In this book, Robert K. Beshara applies decolonial film theory to an analysis of Youssef Chahine's (1997) Al-Masir (Destiny). Transmodern Cinema and Decolonial Film Theory is the first book on decolonial film theory, which unpacks key concepts in decoloniality and decolonial aesthetics. Decolonial film theory is then applied to Youssef Chahine's (1997) historical drama al-Ma?ir in an effort to juxtapose the Egyptian filmmaker (Chahine) and his decolonial cinema to the Andalusian polymath (Ibn Rushd) and his Islamic philosophy.

In this book, Robert K. Beshara applies decolonial film theory to an analysis of Youssef Chahine's (1997) Al-Masir (Destiny). Transmodern Cinema and Decolonial Film Theory is the first book on decolonial film theory, which unpacks key concepts in decoloniality and decolonial aesthetics. Decolonial film theory is then applied to Youssef Chahine's (1997) historical drama al-Ma?ir in an effort to juxtapose the Egyptian filmmaker (Chahine) and his decolonial cinema to the Andalusian polymath (Ibn Rushd) and his Islamic philosophy.

Critical Theory and Film brings together critical theory and film to enhance the critical potential of both. The book focuses on the Frankfurt School, most notably the works of Adorno and Horkheimer, as well as associated thinkers. It seeks to demonstrate that cinema can help critical theory repoliticize culture and society and affirm the theoretical and political impact of cinematic knowledge. After discussing how the Frankfurt School saw cinema as an instrument of capitalism use to promote the cultural and political regimentation of the masses, Vighi then proceeds to demonstrate that critical theory can in fact suggest a different verdict on the progressive potential of cinema. Each chapter focuses on a key critical theory concept that is explained and redefined through film analysis to unravel the hidden presuppositions and most radical consequences of critical theory. A unique contribution to the literature, this volume in the Critical Theory and Contemporary Society series offer an innovative reading of film as a critical tool, drawing on the latest developments in Lacanian theory.

Matthew Flisfeder introduces readers to key concepts in postmodern theory and demonstrates how it can be used for a critical interpretation and analysis of Blade Runner, arguably 'the greatest science fiction film'. By contextualizing the film within the culture of late 20th and early 21st-century capitalism, Flisfeder provides a valuable guide for both students and scholars interested in learning more about one of the most significant, influential, and controversial concepts in film and cultural studies of the past 40 years. The "Film Theory in Practice" series fills a gaping hole in the world of film theory. By marrying the explanation of film theory with interpretation of a film, the volumes provide discrete examples of how film theory can serve as the basis for textual analysis. Postmodern Theory and Blade Runner offers a concise introduction to Postmodernism in jargon-free language and shows how this theory can be deployed to interpret Ridley Scott's cult film Blade Runner.

The Film Theory in Practice series fills a gaping hole in the world of film theory. By marrying the explanation of a film theory with the interpretation of a film, the volumes provide discrete examples of how film theory can serve as the basis for textual analysis. Feminist Film Theory and Cléo from 5 to 7 offers a concise introduction to feminist film theory in jargon-free language and shows how this theory can be deployed to interpret Agnes Varda's critically acclaimed 1962 film Cléo from 5 to 7. Hilary Neroni employs the methodology of looking for a feminist alternative among female-oriented films. Through three key concepts-identification, framing the woman's body, and the female auteur-Neroni lays bare the debates and approaches within the vibrant history of feminist film theory, providing a point of entry to feminist film theory from its inception to today. Picking up one of the currents in feminist film theory - that of looking for feminist alternatives among female-oriented films - Neroni traces feminist responses to the contradictions inherent in most representations of women in film, and she details how their responses have intervened in changing what we see on the screen.

When is it OK to lie about the past? If history is a story, then everyone knows that the 'official story' is told by the winners. No matter what we may know about how the past really happened, history is as it is recorded: this is what George Orwell called doublethink. But what happens to all the lost, forgotten, censored, and disappeared pasts of world history? Cinema Against Doublethink uncovers how a world of cinemas acts as a giant archive of these lost pasts, a vast virtual store of the world’s memories. The most enchanting and disturbing films of recent years – Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives, Nostalgia for the Light, Even the Rain, The Act of Killing, Carancho, Lady Vengeance – create ethical encounters with these lost pasts, covering vast swathes of the planet and crossing huge eras of time. Analysed using the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze (the time-image) and Enrique Dussel (transmodern ethics), the multitudinous cinemas of the world are shown to speak out against doublethink, countering this biggest lie of all with their myriad 'false' versions of world history. Cinema, acting against doublethink, remains a powerful agent for reclaiming the truth of history for the 'post-truth' era.

World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism is a highly original study. Traditional views of cinematic realism usually draw on the so-called classical cinema and its allegiance to narrative mimesis, but Nagib challenges this, drawing instead on the filmmaker's commitment to truth and to the film medium's material bond with the real. Starting from the premise that world cinema's creative peaks are governed by an ethics of realism, Nagib conducts comparative case studies picked from world new waves, such as the Japanese New Wave, the French nouvelle vague, the Cinema Novo, the New German Cinema, the Russo-Cuban Revolutionary Cinema, the Portuguese self-performing auteur and the Inuit Indigenous Cinema. Drawing upon Badiou and Rancière, World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism revisits and reformulates several fundamental concepts in film studies, such as illusionism, identification, apparatus, alienation effects, presentation and representation. Its groundbreaking scholarship takes film theory in a bold new direction.

In this provocative and necessary book, Robert K. Beshara uses psychoanalytic discursive analysis to explore the possibility of a genuinely anti-colonial critical psychology. Drawing on postcolonial and decolonial approaches to Islamophobia, this book enhances understandings of Critical Border Thinking and Lacanian Discourse Analysis, alongside other theoretico-methodological approaches. Using a critical decolonial psychology approach to conceptualize everyday Islamophobia, the author examines theoretical resources situated within the discursive turn, such as decoloniality/transmodernity, and carries out an archeology of (counter)terrorism, a genealogy of the conceptual Muslim, and a Žižekian ideology critique. Conceiving of Decolonial Psychoanalysis as one theoretical resource for Critical Islamophobia Studies (CIS), the author also applies Lacanian Discourse Analysis to extracts from interviews conducted with US Muslims to theorize their ethico-political subjectivity and considers a politics of resistance, adversarial aesthetics, and ethics of liberation. Essential to any attempt to come to terms with the legacy of racism in psychology, and the only critical psychological study on Islamophobia in the United States, this is a fascinating read for anyone interested in a critical approach to Islamophobia.

Cinema and Agamben brings together a group of established scholars of film and visual culture to explore the nexus between the moving image and the influential work of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. Including two original texts by Agamben himself, published here for the first time in English translation, these essays facilitate a unique multidisciplinary conversation that fundamentally rethinks the theory and praxis of cinema. In their resourceful analyses of the work of artists such as David Claerbout, Jean-Luc Godard, Philippe Grandrieux, Michael Haneke, Jean Rouch, and others, the authors put to use a range of key concepts from Agamben's rich body of work, like biopolitics, de-creation, gesture, potentiality and profanation. Sustaining the eminently interdisciplinary scope of Agamben's writing, the essays all bespeak the importance of Agamben's thought for forging new beginnings in film theory and for remedying the elegiac proclamations of the death of cinema so characteristic of the current moment.

In Fundamentalism and Secularization, Egyptian philosopher Mourad Wahba traces the historical origins of fundamentalism and secularization as ideas and practices in order to theorize their symbiotic relationship, and how it is impacted by global capitalism and, more recently, postmodernism. This gives voice to an argument from within the Islamic world that is very different to that given platform in the mainstream, showing that fundamentalism does not arise normally and naturally from Islam but is a complex phenomenon linked to modernization and the development of capitalism in dependent countries, that is, tied to imperialism. Wahba's central argument concerns the organic relationship between fundamentalism and parasitic capitalism. Wahba is equally critical of religious fundamentalism and global capitalism, which for him are obstructions to secularization and democracy. While the three Abrahamic religions are examined when it comes to fundamentalism, Wahba deconstructs Islamic fundamentalism in particular and in the process reconstructs an Islamic humanism. Including a new preface by the author and translator, Fundamentalism and Secularism provides invaluable insights into how Middle Eastern philosophies open up new lines of thought in thinking through contemporary crises.