- Groningen, The Netherlands
Julian Hanich
University of Groningen, Arts, Culture and Media, Department Member
- Film Studies, Phenomenology, Aesthetics, Cinema, Poetics, Film Genre, and 26 moreFilm Style, Audience and Reception Studies, Cinema Studies, Emotion, Emotions, Pleasure, Horror Cinema, Anger, Film Theory, The Body in Film, Disgust, Philosophy, Cultural Studies, Pornography Studies, Remediation, Relocation, Sociology, Psychology, Media Studies, Film Aesthetics, Film-Philosophy, Film and Media Studies, Phenomenology of the body, Philosophy of Film, Spectatorship, and Affect/Emotionedit
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (1888-1931) is undoubtedly one of the most famous names in film history. His small body of work, of which only 12 films have survived in almost complete form, appears to have been exhaustively researched, and his... more
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (1888-1931) is undoubtedly one of the most famous names in film history. His small body of work, of which only 12 films have survived in almost complete form, appears to have been exhaustively researched, and his outstanding significance for the history of German and international film is undisputed. Among the directors who were significantly influenced by him are Alfred Hitchcock, Jean Renoir, Marcel Carné, Eric Rohmer, Werner Herzog and Terrence Malick. Against the backdrop of the resolute modernity of the films of his great Weimar antipode Fritz Lang, researchers have drawn the image of Murnau as a "tragic romantic" or "melancholic poet" of cinema and have worked out his traits primarily using the example of a few films, above all Nosferatu (1921/22), Faust (1926), Sunrise (1927) and Tabu (1931).
This volume aims to question the prevailing image of Murnau, correct it where necessary and open up his work to new approaches. To this end, the contributions not only deal with individual Murnau films, but also undertake cross-work thematic, motivic and aesthetic explorations. The aim is to make new constellations visible and to open up contexts and perspectives that have not previously been the focus of attention when dealing with Murnau.
This volume aims to question the prevailing image of Murnau, correct it where necessary and open up his work to new approaches. To this end, the contributions not only deal with individual Murnau films, but also undertake cross-work thematic, motivic and aesthetic explorations. The aim is to make new constellations visible and to open up contexts and perspectives that have not previously been the focus of attention when dealing with Murnau.
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For well over a century, going to the movies has been a favorite pastime for billions across the globe. But is film actually good for anything? This volume brings together thirty-six scholars, critics, and filmmakers in search of an... more
For well over a century, going to the movies has been a favorite pastime for billions across the globe. But is film actually good for anything? This volume brings together thirty-six scholars, critics, and filmmakers in search of an answer. Their responses range from the most personal to the most theoretical—and, together, recast current debates about film ethics. Movie watching here emerges as a wellspring of value, able to sustain countless visions of "the good life." Films, these authors affirm, make us reflect, connect, adapt; they evoke wonder and beauty; they challenge and transform. In a word, its varieties of value make film invaluable.
Link to the website: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520386815/what-film-is-good-for
Link to the website: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520386815/what-film-is-good-for
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This small monograph on Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's beautiful film "City Girl" (1930)—written in German—is the first in-depth study of the last Hollywood movie of the German director. I show that the film has been unduly neglected by film... more
This small monograph on Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's beautiful film "City Girl" (1930)—written in German—is the first in-depth study of the last Hollywood movie of the German director. I show that the film has been unduly neglected by film critics and scholars alike and that "City Girl" is deeply interwoven with public debates of the late 1920s and 30s such as the financial hardships at the onset of the Great Depression, the rejection of city life and a yearning for the countryside, the role of women in the aftermath of the world economic crisis and the polemics against the American farmer. It is a film that still resonates in our times.
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NOW ALSO AVAILABLE AS PAPERBACK! In this book I try to systematically describe the experiences spectators have when they watch a film collectively in a cinema. Watching a film in the presence of others is different from watching a film... more
NOW ALSO AVAILABLE AS PAPERBACK!
In this book I try to systematically describe the experiences spectators have when they watch a film collectively in a cinema. Watching a film in the presence of others is different from watching a film alone: The collective constellation always has an effect on the way viewers experience the film, be it positive or negative. And this is all the more obvious once strong emotions and affective expressions come into play: laughter, sadness, shame, anger, screaming, being moved to tears... This audience effect has been largely overlooked in film studies. My book tries to enrich film theory and film phenomenology by giving more weight to the complexity and concreteness of what viewers feel with or against their co-viewers.
In this book I try to systematically describe the experiences spectators have when they watch a film collectively in a cinema. Watching a film in the presence of others is different from watching a film alone: The collective constellation always has an effect on the way viewers experience the film, be it positive or negative. And this is all the more obvious once strong emotions and affective expressions come into play: laughter, sadness, shame, anger, screaming, being moved to tears... This audience effect has been largely overlooked in film studies. My book tries to enrich film theory and film phenomenology by giving more weight to the complexity and concreteness of what viewers feel with or against their co-viewers.
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For the first time this volume makes Jean-Pierre Meunier’s insightful thoughts on the film experience available for an English-speaking readership. Introduced and commented by specialists in film studies and philosophy, Meunier’s... more
For the first time this volume makes Jean-Pierre Meunier’s insightful thoughts on the film experience available for an English-speaking readership. Introduced and commented by specialists in film studies and philosophy, Meunier’s intricate phenomenological descriptions of the spectator’s engagement with fiction films, documentaries and home movies can reach the wide audience they have deserved ever since their publication in French in 1969.
"Supplemented by insightful critical essays and an especially useful and informed introduction, this English translation of a pioneering phenomenological film theorist’s work is without doubt a major event in Anglophone film studies and the philosophy of film. Meunier’s writings are highly significant both historically and conceptually — and as the volume’s essays and interview further demonstrate, his nuanced account of moving-image experience is strikingly current and widely applicable." — Daniel Yacavone, The University of Edinburgh
"The Structures of the Film Experience, originally published in 1969, provides unique insight into and even prefigures many of the concerns of contemporary phenomenological and cognitive film theory. Thus it is a welcome development to see this book translated into English. This volume contains not only Meunier’s book-in-translation, but also an introduction, a recent interview, and more than a dozen chapters by leading scholars who contextualize, explicate, and wrestle with Meunier’s ideas. This unique and well-designed volume thus makes a vital contribution to film theory." — Carl Plantinga, Calvin College
The full book is available in open-access form on JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvpbnq82
"Supplemented by insightful critical essays and an especially useful and informed introduction, this English translation of a pioneering phenomenological film theorist’s work is without doubt a major event in Anglophone film studies and the philosophy of film. Meunier’s writings are highly significant both historically and conceptually — and as the volume’s essays and interview further demonstrate, his nuanced account of moving-image experience is strikingly current and widely applicable." — Daniel Yacavone, The University of Edinburgh
"The Structures of the Film Experience, originally published in 1969, provides unique insight into and even prefigures many of the concerns of contemporary phenomenological and cognitive film theory. Thus it is a welcome development to see this book translated into English. This volume contains not only Meunier’s book-in-translation, but also an introduction, a recent interview, and more than a dozen chapters by leading scholars who contextualize, explicate, and wrestle with Meunier’s ideas. This unique and well-designed volume thus makes a vital contribution to film theory." — Carl Plantinga, Calvin College
The full book is available in open-access form on JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvpbnq82
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In this theme week of the online journal IN MEDIA RES film and media scholars Sarah Atkinson, Francesco Casetti, Carolyn Jacobs, Girish Shambu, Nicholas Baer and I reflect on the effects of Coronavirus on the experience of films in the... more
In this theme week of the online journal IN MEDIA RES film and media scholars Sarah Atkinson, Francesco Casetti, Carolyn Jacobs, Girish Shambu, Nicholas Baer and I reflect on the effects of Coronavirus on the experience of films in the movie theater and beyond. Here is the direct link:
http://mediacommons.org/imr/content/coronavirus-and-cinematic-experience
http://mediacommons.org/imr/content/coronavirus-and-cinematic-experience
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This special issue of NECSUS - which I co-edited with Jens Eder and Jane Stadler - features seven articles about emotion and affect from scholars working in Germany, the US, China, Australia, and England. They offer theoretical,... more
This special issue of NECSUS - which I co-edited with Jens Eder and Jane Stadler - features seven articles about emotion and affect from scholars working in Germany, the US, China, Australia, and England. They offer theoretical, methodological, and analytic contributions to media studies spanning cinema, television, photography, and social media. Collectively, the seven articles advance understandings of emotions and affective states from fear, anger, and love, to depression and dread, using approaches including affective niche theory, media history, neo-Brechtianism, genre studies, phenomenology, and cognitivism. Please follow the link: https://necsus-ejms.org/portfolio/spring-2019_emotions/
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For a detailed overview of the content, including abstracts, please follow this link:
http://www.zetabooks.com/featured/studia-phaenomenologica-vol-16-2016-film-and-phenomenology.html
http://www.zetabooks.com/featured/studia-phaenomenologica-vol-16-2016-film-and-phenomenology.html
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Content Julian Hanich Laugh is in the Air. Eine Typologie des Lachens im Kino Elke Regina Maurer Wer lacht hier über was? Interkulturelle Missverständnisse und Hermine Huntgeburths "Die weiße Massai" Hans Jürgen Wulff Das... more
Content
Julian Hanich
Laugh is in the Air. Eine Typologie des Lachens im Kino
Elke Regina Maurer
Wer lacht hier über was? Interkulturelle Missverständnisse und Hermine Huntgeburths "Die weiße Massai"
Hans Jürgen Wulff
Das skeptische Lachen. Überlegungen zur Dramaturgie der Lachanlässe in Milos Formans "Der Feuerwehrball"
Rainer Stollmann
Aspekte einer Kritischen Theorie des Lachens und der Medien. Lachen: "revolutionärer Affekt" oder "bürgerlicher Sadismus"?
