A Queer Film Classic on 1974's Arabian Nights by Pier Paolo Pasolini, the controversial Italian director who was murdered under mysterious circumstances in 1975.

Already internationally distinguished as a poet, novelist, and outspoken social critic of the postwar period, Pasolini turned to filmmaking around 1960. In little more than a decade, he produced one of the most remarkable bodies of work in cinema history, beginning with his early film-portraits of the struggles of underclass youths and extending through his adaptations of such sacred or mythic narratives as the stories of Oedipus and Medea and the Gospel of St. Matthew. In what turned out to be the last years of his career, Pasolini turned to several classic works of chain-narrative -The Arabian Nights, The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales, and Sade's The 120 Days of Sodom--as models for his own radical expansion of cinema's capacities for telling, showing, and enacting embodiment, nudity, and sexual desires and behaviours.

This book explores the legacy and context of Arabian Nights, in many ways the most optimistic and appealing of Pasolini's late films, not only in the final explosive phase of Pasolini's career but also more broadly in the global history of film spectacle from Douglas Fairbanks to Maria Montez.

Michael Moon is the author of books on the body in Walt Whitman's poetry, imitation and initiation in American art and writing from Henry James to Andy Warhol, and the sources of the work of outsider artist Henry Darger. He has taught at Duke and Johns Hopkins University, and now teaches at Emory University in Atlanta.

Michael Moon's profile page

Thomas Waugh is the award-winning author or co-author of numerous books, including five for Arsenal Pulp Press: Out/Lines, Lust Unearthed, Montreal Main: A Queer Film Classic (with Jason Garrison), Comin' At Ya! (with David L. Chapman) and Gay Art: A Historic Collection (with Felix Lance Falkon). His other books include Hard to Imagine, The Fruit Machine, and The Romance of Transgression. He teaches film studies at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, where he lives. He has published widely on political discourses and sexual representation in film and video, on lesbian and gay film and video, and has more recently undertaken interdisciplinary research and teaching on AIDS. He is also the founder and former coordinator of the Minor Programme in Interdisciplinary Studies in Sexuality at Concordia.

In addition to the titles below, Thomas is also co-editor (with Matthew Hays) of the Queer Film Classics series.

Thomas Waugh's profile page

Matthew Hays is a Montreal-based critic, author, film festival programmer, and university instructor. He is the co-editor (with Thomas Waugh) of Arsenal Pulp's Queer Film Classics series. He has been a film critic and reporter for the weekly Montreal Mirror since 1993. His first book, The View from Here: Conversations with Gay and Lesbian Filmmakers (Arsenal Pulp Press), was cited by Quill & Quire as one of the best books of 2007 and won a 2008 Lambda Literary Award. His articles have appeared in a broad range of publications, including The Guardian, The Daily Beast, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, Vice, The Walrus, The Advocate, The Toronto Star, The International Herald Tribune, Cineaste, Cineaction, Quill & Quire, This Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Canadian Screenwriter, and Xtra!. He teaches courses in journalism, communication studies and film studies at Concordia University, where he received his MA in communication studies in 2000. A two-time nominee for a National Magazine Award, Hays received the 2013 Concordia President's Award for Teaching Excellence. .
Matthew is also co-editor (with Thomas Waugh) of the Queer Film Classics series.

Matthew Hays' profile page