Cavell's Ontology of Film - (Anthem Film and Culture) by Jeroen Gerrits (Hardcover)

About the Book

Cavell's Ontology of Film presents ten essays that reflect on The World Viewed, Stanley Cavell's now seminal film-philosophical book from 1971, and project its concepts and ideas into our future.

Book Synopsis

Cavell's Ontology of Film presents ten essays that reflect on The World Viewed, Stanley Cavell's now seminal film-philosophical book from 1971, and project its concepts and ideas into our future.

Review Quotes

"It is deeply ironic that Stanley Cavell's The World Viewed, which appeared 50 years ago, was misread and written off almost as soon as it was published. The fault was our own. This extraordinary collection of essays demonstrates convincingly that Cavell's 'little book' was always a book of philosophy for tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. The authors of this beautiful book are finally showing us how to catch up today." - D. N. Rodowick, Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the College and Division of Humanities, The University of Chicago, USA

"The work of Stanley Cavell has experienced a well-deserved resurgence of appreciation and evaluation over the past 20 years. This superb collection continues that trend with a broad range of insightful and provocative essays which convincingly return Cavell to the cutting edge of film and media studies." - Timothy Corrigan, Professor Emeritus of Cinema and Media Studies, Fisher-Bennett Hall, The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

"This extraordinary collection of essays opens new possibilities of interpretations for Cavell's groundbreaking philosophy of film book, The World Viewed. Moreover, it offers a second chance for its reception among philosophers, film scholars, and film fans. Gerrits and his co-authors offer a beautiful homage to the famous Harvard philosopher who invented new ways of writing on films from the perspective of his own experience, and who set a whole new program for philosophical skepticism in the face of films." - Élise Domenach, Professor at the École Normale Supérieure Louis-Lumière, France
These outstanding essays inherit Cavell's groundbreaking The World Viewed in highly original ways. They persuasively demonstrate how profound changes in representation transform what can be meant by "viewing" and "world", altering memory and experience itself. Reassessing modernism, they face this changing ontology and politics without denying its dangers but with a quiet affirmation, in different ways, of possibilities and of a politics to come. - Paul Standish, UCL Institute of Education

About the Author

Jeroen Gerrits is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Binghamton University (SUNY) and author of Cinematic Skepticism: Across Digital and Global Turns (2019).