Eisenstein Universe

Ian Christie is Fellow of the British Academy and Anniversary Professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck, University of London, UK. He co-edited the collection Eisenstein Rediscovered (1993) as well as organising a 1988 Oxford conference that preceded it. He has long been active in presenting Eisenstein’s silent films with live accompaniment, most recently in Eisenstein on Paper: The Graphic Works (2017). Among many exhibitions, he co-curated Eisenstein: His Life and Work (Oxford, London and Manchester, 1988), and Unexpected Eisenstein (London, 2016).Julia Vassilievais Senior Lecturer in Film and Screen Studies at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Her books include Narrative Psychology (2016), the co-edited Beyond the Essay Film (2020) and After Taste: Cultural Value and the Moving Image (2013), and she has published widely in film and psychology journals. She organised the symposium ‘Eisenstein for the Twenty First Century’ in June 2018 in Prato, Italy, and co-convened the Eisenstein International Network’s first conference in October 2019 at INHA, Paris.

This collection of essays by a collection of outstanding scholars allows the full richness of a new Eisenstein to explode out of its pages, provoking a series of new conversations that will have resonance for decades to come. It should be essential reading for any film scholar.

• TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. Ian Christie and Julia VassilievaEisenstein UnboundACKNOWLEDGMENTSPart 1. CREATIVITY, NATURE, POLITICSCHAPTER 1. Dustin Condren Odd and Even: Eisenstein and Unrealised WorkCHAPTER 2. Joan Neuberger Eisenstein’s Collectives: The Politics of Nature CHAPTER 3. Robert Bird The Politics of Nonindifference in Eisenstein’s Dialectics of NaturePart 2. GRUNDPROBLEM, REGRESS, SENSUALITYCHAPTER 4. Ilaria Aletto Regress-Progress in Proust, Surrealism and Joyce CHAPTER 5. Ian Christie The Old IT: Eisenstein and D. H. LawrenceCHAPTER 6. Evgenii Bershtein Sokurov contra Eisenstein: The Balance of Gender Part 3. PATHOS, IMMERSION, AFFECTCHAPTER 7. Antonio Somaini Formula pafosa, Pathosformel: Eisenstein and Warburg CHAPTER 8. Julia Vassilieva Hypnosis, Psychotechnics and Magic of ArtCHAPTER 9. Ada Ackerman Eisenstein’s Scream(s)Part 4. HISTORY, REPRESENTATION, MONTAGECHAPTER 10. Håkan Lövgren October: On the Cinematic Allegorizing of HistoryCHAPTER 11. Felix Lenz Attraction and Subversion – ‘Montage 1938’ CHAPTER 12. Massimo Olivero The Two-Headed Ecstasy: The Philosophical Roots of Late EisensteinCHAPTER 13. Nikita Lary Ivan the Terrible in the Context of Shakespearean TragedyPart 5. SPACE, PLACE, LEGACYCHAPTER 14. Nariman Skakov From Moscow to Fergana, or From the Avant-garde to the National FormCHAPTER 15. Adrian Danks March 1949, Melbourne: Eisenstein in AustraliaCHAPTER 16. Oksana Bulgakowa How to Curate Eisenstein BIOs