World Cinema and the Essay Film examines the ways in which essay film practices are deployed by non-Western filmmakers in specific local and national contexts, in an interconnected world. The book identifies the essay film as a political and ethical tool to reflect upon and potentially resist the multiple, often contradictory effects of globalization. With case studies of essayistic works by John Akomfrah, Nguyen Trinh Thi and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, amongst many others, and with a photo-essay by Trinh T. Min-ha and a discussion of Frances Calvert's work, it expands current research on the essay film beyond canonical filmmakers and frameworks, and presents transnational perspectives on what is becoming a global film practice.

World Cinema and the Essay Film examines the ways in which essay film practices are deployed by non-Western filmmakers in specific local and national contexts, in an interconnected world. The book identifies the essay film as a political and ethical tool to reflect upon and potentially resist the multiple, often contradictory effects of globalization. With case studies of essayistic works by John Akomfrah, Nguyen Trinh Thi and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, amongst many others, and with a photo-essay by Trinh T. Min-ha and a discussion of Frances Calvert's work, it expands current research on the essay film beyond canonical filmmakers and frameworks, and presents transnational perspectives on what is becoming a global film practice.

Days In Between is Marianna Christofides's decade-long project of multi-layered encounters with "the Balkans," one of Europe's historically and geopolitically most contested "fracture zones." Initially realized as a 16mm essay film, the project has continued to evolve in various modes: as multi-channel analogue film projection, site-specific audio installation, silkscreen prints, light sculpture, geologic-photographic assemblage, text and 16mm film study. This book draws on Christofides's recent solo exhibition at MNAC, Bucharest and gives, for the first time, a profound insight into her diverse aesthetic work and unique artistic practice. It assembles nine critical voices from the arts and academic world. Thinking with new materialism, Deleuzian film theory and philosophical studies on time and space, the contributors highlight the multiple ways in which the artist's work opens up conversations around landscape and space in postcolonial contexts, essayistic film practice and forms of critical-emancipatory knowledge production in the arts.

Weltausstellungen sind aufschlussreiche Formen der Reprasentation von Welt: Sie dienen der Anschauung, Belehrung und Erheiterung, werden selbst zum Erlebnis oder sind am Aufbau eines kollektiven Gedachtnisses beteiligt. Im 19. Jahrhundert kam ihnen, wie das Beispiel der Chicago World's Columbian Exposition von 1893 zeigt, eine Schlusselrolle in der Formation kultureller Identitat zu. Diese Funktion verdankten sie vor allem der Publikation einer Vielfalt an Texten, die die Eindrucke und Erfahrungen der Besucher reflektieren. Die Studie zeigt das spannungsreiche Zusammenspiel zwischen der Ausstellung, ihren Performances und den textuellen Ein- und Uberschreibungen, die in dem Masse interessant werden, als sie feministisch, antirassistisch oder modernismus-kritisch motivierte Einspruche erheben und damit das universalistische Programm der Ausstellung, ihre Fortschrittsmythen und triumphalistischen Konstruktionen amerikanischer Geschichte kritisch in Frage stellen.