Unspool

Nick Jones is Reader in Film, Television and Digital Culture at the University of York.

• Introduction: On the Calculation of LoopsNick JonesPart I. Patterns of Oppression1. Breaking the Cycle: The Promise of Heterosexuality in Time Loop FilmsJames Slattery2. Resilient Emotion Work in Women-Centric Time Loop TelevisionSarah Lahm3. Patterns of Violence: Narrating the Repetitive Nature of Police Brutality in African American CinemaMałgorzata MączkoPart II. Trauma and Punishment4. Gender, Repetition, and Solving Trauma in Russian DollChristina Wilkins5. Helios Abandoned: The Traumatic Loops of ReturnalNick Jones6. Endless Punishment: Variations of Torment in the Sisyphean LoopLarissa Barbosa CuriPart III. Ethics7. Agency and the Nonhuman in River: The Timeloop Hotel and The EndlessWibke Schniedermann8. Mythic Cycles of Ecological Collapse: Anthropocentrism and Determinism in DarkMaria de Carli Ball9. Morality at Play: What Loop Games Tell Us About OurselvesMelanie KreitlerPart IV. Medial Loops10. The Perfect Loop: Towards a Theory of SuspensionJoseph Sannicandro11. Acts of Witnessing: Staging Recursive Realities of Violence in Rimini Protokoll’s Situation RoomsMelanie Wilmink12. Time Loops, Real-Time Technologies, and the Trajectories of OptimisationTom Livingstone13. Taking the Blade: Character, Identity, and Perception in Time Loop GamesMonica Evans and Rachel Kerr

At last, with Unspool the time loop receives the analytical attention it deserves. Contemporary time loops mean something, the introduction cogently argues. The ensuing chapters provide a fresh and energetic look at how and why. Unspool is an absorbing and rewarding read – one I look forward to repeating.