Claudia Walkensteiner-Preschl
Lachen im (frühen) europäischen Kino. Was kann das bedeuten?
Sarah Greifenstein
"If you won’t do it for love, how about money?!" "His Girl Friday" und das Kleingeld großer Gefühle
Christiane Voss
Die Farce lacht. Der exzentrische Filmkörper und Paolo Sorrentinos "Il Divo"
Julian Hanich
Laugh is in the Air. Eine Typologie des Lachens im Kino
Elke Regina Maurer
Wer lacht hier über was? Interkulturelle Missverständnisse und Hermine Huntgeburths "Die weiße Massai"
Hans Jürgen Wulff
Das skeptische Lachen. Überlegungen zur Dramaturgie der Lachanlässe in Milos Formans "Der Feuerwehrball"
Rainer Stollmann
Aspekte einer Kritischen Theorie des Lachens und der Medien. Lachen: "revolutionärer Affekt" oder "bürgerlicher Sadismus"?
Claudia Walkensteiner-Preschl
Lachen im (frühen) europäischen Kino. Was kann das bedeuten?
Sarah Greifenstein
"If you won’t do it for love, how about money?!" "His Girl Friday" und das Kleingeld großer Gefühle
Christiane Voss
Die Farce lacht. Der exzentrische Filmkörper und Paolo Sorrentinos "Il Divo"
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Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's films are widely known for their visual beauty, elegance and sublimity. His sense of composition and spatial organization is legendary. In addition, many references to canonical paintings have been proven. So... more
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's films are widely known for their visual beauty, elegance and sublimity. His sense of composition and spatial organization is legendary. In addition, many references to canonical paintings have been proven. So there is no doubt: Murnau's cinema is visual cinema. But his silent films are also characterized by a search for ways to bring the audience's senses into play that reach beyond the visible. This can be seen especially in Murnau's many attempts to suggest worlds of sound through images in his silent films - images in which the visual creates space for the acoustic. Murnau was not alone in this, of course. Rather, he was one of a wide range of filmmakers and theorists for whom the acoustic shortcomings of silent film were less an obstacle than an artistic opportunity. What makes Murnau stand out, however, is the variety of stylistic means of visual acoustics and the frequency with which he used them as well as the persistence with which he used these stylistic devices even after the advent of sound film is striking.
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Why are negative emotions so central in art reception far beyond tragedy? Revisiting classical aesthetics in the light of recent psychological research, we present a novel model to explain this much discussed (apparent) paradox. We argue... more
Why are negative emotions so central in art reception far beyond tragedy? Revisiting classical aesthetics in the light of recent psychological research, we present a novel model to explain this much discussed (apparent) paradox. We argue that negative emotions are an important resource for the arts in general, rather than a special license for exceptional art forms only. The underlying rationale is that negative emotions have been shown to be particularly powerful in securing attention, intense emotional involvement, and high memorability, and hence is precisely what artworks strive for. Two groups of processing mechanisms are identified that conjointly adopt the particular powers of negative emotions for art's purposes. The first group consists of psychological distancing mechanisms that are activated along with the cognitive schemata of art, representation, and fiction. These schemata imply personal safety and control over continuing or discontinuing exposure to artworks, ther...
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We investigated cognitive “art schema” effects—as resulting from framing a situation as one of art reception—on the enjoyability of negative emotions by means of an elaborate disguised anger induction in the field. Because situations of... more
We investigated cognitive “art schema” effects—as resulting from framing a situation as one of art reception—on the enjoyability of negative emotions by means of an elaborate disguised anger induction in the field. Because situations of both art reception and participation in lab experiments are typically safe and have a reduced bearing on personal relevance and goal conduciveness, the goal of this design was to prevent predicted effects of the art framing from being confounded with potentially convergent effects of the lab situation. For one group of participants, the anger-inducing treatment was framed as an aptitude test developed by a recruitment firm, for a second group the same treatment was framed as a theater performance. Self-reports of emotional states and blood pressure data showed evidence for the effectiveness of both the anger induction and the framing of the situation. The data expand previous findings that activating an art schema is instrumental for more positive responses to being involved in negative emotions in a threefold fashion: (a) through the higher ecological validity of the experimental design used, (b) through implementing an entire live theater performance instead of presenting single pictures or film clips only, and (c) through using anger as the target emotion.
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ABSTRACT Can we experience depictions of repulsive objects more positively when we watch them as part of a work of art? We addressed this question by using a scenario approach in a laboratory setting designed to activate two different... more
ABSTRACT Can we experience depictions of repulsive objects more positively when we watch them as part of a work of art? We addressed this question by using a scenario approach in a laboratory setting designed to activate two different cognitive schemata: participants viewed the same pictures framed either as art photographs or as documentary photographs for educational purposes. Self-reports of the positivity, the negativity, and the intensity of the affective responses yielded three results. First, participants experienced the photos more positively in the art-framing condition. Second, the negativity ratings did not differ in both conditions, suggesting that art framing does not erase, diminish, or convert the negative affect vis-à-vis the disgusting stimulus features. Third, there was no difference in terms of the intensity of the experience—a result that contradicts the position that aesthetic emotions are less intense than ordinary emotions. The results of our study suggest that cognitive schema activation should be included in a multifactor psychological account of the aesthetic enjoyment of artworks that involve negative emotions. More specifically, results add to the growing insight into what distinguishes aesthetically modified emotions from ordinary emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)
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The emotional state of being moved, though frequently referred to in both classical rhetoric and current language use, is far from established as a well-defined psychological construct. In a series of three studies, we investigated... more
The emotional state of being moved, though frequently referred to in both classical rhetoric and current language use, is far from established as a well-defined psychological construct. In a series of three studies, we investigated eliciting scenarios, emotional ingredients, appraisal patterns, feeling qualities, and the affective signature of being moved and related emotional states. The great majority of the eliciting scenarios can be assigned to significant relationship and critical life events (especially death, birth, marriage, separation, and reunion). Sadness and joy turned out to be the two preeminent emotions involved in episodes of being moved. Both the sad and the joyful variants of being moved showed a coactivation of positive and negative affect and can thus be ranked among the mixed emotions. Moreover, being moved, while featuring only low-to-mid arousal levels, was experienced as an emotional state of high intensity; this applied to responses to fictional artworks no ...
Research Interests: Emotion, Film Studies, Melodrama, Adolescent, Medicine, and 15 moreMixed emotions, Emotions, Affect, Humans, Appraisal, Female, Male, Cluster Analysis, Feelings, Feeling, Intensity, DDC, Einfühlung, Awe, and Being Moved
While experiencing natural beauty is a key appeal of the cinema and other moving-image media, academic film scholarship has rarely paid attention to it. In this article I will use the widespread motif of the gently rustling wind as a pars... more
While experiencing natural beauty is a key appeal of the cinema and other moving-image media, academic film scholarship has rarely paid attention to it. In this article I will use the widespread motif of the gently rustling wind as a pars pro toto to make some general remarks about the experience of natural beauty in film. I will first note the firm place of the motif of the rustling wind in film theoretical debates from the late 19th century until today. Then, I will propose three modes of how viewers can experience this beautiful motif in film. In the following section I shall discuss how film’s mediation modifies the experience of natural beauty. And in a final step I will explore the reciprocal relation between nature and film, and how one can enhance the appreciation of the other. Ultimately, I follow two – mutually imbricated – goals. On the one hand, I aim to (re)connect the film theoretical discourse about the wind in the trees to natural beauty. On the other hand, I use the motif of the gently rustling wind to say something more general about the aesthetic experience of natural beauty in film.
[This is a preprint of an article that will appear in the journal Film-Philosophy.]
[This is a preprint of an article that will appear in the journal Film-Philosophy.]
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This is a preprint version of a chapter that has come out in
Julian Hanich/Martin Rossouw (eds.): WHAT FILM IS GOOD FOR: ON THE VALUES OF SPECTATORSHIP. Oakland: University of California Press, 2023.
Please cite the printed version.
Julian Hanich/Martin Rossouw (eds.): WHAT FILM IS GOOD FOR: ON THE VALUES OF SPECTATORSHIP. Oakland: University of California Press, 2023.
Please cite the printed version.
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This article provides a meta-theoretical overview of the central research questions, concepts, and lines of conflict at the nexus between media and emotions. It interrogates key terms such as affect and emotion, discusses a variety of... more
This article provides a meta-theoretical overview of the central research questions, concepts, and lines of conflict at the nexus between media and emotions. It interrogates key terms such as affect and emotion, discusses a variety of influential approaches in emotion research, and identifies debates and tensions in the field of study. Within this vast and complex interdisciplinary field and the broad range of affective phenomena it covers, we concentrate primarily on various types of media-induced emotions, with a focus on the development of ideas about screen media and spectatorship.
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In this brief essay for the online journal "In Media Res" I propose the concept of "mise en esprit" as a companion term to "mise en scène" for film studies. Mise en esprit refers to the phenomenon when, provoked by evocative aesthetics,... more
In this brief essay for the online journal "In Media Res" I propose the concept of "mise en esprit" as a companion term to "mise en scène" for film studies. Mise en esprit refers to the phenomenon when, provoked by evocative aesthetics, our embodied mind complements mentally what a film affords us suggestively and thereby 'puts something in our mind.' Like mise-en-scène analysis, it allows us to look at artistic decisions and styles. If an analysis of the mise en scène combines a close look at what is staged with how it is presented to us, then an analysis of the mise en esprit needs to look into what we imagine alongside how we are made to imagine it. Here is the link to the essay, which also contains hyperlinks to illustrating film clips:
https://mediacommons.org/imr/content/plea-mise-en-esprit
https://mediacommons.org/imr/content/plea-mise-en-esprit
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A glossary of terms can often be a student’s closest ally, gearing them up to navigate the myriad labels and concepts they will undoubtedly encounter in their academic careers. They will encounter several in Julian Hanich’s article... more
A glossary of terms can often be a student’s closest ally, gearing them up to navigate the myriad labels and concepts they will undoubtedly encounter in their academic careers. They will encounter several in Julian Hanich’s article “Suggestive Verbalizations in Film: On Character Speech and Sensory Imagination,” in which various concepts are unpacked and addressed in establishing a new term. So, to us, an introductory glossary seemed well suited to accompany the article as a contribution to the New Review of Film and Television Studies’ blog. In Hanich’s article he takes a closer look at the concepts that capture components of what he terms ‘suggestive verbalization’ in film—vivid language that addresses the spectator’s imaginative capacities. While the paper develops this new, more encompassing framework in greater depth, we hope to offer a little more background here on some of the terms that make up, overlap with, or could be supplanted by suggestive verbalization. While by no means complete or definitive, this glossary also lends itself as an opportunity to include additional examples and visual material illustrating, and occasionally parodying, the described terminology at work in cinema.
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Against the background of a widespread language skepticism among film theorists and practitioners, this article aims to highlight the evocative potential of spoken words in cinema. Focusing on an aesthetic device dubbed ‘suggestive... more
Against the background of a widespread language skepticism among film theorists and practitioners, this article aims to highlight the evocative potential of spoken words in cinema. Focusing on an aesthetic device dubbed ‘suggestive verbalization,’ it demonstrates how character speech can powerfully appeal to the spectator’s sensory imagination: language allows film viewers to imagine – in various sensory modes – something they do not see or hear. The article sets out to show that the evocative power of character speech and dialogue is largely uncharted territory in film studies and then defines the term ‘suggestive verbalizations’ more closely. By means of various examples, it subsequently distinguishes four types of suggestive verbalization. Taking the drama theoretical terms ‘messenger report’ and ‘teichoscopy’ as a model, the article suggests a distinction along temporal lines: verbalization-of-the-past, verbalization-of-the-present, verbalization-of-the-future and verbalization-of-generalities. In the final section, a number of functions are discussed that suggestive verbalizations can have for the aesthetics of a film and the viewer’s experience. An implicit goal is to contribute to the ongoing work on the poetics of ‘omission, suggestion and completion’ in the cinema and the phenomenology of the viewer’s imagination. The article thus supports recent attempts to define film not exclusively as a perceptual audiovisual medium but also as a medium that depends on and, in fact, thrives on the sensory imagination of the viewer.
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This chapter pursues two main goals. First, I want to extend a critique that – despite their indebtedness to it – Gernot Böhme and Tonino Griffero have levelled against Hermann Schmitz’s notion of atmospheres: that atmospheres can be... more
This chapter pursues two main goals. First, I want to extend a critique that – despite their indebtedness to it – Gernot Böhme and Tonino Griffero have levelled against Hermann Schmitz’s notion of atmospheres: that atmospheres can be actively produced and that we can even reconstruct a poetics of atmospheres. However, and here I see a potential to add to Böhme and Griffero’s aesthetics myself, atmospheres are not only intentionally created by artists, architects or designers who want to evoke an atmospheric art experience, but also – voluntarily and involuntarily – by audiences who collectively perceive an opera, a theater performance, a concert or a film. Second, I aim to add to the discussion about collective emotions and emotional sharing by introducing the term spread collective emotions. Both shared and spread collective emotions are a subclass of collective emotions more widely conceived. But while shared emotions have garnered attention recently, spread collective emotions have flown below the radar. As an example I will look at the emotion of boredom: the boredom an audience collectively endures while watching an excruciatingly tedious film is not something they share—boredom is a spread collective emotion.
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A look at current emotion research in film studies, a field that has been thriving for over three decades, reveals three limitations. (1) Film scholars concentrate strongly on a restricted set of garden-variety emotions-some emotions are... more
A look at current emotion research in film studies, a field that has been thriving for over three decades, reveals three limitations. (1) Film scholars concentrate strongly on a restricted set of garden-variety emotions-some emotions are therefore neglected. (2) Their understanding of standard emotions is often too monolithic-some subtypes of these emotions are consequently overlooked. (3) The range of existing emotion terms does not seem fine-grained enough to cover the wide range of affective experiences viewers undergo when watching films-a number of emotions might thus be missed. Against this background, the article suggests at least four benefits of introducing a more granular emotion lexicon in film studies. As a remedy, the article suggests paying closer attention to the subjective-experience component of emotions. Here the descriptive method of phenomenology-including its particular subfield phenomenology of emotions-might have useful things to tell film scholars.
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This article tries to shed light on the multiple, but underrated pleasures of the heist film-a genre that has attracted numerous major directors from Jean-Pierre Melville and Stanley Kubrick to Michael Mann and Steven Soderbergh, but has... more
This article tries to shed light on the multiple, but underrated pleasures of the heist film-a genre that has attracted numerous major directors from Jean-Pierre Melville and Stanley Kubrick to Michael Mann and Steven Soderbergh, but has received limited scholarly attention. I approach the genre from a, broadly, philosophical perspective and draw on thinkers such as Peter Sloterdijk, Georg Simmel, Paul Souriau and Bruno Latour to argue that their emphasis on (1) skillful action and kinaesthetic empathy, (2) smooth transgression of boundaries and (3) well-functioning social collaboration and we-connection, the genre's best exemplars satisfy, in fictional and quasi-utopian form, a number of real-life desires.
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What's it like to watch a film in a virtual reality movie theater? In this brief contribution to a theme week of the online journal IN MEDIAS RES on "Coronavirus and Cinematic Experience" I consider a form of collective film experience... more
What's it like to watch a film in a virtual reality movie theater? In this brief contribution to a theme week of the online journal IN MEDIAS RES on "Coronavirus and Cinematic Experience" I consider a form of collective film experience that takes place outside the classical cinema hall and in a virtual environment. Here is the direct link to the article:
http://mediacommons.org/imr/content/just-irl-virtual-reality-movie-theaters-time-covid-19
http://mediacommons.org/imr/content/just-irl-virtual-reality-movie-theaters-time-covid-19
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In this brief essay I draw attention to the effects momentous historical events – such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the Brexit referendum or the 9/11 attacks – can have on a film viewer’s interpretive horizon. How we interpret films shot... more
In this brief essay I draw attention to the effects momentous historical events – such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the Brexit referendum or the 9/11 attacks – can have on a film viewer’s interpretive horizon. How we interpret films shot long before the event can be altered rather abruptly with the onset of the event.
Link: https://www.zfmedienwissenschaft.de/online/open-media-studies-blog/horizons
Link: https://www.zfmedienwissenschaft.de/online/open-media-studies-blog/horizons
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This article starts out by introducing the category of the 'one-character film,' that is, narrative feature films that rely on a single onscreen character. One-character films can range from extremely laconic movies entirely focused on... more
This article starts out by introducing the category of the 'one-character film,' that is, narrative feature films that rely on a single onscreen character. One-character films can range from extremely laconic movies entirely focused on the action in the narrative here-and-now via highly talkative films that revolve around soliloquies of self-reflection, questioning of identity and a problematising of the narrative past to strongly dialogue-heavy films that-via phones and other telecommunication devices-reach far beyond the depicted scene. It is on the latter that the article eventually focuses. Films like Buried (2010), Locke (2013) or The Guilty (2018) centrifugally thrust the viewers into a simultaneous present that remains invisible and that they have to imagine in sensory ways. Imagining this invisible elsewhere, which I call mise en esprit, can be facilitated and evoked through various cinematic means such as reduced within-modality-interference , suggestive verbalisations, acousmatic voices and sound effects.
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A short introduction to the historical context and the reception of Jean-Pierre Meunier's film-phenomenological study "The Structures of the Film Experience (co-written with Daniel Fairfax).
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This 17-page interview with psychologist and film-phenomenologist Jean-Pierre Meunier was conducted by Julian Hanich and Daniel Fairfax on two occasions. Meunier speaks about his origins as a researcher, how he came to write his first... more
This 17-page interview with psychologist and film-phenomenologist Jean-Pierre Meunier was conducted by Julian Hanich and Daniel Fairfax on two occasions. Meunier speaks about his origins as a researcher, how he came to write his first book "The Structures of the Film Experience: Filmic Identification," his interest in phenomenology and other topics.
