I am pleased to announce the publication of my book, The Apartment Plot: Urban Living in American Film and Popular Culture, 1945 to 1975 (Duke University Press). The book rethinks films including Pillow Talk, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Rosemary’s Baby, The Boys in the Band, and Rear Window by identifying the “apartment plot” as a distinct genre, one in which the urban apartment figures as a central narrative device. It takes up issues of space, place and gender through an analysis of the ways in which the apartment produces a philosophy of urbanism that relates to identity. Chapters take up the bachelor pad, the single girl’s apartment, the figure of the housewife in the city, and the African American apartment.
“The Apartment Plot is a lively and fascinating read. I was convinced every step of the way by Pamela Robertson Wojcik’s arguments about the apartment plot, including how it works as a genre as well as a cycle, how it makes concrete, and sometimes problematizes, an urban philosophy, and how it represents alternative ideological perspectives on postwar adult life otherwise obscured by all the attention on suburban living. This remarkable book offers a necessary corrective to many dominant and simplistic assumptions about postwar American life.”—Steven Cohan, author of Incongruous Entertainment: Camp, Cultural Value, and the MGM Musical.
For more information, and to order the book directly from Duke University Press, please visit Duke University Press
Pamela Robertson Wojcik
Director, Gender Studies
Associate Professor, Department of Film, TV and Theatre
Pamela.Wojcik.5@nd.edu