In The Cinema of Social Death: Blackhood At-Large, Tryon P. Woods argues that cinematic counter-narratives to society's deep-seated racist culture, while claiming to advance racial justice, fail to escape the trappings of anti-blackness and instead function to disguise a parasitic and antagonistic relationship toward blackness, rather than expose how the paradigm works.
Through analyses of a selection of purportedly anti-racist narratives from documentarian Liz Garbus and a trio of independent black filmmakers, Tanya Hamilton, Haile Gerima, and Spike Lee, Woods demonstrates the precarious nature of telling stories of racial justice without falling into the contradictory trap of imposing antiblack notions of gender and sexuality. Contrary to the prevalent sentiment that these visual narratives disrupt and unravel the suffering, lack, and pathology attached to blackness, Woods posits that the films being examined are detrimental to black liberation, and thus, to human deliverance.

As such, this book's chief concern is in how our efforts to unravel the problems of the world become part of the problem. In the process, Woods highlights the trap of visual culture and its racial discourse as it obfuscates the modern era's assault on human reciprocity and connection.

Repositioning Indian art cinema as a genre that articulated an elite, middle-class social imaginary, Indian Art Cinema and its Cultural Elites examines the form's contentious position within Indian society, at once exclusionary in its outlook and yet instrumental in bringing Indian film into global prominence in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Drawing on Bourdieu's theory of cultural production, Jyotika Virdi looks at how a closed producer-critic-consumer circuit reinforced class distinction through a presumption of superior taste. She traces the trajectory of art cinema in India from the 1950s, when new institutions under Nehru's socialist ideals catalysed its emergence, through the New Wave movement of the 1970s and 1980s, and finally to its gradual decline in the 1990s as economic liberalization once again transformed the social landscape. By examining films like The Apu Trilogy (1955-1959) and Godam (Warehouse) (1973), she showcases the complex contradictions of the middle class, who were both the creative producers and consumers of alternative cinema, especially during the political turbulence of the late 1960s and 1970s.

Combining a meticulous examination of key auteurs such as Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Mani Kaul, and Ritwik Ghatak, with a broader study of cultural shifts and institutional frameworks, this book reevaluates the intricate relationship between art films, the state that sustains them, and the ruling cultural elite whose influence far exceeds its size.

Kwasu D. Tembo unites approaches from disciplines as wide-ranging as physics, mathematics, cinema, philosophy, and media theory to pose critical questions concerning time, change, and (un)becoming in contemporary time-travel cinema.

In his analyses of 21st-century cinematic time-travel narratives, Tembo situates human life in time as a palimpsest, with time acting as scriptor and stylus. A time machine, then, functions as a fantasy that allows for this pace to be slowed or accelerated so as to appear entirely suspended, with the potentials of the "Now" (re)opened to the traveler.

As the manipulation of time lends the traveler increased agency-and perhaps the conditions to see themselves more clearly amid a claustrophobic sea of information and content-Tembo contends that we must carefully consider the psycho-emotional affectivity of both the motivations and the potentially traumatic consequences of such a jarring shift in perspective. The results lend critical insight into human understandings of how we experience time and, ultimately, what these understandings permit and disallow in terms of how (it is) to be in time.

How have images of the face been used to document and distort the phenomenon of war? Such is the question that drives this book, with the face forming a recurring - almost ubiquitous - motif throughout visual depictions of military conflict.

At once interdisciplinary, transnational, and transhistorical, War Faces on Screen is organised into three sections. Section One examines representations of the face in war photography, illustrating how photographers have visualised the invisible violence of psychic trauma. Ethical and political concerns are at the forefront of each essay, from the advocacy work of portraiture, to AI tools capable of generating a range of aesthetically convincing yet potentially discriminatory images. Section Two focuses on the aesthetics of the cinematic close-up, drone vision, and how the selective digital colourisation of bodies and faces from archival footage works to impose a moral hierarchy. Section Three concludes the book with a focus on colonisation, decolonisation and defacement, extending earlier discussions of the imperial violence found in recent Hollywood films, where empathy is displaced from the ethnic other to the suffering Western soldier. Our final chapters chart how the face is central to articulating the meaning and sentiment of colonial and civil wars, with even seemingly progressive documentaries perpetuating unequal power dynamics and problematic notions of victimhood. Foregrounding the work of artists and practitioners, alongside theoretical frameworks, War Faces on Screen ultimately forms a radically innovative contribution to the study of image-making and war-making.