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Inspired by Jean-Pierre Meunier and expanding some of his original ideas, this article looks at cinematic daydreaming as an act of consciousness viewers are sometimes engaged in over and above the perception of the film. After defining... more
Inspired by Jean-Pierre Meunier and expanding some of his original ideas, this article looks at cinematic daydreaming as an act of consciousness viewers are sometimes engaged in over and above the perception of the film. After defining the term 'cinematic daydreaming,' I distinguish three relations the daydream can have to the film. Subsequently, I offer a concrete description of the cinematic daydreaming experience by focusing on five aspects: (1) the degrees of controllability, (2) the declining attentiveness to the perceptual surroundings, (3) the attenuated power of the film, (4) the shift into a more private mode, and (5) the distinction between intrusive daydreams that interfere with the film and extensive daydreams that enrich it.
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This introduction - co-written with Jens Eder and Jane Stadler - provides an overview of the central research questions, concepts, and lines of conflict at the nexus between media and emotions. It interrogates key terms such as affect and... more
This introduction - co-written with Jens Eder and Jane Stadler - provides an overview of the central research questions, concepts, and lines of conflict at the nexus between media and emotions. It interrogates key terms such as affect and emotion, discusses a variety of influential approaches in emotion research, and identifies debates and tensions in the field of study. Within this vast and complex interdisciplinary field and the broad range of affective phenomena it covers, we concentrate primarily on various types of media-induced emotions, with a focus on the development of ideas about screen media and spectatorship.
The full version can be downloaded at:
https://necsus-ejms.org/media-and-emotion-an-introduction
The full version can be downloaded at:
https://necsus-ejms.org/media-and-emotion-an-introduction
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Since it is first and foremost the cinema that enables—or at least facilitates—concentrated and focused film experiences, this article makes a strong plea for the ongoing importance of the movie theater as a vital cultural practice and... more
Since it is first and foremost the cinema that enables—or at least facilitates—concentrated and focused film experiences, this article makes a strong plea for the ongoing importance of the movie theater as a vital cultural practice and social institution. Although we better engage some films privately and alone at home, we do better to watch other films in the public space of the cinema and in the company of others. The latter is especially the case for challenging modernist art films, slow cinema, avant-garde films, and the like. Among the phenomena that make me think so is “joint deep attention.” Due to its spatial and technological features, the cinema allows us to follow more challenging films with deep attention, in part because of the co-presence of other viewers: Their deep attention can contagiously rub off on ours and help us keep focused. Tentative evidence for the contagious joint-deep-attention effect of the cinema exists in empirical studies dealing with analogous experiences: studying in a library and collectively meditating in a meditation retreat. But apart from the social aspect of the movie theater, three further characteristics of the cinema dispositive contribute, at least implicitly, to the joint-deep-attention effect, characteristics hardly available when we watch a DVD or stream a film at home: its nonmundane space, the impossibility of manipulating the film, and the silence of the auditorium. The chapter revisits—and positively reevaluates—these features as forms of freedom: from the everyday, from having to act, and from noise.
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Dieser Text geht aus von einer Problematisierung des Spannungsverhältnisses zwischen Filmphänomenologie und Filmanalyse. Definiert man nämlich das Ziel der Filmphänomenologie als Beschreibung invarianter Strukturen des bewussten... more
Dieser Text geht aus von einer Problematisierung des Spannungsverhältnisses zwischen Filmphänomenologie und Filmanalyse. Definiert man nämlich das Ziel der Filmphänomenologie als Beschreibung invarianter Strukturen des bewussten subjektiven Erlebens von Filmen, scheint das Vorhaben einer phänomenologischen Filmanalyse beinahe widersprüchlich. Erweitert man jedoch die Bedeutung der Begriffe ‚Filmphänomenologie‘ und ‚Filmanalyse‘, eröffnen sich zahlreiche erkenntnisfördernde analytisch-phänomenologische Spielräume. In einem Ausblick geht der Beitrag auf Herausforderungen und Chancen der phänomenologischen Filmanalyse im universitären Lehrbetrieb ein.
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This short essay is an angry rant against a type of cinema I find almost unwatchable. I call it ‘precious cinema.’ Foregrounding an overly ‘quirky’ directorial sensibility, precious cinema includes some of Wes Anderson’s films, Michel... more
This short essay is an angry rant against a type of cinema I find almost unwatchable. I call it ‘precious cinema.’ Foregrounding an overly ‘quirky’ directorial sensibility, precious cinema includes some of Wes Anderson’s films, Michel Gondry’s post-Charlie Kaufman films, the more mediocre of Tim Burton’s films, most films by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and the latest film by Miranda July. These are wunderkind filmmakers glowingly proud of their idiosyncratic creations. Hiding behind a cute harmlessness, their films nastily force their inventiveness upon the viewer and enclose themselves in the cute world of their own imaginative eccentricities.
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Why are readers of novels so frequently disappointed, even indignant about the film adaptation? What could be the reasons for the often heard complaint “I prefer the book!”? In my answers to these questions I explore the grounds for... more
Why are readers of novels so frequently disappointed, even indignant about the film adaptation? What could be the reasons for the often heard complaint “I prefer the book!”? In my answers to these questions I explore the grounds for reader dissatisfaction, focusing on filmed versions of illusion-creating novels, which make up a large portion of film adaptations. I hypothesize that a major reason for the sense of disappointment with filmed literature may be located in the denial of the readers’ desire for recognition, an important term in social and political theory that has more recently also sparked interest in aesthetics. My psychological hypothesis is closely linked to an aspect aptly captured by the phenomenological expression ‘mineness’: the aesthetic object of the novel, which I concretize and co-create while reading, together with the physical object of the book, which I hold in my hand, lend themselves to being felt as more fundamentally something of mine than the subsequent adaptation on the cinema screen. This amplified sense of mineness, I argue, psychologically complicates the experience of accepting and appreciating the adaptation.
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This article counters the widespread assumption that film is exclusively a medium of showing, presentation or appearing by emphasizing the importance of the viewer’s act of imagination. At the center of attention is the aesthetic... more
This article counters the widespread assumption that film is exclusively a medium of showing, presentation or appearing by emphasizing the importance of the viewer’s act of imagination.
At the center of attention is the aesthetic principle of omission, suggestion, and completion in film – in other words, cases in which a conspicuous elision and filmic evocation set in motion an act of sensual imagining on the viewer’s part: The viewer’s visual and aural imagining fills in and enriches what the film’s visuals or its soundtrack both conceal and allude to at the same time.
The essay may also be seen as a first step toward a poetics of omission, suggestion and completion, as it discusses altogether ten strategies of how to omit and suggest. Examples of visual and aural completion come from films like Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s Tartuffe (1925), Fritz Lang’s M (1931), Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964), Werner Herzog’s Heart of Glass (1976), Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995), Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997), Dogville (2003) by Lars von Trier, Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) and Shirin (2008) by Abbas Kiarostami.
The text is a translated and strongly revised version of my introduction to the volume "Auslassen, Andeuten, Auffüllen. Der Film und die Imagination des Zuschauers" (Munich: 2012) that I co-edited with Hans Jürgen Wulff. Translator: Brian Currid.
At the center of attention is the aesthetic principle of omission, suggestion, and completion in film – in other words, cases in which a conspicuous elision and filmic evocation set in motion an act of sensual imagining on the viewer’s part: The viewer’s visual and aural imagining fills in and enriches what the film’s visuals or its soundtrack both conceal and allude to at the same time.
The essay may also be seen as a first step toward a poetics of omission, suggestion and completion, as it discusses altogether ten strategies of how to omit and suggest. Examples of visual and aural completion come from films like Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s Tartuffe (1925), Fritz Lang’s M (1931), Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964), Werner Herzog’s Heart of Glass (1976), Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995), Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997), Dogville (2003) by Lars von Trier, Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007) and Shirin (2008) by Abbas Kiarostami.
The text is a translated and strongly revised version of my introduction to the volume "Auslassen, Andeuten, Auffüllen. Der Film und die Imagination des Zuschauers" (Munich: 2012) that I co-edited with Hans Jürgen Wulff. Translator: Brian Currid.
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In this interview Vivian Sobchack, a leading film phenomenologist worldwide and Professor Emerita at UCLA, looks back at her career as a film and media scholar. She relates how she first wanted to become a novelist – as well as an... more
In this interview Vivian Sobchack, a leading film phenomenologist worldwide and Professor Emerita at UCLA, looks back at her career as a film and media scholar. She relates how she first wanted to become a novelist – as well as an astronomer – before academia and the study of film attracted her attention. She describes how she became interested in existential phenomenology, how her groundbreaking book The Address of the Eye took shape, and how it has influenced film studies since its first publication 25 years ago. She also reflects on the value of phenomenology as a research method and responds to criticism leveled against it as a philosophy that is too subjectivist and a-political.
Link to the NECSUS version: https://necsus-ejms.org/vivian-sobchack-interview/
Link to the NECSUS version: https://necsus-ejms.org/vivian-sobchack-interview/
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This article investigates the effects mirrors in films can have on the composition of a filmic image, the staging of a scene and the viewing activities of the spectators. It discusses four such effects: (1) So-called ‘complex mirror... more
This article investigates the effects mirrors in films can have on the composition of a filmic image, the staging of a scene and the viewing activities of the spectators. It discusses four such effects: (1) So-called ‘complex mirror shots’ can modify how spectators look onto the picture as a flat composition by way of a quasi-transformation of the screen shape. (2) They can function as a magnetizing frame-within-the-frame that channels the viewer’s look into the anterior depth of the mirror. (3) By referring spectators to off-screen space and thus making them look beyond the image into its lateral and posterior depth, some specific examples also allow for an intricately layered experience of perception and imagination, challenging and complicating efforts to “read” the image. (4) Finally, mirrors may be a source of spatial complication and can even lead to a full-blown disorientation regarding the status of the image, thus transforming the way viewers understand, problematise and look at the filmic image as such.
