Book Talk 69: American Medium, with Eyal Peretz

About this episode

Ulrich C. Baer interviews Eyal Peretz about his book American Medium, exploring the concept of America through the lens of significant American films.

What is “America” not only as a political entity but in our imagination? How can we properly envision America, without repeating clichés that frame America as either reactionary or revolutionary, repressive or liberatory? I spoke with Eyal Peretz about his book American Medium, which looks at Hollywood to re-imagine the concept of "America" through the medium of film. By considering six fundamental American movies: John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, Steven Spielberg's West Side Story, and Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette, Peretz explains how these films do more than represent America and envision a new way to ground human life in our secular age. Eyal Peretz is Professor of Comparative Literature at Indiana University and the author of seminal books on Melville, de Palma, Diderot, da Vinci, as well as film, art, and philosophy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People in this episode

Host: Ulrich C. Baer

Guest: Eyal Peretz

Topics covered

• American identity
• film analysis
• Hollywood
• cultural representation
• secularism

Keywords

• America
• film
• Hollywood
• cultural identity
• Eyal Peretz
• American Medium
• secular age
• cinema

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Indiana University

Books & works: American Medium, Young Mr. Lincoln, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Godfather, West Side Story, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette