Film Academics publish ‘Film Criticism in the Digital Age’

FILM CRITICISM IN THE DIGITAL AGE 

Edited by Mattias Frey and Cecilia Sayad

“This is a great and highly important volume for film studies as a discipline and cultural and media studies more generally.” —Dana Polan, New York University

Over the past decade, as digital media has expanded and print outlets have declined, pundits have bemoaned a “crisis of criticism” and mourned the “death of the critic.” Now that well-paying jobs in film criticism have largely evaporated, while blogs, message boards, and social media have given new meaning to the saying that “everyone’s a critic,” urgent questions have emerged about the status and purpose of film criticism in the twenty-first century.
FILM CRITICISM IN THE DIGITAL AGE (paper $31.95, 978-0-8135-7072-3, April 2015), edited by Mattias Frey and Cecilia Sayad, joins ten scholars from across the globe to consider whether we are witnessing the extinction of serious film criticism or seeing the start of its rebirth in a new form. Drawing from a wide variety of case studies and methodological perspectives, the book’s contributors find many signs of the film critic’s declining clout, but they also locate surprising examples of how critics—whether moonlighting bloggers or salaried writers—have been able to intervene in current popular discourse about arts and culture.
In addition to collecting a plethora of scholarly perspectives, FILM CRITICISM IN THE DIGITAL AGE includes statements from key bloggers and print critics, like Armond White and Nick James. Neither an uncritical celebration of digital culture nor a jeremiad against it, this anthology offers a comprehensive look at the challenges and possibilities that the Internet brings to the evaluation, promotion, and explanation of artistic works.

 

About the Editors

MATTIAS FREY is a senior lecturer in film at the University of Kent. He is the author of Postwall German Cinema: History, Film History, and Cinephilia and co-editor of Cine-Ethics: Ethical Dimensions of Film Theory, Practice, and Spectatorship.

CECILIA SAYAD is a senior lecturer in film at the University of Kent. She is the author of Performing Authorship: Self-Inscription and Corporeality in the Cinema and O Jogo da Reinvenção, a Portuguese-language study of Charlie Kaufman’s filmography. 

 

FILM CRITICISM IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Edited by Mattias Frey and Cecilia Sayad

Paper $31.95 | 978-0-8135-7072-3 | 284 pages, 3 photos, 3 tables| 6 x 9

cloth and ebook available

Publication Date: April 2015

Please email requests for review copies and be sure to include the title, author, ISBN number, as well as the address of the person to whom the book should be sent.

http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu/product/Film-Criticism-in-the-Digital-Age,5468.aspx