Giuliani, Alice (2024) The Post-Cinematic, the Posthuman, and the Weird: Critical Conjunctions and Aesthetic Tendencies in 21st-Century Film. Doctoral thesis, University of West London.

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Abstract

This thesis traces conceptual convergences between the post-cinematic and contemporary debates about the posthuman. The methodology employed consists of an analysis of moving images that brings together narrative themes and aesthetics to reflect upon the generative technical, formal, and perceptual possibilities offered by the medium. I draw this approach from theorisations of special effects in science-fiction film but expand its traditional scope. To do so, I turn to (New) Weird fiction and propose that, as a genre, it may facilitate an attention to the built-in posthumanist potentials of post-cinema, if not outright activate them. Drawing from critical posthumanist, new materialist, feminist, and ecocritical theory, I argue for aesthetic tendencies in post-cinema which negotiate established ways of thinking about both the medium and the human, and articulate possible alternatives. If this thesis purposefully places an emphasis on the counter-hegemonic, generative affordances of the medium, tensions and lingering anthropocentric and humanist tendencies also come into focus. By positing and tracing convergences between the posthuman, post-cinema, and the (New) Weird, this thesis contributes to a burgeoning field of inquiry into the status of the medium and its participation in broader cultural shifts. In addition, it offers a reflection on the (New) Weird in cinema and its relevance to the present moment, which is currently underexplored. The post-cinematic medium, this thesis suggests, is not only devoted to the representation of the posthuman condition, but can also be understood as technically, materially, and perceptually folding itself into it.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Identifier:	10.36828/thesis/12852
Subjects:	Film and television > Film theory
Depositing User:	Marc Forster
Date Deposited:	07 Nov 2024 15:05
Last Modified:	07 Nov 2024 15:15
URI:	https://repository.uwl.ac.uk/id/eprint/12852

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