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What did the great French film theorist André Bazin think of the collective experience in the cinema? What did he write about the influence co-viewers can have on the emotional engagement, the evaluation and the interpretation of a film?... more
What did the great French film theorist André Bazin think of the collective experience in the cinema? What did he write about the influence co-viewers can have on the emotional engagement, the evaluation and the interpretation of a film? In short: What was his audience theory? To be sure, Bazin is not primarily known as a theorist of the (individual) viewer, and even less so as a theorist of the (collective) audience. And yet at various points in his roughly 2.600 articles he has dealt with questions concerning the cinema’s collectivity. The main goal of this paper is to put together the most important puzzle pieces. In order to fully flesh out Bazin’s theory of the cinema audience I will compare it to his views on the theater and television audiences.
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In this article we investigate the astonishing variety of emotions that a brief scene in a film melodrama can evoke. We thus take issue with the reductive view of melodrama that limits this genre’s emotional effects to sadness, pity, and... more
In this article we investigate the astonishing variety of emotions that a brief scene in a film melodrama can evoke. We thus take issue with the reductive view of melodrama that limits this genre’s emotional effects to sadness, pity, and tear-jerking potential. Through a close analysis of a melodramatic standard situation—a “news of death” scene—in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s "21 Grams" (2003), we reveal the emotional dynamics and the high density as well as rich variety of affective phenomena likely to be experienced during the trajectory of this two-minute scene.
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This essay explores how Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s classic silent film Sunrise (1927) participates in discourses of modernity in the mid- to late-1920s. It shows that the film – against many prior interpretations – can be read as a timely... more
This essay explores how Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s classic silent film Sunrise (1927) participates in discourses of modernity in the mid- to late-1920s. It shows that the film – against many prior interpretations – can be read as a timely contribution to specific US-American debates: discourses about the big city, the new consumer society, tourism, the emancipation of the New Woman, and changing morals. The film thus documents in audiovisual form a discontent with rapid modernization – a discontent the film mitigates in dialectical form.
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The wish to accurately represent the subjective perceptual experience of a filmic character and to intimately connect these character perceptions with the viewer’s experience has a long history. However, this history of extreme... more
The wish to accurately represent the subjective perceptual experience of a filmic character and to intimately connect these character perceptions with the viewer’s experience has a long history. However, this history of extreme first-person perspectives in film—from the inside out, so to speak—is a troubled one. The aim of this essay is to discuss, from a film phenomenological perspective, some of the limits attempts at a continuing first-person perspective have faced. I will give a few hitherto overlooked arguments why, for many viewers, their embodied experience stands at odds with the character’s subjectivity suggested in the film, which can lead to experiences of strangeness and even discomfort. I will point out what seems “wrong” or “missing” in comparison to actual sensorial, temporal, and social experiences, all the while presuming that a strong perceptual identification is the implicit goal of these films.
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In this article Christian Ferencz-Flatz and I try to give an answer to the question what film phenomenology actually is. We proceed in three steps. First, we provide a survey of five different research practices within current film... more
In this article Christian Ferencz-Flatz and I try to give an answer to the question what film phenomenology actually is. We proceed in three steps. First, we provide a survey of five different research practices within current film phenomenological writing: We call them excavation, explanation, exemplification, extrapolation and expansion. Then we give an overview of the major shifts in the history of film phenomenology, sometimes zooming in on specific protagonists, from the 1930s till today. At the end we try to cluster three contemporary fields of interest that stand out as particularly noticeable. Here we focus on (1) embodied spectatorship, synaesthesia and the sense of touch, (2) feminist and queer film phenomenology and (3) film and/as consciousness.
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This is a revised, updated and translated version of an earlier article that had appeared in the journal "Movie."
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Dieser Artikel stellt einige der zentralen Theoriepositionen vor, die sich mit dem Kino (a) als Raum kollektiver Erfahrung und (b) als Ort der Öffentlichkeit auseinandergesetzt haben. Einen Bogen von der frühen zur zeitgenössischen... more
Dieser Artikel stellt einige der zentralen Theoriepositionen vor, die sich mit dem Kino (a) als Raum kollektiver Erfahrung und (b) als Ort der Öffentlichkeit auseinandergesetzt haben. Einen Bogen von der frühen zur zeitgenössischen Filmtheorie schlagend, unterscheidet der Beitrag dabei eine im weitesten Sinne phänomenologische Perspektive mit Blick auf die konkrete kollektive Erfahrung des Publikums von einem eher soziologisch-politischen Blickwinkel, der auf den Begriff der Öffentlichkeit abzielt.
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The Invisible Cinema was an experimental movie theater designed by an experimental filmmaker. Devised by the Austrian avantgardist Peter Kubelka, it served as the first place of exhibition for the Anthology Film Archives in New York.... more
The Invisible Cinema was an experimental movie theater designed by an experimental filmmaker. Devised by the Austrian avantgardist Peter Kubelka, it served as the first place of exhibition for the Anthology Film Archives in New York. Apart from the screen (and some exit signs and aisle lights installed for safety reasons), the auditorium was completely kept in black. Its partitioned, high-winged seats had blinders at the sides and a small hood-like top. The rows were arranged stadium-like and the viewers had to follow a number of strict be-havioral rules. This unusual 90-seat auditorium only existed from 1970 to 1974, but its ideas had an afterlife in other venues such as the Austrian Film Museum. Discussing the Invisible Cinema as a specific type of movie theater, the essay has two goals. First, it describes what the cinema looked like, what the aims of its specific interior design were, and what rules of conduct existed for the audience. Second, it tries to reconstruct in a phenomenological reception study the viewing experience this specific cinema may have enabled for its historical audience. Described by Peter Kubelka as a “viewing machine,” the Invisible Cinema apparently caused sensations of floating, drowsiness, and strong absorption among its viewers, but it also gave an unexpected weight to the collectivity of the audience.
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This article focuses on a standard melodramatic scene in which a character either sends or receives a farewell message through a medium. I call this the ‘farewell-note motif.’ The article has three goals. First, I explore some reasons for... more
This article focuses on a standard melodramatic scene in which a character either sends or receives a farewell message through a medium. I call this the ‘farewell-note motif.’ The article has three goals. First, I explore some reasons for the emotional effectiveness of this motif: Scenes in which a medium functions as a messenger entangle the viewer in a complex temporal web and complicate character engagement in a moving way. Second and more generally speaking, studying this recurring motif allows us to draw conclusions about the genre or mode of the melodrama in a pars-pro-toto way. Third, the article wants to show that film studies can profit from paying closer attention to what is often despised as banal and cliché-like: recur-ring motifs, stereotypes and standard scenes.
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In this essay I follow André Bazin and David Bordwell and their discussion of the deep-focus long-take as well as staging in depth. I have three goals. First, I engage with the style of Swedish director Roy Andersson. Andersson – born in... more
In this essay I follow André Bazin and David Bordwell and their discussion of the deep-focus long-take as well as staging in depth. I have three goals. First, I engage with the style of Swedish director Roy Andersson. Andersson – born in 1943 and best known for his films Songs from the Second Floor (2000), You, the Living (2007) and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014) – champions a distinctive aesthetics that involves the use of static long-takes in deep focus without close-ups, elaborate compositions and various strategies of staging in depth. Second, I aim to add to the scholarship on staging in depth as a potent, but largely overlooked stylistic device. Looking at the films of Roy Andersson can help to expand the research on staging in depth: Andersson does not simply repeat the ways his precursors have used the device, but introduces innovations and adds new thematic ends to it. In a third and final step I will look at how Andersson’s style is tied to his content and how it creates meaning. I propose that Andersson’s staging in depth may be connected to a pessimistic outlook on the loneliness of our modern life-world in which others confront us merely as apathetic bystanders. At the same time, the cinematic staging in his complex images serves a pedagogic purpose that harbours optimistic hopes. Through his style Andersson challenges his viewers to become attentive observers: unlike his characters we are supposed to watch the world – including his films – with particularly perceptive eyes.
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This article looks at how the collective experience of laughter in the movie theater is related to the idea of the cinema as a public space. Through the non-verbal expression of laughter the audience ‘constructs’ a public space the... more
This article looks at how the collective experience of laughter in the movie theater is related to the idea of the cinema as a public space. Through the non-verbal expression of laughter the audience ‘constructs’ a public space the viewers may not have been aware of to the same degree prior to the collective public expression. Moreover, the public space created through laughter allows for an expedient type of monitoring: inappropriate laughter may be exposed in front of others. With viewers who laugh approvingly about racist violence or misogynist jokes, we can easily lay bare the ethical implications.
