-nineteenth century. Raw also examines how directors have used Hawthorne's stories to comment on various aspects of twentieth century American life. This device is particularly evident in the many versions of The Scarlet Letter, such as the 1950 television version broadcast two months after Senator Joseph McCarthy's speech about State Department employees who were "card-carrying members of the Communist Party" and 1960s and early 70s versions supporting countercultural values where filmmakers created characters prepared to fly in the face of conformity and search for alternative means of existence.
In this volume, Raw also discusses adaptations of the short stories "Feathertop," "The Snow Image," "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," and "Rappacinni's Daughter," as well as the novels The House of Seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter, the latter having been transformed into film no less than ten times. By surveying the canon of adaptations produced over the last eight decades, this book provides a unique insight into American social, political, and cultural history from a variety of perspectives, underlining how Hawthorne's work has been of enduring concern to directors and audiences alike.
In Adapting Henry James to The Screen: Gender, Fiction and Film, author Laurence Raw suggests that most James adaptations have sought to shift attention away from the classical narrative to the spectator's interaction with that narrative. Raw demonstrates that while several adaptations have critically engaged with the subject of gender relations, they have often ended up by reinforcing rather than questioning accepted norms. Yet, there are instances where individual directors and/or screenwriters have bucked the trend and directly engaged with what people understand by 'masculine' and 'feminine' behavior, thus focusing on how the notions of 'masculinity' and 'femininity' are socially constructed, not only in the societies represented on screen, but in the spectators' world as well.
This book shows how changing priorities affected the ways in which James's novels were translated to the screen, and how they examined the theme of gender relations. Not only does this represent a new departure for adaptation studies (which hitherto has largely focused on issues of textual fidelity), but it is a particularly appropriate methodology for studying James, who was perhaps the first modern novelist to grapple with the often conflicting concerns of artistic integrity and commercial potential.
Raw discusses most of the major adaptations, beginning with Berkeley Square (1933) and culminating with James Ivory's The Golden Bowl. This book also offers new readings of well-known adaptations and examines works that have hitherto been critically neglected, such as The Lost Moment (1947), The House In The Square (1951), The Haunting of Hell House (1999), and four television versions of The Turn of the Screw produced between 1974 and 1999. Consequently, Adapting Henry James to the Screen is the most comprehensive survey yet published on Henry James's work on film and television.
Leo J. Mahoney, Daniel Denton's A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF NEW YORK: A Pre-Industrial American Dream
G. St. John Scott - Amerindian History, the BOOK OF MORMON, and the American Dream
Manoli Lopez Ramirez - Treasure Hunt in Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure'
Sinan Akilli - The Destruction of the American Dream in Sam Shepard's CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS
J. Emmet Winn, Investigating the American Dream in Pretty Woman (1990)
Lerzan Gultekin, The Myth of the American Dream in Adrian Lyne's Indecent Proposal (1991)
Erik Angelone, Reality TV: A Contemporary Medium for Participating in the 'New' American Dream
Tomasz M. Lebiecki, The American Dream as el Seuno Americano: Lost in Translation?
Richard Profozich, The American Dream: A Still Viable Concept of American Exceptionalism?
Laurence Raw et. al. - Staging WAITING FOR LEFTY: Or, Agit-Prop in Ankara.
Aaron Peron Ogletree - Review of THE WILLIAM FREEMAN MURDER TRIAL by Andrew W. Arpey
I will subsequently show how the 1981 Lear reinforced the modernist ideal by drawing upon western traditions of performing Shakespeare and synthesizing them with local expertise. Gökçer persuaded the British Council to bring over Basil Coleman and designer Roger Andrews, both of whom had recently collaborated on the BBC TV Shakespeare production of As You Like It. This was a deliberate decision: Gökçer wanted to import well-known specialists with a proven track record of success in the theatre and television, to show to the world at large that the Turkish Republic was making every effort to re-establish itself as a pro-western democracy.
cultural images and their significances in both cultures;
how cultural icons crossed the Atlantic Ocean and were reinvented;
how the British – in particular – judged their identities by comparing themselves with Americans, as shown in movies
I recorded the talk on SoundCloud at https://soundcloud.com/laurence-raw/history-adaptation-and-freedom-2016
Having spent almost all my time since then writing, teaching and organising programmes in Turkish universities, I now find that the certainities which I expressed in the thesis no longer seem certainities now. What did I mean by 'relevance', for example? What criteria did I employ in determining whether a particular play was 'relevant' or 'irrelevant' to modern audiences? And what exactly did I mean by 'the modern audience'? Did it refer to the paying customers, or simply to the critics who write about productions on their first nights (whose reviews I relied heavily upon in my reconstruction of each production)? Further questions spring to mind: by whose standards do we judge whether a text has been significantly rewritten for performance - an academic's? the theatre director's? or Laurence Raw's standards, as determined in 1989?. And what does 'fidelity to the text' mean, anyway? There are plenty of contemporary plays concerned with money, love and class, so why should directors bother to turn to a Jacobean city comedy? What this paper represents is an attempt not only to confront these questions, but also to reconsider the more basic problem of why (and whether) a dramatist such as Ben Jonson should have his plays performed, or be studied in an educational institution at all.
Such paradoxes lie at the heart of the actress’ status during the late Victorian period, and it is these that this paper seeks to explore. In keeping with the theme of this seminar – “Text and context in Victorian Literature” - this paper will subsequently look at the social position of the Victorian actress, as revealed through various sources - published plays, songs, autobiographies. Such evidence should demonstrate that the various manifestations of the actresses' identity were constructed in keeping with the interests of particular groups, to the disadvantage of female performers themselves.
later novels raised scarcely a critical murmur. The Autobiography tries to fix the self for all time; to put forth the idea that the autobiographer matters and that James' life is significant in the supposed order of things. With this in mind, James set out to create a work that would consolidate his reputation as a writer of distinction - someone associated with a difficult, resistant style of writing that frustrated general readers and opened him to claims of literary ancestorship by modernist and/or postmodernist writers and critics.
This article will consider two of these adaptations--The Portrait of a Lady and The Golden Bowl--in detail, focusing in particular on the way in which they conceive their female characters. Before that, however, I will situate the adaptations in context by looking at how classic serials were produced in the 60s and 70s. Both The Portrait of a Lady and The Golden Bowl were adapted by Jack Pulman and directed by James Cellan Jones; following their British premieres, they were broadcast on PBS in the United States in the Masterpiece Theatre series which began in 1971. They were produced by the BBC Serials Department, which at the time provided 140 hours per annum of television (excluding repeats), with a staff of six directors and eight producers. Each year the department head proposed a package of programs for broadcast in regular slots--the classic serial on BBC2 every Saturday (with a repeat on Thursday), or the Sunday tea-time classic serial on BBC1. By the late 60s the serial had established through weekly scheduling in seasonal blocks enough regularity to build an audience, and enough identity to build an ethos, based on the notion of contributing to the development of a national culture. The BBC executive Oliver Whitley remarked in 1965 that the classic serial should educate the British people, most of whom were rather "culture-resistant" (Whitley 1). A 1972 book Television and the People congratulated the Corporation's classic serial output for rendering "obsolete the former divisions which stratified the public into high, low and middle brows" (Groombridge 23).
This paper will seek to illustrate this process through an analysis of William Wyler's The Heiress (Paramount, 1949). The main focus will not be on fidelity to the original text (Washington Square), or communicating the author's intention (whatever that might be) to the audience, but rather on issues that influenced the film's screenplay, casting, and visual style. I shall not discuss the screenplay in detail, but rather focus on how its construction was influenced by two factors: the critical reputation of Henry James and Washington Square at the time when the film was made; and the fact that the film was based on a successful Broadway (and subsequently West End) adaptation. I also want to show how the screenplay restored elements of Henry James's novel, which were omitted from the adaptation. In looking at the casting of the film, Wyler was as much concerned with repeating the commercial and artistic success of The Little Foxes (1941) as he was with remaining truthful to Henry James. This also determined the way in which the film was designed.
Another workshop, given by Laurence Raw and Gülfem Aslan of the British Council, looked at how Carroll could be used in the language classroom.
"
Above all, this monograph shows how Evaristo refuses to be pigeon-holed; she is not simply “a black British writer,” but someone who focuses on the interconnectedness of society. This book calls for readers to adopt a more enlightened approach, not only to issues of culture and identity, but to the work of Evaristo as a whole.
"
The Sitcom endeavors to redefine our perception of the genre. Based on extensive research plus interviews with (mostly British) television practitioners – writers, directors, producers –the book examines sitcom in terms of the industry that produces it, the programs which constitute it, and the audiences which consume it.