From: owner-viscom
To: Multiple recipients of list VISCOM
Subject: Books from Intervention Press 1996
Date: Friday, December 20, 1996 12:14PM
Dear VISCOM Reader,
During 1996 Intervention Press has published 3 titles on Visual
Anthropology and Documentary Film-making; please allow us to introduce
them:
By KEYAN TOMASELLI:
APPROPRIATING IMAGES - THE SEMIOTICS OF VISUAL REPRESENTATION
David Turton, The Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, says of
Tomaselli's book:
APPROPRIATING IMAGES is a notable achievement for two main reasons.
Firstly, by using a single interpretive paradigm - derived from semiotics
- to discuss a wide variety of documentary films - KEYAN TOMASELLI has
been able to give an integrated and coherent account of some
of the issues which have most bedevilled the discussion of film by visual
anthropologists, such as the relationship between written and filmed
ethnography, objectivity and reflexivity and the unequal power relation
between film-makers and subjects. Secondly, APPROPRIATING IMAGES is
informed throughout by an explicit concern with the political context
within which anthropologists and ethnographic film-makers do their work.
This is where Tomaselli's long personal engagement in the struggle against
apartheid has been a huge advantage to him: it enables him to ask the kind
of questions - awkward and deeply disconcerting - which can be all too
easily brushed aside by film-makers and academics who have not had to face
up to the same choices and dilemmas in their professional and everyday
lives. The result is a book which will not only serve as a lively and
provocative introduction for students but which also goes far beyond the
dispensing of anecdotal wisdom, the excessive preoccupation with
production strategies and the self-absorbed recounting of personal
histories which characterises so much of what passes today for `visual
anthropology'. (David Turton, Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology,
University of Manchester)
KEYAN TOMASELLI is Professor and Director, Centre for Cultural and Media
Studies, University of Natal, Durban, South Africa. He has been a
Fulbright Scholar and a Smithsonian Institution Research Associate in its
Department of Anthropology. He is author of The Cinema of Apartheid
(Smyrna Press, New York, 1988)
Intervention Press. November 1996, 352 pgs. ISBN 87-89825-05-5
Price: DKK: 180.00 / =A3: 19.00 / US$: 29.00
Distributed in Europe by: Intervention Press, Castenschioldsvej 7,
DK-8270 H=F8jbjerg, Denmark, Tel.: +45 86272333, Fax: +45 86 275133, E-mail:
interven@inet.uni-c.dk
Distributed in North America by: Smyrna Press, Box 1151, Union City, NJ
07087, U.S.A. Fax: +201 864 6434
Distributed in South Africa by: The Centre for Cultural and Media Studies,
University of Natal, Durban 4041, South Africa, Fax: +27-(0)31-260-1519,
E-mail: Govends@mtb.und.ac.za
By TONI DE BROMHEAD: LOOKING TWO WAYS - DOCUMENTARY FILM'S RELATIONSHIP WITH
REALITY AND CINEMA In this remarkable 'tour de force' through fiction and
documentary film-making, Toni de Bromhead challenges the traditional
distinction between documentary and fiction, claiming that perceiving the
distinction as an opposition between reality and fantasy no longer seems
useful. Looking at the style and purpose of a large number of documentary
films from various sub-genres she argues that in terms of narrative,
emotional power, discourse/knowledge, experience for the spectator, moral
implications, and 'film reading', the documentary genre may provide the
viewer with just as much filmic satisfaction - if not 'filmic pleasure' -
as many fiction films do.
TONI DE BROMHEAD has studied Social Anthropology at the LSE, film studies
in Paris (Nanterre), documentary film-making at the National Film and
Television School (NFTS) in the UK, and is currently doing a PhD in
anthropology with London University. She taught documentary film-making at
the NFTS for a number of years with Herb de Gioia and has also taught
film-making at the American art college in Florence. She has published
numerous articles on visual anthropology and documentary film. She also
works as freelance film-maker in France, Italy and the UK. Her recent
films include "Caught in a Web" and "My Eyes as a Stranger".
Intervention Press. September 1996. 160 pgs. ISBN 87-89825-13-6
Price: DKK: 156.00 / =A3: 16.00 / US$: 25.00
Distributed in Europe by: Intervention Press, Castenschioldsvej 7,
DK-8270 H=F8jbjerg, Denmark, Tel.: +45 86272333, Fax: +45 86 275133, E-mail:
interven@inet.uni-c.dk
Distributed in North America by: Smyrna Press, Box 1151, Union City, NJ
07087, U.S.A. Fax: +201 864 6434
By Crawford, P.I. and S.B. Hafsteinsson (eds.):
THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE VIEWER: MEDIA ETHNOGRAPHY AND THE
ANTHROPOLOGY OF AUDIENCES - NAFA 3 ( third publication in the NAFA Series)
In recent years audience research in cinema and media studies has turned
to ethnography to find ways in which qualitative research methods could be
improved in attempts to reach beyond the limitations of quantitative
research. Visual anthropology, on the other hand, has increasingly
searched theoretical inspiration in fields outside anthropology itself,
including cinema and media studies as well as documentary film theory. In
this volume, containing both general theoretical work and more specific
case studies, the various fields meet in an inspiring exchange of concepts
and ideas, providing for the first time - at least within visual
anthropology - a substantial contribution to our understanding of
'audiences'.
CONTRIBUTORS: D. Morley, K. Drotner, A. Griffiths, W. Martinez, M. Banks,
P. I. Crawford, P. Baudry, B. Engelbrecht, V. Hietala, J. Ruby, J. Jhala,
B. Dornfeld, T. Liebes, N. Adra, J. K. Ruoff, P. Alasuutari.
Intervention Press. April 1996. 320 pgs. ISBN 87-89825-06-3
Price: DKK: 216.00 / =A3: 22.00 / US$: 32.00
Distributed in Europe by: Intervention Press, Castenschioldsvej 7,
DK-8270 H=F8jbjerg, Denmark, Tel.: +45 86272333, Fax: +45 86 275133, E-mail:
interven@inet.uni-c.dk
Distributed in North America by: Smyrna Press, Box 1151, Union City, NJ
07087, U.S.A. Fax: +201 864 6434
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
from
Peter I. Crawford and Linda Jonsen,
Intervention Press.
In-Reply-To: 199612261512.KAA08300@dag.XC.Org