This book is a philosophical inquiry into psychological and emotional pain-specifically, the pain experienced by those who live with mental distress and use substances to cope. It challenges how society misreads this pain, reducing it to diagnoses, deviance, or dysfunction. Drawing on critical realism, phenomenology, and lived experience, the book argues that such pain is not a symptom to be silenced, but a form of knowledge an intelligent, if desperate, response to unliveable conditions. Addiction and mental distress are not separate problems, but co-emergent strategies for survival. Through historical critique, philosophical analysis, and empirical data, the book dismantles the concept of "dual diagnosis" and offers an alternative: the Layered Care Model (LCM). Rooted in justice and human dignity, the LCM reimagines care for people who use substances not despite their pain, but because of it. At its heart, the book asks: what if psychological pain comes first and everything else is a response to it?

The 1970s was a pivotal era for crime and criminal justice films in the United States. Many films produced during this period provocatively captured the tumultuous spirit of the era, while also shaping cinematic representations in the decades that followed. This edited volume offers a captivating exploration of the intricate connections between these films and the administration and social perceptions and attitudes toward justice, marginalized individuals, and the complexities of the criminal justice system.

Each chapter delves into the intricate connections between these films and the administration of justice, the social construction of justice, as well as the social constructions of marginalized individuals and groups based on race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. The contents of this collection provide insightful perspectives on the relationships between past representations and present social and cultural conditions.

By examining these crime-based films through a critical lens, this book sheds light on how they have shaped societal perceptions and attitudes towards justice, marginalization, the complexities of the criminal justice system, and the views towards the larger political establishment. This thought-provoking analysis expands our understanding of the enduring influence of these cinematic representations on our collective cultural consciousness.

Through an in-depth analysis of iconic teen movies, this study explores how popular representations of sexual pleasure and desire reinforce institutionalised gender norms and heteronormativity.

Jade Jontef argues that in light of the recent revival of and nostalgia for popular culture spanning from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, teen films such as Clueless (1995), American Pie (1999), and Cruel Intentions (1999) continue to influence thinking around sex, gender and sexuality. Drawing examples from film classification and ratings policies, she argues that these films present a homogenous and exclusionary form of teenhood, providing millennial audiences a limited perspective of youth culture informed by white, middle-class sensibilities and notions of 'proper' sexual behaviour.

Combining close textual analysis with a uniquely socio-legal framework, Jontef interrogates the relationship between cinematic representation and institutional regulations. She highlights how dominant Anglo-American narratives perpetuate exclusionary ideas of adolescence and limited constructions of gender and sexuality.

Departing from standard histories, this book draws on the theory of excess in film to provide a re-examination of Polish cinema history, following emancipatory impulses that emerged in Polish culture between the great crisis of 1968 and the conservative revolution of the Solidarity movement in the 1980s.

Employing a transnational, queer, and decolonial lens, Sebastian Jagielski argues that beyond the binary of state-endorsed and official 'opposition' media, there exists a range of subversive and radical films. He provides close readings of key examples such as The Devil (Diabel) (1972), A Story of Sin (Dzieje grzechu) (1975) and The Palace (Palac) (1980), considering their depiction and transformation of emancipatory ideals born out of Western countercultural movements. He also explores the filmmaking practices of directors like Andrzej Wajda and Andrzej Zulawski, examining their use of subtext, lurid narratives and subversive embedded gestures, all developed against the backdrop of normative visions of Polishness shaped by nationalism, Catholicism, and heteronormativity. In doing so he proposes a critical revision of the conservative cinema of moral anxiety.

The book also addresses how on-screen depictions of sexuality intersect with various modes of difference, highlighting the impact of racism, homophobia, misogyny, and classism. Rejecting a linear narrative in favour of a fragmented history, Jagielski uncovers the untold stories of Polish cinema's subversive influences.

Decoding Star Wars reveals the relationships between films, code, software and power both on and off screen in the Star Wars universe.

Since the production and release of The Phantom Menace (1999), the Star Wars franchise has increasingly relied on computer code to tell its stories and circulate its various media via CGI, digital exhibition, and online distribution. But who writes the code and develops the software that makes Star Wars possible as it expands from the twentieth into the 21st century? How do programmers' identities inform how they design and circulate the films? And why does the history of code remain hidden in narratives about Star Wars filmmaking and viewing?

Decoding Star Wars answers these questions to reveal how gender and race are central to the Star Wars universe, from the creation of its algorithms to the ways that characters are represented onscreen. In addition, it demonstrates how cinema is complicated by computers, digital technologies, and power, in ways that are so far unexplored in film history.

