Geoff King is Professor of Film Studies at Brunel University and author of five books focused on the independent sector, including American Independent Cinema (2005), Indiewood, USA: Where Hollywood Meets Independent Cinema (2009) and Indie 2.0: Change and Continuity in Contemporary Indie Film (2012).

Introduction Part 1 Introduction Chapter 1 Independent of What? Sorting out differences from Hollywood, Janet Staiger Chapter 2 `Independent¿, `Indie¿ and `Indiewood¿: towards a periodisation of contemporary (post-1980) American independent cinema, Yannis Tzioumakis Chapter 3 Thriving or in Permanent Crisis? Discourses on the state of indie cinema, Geoff King Chapter 4 Quirky: buzzword or sensibility?, James MacDowell Part 2 Introduction Chapter 5 Movies for Hipsters, Michael Z. Newman Chapter 6 Discerning Independents: Steven Soderbergh and transhistorical taste cultures, Mark Gallagher Chapter 7 Their Own Personal Velocity: women directors and contemporary independent cinema, Michele Schreiber Chapter 8 Last Indie Standing: the special case of Lions Gate in the new millennium, Alisa Perren Part 3 Introduction Chapter 9 Conglomerate Hollywood and American Independent Film, Thomas Schatz Chapter 10 Reputational capital, creative conflict and Hollywood independence: the case of Hal Ashby, Philip Drake Chapter 11 The Limits of Autonomy: Stanley Kubrick, Hollywood and independent filmmaking, 1950-53, Peter Krämer Chapter 12 Independent nature: wildlife films between Hollywood and indiewood, Claire Molloy Part 4 Introduction Chapter 13 In Hollywood, but not of Hollywood: Independent Christian Filmmaking, James Russell Chapter 14 Welcome to the (neo) grindhouse! Sex, violence and the indie film, Sarah Wharton Chapter 15 Faux Real? C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America as the response to The Birth of a Nation, Novotny Lawrence Chapter 16 Measuring Online Word-of-Mouth: The Initial Reception of Inland Empire (2006) on the Web, Warren Buckland

In recent years few topics within film studies, and especially Hollywood cinema, have attracted more attention than American independent cinema. Written by some of the leading authors in the field, American independent cinema: indie, indiewood and beyond will introduce students to recent developments as well as reviewing, reassessing and revising particular positions, approaches and arguments concerning American independent cinema.