film and television

The Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein initiated what has become a very long and multifaceted conversation about James Joyce in relation to film.  He was the first director to contemplate an adaptation of Ulysses, for instance, and the only one to discuss such a project with the author himself. Although that adaptation project never came to fruition, Eisenstein was the first film theorist who used Ulysses and Finnegans Wake as reference points to describe how film worked and how it might continue to evolve in the future. He was also the first filmmaker to apply these concepts in practice.

Archival practices in the 20th and early-21st century have been understood in a variety of ways. For some, “artists started to rely on the topos of the archive to express their unease about canonic systems for the production of knowledge” (Giannachi, 2016: 131). For others, a reviewing of the archive as a power structure and the blind spots, or silences, it produced was in order (Michel-Rolph Trouillot, 1995: 53). For others still, this ‘archival turn’ grew out of a fascination with historiography and with memory (Spieker, 2008: 26), characteristic of postmodern societies. Two main theoretical frameworks have been consistently called forth in contemporary studies of the archive.

Horror films have long held a place in cinematic history as an expression of the monstrous, the un-nameable, and the unknown. They are a powerful point of catharsis in which viewers see their deepest fears played out onscreen, whether the threat is fully embodied or less concretely defined. As a result, grief and loss have always figured heavily in this genre.

We are currently soliciting 250-word abstracts for essays to be included in an edited collection on David Fincher to be published as part of the University of Edinburgh ReFocus series, which examines overlooked American directors (series editors Robert Singer, Frances Smith, and Gary D. Rhodes). The collection aims to broaden and deepen the understanding of Fincher as a filmmaker with distinct aesthetic and cultural significance. 

CFP: Isn’t It Ironic?: Receivership and Responsibility in Popular Culture (edited collection)

Ian Kinane and Elizabeth Parker (eds.)