In this book, Daniele Dottorini establishes a starting point toward a theory of the anachronism of cinematic images through an exploration of existing films, theories, and discourses concerning the temporality of images that have shaped the history of cinema.
Dottorini examines the cinematic form as a specific way of working with the temporality of images, emphasizing its medium specificity in its ability to employ a confrontation with the history of both the image itself and the discourses that have reflected on it simultaneously, particularly within the contemporary sphere. The image is always in a sense spectral, phantasmal, and open, he argues - it is a field of tensions which has the unique ability to form connections to other images, epochs, gazes, and visions of the past as it is used time and again in new and different works.
By building on the work of scholars and artists that have come before him, including Warburg, Pasolini, Deleuze, Benjamin, Godard, and Herzog, among many others, Dottorini positions the image as not only - and not even primarily - a datapoint to be analyzed, but as a form that is constantly moving, changing, and forming new connections. Ultimately, this book constitutes a significant contribution to our understanding of the image as a path built through encounters and comparisons, which is but one facet of establishing a history of cinema as a story of returns and survivals.

This is the first book-length study of Australia's rich history of LGBTQ+ film and television, covering histories, production, screen representation and audience identities.

Despite a long-standing international field of queer media studies, Australian scholarship has only recently emerged. Screen diversity in Australia is important to cultural policy, education and social harmony. This book presents new scholarship on the role and significance of gender- and sexually-diverse characters, themes and narratives on Australian screens, as Australian film and television has a very rich history of representing LGBTQ+, gender- and sexually-diverse characters, stories and themes.

The chapters in this book cover a broad range of areas to provide a comprehensive overview of LGBTQ+ film and television in Australia, including: the history and formation of LGBTQ+ screen representation in such film and TV series as Dad and Dave Come To Town, Lovers and Luggers, Cop Shop, Division 4, and Homicide; production perspectives and challenges, including insights from screen writers and actors; the significance of LGBTQ+ film festivals as part of Australian cultural heritage; analyses of key Australian queer film and TV series to draw out themes that foreground their 'Australianness', including The Set, Victims, and Boys in the Band, among others; and perspectives on audience and culture, including the utility and value of LGBTQ+ screen representation to identity, belonging and social change.

This book encloses an interdisciplinary examination of Korean music's evolution, contextual interactions, and global positioning from historical, sociocultural, and aesthetic perspectives. It brings together various scholarly contributions to analyse Korean music's transformations, innovations, and cultural suggestions, with a focus on its historical roots and contemporary manifestations. This book captures the multifaceted dynamics in Korean music, showcasing its adaptability and global importance while addressing cultural identity, tradition, and innovation.

This innovative volume demonstrates the embodiment of time to be a vital part of the aesthetic experience of cinema. Analysing a broad range of films including Beasts of the Southern Wild (USA, 2012), Talk to Her (Spain, 2002), Millennium Actress (Japan, 2001), Jab Tak Hai Jaan (India, 2012), and Jinpa (China, 2018), contributors examine key questions of embodied time as represented on screen. They explore how cinematic time can be a way of rethinking the centrality of the individual, of depicting gendered differences, of decentring western perspectives to represent a widened global context, and of expanding what embodiment means in post-human narratives. The volume not only highlights specific discourses of radical, lived experience in film, but also considers how distinctions of race and class, gender and sexuality, migration, religion, and indigeneity affect these depictions of embodied subjectivity.

Contributors:
Emma Ben Ayoun, Louis Bayman, Andres Buesa, Mariana Cunha, MaoHui Deng, Felipe Espinoza Garrido, Victor Fan, Sahika Erkonan, Joseph Jenner, Nick Jones, Kayla Meyers, Salma Monani, Davina Quinlivan, Francesca Sobande and Pinar Yildiz

This study examines the production of popular Chinese reality television, complemented by interviews with a broad range of practitioners including newcomers, contractors, and migrant workers, all of whom form the industry's backbone.

Tianyu Zhang draws on first hand experiences across six television productions, providing exclusive insights into institutional dynamics and interpersonal relationships. She examines popular television series like Win the Bill (2013-) and Waiting For Me (2014-), uncovering concealed narratives of precarious production that shape Chinese television.

She goes on to examine regulations impacting the broader labour market, including unsupportive national policies, social welfare systems, unhealthy work values, and the absence of trade unions, considering how these impact the television industry. Spanning a spectrum of media landscapes, from state-owned giants like China Central Television (CCTV) to provincial outlets and independent production houses, this comprehensive study captures the essence of Chinese reality TV production.

