March 01, 2012

Steve Ross, Professor of History at the University of Southern California and Co-Director of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, will deliver a guest lecture on Thursday, March 1st. Ross will talk about his new book Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics. The book is the Oxford University Press' lead trade book for the fall season, has been nominated for a Pulitzer, and won the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Film Scholars Award—their academic equivalent of an "Oscar." The talk will be free and open to the public at 3:30 PM in Stein Auditorium (Nesbitt Hall, 33rd & Market Sts.). Prior to his lecture, Professor Ross will be lunching with students from the Pennoni Honors College.

Ross is the author of Movies and American Society (2002) and Workers On the Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788-1890 (1985). His book,Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America (1998), received the prestigious Theater Library Association Book Award for 1999 and was named by the Los Angeles Timesas one of the "Best Books of 1998." His Op-Ed pieces have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal,International Herald-Tribune,Huffington Post, and Washington Independent. He recently served as historical consultant and on-air expert for the Emmy-nominated documentary, "Moguls and Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood."