James Donald & Michael Renov 
The SAGE Handbook of Film Studies 

Written by a team of veteran scholars and exciting emerging talents,
The SAGE
Handbook of Film Studies maps the field internationally, drawing out regional differences in the way that systematic intellectual reflection on cinema and film has been translated into an academic discipline.



It examines the conversations between Film Studies and its contributory disciplines that not only defined a new field of discourse but also modified existing scholarly traditions. It reflects on the field′s dominant paradigms and debates and evaluates their continuing salience. Finally, it looks forward optimistically to the future of the medium of film, the institution of cinema and the discipline of Film Studies at a time when the very existence of film and cinema are being called into question by new technological, industrial and aesthetic developments.

Table of Content

Introduction – James Donald

Hooray for a Mickey Mouse Subject!

PART ONE: MAPPING TRADITIONS

North America – Dana Polan

European Film Scholarship – Ian Aitken

China – Stephanie Hemelryk Donald and Paola Voci

Cinema, Politics and Scholarship

Our Films, Their Films – Brian Shoesmith

Some Speculations on Writing Indian Film History

Film Research in Argentina – David Oubiña

Cinema Studies in Brazil – Ismail Xavier

Y Tu Crítica También – Carlos A. Gutiérrez

The Development of Mexican Film Studies at Home and Abroad

Australia – Noel King, Constantine Verevis and Deane Williams

Postcolonial and Transnational Perspectives – Bhaskar Sarkar

PART TWO: DISCIPLINARY DIALOGUES

Film and Philosophy – Murray Smith

Difficult Relations – Hamish Ford

Film Studies and Continental European Philosophy

Cinema and Art History – Angela Dalle Vacche

Film Has Two Eyes

Film and History – Vanessa R. Schwartz

Mass Media, Anthropology and Ethnography – Faye Ginsburg

Psychoanalysis and Cinema – Patrick Fuery

The Political Economy of Film – Tom O′Regan

TV′s Next Season? – Lynn Spigel

Film and Cultural Studies – Graeme Turner

PART THREE: PARADIGMS IN PERSPECTIVE

The Hollywood Industry Paradigm – Ruth Vasey

Formalist Tendencies in Film Studies – Warren Buckland

The Persistence of the Avant-Garde – Michael O′Pray

Film and (as) Modernity – Julian Murphet

Cinema/Ideology/Society – Jane Gaines

The Political Expectations of Film Theory

`We Do Not Die Twice′ – George Kouvaros

Feminist Perspectives in Film Studies – Alison Butler

Realism and Cinema

Authors and Auteurs – John Caughie

The Uses of Theory

Where Sound Is – Philip Brophy

Locating the Absent Aural in Film Theory

The Question of Genre in Cult Film and Fandom – Matt Hills

Between Contract and Discourse

Film Audiences – Jostein Gripsrud and Erlend Lavik

Re-Mapping Bollywood Cinema – Vijay Mishra

Film in the Context of Digital Media – Scott Mc Quire

About the author

Michael Renov, Professor of Critical Studies and Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, is the author of Hollywood′s Wartime Woman: Representation and Ideology and The Subject of Documentary, editor of Theorizing Documentary, and co-editor of Resolutions: Contemporary Video Practices, Collecting Visible Evidence, The SAGE Handbook of Film Studies and Cinema′s Alchemist: The Films of Peter Forgacs.

In 1993, Renov co-founded Visible Evidence, a series of international and highly interdisciplinary documentary studies conferences that have, to date, been held on four continents. He is one of three general editors for the Visible Evidence book series at the University of Minnesota Press, which has published 25 volumes on various aspects of nonfiction media since 1997. In 2005, he co-programmed the 51st annual Robert Flaherty Seminar, a week-long gathering of documentary filmmakers, curators and educators, creating 20 screening programs and filmmaker dialogues on the theme ‘Cinema and History.’

In addition to curating documentary programs around the world, he has served as a jury member at documentary festivals including Sundance, Silverdocs, the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival, Brazil′s It′s All True and the International Environmental Festival of Film and Video, also in Brazil. He has taught graduate seminars at the University of Stockholm and Tel Aviv University and has led documentary workshops in Jordan for the Royal Film Commission and in Cyprus. Renov′s teaching and research interests include documentary theory, autobiography in film and video, video art and activism and representations of the Holocaust.