Richard Abel (cultural historian)
Richard Abel | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1941 Canton, Ohio, United States |
| Occupation(s) | Film scholar, professor emeritus |
| Years active | 1984–present |
| Known for | Expertise in silent cinema; establishing French silent film studies in the US |
Richard Abel holds the title of Professor Emeritus in International Film and Media within the University of Michigan's Department of Film, Television, and Media. Renowned for his expertise in silent cinema, he was instrumental in establishing the academic field of French silent film studies in the United States. Abel has produced a substantial body of work including books and articles that examine the development and decline of French cinema, early American film history, film exhibition practices, the rise of film culture in newspapers, the influence of pioneering women writers and critics, as well as the depiction of settler colonialism through early westerns.
Life
Originally from Canton, Ohio, Abel began his education studying forestry at Utah State University before completing a bachelor's degree in English. He pursued graduate studies in comparative literature at the University of Southern California, where he earned his Ph.D. with a dissertation focused on T.S. Eliot and Saint-John Perse. Abel’s academic career included teaching at Drake University in Iowa, where he directed both the Cultural Studies Program and the Center for the Humanities, organizing conferences on topics such as war and media discourse. In 2002, he joined the University of Michigan as Robert Altman Collegiate Professor of Film Studies, later serving as Interim Chair and Graduate Program Director.
Research
Starting his scholarly journey in comparative literature, Abel transitioned to film studies with his 1984 publication French Cinema: The First Wave, 1915-1929 (Princeton University Press), which reevaluated the factors influencing the French film industry, narrative genres, and avant-garde cinema networks.
He compiled a two-volume anthology titled French Film Theory and Criticism, 1907-1939 (Princeton University Press, 1988), gathering nearly 150 significant texts that were largely unavailable in English before. His comprehensive study The Ciné Goes to Town: French Cinema, 1896-1914 (University of California Press, 1994) chronicles France’s early global prominence in cinema.
Abel examined how American films economically and culturally overshadowed French cinema through The Red Rooster Scare: Making Cinema American, 1900-1910 (University of California Press, 1999), which discusses how Pathé films initially popularized movie-going before being labeled foreign. His work Americanizing the Movies and 'Movie-Mad' Audiences (2006) explores genre creation and distribution processes that helped shape American identity prior to World War I.
His focused investigations include Menus for Movie Land: Newspapers and the Emergence of American Film Culture, 1913-1916 (2006), emphasizing newspapers’ influence—particularly female journalists—in cultivating early film culture; Motor City Movie Culture, 1916-1925 (Indiana University Press, 2020), centered on Detroit’s local film industry; and Our Country/Whose Country: Early Westerns and Travel Films as Stories of Settler Colonialism (Oxford University Press, 2023), which analyzes how early westerns depicted American expansionism.
His latest research, The Exhibitor as Producer: Stage Prologues in American Movie Theatres, 1917-1926 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), investigates theatrical preludes that shaped audiences' movie-going experiences.
Among his edited collections are the Encyclopedia of Early Cinema (Routledge, 2005/2010), featuring over 950 entries on cinema’s initial quarter-century; Early Cinema: Critical Concepts (Routledge, 2014), a four-volume anthology of essential texts; and Movie Mavens: US Newspaper Women Take on the Movies, 1914-1923 (University of Illinois Press, 2021), highlighting key female editors who influenced early film criticism.
Abel’s scholarship has been recognized with numerous awards including the Theatre Library Association Award (1985, 1995, 2006) and the Jay Leyda Prize in Cinema Studies (1989). He has received fellowships from prestigious institutions such as NEH (1983, 2001, 2011), ACLS (1987), National Humanities Center (1988), and Guggenheim Foundation (1993). His essay “Pathé Goes to Town” was honored with the Katherine Singer Kovács Award (1995); “The Middleman of the Movies” earned the IAMHIST-Routledge Prize (2021).
Additionally, Abel was awarded the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Distinguished Career Award (2014) and received the Jean Mitry Award from Giornate del cinema muto (2017).
Published Monographs
- Abel, Richard. French Cinema: The First Wave, 1915-1929. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
- Abel, Richard. The Ciné Goes to Town: French Cinema, 1896-1914. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
- Abel, Richard. The Red Rooster Scare: Making Cinema American, 1900-1910. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
- Abel, Richard. Americanizing the Movies and ‘Movie-Mad’ Audiences, 1910-1914. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
- Abel, Richard. Menus for Movieland: Newspapers and the Emergence of American Film Culture, 1913-1916. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015.
- Abel, Richard. Motor City Movie Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020.
- Abel, Richard. Our Country/Whose Country? Early Westerns and Travel Films as Stories of Settler Colonialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023.
- Abel, Richard. The Exhibitor as Producer: Stage Prologues in American Movie Theaters, 1917-1926. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.
Edited volumes
- Abel, Richard, editor. French Film Theory and Criticism. Two volumes. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. Volume 1 covers 1907-1929; Volume 2 spans 1929-1939.
- Abel, Richard and Rick Altman, editors. The Sounds of Early Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.
- Abel, Richard, editor. Encyclopedia of Early Cinema. New York: Routledge, 2005.
- Abel, Richard, Giorgio Bertellini, and Rob King, editors. Early Cinema and the ‘National’. East Barnet, UK: John Libbey Publishing, 2008.
- Abel, Richard, editor. Early Cinema, four volumes. New York: Routledge, 2013.
- Hodgdon, Barbara; Abel, Richard; and Peter Holland, editors. Ghostly Fragments. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020.
- Abel, Richard, editor. Movie Mavens: US Newspaper Women Take on the Movies, 1914-1923. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2021.
Awards and honors
- 2021 David H. Culbert IAMHIST-Routledge Prize for Best Article by an Established Scholar for “The Middleman of the Movies: US Film Exchanges, 1915-1919.”
- 2017 Jean Mitry Award at Giornate del cinema muto in Pordenone (Italy)
- 2016 Huffington Post annual recognition listing Menus for Movieland among top academic film publications
- 2014 Distinguished Career Achievement Award from SCMS
- 2006 Finalist for Theatre Library Association Award for Americanizing the Movies and ‘Movie-Mad’ Audiences.
- 2005 Winner of Theatre Library Association Award for best book on recorded performance for the Encyclopedia of Early Cinema.
- 1999 Kraszna-Kraus Moving Image Book Awards finalist with The Red Rooster Scare.
- 1998 SCS Katherine Singer Kovács Award for outstanding essay in cinema studies (1995-1997)
- 1995 Theatre Library Association Award for best book on recorded performance recognizing The Ciné Goes to Town.
- 1989 Jay Leyda Prize in Cinema Studies awarded for French Film Theory and Criticism.
- 1985 Theatre Library Association Award honoring best book on recorded performance for French Cinema: The First Wave.