Justin Rawlins is a film historian, Martinsville native, and professor of media studies at Ontario Tech University in Toronto, Canada. He is the author of the book Imagining the Method.
Please join us at the MET for a special screening of the 1980s classic Footloose with special host, film historian Justin Rawlins. The event kicks off at 7pm with special movie material curated by Dr. Rawlins, followed by an introduction to the Kevin Bacon starrer. Footloose will begin at 7:30pm. 
Fables and Fairy Tales will be on hand selling copies of his book to be signed at the event. Purchase your movie tickets from the MET’s online site. 
Book Description: A revisionist history of Method acting that connects the popular reception of “methodness” to entrenched understandings of screen performance still dominating American film discourse today.
Only one performance style has dominated the lexicon of the casual moviegoer: “Method acting.” The first reception-based analysis of film acting, Imagining the Method investigates how popular understandings of the so-called Method—what its author Justin Rawlins calls "methodness"—created an exclusive brand for white, male actors while associating such actors with rebellion and marginalization. Drawing on extensive archival research, the book maps the forces giving shape to methodness and policing its boundaries.
Imagining the Method traces the primordial conditions under which the Method was conceived. It explores John Garfield's tenuous relationship with methodness due to his identity. It considers the links between John Wayne's reliance on "anti-Method" stardom and Marlon Brando and James Dean's ascribed embodiment of Method features. It dissects contemporary emphases on transformation and considers the implications of methodness in the encoding of AI performers. Altogether, Justin Rawlins offers a revisionist history of the Method that shines a light on the cultural politics of methodness and the still-dominant assumptions about race, gender, and screen actors and acting that inform how we talk about performance and performers.