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This article investigates an age-old, puzzling question: how can a negatively valenced emotion such as sadness go together with aesthetic liking and even pleasure? We propose that an answer to this question must take into account the... more
This article investigates an age-old, puzzling question: how can a negatively valenced emotion such as sadness go together with aesthetic liking and even pleasure? We propose that an answer to this question must take into account the feeling of being moved, a complex emotional state that plays a major role in the history of poetics and aesthetics and has recently begun to attract interest in psychological research. We conducted a study in an actual cinema using film clips as sadness-eliciting stimuli. In total, 76 participants watched 38 clips that presented variations of the same sad scenario: a character or a group of characters learns about the death of a close person. The study revealed a highly significant positive correlation between sadness and enjoyment. However, this correlation was almost fully mediated by the feeling of being moved. Hence sadness primarily functions as a contributor to and intensifier of the emotional state of being moved. Furthermore, the study revealed that being moved is a positive term in two senses. First, it refers to an overall positive feeling. Second, it indicates a positive value judgment regarding the power of a film to elicit such feelings. Therefore, we conclude that it is the overall positive feeling of being moved itself that recipients of sad films and other forms of art enjoy—we simply like to be moved. Taken together, our findings are significant for investigations of the so-called ‘sad-film paradox’ and the aesthetic pleasure associated with negative emotions more generally.
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In this text I explore the question what we are actually afraid of when we are scared at the movies. It is usually claimed that our fear derives from our engagement with characters and our ‘participation’ through thought, simulation or... more
In this text I explore the question what we are actually afraid of when we are scared at the movies. It is usually claimed that our fear derives from our engagement with characters and our ‘participation’ through thought, simulation or make-believe in fearful situations of the filmic world. While these standard accounts provide part of the explanation why we are afraid, I aim to complement them by showing that we often literally fear for ourselves as well. Concentrating on an anticipatory subspecies of cinematic fear I call ‘dread,’ I argue that we often fear a negative affective outcome, namely our own fearful experience of shock and/or horror that usually ends scenes of dread. By looking at viewers’ action tendencies and actions proper activated in dreadful moments, I suggest that we appraise scenes of dread as potentially harmful to our current (and even future) psychological well-being. Dread will thus turn out to be a specific kind of meta-emotion.
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This article investigates an age-old, puzzling question: how can a negatively valenced emotion such as sadness go together with aesthetic liking and even pleasure? We propose that an answer to this question must take into account the... more
This article investigates an age-old, puzzling question: how can a negatively valenced emotion such as sadness go together with aesthetic liking and even pleasure? We propose that an answer to this question must take into account the feeling of being moved, a complex emotional state that plays a major role in the history of poetics and aesthetics and has recently begun to attract interest in psychological research. We conducted a study in an actual cinema using film clips as sadness-eliciting stimuli. In total, 76 participants watched 38 clips that presented variations of the same sad scenario: a character or a group of characters learns about the death of a close person. The study revealed a highly significant positive correlation between sadness and enjoyment. However, this correlation was almost fully mediated by the feeling of being moved. Hence sadness primarily functions as a contributor to and intensifier of the emotional state of being moved. Furthermore, the study revealed that being moved is a positive term in two senses. First, it refers to an overall positive feeling. Second, it indicates a positive value judgment regarding the power of a film to elicit such feelings. Therefore, we conclude that it is the overall positive feeling of being moved itself that recipients of sad films and other forms of art enjoy—we simply like to be moved. Taken together, our findings are significant for investigations of the so-called ‘sad-film paradox’ and the aesthetic pleasure associated with negative emotions more generally.
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In this essay I suggest that collectively watching a film with quiet attention should be considered a kind of joint action. When silently watching a film in a cinema the viewers are not merely engaged in individual actions – watching a... more
In this essay I suggest that collectively watching a film with quiet attention should be considered a kind of joint action. When silently watching a film in a cinema the viewers are not merely engaged in individual actions – watching a film with others often implies a shared activity based on a collective intention in which the viewers jointly attend to a single object: the film. Drawing on recent debates about collective intentionality and shared feelings in analytic philosophy and phenomenology, I show that this import of social philosophy can have important ramifications for film theory and history. Proponents of diverse film theoretical approaches like cultural studies, cognitive film theory, film phenomenology or reception aesthetics consider the viewer actively involved with the film. If this is true and the spectators are all active, sitting in the same movie theatre watching the same film in a quiet, attentive way, it seems reasonable to argue that in some important sense they act jointly. My argument will serve as a step towards a more comprehensive theory and phenomenology of collective spectatorship at the movies, an aspect undervalued in the history of film theory.
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This article deals with filmic instances in which suggestive character speeches bring into play the viewer's imagination: Evocative language asks or even forces the spectator to imagine objects or events not shown directly. I develop a... more
This article deals with filmic instances in which suggestive character speeches bring into play the viewer's imagination: Evocative language asks or even forces the spectator to imagine objects or events not shown directly. I develop a definition of what I call 'suggestive verbalizations', propose a typology of four different kinds of suggestive verbalizations, and discuss a number of functions of this aesthetic device. I also compare it to similar conceptions suggested in sound studies (Michel Chion) and film narratology (Markus Kuhn).
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Im Mittelpunkt dieses Artikels stehen filmtheoretische Perspektiven auf die Besonderheiten des audiovisuellen Bewegtbildes, das allen prototypischen Formen des Tonfilms zugrunde liegt. Einen wichtigen Vergleichsgegenstand stellen für uns... more
Im Mittelpunkt dieses Artikels stehen filmtheoretische Perspektiven auf die Besonderheiten des audiovisuellen Bewegtbildes, das allen prototypischen Formen des Tonfilms zugrunde liegt. Einen wichtigen Vergleichsgegenstand stellen für uns dabei die unbewegten Bilder dar, vor deren Hintergrund sich die Innovationen des Tonfilmbildes besser herausarbeiten lassen. Wir fragen mithin: Welche Möglichkeiten eröffnen die Hauptvertreter der Filmtheorie, das audiovisuelle Bewegtbild des Films von älteren Formen des Bildes wie der Wandmalerei, dem Tafelbild, der Druckgraphik oder der Fotografie zu unterscheiden? Dabei konzentrieren wir uns auf drei Eigenschaften. Erstens dominiert in Filmbildern die Bewegung. Zweitens spielt der nicht-sichtbare Raum jenseits des Bildkaders eine zentrale Rolle für die Wahrnehmung eines Films: das Off. Und drittens werden die meisten prototypischen Filme seit jeher – und nicht erst seit der Einführung des Tonfilms im Jahr 1927 – von Tönen begleitet.
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In this article I suggest that we, as human beings, gain personal recognition not only through intersubjective encounters with others, but also through aesthetic experience. To support my claims about what I call ‘aesthetic recognition,’... more
In this article I suggest that we, as human beings, gain personal recognition not only through intersubjective encounters with others, but also through aesthetic experience. To support my claims about what I call ‘aesthetic recognition,’ I focus on a pervasive but rarely explored phenomenon: the cinematic shock. Not only a staple ingredient of thrillers, horror films, and disaster movies, it is also found in art-films. The cinematic shock will serve as the case in point of my argument because in its lived intensity, density and conspicuousness we can describe it more easily with appropriate words than other aesthetic experiences that are equally able to foster aesthetic recognition but are less readily accessible via language. When experienced in the social environment of the movie theater, cinematic shocks enable two widespread types of aesthetic recognition: aesthetic experience as individual self-recognition, and aesthetic experience as a collective recognition of accord. Due to the strongly affective lived-body experience brought about by an encounter with the aesthetic object, the recipient not only feels self-aware of and self-affirmed in his or her own embodied existence, he or she also experiences confirmation as part of a group responding equally—in accordance—to an aesthetic object. This double recognition gained from the cinematic experience of shock derives from the individual film experience and the collective theatrical experience. An additional outcome of my methodological reliance on dense phenomenological descriptions may be an argument for the value of phenomenology in both the study of film and of aesthetics more generally.
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This is the pre-print of an article that will soon be published in Psychological Review. It is the first comprehensive theoretical article on aesthetic emotions. Following Kant’s definition, we propose that it is the first and foremost... more
This is the pre-print of an article that will soon be published in Psychological Review. It is the first comprehensive theoretical article on aesthetic emotions. Following Kant’s definition, we propose that it is the first and foremost characteristic of aesthetic emotions to make a direct contribution to aesthetic evaluation/appreciation. Each aesthetic emotion is tuned to a special type of perceived aesthetic appeal and is predictive of the subjectively felt pleasure or displeasure and the liking or disliking associated with this type of appeal. Contrary to the negativity bias of classical emotion catalogues, emotion terms used for aesthetic evaluation purposes include far more positive than negative emotions. At the same time, many overall positive aesthetic emotions encompass negative or mixed emotional ingredients. Appraisals of intrinsic pleasantness, familiarity, and novelty are preeminently important for aesthetic emotions. Appraisals of goal relevance/conduciveness and coping potential are largely irrelevant from a pragmatic perspective, but in some cases highly relevant for cognitive and affective coping. Aesthetic emotions are typically sought and savored for their own sake, with subjectively felt intensity and/or emotional arousal being rewards in their own right. The expression component of aesthetic emotions includes laughter, tears, and facial and bodily movements, along with applause or booing and words of praise or blame. Aesthetic emotions entail motivational approach and avoidance tendencies, specifically, tendencies toward prolonged, repeated, or interrupted exposure and wanting to possess aesthetically pleasing objects. They are experienced across a broad range of experiential domains and not coextensive with art-elicited emotions.
