The Intellect Handbook of Adult Film and Media

The essential guide to adult film and media studies, combining historical insight, critical theory, and global perspectives for scholars, educators, and students alike. The Intellect Handbook of Adult Film and Media brings together 36 chapters organized into six sections, spanning historical and methodological approaches, issues of representation and production, spectatorship, transnational perspectives, and questions of law, health, and policy—offering a comprehensive survey of this growing field. Written by leading scholars, the volume examines sexually explicit media in its full context: its production, circulation, consumption, and reception. Engaging with a wide body of scholarship, the essays outline key literature, major historical developments, and central theoretical debates that advance adult film and media studies as a legitimate area of academic inquiry. Designed as both a reference and teaching resource, the handbook will be invaluable to scholars and educators in film, media, gender, sexuality, and porn studies. “This outstandingly rich and wide-ranging collection with many key voices in adult film and media studies highlights the significance of an often misunderstood and maligned arena of media production, unravelling its complex histories and contemporary manifestations with clarity and precision. In its diverse explorations of adult media, from early stag films to online porn, it tracks production, exhibition, and circulation, labour networks, representation, regulation, and expanding global forms––making for a terrific teaching resource. These illuminating and inspiring essays provide an essential and timely tool kit for understanding sexually explicit media in the twenty-first century.” Elena Gorfinkel, author of Lewd Looks: American Sexploitation Cinema in the 1960s and reader in film studies, King’s College London Peter Alilunas is associate professor of cinema studies at the University of Oregon, USA. Patrick Keilty is associate professor at the University of Toronto, Canada, where he teaches in the Faculty of Information and the Cinema Studies Institute. Darshana Sreedhar Mini is associate professor of film at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA. The Intellect Handbook of Adult Film and Media collects 36 chapters in six broad sections related to the study of adult film and media: History; Methodologies and Pedagogies; Representations; Production, Spectatorship, and Distribution; Area Studies and Transnationalism; and Law, Health, Policy, and the State. These chapters offer a survey of the discipline, with overviews of the primary literature, important histories, and essential arguments. The Handbook is designed as a reference work and resource for emerging scholars and educators teaching undergraduate courses on film, media, gender, sexuality, or porn studies. This handbook fills an important gap within cinema and media studies by examining sexually explicit media content and the context for its circulation, production, consumption, and broader reception. Through these essays and the extensive body of literature they engage with, it aims to support the continued growth of adult film and media studies.