On the evening of 26 January 1926, inventor John Logie Baird held a public demonstration in his workspace on London's Frith Street of a 'seeing by wireless' apparatus that he and many others had been working towards, television. In the years that followed, variants of this astonishing device produced programming that was rich, complex and excitingly imaginative. Familiar television genres, including studio drama, quiz shows, variety spectaculars and sports broadcasts, were all fully realised in the 1930s. At the same time, early television was often strikingly different from later domestic broadcasting.

Television began with intimate entanglements with interwar cinema, theatre, music and dance. And, despite reaching only tiny audiences, from its beginnings television responded to key strands of social history, embracing legacies of the Great War, changing roles for women, suburban living and more.

Magic Rays of Light is a unique and comprehensive cultural history of early television, exploring its technologies and institutions, while also celebrating the programmes and the people, the ideas and the innovations of the first decade of what would become the most consequential medium of the subsequent century.

This book delves into the world of "fandom nationalism," where the lines between fan devotion and nationalistic fervor blur within the East Asian media landscape.

Taking a non-Western perspective in fan studies, this book challenges conventional understandings of fandom nationalism. While the concept usually describes how citizens passionately adore their nation akin to idolizing celebrities, this ground-breaking research adds a captivating twist: such passion encompasses not only the expressions of love fans shower upon their idols but also the intense hatred anti-fans direct towards stars - fans strategically employ nationalism as a weapon to win fan wars. This enriches the concept of fandom nationalism, exploring how fans use participatory censorship practices to accuse celebrities and their followers of problematic political stances, thereby channeling collective nationalist anger to exact revenge on despised celebrities, such as Zhang Zhehan, a Boys' Love drama actor who was banned by the authorities and the industry for taking photos at the Yasukuni Shrine in Japan.

Through a thorough review of relevant literature and detailed fieldwork data, this book reveals how fans and anti-fans participate in various stages of the banning process, leading to the career downfall of top stars in China. This brutal battleground, akin to cancel culture, is a product of the collusion among fans, netizens, the party-state, media platforms, and businesses, where fans' participation in nationalist practices can also be performative patriotism, driven by the desire to protect their idols and themselves. Using examples from China and beyond, Fandom Nationalism explores the relationship between fandom and the state more broadly.

A radical assessment of the racial motives underlying the conception of photography and cinema

Conventional histories have long traced the origins of photography and cinema to the goal of reproducing the visible world. Black Light offers a radical counter to this understanding. Investigating the optical, cosmological, and racial thought that surrounded their conception, Christophe Wall-Romana argues that these media developed out of a desire to visualize what cannot be seen.

Taking as its starting point the concurrent invention of the telescope and industrialization of the transatlantic slave trade, Black Light shows how photography and cinema are entangled with two key preoccupations of the Enlightenment: visualizing the mysteries of the cosmos and managing Blackness. Wall-Romana uses literary and technological sources to demonstrate how racial and astronomical thinking interwove throughout the long development of our modern visual media. Retracing the impulses behind nonmimetic photoimaging and dynamic modeling, he exposes the racial underpinnings of research on photosensitive compounds such as silver nitrate and the racist lenses applied in post-Copernican cosmology.

Black Light charts the pivotal period from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century when Europeans were reckoning with "multiple worlds" and natural philosophy was giving way to "mechanical objectivity." Wall-Romana shows how engagement with the nature of light was always entangled with racist discourses on Blackness - especially after the 1801 discovery of the invisible spectrum and its paradox of "black light." Deprovincializing media archaeology, this book presents a groundbreaking historical framework with which to reenvision our dominant modes of seeing and understanding the world.

Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.

What exactly is a credit hour? What's an elective course and why should you care? What's the secret to studying for tests?

Compact and to-the-point, this is an easy-to-use guide to everything first-year students really need to know about how college works. The first part of the book helps to demystify the academic system. Easy to read bite-sized chapters cover topics such as understanding the college course structure, adding and dropping courses, understanding grading systems, pre-registration and scheduling, and attending class. Part 2 introduces the knowledge and tools students need to succeed at college, including time management, critical thinking, test-taking skills, and writing papers. The final part of the book gives guidance on taking care of your physical and mental health, and looks at goals and career planning. It also features a dedicated chapter which is geared to the needs of commuter students.

Each chapter features opportunities for the reader to pause and reflect on how the content applies to their own situation and experience. Chapters end with a list of questions which encourage students to consolidate their learning and identify the relevant policies and supports at their own institution.

This book offers an interdisciplinary exploration of the identity-forming interplay between text, textiles, and skin in and through film. Its central thesis proposes that film, through the oscillation between textiles and bare skin, creates iconic condensations that open up an associative space of experience. In this process, the material-both narrative and textile-gives way to the sensual, to affective engagement through the skin.

