Rancière and Film

Paul Bowman is Reader in Cultural Studies at Cardiff University. He is the author of Post-Marxism versus Cultural Studies (2007), Deconstructing Popular Culture (2008), Theorizing Bruce Lee (2010), Culture and the Media (2012), Beyond Bruce Lee (2013) and Reading Rey Chow (2013).

• Acknowledgements; 1. Rancière and the Disciplines: An Introduction to Rancière before Film Studies, Paul Bowman; 2. What Does It Mean To Call Film An Art?, Nico Baumbach; 3. After the Passage of the Beast: ‘False Documentary’ Aspirations, Acousmatic Complications, Rey Chow; 4. The Spectator Without Qualities, Abraham Geil; 5. Memories of Modernism: Jacques Rancière, Chris Marker, and the Image of Modernism, Bram Ieven; 6. Aesthetic Irruptions: Politics of Perception in Alex De La Iglesia’s La Comunidad, Mónica López Lerma; 7. Inhuman Spectatorship, Patricia MacCormack; 8. Cinemarxis: Rancière and Godard, Mark Robson; 9. Jacques Rancière’s Animated Vertigo; or, how to be specific about medium, Richard Stamp; 10. The Medium Is Not the Message: Rancière, Eschatology, and the End of Cinema, James A. Steintrager; 11. Remarks by way of a Postface, Jacques Rancière; Bibliography; Notes on Contributors; Index.

Rancière and Film’s strength is that it both introduces readers to the timely ideas of an un-conventional thinker and sets forth some provocative interpretations. Those who know Rancière may find its applications intriguing, and those who are not familiar with the thinker may find themselves wanting to read the original, to think things through for themselves. In this way, the collection is faithful to the real democratic potential of cinema and the true force of Rancière’s egalitarian thought.