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The emotional state of being moved, though frequently referred to in both classical rhetoric and current language use, is far from established as a well-defined psychological construct. In a series of three studies, we investigated... more
The emotional state of being moved, though frequently referred to in both classical rhetoric and current language use, is far from established as a well-defined psychological construct. In a series of three studies, we investigated eliciting scenarios, emotional ingredients, appraisal patterns, feeling qualities, and the affective signature of being moved and related emotional states. The great majority of the eliciting scenarios can be assigned to significant relationship and critical life events (especially death, birth, marriage, separation, and reunion). Sadness and joy turned out to be the two preeminent emotions involved in episodes of being moved. Both the sad and the joyful variants of being moved showed a coactivation of positive and negative affect and can thus be ranked among the mixed emotions. Moreover, being moved, while featuring only low-to-mid arousal levels, was experienced as an emotional state of high intensity; this applied to responses to fictional artworks no less than to own-life and other real, but media-represented, events. The most distinctive findings regarding cognitive appraisal dimensions were very low ratings for causation of the event by oneself and for having the power to change its outcome, along with very high ratings for appraisals of compatibility with social norms and self-ideals. Putting together the characteristics identified and discussed throughout the three studies, the paper ends with a sketch of a psychological construct of being moved.
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Can we experience depictions of repulsive objects more positively when we watch them as part of a work of art? We addressed this question by using a scenario approach in a laboratory setting designed to activate two different cognitive... more
Can we experience depictions of repulsive objects more positively when we watch them as part of a work of art? We addressed this question by using a scenario approach in a laboratory setting designed to activate two different cognitive schemata: participants viewed the same pictures framed either as art photographs or as documentary photographs for educational purposes. Self-reports of the positivity, the negativity, and the intensity of the affective responses yielded three results. First, participants experienced the photos more positively in the art-framing condition. Second, the negativity ratings did not differ in both conditions, suggesting that art framing does not erase, diminish, or convert the negative affect vis-à-vis the disgusting stimulus features. Third, there was no difference in terms of the intensity of the experience—a result that contradicts the position that aesthetic emotions are less intense than ordinary emotions. The results of our study suggest that cognitive schema activation should be included in a multifactor psychological account of the aesthetic enjoyment of artworks that involve negative emotions. More specifically, results add to the growing insight into what distinguishes aesthetically modified emotions from ordinary emotions.
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"In this article we investigate the astonishing variety of emotions evoked by filmic melodramas. Closely analyzing a deeply moving scene from Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu’s 21 Grams (2003), we criticize the limited view of the emotional... more
"In this article we investigate the astonishing variety of emotions evoked by filmic melodramas. Closely analyzing a deeply moving scene from Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu’s 21 Grams (2003), we criticize the limited view of the emotional effects of this genre. We show that melodramas elicit more than just sadness or pity; they cannot be reduced to their tear-jerking potential. Melodramas move their viewers precisely because they send them on a rollercoaster ride with ups and downs of very different emotions.
In diesem Aufsatz untersuchen wir die erstaunliche Emotionsvielfalt des filmischen Melodrams. Mithilfe einer detaillierten Analyse einer tief bewegenden Szene aus dem Film 21 Grams (2003) von Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu versuchen wir, einem verkürzten Verständnis der emotionalen Wirkung dieses Genres entgegenzutreten. Melodramen lassen sich nicht auf Traurigkeit oder Mitleid reduzieren; sie gehen nicht auf in Tränenseligkeit. Vielmehr rühren die bewegenden Effekte des Melodrams gerade daher, dass es seine Betrachter in ein Wechselbad sehr unterschiedlicher Gefühle zu stürzen versteht."
In diesem Aufsatz untersuchen wir die erstaunliche Emotionsvielfalt des filmischen Melodrams. Mithilfe einer detaillierten Analyse einer tief bewegenden Szene aus dem Film 21 Grams (2003) von Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu versuchen wir, einem verkürzten Verständnis der emotionalen Wirkung dieses Genres entgegenzutreten. Melodramen lassen sich nicht auf Traurigkeit oder Mitleid reduzieren; sie gehen nicht auf in Tränenseligkeit. Vielmehr rühren die bewegenden Effekte des Melodrams gerade daher, dass es seine Betrachter in ein Wechselbad sehr unterschiedlicher Gefühle zu stürzen versteht."
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This is a review which has come out with the journal "Screen" (Vol. 59, No. 1, Spring 2018, pp. 136–140).
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In this review I criticize Eugenie Brinkema's recent monograph "The Forms of the Affects" (2014) as a remarkably frustrating work of remarkably frustrating brilliance.
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For more than two decades emotions have been a major topic of discussion and contention in film and media studies. From cognitive theories and phenomenology to affect studies, many different approaches have been suggested, many books... more
For more than two decades emotions have been a major topic of discussion and contention in film and media studies. From cognitive theories and phenomenology to affect studies, many different approaches have been suggested, many books written, and many insights won. However, some crucial questions have barely been discussed. This special section on EMOTIONS takes stock and seeks to advance the field in new directions. We suggest a conceptual, a con-textual, an ethical, a political, and a media-comparative expansion, thus showing the urgency of thinking further about the interconnection between contemporary media and the emotions of their audiences.
We are primarily interested in contributions that focus on emotions that are actually felt by viewers, readers, gamers, users, or prosumers, and not emotions represented in media, for instance by way of characters. We are also looking for thick descriptions of emotional experiences and well-chosen examples of how it feels to undergo a specific emotion in concrete media engagements and environments. Moreover, we are interested in the specific dynamics of situated, collective emotional experiences of different kinds and groups of viewers and users.
Deadline for 300-word abstracts: September 13, 2018.
We are primarily interested in contributions that focus on emotions that are actually felt by viewers, readers, gamers, users, or prosumers, and not emotions represented in media, for instance by way of characters. We are also looking for thick descriptions of emotional experiences and well-chosen examples of how it feels to undergo a specific emotion in concrete media engagements and environments. Moreover, we are interested in the specific dynamics of situated, collective emotional experiences of different kinds and groups of viewers and users.
Deadline for 300-word abstracts: September 13, 2018.
Research Interests:
International Symposium, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, 23-25 November 2017 The Structures of the Film Experience Jean-Pierre Meunier, Film-Phenomenology and Contemporary Film Studies Conference Location: Aula der Städelschule,... more
International Symposium, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, 23-25 November 2017
The Structures of the Film Experience
Jean-Pierre Meunier, Film-Phenomenology and Contemporary Film Studies
Conference Location: Aula der Städelschule, Dürerstraße 10, 60596 Frankfurt am Main
Jean-Pierre Meunier’s Les structures de l’experience filmique: L’identification filmique from 1969 is a key text in the history of film studies.
Drawing on the work of the French pioneers of phenomenology, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as on the insights of the French Filmology movement, Meunier distinguishes between three major types of engagements viewers can have with moving images: the fiction attitude, documentary attitude and home movie attitude. With this seemingly innocuous distinction, Meunier opens up a new field of inquiry. By adding the home movie attitude as the third type of engagement, he integrates a large and long-neglected type of cinematic practice into the field of film studies and film theory, namely the non-theatrical non-fiction film.
Meunier’s pioneering gesture continues to reverberate throughout film studies, where non-theatrical film has become one of the main areas of research over the last decade.
Furthermore, Meunier addresses the much-discussed concepts of filmic identification and movement in a way that continues to be relevant to current developments in film philosophy and film aesthetics.
Through the readings proposed by Vivian Sobchack, Dudley Andrew and others, Meunier’s work has been an important influence on the development of film theory outside of the French-speaking world over the last decades. However, the full text of Meunier’s book has never been available in any language but French.
On the occasion of the first English language translation of Meunier’s book – prepared by Daniel Fairfax (Yale University/Goethe-Universität Frankfurt) and edited by Fairfax with Julian Hanich (University of Groningen) for the “Film Theory in Media History” book series edited by Weihong Bao (Berkeley), Vinzenz Hediger (Frankfurt) and Trond Lundemo (Stockholm) for Amsterdam University Press – this symposium will bring together international film scholars and philosophers to discuss the enduring significance of Meunier’s work.
The symposium will address the role of Meunier’s book in the history of film theory. It will discuss the continuing relevance of the seminal categories and concepts Meunier proposes for the history of film phenomenology and contemporary film studies. It will search for the book’s philosophical underpinnings and the role the book played in the history of film phenomenology. And it will explore new directions in film theory opened up by Meunier’s work.
The symposium is organized by the Department of Theater, Film and Media Studies of Goethe-Universität Frankfurt (Prof. Dr. Vinzenz Hediger) and the Department of Arts, Culture and Media at the University of Groningen (Prof. Dr. Julian Hanich) in cooperation with the Permanent Seminar on Histories of Film Theories and the Städelschule – Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste.
The symposium is made possible through the generous support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Vereinigung der Freunde und Förderer der Goethe-Universität / Vereinigung von Freunden und Förderern der Goethe, the Stiftung zur Förderung der internationalen wissenschaftlichen Beziehungen der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität and the Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture (ICOG).
The Structures of the Film Experience
Jean-Pierre Meunier, Film-Phenomenology and Contemporary Film Studies
Conference Location: Aula der Städelschule, Dürerstraße 10, 60596 Frankfurt am Main
Jean-Pierre Meunier’s Les structures de l’experience filmique: L’identification filmique from 1969 is a key text in the history of film studies.
Drawing on the work of the French pioneers of phenomenology, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as on the insights of the French Filmology movement, Meunier distinguishes between three major types of engagements viewers can have with moving images: the fiction attitude, documentary attitude and home movie attitude. With this seemingly innocuous distinction, Meunier opens up a new field of inquiry. By adding the home movie attitude as the third type of engagement, he integrates a large and long-neglected type of cinematic practice into the field of film studies and film theory, namely the non-theatrical non-fiction film.
