The Richard Dyer Reader

Richard Dyer is one of the most important film scholars in the world – establishing the fields of star and sexuality studies while exercising a huge influence on the analysis of race and gender in popular culture. It is remarkable that his work has not yet been collected in this kind of volume – perhaps because he is rightly careful about how to do it. In Glyn Davis and Jaap Kooijman, he has the perfect anthologists.

Richard Dyer is one of the most important film scholars in the world – establishing the fields of star and sexuality studies while exercising a huge influence on the analysis of race and gender in popular culture. It is remarkable that his work has not yet been collected in this kind of volume – perhaps because he is rightly careful about how to do it. In Glyn Davis and Jaap Kooijman, he has the perfect anthologists.

For half a century, Dyer has been one of the most important, impassioned and insightful observers in film/media and cultural studies. The Richard Dyer Reader ’s selections – on action film, musicals, politics, gay pornography, whiteness, television, disco, stardom and much more – showcase Dyer at his blissfully jargon-free best.

As with any collection, its success is shaped by the editors and it is a testament to Davis and Kooijman that the anthology is comprehensive, enlightening and unexpected, instantly positioning it as indispensable for Dyer neophiles and completists.

Richard Dyer is Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at King's College London, UK. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, recipient of the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies' Lifetime Achievement Award, and of Honorary Lifetime Membership of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies. His pioneering work on gay and lesbian representation and on popular entertainment has been published in books including Now You See It: Studies on Lesbian and Gay Film (1990); White (1993); Stars (2nd edition, BFI, 1998); Pastiche (2006); In the Space of a Song (2011); Nino Rota: Music, Film and Feeling (BFI, 2010) and Lethal Repetition: Serial Killing in European Cinema (BFI, 2015). He is the author of BFI Film Classics on Se7en (1997); Brief Encounter (2015) and La dolce vita (2017 and 2020). He is a writer and reviewer for outlets including Sight & Sound, The Atlantic, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service.

Glyn Davis
is Professor of Film Studies at the University of St Andrews, UK. Jaap Kooijman is Associate Professor in Media Studies and American Studies at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.