Special issue out now: Early Film Theory Revisited: Historical Perspectives

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Overview: here
Abstract of the introduction (T. Hochscherf and K. Niemeyer)
“Early film theory is the main focus of this special issue. Revisiting it means to rethink well-known mechanisms, patterns and key personae, but also to resituate them in relation to one another by taking into consideration the historical circumstances of their genesis, publication, reception, transformation and, if applicable, their legacy. Theories, in fact, appear in certain periods and places and they do not fall from the sky, and theoretical writing and consequently theoretical content cannot be separated from their specific conditions of production and reception. If films shape or represent cultural attitudes, the same can be said about theories. They emerge within concrete and complex technological, economic, social and cultural premises.
This following article reconsiders major early film theories and theorists up to the 1950s. Yet, some of them also provide scope for more or less unknown theoretical thinkers. The themed issue does so from historical perspectives that seek to contextualise the different approaches and concepts within their environment of production and reception. Instead of accepting theoretical ideas as universal, global and timeless concepts that can be applied at will, their thematic, geographical and historical contextualisation requires more scrutiny. Given that all theories, regardless of their aim or scope, are the product of specific historical, geographical and ideological circumstances, ahistorical approaches, which tend at discretion to apply theories without acknowledging their origin or evolution to any past or contemporary film, ought thus to be questioned”.

CINEMAS OF PARIS now available

Our 372 pages-long richly illustrated book CINEMAS OF PARIS is now
available.

Edited by myself and French critic Jean-Michel Frodon, with assistance
from international  contributors like Will Brown, Danny Fairfax, Ana
Grgic, Frances Guerin, Michael Gott, Sue Harris, Flora Lichaa, Renaud
Olivero, and Yoana Pavlova.
The book features numerous photo collages from Paul-Raymond Cohen (known
for his work for Cahiers du cinema).
We also feature numerous vignettes by world directors who talk of their
love to specific cinemas in Paris: from Kiarostami to Apichatpong, and
from Jia Zhangke to Ken Loach.

Paris is an endless film festival, so it was real pleasure working on
this project. We are proud with the result, which we hope to be the most
solid discussion on global cinema exhibition in this amazing city.

Orders placed before 5 January will benefit from a 20% discount
Online
shop http://onlineshop.st-andrews.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=1&catid=87&prodvarid=472

Now all issues online: SCOPE journal

An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies.  The content from all the journal’s past issues, from 1999 to 2014, is now online at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/scope/index.aspx.

Scope’s content also remains open access, so we hope interested scholars will take the opportunity to browse the issue archive.  Please note too that URLs for all content (articles, book reviews, film and television reviews, and conference reports) have now changed to reflect the new site address. It may take some time before search engines reliably redirect those searching for content via URLs from the time of publication.

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