Meunier’s pioneering gesture continues to reverberate throughout film studies, where non-theatrical film has become one of the main areas of research over the last decade.
Furthermore, Meunier addresses the much-discussed concepts of filmic identification and movement in a way that continues to be relevant to current developments in film philosophy and film aesthetics.
Through the readings proposed by Vivian Sobchack, Dudley Andrew and others, Meunier’s work has been an important influence on the development of film theory outside of the French-speaking world over the last decades. However, the full text of Meunier’s book has never been available in any language but French.
On the occasion of the first English language translation of Meunier’s book – prepared by Daniel Fairfax (Yale University/Goethe-Universität Frankfurt) and edited by Fairfax with Julian Hanich (University of Groningen) for the “Film Theory in Media History” book series edited by Weihong Bao (Berkeley), Vinzenz Hediger (Frankfurt) and Trond Lundemo (Stockholm) for Amsterdam University Press – this symposium will bring together international film scholars and philosophers to discuss the enduring significance of Meunier’s work.
The symposium will address the role of Meunier’s book in the history of film theory. It will discuss the continuing relevance of the seminal categories and concepts Meunier proposes for the history of film phenomenology and contemporary film studies. It will search for the book’s philosophical underpinnings and the role the book played in the history of film phenomenology. And it will explore new directions in film theory opened up by Meunier’s work.
The symposium is organized by the Department of Theater, Film and Media Studies of Goethe-Universität Frankfurt (Prof. Dr. Vinzenz Hediger) and the Department of Arts, Culture and Media at the University of Groningen (Prof. Dr. Julian Hanich) in cooperation with the Permanent Seminar on Histories of Film Theories and the Städelschule – Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste.
The symposium is made possible through the generous support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Vereinigung der Freunde und Förderer der Goethe-Universität / Vereinigung von Freunden und Förderern der Goethe, the Stiftung zur Förderung der internationalen wissenschaftlichen Beziehungen der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität and the Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture (ICOG).
Research Interests:
Call for Papers: Studia Phaenomenologica Special Issue: Film and Phenomenology, Vol. XVI (2016) Guest Editors: Christian Ferencz-Flatz and Julian Hanich The 2016 issue of Studia Phaenomenologica will interrogate the relationship of... more
Call for Papers: Studia Phaenomenologica
Special Issue: Film and Phenomenology, Vol. XVI (2016)
Guest Editors: Christian Ferencz-Flatz and Julian Hanich
The 2016 issue of Studia Phaenomenologica will interrogate the relationship of phenomenology and film.
Submissions in English, French, and German will be accepted, and should comply with the following guidelines: http://www.studia-phaenomenologica.com/?page=submit
Deadline for submissions is 1 July, 2015.
The papers should be sent to: submissions@phenomenology.ro
Special Issue: Film and Phenomenology, Vol. XVI (2016)
Guest Editors: Christian Ferencz-Flatz and Julian Hanich
The 2016 issue of Studia Phaenomenologica will interrogate the relationship of phenomenology and film.
Submissions in English, French, and German will be accepted, and should comply with the following guidelines: http://www.studia-phaenomenologica.com/?page=submit
Deadline for submissions is 1 July, 2015.
The papers should be sent to: submissions@phenomenology.ro
Research Interests:
International Symposium, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, 23-25 November 2017 The Structures of the Film Experience Jean-Pierre Meunier, Film-Phenomenology and Contemporary Film Studies Conference Location: Aula der Städelschule,... more
International Symposium, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, 23-25 November 2017
The Structures of the Film Experience
Jean-Pierre Meunier, Film-Phenomenology and Contemporary Film Studies
Conference Location: Aula der Städelschule, Dürerstraße 10, 60596 Frankfurt am Main
Jean-Pierre Meunier’s Les structures de l’experience filmique: L’identification filmique from 1969 is a key text in the history of film studies.
Drawing on the work of the French pioneers of phenomenology, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as on the insights of the French Filmology movement, Meunier distinguishes between three major types of engagements viewers can have with moving images: the fiction attitude, documentary attitude and home movie attitude. With this seemingly innocuous distinction, Meunier opens up a new field of inquiry. By adding the home movie attitude as the third type of engagement, he integrates a large and long-neglected type of cinematic practice into the field of film studies and film theory, namely the non-theatrical non-fiction film.
Meunier’s pioneering gesture continues to reverberate throughout film studies, where non-theatrical film has become one of the main areas of research over the last decade.
Furthermore, Meunier addresses the much-discussed concepts of filmic identification and movement in a way that continues to be relevant to current developments in film philosophy and film aesthetics.
Through the readings proposed by Vivian Sobchack, Dudley Andrew and others, Meunier’s work has been an important influence on the development of film theory outside of the French-speaking world over the last decades. However, the full text of Meunier’s book has never been available in any language but French.
On the occasion of the first English language translation of Meunier’s book – prepared by Daniel Fairfax (Yale University/Goethe-Universität Frankfurt) and edited by Fairfax with Julian Hanich (University of Groningen) for the “Film Theory in Media History” book series edited by Weihong Bao (Berkeley), Vinzenz Hediger (Frankfurt) and Trond Lundemo (Stockholm) for Amsterdam University Press – this symposium will bring together international film scholars and philosophers to discuss the enduring significance of Meunier’s work.
The symposium will address the role of Meunier’s book in the history of film theory. It will discuss the continuing relevance of the seminal categories and concepts Meunier proposes for the history of film phenomenology and contemporary film studies. It will search for the book’s philosophical underpinnings and the role the book played in the history of film phenomenology. And it will explore new directions in film theory opened up by Meunier’s work.
The symposium is organized by the Department of Theater, Film and Media Studies of Goethe-Universität Frankfurt (Prof. Dr. Vinzenz Hediger) and the Department of Arts, Culture and Media at the University of Groningen (Prof. Dr. Julian Hanich) in cooperation with the Permanent Seminar on Histories of Film Theories and the Städelschule – Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste.
The symposium is made possible through the generous support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Vereinigung der Freunde und Förderer der Goethe-Universität / Vereinigung von Freunden und Förderern der Goethe, the Stiftung zur Förderung der internationalen wissenschaftlichen Beziehungen der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität and the Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture (ICOG).
The Structures of the Film Experience
Jean-Pierre Meunier, Film-Phenomenology and Contemporary Film Studies
Conference Location: Aula der Städelschule, Dürerstraße 10, 60596 Frankfurt am Main
Jean-Pierre Meunier’s Les structures de l’experience filmique: L’identification filmique from 1969 is a key text in the history of film studies.
Drawing on the work of the French pioneers of phenomenology, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jean-Paul Sartre, as well as on the insights of the French Filmology movement, Meunier distinguishes between three major types of engagements viewers can have with moving images: the fiction attitude, documentary attitude and home movie attitude. With this seemingly innocuous distinction, Meunier opens up a new field of inquiry. By adding the home movie attitude as the third type of engagement, he integrates a large and long-neglected type of cinematic practice into the field of film studies and film theory, namely the non-theatrical non-fiction film.
Meunier’s pioneering gesture continues to reverberate throughout film studies, where non-theatrical film has become one of the main areas of research over the last decade.
Furthermore, Meunier addresses the much-discussed concepts of filmic identification and movement in a way that continues to be relevant to current developments in film philosophy and film aesthetics.
Through the readings proposed by Vivian Sobchack, Dudley Andrew and others, Meunier’s work has been an important influence on the development of film theory outside of the French-speaking world over the last decades. However, the full text of Meunier’s book has never been available in any language but French.
On the occasion of the first English language translation of Meunier’s book – prepared by Daniel Fairfax (Yale University/Goethe-Universität Frankfurt) and edited by Fairfax with Julian Hanich (University of Groningen) for the “Film Theory in Media History” book series edited by Weihong Bao (Berkeley), Vinzenz Hediger (Frankfurt) and Trond Lundemo (Stockholm) for Amsterdam University Press – this symposium will bring together international film scholars and philosophers to discuss the enduring significance of Meunier’s work.
The symposium will address the role of Meunier’s book in the history of film theory. It will discuss the continuing relevance of the seminal categories and concepts Meunier proposes for the history of film phenomenology and contemporary film studies. It will search for the book’s philosophical underpinnings and the role the book played in the history of film phenomenology. And it will explore new directions in film theory opened up by Meunier’s work.
The symposium is organized by the Department of Theater, Film and Media Studies of Goethe-Universität Frankfurt (Prof. Dr. Vinzenz Hediger) and the Department of Arts, Culture and Media at the University of Groningen (Prof. Dr. Julian Hanich) in cooperation with the Permanent Seminar on Histories of Film Theories and the Städelschule – Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste.
The symposium is made possible through the generous support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Vereinigung der Freunde und Förderer der Goethe-Universität / Vereinigung von Freunden und Förderern der Goethe, the Stiftung zur Förderung der internationalen wissenschaftlichen Beziehungen der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität and the Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture (ICOG).
Research Interests:
At the University of Groningen we are looking for a PhD candidate with an expertise in questions of (film) aesthetics and film and media theory. Deadline: August 31. Please find the link to the application website here.... more
At the University of Groningen we are looking for a PhD candidate with an expertise in questions of (film) aesthetics and film and media theory. Deadline: August 31.
Please find the link to the application website here.
https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/work-with-us/job-opportunities/?details=00347-02S000AANP&cat=wp
Please find the link to the application website here.
https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/work-with-us/job-opportunities/?details=00347-02S000AANP&cat=wp