The study examines the relationship between cinematic reception and the self-reflection of viewers, as well as of society and film itself within their respective historical contexts. Viewers not only experience the events and protagonists but also encounter themselves in the mirror of the Other-the other character, the other story, the other cinematic world. The aim is to look beneath symbolic coverings and uncover what lies beneath.

Thanks to its interdisciplinary approach, the book appeals not only to those interested in film, media, and cultural studies, but also to readers from sociology, psychology, (fashion) design, art history, and architecture. It encourages shifts in perspective and interdisciplinary dialogue grounded in the existential significance of skin for all of us. With this unique focus, it transcends boundaries and fosters collaboration.

This book presents a visionary and comprehensive exploration of how museums are adapting to the evolving demands of contemporary society. It highlights the multiple roles museums play, as cultural institutions, educational spaces, social actors, and agents of innovation, while addressing the multifaceted challenges and opportunities museums face. Providing readers with a thorough understanding of their transformative potential, the book adopts a forward-looking perspective on the role of museums in shaping the future. Underpinning this vision is a reflective and critical stance, exploring and emphasizing how such transformation can happen in meaningful and sustainable ways.

Bringing together the work of international scholars, this book investigates the well-known conceptualization of poison as connected to seemingly contrasting ideas of 'deviousness', 'insidiousness' and 'usefulness,' demonstrating how these understandings manifest in a variety of culturally informed discourses and narrative contexts across popular culture.

Taking an interdisciplinary and transnational approach, contributors to this volume consider poison as a powerful metaphorical entity that recurrently appears across narrative formats and contexts, including film, television, comics, video games, children's literature, and boardgames. Through both historical and fictional accounts - which are explored in equal terms as part of the same cultural narrative - this book re-assesses the place occupied by poison in the popular imagination, establishing its presence as one that is simultaneously nefarious and culturally romanticized. Contributors demonstrate how discourses of poison in popular culture are often interconnected with representations of gender, ethnicity, class, cultural identity, and environmental discourses on an intersectional level.

Ultimately, through its recounting of tales about poison and poisoners, this book also reveals parallels to some of the deepest narratives about our societies, both historic and contemporary: what we fear, what we desire, and how we see ourselves at a specific moment in time.

This book deals with the issue of integrating science into democratic decision-making, emphasizing the need to balance the epistemic qualities of science with democratic values. The central question is not whether to rely on science, but how to do so effectively without undermining democratic principles or scientific integrity. The work criticizes the traditional Weberian division of labor, which separates the roles of scientists and the public, and argues that this division often overlooks the complexities of modern science and democratic decision-making. It highlights the challenges of maintaining both the truth-seeking function of science and the political function of democracy. In turn, the book identifies the epistemic dependence of the public on scientific experts and explores how this dependence interacts with the ideal of autonomy. A significant focus is placed on the problem of specialization in modern science. The book argues that the cognitive division of labor, while necessary for scientific advancement, creates barriers to public understanding and engagement. This specialization complicates the transmission of scientific knowledge and poses a challenge to maintaining democratic oversight and participation. Three main models of integrating science into democracy are examined: the trust model, the epistemic authority model, and the democratic authority model. While each model offers valuable insights, none of them appears to be sufficient on its own. Therefore, the author proposes a synthesized approach that incorporates trust, epistemic rigor, and democratic principles. By addressing the interrelated challenges of specialization, epistemic dependence, and democratic legitimacy, this book presents a comprehensive normative framework for integrating science into democratic decision-making.

Starting from the dominant perspective of historical sociology, this book looks into the future instead and asks vital questions about the futures we face at the societal and global levels. The authors project what we can expect relating to the future of human knowledge, ideas and expectations, prognostic and futurological conceptions, transformations reflected by social geography and demography, and disputes on environmental issues. It also looks at civilizational issues, religion, economic and political development, and changes in human settlements and lifestyles. Finally, it looks at important issues relating to planetary defence and space settlement in the not-so-distant future. The book offers readers an intellectual basis for understanding historical and contemporary processes at work in the world around us that are shaping the contours of what the world of the future will be built upon.

This book introduces strategic communication students and professionals to essential topics and trends in corporate social advocacy (CSA). CSA refers to companies' actions that publicly declare their stances on controversial social issues. This book covers emerging CSA communication issues relevant in today's rapidly-changing world, including but not limited to theoretical frameworks, CSA messaging, internal communication, social media, crisis management, authenticity, social network, and ethics. Each chapter includes a relevant case study. This book will be an excellent resource for public relations and strategic communication students, faculty, researchers, educators, and practitioners interested in expanding their understanding and knowledge of organizations' CSA communication efforts.