Inventing Film Studies

by Grieveson, Lee; Wasson, Haidee

• ISBN13: 9780822343073
• ISBN10: 082234307X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-10-01
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

Inventing Film Studiesoffers original and provocative insights into the institutional and intellectual foundations of cinema studies. While many scholars have linked the origins of the discipline to late-1960s developments in the academy such as structuralist theory and student protest, this collection reveals the multiple material and institutional forces-both inside and outside of the university-that have long shaped the field. Beginning with the first investigations of cinema in the early twentieth century, this volume provides detailed examinations of the varied social, political, and intellectual milieus in which knowledge of cinema has been generated. The contributors demonstrate how multiple instantiations of film study have had a tremendous influence on the methodologies, curriculum, modes of publication, and professional organizations that now constitute the university-based discipline. Extending the historical insights into the contemporary moment, contributors also consider the future directions of film study in a changing technological and cultural environment.Inventing Film Studiesshows how the study of cinema has developed in relation to a constellation of institutions, technologies, practices, individuals, films, books, government agencies, pedagogies, and theories. Contributors illuminate the connections between early cinema and the social sciences, between film programs and nation-building efforts, and between universities and U.S. avant-garde filmmakers. They analyze the evolution of film studies in relation to the Museum of Modern Art, the American Film Council movement of the 1940s and 1950s, the British Film Institute, influential journals, cinephilia, and technological innovations past and present. Taken together, the essays in this collection reveal the rich history and contemporary vitality of film studies.Contributors: Mark Lynn Anderson; Mark Betz; Zoë Druick; Lee Grieveson; Stephen Groening; Haden Guest; Amelie Hastie ; Lynne Joyrich; Laura Mulvey; Dana Polan ; D.N. Rodowick; Philip Rosen; Alison Trope; Haidee Wasson; Patricia White; Sharon Willis ; Peter Wollen; Michale Zyrd

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
The Academy and Motion Pictures	p. xi
Making Cinema Knowable
Cinema Studies and the Conduct of Conduct	p. 3
Taking Liberties: The Payne Fund Studies and the Creation of the Media Expert	p. 38
"Reaching the Multimillions": Liberal Internationalism and the Establishment of Documentary Film	p. 66
Young Art, Old Colleges: Early Episodes in the American Study of Film	p. 93
Making Cinema Educational
Studying Movies at the Museum: The Museum of Modern Art and Cinema's Changing Object	p. 121
Classrooms, Clubs, and Community Circuits: Cultural Authority and the Film Council Movement, 1946-1957	p. 149
Experimental Film and the Development of Film Study in America	p. 182
From Cinephilia to Film Studies	p. 217
Making Cinema Legible
Experimentation and Innovation in Three American Film Journals of the 1950s	p. 235
Screen and 1970s Film Theory	p. 264
(Re)Inventing Camera Obscura	p. 298
Little Books	p. 319
Making and Remaking Cinema Studies
Footstool Film School: Home Entertainment as Home Education	p. 353
Dr. Strange Media, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Film Theory	p. 374
Timeline for a History of Anglophone Film Culture and Film Studies	p. 399
Selected Bibliography	p. 419
About the Contributors	p. 425
Index	p. 429
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