Description
A critical reassessment of the aesthetic strategies and cultural value of exoticism in contemporary transnational cinemas Offers an original, critical reappraisal of decentred exoticism in contemporary transnational and world cinema Includes eighteen case studies that are embedded in rich contextual detail and discussions of thematically similar films Brings exoticism into dialogue with cognate frameworks that conceptualise cross-cultural encounters, including primitivism, Orientalism, cultural translation, cultural appropriation, cosmopolitanism and autoethnography, thereby shifting the terms of the debate into a direction that opens new lines of inquiry Analyses examples of global art, Indigenous and popular mainstream cinema from East Asia, India, South America, Canada, Australia, Europe and the US Comes with a companion website: www.exotic-cinema.org Exotic Cinema is the first systematic analysis of decentred exoticism in contemporary transnational and world cinema. By critically examining regimes of visuality such as the imperial, the ethnographic and the exotic gaze, which have colonised our minds and ways of looking, Daniela Berghahn makes an important contribution to the urgent agenda of decolonising film studies. Berghahn demonstrates that decentred exoticism's aesthetic versatility and alluring alterity are uniquely relevant for understanding the transnational appeal of world cinema. She addresses prevalent controversies surrounding exoticism and illustrates that, in contemporary world cinema, it is utilised to draw attention to new ethical and socio-political goals. Global in scope and transnational in perspective, Exotic Cinema invites students and researchers to reassess this prominent mode of cultural representation.
About the Author
Daniela Berghahn is Professor of Film Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has published widely in the areas of migrant and diasporic cinema, transnational cinema and post-war German cinema and culture. Her books include Head On (2015), Far-Flung Families in Film: The Diasporic Family in Contemporary European Cinema (EUP 2013), European Cinema in Motion: Migrant and Diasporic Film in Contemporary Europe (2010) and Hollywood Behind the Wall: The Cinema of East Germany (2005).
Reviews
"Exoticism is not 'bad' by default, nor is it necessarily 'colonialist'. Daniela Berghahn's wide-ranging study of contemporary world cinema goes provocatively against the grain, arguing in favour of a 'decentred' exoticism that challenges ethnic essentialism, and that is attuned to the ethical complexities of a globalised world." -Graham Huggan, University of Leeds
Book Information
ISBN 9781474474214
Author Daniela Berghahn
Format Hardback
Page Count 224
Imprint Edinburgh University Press
Publisher Edinburgh University Press
About the Author
Daniela Berghahn is Professor of Film Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has published widely in the areas of migrant and diasporic cinema, transnational cinema and post-war German cinema and culture. Her books include Head On (2015), Far-Flung Families in Film: The Diasporic Family in Contemporary European Cinema (EUP 2013), European Cinema in Motion: Migrant and Diasporic Film in Contemporary Europe (2010) and Hollywood Behind the Wall: The Cinema of East Germany (2005).
Reviews
"Exoticism is not 'bad' by default, nor is it necessarily 'colonialist'. Daniela Berghahn's wide-ranging study of contemporary world cinema goes provocatively against the grain, arguing in favour of a 'decentred' exoticism that challenges ethnic essentialism, and that is attuned to the ethical complexities of a globalised world." -Graham Huggan, University of Leeds
Book Information
ISBN 9781474474214
Author Daniela Berghahn
Format Hardback
Page Count 224
Imprint Edinburgh University Press
Publisher Edinburgh University Press
