Overview
Screens and Illusionism explores the effects of illusionism as foundational to contemporary acts of perception and aesthetics. Our point of departure is the acknowledgement that our sensory perception is fundamentally subject to mediation, through a class of objects, techniques, and technologies. We emphasize mediation to consider the loss of optical certainty, and explore illusionism within the register of the uncanny. The volume is divided into three sections: Screens as Perceptual Vehicles (Part I), Mediation and its Avatars (Part II), and Alternative Teleologies of Media (Part III). Overall, the collection resonates with contemporary discussions of screen culture, media materiality and intermediality. It explores an array of pre- and post-cinematic devices and spectacular entertainments, forging links between ""old"" and ""new"" media, and across media formats.
Full Product Details
Author: Peter Bloom (Professor of Film and Media Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara) ,
Dominique Jullien (Professor of Comparative Literature and French Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara)
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Imprint: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 9781399536530
ISBN 10: 1399536532
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 31 December 2024
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
"The film screen has been neglected for decades by film theorists. After all, doesn't the screen seem to disappear when a movie begins? In this unique and important anthology scholars from a range of backgrounds probe not only the screen, but the conditions of illusion in cinema, uncovering its links to the uncanny.-- ""Tom Gunning, Professor Emeritus University of Chicago"" The contributors to this probing and various essay collection explore how optical toys reveal the limits of our sense perceptions, while new techniques of representation continue to augment what we see and how we see it. Yet, as the editors of Screens and Illusionism are keen to emphasise, the effects of new media are not all ominous, but the delightful fruits of human ingenuity, playfulness, and an unimpeachable pursuit of pleasure. This rich collection enhances our ways of seeing; it places within the reader's grasp powerful new instruments of understanding and perception.-- ""Marina Warner, author of Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors, and Media"""
The film screen has been neglected for decades by film theorists. After all, doesn't the screen seem to disappear when a movie begins? In this unique and important anthology scholars from a range of backgrounds probe not only the screen, but the conditions of illusion in cinema, uncovering its links to the uncanny.-- ""Tom Gunning, Professor Emeritus University of Chicago"" The contributors to this probing and various essay collection explore how optical toys reveal the limits of our sense perceptions, while new techniques of representation continue to augment what we see and how we see it. Yet, as the editors of Screens and Illusionism are keen to emphasise, the effects of new media are not all ominous, but the delightful fruits of human ingenuity, playfulness, and an unimpeachable pursuit of pleasure. This rich collection enhances our ways of seeing; it places within the reader's grasp powerful new instruments of understanding and perception.-- ""Marina Warner, author of Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors, and Media""
Author Information
Peter J. Bloom is a Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara. His work has been focused on film and media studies with a regional focus on West Africa, North Africa and Southeast Asia. He has published extensively on Belgian, British and French colonial media, and is currently preparing a monograph under the title, Radio-Cinema Modernity: The Catoptrics of Empire. Dominique Jullien is Professor of Comparative Literature and French Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara. She publishes on reception and translation studies, East-West dialogue, travel narratives, media studies and world literature. Her most recent monograph is Borges, Buddhism and World Literature: A Morphology of Renunciation Tales. Her current book project explores technologies of optical mediation, illusionism and secular magic in contemporary fiction.
