Arguments over inclusion and excusion flare when terms like ‘refugee’ and ‘migrant’ hit the headlines and tensions are exacerbated when nation-states change as a result of a coup, conflict, referenda or elections by which national identity may freeze into a bordered block when nationalism is released or melt into common areas as treaties break boundaries. … Continue reading “Enough of Experts”
Month: August 2016
Dead Deadlines
Ever watched the hurdles? Think of them as deadlines. You’ve got your sprinters with incredible focus who effortlessly straddle them, dip and come up smiling with medals around their necks. Then you’ve got your runners-up, who jostle together to claim a meaningful position. After them at some distance comes the pack, a jumble of contributors, each … Continue reading “Dead Deadlines”
Other Screens, Another World
One of the biggest challenges to editing The Routledge Companion to World Cinema is defining what is meant by a ‘cinema’. Is it a building, a small group of films, an omnitudinous category or an abstract ideal? If I pay to watch a film in a building is that cinema? How about if I stream … Continue reading “Other Screens, Another World”
Reality Bites
There’s this line in (I think) a Woody Allen film. It might be said by Tony Roberts in Annie Hall. He’s in television or something and when asked what he’s working on, replies – uh, I’m paraphrasing, “I’ve got this notion and I’m trying to find the time to turn it into an idea. If … Continue reading “Reality Bites”
On Exactitude in the Science of Editing a Book on World Cinema
There have been a number of volumes in recent years that have begun to engage with the concept of World cinema in a more differentiated way than in the first decade of its use, when it largely served to describe something that wasn’t Hollywood. When planning a new intervention into the debate on what constitutes ‘world … Continue reading “On Exactitude in the Science of Editing a Book on World Cinema”
Duality, Multiplicity and A Singularity of Purpose
The specific, targeted readership for the The Routledge Companion to World Cinema is a dual readership of scholars and students. We carefully selected and arranged the range of subjects and the expert contributors to ensure that the volume would be attractive to all levels of academia and when that didn’t work we asked our mates. … Continue reading “Duality, Multiplicity and A Singularity of Purpose”
When A Plan Comes Together
We love it! The digital 21st century has transformed the 20th century incentive to study film. Well over a decade into the new millennium, film studies is evolving to the extent that it is possible to posit a new and expansive concept of its academic and social worth within an international curriculum in communication, information … Continue reading “When A Plan Comes Together”
Meanwhile, The Middlebrow.
While we played with the incoming abstracts for The Routledge Companion to World Cinema, our new book series from Routledge entitled Remapping World Cinemas: Regional Tensions and Global Transformations was also taking shape. You might think that editing a book series is much bigger than editing a single book, but the truth is that there are so many working … Continue reading “Meanwhile, The Middlebrow.”
Building Blocks
Back in the pre-deadline ooze, when beautiful abstracts were putting plump flesh on the bare bones of our outline, it often seemed as if The Routledge Companion to World Cinema might actually meet its own remit of uniting contributors from key areas of world cinema studies and re-uniting several of the leading authors of key works that this … Continue reading “Building Blocks”
Flashforward
Telling the full story of how the Remapping World Cinema series and The Routledge Companion to World Cinema came to be means recapping, which has been the narrative of this blog until now. But on this update we’ll flash forward to today and check on how things are coming together. We have forty contributions in various … Continue reading “Flashforward”