Comparative film studies…must necessarily proceed by way of a collaboration between intellectuals from different geo-historical formations. The precondition for such a collaboration is that the participants should be prepared to consider their own intellectual formations and thought-habits as symptomatic constellations shaped by the very same dynamics that animate historicity itself. Paul Willemen, For a comparative film studies, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 6.1 (2005): 99
We need to forge ‘off-centered’ networks of individual scholars, academic programs and institutions, and venues for publication internationally. The final goal is not to create a globally unified discursive space of film studies, but to forge new networks and channels of communication.
Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto, A future of comparative film studies, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 14.1 (2013): 54-61
In
September 2021, a three-day, fully-funded workshop will be held at
SOAS University of London as part of the ERC-funded project
Screen Worlds: Decolonising Film and Screen Studies. This workshop will form part of the
Global Screen Worlds strand of the project which inspired by Willemen’s and Yoshimoto’s words above – calls for comparative, interdisciplinary and “off-centered” approaches to Film and Screen Studies. The workshop and the Open Access edited volume that will result from it are, accordingly, designed to inspire and facilitate collaborative dialogue, research, and authorship among Film and Screen scholars from different parts of the world, but especially from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and those working on indigenous cinemas.
