Category Archives: Book

James Newton publishes on anarchist cinema

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Dr James Newton, Lecturer in the Department of Media Studies, has new published a new book The Anarchist Cinema (Intellect Books, 2019).

This book examines the complex relationships that exist between anarchist theory and film. No longer hidden in obscure corners of cinematic culture, anarchy is a theme that has traversed arthouse, underground and popular film.

In the book, James explores the notion that cinema is an inherently subversive space, establishes criteria for deeming a film anarchic, and examines the place of underground and DIY filmmaking within the wider context of the category. He identifies subversive undercurrents in cinema and uses anarchist political theory as an interpretive framework to analyse filmmakers, genres, and the notion of cinema as an anarchic space.

For more details, please see the publisher’s page here:
www.intellectbooks.com/the-anarchist-cinema

History of Art PhD student publishes major biography of Edgar Wind

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Bernardino Branca, a PhD student in the History and Philosophy of Art in the School of Arts, has published a major new intellectual biography of the philosopher and art historian Edgar Wind, entitled Edgar Wind, filosofo delle immagini. La biografia intelletuale di un discepolo di Aby Warburg (Milan and Udine: Mimesis Edizioni, 2019).

Edgar Wind (1900-1971) was a German art historian who specialised on the survival of the ancient art of the Renaissance, and was and close collaborator of art historian Aby Warburg. In 1933, after the rise of Nazism in Germany, moved to London and became involved in the Warburg Institute and finally became Oxford University’s first Professor of Art History.

Based on extensive archival research, the volume is the first book-length study of Wind’s extraordinary life and significant contribution to scholarship, and makes an important contribution to our historical understanding of the Warburg tradition of art history.

Bernardino’s own PhD project is on ‘Edgar Wind, The Warburg Circle and the Renaissance’, under the supervision of Dr Ben Thomas and Dr Grant Pooke.

For further details, please see the publisher’s page (in Italian) here:
http://mimesisedizioni.it/edgar-wind-filosofo-delle-immagini.html

Nicola Shaughnessy launches collection on Performing Psychologies

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Nicola Shaughnessy, Professor of Performance in the School of Arts has just co-edited a new collection, Performing Psychologies: Imagination, Creativity and Dramas of the Mind (Bloomsbury 2019) with Philip Barnard.

The book offers new perspectives on arts and health, focussing on the different ways in which performance interacting with psychology can enhance understanding of the mind. The book challenges stereotypes of disability, madness and creativity, addressing a range of conditions (autism, dementia and schizophrenia) and performance practices including staged productions and applied work in custodial, health and community settings.

Featuring case studies ranging from Hamlet to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the pioneering work of companies such as Spare Tyre and Ridiculusmus, and embracing dance and music as well as theatre and drama, the volume offers new perspectives on the dynamic interactions between performance, psychology and states of mind. It contains contributions from psychologists, performance scholars, therapists and healthcare professionals, who offer multiple perspectives on working through performance-based media.

There will be a book launch at the Omnibus Theatre in Clapham, London, on Wednesday 23 January 2019 at 6.30pm. This precedes a performance starting at 7.30pm of Hearing Things (Playing On Theatre), which is featured in the book. The event is also an NHS night, organised by Dr Paul Gilluley, Chief Medical Officer at East London Foundation Trust, with a panel discussion afterwards at 9pm in which Nicola will participate with representatives from the theatre company, mental health service users and medical professionals. The panel includes the psychiatrist Hugh Grant-Peterkin who contributed to the final chapter of the book: “Re:Creating Psychiatry”.

There are a limited number of concessionary tickets for book launch guests who want to see the production. Please contact Nicola at N.Shaughnessy@kent.ac.uk for more information.

Tickets for the performance of Hearing Things on Wednesday 23 January can be booked here: www.omnibus-clapham.org/hearing-things/

For more information about the book, please see the publisher’s page here: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/performing-psychologies-9781474260862/

Paul Allain edits collection on European stage directors

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Paul Allain, Professor of Theatre and Performance in the School of Arts and Dean of the Graduate School, has just edited a volume in the book series The Great European Stage Directors (Methuen, 2018), available as part of a set of four books.

The Great European Stage Directors comprises of two sets offering an authoritative account of the work, lineage and legacy of the major European theatre directors from the second half of the twentieth century. The first set covers pre-1950 directors, the second set explores directors working post-1950 to the present day.

Paul has edited book 5 in the second set, including contributions on Polish theatre director Jerzy Grotowski (1933-1999), English producer-director Peter Brook (1925-) and the Denmark-based Italian theatre director Eugenio Barba (1936-).

The book draws upon Paul’s own research interests in Polish theatre and includes a substantial chapter on Grotowski.

To find out more, please see the publisher’s page here:
www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-great-european-stage-directors-set-2-9781474254168/

Dr Maurizio Cinquegrani publishes new book ‘Journey to Poland: Documentary Landscapes of the Holocaust’

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Dr Maurizio Cinquegrani, Senior Lecturer in Film at the School of Arts has published a book entitled Journey to Poland: Documentary Landscapes of the Holocaust (Edinburgh University Press, July 2018).

Journey to Poland addresses crucial issues of memory and history in relation to the Holocaust as it unfolded in the territories of the Second Polish Republic. Aiming to understand the ways past events inform present-day landscapes, and the way in which we engage with memory, witnessing and representation, the book creates a coherent cinematic map of this landscape through the study of previously neglected film and TV documentaries that focus on survivors and bystanders, as well as on members of the post-war generation. Applying a spatial and geographical approach to a debate previously organised around other frameworks of analysis, Journey to Poland uncovers vital new perspectives on the Holocaust.