This new go-to reference book for global melodrama assembles contributions by experts from a wide range of disciplines, including cultural studies, film and media studies, gender and queer studies, political science, and postcolonial studies. The melodramas covered in this volume range from early 20th century silent movies to contemporary films, from independent arthouse productions to Hollywood blockbusters. The comprehensive overview of global melodramatic film in the Lexicon constitutes a valuable resource for scholars and practitioners of film, teachers, film critics, and anyone who is interested in the past and present of melodramatic film on a global scale. The Lexicon of Global Melodrama includes essays on All That Heaven Allows, Bombay, Casablanca, Die Büchse der Pandora, In the Mood for Love, Nosotros los Pobres, Terra Sonâmbula, and Tokyo Story.

Heike Paul (Prof. Dr.) is the chair holder of American studies at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and directs the Global Sentimentality Project. Research stays and visiting professorships have taken her to Cambridge (MA), Toronto, Hanover (NH), and Los Angeles, among other places. In 2018, she was recipient of the Leibniz Prize. Sarah Marak (M.A.) is a doctoral researcher in American studies at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Her research interests include popular culture, discourses on terrorism, U.S.-American myths and ecocriticism. Her dissertation project focuses on representations of radical environmental activism in US literature and culture. Katharina Gerund (Dr. phil.) teaches American studies at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Her research interests include transatlantic cultural mobility, popular culture as well as gender and critical race studies. Current projects focus on the U.S. re-education policies of the postwar years and the figure of the military spouse in the cultural imaginary of the U.S. Marius Henderson (M.A.) is a postdoctoral researcher in American studies at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. His research interests include critical theory (especially affect and Afro-diasporic theory), North American poetry, and gender studies. His current research project investigates the relation between dynamics of abstraction and abjection in the context of North American modernisms.