Craig Fox – författare

In 1920s Middle America, the Ku Klux Klan gained popularity not by appealing to the fanatical fringes of society, but by attracting the interest of “average” citizens. During this period, the Klan recruited members through the same unexceptional channels as any other organization or club, becoming for many a respectable public presence, a vehicle for civic activism, or the source of varied social interaction. Its diverse membership included men and women of all ages, occupations, and socio-economic standings. Although surviving membership records of this clandestine organization have proved incredibly rare, Everyday Klansfolk uses newly available documents to reconstruct the life and social context of a single grassroots unit in Newaygo County, Michigan. A fascinating glimpse behind the mask of America’s most notorious secret order, this absorbing study sheds light on KKK activity and membership in Newaygo County, and in Michigan at large, during the brief and remarkable peak years of its mass popular appeal.

This book challenges the long-standing presumption that serious philosophical engagement with film and television must be theoretical. It demonstrates, by example, how philosophy of film and film studies can move beyond the methodological assumption that understands philosophical to mean theoretical. In seventeen specially commissioned essays, one in-depth interview, and one reprint, leading philosophers and film scholars exploit the approaches, arguments, and insights of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell, Iris Murdoch, Augustine, Berys Gaut, Noël Carroll, and Ordinary Language Philosophy, in exploring, amongst others, Gravity, Lone Star, The Handmaid’s Tale, Le notti di Cabiria, Dunkirk, L'Année dernière à Marienbad, Visitors, The Night it Rained, Philadelphia Story, Shoah, Mary Magdalene, Psycho, Blue Jasmine, Three Colours: Red, War Games, and Histoire(s) du Cinéma. In so doing, this collection argues forthe power of theory-free philosophy and film studies as a way to expand our humanistic understanding.