ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses the question of gendered authorship in a disreputable genre traditionally codified as 'masculine', seeking to raise questions about what is at stake when women directors make horror films. It offers an exploration of Julie and Julia as a female-focused response to the prevailing cultural discourse of wounded national pride and retribution. The book explores the traffic of genres between national cultures and cinemas, E. Dawn Hall's essay focuses on the genericity of filmic storytelling in the American independent sector. It suggests that generic re-articulations and translations require sociohistorical contextualisation, whether from geo-spatial perspectives or within specific film industrial and cultural parameters. The book also explores the idea of authorship as a form of performance, and one that is as concerned with commercial paratexts as with film and television narratives themselves.
