research interests

Nancy West has published articles in such journals as Narrative, Yale Journal of Criticism, Genre, Nineteenth-Century Contexts, and the Yale Journal of Law and Humanities. Her first book, Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia, was published in 2000 by the University Press of Virginia. With former MU graduate student Penelope Pelizzon, she is currently completing another book entitled Narrative Rivalries: Tabloid Journalism and the Hollywood Crime Film. Spotlighting figures such as Walter Winchell, Weegee, and Samuel Fuller, the book examines the rich history of narrative exchanges between tabloid media (including newspapers, scandal magazines, and crime scene photography) and Hollywood crime films produced between 1924 and 1962. She has also begun work on a third book, tentatively titled "Gone American: Masterpiece Theater and the Intercultural Politics of Film Adaptation."