Category: Books

A Company of Authors — Saturday, April 24

This Saturday, April 24, I will be participating in Stanford Continuing Studies and the Stanford Humanities Center’s annual event showcasing new books by Stanford authors, A Company of Authors. I will be presenting my book Discorrelated Images alongside Marci Kwon and Usha Iyer, both of whom are colleagues in the Department of Art & Art History, who will be presenting their recent books Enchantments: Joseph Cornell and American Modernism (Kwon) and Dancing Women: Choreographing Corporeal Histories of Hindi Cinema (Iyer).

The panel, which consists of very short book presentations and a brief Q&A, is at 1pm Pacific time via Zoom. Registration for the event is here: https://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/company-of-authors-spring-2021

Sensations of History and Discorrelated Images — James J. Hodge and Shane Denson at Digital Aesthetics Workshop, Stanford / Center for Global Culture and Communication, Northwestern

A presentation and dialogue on two recent books in digital aesthetics: Sensations of History: Animation and New Media Art by James J. Hodge (Northwestern University) and Discorrelated Images by Shane Denson (Stanford University).

On Zoom, Friday, April 2, 2021, at 2 p.m. CST/ 12 p.m. PST
REGISTRATION REQUIRED

To Register: https://northwestern.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcoc-mqpj8oGtzYRsInHSx38NRAQfAYTQin

Organized by Center for Global Culture and Communication (CGCC), Department of Communication Studies, Northwestern University, Linda Randall Meier Research Workshop on Digital Aesthetics at Stanford University, Stanford Humanities Center

Books in Conversation: Discussing Discorrelated Images with Caetlin Benson-Allott

Over at ASAP/J, the open-access platform of ASAP/Journal, a conversation with Caetlin Benson-Allott and myself on the topic of Discorrelated Images has just gone online. We talk about archives, coups, Zoom, and Janelle Monáe, among other things. Check it out here!

Sensing Media: New Book Series at Stanford University Press

I have been sitting on this news for a while now, and I am excited that I can finally share it: Wendy Hui Kyong Chun and I are editing a new book series at Stanford University Press called “Sensing Media” that is devoted to the aesthetics, philosophies, and cultures of media.

We are especially interested in contributions that rethink media aesthetics, understood broadly to include both artistic uses of media and their sensory dimensions; that conceive media as the site where art and technology converge; and that expand the scope of media-philosophical discussions to include global and heretofore marginalized perspectives. We are excited to explore the connections between sensory forms and their infrastructures, between media technologies and aesthetic sensibilities, and more generally between media and the many possible worlds they disclose.

Please spread the word about the new series, and consider submitting your manuscripts. If you have questions, you can direct them to me, Wendy Chun, or Executive Editor Erica Wetter, with whom we are thrilled to be working on this series. We look forward to learning about your work!

Discorrelated Images: 40% Off until March 31

Please enjoy this goofy selfie with book and pandemic hair, which I made for Duke University Press’s virtual booth at the College Art Association’s annual conference. During the conference, Duke UP is having another big sale: from now until March 31, you can use the code CAA21 to save 40% off all in-stock books and journals, including Discorrelated Images: https://www.dukeupress.edu/discorrelated-images

Pandemic Media — full PDF now available

The full PDF of Pandemic Media, an open-access collection edited by Philipp Dominik Keidl, Laliv Melamed, Vinzenz Hediger, and Antonio Somaini, is now available for download (here).

The volume contains 37 short chapters on various aspects of media and mediated experience under conditions of the pandemic, divided into 5 sections: Time/Temporality, Space/Scale, Technologies/Materialities, Education/Instruction, and Activism/Sociability.

The last section includes my essay on Zoom and related screen-based forms of interaction: “‘Thus isolation is a project.’ Notes toward a Phenomenology of Screen-Mediated Life.” There are lots of other things to discover in this book, though, so check it out!

Out Now: Pandemic Media

Just out with meson press: Pandemic Media is an open-access collection edited by Philipp Dominik Keidl, Laliv Melamed, Vinzenz Hediger, and Antonio Somaini. To say that the collection is timely is of course a truism, but in line with the strange temporality of life in the pandemic, I think you’ll find that many of the articles are in fact “untimely” (in the Nietzschean sense), and that they might help create distance where that seems impossible.

I am honored to have a short piece included in the collection, titled “‘Thus isolation is a project.’ Notes toward a Phenomenology of Screen-Mediated Life.” Here I try to think critically and phenomenologically about the Zoom-sphere and about the new forms of sociality that are emerging and will be required in the future.

An HTML version of the collection is available now, and a print edition is coming in December. Check it out!

Out Now and 50% OFF: Discorrelated Images

Image: David Parisi on Twitter

Discorrelated Images is now available from Duke University Press, and during the Fall Sale from now until November 23, you can get it (and any in-stock Duke UP book) for 50% off with code FALL2020 if you order directly from the press: https://www.dukeupress.edu/discorrelated-images

With the discount, the book costs just under $13!

If you’re in Europe or the UK, the code also works if you order from distributor Combined Academic Publishers, which will save you on shipping and get the book into your hands quicker!

Screen Serialities

As a member of the Advisory Board for the Screen Serialities book series at Edinburgh University Press, I wanted to make sure that people are aware of our upcoming releases and to encourage anyone working on seriality and serialized media to pitch their work for consideration.

Next month, the first book in the series will be published: Film Reboots, edited by Daniel Herbert and Constantine Verevis, will look at reboots in terms of industry, narrative, politics, and reception. The second volume in the series, Maria Sulimma’s Seriality and Gender, will be out in February.

There’s already lots of other good stuff in the works, but there’s room in this series for a wide range of topics and approaches. Feel free to reach out to me with any informal questions, or get in touch with Film Studies Senior Commissioning Editor Gillian Leslie (Gillian.Leslie at eup.ed.ac.uk) if you have a proposal.